Jesus Christ: Not the Family Values Candidate

The Bible I most often preach out of was my father's. It was the Bible he received upon high school graduation. It was the same Bible he carried throughout my childhood. If I imagine my father with a Bible in his hand it is that brown leathered covered Bible I see. Sure it may be the King James Version, but that is what the people of my church read so it works well for preaching there. There is just something special about that Bible. Perhaps its so special because to me it represents that faith of his which I was taught and eventually accepted, the faith of my family.
When most people yield their lives to Christ they seldom consider the impact this decision will have on their families. How could they? When we first step forward in faith to accept the offered cup of the sacrifice of Christ our spiritual eyes are still milky with the dew of ignorance and inexperience in the faith. As time wears on however most people begin to gain a sense of how disastrous Jesus Christ will be to their life and the world they once knew. To be sure, a true relationship with the living Jesus Christ demands that a life be turned upside down. How we play church, how we labor, how we govern, and how we relate to those closiest to us can never be the same.
Jesus himself predicted this course of events in Luke 12:49-53 when he said, "I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law" (NIV). In so many words, "I am not the Messiah of family values."
Many can testify to exactly what Jesus meant when he made this bold statement. When you follow Christ that sometimes means you will find yourself at odds with your parents or siblings, especially if they are non-believers. Jesus did not come to preach warm and fuzzy family values, but to preach justice, redemption, mercy, freedom,love, and the truth of God in eternal life. His yoke is light and his burden easy, but his teaching is hard to take. As a result, families cannot always be united in his service. As a result mother can sometimes be turned against daughter and father against son.
However, the challange of outright division is not the only one that faces the family. In Luke 9 (verses 57-62) Jesus describes what it takes to be fit for service to the Kingdom of God. He calls a man to follow him. The man seems willing but requests to first be allowed to bury his father. Jesus rejects this as an excuse responding, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." On occasion, Christ calls men and women to proclaim the gospel and leave their family behind. (Let me be clear, when I speak of the "family" I do not mean a spouse or children, but parents and siblings.)

Jesus even finds himself caught between family and the proclamation of the gospel. Luke writes of the incident: "Now Jesus' mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.'
He replied, 'My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice'" (Luke 8:19-21) Jesus eventually puts a sharp point on the whole issue when he declares in Luke 14:26, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." To be sure, a committment to Jesus Christ must come first.

Anyone who has ever been involved in ministry knows that the choice to choose between family and Christ comes sooner or later. It normally comes first when a minister to be chooses a spouse. Their choice must be ready and willing to share the call to proclaim the message. The choice appears again as difficulty arises in planning holiday meetings. Christmas and Easter conjure up headaches not warm sentimentalities as the Church calander conflicts with family gatherings. Children challenge the call in a unique way. The only hope for a minister with children is that he or she be as good a minister at home as they are to the church. Again and again we must choose. However, for those of us who have been there the right choice is obvious, though it may be difficult to accept. Our love and service to Christ and his Kingdom must come first.

Luckily, thus far my family has understood and supported our ministry. Praise be to the Lord, I don't forsee that changing. I should mention that when a family proclaims the gospel together, carries the cross together, and yeilds all together, it flourishes. In the mean time my wife and I will continue to tell the story of the faith my family holds. All the while, I'll continue to preach out of the old rugged Bible that was once my Dad's.

I yield... I yield...

For the past months I have increasingly struggled with the ideas of sanctification. I understood them well, or so I thought. I liked where they point us theologically. I thought they were well rooted in scripture. I knew that I was partially sancitified, or wed unto Christ or circumcised of heart (whatever terminology you prefer), but I longed for a more complete more full sanctification unto the GOd I love so dearly. I began praying for this more and more. However, it seemed the more I prayed the more I felt distant from that goal. I tried to be holy, to pour more of myself out to my wife and my church, to serve more, to pray more. It didn't work.
During my Romans and Galatians class taught by Dr. Ken Schenck Romans 1:16-17 began to speak to me. So I decided I would preach on it. I did my word studies. I read three or four of the best commentaries. I spent time in prayer. I gave it all time to percolate. As I began to put all of the pieces of the message together I realized this: I don't get any closer to God on the basis of what I do. I don't always even gain ground on the basis of what I seek from him.
Romans 1:16-17 states roughly, "I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. First to the JEw and then to the Greek. For a righteousness of God is revealed from Heaven from faith to faith. For as it is written, 'The righteous will live by faith."
John Wesley would have argued that this "righteousness from God was given at first to us when we first believed and then that God goes on, in our faith, to make us actually righteous. PErfecting over time. (Forgive me if this is an elementary understanding of Wesley.) Anyway, what do I take from this? What did I get?
I got this: God makes me holy by my faith in Christ. I don't need to seek holiness as an end. I don't need to do things to become holy. I need to trust Christ to make me holy. Those things "holy people" do come as a biprduct of that trust and faith in Christ that grows deeper as the days role by. John Wesley summed it up this way in a brief hymn. (from www.ccel.org)

NOW, even now, I yield, I yield,
With all my sins to part;
Jesus, speak my pardon sealed,
And purify my heart;
Purge the love of sin away,
Then I into nothing fall;
Then I see the perfect day,
And Christ is all in all.

Jesus, now our hearts inspire
With that pure love of thine;
Kindle now the heavenly fire,
To brighten and refine;
Purify our faith like gold,
All the dross of sin remove;
Melt our spirits down,
and mouldInto thy perfect love.

I yield... I yield...

While I emphasize sanctification as a process of submission to Christ let me also not too emphatically assert that I believe it can take place in a single moment too. Although I think that this moment of which many testify is simply the moment they realized all they needed to do was to yield... to yield...

I'll admit that to some of you who might read this, this blog seems like pretty elementary stuff. I agree, it is. What I'm bloggin about is something I've known in my brain for a long time. It is something though, I confess, I am just now learning in my heart. and I yield... I yield...

Required Reading for Pastors and Leaders

I found myself amused recently during a class in which Rev. Paul Hontz (of Holland Central Wesleyan) was the guest speaker. Throughout the course of the class period he named at least two books which should be read by every pastor. One of them he noted was an absolute must read. (I agreed with him on this; it was In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen.) That got me thinking though of all of the books that pastors and other leaders should be reading. In light of that I have a suggestion.
The recent work of Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, should be a required text for anyone planning to to lead anyone anywhere. Goodwin does a masterful job of showing what true leadership is through the historical lense of the life and experiences of Abraham Lincoln. What Goodwin highlights as Lincoln's most imoportant trait, however, is a trait that has only recently entered the American leadership lexicon and has yet to be integrated into church leadership: emotional intelligence.

"Exactly what is Emotional Intelligence? The term encompasses the following five characteristics and abilities:
Self-awareness--knowing your emotions, recognizing feelings as they occur, and discriminating between them
Mood management--handling feelings so they're relevant to the current situation and you react appropriately
Self-motivation--"gathering up" your feelings and directing yourself towards a goal, despite self-doubt, inertia, and impulsiveness
Empathy--recognizing feelings in others and tuning into their verbal and nonverbal cues
Managing relationships--handling interpersonal interaction, conflict resolution, and negotiations" (taken from http://www.funderstanding.com/eq.cfm)

Lincoln, according to Kearns Goodwin, was the master of these traits, especially in the areas of empathy and relationship management. Now I recognize fully that a book like this will never be required reading for a church leadership class, but the subject of emotional intelligence may not be a bad subject to touch on. I also recognize that Lincoln's leadership was not specificly a Christian style, though it was certainly rooted in the prevailing protestant culture of his day. No matter what I still reccommend the book as one of the very best I've read in a very long time. Read it.