The Real vs. The Imitation

It shouldn't, but it always surprises me when I taste something real after I have had the imitation for a while.

I won't lie. I have gone to McDonald's and had their coffee drinks. They aren't bad. The cold ones are sort of like a milk shake... a milk shake with coffee-flavor added. I've had a few of these, but then:

A few minutes ago I ordered a small vanilla latte from Mad Goat Coffee. The picture I have posted here is after I have had my first sip. It is sublime. (Is that a good word to describe it? I am not sure.) It is blissful. It is tasty. It is coffee... not coffee-flavor added. It is the real stuff.

I am almost done sipping through it already. I am tempted to take another picture, just simply because it is almost gone... oh... I might as well... hang on...

There it is. Mostly finished... OH, and you can see my partially finished post while you are at it.

The enjoyment of this coffee left me thinking about the clear difference between the real and the imitation. As I mentioned, I don't mind that McCoffee stuff, but there is a clear difference when you taste the real thing. I know there have been times that I have grabbed one of those fast food blended drinks and thought, "This isn't that bad." But now I am sitting here wondering how I ever thought that there was a true comparison.

I don't want to make a stretch of illustration here, but this is true of churches as well. There are some great churches out there: The music team is amazing. The preaching is inspiring. The fellowship is uplifting... and so on.  But then you walk into something real, and you suddenly think, "How did I think the other thing was the real thing?"

It the book, Love into Light, the author is talking about how churches could benefit from having people who struggle with same sex attraction as a part of the community.  He goes on to say:

I fear that many Christians view their brothers and sisters who battle with SSA (Same Sex Attraction) as a threat to the community. Therefore, many SSA strugglers are phobic about homophobia. They agonize alone, for fear of rejection. However, the community needs their transparency - and they need the community. God surprises us with unexpected insights when the unspeakable is spoken. Our serene picture of community is shattered; the reality is more earthy, disappointing, and fruitful.

I love that: "... the reality is more earthy, disappointing, and fruitful." Almost sounds like a cup of coffee, doesn't it?

I hope that Edgewood Church has the great privelege of joining in community with those who struggle with SSA. I pray that God guides them to Edgewood. What can I say, I like the real stuff better.

Preach the Lion and the Lamb

As with most of the book, Chapter 7 of Love into Light by Peter Hubbard, opens with a focus and attention on Jesus:

My favorite Jonathan Edwards sermon is "The Excellency of Christ." Edwards homes in on two words in Revelation 5:5-6, where Jesus Christ is called "Lion" and "Lamb." These two animals differ greatly from one another. One "excels in strength, and in majesty of his appearance and voice." The other "excels in meekness and patience ... suitable to be offered to God." One is a hunter; the other is hunted. This unity of disparity leads Edwards to his thesis, "There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ." Characteristics that usually don't appear together merge in attractive symmetry: infinite exaltation and limitless condescension, highest glory and lowest humility, supreme sovereignty and perfect obedience. He is light and He is love. He is victor and victim in one. He is the just Judge and the merciful Savior. He confronted sin, overthrew tables, and walked out of His own tomb, yet He was born in a barn, ate with sinners and died as a criminal. This vision of Jesus is gargantuan and captivating, yet it is often concealed by the church. 

I love this big view of Jesus. To use his word, it is "captivating" my own preaching. Even though I still have applications in my messages, I am finding myself focusing more and more on the great worth and supreme  majesty of Jesus. But Peter Hubbard is saying that this view of Jesus "is often concealed by the church." Do you agree? In what way does he mean this? He goes on to say:

The body of Christ generally prefers a more manageable, monochromatic vision of Jesus. Our religious sensibilities seem to prefer either the Jesus who can "tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them," or else the Jesus who desires to care for rebels "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." We want only one or the other, not both together.  

Whenever Jesus' followers exclusively reflect Lion-ness or Lamb-ness, the "admirable conjunction" dissolves into ugliness. 

It is so extremely important to maintain this focus on the true Jesus. Not a Jesus that we decide on, but the Jesus of the scriptures.

Upward I Look And See Him There

Before the throne of God above 

I have a strong, a perfect plea. 

A great high Priest whose Name is Love 

Who ever lives and pleads for me. 

My name is graven on His hands, 

My name is written on His heart. 

I know that while in heaven He stands 

No tongue can bid me thence depart. 

When Satan tempts me to despair 

And tells me of the guilt within, 

Upward I look and see Him there 

Who made an end to all my sin. 

Because the sinless Savior died 

My sinful soul is counted free. 

For God the just is satisfied 

To look on Him and pardon me...

(As quoted in Love Into Light: The Gospel, the Homosexual and the Church by Peter Hubbard) Song by Charitee Lees Bancroft and Vikki Cook, (c)1997 Sovereign Grace Worship (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing).

But In Jesus We Are Renamed

I am currently preparing for a Wednesday Night Bible Study with my people at Edgewood, using the book Love Into Light by Peter Hubbard. (My review is here.) I have thoroughly enjoyed this book the second time through. I am only in Chapter 5, but I am remembering so many things I loved about this book.

Chapter 5 deals with labels... our names... how we are identified. After going through some fascinating discussion on the Biblical history of names and naming things, from Adam being named by God and Eve being named by Adam, to the anonymous mass attempting to make a name for themselves at Babel and God choosing an unknown man named Abram and renaming him Abraham... He states an issue involved this way: "...who we think we are tends to reinterpret what we hear." He follows this statement with this paragraph:

"In our culture, formal names do not carry the same significance as in the Bible. However, we know what it means to be named. The 'wimp,' the 'fat kid,' and 'the loser' all feel the shame of living with an undesirable identity. The kids who are labeled 'gifted' and 'brain' feel the waves of approval and pressure that can shape how they view themselves and perform. As adults, these labels do not typically disappear. They become more subtle and convoluted. Our hearts long to 'make a name' for ourselves. We gather fragments of desire, reputation, and accomplishments and glue then together into an identity: 'rebel,' 'jock,' 'supermom,' 'entrepreneur,' 'life of the party,' 'chick magnet,' 'gay guy,' etc. Most of us feel a mixture of fatalism, assent, and chagrin about our not-always-chosen but fully operative identities.  

But in Jesus, we are renamed.

He leaves that last sentence as a paragraph in itself. He goes from there to explain how we are renamed in Jesus. It is fascinating. It is remarkable. And it draws me to worship.

Occupational Hazards of Pastoring a Church

Enjoying some Mad Goat Coffee at the moment... Sharing quotes from my current study...

One of the occupational hazards of pastoring a church is the necessity of delivering bad news. If you love your people, you desire to encourage them and tell them news they want to hear. But since you don’t get to decide how God feels about things, your words are not always your own.
~Peter Hubbard (Love into Light)

So very true.

Moral Determination = FAIL

I am preparing for our Wednesday night Bible Study. We are currently ready for chapter 3 in the book, Love Into Light by Peter Hubbard. As I am reading through this chapter on "Change" I am once again finding so many connections between the topic of the book and our everyday Christian Struggles. More specifically the unbiblical/wrong methods of change are so familiar to me as the typical way that many in the church have attempted and hoped for change. The one I am noticing now is "Moral Determination." Read this quote and tell me if it rings true to Scripture:

Determination alone cannot lead us to God -- only to gods, individually constructed deities that are manageable and obtainable. If in myself I am determined that I will be able to please God, I am confessing worship to a false god -- either I am turning my aspirations themselves into gods, or I am creating a false version of the true God, a god whom I think will be pleased by my resolutions and performance. The God of the Bible is far different from these false gods: He is higher and holier than all my resolve could possibly obtain. ‘For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’ The determined have their own plan. God dwells with the broken and humble, the powerless and planless.

Oh, how often I have attempted to change based on my own moral determination to do so. And oh how often it has failed.

Love Into Light - Book Review

Easily one of the top books I have read in 2013, Love Into Light: The Gospel, the Homosexual and the Church by Peter Hubbard addresses a topic that is both highly relevant in our society and yet inadequately (and often inappropriately) taught in our churches.  If you are seeking guidance on how a Biblically grounded, Gospel oriented Christian ought to understand and interact with homosexuality, then this is the book for you.

Near the beginning of the book, Peter Hubbard addresses what I feel can be one of the most challenging problems with how the church has interacted with this topic.  He puts it this way:

I have spoken to scores of men and women who have spent years worshipping in church while battling alone with SSA (Same Sex Attraction). They were terrified to tell anyone, and convinced that if other Christians knew their secret, they would be tagged and discarded. Imagine the trauma of believing that your struggle is unlike any other sin. The preacher makes applications in his sermons to lying, stealing, or marital selfishness. And periodically a man may testify to struggling with heterosexual lust. Or a woman may ask  for prayer regarding anxiety. But these sins seem normal, understandable. And there is hope and help for change. But homosexuality seems different. When it is mentioned in church, it's usually associated with abomination, activism, or antagonism.  Often the pronouns change from "we" to "them." Some sins allow you to be a "we," but other sins require you to be a "them." The "yuck" factor crosses the line of acceptability.

How true that next to last sentence has been.  How often I have heard, and maybe have even maintained myself a "them" mentality regarding homosexuals.

Right after the above statement, he states three goals in this book.  The third of those three goals is:

...that the church, all believers, would shift from reacting to media and political stories, to proactively engaging our homosexual neighbors with the same love and the same truth that Jesus is offering to us.

Even though I thought that the entire book was excellent: again and again dealing with this emotionally charged topic with both grace and truth, I found that the final chapter, addressing outreach, was what truly brought everything together.  Of course to understand that final chapter, I needed to go through the rest of the book, which brought a better understanding to the topic, so that we can go into an outreach mindset with compassion and understanding. Consider this quote near the end:

Paul did not command Titus to preach against "those homosexuals." He commanded Titus to "teach what accords with sound doctrine."  ... According to the letter to Titus, gospel advancement is not to be pursued through hurling insults or lobbing cliches over picket lines. These methods attempt to catapult sound bites over deep trenches rather than living and speaking the story of Jesus before friends and neighbors. Some of us may feel uncomfortable with the New Testament's  method of evangelism. [emphasis mine]

I obviously left some of that quote out.  What does he mean by "teach what accords to sound doctrine"?  What does this look like?  How would one accomplish this?  I've left much out because it would take a book to do this topic justice... So, you should just buy the book!  That final sentence is such a reality for many of us.  We say we want to do evangelism God's way, but when it comes down to it, we can start to get a little uncomfortable and there are too many Christians that eventually default back to that "us" vs. "them" mentality.

I hope that God saves us from this, and more specifically I hope that Edgewood (the church where I pastor) would be a be a place where those struggling with SSA in Danville would come for the truth of the Gospel and the grace of Jesus Christ.