My Questions About American Religion #9 - Who are we? (part 2)

I needed to split this one up.

It is hard to talk about this part without the post in between.

And to be honest, I have been putting this one off. I will be open up front, I am a little sensitive about this one.  Mainly because I think God is sensitive about this one. I think that we have been duped when it comes to how God sees us as people.

So, in our church we have 3 main priorities:
1. Protect God's reputation at all costs!
2. Protect God's most prized creation - people.
3. Deal with the issues that keep you from doing 1 and 2.

And you MUST deal with them in this order.  If you try to deal with issues without trying to protect God's reputation or people first, it is a mess.  It may look a lot like the preacher I saw recently on the front of the MSN webpage.  The video of his service shows him walking down the aisle of his church openly calling out people by name telling the whole church what he thought of them.  He told one person that the person wasn't worth 15 cents.  This preacher was not only dealing with things out of proper order, but he needs to find another profession (but this will turn into a rant in a hurry so I will stop).

Not worth 15 cents????

OUCH!!!

I think that if you were to go out on the street and ask the average person on the average street how they feel about themselves an overwhelming percentage (narcissists excluded) would tell you they believe that they are inadequate, bad, unworthy. And people have tried to deal with this issue of what we want to label as "self esteem" in all kinds of ways. The educational system has tried to make everyone a winner. Sports programs give everyone a "participation trophy." It reminds me of the movie Parental Guidance where Billy Crystal is a grandparent that freaks out when he learns that no one strikes out in his grandson's baseball league.

We have tried to find ways to deal with this feeling. And they aren't working. Maybe because we are trying to go to the world's system to find things that only God can provide.

Enter the church... Guilt masters. And we have these well developed doctrines like "Total Depravity" that begin to promote this all to familiar feeling of inadequacy and unworthiness. In short, total depravity states that man is so messed up that we are absolutely incapable of finding God without His direct intervention. So, even our attempts to follow God come from His direct work in our lives.

While this doctrine is not without biblical case, I would submit that it is also not driven by the weight of the biblical narrative, but by small soundbites taken out of the context they were written into in the first place.  The biblical case that is made is a proof texting attempt to explain that sinking feeling of unworthiness that we deal with on a daily basis. And, it neglects much of what the Bible says to the contrary.

So, my question is, what does the Bible say about who we are to God? And how does He feel about us? And what are the implications of buying into that and of not buying into that?

To go back to the beginning (always a great place to start), God fashions the world and creates an ordered way in which the world is supposed to function. Then, he makes Adam from the dirt and places Adam in the garden with everything that he needs to succeed. God isn't holding out on Adam and waiting for him to fail, arms crossed in disappointed expectation. God gives Adam everything that He needs to succeed and sets Adam up in every way for success. Even to the point of God saying - okay I see one more thing that he needs, a companion.

He never held out on Adam. He never set Adam up to fail. God believed in Adam and Havvah from day 1 and made sure they were in position to succeed.

A separate thought that will lead to the same place...

Yesterday, I had what we call sermon club. It is a meeting where my staff and I get together and take the sermon series we are working on and brainstorm what the sermons for each week should look like. I love it! I get such a broader perspective on things there.

We were talking about Moses' conversation with God as God says His anger burned against the children of Israel. One of the people in the room said something to the affect of - you guys always talk about a good story and God isn't mad. How do you square that?

Good question...

When we get "mad" at someone, it is typically rooted in one of two places: either we want them to pay for what they did to us (which we would label justice), or we want some level of vindication for ourselves (this can be colluded and isn't necessarily tied to the person we are mad at. For example, my parents hurt me so I will hurt you to prove that I am not as bad as they say). Both of these are rooted in self and are not ever where God's anger comes from.

God's anger comes from a different place. God knits us together in our mother's womb, He marks our steps for us, and He fills us with tremendous potential. Potential to bring His Kingdom crashing into earth (this would be fulfilling the Gospel). When we are selling ourselves short of that created potential, He intervenes and says - I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!! You are robbing yourself of your created potential. Your life is so much more valuable than this. I cannot stand by and watch you rob yourself of the fullest life that I have for you anymore.

This is at the heart of ALL the prophets. Ezekiel reveals God as the Lord who strikes the Blow. Not as an angry God who we managed to get on His last nerve!! But as a God who can no longer take a passive stance as we walk down a path that leads us away from our created potential. And so, God intervenes. But always for the purpose of restoration so that we can know Him more, and He can bless us more than He ever has - and we can receive and handle that blessing well.

Even Lamentations - one of the most depressing books in the Bible when only read on the surface - gives us a hope in a God that is not upset at us and certainly is not trying to make us pay for our wrongs. Lamentations is what is called a "chiasm." This is a Jewish writing style that is essentially a poetic structure where the point of the poem is in the middle.  And the outsides of the poem mirror each other as they move toward the center. It would look like this: A-B-C-POINT-C-B-A. This would be an example.

Lamentations is a book full of mess and devastation and ruin. But in the middle, the point, there is a profound statement. "Because of the Lord's great love for us, we are not consumed. His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait on Him."

Perhaps at the core of following Jesus is this relentless proclamation that in the midst of the devastation and ruin this world offers, there is a better story - a deeper reality - a truer true. A life where the Creator of the universe looks at us with compassion that never fails. A life where God says you are worth more than you could ever imagine. And we keep insisting that this is the life that God invites us to.

And this is the point of this post. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard form the pulpit over the years (and unfortunately even taught this) that I am a mess, all jacked up, unworthy. This by the way comes from starting my story in a particular place in Scripture (that is about 3 chapters in - not at the beginning). But the bigger devastation in all this is that it forces me to fixate on the reality of how far I am from God's agenda for my life.  And while I want to take hold of God's best dreams for my life, I cannot.  Because I am too broken.

Paul says you are God's masterpiece. (Eph. 2) You are the crowning jewel in all of His creative work. So perhaps the better way to inspire people to follow God to the fullest is not to remind them of their fallenness, but to remind them of who their God is and how He really feels about them.

Which leads me to Jesus. If I hear someone say one more time that we are not worthy of the sacrifice Jesus made, I am going to scream! Because Jesus thinks you are. He gave his position up in heaven to become a man and to be brutally tortured and murdered on a cross for you. Not because you are not worthy, but in fact, because you are!!!! It was His good pleasure to do this. Perhaps the wonder of the cross is not in why Jesus died for such a worm as I, but much more in the fact that Jesus sees such potential in us, that He would count it His good pleasure to show us just how much we are worth.

That Jesus would see such potential in me that He would gladly give up everything to ensure that I can take hold of everything that He has for me to live out means more to me than you could possibly imagine. And this is GOOD NEWS!

If the story is told that I screwed things up so bad that Jesus had to come bail me out, then that only reinforces the lies that the world has been telling me since I was born.

It is the world that screams at us that we are not enough. It is the world that says we are unworthy, undeserving, and unimportant. And like Lamentations, in the midst of the chaos and mess that this world offers us, we serve a God who quietly comes to us and whispers in our ears, "You are worth more than you could possibly imagine. I love you. You are mine."

As followers of Jesus, then, we must be a people who quietly whisper like Jesus into our communities, our families, and even our own hearts. We must whisper with our actions as well as our words. We must tell people how God sees them. Not as messed up or hopeless or helpless. God see them as full of potential, precious, and worthy of His utmost efforts to ensure that they can become everything that He has created them to be.

So today, may we whisper worthiness to a world that screams insufficiency. May we live in our God given potential not our deceived brokenness. And may we tell the story of a God who's compassions never fail, and because of His great love for us, we are not consumed, but overcome.

Maybe that is what bringing the Kingdom of God crashing into earth is all about.

My Questions About American Religion #8 - What is the Gospel?

This word "Gospel" has been tossed around in the Christian world for a long time. It has taken on several nuances over the years that make it hard to define.

When a person shares a salvation message, they are often heard saying that they were sharing the Gospel. And this ranges all over the spectrum of how we share the salvation message. If I walk up to someone and ask them if they died tonight would they go to heaven, then I am sharing the Gospel.

When I talk about the crucifixion, I am sharing the Gospel. When I walk someone through a set of steps (which is totally different from church to church) and say "This is how you get saved." (which if that is true then someone is right and someone is wrong and there are a lot of deceived people out there), this is called sharing the Gospel.

For some, anytime that I talk about Jesus, I am sharing the Gospel because I am talking from the "Gospels."

For some, anytime that I am acting like a Christian in front of someone I am sharing the Gospel. And so all the Gospel is simply amounts to lifestyle choices.

But there is a verse that haunts me. Paul in his writing to the Galatian Church says that if an angel of the Lord or even if they themselves come to them preaching another Gospel other than the one they had already received, that person preaching would be eternally condemned. Even an Angel!

The hard part is that all these examples of how we label the Gospel sound different to me. And I think it would do us well go simply go back to the text and let it speak what it speaks and then adapt to that. So let's define the the Gospel and go from there...

First, the word Gospel means "good news." it is the greek word euangelion and it is not a uniquely religious term. Caesar sent out a euangelion when he became emperor. A bearer of Good News to the empire. Zeus was called the bearer of Good News and Hermes was called the bringer of Good News. Paul uses a play on this in Acts 13.

So we need to know that Good News and Gospel are synonymous and it is a message that is supposed to bring hope to all mankind.

But what message actually is the good news? What message actually is the gospel? Let's take a brief look...

Matthew 4:23 New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

Matthew 9:35 New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

Mark 1:14-15 New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Luke 4:42-43 New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

Luke 8:1 New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him,

Luke 16:16 New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.

Acts 8:12 New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

So critical for us to get this!!! When Jesus was killed, what was the charge? That He was a king. Why? Because His message was all about the Kingdom. And without running too far down this trail, this was also the message of the New Testament writers as well.

So why does this matter?  I am glad you asked!!!

Again, people pick up a larger story based on how and what you say. When your Gospel is a salvation message, it becomes about getting people "in" and making them "okay" and finding that saved/unsaved line and getting them across. Well, once that happens, we have no more to talk about. We have no more leverage to get people to grow up and guess what it produces... baby Christians. And what is the church full of?

But they have done what they needed to do in order to get where they needed to get. They are "in" and that is enough. So we can preach all we want to about people growing up in their faith or getting involved or investing in others, but there is not a single reason other than guilt to get people to actually do it. and so churches have become guilt masters.

But what if the problem with churches full of immature believers isn't that they are selfish, it is that our "Gospel" isn't quite the same Gospel of Jesus? What if there is a better Gospel?

I wold suggest that the GOSPEL is not ONLY a salvation message.  While it no doubt contains a salvation message, the Gospel is an invitation to live in a Kingdom that is not of this world. As Dwight Pryor says, it is a power at work in our midst. The Kingdom and how we can live in it with power and freedom - THAT is the Gospel. That is the good news. And that is what we should be preaching!!!

So the next question is what is the Kingdom? Well, Jesus tells 38 parables that we have recorded. 20 of them directly say that the Kingdom is like ... So here is our task! To find the principles Jesus up held and taught and inviting people to live with these guiding principles in their lives. And the Good News is that we have a God who has given us the power to do just that. And the Good News is that when we live in this way, we are free. And the Good News is that when we live in this way we have real Peace. And the Good News is that as we live in this way, we get closer and closer in our knowing of God and our created purpose. And we are more free and more whole - and that is what God cares about. And THAT is good news!