god-like or Godly

            As I watched Avengers a theological theme stood out to me – because I’m just that cool - the use of the term, “god(s).” What is particularly remarkable is the use of the term in conjunction with two characters, Thor & Loki, who are supposed to be god-like in their attributes, particularly in regards to their strength. And for whatever its worth, one of the best moments of the movie is when Hulk pounds Loki to a pulp calling him a “puny god.”
            As I reflect on the movie, the use of god, particularly in regards to god-like characters is remarkable when one compares the terms god-like to godly. Let me explain the differences.
            Satan desires to be god-like. Isaiah 14 says, “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn…You said in your heart…‘I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” Satan desired to be “like the Most High,” which was ultimately his downfall.
            We too have within ourselves this same desire – to be god-like. This is why we smash atoms, decide for ourselves our gender or orientation, try to make clones, and even set our own course for salvation.
            Jesus, on the other hand, is godly. He came to earth not to be served but to serve. He is described as meek and mild – the God of the universe who came in human flesh and born in a manger. This is the leader of a movement who washed his followers’ feet. This is the Most High who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame.
            The question then must be asked of us, the followers of Christ, which do we want to be? Godly? Or try (in vain) to be god-like?

Greatness is in Service

When I was growing up in church to to be a really good Christian meant that you went to church all the time – you went Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night and even Monday night visitation. I was in such a family – we went all the time. Because we went to church every time the doors were open, I thought that I was a good Christian – that I was growing in my faith. This type of discipleship – this type of “greatness” in the kingdom confuses busyness with growth. I was not growing in my relationship with Christ, of which I became painfully aware in my teenage years.

Also, when I grew up I tried to learn as much as possible about the Bible in order to grow in my relationship with Christ. I thought that the more I knew the Bible, the more biblical facts that I learned then the better Christian I became. I was amazingly good at memorizing facts about God without persuing a relationship with him.

We have equated biblical knowledge with spiritual growth often to the detriment of actually doing anything with the truths of the gospel.

In Matthew 20:25-28, Jesus explains that greatness in his kingdom is service. Serving others. Unfortunately, in our culture we often view or understand service as “serve us.” In fact, this can be seen through the explosion of the service industry in the last 50 years in America.

This mindset has pervaded American culture – you can now have people who for money will mow your yard, clean your clothes, prepare your food – all of these are fine but unfortunately we now view the school system as though they have the responsibility to educate my child (guess what you are equally responsible) and the church has the responsibility to disciple you or your kids (guess what it is your responsibility!)

When service is understood as serve me we start to view people as commodities rather than a human being – we view others as what kind of benefit do they provide for me.

Christians do not have this luxury. We are called to serve others. For us to grow in our relationship with Christ we must be active in serving others.

Fortunately, God provides us with the tools for service. Some of these tools might surprise you.

2 Tim 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The scriptures do not exist just for us to learn facts about God. They exist to teach, rebuke and transform us, but not for our own sake. The scriptures exist to equip us for good works – for acts of service.

Too often, we study the Bible for what it can do for us. How it can help us without ever realizing that one of the primary purposes of the scripture is to equip us to serve others.

Eph 4:11-12 says, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service”

Pastors, evangelists, teachers, – they do not exist just to meet the needs of church members. We exist to prepare God’s for works of service – to serve others.

What about other Christians?

Heb 10:24 says, “let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” The body of Christ – fellow Christians, exist to encourage you to do good deeds.

Spiritual Gifts are not for you but to help you serve others.

According to 1 Peter 4:10, ”Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others.” Our spiritual gifts are not for ourselves, but to serve others.

Are you detecting a pattern?

Money too is given to us for good works.

In 1 Tim 6:17-19 Paul encourages Timothy to “Command those who are rich in this present world…to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”

Here’s the catch – I don’t think good works or acts of service are for their own sake – something I feel compelled to be absolutely clear about. Service does not exist for service sake, but to be salt, light and leaven in the community.

The beautiful thing about service is that it gives us an opportunity to share the gospel. After all, we are always to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within us. When you serve others, it will open doors – people will ask questions. Being nice and serving or helping others has become a bit of a novelty in our culture.

Which brings us to the last and probably most amazing gift that God has given us for service - grace. Yes, even grace has been given to us for good works. Ephesians 2:8-9 are popular, “for it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” But less popular is Ephesians 2:10 – For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Grace has been given to prepare us for good works – for acts of service – for us to become great in the kingdom of God is to serve others.

How does your church define greatness? Compare this to how Jesus Christ defines greatness. Do you equip your church members to serve others and provide opportunities for them to serve outside the walls of your church? What steps does your church need to take to define greatness in the same manner as Christ?

Article Du Jour - the Deficiencies of Powerpoint

Recently, I have moved away from using powerpoint in meetings for the very reasons enumerated in this article:


"We Have Met the Enemy and He is PowerPoint"

According to the article, PowerPoint "stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making."

Advocating a Boring Passport

At 18, I received my first passport. 10 years later, once the passport expired, the diversity of “stamps” became a source of pride – you see every time you enter a country, immigration stamps your passport. Each country has a unique stamp, and often at the end of a trip I enjoyed sitting down and looking through all the stamps and visas in my passport. I marveled at the littlest countries with the biggest stamps (like Lichtenstein) and the manner in which stamps reflect the culture (the German stamp is unadorned yet efficient). My passport had stamps from 5 continents, and a couple dozen countries – stamps from mission trips to Venezuela, Peru, Central Asia, India, England to name a few. My passport was the James Dean of passports.

However, today, I want to advocate a boring passport.

My first passport revealed a misunderstanding of effectiveness in short-term missions. I loved going to a new country, sharing the gospel, seeing many “pray to receive Christ” and plan on going on mission again the next year – just to a different country. This allowed me to have an amazingly colorful and diverse passport.

A little over three years ago, my attitude about short-term missions changed. Now my passport is boring. In the last three years, I have been to two countries on mission trips – India and Argentina. I’ve been to India once in this time span and Argentina nine times. As I flip through the pages of my passport, all I see is the same entry and exit stamp over and over again – in a word, boring.

Rather than going on several mission trips a year to several different countries, I decided that the best way for the missions ministry at North Richland Hills Baptist Church to make a lasting impact was to go to fewer countries more frequently per year. In the last three years, our primary international partnership has been in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (If you want to learn more about the partnership check out adoptabarrio.wordpress.com) NRHBC has sent fifteen mission teams to Buenos Aires in the last three years.

Pretty boring, huh? However, we have seen lives impacted by the gospel – just this week I enjoyed studying the Bible with a young man who a year ago became a believer and couldn’t find a single book in the Bible. On Wednesday, he didn’t miss a beat – able to find books in the Bible just as quickly as I could. Iker is well on his way in discipleship.

Prior to the change in philosophy, discipleship was an afterthought. Now it is our passion. After all, Jesus did not call us to make converts, he called us to make disciples.

A boring passport is not an empty passport. We live in a day and time in which travel is easy and relatively inexpensive. There is little reason for an American Christian to have an empty passport in regards to missions.

Boring passports reveal a white-hot passion for contributing to God’s mission to redeem humanity – in other words making an impact on one location – one people group – one partnership through evangelism, discipleship and church planting.

If you don’t have a passport – get one and use it for missions. If your passport is exciting – join with NRHBC’s work in Argentina and make it much more boring.

How boring is your passport?

Video Du Jour - BENNY HINN CONFRONTS JOEL OSTEEN

This is funny...pot calling the kettle black?

If you want your best life now, either buy Joel Osteen's book or send "seed money" to Benny Hinn.

The Scriptures - Our Instruction Manual for Life

This is an excerpt from my sermon yesterday - for a copy of the sermon, check out www.nrhbc.org.

As a red blooded American male, I have no interest in using instruction manuals when I have to put something together. After all, isn’t “some assembly required” really just a challenge to my intelligence?

As a result of having two kids 8 months apart, my life became filled with a handful of instruction manuals – interestingly enough – none for the actual kids – just for their stuff. And apparently kids need a lot of stuff!

There is an inherent danger in ignoring the instruction manual as some assembly required may turn into some reassembly required! If we neglect to follow the instruction manual, we may construct a swing, when we were supposed to be building a high chair. No honey, it’s supposed to wobble when the kid sits in it!

Neglecting or forgetting the instruction manual can be hazardous.

Imagine if you had an instruction manual for life. You would have a best-seller on your hands as this is something people crave! There are 99,060 self-help books on Amazon.

Fortunately for Christians, we have this source in the Bible. The Bible is our instruction manual for life – we have a choice to either follow it and be fully equipped or ignore it and be uninformed, ill-equipped and in a sense broken.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The scriptures are profitable for teaching – are you hearing & applying?

The scriptures are profitable for rebuking and correcting – are you open to being torn down and rebuilt?

The scriptures profitable for training in righteousness - are you spending time in the word?

Article Du Jour - Global Warming?

Are carbon emissions responsible for global warming? Does global warming exist?

Michael Crichton doesn't think so:

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html

from the article:

"Michael's detailed explanation of why he criticizes global warming scenarios. Using published UN data, he reviews why claims for catastrophic warming arouse doubt; why reducing CO2 is vastly more difficult than we are being told; and why we are morally unjustified to spend vast sums on this speculative issue when around the world people are dying of starvation and disease."

What do you think?