On Sunday my wife protested my song choice for this series. It had something to do with picking “songs so obscure only I could love them.” So I promised her one Sunday of a song by a band most of us would know. And that Sunday, was last Sunday. And that band was U2. We listened to and jumped, taught through the song “Grace”.
The song “Grace” has some beautiful lyrics. And what is wonderful is they give a starting point to hear some familiar words with fresh ears. 1 Corinthians 13 is commonly known as the love chapter. It is read at weddings, and is now so overly familiar that it’s lost some of its “oompf”. So to regain some of that we read 1 Corinthians 13, along with Bono’s lyrics to make some new connections.
Bono sings that “Grace has the time to talk”. And I love that line because not only is it true, it’s also incredibly pertinent and practical. Paul says that love is patient, but for many of us we are so busy we don’t even have time to talk. Time to listen. Time to show love through our giving of ourselves.
Paul continues saying that love is anything but rude, proud, or self-centered. Love, in essence, isn’t aggressive, showy, and loud. Or as Bono talks about love and grace “when she goes to work / you can hear her strings”. Love sounds like strings of invitation, movement, and gentle melody. Pride though as Paul says, sounds like a clanging cymbal.
Paul writes that love doesn’t keep records of wrongs. This is something I wish we would not only know, but practice. But sometimes we’ve heard it so often we forget it too quickly. Bono gets at the same things singing, “Grace moves outside of karma”. Grace and love aren’t record keepers, but forgiveness givers. And lastly, we looked at how love lasts and never gives up. Or as Bono puts it, “it’s a thought that changed the world.”
We tried to use the song to get a fresh glimpse into Paul and our main point: grace and love change the world and change lives. They have changed lives and will keep changing lives if we put it into practice.
So to discern how to put love into practice we ended by reading 1 Corinthians 13 with our name in place of the word love. Because Paul is really giving us a challenge for how to live, not just teaching on the abstracts of love. Paul is teaching us how we are to live. So as we read the passage we asked God to make it true in our lives, and direct us in anywhere we need to start acting differently.
[ ] is patient and kind. [ ]is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. [ ]does not demand its own way. [ ] is not irritable, and keeps no record of being wronged. [ ] does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. [ ] never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
(Read the passage slowly multiple times, and put your name in the blank, and let God speak to you through it)
Sermon Notes:
Big Idea: Grace and love change the world and change lives
Teaching Points:
All truth is God’s truth.
Grace has the time to talk – Bono
When she goes to work / You can hear her strings – Bono
Love is the opposite of self-centeredness
She travels outside of karma – Bono
Grace and love change the world and change lives
Scripture interprets Scripture
Adult Discussion Questions:
What stuck out to you from the sermon? What was challenging to you? How did God speak to you through it? What was new? What is your favorite U2 song? When you read the passage from God’s perspective what jumped out? When you read it with your name in blanks, how did God speak to you? What jumped out?
Discussion Questions for Young Families
Today talk to your kids about their favorite song. Ask them why they love it, and what they learn from it.
On Sunday we are moving past my love of indie-rock bands that as my wife would say, “no one knows or loves but you”. To a mainstream giant band. We are going to be looking and listening to a song called “Grace” by this band you may have heard of…U2.
But before we get there, and you all send me the U2 song you wish I was using, I want to share with you one line from that song.
Bono sings this, “Grace makes beauty out of ugly things”
And I just think that’s both so true and also beautiful. That is what grace does. And come Sunday we are going to be talking about grace, how to show grace, and how to live grace. But before we get there I think it’s important to reflect on the power of grace.
So if you can – take a moment and think about this – what ugly thing in your life has grace made beautiful? Because before I can convince you to share grace, we need to become convinced of the power of grace.
A few Sundays ago we changed up our schedule. I strongly believe that God’s Holy Spirit can prepare and prompt you well ahead of time. By that I mean that planning and preparation are pretty important to me, and I believe God uses those.
But I also believe in listening to the Spirit in the moment as well.
So I have this little rule – plan for everything you can – and listen and change as you God’s Spirit leads in the moment.
So that’s what we ended up doing a few weeks ago. I had a great sermon planned, but in light of some significant health challenges our church was facing it didn’t feel it was the right one. Instead, the church leadership felt we should share on why difficulty happens and why it’s happening right now in our church.
So here is the audio of what I shared. I don’t have teaching notes like normal, or blog posts pre-prepped but I think that’s okay. Because when God’s spirit is moving, the only option you have is to follow it. Hope the audio is helpful.
I want to quote something from Robert Farrar Capon, a brilliant writer. He writes this:
Jesus didn’t shy away from sinners, so why should the church? And don’t tell me the church welcomes sinners. I know better. It welcomes only sinners who repent and then never seriously need forgiveness again.
And unfortunately I think that may be true. And you might even be able to confirm that, to share stories of how the church let you down, or let someone you know down.
But today I don’t want to use this quote to jump all over the church, and its failings. Because I think that misses the point. It’s so easy to read that quote and say, “yeah the church is screwed up.” To get all high and mighty and condemn those people in the church who don’t get grace, and forgiveness.
But here is the truth: the church is people. And if you follow Jesus you are part of that people, for better or worse.
And this quote loses its convicting and compelling power if it becomes about “other people”. If we are part of the church, we should use this quote to examine our own lives. We should stop, and reflect and ask the Holy Spirit, “Is there anything I need to change in my life”.
Because what I think the Holy Spirit is asking me through this quote is to really examine my life.
Do I truly welcome people where they are at, no agenda, with love?
Am I truly okay with broken people, or do I expect them to get “fixed”?
Am I in anyway being an obstacle to the Holy Spirit working in my community because I’m not really ready to welcome sinners?
Because this quote isn’t about “other people rejecting sinners”. This quote is about each of us asking ourselves, “am I living like Jesus with welcome and hospitality?” And that’s a lot harder question, a lot more personal question, and a much more worthwhile one.
I’m totally biased, but I think my kids are great. Like I mean so are yours, but well mine are…well let’s just leave that there J
But even my totally amazing kids, occasionally drive me nuts, and do really wrong and dumb things.
The other day I was wrestling with our closest friend’s son, and all of sudden my oldest Hudson wants to “rescue” him. So while I’m not looking on the floor, he gets a running start and kicks me as hard as he can in my side. A perfect kidney shot.
Now I must say that my soccer coaching skills for how to kick have really payed off because that one little kick from a 5 year old hurt, like hold back tears, don’t say anything, take time to recover hurt.
Here’s the thing though – when he knew he hurt me, like really hurt me, he knew he did something wrong, he knew he did something bad. But I turned after regaining some strength and wanted to make sure he knew how wrong it was. I said, “You don’t ever do that again”. And my wife, Krista came and then took Hudson to bed.
I came in a little while later, after I was feeling better and I walked into the room and I had a choice.
I could remind Hudson of how deeply he failed me, and how we don’t kick friends – or anyone for that matter. I could have sat down and said how that wasn’t a wise choice. I could have focused in on the “wrong” and how he “broke the law” of our household. I could reinforce judging his wrong, or I could focus on healing his little heart.
Hudson felt terrible at hurting me. I could reinforce how much he hurt me, and how disappointed I was in him. Or I could teach him about love, grace, forgiveness, and healing a little hurt heart.
Because here is the thing: when we’ve been wronged we really want the other person to either suffer for it, or show deep understanding of how they hurt us. But we always go overboard. We force the issue too long and too much. And the law, guilt, and judgment doesn’t change anyone. It sets a standard, but is not a motivator for transformation. Only grace and forgiveness are.
And so one look at my son showed me this was not the time to press the law and guilt more. This was the time for love and forgiveness. So I gave him a big hug, and he squeezed me so hard and I said I forgave him. He broke down and said how sorry he was, and I assured him that no matter what I’ll always forgive him and love.
So he went to sleep with a healed relationship, reconciled connection with me, rather than a deep feeling of not living up to my expectations and guilt. And I think that small difference makes all the difference.
Relationships are meant to be mended, not guilted into change.Relationships are meant to be reconciled, not broken under law. Relationships are to be healed through forgiveness, not through demanding judgment.
So the next time you have a chance to show judgment or grace and healing, stop for a moment, and think about your choice. Because there is always a choice to show forgiveness, or holding onto judgment. And sometimes that little choice is the difference between someone going to bed with a sore heart, or healed heart.
And of course I went to bed with a sore back, but my heart was happy with Hudson.
On Sunday we discussed two controversial topics: heaven and hell. I think around these two topics there has been so much fuzzy thinking, so much conjecture, so much just silliness sometimes that many people just avoid thinking about them.
Well that’s what we tried to clear up.
We took a look first at heaven, looking at the picture of life painted without sin prior to the fall in Genesis and revealed in Revelation. What we see so clearly is that we will continue to have deep relationships with others, with creation, with tasks and purposes, and most of all, with God. Heaven is not a place where we float around in the clouds, singing songs on harps to Jesus. Heaven is here on earth – where we move, live, and create with God, others, and creation. Heaven is a beautiful continuance of all that is good and worthy in our lives. And it’s a beautiful thing.
N.T. Wright describes it this way:
The redeemed people of God in the new world will be the agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love.
And that sounds anything but boring.
With that we turned to discussing the doctrine of hell. Now this is a confusing, and unclear doctrine for most people at the best of times. Much of their thinking has been more influence by popular culture, Dante, and poor theology than the actual Biblical account. And something we want to at least acknowledge up front is that there isn’t a lot of Biblical material that deals with this directly. And that much of it is metaphorical. That doesn’t mean hell’s not real, but perhaps not every image is meant to be taken literally (i.e. hell is discussed as a place of darkness and fire – which seem to be mutually exclusive).
So with those provisos we dived into the topic by addressing first and foremost: why do we even need this doctrine?
Many people struggle with the idea of hell, and so I discussed why I still believe we need to retain the doctrine. First, is that I do believe that the theme of hell, and judgment are in scripture. Secondly, that God honors free will. And thirdly, that justice requires putting things right.
So I want to expand on the idea that God honors free will. I don’t believe in what’s called “universalism” (that everyone gets to heaven), because I believe in free will. I believe that God, out of love, created us with free will. Which means we are free to reject God, and even reject heaven if we choose. And I don’t believe that God will override that free choice. Robert Farrar Capon writes,
Both heaven and hell are populated entirely and only by forgiven sinners. Hell is just a courtesy for those who insist they want no part of forgiveness.
Also I believe in justice, so I also believe in the necessity of hell. I don’t believe that justice can just pretend that evil doesn’t have consequences. I believe in hell because I believe that ultimately true and deep evil needs to be confronted and made right. Part of that making right is there being justice for the victims and oppressed in the world. And in this then we need to be clear – God does not torture. As Michael Bird shares, “Hell is about justice, not torture”. And I think that Dale Allison gets to the heart of why my view of justice entails some doctrine of hell by writing this:
I do not know what befell Mother Theresa of Calcutta when she died, nor what has become of Joseph Stalin. But the same thing cannot have come upon both. If there is any moral rhyme or reason in the universe, all human beings cannot be equally well off as soon as they breathe their last and wake again.
Or as N. T. Wright comments:
I find it quite impossible, reading the New Testament on the one hand and the newspaper on the other, to suppose that there will be no ultimate condemnation, no final loss, no human beings to whom, as C.S. Lewis put it, God will eventually say, “Thy will be done.” I wish it were otherwise, but one cannot forever whistle, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” in the darkness of Hiroshima, of Auschwitz, the murder of children and careless greed that enslaves millions with debts not their own.
And I’ll close my thoughts on hell with this quote from Daniel Migilore:
Hell is not an arbitrary divine punishment at the end of history. It is not the final retaliation of a vindictive deity. Hell is self-destructive resistance to the eternal love of God.
And I think that’s true. You don’t miss heaven by a bit, but by a constant and consistent refusal of the love and person of God.
So that’s what we looked at. It was a tough sermon, but I think one that will for sure spur more thinking and discussing. And certainly there are lots of other views out there. What I think is really important though is to be sure on what you personally believe. I think the hard doctrines and big ideas deserve thought and aren’t to be swept under the rug.
We ended with a reminder that the main point was that in the end all will be made right. That’s the purpose we are heading towards – a world put to right. A world that is finally fixed from evil, sin, and destruction. A world we live on in full communion with God, others, and creation.
We gave three simple little practical points with this to close. To focus on loving and not judging. Focus on sharing Jesus, not figuring out the details. We should be encouraged, it will end right. These are some practical ways that this should actually affect us. We should focus on loving and not judging who is in or out. We should be focused on sharing Jesus, not just debating details to death. And we should be encouraged that no matter what we see in the end God will make it right.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts: it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is the Lord’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No sermon says that all should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted knowing they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that affects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very, very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and dot the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master builder and the work. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are the prophets of a future that is not our own. Archbishop Oscar Romero
Sermon Notes:
Big Idea: That in the end all will be made right
Teaching Points:
Heaven isn’t just a heavenly location but the place where God’s reign is full and comprehensive.
Heaven is a place where we have this clear, immediate, and personal connection with God.
The redeemed people of God in the new world will be the agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love. N.T. Wright
“There is more to heaven than clouds, angels, and elevator music”. Michael Bird
The necessity of hell: free will and justice.
“Hell is about justice, not torture”. Michael Bird
Hell is not an arbitrary divine punishment at the end of history. It is not the final retaliation of a vindictive deity. Hell is self-destructive resistance to the eternal love of God. Daniel Migilore
We need to focus on loving not judging.
Focus on sharing Jesus, not figuring out the details.
We should be encouraged it will end right.
Adult Discussion Questions:
What stuck out to you from the sermon? What was challenging to you? How did God speak to you through it? What was new? What lingering questions do you have about heaven or hell? Who can help you to wrestle through them? What you most looking forward to with heaven?
Discussion Questions for Young Families
Today talk to your kids about heaven and what it’s like. Talk about how we’ll have friendships, relationships, and tasks in heaven. Talk about how best of all we’ll have a relationship with God that is deeper and fuller than anything else.
Challenge for the Week: Keep being faithful to God.
Today I want to talk about a connection between leadership, Jesus, and life.
James Kouzes, and Barry Posner write this in their book The Truth about Leadership.
Everything you will ever do as a leader is based on one audacious assumption. It’s the assumption that you matter. Before you can lead others, you have to lead yourself and believe that you can have a positive impact on others.
And this is so true. If you want to be a leader, you need to start to learn and believe that you can be. You need to believe that not only do you matter, but that you have something to offer.
And this type of belief in yourself isn’t either arrogance, or shameless self-promotion. It’s not a belief that you’re amazing and everyone should listen to you. Instead, it’s a belief that you have something to offer, something positive to give. And I think Kouzes and Posner are right.
What is interesting to me is that their statement seems a little like Jesus’ statement, “Love your neighbour as you love yourself”. Jesus’ point is that you can’t actually love your neighbour if you don’t love yourself. If you hate yourself, the hate will pour out all over and you wont’ be able to love your neighbour.
And here is the connection between both Jesus and the quote above: that to be able to lead, or love ~ you need to believe in yourself and that you have something to offer. You need to love yourself, and who you are to best love others. To lead others, you need to believe that you have something – big or small – to contribute to the world. This isn’t about listing all the reasons you are amazing, but instead thinking through:
What do I have to offer?
What has God gifted me with to gift to others?
What positive contribution can I give? What do I love about who I am, that I can share with others?
I think those are good questions to not only help us become better leaders, but better followers of God.
I want to think a little bit about a quote from Bonhoeffer. Its really deep – okay most of what he writes is deep. But this one quote gets me every time. He says this:
Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.
And I think that is so true. The reason that I don’t think that “sheltering” or “Christian Bubble” thinking or practice works is because the focus is off. In those paradigms the focus is to avoid sin, to stay safe, to be cautious, and only to be involved with things that are “approved” (by whomever has the authority). And please hear me clearly, I’m certainly not against avoiding sin or avoiding dangerous or compromising situations. My issue is with the central focus.
In the “sheltering” or “Christian Bubble” thinking the central focus is actually sin. Sure the focus is avoiding sin, but the focus is still sin. The entire paradigm is driven by fear (don’t fall into sin) negativity (don’t don’t don’t) and staying “safe”. And this is Bonhoeffer’s point. The central activity of being a Christian isn’t what you are again, staying safe, or of fear of the world.
The central mark of being a Christian is courageously following God.
Focusing on following God needs to be the central defining aspect of a Christians life. And yes that entails avoiding sin, and compromising situations but those are secondary to the primary Christian calling: courageously following Christ.
My point is that Bonhoeffer is right. The focus of Christianity isn’t just about avoiding sin, but courageously doing God’s calling. Christianity isn’t best thought of as a retreat, or evacuation from the world, or a refuge from the world; it is best thought of as an adventure in partnering with God to save the world.
I want to talk about the Holy Spirit, and theology in a moment. And to do that I want to use a quote from Michael Hardin.
Just a heads up though before reading further. This next quote is both true, and also challenging. And if it doesn’t challenge you, then read it again, pray, sit, and it soon will.
Here is what Michael Hardin says about the Holy Spirit, God, and theology:
If all the Holy Spirit does is to confirm your personal theology, it probably isn’t the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit is to conform each of us as persons and together as a people into the image of Jesus.
And this is just so true, and disturbing at the same point. It is obvious none of us are Jesus, none of us are Christ. We each have areas that need to be remade, transformed, or shaped into being Christlike.
And Hardin raises the point that if all the Holy Spirit does is comfort you, confirm your view of God, and counsel you, it probably isn’t the Holy Spirit. Because part of what the Holy Spirit does is to challenge you to conform to Christ. This means dying to parts of yourself, this means being convicted of sin and changed.
The point is that if the Holy Spirit isn’t doing any challenging or convicting, we’re probably just not listening enough…
On Sunday we kicked off our series on Theology 101 by looking at the doctrine of God right off the bat. We talked about theology and that it is important because we are always doing theology all the time. When we look around the world and say, “Well God wouldn’t do that” – that’s theology. When we see someone in suffering and say “I’ll pray for you” that’s all theology too. Theology is intimately tied with our practice. Ou practice actually reveals our beliefs. So the point isn’t whether or not we are doing theology, but whether or not we are doing good theology.
So that’s the point of this series, to give us a good foundation to practice good theology. To practice theology that sets people free, demonstrates God’s love, and participates in the Kingdom.
And so we began by looking at first how do we get our theology?
The quick and easy answer is: the bible duh!
But it’s actually not that simple. Those people who just say all I need is the Bible, it’s enough for me! Well beside them being perhaps well-meaning that view is also naïve, incredibly arrogant, and actually just downright wrong. We all come to the Bible with preconceived notions, thoughts, and baggage. So when it comes to doing our theology, the source isn’t just our Scriptures but other things play into it as well.
There are traditionally four areas or sources for our theology. Firstly, is obviously the Bible, but there is also our experience, reason, and tradition. Experience plays a huge part in our thoughts about God. I used to think that God had a purpose in death, but after experiencing the death of my dad, I no longer think this. I think God has a purpose to abolish death, but not in death. Experience shapes us.
So too does reason. When we look at beliefs we look at how they actually logically work. Andy Bannister writes this, “The Bible tells Christians to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, not the removal of.” And that’s true.
And last but not least, we get our theology from tradition. Now this is a weak area for Evangelicals. We often think that our beliefs are what Christians have always believed. But this is not necessarily true. So it is good to know our history. Tony Lane writes, “There are two sorts of Christians. Not those who are influenced by tradition and those who are not, but those who are aware of the influence and those who are not.”
So with that introduction we launched into discussing the theology of God proper and asked this question: what is God at His core?
Lots of people have lots of different ideas or metaphors. Some people say judge, some people say creator, some people say king. But by far one of the most popular ones is that God is Holy. But I believe that God, at his core, isn’t those things, but is instead love.
To understand this we talked about the difference between God’s essence (what he always is and always has been) and God’s attributes (something God is in relation to something else). And God surely is a creator but this isn’t at his core, because there was a time when God wasn’t a creator (i.e. before he made the earth). The same holds true for God’s holiness. Holiness is always something in relation to something else. For someone to be holy, there has to be something that is unholy (a reference point). The same thing holds true for someone being tall (if you are the only person on earth – you aren’t tall because there is no reference point). The point is then that in the beginning when it was only God, God wasn’t “holy” per se because there was nothing unholy around. Holiness is to be set apart, but there was nothing for God to be set apart from.
So what is God at his core then? The answer is clear from the Bible – love. God is love is stated often. And the supreme self-revelation of God, Jesus dying and rising for us, is a revelation of self-sacrificial love. So God is love and always has been love. And that was our main point on Sunday. That God is love.
But this is actually a practically challenging thing too. Because if God at his core is love, then as Christians our core should also be love. We should be known and seen as people of love first and foremost. Because love isn’t’ about how you view yourself, but how others view you. So if no one thinks you’re loving, you probably aren’t. The point is that we need actions behind our beliefs and demonstrate love. That’s the challenge I gave this week, to choose one person to demonstrate love to. Because if God is self-giving love, we as his followers should also show self-giving love. Love is at the centre of God, and it needs to be at our centre too.
Sermon Notes:
Big Idea: God at his core is love.
Teaching Points:
The truth is, we are all doing theology all the time.
The Bible was not written so that we would know about God, It was written so that we could become more like God
To follow God well, you have to know him well too
Theology literally means the study of God
Theology is not the study of the ideas about God; it is the study of the living God. Michael Bird
Theology is communal.
Theology is a communal study of the living God.
We get our theology from the Bible, Reason, Experience, and Tradition.
The Bible tells Christians to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, not the removal of. Andy Bannister
There are two sorts of Christians. Not those who are influenced by tradition and those who are not, but those who are aware of the influence and those who are not. Tony Lane
The Bible is our primary authority, but not our only authority.
Love is the fundamental divine attribute. Love is not merely one attribute of God among many. Rather, “God is love” is the foundational ontological statement we can declare concerning the divine essence. Stanley Grenz
God at his core is loving relationally.
Being loving isn’t how you see yourself but how others see you.
Adult Discussion Questions:
What stuck out to you from the sermon? What was challenging to you? How did God speak to you through it? What was new? Before today, what would have been your answer for what’s at God’s core? What shaped you to believe that? Who are you being called to love? How will you do it this week? Of the four areas (reason, experience, Scripture, tradition) which one do you feel most comfortable with? Which one don’t you feel comfortable with? What is one theology question you’ve always wanted answered?
Discussion Questions for Young Families
Talk about how God is love at his core. Maybe have your kids draw a picture, paint a picture of God being love, and then decide on whom you can love as a family. Maybe a school friend, maybe a neighbor, maybe someone sick. Ask them, and then make something happen!
{ Andrew Mills } 