"May the Lord's Word be in his heart"

Today was a special day for me, as a father and as a Christian. Let me start at the end:

Joel and I were walking out of CPK and he says to me, "Dad, now that I am a Christian, can I go to work with you?" Words that made my eyes well up, that gave me a feeling of overwhelming excitement as a Dad that pray for his children daily.

My son became a follower of Jesus today. Obviously, I will continue to share the Gospel with him. To explain it to him, and help him understand the gravity of his decision to follow Jesus for the rest of his life. That is the job God has given me as the father of these kids. Do I think he fully understands what it means to follow Jesus daily, no I do not. But I have asked him on a number of occasions if he would like Jesus to clean his dirty heart and make him clean and his response has always been about a million questions and a result of, "non dad, not yet." As if he was waiting for something. So at the very least he has a thorough understanding that he is unclean and in need of saving by Jesus. He can articulate what Jesus did on the cross and what that means for people.

I gave him his first engraved Bible in CPK today and we sat and talked about II Tim. 3:16, that the Bible is all God's words to people. I talked about Hebrews 4 and told him the Bible is not like any other book, it has power. I explained John 3:16 and told him that Jesus came to save those who would believe out of their sins. He sat amazed, the adventurous little boy inside came out and was filled with amazement and wonder about how big and great God is. So I couldn't help but think, does he want to give his life to Christ and follow Him? Obviously he doesn't "get" that whole formula, but it was clear he believed these things and wanted to confess to God that he did. So I asked him if he wanted to tell God that he was thankful for the forgiveness of his dirty heart, and tell God he wanted to live for him from now on. Now, normally in this part of the convo he says, "not yet dad." But he actually said, "Yes, dad. Let's pray." Then he looked around, from my perspective sort of timidly. So I asked, "wanna wait till we get in the car?" He looked at me and said, "No. I want to pray now." SO we did. The weight of his decision weighs heavy on my heart because I know he is a follower of Christ, but it is my responsibility to cultivate that.

Consider Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go;
 even when he is old he will not depart from it.

I now enter "training day". As his primary spiritual mentor I am called to train him up so that he will not depart from this decision he made today. 

Israel is given an imperative in Deuteronomy 6:6-7:

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.a

These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.a

 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." 

My desire for my son is to love the Lord His God with all His heart. Of course I believe this decision he made today is as real as any of us adults make. However, it is my responsibility from this point on to teach him about this decision and to help him in his discipleship process to Jesus. Our lives are about being Christians, not just doing the Christian thing. It is an identity, it brings us into a new kingdom and a new family, and we will talk about the precepts of God. 

Today was emotional and exciting. Words can't describe my excitement as I enter this process with my son. May the Lord give him strength to follow Him all the days of his life and may the Lord encourage him and lavish grace upon him as he goes through this difficult but spiritually fulfilling process. 

Is reading the Bible crucial to Faith?

Second week in a row to sit and write. I have really enjoyed thinking about writing each week. It's not that I think what I have to say is any more important than the next guy. But I get this feeling when I blog that I just have to express things I am thinking about. Today I am thinking through how college group went this last week and the implications of the Gospel of John for my own life. Last week I challenge these college-aged adults to consider the cost of discipleship in one particular area of following Jesus: studying the Word of God and knowing it. I experience, quite often, people who claim to be followers of Jesus who do not read their Bible's, let alone study it!  But this begs the question, "is reading the bible crucial to my faith?"

Consider 2 statements by Jesus in John 8

"So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,

 and you will know the truth, and the truth ewill set you free.”"  vv. 31-32

"Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." v. 51

These two statements are challenging for those who claim to be Christians. It's seems clear on the surface here that no person, I don't care who you are, can understand, let alone worship something they don't know. I have to say that the importance of "holding" to the teachings of Jesus has been found wanting in our churches. People are given a free pass to write off studying their Bibles, and even reading them. Yeah, one might encourage it behind the pulpit. But encouraging people to abide in Jesus and His Word goes back to how a church should function for the body of believers. The church is not a product for consumers, but a family that functions much like your physical family does. So what is abiding in his word?

D.A. Carson defines keeping and abiding in God's Word as, "obeying it, seeking to understand it better, and finding it more precious, more controlling, especially when outside forces oppose it" (Carson, PNTS, John, pg. 348). Jesus in the first passage is directly addressing those Jews who put their faith in him. Clearly we have seen in John those who follow Jesus but walk away when things get too hard (refer to John 6). The point being made that persevering as a disciple means abiding in His Word and the power of His word, which makes us free! Guys, this does NOT mean listening to your pastor on Sunday and "getting your fill". It is so much more than that. We are not only called here to read and study God's Word, but to obey it and live it out. It is alive and active (Heb. 4:12). It changes our very being, it makes us new people, a part of a kingdom marked by grace. It should pour out of our lives and cause a noticeable difference in how we live. 

I believe these statements Jesus makes challenge the presupposition that, "well Mark, some people are wired to love and be in the Word like that, and others are not." I don't believe we, if we desire to follow Jesus, have an option here. God's Word is to be abided in, period. If we claim to have a relationship with Jesus, it stands to reason that we want to soak in every word he says, and every word the writers of the Bible said about Him as well. Yes, it is true that some do not have the "study disposition" that others might, but it doesn't matter. I may not necessarily be wired to pray fervently, but that doesn't eliminate me from having to pray does it?!?! It seems clear in the first statement that our personalities and the way we are wired is more effectively used by God if we are abiding in His word. In others words, I think it's a mistake to say you are not wired to abide in or study His Word, because through His Word is where you learn how you are wired. If you believe that you have more relational gifts as opposed to a cerebral one, you learn that from the intimate time you spend in the Word. And in abiding in His Word you can more effectively invest the giftedness God has given you into the church. 

These statements by Jesus should stir something in us. It should stir a conviction and a passion to consume His Word. Not only read it, but obey it and study it consistently. As followers of Jesus, it isn't enough to sit through a 30 minute sermon. We are marked by whether or not we are abiding in his word. When we Abide in His Word we are set free and marked by renewed life, a life that is noticeable to this dying and decayed world.

Yes, reading the Bible consistently is crucial to our process of discipleship to Jesus. My challenge here is not to ask you to study for hours on end, but to start taking steps to more consistently abide in His Word. Wake up 5 minutes early and read from a Gospel, write out a verse on a card and memorize it through the day, and most importantly find someone who can help you gain a better, deeper, and much richer understanding of His Word and meet with that person on a weekly basis. As the Church, may we come alongside each other and help each other conform into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, for the advancement of His Kingdom. 

Do we really need "church"?

Well after a long break from blogging for various reasons, I am back blogging and will hopefully be blogging weekly with the occasional "surprise" entry. After months of taking a break I have discovered 2 things. The first, I have not lost my passion for evangelism and "the Starbucks" conversation, I haven't lost it in the slightest. And second, I am becoming increasingly passionate about my ministry to the college aged and young adults. I am not sure why my passion for Junior High and High School has subsided, but what I have discovered is that this shift has been from the Lord. I know I am not a reformer of the church myself (i.e. I don't have a desire to go start my own the way I think it should go),  but I have a heart for lighting an enormous flame in the souls of 18-30 year olds to go out and make an impact on the church, an impact not temporal, but heavenly and eternal, an impact for Christ's kingdom.

Over the summer I had an opportunity to start a small college bible study, although we haven't limited it to students in college, per se. This group has blown me away from having a desire to study the Word of God for an average of 2 hours on a Saturday at Starbucks [of course :)], to being extraordinarily raw and vulnerable with each other. This group is comprised of a motley crew, but they are phenomenal and I love being with them. We have had some great experiences together and one, in particular, I'd like to discuss here today.

Two weeks ago I planned a "shared communion meal" for this group. One of our students lives in wine country, which was the perfect setting to give these students this experience. This event was planned using Robert Banks book, "Going to Church in the first century". This is a well researched fun little fictional book about a man's experience visiting a home fellowship in Rome. Using this book, information from my Church as Family class from Talbot, and a few passages that clearly refer to this sort of table fellowship the early church experienced, we had a meal together. The food was delicious! I even found an "Ancient Roman barley soup" recipe that I made for them. During the meal we read from Scripture, discussed God's working in our lives, prayed together, and took communion together throughout the meal. It, to say the very least, was one of the most intimate and spiritual church experiences I had ever had. And I could tell that it was something all these students craved. I would be the last to advocate for a diagnostic interpretation of passages like Acts 2: 42-47 and I Corinthians 11 in the sense that they need to be prescribed to every church everywhere. However I do believe our churches are anemic of these family experiences the Early Church had and we can do a lot to inject this life into the church.

Getting to my blog title, do we really need church? This is a tough question to answer. I would answer it differently depending on what you are saying. I have had people tell me they have a personal relationship with Jesus and that's all that matters. This "personal" thing is an epidemic in our culture and it is quite interesting to see it develop. In this sense I would say that church is essential. In fact Paul only uses the term "my Lord" ONE time in his writings (Phil 3:8) compared to dozens of "our Lord" occurrences. I would challenge you to give me indefensible proof for the idea of this personal relationship with Jesus! I am not saying it does not exist, but our cultures obsession with the personal aspect has come at a heavy and serious cost, our community relationship with Jesus, which takes precedence in Paul and all of the NT. You see, when we count the cost of becoming disciples, this cost is not just the hardship we encounter, but the things we give u and join. We give up the priority of physical family and replace it with spiritual family. Mark 3:31-35 should strike you as one of the most shocking passages in all the NT. Jesus, a first century Palestinian Jew, does not recognize his own family as family and recognizes his followers as his own family. This was unheard of in Jesus culture and frankly offensive to his peers and embarrassing to his family. Jesus point here, though, is clear. His spiritual family takes priority over his physical family. When these men who wrote the NT and lived during its composition thought about their relationship to Jesus, they thought "us and Jesus" and not "me and Jesus"(line taken from Dr. Joe Hellerman's class notes). Church is essential for us as believers, for without this community our spiritual life lacks essential ingredients for vitality and growth.

But I would also tell someone who goes to a 2 hour weekly service, hears some songs, and listens to a 30 minute monologue is not really going to church. Church is so much more than this. Of course I do think attending church is better than not going at all, but as stated above when we see the importance of community and it's essential element in our own lives, then it should become increasingly apparent that we cannot "do the Christian life" without the Church family, and family is more than dinner once a week. We have created a church experience that satisfies those who have no desire to commit and are happy on the fringes. Ponder passages like John 6 where Jesus famously causes hundreds, maybe even thousands to stop following him because they aren't interested in anything other than having their physical needs met. Or what about Matt. 8 where a young disciples asks Jesus if he could first go and bury his father, a reasonable request for a first century Jewish man. Well, Jesus says follow me and let the dead bury their own! WOW. This passage is a picture into the whole Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is inviting people out of the crowd and is wanting them to count the cost of being his disciples. The church is not intended to keep those on the fringes in that same place. It's intended to get those on the fringes to enter the Fold of God, his kingdom and family. Or our churches will push those on the fringes away like those in John 6. But we have designed church to be the most comfortable place for those in that place, and It was never intended to be that way.

We NEED church, it is essential for us if we claim to be Jesus followers! And there is no way around the NT promoting this idea. The question becomes: are you really doing your part to make the church was it is intended to be by God?

A few great resources on this topic if you are interested: Dr Joe Hellerman: Ancient Church as Family, Church as a Family, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together, Robert Banks: Pauls idea of community, Going to church in the first century. 

I apologize if my blog seems erratic in flow and thought, bear with me as I get back into the flow of writing.