Teaching Advice to My Wife

Teaching isn't just about buildings or bulletin boards or cool manipulatives. Teaching is mostly about a relationship with your students that enables you to give them the skills that you have that they need in order to move onto the next stage in life.

Justice: intended chapel message on September 2

After watching a video reading of Isaiah 58...

Maybe it’s that the true issue of fasting is seeking justice. instead of seeking what you think that you deserve; instead of speaking up for yourself; instead of seeking what’s best for you, speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves, seek what is best for someone else, call out the masterpiece that is hidden in the mud of someone else’s life.

Justice.

If we really want to please God, than we are to do justice; to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. How do we do justice? Doing isn’t academic, doing is active.

To whom are we to “do justice”? Psalm 82:3 says, “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the rights of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (ESV).

God is motivated by the cries of the hurting and oppressed, and broken. Psalm 69:33 says that “the Lord hears the needy and does not despise His own people who are prisoners” (ESV). Not only is He moved on behalf of the hurting and broken, but God’s justice demands that something be done about the hurting, oppressed and broken.

God is just. It is one of His characteristics (Psalm 111:7 says, ”The works of [the Lord’s] hands are faithful and just; all His precepts are trustworthy” (ESV)). Justice is one of His characteristic that He desires us to carry out. Proverbs 21:3 says “to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (ESV). At the end of Proverbs, the mother of Lemuel tells him to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those who are perishing. Yes, speak up for the poor and the helpless, and see that they get justice” (NLT). In God’s call to the Old Testament Jews to return to Him (revival), He commands then to “learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (ESV). If we desire revival in our land; if we seek to have revival at CSCS; if I truly want to return to God (which is also His desire); then justice should be a big concern of mine—of ours.
If we are motivated by what motivates God, we will be motivated to seek Justice for the hurting, oppressed, and broken. Instead of our religious exercises, God wants us to use our wealth and power and opportunities and privilege and the freedoms we have to reach out to the hurting, oppressed, and broken in this world. Instead of skipping a meal or two a week in order to exercise our self-discipline or because we learned that was what good Christians do, we should be fasting our comfort, our wealth—even a meal or two—

• so that someone else can eat;
• so that someone else can have clothing;
• so that someone who’s house was flooded and destroyed by a hurricane can have shelter;
• so that someone who’s parents are out of work who needs money can be helped;
• so that someone who just changed schools and doesn’t know anyone can have a friend;
• so that someone who is poor, hungry and homeless because of their own sins and wrong choices can receive help;
• And so that someone who hasn’t done anything in life to deserve a kind word and a helping hand has the chance to experience the love of Jesus Christ.
  

This is the kind of fasting I believe that God is asking from us today.

Yes, we need to pray, we need to seek God in our morning and lunch prayer meetings, and prayer and praise rallies and times of worship. These things are things that bring us close to God as they did during the Great Awakenings and other revivals in the past. Yes, we need to be willing to give up things for the sake of following Christ, I don’t want to be like the ancient Jews who went through the motions of looking religious, but yet allow injustice to continue in the world around them—in fact, they sometimes were the ones who perpetrated the injustices!

The author of James also speaks of a similar theme to that of Micah 6:8. In James 1:27, he writes: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuses to let the world corrupt us” (ESV/NLT). Today, so much of our religious is taken up by the “pure and blameless…and not being corrupted by the world” part of the verse that we forget the heart of the verse—“visit those in society that are the worse off—visit them in order to be with them and to help them while they are in their distress.”

True religion that pleases God is Justice combined with a holy lifestyle.

As we consider the issue of Justice, one of the biggest questions that is being asked of those who are hurting and broken in the world, is if God is so good, where is He? What’s His plan to fix our broken situation?

We are His plan. We are the proof that God is good.

God has called us. He has empowered us with His Holy Spirit. He has equipped us with knowledge of Him. He commanded us to “go into the entire world and tell people what you have seen and heard from” Him.

We who are followers of Jesus Christ; we who are Christians; are His answer to the hurting and broken in the world. We are to be the answer that God planned for the inJustice in the world.

• The US government isn’t the answer.
• The state of Colorado isn’t the answer.
• The United Nations isn’t the answer.
• Even though some people think that God is a Republican, the Republican Party isn’t the answer—and neither is the Democratic Party, for that matter.
• Welfare isn’t the answer,
• neither is the Red Cross.
• We are the answer to Justice.
  

This is not new information, but this point really struck me recently while I was at a leadership conference listening to Gary Haugen, the President of the International Justice Mission. It was at this conference that God began to tie some things together in my mind that has been brewing in my mind for a number of years.

Before I conclude this point, I want to change the topic a bit …

There are many people who observe your generation (and mine as well) and would say that these generations are spoiled, overprotected, wealthy, overweight, selfish, self-centered, preoccupied with possessions—especially our technological gadgets. They say that there are new levels of “hopelessness, distrust, cynicism and boredom.” One author I recently read said that this generation of young adults is “psychically numb.” He said that this leads to “intentional noninvolvement” and that “even if they manage to see through the haze of commercialism, young adults have been conditioned to believe that there are no absolute truths, so to ‘make a difference’ would require imposing their will on others, something they refuse to do.”[1]
Some of this is true, some of it I don’t understand, but…

I see something different in this generation—in you. I see a passion and concerned for the broken, oppressed, and hurting. I see a desire in you to change the world and that you are frustrated that you can’t change the world now.

• I see you crying out to help the invisible children of Uganda and to contribute toward freeing people from slavery in Southeast Asia and founding campaigns to make life better for the orphans in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
• I see you organizing food and water drives for hurricane victims
• and looking to serve the homeless at the Springs Rescue Mission or the Marion House.
• Just recently I heard of a local Sunday school class of Middle School girls who raised $450 to a family in Ellicott who lost their home and their grandparent’s home in one of this summer’s grassfires.
  

This summer I had numerous conversations with many of you and your peers that confirmed what if felt God was showing me about this drive to be part of this drive toward justice that seems to be in your generational DNA.

• I see a generation of young people who are tired of being protected and who want to take risks.
• I see a generation of teenagers who are restless to use their youthful energy to change their world—and I firmly believe that He has given you this restless energy so that you can change the world.
• I see a generation who wants to be reminded of the early church and how they fought and suffered to live out the love and life of Jesus Christ in them. Christians who stayed in Rome to take care of plague victims while the rest of the city fled.
• You read Acts 2 and crave to live out their faith like the early church did—people who would actually sell their possessions in order to buy food or shelter or clothing for someone else who was in need.
  

I am not campaigning for you to be involved in a specific service program—though we do have service programs. I want to challenge you with the thought that if you and I want to see the Spirit of God moving that you and I should do more than just pray and worship and skip some meals, we need to be out living out the heart of Jesus in a broken world. We need to do Justice. I want to challenge you with what I see in you. I see this generation, this group of 9th through 12th graders at CSCS, as:

• a generation of people who wants to be righteous (Psalm 14:5b);
• a generation who seeks the face of the God of Jacob (Psalm 24:6);
• a generation who understands the times and knows what to do (1 Chronicles 12:32);
• A generation who serves God’s purpose for them on this earth (Acts 13:36).
  

I see:

• A generation who wants to reframe Christianity that the world sees from a self-important swagger that portrays the attitude of “we have the Truth and you don’t” to a Christianity that sees that followers of Christ hold a humble genuine faith in the Truth that has changed their lives. Followers of Christ who want to love others because Christ loved them.[2].
• I see a generation that in the words of David Kinnaman in his book UnChristian, “wants nothing more than to elevate the relevance of Jesus to our culture”.
• A generation who wants to restore the Christian message from one of “self-preservation” to one of “world restoration”[3].
  

At the end of last year, one of the slogans that we began to hear around here was “be the change.” As we begin this school year, I want to encourage you that you can, in fact, be the change—I believe that it is wired into you. Bill Hybels, pastor of the Willow Creek Church in Chicago, recently said, “God is faithful to do more in our lifetime than He’s done before in history.” I’m crazy enough to believe that this is true and to believe that you in this generation may be the ones through which He does this great work!

Whether you are seeking revival in this generation or are seeking to fulfill that longing that is in our generational DNA to change the world, my challenge to you is to make your faith active. Hear the heart of God for those who are broken, hurting, hungry, naked, in poverty, have AIDS, are in slavery, are lonely, have no friends…

You have head knowledge; turn that head knowledge into experiential knowledge. Turn your theoretical theology into practical theology. You know about God, get to know God and His heart. You will never see God the same way; you will never know Him the same way after you have been in the world taking the Truth and Love of Christ to those who need it the most. It is then, when your heart is beating with His, that you’ll realize that you are revived. It is then that you will discover why you have a longing to change the world. Don’t just abstain from food, but live a lifestyle that brings justice, loves mercy and walks humbly with God.

Footnotes:
[1] Passing the Baton by Jeff Myers. p. 38
[2] UnChristian, p. 35.
[3] UnChristian, p. 35.

My hero Paul is bald!

You know, for years I’ve been saying that the Apostle Paul was my hero. I have studied his writings for various reasons under various circumstances. I have preached sermons on some of his epistles (Ephesians and 1 Timothy). I have studied what he says about leadership (both civic and ecclesiastical). I have struggled through some of his hard sayings like “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want…for id o not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no long I who do it, but sing that dwells in me”—whew! I feel what he’s saying more that I can explain it! or other hard sayings like “in Christ there is no male or female” but “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Or, “women should keep silent in the church” but every “woman who prays or prophesies with he head uncovered dishonors her head.” or even…”greet each other with a holy kiss”. Truly Peter was right when he said that there are some things that Paul writes about that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16).

Recently, though I’ve come to appreciate something about Paul that is to some of less significance. My kids and I have been watching “Drive Thru History with Dave Stott” by the great people at Cold Water Media. Nearly every picture they showed of the Apostle Paul was of him being bald headed. As a visual person, the visual image of my long running hero created more of a bond even than I had felt before!

This morning I did a quick Google search of pictures of the Apostle Paul looking for bald representations of my hero. My results were mixed until I ran across Google’s results for “icon St. Paul”, then I scored with many images of a bald Paul. I also found in a Q&A section of Christianity Today’s Library (ctlibrary.com), the answer about Paul’s appearance being “bald, blind and single” say that “the only physical description of Paul,[comes from] in an early Christian document, the Acts of Paul. (Its author, a second-century church leader, was fired over the book because he attributed to Paul some unorthodox teachings such as sexual abstinence in marriage.) A more literal translation of the description of Paul in Greek reads, “A man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were far apart; he had large eyes, and his eyebrows met, and his nose was somewhat long.” This may be little more than imaginative writing from a century after Paul died, but it does not clash with the way Paul’s critics described him: “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive” (2 Cor. 10:10).

My late father (yes, he recently died; but while he was alive, he was always running late) used to say, “Bald is beautiful”. well, I’m still struggling with that, but I’m coming to discover that baldness, though inherited for some of us and a postmodern/Generation X trend for others of us, is a notable feature of various men in history that I’ve grown to appreciate. One of my closest spiritual mentors is bald! My humble but powerfully godly father was bald. His godly bass singing grandfather was also bald. Elisha one of the greatest prophets in the history of Israel was bald and I just occur to me that the Apostle Paul was very probably bald!

Now, lest you are prone to say, “Go up old bald man and get over it”, let me remind you of some young men who said that to one of my bald heroes about 4,000 years ago. As a bald hero of mine walked along the road, some young men from a local town began mocking and making fun of him. “Go up you bald head!” they chanted. “Go away you bald head!” This hero turned around and looked at them and cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two mama bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of them (2 Kings 2:23-24)…hmmmm. Go Elisha!

None-the-less, Paul is the man! During some recent circumstances, I once again have been encouraged by the life and experiences and the commitment to the ministry and his passion for pursuing a personal relationship of Jesus Christ. I thought I’d begin to use this blog to process my appreciation for our Lord’s servant the Apostle Paul, the human author of most of the New Testament and the spiritual ancestor of most of us European Christians.

Some ways I appreciate Paul (besides the fact that he’s bald), include that Paul claimed to “be the compost”. I love the way that he pursues unity. I love his take on weakness. I love the way that Paul pursued Christ; the way that he knew his identify and calling in Christ. I love the way that he became increasingly aware of his condition without Christ as he got older. And I love the way that in so much more difficult ways than me he endured so much to follow Christ and to be faithful to His calling on his life at all costs. Finally, I love the way that he mentored individuals and groups.

More to come…but not about his baldness!