It Is About The Good News, People!

Sin is evident, people know what sin is. Trust me I see it everyday. Some people are very aware and quite proud of it. The church has that subject covered to. What the church has failed in is, why we should turn from it? It is not to avoid damnation but to gain salvation. Fear might get people to go to church but it will never get them to accept God really loves them or to build a trusting relationship with him.

“Jesus came into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world. When we come with condemnation, we are not coming with good news about Jesus but laying the bad news on people.” – Tony Campolo

Now this does not mean we should not point out that sin is what causes our seperation from God. No way! We have to pray for the bondage of sin to be broken in our lives and of those around us. The fact is however Jesus has defeated sin and death thus his work on Earth is done. Though we still suffer because of sinfulness as Christians we must be reminded that we already defeated it when we were covered in the blood of Christ. Therefore we no longer are bound by it. We have been set free and in the freedom we no longer should beat ourselves down with guilt or worry about managing our sinfulness. In this place of freedom we now must focus on God and serving him. When we do that our sins become less and less of a burden though they are still a part of our lives. We are a victorious people who because of Christ have conquered death, which is the result of sin in the world. We are redeemed and we will one day be restored. That redemption is our reason for turing away from sin. It is our worship to our God who we love. Even more than this however it is in the accepting of God’s love for us that our redemption and holiness is found. When we can accept that God completely and litterly loves the hell out of us we will find it easier to serve, love and worship him.

John 3:16-17 God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

So if Jesus came to save the world and not judge it for it’s sins then we have no reason to judge either. Our job is to share the Gospel or The Good News with people. That is not a story of hell fire and naming sins that we deem appropriate for condemnation. No! The Good News is the story of a loving Father that despite his children’s mistakes and transgressions still loved us enough to sacrifice Jesus for our sake. His grace is the Good News and his love for us is the Gospel. God is sovereign and knows all but he is fair and just. God’s justice is not our justice. It is perfect.! His love is not our love. It is perfect! Finally is forgiveness is not our forgiveness. It is important that we understand this and show this to the world.

So we as Christians know what sin is and I am confident that the majority of people know what it is as well. We have been hearing about sin our whole lives. So we are all on the same page on this issue. My challenge is while sin is still important to be aware of why don’t we take advantage of the freedom we have and start living lives for God. Can we stop living under a cloud of fear that keeps us from living truly joyful lives. Get outside and live! How awesome would it be if us Christians lived our lives for God with a freedom that we could go anywhere and serve. There is no room for fear in a relationship with Jesus. No Room! We need to show the world that life with God and serving Christ is fulfilling, rewarding and most of all liberating. That is why we should turn from sin because we have been fulfilled by the promise of God, rewarded by his grace and liberated by his mercy. We are people who have the power to change the world and free people from bondage yet we are more concerned about what they did to get in bondage then in the way to get them out!  We are not here to judge the world we are here to serve our God and to love our neighbors. God is the judge and the jury. He is the one who will have the final say on what is justice for all of us. In the meantime let’s start showing people a reason to become a Christian.

I will end with a another passage from John. This one from chapter 8:1-11:

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, ² but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. ³ As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

⁴ “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

⁶ They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. ⁷ They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” ⁸Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

⁹ When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. ¹⁰ Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

¹¹ “No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

“My Beautiful Mess” Reviewed in HM!

Jeremy’s book was reviewed in the new issue of HM Magazine!

“With his first book, he shares his ……Journey Through Faith, Hope, & Love, which includes all the doubts, twists and turns he faced in these last few years. It’s not written with absolute perfect grammar or eloquence, but it is raw and real.” – Doug Van Pelt, HM Magazine

So This Is Christmas?

This time of year is bitter sweet for me. As a fat guy it is awesome because it is the only time of year I can eat lot’s of junk and not feel bad about it. It is also a great time of year to be around people you love and enjoy fellowship with one another. It is also a time of pure angst towards most everyone else because we have to go to these dens of suffering known as malls to shop for gifts. There are lines full of angry people wanting nothing more than to go home and escape. There is traffic, there is hot stores, cold weather and all of this to celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ? What are we thinking? We are truly crazy people!

So this brings me to my point. So this is Christmas? So this is the celebration of the birth of the greatest man that ever lived, our King, our Lord and most importantly our Saviour? Who are we kidding? Just looking at the surface it looks pretty much the opposite. We as Christians can blame this on the Liberals for taking prayer out of schools or banning Nativity scenes from public parks. We can blame the politically correct masses for whining about being indoctrinated by  Judeo-Christian values because their school has a tree or a Christian pageant. We can point fingers at all the X-Mas and Happy Holidays signs that replace our Christmas banners but at the end of the day I don’t care about that! That is not the problem with Christmas at all! The problem is we let Christmas become something else. We did. The followers of Jesus Christ have allowed it and we despite our best efforts to pass the buck need to face it. Before you get red in the face and call me a heretic just hear me out.

Now we as a body come from many traditions with in the church. Some of us worship one way while others do it different. We are a true melting pot of people who love God. There are a few things we all celebrate together and Christmas is one yet do we really understand what we are even celebrating. Advent is a time to reflect on the way Jesus came to us, why he came and how amazing it is that we benefit from it. Advent also is a time of preparation for the coming of our Lord. It is a time to get the bridegroom ready for her wedding. This is a joyful time of year not because we get presents and consume calories guilt free but because it reminds us that Jesus does not lie and he is coming back for his church! Every year we get to share in a season of waiting, hoping and being rest assured that Christ is going to make good on his promise. Yes it is a celebration of his birth, but it is more so a celebration of his return to us. There is no greater gift than our salvation and we will not experience how great that is until we are with Christ forevermore. That is the true meaning of Christmas.

So while we fall into the materialistic trappings of the holiday season let us remember that it is a time of great anticipation. We need to be like we were as kids on Christmas day, up early and alert, waiting to tear open our gifts. The moment we open them we want to use them even before we read the directions. That is the kind of excitement we should have for the coming of our King and the gifts that he has given us. We are a bride waiting for her lover to enter into marriage and become one with God. This excitement should fill us with joy all year round. For we do not know the day or time but we do know that we will one day be with God. It is this time of anticipation that trumps the headaches of Christmas. I mean let’s face it there are two holidays that make up the 25th of December. There is the celebration of the coming of Christ to earth and the looking to his return. Then there is the other holiday which is about spending money, giving gifts, getting gifts, eating until we can’t see straight and just having a blast with the people we love the most. Both are important and both are okay. They are part of our tradition, our culture and our lives year after year. Enjoy them both and make sure that in the midst of it all we are loving each other as God loved us. This is a time of year to show the world that God loves us, all of us, so much that he gave us his son.

So when some guy complains about the tree in the town square, BLESS HIM. When you see someone protesting a Christmas play at your kids school, PRAY FOR THEM. When that person cuts you off on the way into the mall, no matter how hard it is to do, LOVE THEM. Because when God saw us turning away, disobeying his laws, worshipping other Gods, and generally spitting in his face He loved us. Let all the politics, all the network news stories and everything else that makes this holiday aggravating or even downright disrespectful to our faith go, and focus on that love of God. We will be persecuted, we will be made fun of, but at the end of the day what good are we if we aren’t loving those people who hate us? Is our God not bigger than those insults? Is our God not bigger than the jokes? Jesus did not come to save a bunch of self righteous, whiney, overly offended babies. He came to save a bunch of disrespectful, foul mouthed, hateful, and otherwise undesirable people who were that way because of sin. He not only came, he died and rose again to give us a way out of that. The best part is he then promised to return to us and restore us back to what we were created to be! That is love! That is a love that is bigger than anything the world can throw at us. It is what made us triumphant over sin and death. That is the perfect love of Jesus and that is what Christmas means to me!

Amen

My Top 50 Albums Of The Decade

1. The Argument – Fugazi
2. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven – Godspeed You Black Emporer
3. Relationship of Command – At The Drive In
4. You Are Free – Cat Power
5. American III: Solitary Man – Johnny Cash
6. Love Is Love – Lungfish
7. Elephant – The White Stripes
8. Plans – Death Cab For Cutie
9. Consider The Birds – Woven Hand
10. Rock Action – Mogwai
11. Secret South – 16 Horsepower
12. A Rush Of Blood To The Head – Coldplay
13. Catch for Us the Foxes – Mewithoutyou
14. In Your Honor – Foo Fighters
15. Musicology – Prince
16. Demon Days – The Gorillaz
17. Standards – Tortoise
18. Quality – Talib Kweli
19. Cold Roses – Ryan Adams and The Cardinals
20. After the Eulogy – Boy Sets Fire
21. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below – Outkast
22. Get Lifted – John Legend
23. The Rising Tide – Sunny Day Real Estate
24. World Waits – Jeremy Enigk
25. Figure 8 – Elliott Smith
26. Last Days of Wonder – The Handsome Family
27. Van Lear Rose – Loretta Lynn
28. New Favorite – Allison Krauss & Union Station
29. Alright, Still – Lily Allen
30. Come Away with Me – Nora Jones
31. The Rising – Bruce Springsteen
32. De-Loused in the Comatorium – The Mars Volta
33. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
34. One Bedroom – The Sea and Cake
35. The Creek Drank The Cradle – Iron and Wine
36. Tennessee Pusher – Old Crow Medicine Show
37. Third – Portishead
38. Take Offs and Landings – Rilo Kiley
39. Growing - Sleeping People
40. Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures
41. St. Elsewhere – Gnarls Barkley
42. Like Water For Chocolate – Common
43. Four Cornered Night – Jets To Brazil
44. American IV: When The Man Comes Around – Johnny Cash
45. The Ringing Bell – Derek Webb
46. Hot Fuzz – The Killers
47. The Delivery Man – Elvis Costello
48. If I Could Only Fly – Merle Haggard
49. A->B Life – Mewithoutyou
50. Control – Pedro The Lion

Hope Lies In The Desert

I recently took a week long trip to California to speak at a great little church called Tithemi. My good friend Eric Gregson is the pastor there and what I found upon arriving in Redlands CA was a community of believers that are hungry for God. It was a week filled with hopeful conversations, spiritual awakenings and fellowship. I was able to spend time discussing ways to improve church unity as well as ways to defeat spiritual strongholds with in the body of Christ. As I went through the week I took in the scenery of Southern California and though beautiful I could see the desperation and poverty that resides there. Not just a physical poverty but one of spiritual emptiness. The town of San Bernadino seemed to be a desperate place. It cried out from it’s barren landscape in a way that was all to clear. The immense poverty mixed with pockets of consumerism and promise made me feel for this area. It is a place of hardship and of dispair. Luckily I saw signs of hope on a spiritual level.

I had many discussion with Eric about the strongholds that seem to effect this town as well as many throughout the United States. It was something about the dry heat mixed with a barren landscape that made this place an even more vivid reminder of how much God’s love is needed in our world. There was real beauty in it. The people I saw carried weights on their backs but also a glimmer of hope for tomorrow. Then there was the community of believers which makes up Tithemi and another church called Savior’s Place that reminded me there is something good happening here.

I was blessed to be able to share my stories with the people I met and also preach on Sunday evening to a larger crowd than normal. It was not me they came to see but actually the premiere of a video made by the band Sleeping Giant who are from Redlands and Tithemi. The funny thing is while this particular Sunday was set up for a special event we had no idea that God would show up in such a real way. During the worship time, a band called Winter/War started playing. Their music was heavy, instrumental and intense yet it was meant for worship. After a few minutes people realized that this was a worship band and not just a performance. It was very moving. What happened next was something that changed me in a real way. The churches normal worship leader challenged the church to forget about what the normal worship style is and just be free. In this moment I must admit I was a bit leery of what could take place but in the end I saw the beauty of pure worship. Though most people were singing or dancing or playing drums, which I found quite tribal in it’s sound, there was a sense of community. This was not the chaotic worship I have witnessed in other places, this was a time of praise to our God that was individually displayed but in total agreement with each other. I have never seen anything like it.

After about an hour of just beautiful honoring of God I was asked to share. I did and God used my words to bring hope, encourage and I believe bless some people. It was a night in which I believe God showed up, his spirit was in control and people were touched. I was completely spent by the end of the night but felt a bond with those I shared my faith with. I felt a oneness that I often pray for with in the body. In those few hours I feel I could see what the church could be if we put aside our differences and just let God take control. It has little to do with the style or the way this all went down but in the fact that everyone seemed to be in agreement about what we were doing. There was no judgement of those who sat quietly and worshipped or of those who were crying out. It was just a unified effort to honor the Father.

So I returned to Pennsylvania with a new outlook on many things. I felt I was able to leave a lot of my struggles, fears and burdens in California. My soul felt lighter and I experienced real joy. I had some amazing encounters with God and with the people I met. There was just a feeling of contentment. I was blessed beyond what I had dreamed.

So in closing I would have to say that I saw the desert in which man can wither away but in the midst I saw a hope that shines brighter. I saw in the eyes of my new friends a passion for God’s love and it’s transforming power. There was more than just church going on. The time of playing church and building Christian empires seems to be winding down at least with in the few of us that were able to share in the beauty of God’s presence that weekend. The Kingdom of God was evident and made very real. It was a glimpse of Jesus but a vivid one at that. Perhaps it was just a fleeting moment or maybe it was a spark that could create a fire with in not only Southern California but perhaps in the world? Maybe on that Sunday night many more around the world experienced God in a very similar way and his out pouring of Grace and Love was overpowering many? I can only hope that was the case. This is not a testimony of how we should all become charismatics or seek signs and wonders. No! This is a testimony of how awesome our God is and how if we put aside our petty disputes about theological matters and just focus on the one true God we can become one. Maybe even for longer than a 3 hour period on a Sunday night? That seems like a great idea to me? May God continue to challenge, encourage and strengthen us as we walk through this life of ups and downs. Jesus is real and we need him more and more. Lets begin to unite under his name and leave the rest behind. Praise God for what he has given us and for the way he makes himself available to us.

Amen