Yesterday we started an Advent series called “A Way In The Manger.”  The idea is that where it seemed like there was no way, God provided a way for everything the night He sent Jesus into the world to be born as a man in Bethlehem.

Songs:
The River is Here (Park)
Immanuel (From the Squalor) (Townend)
Rejoice (Altrogge)
O Come, O Come Emmanuel (arr. Don Chapman)
Your Name (Baloche/Brown)

While there were a few things throughout the morning that were quite discouraging, one positive thing really stood out at me, and let me see that God is indeed working in people’s lives.

There was a man in our congregation who I knew was going through a rough situation, but after the closing comments from our Vicar, he just remained standing where he was and continued to sing the last choruses of “Your Name” with the worship team.  It touched my heart to see someone in the midst of struggle not care what people think and just worship.

I wonder sometimes why we are afraid to worship in this way.  I wonder why there are not more people who will joyfully stand up and give praise when they feel led.  I wonder why there are not more people who pour out their hearts while worshipping God.  Often, I wonder where our passion for Jesus is.

My heart is that our church will become ingnited; that we will become so passionate about our Savior that we can’t help but worship Him; that we can’t help but spread the news of how He changes our lives.

As I opened up my browser at home this past week, an interesting article caught my eye.  It was entitled “Elton John: Religion encourages hatred.”

His statements were pretty bold. “Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays,” and “I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.”

While he makes some very broad and generalized statements, he does have a pretty good point.  It seems like more and more, instead of following Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” we have started to follow the command of “always view people’s sins as worse than yourself.”

Instead of following Jesus’s example of compassion and loving people out of darkness, we try to hit them as hard as we can out of darkness, all the while claiming to be followers of Jesus, when really we’re just being “Christians” (see post below)

Let’s take a look at Elton John’s view of religion compared to the apostle Paul’s view of following Jesus.

• Elton John says that religion “turns people into really hateful lemmings.”
  
  The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12 to “not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  A lemming follows the crowd, a follower of Jesus follow the one and only Son of God.
  
  
  
• Elton John says that religion is “not really compassionate.”
  
  The apostle Paul says in Colossians to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12)

If we are holding to the teachings of the apostles, who first held to the radical thoughts and actions of Jesus Christ, we must remember a few things:

We are all sinners. 
Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

We are to have a spirit of compassion towards everyone,
no matter what they struggle with, because homosexuality is viewed as no different than some things that don’t seem to get us as riled up.

“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galtians 5)

Here in Galatians 5, Paul has put sexual immorailty in the same category as jealousy (lots of people guilty of that), fits of rage (again, guilty), selfish ambition (yet again), envy (very guilty), drunkenness (see a pattern here?)…

And he puts sexual immorality in the same category as hatred.  If we are truly acting like “hateful lemmings,” we are committing one of the very sins that God has put in the same category as those we are being accused of hating.

We all need a life-transforming Savior.
“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” (1 Timothy )

Paul declared his need for a Savior, and the only way we can hope to live up to having the compassion of Jesus is to pray that he would make us new, every day.

In no way am I condoning homosexuality, but I am also not condoning a lack of compassion towards those who perhaps need His love the most.

Let’s worship our Savior by following His command to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Ah…Reformation Sunday.  The Sunday we get to sing Tommy Walker’s “A Mighty Fortress.”  That song is always fun to sing.  However, it was interesting to watch a young couple who are relatively new to church life sing the song.  I could definitely see confused looks on their faces at times as they struggled to comprehend the words.  Tomorrow I will blog on the words of Luther’s great hymn.

We sang:

Sing to the King – Foote
Because of Your Love – Baloche/Brown
A Mighty Fortress – Luther/Walker
In Christ Alone – Townend
Wider Than the Ocean
You are the One – Baloche
Grace Alone

Pastor John‘s sermon really struck home.  Before the Reformation, people we’re buying their way into Heaven.  People we’re buying forgiveness for their sins.  The life-saving, life-transforming power of Jesus Christ that had been dominant in the early church had been lost.  People could do what they want, feel no remorse, and buy their way out of it.

Unfortunately, to some degree, this is still true today.  We think we’re living a free life by saying, “Hey, God will forgive me.  I can do whatever I want.”  Yet we’re really enslaving ourselves by sinning as Jesus said, “Anyone who sins is a slave to sin.”

The boundaries that God gives us in His Word and that Jesus teaches actually free us from the burden that sin places upon us.  We are freed from guilt.  We are freed from shame.  We are freed from the consequences that sin brings.  We are freed to live for Him!

Let’s be radical like Luther was.  Let’s start a revolution just like he did.  Let’s live lives passionate for Jesus Christ.

Hello all!

This is just a quick update to let everyone know that I have returned from vacation and will be posting regularly once more.

It was so awesome to marvel another world that God has created underwater that we don’t ever see up here in the midwest. While snorkeling and watching the schools of fish swimming in their own world, I came upon a spot where a buoy marked deep water. I couldn’t see past the amazing blue color that was in the distance, but I knew that when the psalmist said, “If I go to the depths, You are there,” he wasn’t kidding.

We haven’t even begin to glimpse a portion of the majesty of God. But we have seen and experienced His mercy, so hopefully we will all be able to worship Him in Spirit and Truth and with all our might this week.

Sunday’s service was great.  We had the awesome priviledge of listening to our Vicar, Josh, preach for the first time.  More on that in a minute.

Songs:
I Sing the Mighty Power of God (hymncharts.com)
Your Name (Baloche)
Oh, That the Lord Would Guide My Ways (arranged in modern style)
Lord, You Have My Heart (Smith)
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Shine, Jesus, Shine (Kendrick)

Josh challenged us from the book of James, noting that what the passage basically all boiled down to was that we are all in three chairs.  The first chair is those people who don’t care about God’s Word.  The second is those who hear His Word, but don’t do anything it says.  And the third are those who hear God’s Word and do what it says.  Josh said that James message was simple, “Get in chair #3.”

What a fantastic challenge.  It seems like so often we come to church weekly, but our lives never change.  And we were reminded by Josh that God doesn’t place us in the third chair just to fail again, but gives us the power to succeed.