Hey everybody,
Tuesdays are sermon prep days in my world, along with Thursdays and Saturdays. So today, I am deep in my basement study working in Romans 11:25-36 for this coming Sunday's message. After feeling like I kinda blew it on Mother's Day... I don't know, sometimes you just get a feeling that the message wasn't focused enough, was too long or whatever. Anyway, a sense of failure is not always a bad thing. If repitition is the mother of learning, failure is the father. :) It makes us go back and improve—rethink the goal and the process. It also wakes us up to idolatry. I received an email this morning that addresses this precise issue, where my friend, Dave McCarty, says,
My flesh loves to get life from ministry success, and so Jesus frequently thwarts my plans/efforts so the pain of the failure snaps me back to reality, where freshly convicted of my [idolatry]. I also realize that He is lovingly re-training me in a better way to live: dependent on Him, not needing any performance of my own, hardly caring about anything else in my life, but Him. The Jesus in me is only contagious to others, when I've been freshly convicted of my sin, so I'm freshly humble, freshly enjoying Him, others, myself, and my circumstances, just as they are. Miracle. Priceless.
The idea is that I will either try to get righteousness from ministry performance or will receive it from Jesus. I will rest in my job well done or in his job well done. So, as I prepare for Sunday, I am grateful that I have a fresh sense of the gospel's reality for me in the present. I'll keep you informed on how the week progresses. I'm already exited about this week's message, which I do think is going to be helpful, a bit more focused and maybe even shorter. We'll see. :) Pray for my prep is you think about it.
Until Sunday, let's continue to fight the good fight to live by grace, remembering that we are fully forgiven, eternally loved and fully accepted in Jesus. This is good news.
McKay
Hey Creekstone folks,
So do you know what your sandcastle is? Say what? Well, you had to be there today to understand. Nevertheless, for those who were at Creekstone's Sunday gathering today, I want to encourage you. Sandcastles can be redeemed! This happens when I recognize my motive for doing something is to "make a name for myself" (my sandcastle righteousness) and "lay my deadly doing down" at the cross. In other words, I lay that MOTIVE down and take up a new motive — to glorify God in that same pursuit, whether parenting, decorating, leading, studying, paralegaling, preaching, etc. Then I no longer have to get praised and be appreciated, but really can use my gift to bless others. However, let's be honest, the self-glory motive is always lurking, wanting to rise to the top. So, let's just be aware of that temptation, and continue to preach the gospel to ourselves. Then we will be free of the struggle to establish our own righteousness and able to boast in the cross in everything we do. After all, that is what gospel-centered living is all about—living in light of the achievement of Jesus that has been credited to me as a gift. It's not by what my hands have done, but by what his hands have done. Now, may my life be lived to the glory of those nail-pierced hands.
More thoughts in the next few days. Until then, check back for daily posts. This is where I communicate with you between Sundays. So, feel free to comment and keep the conversation going. :)
At a Key Life pastor's conference, Dan Allender, said, "The Christian faith and the grace at its heart is so radical that most congregations can't deal with it." I will raise my hand to confess that I am one of those who wants to believe the gospel at a radical depth, but who struggles. Fear of failure and rejection. Insecurity and a need for approval and praise. These are often what influence me the most.
What if I were able to live completely under the liberating influence of the cross? What if I were to embrace the grace of God in Jesus that Tullian Tchividjian says is "way more drastic, way more offensive, way more liberating, way more shocking, and way more counterintuitive than any of us realize."
How would it affect how I pray? How I parent my kids? How I love my wife? How I treat my enemies? And what I do when nobody is looking? Nobody but Jesus. He would become the One for whom I long to live—to honor my Savior as a fully devoted disciple, enraptured by the immensity of his love, grace and mercy, knowing that I am that only because he was and is fully devoted to me... even when I wasn't devoted to him... even as I continue to wander, much of the time being much more devoted to my own reputation than to his.
Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus was that they would know this kind of transformative love and grace more and more deeply. That is what I want for myself, my wife and my children. May that be our prayer together at Creekstone as a community of ordinary folks who are coming alive to the wonder of the gospel by living all of life in view of the cross!
All Creekstone folks are invited to attend the Community Helping Place's Open House to celebrate their new facility (and view the new staircase built by Creekstone members). Here is the info:
