The Organ of Meaning

Do I have what it takes?

This is the question that rattles through so many minds; from my experience it does so for males far more often than for women. I’m not saying that it never barrels its way through the heads and hearts of women, I have just heard and seen its effects in men more frequently.

It comes out in reaction to so many things.

Career. Relationships. Sports. School.

Honestly, just about every guy sees some aspect of life as a competition with every other person. It’s not (necessarily) that we want to beat or destroy the other “competitors”, we just want to know that we have what it takes to succeed. As boys (and sometimes even as adult men), we turn everything into some sort of game.

I’ve seen games of Frisbee evolve into “disc dodge”, I know guys who compete at kicking flip-flops onto a certain set of stairs, a guy I had coffee with two weeks ago loves to play a game that involves tennis balls, a golf club and the emergency stations that are on every college campus. Honestly, look at curling, it was totally a few guys trying to prove that they had the best stone sliding skills.

Stone sliding skills. Not a skill that will help in hunting or gathering. Not something that is actually useful like running fast. It’s guys trying to prove that they have what it takes in some (very) small area of life.

This has been the question that I’ve wrestled with the most during the past year and a half. My wife has been promoted within our team and I have not. The reason that I have not is because I am fulfilling a role outside of our team, but in our region that no one else is filling because they don’t possess the expertise required to do it. The role that I have is useful and it is proof that on some level I have what it takes more than other people.

Yet, for my selfish heart, I need more. I want to know that I have what it takes in every area. I want to be the one everywhere I go. I want to be the Regional IT Specialist (capital letters) and I want to be one of the Missional Team Leaders in Washington, DC (get it, capital letters?).

One of the things about this question is that it always is looking for more. My heart asks this question every day and it leads to nothing less than idolatry. Idolatry is something that I’ve been very aware of lately. The next post that I’m still planning on sharing from the Advance09 conference was some thoughts on idolatry in general and in specific.

What I’m realizing is that idolatry is the thing that lies at the root of every annoying foible and every disgusting corner of our lives and society.

The human heart is a factory of idols – John Calvin

Whatever you think of Calvin himself or his theology in general. On this point he is undoubtedly right. We are constantly looking for things to save us. Things to save us from boredom, from insignificance, from pain, from sadness, from want and desire and need. We look for the things that will give us our desires for pleasure, for money, for control and power and importance. We’re looking for the things to which we can give our all and will give us everything we want in return. In short, we’re looking for something to worship, a god who will receive our service and hear our prayers and give us everything we want because we make it happy.

Yet, it can’t.

The wonderful answer to the question of whether or not I have what it robs us of control and steals our fear, striving and insecurity with it.

In the end, I don’t have what it takes. I don’t.

And that’s good.

Because, the One who steals all of that away does have what it takes, and is willing to give it to me. Give what you ask?

A pain free life? No.

Power and fame and money? Probably not.

Happiness and pleasure all the time? Nope.

Himself?

Yes, himself. This is the Gospel.

That the God who created all of this, who has what it takes to create worlds and to oversee all of time, who is able to see the past and the future in one glance, who loves every person in the most intimate and personal way, yet refuses to overpower our choice to love Him back or not, the one who is infinite yet became one of us so that we can comprehend who is is and to pay a debt that we could not pay; that this same God is willing to exchange me for Him.

The good news is that I don’t have to have what it takes, I just have to have Him who has taken it all. When I have Him, I have everything that I need. I have what it takes to look at tomorrow and know that whatever it carries, He has seen it coming and He will see me through it. Even if there is pain in it. Even if the life that I know crumbles around me, I have Him who knows the end from the beginning and knows the ultimate good at the end.

I think most Christians don’t know what to do with the Law, by that I mean that we often speak about the regulations given to Abraham by God as if they are defective and somehow not good. The Law is full of things that we don’t get – when do you do this kill this animal this way, don’t mix fabrics, don’t grow a goatee (I’m looking at you youth pastors), don’t even touch your wife during her “special time”.

I’ve been reading a book that we got for free from Advance09 – Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community. Honestly, I didn’t expect that it would be a book that I would underline all that much, but I was underlining within 6 pages. One of the things that I underlined had hit me like a slap in the face:

The Law of Moses is given as the word by which God rules his people as they wait for the coming Savior. It is a liberating law given to bless God’s people. It was the lie of the serpent to portray God’s rule as harsh and tyrannical. The reality is that the rule of God is a rule of life, blessing, peace and justice. God rules through his word, and his rule brings freedom and joy.

The author is right! The thing that I do so often is portray the Law as something that was intended to be a limiting shackle on the people of Israel. Quite the opposite, it gave freedom by giving boundaries. Our Americanized idea of freedom says that where there are any boundaries there is no freedom, but real freedom requires boundaries; how free would we really be if there were no laws to restrain murder and theft? We’d spend all of our days protecting ourselves and our stuff.

The Law did the same thing.

In the nations that surrounded Israel, the polytheistic faiths gave no liberty – no freedom to live life unshackled by guilt and doubt. Think of all of the stories even of the ancient Greeks and Romans, they were always trying to appease some god or making sure they weren’t stepping on some goddess’ toes (I’m looking at you Hera); they were never sure if they were in good standing.

Think about it, you’re following a God that just held back the sea and then drowned the most elite soldiers of one of the most powerful nations on earth at the time, a God who had made a tangible darkness hang over the whole country, that turned the Nile into blood and supernaturally killed hundreds to set you free – and not just random hundreds, but only the firstborn and only in unmarked houses. You want to know whether or not you’re in good standing with that God. So, what does that God do? He gives you guidelines so you can know.

You no longer have to guess whether or not you’re doing things right, you have the Law to make reference to. You can know whether God is pleased with you or wanting a closer walk with you.

One thing to remember – unclean was not sin. You have this trichotomy of holiness. You have things that are clean (this is set apart or holy or able to be in God’s presence), you have things that are sinful (things that God is against and are an affront to him in some personal way) and you have the middle ground of the unclean (which is just common, banal, vulgar). The unclean was not bad (or else undertakers were never able to be in God’s good graces and the dead would just lie where they died), it was just common. The reason that this is talked about so much in the Law – God had called his people to be set apart, to be holy and a light that shined His holiness. They were not better than other people, they were just to imitate God more closely.

I think the lesson that I need to take from this is to understand why those in the Old Testament loved the Law.

Psalm 119:97

Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.

Okay, so it’s been a week and a half since I returned from Advance09 and much of it has still been on my mind. I do still want to give some sort of rundown of just about of the talks from the three days; or at least share a highlight or a quote from it that stood out. I missed two of them and there was one that was good, but nothing that stood out as something that I needed to really write down. It was a good listen though.

So, I want to just share one quote from Bryan Chapell’s talk, “Communicating the Gospel through Preaching.”

The imperative is based on the indicative and the order is not reversible. You obey because you are a child of God, not the other way around.”

This idea about the Gospel is so true and has been communicated many different ways. What it points to is one of the beliefs that is central to the message of the Christian faith that has appeared to me to be unique among the world religions – you are not accepted based on your merits as a good person. On the contrary, the life of “holiness” is something that is an outpouring of worship and thankfulness to God. It’s not a response to an angry dictatorial Despot, but a King and Father who has already made us royalty and is constantly making us able to live lives of honor and nobility.

Our obedience flows out of who we already are, not from a need to prove ourselves.

How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!”

via Orthodoxy by Gilbert K. Chesterton, Chapter 2.

First up at Advance09 was Mark Driscoll who is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. From my understanding Seattle is a hard city for the Gospel, people largely view the Church as irrelevant, bigoted and backwards (unfortunately, the caricature is not inaccurate enough).

The title/question is a significant one. It’s important to understand what this messy thing is that we call the Church. Driscoll first covered what differing views throughout history have said, but what was interesting is that there was no written works from 251AD – 1378AD that talked about ecclesiology (the study of the theological understanding of the Christian church) and there is no historically consistent belief on it.

Is it essentially a visible phenomenon which is easy to define, or invisible and undefinable? Is it about apostolic succession or about faith and faithfulness? What if things are done wrong, is it still really the Church as God defines it?

So, May 31st was “Pentecost Sunday” which celebrates what is considered the beginning of the Church, so if that was the beginning what changed on that day that set it apart from the 50 days prior after Jesus had ascended? The Holy Spirit.

Jesus, while he was on earth, was in constant contact with the Holy Spirit and dependent on him for power, Jesus was constantly praying and depending on the Father to guide his steps as well. You’ll see (especially if you read the Gospel of Matthew) that Jesus as a real human was dependent on the Holy Spirit to do anything. So, as he’s preparing to ascend and giving last instructions, what does he tell the disciples? “Wait.”

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:4-5 ESV)

He tells them to wait until they receive the Holy Spirit because if Jesus needed him to do what he did, the apostles would certainly need him all the more. It’s on Pentecost that the Church is born. The Holy Spirit shows up and Peter preaches a sermon in the middle of Jerusalem that convinces 3,000 people that Jesus was indeed the Son of God and able to save every one who believes.

When you look at Peter’s words they’re not all that eloquent, but they’re exactly what was true. Peter focused on Jesus because the Church is totally about Jesus. It is not about a political brand, it’s not about family, it’s not about charity, it’s not about morality, nor power, money, buildings, missions, empire-building, growth, your best life now, hymns or “praise and worship”, missional living or monasticism and asceticism or anything else – it is all about Jesus.

This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:32, 33, 36 ESV)

Driscoll said this about those of us in the Church: “We’re a one-song band, and we’re going to keep playing it until we see him again.”

Ultimately, the Church is that which comes in the wake of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. If it’s not following those Two (Three, really, since Jesus says that he does everything the Father tells him), it is not the Church.

Finally Driscoll listed (not exclusively) 8 things that mark a real Church that is following God:

1. Regenerated Church Membership
   • Members whom God is working within.
2. Qualified Leadership
   • This should illustrate a reality of the Trinity: ontological equality and functional (voluntary) subordination.
3. Gathering for Teaching/Preaching and Worship.
   • Preaching illustrates the Gospel: God is the giver, I am merely the receiver.
4. Sacraments Rightly Administered
   • Baptism and communion.
5. Unified by the Holy Spirit
   • Distinguish between closed-handed (non-negotiable) beliefs and open-handed beliefs & prioritize important things.
   • Centered around Jesus and proclamation of the Gospel.
6. Discipline for Holiness
   • I’m still not sure what this looks like.
7. Obey the Great Commandment to Love
8. Obey the Great Commission to share the Gospel

It’s not just the Church in its gathered state, but when it scatters into the world it is still the Church. It’s where we’re following in the wake of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.