This Sunday evening North Village Churchis going to meet with other churches in the community to pray. We are going to spend time in confession and repentance as the local church, and also celebrating what God has done and is doing in Austin and around the world. We will meet at Glad Tidings at 6:00pm if you want to join us.
* No childcare provided.
7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.
In verse 7 the Apostle Paul refers to himself as a minister and in the original language means servant and through faith in Jesus Christ we are all servants. Throughout the gospels Jesus calls us to serve. Serving isn’t very popular in our culture or our churches, but when we are called into a relationship with God we aren’t only being pulled into an eternal reconciled relationship, but also eternal activity with God.
To be clear the activity doesn’t change our spiritual condition before God because it is only through the righteousness of Jesus Christ that our spiritual condition is changed. If we skip faith in Jesus Christ and go directly to activity it results in self-righteousness and us trying to prove our commitment with God. This will inevitably lead to exhaustion and frustration. Therefore, we first start with relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross and then it results in activity with God.
When you read Ephesians 2:4 it says simply, “But God…”. In the midst of all our chaos with finances, relationships, health, guilt, shame, confusion, pollution, divorce, pain, defiance, and on and on Scripture teaches us that God doesn’t leave us alone in that pain and chaos and Scripture says, “But God…” Probably the two greatest words in Scripture.
Sometimes people say that people wrote the Bible, however, the Bible describes humanity as dead in our sin, children of wrath, sons of disobedience, and eternally separated from God and if people wrote the Bible they would have made people the hero of the story, not God. The Bible isn’t about people, but about God responding to people in the midst of our pain and when we see the phrase “but God” it is the point in the story where everything gets better.
It is the point in the movie where the hero of the story enters the room, where Gandolf the white appears, when Edward comes for Bella, when Vince Young walks in on 4th down for the championship, when mom returns from the cruise after 5 days, and at the moment when it seems the darkest, without hope Scripture teaches us, “But God.”
Every Saturday morning I take the kids out for breakfast. It is a lot of fun and something we all look forward to every Saturday. It also gives Holly a chance to relax a little and have some time without the kids. We typically go to McDonalds, but this morning I am feeling adventurous and I have it narrowed down to two choices.
Round Rock Donuts or Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery
See where the clouds lead us!
We started a website to facilitate soccer camps we host once a month called Austin Soccer Camps. About a week ago we hosted some soccer drills for a community festival. It was a lot of fun.
We had about 60 kids come throughout the day and just got to serve the community and play soccer.
Last Saturday I took the kids out for the night while the wifey got some rest and a little time to herself. Time alone is good. Holly always feels like she is missing out and doesn’t want to do it at the beginning, but afterwards when I get home with the kids she is always really thankful.
This night I took Kennedy roller skating. It was a little expensive at $7 a head on a Saturday night, but I am kind of a high roller in the family so we got to go roller skating. The rink was awesome. It was a little dirty and retro all rolled into one.
Kennedy was a little scared at first. She is 5 years old and this was her first time to roller skate, but after a few “Bambi” moments and fall downs she was good to go. I knew she got the hang of it when she looked up at me and said, “Daddy, I am roller skating!” Which meant she was basically walking with roller skates on, but either way it was a lot of fun.
I highly recommend roller skating. With or without kids. On Tuesday nights it is adults only, which could be fun without the kids. It was kind of creepy to look across the room and see little teenagers with their hands all over each other and making out. Makes me sad thinking about Kennedy getting older. My plan is that she will stay 5 forever!
On Thursday last week we got to see 3 young ladies get baptized. They had been meeting with two other people in our church for the last 4-6 months and they got to walk them through the basics of the Christian life and discussed baptism along the way.
Our culture today will ask, “Saved from what?” Saved from my huge house, my luxury car with heated seats, my vacations on the beach, my education, my wealth, what could we possibly need to be saved from?
All of us need to be saved from our broken and exhausted souls that are constantly looking for relief. Broken souls that are constantly unsatisfied, constantly trying to fill our stomachs and exhausted because we never find satisfaction that lasts. At best they are merely moments of relief.
Not really a popular topic in our culture today. However, if you turn to Ephesians 2 verse 1 it simply reads.
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
Not a verse that you will find on a lot of Hallmark Cards around this Mother’s Day, but in verse 1 we see the pronoun “you” and in verse 3 we see the pronoun “we” so when it says we are spiritually dead it is talking about all people. It isn’t the bad people, the criminals, the dangerous, the teenagers of the world, or the really bad people who don’t recycle. It describes all people and it describes our spiritual condition before God as being dead.
Now I know some are thinking, “I don’t feel dead. I got up this morning, got dressed, got in my car, and got a cup of coffee.” Dead people don’t drink coffee.
The Bible teaches us that all of us have run away from home, rejected our parents, and are trying to figure life out on our own. We have basically all become orphans. Scripture teaches that God chases after us, adopts us, and gives us a name, purpose, blessing, and provision.
However, I think most Christ-followers struggle with adoption.
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Scripture teaches us that we were created to be holy and blameless. Doesn’t that sound amazing? Most people will teach us how to be holy and blameless. They will create a list of rules of what to do and not to do. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t listen to rock and roll, don’t take birth control, don’t play cards, don’t watch movies and they will create a list a mile long. This is usually created by a leadership board and then it is the pastor’s job to make sure everyone keeps to the list.
This is a horrible process to accomplish being holy and blameless. Not only is it a poor standard of holy and blameless because it was created by people, but it is also exhausting. Many of us have been exposed to these lists. We have grown up around it and hated God for them.
Scripture teaches us that God doesn’t created a list of how we can be holy and blameless, but instead reveals Himself so that we can know what it looks like to be holy and blameless. He not only shows us what it looks like to be holy and blameless, but then gives us his holiness and blamelessness through the righteousness of Christ through faith in His work on the cross. Romans tells us the righteousness of God has been revealed from heaven through Jesus Christ.
Through faith in Jesus’ work on the cross our position is no longer enemies of God, but holy and blameless. It is why Scripture refers to Christ-followers as saints. When we don’t understand what it means to be saints, to be holy and blameless, it doesn’t mean we create our own definition or list that we all agree to follow, but that we draw close to Jesus in Scripture, prayer, church, and He will supernaturally transform us so that we will better understand what it means to be holy and blameless.
This basically means we all become Jedi knights and we can predict the future.
This means that most of humanity has an innate understanding of a god. We have an intuitive understanding that there is a creator / higher power that is bigger than all of this. Only a small few reject or deny the existence of a god.
Look at all that we have been given in Jesus Christ; He determines to love us, adopts us, makes us holy and blameless, redeems, reveals His mystery, and gives us an inheritance that is even greater. Why would God give us so much? Scripture tells us it is for two reasons:
1. His glory. The more we are given, the greater the cross, the deeper His love, the greater His glory. As we gaze upon all He has revealed, all He has given, all He has provided we can only be in awe of all that He has done. He created us to find joy in His glory and to be satisfied in His glory. His glory is paramount.
Jesus is not only our mediator, but also our redeemer. This is a big word that means one who pays the debt and picks up the tab. Don’t you love it when you go out to dinner and someone else picks up the bill? Or even better they tell you before you order so you can get the steak instead of the burger! You can always take me out to eat and be my redeemer 🙂
Because our spiritual debt is so great we need someone who can pay pick up the tab. Throughout Scripture there are examples of people who foreshadow the value of paying the debt for other people and Joseph is a great example. Joseph is loved by his father, but hated by his brothers and his brothers end up selling Joseph into slavery and leaving him to die. Through a number of events Joseph goes from being sold into slavery to leading Egypt to a place of power and position in the midst of a world famine.
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