We lose a lot of joy because we are unwilling to die to our own ways. The wisdom and desires we so desperately and foolishly hold on to and grip, will not bring the freedom of letting go and falling into the arms of God.

God's wisdom may seem to be foolishness to this world, but the wisdom of this world is a blind foolishness that hasn't ever seen the world, glory, or beauty.

The comfort of the devestating message of sin

If we fail to make sin devastating in order to sooth someones ego, we fail to comfort the soul. For when we flatter and pamper, we give a sense of self-ability and self-worth, an attitude that we can measure up, that we are ok in of ourselves. We start looking to and relying on ourselves. Yes, that is insane, because the fact is we can't measure up. We can never attain self worth, not truly and fully. We know this in the deepest parts of who we are, that we are not totally ok.

The comfort is that sin is devastating and we are helpless and worthless. There is nothing we can do. . . . And we don't have to. .. . .Jesus has done it all. Through the work and worth of Jesus, we gain more for more than self-worth when we come to Him. We gain the love of God.

So let us not be shocked or devastated by the depths of our messed-upness, nor make light of sin, for we have a glorious Gospel that is bigger than the deepest depths of sin. Let that depth be apart of our speech.

Come . . .

Have you ever wanted to be punished when you’ve done something wrong? Let’s say you’ve sinned against God, and then go to prayer and confess, and then there is nothing, your just forgiven. Or you have greatly and significantly hurt a relationship and they respond with your forgiven and that’s it, everything is back to normal. And then we feel awkward and feel like we need to do something. We need to make it right or at least suffer a little. We want to feel like we have paid for our wrongs. We have this sense of justice that nags us. We know justice needs to be met.

In Isaiah 58, God says,

And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,

For He will abundantly pardon.
⁸ “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

God calls us to come as we are, filthy sinners, and to enjoy the richest of fare. We don’t pay for it with our own pecuniary resources of holiness. We cannot make things right or bring justice. We cannot pay for our wrongs. But through Jesus Christ, God calls . . .

Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost.
² “Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And delight yourself in abundance.

Cease striving, know that Jesus Christ is God, and behold the works of the Lord. Justice was met through the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus took on the punishment we deserved. He filled both our need for justice as well as God's justice. He has reconciled us to God. He makes wars to cease. And He calls out to us, "Come all who are weary and burdened, come find the justice you are looking for, come find rest from you labor." He will be exalted and bring a people to Himself among the nations

Psalm 31, is a song describing God's reaction to the sinner. He states that in the midst of our sin, we should, "Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you." Often in our sin, we don't want to come to Him, we are like a stubborn mule. But in His tender love, He cries out, while it is called Today, "Come."

Leadership means you have no rights

In leadership, we lose are rights to ourselves and have a responsibility to become servants. Our duty is to pursue what is best for those we serve. This is how God leads us. God pursues out best. Every leader is under this truth, to serve others under God, who pursues are best. And because of this, leaders cannot pursue our own vision. They have no rights to themselves. Leaders are responsible to die to themselves and to lay our lives down as living sacrifices, and let God’s vision rule in their service to others.

The duty of joy

Not pursuing goodness with all our might do to fear of legalism keeps us from God’s riches just as does finding our worth in pursuing law and perfectionism. Both come from trying to find our worth in ourselves. Both are dangerous because they come from a lack of faith in the worth and work of Jesus.

Proverb - speak the truth

If we avoid speaking the truth in love . . . and with wisdom, we are saying the Gospel is not big enough for that situation.

Because of your hardness of heart

"Because of your hardness of heart"

The root of divorce, the tensions, and our struggles in marriage are our hard hearts. We refuse to surrender to the Word. We are skeptical and don't have faith in God's grand vision of marriage, trusting in our own desires instead. We refuse to surrender to ourselves and demand that our visions and will and view of the world rule.

A marriage brings together two messed up sinners, who need the word of God spoken into their lives. The battle for marriage is a battle to lose oneself and to trust in a God who deeply loves us. As we trust and cast our lives on God, believing the Gospel, and letting it penetrate into who we are, we will begin to be captivated by the image of the portrayal of Christ and the Church. This is the pursuit that makes marriage grand.

As a body, we must be speaking this truth into each others lives. Our sinful natures battle this truth with in us. We are so prone to wonder. But while it is called, Today, let us not forsake encouraging each other, reminding each other that the beauty of the Kingdom is breaking through and is more real than anything in our imagination or skepticism. 

Wisdom and Knowledge

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When Adam fell, he chose to find his wisdom in something other than God, discerning good and evil for himself, cutting off his dependency on every word that comes from the mouth of God. In Jesus, our Word, God has called us to lay down our lives as living sacrifices, that we might have our minds renewed in dependency on our God.

 We must approach life in humbleness, realizing that the sin of man is making their own assumptions. We must not trusting in our ability to discern good and evil or in our own wisdom, but live lives looking to and fearing the One who searches our hearts and souls and allowing the scriptures to come into us as a double edged sword. He alone is our source of discernment, knowledge, and wisdom.

Come those who are heavy laden

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

God doesn't want us to come to Him all sorted, figured out, fixed. He wants us to come to Him broken, heavy laden, tired, and messed up. We come to Him as sinners. Stop laboring in your own ways to fix your self or pursue false rest and joy. Come as you are. And allow Him to give you a yoke that will give the deepest rest for your soul.

It is a comfort knowing I can come to Him with all my heavy ladeness and insanity, because that I am.

Riches

When God says that He will not give His glory to another, this means there is no glory, no goodness we have to offer. There is nothing I have to offer. This is awesome news. I don't get the riches and beauty of myself (which is honestly less then muck), instead in Jesus I am offered the riches of God. Oh! It is grand that I am nothing, that I might gain Christ!

Do not seek greatness, seek a broken heart

We are not meant for great feats, great feats are nothing in the presence of God. We are meant to have surrendered hearts, to have hearts of stone turned into flesh and to be conformed into the image of Christ. If we get this, let God do what He will with this clay, whether high or low among the feats of men.

Creating Dialogue

Here are some tips in having a conversation with someone who disagrees with you

·         Be open minded

o   Be Humble – you always have something to learn

o   Go into the conversation with an expectation to learn something from the other person

§  Regardless of the disagreement, you usually have something to learn, even if it is only how to communicate better.

o   Be willing to be proven wrong

·         Don’t put your assumptions on the other person

o   If you assume or make assumptions about the other person’s views, you will find that you are arguing with a person that only exists in your own imagination, instead of talking to a real person

o   Don’t attribute ideas, thoughts, arguments or consequences to your opponent that they do not hold to.

§  This only creates a rift between you and the other person

o   Don’t take their statements out of context or out of their intended meaning.

o   Don’t assume things about their character, motives, or heart.

·         Listen

o   Work hard to fully understand your opponent’s views, background, and perspectives.

§  Give them a chance to clarify.

§  Take the time to understand their position from their perspective.

o   Ask questions and check with them to see if your understanding of their position is correct.

·         Present the opposing view in its strongest form, don’t build a “straw man” and then knock it down.

o   Work to be able to present the opposing side in a way that they would say that you were representing their view in an honest way and would comment, “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

·         Speak the truth in love

o   Engage the person

§  Get into the other person’s world. Talk with the person, not at the person. Ask you self, “How do I communicate this in a way that the other person can understand it where they are at?”

§  It doesn’t help to prove you are right, if you cannot engage the other person with the truth.

o   Be willing to be proven wrong

§  The purpose of a conversation is not to defend my position but to help each other grow in the truth. Who cares if I am wrong? What value is there in holding onto a lie? What we want is to align ourselves with what is true. Sometimes that will mean that I have to change my position.

A thought on Gay marriage and the State

I am not saying this is right, these thoughts should be tested before excepted, but I thought I would share them (and I would love to hear counters to this):

God defines marriage as between a man and a woman. And there are deep theological truths and beauty of why this is so. The unbreakable truth of this definition comes from the marriage of the Jesus with the Church. It is set in the very fabric of redemptive history. And to tear that fabric is to be in rebellion with God. Homosexual marriage is a sin.

However, I think it is dangerous when the State gets involved in defining marriage. The State, historically, is not going to have the same principles as the Church. I think the definition of marriage is the jurisdiction of the Church. One thought is if I am a single person before I die I might want to pass on an inheritance, just because I am single should not stop me from choosing an inheritor. We are free to adopt and should be free to choose an inheritor as well. Civil unions or something similar could serve this purpose. State (justice of the peace) would be responsible for this. Marriage would be up to the church to define.

I am not saying that it is a bad thing when a State's definition of marriage coincides with God, but I think because our State is secular and corrupt, I don't trust them to define marriage.

Here are some possible harms in the State defining marriage. Since it is no longer the jurisdiction of the church, it could fail to be a religious matter and becomes a secular matter and our religious beliefs could be challenged by the state. The state starts claiming it is discrimination and illegal to not reckognize homosexual marriage. Basically, it could shoot us in the foot.

Another concern is that homosexuals see themselves as the worst sinners. That can't be true, because I am the worst sinner. When confronting a culture, we must do so in a way that presents the Gospel. Yes, homosexuality is a sin and evil and rebellion against God, but so is divorce, greed, and my own sin. And for this Jesus came and died. There is hope for the sinner, there is hope in the struggle against sin. We must not treat them as some ostracized part of society. The problem is not that we take sin to seriously. It is that we don't take it seriously enough and focus on one group. And on the other hand we don't introduce them to Jesus. They need to hear the Gospel from us. I wrote more on this here: link.

I am not going to pretend like I know what the solution is on this. But I do think, we have to thoroughly examine how as a church we should approach this subject in a way that presents sinners to Jesus.

One more thought: The Church should be a prophetic influence on society. It is not necessarily bad if State laws coincide with scripture. The State who understands that it is subservient to the scriptures will be stronger for it. However, in general States are not. And this is where the Church must be have a prophetic influence on society. The prophetic message being the Gospel.

We are ambassadors

When engaging and confronting our culture, we (as fellow sinners) must patiently exhort in manner that introduces people to Jesus. In this, people will be called both to conviction (as men who have rebelled against God) and to the hope of the work and worth of Jesus.

The church is not the place to have our needs met.

The church is not the place to have our needs met. It is the place where we council each other to stop looking to other things to satisfy and remind each other that our needs are only met in the work and worth of Jesus.

Ask our Father

I was thinking this morning, what if I met one of those angels who were a "stranger", I could ask them how to love my neighbor and those in poverty. Then the thought came to me. "I am so foolish, I don't have to wait to ask an angel, I can just ask my Father."

hating sin

It is often not sin that we hate, but the outward effects of sin and how it mucks us up. If we get the Gospel, we have the freedom to utterly hate sin at its very core.

Speaking the truth in frustration

Sometimes we speak the truth out of frustration, instead of speaking the truth in love. Love will speak the truth. Love will rebuke. But it will speak a truth that is in itself relational, because truth is found in a person - Jesus. We are ambassadors proclaiming the beauty and awe of the Word. And calling people from foolish deeds of death to an overwhelming beautiful Kingdom and to a Gospel that will set them free.

the call to messiness

The Christian life is not a call to earthly palaces or grandeur, it is the call to follow Jesus. This often means getting in the "trough" (muck) and "passion" (suffering) of peoples lives. This is the grandeur of the Heavenly Kingdom, it has the power to reach even the worst of places.

Listening to each other

It is wise to understand another's perspective before criticizing it, if for no other reason than to be able to effectively address the other person's questions and convince them that they are wrong.

They may end up proving you wrong as well . . . which is ok, because who wants to stay being wrong.

Foolishness vs. Wisdom

Foolishness is to say that there is no God, to reject His word. Wisdom is to fear the Lord, to tremble at His word.

Calling someone judgemental is simply just immature name-calling

It seems to me that now days accusing that when we accuse someone of being judgmental, it is often equivalent to saying, "hey, I really don't like what you have to say, and I don't want to hear it because I am closed minded and just really don't know what to say in response. I have already judged you to be wrong anyways, and don't feel like being tolerant. So instead of listening and trying to understand where you are coming from, and then coming up with an intelligent response, I am going to cut you off and close my ears to what you have to say, by calling you names."

We should use this accusation with care and not simply just throw it out because we are frustrated or scared or don't like another person's views. We should instead be more open minded, quick to listen, patient, and loving. Not compromising truth, but pursing God's word, and speaking the truth in love. Many people who accuse people of being judgmental these days don't understand what that term means. 

Husbands cherish the counsel of your wives

In general, so as a principle, not as a  rule, I will not counsel a man who has not discussed the issue he is coming to me if he has not discussed it with his wife. I believe that the scriptures teach us that the wife is the chief counselor in that man's life. The scripture also teaches that a husband ought to cherish his wife. I believe that entails looking to her as his chief helper and co-heir in Christ. And I also believe that if a man does not cherish his wife in this way, that he is at risk of having his prayers unheard. It is not my place to usurp the wife's role. Now the scripture does at all times teach us to speak to the word of the Lord to each other. It also teaches us to be fathers and brothers, and may we take these roles all the more. But let us not forget how precious and invaluable our wives are and let us encourage each other to uphold them as our chief help-mate in our pursuit of God's vision.

Only the Richteousness of Christ

Here is an amazing song written by a friend of mine:

ONLY THE RIGHTEOUSNESS
Of CHRIST
A song of Sonship, K. Emborsky, Romans, 2011

1.There is no deed my hands have done  
No human effort that’s enough  
No right living have I attained  
To bring me hope for righteousness  
For when I trust in my will to obey  
Then I have fallen away from grace  
There is no room left in my heart  
For Jesus’ finished work on the cross
 
(chorus)  
There is nothing else  
There is only Jesus
Only the righteousness of Christ
There’s only the blood to justify
To cover my sin before the Divine  
And only the Spirit  
Brings me to surrender  
There is nothing else-only Jesus  
Only the righteousness of Christ

2.So by the Spirit I’ll lay down  
All the resolve I think I’ve found  
All of my zeal to do what’s right  
Will never stand in the presence of Christ  
Only by faith that comes from God  
And by believing in His Son
I will accept the gift He gives  
And let my holiness come from Him

The evil of our own agenda

It does not profit a man to come to the scriptures to prove his own agenda, theology, or way of life. This is evil, and we should never take this approach. No, the scripture is our authority, not the other way around. We must come with the purpose to submit to the scripture. We must fight hard to die to ourselves, to allow the scripture to kill who we are, and then fill us with who Jesus is. The scripture is a double edge sword calling us to lay down our lives as living sacrifices, so that we might come to know the heart and mind of God.

In Worship God brings to us, we bring nothing

In our pursuit of worship are we pursuing a “transcendent” experience where we emotionally feel a certain way or are we coming to worship knowing the power of God to work on us despite our emotions, attitudes, or failures? This “transcendent” experience might be described as “God was on the move tonight at worship” or “I felt His presence, tonight” or just “Wow”. Although experiencing God in a “transcendent”, or emotional way are often a powerful and glorious part of worship, these things are not the goal of worship. When we come into worship, we come to God with nothing. We cannot muster up a worthiness to be in His presence. This is the awesomeness of the Gospel, we come to God only with the work and worth of Jesus. We can come to him with our false motives, doubt, distractions, insecurities, failures, knowing we are accepted and loved. Worship is not something we bring to God, it is coming to God empty handed realizing that He brings everything to us. It is knowing that God is on the move and that He madly loves us, despite our wrecked up feelings, attentions, and motives. When we come to worship, we come to a God who loves us, who says that because of the work and worth of Jesus, we can, now, come boldly before His throne. And that is the key, the sweet surrender of dying to ourselves, our efforts, our struggles and trusting in the extravagant love of God, who delights in us and who enjoys us as we come to worship. So regardless of whether or not I feel a “transcendent” experience in worship, I know that God is powerfully on the move as I worship. My faith is not based on my experiences, but instead on the promises of God, through the scriptures. Oh, How great is the love of God for us.

Here is our daily struggle – the Gospel is hard to believe. We lose hope as our affections ebb and wane, placing our hopes on the love we feel for God. We so easily forget this. Instead, we struggle with how easily we lose our affection for Jesus and how easily we are distracted by the love of this world. It is a daily battle . . . no, it is a moment by moment battle. And in this battle, instead of putting our hope in the Gospel and beholding Jesus, we tend to focus inward struggling to overcome our doubts and wondering love. We forget that in the midst of these loss of affections, there is one who has won the victory, one who has loved God perfectly for us, one who has made us complete, even in our failures. So when we come to worship, we come with all our wondering affections, failures, and doubt and believe in the Gospel.

Here is where we can do some prep work. Believing in the Gospel does not come natural for us. And how it works our way into our hearts is through the declaration of the gospel. God in His wisdom has chosen to use the scriptures, prayer, and the body of Christ to declare the Gospel and to help us grow in believing the Gospel in our lives. We pray, knowing that God will not give us a stone when we ask for bread. In the body of Christ, just as the seraphim cry out to one another about the glories of God, we, too, cry out to each other the glories of the Gospel. And we come to the word of God, knowing that it powerfully works on us by grace, declaring the Gospel to our hearts. And by these means God grants faith. So while it is called, today, let us not fail to speak the wonders of the work and worth of Jesus into each others life.

True worship is growing closer to Jesus, beholding Him. It is not a feeling or and experience (although these things often happen). There is a faith that transcends all feelings or experiences. It is the powerful work of God in our lives through the work and worth of Jesus. We come to worship knowing that despite where we are in pursuing God, He is pursuing us granting us the faith to worship. In worship God brings everything, we bring nothing. God takes our focus off our own works and places our focus on His works, His pursuit, and His love for us. This is an amazing and powerful love. Knowing that He loves us despite of what we bring, transcends all experiences.