When you don't do well, well

**Disclaimer: What I'm about to describe is unusual. 80-90% of my life is lived on the more familiar highway that connects my frequent guilt to God's amazing grace.

This one starts like a success story, but don't worry, it doesn't last long. Welcoming into our home for the weekend a child whose mother has a terminal disease, praying with and for church members who are struggling, opening up our home to bless and pray for missionaries, encouraging others with God's truth. "Yes, this is the Christian life I want to live. It's been a pretty good weekend." Can you see it coming? I don't always do well, well. Subtly (in fact, only looking back can I see the thought process) I think to myself: "Yeah, God's pretty satisfied with me." And He is, but not with my so-called good performance.

I encounter on Tuesday morning this prayer from the Psalmist of Psalm 119 (v.149):

Hear my voice according to your steadfast love;                                                            O LORD, according to your justice give me life.

Have you ever had that experience when, looking at your life compared with someone whose skill, work ethic, or morality exceeds yours and yet that person finds themselves in a dire straits? My friend Brian was a year ahead of me in Seminary. Brian was smarter than me, godlier than me, more gifted than me. Yet he struggled to get a job upon graduating. I remember secretly fretting for weeks: "Wait, if he can't land a job, what will I do?" The psalmist loves and almost certainly does the commands of God like perhaps none other East of Eden and West of Nazareth. He never feels embarrassed talking about God's law (Ps. 119:46); God's commands are like best friends (Ps. 119:24); His most extreme emotions well up inside of Him when others forsake His commands (Ps. 119:53; Ps. 119:136); He organizes his daily schedule around God's commands (Ps. 119:164). 

Yet, such a lover and doer of God's Word feels he must cry out and appeal to God's promised covenant love, for God to hear him. This law-keeper pleads with God to give him life. He is something less than secure with God's saving love - "I hope for your salvation, O LORD" (Ps. 119:166). If the ultimate do-gooder is insecure, what about me? Sure, I've done pretty well recently so I feel a little self-satisfied and a largely self-secure - but it's a mirage. Here's a man who spent His life (not to mention the longest psalm of 176 verses) dedicated to the loving, singing, cherishing and doing God's commandments - he's pleading, crying out, and hoping God will come through with love, life, & salvation. 

So what now? People usually don't read blogs or articles when they've done well.  So in addition to preaching to myself, I might only be speaking to a few of you. If you feel pretty good about your performance and self-satisfied in your deeds, I hope the above has you a bit worried. The Bible suggests three ways to regain genuine peace & move forward with a proper perspective. 

1. Take another look at your deeds (what motivates you). During the time of the prophet Isaiah, religion was flourishing in Israel. Sacrifices, fasting, temple-attendance. Everyone assumed God would never impose on them the curses of covenant such as deportation or death. "We are God's people and we are pretty good (or at least better than our neighbors)." The problem was God knew their hearts. They did good deeds not in response to God's love for them but to either achieve a sense of relief (ie. tick that box, God is off-my-back, I'll now do what I want) or a sense of self-satisfaction (ie. I'm one of the do-gooders and I'll impose my do-gooding on others). The LORD God gives a "word" to Isaiah for these actually quite insecure, soon-to-be-deported people: "We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like polluted garments" (Isaiah 64:6).

Did I just read that correctly - "righteous deeds" are like "polluted garments"? Yes. And those "polluted garments" refers to some very real thing for women that I can't even say on this blog. You also read correctly - Isaiah (the prophet) doesn't exclude himself from God's divine message: "We have all become like one who is unclean..."

Jesus challenges our conception of good with his own measuring stick (see the rich young ruler - "No one is good but God alone" (Mark 10:20). There is a germ of corruption behind every good thing and deed in this fallen world. As the wise J.C. Ryle once said in his 19th century context: "Our best things are stained and tainted with imperfection! They are more or less incomplete, wrong in the motive, or defective in the performance."

When you find yourself self-satisfied and largely self-secure (you can tell when you are looking for a little pat-on-the-back or are looking down on others), it might be a sign that your righteous deeds are polluted, stained, tainted. Perhaps you've done well to satisfy God sufficiently to get Him off your back or to build yourself up when God's free but invisible love doesn't seem to be doing the trick. Run to the cross and confess this to God. He gets out stains! "He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). 

2. Take another look at your salvation  (who changes you). In verse 149, the psalmist cries out for two things - life and a relationship with God. "Life according to justice"; "hear me (relationship!) according to your steadfast love." At the cross of Jesus Christ, love and justice meet to give us life forever and a relationship with God. Jesus lived the perfect life to satisfy on the cross God's just punishment toward sin (Hebrews 7:26; Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 4:10). Jesus got up on that cross because He loves us and would get to be with those of us who trust Him forever (Romans 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:10). The psalmist didn't yet know this Jesus who offered the most airtight and secure salvation by living the very perfect life he knew he couldn't. The psalmist looked forward to the day of the Good Shepherd who chases down lost sheep: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant" (Psalm 119:176; cf. Luke 15:4). For you who do good to justify yourself, Jesus already has!

This Good Shepherd continues to save us also. He changes us. There is a word for the transformation of our minds - metanoia, which is translated in the New Testament as "repentance." Listen to who is behind this change of mind and how you view the world: 

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4).

So now that you're justified before God, it's easy to "presume" your pretty good behavior deserves God's kindness and it's your innate goodness that produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control. But it's God's active kindness at work in your life (GRACE!) that produces good, profitable, and lasting fruit translated as good deeds.

We can do well, well by even now offering honor, praise, and glory to God for even the impulse to want to do good - it comes not from me but from Thee! 

3. Read and listen to challenging words (what moves you). I once heard Sinclair Ferguson, a pastor and theologian I respect, say that in the many of years of his pastoral ministry he counseled two kinds of people: Those overly comforted and those overly discomforted. His job, thus, was simple: Comfort the discomforted and discomfort the comfortable. 

Isn't this what Jesus did depending on the person before him?! Most often I need words of comfort because the Holy Spirit is quick to show me my obvious sin and resulting guilt (cf. John 16:8). But for that other 10-20% of the time, when we are rolling well - I need to hear and read hard truths that grabs and shakes me toward a deeper reliance upon Jesus.

For instance, get yourself in front of the Luke chapter 14, where you will be confronted about storing up riches, counting the cost of following Jesus, and your willingness to forsake anything to follow him. Click on links with thoughtful biblical content like this one (for all Christians) or this one (for those married and/or with kids). Follow the lifestyle of some of the missionaries we support like our friends Terrill and Amber Schrock. Sing not only modern praise music meant to console and comfort, but also hymns meant to instruct and reorient us to truth we may need to hear. Listen to sermons by gentleman like Matt Chandler, who confronts my comfort with a reorientation toward the sufficiency of God's grace, or to devotionals like Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, which provides for me a healthy mix of comfort and discomfort (I use this version, which employs the ESV as opposed to the KJV translation - available for just $10 on kindle).  

We need not fear divine discomfort! One of the most important verses in my life is Hosea 6:1.

Come, let us return to the Lord!                                                                                He has torn us, that He may heal us.                                                                             He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.

This verse aptly summarizes God's activity in a Christian's life as both Lion of Judah and Lamb of God. Lamb to comfort us when we are full of guilt and shame, when our sin and weakness lies exposed, visibly naked before us. Lion when we our self-satisfaction and self-assuredness needs to be torn down - so we might be bound up to once again do well, well. 

Jesus' journals - Finishing the Psalms so we can pray and sing them

"These commands I give to you today are to be upon your hearts" (Deut 6:4). 
"Hear, my son, your father's instructions" (Proverbs 1:8). 
"It seemed good...to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus" (Luke 1:3). 
"To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi" (Philippians 1:1). 

Every book of the Bible is written to an audience like you or me - with the exception of the Psalms. I mentioned Sunday to all the saints in Christ Jesus at the the Harquail Theater, Seven Mile Beach: To have read your sister's diary when you were younger is to better understand the psalms. The psalms weren't addressed primarily to you or me - they were addressed to God. We look over-the-shoulder of an author as he pours out his heart (and ink) to God. It's like peeking into someone's private journals.

What we find when we peek into these journals is nothing short of tumultuous. Every conceivable emotion known to mankind seems find expression through these prayer-songs.  Sometimes these mood swings are from psalm-to-psalm, but often times they occur, inexplicably, mid-psalm. At one moment, the psalmist is basking in God's radiant love, the next: Exasperated from crying out in cold isolation. At one moment celebrating fellowship when brothers dwell in unity, in another asking God to contend with those who contend against me (even visiting violence on their family). 

Yesterday morning, our elders were reading through Psalm 139, where we found expression of God's nearness until, as one elder put it: "the bizarre bit in the middle" (which it seemed we might go ahead & skip over). 

These are cries of those wishing to trust a good God yet do so from a world that is falling apart around them. For psalmists living in B.C., it seems every victory is momentary and every promise of hope a bit hazy.

Momentary & Hazy - that is until one gets to know Jesus. Only in a relationship with Jesus (praying the psalms through Christ as it were) does the unresolved tension between trust in God and a world falling apart find certain victory and a concrete hope. Through Jesus, the psalms are opened wide! Apart from Jesus, the psalms are incomplete, an unfinished journal. When the famous novelist Charles Dickens died in June of 1870, he had been working his final literary work: The Mystery of Erwin Drood. The work was considered to be quite complex - beautiful in prose, a soaring treatment of mankind's complexities, authentic in displaying more of Dickens himself (a man otherwise unknown and rarely autobiographical). He had masterfully created a classic whodunit mystery...without an ending! Since then many have been inspired to take up the pen and finish the tale. It's been adapted into everything from a staple BBC period drama to a Broadway Play. To read the psalms apart from Jesus' finishing work is to agree, as with Dickens' unfinished work, the psalter is beautiful, soaring, authentic and yet cries out to be completed. 

Through his life, death, resurrection & reign, Jesus finalizes every hope in the psalms and finishes every victory. Thus, Jesus finishes these otherwise unfinished journals. Indeed, the psalms can be best understood, prayed and sung as Jesus' journals. Let's take a look as to how Jesus of Nazareth finishes and then restores to us these amazing prayer-songs.

Jesus finishes the psalms through His life.  In the gospel accounts, Jesus quotes from eight different psalms (Psalm 8:2; Ps. 118:22-23; Psalm 110:1; Ps. 118:26; Psalm 22:1; Ps. 82:6; Ps. 41:9; Ps. 35:19) . Based on this alone, one can imagine how often he used the psalms to pray when he was alone with his Father (Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12, Matthew 14:23). Why did Jesus so often pray and quote the psalms? Jesus, fully man, experienced and thus needed to express the full range of human emotions yet, fully God, never sinned in doing so. Consider how astounding that is compared to our expression of emotion, which is typically self-centered. When I weep: It is usually for my loss. Jesus wept for Lazarus, over the tragic effects of sin and death in this world, over Jerusalem. His sadness was utterly other-centered. When I get angry: It is usually because I am being deprived. When Jesus got angry (see temple courts), it is because everyday worshippers people were being subtly deceived by religious priests into temple-worship versus God-worship. So Jesus got angry on behalf of people deprived of genuine worship and on behalf of His Father being deprived of genuine worship. So when a Christian now prays-sings a psalm, he or she does so through a human who also experienced the very same emotion yet offers it to the Father free from the stain of self-centeredness because He prayed it purely while on earth. The Father thus hears our prayers through the sanctifying work of Christ and can both justly and generously respond. 


Jesus finishes the psalms through His death. In his suffering and death, Jesus endured every sinful emotion so the righteous anger expressed in the psalms wouldn't be expressed towards us. I admit that when I try to pray: "Oh God, slay the wicked" (Ps. 139:19) or "I loathe those who rise against you" (Ps. 139:21), I sometimes pray it sheepishly - wait a minute: "I art the man." Some Sundays I've preached on selflessness only to be short with my family the rest of that Sunday, telling myself: "You deserve to rest and be pampered." Wicked! "God, I think I'll do this project, meeting, relationship my way." Rising against You and Your ways! On the one hand, it is right to vent about the injustices we witness in this world trusting our Father to justly make right all the wrongs. On the other hand, I am one of the wrongs! So Jesus endured the mocking, the flogging, the anger, the humiliation, the grief in his suffering and death - saying "Father forgive them" - to demonstrate that he likewise endured both our sinful emotions and the righteous anger of the Father toward them. So recognizing am no longer the object of what would be just anger, I am liberated to authentically and without shame express frustration, impatience, even anger in the right way - to the Father, through the psalms, because of Jesus.

Jesus finishes the psalms through His resurrection. Take a moment to briefly read and maybe even say out (or whisper if in a public space) Psalm 43. 

After you pray the end (verse 5) and then rewind, you recognize the psalmist has previously experienced God as his hope and salvation. Now however history seems to be repeating itself. He's the victim of deceit and injustice (v.1). He feels rejected by God (v.2a). Takes about a 90-degree turn: Wait why am I so sad? Because of another human?! (v.2b). Please deliver me again (v.3). I know this will end with me filled with overflowing joy that results in praise to You (v.4). So in summary: Why am I so sad? (v.5a). God will again save (v.5b).

This resembles how many relate to God. Things are bad, woe is me, I better pray so God will make the bad things go away, I'm happy and back in church. Having hoped in God for a little while, rinse & repeat. 

When Jesus rose from the dead - he vindicated us with finality! Nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39), whether it be the accusations of others, ourselves, or even the threat of death. He is not a temporary refuge from which we and our souls can escape but through simple faith our lives are "hidden with Christ" on high (Colossians 3:3). No matter what we do or anyone else does, He will surely bring us to His Holy hill and to His dwelling - "that where I am there you may also be" (John 14:3). Jesus pioneered the path to heaven through his resurrection that we might follow in his footsteps. So now when we pray the psalms: All the wondering, questions and shifts in mood caused by a hazy hope and changes in circumstances (does this mean God is no longer for me?) are answered with finality through the resurrection of Jesus. The penalty of sin is paid, the power of sin is daily lessening, the presence of sin will one day be eradicated - because Jesus has risen finalizing all the deliverances & joys of the psalms. The risen Jesus is the AMEN at the end of every psalm!

Jesus finishes the psalms through His reign. Many of the psalms celebrate God as king, yet it seems difficult to recognize his kingdom on earth "as it is in heaven." Psalm 24 captures this tension well: "The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof" (v.1). It's his world and yet: "Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?" (v.2). The kingly line of God's people certainly did not demonstrate "the clean hands" or "pure heart" required but for anyone that did there remained: "blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation" (vv.4-5). This psalm concludes with a question repeated in such a way that the psalmist expects God to one day answer it:

Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke notes that the songs in the book of Psalms that celebrate the king are like "royal robes." They are like the robes "with which Israel drapes each successive son of David at his coronation." But none of Israel's kings has shoulders broad enough to wear them. "The Psalter's giant robes hang loosely" until in the fullness of time - King Jesus comes. "Here was a son of David with shoulders broad enough to wear the Psalters magnificent robes."


These who first prayed the Psalms looked forward to the day when the King of glory might walk through the doors of this earth to reveal Himself. He has in Christ Jesus. So every time Christians pray about the majesty, royal rule, kingly authority, we can picture what true majesty, rule, authority looks like. And so as every psalm eventually meanders - twisting and turning - to its finish line, the finish line of the psalms is King Jesus. When we pray from the psalms to further witness and experience his majesty, rule, and authority, we can trust that we will - in-breaking spheres of His rule and reign through salvation, healing, and justice today even as one day we see all these things in full.

Oh may your kingdom come and will be done!

Mailing it in

Urbandictionary.com defines Mailing it in as: slang for doing the least amount of work possible to produce a adequately finished product. 

I want to be honest with those whom I am privileged to serve as their pastor - I mailed it in this past Sunday. 

I continually get to experience the grace of God (His love for me made active through a undeserved gifts) - and last week was no different. I had some wonderful times of fellowship with folks in the church and Katie and I were led one sweet night last week to stop our busy-ness and spend an evening giving thanks and praise to Jesus. But basking in the glow and a spirit of contentment, I mentally/spiritually felt myself begin to mail it in as it pertains to Sunday worship. Joshua 9 contains such a straightforward and practical message about seeking the Lord in prayer when making important commitments - I felt I had a pretty good handle on the passage (pride!) and decided I'd focus on enjoying my kids and the beautiful back half of the week/weekend (the best time of year weather-wise in Cayman has begun - breezy & cool). So while I worked on the sermon, put together an order of worship, and coordinated with other key Sunday Worship co-laborers, I sort of just trusted the Scripture passage and my heart to get in the right place in the nick of time. But upon arrival Sunday morning, I felt distanced from others and everything going on -- this distance continued during and after the service as well. So, first of all, I'm sorry dear brothers and sisters of the Sunrise Family. I did not serve you well. I also don't mind saying: If Sunday's message encouraged, convicted, or produced fruit through you, then it is entirely by the grace of God!! Praise be to Him!

I don't know if you've experienced a similar phenomenon - your heart begins to distance itself ("prone to wander, Lord I feel it" as the great hymn says) from what God has called you to do and how he has called you to work - as an employee, as a husband/wife, as a mom/dad, as a member of a community, as a volunteer. I have too. And I've had better moments, where God helped me to stop mailing it in before it started. 

Here are three strategies I've found helpful for putting a stop to a mail-it-in moment:

(1) Pray for those whom you serve and those with whom you work.

I don't know the nature of your particular line of work or vocational calling. Some of you serve others fairly directly in your work- nurse, teacher, HR, sales, pastor, etc. But for those of you whose work affects other companies with a very slow trickle down effect to real people, even still you recognize your work affects more directly those with whom you work - your example of working hard and working hard so they never feel they have to pick up your slack. 

One of the ways to stop a mail-it-in moment in your work is to care so deeply about persons involved to the point that you would desire and believe your work would provide significant benefit and/or growth in their lives. 

How do you care more about persons you serve or with whom you work? It's not a matter of thinking of other people more. According to a report published by the U.S. National Scientific Foundation, our brains produce somewhere between 12,000-50,000 thoughts per day. Of these thoughts, 10-25% are directly fixed upon other persons. This means that at least 1200 thoughts you have per day are about other people. And yet you don't necessarily walk away from a thought caring about that person more. The thought just passes by. 

The apostle Paul gave us a great example of how to care about such persons more - taking an otherwise passing thought and praying it. For Paul, prayer would lead to love and love would lead to prayer - a cycle of praying passing thoughts about others whose GDP is love. Listen to how Paul's prayer for the people of the church in Philippi lead to love and then love leads to prayer:

[Notice a thought...a 'remembrance' leads to prayer] I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from this day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. [Here comes love!!] It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. [love that now leads to prayer] And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more...(Philippians 1:3-9).

It's easier to persevere in the work your doing when your love increases for those who stand to potentially benefit from the work. 

(2) Make sure you enlist others to be prayerfully invested in your work.

When I pray for something for someone, I am invested. I wish to know what happened. What did God do? How did something I got to be a part of turn out?

You might not believe it, but a simple weekly request of your Community Group or a group of close friends to pray for you will help them become more invested in your work - even if you have, in your opinion, the most boring job in the world (#3: Construction Flag-Traffic Person; #2: Exit Sign Designer; #1: Pillow filler). 

And when you know others are praying, it gives you more confidence that God is at work in your work. He is helping you, using you, and doing things in and around you which you previously never even thought or conceived of.  

In the above passage from Philippians 1, notice Paul had enlisted the Philippians who were "all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel." Paul's life work was a defense and confirmation of the gospel. The Philippians were prayerfully invested. As were the Ephesians, whom Paul also enlisted: "Pray also for me, that words may be given me so that I might fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might declare it fearlessly as I should" (Ephesians 6:18-19). 

I have enlisted a few key individuals, who showed interest in praying that God's Spirit would powerfully use my preaching, the worship, greeter teams, audio-visual volunteers, children's ministry workers to greatly glorify Himself on Sunday Morning. They have now begun to gather about 30 minutes before the service to labor in prayer. I have a higher level of confidence knowing that my persevering in my work will be worth it - it is going to be used by God as it prayed for by friends!!

(3) Work hard and expect second-hand results

Christ's hard, literally excruciating work on the cross for us produces in us a surety about our spiritual status before Him (we are in the Family!!), which in turn produces great contentment and deep joy. Yet He asks us to respond to His work with work of our own. This response, thus, does not include: "Let go and let God." This was my mistake last week - I understood God's work for me but misunderstood what was the proper response. I let go and let God -- and so let my work go. 

The Bible says I ought to work hard on my growth as a Christian (Philippians 2:12), to work hard at the mission God has assigned me (Colossians 1:28-29a), and work hard at my job (1 Corinthians 15:10c). So I should expect to work.

But as I work, something funny sometimes happens: I trust that my hard work ought to produce results. Such that, if those I serve or with whom I work don't immediately respond to my work, I am prone to become insecure some times, depressed at other times, and embittered at still other times. Such that I am tempted to mail-it-in next time around. 

Our Father knows the human heart, however. So He reminds us of something else - there is Someone else working with and through us. So the Apostle Paul completes all the above thoughts about hard work: 

• It's "God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13)
• I struggle to live out the mission God has assigned me "with all his energy that he powerfully works within me" (Colossians 1:29b).
• When working hard at my job, I'm reminded with Paul: "It was not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10d). 

In each case, the Lord is faithful to show up in my hard work - to give me strength to do the work and the grace to produce results that possess a certain authority and finality. I'm reminded of Joshua, who in between inconvenient, mundane obedience (circumcision and observing Passover - Joshua 5) and daunting but thrilling obedience (marching around a city while singing with friends while they waited for the miracle of crumbling walls - Joshua 6), has the pre-incarnate Christ visit him in the form of a Warrior, sword in hand. Help with the very task with which he needed help and results. Jesus present to initiate, then join, then win the fight! Jesus produces second-hand results as Joshua works hard. Jesus is the second (and most important) hand.

A slightly more modern person who exemplifies this tension of hard work and second-hand results is George Mueller. Mueller preached in a local church every week for over six decades in 18th century Bristol, England. But he most is famous for his tireless work with orphans. Through Mueller's work and influence, the care of orphans in England skyrocketed from 3000 to over 100,000 by the end of his life. Mueller famously said about work: "Work with all your might, but trust not the least to your work." 

In other words, don't expect your work will secure for you anything or yield results in-and-of-itself. Unless the grace of God goes with you, does the work, and produces the results, it will be in vain. And Mueller lived out this saying. He never (never!) solicited charitable funds for his orphans. He simply prayed and relied totally on the grace of God - monies would show up, often anonymously, at his doorstep and often just as the last shilling had been spent. He didn't trust His own efforts but for God to work.

You do your part, trust Jesus do His. We are freed to persevere well in our work when we can trust God to take care of giving us the strength to do it and producing the results to win the day! If people don't respond to your work, well, that's His problem. 

A Sunday Follow-up: What to do with my Swagger?

Joan Rivers, here at her 140th birthday party,
is impervious to pain.

I have a pick-up basketball game I play in most Thursday evenings. If playing well, I'll stay for an hour or more; if I'm playing poorly, I'll stay for 30-45 minutes and talk about how much I miss my kids who probably want a father to put them to bed. But seriously, while I am only in my thirties, I am jeered as the old guy at these games (there is one guy who is older, but he's so much older he's impervious to jokes about his age -- much like Joan Rivers). Anywho, my best hoop years are behind me but once in a while I can bring the thunder...or at least mild rain shower. Such was the case this past Thursday. I had a good groove going: steals, cold-blooded jump shots and...I barely had to play defense. A perfect trifecta.


I had an old feeling arise at this moment. It was convinced it wasn't temptation. In fact, it felt pretty pure. It was the desire to stick out my chest, strut my 'stuff', show a little swagger (and not the Old Spice Deodorant & Body Wash that goes by the same name...that stuff smells like rubbing alcohol). After making a jump shot, I felt like thumping my chest (see below) or giving the "ok" sign around my right eye, which says to your opponent:  "I don't know if you realize this, but I just made a 3-pointer right in your eye..." (see below).

 Let me back up for a minute. It was an awesome privilege this past Sunday to preach about God's glorious grace and how He uses it to help both individual persons and churches grows. But for some, as it was for those attending the synagogue in Nazareth listening to Jesus' ignaugural address in Luke 4: 16-30, grace can become a bitter pill to swallow. One of the reasons is that we start to trust in self and own ability to do good and, even while we give God credit still for all the BIG stuff, we hold one to little shreds    of "I did good" (a.k.a. self-righteousness) for ourselves. In doing so, we begin to erect a separate (lower) tier of Christians for those who don't follow rules quite as well as we do.


But even as I preached this and even told myself: "Every single good thing comes from Jesus not from you, Ryan...stay humble...,"  I was haunted by the occasional desire to swagger, to boast as evidenced just a few days earlier in this basketball game. I think if you are of the male gender and reading this you might relate to this desire especially. On Sunday Night, during a really cool worship event I attended, God's Spirit led me to a passage in Galatians and not only did it help me with this boasting issue but with another one as well, which is this:

The God of the Bible does not mean to neuter desires, only re-direct them.

I spoke recently on Easter Sunday about this same concept, but at that time specifically with regard to pleasures. Our problem isn't a failure to deny ourselves of pleasure, it's that our ultimate pleasures are too low, too base when we have God who means for us to re-direct our quest for pleasure to find a far higher and more lasting pleasure in Him. As the David prayed in the Psalter, "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).


But I think we often get stuck believing in a caricature of God who engages in the never-ending quest to neuter all these desires (and sometimes, for those of us who are married, it seems our spouse is trying to do the same thing!).


Let's work through Galatians 6: 13-16. I'll try and let it speak sufficiently.

"For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they 

desire to have circumcised that they may boast in your flesh" (v.13)

 Okay, so first, we see this natural desire to boast, here directed toward self. These false teachers are folks who are not content with salvation and inclusion into a church by faith alone but by faith plus additional rules (in this case, getting circumcised). By adding rules and people to join with them in that mission, they create a two-tier system of community and are able to safely distinguish themselves from that lower tier. They will boast in themselves and continue to gain bragging rights when others come to their senses and join them. All by just adding a simple extra condition or moral rule as a requirement to be a more genuine Christian. Such diminishment of pure grace is why the brilliant G.K. Chesterton once remarked: "If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals."

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, 

by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (v.14).

Like Paul, I was created to boast and the kind of boasting he describes is, indeed, worth thumping one's chest about. First of all, to so boast and "lose oneself" in the cross of Christ that it results in being dead to the world's pullings, schemes, marketing ploys, assumed 'everyone at least does this' indulgences, is an absolutely radically audacious statement. In fact, it reminds me a bit of what 20th cent. French philosopher Albert Camus tried to hint at but could only do so philosophically: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very act of existence becomes an act of rebellion."

Such is how Paul seemed to live because he struts and swaggers and sticks out his chest about the cross -- and it got under people's skin. 

Simultaneously, Paul can sit it is by this cross that he has died to the world -- who cannot possibly any longer perceive Paul as a typical, "unfree" next door neighbor, but as a radically free and audacious messenger of the Christ, who, for some, will be good news.

"For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new 

creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, 

and upon the Israel of God" (vv.15-16).

Okay, here's where things get really interesting. First, we're back to rules. But Paul says there is only one good rule when it comes to salvation & inclusion into God's community -- radically new persons who are changed by faith. Second, and here's where it gets really cool and God shows He's not in our lives to spay & neuter us, we see another desire re-directed. For all the rule-followers out there, the Lord isn't looking to quench or neuter your desire either but rather re-direct it. Become passionate, stick to, be insistent about a rule (but just this one): A criteria of a Christian is a person who changes on the inside because of their faith in Jesus. Rule-followers tend to be passionate and have convictions (your description of yourself if you are one) or stubborn, unyielding, and a pain in the rump (if you have a close friend or family member who is one). Rule-following is a God-exalting desire when one's passions, convictions, stubbornness are re-directed to this one thing: People trusting Christ, which leads to a change on the inside.


Praise be to God, who is so gracious in His dealings with us and so wise in His judgments -- even His decision to keep those desires within us burning strong.

Grace: The Great Equalizer

If you know me, you know I love talking about & (trying) to apply God's grace. A primary passion God has put on my heart is to see disciples of Jesus motivated chiefly by Grace in seeking to become more like him. Anywho, It's often said that death is the "great equalizer" -- bringing people of great & little wealth, great & little social status, great & little anything to a place of equal standing.

I had lunch with a godly gentleman from our church yesterday. He and I were both discussing how when we're low, God's grace reminds us that we matter to Him -- which was ultimately expressed through the cross. Then we also spoke of when we're feeling high/good about ourselves -- perhaps overly good about ourselves. It is then that God patiently reminds us, that all the feel-goods and the successes are a product of His sufficient grace. Grace is the great equalizer in life.

Probably my favorite living pastor (dead pastors are best...because they can no longer do anything to surprisingly disappoint), Tim Keller of Redeemer Pres. Church in NYC, puts this idea very nicely in his book The Reason for God. He uses "gospel" instead of "grace," but you get the picture:

When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards--in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships--I felt confident but not humble. I was likely to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. When I was not living up to standards, I felt humble but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling.

I'm continually thankful for the gospel of grace -- God's great equalizer -- as I often seem to go from swaggering to sniveling and back again at a rate of 60 mph (or, in the Cayman Islands, 40 mph on our only "highway").