Are We Scriptural in the Lord’s Supper?

            Shalom. It has a ring to it, doesn’t it? It means more than just a Jewish greeting. It contains components of integrity, wholeness, and completeness with God and the world. One is in proper relationship with God, and one is in proper relationship with the world.

            The Old Testament depicts an offering and a meal that reflects shalom. As a matter of fact, it was called, in derivative form, the “Shalom Offering.” Leviticus chapter three and chapter seven emphasizes that God’s people were experiencing meals with God that were to also be celebrations of shalom. Lev. 7:11-17, particularly, emphasizes this was to be a communal meal.

            In the burnt offering, atonement was made and God’s people could enter into the presence of a holy God (see Lev. 1). The natural response of this reality was for God’s people to submit to God in his service (see the Grain Offering in Lev. 2).

            In Leviticus 3, you see the logical follow up. Because of the burnt offering, God's wrath for sin had been appeased. God’s people had dodged a bullet; they had entered to God’s holy presence—and survived!

            They were thrilled to be alive. God was thrilled for them to be alive. God was pleased for their consecrated lives. God said, let’s celebrate! Let’s have a party!

            God gave instructions for how his people could enjoy a meal with Himself and with each other. He would receive His portion, a portion would be given to God’s priests, and the offerers themselves would receive a portion—meat.

            I cannot overemphasize what a big deal this was. Most of the Israelites did not have the means to regularly eat meat. Here was God commanding them to eat meat. What a blast! You talk about celebration.

            Don’t let Leviticus fool you. It is a complex book that includes the remedy for a humdrum life. Leviticus includes instructions from God on how to joyfully celebrate his presence.

            All throughout the Old Testament you find this offering and meal. Sometimes it is referred to as the Thanksgiving Offering. It is part of every major festival. It was to be eaten to conclude Nazerite vow (Numb. 6:13-17). Other places it is mentioned include:

           

            *The renewal of the covenant at Mount Ebal (Jos. 8:31)

            *By Hannah (I Sam. 1)

           *Saul's inauguration I Sam. 11:15

           *The arrival of the ark in Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:17)

           *Solomon’s inauguration (I Chron. 29:21-22)

           * Psalm 50 and many more.

             Now, wouldn't it be nice if God could come up with a meal, eaten by his priests, celebrated in the presence of God, reflecting upon the sacrifice that had been offered up to God.

            What? You mean we have one? Oh, yeah, the Lord’s Supper—Communion!

            It is interesting that in the eight (Mt. 26:17-30, Mk. 14:12-26, Lk. 22:7-38, Acts 2:42, Acts 20:7, I Cor. 10:14-22, I Cor. 11:17-34, Jude 12) references to the Lord's Supper in the New Testament, five explicitly refer to a meal being part of that supper. The other ones don't negate a meal; they just don't go into detail mentioning that it is done in a meal.

            Did you know that Paul builds his case for unity (see I Cor. 10-11) on a communion meal whose roots are found in the Shalom meal of Leviticus, as well as, the Passover Meal. Paul’s argument for unity and separation of the world is symbolized in a meal of communion.

          Luke, in his gospel, offers Jesus’ emphasis on eating and drinking and banquets in the kingdom of God. Scripture anticipates the day when the bride of Christ will eat with the lamb in heaven.

            The Didache, an ancient document written about 100 AD, speaks of the communion meal.

            A few centuries later, churches lost the meaning of the meal in the communion service. As John Mark Hicks put it, what were at one time an altar and a table became an altar only. [By the way, his book, COME TO THE TABLE, is an excellent resource. Many of his conclusions agreed with mine; therefore, I find him brilliant. :)]

            

            Since then, we have emphasized the individual in the Lord’s Supper, not the group. We have lost an exciting and vital element of communion, found throughout scripture—the meal.

            Now, I realize if you are in a church with a good number of people, experiencing the Lord’s Supper in the context of a meal can be impractical. Still, it could be done.

            Churches have captured the reverence of the Lord’s Supper, but this is only one facet. Joy and celebration are another. Unfortunately, we have been so brainwashed by tradition, whose roots were laid with Constantine, the only way we could capture the biblical ideal and precedence is through imagination.

            I am part of a movement that seeks to restore New Testament Christianity. I regret that my attempt to convince others in my movement of this biblical teaching has been an utter failure.

            I am not saying we should eliminate times of meditation during the Lord’s Supper. I am saying we would expand our vision to include that which is biblical.

            It is biblical to rejoice with God and God’s people in a meal, and within that meal, to share the bread and fruit of the vine, honor Jesus as Lord and Savior, and recommit ourselves to lives in His service.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. Upon further review, I rank GETTYSBURG the second greatest war movie I have ever seen. Only SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is better. One reason I liked GETTYSBURG was it was the only war movie that explained to me what was going on well enough for me to understand.

2. Okay, I’m lost on this LOST phenomena. My understanding is that it ended last night. So were the lost, found?

3. I’ve begun my yearly reading of THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES. One of the greatest baseball books ever written. One of the greatest history books on life at the turn of the 20^th century ever written.

4. Could morality be making a comeback? Friend Patrick Leech sent me a fascinating article written by Raquel Welch. Acknowledging that it was strange coming from a sex symbol, she encouraged society to restore the ideal of marriage. Go, Raquel, Go.

5. Congratulations to all graduates. You’ve worked hard. Say safe.

Why Do We Get So Mad at Homosexuals?

Probably most guys have seen the movie THE GODFATHER. If you haven’t, watch the cleaned up version on AMC. Anyway, it has lot of catchphrases we use today.

Remember Sonny? The hotheaded son played by James Caan? Sonny would always want to take personal revenge. Marlon Brando, the Godfather, would try to teach him, "It's nothing personal, its just business." The business may be knocking off a couple of guys because of the competition, but that's fair. However, remember, it wasn't personal.

           

One of the reasons why Christians are shooting themselves in the foot is because the sin of homosexuality has become personal. It's not an offense against God; it's become an offense against Christians.

It may be because it's something a Christian struggles with. It may be because a homosexual in a Christian family has hurt them. It may be because the Christian is concerned about the direction the country's going in. But, at some point, the line has been crossed and the major thing in the mind of the Christian is not “This is an offense against God.” It is “This is an offense against me."

           

Be careful, this is not a good place to be. At least in God's eyes. Can I give you an example? I want you to look at one of the great heroes of the Jewish faith. His name is Moses.

In Numbers 20, the people were quarreling. They were thirsty. They were mad at Moses.

God met with Moses and said, 8 "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink."

Moses did this, but then he began to preach. Uh, oh, Moses is starting a sermon God did not tell him to preach. Maybe that was okay with God, but listen to what Moses says, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

 12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."

           

A lot of people have taught that the problem was Moses struck the rock. This could be a part of it, but scholars, preachers, and teachers offer sufficient reasons for why there is another issue here.

According to verse 11, Moses is aligning himself with God. “Must we….” Look out, Moses; you are a tool of God. This is God’s work. And because of this, Moses is taking the sin of Israel personally.

           

Consequently, Moses lashes out. He loses his temper. “Listen you rebels” is not a term of endearment. Moses is not trusting God’s results. He is going beyond what is written. He is not being meek here. He is expressing a lack of belief in God.

           

Any time we, as God’s people, get angry and lash out, we are proclaiming our lack of belief in God. We have made the holy, human. God’s work has become personal.

Rarely, do we practice righteous indignation. Rather, we express frustration over a goal we are not reaching. And if anybody gets in our way, WATCH OUT!

That is why our critics from outside Christianity are at times doing us a favor. They are calling our hand.

Here is a quote from a friend of mine I first heard almost thirty years ago. It is about this story of Moses: “You don’t find the Lord by focusing on the land; you find the land by focusing on the Lord.”

           

If I might amend that statement: You don’t find the Lord by focusing on the better nation; you find the better nation by focusing on the Lord.

           

Homosexuality is not first and foremost a sin against us. It is a sin against God. Do we, when pressed, share our views? Absolutely, but with the love of the Lord. If we don’t see the results we want, that is God’s issue.

           

I wonder if some of us, in our anger, are not lashing out at the homosexual. I wonder if we are really lashing out against God.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. GETTYSBURG! Where have you been all my life? Last week I watched GODS AND GENERALS. It was a good movie. I had bought it in a package from Wal-Mart containing the movie GETTYSBURG as well. As soon as I heard the familiar music, I was hooked. I really liked how they did the opening. They showed original photographs of the battle’s participants followed by photographs of the actors, in character, portraying them.

2. I caught a snippet the other night of 30 ROCK on TV. I have read through the years that the writing was sharp and the acting is so good. Indeed, the series has won a number of awards. The scene I saw the other night showed the character, Liz Lemon, reading a passage of scripture at a friend’s wedding. She gets a text asking her to stall. She instinctively concludes the easiest way to stall would be to read passages from the Bible. Not knowing Scripture, she randomly begins to read passages from the Old Testament that were totally inappropriate for the occasion. Laugh out loud funny.

3. I have really come to enjoy our office’s coffee-grinding coffee maker. I like grinding the beans early on Sunday morning, and making a big pot. The coffee is good all day. We just finished the vanilla beans; maybe this week I’ll buy cinnamon-flavored beans.

4. We finished our series on sexuality yesterday morning. Now, I’m beginning a series on the joy of our salvation. We need this, but I will miss the previous series. I liked the tension that went with it. It was sort of like walking a tight rope over burning coals. You knew the fall would not kill you, but it would hurt. And if you made it across the tightrope, you would feel really excited. We made it across the tightrope. I will always be grateful to the prime timers for consistently encouraging me to preach this series.

5. Well-done ETCA baseball team. We’re proud of you for making it to the state semis!  

The Missing Piece

There was once a creator. He created a puzzle. The puzzle was complete except for two missing pieces.

Someone came along and saw the void in the creation. He wanted to make the created work whole and complete. He took two pieces of the same kind and attempted to put them together, but they did not fit.

No matter how hard he tried to fit the two pieces of the same kind together, he could not make them fit.

Oh, he stuck them into the work of the creator as best he could. Unfortunately, the work of the creator was not honored. There was chaos. The intended purpose of the creator was not completed.

Finally, one came along who took two pieces of a different kind, both made by the creator of the puzzle. Lo and behold, they fit perfectly.

The two different pieces that fit together were then inserted into the void of the creation. Now, the created work was complete. Now the puzzle brought forth the image designed by the creator. The creator of the puzzle was honored.

Why Is Homosexuality Wrong?


There are many reasons. These include the fact that Scripture condemns it. The scriptures range from Lev. 18:22 and Lev. 20:13 in Old Testament, to the reflections of Paul in the New Testament in I Cor. 6:9-10, which state that those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But I think Richard Hayes, has very insightful words on the subject, which he shares in his book THE MORAL VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Reflecting upon what Paul wrote in Romans one, Hayes notes that homosexual relations by fallen and confused human creatures represent a tragic distortion of the created order. To put it another way, Paul writes that homosexual activity is a sure sign that humans are alienated from God’s design.

Again, according to Paul, practicing homosexual relations is a declaration of rebellion: rebellion against God. Moreover, Paul is saying in Romans chapter one that homosexual activity is a widespread sign that human beings are in rebellion against the Creator. People should look at creation, look at their blessings, look to God and give thanks. When humanity refuses, and lets idolatry run its own self-destructive course, homosexuality is the consequence. It is not something that provokes God’s wrath; rather, it is a consequence of God’s decision to hand human beings over to their desires.

Remember:

Number one. We follow the cross. We do not seek what we want but what God wants.

Number two we love the community and do what’s best for the community. Our sexuality is not a private matter; it is a matter that affects the whole community of faith. Sexual fulfillment is important because it points us toward God, but it is not of paramount importance. Being equipped with God’s Spirit, Christians control their sexual energy. With this reality in mind, it could be that no one is displaying more godliness than when he or she chooses to go against his or her own sexual instinct or orientation. No matter how he or she feels, he or she seeks to honor God in attitude and behavior. Sexual immorality defiles the body of Christ. See first Corinthians chapter six.

A tragic illustration of how sexual immorality defiles the community is the AIDS epidemic in Africa. In Africa, the AIDS epidemic, which was brought not on only by homosexual sex, but primarily by immoral heterosexual sex has destroyed family after family and community after community— all because of ungodly sexual behavior.

Number three. When we become Christians, we are empowered to put ungodly behavior behind us.

Biblical integrity compels me to remind us of the end of Romans 1:

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

The fact is, we were all in bondage to sin, yet, we were still accountable to God and his judgment—at the very least, all of us are guilty of disobeying of our parents. All of us need the perfection of Christ to be poured out upon us. We need the part of us that is in bondage to sin destroyed. We need to be created again. That is what Paul talks about in Rom. 6:1-4.

We want to be faithful to God when we speak of our sexual calling. However, we want to be humble like Christ. And in a few days, I want to talk about that.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. I think I will never get over the unpredictability of kids. Chris Detkos is a great guy and a member of our church. He recently returned after serving a year in Afghanistan.

Now, stay with me.

The other night, there was even more chaos than usual at our family dinner table. To get the kids quiet, I thought I would get them to discuss substantive world events.

Having trouble priming the pump, I decided to take them through the history of war for the past hundred years. They listened well until we reached the Middle East woes of the past twenty years. I was getting them ready to discuss Sadaam Hussein.

It was this context that I asked, “And who was the dictator who rose up in the Middle East and threaten to take everyone out?”

My youngest daughter, Annie, excitedly answered, “Chris Detkos!”

In all fairness to Chris, I think Annie has a high opinion of him. However, I don’t think she has a great grip on what a dictator is. She had been hearing us pray for Chris the past year. She didn’t know Iraq from Afghanistan. She thought Chris was going over to Middle East to clean everything up. Fortunately, when I confessed all of this to Chris, he took it in stride.

2. The Rangers lead the AL West? Will it last?

3. One week from Thursday, I will be finished teaching ETCA Bible for the school year. Dare I confess? I cannot wait.

4. A nice little tradition has evolved in the Edge family. I take everyone, including my mom, out to eat on Saturday to celebrate Mother’s Day. Judy prepares a delicious roast on Sunday for lunch. We gather together again, but it is kind of a winding down of the weekend. It works for us.

5. I read where Betty White knocked them out this weekend hosting a well-known, national comedy show. The ratings were the highest in two years. Good for her, she is almost 89. I can tell I am getting old. Old people are becoming the good guys.

The Church’s Biggest Sin

What is the biggest sin in the church today? Probably a lot of people would say it is sexual sin. They may be thinking of pornography, homosexuality, premarital sexual activity, or other violations of God sexual covenant in marriage.

I have been preaching a series on sexuality. It is certainly a challenge living faithfully to God today, honoring him with our sexuality. However, I wonder if the greatest sin in the church today is an unfaithfulness to deal with conflict in a scriptural way.

There are probably many reasons for this. I would include the following:

1. Temperament. Genetically we are probably either overly aggressive or overly passive.

2. Sinful nature. Our temperament can encourage us to sin, but our sinful nature fuels the fire of encouragement. It is our sinful nature that blindly leads us into believing we are justified for all of our actions. It encourages us to be selfish. It encourages us to act on impulse. It encourages us to twist Scripture to fit our selfish desires.

3. Forgetting the basics. Scripture is pretty simple when it comes to conflict. Whether we perceive we are at fault, or we perceive that the other person is at fault, Scripture tells us it is our job to go to the other person. Jesus himself puts the onus on us. In Mt. 5:23-24 he says:

23So if you are about to place your gift on the altar and remember that someone is angry with you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. Make peace with that person, then come back and offer your gift to God. [CEV]

I would paraphrase that passage in this way, “If you are going to church and you find out someone is angry with you, postpone going, go and make peace with that person. Then go to church.” We typically do not do this. Instead, we place the burden on the person, who has the problem with us, and insist on waiting upon them to make the first move.

Now we have got a problem. We are distracted throughout worship thinking about the one who has something against us. If we are not careful, we dwell on our guilt, or we cultivate our justification for why we behave well and why the other person should not be upset with us.

Moreover, we tempt the other person to sin. Jesus has already given us the responsibility to confront the other person. The ball is placed in our court BY JESUS. The longer we hold the ball, the easier it will be for the person who has something against us to behave inappropriately.

In Matt. 18, Jesus offers counsel for those who have been hurt:

15-17"If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend. If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won't listen, tell the church. If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love. [The Message]

Now, what is it we normally do? Do we not normally go to someone else about another who has hurt us?

Perhaps, we fear we cannot trust the person whom we believe has hurt us. Perhaps, we are afraid of the conflict. Regardless, we sin by refusing to follow Jesus’ words and instead replace them with our own opinion of how the offender treated us wrongly.

Typically, we bring someone else into the equation before it is appropriate. This breeds distrust, slander, and gossip.

In a couple of weeks, I will be preaching a follow-up sermon to yesterday’s on homosexuality. I want to deal with the question brought up to me: how does the Christian treat the homosexual? We are always ready to turn to Romans chapter one, for Paul condemns homosexual practices. And, there is nothing wrong with this. However, we tend to ignore the following verses:

28Since these people refused even to think about God, he let their useless minds rule over them. That's why they do all sorts of indecent things. 29They are evil, wicked, and greedy, as well as mean in every possible way. They want what others have, and they murder, argue, cheat, and are hard to get along with. They gossip, 30say cruel things about others, and hate God. They are proud, conceited, and boastful, always thinking up new ways to do evil.(CEV)

I have never been part of a church that has been scandalized by homosexuality. I know those churches are out there, but I have never been part of one. However I have been part of churches scandalized by gossip, mean-spiritedness, poorly chosen words, all rooted in an inability to deal with conflict.

It is interesting; someone asked me a question the other day, I want to ask you. Where, in Scripture, is a person, who is a follower of God, described as one who consistently engages in gossip, slander, complaining…? In essence, where in scripture does a follower of God demonstrate a continued inability to deal with conflict? E-mail me the answer, please. I would like to know.

I can name the persons, who battled with sexual sin. I can share with you those who battled with life as prostitutes and adulterers, whom God loved and who will be with God forever in heaven. I can share with you murderers from Scripture, whom God has accepted.

Some of the greatest things in my life have come through conflict and resolution. Some of the greatest events in Iraq country's history have been born in conflict and resolution. Some of the greatest events in Scripture are brought to us courtesy of conflict and resolution.

Will we, in churches, choose to escape conflict, or see it as an opportunity?

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. I notice that with my iPhone, I am depending more and more on my apps for following the news. I sit in my pick up while in line at a McDonalds, stand in line at the bank, or sit at home while watching sports, and check on the news. I like the app NEWS FUSE because it gives me different sources such as BBC, AP, MSNBC, New York Times, and USA Today. I no longer read newspapers and rarely watch television news.

2. Of course, I still try to catch Dale Hansen’s WFAA channel 8 sports report Monday through Friday.

3. The Mavs losing to San Antonio makes it three out of the last four years they have lost in the first round of the playoffs. When they lost to the Heat in 2006, I ached for the lost opportunity. It now appears to have been their only opportunity to win. I’m glad I did not know that then.

4. Thanks Shiloh for being a church where I can preach an entire sermon on homosexuality, be frank and blunt, and not fear for my job.

5. CITY LIGHTS, by Charlie Chaplin, is considered one of the top 100 movies of all time. It is a silent movie. Over the past seven days, I have watched it three times. The first time, I watched it while working out on the treadmill. I thought so much of it; I showed it to my seniors at ETCA. They were so impressed by it; I showed it to my entire family at home. They enjoyed it as well. Is it a comedy, a drama, or a love story? The answer is all three. Watch the entire movie. Laugh and track the plot. The payoff comes in the final scene.

The Purity Pyramid

One of the things I hear held up as a virtue—and I hear it in our culture as much as I hear it in the church—is the idea of being a virgin until marriage. Interestingly enough, the Bible does not hold up the ideal of virginity – the Bible holds up the ideal of purity.

Purity is not the absence of sex. Purity can be achieved in a marriage that is very sexually active. Purity is, among other things, placing sex in its proper perspective.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how we all have these dynamic, energetic forces within us called sex drives. God gave them to us. His purpose was not exclusively for us to have fun in marriage, nor was it to have children. Certainly, in this world, those are byproducts. Likewise, the harnessing of our sex drives builds civilizations. I maintain, however, the foremost purpose for God giving us our sex drives is that it drives us ultimately, if we channel it well, toward God.

An essential element of this drive to God is purity. To help us visualize this, I want to share with you something I shared with my congregation a couple of weeks ago. I’m calling it THE PURITY PYRAMID. At the base, I’m placing the concept of the holiness of God. It all starts with God. It was God who said, “I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:45.)

Even with the recognition of God’s holiness, it is still difficult to live pure lives in our culture. We do well to remember that, as Christians, we have the PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. He came as God’s gift:

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit"Acts 2:38.) [ESV]

Paul tells us that God demonstrates His grace by making us new people when we become Christians. That being so, Paul asks how can we dare live against God’s chosen wishes for us:

So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country (Rom. 6:1-5.) [The Message]

Now, when we become Christians, God does not make us do the right thing. Otherwise, we would simply be glorified computers. Yet, an understanding of God’s grace coupled with the Holy Spirit’s power, should motivate us to choose lives of purity, and live by these choices:

If you are guided by the Spirit, you won't obey your selfish desires. 17The Spirit and your desires are enemies of each other. They are always fighting each other and keeping you from doing what you feel you should. 18But if you obey the Spirit, the Law of Moses has no control over you (Gal 5:16-18.)[CEV]

I want you to know that if you have been baptized into Christ, you stand pure before Him. And you have been given the power to live like him. You have the Spirit living within you.

Now we have reached the third level of THE PURITY PYRAMID. Looking toward a Holy God, recognizing the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, we pursue “Godly Choices.” These choices include choices of purity.

I think this is what Jesus had in mind when he told us in his sermon on the mount, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Mt. 5:8.) [NIV] The heart in scripture typically is not a place of emotion. Rather, it is the location of the will. It is the place we make our choices. Jesus calls us to resolve to make choices of purity. Paul reaffirms this in Romans 12.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you (Rom. 12:1-2). [The Message]

Guys, picture yourself helping your wife wash the dirty dishes. She washes, you dry. Imagine you taking those clean dishes and placing them back in the dirty dish pile. She would probably take one of those dishes and break it over your head! Why? You don’t put clean dishes back into the dirty dish pile. Likewise, after God goes through the cross and cleans us up, do we jump back into the dirty dish pile of the world. No, we make pure choices.

The by-product of each step of THE PYRAMID OF PURITY is Christlikeness. Paul wrote that he wanted to know Jesus intimately, share in the power of His resurrection AND His sufferings, so as to become more like Him (Phil. 3:10.) This is our ultimate desire as well. Sex is not just about sex; it is also about God. The choices we make help us to know him more deeply and walk with Him more closely, or we position ourselves further away. I am struck by how God does not want to rob us of a good time; rather, he wants to enhance our time here on this earth.

He knows us better than we know ourselves. To trust Him is to experience life.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. Say it ain’t so, Stephen Ambrose. For two decades, Ambrose has been, perhaps, my favorite biographer and historian. This morning, Tim Archer sent me a link to an article claiming that records reveal that Ambrose heavily exaggerated the amount of personal time spent interviewing one of his subjects—Dwight Eisenhower. Having already been accused of plagiarism in BAND OF BROTHERS, this scandal does not bode well for his legacy.

2. I am totally pleased about Colt McCoy’s draft selection. He has no pressure upon him and he can show everybody how they were wrong by not drafting him higher.

3. By scrupulously avoiding writing about present-day politics, I have been made aware of how much my political feelings affect my life. It feels like so much of who I am is not addressed in my writing. However, that’s better the alternative.

4. The final day of school cannot arrive fast enough. Some things never change.

5. Ben Roethlisberger received a six game suspension last week from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for exercising poor judgment. Could it be American culture is making a moral shift?

Have a great week!

The Courage of D-Day

I remember watching SAVING PRIVATE RYAN for the first time back in 1998. The movie made a visceral impact on those of us in the theater that night. I left wondering if exposure to that movie would ultimately reduce the amount of young men and women serving in the armed forces.

That did not happen. Never has there been more awareness of the cost of war. We live in a culture that encourages young people to sacrifice for their country, even if it means being killed or maimed. Yet, we, for almost a decade fought a war in two nations, Afghanistan and Iraq, with forces supplied by volunteers.

Last week, I wrote about how God did not create us to be individuals, who are isolated or apart. Rather, he designed us to be part of a community – that is one of the reasons why he gave us the church. God also created most of us to create the community of marriage and family.

Gary Thomas writes in his book, Sacred Marriage, that God’s priority in marriage is not our personal happiness. We live in a culture that tries to tell us that if we are going to get married, then by all means, do it to find happiness.

God’s priority is that marriage helps us to be more like Jesus. Consequently, there is a cross in the center of our marriages.

We don’t idolize romance. We don’t make an idol out of marriage. What we need to understand is we are flawed entering into these marriages, marrying other flawed human beings. Together, in this process, hopefully, we have learned enough about being satisfied with Christ, and we have learned enough about what it is to depend upon Christ, that in those rough points in our marriage, we can stay together in a community of faith because the cross of Jesus is at the center.

We, in the church, must redefine sacrifice. We must broaden the definition of acceptable terms of what is sacrifice. We think nothing of asking 18-year-olds to surrender their lives for the country. But, we think it terrible to ask 18 year olds to sacrifice their lives in a bad marriage. The assumption is—it will never get better; therefore, let them leave the marriage.

Again, we think nothing of asking 18-year-olds to sacrifice their lives in War. We feel no regret encouraging them to risk war wounds, which could lead to lives filled with pain. We consider the cause worth the sacrifice.

Yet, we think it's awful to ask an 18-year-old to sacrifice and live in a marriage in which the spouse does not respond to servant leadership. We consider the emotional pain of a bad marriage to be too great. The cross, asks us to reconfigure our assumptions about marriage.

It is time that the community of faith has input in the lives of married Christians. Marriage and divorce are not private matters for couples; they affect the entire body of Christ.


Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. At last I found it! I have been waiting since 2004 for the soundtrack for PETER PAN to come out. I’m talking about the most recent version with Jeremy Sumpter. My kids all love that movie. I like the movie and love the music. iTunes has it now, so I downloaded my favorite pieces. Great stuff. “Flying” is the piece that Disney has used the past few years in their commercials for Walt Disney World.

2. NBC! You’re showing family movies like the Mormons use to make. SECRETS OF THE MOUNTAIN was great, clean, family entertainment. Thanks.

3. I checked out one of the 100 Greatest Movies of all time from the public library last week. It is a silent movie made by and starring, Charlie Chaplin. The name of the movie? CITY LIGHTS. I have got to tell you, I was enthralled. Was it a comedy I saw, or a love story? I am not sure. I laughed out loud, but I found the ending amazing poignant and moving. The payoff is definitely waiting until the ending. Now, if I can only convince my entire family to sit through a silent movie. Perhaps if I get them to begin, they will not want the movie to end.

4. I am pleased say no one has left yet in our series on sexuality, not even our guests. Thanks to God for that blessing.

5. I don’t know if I want Colt McCoy to be drafted high or low this week in the NFL draft. I suspect the lower he goes, the better off he will be in his future career.

Have a great week!

Community, Cross and New Creation

Community, cross and new creation—these are three motifs that come to us from the pen of Richard Hayes. You can see these symbols in some of the passages relating to the work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I understand there’s more to the passages; however, consider what we see in Matthew’s words,

20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us" (Mt. 1:20-23.)

Here you see community in that the father, son, and Holy Spirit and are working together. You see, symbolically, the cross in the sense of the Son denying self in His willingness to become human. (Philippians 2 talks much about this.) You, literally, see new creation in the birth of Jesus—God becoming a man—with the Holy Spirit facilitating this progress.

Since before time, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have related to each other; they are part of a community. In Genesis one and two, the Godhead looked at Adam and saw that it was not good for man to be alone. God created human beings to live in relationships, just as God lived in a relationship

as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, to reflect the image of God, it was necessary to create at least one other being there and so God created woman.

It is because he made a woman, this man and woman should begin reflecting what it was to be made in the image of God. And, of course, they go on to have children, and they show how to relate and live in community as a family. (Unfortunately, as you can see in Genesis 3-4, the first family also offers examples of how NOT to live in relationship and in community, in a family.)

Fast forward to the New Testament. It is interesting to me, when you get into the New Testament, you see Pharisees and teachers of the law, coming up to Jesus. Notice how they typically approach him. Did they come up to him and say, “Say, Jesus, we want to ask you some questions about marriage and how we can make marriage better or what marriage should be like?”

No, typically, when they go to Jesus, what do they want to talk about? Divorce. They want to focus on what should be, in humanity, the exception, not the rule. And, so, they want to talk about the negative and not the positive. You see this in Mark 10.

Back then, you had different thoughts from different Rabbis about what was an acceptable divorce and what was not an acceptable divorce. These teachers of the Law come to Jesus and, to test him, basically ask, “Okay, who’s saying it right? Who’s giving the right answer? Who’s teaching it the right way?”

In verses five and six, Jesus says, 5"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. 6"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'

Did you notice in verse 6 what Jesus did? He took them back to the garden. He went back to creation. And, what is he taking them back to? Is he taking them back to divorce? No, he is taking them back to marriage, and what marriage should be.

Then, in verse 9, Jesus says, “9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." You see what Jesus does? He makes another move. He takes them to what? Discipleship. The Cross. He connects marriage to being a follower of Him.

He paints this picture – if you are really serious about marriage – then, you need to understand there is a connection between marriage and following me. So, he very much plugs marriage into himself.

But that is not all. He is calling marriage a new creation, a work done by God. It is a community, like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit form a community.

And Jesus, again, puts marriage in the realm of relationship. This time he is talking about a relationship with himself – the Son. That is why, we need to understand, when we look at marriage–the manner in which one behaves in his marriage is an external symptom of his relationship with Jesus. Now, that’s very important and very critical to understand.

In marriage, you are a new creation, formed by God, living under the cross, for the purpose of building a godly community.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. Time Magazine did a cover story on the iPad last week. It was a good read. I suppose this will be the salvation of the magazines and newspapers that are still left. In the future, probably a year or two, I suppose the PC companies will be coming out with their own versions of iPads. Of course, they tried this ten years ago and they did not catch on. But there is something about Steven Jobs that allows him to see into the future and begin a trend.

2. I saw where my buddies Tim Archer and Steve Ridgell are doing book-signings all over the country. I think we, here at Shiloh, are going to use their book LETTERS OF THE LAMB as a resource next spring when we study Revelation in our Bible classes. I really enjoyed reading the book and think it is going to be helpful for those of our church, who choose to make it a conversation partner. What I did was read a chapter a day and just spend some time thinking about the images from Revelation, practical teachings from LETTERS, and allow them to point my mind toward God. I highly recommend this book. (No, they are not paying me for an endorsement! However, feel free to write the authors and encourage them to do so.)

3. I read THE TIME TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, by Ian Mortimer, over the weekend. It discusses life in England in the fourteenth century. I can sum it up in one word---“ouch.” What a painful life it was back then!

4. I survived the first sermon in my series on sexuality yesterday morning. Actually, I am gratified at the response.

5. Dare I hope for a good season from the Rangers?

Have a great week!