What Not To Believe Follow up... (beyond the 360)

Last week I said some things that were intended to offend. I said words like sin, evil, lost, Not-God and hell. I said that the human soul is something that is easily corrupted, and like it says in the bible all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one! I showed how the human soul loves to take the throne of its life and begin composing a new reality. A reality that the individual soul becomes its own god, so that it can get what it wants. I said what it usually wants is sex and violence because that gives the corrupt soul the largest kick, but realistically it can cultivate anything that will make it feel stabile. Because the house of cards that is built on the foundation of you being God needs some stability. I said we are lost. LOST… Men and women who are not where they need to be. I said our pride is the thing that keeps us lost. Sitting on our throne getting what we want. Basically I stated a very bleak reality: I’m not OK and you’re not OK. We’re all in serious trouble.

I also did something that perhaps some of you didn’t appreciate. I didn’t talk much about the hope in Jesus. I figured we have done quite a bit of that already. Rarely do we analyze where we are, who we are and where we’re living… which seems to cultivate what I stated earlier. So it was my intention to leave you there. Those of you who know Jesus realize there‘s hope. Those of you who don’t may have just thought I was a dick for not giving you a way out.

So here I am today, doing a follow up to what I said, about the ruined soul. Apparently you didn’t get enough abuse last week. So here I am again.

I say abuse because that’s where this can go. I don’t want to abuse anyone with these very hard, bleak, concepts. Yet if we don’t have a concept of our need. The truth is: we will stay in our denial until it ruins us. And I don’t want that. And hard knocks is not my Job.

So to help us today I have a series of cards to pass out that are in the shape of a dress. Last week I took the concept of what not to wear and I thought it would be cool to stick with that same theme. I want to ask you a couple questions so I will pass out some pens as well for you to answer the questions.

Is your soul lost? (Why?)

How are you righteous/moral?

Do you anticipate that God could be harmful? (Why)

I’m not where God wants me to be because?

How are you like God?

Briefly get into groups of 2s and 3s and talk about the question that was hardest for you. (5min)

Back: which one was the hardest? Why?

OK so I have some fun other cards to give you. They are little people. And what’s fun is you can have the little person wear you little dress. Now I want to show you what usually happens when someone wears this dress.

(paper Doll)
“Oh this thing looks kick ass.” “I love how it looks and feels… and I bet when I put it on everybody will love me”

“I’m not lost Pastor Geoff I’m exactly where I need to be.” “Because God is with me he knows exactly where I am and as a result he would change things if I was in the wrong place.”

“I don’t need morals because they are how society kept people in line and that’s bullshit.” “I’m good because I’m not fucking Hitler or some shit.”

“God’s not harmful because he’s cool… he’s nice… he’s docile… In fact doesn’t the bible say that we are all children of God. So if I am God’s child. I think he’s pretty excited for me”

So realistically I am exactly where God wants me. Which makes me a lot like him. I’m a creator he’s a creator… I’m a lover he’s a lover. In fact isn’t there some sort of philosophy out there that says that we all are god. Which is pretty much true.

Hey I’m pretty much sure that god wants me to be a star.

Hey why on earth did a loving god give me such a fucked up life and not fix it.

Really is he loving? Really is this god thing real? Jesus said he saved us but I see nothing of that in church today.

Church people are hypocrites. I’m not a hypocrite because I don’t profess to know anything about God. Because realistically God can’t exist. I haven’t seen any evidence.

Fuck church, Fuck God. I’m going to be a star. Look at my clothes look at what I wear love me you love me.

When I’m around these people they don’t judge me, they help me. They love me. They give me things like wisdom, drugs, friendship. Things that god never gave me. He just rejected me. And so fuck god, fuck my life, everything is bullshit except for my friends that don’t judge me. They love me. They don’t tell me I’m wrong, or I need help, or I need therapy. They tell me I’m cool. And they love me."*

What would be a kind of garment that would do this to someone? Going from a basic middle of the road lifestyle and philosophy, to a bitter, angry lifestyle with no accountability to anyone but those who would tell you that you are right? Could it happen? Has someone seen it?

What could turn such a wonderful person who seems to have it together, into someone who is in it for themselves? (Sharpy “Pride” on the dress)

Do you agree?

When we wear pride. We are doing it for us. We begin spinning our reality to keep #1 on top. Usually any god talk that happens is to spin yourself back on top. Pride gives you a stance asking “what can you give me?” Love from a concept of pride is always consuming never giving. When it does give, it is so that reciprocation can happen. Joy when someone is wearing pride is reduced happiness. Peace doesn’t exist because you are always needing to satisfy the next thing to feel good.

Knowing this about this dress… why would you want to wear it? 

Here’s the thing that I think is so rough about this. We first have to want to wear it. So even before we are the dude saying all that with this dazzling dress on. We have it written here. (Write PRIDE on heart). In order to be the Person wearing this dress, we have to be the kind of person that wants to put it on. This garment isn’t about the garment. It’s about who we’ve decided to be.

And Pride is such a dismissed word here. I’m not prideful so I go one step further. Someone who would wear this dress has this on their heart. SELF = #1

And that is why we see the world becoming a place where people are used, abused, and taken advantage of. Because people are looking out for #1. Usually when they look at the daily news and see the bad news. They scream at the sky… “WHY?” but when you look at the state of people living their life today we should be asking “what is wrong?” when we see good news. A world full of SELVES wanting their way. This is the life of the ruined soul. And this is what Jesus came to change.

John Calvin said “for as the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves, so the only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever He leads. Let this, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our minds to the service of God.” This mind change starts here (Jesus=#1) So that you begin to be the Kind of person that would choose to wear different clothes.

This is called “death to self… or Self denial.” Which goes hand in hand with the restoration of the soul and eventually the whole person. It sounds like something dreadful. And from the point of view of the ruined soul, it is exactly that. The ruined life is not to be enhanced, but to be replaced. We must simply lose our life – that ruined life about which most people complain so much anyway.

Jesus said those who have found their life (or soul) shall lose it while those who have lost their life (or soul) for my sake shall find it. Whoever aims to save their life shall lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake shall find it. For what have you gained by possessing the entire world if in the process you forfeit your life (or soul) – lose yourself.

When we hear these words of Jesus he is teaching on the negative side, that we must not make ourselves and our “survival” the ultimate point of reference in the world. In other words when Jesus says that those who find their life shall lose it, he is pointing out that those who think they are in control of their life will find that they definitely are not in control: they are totally at the mercy of forces beyond them and within them. They are on a sure course to disintegration and powerlessness, they are lost to themselves and God. They must surrender.

In contrast, if they give up the project of being the ultimate point of reference for their life – of doing only what they want – there is hope. If they (in that sense) lose their life in favor of God’s life, for the sake of Jesus and what he is doing on this Earth – the revolution of Kingdom come he is conducting – than their soul (or life) will be preserved and thus given back to them.

What does this mean? It means that they will for the first time be able to do what they WANT to do. Of course they will be able to steal, lie, and murder all they want – which will be none at all. But they will also be able to be truthful, transparent, and sacrificially loving with joy, and they will want to be. Their life is caught up in God’s life. They will want good and be able to do it, the only true human freedom. 

So to lose your life means: Life as you have normally understood it: where the point is to secure yourself, promote yourself, and indulge yourself, that life is set aside.

And Jesus pointed out the bargain. To let go of a life filled with obsessive partial desires: a little illicit sex, money, reputation, power, self righteousness. For freedom to be who God designed you to be. A Man or Woman who is immersed in the Kingdom of God. Bringing sacrificial love to this world on Jesus’ behalf. Which is his Kingdom Come on earth as it is in Heaven. Trading a life of looking out for number one for becoming the kind of person who Jesus would be if he were you today.

Being Dead to yourself is the condition where the mere fact that I do not get what I want does not surprise or offend me and has no control over me. Is this the “apathy” of the stoic or the elimination of desire of the Buddhist? No. Apprentices to Jesus will be deeply disturbed about many things, and will passionately desire many things, but they will be largely indifferent to the fulfillment of their own desires as such. Merely getting their way has no significance for them. It does not disturb them.

They know that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose” They don’t have to look out for themselves because God – and not they – is in charge of their life. They appropriately look after things that concern them, but they do not worry about outcomes that merely affect adversely their own desires and feelings. They are free to focus their efforts on the service of God and others and the furthering of good generally, and to be as passionate about such things.

In your hands you have a dress. Some have decided to put it on. The Dress is pride. It’s what the world wears. It’s common. It’s what someone who is looking out for #1 wears. It leads to a life of obsessive partial desires. We choose to wear what we want.

But Here… I have some other clothing available. They are blank. And have the potential to look the same as your pride. Because it’s not what you wear and what you do on the outside. It is your heart that dictates what you are wearing.

So for the next couple minutes I want you to consider giving up your pride. Coming up here, and putting it in the trash. Stop the spinning, the self promotion, the I’m OK, and consider the world and see it for what it is. A Sham. 

After losing the dress. Look at the person who chose to wear pride. Is getting your way working? Is looking out for #1 doing well for you? Maybe it is. But if you are ready, change that etching on your heart to put Jesus there. Lose your life. Then choose some new clothes. Losing your life will make you wear something different. Spend some time in prayer and then write down some new words on your new clothes. Write down what life without self might look like for you. Write down what security looks like if you are out of the picture. Write down what love looks like when it expects nothing. Then if you’d like to share I think that that would be amazing. What would you wear when you have let go of your pride and life? What would you wear?

*OK so when I finished this tyrade of the paper doll. I looked up and everyone was quiet. Or maybe one or two said "OK" like I had just gone so far into my inner world that everyone was witnessing a mental breakdown. It was exactly like one of those movies where the record scratches and everybody either has their jaw down or is just quiet. I still think about this and laugh because I wasn't really out to disturb anyone... but it was apparent that I went too far.

What Not To Believe.

The point of this talk was to show the reality in which we live. How our pride is cultivated by our self love and our culture, and enthusiastically distorts our view of what is real. This view denies God's placement as God in our lives and replaces it with us. Which then is held up by a wavering reality that we need in order to keep mentally stable. Yet within this world of self worship we become most interested in what gives our pride the most kick. which is what we see in our world today. (the answer to this in my understanding is letting Jesus redeem all parts of our soul (heart mind body etc), Letting God be God, and moving out of self and into christlikeness)

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I like to learn. That’s why I watch the learning channel. TLC. This is a channel that got popular with trading spaces. And now airs a show that is very transformational. Every person in there changes from dreadful, to dazzling in one hour. It’s called What not to wear.

Here, Stacy and Clinton sneak up on a person who has been nominated by their family and friends and give this person 5000 dollars to get a new wardrobe and look. They show secret footage in front of their friends of what they have been wearing. And then take them and show them how to dress.

One of the most tearfelt moments is when Stacy and Clinton take them into their 360 mirror. Where they actually show them what they look like. What do they look like? Awful. Yet it is an amazing tool of transformation. Confronting someone in denial with lights, and visuals.

Today I am going to attempt to do the same thing. Now I don’t have 5000 to give you, I have something far more precious.

But my hope is to transform you. By revealing truth. Like the 360 mirror. Tough love. And as a result I’m going to offend you today. I’m not going to offend you by saying fuck or shit. I am going to offend you by poking holes in your pride.

I’m going to do that by saying words that your pride can’t handle. Words like sin, evil, lost, not God and hell. And I’m going to use just those words because I’m exactly what your pride wants me to be. A dick pastor. I’m going to use those words because they’re offensive. They are painted on TV, and in the papers and in social circles as only words that manipulative dick pastors like me would use. And the reason why is: they do what they are sapposed to do. Offend a very delicate house of cards of denial that is destructive, awful, and if it was wearing something it would be close to badfitting spandex from the 80’s.

Psalm 14:2-3 The LORD looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. 3 But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt.[a] No one does good, not a single one!

Let me let you in on my thinking. Last time I spoke to you I gave you a cup of water on behalf of Jesus. It was fresh, cool, and refreshing. Except for the first one that deborah got which was rusty… yick. Today I want to bring out the 360 mirror to show what we are dealing with. We live in a world that is not good. And has created underpinnings to make it stay that way. And it encourages you to stay that way. Some of us are fighting with all that we have. Others are blind.

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Bible is filled with these passages, they are so depressing. They talk about hating the world. How God hates the wicked and…hell. What a downer. We have people crying and saying they are sinners, can’t people who read the bible just get some self esteme? Why do they talk about evil so much. Evil…

In the bible it is starkly clear and repeated over and over by Moses, Samuel, Paul, John, and Jesus that the human soul is lost. Lost. In a world of where manson can explain his killings through the meaninglessness of life, and even churches find themselves with people cultivating secretive behavior that underlines their lack of christlikeness, we might be able to see a little bit of what God is saying. But it’s just so depressing. Where’s the hope? Where’s the love? Why is God so angry? Jeeesh Bible.

Here’s where hole number one is poked. The bible is stating that the soul is lost, not to depress you, not to make an embarrassing religion out of Christianity. It is stating it because I’m not OK and you’re not OK. We’re all in serious trouble. And that must be our starting point. We are placed in the 360 and told. You aren’t where you need to be.

Denial – usually in some rationalization – is the primary device that humans use to deal with their own wrongness.

I was in journal class and I was spouting off how most of the pastors of the bridge have a type b personality so there is less ego centrism. My friend Rachel who is a masters in psychology gently says to me. Type B's have an ego too. Which really was her way of saying... Geoff you don't really know what you're talking about do you. And ... You have some pride there that you may want to look at.

Denial – usually in some rationalization – is the primary device that humans use to deal with their own wrongness.

We love to hate the pharisees of Jesus time, being people who worried about appearances rather than what was inside, trying to be famous, how they were unable to believe in Jesus because they saught to be honored by each other. They desired to be popular. Yet these people when you look at these traits are not really talking about a pharisical condintion. They are talking about a human condition. We love to hate them the same way I love to hate the people on dateline who aren’t saving the fake baby from the boiling car. But in reality we are the kind of people that would not save the fake baby.

Paul sums it up in Romans 3

"There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues keep decieving. The poison of Asps is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; detruction and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

This last statement actually goes to the core. The fear of God Proverbs tells us is the beginning of wisdom.

I was in boy scouts and one of my friends thought it would be funny to pee on the electric fence outside the horse park. I thought it would be funny too. I was right. Right when the stream hit the fence he got a shock downstairs that knocked him back and there he was on the ground pissing all over himself. He didn’t have fear of the electric fence. Now he does. Thankfully he's fertile.

Fear is the anticipation of harm. The intellegent person recognizes that his or her well-being lies in being in harmony with God and what God is doing in the “kingdom.” God is not mean, but he is dangerous. It is the same with Electricity and nuclear power. They are not mean, but they are dangerous. One who does not “worry” about God is just not smart (poke). And that’s the point that this proverb is talking about “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” (fear of god – poke poke)

True understanding is knowledge of God. (another proverb) Not head knowledge… but having experiential involvement with. Actual engagement of God. This is what brings about true understanding. But it is the lack of involvement with God that leads to life around us. When we aren’t participating with God, we begin wanting something else in our heart, which then deflects our mind, and we create a denial.

Tolstoy wrote There are two Gods, There is the God that people generally believe in – A God who has to serve them (sometimes in very refined ways, say by merely giving them peace of mind). This God does not exist. But the God whom people forget – the God whom we all have to serve – exists, and is the prime cause of our existance and of all that we perceive.

This is life today. We are so interested in being taken care of by our god. The god of our bellies. That we aren’t interested in serving the real one.

The historian of Alcoholics Anonymous titled his work NOT GOD (poke) because that stands as the most important hurdle an addicted person must surmount: to acknowledge, deep in the soul, not being God. No mastery of manipulation and control, at which alcoholics excel, can overcome the root problem; rather, the alcoholic must recognize individual helplessness and fall back in the arms of the Higher Power. “First of all, we had to quit playing God,” concluded the founders of AA; and then allow God himself to “play God” in the addict’s life, which involves daily, even moment by moment, surrender.

The sin (poke poke) of Pride uproots the reality that God is God. Instead pride allows you to function in the denial and the delusion that you are God. You are the great one. So that you can psychologically maintain that house of cards … keep it balenced. As you slowly get more and more lost, bitter, prideful, hard hearted. As an aside, sensuality plays a major part in soul ruin because people worship the creation rather than the creator… sex gives the biggest kick and violence probably comes in second. And most of us arent even aware that worshiping the abs buns, and guns of today are slowly making us into monsters.

CS Lewis in the weight of glory writes that we need “to remember that the dullest and most uniteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare… There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

When we think of hell (poke poke)… many times we think of it in terms of its outcome. Which is an awful thought. But the condition of lostness is not the same as the outcome. We are not lost because we are going to wind up in the wrong place. We are going to wind up in the wrong place because we’re lost. To be lost is to mean “out of place.” Jesus uses the term Gehenna because it was thought of as the cosmic dump for the irretrievably useless. Do you know what would it mean if your soul was irretrievably useless. I’m not saying God doesn’t hold you with great value. Its just you are useless to him.

I can lose a winning lottery ticket. And That ticket has great value to me, yet that value means nothing when it is lost. Same thing goes for my keys. They could be great keys ... very well crafted keys. But lost... they are worthless to me.

When we are lost to God, we are not where we are sapposed to be in his world and as a result are not caught up in his life.

Essentially being lost means you are obsessed with yourself. Paul writes “their god is their belly,”. Slaves to their appetites and feelings. Because it is their feelings that become unsatiable. As a result no one chooses to be the kind of person who belongs in hell. But their self orientation leads them to become the kind of person whom “Away from God” is the only place for which they are suited. It is a place that someone would choose for themselves rather than humble themselves, and put away their pride and accept God for who he is.

Am I poking holes in your pride? Is it insulting to call someone lost? These topics we need to be kind about. But truth have an edge to it. Is it insulting to give someone a diagnosis of a disease that needs treatment. Maybe… but if they get treatment they live. Lostness is a factual condition of the self, of the ruined soul. You either have it or you don’t. You probably wont know it if you have it. Because it’s blindness. But you need treatment, if you aren’t going to be lost forever. And being informed can help you find relief.

So there’s my 360 mirror. Pretty rough to face the lights and the visuals. I wanted to show you how ugly pride is and how it ruins our souls and makes this world an evil place. Do you see how our hearts naturally cultivate the love of ourself, which blooms into pride where it emits the fragrences of denial of true reality that smells like shit. God is God. We are powerful Souls that can participate or not participate in his kingdom. And we live in a world that currently is not “his kingdom come” because not all of us are doing our job.

We have rags on. Jesus Christ allows us to have his pristine clothes. And lets us follow him into the town to do some really great things on his behalf.

Do you want to hold onto the rags because they are yours, or do you want to bow deep let go of your pride that holds up a chinsy reality of insatiable hunger. Let’s have some remorse today. Let’s have some fear of a very powerful God. Let’s rework our realities to serve a God who can save us from ourselves. So that we can be the people that he wants us to be.

Smart Advice... the good life is for me?

In between my freshman and sophomore year of college I scored an internship with legacy hospitals. I worked as an intern in the labs, where I learned that poppy seeds do show up in a toxicology test as someone who has been taking a low dose of methamphetamines. I almost botched an organ harvesting of a brain dead motorcycle victim by coming in without scrubbing after lunch. I got the internship because I was thinking that I wanted to be a doctor. I really didn’t know what I wanted, but it was a good guess and it was pretty cool to go to the hospital every day without a disease, and be passed around the different labs, to see what all happened there. The lab technicians were crass and clever, the nurses were too. But whenever I got in contact with an actual doctor it was like my mind was blown. I saw how these guys were always ON, they never slept, and there was an intensity about them. They knew so much about medicine, and when you asked them a question they gave you words that you had never really heard before. I saw these guys make super quick decisions that had so much information packed in them I didn’t know what to think. By the end of the internship I did know what to think. I didn’t want to be a doctor. There were many things that contributed to this decision, but the one that I kept saying was “I’m just not that smart.”

When I think of smart people I think of Einstein, I don’t know who else, I think there are different types of smart, but when I think of smart I think of a fluffy grey haired Einstein with physics calculations at a chalkboard. Someone asked me a question the other day “do you think that Jesus is smart?” Well its sort of a trick question because, of course I think Jesus is smart. What sort of person would I be if I followed a man that was a dumbass? But the question stuck with me because when I have pictures of smart people on the top of my brain, Jesus wasn’t one of them. Jesus is the top Religious figure in my brain, which I can argue is a type of holistic smart. But what am I really getting at when I place him there? It made me put a couple things in perspective. I haven’t resolved them to any degree but at least the question messed with me to create a little bit of change.

The first thought is how I can think that Jesus is the one who knows the truth about my life and the universe if I don’t believe that he’s smart. It’s not possible for me to trust Him, or anyone else, in matters where I don’t believe him to be competent. I can’t pray for his help and rely on his collaboration in dealing with real life matters if I suspect they might defeat his knowledge or abilities.

Can I seriously imagine that Jesus is my Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uniformed? When I stopped to think about it, how could he be what I take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived?…

At the literally mundane level, Jesus knew how to transform the molecular structure of water to make it wine. That knowledge also allowed him to take a few pieces of bread and some little fish and feed thousands of people. He could create matter right from the energy he knew how to access from “the heavens,” right where he was.

It can’t be surprising that the feeding of the thousands led the crowds to try to force him to be their king. Surely one who could play on the energy/matter equation like that could do most anything. Turn lead into gold and give some more financial bailouts! He knew how to transform the tissues of the human body from sickness to health and from death to life. He knew how to suspend gravity, interrupt weather patterns, and eliminate unfruitful trees without saw or ax. He only needed words.

In the ethical domain he brought an understanding of life that has influenced world thought more than any other… And I guess one of the greatest testimonies to his intelligence is surely that he knew how to enter physical death, actually die, and then live on beyond death. He seized death by the throat and defeated it. Forget a facelift.

Death was not something others imposed on him. He explained to his followers in the moment of crisis that he could at any time call for 72,000 angels to do whatever he wanted. A mid-sized angel or two would surely have been enough to take care of those who thought they were capturing and killing him. He plainly said, “Nobody takes my life! I give it up by choice. I am in position to lay it down, and I am in a position to resume it. My father and I have worked all this out” (John 10:18).

So all these things show how Jesus’ cognitive and practical mastery of every phase of reality: physical, moral, and spiritual. He is Master only because he is Maestro. “Jesus is Lord” can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate before saying, “Jesus is smart.”

He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev. 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life.”[Dallas Willard, the Divine Conspiracy]

So this question was helpful to me. Because in this quest to live, I have new eyesight with what Jesus has to say. It is no longer antiquated or out of touch but holds relevancy and accuracy that might have not been there before.

Now when I read Jesus saying “these are the people that have the good life, and this is what the good life is about” my ears are perking up because the smartest guy that ever lived is going to tell me something that might be relevant.

“These are the people that have the good life, and this is what the good life is about”

If you haven’t realized it, Deborah has faithfully tackled Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount most every time she has talked. This is because it is a systematic summation of what Jesus “arguably the smartest man ever” has asked us to listen and do. Because it shows us the things that keep us away from the good life.

As you have listened to Deborah you have been exposed to what Jesus warns us about false securities like reputation and wealth. You have heard the warnings against condemnation engineering as a plan for helping people. (For instance: taking out the log in your own eye first). Then finally the warnings on how we may fail to do what he says through by not believing that God is good, following wrong people, and just not hearing and doing what he has talked about.
So Deborah has been letting you in on what the good life looks like. How normal people like you and I are the salt and light of this world when we live the good life. How things that are all throughout our society like murder, sleeping around, lying and revenge are rooted and can be uprooted in our very hearts. These aren’t laws that Jesus has been speaking about: “Thou shalt not look at someone for the purpose of having sex with them.” These are warnings on what trip us up and make us get caught up in the awful life.

The awful life is probably what we know. We perhaps know murders that have happened out of rage malice and anger, or at least seen what those three have done to us personally. We have longed for the intimacy that sleeping around often tries to satisfy. We have lied before and seen it hurt others, or embarrass us. And we have wanted the ill will upon those that we are jealous of. Wow Jesus, could your words be relevant today for us?

Of course we HEAR what the good life looks like, but it doesn’t seem relevant. It paints a world without people that are above us in reputation and wealth. But because we live WITH the awful life, it’s all nice words. Jesus tells us about the people whose shadows are SO great that they think YOU are the problem, rather than understanding that THEY are reacting to the issues of their past. These are the people with logs in their eyes.

It could be any number of things that we’ve experienced in the awful life that have allowed us to get seduced into thinking that Jesus was an ill-informed idealist, rather than a very smart man that knew humanity well enough to create it. I THINK it’s because WE can’t fathom that it is US that can participate in this “good life.” I think when we hear these words at church they immediately go into our “One Day in Heaven” brains. A shattered wall in our thoughts that allows us to believe AND disbelieve everything that we say in church because it’s a great story, and we WANT to believe it, but really we have no real way of applying and testing and living out what we actually say. So then the call of the masses is correct when they say “hypocrite” at which you rebuttal with “nobody’s perfect that’s why Jesus died on the cross.” And you crawl into a fetal position closing your eyes hoping for the heaven that is one day promised…over there. You come to church saying the good life isn’t now it’s later. So the relevance of what I’m saying is also for later. You can say “this isn’t relevant to my life now, but if I hold onto it maybe it will help me later.”

This isn’t new; this is the kind of people Jesus is talking to. The people that show their confused face when He tells them the Kingdom of heaven is available… Right now… Through me. The good life is available, right now, through Jesus. They look at him confused. Like someone who doesn’t know what electricity is when PGE comes to their farm and says: Electricity is available today, and I can make it happen.

I think WE have our confused face on because when Jesus tells us that WE can have the good life… NOW…through Him we raise one eyebrow and say “really?” what does that mean…the good life? and “yeah right.”

In men’s group this last week we explored what we thought the good life was. One person thought it was housed in their knowledge of their relationship with God. Knowing that God was their dad, the good life therefore was relational. Another person saw it as the change in environment when you care-- that sincerity and connection--The knowledge and feeling “whoa God is here.” Another thought the good life was housed in actions that were an overflow of the condition of your heart. And then another saw it as the place that God is, where good, and blessing, and love occurs.

Jesus said this about the good life “44 the good life is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field. 45 "Again, the good life is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” Apparently the good life is worth the cost of everything.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t believe Jesus. Maybe I think that he’s ill informed, or dogmatic in his thoughts. Which makes me continue raise my eyebrow and question him… “really?... worth everything Jesus?” but if I look a bit deeper, my questions are rooted in my experience of the awful life. My disbelief of the importance of the good life is because it’s hard, or not intuitive, or maybe I just don’t think it’s for me… I can’t hack it.

It might be right for the mother Teresa’s and Deborah Lloyds out there, but come on let’s be realistic… It would be awesome to be a saint. To be at peace, and one with God. Those fathers and nuns out there are awesome. Some of us idolize them. They got it together. They have a strong faith. They are living the good life, but at the same time… they are saints. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Perhaps we have written off our hold of the good life, because we can’t be like that. We can’t be saints. We are the spiritual zeros. We’re the ones that are bitter. Abused. The ones that nobody would call saints. We’re the ones who swear, get angry, sleep around, and lose their friend to a drug overdose. The ones without Jobs, status --definitely not saint Status. We are the ones that are trying to survive the awful life.

The strange thing is that it isn’t the saints that Jesus is speaking to when he’s giving his sermon on the mount. IT IS the spiritual zeros, the guy that isn’t the saint, the guy that just lost his friend in an accident, the woman who is shy and stepped on, the police officer that is caught in the middle of a dispute, the guy that is condemned by his parents because he decided to follow a man named Jesus whom they think is a religious nut. All of these people have a couple things in common with you and I. They haven’t arrived, they aren’t considered the spiritual elite, and in fact you may argue that these people are not even touched by God’s blessing. How can you say that a man with no boundaries will be given grace? Yet Jesus says: “blessed is the merciful for they will be given mercy.”

3Blessed (and enviably happy) are the spiritual zeros, for they too will find the good life!4 Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.10 Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the good life.11 Blessed are you when men reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

I have been perplexed by the beatitudes since forever. How can the spiritual zero be blessed? How can someone who mourns be blessed? I go two ways: the first way makes me hammer my soul into a self deprecating oblivion. Jesus is saying the only way I will find the good life is by being a spiritual zero. The only way I will be comforted is if I mourn. This shoves me into a place where the good life is contingent on how much the awful life has hammered me to a pulp. And there Jesus is saying, it’s ok that this awful life sucks. Because you’re blessed. What? That makes no sense. It is this dilemma that has changed translations to say “what Jesus really meant was when you realize that you poor in spirit that’s when you’re going to be able to find the good life because you’ll change your ways.” But that’s not what Jesus said. The second place I go is the “one day in Heaven” translation. The meek will inherit the earth … in heaven… once they’re dead… Jesus is right because he’s talking about later. Because the meek DO inherit the earth … later… Right? These two aren’t working for me. Sorry.

OK So what is Jesus doing here? Why is it this list: the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the ones who wish that they could live correctly, the ones that have no boundaries, the ones that are fragile, the ones who are in between two fighting parties, the ones who are made fun of because they did the right thing, and the ones who are ostracized because they have chosen the good life. Why is it this list that Jesus holds up and says these are the ones that are the candidates for the good life? Why? It isn’t because this list is holy. In fact it’s pretty awful. It is not this list that qualifies you for the good life. Jesus is saying that these people are candidates for the kingdom, the good life, the blessed life, IN SPITE OF THESE QUALIFICATIONS. Jesus is saying that these people are candidates for the good life, IN SPITE OF THESE QUALIFICATIONS. You might be a spiritual zero but by relying on Jesus you’ll find the good life. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Electricity is available if you partner with the right people. Jesus is saying to the people that are sat upon, spat upon, ratted on, that in direct opposition to their circumstance the good life is available for them. In direct opposition to their circumstance the good life is available for us.

Really?
Really!

What if Jesus is the smartest man that ever lived? What if we listened to him about what the good life consists of? And we did what he said because we wanted to experience that life? What if we saw it for the preciousness that it is? And what if all of our excuses that disqualify us for living the good life dropped off because we understood that it was for us too?

Burn Clean

I’ve noticed that in my attempt to follow Jesus, something has backfired. My intensions have been good, but my methods haven’t given me the right mixture of what I need. As a result there has been an embarrassing explosion from the inside. Let me explain.

Jesus saved me from my life. My life that seemed to be out of meaning. It probably wasn’t the addict’s “rock bottom,” but it was the perfect turning point for me. I was searching searching searching… And soon I realized that I was searching for something REAL that I had experienced once once before. It may seem trivial or cliché, but when I was a freshman in highschool. I went to a friend’s church service, and a tangible electricity of joy went zapping through my system. Nobody knew it happened but me. It was this experience that turned me on to Jesus. But, because I didn’t go to that church, and because I didn’t know really what happened, I also didn’t put 2 and 2 together that this ZAPPO experience of joy was associated with Jesus. So, for a while, I was searching for that joy. And I looked all sorts of places.

At 20, I was re-aquainted with that joy as I was re-aquainted with Jesus. And in turn re-aquanted with his church and theirfore his followers. It was through them that I learned more about Him. They were good people, and had good intensions; and all had a glimpse of what was going on. And I wanted to be a part of it. I loved this new Joy. So I studied religion.

I saw these characters up front speaking these wonderful words that were changing my life week to week. I soon wanted to be that. I wanted to tell people about Jesus too! I wanted to speak life giving messages. And to do this you get to be called ‘pastor’. I wanted to do that, be that.

After school, I went to the Bridge Church, I wanted to be a pastor, but I felt the usual seminary route was an odd place to find your vocation. I found it weird that my friends were going to go to two or three years of school where they would become a“Master of Divinity” and then be stationed in a church somewhere for 35 years to tell people how to live. At 23 I didn’t feel I could tell anybody how to live. So I went back to Portland got a job and plunged into a church plant.

It took me three years of men’s group at the Bridge to realize that I had some hidden motivations in my “gung ho’ ness” towards ministry. We all have motives for what we do; both positive and negative. As I went to men’s group, I noticed that even though I DID have a great love for Jesus, and a passion for telling people about Jesus, I also had a huge need for feeling wanted and important. As I began to hammer out my inward world andas I became aware of it, I noticed a diabolical undercurrent: if I could get a spiritual edge, I would have the Ultimate Edge. Then I could be looked up to, and therefore be wanted and seen as important by others. My desire to be the vessel of the“message” was inwardly founded on my own innadaquacy. When I found this out, I was disguisted with my motives. I confessed my findings with Ken, one of the pastors of the Bridge (now pastoring HomePDX), and he encouraged me by saying. “isn’t it interesting that the real qualification of doing this job is being aware that you truly will never be qualified.” This continues to encourage me as I live as a man, who doesn’t know shit about God. I continue on “not being qualified” as I Search… Search… Search … for this Jesus that changes my life daily, yet always is somewhat elusive.

Some weeks I feel I have it… and then others I find that when I “thought I had it” I didn’t have it at all. As I was praying this morning I realized that I CARE about what YOU think of my spirituality. This is good. It comes with the job, but there is a nuance here that brings me back to that diabolical undercurrent. I care about what I can say to YOU to inspire YOU on your way to give YOUR life meaning.  It is such a great calling to be up here giving YOU what YOU need. And then today I am confronted by my God who asks me “why aren’t you this passionate about YOUR life towards me.”  

Jesus isn’t kicking my ass with his question, (or maybe he is… but) he questioning my motives. “What is the point of changing others’ lives, if you yourself are not changed?” Accolades, Importance, being wise, being loved. These are empty if you are empty.

My intensions have been good, but my methods haven’t given me the right mixture of what I need. My intensions were to “work for God” but the work somehow took precidence over God. My glorious task of telling people about Jesus because of what he has done for me has withered into a prayer to not look foolish on Sunday. My methods were to place myself in a role of godly influence, rather than place myself in the influence of God. Poor motives backfired my faith into something not to admire.

A backfire in a car typically happens when there isn’t enough gas coming in. There is too much air, and so as a result an untimed explosion happens from within.

This is what Jesus was getting at when when he said “unless your righteousness is more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” When Jesus is talking about heaven here, he isn’t talking about a place in the sky that you go once you’re dead. He is talking about God's space, where full reality exists. It is close by our ordinary ('earthly') reality and can and often does interlock with it. One day heaven and earth will be joined together forever, and the true state of affairs, which we can’t see, will be unveiled. It is this reality that we are praying for when we ask for “Your kingdom to come” in the Lord’s Prayer. And it is this reality that Jesus is saying you will NOT take part in unless you exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharasees.

What does that mean?

The Scribes and Pharasees that Jesus is refering to is a group of people who have it all together ”spiritually.” They know what the bible says. They know how to quote it. They know that you shouldn’t kill people, commit adultary, and that you must draw up divorce papers if you want to get divorced. But Jesus is saying: There is an embarrassing noise coming out of these people’s heart. It’s causing them to not move forward. And it could ruin their engines entirely. These men are surrounding themselves with good stuff, yet their fuel is running lean. Filling their insides with a poor mixture of air, or unresolved  earthly motivations.

Jesus is saying “To get in on what God is doing, you must let your insides burn clean, not lean.” You can’t just not kill people! Look at the true nature of your neighbor and let your anger, malice, and contempt be in check. It is not a law… something that you MUST do, it is something better: it is common sense. It is the fuel that lets your heart burn clean. If you work out your anger, it won’t lead to malice, which won’t lead to contempt, which obviously will not lead to murder. The same thing goes for adultary: If you keep in check your desire to seek someone out in order to have sex with them, then the ball won’t go boucing down that road either.

Let the common sense of the kingdom of heaven lead you. Allowing Jesus to lead you in your motivations. Allowing your insides to grow until they become your outsides. Don’t botch up all of the works by caring about the exterior. What’s going on on the inside?

“Why do you care more about what THEY think of your spirituality, than I do?” Jesus asks me. The real reason is I’m getting real time results from what I’m putting out. I’m getting my needs met. I’m showing people my “ultimate edge on them,” and therefore feeling important and wanted.

Jesus is saying to me: “There’s something better then that Geoff. What if you were doing good things because you were a part of what I was doing? What if I filled up that need to feel important, because I think you ARE important? I know you want to be wanted, let me be that for you. To fill that inner space with something other than me will make it pop, sputter, and explode. Your insides will collapse trying to hold up the shell of good things around you with nothing but bitterness and resentment. Why not be a part of my ultimate reality? It may look upside down to burn the fuel of the kingdom of God. It probably will be more painful than feeling “better” than someone else. But at least you won’t burn lean any more. You will move forward.

My Quest for something...

I want something that I don’t have. I’m not sure what it is. But it is something that is very real; more real than my hand. But I don’t have it.  Perhaps if I conceptually knew what it was that I needed I wouldn’t be in this delemma. But I don’t know what it is I need. I have an idea. And it is my hope that that idea will bring me to what I desire. But I could be wrong... I’ve been wrong before…

But this gives me hope:
John6:26Jesus answered them, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, you have been searching for Me, not because you saw the miracles and signs but because you were fed with the loaves and were filled and satisfied.
    27Stop toiling and doing and producing for the food that perishes and decomposes [in the using], but strive and work and produce rather for the [lasting] food which endures [continually] unto life eternal; the Son of Man will furnish you that, for God the Father has authorized and certified Him and put His seal of endorsement upon Him.This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger].
31Our forefathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as the Scripture says, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.(A)    I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Moses did not give you the Bread from heaven, but it is My Father Who gives you the true heavenly Bread.    33For the Bread of God is He Who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.

 34Then they said to Him, Lord, give us this bread always (all the time)!

 35Jesus replied, I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will never be hungry, and he who believes in and cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me will never thirst any more (at any time).

I personally NEED this answer. I am on a quest for the bread of life, for the living water that will never make me thirsty again. I WANT the Way the Truth and the life. I’m on a quest for the real Jesus…  Not “THINGS” a loaf of bread… not a drink of water… and not a bearded guy. But the one/thing that can fill that empty neediness inside of me that is clammoring and clanging and continually climbing up the drapes of this life WANTING MORE… And I’m hoping He is IT.

Marraige...

Marriage – That’s right…we’re talking about marriage. We’ve been married for two and a half years, so that definitely makes us the authority figures on marriage?!?

C: Let me tell you how we met…Geoff and I met at bar. That’s right, PASTOR Geoff and I met at a BAR. Doug Fir to be exact…because that’s where the beautiful people hang out...oh, wait, it was Drew Grow’s birthday party. I spotted him at the end of the table and thought, “Who’s that cute guy? I’m gonna sit by him….” I introduced myself and he introduced himself and after a few blackberry cosmopolitans and encouragement from my dear friend, Gwyneth, I invited him to my birthday party two nights later….thinking he won’t show up. Well, he did…

G: There were so many opportunities where we could have met before Drew’s birthday. Crystal was really good friends with Drew, Jenn, and even knew Ken and Deborah…and hung with them on a regular basis. She even actually came to The Bridge several times. It’s weird, really weird, that we had never met until that night but it was also very weird that two weeks previous, I had been talking to God about the type of person I wanted to be with for the rest of my life and made a list. I had no idea that list would walk in and sit by me and give me a high five and say, “Well, welcome to the club!”

C: All that to say, do not give up on your heart or the hearts of other people. For those of you that don’t know, Geoff and I were actually previously married...and divorced. The fact that we had never bumped into each other until that night was absolutely God and His plan. Jeremiah 29:11 “I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” So, don’t give up, but also don’t settle. You deserve your list.
So, Geoff and I have been married for 2 ½ years, and before that, we were married so, we have about 13 years of marriage accumulatively under our belts…..so take that.

G: Which means we know what does/doesn’t work:

C: What doesn’t work:
· Having a wife who seeks relationship with other men.
· Having a husband who makes you weigh in every week because he thinks you’re a fat ass.
· Dismissing the fact that your mom thinks your future wife is immature because she’s 19.
· Sitting on the counseling couch with your husband and having him say, “Well, look at her, would you want to be married to that? She’s repulsive.” Then have him pick you apart from head to toe….and then paying the counselor.
· Telling your future wife your mom thinks she’s immature.
· Having a husband who gives your new cat to his girlfriend as a gift.

C: If you didn’t get a chance to write all of these down, we are going to submit them to Crumbs for your reference. It may be over 200 words, but…helpful!

G: Ephesians 5: 22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk,( By the way, men, take note…Jesus is interested in clothes…hello! White silk.) radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor—since they're already "one" in marriage.
What does that mean to you? (open floor question)

C: To me, that means WE (collectively) aren’t a joke to Christ. Spiritually, that means to me, that Christ makes us whole. He speaks well of us in public. He brings the best out in us. He goes all out for us. He WENT all out for us. As a female, that makes me feel secure, adored, wanted, safe, and desirable, empowered to trust, empowered in general and loved. Christ isn’t around the corner going “She is driving me nuts…I can’t believe she did this and this. And have you seen her ass lately? She could use some time on the treadmill. She has the lamest ideas. She doesn’t deserve shit from me….” EVERYTHING HE SAYS AND DOES IS DESIGNED TO BRING OUT THE BEST OF HER.

A few months ago, Geoff and I met with an old friend of mine. This was the first time Geoff had met this person. We were sitting having coffee when my friend asks Geoff, “So, how long have you guys been married?” Geoff responded with, “Almost two years!” The guy then jokingly asked, “How many time since then have you reqretted that decision?” Geoff didn’t laugh. The friend said, “Uh, that was a joke.” Geoff didn’t laugh, meanwhile I laughed nervously thinking, “Oh shit…” “Dude, it was a joke.” Geoff leaned toward the table and said, “Let’s get something straight here. Crystal, is not a joke. My marriage to her, is not a joke. So, you can joke about anything else, you just can’t joke about her.” Boom. UNCOMFORTABLE!! BUT, the result for me was knowing– I’m not a joke to Geoff. He didn’t laugh and then cover his mouth thinking, “Oh crap, I’m going to catch shit for this later.” He just didn’t laugh. It opened my eyes to how he feels about me and made me feel secure, adored, wanted, safe, and desirable, empowered to trust, etc. It made me trust him. EVERYTHING HE SAYS AND DOES IS DESIGNED TO BRING OUT THE BEST OF HER

My parents have been married for 42 years. I remember growing up and the one thing that would instantly get my dad’s blood boiling and get us in huge trouble is if we were disrespectful to my mom – my mom wasn’t and still isn’t a joke to my dad. He has huge respect for her. I also remember sneaking upstairs to watch TV behind the recliner and seeing my mom and dad sitting on the couch, my dad rubbing my mom’s feet….A LOVE MARKED BY GIVING, NOT GETTING. Not to say my dad didn’t receive love back from my mom, he just loved her and so he did small gestures like that to show her he loved her. My mom still makes him a sack lunch for work every day…A LOVE MARKED BY GIVING, NOT GETTING. And because they both do that, they both get.

G: Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. That’s a really hard thing to do. And, marriage is really hard….Case in point. Crystal and I got a hankering to sing some Karaoke. Somehow I love breaking out Neil Diamond classics. Don’t Judge me. Well… at the table next to us were a bunch of dancer types… let’s just leave it at that. One in particular was Sadie. Sadie was about 6.1 with a dancer type of body that you could see because she had a stretchy close fitting dress on that she kept pulling up. Yeah needless to say… Sadie had some issues (and little underwear.)

Sometimes in Karaoke you just have to dance. And when Hall and Oats “Maneater” comes on, that’s one of those times. So Crystal and I get up to get our 80’s groove on. It was apparent that Sadie needed to dance too. And she spun into the group of dancers doing odd dancer type lunges. It all went so fast. The singer hit the chorus “Oh here she comes” and then I noticed Sadie lunging at me. She was doing an alligator type move as she got closer. Saying “I’m a man eater.” This would be somewhat dismissible if she hadn’t backed me up against the window and put her leg on my shoulder. Now, I have never had to slap someone in the solar plexus before… repeatedly…but, I did, with Sadie.

After shoving her off of me, Crystal stepped in: “You’re done.” Sadie said “what?”Crystal said “that is my husband. You’re done” Sadie told her “I just put my leg on him” Crystal brought it to a close “I will put my fists on you if you try that again.”

It took me about an hour to get out of my dance floor legging funk. When I snapped out of it, I was astounded at the wisdom of Hall and Oats reminding me to “watch out boy or she’ll chew me up.” As I looked across the table and I saw my wife and I was very happy to be married. I was happy that in midst of an odd scuffle in which a strange woman put her leg on my shoulder (while not wearing much underwear)… My wife had my back. My partner was ready to rumble for me. Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. This is the way my wife showed this to me. This was the way Crystal respected me.
Marriage can be placed on a hum drum shelf. People can simply dismiss it as “this is what you are supposed to do.” But there are those that see their marriage as not hum drum at all. The late Morrie Schwartz said this “there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values… is your belief in the importance of your marriage.” You need to be ready to rumble for their partner.

C: Not only do we need to be ready to do fist to cuffs for our spouses, or even our friends…Ephesians talks about how Christ loves the church – that’s all of us. That’s married people, that’s single people, children, the widows, the poor. We need to speak well of each other in public. We need to have grace for one another. Give and ask forgiveness, readily. We’re all really doing ourselves a favor because we are one body in Christ. We need to stop screwing around on each other and commit and love each other and find importance in that.
1 Corinthians 13 gives us a really incredible picture of that.

Love is Patient… We can give each other time and space to develop at our own pace.Love is kind… We can give each other words, thoughts and actions that are tender.Love does not envy… we can be glad for one another’s’ successes.Love does not boast… we can choose to never say, "I told you so."Love is not proud… but we can be proud of one another.Love is not rude… we can choose to not crash into each others’ lives with advice not asked for.Love is not self seeking… we can give a gift of laying aside our expectations of each other.Love is not easily angered… we can know that this too will pass.Love keeps no record of wrongs… we can let our pasts die and our tomorrows live.G: We can choose to not delight when bad things happen to each other and rejoice when good comes our way.C: We can always protect each other with our words.G: We can always trust God and each other to find the right path.C: We can always hope that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives.G: We can always persevere with one another.C: That kind of love will never fail us.

G: Hearing these words from 1 Corinthians, we, as a church, can commit to each other and God and find importance in that. We are going to do something together to signify that WE are not a joke and solidify our commitment to our relationship as a community in Christ. Those that feel uncomfortable do not need to participate – there’s freedom. But I will ask a series of questions and those that wish to participate can respond at the end by saying, “I will.”

Those that wish to participate, please stand.Will you let your pasts die and your tomorrows live?Will you always uphold each other with your words both publicly and privately?Will you stand together in good times and in hard times?Will you seek to understand and support each other?Will you do your best to bring out the best in one another?Will you withhold your wisdom and advice unless and until asked?Will you love each other?
If you agree to do these things please declare that by saying. "I Will"
You may now kiss the bride!

C: The commitment to your marriage is not something to be taken lightly; you are one. This commitment we have made today, this union, is not a joke, we are all one. Love you guys. Let’s all help each other pack up and get groceries are downstairs.

Whores and Sugar Daddies

Lately I have been going through quite a bit of self exploration. And I remembered one memory in general. It was my very first boyscout summercamp. Boy Scouts… not Cub Scouts. Which is a scary organization based on taking children into the woods and teaching them to light fires. So I just joined troop 7 wyeast at 11. And went to a week long summer camp in Puget Sound. I was in charge of what merit badges to get which was why at the end of the week I had dropped out of all of them but one. I took swimming lessons, so I thought I would get my swimming merit badge easy, but when you are diving into the freezing waters of puget sound with jeans on and you almost drown picking up a rock, that can be intimidating at 11. So you guys know I DID get my swimming merit badge the following year. I almost drown then too. Anyway… my dad arrived at summercamp at the end of the week and asked how I was doing. It was two days until we were going home and I told him that the only merit badge class that I didn’t drop was woodworking. He asked how that’s going. I told him not well seeing that I haven’t done the two assignments required. He puffed up his dad chest and said, well let’s get to work. At the time it was what I needed. My eleven year old brain was ready to give up on a difficult first summer camp. But my dad saw there was still two more days to finish the assignments. He held my feet to the fire so I could whittle something stupid that met the requirements. I got my first merit badge.

In life, we learn how we get things accomplished. This merit badge was a great lesson in getting something done, but it seemed to begin a pattern in my life. Major things in my life would leave me at a place of disenchantment. And then I would find my dad there to create a solution. This was a wonderful almost Godly analogy. But one thing that happened in this pattern was I didn’t learn from my mistakes. I didn’t take responsibility for getting myself into the mess. I didn’t fall flat on my face.

No one wants to fall, and no parent wants their kid to fall. But sometimes it takes a fall to change a life direction. As a result I learned a skill to rely on others to bail me out so that I didn’t fall. Relying on others may not sound all that bad, but at the cost of personal responsibility, maturity, and your own manhood believe me, this nuance and behavior has a particular cost to my soul.

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Prostitution is one of the oldest carreers out there. And some would like to tell you it’s someone’s carreer choice. As a teenager I was naïve enough to dream about it as a career choice. But when you get down to it, those that are in the profession may want out. They may want a new direction for their life to take. Less difficult, less reliant on getting drunk or high to manage the night, less acting like a whore in public, and the vulger reality of it all in private.

This was the context of some who saw a crazy prophet called John the Baptist. John made people see that they could change their life, that they could be baptised, and begin new. It didn’t matter who they were, and what they were, they only needed to come. Those listening saw the light in his eyes and the extreme words of his heart that let them believe that this was their day to change. That no matter what their past, they had a future with God.

There were others that weren’t all that impressed with John. They thought his techniques and methods were a little outlandish, and probably created extremists. They went to listen and mainly make fun of him. It was halarious to see the local pimp, whore, and thug get drenched in the water… like that’s all it took to be with God.

What were these people thinking? What was John thinking? Did he have a follow up ministry in which the whores and thugs were trained to fix computers? There may have been some follow up discipleship programs, but how do you go from a prostitute to not?

Jesus told this parable to those who made fun of his cousin John the B: "What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' "'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.”Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.

"Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

We all have our contexts. Our circomstances that have grown beyond our control. We have those things in our lives that have crept in and trapped us like a caged animal. Some of us can’t see our own cage. Like the ones Jesus is talking to. Jesus is highlighting that small door that has been openned that has the ability to spoil our entire soul. The prostitute, the thug, they’re easy to call out… it’s in their name. Everybody knows what they do. But just like them, we all have histories. We have our first breech of our heart. That first whoring in some way or another. Usually after the fact the feeling of shame accompanies it. What a strong image. Whore. The giving up of yourself for money. The giving up of yourself for responsibility. The giving up of who you truly are.

No wonder Deuteronomy says that the male and female prostitute is detestable. Your creator, created who you are, all of you, knows exactly who you are, and what you are called to be. and you have pissed that away to get cash. You have pissed that away to find stabililty. There goes your responsibility down the toilet. For someone who loves you fully, to see your potential flushed like excrement. That is detestable

This has recently become important to me because I see now that I have been my own type of whore. Over the course of my life I have embraced a system that has diminished my soul. I am responsible to keep my soul intact, to keep my soul preserved, to keep my soul… I am responsible! And in the exploration of my own responsibility, I have found out that I come up short. I have been relying on others to bail me out. Family and friends are one thing, and emergencies are another. But what I have noticed is that I have established a pattern over the years that doesn’t take responsibility FOR ME. I want a sugar daddy. Not the brown sticky mass that loves my back left molar. But someone who will pay for a lifestyle that I can’t afford. I want God to give me my dreams on a platter, and don’t want to take responsibility to get there. There’s entitlement in the sound of my voice. I scream at the heavens. If you have made me this way why aren’t I this way?

It took me some digging to see it. And it is embarrasing to admit. Who wants to say that they’ve done a little whoring? Not many. I wish I could say to you this WAS a struggle of mine. But the sad reality is I am in midst of it. I’m in midst of taking responsibility for not taking responsibility of my life. I’m currently needing to admit that I have ripped off God. Ripped him of the honor of being my pillar, my support, my rock. And now I am faced with two roads ahead. One that circles back after beating me up a little more. or one of baptism.

Luke 7:36-50
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to come to his home for a meal, so Jesus accepted the invitation and sat down to eat. A certain whore heard he was there and brought a beautiful jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. When the Pharisee who was the host saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself, "This proves that Jesus is no prophet. If God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She's a sinner!" Then Jesus spoke up and answered his thoughts. "Simon," he said to the Pharisee, "I have something to say to you." "All right, Teacher," Simon replied, "go ahead." Then Jesus told him this story: "A man loaned money to two people – five hundred pieces of silver to one and fifty pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?" Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt." "That's right," Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn't offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn't give me a kiss of greeting, but she has kissed my feet again and again from the time I first came in. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. I tell you, her sins – and they are many – have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love." Then Jesus said to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven."

What I am saying today is take responsibility for your life. Take responsibility for the dreams that God has placed within you. And don’t let those sour in your mind because of you haven’t reached them yet, or you are waiting for some sugar daddy to accomplish them. Today, YOU are at a crossroads. One road blames, diverts, wollows, and circles back around, the other other is far more difficult. The other takes the water of baptism, and makes you take responsibility for your life. For your actions, for your past. Sure there were situations that were thrust upon us. But we always have the choice of response. This road of baptism calls you to repent, to feel remorse, and to change from what you know to what you could be. No lottery, no sugardaddy needed. Just the working out of your soul in fear and trembling. By prayerfully looking deep within ourselves, we might be able to see the cage that we’re in. To feel that debt that we’re in, that payment that we owe.

All of us have done a little whoring in our life; the image may be too graphic for something relatable. But everyone has breached who they are, for who they could be. Today…Is it time to say “Jesus this is what I owe. Jesus This is where I am. This is my life. Oh God I am responsible. Will you forgive me?”… God Loves You. And so do I.

The Little Shits

About a year ago I began preparing to go to a foreign land. A place that I spoke the language better than the natives, a place where I had more rights than they did; it was America. America! Home of the free land of the brave, but I found there was one group that was not born free, they were a group that found themselves with no rights, no voice, yet they weren’t advocating or picketing. They were simply coloring. Talking to each other about pokemon, stuffed animals and birthday parties; they didn’t care about a vote unless it involved a democratic landslide in coercing their desires for happy meals, candy and staying up late. I was preparing for the worst. I didn’t know what I really was going to do, nor did I really know why. But I knew there was a need.

You see, adult organizations reach out to other adults. But the difficulty with that is the offspring of the adults come too. If the adult organization doesn’t have a way to manage the offspring, a crisis for the adult occurs. Either they have to manage the offspring themselves, they have to consider whether the organization is worth getting a babysitter so that they can continue to go. Or they have to stop going. Since church is one such adult organization, this creates the wonder we all call “kids ministry.”

The Bridge was not too different from most adult organizations, and so in the inception it considered its “kid ministry.” Bridge initially was founded as a place for those who have slipped through the cracks of churches, society, and family. Also the main push was to the young and disenfranchised of Portland. Since the majority of people that were coming at first were 16-28 we had a staffed nursary. But no need for a full blown kids ministry. We had the highschool age youth group. And we had various other adult activities.

As more young adults had kids, we found a need to take care of them so that the adults could stay. This is very much like most churches out there. Provide free babysitting, andthey will come. However one thing that we could be sure of is once we found a children’s ministry leader and they started, six months down the road they would leave the bridge. “probably crying” Thankfully they didn’t leave the church, but I’m sure it was sometime before they volunteered for anything again. This was the bridge’s curse for many years. And it would make the ones with offspring secondguess coming here. Because the only thing we had for the kids was some tent somewhere with stuffed animals. And it was a free-for-all.

So… last year I found myself asking the question “right now, where I am, where do I sense the greatest need.” I found this question when I heard about a man who created a bank for people in his home town of india with $27. Apparently it took $27 to loan to 15 different people and get them out of their own financial business hole. They were indentured servants essentially to their own trade. They were a people that were hard workers but were in debt to the suppliers, and had no way to get out on top. This man asked lagit banks for a dollar and 2 dollar loans, but the bank said these poor people would not pay. So he risked his own money. After the people paid him back, he took these stats to the bank because there were others that needed help too. They said “the poor people will not pay back.” So he risked his money. And Again they paid it back. Finally he realized that he could start his own bank for this purpose. And Now it has grown into one of the largest microfinance organizations in india.

So I asked “right now, where I am, where do I sense the greatest need?” And I looked around, I and I said “sh!t.” Because I saw the greatest need with our children. But I didn’t know anything about kids. I didn’t even have any passion for them. I saw them as “the problem that must be solved.” Yet, I did know that if I put my efforts towards it, change would occur. I told Crystal Deborah and Angie. Come the fall I am going to take on the Kids ministry. I felt like saying it was something that was like my own sentence. Crystal said “I’m going to do it with you. I don’t want you to be alone when doing that.” I told her she didn’t need to do that, but she said she wanted to. Then came the countdown to fall. As it was getting closer and closer, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. We asked questions prepared as much as we could but nothing could really prepare me for the work.

I want to tell you about some glasses I’ve been given over the course of the last ten months. My crash course in child culture. I see things differently. And I think it is worth you trying them on for a bit. Because it was apparent from my perspective that children were seen as a nusance to my adult culture. My toes were stepped on, my conversations were filled with frustraitions, with a culture that is actually addressed in the bible… Yet we rarely preach on it.

In the bible children are seen as a blessing, possibly even a commodity. More kids you have the more blessed you are. Psalm 127: 3-5 Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.In the bible children are seen as being protected by God. That God cares for even those without parents: Psalm 27:10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.

Exodus 22:22-24 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless. “

There is much about kids and children in the bible. But I was most interested in little wayne.

Little wayne was trouble. He was a kid in first century biblical times, and he was 8. He got into trouble, when he sassed his mom he would receive the soap in his mouth. He would get his morning teachings with his friends and have to be seperated because he was talking during the lesson. He put a firecracker up a frogs butt and lit it on fire. Him and some friends ran for the river when they got frog turd innerds exploded on their face. Little wayne’s best friend jack was going over to greg and matts house more and more, so he had to kick their ass because Jack was his best friend. Wayne picked up some choice words from his fisherman father. He found if he used them at school the kids eyes would open and it was like a secret power. He found that if he used it at home or in front of the teacher that he would be beat. He’d want to go fish but was too much trouble. His dad’s co-workers called little wayne “little sh!t” because he would come around and bother them.

One day waynes dad was entertaining a really amazing man. He was superkind and really was super welcoming. But didn’t have that creepy come hither look that his uncle had sometimes for his sister. Wayne watched him from the doorway. Apparently they had just come from paying taxes or something. And this is what happened:

Matt 181 they came to Jesus and asked, "Which of us is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?" 2 Jesus called little wayne over to him and put the child among them. 3 Then he said, "I assure you, unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 Therefore, anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. 5 And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. 6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who trusts in me to lose faith, it would be better for that person to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around the neck.

Little Wayne left but the disciples were perplexed. Little wayne? Humble? How can he be great in the kingdom of Heaven?

I like telling this story with little wayne in it because in my past readings of it, I have envisioned the kid as some sort of alter boy. Holy with a halo and doesn’t do anything wrong, constantly singing beautiful praises about his innocence and God’s purity. But if you’ve ever been around children, you know that kids are trouble. They are a force to be reckoned with and you can’t place this kid on some sort of pure pedistal to live up to.

The disciples had it all backwards at this point, you see their question (even though its not as negitively framed as it is in mark or luke) is implying that the kingdom of heaven is based on the same structure as any other kingdom on earth.

Their question has something at the core of it that is a competitive strain that is not how the kingdom of heaven functions. The Kingdom of heaven functions almost negatively to an earthly kingdom. Here you must have pure royal blood, there you must be adopted. Here kings are the highest rank, there the King is the lowest. Here the kings are clad in the jewels and everything lavish and extraordinary; there the king is clad with the woulds of suffering and sacrifice for others.

So when the disciples are asking who is the greatest, Jesus is showing them how much they don’t get it. Their very question shows their ignorance of the kingdom.

Jesus brings in little wayne, a boy, he wasn’t a pristine little fauntlaroy rather he was a little stinker. He was a little sh!t. A whiner, the disciples knew that he was a problem to deal with, one of those kids you want to shove by the face. He had that dennis the menace smile that makes you want to punch them. He was a problem, a dickweed, a little f*cker, and here he was in front of Jesus. And JC was saying, you need to repent and become like this little sh!t. Jesus knew what he was doing. He was flipping the question on its back and showing its foolishness. Desiring an earthly rank in the kingdom of heaven is like having a kid desire brussel sprouts.

In looking deeper, though he was a little sh!t, little wayne was a part of a class that jesus was specifically interested in. Though he blew up frogs by their anus, he was not filled with malice of adulthood. Though he was interested in keeping the rank of best friend, he was not interested in ranks. Though he sassed his mom, he also was teachable enough to know that soap didn’t taste good. And though he was somewhat independent in hanging out with his friends, he was still dependant on his dad for a place to stay that night. His dad loved him and he knew that he was safe. He was a boy.

Essentially children are amazing reflectors of our own mature responses. They point out our agendas far too well. To control and minimize the damage of a child being in the room. “We don’t pick up the glass bowl, that’s a no touch” To attempt to pursuade them to get out of your face so they will watch 3 hours of TV and let you alone. “Hey I have an idea, lets have you quarentine yourself for the next 18 years until I can put you into counseling, to deal with the neglect.” To preserve the status quo of your adult culture rather than engage at a child’s level. The fact is children are challenging as a culture. And if we are not careful, we wont pick up on the fact that this culture has never experienced our world before. We look at this culture like they are a problem to be solved rather than a culture to be educated.

They are brand new to this country, don’t speak the language, they are developmentally disabled, and have no rights. They need an ambassador. Someone that is their advocate, someone that will help educate them, someone that explains the actions of the adult culture. To clarify when a breach in boundaries has occurred, not to explode or punish for no reason. They have no rights. They stand in our mercy, just like we stand only because of God’s mercy. How would God treat you?

We are part of an adult culture that see’s children as a “problem to be solved” We need to rethink our policy as a culture and begin to see something different. We need the Love of kids to be our policy. We need the desire for children to grow in their spirituality to be our policy. We need to beef up our quest for learning and educating a peoplegroup with no rights, that are at our mercy. We need to strengthen our families so that our children can be whole.

Jesus points this culture right at us to see ourselves as his followers:Children do not desire authority. Children do not regard outward distinctions, Children are free from adult malice, Children are teachable, and Children are willingly dependent upon their parents. They have to be… they have nothing else.

unless you learn to entertain a humble, and modest opinion of yourselves, are not envious at one another, and drop all contentions about primacy and pre-eminence, and all your ambitious views of one being greater than another, you will not find the kingdom of heaven.

When you look through Gods eyes at kids you don’t see the problems of management. You don’t see the frustraition of cleaning up frog intenstines. You see what God sees. You actually see what maybe the disciples have lost… maybe what we have lost.
They were headed in the wrong direction with their selfish ambition. Jesus’ tone is very severe, as much as when He denounces the Pharisees. The strong double negative means that they will otherwise not get into the kingdom of heaven at all, let alone have big places in it.

As you see children today, I would love for you to reflect on your own life. Where you have let you ambition and rank take hold, Or if you are overcome with malice, Or maybe you have become independent from God. Thinking that you can make it on your own.

Have you lost the ability to call God your creator? Have you lost the ability to gather warmth from Jesus in order to heal from your pain?

Unless you can say I love you God and mean it, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Unless you can say I trust you God, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. You must get back that dependant love of God. You must escape the trap of God as a concept. You must rework your idea of God as your peer or an authority figure, and see him as someone you can actually rely on. Someone that longs to scoop you up as you pretend to sleep in the car, someone that may know, but smiles as they carry you up the stairs and puts you safely in bed. The word Abba that is used before God is strong. It implies a tenderness, comfort and safety. It is a term expressing warm affection and confidence that a child has in a parent that they trust. It has no perfect equivalent in our language. But when we see those eyes of children sparkle towards adults that are respecting them, we can get a glipse of what maybe our response to God can be.

So many of us have been forced to grow up. Forced to live. Forced to leave the innocense of our childhood behind. Forced the cut off our bad relationship with our parents. Twisted by darkness we have left the brightness of our youth behind because that was where we were vulnerable. That was where we were small and overcome by those large towering people. We were at their mercy.

Jesus is here saying to all of us … let the little ones come to me. Let those who need me come. Let those who have been stripped of their ability to say that God will protect me, that God will be my ambassador, that God will be my guide in this cruel adult cuture, Let them begin to call out Jesus. To mean it! To have their heart reach out to be comforted, to be protected, to be finally loved.

I hope you can take these glasses that I have put on today. These glasses that can give you a look into what some think is a stress, and what God sees as a reminder and an entrance into a kingdom. I hope you can take these glasses and honor our children, and those who work with them today.

Freedom '08

In the 90’s George Michael sang about freedom from an image he wanted to break out of. He felt his inner world wasn’t matching his outer world. And the outer world was winning, making him out to be a lier. His great voice, solo carreer and his shaking ass, made him a heart throb, and he and the investors associated with George were doing the Jitterbug all the way to the bank from his stonewashed jeans, tunes, AND from his public persona. Dana Carvey had a great bit on Saturday Night Live doing a caracature of Michael and his ass. “Look at my butt Dennis, LOOK AT IT! It’s perfectly round…It’s a perfect circle. Scientist at NASA use it to calibrate their instruments… you can’t take your eyes off of it. LOOK AT IT DENNIS!” Apparently Dennis Miller and the women of the world looking at George constricted his ass too much.

He wrote a song called freedom ’90 coming out of the closet, addressing his own sexuality and how he didn’t care what it did to his career; the fact was he wasn’t going to live a lie any more. The women of the world need to know that he can’t be a hetero-sex symbol. No! He was now breaking free from the clothes of his image that he had agreed to in the inception of his career because “Sometimes the clothes do not make the man”.

This probably had a huge public impact on him as an artist… Record Sales… And girls may have been a little red in the face as they took down their Vintage Wham Poster. But George was free. Liberated from people’s misconceptions and his conscience was lighter because of it. From a purely financial outlook it might have been a dumb move. From a career standpoint, it might have been shooting yourself in the foot. Apparently George’s executives told him just that and he addressed it in the song “Ill hold on to my freedom. May not be what you want from me. Just the way it’s got to be”

15 years later Dave Chappelle, a comic known for his hugely successful show on comedy central “the Chappelle Show” found his freedom from the limelight by simply going away. After the first season a major success, Dave found himself signing a second and third season for $50 million. Dave's trademark humor—outrageous, politically incorrect explorations of popular culture, race, sex, drugs and fame—infused every skit. His fans loved quoting his lines, especially his impersonation of funk music impresario Rick James. “I’m Rick James Bitch.” Then, in April 2005, a year after signing his two-year contract to continue the show, Dave abruptly walked off the set and…disappeared. Almost no one, including his wife and kids, knew where he went.
Some people thought he went nuts, others thought he was doing drugs. It was leaked to the press he had pnumonia. In reality he went to South Africa to reflect. He ended up seeing that though his sketches sparked controversy, some of his sketches started to make him feel "socially irresponsible.”

One particular sketch Dave wasn’t particularly proud of was about a pixie (played by Dave) who appeared in black face, which Dave described as the "visual personification of the "N" word."
"There was a good-spirited intention behind it," Dave says. "So then when I'm on the set, and we're finally taping the sketch, somebody on the set [who] was white laughed in such a way—I know the difference of people laughing with me and people laughing at me—and it was the first time I had ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with. Not just uncomfortable, but like, should I fire this person?"

After this incident, Dave began thinking about the message he was sending to millions of viewers. Dave says some people understood exactly what he was trying to say with his racially charged comedy…while others got the wrong idea. He began to see that his show was changing culture, and to see white suburbia quote his lines, and not really GET IT, began to be desturbing.

So Dave shut it down. He needed to be freed from his own machine; escape his own creation so he fled the scene. "I felt really guilty about being asleep at the wheel," He remembers. "I felt guilty about it because I forgot the hostility of the environment of show business. … There's some quote that someone told me that says, 'Success takes you where character cannot sustain you.'" These two men found that they needed to be freed from their own momentum. The decisions that got them to their place of fame, didn’t match who they were. They eventually they had to address it.

This isn’t a new theme, Shakespeare’s tragic character Polonius who prats around the play Hamlet rambles his wisdom to his son Laertes: “Above all, to thine own self be true.” Ironically Polonius finds his “being true to himself” also causing his death. His desire for social advancement, his fear of losing his position in the kingdom and his need for popularity make him spy on Hamlet, and eventually skewered behind a tapestry.

Most of us will never have to deal with the huge financial crunch of having a multimillion dollar carreer, compromise “who you are.” We don’t have the luxury or delemma of Shutting Down a show that pays 50 million. But most of us CAN imagine getting skewered in the end of what we “thought” was a good idea. We can imagine that, because we’ve experienced that. We go down roads that make us say… Hey this isn’t me. Or maybe that’s what we would say if we were paying attention. When OUR outside world begins to not match our inside world, it begins a huge conflict within us and we have two choices: To Listen or To Not Listen.

To not listen just prolongs the inevitable. It lets it grow, until it’s a magnificent skyscraper that makes a glorious crash. To not listen makes our inner world louder, so that we need to cover it up with our own yelling, it makes our actions stupid and careless, and allows our fears to take the reigns. Also to not listen is being a coward.

So it seems like there IS only one choice. However, if you are anything like me, to not listen is your normal route. For me… I think it’s because I’m dense or not aware. But there are items in my life that I fear, and I plug my ears because I’m too scared to address it.

If you aren’t someone with faith, I’d pay attention to this inner voice. It might be telling you something that you need to hear.

There was a man without faith that the bible spends several chapters on. Who knows if he ever had an inner voice. Growing up being a sovriegn or a god to Egypt has got to mess you up a little bit. But when Pharoh met with a representative of the Slaves , an inner voice might have come in handy. When Moses and his brother came over and said hey let the slaves go. I’m not sure if Moses understood the economic ramifications of what he was asking. The Hebrew people were an intigral part of Egypt’s economy, and I’m sure Pharoh thought Moses’ request was a joke. How can he just let money like that go walking out the door? As a nation’s leader it wasn’t the soundest of economic decisions; so it makes sense that he would say no. But as each plague riqued havok on his country, it was apparent that the outer world was not matching his inner world. In this case it seemed as though he was taking Polonius’ advice. “Stick to you’re guns pharoh. Show em who’s boss. To Thine own self be true.” Or in egyptian:

It’s interesting that the plagues one by one took out the specific gods of egypt. The nile god, the frogs, flies. It seems as though the Hebrew Slave God was at war with the Egyptian gods. Showing battle by battle who was boss. You would think that once the livestock all died, that pharoh may have moved on from his economic reasoning to letting the slaves go as a write off for a really bad year. Regardless, creative tax solutions were not a voice he was listening to. And as a result Pharoh found himself in a watery grave to have his character attacked for thousands of years. Is there a lesson here? I think there is… DON’T MESS WITH THE LORD… even if you’re being true to yourself.

For those of us with faith I think there is something more that we can see here. Like everyone, we can be inspired by those who listen to their inner voice, we can even learn our lessons from those who don’t. But those of us with faith in Jesus have a job that’s not very easy, and isn’t very natural. We are asked to scrutinize both the outer world, and our inner world, against our relationship with God.

If you know Jesus, you know what he’s done for you, you know what has happened to you to let you meet him, and you know that you will do anything for him. Why? Because you know what love is. We sometimes forget, but are easily reminded. The Holy Spirit in your life is is someone that long you for to comfort you, to allow insight to come to you and to give you that extra super YOU when you need it. If you know Jesus you know why grace is important to you and you are authentic in your expression of love. You try your hardest to be who God wants you to be. You make yourself available to love others, and you long for the day that you will see clearly.

I say that to say this. Our Outer world is always pushing us wherever it wants us to go. Whether it is using us as an economic ladder, challenging us not rock the boat, or some other great corporate need. Our inner world longs to have itself match with the outerworld, but when the Outer world is in conflict, our innervoice begins to scream in guilt, fury, anger, injustice. And it is then that our inner world declares its independence. We declare our freedom from the outer world, and we challege it to revolution! IT MUST change its ways OR ELSE! When that Liberty is spoken in this way, worlds are changed. In the case of George Michael, he says Freedom in the 90’s. In the case of Chappelle, he says “SHUT IT DOWN!!!” With Pharoh, he says “I will NOT let your people go!”

Regardless of what our inner voice is screaming against our outer world, those of us with faith have to consider something more. Our world may be selling us as a slave. Our world may be forcing us to begin waving our flags and singing Le Misarables. “do You hear the people sing singing the song of angry men it is a music of a people who will not be slaves again…“ Our outer world may be FORCING us to declare our independence from it. But if you want to know what true freedom is, you must look to your faith. Because your faith assesses your outerworld and your faith scrutenizes your inner world with one question. That question is detestable to our inner voice. Because it doesn’t seem like freedom at all, yet it is the definition of Christian Liberty. What is that one question? “How can I please him?”

Your faith’s Freedom is living a step above the world and a step above your anger of it. Freedom in Christ is not following the Ten Commandments. That is staying out of jail… (Which is probably another kind of freedom.) But Freedom in Christ is something that is above it all. Liberty in Jesus is not a rule to live by, but a principle that is fueled by your love of what He’s done for you. The principle is to please Him. My conduct as a lover, believer, and follower of Jesus Christ is to please him. Not to please you, me or any organization, but only to please Him. That is the liberty we have in our Lord. And it is what Paul means when he says ‘Stand fast in the liberty where Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with bondage.’

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone or anything put a harness of slavery on you; whether that is someone else, your job, yourself, or circomstance. As a lover of Christ your freedom lies within an active pursuit of the question “How can I please you?” That puts to death your fear of anything but God.

We may say we want freedom. We may say we even have it. Someone may say that ‘I have the freedom to do whatever I want.’ I think the problem there, is the reason why we end up needing Jesus so badly-- we are so consumed by our inner voice that we act in counter-dependance to it – whatever the outerworld is doing we NEED to do the opposite. Which means the outer world is still is directing us and we have silenced the true liberty and option of pleasing God. If you call yourself a Christian, YOU are free from YOU. You have forfeited your life for His life. I can say His life is what it’s about. His life is worth persuing; His life allows you to truly live. It is only through love that you can ask “how can I please you Lord?” and it is only by actively persuing the answer that we will truly gain our freedom in ‘08.