Well-Informed People

Yes, the title is sarcastic.

I don't listen to Howard Stern as a rule. I found this YouTube radio clip on Voddie Baucham's blog. When you hear the way the interviews go, think about all the interviews you see on the news or hear on the radio, or even hear at work or the public square. The people being interviewed here are clearly ignorant and they are likely not even aware of their own motives. Do the people you most respect have it all together? Do you? Feel free to even take what the "experts" say with a grain chunk block of salt.

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The thing I observe is that these people all sound rather earnest and confident in what they think they know. The fact is, we are all woefully ignorant and fall far short of having the noodles to accurately make the decisions we need to make with the certainty we often make them.

My pastor, Skip Cartin, made the point in yesterday's sermon that we shouldn't trust smart people; after all, smart people created this economic mess we're in. A few breaths later he criticized anti-intellectualism in the church. Unless I misunderstood him, his point is not that intellect is unimportant or useless altogether, but that it requires true wisdom, or trust in God, to be truly fruitful in Christ.

I would argue that a certain lack of cognitive function is helpful because if any of us had a melon full of seeds, we would get the idea that we didn't need to trust God. Our cofidence would be in ourselves rather than God. Furthermore, while self-confidence in our cogitations is elusive if we have too much doubt, then we will be immobilized from using what we do know. Therefore, don't judge the people in the radio clip too harshly.

I dare say that the great leaders among us are some of the best-informed and most confident yet are only moderately intelligent and often unaware that the world is much larger than their perception of it. There are typically multiple solutions to any given temporal problem and good leaders are generally oblivious to the fact that their solution is not the only one.

As it is, be aware that the people you trust, including yourself, are rowing along with only one oar in the water, and that's okay as long they trust Christ.

Trusting God in Suffering

I remember a day when kids were encouraged to dream big. There was a time when one could hope to do well enough to be the President of the United States. The American Dream was that anything was possible. We had hope. In many ways, we still do. However, it's waning.

I'm sitting here glancing at the photos of past trips to Venezuela where we've played with the children. Our hope is to share the gospel with them and plant seeds of spiritual growth - the hope of the gospel. Some dare to believe and come right up to greet us. Others are tentative, only daring to hope after a while. The pictures I see are of children with varying degrees of hope in their eyes.

I ask myself, what hope do they have? Could they grow up to be the president of Venezuela? Do that have hope like that? Is their environment one that encourages people to dream big? Do they see people who work hard and create wealth for themselves and the society at large?

But there is a greater hope. President of any country is a small thing compared to being a child of the Creator.

Last night I read Exodus 1 and Psalm 79 with my kids. I don't plan our readings ahead so much as we just go through the Bible systematically. We got to the end of Genesis. Psalm 78 was a good overview of the OT history to come, so we went on to Exodus instead of bouncing up to the Gospel of Mark, which was the other simple option.

In Exodus 1, the Hebrews have a bad turn of events in Egypt. Formerly they were honored guests in Egypt. Now, they are enslaved by the Egyptians under the control of Pharaoh. Pharaoh feared the Hebrews who were growing in number. Through Joseph's leadership, he inherited ownership of the Egyptians. Perhaps he also feared the foreigners in his land who were not his to command. In any case, things got bad for the Hebrews. Pharaoh ordered newborn boys killed at birth, which the midwives disobeyed.

In Psalm 79 we read about how Israel was destroyed and Judah taken into captivity. Jerusalem was reduced to rubble in the first verse. The overall message of the psalm is that God is our deliverer and avenger.

I like to make things real for my kids. It's one thing to say that Jerusalem was destroyed, many people killed, and most of the rest enslaved. It's one thing to say that your unborn brother was to be killed when he was born. After all, it's just a piece of boring history. Things aren't like that today, we are tempted to think. It's another thing to realize that China has forced abortions. How can the Chinese government do this? Simple: They own the people.

How about entire villages that are leveled and infrastructures that are destroyed? People killed? Many taken into captivity? Where is this happening today? Sudan. So I bring it home to my kids. An enemy comes and destroys much of the United States. Our house is burned to the ground. Our church is reduced to rubble. Our town is a pile of smoldering debris. Many of the people we know are either dead or captured and taken away never to be seen again. How do you feel? Where do you turn? There is no hope. All the things we place our trust in, like the safety accorded us by the presence of the police department, fire department and ambulance service, are gone. We can't even pick up the phone to call a friend.

We must be comforted by the fact that these things are only reliable for a season. The message for the Hebrews then is the message God gives us in the Psalm. He is the only one worthy to be trusted for all things. Even if we lose our life, we gain it through the One who created it to begin with. He is never surprised by our suffering and He uses our suffering to turn our hearts to Him. May we do so.

The Divide Between Justification and Sanctification

My wife and I went to a Casting Crowns concert in Charlotte this past Saturday. I have their latest studio album, The Altar and the Door. I had listened to it a few times, but the messages on it just hadn't sunk in. I just haven't taken the time to study the lyrics more closely, which I regret not having done. I appreciated Mark Hall explaining the songs they sung from the album and will be contemplating them more closely in light of scripture.

The title song, The Altar and the Door, is really from a line in the song Somewhere in the Middle which really expresses the theme of the album. It's about the difference between the well-intentioned prayers and offerings made at the "altar" that seem to change when we get up and head for the door.



Justification is God's eternal decree. There is one act of justification that demonstrates this in time. God promised justification to all who trust Him. We can be certain of our justification. Sanctification happens over time. Goc provides sanctification prior to the time we begin to trust Him in order to give us the life we need to have faith. After we realize our justification, God continues to sanctify us as we daily live in Him. Justification is God's absolute provision. Sanctification is His subjective provision. We need sanctification because we continue to sin even after we realize our justification.

Trusting God means that we must be satisfied with His provision. It also means that we cannot be satisfied with where we are.

I am to be satisfied with my house, my spouse, my kids, my job, my church, my income, my ministry... So what justifies change at all? We continue to sin and others continue to sin. So what do we say? Does God perpetuate His purposes through sin? No, but we have a limited understanding of sin. We tend to focus on the actual rather than the intentional. What we intend for evil, God intends for good for we have not surprised God with any sin we commit. Does God allow sin by withholding judgement for a time? No. He works all things according to His good purpose.

So, we must be satisfied for God is good. However, there is a hot earth under the cold oceans. Such satisfaction threatens to erupt when sin is exposed. I rejoice where I am today because of a battle won yesterday, but I cannot be satisfied because I must advance to new ground tomorrow.

We are satisfied at the altar, but we must get up and go. The good news is that the altar doesn't stay. Our lives are the altar upon which our bodies are given as a living and holy sacrifice which is our spiritual service of worship. And so sanctification returns to justification.

Of Confidence

I stand on the precipice of reality
Overlooking the valley of dreams
Wondering
If I take a step forward
Will I stand on solid ground?

It's Not About the Money

My dad had major surgery on the vertebrae in his neck Monday. They expected the surgery to take seven or eight hours, but he ended up in surgery from 9:20 in the morning until well after midnight. Needless to say, various people were in and out of waiting all that time not to mention those who were in waiting the whole time. Given this, there was plenty of time for conversation.

Someone uttered the all-too-oft-uttered phrase "if I win the lottery..." This brought up mention of reports of churches and ministers that have refused money from people who won the lottery. Someone looked at my wife and I and noted, "Say, doesn't your church have a policy against accepting money that was won in the lottery?" Before I could answer someone else expressed another all-too-oft-uttered argument, "but the money can be used for good."

Can the money be redeemed and turned into use for good? What good could it do? Feed the poor? Arguably, the lottery helps keep people poor. On the other hand, we're not as poor in this country as we like to think we are. It is reported in one church that the pastor refused lottery money donated to fund a building project. The church fired him, took the money and built the building. Because of this, attendance has dwindled from 165 people down to less than 50. How good was that? Perhaps it was a good thing that attendance dwindled in this church. However, in terms of offerings I'm sure more money was lost from lower attendance than gained by taking the lottery money. The problem with this argument is that it is anecdotal. We need a solid theological foundation for good application.

One thing the Bible teaches and that has been argued is that the church should "'COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,' says the Lord. 'AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.'" (2 Cor. 6:17). This means that the church should be holy. There's no place where the Bible says not to accept money from gambling or the lottery. There's no place where the Bible says not to look at pornography. However, the principles against lust and covetousness are clear. People look at pornography because there is lust in their heart. People gamble and play the lottery because they covet what they do not have. The flaw in this argument is that churches take in money at all. From whence comes the money that churches receive? The same government that allows the killing of millions of pre-born babies prints the money. I'm sure we can find many more evil things from the government. Should we refuse all money? Money also comes from the sinners who are members of the congregation. Can we say that they have all conducted themselves well at work? If they have slacked off at all, have they not stolen decent wages from their employers? Perhaps they work for Wal-Mart or Ford, both of whom support homosexuality. Should we investigate the practices of all the people and businesses from which tithes are gleaned?

It is not out of a spirit of legalism that we should turn away money. It is not out of a spirit of reliance on money that we should accept it either.

A better consideration is Paul's "meat sacrificed to idols". The principle behind Paul's discourse in I Corinthians is that we should not cause our brother to stumble. Playing the lottery is poor stewardship. A couple of bucks for a ticket seems like a drop in the bucket compared to twenty dollars or more for a round of golf. What harm could it do? The problem is we tend to focus on the quantity of money rather than our quality of spirit. The meat is nothing. The money is nothing. Our witness for the sake of Christ is everything. We must take each other's consciences into consideration. Christ told us not to give anything to the church without reconciling ourselves to our brother (Mat 5:23,24) lest we be guilty of murder.

My teaching is this: It's not about the money. God will provide for us to accomplish that which He has determined we are to accomplish in His name. Our part of the equation is to trust Him. By focusing on the quantity of money rather than the quality of our spirit, we are exhibiting a lack of dependence on God. Whether a church can in good conscience or not accept money from dubious sources must be contingent on the question, "are we trusting God?" Even our nation's money says "In God we trust." We might put up a fight if someone lobbies to remove the motto, but do we even follow this as an admonition in conducting the business of our churches?

As one last piece of anecdotal evidence, the church of the individual who said, "but the money can be used for good," each year takes pledges like most churches and regularly doesn't meet the annual budget in tithes. My church, as a principle, doesn't do pledges. Last year we spent nearly a cool million on a renovation of the worship center, sent roughly a tenth of our regular congregants out on missions and took in over 90 grand in tithes beyond our budget. We aren't any better than anyone else and have done nothing to deserve this except that God has used us to demonstrate His faithfulness. God is good. He is faithful to fulfill all that He has promised. He will provide all that is needed to accomplish his purposes. Arguably, there are ministers and churches that are focused on the money and have received much money. However, it will be a testimony against them if their hearts are not reliant on God...

...even still, God will have His way. In Him we can trust.