Finished at 3PM

The Older Testament is a bloody book. Ever since God had Abraham walk in blood there has been this promise or covenant that sacrifice would be a part of the promise. That God would deal with sin. Throughout the pages of the OT there were 5 animals that were sacrificed, cow, goat, sheep, pigeon, ram, and dove. The Jews believed that whenever they killed an animal and threw it’s blood on the altar, they were saying – “God you made a promise that you would take care of my sin.” God wanted his people to be reminded that he would deal with sin.

So God built rhythmic reminders into their calendar. In a reoccurring appointment with him everyday at 9AM and 3PM there would be a sacrifice in the temple to serve as a reminder of His forgiveness. Every day the priest would make the sacrifices. Regardless the priests mood, the weather, political conflicts, war in their land, famine among the people, economic turmoil, every single day the priest would keep the appointment by making the sacrifice: on holidays, on the Sabbath, there were wasn’t a break from sacrifice. When Jesus came along they had been keeping these appointments with God for sacrifice in the temple for roughly 1,500 years.

Ray Vander Laan writes about how in Jesus’ day the sacrifice in the temple involved 3 people, one priest would stand with a lamb (with a knife to it’s throat), one priest would stand with a shofar (a horn made from a ram’s horn), and another with an sundial (or hourglass when it was cloudy). At 9 and 3 the timekeeper would signal to the priest who would signal with the shofar and everyone in earshot of the horn would stand still in silence as blood was being shed.

It’s Friday in Jerusalem and it’s a holiday. Two million people have packed themselves into town for Passover. It’s 2:55 PM and just outside the city gate three men hang on Roman crosses. The one in the middle, struggling for every breath is a Jew. He has been hanging there on the cross since 9:00 AM, when they nailed his feet and hands to the beams.

The hour glass ran down and it was 3 o’clock. The signal was given, the shofar sounded and the man in the middle raised his head and screamed, IT IS FINISHED. It is all finished, his suffering, his life, but most of all the promise and covenant of the Father 1,500 years earlier. God finished the system of blood sacrifice at 3 o’clock on Passover.

We don’t sacrifice an animal at 9AM and 3PM because IT IS FINISHED. I made an appointment on my calendar today (Friday) at 3PM to take a break and do absolutely nothing for a couple of minutes and just be grateful to God for keeping his promise. Maybe just by avoiding doing anything I can let the reminder sink in a little deeper that there is nothing I can do to earn his forgiveness. You can’t buy it, you can’t crawl on your knees through the holy city, you can’t go on a pilgrimage, you can’t offer your righteousness, there is nothing you can do, but bow in humility and confess and accept it. That’s grace.

But I like what Dallas Willard said, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it’s opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is action.” Out of gratitude and grace, let’s go put effort and action into our worship by presenting ourselves as living sacrifices.

He took our sins in His body.

He took the curse and wrath of God on Himself.

He took our sins and His heart was broken so that ours would be healed.

He was an outcast so that we could be brought in.

He suffered without the gate that we might enter into heaven and said,

IT IS FINISHED!

-Leonard Ravenhill

Confession: I am that guy. I’m the guy that smiles at people when I run.

It doesn’t matter if they are young or old, male or female, Jew or Gentile; I give them a smile and a “good morning.” And here’s what I’ve figured out in my little social experiment: the folks who are walking, they smile back. The people, who are running, they might nod or murmur “hey,” but rarely will they give a smile in return. Runners just don’t smile. I don’t know why.

What I do know is in an erre sort of way, it reminds me of the former USSR. When I traveled to the Eastern Bloc I got the same response. Remember how the pictures of communist leaders in our textbooks were all grim and dismal on the face (I guess it’s hard to control the world with a smile).

Communists and runners don’t smile. Don’t read what I’m not writing; I’m not saying that runners are communists. I enjoy running, I just happen to enjoy smiling too.

Why don’t runners and communists smile? Maybe it has to do with all the effort and energy and strength and force that is required. Communists leaders are exercising fear and intimidation; Runners are exercising focused intensity.

Sometimes I can get so wrapped up in running through the schedule of the day, from meeting to appointment, from calendar item to event, that I can forget to smile. I can get so wrapped up in focused intensity about what I’ve got to do, what I’ve got to get done, with all the effort and energy and strength that is required that I forget to smile.

This morning I stopped running long enough to read Nehemiah 8:10, where he says, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

This reminds me of something I read in George Whitfield’s Memoirs that connects with this idea. Look at what one of history’s great evangelists wrote on May 21, 1747:

I have now been upon the stretch preaching constantly for almost three weeks. My body is often extremely weak, but the joy of the Lord is my strength, and by the help of God, I intend going on till I drop or this poor carcass can hold out no more. The congregations yesterday were exceedingly large. I am as sick as I used to be in England but the Redeemer fills me with his comfort. I am determined in his strength, to die fighting. I hope to die in the pulpit or soon after I come out of it.

Whitfield was sick and suffering and on the verge of death, and he writes “the joy of the Lord is my strength.” Today as I write I have pretty good health, my body is holding up alright, I wonder am I depending on the joy of the Lord for my strength or what I’ve got in the natural?

Thoughts for today: Where does your strength come from? If the joy of the Lord is your strength, how much joy do you have in the tank?

Read back through Nehemiah 8:10. Today is sacred. Take the time to lock eyes with another human and share what you have. Share your food. Share your drink. Share your smile. Before you tell someone else about the joy you have, make sure you tell your face.

In the time of the cold war, when Mother Teresa was asked about world peace, she said, “Peace begins with a smile.”

Smile as you run through the day. Don’t be a communist (smile).

Baptisms and Baby Dedications: These are a two of my favorite things about serving as a pastor.

Baby Dedication. This past weekend I found myself leading a baby dedication Sunday afternoon that included 12 babies and my 4 month old son. The way we do things are: at the end of the baby dedication, following the parent’s commitment, the bring their child up on the platform. I take this time to share the first and middle names and give their meanings. Then I share a verse that I’ve selected for the child and speak a blessing over the baby. One of my favorite moments, it’s not something that I HAVE to do, it’s something that I GET to do.

I didn’t anticipate what I would experience when Rea brought Bolton up on the platform for his blessing. I had prepared what I would say, but I was in no way prepared for the emotional weight of that moment. My hands were shaking as I realized what a privilege to bless my own child. To speak words of affirmation and approval over him to give my acceptance to my child. I wept. I’ll never forget that moment.

But you don’t HAVE to be a pastor to bless your child. As a parent you GET to. Tonight you can pray a prayer, speak a passage of scripture, and put your hands on your child’s head an bless them.

You GET to be a parent. You GET to give the blessing. Don’t leave all the blessing to the clergy and liturgy to the sanctuary. Hijack the ritual of blessing and take it to your living room. Don’t wait until they sleep and hope they get it through osmosis. Let’s bless them while they are awake and they can hear us speak and soak up our words and saturate their self-esteem.

Baptism. Sunday was special because I was able to baptize 5 people during our 3 services. Each baptism is a fresh revelation of redemption and the kindness of God. The stories behind the baptisms reveal the spectrum of grace how light shines through stained glass and takes the grays and browns of stone to make it dance with vivid color and life. I want to attach the story of one man who was baptized named Kelly, he has given me permission to share in hope that it may help someone else.

When I was young I went to church only a handful of times with my mother and grandmother. I really did not take it serious at all. You could say that I have had my back turned to God my whole life. I would get in a bind and think that I needed to pray but I am the kind of person that I didn’t want to call on the God only in a bad situation. It seemed to me that if there was such a thing (GOD) why would he want to help someone who only called when things were bad? So again I turned my back. I have had a roller coaster life with the ups and downs, from one extreme to another. I was a self made millionaire by the time I was 27 and I thought I had everything. I enjoyed the power that came with the money along with other things. I had forgotten the important things in life and was paying all of my attention to material possesions and money. Along with greed, money and the power that I thought I had came the break up of my family. I was put in jail a number of times. I was being investigated by all the agencies. I lost every single thing down to having to sleep in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It became clearer to me that I needed GOD now more than ever.

It still took a very good friend that I knew to tell me that I would never be truly happy without GOD. She has a big part in the turn around of my mess that had become my life. She always kept reminding me that GOD had not given up on me. She has been a huge influence in the positive direction. Along with my mother who never gave up, my grandmother (maw-maw) and mother-in-law who always prayed for me.

I promised her and my mother that I would go to church on Easter Sunday of this year. This was the first time for me to come to the Hamilton Mill 12Stone. And from the start I enjoyed it like never before. After a few Sundays I couldn’t get enough. I opened my heart to Jesus and was saved. It was an overwhelming experience to me and it finally filled the void that I had in my heart for so long. I was told that my life would soon drastically change. Well… it did instantly. I wouldn’t trade my life now with Christ for all the money in the world.

It was a good weekend. It’s a good day. I don’t HAVE to live it, I GET to.

One of my closest friends Russ married my sister. Strangely, this was never weird. Here’s what WAS weird: when my mentor Ronnie told me at the waffle house, “Kevin, the Lord told me Russ is going to marry your sister….and you can’t say anything about it.” Sure enough, six months later they started dating and I got permission to share Ronnie’s word from God at their rehearsal dinner. Russ and I get along really well, we lived together in college, we’re about the same age, and we’re both pastors. Like any friends we occasionally argue and debate. But our debate is always about theology.

On vacation last week we got in this heated little convo about, are we saints or are we sinners? Russ said we’re sinners, that we’re not righteous and that our hearts are wicked. I said, we’re saints, we’re the holy ones. I’ll fast forward through the sweat and spit of our conversation and get to our conclusion. We smiled when we were done because it’s both. We’re both sinners and saints. We are sinners who are called saints.

Some who belong to Jesus are self-righteous and carry a religious spirit and need to know that they are a sinner saved by grace.

Some who belong to Jesus still see themselves as sin-stained and worthless and they need to know that by grace God sees them as saint (his holy ones).

Let’s look at Romans 1:1-7

1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. 6And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. 7To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word holy means “set apart.” Which carries this idea of designated, special, for a significant purpose. Notice in verse 1 Paul (the chief of all sinners) says that he’s been “set apart” for the gospel of God, in verse 2 he says that the Scriptures are “set apart.” God is in the business of setting apart people. There’s something about knowing that you’re “set apart.”

I’ve told this story before, but Camden my 4 year old and I have this little ritual where I tell her, “if I could line up all the little girls in the world that are your age, and I could pick just one. You know who I’d pick?” She says, “you’d pick me.” I say, “no, I’d pick that little girl down the street.” Just kidding. I’ve never said that. I say, “I’d pick you.” Then I whisper in her ear, “you are my special one.”

Look at verse 7, notice who Paul is writing this letter to:

7To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

When Paul writes the word saints, he’s not writing to a bunch of catholic dead men and women. He’s writing to the church. Saints is a word that means set apart people of God. God loves you and calls you his “holy ones” His “sepecial ones.”

Maybe you’re reading this and feeling worthless you need to know that God has set you apart. You are called to be a saint, set apart in the way you live, you aren’t ordinary, you belong to Jesus, and that he would say your name and whisper in your ear, “you are my special one.”

Maybe you are reading this and you’re thinking you’re doing a good job at righteousness and you’ve pulled together a pretty good track record of holiness, you need to know….it’s only by the grace of God that he would think of you as special.

Everyone you see today wants to know that they are special, everyone.

If you convince them with your words and serving that they are special to you, maybe then and only then will they begin to believe that the God of the universe could see them as special too. You are set apart for that calling.

A sinner and a saint,

Kev

After the teaching on Sunday by Anson McMahon, (one of the finest talks sermons that I’ve heard on Romans), I’ve decided to revisit the Epistle to the church @Rome.

My plan was to go deep into the letter, but I’ve got a confession to make, Paul punched me in the nose on the third word and I haven’t been able to get past:

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God^”

What is a servant? Simply someone who serves. One who listens and obeys. A servant waits for the Master to speak and then fulfills the Master’s desires.

Here’s the thought that has me hung up…Paul identifies himself as a servant of first. His primary identity in this verse is “I’m a servant of Jesus.” He establishes that before he brings clarity to what he’s called to. Right out of the gate he is a servant of Christ Jesus. It would be real easy to establish his credibility by leading with apostle, leader, point man, but he doesn’t do that – he begins with “Paul, a servant.”

How do you introduce yourself? What title do you want to give? What position are you scrambling for? We wonder about and wander around in the conversation about calling, but sometimes that dialogue, is just a smoke break that keeps us from what we are here to do…be servants of Christ. Never putting on the apron to serve because we are busy looking for the outfit we are going to wear when we “make it.”

Paul’s greatness is not found in the “apostle,” that’s just something he was called to…his great ambition was not to be a great apostle, his ambition was servanthood. There is no room in the Kingdom for great apostles who don’t do aprons.

Jesus said that his Kingdom is not like the way of this world, the greatest is the least, in his economy the last is the first. His Kingdom is the one where the King wears an apron and cleans feet.

See, everyone is not called to be an apostle, leader, corner office king, but everyone is called to serve.

So let’s not get tangled up in conversations about what God might do with us tomorrow instead let’s listen and obey today. By serving we subvert the kingdoms of this world and reveal true greatness.

It’s apron time,

Kevin, a servant of Christ Jesus.

I love to feel God and most of the time there is feeling attached to my faithing. God made us to feel. He gave us the ability to feel, to rejoice, to laugh, to cry, and to have that inward joy that puts our hearts somewhere in a spiritual zipcode, bringing a supernatural peace and comfort to our souls.

There have been seasons in my faith journey that my “feeling God” has been interrupted by seasons of spiritual static. It’s this sort of funk where I can’t feel God. Instead of peace I find an unsettling restlessness. Instead of light, it seems like a dark cloud. Instead of delight, I find distress. This distress has symptoms of confusion and restlessness, hopeless and apathy. There seems to an onslaught of temptation attached, the chief temptation, to stay apathetic toward the things of God.

I was reading Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) this morning. He offers a couple of thoughts about why we experience spiritual distress.
1. Because we are listless, apathetic, and careless in our spiritual exercises; it is on account of our own faults that our spiritual comfort is withdrawn.
2. To test our worth, and to show how far we are able to advance in His service and praise without the great reward of comforts and extraordinary favor.
3. To give us clear understanding and insight, to enable us to have a deep inner conviction that of ourselves we are powerless to produce or sustain a flood of devout feelings, intense love, tears or any other spiritual comfort, but that this is all a gift of God our Lord. We are not, that is, to build on another’s foundation getting above ourselves in pride and empty boasting, claiming our own the devout feelings of another features of spiritual comfort.

Loyola says that. “In a period of distress we are not to alter anything, but should remain firm and unyielding in our resolutions and the purpose of mind in which we found ourselves on the day preceding such distress, or in the purpose in which we found ourselves in the preceding comfort.”
This is good common sense, when we are in the midst of spiritual static and distress, we should never change a decision or resolution. On the other hand, when we are in the light (feeling Him good), that’s a good time to plan out how we will handle ourselves when we are in the dark (not feeling Him at all).

When you don’t feel him, fight through it. Stay connected during the seasons of static. Rebel against the apathy and indifference. Keep doing the last thing he told you to do. Hold to his word and prayer as your life support during the coma of distress, because joy comes in the morning, your heart will awaken again and His peace will invade your soul.

Had a conversation tonight with a really eclectic friend tonight about how spiritual reading has shaped our lives. In reflection I tried to whittle down a quick list of the 10 most influential books. Here’s what I came up with…Not in any particular order.

1. Seizing Your Divine Moment – Erwin McManus
2. Pursuit of God – A.W. Tozer
3. Pursuit of Holiness – Jerry Bridges
4. Ragamuffin Gospel - Brennan Manning
5. Why Revival Tarries – Leonard Ravenhill
6. The Divine Conspiracy – Dallas Willard
7. The Life You’ve Always Wanted – John Ortberg
8. The Jesus I Never Knew – Philip Yancey
9. What’s So Amazing about Grace – Philip Yancey
10. No Compromise: life story of Keith Green

In Luke 14:26-27, Jesus says, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and himself as well, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Hate your life? Hate your wife? Jesus delivers this hard word about the level of commitment that was required of a disciple. This doesn’t make sense, doesn’t this contradict everything that he told us about loving?

When you do a word study on the word “hate” that Jesus uses it reveals that it doesn’t carry the same meaning as when we use it in English. In a Hebraic sense, the Hebrew word “hate” can also mean, “love less” or “put in second place.” If you look at Genesis 29:31, when it reads that Leah was “hated,” the context demonstrates that Leah wasn’t unloved, rather loved less than Rachel. In Deuteronomy 21:15 there’s another example of this second place love.

To be a disciple of any Rabbi was a high calling and a difficult one. As for the 12, they lived homeless for 3 years and left their wives and children. It was required that when a married talmadim (disciple) left for longer than 30 days to study with a Rabbi, he needed his wife’s permission. There was a cross to bear and a burden to carry for the disciples.

Jesus words still hold, we still have a cross to carry and he must be loved first. He hasn’t changed him mind, He’s not going to settle for second place. He wants us to love him and trust him more than the status and security we find our social network, friends list, or family relationships.

The call is to reshuffle the deck of my affection and make sure he is promoted to the top of my relationships.

This calls for a Sabbath from Facebook and Twitter today. I don’t think I’ll be updating my status. I’m going off the grid to reorder my friends list with the Rabbi.

• Authenticity: 

God will use me only to the extent to which I am true to what I know.

My temptation is to think that If I am myself –  people might be turned off.

But I know that when I am not myself – God is turned off. 

One of the worst things I can do is to take compliments seriously. 

• Approval:

“If you want to be free of the fear of man, start telling the truth.”

• Anointing:

 

It is possible to do Christian activity without the touch of God. But when there is the touch of God, when you are operating in the Spirit, the supernatural seems natural. Everything easy is not our anointing. We can identify anointing because it blesses and encourages others. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. It’s sobering to think that I can be a hypocrite in my personal life and the gift still function. But this eternal reality drives me to deepen my character: in heaven we won’t be rewarded for gifts, we’ll be rewarded for obedience.

- R.T. Kendall