Our Summer Series - Kings: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This week we will start our new series on 1 & 2 Kings. This series will go through the summer and will hit the highlights of God's faithfulness through a declining kingdom. Our first message will come from 1 Kings 1-2 when David transfers the kingdom to Solomon.

The whole series will look at the good and bad side of many well known figures - Solomon, Elijah, Hezekiah, and some strange anonymous prophet known as the "man of God." Many of them have immense gifts, moments of great trust in God, and moments of failure, weakness and catastrophe. There are no "flat" characters here. They are complex ones, with only a few good ones, some bad ones, and few that are just plain ugly.

Throughout the series we will explore various idols in our lives, especially with an eye to leadership. Our Elders are reading through Andy Crouch's excellent book Playing God which is about the use and misuse of power. You can read it with us if you like. We also want to give people an opportunity to share stories of God's grace in their life to overcome our own idols like money, power, and sex. It is worth noting that the writer of Kings always has Deuteronomy (esp. 17:14-20) in the back of his mind; God's covenant with his people expressed in the law, and the consequences of being true to that covenant or not.

In our own day many wonder about the direction of our own nation and of the church. We long for a kingdom with a great king. But we should ask whether the kind of leader we want is one we need. And whether the king that we need, is the one we are willing to follow.

Frontline Prayer

We have been encouraging everyone to go a prayer walk in their community. People can go with their group, a friend or spouse, or by themselves.

It is important that we consistently seek the Lord through prayer, but often times we get stuck in a pattern of simply petitioning God for our felt needs and those of others. There is not anything wrong with it. But it can make you weary of prayer if 90% of your prayers are, "Lord please help _____." This is what C. John Miller calls maintenance prayer. It is often short and mechanical focused on physical needs of people in the church.

But Miller also notes there is "frontline" prayer: prayer that is expectant, hopeful, challenging, transforming, and a cry for the kingdom of God to come. Frontline prayer involves three things:

1) A request for grace to confess sins and to humble ourselves

2) A compassion and zeal for the flourishing of the church and the reaching of the lost

3) A yearning to know God, to see his face, to glimpse his glory

There are remarkable Biblical examples of this. Famous passages of truly powerful prayer are Nehemiah 1; Exodus 33; Daniel 9; and Acts 4 (the Elders and I used Daniel 9 as a guide in a planning retreat we did last fall for this year). Throughout Christian history, moments when God brings a fresh movement of his people have come with "frontline" prayer. God is sovereign in his acts of grace but he rarely moves without moving people to pray, to see his kingdom come, to humbles ourselves and seek his face. I know my own prayer life needs to be more frontline focused and less routine maintenance.

I have become convinced in my studies on prayer in recent months that we need to do more "Frontline" prayer. This is why I am challenging everyone to go on a prayer walk and use the simple guide we have available in our lobby.

Why Prayer walking? It gets you out of the routine. As Christians we ought not to live as though there is no connection between the spiritual and physical. Therefore Christians, and missionaries especially, throughout history have walked through towns, villages, cities, and bare soil asking God to bring conviction of sin, compassion for people, to see his kingdom expand and to see his face.

So get out, walk around, take a little time to see your neighborhood and pray for your neighbors. Pray for things you notice. Pray God would move our hearts and create opportunities to share the love of Christ with people in word and deed. Pray with expectant hearts that God would bring a fresh wind of his grace.

Pastor Chris

*The information on frontline prayer here has been taken in part from Tim Keller, Center Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), p. 73.

Things you need to listen to, to understand race, white privilege, Ferguson, and the Gospel

I am not going way into the specific issues of the death of Michael Brown, but rather the cultural problems in this country that make it difficult for us to speak the same language on the same terms.
Ferguson seems a long way away from San Jose, CA... but then again it is very close to home and the privilege that comes with living in Silicon Valley.

I will give you one example. Nearly every tech company in Silicon Valley has finally had to own up to the fact that they are run and filled by mostly White and Asian men. I don't think it is conscious or intentional racism but a subconscious lack of awareness to the privileges afforded these groups in this valley. This illustrates the key disconnect for many Whites on the issue of racism and racial injustice in this country. The problem is not primarily "bad life choices" and a "ghetto culture" but blindness to privilege and opportunities available to Whites and many Asians. This is stuff that no app will fix. Its insane to me that many think these issues can be addressed with better hiring policies or that some even entertain the fact software and education will resolve it. Its chiefly a spiritual problem of pride, arrogance, and blindness to cultural privilege. The appropriate fruit of the gospel is humility regarding your advantages and embracing others different from you in Christ, not self-righteous pride in that you worked harder, made better choices, or are more talented.

For me personally, I woke up to these realities slowly but one story from a prominent ministry leader in inner-city Denver, Jeff Johnson, crystallized it for me. He recounted working with some African-American teenage boys through his ministry. These were good Christians doing good work in inner-city Denver. They were meeting at Starbucks when out of nowhere a couple of police cars pulled up, grabbed one of the kids he was working with, and aggressively arrested him. Jeff pleaded with the cops saying, "He is a good kid. You got the wrong one." This kid was calm throughout and essentially said, "This is our life." That is when Jeff realized, when the cops show up white people are relieved, but African Americans are often scared something bad is about to happen. I was never scared when the cops came to bust us while I was partying in college. My response was more of a "Dang, we got busted," and frequently felt free to joke with the cops about it in the moment! I had no fear someone was going to jail, be beaten, or get shot. (Here is a great vid basically showing the same thing: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-should-you-respond-to-ferguson)

For me, the most beautiful experiences in church is when I have experienced unity in Christ with diversity - culturally, racially, and economically. But these are experiences have been sadly rare, for unity in diversity is intrinsic to the gospel and it is my conviction this is our only hope.

Ephesians 2:13-16
¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility ¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 

A sermon you should listen to:
Matt Chandler is a pastor in Dallas, TX and head of the Acts 29 network and I am super encouraged by the direction he is taking the previously way too "hipster white guy" Acts 29 church planting network. LISTEN to this sermon.
http://www.vergenetwork.org/2014/11/24/lets-talk-bluntly-about-race-matt-chandler/?mc_cid=ab224dee3f&mc_eid=5b33394c6f

A brief word calling us to brotherly love in the church by Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics Commission:
http://www.russellmoore.com/2014/11/24/ferguson-and-the-path-to-peace?utm_content=bufferaaa73&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

An article showing the social divide that makes us blind to the issues, look at the charts if nothing else:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/self-segregation-why-its-hard-for-whites-to-understand-ferguson/378928/

Also, a bunch here by Leonce Crump (a black A29 guy) and others:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/august/its-time-to-listen-saved-and-silent-will-white-evangelicals.html?paging=off

Online dating preferences:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/facebook-data-reveals-how-weirdly-racist-we-are-when-it-come

Join me in weeping over our sins and the tragedy in Ferguson, and longing for the kingdom where all are one in Christ on earth as they are in heaven.

Lonely in Silicon Valley: Proverbs 5 and Relationships

I have always found relationship advice very frustrating. Mostly because of people speaking in really vague terms that mean nothing, like "You know when you know." Or they treat it like a formula that if you do x, y, and z you find someone or your marriage will be automatically better. The real problem is not that there is nothing good about people's advice, the problem is that our own hearts hear what we want to hear. We want a quick fix. We want someone to give us the secret the unlocks the mystery of the opposite sex. But it just doesn't work that way.

I distinctly remember hearing a Pastor of mine once giving a message about not worrying. One of his application points was for singles to not worry too much about finding someone but to "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness." I spent years thinking about what he meant by that. It doesn't sound much different than advice like "You know when you know," or the proverbial "at some point it just clicks and you find someone." What my Pastor was alluding to is that point when you are no longer trying too hard and believing that being with someone will finally fill that gaping hole in your life. It is when you finally surrender and realize the perfect person doesn't exist and your expectations are way too high. That is the moment you begin to live by faith and realize finding someone is an act of God's grace. It is the moment you are free to live and enjoy the journey for what it is - when you are content if you are single or married.

However, that only covers idols we have concerning relationships. The biggest frustration I hear is that in a city where everyone works a ton and community is sparse - how in the world will you ever meet someone? There are also cultural idols in the modern world that make finding someone extremely difficult. Our society is very individualistic and people don't value community. They find meaning in their work and delay looking for someone. They overvalue their own opinions and do not associate with people of different values. So they find it difficult to be in community with people different from themselves who have different views. *News flash*, I don't care who you end up with, they will be different from you. If you cannot learn to get along with people different from you in casual friendships and acquaintances you will have an extremely difficult time managing an actual relationship no matter how similar you are. All that to say what do you do if your "social network" (including church) has slim pickings?

1) Understand that singleness is a gift - 1 Corinthians 7:7

I know you want practical advice. Sorry, you have to deal with the spiritual as well or you are missing the whole point. Get it in your head that the love of Christ is more important and single people have a huge amount of flexibility to invest in the church and in their faith.

2) There are seasons to not seek marriage. If you need to be with someone, you probably have an relationship idol. Times when you have a new job, death in the family, grad school, are really difficult, time consuming and emotionally charged times. Your head isn't in the game.

3) Get serious about finding someone as you get older. You can date for fun in high school. Maybe even college. Get real after that. If they are not looking for a serious relationship. Move on!

4) Be attracted to the whole person, not just looks - but heart and character.

5) Don't get too emotionally involved with a non-believer. Getting married requires your deepest desires and passions to be shared. If you love Jesus, you are not able to share your whole self.

6) Expand your community - get a hobby, sign up for eHarmony. If a hobby, do it for fun and to make new friends, not because you are desperate. Don't get all self-righteous about using dating websites. I know lots of career people who they have worked really well for. Would it be great, even better to meet someone without them? Yes, but remember #3.

7) Recognize you need to learn from people in good relationships. Find Godly examples and just be around them. If you are going to be able to "know when you know," you need to see good examples. Get involved in a church small group. It might actually be best for you if it's not a "singles group." The church is a family and family has brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. Too often people look around and think no single people are there, but a lot of people meet through mutual friends. Don't give up on a community just because you don't see anyone at first glance.

Hope that helps and I hope and pray our church is able to truly be a loving family - for singles, families, and married people investing in each other.

Sermon Recap: Pursuing Wisdom

Yesterday's sermon was the second in our series on Proverbs. The previous Sunday we talked about what wisdom is and this last Sunday we talked about how to pursue wisdom.

One of the critical points I tried to make is that in our modern world we use technology and science like ancient people used magic - to conform the world to suit the desires of our soul. Rather than the way wisdom is supposed to function to conform the soul to cope with reality (this insight comes from CS Lewis I believe, but I originally encountered it in a Tim Keller sermon on Proverbs).

That distinction is critical to understand because wisdom is the Bible is described as a path, not a technique to master. Going to a seminar and gaining a key insight does not give you wisdom. It is a path you must pursue. The path begins with your heart.

The heart is the central of the person and is much more holistic in the Bible than english communicates. We tend to think of the heart as the place of emotions, but Biblically, especially in the Old Testament it is the place of our thoughts, desires, and drives all of our behaviors (10:8, 13; 14:14; 13:12; 15:13, 28; 23:19, 28:14). Proverbs 4:23 captures this best, "Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it," (NIV 2011).

There are three things I said we should do in order to train our hearts in wisdom:
1) Know your heart. Exegete your heart. Know its temptations and desires and therefore internalize God's commands. Prov. 3:1, 3, 5.
2) Know the Lord, trust in Him. Learn to exegete scripture.
3) Know your context and exegete the culture.

Finally, the path has been set before by Christ who was perfectly obedient before the Father and calls us to follow him and be his disciples. Our path to wisdom is a cross shaped life where we obey him by faith in what he has done for us. We do so in the Spirit and not in our own strength for the glory of God and not for our own.

Pursuing wisdom thing is about growing in Christian character with love expressed in the cross of Christ. This is our chief aim.

Sermon Recap: True Wisdom

This Sunday we introduced our series on Proverbs: Navigating Life without Rules.

The first message was about True Wisdom. What is wisdom and how it is different in the Bible than good advice, common sense, or knowledge of skills. The message focused on Proverbs 1 and the distinctive characteristics of Biblical Wisdom.

Wisdom is first of all intended to address all the "gray areas" of life that are not addressed by the morality of the Bible. Wisdom is the place to go for nearly everything the Bible doesn't seem to explicitly address. It is the difference between living a fulfilling life or not, and often is the difference between success or not.

Wisdom is Practical
It is a general principle that is situational, not a universal rule for all situations.
It is knowing the right thing to say or do at the right time and in the right way.
It is more intuitive knowledge than technical "know how." Proverb literally means "parable" or "riddle."
It is practical in the sense that it helps us cope with life, to know God's will and his ways and navigate challenges in our life that surpass our abilities (cf. Prov. 30:24-28).

Wisdom is Moral
The preamble to Proverbs 1:2-7 gives a list of virtues that characterize a wise person. The morality is found in the phrase of v.3 "righteousness, justice, and equity." Wisdom guides us how to treat people fairly.
But its about character not a moral law. Wisdom is about having a humble heart who is willing to learn not being an insufferable know-it-all.
Its an inner attitude and posture of the heart. Character is not formed over night. A wise person doesn't not speak out of book knowledge, but out of life lessons.

Wisdom is Spiritual
The foundation of Wisdom is "the fear of the Lord."
Wisdom is not secular knowledge that is merely observation of how the world works.
It is obtained by grace and is a gift of God born by a reverential fear of him.

Wisdom is Personal
Throughout the "lectures" of the father to his teenage son in Proverbs is a call to embrace "Lady Wisdom" above everything else who is more valuable than all the money and fame in the world.
It is a call to love Christ and the wisdom found in him above all else. For Lady wisdom is a signpost to the ultimate demonstration of God's wisdom in Christ and him crucified (Matt. 12:42; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18-31).

There was some interesting stuff about the connection of the "tree of life" and the fall of Adam and Eve but you'll have to listen to the sermon if you were not able to attend.

From Pastor Chris - Everyday Missiology

Yesterday I attempted to lay some groundwork for what "missional church" means for us. This has been a popular and trendy subject among leaders and scholars within Christianity for more than a decade. Only recently has it become a more popular conversation among evangelicals.

I offered my reflections out of Ephesians 3:1-13, paying particular attention to verses 6 and 10. The mystery of God, his promises to redeem his people, has been made available to all people through faith in Christ (v.6). It is the work of the church to make this mystery known, especially through the uniting of Jew and Gentile to the one body of Christ (v.13). There is a lot more that could be said but simply speaking, the gospel is what God has done in Christ and the result is peace with God and peace with one another. It is the mission of the church to declare the peace made possible with Christ and to demonstrate in our lives.

In the past, churches in the west existed in a culture where Christianity was the default religion of most people. Ministry then was designed to wake up nominal believers and this is expressed in ministry styles that assume people will show up. Today the default worldview is secularism and being a part of a church is no longer considered a necessary part of life. Therefore, the church must take on a missionary posture to the culture and adopt forms of ministry that go to people instead of assuming they will come to the church.

But the primary concern is how do we do this? This is where the "missional church" discussion gets very confusing very fast and means drastically different things to different churches. Some of it at least means speaking to idols of the culture, yet also affirming good things about the culture.

In Everyday Church, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis offer some good basic questions to begin to think about what mission looks like in everyday life (pp. 42-43). These are worth reflecting on in your own life and in your small group. These are basic questions a missionary would ask in a new culture.

Where?
Where are the places and activities we can meet people?
Where do people experience community?
Are there existing social networks with which we can engage, or do we need to find ways of creating community within a neighborhood?
Where should we be to have missional opportunities?

When?
What are the patterns and timescales of our neighborhood?
When are the times we can connect with people?
How do people organize their time?
What cultural experiences and celebrations do people value? How might these be used as bridges to the gospel?
When should we be available to have missional opportunities?

What?
What are people's fears, hopes, and hurts?
What gospel stories are told in the neighborhood? What gives people identity? How do they account for wrong in the world? What is their solution? What are their hopes?
What are the barrier beliefs or assumptions that cause people to dismiss the gospel?
What sins will the gospel first confront and heal?
In what ways are people self-righteous?
What is the good news for people in this neighborhood?
What will church look like for people in this neighborhood?

This week I am meeting with fellow pastors to discuss some of these ideas in their own neighborhoods following a similar list of questions. I encourage you to begin asking some of these questions about your own neighbors and neighborhoods!