Custom Made Crisis

Two Sundays ago, my dear friend John McComb gave up a Sunday to come and preach to our church family.  John is one of the most honest and faithful people I know, and my life is better because he's in it.  He preached from 2 Samuel 6 and focused on what he called a "Crisis of Faith." Days later his sermon is still resonating in my heart and soul.  So, I thought I would unload a few of those thoughts.

The first thing is that everyone will go through a crisis of faith.  John challenged us that often a crisis will come when you've been doing everything right.  When crisis comes, many people often wonder what they've done wrong to deserve such a terrible or challenging situation, but in scripture we often see people of consistent faithfulness presented with difficulty, suffering, or pain.  The purpose of the crisis is growth.  Crisis has the ability to take you to a place of faith that you never would've gotten to otherwise. God doesn't send hardship because He's mad at you.  He sends it because He loves you and wants you to know Him more.  Each crisis that we endure is custom made to take us to a new level of faith, to a deeper place of knowing and trusting God.

One of the harder things resonating with me is the idea that a crisis is designed to kill part of you.  God wants to prune away the areas of your life or church that aren't bearing fruit consistent with the calling that God has ordained for you.  Nobody enjoys pruning, but there isn't growth without it.  This reminds us of the cross.  Jesus could not have been raised in new life or power if He had not died first.  A crisis gives us that opportunity to identify with Christ in His sufferings in order that we may share in the resurrection power.  Over and over the Bible teaches this.  Suffering brings identify with Christ and closeness to God like nothing else.  Crisis builds character and maturity.  It's not fun to be pruned, and it requires faith to believe that there is life on the other side of the death.  The truth is that there is something in all of us that needs to die in order for there to be more life.  There are things in our churches that need to die in order for God to bring new life.  It's hard, but it's true.

The final thought I wanted to share is something that came back to me about a sermon I preached in Africa last December.  It's easy to blame the devil for bad things that happen, but the enemy is limited in what he can do.  God is ultimately sovereign over everything.  I told a group of pastors that the church belongs to Him. It's His church.  It's possible that a church will suffer because of sin or corruption.  Many people do a fine job of killing their church on their own.  However, it's also possible that a church will go through a crisis simply because God wants them to.  It's not that they've done anything wrong.  It's God's prerogative to bless or prune.  It's His job to protect His mission, and we pray for Him to do whatever it takes for us to be the people He has called us to be.  This may mean that circumstances in a church are radically altered.  We have prayed this at River Stone from the beginning.  If we have become anything other than what you want us to be, make whatever adjustments are necessary.  Crisis forces us to live in what we claim to believe - everything is the Lord's.  The church, our lives, everything.  He is responsible.

In crisis, the natural response is to focus on the casualties and pain. However, the spiritual response is to be open to God's why.  Everything He does is on purpose.  Everything He does is for the good and protection of His children.  As a result of believing in this, I've come into this week more open to the Lord's pruning and praying things like this...

 Kill what needs to be killed.  Prune what needs to be pruned.  Do whatever you need to do to demonstrate your power and faithfulness.  Make me into the person you created me to be.  Mold our church into the vessel of your Kingdom that will bring you the most glory.

Thanks, John for speaking so much truth and love to us.  We are better for it.

3 John Recap

We've spent the last couple months working through 1st, 2nd and 3rd John at River Stone.  They are not lengthy books, but they are rich with practical teaching.  John repeats himself over and over again over issues of Love, Light, and Life. Billy finished off the series a few Sundays ago, but I keep thinking about some of the things he said.  So, I thought I would recap/paraphrase...

What you say doesn't always matter...

Grandpa John called out two different people in the church. He first noticed a member of the church who disagreed with the direction of the church and was making accusations of the church leadership.  He then recognized someone else in the church who was building people up and being a blessing.  Billy did a great job talking about the importance of discernment in the context of community.  John's Gospel says that fruit is the evidence of the Spirit's work in a person.  Just because someone says they're an authority, spiritual or makes an accusation doesn't mean they're right. There will always be people in the church who create division, and there will be people who encourage and build up the church by being a blessing.  It is important to identify which is which and both confront the issues of division and encourage the issues of blessings. There will be both kinds of people in every church.

Self-centeredness prevents submission...

The issue of submission is very counter-cultural for Americans. There always seems to be a strong, "You can't tell us what to do" mentality among us.  We are always hearing about our rights and freedoms.  The interesting thing is that when we enter into the Kingdom of God, we forfeit our rights.  Our opinion is no longer authoritative in our lives because we have chosen to submit to the truth and belief in God.  The man accusing the leaders of the church in 3 John was identified as putting himself first.  Individual preference, feeling, or opinion is not the same as Gospel Truth.  It is important that we don't let those preferences, feelings or opinions carry the same weight as God's Word. Just because we have a thought about something doesn't mean it's biblically accurate.  Not every feeling is from the Spirit.  Putting self first will lead to rejecting the authority of church leaders.  Rejecting the authority of church leaders is rejecting a very important principle of the Kingdom of God. This was the root issue of the man identified as divisive.

On the prowl...

I had never thought about Peter's referral to Satan as being an imitator of an image of God.  Jesus is called the true Lion of the tribe of Judah.  In Satan's prowling, he makes himself look like something that should be worshiped.  I think the aforementioned preferences, opinions and criticisms are some of those things. The only thing worthy of worship is our Savior.  Worship always glorifies God and edifies the church.  If it doesn't do both of those things, it isn't worship.  If it isn't God-worship it is self-worship. We have to constantly evaluate our worship by how it glorifies God and edifies the church.

I am amazed at how practical these lessons from 3 John are.  One of Billy's main thoughts was that experience makes us better prepared and equipped to operate in discernment.  As we see this more and more in the church, we are more and more responsible to respond appropriately to the two types of people mentioned in this short book.

In my prayers...

This morning I met with a group of men from our church for a prayer breakfast.  I shared a little devotional based on Paul's introductions to many of his letters.  I noticed that before he gets into theology, preaching, teaching, rebuking, encouraging, etc. that he shares with his audience how he has been praying for them.

I realized that just because I rush into the "meat" of God's Word when I study the Bible, doesn't mean that Paul rushed into anything.  The beautiful truths in Paul's letters that continue to shape our faith and organize the Church were birthed out of prayer.  Paul started with prayer.  He loved the people he was writing to, and he prayed for them.  While he could've been minding his own business, he was praying.

I realized also that I have a tendency to assume prayer.  I assume that people know that I'm praying for them.  I assume that others are praying for me.  I assume that people are praying about the problems that they're talking to me about.  I think this is dangerous.  I've tried to make a focused effort to participate more in prayer.  Not that I didn't pray before, but when someone's in my office and talking about something, that's the time to pray.  Paul prayed before he wrote.  If we want to be people with significant things to say, we must be people who start with prayer.

River Stone family, we will have another Men's Prayer Breakfast on June 5th -7am at Rogelio's in San Marcos.  We'd love for you to join us.  Let me know if I can be praying for you...

If you love me...

In John 14, Jesus promises that His followers will do even greater works than He did.  That is literally impossible and unbelievable.  There is some debate as to what "greater works" really refers to, and it could be a few different things.  What's amazing to me is what makes the impossible possible.  It seems to be loving Jesus back.

John's Gospel is very clear on love being God's motivation for sending Jesus to the world.  Jesus' love for the people entrusted to His care was clear in how he carried Himself.  It's also clear that Jesus charged His followers with loving each other.  He said, "...love one another: just as I have loved you..."    (John 13). We've been told a million times that God loves us. That's not a surprise.  We also know that we're expected to love each other.  However, Jesus breaks some new ground in 14:15 when He says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."  

God's love for us and His subsequent command to love other people doesn't guarantee that we're responding appropriately to Him.  It doesn't even mean that we're a Christian. The most important thing about our response is that we love Him back.  He shows us here that loving Him back means thinking highly enough of what He has instructed to actually do what He has asked.  To use language from James, being doers of the word is what demonstrates that we love Jesus back.  It shows that we are serious about faith.  It shows that we're about more than religious activity.  It shows that we're willing to following Jesus.  

The next part is the key to the impossible.  Obedience to the commandments of Jesus is met with a gift.   Jesus promises to give His Spirit to those who love Him and keep His commandments.  Without the Spirit, Christianity is just a bunch of rules, aspirations, hopes, religious habits, and behaviors.  With the Spirit, it is freedom, life, light, power, miracles, cleansing from sin, truth, assurance, salvation, eternal life, and so much, much more.  I pray that it's not enough for us to just believe that Jesus loves us and to do our best to love each other.  I pray that we would go the next step and love Him back by obeying His commandments and unlocking the power of the Spirit in our every day lives.

Here are some examples of the power that the gift of the Spirit unlocks in us:

• The Spirit Gives Life. (John 3:6-7, John 6:63)

• The Spirit Empowered Jesus. (John 1:32 - on Jesus, Luke 4:18 - Spirit is Upon me)

• The Spirit Empowers followers of Jesus for ministry.  The Spirit manifests the presence of God through his activity. (Acts 1:8, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11)

• The Spirit Empowers prayer. (Romans 8:26)

• The Spirit cleanses us from sin. (1 Corinthians 6:11)

• The Spirit sanctifies us and builds in us the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23)

• The Spirit guides us into truth. (John 16:13)

• The Spirit testifies to our status before God and gives us assurance. (Romans 8:15-16)

• The Spirit brings unity. (Ephesians 4:3)

Thank you, Jesus, for not leaving us on our own and for giving us this amazing gift that allows us to follow you and do the works that you did.