Category: Uncategorized

Mostly Empty Space

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Colossians 2:17
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

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So very often my golf ball ends up surrounded by trees, leaving me with an impossible shot through a web of branches and leaves. My golfing buddies and I will joke: “Trees are 99% air, so go ahead and swing away. It’ll probably just go through.” Well, it rarely does.

It’s hard to wrap my brain around it, but the indisputable truth is that everything around us is almost entirely empty space. This couch, this computer, this cup of coffee….almost entirely empty space. To be specific, I just read that a hydrogen atom is about 99.9999999999996% empty space!

This world feels solid and looks solid. I treat it as solid when I sit down put my full weight on it.

BUT IT’S NOT SOLID!

Taking it to the next level, I demand that this world (things, people, words, accomplishments) also hold the weight of my heart, my soul, my identity, my value, my hope. And I get so frustrated, anxious, angry and sad when it doesn’t. But why am I so surprised? It’s almost entirely empty space! It absolutely cannot hold the weight of my being, even though it appears that it can.

The glorious gospel good news is that this emptiness is utterly temporary.

Revelation 21:5
And he who was seated on the throne said,
“Behold, I am making all things new.”

Do you know why Jesus was able to walk through walls after his resurrection (John 20:19)? It’s because the wall was almost entirely empty space but Jesus, in his glorified body, was 100% solid! This creation no longer had a hold and restriction on him. When there is light shining through our windows we can see particles of dust floating in the air, but we have no problem walking through these dust particles because they have zero restrictions on our more-solid bodies. And so it is with the new glorified creation. After Jesus paid our ransom on the cross and in the grave, he rose in his new body, inviting us to join him as he promises to give us new glorified fully solid bodies. They will be similar to the old, but 99.9999999999996% more real!

So rejoice and hopeful in this: this world, this creation, these relationships, this love…they are 0.0000000000004% of how solid they WILL BE. Enjoy this time, this world this creation, but cast your hope, weight and being onto the resurrected Jesus this is already made solid as he faithfully promised to enjoin us to himself.

 

Repent and Believe.

Repent. Well that word has got a lot of baggage. It has virtually been manifested into a literally club used to beat people over the head. We’ve been conditioned (brainwashed?) like Pavlov’s dog to hear that word and begin to cringe in guilt and shame; or bow up and resist the humiliation of admitting we are somehow wrong, or somehow offended somebody (or some god).

But this is mostly because we have a misunderstanding of God, ourselves and what repentance is.

First off, God. As I talked a little bit about in “Dancing King”, Jesus is the eternal dancing God that dances with the Father and the Son. For eternity they have been revolving gracefully, graciously and lovingly around each other forever. When Jesus came to us he essentially invited us to join The Three in the divine dance.

But what about us? We were scooped up off the dance floor and given legs to dance with the King. But we keep going back to our old dance partners, giving them our adoration, love and rhythm.

So repentance is the continual wooing of God that melts our hearts to see that we are cheating on our True Dance Partner. Repentance is literally to “Change Your Thinking.” Repentance is seeing and admitting that we are believing in a different gospel (Gospel is “the good news that a king has come and won”). “Sin” means that I am believing (followed by my “doing”) in something besides Jesus. I’m not dancing with the one that brung me. To repent is to re-callibrate my beliefs. To admit that I am believing wrong, and then to begin to believe the Truth.

That’s why Jesus begins his sermon here with “Repent and Believe.” They go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. Repentance is not “say you are sorry for doing something bad” but agreeing with God that you have believed a false gospel, and then believe the Truth that God is your hope; that he has scooped you up off the floor and now says “This is my son, whom I love and in him I am well pleased.”

I was at a Dave Matthews concert several years ago and there was a dude there wearing an unusual shirt with this bold proclamation: “God Hates Me”. It was really awkward and makes me wonder this: How do I think God thinks about me?

It’s super easy to go through the motions and read the posterboards at football games that tell me that “God Love Me”. And I pretty well believe it almost all of the time.

But what does he really think about me? How does he “feel” about me? (but let’s not get into a debate regarding God having or not having emotions…go read your Westminster Confession and figure it out).

When I’ve recently asked that question to friends I get two responses more than any other:

“Disappointed”

“Tolerant”

I see my own life and even a touch of my own heart and am pretty disappointed in myself. How can God, who knows me better than I know myself and has infinitely higher standards than I can imagine, feel any better about me. At the very best He tolerates my slow learning and weak following. Kinda like giving me 2 stars out of five in his review of me.

But then passages cut my disappointed knees out from underneath me:

Psalm 149:4
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.

There’s loads of other places that say the same thing, but essentially we are told that, because of the Gospel and Jesus exchanging His Sonship with ours, we have a Heavenly Father that absolutely loves us, but ALSO LIKES US! Hear that. Own that. I have pretty much never heard that preached, though it is an age-old theology called “Propitiation” (defined as returning into God’s favor)

In short….God has not just removed his wrath (“expiation”) but has imputed his favor, his “affection”. God actually likes you. He doesn’t just put up with you and wish that you would do better. He sees you as you in all your uniqueness, but with Jesus-colored glasses. Even more…he has changed us into His Son’s Image. He doesn’t just see us in a better light, he has remade us into our original image…and has returned his favor onto us. And this utterly changes the way I see Him…love Him…obey Him…repent to Him. It’s utterly freeing.

 

 

I preached on this a bit ago…here it is:

http://www.graceinfo.org/learning-media/sermons/sermons/message/adorned-and-adored

Ps​alm​ 12
3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts,
4 those who say,
“With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?”
6 The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.
7 You, O Lord, will keep them

Martin Luther used a system to read, study, meditate and pray through Scripture that seriously helps me. It’s shortened to this: TACS. What is the passage TEACHING? What does it reveal about God that I need to ADORE? What does it reveal about me that I need to CONFESS? What need arises that requires God’s SUPPLY? To help my tendency to not be Jesus-Centered enough, I added an R after the T: How is Jesus REVEALED…thus making is “TRACS“.

Here’s how I used this structure with Psalm 12:

Teach: This Psalm shows that we all have use “words” to our advantage (to make myself look good; to flatter others in order to get what I want; to deceive; to mock; to slander; to hurt…ultimately to mock God). But God’s words are Truth and Pure. They are used to love and redeem; to perfect and instill hope. In order to do this, he sent Jesus, His Word, to us to live Truth that would then be counted on my behalf.

Reavealed: Jesus is the “Word” of God (John 1:1) and is himself pure and true. Likewise when he spoke, he only spoke truth. So when he said that it “is finished”, that cannot be untrue or undone because he himself was the fulfillment of his own words.

Adore: God, thank you that I can trust what you say. It doesn’t seem like it a lot of the time, but in the end, it’s continually revealed that you only speak truth and your words build up your people….even when your words aren’t what I want to hear sometimes. Also, I adore you for making your Word come into Flesh in Jesus to that Truth lived and lives among and in me.

Confess: Forgive me for using what I say just for my own advantage…for stretching the truth; omitting the truth; gossiping; crude joking that crosses the line. I’m sorry. I’m also sorry for not trusting what you say is true. I doubt you and ignore you; I don’t “hide” your words in my heart where they can grow and produce fruit. I call you a liar even though it’s not even possible for you bend or omit the truth.

Supply: I really need you to help me with what comes out of my mouth. Today, let me use my words to lift up my wife and kids; to encourage people that I talk with; to praise you. Help me to also trust you and what you say, leaning on nothing but Jesus as The Word.