Flashback Week – Send in the Sheep

[originally posted on July 24, 2008)

As I mentioned before, I’m currently reading John Owen’s The Mortification of Sin with my pastor. This week we read chapter 8, a very convicting chapter. While reading, the following scene crossed my mind.

There I was living on some remote island in the middle of the Pacific. Life was good. My wife and kiddos were great. The farm (?) vegetables were growing nicely and the animals (??) were behaving themselves. I got along great with my neighbors. I had a good job collecting shells along the beach. Life was great.

Oh, did I mention it was a volcanic island that I lived on? Well, inevitably, the volcano god got angry about something or other. Pretty soon, ash and soot started flying here and there and everything smelled like sulfur. Being good Islanders that we were, obviously we wanted to stop the volcano god from blowing us up. To appease the Vg, we pick out a nice fluffy sheep, cart him up to the volcano (it was pretty hot, too!), and toss him in. Not a happy ending for the sheep, to be sure, but we wanted to go back to our happy lives down in the village and figured this was the best way of going about it.

Okay, so what does all this Pacific islander stereotyping have to do with a Puritan writer, you may ask? Up to this point in the book, Owen has been discussing general principles of killing sin in the believer. In Ch. 8, he brings up the convicting point:

“Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification…Thou settest thyself with all diligence and earnestness to mortify such a lust or sin; what is the reason of it?(emphasis added) It disquiets thee, it hath taken away thy peace, it fills thy heart with sorrow, and trouble, and fear; thou hast no rest because of it… It is evident that though contendest against sin merely because of thy own trouble by it. Would thy conscience be quiet under it, thou wouldst let it alone. Did it not disquiet thee, it should not be disquieted by thee.”

In other words, if sin did not poke our conscience or stir things up in our life, would we even bother to “mortify” it? Why do I confess sin? Is it so that I can go back to my peaceful way of living or is it because I have a hatred of sin, recognizing “the filth and guilt of it” as Owen puts it. We throw a sheep into the volcano simply to appease God, when we are really simply trying to have our lives nice and peaceful once more. I know I’ve been guilty of this. It’s Saturday night (or Sunday morning!?), and I’ll be teaching Sunday School in a little while. Yet my conscience is bugging me over some sin. So I confess, not because I recognize the “filth and guilt of it” but because I want to appease my conscience so as to be able to teach. And in goes another sheep.

Owen’s point (one of them anyway) is that if we are to have victory over sin, we are to have a deep, abiding hatred of it, so much so that we want to see it deader than a volcano-roasted sheep. Sin is an affront to God and until we see it as such, all we’re doing is throwing in sheep, trying to get our peaceful lives back. “He, then, that would really, thoroughly, and acceptably, mortify any disquieting lust, let him take care to be equally diligent in all parts of obedience, and know that every lust, every omission of duty, is burdensome to God.”

Flashback Week – What’s Right with the Church?

[originally posted on September 29, 2008]

It seems everyone wants to be a naysayer these days. Everyone wants to say their piece about how bad things are in Christianity. Non-believers love to point out seeming inconsistencies and laugh about the supposed “crutch of religion.” Professing believers point out the apostasy of other professing believers. Slight nuances of Scriptural interpretation are blown way out of proportion. Or truly heretical, on-the-fringe sects of professing “Christians” are put in the spotlight (by both believers and nonbelievers alike) and made out to be the stereotypical church of the 21^st century. Like the picture above so poignantly points out, I almost get the feeling that Christian naysayers are getting too much sadistic pleasure out of “cursing the darkness.”

Please don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not advocating a live and let live ecumenical practice. Yes, the Bible is clear that we need to take a stand against false doctrine & apostasy and stand for what the Bible teaches. Indeed, it is quite easy to point out what’s wrong with the church. Criticism always has been easy.

But I hear little of what the church is doing right, little of the mutual encouraging of each other’s faith (Ro.1:12). Romans 15:5-6 says “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Yet this isn’t seen as much as is the blasting each other for the littlest foibles. We spend so much time worrying about our own misconception of what other Christians and churches are doing (which often these misconceptions have no basis in personally known reality) that we completely miss the opportunities to encourage one another. Perhaps it’s because this is the harder road to follow. I know that I have certainly been guilty of this.

So what is right with the church today? Here are a few observations from my perspective, first about the church in general and then as I have seen personally in my church.

On the Macro (big picture) level

1. First and foremost is the fact that no matter what we see in the world around us, God is still sovereign, God is still in control – God is still GOD. Jesus gave the promise in Matt. 16:18 that he would build his church, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

2. There seems to be an explosion of ministries and servants of God whose purpose is to point out, expound on, and magnify the glory of God. And as technology advances, more and more resources are available from such ministries as Desiring God and Sovereign Grace Ministries and countless others. Count among these the parachurch organizations such as The Voice of the Martyrs, Samaritan’s Purse and others that seek to keep the church’s focus both on encouraging those in persecution and helping those through the grace of the Gospel.

3. Many churches are standing firm against false doctrine and error, testing new teaching to see if it conforms to the Word of God. For every infamous preacher that makes headlines in the Christian world by compromising the truth, there are 100 others, unknown outside their communities, that remain firm to the Bible.

4. There seems to have been a resurgence recently in theologically sound music – music that actually says something. A few years back, the church was in the middle of the “worship wars” and it seemed virtually every musician in the Christian music genre (and even some not normally considered such) was putting out a “Worship” album. The difficulty was that the majority of it was all the same emotion-driven, content-free stuff. But out of this, there were many musicians that created or re-interpreted some really great music, including some older hymns as well as writing new hymns. Some of my favorites (among many) are Keith & Kristyn Getty, Fernando Ortega, Sovereign Grace music, Chris Rice and Third Day. Their music seems to be filled with songs of encouragement, songs that put the emphasis back on God.

On the Micro (local) level

I am very thankful for Grace Church and the family of believers that make up this church. I have been attending Grace Church for almost 10 years now and here are a few things that I am thankful for and how, in my opinion, Grace Church exhibits what is indeed right with the church today.

1. The teaching of the Word of God has consistently been at the forefront of everything that is done. I don’t have to wonder on the way to church whether or not what will be taught from the pulpit will be from Scripture. Our pastor approaches the Bible from a redemptive history aspect, which I have come to truly appreciate since it shows how all the Bible is in some way pointing to Christ.

2. The community of believers is strong and seems exactly that – a community. My family has personally experienced this in so many ways, from the total support and encouragement we received in the adoption/birth of our children, to the love and care shown in the wake of my father-in-law’s death, to the sense of family in our small group. It is through the fellowship and encouragement of believers that the power of the Gospel is shown and communicated in far stronger ways than simple words can express.

3. I’ve never gotten the feeling that at Grace Church, the minor things are blown out of proportion. This was drastically exampled when I first began attending Grace Church almost 10 years ago. At the time, there was an adult Sunday School class on eschatology, particularly the millennial reign of Christ. To my surprise, three different men who held to the three main millennial teachings (a-, pre-, and post-millennial) were given one or two weeks each to teach their view from Scripture. It was recognized that each position had Biblical support, but more importantly that the Bible was not clear on the subject and Christians could differ with one another.

4. Pastor Tim has truly been a blessing in my life. I have never known a man who has such an incredible heart for people and passion for the Gospel as he does. I’ve had the privilege of meeting with Tim on a (more or less) weekly basis and through this friendship have found my faith challenged and strengthened. We have encouraged one another in Scripture memory, read books together and shared the ups and downs of family life together. Although I have to admit, I think he does far more listening to me than I do to him.

These are just a few observations that I thought I would share in what I thought is right with the church today. Whatever church you attend, wherever you are, I’d encourage you to do this exercise. You may find there’s a lot more right about the church than you realize. Then share it with someone – it may be the encouragement they need.

Flashback Week – Rip-roaring Trends

[originally posted on May 16, 2008]

Ever notice that trends and fads are usually of a nature that requires you not to think about them for too long? This is because if you do think about it, you’ll easily convince yourself that it ranks high on the list of dumbest things you’ve ever experienced.

Take, for example, the desire to display perfectly good objects as broken, torn, smashed, ripped, cracked, faded or any other form of imperfection. I have no idea when this started, but perhaps it all began when Og the Caveman returned home after a grueling mammoth hunt, his primitive saber-toothed-tiger-hair outfit torn to shreds. His friends see this and Og’s social standing immediately skyrockets since everyone now knows he survived the ordeal, but was close enough to ruin his good hunting cloths. Either that, or Mrs. Og thought “My, how hot is that?!” Before you could say Archaeopteryx, everyone was clamoring for the torn look and the rest is history.

Fast forward a few thousand (or million, depending on your view of earth’s age, but anyway) years and young people still pay big money for jeans that look like they’re ready to be thrown out. Unfortunately, as this generation aged, the need for social acceptance based on wild and crazy hunts didn’t go away. True, they don’t go around wearing jeans with huge holes in the knees (factory installed) anymore, but now this need manifests itself in other ways. Now they sport fake bullet holes on their car, apparently still trying to convey the image that they’ve had a dangerous run in (with someone who obviously can’t shoot) and have lived to tell the tale. Or perhaps instead of the bullet holes, they have a sticker on their window making it look like someone put a baseball halfway through the window. I’m not exactly sure how wanting people to believe your car window has been smashed by an errant baseball fits in with the whole “moving-on-up-the-social-standing-ladder” theory, but I’m working on it. I haven’t done a demographic study of the kind of people who usually have such stickers, but I’d be willing to guess that these are the people who probably wouldn’t be anywhere near a sporting event where there would be a chance of a wayward ball hurtling through their window, but at the same time they want to appear cool.

Computers are by no means exempt. Thanks to Stumbleupon (a very cool Firefox feature, by the way), I came across this article detailing how to create your very own “Sawed Off USB Key.” Why would someone want a computer accessory that looked like a ripped cable and had the potential of being tossed in the trash? Og had no idea what he started.

But of course, my first reaction was “Whoa, how cool is that?!” Then I made the mistake of thinking about it for more than 15 seconds and behold, this blog post was born.

Flashback Week – My son’s understanding blows me away yet again

[originally posted on August 6, 2006]

Tonight, something special happened. Each evening ever since we were united with Carlos and Jeremiah, we’ve read a section from our children’s Bible, which includes illustrative pictures. Carlos would quite often ask me to read about the one that had a small picture of Jesus on the cross, but I would always tell him that we had to read other things first (we are reading from beginning to end). Well, tonight we finally got to the chapter that told about Jesus death on the cross and Carlos was listening intently. After we finished, I asked him if he understood what we read and if he knew why Jesus died. He replied, “Because people do sins.” When I asked him what sins were, he said “Disobeying.” I helped to clarify a little bit with him that sins were bad things that everyone did – Carlos, Jeremiah, Mama, Papa, Abuela Oma – everyone! He pointed to the picture and asked, “God disobey?” “No, in fact, he is the only person who has never, ever disobeyed and sinned.” Carlos: “Why castigar (punished)?” Me: “What if when Carlos disobeyed, Mama and Papa punished Jeremiah instead? Would that be very fair?” At this, Carlos got this look in his eyes that seemed to say “Hey, that’s not right!” He shook his head and said that he should be punished. “Well, even though Jesus never, ever did anything wrong, God punished him for our sins. He did this because God loves us very much and He knew that if He punished us, we would need to be punished forever and ever.”

This seemed to satisfy Carlos and then it was time to pray. What happened next surprised me very much. In his broken English, Carlos prayed: “Thank you God for this day. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for dying on the cross and no punish us. Please help Carlos and Jeremiah and Mama and Papa and Abuela Oma and everyone to always obey. Thank you God for love. In Jesus name, Amen.”

Okay, WOW! As I prayed after him, I couldn’t help the tears in my eyes (and even now as I type, they’ve returned!) Jesus said we should come to Him with simple, child-like faith. I’ve never really and fully understood what that meant until tonight when Carlos prayed. I pray that his understanding and faith will only continue to grow through and even in spite of my poor examples and teaching.

Flashback Week – If I could write my wife’s journal…

[originally posted on February 25, 2008 - when Sarah was pregnant with Ben, who is 2 years old today!!  Happy Birthday, Ben!)

(with apologies to Daniel Defoe)

Day 279.

Or is it 278?

I seem to have lost all track of time. Each day blends into the next, with hardly any distinction. Has it really been that long since I arrived on this land I’ve come to call Bay BeBump Island? Was there ever a life or day NOT spent on this island? I can’t remember, but I doubt it, even as logic assures me that there was. Bah, I can’t trust my mind any longer, anyway. This land has had a strange effect on me. I’ve tried to counteract the effects with these lovely little cookies that I’ve found, each one enigmatically marked with an “m.” Surely, it must mean “munch me.”

I didn’t fare too well during the first weeks on this island. Adequate sustenance was hard to find and harder to keep [down]. Everything edible had a horrible affect on me. However, in time, I must have since acclimated to the food and my surroundings. For awhile, all was good. In the past few weeks though something has inexplicably happened to my bedding. No matter what I try, the ground seems to follow my every move and refuses to surrender its comfort in my sleep. And I swear someone or something somehow knows where I’ll lie down because they put a stick or something that pokes me in the ribs all night long. Have I mentioned the heat? I am now fully convinced of global warming since this place sure has heated up in the past few months. I’d give anything for an arctic blast. Or raspberry chocolate ice cream.

The natives on the island, though few, at times are quite demanding. It’s hard to describe them. Mostly of a darker complexion, they’re rather short in stature. They seem to be a fierce tribe, at least one would think so from all the war party’s they have. At least, I think it’s a war party, which is the only explanation I can think of for all the screaming and wailing. But for all their “fierceness” they raid my provisions quite frequently and even have the gall to sit on me! Don’t they know what kind of stress I’m under here on this island?! They appear to have made me their chief of some sort, although apparently not the kind of chief that gets waited on hand and foot. Speaking of feet, I wonder if I can bribe one of them to rub my swollen feet.

But there is good news! I spotted a ship on the horizon this afternoon!! Just thinking about leaving this island has me ecstatic. If my calculations are correct, the ship appears to be only a day’s journey away. I’ve got to get busy! I’ve got to make my list of things to do! If only I had the energy!

Ouch, what was that?!

Flashback Week – The Man Hug

[originally posted on May 21, 2007]

This is for the guys.

We’ve all experienced it. If you haven’t, you will. You see an old friend (another guy) one day while on your lunch break. Excited to see each other, you extend your hand for that “Hey, how’ve you been” handshake, but instead your friend opens his arms, clearly indicating he’s about to give you a hug. For a split second, you experience an intense feeling of awkwardness and you catch yourself almost doubting his manliness. But to refuse his hug might make you seem stand-offish and not all friendly. So you return the embrace, and quickly move on to catching up with all the details of your friend’s life. After the meeting, you go your separate ways, but all the while wondering both about your friend and about whether or not your friend is wondering about you. Should you have insisted on the manly, firm handshake? What’s wrong with a hug between friends anyway?

Fear not, fellow men. Worry no more. I am pleased to bring you what is perhaps the most comprehensive guide ever for giving the perfect Man Hug. Watch this video and you will no longer have to wonder about the appropriateness, the timing, or the technicalities of the Man Hug. Live free in this newfound wisdom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUdWApwbudQ

(Sorry, embedding is disabled. But please, click the link.  It’s worth it)

Flashback Week – Things that go *chink* in the night

[originally posted on January 8, 2008]

3:30 a.m.

Sarah wakes me up, shaking me and whispering, “Stephen, someone’s in our house.” Then I hear a faint *chink* sound, like someone knocking against glass.

Immediately, my eyes pop open and I feel the adrenaline start to pump. I grope around the floor for the bat I keep handy. “Never thought I’d have to use this thing,” I remember thinking as my fingers find toys, socks, a book – everything but the needed bat. “I guess I still won’t use it.” All kinds of thoughts race through my head. “What does this person want? Would they be armed? What if they had already been upstairs where the children are sleeping?” In those few fleeting seconds, I realized that I cared nothing about whether or not anything was stolen – only that my family was safe from harm. And I was prepared to tear into anyone who tried to harm them.

I walk toward the door and immediately stumble over yet another toy. By the time I reach the door, I figure that whoever is in our house has had fair warning of their impending doom – or mine. With that and thinking that the element of surprise is clearly still back in bed where I left it, I yank the door open and step into the hall.

Silence. And then, *chink* again. Then I realize what that sound was and who was making it.

I went around the corner to the kitchen and confirmed my suspicions. Jeremiah, my cooking-inclined, somewhat independent-minded two-year old had decided that it was breakfast time. He had found his way to the counter, pulled over his stool, and was happily munching “cookies,” what he calls the M&M’s that we keep in a glass jar. *chink* – the sound of a little hand probing the depths of the jar for more treasure. He calmly looked up at me and simply said, “Eat cookies.” I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not, so I simply picked him up, deposited him back in his bed with a stern warning, and returned to bed.

Needless to say, it took me quite awhile to get back to sleep. But my family was safe, even from the “cookie” monster.

Flashback Week

For next week,  I thought I would reach into my bloggy past and republish a few of my favorite posts.  I chose them solely on subjective criteria – meaning there really isn’t a rhyme or reason why I chose them other than I liked them.  Beginning tomorrow, check back each day during the week for a new “old” post.