Learning to Rest

Its amazing how hard something so easy can be. Simply Be.

I’ve struggled with wanting to DO something for God and I feel like I’m not doing anything worthwhile. Why hasn't God given me the next set of instructions? If God want's us to leave our current fellowship, then when and where do we go? Simply Be.

I’ve struggled with knowledge – trying to understand difficult passages of scripture and see where they fit in the overall message of scripture. Simply Be.

I’ve struggled with frustration at rejection and misunderstanding by others who seem not to care about the truths God has shown me in scripture. A little knowledge gets me all upset. Simply Be.

I've struggled with concerns about my job - the type of game I'm being asked to make, the layoffs I've survived but my friends haven't, the long commute and long working hours, and the inner certainty that its time to move on, but not knowing what to move on to. Simply Be.

I’m constantly in motion, searching, thinking, and striving – when God wants to teach me how to be at rest. To sit at his feet and love him in perfect peace, and let raging storms be something that's only on the outside of me, and not on the inside. God could end my struggling in a moment by simply giving me the direction, knowledge and favor I seek. He'd rather end my struggling by teaching me to rest. All these irritants are really just that. God knew that by giving me knowledge without direction, I'd tear myself up. Now that I've experienced that he wants to teach me to take trust to a new level. The same God who provided knowledge will provide direction and timing. Until he does he wants to provide himself a refuge of peace and serenity. Simply Be.

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Whose Kingdom are We Building?

I have come to realize that everything God has taught me over the past two years is tied together by a single theme and composes a single message. It is this message that has overthrown my spiritual worldview and shaken me to the core. All things had to be re-evaluated in light of this message. A torrent of emotion has raged in me and is passing through me, and would have destroyed me but for the grace of God.

This message was God's answer to a series of questions I had asked in prayer. I initially asked why our church wasn't growing and hadn't grown in years. I prayed for His kingdom and His will, and prayed that my own will and His would be one. I expected that having offered my will so completely and having prayerfully beseeched him on behalf of His own kingdom, that God would tell me some great thing that I could go do in order to build his kingdom and grow the church. Instead he took me into the biggest spritual storm of my life.

I have considered writing about this many times, but have refrained from doing so. Considering the waves of emotion flowing through me I didn't think I could present the message with the proper balance of boldness and love it required. I also didn't feel God compelling me to do so. I needed to fully internalize the message myself before preaching it to others, lest I transfer my burden to them instead of being changed myself.

If I were to write that book however, it would be titled "Whose Kingdom are We Building?" Below are the chapters it would contain.

Church Growth or Church Growth - our metric of success

Teaching vs. Discipling

Being vs. Knowing, Believing or Doing


Leadership and the Church

Money and the Church

Church as a Business vs. Church as the Body of Christ


Religious Obligation vs. Spiritual Desire

Looking a Pharasee in the Mirror

Do We Really Believe the Bible is God's Word?


The Tale of Two Kingdoms

Simply Be

When We Gather Together

“Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Matthew 18: 19-20

That is church. Fellow believers gathering together with Jesus to encourage and build up one another in their faith and walk with God.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:23-25

Christian’s need one another. We are not to go it alone. We are to encourage and build up one another to continue in the faith and grow in our faith. The scripture is full on “one another” passages. We are to love one another, bare with one another, care for one another, pray for one another.

How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.
Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. 1 Corinthian 14: 26-33

We assemble together to encourage and build each other up in our common faith. We do this by coming to the meeting ready to share a song, teaching, revelation, interpretation of tongues or prophecy that God has given us that will benefit the others.

The scripture is simple, clear, loving and peaceful on this topic. The difficulty is that our church culture makes it difficult to obey the scripture. We assemble together, but do not speak to one another other than a greeting as we find our seats facing a stage. We listen to one person speak the whole time, without questions or comments. If the Holy Spirit were to reveal something to us during the message we cannot say it. Instead we are instructed to make an appointment with the minister to share it with him privately. Instead of taking turns as Paul taught, our silence is supposed to keep everything decent and in order. If we appear bored, it is not because we have lost a love for God or his word. Please understand that we have heard the same man give a monologue about the same things literally for years – even decades. If we required a high school student to repeat their freshmen year for 10 years and we don’t allow them to ask questions or help teach other students they too would appear bored. We assemble, not because we are being built up or because we are able to build up others – but primarily out of duty – we want to do the right thing. After the message we pray or sing as a group and then go home.

Sometimes the Lord does speak to our hearts during the message and meets a need. Other times a brother or sister will come up to us after church and give a personal message to us that the Lord had put on their hearts. Sometimes we will feel compelled to pray with someone individually at the close of service and God will meet a need.

Also, please don’t misunderstand – the man who is speaking is not wrong or evil or inherently boring. I’ve been that man at times, and while I attempt to foster more interaction in my messages the format and expectations lead to the same result. Each of us has something to give. After we’ve given it, we can only give it again and again. God has not given any of us everything that everyone else will need. Instead, he has distributed his gifts among all of us.

Please don’t blame us if we feel spiritually frustrated and unfulfilled. Please don’t blame us if we vacillate between an intense desire to DO something for God and use our gifts, and an apparent apathy as we meet resistance and are directed to do our duty by serving as an audience in a religious service that feels like repeating our freshman year one more time.

But we want to please God, we want to grow, we want to be all God has called us to be. We don’t want to be rebellious, cause division or tear apart the church. But we don’t want to die spiritually either. We don’t want to waste our lives and all God has invested in us as we rot in a rut of religious ritual.

“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” Romans 12: 3-8

One by one people are searching the scripture for answers and crying out to God in prayer. The Holy Spirit is drawing people to obey the scriptures and become the church he created them to be. Christians are finding themselves drawn into small gatherings of believers where each can minister to the others and all can use their gifts. They openly admit they don’t have all the answers about where they are going, but are simply trying to do what the Holy Spirit tells them. Some call this Organic church, Simple church or House church. But it doesn’t seem like church. They meet in homes not a church building. There is usually singing and music, but even children can bring an instrument and join in. There is no pastor running the service and doing the speaking, yet it is quite common for several members to have extensive pastoral or teaching experience. There are no tithes, but they give generously to the poor and pool their resources to help members in need. But is it church? Is it rebellion?

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20

A Dangerous Question

Me: "Father, why is our church not growing? "

God: "Whose Kingdom are you building?"

Easter

We went to an Easter play at my sister-in-law's church. While watching the play I was struck by the profound trajedy of Judas' personal weakness and failure. At intermission I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote out the following question:

Who would sell out a man to death for the price of a new car? Who would sell out a close friend? Who would sell out their Lord and King - for, for mere money?

Judas - so close to the light, yet so full of darkness. I wonder if Jesus had him in mind when he taught that if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness. Judas - who was one of the twelve chosen apostles. Judas who was paired up with another disciple when sent out two by two - working miracles by the power of Jesus name. Judas - who was trusted with the finances of Jesus' ministry.

The story of Judas is enough to make anyone fear. When told that one of their number would betray him the other disciples asked "is it me?" If Judas could have been so close to the light and yet failed so miserably, where does that leave you and me? Only Peter and John were confident enough that they asked instead - "who is it?" Of course only a few hours later Peter also failed his Lord in a graphic demonstration of human weakness.

Pilate also struck me by his personal weakness and failure. He believed Jesus to be innocent and declared him as such, yet had him beaten anyway. He even tried to release him at one point. Then in fear and frustration he acquiessed and ordered him to be crucified - all to appease a group of people that he personally dispised. Such weakness and failure.

When they led Jesus to be crucified, I had to close my eyes and I heard myself calling "No, no." I was not man enough to watch even the renactment of what my Lord had to actually endure. I should have died for him, not him for me. For me there is no greater shame than to know that my Lord was cruicified for me - and there is no greater reason to love him.

The resurection - what hope. Because he lives, I live. The power of the risen Christ - in me, and with me and for me - and I for him.

The Old Paths

NOTE: I discovered this while going through some old journal notes. I wrote this in December 06, but never got around to posting it. I thought I'd share it. Reading through this again today I think I may have missed an important point. Perhaps the old godly paths are not so much our doctrines, but our godly lifestyle - again being over knowledge.


This is what the Lord says:
“Stop at the crossroads and look around.
Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it.
Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls.
But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’
Jerimiah 6:16 NLT


The sermon last night was an exhortation for us to return to the "old ways." I found myself being somewhat conflicted by it. For my pastor, returning to the old ways meant staying true to the doctrines you have been taught, and trusting in the wisdom of the pastorate.

My difficulty began when I realized that some of those doctrines I have been taught (and have taught others) have no Bilbical support, and in some cases even contradict the clear teaching of scripture. Once the Biblical foundation beneath these doctrinal pillars was shown to be lacking, I began to wonder what other doctrines I had been taught were in error. Everything became suspect. This was a very uncomfortable position to be in.

It occured to me during the sermon that each denomination would interpret the "old paths" differently. For Pentecostals it may mean repentance, baptism in Jesus name and receiving the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues. For Catholics it might be the rosery, confession, and faith in the Pope or apostalic succession. Perhaps we all need to reach a little further back when returning to the old godly paths. Perhaps we should reach clear back to Jesus himself and the teachings of his apostles - that is, perhaps we should reach back to the Bible, which testifies of Jesus.

We study the Bible and then build doctrines based on scripture. We then teach those doctrines, boldly proclaim them, defend them and debate them. Those that follow our teaching then believe those doctrines based primariy on our own authority and their faith in us. Sure, we quote select scriptures that demonstrate the validity of our doctrine, but many skip over or explain away scriptures that don't fit our doctrine very well. Since students only remember a small percentage of what they are taught, what are they likely to remember - our oft repeated doctrine, or the scriptures we use to support it. The result is that we believe a whole number of things and repeat them to each other without really knowing what the Bible actually has to say about the subject. This makes us rigid, defensive and fragile.

I believe this was one of the primary weakness of the Pharasees. They had an entire "church culture," an entire series of beliefs spawned from the scriptures, but were not the scriptures themselves. Their doctrines were far more rigid than the scripture itself, and it lacked the scripture's power and purpose. Thus they would allow a priest to minister on the sabbath, but would stone a prophet for performing a miraculous healing on the sabboth. They would pull an ox out of a pit on the sabbath, but not suffer a lame man to be healed.

What would happen if we taught the Bible instead of our doctrines? What would happen if we maximized the authority of Jesus and the scripture and minimized our own authority? What would happen if we taught those parts of scripture that we really don't understand and admitted as much instead of teaching our best guess as if its the authoritative explanation?

I'm actually trying this out in two different settings., and the results are interesting. The first group is a weekly meeting consisting mostly of high school students. I asked the class to read through a book of the Bible at the rate of five chapters a week. During class I would encourage the class to share insights they discovered and to ask questions. I asked them to purchase a New Living Translation to make this reading easier. Reading rates were at first quite high, but then dropped off. Students were not as comfortable sharing insights as they were asking questions, though they sometimes had profound answers to each other's questions.

Student questions tended to gravitate toward the most difficult passages of scripture that even scholars only suggest possible interpretations. They probably gravitated toward these passages because they are normally completely ignored by pastors and teachers. It was totally new to them. To this I offered both a short and a long answer. The short answer was that I didn't know the answer. The long answer was a discussion of the possible explanations that scholars, pastors and teachers have suggested. This clearly frustrated some students who wanted to be told the right answer to memorize, and who considered it a waste of time to think about the meaning and implications of something you cannot conclusively answer.


So why would this lesson trouble me? Having seen that some of the old ways I had been taught are false, I know I can never go back to them. Yet the path that I am to take now is not entirely clear. It's probably the same old uncertainty of the future and fear of making a mistake. There is also a certain danger and fear when questioning the foundations you are standing on. This lesson effectively warned me of the perils of leaving the foundations that I now know to be faulty. This resonated with my fear.

Packaging Truth

While driving to work this morning I was listening to a preacher on the radio. He reiterated a common concern among church leaders. He said that the first generation of a church (or religious movement) has a hunger for God and for his Word, and labors to understand the scriptures and develop doctrines. The second generation defends these truths and doctrines and works hard to extend them. The third generation however is passive. They don’t value the doctrines because they haven’t worked for them. They seem to miss the whole point of church and have no zeal. While he didn’t do so, I’ve often heard the dilemma of the third generation described in terms of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or David, Solomon and Rehoboam – where in each case the spiritual life and character of the 3^rd generation paled in comparison to the first.

How do you tell a man who has spent much of his life becoming “the” authority on scripture and systematizing doctrine that much of his efforts have been misguided? His purpose wasn’t to systematize truth and teach truth, but to live the truth, embody the truth, teach a love for the truth, and a desire for God. By becoming THE authority on scripture who has done all the seeking and searching for the next generation, what place is left for the young person – what unexplored territory exists for the young adventurer? If the whole world has been settled and is tamed how can you bemoan that there are no brave explorers in the next generation? Where’s the romance in memorizing a book of facts? The romance is in the digging, the searching, and the daring exploration.

Life in the spirit is not like scientific knowledge. In math, one explorer discovered algebra. Another person may have taken algebra and added Calculus. Another may have taken calculus and added trigonometry. And so each person’s work was built upon the work of those who preceded him. While that is how science progresses it is not how spiritual life works. Spiritual life isn’t about knowledge – it’s about a relationship with God. A young man may see a beautiful girl and ask all his friends about her, but he will never know her unless he takes a step toward her and speaks to her for himself. Should he choose to love her and make it his life’s ambition to cherish her and know her, no amount of books could convey the truth that is their relationship together. Every person must explore God and embark on life’s adventure with Him for themselves.

Another part of the problem is that when we systematize truth into theology is can become a straight jacket to the next generation. It becomes a series of fences that we don’t want them to cross, and a box that we don’t expect them to think outside of. Therefore they can never hope to go beyond us. Yet the scriptures are much more vibrant, deep and even ambiguous than our theology. But what if we missed something? What if God wants to take them where we ourselves have not gone? Perhaps we should teach the next generation a love for the scriptures and an appreciation of our theological discoveries, rather than a love for our theological discoveries with an appreciation of the scriptures.

Lastly, the third generation can become intimidated by the “greatness” of our stature and the length of our shadow. Yet when we started out we had no greatness or shadow - just humility, ignorance and a hunger for truth and for God. Perhaps we could build God up more and ourselves less. Ultimately its really about introducing each generation to God, and not about passing on our own legacy.