Ash Wednesday Service | February 22, 7pm | 1300 E Aloha St.

Come join us in observing the beginning of the Lenten season (Childcare available through age 5)

Ash Wednesday—the beginning of the season of Lent—is all about authenticity. Traditionally, Christians have allowed ashes to be spread upon their foreheads on Ash Wednesday. What results is an absurd looking community of people all with dark smudges on their faces. What is the point? (Note: Anyone who is uncomfortable with this practice can freely choose not to participate in this part of the service.)

The point is that Ash Wednesday is a reminder of who we are—we are mortal and we are not gods. We will not live forever and many of our dreams will die with us. Many of us spend most of our lives trying to deny this reality, but Ash Wednesday is a time when we consciously remind ourselves of the truth—from dust we came and to dust we shall return.

But Ash Wednesday is not only about reminding ourselves about the fact that we are mortal. It is also about owning the fact that we are sinners. In the ancient world, placing ashes on your head was a way of saying, “I am guilty.” On Ash Wednesday, we adopt this practice as well. So as we stand around and look at each other with these odd black smudges on our foreheads, we are saying to God and to each other, “I don't have it all together. I'm not the person I want to be. I am a sinner.”

Finally, Ash Wednesday is also a time of hope. The ashes are placed on our foreheads in the shape of the cross. This is a reminder that if we have faith in Jesus, our mortality and our sins aren't the final word about us. There is a stronger reality at work in our lives-the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus' work on our behalf, ...

On Sunday, Grace hosted a panel discussion on justice. Five individuals, who love and pursue justice in a variety of areas, talked about their motivation to serve, the difference between doing Gospel-centered justice and social activism, and the Church’s failings.

Though there was so much to consider, one point stood out.

It is clear that God of the Bible is a God of justice. He loves justice and he wants his people to do the same. Our love is not abstract but practical, moving us to action. As His image bearers, we are to cultivate eyes that see when people do not get what they need. We are to advocate for those who do not have a voice. We are to work for justice in the world.

And integral to this work is prayer. For me, prayer doesn't immediately come to mind when considering how to pursue justice. Sure, I believe prayer works; however, pursuing justice is about getting your hands dirty and using your voice to speak against those who oppress. Regardless, prayer is not to be an afterthought but an essential part of the work. In our discussion on Sunday, I was struck by a couple of different aspects of this type of prayer.

First, God, not us, is a father to the fatherless and the defender of the helpless. God uses our work, but it is first and foremost God’s. This reality must be worked into our hearts through prayer, because if it isn’t, depending on the result of labors, we will either become self-righteous or overcome by guilt.

Second is a similar but slightly different prayer: we are to ask God to help us take our rightful place as creatures. We cannot reverse the curse of sin and death, and therefore we cannot eliminate injustice. If our panel discussion revealed one thing, it showed us that advocates for justice are passionate people. They tend to say “yes” to everything and overwork themselves. They are deeply affected by the pain of others and will do almost anything to assist, even at great cost to ...

The church can easily make an idol out of marriage.  As Tim Keller helpfully puts it, idolatry happens when we take a good thing is made into an ultimate thing.

Is marriage a good thing? Absolutely. I just did premarital counseling yesterday for a couple that has been engaged all of a week. I heard their story and happily agreed to perform their wedding. When we finished our time together, I prayed and thanked God for bringing the two of them together. Marriage is a good gift from God, and I am thankful he has given this gift to my friends.

But how can we make marriage an ultimate thing? Marriage becomes an ultimate thing when we equate being married (or being happily married) as the ultimate goal in life. In this worldview, life doesn’t really begin until you walk down the aisle or your marriage is deeply satisfying.

Before you’re married, you’re seen as an irresponsible child. After all, if you were responsible and mature and godly, you’d obviously be married. So, after you get married, you get promoted to the grown up table. Finally, you’ll get to eat something other than mac ‘n cheese on Thanksgiving.

There are a couple of major problems with the idolatry of marriage. The first is pastoral. If your view of life is that marriage is the highest good, how do you counsel people who are not married? Do you tell them to suck it up while they muddle through a “Plan B” life? Or worse, do you tell them something well-intentioned but heretical like, “As soon as you learn to be content, then God will bring you a spouse?”

What about people who are in bad marriages? Do you encourage them to believe that God will someday transform their spouse into the person they’ve always dreamed of? What are they supposed to do twenty years from now when their husband is even more insufferable and checked out than he is today?

The other significant problem with idolatry of marriage is that it’s not biblical. The ...

I struggle to give others the benefit of the doubt. I regularly interpret someone’s words or actions in the worst possible way.  I do this to my wife, friends, colleagues, whoever. There are number of reasons for this – inability to trust people and God, cynicism, self-protection. I’m sure I missing a few but you get the point.

I am not alone in my struggle. Beginning with Adam and Eve, humans have always struggled to give God and each other the benefit of the doubt. For the purposes of this post, I don’t want to consider why we struggle but rather the consequences of not giving the benefit of the doubt, and then pave a way for a better course.

Consequences

Not giving the benefit of doubt results in interpersonal conflict and isolation. When I first got married, my wife and I read a book entitled Fighting for Your Marriage. Though the book is about communication in marriage, its principles are applicable for all our relationships. I remember two things from the book.  First, speaking gently to others is life giving. Second, not giving the benefit of the doubt leads to conflict. Doing so assigns a negative meaning to someone’s words and actions that almost requires confrontation.

In addition, when we don’t give the benefit of the doubt we pave the way to relational isolation. No longer are we a team working through an issue but two individuals attacking each other. When this happens, we sink deeper into our own world, convinced by the narrative: “I am alone and this person (and everyone else) is against me.”

A Better Way

I think the key to giving the benefit of the doubt is found in 1 Corinthians: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  When Paul says, “Love believes all things,” I think he is saying that to love is to “trust and believe as opposed to mistrust ...

The church exists for God.  According to I Peter, God saved his people so that “we may proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.” The church exists so that we can now begin to honor God with our mouths and our lives.

At the same time, the church exists for the world. This is why mission is an absolutely critical dimension to Christian self-understanding. Our word mission is derived from the Latin word for being “sent”. God has established the church and in continuously sending her into the world.

We see this dynamic in the Bible from the very beginning. When God called Abraham to follow him, God said he was going to bless Abraham so that others may be blessed through Abraham (Genesis 12).  This rhythm has rightly been described by saying that the church is "blessed to be a blessing." By this standard, a non-missional church is a contradiction in terms.

In my own life, I have embraced this teaching lock, stock and barrel. I have spent the past decade and a half of my life doing my best to participate in God’s mission in the world. For me, this has meant living and pastoring in cities not known for a warm embrace of the gospel. There is much about this that has been tremendously rewarding and invigorating.

At the same time, following God into this mission invariably brings about suffering. Like so many others, I have experienced this as well. Sometimes, this catches me off-guard. However, the Bible teaches that suffering and mission go hand-in-hand. When we engage in God’s mission in the world, we will suffer. There are no exceptions.

This is where cruciformity is an another absolutely critical dimension to Christian self-understanding. What does cruciformity mean? I normally try to stay away from “jar ...

Whether we’re talking about vocational ministry or serving the church as a volunteer, there is no shortage of advice on how not to burnout. Good thing, if not monitored, it is easy to burnout and, when you do, it is awful. Your joy dissipates, you lack motivation and you have a constant feeling of being in over your head. Burnout is really not pleasant.

So, whether you are in vocational ministry or serve as a volunteer, what do you do to ensure you don’t burnout?

Most of us, myself included, answer with a list of behaviors. We may work to set healthy boundaries or ask for support and oversight. This is not a bad thing.  We must implement habits and practices that prevent burnout because, at the end of the day, you know yourself and your limitations.

That being said, we must understand that setting good boundaries and not overextending ourselves, though helpful, do not go far enough. Our habits and practices that prevent burnout must be joined with an earnest belief that God is always at work. He, who never slumbers or sleeps, is always building his church.

One of the major reasons we burnout is because we develop a sense that our work doesn’t matter. When this happens, we often enter into a downward spiral where all we see and experience is our fatigue, failed efforts and disappointments. To combat this, we must remember that our labor is not in vain because Jesus’ resurrection life is coursing through our community and world.

The Apostle Paul encouraged the Corinthians with similar w ...

A recent situation at Mars Hill Church has sparked a pretty robust online debate over church discipline. This post is not about that situation. I don’t know enough about the particulars to speak about it—nor do I really think it is my place to do so. However, I do want use the opportunity to say a few things about church discipline.

Before I get to a few practical guidelines, I wanted to get two of my assumptions out on the table.

First, church discipline is really one of the thorniest aspects of congregational life. There is no "Handbook on Discipline" in the Bible. There are some general principles, a couple of examples, and that's about it. There are so many gaps that have to be prayerfully waded through. This creates tension and a good number of gray areas.

For example, should a matter be kept private (Matthew 18), or should it be made public (I Timothy 5)? Is the sinful behavior a "weakness" that needs to be covered in the name of love (I Peter 4), or is it something that needs to be confronted (Luke 17)? Add to this the sins and weaknesses of the people actually responsible for carrying out the discipline, and you have a pretty volatile cocktail on your hands (Note: For a more detailed discussion of the difficulty of church discipline, see Rob Rayburn's sermon here.)

Second, even though it is extremely difficult, church discipline is biblical and therefore a non-negotiable piece of of a congregation's life.  It's not the only non-negotiable piece of a congregation's life, ...

Over the last few days, I’ve been preparing a sermon on the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the grave. It is a story of death, grief and life.

Death is our common enemy. It is an intruder with whom we are never to make peace. Death is not the way it’s supposed to be. Nonetheless, what Jesus said and did in face of death must change the way we view and experience it.

Jesus said that he was the resurrection and life, and secured that promise with his own death and resurrection. Those who by faith are connected to Jesus share in his resurrection and life. Though Christians will face death, they need not live under the power of it. Death does not have the last word. Christians live with the hope that they, like Jesus, will rise again. The life for which we long—the good and flourishing life—cannot be taken away, even by death.

But how should Christians think about the death of those, particularly loved ones, who are not Christians? Before I mention a couple of points, I want to acknowledge the difficulty of this subject because when we talk about death we talk about eternal destinies. I believe in heaven, hell and the resurrection of the dead. I believe that Jesus is the only source of life and that life is with him. If we deny Jesus, we deny life and receive what we wanted—a life without God. Hell.

So, how should Christians think about the death of those, particularly loved ones, who are not Christians?

God is the author of salvation and the judge of all. There is a fine line between being theologically aware and theologically arrogant. Being theologically aware leads to knowing God whereas being theologically arrogant leads to thinking we are God. This distinction is important because many, out of theological arrogance, confuse knowing the source of salvation with being the author of salvation. When this happens, we make the mistake of thinking we can know, beyond a ...

We follow an ancient liturgical pattern in our worship, drawing from the wisdom of Christians who have gone before us. Every Sunday we renew our commitment to God, offer him our prayers and gifts, confess our sins, receive forgiveness, hear from God’s word, and celebrate the Lord’s Supper together.

In other words, not much changes from week to week. Sure, we sing different songs, pray slightly different prayers and hear from different parts of God’s word, but the weekly pattern is the same.

In a culture obsessed with the novel and unique, we should ask a very important question: What is the wisdom in this?

God generally doesn’t work through seismic spiritual events in our lives. True, most of us can look back to significant turning points in our lives that were profound and maybe even “out of body”. But the vast majority of the growth God brings is the result of slow, plodding work.

Think about the Bible’s dominant metaphor for spiritual growth—it is the growth of fruit. When you grow fruit, you don’t just plant some seeds and expect immediate results. No, you plant seeds and then you do a lot of the same things—watering, fertilizing, pruning—over, and over, and over again. Then you will have fruit. French winemakers are said to not really take a grapevine seriously until it is at least 20 years old. I think we need that kind of perspective when we think about growing as disciples.

By worshiping liturgically, we are doing the same things over, and over, and over again. We do this with the belief that, over time, God will bless these practices with fruit in our lives. Sure, there will be some seismic moments of profound change. But, for most of us most of the time, chan ...

Johan Khalilian’s mission in life is to “help people dream great dreams and foster the courage to live them out.” Khalilian is from Humboldt Park Chicago, a neighborhood known for its violence and crime. Ignoring the voices that told him he would not amount to anything, Khalilian overcame. He persevered. He dreamed and risked and now has become a voice of life to a generation starving for heroes.A friend of mine recently sent me a short talk by Khalilian entitled Voices. You can watch it below.

In this talk to young people, Johan Khalilian describes two different voices: the voice of reason or reality and voice of possibility. The voice of reason states what is. It doesn’t have an imagination. It cannot see possibility nor does it dream. On the other hand, the voice of possibility dreams and speaks into existence what could be. The voice of possibility doesn’t ignore reality but hopes for something better. The voice of reason tells why not and the voice of possibility tells why you should.

For a time, Khalilian listened to the voice of reason. At two separate times in his life, he was told that he didn’t have what it took. That he wouldn’t amount to anything. These people, speaking the voice of reason, didn’t see potential, only barriers. They saw someone who didn’t have the commitment or intellect to rise above the future promised and realized by so many in that forgotten neighborhood in Chicago. He couldn’t risk. He didn’t believe in himself. He was convinced he had nothing to offer.

This all changed when Khalilian learned to “tune out” the voices that tried to stifle him. Instead he listened to the voice of possibility. A voice that said that he was better than his present reality.

Let me be clear. I love Khalilian’s message. It's inspiring. I love that he is working ...

You may be familiar with Jeff Bethke’s spoken word piece “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus”. It went viral a week or two ago and got all kinds of attention. Predictably, some people thought the guy was brilliant while others thought he was way off base. Kevin DeYoung, one of the Gospel Coalition bloggers, wrote one of the more thoughtful critiques of the clip.

Here is where the story gets beautiful. Jeff and Kevin actually had a mutually respectful and productive dialogue about it. Kevin sums up the exchange here. I think their conversation could in many ways serve as a model of a humble yet mutually sharpening conversation. The two people have points of disagreement, so it’s not just all mutually affirming mush. At the same time, they are extending a lot of charity toward one another. It’s really encouraging to read their interactions. I read Kevin’s blog regularly, and he is generally very measured and fair in what he writes. What really blew me away, though, was Jeff’s humility. It’s like he was incapable of taking Kevin’s criticism personally.

Why are internet conversations like this relatively rare?

We live in an age of shrill, “in your face” discourse. The Internet is often the place where this problem is most acutely felt. From the comfort of our own computer screen, we can safely make use of the many weapons at our disposal—from the sharp-edged email to the snarky blog comment to the ever handy shame-inducing ques ...

I was recently asked if it is more faithful for a church to pursue evangelism or serving others.

Though it’s a good question, it’s the wrong question. We must ask instead, “What is God’s mission to the world?” and faithfully pursue that.

What is God’s mission? God’s mission is to bring redemption. Matthew summarizes this mission when he says of Jesus: “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.” God’s mission is to bring redemption through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

God's mission includes the salvation of individuals. God wants people to know him and be forgiven through Jesus. Christian faithfulness includes telling others that, because of sin, they have a broken relationship with God that can be healed through faith in Jesus. Christian faithfulness includes evangelism.

God’s mission also includes a holistic component. God wants people to have beds to sleep in, food to eat, and to be healed of their diseases and afflictions. Christian faithfulness includes doing justice. It includes sacrificially giving to those in need.

Both evangelism and serving are aspects of God’s mission, and it is this mission the Church must pursue. Christopher Wright in God’s Mission to the World quotes Jean-Paul Heldt:

There is no longer a need to qualify mission as “holistic,” nor to distinguish between “mission” and “holistic mission.”  Mission is, by definition, “holistic,” and therefore “holistic mission” is, de facto, mission.  Proclamation alone, apart from any social concern, may be perceived as a distortion, a truncated version of the true gospel, a parody and travesty of the good news, lacking relevance for the real problems of real people living in the real world.  On the other end of the spectrum, exc ...

Tim Tebow is the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos. He is also an outspoken Christian. He is not a good NFL passer by a long shot. Statistically, he is one of the worst quarterbacks in the league this year. Most football pundits think that he will not succeed in the NFL.

But he keeps winning.  He knows how to lead a team and a locker room. Whatever the “X-factor” is for a winning quarterback, Tebow has it.

On Sunday, he led the Broncos to an overtime playoff victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are the closest thing the NFL has to royalty. It was a huge upset and a big win for Tebow—the guy who isn’t supposed to succeed in the NFL.

What makes him something of a national spectacle, though, is the way he practices his Christian faith both on and off the field. He prays everywhere, verbally praises God in the middle of games, and begins every interview by acknowledging Jesus’ work in his life.

Off the field, his life is a model of Christian consistency. He preaches regularly, is involved in mission work in the Philippines, and spent at least one college spring break working at an orphanage. People who know him best all report that he is the genuine article. The world would be a better place with more people as genuine in their faith as Tim Tebow.

But here’s where it gets somewhat troubling for me. On Sunday, I found myself rooting for the Steelers. Deep down, I wanted Tebow to lose. You have to understand that I loathe the Steelers. I respect them a lot, but I generally can't stand them. I have never cheered for them to win a game until two days ago when they were playing against Tebow.

Why did I want Tebow to lose? I think it had to do with the way he expr ...

Reflections on Matthew 6:25–33

Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear? ’For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

I have never met anyone who was anxious and liked it. Makes sense; anxiety is awful. It destroys. It’s uncomfortable. It’s consuming. It’s unbiased. And the worst part is that no matter how much you hate anxiety or try to ignore it, it’s so hard to shake. Like an unwanted guest, it just won’t leave. For all of us, whether it’s in a clinical or non-clinical sense, anxiety is a part of our life.

I am thankful that Jesus talked about anxiety. He said that we shouldn’t be anxious about our life. Easier said than done. It seems impossible not to be anxious in our world, with all our responsibilities and challenges. Regardless of the difficulty, Jesus said not to be anxious. In love, he doesn’t leave it to us to figure out ...

This time of year, a lot of people are thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. Many of us take the turn of a new year as an opportunity to assess what we would like to change in our lives. I'd like to expand the conversation about resolutions and make it bigger. I want to talk about goals. Do you have personal goals for 2012? Why or why not?

Like many of you, I have a complicated relationship with goals. I don’t really want anything to do with the triumphalist “self made man” who progresses from one accomplishment to another. I’ve also had God prevent me from achieving some of my most deeply-cherished goals in the past. In hindsight, this has often been a very good thing. For these reasons, I had not set formal personal goals until a couple of years ago.

At the same time, I have come to believe that goals can be a very helpful thing. I am fairly capable and can get a lot of things done in the course of a year. Goals, however, keep me from just mindlessly jumping from one thing to the next. In other words, they help me avoid "competent busy-ness" and instead push me towards living and laboring in a very intentional way. This is a good thing.

I believe one can make a solid Biblical case for the need for goals or some other kind of intentional way of living our lives. Psalm 90 asks God to "teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom". The idea is that we have a very limited time available to us in this life. Instead of wandering aimlessly, there should be a method to our madness. Goals are a very good way of doing this. Incidentally, this whole notion of living in light of our mortality is one of the driving forces behind ...