It Really Happened!

I love watching new Christians on their first real Easter. Everything is new to them and they just can’t get over it. “Jesus died for me, was buried, and rose again. It really happened, and it was all because He loved me.”

They arrive on Easter morning having thought about eternal life daily since their new birth. They remind me of my first year in Christ when I heard about Christ on the streets during the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. It was all we talked about-Jesus, His love, His death, His resurrection, our new life, hope, meaning, and destiny.

And then we figured it out that Easter was now about something more than egg hunts and spring break. It was the church’s official celebration of the resurrection event.

“Wow, what a concept,” I remember thinking. “We should go to church too,” referring to my Jesus Movement friends.

Let’s Go to Church!

So we did.

But we weren’t too impressed.

It was obvious that they didn’t want a bunch of ragamuffins like us in their pews. We didn’t dress right, didn’t know the songs, didn’t know when to stand up or sit down, and took some of their every-Sunday seats.

It was also pretty obvious that they weren’t as excited about Easter as we were. Oh they seemed to enjoy singing the songs we later found out they traditionally sang every Easter. They surely loved getting all dressed up in their Easter-Sunday finest. And they talked a lot to each other about their ham dinner and other family traditions as they ignored us.

But the wonder of it all and the magnitude of the privilege of belonging to the One who died and rose again, seemed secondary to all the religious trappings.

Desperate for the Resurrection!

I don’t know all the reasons for the contrast between our appreciation of Easter and theirs, but some of it had to be the desperation factor. For them, it was just another Easter; for us, it was a celebration of the Event that rescued us from our desperate lives. It wasn’t that we were any more desperate than they were, we were just more aware of it.

In his classic on the life of Christ, The Training of the Twelve, A. B. Bruce writes of the two disciples who met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Emmaus, “Their hearts were set a-burning when they had become very dry and withered: hopeless, sick, and life-weary through sorrow and disappointment. It is always so; the fuel must be dry that the spark may take hold. The truth is, the heart needs to be dried by trial before it can be made to burn.”

Easter is for those who get it that every experience of life apart from Christ is dried and withered. Easter is for those who admit that we would be hopeless, sick, and life weary apart from His mercy. Easter is for those desperate for resurrection power.

Are you?

“And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” -Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:17

My First Easter

Do you remember your first Easter? Not the one after you were born the first time physically, but the first one after you were born again spiritually. Your first Easter as a believer in Jesus Christ?

Man I do, because it was part of my introduction to “church.” I heard about Jesus on the streets during the Jesus Movement revival of the 60s and 70s.

When I hear most other Christians talk about their spiritual journey, I’m reminded of how different our stories are. They talk about hearing a powerful sermon and deciding to do this or being at a Christian retreat and realizing that, or the way a Sunday school teacher or youth pastor told them what they needed to hear. The whole thing was at church or some religious event surrounded by Christians.

I didn’t know any people who were Christians, but a lot of the people I did know were becoming Christians. None of it happened at church.

You say, “Resurrection;” I say, ” Rez!”

When we started going to church, we made church people nervous. We didn’t know how to talk churchy. Our counterculture dress, haircuts, and lifestyles didn’t fit. We didn’t even speak the same language. By the time we started going to church we had already developed our own Christian dialect. Dr. Billy Graham was just, “Billy,” believers were “Jesus People,” we called our leaders by their first name rather than “reverend” or “pastor,” Jesus was “JC,” and the resurrection, the Rez.

I miss the Jesus Movement

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“Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you except to revere him, to obey all his commandments,

to love him, to serve him with all your mind and being, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and statutes

that I am giving you today for your own good” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13).

Deuteronomy closes out the Pentateuch with Moses’ farewell address to his beloved people. It presents the law to the new generation, but in an expanded version from the teachings at Sinai. With 38 years of experience in leading the nation, Moses re-teaches the children of those who failed to trust and obey God at Kadesh. Seasoned by the wilderness wanderings, Israel’s 120-year-old deliverer and leader preaches three messages before handing off leadership to Joshua. The descendants of Jacob had learned that they were God’s special people (Genesis); they had experienced the delivering power of their redeeming God (Exodus); discovered that He is a holy God (Leviticus) who demands the trust that leads to obedience (Numbers).

Now, poised just east of Jericho, they re-receive the detailed instructions on every aspect of life formerly delivered through Leviticus. But this time the emphasis is on the people rather than the priests, and the practical aspects rather than the principles. The primary difference is the insight that obedience to God flows from love for God. The word love occurs 22 times, whereas the word obey occurs only 10 times. This basic lesson—love for God is expressed in obedience to God—is highlighted in three ways. First, through the history of the exodus generation as Moses reviews their wanderings (1-4). Second, through a review of the law (5-26). And, finally through a renewing of the covenant (27-34).

Much like the Gospel of John supplements the synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke—Deuteronomy supplements the first four books of the Pentateuch. It completes the history from God’s perspective by giving the spiritual significance of the events. And like John’s Gospel, Deuteronomy retells the story emphasizing God’s love. The lesson from Deuteronomy is clear. God’s instructions come from His loving heart. Obey Him because you love Him. This emphasis on God’s love (4:37, 7:7-8, 10:15, 23:5) made it the Lord Jesus’ favorite Old Testament book. He quoted Deuteronomy more than any other.

The theme of Deuteronomy is the need to obey God because you trust His love. The lessons from the past are placed in the context of the loving relationship between God and His people. “Beware lest you forget” is a repeated warning. This new generation was unfamiliar with the experiences of Mt. Sinai. Moses emphasizes the danger of forgetfulness because it leads to arrogance and disobedience. They must remember two things: (1) God’s love for them motivated His commands, and (2) their love for God should motivate their obedience to Him (Deuteronomy 4:1-6).

Deuteronomy follows the outline of the vassal treaties of the 15^th century B.C. Israel, about to enter the Promised Land, knows that disobedience will bring discipline but obedience will lead to blessing in the land.

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Judah Tried It

A few years ago I was calling through a list of people we hadn’t seen at church for awhile. A young mother answered the phone and told me, “We’re just taking a break from God right now. Our life is really busy with the kids in sports and our careers. My parents have been sick and then there’s the remodel. I like to think of it as putting Him on the shelf.”

She’s not the first to try “putting God on the shelf,” an entire nation tried to take a break from God—Judah, during the days of Josiah (2 Chronicles 34-35).

The Lord sent His indifferent people a message through His prophet, Zephaniah. The message was simple, and it had two parts: Judah, you belong to Me and no, you’re not taking a break from Me!

God Says, “No”

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Two Years In Ephesus

In Acts 19:10 Luke reports that after two years of Paul’s teaching in Ephesus, “All who dwelt in Asia (Roman province we now call Asia Minor) heard the word of the Lord Jesus.”

It took Paul two years before the grace released through him reached “revival velocity” in Asia. People who don’t think we can do that again need to consider the truth that we have the same Spirit, same Bible, and same Great Commission as Paul and his coworkers had.

So, here’s a “what if” I want you to consider:

What If?

If you sense God leading you to make the radical changes that will give you the opportunity to see a revival, I urge you to think in terms of what you must do rather than what others should do. The question here is not, “What if the church embraced these seven simple revival truths?” but “What if I let them guide me toward revival?”

• What if you dedicated one hour of your life to preparing your story of what faith in Jesus means to you?
• What if you practiced that three-part story: my life before Jesus, when I believed in Jesus, and my life after Jesus—so that you could share it in about five minutes?
• What if you asked God to let you tell this story to just one person this week? And then another, and another, and another.
• What if, after a few months of this, you noticed that there were three or four people in your life that had just met Jesus, and they began asking you to tell them more about Him?

Questions: What if you just decided to tell your story about how Jesus has made a difference in your life? What are you afraid of?

…like a little old lady!

This is a line from U2′s song, Stand Up Comedy.

I love the line, but the average Christian’s response to the line is, “Okay, let’s follow Bono and really get to work for Jesus!”

Is it just me, or does this sentence say the exact opposite?

Maybe that’s why Bono titled it Stand Up Comedy, because it’s so comical that religionist Christians insist that other people join them in “helping God across the road like a little old lady.”

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

My view of Christianity is that God helped me across the street of my sin and shame and guilt by giving me eternal life when I believed. And when I received that, it was the complete package.

My God is not a little old lady who needs the help of my consecration, my good works, my religiosity, my churchy lurchy evangojive commitment.

He made me new, and the rest of my life is about Him helping me across the street to a destiny of impact for Him that can only be explained by His power and presence in my life.

My God is not a little old lady, frail and needy.

My God is the One who submitted to a death on a cruel Roman cross thinking of others the entire time.

My God doesn’t need any help.

His name is Jesus.

“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9-10).

It’s About Capacity, Not Desire

Being around professional ballplayers during Spring Training a few years ago reminded me of one of the toughest lessons I had to learn growing up: I will never play for the Dodgers.

My problem wasn’t that didn’t dream of playing for the Dodgers. That was just about all I thought about during my little league years. I took extra infield practice, worked on my hitting, and may have been the most enthusiastic and dedicated little blossoming first basemen ever.

But, by the time I went to high school, it became very obvious. I would never play first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Shoot, I couldn’t even play first base for the South High Rebels.

I didn’t have a “want-to” problem. I had an “able-to” problem—a capacity problem.

Watching the Dodgers take infield practice and batting practice at Vero Beach, it hit me again. As much as I love baseball, I’m just not very good. On my best day I could never do what those guys do every day.

Why I Love Following Jesus

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“Sir, I’m in 27A.”

I couldn’t believe I was really boarding a plane headed for Vero Beach, Florida. All my life I had been talking about meeting a lifelong friend to see our beloved Dodgers in their spring training home—Dodgertown!

I was telling the Lord how thankful I was to be finding my seat on the overcrowded plane when I saw a man sitting in my window seat.

“Sir, I’m in 27A.”

“I know, would you mind switching seats with me. My son and I are headed to spring training and he’s afraid to sit alone.”

“No problem,” I assured him. And I really meant, “No problem”—that is until he told me that his assigned seat was a middle seat.

I argued with the Lord about what to do. I knew it was the right thing to do and I even wanted to. But a middle seat?

“You enjoy the ride with your son. I’ll take the middle seat.

As I fought back up the aisle for my miserable middle seat I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that the man and his son were Red Sox fans.

I hate the Red Sox!

When two beefy guys piled in on both sides and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, the Lord brought Esther’s story to mind.

When Mordecai challenged Esther to risk her life by going before the King of Persia to expose Haman’s evil plot to kill all the Jews, he put her rise to queen in perspective: “Who can say but that God has brought you into the palace for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

We should always be looking for the spiritual and eternal reason God has ordered our lives in the way He has. He is never surprised, never overwhelmed, never without purpose. His hand is the one that moves historic world events and the “smaller” events and circumstances of our lives—like sitting in a middle seat.

All of the noble and eternal reasons God wanted me to sit in the middle seat ran through my mind. Maybe I would have an opportunity to lead one of my portly row-mates to Christ. Maybe I would see this man and his son at the Dodgers-Red Sox game tomorrow and they would ask me why I was so nice. I’d then have an opportunity to tell them that I’m a Christian and causing them to think about the kindness of God’s people.

For almost three hours the guys on both sides fell asleep and leaned their massive body weights in on me so that I could barely move. One of them snored loudly in a way that made me happy that they don’t serve meals on planes any more.

When we walked off the plane in West Palm Beach, the father never even said, thanks.

My point? Most of the time we will never connect the dots of the difficult assignments the Lord asks us to take in His name to His eternal purposes.

If we’re telling Jesus that we’ll do the hard things only when He makes it clear why we should, He’ll just start handing out the really significant assignments to His more willing and trusting followers.

So, what is your middle seat? What are you telling God you won’t do unless He guarantees that it all makes sense?

Only those willing to sit in the middle seat when they don’t know why will discover the joy of His intimate guidance.

“For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God,

and you are to be holy because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45).

Leviticus records the teaching of God through Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai during the month between God’s occupation of the tabernacle (Exodus 40:16, 34-38) and the taking of the census at Sinai (Numbers 1:1-3). The descendants of Jacob had learned that they were God’s special people (Genesis), and they had experienced the delivering power of their redeeming God (Exodus). Now, in an intense one-month course on holiness, God will teach the Exodus generation about His holy character and how to relate to their holy God.  The account is selective according to Moses’ purpose to teach Israel how to fulfill the responsibility of the Mosaic Covenant by becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6; Leviticus 26:5). (See Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative, p. 323)

Leviticus is God’s handbook for his newly redeemed people, instructing them how to worship and serve Him. Unlike the gods of Egypt or the gods of the pagan peoples they are set apart from, their God is holy. Relating to a holy God creates a problem—sin is a barrier to ongoing intimacy with a holy God. The chapters naturally divide into two sections. The first section (1-17) teaches how a sinful people are to approach a holy God—through the blood sacrifice that atones for their sin. The word atonement occurs 45 times in the book. The second section (18-27) shows them how to walk with a holy God—by trusting Him enough to do what He says. It’s called obedience.

The theme of Leviticus is holiness: “You are to be holy because I am holy (11:45; 19:2). The word holiness occurs 87 times in 27 chapters! The object lessons for God’s redeemed people of the church age are clear: Sin is horrible; God is holy. Those approaching a holy God need a sacrifice to cleanse them from sin (1 John 1:5-10). Those walking with a holy God need to worship Him through obedience (1 Peter 1:15-16; Romans 12:1-2):

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Flawed Systems Fail

When Christians get caught up in a system of works righteousness, failure is their only ultimate option. It all feels good and holy and even smug at the beginning.

“We’re the Christians who don’t do this, or this, or this, or this. We’re the ones with self-discipline. We’re the most committed, the least sinful, the truly spiritual.

If they were totally honest, they would admit that it begins to unravel the moment they begin trying to restrain their sin. Even as they are following all the formulas and attending all the meetings, they can’t hide their dirty little secrets from themselves:

• A mother convinced membership in her new church would control her runaway spending, turns into the mall “just to look.” She buys stuff she doesn’t even want and once again wonders how she’s going to hide this from her husband. As she drives out of the mall parking lot she tells God, “I’ll get even more involved at church next week.”
• The Bible School teacher has been practicing his spiritual disciplines with more dedication since his wife caught him looking at pornography online. He came home for lunch and was surprised that she wasn’t home. He was also surprised that he ate his sandwich at the computer cruising past the same vile sites he told her he would never look at again. He confesses his sin on the way back to work and promises God that he’s going to fast more.
• At a recent men’s retreat he had joined an accountability group and told the other guys about his anger. It felt good to finally get it off his chest. He knew that if he didn’t do something about his rage his wife would leave him. But this morning she wouldn’t quit asking him questions about their money problems and he lost it. He punched her in the usual places so nobody at church would notice. What would he say to the men tomorrow at breakfast? He decided not to tell them about this “little slip.” What would they think of him? They wouldn’t understand. And besides, with the new insights he had learned at the retreat, he probably wouldn’t do it again anyway.

These are the kinds of Christians who eventually find their way into my office, sit dejectedly across the table from me, and with eyes dead of hope tell me, “I’ve had it with Christianity, this just isn’t working.”

Christianity Works!

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