The Bad News

Last week we took a break from our sermon series on Romans for a Missions Sunday. It was kinda neat for me as the missionary couple that came to talk went to school with my parents. I find that one of the coolest things about having spent time in and around Bible College is that I cross paths with people over and over again throughout life. We got right back into it this week though.

This week we talked about the Good News and how you can really only know how good it is if you know the bad news. The main point of the sermon is that we're sinners, all of us, and no matter what we do on our own we cannot become holy. Even though the steps we need to follow are clearly laid out for us to follow, we can't do it without the redeming work of Christ. That's the Bad News. In order for us to appreciate the Good News we have to understand the Bad.

I must admit that this is a bit of a struggle for me in my walk with God. It's hard for me to appreciate the Good News sometimes. I actually find it hard to be wowed by what God did for me and it's because I haven't really ever understood the Bad News I don't think. I have one of those boring Christian Life stories. Knowing Christ since kindergarten and always being the good kid. I've never done anything even remotely bad. Some people have 'Paul conversion experiences', where their lives do a 180 when they accept Christ. Mine is more of a slow curve of new realizations and baby steps in become Christlike. Apathy is an easy mode to fall into when there aren't any moments to look back on and say things like: 'God saved my life right there'. If you know what I mean.

Our pastor showed us a picture of a car. It had driven through the safety rails on the side of a highway and landed fully on ground, just inches from falling into some sort of small river it looked like. You could hear the collective sigh as everyone in the room thought how lucky it was for the car to land upright and not even dinged up just beside the dip. Good News. But in order to fully appreciate the Good News we had to see the whole picture. The thing that looked like a small river or dip was actually the top few inches of a very deep canyon. If that car had landed just a few inches over it would have fallen hundreds of feet and killed everyone inside. That's the Bad News. And when you know it, the Good News is so much better. (I wish I had the picture to post here, it's really more dramatic than I can get across.)

So in Christianity the Good News is obviously that Christ came and died for us to redem us and reconcile us to God. But what's the Bad News? I'm just going to lay it out in point form and leave you to think about it.

1. We are all subtley hypocritical. (Rom 2:1-3)
-Bad News: We're all sinners and as sinners we are God's enemies.
-Good News: We have been reconciled through Christ.

2. Repentence is impossible. (Rom 2:4-5)
-Bad News: On our own we cannot repent. We cannot change the direction of our lives by ourselves, (change direction from sinners to holy).
-Good News: God transforms us from sinners by giving us a new heart/attitude.

3. God is completely impartial. (Rom 2:6)
-I missed the point here, there was a rabbit trail and then Nick asked me a question.

4. The Condemnation of the Law. (Rom 2:12ff)
-Bad News: The law condemns us and when we try to live up to it we inevitably fail.
-Good News: Jesus came to do what the law cannot.

Number 47

Well, it's that time for me to write about this week's sermon. As you may recall we are doing a series on the book of Romans. This week I was really stoked about the message as our pastor was going deeper into an explanation of how the Gospel is logical. I was having a bit of a hard time understanding that. Nick took really great sermon notes so I got a look at how the sermon flowed and all but they were his thoughts and not mine which are very hard to turn into a post. We were just finishing up the final song in our worship time when out of the corner of Nick's eye he noticed the #47 flashing on the screen. One of our children was in need of a mom and I had to run to their aid.

It was Brooklyn, and this was the first time she needed us! We had been to church much earlier than usual this week because of another initiative for families the church has been doing and so she ate a bit earlier and just needed some food. No biggie. Except this girl has the loudest suck in the world! I absolutely cannot discreetly feed her!! So I was out in the foyer hoping to hear but got into some conversations with the other moms out there entertaining their toddlers and missed much of the sermon.

The point that I came in on is enough topic for an entire post though. Basically the pastor was using a chunk of Romans to describe how certain things in the Gospel need to happen because of how society is going, and how God knew it would go. (I'm really unsure how to describe it cuz I missed most of it, so I'm just going to skip to the point). He was talking about the journey toward moral depravity in society and he stated that as Christians we've lost our ability to call sin sin.

Once he said that I was completely distracted from the rest of the sermon and could not focus back. I don't know what you would do when you hear that statement but my mind immediately jumped to the issue of homosexuality. Just because it seems to be something we're really tolerating and not wanting to step on anyone's toes about, when God clearly states that homosexual acts are sin. (I'm not looking to start up a debate here, but he does.)

Our pastor approached that with saying it is a sin. Just like lying and stealing. There is no difference in 'sin scale' between homosexual acts and lying. I didn't need a reminder of that as I really don't believe in any sort of sin scale, but I began to wonder how many 'little' sins we let go. How many times we break a promise and think nothing of it. How often we gossip or say negative things behind people's backs without thinking about it. We don't call those sorts of sins sin nearly as much as we should.

Which brought me right back to the first sermon. And what would it look like in my life to be compelled, gripped and enamored by the Gospel enough to call all sins sin and work on changing them? I know that for me the sin I don't call sin is slothfulness, (or at least laziness), I have not yet subscribed to the Nike 'just do it' quite yet! But I don't want to be a hypocrite and if I'm going to sign a piece of paper asking the Government to not let homosexuals marry, I better be looking at the plank in my own eye at the same time!

Embarassed No More

I struggle as I sit here to pen my thoughts on this week's sermon. It truly hit me hard in a lot of ways and I did come home with many a thought and desire to move forward in my journey. Yet within 24 hours of hearing and sensing what God was telling me, I was already worn out by life and feeling so spent. Do you ever have those times when you know you're doing all you can to try to live in Christlikeness, when you truly are reading your Bible and praying and living intentionally, but it just seems like everyone else is getting blessed while you have to endure? I'm having one of those enduring times, (as if you couldn't tell). So although this week really spurred me on to growing in God and really hit a nail on the head for me I'm not exactly feeling 'enamored' as it were and I fear that may show up in this post and not do the sermon justice. With that prelude let me soldier on.

This week we skipped over vs 16-17 which our pastor feels are the cornerstone of the message of Romans and we'll be focusing on them next week. We did talk about them briefly but focused more on Romans 1:13-15.

For any of you who know anything about Paul in the Bible you'll know he was on fire about whatever he did. Whether he was killing Christians or standing up for them he did so with fervor. I imagine him to be one of those guys that get so revved up spit flies and no amount of hairspray can keep their hair flat against their head. This week's big question was: What gave Paul the ability to be so bold for the Gospel?

As usual in an Alliance sermon there were some key points all beginning with the same letter! Paul had the courage to be bold because he knew the Gospel is a: Loving message, a Life changing message, a Logical message and a Liberating message.

Paul had an obvious life change after he heard the Gospel. He went from killing Christians to advocating for them. He not only began sparing the lives of Christians he became one of them and truly embraced what that meant. Could you imagine if Paul had not experienced the Gospel but went around trying to tell everyone about it? Some could have pulled that off, (I mean how many celebrities convince us to buy things they never use?), but when it comes to Christianity if you aren't experiencing it people can tell when you talk. Not only because your actions and words contradict each other but because of the hollowness of what is being said. To shout from the mountaintops 'God loves you!' without feeling God's love is really just noise. I'm not a person who had an obvious life change once I heard the Gospel. I'd always been the 'good' kid, I don't have a past full of events I wish I could change. While many may look at that as a blessing, I see it as more of a curse. Once again being reminded that the enemy of greatness is goodness. It takes a lot of extra effort to show the world what God has done for me, and how thankful I am for it, without my life doing a 180. To keep on doing the same thing I did before but with the power of God's gift transforming it and making me set apart from the world, I think it's safe to say that's not something I have mastered. I wonder what it looks like. To go through the every day grind with the same passion as a genuinely converted murderer or recovering addict. I wonder what it takes for my same old life to look as passionate as theirs. I wondered it all through the service and I'm still wondering about it.

I know that the Gospel is a loving message. It's right there in John 3:16, the first verse we ever learn in Sunday school, that God so loved the world. Our pastor challenged us to plead with God to show us each an experience of his unconditional love. I don't think I've felt that before. I know in my head that I can't do anything to earn unconditional love, but that doesn't keep me from trying! It also doesn't keep me from feeling like I've lost God's love at some point either. When I feel like I must have surely disappointed him and so I'm not getting the whole of his love. Which in my heart I know is bogus, but my head only has an understanding of human unconditional love. Which I would challenge is not the same. You know that saying 'I love him/her all the time, but it doesn't mean I always like him/her. I don't think that applies to God's unconditional love, but I sure feel it as a wife and a parent sometimes and that is my reality of unconditional love.

This is where the sermon gets a bit foggy for me, cuz I didn't really understand the next point and God has also been trying to teach me something which combines last week's sermon and the previous point. I really am hung up on the 'goodness is the enemy of greatness' line. Believing truly myself to be good but not great. It hit me at some point over the last few weeks that in believing myself to be good but not great I am in fact sinning. To look at God's creation in me and to not go 'Wow, what a work of art' is in effect saying 'hey God I think you did something wrong here'. Since it tugs so hard at my heart strings right now I fail to find the words to adequately describe my train of thought. But it goes something like; I currently feel like I'm not that great, because if I was great God would be filling my life with blessings not obstacles and since he doesn't seem to be doing so I must not be all that great. Since I'm not all that great God really doesn't love me unconditionally. I know he isn't loving me unconditionally because I can see him loving so and so unconditionally by the blessings he is giving so and so. Since I do not feel at the moment that God has made me great or that he loves me unconditionally I am not experiencing the same thing the Roman church is experiencing. I do not feel compelled, gripped or enamored by God who could bless me exponentially but has decided instead to fill my life with obstacles in order to show me his love. Since I am not experiencing the same thing as the Roman church I am not able to evangelize to other people because how can you talk about something you do not know firsthand. Now that I've filled your current mental experience with that gobbeldy gook, you can kinda see the confusion/frustration/wrestling match my heart/soul and mind are currently embarked on. I think. Like I said, foggy.

The next point of the sermon was that the Gospel is a logical message. I think I need to pursue having that point cleared up because to me the Gospel is anything but logical. Our pastor explained it in what seemed to make logical sense to him, (and I think many others because there was a lot of head shaking and amen's). The question is How can a holy God reach out to a polluted world without compromising his holiness. And the answer is Jesus. I wish I could explain it a bit more, but honestly I don't get it yet. It makes no logical sense to me that a holy God became a human, (unholy), without losing his holiness. To me that's the mystery of Christ and not something I am created to fully comprehend but rather to see it as something only God can do and therefore is no logical to me. Perhaps I don't know what logical means? Any thoughts?

The final point is that the Gospel is a liberating message. It's all about living a life of faith and works are an outpouring of that faith. Since righteousness is obtained by faith it liberates us from trying to have to earn it. We think of good things as having to be earned, like our paycheck or vacation time or even the love of someone. But that's not the case with the Gospel story that is a gift freely given.

So to put the last two weeks together: Paul was compelled, gripped and enamored by the Gospel that he was bold to share because he had experienced it. We should be pleading with God for just such an experience so we can live boldly and be gripped by the Gospel.

Compelled, Gripped, Enamored

We attend a church that is blessed with a very exegetically inclined senior pastor. He takes the teaching part of being a pastor very seriously. Week in and week out there is nary a power point presentation, (although his main points show up on the screen behind him in black ink on a white background), and he talks for a full 45 minutes without fail. Due to his exegetical nature he goes through books of the Bible one verse after another in a painstaking way that is somehow also incredibly engaging. This January he began the book of Romans and this Sunday our pause came at verse 13. (You can see the pace I mean). It's true that he could be going through Romans for the next two years, but he will see it through to the end.

One of my intentions for 2007 is to not leave Church at church but to bring it home for the other 6 days of the week. Since I am truly a blog-a-holic, (I actually read my own blog entries again and again if no one I frequent is writing something new), I know that this will be a good medium for me to pen my thoughts on the weeks sermon. I'll be sure to link each week's post so that should you become interested in Romans they are available for your convenience. I'd love to have an running dialogue with whomever may have thoughts to share, so please feel free to comment. If you'd like to hear more on a particular week, (or think I may have misunderstood something I heard), y0u can actually download the sermons each week here .

I learned a new thing in church this week. We are beginning to look at the book of Romans and the church that existed there. I learned that the names of the person(s) who founded the Roman church are lost in history. Someone(s) who heard Paul talk became so compelled, gripped and enamored with what he had to say that they couldn't keep themselves from turning that talk into action. They didn't come home spurred on toward finding fifteen minutes of fame, or a book contract, or to become the next Billy Graham. They came home on fire for living like Christ as a community. No one was looking for superstardom, and that to me sounds completely unique. I don't know how many times I've daydreamed about doing something great for the world, too many to count. I am sure though that each time I thought about doing something great I also thought about becoming something great. I remember sitting in church when they were asking for volunteers to help with Hurricane Katrina relief. I immediately thought how cool it would be to go and be God's hands and feet, but right on the tail of that thought was another about having my face splashed around as a volunteer who made a difference. Maybe I'd even end up on Oprah! I'm sure my experience in that is not unique. I would even go so far as to say that we are wired to want those kind of accolades. How amazing would the Church be if we were one hundred percent, all the time, community minded? To truly engage in our churches in such a way that we didn't want people to talk about our individual greatness in a thousand years, but to talk about the church we attended.

The key points in this week's sermon were what this church was. Our pastor defined this church as a great church and as our example to strive for in bringing our church to greatness. The five things he identified the Roman church as having are: courage, constant and ceasless prayer, no superstars, a willingness to be stretched and a priority in preaching.

The Roman church was bold as it lived in a way to transform it's culture. The floodgate of thoughts that erupted in my mind when this was said was enough to distract me from the rest of the sermon. To live sold out and unshakable to the truth in an era of compromise and with the attitude of 'you do what works for you and I'll do what works for me' ,(which has a word but I am drawing a blank). I know there are lots of people trying to do that, but to do so in a unified way and with a genuine Christlike attitude. I get shivers just thinking of the possibilities. Yet those shivers chill as my cynical side says it's not something we'll see in my lifetime.

In Romans 1:9 we are drawn to the importance of prayer and as our pastor put it, the only way the church will go forward is on it's knees. I can't think of a better way to say that.

In 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 Paul talks in a great detail about the Church being made up of many parts. It is alluded to here in Romans 1:12. This is where I learned that no one remembers the individual(s) who founded the Roman church. They didn't have a superstar. Not a Sidney Crosby or a Gretzky or a Billy Graham. They were a group of people each using their own gifts to build each other up. It's a sad statistic, (the exact number I don't know), but something like 20% of a church congregation does the work while 80% just show up. I know it's used many times to try and guilt people into volunteering, but just imagine how many gifts are going unused! Imagine how many prayer warriors are called but struggling with consistency, or how many people have a heart for youth that never gets put to good use, or how many creative people don't think their gifts have a place in the church. We are missing out today in a huge way. I wonder why that is? Where did we go astray in our thinking of the community of the church?

Our pastor, (whose name I'm not using cuz it's Paul and that would get confusing with the Paul in the Bible whose teachings are focused on in Romans), talked a bit about the priority of preaching. Not in that we should place our pastors on pedestals, but rather that they are entrusted with an incredible gift of passing on the teaching of Christ. They need to be constantly lifted up in prayer so they don't give in to the temptation to make their messages sound more 'user friendly' or 'culturally acceptable'. They may say things that offend us, but instead of getting huffy we should be listening to what God is telling us through them. Preaching is a gift and it's not taken lightly by anyone called to do it. I know from watching Nick go through preparing his sermons while on Internship. He began working on them a few months in advance, praying and practicing, researching and rewriting. It's not as easy as public speaking. Could you imagine God giving you a burning bush moment in which he tells you to talk to the people for him? YIKES.

Perhaps the hardest part of the sermon for me to hear was when he talked about how the church was willing to be stretched. Our church is a good church, as are so many, but we're not a great church. We have a long ways to go to become one. The biggest obstacle to getting there will be the fact that we are a good church. The enemy of greatness is goodness. Let me say that again. The enemy of greatness is goodness. All my life I've felt that I'm good at a lot of things, great at nothing and that's just the way it is. I completely understand getting caught in the trap of goodness where apathy and contentedness lie. I'm sure a lot of our churches are also content with goodness. Could you imagine if we fully engaged ourselves in the process of Christlikeness. Constantly striving to change our method without compromising our message to bring about God's glory here on earth?

Could you imagine what our world would be like if we too were compelled, gripped and enamored by God the way the Roman church was?