Update from 2 weeks ago

Hey friends,
Two weeks ago I (nick) told you about a pastor in Texas named Matt Chandler. They had found a tumor in his right frontal lobe. He encouraged his church and all watching that he was blessed because he got to make much of Christ in the face of trials. He said that Jesus was greater than anything else he could lose. We talked about Romans 8:18-25 and suffering that leads to glory.

At the time doctors did not know if it was cancer until they had the chance to take it out. I wanted to update you. The tumor was malignant (that's bad news), and he will be starting chemo in January. I've posted links to a new video from his church, as well as the one we showed in service. Pray for his family (Lauren, his wife, and his kids Audrey, Reid and Norah), that they will feel the peace of Christ and His church. Pray for the Village Church as their pastor is suffering. Pray most of all that Christ be glorified. May we draw near to Jesus in our times of blessing and suffering.

New Video

The Video we showed in Service

Tiger

Anybody tired of hearing about Tiger Woods yet? I heard one reporter say that Tiger has now joined a fraternity of famous people who while on “top”, have still “fallen far”. I have heard more jokes, read more articles, and seen more sports center reviews on this one man that I could have ever cared too. Here is my issue: all awhile, we know exactly what is going to happen. It happened to Alex Rodriguez, it happened to Kobe Bryant, it will happen to Tiger. At the moment that he returns to an athletic achievement…his image will be restored and he’ll be a national hero once again. Unbelievable…

I have been dealing with how to draw spiritual implications and applications from this. I don’t know Tiger’s faith, but I do know that he lived a life of secret, hidden, patterned sin. Let’s assume for a second that Tiger is a follower of Jesus Christ. He would not be that different than many of us. While we may not be having affairs with multiple women, many of us do entertain secret, hidden, patterned sin. We think we are fooling everybody around us…and worst of all, think we are fooling God.

Rather than give you an opinion, I’d like to point you to a text. 1 Timothy 5:20 says:
“As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the
presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear”.
Lets go from end to start. First off…we are too live in FEAR. Fear of the Lord is a common theme that runs throughout scripture, and I think finds its climatic definition in passages like this. Our sin will find us out. A DEEP love relationship with God and a habitual life of sin cannot co-exist. One should and will cancel out the other. Our fear should also lie in that our sin will come to light. Therefore, when we see people fall…it should turn us inward and call us back to a fearful response of motivated righteousness. Our second response is active rebuke. This is tricky, and one that I find a lot of comfort in being a part of a community called the Church. The Church is an active mechanism of not just teaching us of righteousness, but holding us to it. One of the Churches key functions is the accountability of believers. In cases of secret sin, accountability looks like bold, public rebuke by Church leaders of the individual that the rest of the body can 1) respond in fear leading to righteousness 2) come around in hard love and support of the individual. Both are necessary…both are needed. Both are being the Church.

I wonder if Tiger is getting either. If the only spiritual take away is that we fear our own secret sin ….than I think some worthy good has come from it. Definitely will change the way I watch golf…

~Deep thoughts by a shallow guy~
mn

Spiritual Life

by Eugene Peterson

“Our Spirituality begins in Theology (the revelation and understanding of God) and is guided by it. And theology is never truly itself apart from being expressed in the bodies of the men and women to whom God gives life and whom God then intends to life a full Salvation Life (spirituality)”.

Holiday Hocus Pocus

Can you believe how quickly the Holiday season changes? The second Thanksgiving is over, a title wave comes called… Christmas. The trees are up, wreaths are hung, coffee shops new flavors are simmering, stores are crazy. Wow. You would think that with all of that instant changeover, the lingering emotions of thankfulness would find their way through as well. But rather, we label “the next day” (after thanksgiving) as BLACK FRIDAY titled for the early bird, caffeine crazed, warrior mode woman hitting the shopping courageously checking off their own buy lists. Not that you need it from me, but let me take a second to give you the permission to maintain a spirit that you have always craved. Sit back and rest a little, savoring Jesus and the Rescue he did unto us. Let this steam into a sentiment of thankfulness and reflective worship. The “Christmas Spirit” doesn’t begin the 24th… it has begun now. So take a moment to reflect on the person you were, want to be, and will become this Holiday season.

~Deep thoughts from a shallow guy~
mn

Listening, Running, Turning, Following and a Side of Fish Vomit

We have begun to move forward from our journey of draw near…and although it is our heart that each of you would continue to draw near to God, we then have to ask ourselves the question…As we are continuing to draw near to God, how would He have us live? How would He have us speak? What would He command of us? How would He send us forward?

I think a lot of these questions we are hoping to answer and pursue over this next three weeks as we look at the life of Jonah. Jonah is given a command from God that within a moment’s notice he turns and runs away from. God commands him to go to a hard group of people…a group that we would only know how to describe as the worst of sinners & really scary dudes. But within our own realm of influence, who we encounter day to day, even those in our surrounding neighborhoods and families, we all face “scary dudes.” Mostly I think it just stems from our own unwillingness to get comfortable and really love the way Christ calls us to love. We love by sharing; we love by PROCLAIMING AND DEMONSTRATING the gospel to those around us.

So as we think about this and we realize we are all called to “go”, the question remains will we obey or will we run? I think the answer to this question really can help us search our heart with how much we have truly allowed God’s grace to transform our hearts and give us a love for the lost and really “bad dudes”. In the book “The Radical Reformission” I am reading right now the author Mark Driscoll talks about this in relation to looking at Jonah’s life. He says…

And Jonah leaves us to ponder who we would be if God had stopped running after us and simply left us to ourselves. In what ways are we running from God’s call to bring the gospel to others? What will repentance look like for us? What could happen if God captured the hearts of people in our town because you pointed them to Him? What if the heart God’s people had for their cities was like Jesus’ heart for Jerusalem instead of Jonah’s heart for Nineveh? (pg. 107)

This pretty much cuts my heart open because I realize I don’t break for the lost in my town. I don’t seek to proclaim and demonstrate who Christ is to those around me when God calls me to everyday. Think for a minute about how much you run & draw near to Jesus…if it’s a lot, and I hope it is, now think about the people who don’t have that hope, peace, contentment, security and love because they don’t know the good news.

Now, as you move forward in continuing to abide in God, I pray that you would move forward in pursuing others in the name of Christ and sharing His love & grace with them. I pray that unlike Jonah you would say “yes” to the command of God as he calls you to move forward & live as His ambassador.

~Bold thoughts from a loud woman
ew

T.R.I.B.E.

We had a fantastic time this weekend on our Camp Trek trip. The subject we discussed while picking marshmallows out of our teeth, wafting at smoke in our eyes, and anxiously waiting for “that girl” to realize someone put a bug on her shoulder…was…MISSIONAL LIVING.

It’s a topic we have been circling for a long time now, and feel like it’s time to start landing the plane. Therefore, over the next 4 weeks on Saturday nights, we are going to look at an Old Testament example of this in the book of Jonah. You may hear us as well discuss an acronym giving us confident steps in the “how to go about” it. Here it is:

T. arget (who is the Lord putting on your heart to minister to due to: friendship, circumstance, similar talents, etc…)

R. elationship (What steps do you need to take to develop a deeper trusting relationship with them?)

I. nitiative (What are some gospel steps or situations you could be proactive in?)

B. aby steps (What small steps need to be taken in the process of “them having the full gospel”.

E. engage them with Truth (What hard questions are being presented that the Word is the ultimate answer too?)

We’d like for you to process and pray through this on your own, in your small groups, and with your monk mentors. We are trying to wrap out hearts around Christ’s missional charge to Go and Make Disciples out of every TRIBE and nation.

~deep thoughts from a shallow guy~
mn

The Meaning of 'in me' in John 15

Last Saturday night, we looked at John 15, the story of the vine and the branches. We hit a snag (no pun intended) when we came across a controversial element of the passage. Theologians have long debated the meaning of “in me” that is used throughout the passage, as in “every branch in me that does not bear fruit” (John 15:2a). We said that there are traditionally two ways to understand “in me.” In this article, we want to explore these to interpretations and see if we can learn anything about them. The first interpretation is that “in me” refers to our salvation. To be “in Christ” is to be a born again child of God. In the second interpretation, “in me” refers to fellowship or relationship with Christ. The difference is something like this. Compare it to the relationship between children and their parents. We can talk about whether or not children legitimately belong to their parents. Or we can about their relationship. Children can have a bad relationship with their parents and not lose them as parents.

Now, I am no theologian. Most of what I will discuss here come from Joseph C. Dillow’s article “Abiding is Remaining: Another Look at John 15:1-6.” Let’s consider first the idea of “in me” meaning salvation. This reading makes sense to us because we so frequently hear “in Christ” refer to salvation, as in “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17a). Under this interpretation, when Jesus says “every branch in me” He is referring to saved believers. There is a bit of a problem with this. Verse 2 says that “every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away” and later in verse 6 “if anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers.” If we understand this passage as talking about salvation and heaven and hell, we have two options. Either Jesus is saying that genuine believers will lose their salvation if they do not abide or somehow the “in me” in verse 2 must be different than the other “in me’s.” We know the first option cannot be correct because of the overwhelming amount of Scripture that teaches that we cannot lose our salvation. Therefore, most theologians who take the salvation view of “in me” claim that the branches that do not bear fruit merely claim to be “in Christ” but are not so. This is difficult to justify, but there is another option for interpreting this text.

We must recognize the context of Jesus’ teaching. Judas has left to betray Jesus, and the only people with Him the 11 faithful disciples. Therefore, He is speaking to those who are all genuine believers who will serve Jesus faithfully all of their lives. But, they are scared and confused over the news that Jesus will be leaving them soon. Jesus is teaching them how to follow Him and bear fruit when they can no longer see Him face to face. It would make sense that Jesus would not need to teach these men about being saved, but rather how to maintain this wonderful relationship they have been building for 3 years. There are at least 4 reasons to understand “in me” as being good relationship.

1) The various passages in which “in Christ” refers to salvation are written by Paul. We have to look at how John uses the phrase, which is mostly to talk about relationship. This does not mean that they teach different things, but rather that they use words differently.
2) The context lends to the idea that Jesus would want to give His disciples practical, comforting words about how to stay with Him.
3) The command to abide means that Jesus thought that the disciples had to work to “remain in Him.” This does not make sense in salvation, but makes perfect sense in relationship. The whole of Scripture teaches that salvation is God’s work in us. We are not saved by our works, but by faith in God’s grace. However, we do strive and work to know the Lord more fully in our lives.
4) It removes the problem of interpreting the branches not “in Him.” We then see that Jesus is using the dried up branches to describe the relationship between Himself and non-abiding believers, not the state of their soul.

Though there are good reasons to follow both interpretations, I believe that understanding “in me” as referring to fellowship with Christ is the most accurate interpretation. It explains that Christ is urging the men He dearly loved (and also us!) to stay close to Him by abiding. He longs for relationship with us. This abiding relationship yields fruit, which glorifies the Father (John 15:8), witnesses to the world (John 15:8) and gives us joy (John 15:11).

For His glory and our joy,
nr