River Notes

Here are the examples of God’s grace that I spoke to in scripture. These are just a few of God’s many examples of His grace bestowed upon us. May you find hope in God’s grace.

Grace revealed in scripture: Every step of salvation is accomplished through God’s grace. Jesus making himself poor in order to make human’s rich, that is grace. 2 Cor. 8:9. Our salvation is by grace through faith, not of ourselves, it is the Gift of God. Eph 2:8 . Hinner call to the Gospel, because of His Grace 2 Tim. 1:9. His regeneration of dead sinners, because of His Grace Eph 2:5, titus 3:5. His gift of saving faith, because of His grace Acts 18:27. His redemption of sinners, because of His grace Titus 3:7.  His sanctification of believers, because of His grace 2 Cor 9:8-12, Thes 2:16-17. His preservation of the saints (1 Cor 1:4-8) . His glorification of believers (1 Cor 15:57, 2 Thess. 1:12) . Herbrews 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.

I have been reading a book that discusses the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mathew 22:37). The book is appropriately titled Love Your God With All Your Mind, it is written by J.P. Moreland. I am only about half the way through this book, but I have already found this book to be hard to put down. The author clearly articulates the commandment by God to love him intellectually. That is, we should study scripture and understand the foundations that Christianity is built upon. We should have a firm grasp of apologetics to provide an intellectual defense for our beliefs. But also, we should study the arts, sciences, music, and other areas of academics.

Somewhere along the way we Christians have lost our intellectual compass. We no longer maintain credibility in the area of academia. This seems unfortunate considering it was the church that used to teach the academic elite, such as kings, nobles, college professors, and many others. It was Christians who filtered the world through the lenses of a Christian worldview and laid the foundation for many of our sciences today. Why then are we no longer engaged in these areas, why are not the Church’s teaching in these areas? Moreland gives a simple explanation as to why we have seen such a drastic change in the last 200 years.

“In the middle 1800s, however, things began to change dramatically though the seeds for the change had already been planted in the popularized, rhetorically powerful, and emotionally directed preaching of George Whitefield in the First Great Awakening in the United States from the 1730s to the 1750s. During the middle 1800s, three awakenings broke out in the United States: the Second Great Awakening (1800-1820), the revivals of Charles Finney (1824-1837), and the Layman’s Prayer Festival (1856-1858). Much good came from these movements. But their overall effect was to overemphasize immediate personal conversion to Christ instead of a studied period of reflection and conviction; emotional, simple, popular, preaching instead of intellectually careful and doctrinally precise sermons; and personal feelings and relationships to Christ instead of a deep grasp of the nature of Christian teachings and ideas. Sadly as historian George Marsden notes, “anti-intellectualism was a feature of American revivalism.

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with the emphasis of these movements on personal conversion. What was a problem, however was the intellectually shallow, theologically illiterate form of Christianity that came to be part of the populist Christian religion that emerged. One tragic result of this was what happened in the so-called Burned Over District in the state of New York. Thousands of people were “converted” to Christ by revivalist preaching, but they had no real intellectual grasp of Christian, teaching. As a result, two of the three major American cults began in the Burned Over District among the unstable, untaught “converts”. Mormonism (1830) and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (1884).”

As you can see from Moreland’s example, to not posses a firm grasp of the teachings of Jesus Christ is to leave one exposed and with the potential to fall away from the faith. We can already see this with the mass exodus of ill equipped college students leaving the faith. We should be warned of these examples to motivate and encourage us to study scripture and all areas of academia. We can be encouraged to know the likes of Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler came before us. These men, heralded as founders in their respective field, began with the premise that God had created the world in an intelligent manner. This premise led them to believe that it could then be studied in an intelligent manner.

I hope that someday many Christians would reclaim the area of academia we once honored God in and with. It is after all His creation, who best then to understand it than a child of His. So go and love the Lord with all your mind!

I have not wrote here on this blog for a little while. I have been struggling with trying to find something to write other than what’s been on my heart. The reason being, I am about to write something that will upset some of you. I want to say upsetting you is not my desire. My desire is to point you to the cross and remind you of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. The reason I so desire to point you the cross is because I firmly believe that there is nothing more beautiful in this world then Jesus Christ. There in lies my dilemma. I am not sure the “American Church” believes this, that is, the beauty of the Gospel.
You see I firmly believe that the Gospel is perfectly written, it has no need for us to add anything to it, but we Americans feel like we have to. So we share the Gospel through an existential approach, that is we emphasis our experience, or what we call in Christian circles our testimony. Do we not believe that the Gospel testifies for itself? If God has something to do with the Bible being written can’t we just share that with people and allow the Holy Spirit to work as it would. For the pundits, I understand the need for a personal testimony, what I am saying is most American Christians do not realize how cultured evangelism has become.
So hear is why I have been waking up early and staying up late, I do not believe that we “Christians” firmly believe in the beauty of Jesus Christ. Here is my reasoning. First, we try to sell people on the Gospel. You can’t say that we don’t because our actions dictate otherwise.  We use the same approach that businesses use. We market our Church. We advertise right next to all the other organizations that only want money. That may not be what we want to tell people, but it is. Then, when people do show up to church we tell them how good God is through an existential testimony.
Now, here is the side effect of us the church using corporate evangelism as a tool, it takes the personal responsibility of believers to live like Christ and completely demolishes it. Then, we as church leaders, wonder why our members are not evangelistic. Well the answer is because we have trained them not be. In fact, we told them not to worry about it because we will take care of it by using a business approach to market our organization.
So here is what I want to scream, “stop trying to sell Jesus, and start living like Jesus.” Here is why: disciples of Jesus Christ are attractive and Jesus Christ is even more attractive. Authentic Christ followers will attract the world hungry for redemption. We do not need to advertise love.  How can you advertise love if it is shared relationally? So I am challenging all leaders in our church’s to ask themselves if they truly believe that Jesus Christ is attractive. If you do believe, then start acting like it. Stop adding to the Gospel and START LIVING IT OUT!

So, here is what I am proposing–that we as church leaders create disciples that will facilitate the spreading of the Gospel naturally through love. That is how families grow, through relationship founded on love. That is what the Church of Jesus Christ is, a family, right? Then we should grow through the perfect bond of unity, love.

I came across a good article I thought I would forward to you all. You can view the article here ( http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100219/did-he-get-married-too-young/index.html).  The topic being discussed in this article is marriage, specifically people marrying in there early to mid 20’s. What is intriguing about these marriages, statistically speaking, is the decreased chance for divorce. Somehow, starting life together at a young age tends to be beneficial to the marriage union. Marrying young seems to provide benefits of growing together before the indwelling of some behavioral patterns. As compared to the norms of marrying late in one’s 20’s, where one’s autonomous lifestyle has allowed for a consistent self-centered style of living.

I am blessed to work with the student ministries here at 3Rivers. Quite frequently I find these kids struggling to handle a romantic relationship, or the whole dating scene. It seems like once things get tough, it “splittsville”, both romantic partners hit the road and continue their quest for a perfect mate.  Some of these kids go through dating relationships quicker than they change outfits. I admit that is a bit of a hyperbole, but the reality of how quickly some of these teenagers and adults enter and exit relationships is alarming.

The crux of one of my arguments is that consistent behavior will bring about consistent results, kind of like “practice makes perfect”, but without the perfect. Instead, it would be more like practice can bring about consistency. This behavior of entering and exiting relationships is the behavioral patterns I am talking about. What some may see as a way to find the person they are going to spend the rest of their life with, is actually the most damaging thing they can do for their future mate. It is of my opinion that having several dating relationships before marriage will create a behavioral pattern that will be hard to break once married. If one is used to being with someone new every two months, what will happen when they are married for a few months? Consistent behaviors become habits; and habits are hard to break.

Anyone who has ever dealt with the pain of divorce or the ending of a long-term relationship understands the extreme anguish this kind of division brings. This anguish is what I am trying to get people to avoid. I believe with an intentional approach to dating, one will greatly decrease their chance to ever feel the anguish of a failed romantic relationship. I do not see how one can continually develop a pattern of behavior and then suddenly one day have that behavior end. This behavior of having many dating partners can be dangerous and directly affects one’s future marriage and relationships. This is why I believe these kids, and some adults, are creating a pattern for divorce. I have come to believe that immature dating, where people enter into relationships with out purpose and intent, sets marriages up for failure. I find myself constantly counseling people to be wise about when and how they enter into relationships. I encourage people to be picky, don’t settle and don’t rush into things.  

I have come to view dating with some disgust, so I admit my view of dating makes me less objective then others on this topic. But my disgust stems from the frequent pain I have seen it cause people I care about.  This is why I believe that one could almost write this equation, dating = divorce (dating equals divorce).  I have become so tainted in how I view the realm of dating that I see it drastically increasing our divorce rate. I have yet to see a study on the number of dating partners correlation with divorce. But I would be willing to bet that as one increases their dating partners they increase their chance for divorce.

A few weeks ago I taught about sanctification through giving. The premise of this lesson was that giving is consistent with the character of God. Please understand, I did not discuss monetary giving.  Financial giving was not my point, rather the giving of ourselves in relationships and life.  For further details of this topic, I would like to point you to our podcast, where the sermon is titled “Sanctification Through Giving.” I bring this topic up because I believe a book I have been reading recently will add to that message. The title of the book is, When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Ourselves, written by Steve Corbett and John Perkins.

As a student of God’s word, I believe it should be a priority to properly interpret  scripture.  To do this, we should try to understand the original intent of the author. To say it another way, it should be our goal to try and figure out what the author is trying to say.  I have found that the best way to understand the original intent of the author is to study the culture in which the author was writing. This will give us an understanding of what everyday life was like during Bible times and help to facilitate a proper interpretation of the scriptures.

How does original intent and a book about giving correlate to my message? To fully answer this question you will have to read the book yourself; but, I can assure you that you will not view giving the same ever again. The two correlate because they force you to think outside of your cultural norms. This book will make you aware of how culturally you give, that is, how materialistically you give. As someone who has led clothing drives and food drives, the message of this book was a tough one to swallow. Especially when I was confronted with the reality that I may have done more harm than good. This book informs the reader as to why they give the way they do. It reminds us to step out of our cultural influences and give the way Christ did.

I would encourage everyone to read this book, especially those who deal with benevolent giving. I can only pray that the church would give with such understanding as these authors have so clearly articulated.

I have upon many occasions been to the funeral of someone I did not personally know. In pretty much each case after listening to the friends and family talk about the departed and hearing the stories of their life I find myself thinking what an interesting person I didn’t know. Now there are any number of lessons you can learn from a funeral, I’m only going to focus on one today, interesting people.

I’m not going to tell you that every person you meet is going to be likable, or become a dear friend. I will however tell you that until you polish some stones, you aren’t going to know which ones will be the gems in your life. Everybody has a story, everybody has been shaped by their past. Think about the people that are close to you currently, how many of them made an instant first impression on you that they were an interesting person worth knowing? We all know some of these people that are able to broadcast their personality and draw people in. We all also know some people that on first impressions are the quiet ones, the ones that aren’t the conversation starters, the ones we just caught on a bad day when their mind was elsewhere.

Now certainly there is a bit of work, and maybe a bit of an art to getting to know people. There are plenty of resources on the topic, probably the most well known of which are the writings of Dale Carnegie. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking. The first one is just to listen, and I don’t mean just stop talking when someone else is talking, I mean actively process what people say to you. People really do say a lot about themselves if you just listen. Second, ask a deeper question. We all know the basic idle conversation drill, “What do you think of the weather?”, “What line of work are you in?”, “Where are you from?”.  These are all fine conversation starters, but if you just string them all together they really don’t go anywhere. Something as simple as asking what it’s like to do what they do, or what is it about the summer days that they like will get you a little farther. Lastly, as with so much in life, attitude is everything. If you go into meeting someone thinking that they could turn out to be an interesting person you’ll find you view them and the situation differently. If you go in thinking here’s another boring conversation to get through, you’ll probably find what you expect to find.

There is a side effect to all this. If you learn to find other people interesting, you might find your own life will become more interesting. When you find yourself somewhere with new people, it becomes opportunity instead of chore. You might find your time spent learning about people passes more quickly and is more fulfilling that waiting to get back to the safety of the world you already know.

So how many people do you know and don’t find interesting? How many of those people might it simply be that you haven’t heard the stories of their life? How many of them might it be that you just haven’t spent the time to get to know them? How many of those people would you find out were interesting people at their funeral, when you could no longer find out for yourself?

I mentioned this video during our service today. Although this video is graphic and heartbreaking I still believe it is beneficial for all Christians to understand the condition of the church in Haiti. I hope that you would pray about where God would have you serve the church in Haiti.

It is good to be back with you guys after a little break. I see Crash made some interesting comments on being sincere. I have to admit this made me think, Biblical sincerity in its genuine form leads one to an authentic reflection of Jesus Christ . 

When I first become a Christian I had this forced belief that I had to verbally evangelize everybody I knew.  Fortunately, I had someone penetrate my heart’s desire through a very loving and pointed question. A question that hurt when I answered it honestly. This person asked me, “If someone I had a relationship with was never going to become a follower of Jesus Christ , would I still treat them the same?” The answer was no. No, I would not treat that person the same. In fact, I might have viewed my time with them as being wasted. This false persona of concern obviously is not a sincere reflection of Jesus Christ . I think this is why we are told “…to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Peter 3:15)

The “hope that lies within” is a huge statement. In fact, I am going to argue that this is one of the most evangelistic statements in the Bible. You see, if someone notices the hope within you, then they have already noticed a legitimacy about you. This makes the verbal message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ secondary to your having already lived out an authentic reflection of Jesus Christ . All your verbal message is doing then is supporting and further communicating your living message. I am not saying a perfect reflection here, but a genuine reflection. What kind of statement does it say about a person who is approached and asked to give a reason about how they behave?

When was the last time someone approached you about your faith after noticing it through your actions? You see, the difficulty in this type of lifestyle is that it is consistent. It is day in and day out, living like, and living for Jesus Christ .  If people are going to ask you about the hope that lies within you, then they are first going to have to see it. And they will mainly see it through your sincere concern for there well being.

Imagine for a minute, you are following Christ the way you so desire, your actions and hearts desire are consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ . So let me ask you the question, how could people not notice? I encourage you to live an authentic life that might reflect who Jesus Christ is so others might notice the hope within you.

Have you ever passed someone you knew in a hallway and you head them say ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ but before they have even gotten to the end of their sentence they are down the hall. Even if you wanted to give them an answer, they were out of earshot before you had the chance. Has someone you were dealing with ever closed the conversation by wishing you a good day, but they were already looking to the next person in their line? Did you really feel like they cared how the rest of your day was? Or maybe you’ve been on the other side, have you ever asked anyone how they were, and were dismayed when they actually told you?

It’s one of my pet peeves, something I call casual insincerity. It is the little things we do and say that we really not only don’t mean, but don’t even realize we don’t mean them anymore. When you ask someone why they used a certain phrase, they will often say it was just the way they were saying hello. In other words, “I didn’t mean it I was just being polite. ”

Have you ever tried to genuinely thank someone for something, or find out how they were doing, but you found it hard to make them understand you really meant it, that it wasn’t just spoken as a reflex? It can take a lot of effort to let someone know you are speaking in earnest, because we have so watered down the meaning of words in our culture.

In the bible, when Jesus says “Let your yes be your yes, and your no be your no” he is speaking of oaths, but I don’t think it is a stretch to apply that to our conversation in general. Letting people come to know you as someone who is sincere in their speech will help people be comfortable with you. It will help them to develop trust, it will help you to create a deeper more meaningful connection. That doesn’t mean everything you say has to be a deep probing question, it’s okay to just say hello when that’s what you mean to say.

Consider trying this, the next time you ask someone how they are, stop moving, turn your body towards them, look them in the eye, put your hand on their shoulder if you know them well enough, and with a careful deliberateness ask them ‘How are you doing today?’, see what a difference it makes.

Below is a recent add campaign by Dockers, you can check it out on their website, http://www.us.dockers.com/season/landing.aspx.  I think I am going to vote that this would be the theme to our annual mens retreat. After that I am going to go buy a pair of Dockers.

Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the line, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It’s time to get your hands dirty. It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to wear the pants.