Let Hope Arise, pt 1

Soren Kierkegaard said, "Faith calls us to live life forward, but we only understand it looking backwards."

A Wellspring team had been preparing a two-week missions trip to Uganda, which was canceled at the last minute. It seemed the Lord had led them to make all their preparations, but then also kept them from going.

Pastor Rick investigates the questions that come with any faith journey in this series. In part 1, he examines what it means when it seems the Lord is resisting our good faith efforts.

Click to listen to the message.

Greater and Lesser Miracles

Recently - perhaps over the last year or so - I've been thinking a lot about the church and the Bible, which should seem natural given my status as a seminary student. But specifically, I've been thinking about how the accounts of Jesus in the gospels and the apostles in Acts compare to many of the churches I've attended in the United States over the last 10-15 years.

Read through the gospels and take count of the things that Jesus does in them. He's curing the sick, healing the wounded, and casting out demons everywhere he goes. In fact, the only place that it is recorded that he specifically did not perform many of these signs is in his hometown of Nazareth (Mt 13:58). It seems that everywhere else Jesus went, the miracles were sure to follow.

The story is similar with in the Acts of the Apostles. Although the stories of the initial church healing people are less prevalent than they are in the gospels, they are still noticeably present (cf. Acts 3:6-8; 5:12ff; 9:33-34).

Having read these things in the Scriptures, I look at most of the churches I've attended over the years and these sorts of things are most definitely absent. There have been a couple where some very sick folks have been healed instantaneously and other incredible things have happened, but the majority (and from my interactions with others at the seminary, these are far more common) do not show even a hint of the miraculous. Why is this?

I have hear it said from time to time that the greatest miracle of them all is when an unbelieving sinner finds forgiveness and salvation in Jesus Christ. In fact, a Benny Hinn book entitled The Greatest Miracle is promoted on his website: "The Greatest Miracle is not physical but spiritual. It is when the lost soul comes to know the glorious, saving grace of God's Son, Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness and cleansing from sin that only HE can give." Now, I'm not much of a fan of Benny Hinn. The point is simply that this sentiment is rather common among evangelical Christians.

On one level I agree. It is certainly an act of God anytime someone's heart is warmed to Christ to the point that they receive Him as Lord and Savior and choosing to trust Jesus for all things in all areas of life. But I'm wondering if we have taken this notion of the "greatest miracle" and used it to limit ourselves from the "lesser miracles" performed by Jesus and the apostles. If divine forgiveness is indeed the "greatest miracle," shouldn't we expect that simple healings would happen all the time? After all, conversions seem to take place fairly regularly in our American churches.

I suggest that we've used this "greatest miracle" as a binding consolation for the fact that we never do see healings or exorcisms as described in the scriptures. As a result, we've kept ourselves from pursuing them with vigor. Perhaps we are actually missing out on many of the blessings of the Kingdom, where all things ought to be restored to God and functioning as they were meant to function - a place of health and vitality where the powers of darkness have no dominion.

Jesus the Man, not the Legend

I've been reflecting recently on Philippians 2:5-11, Paul's hymn about the humility of Christ. The NIV translates it like this:

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death -
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

This has really got me thinking a lot about Jesus' nature while he walked and ministered on the earth. More precisely, it's got me beginning to realize more fully the extent of his humanity. When it says in vv. 6-7 that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to grasp and instead took on the role of a servant, Paul is suggesting that during his earthly tenure, Jesus was completely human, and not in any way divine. He was, however, the second Adam - a human rightly related to God throughout the entirety of his life.

As we read through the gospel, this means that the things we see Jesus doing are the types of things that God had always intended for people to do as people with His Spirit and in proper relationship with Him. The acts of Jesus, while they are unique inasmuch as they are rooted in a particular historical setting, are not unique types of actions. This is evidenced by the actions of several of the Old Testament prophets, such as Moses, Elijah, or Elisha (Elijah, for example, raises the dead in 1 Kgs 17:17-24, just as Jesus does for Lazarus in Jn 11:38-44).

It is quite common to suggest that one of (if not the) primary themes of Jesus' ministry was the Kingdom of God. Through his words and works, Jesus was expanding the Kingdom of God - the area of influence of the Lord's reign. The evidence of the appearance of the Kingdom is seen in the effect it has on people who come in contact with Jesus. "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor" (Lk 7:22; cf. Isa 61). Essentially, Jesus leaves in his wake a territory that looks an awful lot like Eden. The effects of the Fall are reversed in Jesus' presence.

For us, to whom Jesus has left the Spirit of God, this means that we are charged with the same mission, to spread the Kingdom of God wherever we go, the essence of the Great Commission (Mt 28:19-20). It is therefore becoming more and more shocking to me that we do not see in many of our churches the same kinds of things that the prophets were doing or the same sorts of things that Jesus was doing or the same types of things that the apostles were doing after Pentecost. Increasingly, I end up asking myself why we do not see the tangible effects of the curse reversed in our churches, the very places we would expect the Kingdom of God to be intersecting this planet.

As an amateur surgeon, I think it's worth pursuing these goals wherever we go. It's worth chasing a dream that there will be no sickness or disease or blindness any place where I place my feet. For wherever I go, I should hope to bring the Kingdom of God with me. Let it be so.

Postmodernism and the State of Evangelicalism

The other day I was at Gordon College to hear a talk given by Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. The subject, generally, was the state of evangelicalism today. Dr. Willard addressed the issue of postmodernism for evangelicals today, suggesting that (1) we have yet to truly see where postmodernists will go with their ideas (few, if any, are really saying anything new, historically speaking) and (2) Christians have an opportunity and an obligation to engage them at their own game, that is, with strong scholarship within the academy.

He said that he is seeing in his evangelical students at USC (and I assume that this is not particularly unique to the Trojans) an increasing desire to pursue scholarship with excellence. He is seeing more and more young men and women who believe that their calling as Jesus' disciples does not preclude them from becoming excellent scientists or philosophers or writers or anything other scholarly endeavor. His excitement for this prospect is one that I share.

And yet, Dr. Willard warned, these same students that seem so promising on one level simultaneously faced a rather precarious prospect. Many of those students, he is sure, will inevitably face hardship in their academic careers (or professional careers, for that matter). When they do, he asked, will they have the strength of character, rooted in Christ, to persevere through those temporal hardships? Will they recognize that a life in Christ is not necessarily about earning the greatest possible level of success in a chosen field? Or will they succumb to the pressures of the world that advises us to lie and cheat from time to time so that we can obtain a greater degree of influence "for Christ"? It's a good question.

The hallmark of evangelicalism, according to Dr. Willard's talk, is that we've always professed the possibility of a real, experiential relationship with God. We believe that's what the Bible offers through Jesus and many (I would hope all) of us would be able to describe our own relationships with the Divine in much the same way that we might describe our relationship with our spouses or best friends or colleagues. We have, from the start, differentiated ourselves from other brands of religion as a relationship that fundamentally changes our lives, from the inside out. We profess a connection with God that makes us into people with divine characters. The problem, he states, is that when the world has looked at much of our evangelical leadership lately, they have not seen the evidence of that transformed life (we could cite the fairly recent disclosures of a former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals).

That's the point: we can be the best scholars that we were created to be. We can pursue learning with as much vigor and ability that we've been given. And we should, to God's glory. And yet, if we have not the ever-transforming character of a true disciple of Christ, all our scholarship will reflect a life that is no more God-saturated than our neighbors who work hard with no regard for Jesus. One way or another, our lights are shining before humankind. The question is, what are we projecting through that light?

Luke 3:1-14 for Sunday School

Once upon a time, many many years ago, the world was ruled by a very powerful man named Tiberius. His kingdom stretched all the way from Spain and Portugal in the west, England in the north, Egypt in the south and a little place called Palestine in the east. Judea was in Palestine and Tiberius put a man named Pontius Pilate in charge there. Galilee, a region of Judea, was governed by Herod.

As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Judea had never really been an important place. And Galilee was even less so. It was mostly just a place you had to pass through on your way to big important places like Babylon or Egypt.

But this is where the Jews lived. And the Jews believed with all their hearts that God had put them in that place for a reason. They believed firmly that God had chosen them out of all the powerful nations in the world to be His family. And you know what? They were right. God had selected them and made them special. As a result, several of the Jews worked very hard to make sure they were doing exactly what God wanted them to do.

And they did this, in part, because they believed that if they did all that God asked them to do, God would send them a new king that would make the Jews a great nation again. This king, many thought, would throw out Herod's men and Pilate's men and Tiberius' men. He would set up a new kingdom so that all the world would see just how great and powerful the Jews' God was.

That is the reason why, in this distant corner of the world, a lot of the Jews started taking trips into the desert to see John. Now John was kind of a funny man. He lived in the desert. He wore a shirt made from camel's hair and a big leather belt. John had never had a hair cut and he never trimmed his beard; they just kept growing and growing. And John ate the most peculiar food: locusts and honey! That's right! Honey covered grasshoppers! Still, people went to see him because of what he was saying and doing.

John set up camp along the Jordan River and people came to him and he would dunk them under the water. "Repent of your sinful lives!" He told them. "Turn around and listen to what God is saying!"

John was sounding an awful lot like something they had read in their Bibles. He sounded like someone that a prophet named Isaiah had written about: "A voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight paths for Him. Lift up every valley; flatten out the mountains and hills! Straighten out crooked roads; and smooth out the rough paths! And then comes God's salvation." You see, people were excited about John because they knew that if John was the one Isaiah talked about, then the king they hoped for would come along real soon.

But John knew that a lot of them were still really sinful people who didn't really trust God at all. "You snakes!" he called them. "Why do you come out here to see me? Start living like you actually trust God. And don't think that just because you're descendants of Abraham that God will save you. It's not your parents or grandparents that matter. It's how YOU live that makes you a part of God's family!"

The people were astonished and they knew they should change their lives. "What should we do?" they asked John.

"Share with others who don't have what you have," he answered. "Don't lie to people or cheat people. Don't take advantage of other people. That's what you need to do to get ready for God's king. It's bad news for those who don't."

How to Talk about Sin...

It has been argued lately that people don't like to talk about sin anymore, especially their own. It's quite possible that many, in fact, seriously question the usefulness of such a term, as if there were an authority to proclaim what is and is not sin.

Christian evangelists, faced with this (post?)modern mindset, consider this a significant problem as they try diligently to find an appropriate way to demonstrate the need for and effectiveness of Jesus' work. Put simply, how do you tell someone that Jesus has saved them from their sins if they either believe that sin is non-existent or, worse, arbitrarily defined?

I've begun to think that the way forward may actually be through a very different avenue. Rather than speaking of Jesus' work and ministry as one in which he came to save a world of desperate individuals, it may be more productive to speak of Jesus' ministry as a work for the benefit of humankind on the whole, which certainly encompasses the individual.

Whether convinced of their own sinfulness or not, most will agree that much of the rest of the world is in serious need of more than a little help. An old article from US News & World Report cites a study that demonstrates that while most people consider themselves positively, they simultaneously carry a rather bleak outlook toward the rest of the world: "Rich, poor, black, white, young, old - virtually all groups of Americans simultaneously hold sanguine views of themselves and pessimistic appraisals of others. One poll of university professors, for example, found that 94 percent of them thought that they were better at their job than was their average colleague" (David Whitman, "I'm OK, You're Not," US News & World Report 121, no. 24 [16 Dec 1996], 26; quoted in Marva J Dawn, Is It a Lost Cause?: Having the Heart of God for the Church's Children [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 28).

It may, then, be quite easy to have someone agree with you that, yes, the world is in a heap of trouble. It is from there that the story of God's work of restoration and redemption through Jesus may be told afresh to an ear that may be willing to listen.

Reflections

There have been oh-so-many puddles in England this summer. I thought it might be appropriate to take a minute to peer into one of them and reflect before I cross the pond once again.

It’s true that in many ways England and the United States are very similar places. Both are “western” nations and English speaking, and many things transfer from one country to the other – we got “The Office;” they got “The Simpsons.” But there are still so many ways in which Britain is a foreign country to me and there are things that I think a person can learn about himself through foreign travel. Ugly as they are, I believe I’ve become a bit more mindful of some of the prejudices I hold about any number of things, particularly related to nationalism. I have found myself in conversation about foreign affairs with people here and found myself immediately defending the United States and being quite proud of where I come from. On some level I think it is important to hold a level pf pride concerning your heritage, but upon reflection it seems that there aren’t always valid reasons for that pride or defense of our country. I don’t think it was really necessary to travel abroad to find other points of view, but being in this kind of a situation certainly does force it rather quickly. There really is no avoiding it when you leave your own country. I do think it’s necessary, even as Americans living in the United States, to be critical of our government’s policies, regardless of political affiliation. It seems all too easy to avoid this responsibility, however, if you never leave the country. This is especially crucial for us as Christians, I believe, since our nationality, ultimately, belongs to the Kingdom of God and not to any particular political body. If we are to then live responsibly where God has placed us, we must maintain a critical eye towards the nation we live in, not only for our own sake but for those around us as well.

There have been various times in my life when I’ve gone on these short-term opportunities - periods in which I know for certain that my time in a certain places is limited, that there is a fixed date for my departure. Working at a summer camp on three different occasions was similar to that. In those situations, it seems that your sense of “mission” is heightened. There is no question that you are in that place for a specific time for a specific purpose and it seems easier to maintain that focus. The same could be said for my time here in England. Knowing that three months was all the time I was afforded here, I think I was quite intentional about the way I interacted with people and the way I went about my work for Green Street Green. Now, as I return home, I wonder if I might be able to maintain that same sense of concentration in what I do in the States – a more definite sense of purpose in my schoolwork, in my relationships, in my church, and so on.

Finally, it was a great personal encouragement being here with these people. One of my bigger questions going into this experience had to do with my vocational goals. I was quite unsure of the way to proceed after seminary. Yet I’ve received a lot of encouragement from those here to pursue a career in teaching, which had been one of my considerations. Of course, I don’t know yet where I’ll do that – whether in secondary schools, colleges, or the local church – but in any case, it will be in the service of the Lord and His Church.

I do also want to give a hearty wish of gratitude to all of you who have kept up with my adventures in England, who have prayed for my time here, and who have offered words of encouragement from time to time. This has been a real blessing. I do look forward to coming back home, but I think I will always look back on this summer positively. Thank you all for helping with that. And if you could, please pray the next couple of days that my flight home would be smooth and safe. I'll see you all soon.