What's that in your hand?

Moses and God just got done having a talk at a bush that was on fire and wouldn’t burn up.  Moses decides to start asking questions about his new mission.  Although he is about to be used to lead the people out of Egypt, he seems a bit reluctant about the whole thing.  Moses asks the question, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me?”

Essentially, "What if they think I’m crazy?"

Then God replies with a fascinating question, “What is that in your hand?”

Moses had a staff in his hand.  Why did God decide to use a staff?  Did he really need the staff?  Did he really even need Moses?  God had a plan to rescue the nation of Israel and he decided that he wasn’t going to do it alone.  He was going to use Moses.  And Moses’ staff.

Five + Two = 5,000

Jesus has drawn a crowd like he often does.  And as evening approaches, the disciples get concerned because there are over 5,000 people that have gathered to hear Jesus and people are getting hungry.

Jesus doesn’t want to send them away, but instead wants to feed them.

The disciples respond, “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish.”

Five loaves. Two fish. Jesus didn’t need the loaves and the fish to feed the people.  But he chose to.

God again, just like he did with Moses, chose to use the disciples and chose to use ordinary bread and fish to do something miraculous.  He used what was already there, a few pieces of bread and fish, to do something miraculous for the people gathered.

What is your five loaves and two fish?  What is that in your hand?

God is in the business of using ordinary people and ordinary gifts and doing something miraculous.  So what is it that you have that God will use to do something incredible?

Two Kinds of Righteousness

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Faith or good works?

In order to really answer the question, you have to consider what you are asking.  Are you asking which is necessary?  In that case, the answer is both.

Are you asking which is necessary in order to be considered right with God?  In that case, the answer is faith.  You are made righteous solely by faith in the finished work of Christ.

But what if you are considering what makes you right with your neighbor?

Are you righteous in the eyes of your neighbor based on your faith in Jesus?  Or does righteousness in your relationships with others depend on the work that you do?  In your relationships with friends, family, and coworkers, righteousness might be considered as something that depends on our work.

Throughout the scriptures we can see a distinction in two kinds of righteousness.  There is a righteousness that comes solely from the work of Christ.  It describes our standing before God.  And there is a righteousness that comes in our relationship with our neighbor.

The righteousness we have before God is completely passive.  It’s not our doing, it’s all God.  And the righteousness we have before our neighbor is active.  It relies on our own work.

"This is our theology, by which we teach a precise distinction between these two kinds of righteousness, the active and the passive.” - Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians

And teacher of mine said it this way:

"What is meant by two kinds of human righteousness?…One dimension involves our life with God, especially in the matters of death and salvation. The other dimension involves our life with God's creatures and our activity in this world.In the former we receive righteousness before God through faithon account of Christ. In the latter, we achieve righteousness in the eyes of the world by works when we carry out our God-given responsibilities.” - Charles Arand, Lutheran Quarterly

Passive Righteousness.

When it comes to the righteousness we have before God, it rests solely on the work of Christ.  Jesus declared, “It is finished.” Martin Luther described us as “beggars.”  We are completely passive in our relationship with God, powerless to do what only God can do.

Passive righteousness is the vertical relationship between God and man.  God does the work.  The only contribution that man brings into this equation is sin.  This is a righteousness that is alien; it is completely outside of ourselves.

This alien righteousness, instilled in us without our works by grace alone—while the Father, to be sure, inwardly draws us to Christ—is set opposite original sin, likewise alien, which we acquire without our works by birth alone.  Christ daily drives out the old Adam more and more in accordance with the extent to which faith and knowledge of Christ grow.  - Martin Luther

This is why Romans describes man by saying, “No one is righteous - not even one.”

Before God, no man by his own actions is made righteous.  This is why Wingren described Luther’s words when he said, “God doesn’t need our good works.”  Because our righteousness in the vertical realm does not come from anything we do, but only from God’s action toward man.

Active Righteousness.

When it was said that God doesn’t need our good works, he continued by saying, "but our neighbor does."

In our horizontal relationships, our righteousness is not passive, it is active.  We not only have relationship with our creator (passive), but we also have relationships with our neighbors.  In our relationships with the world around us, God calls us to be active serving the world around us.

Active righteousness is what we do in our communities, our neighborhoods, our families, and our jobs.  Active righteousness is where we fulfill our God-given vocations.

The passive righteousness we have freely through faith; active righteousness requires that we serve those around us in the places that God places us.

Why this distinction matters?

A proper understanding of these two kinds of righteousness is important because we must not confuse the two.

If we confuse the two and think that active righteousness establishes our relationship with God, we will trust in ourselves for salvation.  Instead of relying solely on God in the vertical relationship, we will find ourselves relying on our own ability to follow the commandments or serve our neighbors.

If we confuse the two and think that passive righteousness carries over from our vertical relationship into our horizontal relationships, we will end up ignoring the needs of our neighbors.  When we ignore active righteousness, we ignore our callings to our family, to our communities, and in our careers.

Instead we must see these two kind of righteousness clearly.  In our relationship with God, we are recipients.  We, like beggars, receive the gifts that only God can give.  And in relationship with the world, we actively seek to do good and serve our neighbors.  And these two kinds of righteousness, while distinct, are also deeply connected.

Our passive righteousness inspires our active righteousness.  Because we are free from having to earn our salvation, we are also free to do good for our neighbors.  This is why Martin Luther said, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”  Good works will follow.  The righteousness that comes passively through faith always flows out into an active righteousness that loves the neighbor.

Some other great resources on this topic:

• Lutheran Quarterly Article by Charles Arand
• Just and Sinner: What are the two kinds of righteousness? 
• Concordia Theology: FAQ on Luther’s Two Kinds of Righteousness

Pastor Dads

What would it look like if Dads were the pastors of their home?  What would our families look like if Dads saw their vocation as father as crucial to the life of their kids and spouse?  What if dads saw themselves as the primary shepherd in their home? It is often easy to see the job of pastoring and shepherding as the job of the professionals, but for the dad the pastoring in their home is primarily their responsibility.

In Luther’s small catechism, it actually begins with the words:

“As the head of the family should teach the household.”

Pastor dads are teachers.

When Jesus gives the command to go and make disciples, which includes our living rooms, he also gives instructions on how this is to happen.  By baptizing and teaching.  As dads pastor their children, the call is to be a teacher to them.  As dads, we teach our kids how to follow Jesus.  We teach our kids about the commands, about the scriptures, about Christ.  And we teach our children how to live like Jesus.

We teach as we instruct through our words.  And we teach as we model a Christian life.

We talk about forgiveness.  And we show forgiveness.  We teach about promises.  And we show promises.  We teach about sharing our faith.  And we actually share our faith.

Pastor dads are shepherds.

A friend of mine describes the word pastor by pointing out how strange it is.  “Sounds so archaic.  Unsophisticated.  Definitely not as impressive as ‘Chief Executive Officer.’”  Pastors are shepherds.  A shepherd cares for, protects, feeds, and watches over his flock.  And while the dad of the home certainly might have to make sure business is in order, the budget is balanced, and the family is sticking to their mission - the dad is also a pastor.  Shepherding his little flock.

"Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.” - 1 Peter 5:2

As dads, the first flock that we’ve been given is our own families.  And pastoring our family means feeding them spiritually, caring for them spiritually, and shooting the wolves who come to attack.

Pastor dads are leaders.

As dads teach and shepherd, they also lead.  Dads lead their homes.  They set the pace, the direction, and the vision of the home.  Some have even taken this as far as creating a family mission statement.  Whatever it looks like, the pastor dad has to be a leader.  Because as we make disciples in our family, we do so by being the lead follower.  We lead as we follow.  We give direction as we follow direction.  We are imitators and call those who follow us to imitate us.

Note: I borrowed the title of this post from a Mark Driscoll eBook by the same title.  

Leading When You're Not in Charge

If you are a leader, you want to lead.  You have ideas of how your ministry, your congregation, or your organization should be led and would love to see those things happen.

Even if you are not the guy in charge.  That’s what makes you a leader.

You are passionate about the place you work, the calling you have, and you want to move the vision forward.  But what do you do when you aren’t the lead guy?  How do you influence your organization when you aren’t the person in charge?

Because we can’t all be on the top of the org chart.

And if we can’t all be on the top, for the person in charge, it is important that great leaders are scattered all throughout the organization.  Any organization, especially a church, needs to have great leaders throughout the entire organization.  Our churches need leaders who are passionate about the mission and vision of the congregation and lead from within their own spheres of influence.

A good leader doesn’t necessarily have to have the highest position in the organization, he simply hast to lead from wherever he is positioned.

How to Lead from Below

Note: I am far from an expert at this, but am just sharing some of the things I have been taught, have observed in others, or have tried myself. 

Leverage influence over a position.

Relational influence is more valuable than a position on a org chart any day.  Positional authority seeks to get people to listen and obey commands.  Relational influence gets a team on board with the direction the team needs to go.

People simply react more enthusiastically to being enlisted in a common cause than they do to being ordered around. And getting people to act on their own to achieve the goals you have in mind is far more effective than having them only react to your direction. - Wall Street Journal

While you may not be in a position of authority in your congregation, the most valuable tool you have as a leader is not your position.  Regardless of where you fall in the org chart, if you have relationships with those you work with, you have an opportunity to lead.

Lead with honor and respect.

The fastest way to lose the support of the leader who is authority over you is to dishonor or disrespect his authority.  This might seem obvious, but when there are disagreements or division, this becomes all the more important.  If you want to earn the right to be heard by the leader in authority over you, you have to have honor and respect for that leader.

There is no doubt that as a leader, you will disagree with other leaders in your organization.

In fact it would be surprising to me if a Senior Leader in any organization had a staff that 100% agreed with his decisions all the time.  And if that were the case, I would be very skeptical of working in an organization that created robots that blindly support every decision of their Senior Leader.

Since you will likely disagree with something, the question then becomes how do you disagree well?

Andy Stanley says, “Support publicly; challenge privately.”  And when you support them, mean it.  And when you challenge them privately, really listen.  And admit when you’re wrong.

Be incredible.

Want to gain influence with those you work for?  Do your job well.  Don’t just meet the requirement, do it exceedingly well.  Don’t just serve those in your ministry, be the best servant you can possibly be.  Don’t just preach a sermon, preach the best sermon you know how.  Don’t just provide pastoral care to those you counsel, give them your full and undivided attention.

Seth Godin said, “The leader is the leader because he did something remarkable."

What are some other ways you have found helpful when leading from below?

When Should You Leave a Church?

People leave churches for all kinds of reasons.  Some of the reasons are good and other times…not so good.  Sometimes the reasoning stems from a disagreement in doctrine, other times it stems from a ministry philosophy, and others it simply comes from a preference of style.

As Americans, we are likely shaped by our consumerism when it comes to the way we approach churches.  Our culture has certainly shaped the language that I despise when people look for a new church home,  "Church shopping."

Imagine the early church talking about “church shopping.”

And I’ll be the first to admit that things like musical style, preaching style, the design of the facilities, and ministry strategy all matter to me.  But none of these things are the main things.  The musical style, the preaching style, and ministry strategy all must be servants to right teaching and right living.

"Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” - 1 Timothy 4:16

Life and doctrine.

This is what matters most.  For us personally and for us corporately, we must guard our right teaching and our living.  While all that within us might want to have a church that sings cool songs and have entertaining sermons (which aren’t bad), these desires should be servant to the desire for our churches to have right teaching and right living.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

And so style certainly matters, but it should be shaped by right teaching.  There is teaching that simply desires to say what itching ears what to hear and there is teaching that wants to speak ancient truth in a language that people can understand.  Both might be engaging when listening to a preacher, but only one comes from an understanding of what matters most.

When you should absolutely leave your church...

Wrong Teaching.

If your church teaches the scriptures wrong, that's a great reason to leave.  There are lots of churches that are growing in size but also compromise what they teach when it comes to the Word of God.  The church that does not teach the Bible is emasculated.  It may find strategies for growth numerically, but the people will dwindle spiritually.

Does this mean you will perfectly agree with the way every single thing is said?  Probably not.

But when you question the teachings, ask questions of the leaders.  Our churches do not need congregants who blindly follow what their pastor teaches.  Instead we need congregants who ask, “Well, what does the Bible say about that?”

Congregnants like the Bereans: "Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11)"

If you go to a church that is not teaching what the Bible teaches, leave.

Wrong Living.

This one can be a bit harder to find.  And that’s not because it happens less often, but it is more difficult to discern because churches are filled with sinful, hypocritical people who do not live the way God calls us to.

Right teaching should always lead to right living.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are linked to one another.  And so if you encounter a congregation who doesn’t take seriously following Jesus, that’s a good reason to leave.  If you are at a congregation that teaches rightly the Bible, but in practice doesn’t follow the teaching, something has gone wrong.

When the church as a whole fails at living out what they believe, you have to ask, “Do they really believe what they say they believe?”

If you are considering leaving because of a failure in “Right Living,” I highly suggest that this be done carefully, respectfully, and filled with conversations.  Because our churches are filled with sinful people, it must also be considered that a congregation is repentant of their failures and seeking to correct where they have gone wrong.

What other reasons might you find to leave a church? Do they fit within these categories? 

Photo Credit: Kate

When Your Hands are Full: An Interview with Gloria Furman

Mother’s Day is right around the corner.  And moms everywhere likely look forward to having one day where people cater their wants and needs.  While we should certainly make everyday an opportunity to honor moms, I thought it would be an especially appropriate time to consider the important work of motherhood and how the Gospel shapes a mother’s understanding of the work she does.

I took some time to interview an author and mother, Gloria Furman about this subject.  Since I don’t have much experience with motherhood beyond watching my wife, I thought it would be helpful to interview a mom who is passionate about writing specifically to moms.

As a mother of four, who lives in a foreign country, and a wife to a busy pastor (who is also physically disabled), Gloria writes the following about the most difficult part of motherhood for her:

Getting the whole family in and out of the car comes to mind. So does restoring order to the chaos in the kitchen at the end of the day. Physically, motherhood is exhausting! But I don't think that's the most difficult thing. Loving my children sacrificially is the biggest challenge. Without hesitating, I would fight a bear with my bare hands in order to defend my babies. But share my peanut butter banana smoothie? Gently correct tantrums? Count my stretch marks as worth it? Patiently supervise homework? Use my gifts to serve them? Let my coffee go cold so I can... [you name it]? I have to give those things some serious thought. And every day I have to ask the Lord to strengthen me with his love as I lay my life down sacrificially in a thousand little ways.

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Me: I’m not a mom, but I’m married to one.  I witness the struggles of taking care of a family, being a wife, and finding time for yourselves… but even that fails to really understand what it’s like.  Describe what makes being a mother difficult for you?

Gloria: May I just say that I so appreciate that you, as a non-mom, are seeking to understand what it is like to be a mom so that you might encourage mothers? Thank you! To answer this question concisely, I think I'm the one who makes motherhood difficult because of my sin. I've written to husbands about this desperate situation and Christ's sufficient provision in a blog post on the Desiring God:

Every husband should know that stay-at-home moms wage epic battles against chaos.

Epic battles against chaos can come in the form of sibling squabbles, maintenance emergencies, drama at school, competing budget items, scheduling hiccups, relational tension, and more. But these things are easily dealt with. - Read What Every Husband Should Know About Stay-at-home Moms

Me: Oftentimes mothering is filled with very ordinary tasks that don’t seem very spiritual.  Tasks like changing diapers, doing laundry, preparing meals, or potty training hardly seems glorifying to God.  How do you deal with that as a mother?  How do you find the sacred amongst the normal, everyday tasks of mothering?  

Gloria: What a great question! I deal with this throughout the breadth of the books, Glimpses of Grace and Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full. It's funny how some perspective shows that nothing is truly small. I deal with that struggle by thinking through the implications of passages like Col. 3:23-24:

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

And also Matt. 10:42.3:

"And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward."

Me: Sometimes moms feel the pressure to be the perfect wife, the perfect home-maker, the perfect employee, and the perfect mom.  How does the Gospel free moms from these things?

Gloria: Ah, yes, the Mother of the Year pressure.

I have noticed here (in this global, Middle Eastern city), that even among moms who aren’t believers they can feel unreasonable pressure to have to be “the best mom you can be.” The gospel frees us in so many ways! In speaking to the very specific situation you mentioned, the gospel frees us to see our perfectionism in the light of God's truth. Because the gospel has at its center the cross of Jesus Christ - we recall that the perfect Son of God hung on the cross and died in our place in order to make atonement for our sin. The gospel sheds light on our maternal perfectionism issue and helps us to ask good questions of our perfectionism- for example, Are my perfectionism goals about God's holiness or my own sinful self-righteousness? What is driving me to want to meet this goal of perfectionism? What am I hoping to gain spiritually-speaking by striving to embody this kind of perfectionism?

On a related note, I think the gospel frees Christian moms to spend lots more time wringing our hands about the things that actually separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, which are, precisely, nothing. Praise the Lord!

[gss-content-box color="gray”]Make sure you check out Gloria’s book Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full.  And if you'd like, Gloria offered this free sample chapter that describes how life after kids affected Gloria’s quiet time and practice of spiritual disciplines.[/gss-content-box]

The Art of Law and Gospel

Have you ever experienced a film that is so good that you hated when it was over?  You know the kind of movie I am talking about - the movies that have you so engaged and  when all of the sudden the music starts to crescendo and the credits start rolling, you immediately have a panic attack and shout, “NO!”

Because the movie can’t end like that.  We never found out if they end up together.  Did they live?  Who did they choose?

In a good film, a good storyteller has this incredible ability to share key elements of a story and also to hold back other key elements.  This is what makes these films so engaging, we see what we need to and at other times we are left with unresolved tension.

Jesus does this same thing in his ministry.

A rich, young man asks Jesus a seemingly simple theological question when he says, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus responds, “You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal…”

The young man believes that he has kept the commandments since he was a young boy.  And at that Jesus responds, “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”

And the rich, young man walks away.

That’s the end of the dialogue.  Jesus doesn’t go chasing after him to clarify that he really could inherit eternal life without giving up his possessions.  The scriptures never tell us that this man would later come back after realizing that Jesus was what he really needed.  It just ends abruptly.  Jesus says, “Give all your stuff away.”  And so the man leaves.

End of story.

In preaching, we have a task that makes these same kind of choices.  What words do we share?  What story do we tell?  When do we share words that condemn and kill?  And when do we speak words that offer grace and bring life?  If the Bible is a book of two words: law and gospel.  The great art for the preacher is distinguishing law and Gospel.

There is a time for our words, as preachers, to kill.  This is the job of the law.  The law convicts sinners.  It terrifies the sinner and drives the hearer to their knees.  This is what Jesus shares with the rich, young man.  The young man is clearly a bit arrogant in his ability to obey the law, so he needs to hear a word that brings him back to reality.  And because of how the man responds, Jesus makes the difficult decision to not share the rest of the story.  He holds back.  And rightly so, because the unrepentant, young man doesn’t need to hear Gospel in that moment.

The disciples on the other hand respond much differently to Jesus’ conversation with the young man.

Jesus' preaching of law leads the disciples to ask the question, “Well, who then can be saved?”  This is the point.  The law did its work for the disciples.  The law convicted them.  Because of how Jesus told the story, they clearly realized that they can’t do it.  That’s the point that the rich, young man never realized.

And so the disciples need a different word.

The disciples don’t need a word that condemns.  They don’t need a word that brings more rules and laws to keep.  They don’t need seven steps to living a life of discipleship.  They need the Gospel.  They need the word that brings life.  When the law drives the sinner to repentance, the Gospel comes in and speaks words of forgiveness.  When the disciples ask, “Who then can be saved?”  The Gospel comes in and says, “On your own, no one.  But through Jesus, even you can."

So when do we speak these words?  When do we speak words that condemn and when do we speak words that forgive?  If we preach grace to the unrepentant sinner, we simply embolden the sinner.  And if we preach condemnation to the broken, repentant sinner, we kill the sinner who is looking for that which would give life.

This is the difficult task of anyone who speaks the words of the scripture to another.

Whether that be when parents speak to their children, when preachers share a message, or when a friend has a conversation.   Distinguishing law and gospel is an art.  It takes an artist to determine when to stop and when to keep pushing.  It requires art to know how to build the tension and when to release that tension.  And it takes art to discern, what words does this person need to hear right now?

"Rightly distinguishing the Law and the Gospel is the most difficult and the highest art of Christians in general and of theologians in particular. It is taught only by the Holy Spirit in the school of experience.” - C.F.W. Walther

The Vocation of Motherhood

Motherhood.  Being a mom is perhaps one of the most difficult, thankless, overlooked, and exhausting callings that God has created.  And it is also one of the most important callings that there is.  When I walk in the door after a busy day of work, I am able to leave my work behind and my kids are excited to play and have fun with daddy.  My wife on the other hand, when she has a difficult day at home as a mom, she’s still got to be a mom.  And while daddy walks in the door for fun times, mommy just spent hours trying to get a meal ready, discipline a two-year-old, and straighten up the house.  Have I mentioned that being a mom is difficult?

I’ve heard it said that as a parent the days often feel long and the years feel short.  And moms often feel this very closely.  A day drags on waiting for some relief from keeping the kids from killing each other.  The day drags on waiting for the weather to change so the kids can finally go outside and play.  But then the tension comes as your baby is going off to school and you wonder, where did the time go?

Dear Moms...

Those little things that you do.  Playing legos.  Cutting the sandwich into triangles.  Checking on your kids for the tenth time.  The extra bed-time story and cuddles.  The counseling after a bad day at school.  Running out to pick up flowers to prevent your kid from being embarrassed without them on their first date.  And of course the little things that are not so glamorous.  The changing the diapers.  The time-outs.  The loading the kids up in the car for a family trip to the grocery store.

These little things are sacred.

In the midst of the long and difficult days, these things don’t feel like they are sacred but they are.  Because God is at work as you do the work of mothering.

God is loving your children, caring for them, protecting them, growing them, and watching over them as you do the work of being a mom.  God is at work in the life of your child through the work you do as mom.  That’s a sacred calling.  And as a Christian we are free to do the work of mothering the best we can, not because God needs us to be good mothers in order to earn anything.  But simply because our kids need the best mothers.

"What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels…God with all his angels and creatures is smiling - not because the father (or mother) is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.” - Martin Luther - [LW 45:39-40]

And let’s be clear.  You can be a faithful, Christian mother even when you are struggling to give yourself to the spiritual things. Don’t get me wrong, these things are good things - giving ourselves to reading, memorizing, and studying God’s Word is always valuable.  But in the midst of the long, difficult days that are filled with endless battles, the struggle can make the Christian mother feel unspiritual as she doesn’t do the “spiritual” things that she longs to do.

One author wrote the following:

“A woman told me about getting involved in a Bible study that demanded strict commitment to the study of God’s Word.  ‘You should make the Bible your number one priority,’ she was told.  That meant getting up early and the very first thing in the morning doing Bible reading and having a quiet time with the Lord.  She did this, but to her consternation every morning as she would start to read her Bible, the baby would wake up.  She found herself resenting the interruption.  Here she was, trying to spend time with God, and the baby would start fussing, demanding to be fed and distracting her attention away from spiritual things.  After a while, though, she came to understand the doctrine of vocation.  Taking care of her baby was what God, at that moment, was calling her to do.  Being a mother and loving and serving her child was her vocation, her divine calling from the Lord.  She could read the Bible later.  She did not have to feel guilty that she was neglecting spiritual things; taking care of her baby is a spiritual thing!” - Gene Veith, God at Work

All of work is sacred.  And for mothers that means all those little things - the things you love and the things you dread - are sacred.  Motherhood is a holy calling.  Parents are the primary influences and disciple-makers for their children and mothers get the opportunity to do this day in and day out as they love, care for, and spend time with their kids.

What Do Lutherans Believe About Baptism?

baptism.jpg

This past weekend I had the incredible privilege of baptizing my daughter.  Because of the baptism, the subject has been fresh in my mind.  In fact, one of the cool moments last week I got to experience was taking my son down to the worship center to watch a video of his baptism and let him touch the water in the baptismal font.

But what’s so special about this thing called baptism?

Why baptize my daughter?

Why baptize anyone?

What do Lutherans really believe about baptism?

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God’s work, not ours.

An important thing to understand about baptism is whose work this is.  If you see baptism as your work, this is going to be a difficult area for you.  When you see baptism as your own work or your own commitment of faith, it is about what you do for God.  When this happens you automatically are going to see baptism as requiring a certain age, a certain profession of faith, or some kind of decision.

But when you see baptism as God’s work, this becomes all about what God promises to do for us.

It’s about receiving God’s gifts.

Our whole Christian faith is about receiving gifts from God and has nothing to do with the work that we do for God. Baptism reflects this faith.  It’s not about what we do for God; it’s about what he does for us.

Where did your faith come from?

When did you become a Christian?  Maybe you can remember a specific moment or a conversation.  When was faith created in your life?

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? - Romans 10:14

If you became a Christian in your teens at a conference, let’s consider what happened in those moments.  Somebody spoke from a platform about the message of the Gospel.  Or maybe you had a conversation with a friend or pastor.   When that words of the Gospel were spoken, God did something in your heart and from that time on you were a follower of Jesus.

Whose work was that?

It was God’s of course.  God created faith in you.  God gave you his gifts.  You may have responded to him, but you get no credit in what you received.

God worked through the sound waves of a preacher to create faith in you.  Or perhaps he worked through ink and paper as you read the words in your Bible.  Or he worked through your friend.  However it looked for you, God worked through his Word to create faith.  This is how God works.

Baptism works this same way.

The Reformers often referred to baptism is visible Word.

"It has been well said by Augustine that a Sacrament is a visible Word, because the rite is received by the eyes and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, illustrating the same thing as the Word. The result of both is the same." - Apology of the Augsburg Confession article XIII

It’s not magic water; it’s God’s Word at work in the waters of baptism.

And just like when you hear the Word or read the Word, God is at work in it.  Forgiveness is given.  Not because you did anything, but because God worked in the ways He said he would.

And so we believe baptism works like all of our faith works.

“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” - Acts 2:38

Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins?

If this is man’s work, that statement would be heresy.  But if baptism is indeed God’s work, baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.  How?  Because baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, just like a sermon is for the forgiveness of sins, reading the Bible is for the forgiveness of sins, or God's Word spoken through a family member is for the forgiveness of sins.

We always receive the gift of grace through faith.  And faith is given by the Holy Spirit through his Word.

Titus 3:5 says, "He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”

How does baptism save?  The same way that we are saved in the hearing or reading of Scriptures.  The Holy Spirit gives us faith in the work of Christ.

And that faith is not dependent on age or intellectual capabilities.  This is why as Lutherans we also baptize all ages.  We baptize adults.  We baptize teenagers.  We baptize babies.  When the Scriptures speak of making disciples of “all nations,” we believe this includes everyone, regardless of their stage of life.  And because all people are sinful, all need to be baptized.

In baptism, we receive all the gifts that only Jesus can give.

So what do I believe happened in my daughter’s baptism?

I believe that Emmy is a child of God not because of her work, but because of God’s work.  I believe that God has been at work through his Word as I read her the scriptures from the time she was born.  And I believe that he was at work through his Word at her baptism.  And I believe that God will continue to work and grow her faith through his Word as I teach her the Scriptures as she grows older.

Because this is what was promised, God’s Word will always do its work.

This really just scratches the surface of baptism and we could talk about a lot more.  What questions do you have about this subject?  

The Promise of the Gospel

How would you describe the Gospel?  The definition of the Gospel is “Good News.”   And it is absolutely the best news in the world.  But the message of the Gospel goes far beyond news as we typically think of it.  When we often think of news, it is about an event that happened and is over.  We talk about it today, but it happened yesterday.

But the Gospel isn’t just a past event, the Gospel is something that continues to be active.

The Gospel, which is the Good News of the death and resurrection of Jesus, is a promise.  In the Gospel, we are promised the the blood of Jesus has paid the price for our sins.  We have been promised that our sins are forgiven, that we are made sons and daughters, and that the enemy has been defeated.  The Gospel is a promise that shapes all of the Christian life; this promise is not only news that looks back at history but also shapes the present and the future.

Promises are personal.

Have you ever had someone break a promise to you?  It hurts.  Broken promises hurt so badly because promises are personal.  When a promise is made, the person making the promise is declaring that they can be trusted and the person doing the trusting is putting their confidence in the person they have a relationship with.

Promises are always personal.

This is why broken promises hurt so much, because trust is broken in the relationship.  And this is why people actually trust other people who make promises, because the promise is personal.

Why do you think a wedding is such a meaningful event?  Because two people who love each other deeply and have an incredible relationship want to publicly make a promise to each other.  They want their relationship to also have a promise.  The promise is connected to the relationship.  Without the relationship, we wouldn’t have seen the promise.  And without the promise, the relationship would likely be affected to.

God is a God of promises.  And his promises are connected to his relationship with us.  The Gospel promise is always a relational promise.  His promise to us calls us to put our faith, trust, and confidence in him.  And this promise that he makes to us is not disconnected from any relationship, in fact it is both evidence of his relationship with us and it encourages the growth of the relationship that he has established with us.

Promises are future oriented.

Our faith in Jesus not only looks back at history, but it looks forward.  The message of the Gospel is not simply calling us to believe that an event happened in history, but to have faith that this historical event has implications both in the present and in the future.

We see this in the words of Jesus when he promises, “And surely I will be with you always.”  It’s not just about what happened.  It’s about what will happen.

Jesus could have very easily told countless stories of the faithfulness of God throughout history.  He could have recounted the ways that God was faithful to Israel as they rebelled against God.  He could have recounted the ways that God was faithful to Israel in their rescue from Egypt.  He could have recounted how God had been faithful throughout all of human history.  But Jesus didn’t simply look back at history, he also looks forward.

The promise of the Gospel is not simply a historical event, but it is a present reality.  The death and resurrection absolutely happened in history, but death and resurrection also happens daily in the life of the Christian.

Promises seek faith.

The whole purpose behind a promise is to elicit faith.

In a wedding when a bride and groom make promises in their vows to each other, the goal is that this couple has faith in their new spouse.  The promise seeks faith.  As the husband speaks to his wife his promise to hear, he is seeking to make her confident that he will truly love her all the days of her life.  And the same is true as the wife speaks to her husband, she is seeking to make sure he trusts that she will love and respect them no matter what.

The promise of the Gospel creates faith.  It evokes faith in us as we hear the promise.  The promise is spoken and faith is created; faith, which trusts that the God who makes this promise is who he says He is.

(HT: Professor Arand)

Religion of Feelings

Feelings win in our culture. We do things because of the way it makes us feel.  We buy things because of how it makes us feel, and we even believe things simply because of how it makes us feel.  We live in a world that wants unicorns and happiness and rainbows.  We want the warm, fuzzy feelings.  We want everything to make us feel good on the inside.  We want everybody to get trophies. We want nobody to lose.

As a culture, we worship at the altar of our own feelings.

Feelings shape so much of how we live our lives.  When we go to buy a cup of coffee, we buy overpriced coffee because of  the experience.  We like the interaction with the employees.  We like how the coffee shop feels.  We like that they put cute little smiley faces on the cup.  And so, we buy the cup of coffee not just because of the taste, but because of the whole experience.

And using our feelings isn’t a bad thing.

When I go to Disney World with my family, the reason I love it is because of the experience that Disney creates.  Because when I’m in Disney with my family everything feels magical.  My interactions with the employees - from the janitor, to the characters, to the bus boys - are all magical.

Feelings are important and a gift that God has given us.  Just like God has given us our mind and our ability to reason, he has also given us our emotions.  But while our emotions are incredibly important, especially in our faith, they should not be trusted above everything.

We often believe that if it feels right, it must be right.  And if it doesn’t, it must not be right.

While our feelings and experiences are very important, when trusted above God himself, they can become very dangerous.

And we might like to believe that people don’t trust their emotions primarily, but we can see it in the way people talk about their lives.  People in their marriages will say, “My marriage just doesn’t feel right, so maybe it’s not right anymore.”  Or in talking about their church, “Church just doesn’t feel the way it once felt. Maybe it’s time to just give up.”

Our feelings are a good thing.  We should embrace our feelings.  We should celebrate our feelings.  We should share those feelings.  We should be open about those feelings, but we should not trust those feelings above everything.

And so, if you come to church, and you have a certain experience – if you have certain emotions, you should embrace those.  You should celebrate those.  But you should not trust those.

Because if there hits a season where you don’t feel the way you once felt, where you don’t have the same emotions stirring up, that doesn’t mean that God isn’t working the way he did before, it just means you’re not feeling it the same way.

When you’re marriage is going well, when things are firing on all cylinders, when you’re growing in love and joy, you’re communicating well, and you’re working through issues well - celebrate those feelings.  Embrace those feelings.  Share those feelings with the people around you.

But when you hit a season where it doesn’t feel that way, what are you gonna trust?

When you hit a season where your marriage feels like it’s more work than joy, when it feels like you should maybe get out, you shouldn’t trust our feelings. Instead, you should trust the objective Word that says, “Although you don’t like your spouse, you need to love your spouse the way Christ loved the Church.”

What happens, when we trust our experiences over something objective, is we believe our feelings and stop trusting in the objective Word of God. As soon as we begin to rely on our emotions and experiences, we have entered into the realm of the mystic.  Instead we should embrace our emotions and experiences, but also call them what they are.  They are good things, but that are not a higher authority that God and what God has plainly revealed to us.

Happy Easter

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?  - Hosea 13:14

It is finished

It is finished.

Completed.

Satisfied.

Done.

Over.

Paid in full.

Copycats

 

Whenever I start vacuuming, my son gets his toy vacuum to help me clean.  When I’m on my computer, he gets on my lap and wants to watch youtube.  He knows where all his apps on the iPad are; I’m not sure who he learned that from… I love basketball and football; he also loves basketball and football.  I sit down and play at the piano, he wants to be on the bench next to me playing the piano.

My son wants to be like me and I love it.

And at the same time am a bit terrified by it.

When Elijah acts like me or dresses like me or when people see my daughter and comment, “She looks just like her dad,” I’m proud.  Because as a dad, I want my kids to look like me.

Is this perhaps what God wants when he calls us to imitate him?  Does God want his kids to look like their heavenly Father?

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” - Ephesians 5:1-2

"Be imitators of God, as beloved children.”  Isn’t that what kids do?  They are imitators.  They copy.  And that is what God calls us to do, copy the Father.   A “beloved children” we should do what any kid does and copy our Father.  And I can’t help but think that God looks down proud when he sees his children copying him.

And how do we copy the Father?  We look to Christ and copy him.

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? - John 14:8-9

Start Copying

As we copy Christ, we are like children copying their heavenly Father.  And in copying Christ, we doing what God calls us to do as followers of Jesus.  This is what disciples do.  Disciples follow closely behind their rabbi and learn to talk like he talks, ask the questions he asks, love the people he loved, and teach the way he taught.  And so if we are disciples of Jesus, we follow closely behind Jesus learning to copy Jesus.

As disciples we copy Jesus.  As children we copy Jesus.

And this isn’t because copying changes our relationship with him; it doesn’t.  This is the scandalous nature of grace; it isn’t contingent on our behavior.  God has called us his children by the death and resurrection of Jesus, through faith.  And so we are his children regardless of how well we copy Jesus.

But as any dad desires for his children, the heavenly father desires that his children would copy him.

God wants us to walk in love as he walked in love.  God wants us to speak the Gospel to those around us as Christ preached the Gospel to those around him.  God wants us to love the unlovable, to forgive, to make disciples, and to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind.

The Apostle Paul mentions this same thing when he says to his church, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

Paul plays the role of an earthly spiritual father as he pastors the church in Corinth.  And he says, “As your spiritual father, copy me as I copy Christ.”  And so Paul loves like Christ loved and he calls his church to do the same.  And so we copy.  We copy Christ as we see him in the scriptures and we love as he has first loved us.

Who are you copying?  Who is copying you? 

God Makes Pizza

pizza.jpg

When you order a pizza, who is providing your family dinner?  Is it you?  Or is it God?  Or is it the people actually making the pizza?

Martin Luther described the way that God works in this world as the “mask of God.”  He taught that God is actually hidden in the world doing things like providing our “daily bread” in the ordinary work of chefs, police officers, moms, and dads.  I wrote a bit about this on an awesome site called ChristHoldFast:

In order for me to eat pizza with my family that evening, I had to place a phone call to the restaurant. Thanks to the designers, marketers, manufacturers, and sales people at Apple I had a phone that could do the job. In order to get the appropriate phone number I googled the local pizza place. The search led to a website, which required a web designer...

To feed my family, God worked through web designers, employees at the pizza parlor, a small-business owner, police officers, car manufacturers, and so on.  Each and every person doing their work was an important piece of my family having dinner that evening.  You could even say that those hundreds of people were unknowingly serving my family, providing our daily bread. God was blessing me through others.

Check out the site for the full article.