Death. Burial. Resurrection.

That is what we celebrated in our baptisms this weekend at Trailhead Church: the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He paid the price - we reap the benefit. So we celebrate.

And that's the way God wants it - Jesus was our substitute. He died our death under our judgment. He was crushed under the weight of our guilt and shame. He was immersed in our death because of our sin.

And then he rose again. The payment was complete and a new morning of forgiveness and life had dawned.

And we celebrate.

To be clear, we don't celebrate our obedience or good fortune. That's in there - but what we really celebrate is Jesus himself. We celebrate his love, his grace, his forgiveness, his initiative with us, his mercy, his work. We celebrate his performance for us, not our performance for him. We rest in the peace of God because Jesus made peace with God for us. We don't just celebrate what he has done - we celebrate him.

And so we are baptized - not to earn his favor, but because he earned it for us. We go through the symbolic motions of dying and being buried by being immersed in water. As we come up out of the water, we symbolically rise again in his new life, dripping with his righteousness. Covered. Forgiven. Cleansed. The water is just a symbol - but what a powerful, grace-filled symbol. It is full of joy because it points us back to the reality of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.

This weekend we had five followers of Jesus scheduled to be baptized in obedience to his command. During the sermon, though, I invited anyone who had believed in Jesus but had not yet been baptized to celebrate with us - and jump in! We thought we had everything ready for people to respond spontaneously - the baptismal, towels, dry clothes, even underwear to be baptized in, but we weren't fully ready for the response we received. We ran out of clothes. We used every towel. And when it was all over, we ended up baptizing 17 followers of Jesus. It was awesome.

As a community, we had tears and laughter and freedom and joy - because we have Jesus.

So, I haven't posted in like two years, so I thought I would throw this up.  Whether you think Black Friday is an unsightly blemish on the pock-marked face of our culture's consumerism or you think it is our economy's Jack Bauer, ruthlessly showing up at the last moment to save the day, I hope you find this funny.

Election years are ugly.  That's not surprising since the political spin machines spend big $$$ to get us to vote for their side.  They will appeal to whatever motivations their marketing researchers tell them will get the great apathetic mass of America to actually show up at the poles - so expect to see a lot of advertising focused on stirring up our fear, greed, and anger.

And based on what I have been seeing on the newsfeed on Facebook, we can expect this election year to be ugly just like all the rest.  The rhetoric and mud-slinging is already starting among my friends.  Some of these people I actually know and respect.  Some I even enjoy their company.  And that is why I am nervous.  I can see the carnage coming.

So how can we, as followers of Jesus, honor Jesus in an election year?  That is a tall order, but I would like to offer a few observations from Romans 14.  This passage is obviously not about voting or the American political climate - but it is about how to deal with potentially divisive, emotionally charged personal and cultural differences.  It is not about us - but it does apply to us.

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
(Romans 14:5-9 ESV)

1.  Develop strong opinions.

Let each man be fully persuaded in his own mind.  In other words, study, think carefully, and develop strong opinions.  Some people think the best way to avoid conflict is to simply avoid it - and what better way to avoid it than to hide behind apathy and a lack of engagement.  Some will even try to spin this off as sort of spiritual virtue.

"Well, you know, I am only concerned about the Kingdom of God."

"It's all going to burn anyway, so I am just going to focus on what's really important."

"God's in control, so I just rest in that."

Translation: I am too lazy to study the topics and develop opinions.  The political issues in front of us are important and we should be engaged and informed.  We should develop strong opinions - even though that will result in our disagreeing with others.

2.  Have strong opinions, but don't be defined by those opinions.  

As a follower of Christ, you are not first a republican or democrat.  You are not first a Tea Party-er or an Occupy-er.  You are not first a economic or social conservative or progressive.  You are first a follower of Jesus.

So, in the way you promote your opinions (whether verbally or online), you need to communicate in a way that honors Jesus first and promotes your ideas second.  You need to communicate in a way that it is clear that you love the people you are talking to and talking about more than you love your opinions about them.

This means that character assassination and personal mud-slinging is out.  It means that saying (or forwarding, retweeting, or sharing) things that misrepresent the people or positions of the opposing side (even if they are "funny") is out.  It means that pointing our comments "at" someone instead of "to" them is out.  It means acting like a megaphone for the political spin machines is out.

It means that we need to honor Jesus by engaging ideas instead of attacking people.  It means that we love our enemies and treat those who disagree with us as humans created in the image of God (whether or not they know or acknowledge that God).

3.  In it all, keep it all in perspective.

It is easy to get caught up in the hype and be motivated by the fear of election-year emotion.  But when it is all said and done, we need to remember who we are and whose we are.  We are followers of Jesus, broken, humble, forgiven, and full of hope because we are secure God because of Jesus.  And we are God's - redeemed by his work for his glory.

If we live (which itself is a gift we can't take for granted), we live to follow and honor and love God first.  If we die, we die in Christ.  That means that whether we live or die, we are to live for his glory first because, by his work, we have been made his brother and co-heirs.  He took our place in judgement so that we stand with him in his place of blessing.  That single truth eclipses everything else for those who follow him.

If we get that, as much as we may dislike a politician, a political party, or a social movement, we will see through the eyes of grace.  We see all of life from the perspective of one who had to be forgiven to be made whole.  And all of this means that when we look around, we will see humans also in need of grace.

This is what the gospel does.  It gives us a confidence that supersedes our opinions.  We are loved, forgiven, empowered, and enriched because of Jesus.  As a result, we can hold our opinions strongly and argue them forcefully, while not being defined by those opinions or by the success of our political party.  We can disagree with others without rejecting and degrading their worth, dignity, or intelligence because Jesus didn't degrade ours.  Instead he redeemed it.

So, how do we, as Christ-followers, honor God in this election year?  We follow Christ.

I have only been on a two float trips that I can remember.  On both occasions, I floated past some sorry souls passed out on the river bank after having consumed too many jello shots.  They were lying there getting fried in the sun and drooling as we floated past - laughing, splashing water on each other, and looking for the next rapid or cliff to jump off.


It struck me (deep thought time) you kind of have to be awake to enjoy the day.


Related thought (trust me, it will come together):


Darrin Patrick used an illustration once from his seminary days.  He said that one of his professors told them that there was only one thing the church could do here that it would not be able to do in heaven.  It will be able to worship, learn about God, grow in community and joy - but it won't be able to share the good news of God's grace with those who haven't yet believed. 


That is a pretty sobering thought, even for a Calvinist.  Most of us simply do not have the proper urgency about sharing Christ's love with those who don't know him.  I am not talking about the kind of urgency that fosters drive-by evangelism (the kind of approach that shoots people with a few propositional truths because they are targets instead of people made in the image of God).  We often do  more harm that good with that stuff - but we should be urgently following Christ on his mission: to make disciples from the unbelieving population around us.


And that is going to require us to wake up and shake the apathy that so easily grips our hearts.


Take a look at Ephesians 5:15-21

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

The passage warns us that we, as followers of Christ, need to be wise.  It then defines what it means by that: we need to realize the urgency of what God has called us to.  That is a good warning.  I mean it really is foolish of us to be followers of Christ and live like he didn’t actually rise from the dead.

So, a strange thought came to me in the shower the other day.  Being a pastor is like being a Chinese buffet.  Everyone shows up with different and specific expectations and everyone walks away disappointed.

This thought didn't come to me because I was feeling sorry for myself, because I'm not.  I love what I do because of who I do it for (Jesus), and I have no internal need to meet everyone's expectations of me.  My job is to please the one who loved me and called me to himself.  (And, awesome thought, he is already pleased with me and will continue to be because I am covered with Christ, the delight of God!)

The thought actually came to me as I was thinking about how the church today has lost the experience of being the church.  Our cultural Christianity has essentially taken all the “one another's” of scripture and robbed them of their community experience.

Notice who is told to do the work of ministry here: the church.

We have lost a vision of the church edifying (building up) one another, encouraging one another, teaching one another, challenging and correcting one another, praying for one another, sacrificing for and giving to one another, leading one another to worship God and reach out to the outsider in love.

By and large, the church now sees the professional leadership of the church as the "one" and themselves as the "another."  It is the pastor's job to teach us, the worship leader's job to give us a dynamic experience of worship, the mission pastor's job to create opportunities for service for us, the kid's pastor's job to teach our kids, the counseling pastor's job to help us overcome their hang ups from the past - and so on.

Obviously it is not my intent to undermine the importance of leadership in the local church.  But is also not my intent to replicate our culture's consumeristic approach to church life.

A quick update - the blog I wrote a while back detailing my history with Acts 29 was published today on the Acts 29 website.  Pretty cool!

You can check it out here:

Kelly, our wonderful Trailhead Kids leader, sent me a link to a great blog over at Sojourn Church.  It is titled "9 Reasons not to Ask Jesus into your Heart."  You should read it because it is clear, succinct, and right.

I am not a fan of asking Jesus into your heart.  I am not a fan of committing your life to Christ or making him Lord of your life or asking Jesus to be your friend, either.  Strange thing for a pastor to say, right?  Wrong.

After I became a believer and started working in a Christian high school, I came to see just how short those kinds of sayings fall from leading people to the real gospel.  As a new believer (and a lover of all things English), I loved my job, most of the things about my school, and, of course, my students.  One of the key frustrations I had, though, was that so many of my students claimed to follow Jesus but so few of them seemed to know him or love him.

So, about two months into the school year, I decided to have the students write essays on their relationship with God.  I was amazed.  Almost all of my students associated their salvation with an event where they "asked Jesus into their hearts" (or something very similar).

Even more amazingly, almost all of those same students claimed to have done it numerous times, usually connected to a yearly ritual they called the "camp fire" (I was a real newbie to the Christian world and had never been to a Christian youth camp).

When I asked them why they asked Jesus into their hearts - or committed their lives to Christ - so many times, they said their goal was to "do it for real" or "with all their heart" the second or third (or fourth) time.  When I asked them to explain what they meant by "doing it with all their hearts," they would hem and ha, fumbling along, until they would usually come around to saying something like, "I just want to stop living like the world.  I had slipped into my old way of life and I wanted to really live for Christ."

This sounds noble, but it was really quite stupid.  I'm not saying those students were stupid - they were sincere and truly troubled by what they saw as a gap between their behavior and their profession.  What I am saying is that the system that they were being sold was stupid - because it isn't the gospel.

The gospel is an incredible message of what God did for us in Jesus' death and resurrection.  And it is insanely beautiful.  He took my shame, my sin, and my place in judgement so that I could stand with him in the fullness of his blessing.  He was covered with my shame so that I could be covered with his glory.  He was crushed as my substitute in judgment so that I could stand as his brother in blessing.

The gospel is simply and profoundly a message of what God has done to gain our victory - a victory we could never win for ourselves.  It is the good news delivered to us so that we might believe and be saved immediately and absolutely from the penalty, progressively from the power, and ultimately from the presence of our sin.  The gospel is a message of good news to be believed about God's commitment to us.  It is not a request for commitment from us.

The gospel says, Stop trusting your ability to work up to God and take hold of God, and instead start trusting in what God has done to take hold of you.  What my students were hearing was, Don't you love Jesus and want to go to heaven? Well, you better start living like it if you want his blessing.

When I asked my students why Jesus had to die on the cross, they could all parrot, "for my sins."  But if I pushed in a little and asked, why did he have to die? what did his death do? why is it important that he rose from the grave? what are you really trusting to make you right with God?

I got disturbing answers. Some, to be sure, when I dug in, would eventually get to the gospel, that Jesus was their substitute and that he completely satisfied God's justice for their sin.  But many others simply could not give any explanation of the basics of why Jesus had to die, what his death did, or why the resurrection was essential.

When I really pushed them and they got a little tired of it, many would just say, "Look, I am doing my best.  I think God understands."

This is why I get kind of ticked with the way Christians jack with the gospel.  This is why I have such distaste for dumbed down (or just plain dumb) explanations of what Jesus did.  My students were subtly misled to trust in their obedience to Christ instead of Christ's obedience for them.  They were looking for security in what they had done to take hold of Christ instead of in what Christ had done to take hold of them.

And many of them simply did not get, let alone believe, the gospel.  Some of the worst cases were students who were well-behaved and moral.  They were the ones who often got praised and held up as examples to the other students.  Some of them simply refused to hear the gospel because they had already said their prayer and had "gotten saved" and their moral lives proved it.

And yet, when I tried to talk to them about Jesus, their hearts were cold.  Jesus said that those who were forgiven much would love much.  These students loved little because they really didn't see themselves as bad and in need of much forgiveness.  If I pushed into their failures, they became defensive and really kind of ugly.  Sadly, many of them were really locked in to the suicide train of self-righteousness.

In the end, whether these kids grew in self-righteousness or beat themselves up because of their failures, the sad result was that many of them actually became inoculated against the real gospel.  They either didn't think they needed it, or they thought they had already tried it and it just didn't work.

Scripture is clear: we are saved by faith in the person and work of Jesus.  Our goal as those who share the good news of Jesus should not be to get people to do something with the truth - it should be to persuade them to believe the truth.  And just because we can get someone to want heaven or forgiveness or a better life doesn't mean we have persuaded them to trust completely in the person and work of Jesus.

We don't need better salesmen.  We need better messengers.  We have been entrusted the greatest message ever given to mankind, and it carries its own power.