For years we have heard Christian leaders talked about a Christian sub-culture. Evangelicals for the past few decades have really invented a new culture to live in. We have our own soccer teams, concerts, coffee shops, bookstores, leaders, and some would say even politicians. We have our own lingo like "pray up" or "plugged in" or "traveling mercies" or "J.C." to name a few. We have our own clothes, and when we cannot be original enough we copy the culture around us with novelty shirts, musical taste, and cultural topics. When the culture gets Apple crazy, we change "iPod" to "iPray". We copy commercials and tv shows to make our own announcements. We have our own culture that is really a sub-culture of the bigger one. We are reactionary, and we are culture makers because of it.
Jesus, throughout his ministry, talked of the Kingdom. It was the subject of numerous parables such as the pearl of great price. Matthew 13 is a great manifesto of metaphors for the Kingdom. Jesus' first words in Mark are "The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel." We are told that the Kingdom of God lives in our hearts. The Kingdom has been established, and is alive.
This juxtaposition of these two, culture and the Kingdom, hit me yesterday. We are so caught up in creating a culture that we have forgotten that we are already in one. Christ has founded His Kingdom and that is the "culture" that we are in. What has happened is the Kingdom has lost its relevance to the world because people have stopped seeing the gospel and salvation as a call to be a part of a culture already established by Christ. We already exist within a culture that tells us how to act, live, and think about things. Whenever we give into culture creating we neglect and diminish the Kingdom that we are already a part of. I think the first church that grabs hold of this idea will be the smallest yet most influential church we have seen in a long time. Once we stop caring about our sub-culture and culture we live in, the more we will find the Kingdom of God to be more than sufficient to give us meaning.
So what are your thoughts? It is needed to address the culture we live in, but do we do so by diminished the kingdom and creating our own reactionary culture?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thoughts for Your Sabbath: Righteousness
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." - Philippians 1:9-11
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This is the last installment of this series in Philippians. We have looked at he essentials of CHristian living: prayer, love, holiness, straightforward living through sincerity, and now we are looking righteousness. Last week, as we finished on straightforward living, we talked about being without offense meaning living in righteousness. The way we do so is to be filled with the fruits of righteousness. Now here, righteousness is concerned with the stance we have before God through Christ's substitutionary sacrifice. "which are by Christ Jesus," is an easy way to see the kind of righteousness Paul is referring to.
In many ways, "fruits of righteousness" is like saying "the fruits of salvation" or even "fruits of the Spirit" because they all point to the same source: God. This is kicker for all who read this as well. This righteousness is given to us; we have not acquired it by our own religious merit. This is the essence of being born again - to have a new nature in which righteousness spring out of our lives like fruit spring out a tree. Its natural! Moreover, Paul is using very similar terminology as he does with Spirit: "Be filled with the Spirit" or "be filled with the fruits of righteousness". It is a daily, even moment-by-moment choice to be filled with these things. They are natural for the Christian to have in their lives, but we all struggle with the unnatural in our lives. Therefore, it is a conscious choice to remember your nature in Christ Jesus, and be slave to the righteousness of Christ.
This is how we live without offense and sincerity; our source is Jesus Himself. His righteousness and new life are the foundation or roots of our lives. We do not need the law, for righteousness itself is in our hearts. The question now is will we live it out.
The last phrase reminds me of Jesus words,
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do you light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
Our light shining, our righteousness being lived out, brings glory and praise to God. How? This righteousness is not our own but a gift from God. He has transformed us so that any good thing that comes from us is attributed to the grace and majesty of Christ in our lives. ALthough this last phrase is only coupled with the last command (being sincere and without offense), we all know that it is a result of all the things mentioned in this passage. Remember Paul's words today, and bring glory and praise to God through your deeds.
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This is the last installment of this series in Philippians. We have looked at he essentials of CHristian living: prayer, love, holiness, straightforward living through sincerity, and now we are looking righteousness. Last week, as we finished on straightforward living, we talked about being without offense meaning living in righteousness. The way we do so is to be filled with the fruits of righteousness. Now here, righteousness is concerned with the stance we have before God through Christ's substitutionary sacrifice. "which are by Christ Jesus," is an easy way to see the kind of righteousness Paul is referring to.
In many ways, "fruits of righteousness" is like saying "the fruits of salvation" or even "fruits of the Spirit" because they all point to the same source: God. This is kicker for all who read this as well. This righteousness is given to us; we have not acquired it by our own religious merit. This is the essence of being born again - to have a new nature in which righteousness spring out of our lives like fruit spring out a tree. Its natural! Moreover, Paul is using very similar terminology as he does with Spirit: "Be filled with the Spirit" or "be filled with the fruits of righteousness". It is a daily, even moment-by-moment choice to be filled with these things. They are natural for the Christian to have in their lives, but we all struggle with the unnatural in our lives. Therefore, it is a conscious choice to remember your nature in Christ Jesus, and be slave to the righteousness of Christ.
This is how we live without offense and sincerity; our source is Jesus Himself. His righteousness and new life are the foundation or roots of our lives. We do not need the law, for righteousness itself is in our hearts. The question now is will we live it out.
The last phrase reminds me of Jesus words,
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do you light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
Our light shining, our righteousness being lived out, brings glory and praise to God. How? This righteousness is not our own but a gift from God. He has transformed us so that any good thing that comes from us is attributed to the grace and majesty of Christ in our lives. ALthough this last phrase is only coupled with the last command (being sincere and without offense), we all know that it is a result of all the things mentioned in this passage. Remember Paul's words today, and bring glory and praise to God through your deeds.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Architecture Shots from Downtown
For those of you who do not know, my better half, Savannah, is the creator of Ava Grace Photography. I get the honor of going and shooting with her and editing the majority of the pictures. I'm kind of the right hand man to her and her awesomeness. Whenever we do a shoot I find myself often being more enamored by the backgrounds of our models than the models themselves (and this is hard if not impossible to do with some our amazing models and clients!). The truth is my niche of photography is not portraits. I enjoying doing portraits, but in all honesty, I much rather take pictures of nature, landscapes, or an interesting environment.
So most of the pictures you see on this blog are pictures I randomly snag during a portrait session or a wedding. Here is yet another installment of random pictures I took a couple of weeks ago during an engagement session we did. Cheers!
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So most of the pictures you see on this blog are pictures I randomly snag during a portrait session or a wedding. Here is yet another installment of random pictures I took a couple of weeks ago during an engagement session we did. Cheers!
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Saturday, June 13, 2009
Thoughts for Your Sabbath: Straightforward Living
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." - Philippians 1:9-11
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Today we focus on what may be the most straightforward part of these prayerful statements by Paul: "that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ." To understand and grasp what Paul is saying here, we need to be clear about what he is not saying. In today's world, the words "sincere" and "without offense" could take on different meanings than what Paul was trying to communicate.
Sincerity today is equal to being "real". To be real is to have a raw openness of both depravity and holiness in our lives. It does not take into account what is best for the ones being exposed to your realness; it is too concerned with being completely open about who we are that it looses any sensitivity to how it will effect our fellow man or God. It ends up being a selfish intention. I am not saying we should not open up to our fellow men about our failures and struggles. I mean that as we do open up, we do so to mend our severed relationships and to confess our depravity. What I have found in my generation is that to be real means to merely show all sides of ourselves unashamedly - there is no confession or repentance. This is a great disaster and insult to our fellow man.
"Without offense" could be easily confused with what we call today as "tolerance". Tolerance, today, means not just to respect others beliefs but to affirm others' beliefs as true as if someone believing something validates it as true (Hitler would love our era). This is not what Paul is referring to here. Nor is Paul trying to say to never be on someone's bad side. We all know that you can be on someone's bad side for being loving and caring. Paul is talking about something much more straightforward here.
Paul's words her may be too straightforward for some of us to grasp. Sincerity merely means to live without falsehood towards God and man. As Jesus said, "Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be 'no.'" Moreover, at the heart of living sincerely is the requirement to treat others as they should be treated. Meaning that we esteem our neighbor and God because to be sincere means to live in truth. As we said above, it does not mean to live openly without shame, but to live honestly in truth.
In the same way, "without offense" means just that. We are to live in righteousness. To live as we should so that no one can take offense to us. If we have committed wrongdoing we are to become peacemakers and ask for forgiveness. But I must repeat, this is not living in a vacuum where the highest law is to not offend anyone. To be without offense, is to have no moral grounds against you. Paul is talking about when we offend the humanity of our neighbor - not the depravity of our neighbor. Therefore, we live in righteousness in order to live without offense before God and man. If man is take offense of you, let it only be because who have been in the right and not in the wrong.
This is straightforward living: to live in sincerity and without offense before God and man. It is possibly to simple for us to grasp and live out. The simple truths are the hardest ones to accept and live with many times. So today and this week let us live straightforward with our neighbors and God. Let us be sincere in word and deed and without offense in our relationships. If you are in wrong with someone, make it right. If you have lived insincerely with someone start living honestly with them. In all things let us not celebrate or accept our depravity this week but rejoice in our humanity and the redemption God has given us.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Today we focus on what may be the most straightforward part of these prayerful statements by Paul: "that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ." To understand and grasp what Paul is saying here, we need to be clear about what he is not saying. In today's world, the words "sincere" and "without offense" could take on different meanings than what Paul was trying to communicate.
Sincerity today is equal to being "real". To be real is to have a raw openness of both depravity and holiness in our lives. It does not take into account what is best for the ones being exposed to your realness; it is too concerned with being completely open about who we are that it looses any sensitivity to how it will effect our fellow man or God. It ends up being a selfish intention. I am not saying we should not open up to our fellow men about our failures and struggles. I mean that as we do open up, we do so to mend our severed relationships and to confess our depravity. What I have found in my generation is that to be real means to merely show all sides of ourselves unashamedly - there is no confession or repentance. This is a great disaster and insult to our fellow man.
"Without offense" could be easily confused with what we call today as "tolerance". Tolerance, today, means not just to respect others beliefs but to affirm others' beliefs as true as if someone believing something validates it as true (Hitler would love our era). This is not what Paul is referring to here. Nor is Paul trying to say to never be on someone's bad side. We all know that you can be on someone's bad side for being loving and caring. Paul is talking about something much more straightforward here.
Paul's words her may be too straightforward for some of us to grasp. Sincerity merely means to live without falsehood towards God and man. As Jesus said, "Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be 'no.'" Moreover, at the heart of living sincerely is the requirement to treat others as they should be treated. Meaning that we esteem our neighbor and God because to be sincere means to live in truth. As we said above, it does not mean to live openly without shame, but to live honestly in truth.
In the same way, "without offense" means just that. We are to live in righteousness. To live as we should so that no one can take offense to us. If we have committed wrongdoing we are to become peacemakers and ask for forgiveness. But I must repeat, this is not living in a vacuum where the highest law is to not offend anyone. To be without offense, is to have no moral grounds against you. Paul is talking about when we offend the humanity of our neighbor - not the depravity of our neighbor. Therefore, we live in righteousness in order to live without offense before God and man. If man is take offense of you, let it only be because who have been in the right and not in the wrong.
This is straightforward living: to live in sincerity and without offense before God and man. It is possibly to simple for us to grasp and live out. The simple truths are the hardest ones to accept and live with many times. So today and this week let us live straightforward with our neighbors and God. Let us be sincere in word and deed and without offense in our relationships. If you are in wrong with someone, make it right. If you have lived insincerely with someone start living honestly with them. In all things let us not celebrate or accept our depravity this week but rejoice in our humanity and the redemption God has given us.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Thoughts for Your Sabbath: How to Live in Excellence
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." - Philippians 1:9-11
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Paul so far has talked to the church at Philippi about loving God and others by knowing God intimately and by keeping your neighbor in high esteem in order to act honorably and wisely before them. Now he continues his thought by saying that they need to "approve the things that are excellent" (Phil. 1:10). A short look at commentaries let us know that people have slightly different ideas of what this means, but they all agree on what is excellent: truth.
I think that the commentators are making an accurate inference too. Since Paul has already talked about Christian wisdom, it fits that from there he moves to "approving" or using the wisdom we have obtained to know what is excellent. However, I think it is prudent to add that approving what is excellent falls into action as well. Paul was never one to leave it an contemplation - he always brought action into the scenario. So with this in mind, let us take a look closer at what is excellent.
What is excellent is what is true and holy. We, as Christians, are never concerned with merely ideas that are true. We are concerned with ideas that are true and the sacred stuff that makes up that idea. For instance, we must never speak out against homosexuality by merely citing the truth of sexual relationships. We must also touch the holiness of the issue - the sacredness of sex and, of equal importance, the sacredness of the individual. While these are truths within themselves, they are much more than a mere truth like ice is frozen water. There is a much heavier atmosphere within the truth that can only be explained as sacred or holy.
Therefore Paul is admonishing the church at Phillippi and the church today to seek out, find, and approve all things that are true and holy. It is a call to study; it is a call to Godly living (how else can you approve such things unless you try them?). Before we close though, I want to touch on truth for one more moment. Remember Jesus' words: "That you may know the truth and the truth shall set you free"? Let us never forget the words before this either: "If you hold to my teaching than you are really my disciples" (John 8:31-32). We approve the teaching and truth of God, the things that are excellent, for a much greater purpose: to be free. As my friend, Dale Fincher, points out: "Truth is a means to the end of freedom." We must never stop at truth in our lives. We must realize that the truth offers freedom to ourselves and others.
Today, let us seek and approve the things that are excellent in order to live in the freedom of Christ. This is the goal at which Paul is really pointing to in this passage.
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Paul so far has talked to the church at Philippi about loving God and others by knowing God intimately and by keeping your neighbor in high esteem in order to act honorably and wisely before them. Now he continues his thought by saying that they need to "approve the things that are excellent" (Phil. 1:10). A short look at commentaries let us know that people have slightly different ideas of what this means, but they all agree on what is excellent: truth.
I think that the commentators are making an accurate inference too. Since Paul has already talked about Christian wisdom, it fits that from there he moves to "approving" or using the wisdom we have obtained to know what is excellent. However, I think it is prudent to add that approving what is excellent falls into action as well. Paul was never one to leave it an contemplation - he always brought action into the scenario. So with this in mind, let us take a look closer at what is excellent.
What is excellent is what is true and holy. We, as Christians, are never concerned with merely ideas that are true. We are concerned with ideas that are true and the sacred stuff that makes up that idea. For instance, we must never speak out against homosexuality by merely citing the truth of sexual relationships. We must also touch the holiness of the issue - the sacredness of sex and, of equal importance, the sacredness of the individual. While these are truths within themselves, they are much more than a mere truth like ice is frozen water. There is a much heavier atmosphere within the truth that can only be explained as sacred or holy.
Therefore Paul is admonishing the church at Phillippi and the church today to seek out, find, and approve all things that are true and holy. It is a call to study; it is a call to Godly living (how else can you approve such things unless you try them?). Before we close though, I want to touch on truth for one more moment. Remember Jesus' words: "That you may know the truth and the truth shall set you free"? Let us never forget the words before this either: "If you hold to my teaching than you are really my disciples" (John 8:31-32). We approve the teaching and truth of God, the things that are excellent, for a much greater purpose: to be free. As my friend, Dale Fincher, points out: "Truth is a means to the end of freedom." We must never stop at truth in our lives. We must realize that the truth offers freedom to ourselves and others.
Today, let us seek and approve the things that are excellent in order to live in the freedom of Christ. This is the goal at which Paul is really pointing to in this passage.
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