Michael Kelley's Blog, page 9

Jesus is a Better Advocate Than I Am

In the movie Chariots of Fire, Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams says the following when reflecting on his upcoming race:

“And now in one hour’s time, I will be out there again. I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor; 4 feet wide, with 10 lonely seconds to justify my existence. But will I?”

Ten seconds to justify my existence. Ten seconds to prove my worth. Ten seconds to know that I’m valuable.

How very, very sad. And yet how very, very familiar. I might say it like this:

One hour to prove I’m a good worker. One clever blog post to remind people to keep reading. One insightful tweet to make people think I’m smart.

It’s amazing how deeply how compulsion at self-justification runs, and it comes out in big and small ways. It’s that tendency that keeps me from truly listening to what someone else is saying because I’m trying to think of how I will justify my place in the conversation with my next retort. It comes out when I know that I’ve sinned against another, and yet instead of truly and humbly apologizing and asking for forgiveness, I look for the loophole to slip in just to make sure the person on the other side knows he or she has something to be sorry for too, or perhaps that my actions were a result of their actions first. It appears when even before we don’t accomplish something we’ve set out to do we are already preparing the mental reasons why we failed.

It seems, like Harold Abrahams, we are all standing in the starting blocks over and over again, and each time treating that brief period as the measure of our personal worth.

Thank God Jesus is a better advocate than any of us are:

“My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:1).

John, the one who walked and talked with Jesus, and the one who outlived all his fellow disciples, did not want his readers to sin. He wanted them to live holy lives, demonstrating the transformational quality of the gospel inside them. But he was also a realist. He knew that no one could claim to be without sin. And he also knew that when we sin the impulse for self-advocacy and self-justification is strong. How wonderful, then, that at the very moment when we are tempted to justify ourselves we are reminded that we have a better advocate than we could have ever dreamed. The Son who died as a sacrifice for us once and for all is on our side.

But this advocacy of Jesus is not some clever lawyerly trick where He finds some incomplete piece of paperwork that allows us to escape sentence. Instead, He advocates for us on the reality that the punishment has already been handed down. In other words, we don’t need 10 seconds to justify our existence; we have something better. Jesus did it for us not in 10 seconds, but in 6 hours on a cross on a Friday afternoon.

Those six hours free us from the burden of self-justification. They provide true justification.

Don’t Settle for Lesser Saviors

You know their names – Gideon. Deborah. Samson. These are the characters found in the book of Judges. But who were they as a whole? The Hebrew word for “judge” has a broader meaning than just acting judicially. It means “to govern, administer, and exercise leadership.” And that definition breaks into two parts of leading, one internal and one external. Internally, these were people who were judging disagreements and issues among the people. Externally, it meant deliverance. So the Judges were people operating under the empowerment of God in local, tribal contexts. And yet not one of them had the moral or spiritual constitution to bring the people back to God. This is not, in other words, a book of heroes. It is a book of broken saviors. 

And we know what that’s like too, don’t we? Because our lives are littered with broken saviors – they are all the unsatisfying solutions we look to for our own deliverance. Recently I found myself out running some errands at around lunchtime and decided I would stop somewhere to get something to eat. For whatever the reason, I thought about how long it had been since I had a McChicken sandwich from McDonalds, and it had indeed been a long time. Decades, in fact. And so to the golden arches I went and I bought, for the first time in 30 years, a McChicken sandwich. I opened it up, took the first bite, and it was good. Very good, in fact. I was taken back to my teenage days when my metabolism had not yet met a foe it could not conquer, and so I kept eating. Strangely, though, I got halfway through that sandwich, and there was a considerable drop in satisfaction. Oh, I finished it, but the last bite certainly wasn’t as good as the first one. And only two hours later, I found myself hungry again.

Isn’t that a paradigm we face all the time? We sense some acute need in our lives, and we think we have the solution. Often, you can phrase that solution in terms like these: “If only…”

If only I had more money…If only my spouse was a bit more accommodating…If only I had a different boss…If only this person would put more of themselves into the relationship…

What are we doing in those situations if not trusting in someone, or something, as a savior? What are we doing if not looking to that person or that thing for deliverance? But time and time again, we find that all these saviors – be they money, or position, or relationships, or pleasure, or Gideon, or Jepthah, or Samson – they are all broken. Insufficient. Unable to truly deliver us. We see the inadequacies of these saviors in the book of Judges, and we are forced to confront all the broken saviors of our own lives that we tend to trust in. 

You can read the book of Judges and as you do, you come to story after story and you find yourself thinking, “Maybe this time this judge will actually be worthy of what has been entrusted to them.” And you think, “Maybe this time the people will actually recognize their sin and be faithful to their God.” But time and time again, you will be disappointed. But that disappointment leads us to a see something amazing:

Judges helps us see the determination of God. 

In the midst of this descending cycle of idolatry and sin, in the middle of this human commitment to its own version of truth, and in the midst of these imperfect deliverers, we are able to see the abject, steady, and faithful determination of God. We see that God is immeasurably committed to His people than we are to Him. It is a remarkable testimony to the faithfulness of God that He would continue in this cycle with His people despite their consistently proven fickleness. 

In his determination, He has given us the Savior we need.The perfect Savior. The One that does not fall short, for this is the kind of Savior we need. Indeed, only a perfect Savior can deliver such a continually wayward people. 

We don’t need a savior like Ehud who, though he succeeded in killing an evil and oppressive king, did so in a spirit of anger and vengeance. We need a Savior that is gentle and lowly and conquered the ultimate enemies of sin and death through self-sacrifice. We don’t need a savior like Gideon who, though he conquered the armies of Midian with a miraculously small army, was so fearful and doubting that he demanded signs from God three times before he went out. We need a Savior that even knowing what waited for Him there, resolutely turned His face and made His way to Jerusalem. We don’t need a savior like Abimilech who was so fixated on his own power that he murdered 70 of his brothers in order to secure it. We need a Savior who even though he Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. We don’t need a savior like Jephthah who in order to gain victory struck bargains with those around him and even God himself. We need a savior who bent low the night before His death and in faith prayed that not His will but God’s be done. And we don’t need a savior like Samson who despite having an incredible amount of physical strength was never able to muster the spiritual strength to overcome his fleshly appetites. We need a Savior who though he could have at any moment called upon armies of angels to rescue Him willingly laid down His life for the very ones who were abandoning His lordship.

This is the kind of Savior we need. A better one. Because only a perfect Savior can deliver such a continually wayward people. The book of Judges is a call to recognize all the imperfect deliverers we have crafted for ourselves and abandon them, in light of God’s steadfast and determined commitment to His people, for the perfect Savior we find only in Jesus Christ.

Not Every Promise is a Happy One. But Every Promise is an Opportunity.

God is not a liar.

While we might make grand claims and big promises with the best of intentions, many times our mouths outpace either our commitment or our resources, and we end up having to backtrack on things we’ve said. We are promise-breakers, spiritual kin to the children of Israel, who time and time again committed to fully and wholly follow God and His law only to come back on their promises. Such is the case with us, we of the “recommitments” and the trips down to the altar, we of the easy believism and the non-cost-counters. But not Jesus.

God says what He means, and He means what He says. He is not a liar, and He keeps all His promises.

Here’s the thing though – not all promises are happy ones.

Some are. That He will give us the words to say when we are questioned. The He will fill us with joy in His presence. That He is preparing a place of eternal joy for us. That He will never leave us or forsake us. That all things work together for our ultimate good. These are all rock solid, undetractable, bank on it promises of God. But then again, so is this:

“You will have suffering in this world” (John 16:33).

We should, therefore, not be shocked at all manner of trouble that befalls us. We should not be surprised at being insulted or marginalized; we should not be dismayed when the faithful are sick in the ICU next to the unfaithful; we should not be panicked when the children of God lose their jobs or suffer in the drought or whatever else might come. We should not be surprised because Jesus has promised that it would be so.

Not every promise is a happy one.

But every promise, be it happy or not, is an opportunity to look back to the God who keeps His promises. The problem is when these things, truly difficult and heart-wrenching and burdensome things, happen, our tendency is to doubt whether God is truly for us. Or truly loves us. Or is truly working for our good. But rather than cause us to doubt, these circumstances are an opportunity for us to be reaffirmed in our faith that God does indeed mean what He says and says what He means.

For if these promises, the unhappy ones, are not also kept, then how might we know that God will surely keep any of the others? This is the opportunity, whether the fulfillment of His promises bring us great prosperity or temporary affliction. The opportunity is for us in each and every case to be reminded that Jesus said it would be so.

When, then, the trouble that Jesus promised would come does indeed come, instead of being shocked, dismayed, or surprised, we can see that here is yet another confirmation that God keeps His Word. And His Word tells us that despite this trouble, He will finish the good work He started in us (Phil.1:6) and will make good on the inheritance promised His children in Christ (Eph. 1:11-14).

Jesus is no liar. Thank God He’s not.

2 Reasons Why We Might We Give Up Meeting Together

The writer of Hebrews gave a very practical instruction in Hebrews 10:24-25:

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Don’t give up meeting together. Translation?

Keep going to church.

Which when you say it like that, sounds pretty dumb, right? Of course we know that we should keep going to church. But if it’s it that simple, then why give the instruction? In other words, what might keep us from meeting together?

For the Hebrews, it was persecution. This letter was written to a group of persecuted Christians who, based on what we read in the letter, were teetering on the edge of going back to their former way of life. That’s why you find such a strong emphasis on perseverance – it’s because those who persevere to the end show their faith to be true and authentic. For these Christians, then, one of the ways (and maybe even the primary one) that they demonstrated their lasting commitment to faith in Jesus was the fact that they were willing to keep showing up.

This was no small thing for them.

Showing up and meeting together marked them as a community of believers, and when they were marked they were targeted. Property was seized; prison terms were handed out; jobs were lost and livelihoods were in jeopardy. But on they came.

I, however, don’t live in a situation like that. Is there then any value in giving a command like this to a society where there are no restrictions on going to church and meeting with other Christians? Of course, the answer is yes, but we get to that answer by asking a similar question to the one we asked of the Hebrews:

In an affluent and relatively free society, safe from persecution based on religious preference, what might keep us from continuing to show up? Many things I suppose, but at least these two:

1. Convenience.
I know, I know – the church is right around the corner, right? Just down the road? At worst, on the other side of town? But despite the proximity and availability of local congregations, the call to meet together challenges our sense of convenience.

We live in a culture that’s microwaved; we want what we want, when we want it, and what we want is NOW. Meeting together, though, is a long range strategy interjected into a short term society. Relationships of trust and mutual sharing don’t automatically happen; they develop over time. A gospel-centered worldview isn’t formed overnight, but through the process of hearing the same thing over and over again. The ability to recall and apply Scripture to specific life situations doesn’t happen automatically but slowly over the course of listening to others do the same.

All of these things involve time, and therefore all are inconvenient. This fact all by itself might make us give up the long road of meeting together and instead just look for the DVR version of the church so we can skip to the high points.

2. Discomfort.
Meeting together – showing up at church – is (and should be) uncomfortable. That’s because truly meeting together involves a level of self-disclosure that hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot.

That’s the difference between “meeting together” and “meeting together”. In the latter, we aren’t spectators; instead, we are active participants, longing for not just a connection with others but the kind of connection that will truly help us follow Jesus. And because that kind of connection is only inspired by walking the difficult road of confession and transparency, many of us aren’t ready.

It’s just easier to stay home.

But the question, as the writer of Hebrews put it, is where do you want to find yourself as the day of the Lord is increasingly approaching?

Probably not on the couch.

The “Something Bigger” of Marriage

Marriage is a weighty proposition. It has a tremendous amount of gravity to it. And Ephesians 5 not only helps us understand the gravity of marriage; it helps us understand why it is so weighty:

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22-33).

As a whole, the book of Ephesians is about many things. It’s about the nature of salvation. It’s about the fact that in the body of Christ, people of different and many times opposing backgrounds come together. It’s about how those realities are lived out in real life, down to earth situations. But consistently, the book of Ephesians is about the fact that something is happening here that is not immediately apparent. Something bigger. Something cosmic and universal. Let me give you a few examples:

The very beginning of the book, chapter 1 verse 3, says this: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Keep in mind Paul was writing these words from a jail cell, and yet he claimed that the Christian has been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. These are not material blessings, and they might not be visible to the naked eye. But they are real. Cosmic. Universal.Later on in that chapter, verse 10, Paul says that God is bringing all things together in heaven and on earth under Christ. That’s certainly not visible, not in our time of division and hostility and chaos, but it is real. It’s happening. It’s bigger than any one nation or political group. It is cosmic. Universal.Then in chapter 3 he writes about the church: “God’s intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So what we are doing here is not just singing songs and listening to the Bible. What is happening here is a declaration to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms of God’s manifold wisdom. Again, something bigger is happening here. Something cosmic. Universal.

The book of Ephesians pulls the curtain back and shows us that God is working at a cosmic and universal level, and the every day things we experience are a part of that cosmic work. Such is the case with marriage. A helpful way to think of it might be this:

When our kids were younger, we had a rule in the house that they had to make their beds every morning. It took a while for them to embrace the act, but it eventually became a regular part of their routine along with brushing their teeth (most mornings) and combing their hair (most of the other mornings). That’s not to say they were good at it; they were not. You never got a traditional Army tuck and tighten with these kids. You got a bedspread pulled up to the pillows and then awkwardly smoothed out as best they can.

Our daughter even found a loophole in the bedmaking process. For a couple of years, she chose to sleep on top of her sheets and quilt, only under a small decorative blanket. She would put on a hat, gloves, and socks when it got cold, all because she knew that it’s much easier to fold that 3 by 3 foot square than all the rest of her covers. So why make this rule if we aren’t going to strictly enforce it?

It’s because bedmaking is not just about bedmaking. It is about bedmaking; that’s a good thing in and of itself. But it’s also about responsibility, stewardship, and ownership. So what we were trying to do was to, in a sense, teach about larger concepts through something much more tangible and practical.

Marriage functions in a similar way in the book of Ephesians. Is marriage about a husband and wife? Is it about being happy together? Is it about companionship and friendship and romance? Yes, and much more. It’s about all those things. But at the same time, there is something bigger going on. Something more cosmic in nature. This is how Paul closes his commentary on the roles of marriage: “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

It’s as if Paul pulls the church aside and says, “Now I’ve told you about how a wife is meant to be in a marriage. And I’ve told you about how husbands are meant to be in marriage. But now I’m going to let you in on the big secret – your marriage is meant to be a walking, talking, living, breathing picture of the relationship between Christ and the church.”

Does your marriage matter, Christian? It absolutely does. And it matters for bigger reasons than you might think.

There is No “Just” in the Body of Christ

Several years ago, I was invited to a church to help lead their annual leader training. At this annual meeting, they eat dinner together, talk about their overall ministry philosophy and goals, and then break out into age segments for more directed and specific training. During the dinner, I happened to be seated close to a group of older ladies who chatted happily and enjoyed their chicken casserole as much as I did. But then came the time for a special presentation.

One of the casserole-enjoying ladies was, evidently, named Ms. Peggy, and she was to be honored that night. She was retiring from teaching one of the children’s Sunday school classes because she was moving to an assisted living home. But here’s the kicker – she was retiring after having taught that Sunday school class for 70 straight years.

70.

Think about that. That means she taught children who, only a couple of years earlier, had lost their fathers during World War II. It means she shepherded children through things like the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. It means that her Sunday school class excitedly talked about the Apollo Moon landing one Sunday. It means she was teaching the Bible during the tumultuous years of Vietnam. And on 9/11, she was still there. Sunday after Sunday. Week after week. Year after year. It’s remarkable.

And while it’s easy to think such a thing remarkable after 70 years, I wonder if 65 years ago we would have the same reaction to Ms. Peggy. Probably not. 65 years ago, we might have said, if someone asked us about her, that she was kind. A good Christian lady. But that she was “just” a Sunday school teacher.

Thing is, though, there is no “just” in the body of Christ.

No one is “just” a Sunday school teacher. No one is “just” an offering taker. No one is “just” a bringer of meals to the sick. No one is “just” a deacon. There is no “just.” This is what Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians 12 where he describes the essential nature of every church member. After employing his metaphor of the human body to describe the church, claiming that every part of the body is important and that no part of the body could or should look down on any other one, he concludes:

“…those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable. And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need. Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other” (1 Cor. 12:22-25).

In the same way that the human hand should not say, “I’m just a hand” or the human eye should not say, “I’m just an eye,” so there ought not to be any “justs” in the church.

Consider Ms. Peggy. Consider how many children have passed through her care. Consider how many times the truth of the gospel has gone through her to those children, and their children’s children. I have a sneaking suspicion that people like this, the ones that serve quietly and without fanfare, but with great faithfulness, are the true heroes in the kingdom of heaven. And though we might not recognize them as such now, there will come a day when they meet the applause of Jesus.

As you serve this week, Christian, do so not from a posture of “just.” Be encouraged. Know that you are as essential in the body of Christ as anyone else.

And as you see others who model this same kind of quiet service, pause and consider for a moment that there is a great King who takes notice of His servant’s faithfulness. This King sees. And He will remember.

3 Certain Ways to Be Disappointed in Your Church

Leaving a church is a serious decision. It’s a decision that should be made only after much prayer and reflection. There are valid reasons, of course, for someone to leave a church. If the church, for example, ceases to be faithful in preaching and teaching God’s Word, then Christians should find a church that is. Unfortunately, though, most of the time we leave churches not because of a vitally important issue like biblical faithfulness; we instead leave churches because something – or someone – has not met our expectations.

We leave because we get disappointed.

And that’s never been more apparent than right now because now, as never before, we have become consumers. As consumers, we value our preferences. And when it comes to church, we have all kinds of options. We can do church in person or online; we can find a worship style or a kind of preaching that meets our expectations; and if we don’t like anything we encounter at a church, we can just switch it up. Not only so, but thanks to streaming capabilities, we have the opportunity to compare what is happening in our local congregation with other congregations, and in that comparison we find ourselves potentially disappointed all over again.

So we leave. Because we get disappointed.

At the risk of oversimplifying the issue, I’d offer you three basic reasons that might drive that disappointment:

1. We forget our pastor is human.

Eugene Peterson, in reflecting on the state of the church, wrote this: “In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community.”

We get disappointed when we forget that our pastor, like all of us, is a human being. He’s a human being that gets happy and sad. He gets angry and tired. He gets enthusiastic and energetic. And in all that humanness, he is also a sinner. He is not perfect by any stretch, and so it is unfair for us to have either the explicit or implicit expectation that he is. We would do well to remember that these last several years, for many if not most pastors, are the most difficult and challenging they have ever faced. They have had to lead and make decisions in “no win” situation after “no win” situation. Their decisions have not been perfect because they are human beings. And when we forget that, we will inevitably be disappointed in our churches.

2. We forget our fellow church members are human.

Similarly, we might forget that our fellow church members are human. It would certainly be nice if all the folks we go to church with knew the most appropriate and compassionate way to respond when we talk to them about our struggles. And it would be nice if all those people were as full of grace and mercy as we ourselves are. And it would of course be even nicer if all our fellow church members held our same views about culture, politics, and societal issues.

But they aren’t. And they don’t. Though difficult, it seems easier most of the time to extend grace to ourselves when it comes to our shortcomings while withholding that same grace from others.

No church is perfect. No church will ever be perfect. That’s because the church is a collection of sinful human beings. When we forget that fact, we will always, always be disappointed in what happens in our churches.

3. We forget the real reason we are there.

Finally, we get disappointed in our church when we forget the real reason we are there.

Part of the reason behind that forgetfulness is the consumer mindset we often bring with us to church.

As consumers, we expect a certain degree of service and preferential treatment in exchange for our loyalty. We expect our needs and desires to be catered to. That’s why we come back to restaurants, grocery stores, and retail outlets – we frequent the places that remember their chief end is to make the consumer happy. And unfortunately, many of us have at our core the same mentality when it comes to the church.

If we treat the church the same way we treat a restaurant or a bowling alley, then of course we will be disappointed. Thanks to our ability to stream worship services, we have the ability to compare preaching, singing, and other components of the church experience, and in so doing have found our local congregations wanting when it comes to others.

Of course we get disappointed because we have forgotten the real reason we are there.

So why are we there? Why are we gathering? We are not gathering together primarily for our needs to be met, for our expectations to be reached, or for our own entertainment. We are there to serve the Lord and each other. We are there to help each other follow Jesus through challenging one another to keep going in the faith. We are there to honor the Lord and in so doing to die to ourselves, even when it comes to meeting together in the church.

When we forget the humanity of our pastor, the humanity of our fellow church members, and the real reason we are there to begin with, we will always, always be disappointed in the church. But now is not the time for that. Now is the time for the opposite. It’s the time for us to remember the frace we have received from the Lord and to extend that grace to others around us.

The Unfinished Building of the Church

In Ephesians 2, Paul is writing to the Ephesian church about a building. Not a literal building, but a metaphorical one. In Christ, God is building a new structure from believers:

So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit (Eph. 2:19-22).

This new structure is made up of living components from a diverse variety of backgrounds. But in Him, they are all being fit together. But notice, too, that this building isn’t done; it is unfinished:

In him the whole building, being put together……grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit. 

These are things that were happening in Paul’s day, and are still happening in ours. In other words, the finished work of Christ has led to the unfinished building of the church.

This happened to you if you’re a Christian. At some point, someone shared the message of the gospel with you. And when they did, you became a part of this building with the rest of the people of God. And every time you share the gospel with someone else, they also have the chance to be fit together in this spiritual house. That means this building is always growing. And in that growth, it’s not the kind of building that is Frankensteined together. It doesn’t have pieces and parts that sort of exist on the periphery like add-ons. No – here every new piece that comes in actually belongs.

I remember when Jana and I first moved out of the town where I grew up and had lived for 20 years to Birmingham, AL. I was there to go to seminary, and Jana was there to pay for me to go to seminary. She was also there because she was, and is, a very excellent teacher. So she began to teach 6th grade at Homewood Middle School with the students not realizing that she was only about 10 years older than they were. 

She came home after the first day and recounted the story for me about how she introduced herself to her class, told them about her likes and dislikes, the rules of the class, and then asked if they had any questions for her. And the students looked around at each other until one young man raised his hand and asked, “So who are you for?”

Jana didn’t know what he meant. But she quickly discovered that this was a question about Alabama or Auburn. For in that classroom, in that city, there was no middle ground. Pick a side. Declare an allegiance. Belong somewhere.

She was being asked to declare to whom she belonged. To identify with a group of people. To love what they love and value what they value. And that’s a question we seem to always be seeking to answer, for in all of us, there is a desire to belong. To know the inside jokes. To be accepted. To be deeply known. We want to – no, we need – to belong.

This building in Ephesians 2 answers that question for us. 

Where do we belong? We belong in the people of God. Our days of being on the outside looking in are over. This is good news. This is news of freedom. It means we don’t have to try and figure how what group to identify with on a daily basis. It means we don’t have to be enslaved with the pressure of constant self-discovery and reinvention. It means that no matter what job we have, no matter how much money we have, no matter what title we have, and even no matter how we feel, the question of who we are has already been answered, and it’s been answered like this:

“You are mine,” and by corollary, “you are with us.” You belong here. In this building. And so does every new person who calls upon the name of the Lord to be saved.

Restored, Established, Strengthened, and Supported

Stand firm.

That’s the exhortation Peter gave to the early church in the letter we know as 1 Peter. And it’s an exhortation they needed, because there were good reasons for them to NOT stand firm.

Peter’s audience in the church were primarily believers that came from a Gentile background. They had believed the gospel, and as a public testimony of that belief, had been baptized into Christ. And now they were experiencing a kind of localized persecution from their neighbors. This persecution was not yet the kind of government sanctioned, widespread persecution that would soon come in the Roman Empire under Nero, but it was present nevertheless. These were people experiencing the rejection of neighbors and family. They were feeling the isolation that came from being ostracized from community life. They were feeling the financial strain of being put to the side of their towns and villages. And all of these things were coming together to press in on them. Social pressing. Relational pressing. Familial pressing. Financial pressing. 

And in light of all that pressing, what has Peter told these believers that they should do? 

They should stand firm.

But what happens if they don’t stand firm? What happens if they bend to the pressure? What happens if they compromise? Peter has a word for that situation, too, and it comes in the form of a promise in the last chapter of his letter:

The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while (1 Peter 5:10).

How can Peter speak with such certainty about this? How can he present this as a promise? It’s because he has experienced it. 

As we read about Peter in the gospels, it’s readily apparent that he doesn’t lack confidence. He seemed, during the days when he was physically with Jesus, to always be the one with his hand in the air first. When Jesus walked on water, Peter was not content to marvel at the miracle; he wanted to experience it himself so he was the first one out of the boat. When Jesus asked for a personal confession of his identity, Peter was the one who stepped forward and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” When Jesus was talking plainly about his own crucifixion that was to come Peter was the one who took it upon himself to correct Jesus’ understanding of His own mission and assure the Son of God that what He thought was going to happen would surely not happen to him. 

And then there was the time recorded in John 13 when Peter, absolutely confident in his own ability to stand firm, assured Jesus that even if everyone else deserted him that Peter alone would follow him to death.

All it took for Peter to lose his firm standing was a couple of questions from a child.

Peter knew something about being overconfident in his own ability to stand firm, but he also knew something about what happens next. 

When his confidence was shattered after his denial of Christ, he went back to doing the only thing he knew how to do – be a fisherman again. But as he was fishing, the resurrected Christ in John 21 showed up on the beach and instead of condemning him for his inability to stand firm, Jesus made him breakfast. And by that charcoal fire, Peter was restored. 

But he wasn’t just restored; he was established with a new mission that Jesus framed with three simple words: “Feed my sheep.” 

And then Peter wasn’t just established, he was strengthened when some time later he along with the other believers were in an upper room that shook with the power of the Holy Spirit, and he was filled with that same power and strengthened to be the witness of Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth. 

And so Peter went, supported by that same Holy Spirit and living out the promise of Jesus when He told His people that lo, He would be with them always even to the ends of the earth. 

So we say it again, Christian – and we say it with confidence because it happened to Peter, and it will happen for you as well as you seek to stand firmly in the gospel, even if you stumble:

The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while.

6 Things You Need to Start a Family Devotion

I haven’t always been a family devotion guy. It’s not because I didn’t want or aspire to be; I did. But we went a long time as a family before pulling the trigger and trying to integrate this practice into the regular rhythm of our family life.

We’ve been doing morning devotions together for over 10 years now – long enough that our kids expect that we will. It’s a long road, as are most things with young children I’m finding out. Though revival doesn’t break out every morning over eggs and toast, our continued hope and prayer is that times like these builds into the love and discipline our children will have in the future when it comes to God’s Word.

And through those 10 years, we’ve tried different things, failed at a bunch, and maybe learned some things about starting and continuing in this pattern. I hope some of these things will be encouraging to you to kick this off, or affirming to you if you’ve found yourself in the middle of it. In my opinion, then, here are 6 things you must have to start a family devotion:

1. Consistency.

There’s a pattern to everything, a routine for most every part of life. And any time you disrupt that routine, even for the noblest of reasons, there is going to be backlash. So before you get started, you’ve got to commit to consistency. Decide on the time of day. And keep it at that time. For us, it’s 6:45 am at breakfast. That still might change in the coming years, but if you don’t pick a consistent time then it’s doubly difficult to keep the practice going.

What’s more, in our experience, the days that feel like discipline to do this far outweigh the days where you feel like the kids are actually engaged and learning something. But then again, isn’t that often the case in our own lives with our own spiritual growth and development? And yet we keep going because we believe in the power of God and the power of His Word.

2. Variety.

For us, we try to change things up once a week. Monday through Thursday, we do a Bible study and prayer (probably around 15 minutes), but Friday is different. On Friday, everyone shares one specific thing they are thankful for that week, and one prayer request. For a while, those prayer requests were pretty predictable – that I would have a good day, that I would do well on a test, that I would be kind to friends… that kind of thing. In recent days, we’re tried to bring more variety into those prayer requests as well, asking the kids to share a prayer not for themselves but for someone else, or to share something they’re thankful for that’s not about an activity they get to do that weekend.

3. A Sense of Humor.

One of the great things having a family devotion time does for me, as a dad, is helps me not to take myself too seriously. Every once in a while we will be talking through some great truth from the Bible, I’ll be making an incredibly insightful and valuable point in a truly beautiful way… and someone will burp.

Game over. But such is life with kids. And in truth, that’s okay. I can’t help but think it was a pretty undignified scene when the kids were crawling all over each other to try and get into Jesus’ lap, and yet He let them come. Snotty noses and all. Keeping a sense of humor while trying to instill this discipline, in the end, is a helpful reminder that we, as parents, are really stewards of these children. We do the best we can in faith, but ultimately it is only God who convicts of sin and brings our children – any children – to an understanding of the gospel.

So we laugh, and then we go at it again.

4. Tools.

It is our of our experience as a family that I’ve written The Whole Story for the Whole Family. It’s a family devotion book that is modeled after our own pattern described above. In a year, you can walk your family through the major storyline of Scripture with an eye on Jesus as the main character. And each daily devotion includes an object lesson or game, a text, a bit of commentary, and some discussion questions – all meant to be done in 15 minutes.

My hope and prayer is that this will be a great tool for many to help kickstart the pattern of reading the Bible together as a family.

5. Preparation.

I don’t mean preparation in the sense that you have spent 2 hours studying the devotion you are going to walk through the next morning (though that’s a fine practice if you can manage it). I mean “preparation” more in the sense of creating the environment. In order to make sure we have time before school for devotions, Jana and I have to get up earlier than we used to. We have to be completely ready for the day with breakfast ready by 6:45.

While it often means that I read through the devotion the night before, it also to a greater extent means doing anything we can do to make the morning run more smoothly. This would be things like making sure lunches are already packed, clothes are laid out, and you haven’t left any lingering homework assignments to be done over the eggs and toast.

6. Faith.

There are spiritual moments with your children that are paper thin, and they don’t seem to happen that often. It’s those times when you really sense they are understanding the nature of sin and our great need for forgiveness, and then they’re thinking about Pokemon again. Paper thin moments, but they’re there. I remember several years ago when we were in the book of Joshua talking through the story of Rahab. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, it’s an incredible gospel-laced account of a woman of questionable reputation who was saved from destruction. And how was she saved? Because she put a red rope on her door, marking her house to be spared. And the lights came on for the kids:

“Do you guys remember any other people that put something red on their doors?”

“Yeah. Like when that angel killed people.”

“Correct. It was the Passover. And why was that called the Passover?”

“Because the angel passed over their houses.”

“And what did the Israelite army do to Rahab’s house?”

“They passed over it.”

And so on it went, eventually to remind us that the wrath of God passes over us because our lives are marked with something red – the blood of Jesus. The kids thought this was genuinely exciting, and they felt genuinely smart because they saw how it all fit together.

Every morning isn’t a home run. Sometimes it’s a sacrifice bunt that you believe that God will somehow use in the story of their lives. So we choose, by faith, not to be discouraged, but instead to believe in a God who is drawing our kids’ hearts to Himself.