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Greater Things

Who was your favorite teacher?

Think back to your high school and college years. I’m sure there are 2 or 3 teachers/professors who had a profound impact on you. They didn’t just tell you what to think, they taught you how to think. They shared their stories, their insights, their knowledge, even their lives with you. You view the world differently because of them.

You wouldn’t be the person you are today without them.

Their influence doesn’t stop in the classroom. Their influence reaches the farthest reaches of the world because of you. You take their teachings with you wherever you go. Their influence is in fact greater now than could ever be while you were still in the classroom. I’m sure there are things they taught you that didn’t even make sense until later in life. Now that you have more experience and understanding, you really get what they were trying to do.

A good teacher’s influence is only constrained to the white board, the worksheets, the tests, or the four cinder block walls while the students are in the classroom.

In John 14:12, Jesus tells his disciples, “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”

Jesus is not saying that they will do more impressive, more astonishing works than he did. How could anything be more amazing than raising Lazarus from the dead? What Jesus means is that a new era is dawning. At his resurrection everything he has said and done will make sense. While Jesus was performing his earthly ministry, people were unable to understand why he said and did certain things. But with the resurrection, all was made clear.

The disciples, Jesus says, will now be able to do what Jesus did and even greater things precisely because he is leaving them. He will be with the Father. But he is sending his Spirit to dwell in the believers. And whatever they ask in his name, according to his will, he will do.

Look through the book of Acts. Countless more people accepted God’s salvation after Jesus left than did during Jesus’ ministry. The gospel had much greater reach and influence in the post-resurrection era than it did before.

These “greater works” could not be accomplished while Jesus was still with the disciples just as a teacher’s influence cannot spread while the students are sitting in their desks.

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You don’t know me?

On Monday I will be celebrating my third wedding anniversary with my wife. It’s crazy how time flies. It’s even crazier how much has happened during those three years.

But even before we were married, we dated for 4 1/2 years. So really, we’ve been together for 7 1/2 years. We’ve been friends for 8 years.

And I would say we know each other pretty well.

We may not be able to read each other’s mind every time. And I still drop the ball on what she really wants sometimes. But she knows me better than anyone else on the planet and vice-versa.

And I definitely know her well enough to know she’s not a killer.

A couple years ago a guy known as the “Craigslist Killer” was arrested for murder, robbery, and some other charges. All the while he was living with his fiance in a small apartment in the city. They had been together for over four years, and she didn’t have a clue. She swore that he was the sweetest man she knew and that he could never hurt a fly.

She was wrong. She didn’t really know him at all.

In John 14, Philip asks Jesus to show him the Father and that would be enough for him to believe what Jesus is saying. Jesus responds, “You’ve been with me all this time and you still don’t know me?”

Philip and the disciples had been with Jesus for at least 3 years. Day in and day out — traveling, eating, witnessing miracles, listening to his teachings, attending feasts and parties. They had left everything behind so that they could follow Jesus wherever he went. They knew Jesus better than anyone else on the planet.

But they didn’t know him at all.

They still didn’t get who he was or what he came to do.

However, the same question could be asked about the reader of John’s gospel. “You have been with me for so long and you still don’t know me?”

The main purpose of John’s gospel is that people may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that by believing they may have life in his name (John 20:31). Jesus makes 7 bold I AM statements, using his words to reveal who he is and what God is doing through him. Jesus also performs 7 miracles. John calls them “signs.” Each of these sayings and signs were meant to point the audience to the true revelation of God in Jesus.

The disciples were with Jesus for 3 years. The reader (that’s you) has been with Jesus through the length of the gospel.

Have you seen Jesus? Then you’ve seen God. Do you know Jesus? Then you know God.

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Way, Truth, Life

It has become less and less P.C. to speak about anything in absolutes. Good thing I follow a man who was absolutely not politically correct. Jesus would be the first to tell you that he’s not here to tell people what they want to hear — only what they need to hear.

What do people want to hear? What’s the latest PC move when it comes to religious and spiritual matters? You know the answer. If you listen to anyone who is not actually a part of any one religion (aka “spiritual but not religious”) speak on religious matters they will tell you. All paths lead to God. Buddhism, Islam, Hindu, Shinto, Judaism, Christianity, etc., are all different paths to the same god-reality.

The problem? I can think of only one religion that would support that claim. It’s called Ba’hai. You’ve probably never heard of it.

Other than that, I’ve never heard a leader or fast follower of any other religion proclaim that all religions are equal. Show me a Muslim Imam who says Christianity and Islam are essentially the same and that either one will lead you to the same God. Show me a Buddhist monk who actually believes in a god. Show me a Hindu priest that believes Christians will go to heaven when they die instead of being reincarnated as (hopefully) a Hindu.

Jesus made the statement, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father if not through me.” And people are surprised?

Let’s take a step back real quick.

No one comes to the Father. I would say that is a true statement. If you look through the Torah, you will see that God almost always makes first contact. What’s more, the place where God resided was completely off limits. The Most Holy Place could only be entered once a year by the High Priest and no one else. No one could come to the Father. They always had to go through someone else — a priest, a teacher, a prophet — unless God initiated.

The same is basically true in these other religions. Allah is not a God who can be approached by just anybody, much less by an infidel. In Hindu, sacrifices are made in the presence of idols, but priests still act as mediators between the gods and men. Buddhism isn’t even about approaching God or gods.

How might things be different if Jesus had phrased this statement in the positive rather than the negative? Sometimes I wish he would have said, “Everyone can now come to the Father through me.” It’s the same idea. It’s no less true than Jesus’ original words. In fact, it may be a little more true because of the way the original statement is misunderstood, misconstrued, or misrepresented.

Through Jesus the whole world can now have access to the Father. Ordinary people can approach the throne of God with boldness (Hebrews 4:16).

Do all religions teach basically the same concepts? No. A close study of these religions will reveal some similarities, yet there are some glaring, irreconcilable differences between them.

Jesus is the only man to claim that everybody on the planet can now have free and clear access to God, the Creator of the universe, through himself.

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Place Prepared

Once again, human calculations and predictions about the end of the world, the return of Christ, the parousia if you want to sound fancy, have amounted to nothing more than hype and media coverage.

And this Sunday I’m preaching on John 14. How fitting.

Jesus has just dropped a bombshell on the dinner conversation. He’s going to die. He’s going to leave them and they can’t come yet. What’s more, Peter, the confession-giving, water-walking, sword-slinging disciple was just told that he will deny the very Christ he proclaims to defend. If Peter’s faith will fail, what chance do the others have?

But Jesus reassures them. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled; don’t fret; don’t worry; don’t let all this confusion and doubt stand in your way. You believe in God, right? Then believe in me, too. My Father’s house has many room, plenty of dwelling places, and I’m going to prepare a place for you. Yes, you. So if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you back with me. That way, where I am there you can be there, too. But until then, you know the way to where I’m going.”

We read that, and it seems like a nice sentiment. It’s heartwarming to know that Jesus has promised to come back and get us one day.

But what impact would this have had on the disciples?

The imagery Jesus uses is actually that of a man and woman who are to be married. In Jewish custom, there is an engagement, a betrothal, and marriage. The engagement is the initial “we’re going to be married one day” phase. Following that is the betrothal. During this time, the bride and groom would be separated for as long as a year while the groom made all the preparations for his future family. This would often be done by adding onto the home of the groom’s parents. Jewish families were very patronistic in that multiple generations would be living under the roof of the father.

After this betrothal period–after all the carpets were installed, all the curtains were hung, all the walls painted–the groom would come again, get his bride, and bring her back into the home. This would begin the official marriage.

Do you notice what Jesus is doing here?

There were some dangers involved in such a long separation period. For instance, the woman, left on her own, could end up falling in love with some other man. This would certainly bring a halt to the impending marriage. On the other hand, the man could never return. In the BC era (before cellphones), someone could get sick or injured without family ever knowing about it. There was the potential risk of something tragic happening to the groom as he is making preparations. If he were not to return, the woman would be left as essentially a husbandless married woman.

But Jesus gives us the reassurance that he WILL come again and bring us home. The ball is in our court. Are we going to remain a faithful bride eagerly awaiting the return of her groom? Or will our eyes begin to stray as we look for other people/places/things to fill our desires or loneliness?

Don’t be afraid or anxious. We will not be left as a widow. Our groom will come again one day. They are now saying this will happen in October. If so, great! But if not, I’ll continue on my journey along the way to where Jesus is.

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My Life in Boxes

Well, we survived the move.

Mostly.

We’re making good headway at getting settled into our new house and getting familiar with a new city. Moving is always one of those strange times in life. There’s the sadness of leaving a familiar place yet the excitement of discovering someplace new. It’s leaving one part of your life behind and beginning the next part. It’s an end and a beginning all in one.

And then there are the boxes.

My entire life – my clothes, my cookware, my books & dvds, my photographs & memories – all boxed up and loaded into a 22 foot truck.

It’s inevitable. Try as I might to pack boxes of similar items from the same room in order to make unpacking that much easier, by the end we were just throwing all sorts of randomness into the next freshly taped box. Kitchen, bath, living room, and master bedroom paraphernalia all sharing a moving box together which gets marked “garage.”

We all have boxes in our lives. Psychologists call them schemas. You can think of them as habits. But we have a box for school. A box for work. A box for home life. A box for friends. We even have some boxes for random items that don’t really fit anywhere else.

This is not a bad thing. In fact, if it weren’t for my morning routine box, I wouldn’t be considered functional most days. It’s just how we live, interact, access memories and make decisions.

But most of us end up having a box for God. But what makes God – God – is his inability to be boxed. He does not fit any category other than his own and nothing else fits his category. God, by his nature, is uncategorizable. He is infinitely other. That’s called holiness.

So as I continue to unpack my life from my boxes, why don’t we all try to unpack God from that box we’ve been trying to shove him into. He’s too big for it. And it’s just better that way.

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Resurrection Changes Everything

There in the ground
His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth
In glorious day
Up from the grave he rose again!


“And if Christ has not been raised then your faith is worthless and you are still in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:17

Just take a moment this weekend to reflect on how different the world would be if Christ had not raised from the dead. Christianity itself would not be a major world religion. We would have completely missed the BC/AD cross over. And death would have won.

Sacrifice we understand. From the beginning God required death to atone for human sin. But now Christ has died once for everybody. It is impossible for the blood of animals to erase sin for good. It had to be taken to the next level. Yet if He had stayed dead, then we would need more sacrifice.

The resurrection means that not only are our sins erased for good they are also erased forever. “[T]he blood of Christ Jesus…continually cleanses us of all sin.”

What’s most amazing about resurrection to me is that we have the very same power living in us right now! Resurrection power is not just experienced after you die. It is alive and working in you right now, this moment. Paul says in Romans 8 that the Spirit which raised Christ from the dead is in us!

The only appropriate response is to surrender our lives to the one who has the power.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. A time when the Christians around the world pause to reflect on the defining moment in world history. Yet every Sunday should be remembered as the Lord’s day, the first day of the week on which Christ arose. It is the day on which God said, “Let there be light.” It’s also the day on which the true light overcame darkness once and for all.

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Update

Hello all,

My family will soon be moving to Moline, IL, where I will begin work as the youth and family minister. That being the case, my blog postings may be few and far between over the next few weeks as we make the move and settle in. But I hope to continue this blog as part of my ministry in the church.

We would appreciate your prayers as we make the transition. We are very excited about this opportunity, and we feel like God is leading us on an awesome journey. Thanks for your continued support.

Grace and peace,
Daniel

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Easy Green Tip of the Week

Plastic Bags

I know there is a big push to get rid of plastic grocery bags, and rightly so. They are a nuisance when they are allowed to be blown around freely by the wind. AND they inspired an annoying Katy Perry song…ugh.

So yes, when you can, I highly recommend switching over to the reusable bags.

The only problem is that we often forget about them until we are walking through the automatic doors. “Oh no! We forgot the bags…Oh well.”

So if you find yourself with a small mountain of plastic bags shoved inside other plastic bags all shoved in your pantry, here are some tips to reduce, reuse and recylce!

1. Encourage the bagger to fit a few more items per bag, and don’t get bags for some larger items (like milk jugs)

2. Use the bags as small trash can liners

3. Scoop up pet waste (i.e. litter box clumps) into plastic bags (Just make sure they don’t have holes in them)

4. Take your lunch to work or school in one – fashionable? Nope. Cheap? Totally

5. Use spare bags as packing material for breakable items

6. Once a month or so, take all leftover bags to your local grocer and find their recycle bin

If you like Target as much as I do, now the retail giant is taking further steps towards helping the environment by increasing the amount of recycled materials and reducing the overall amount of packaging. They even tell you specifically where their recycled products go. For instance, their recycled bags are converted into composite decking, which in turn reduces the number of downed trees. You can check out more at http://hereforgood.target.com/environment/recycling/

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Christianity and Technology

I may have blogged about this before, but it’s been on my mind again recently. It seems to me that the church is lagging behind in this technological age. There have been so many advancements, especially in the area of global communications (HELLO!), that it almost seems like many congregations choose not to keep up.

What worked in the ’50s and ’60s works today, right? Maybe to an extent. But we need to start doing a better job at reaching people where they are.

Facebook has over 400 million users. There are over 25 million on Blogger alone, not to mention WordPress, Tumbler, etc. Twitter has grown exponentially in the last 2 or 3 years.

And most churches can’t even figure out how to make a decent website.

Recent research has shown that more than 2/3 of first time visitors will visit a church’s website long before darkening the front doors. Wake up call, anyone?

But you may argue that the gospel message spread across the world centuries before the internet came along. You would be right about that.

But the first Christians did make use of the latest and greatest technologies available at the time. They used the fastest ships and the nicest roads. They adapted local customs and beliefs to be used in such a way that the gospel became more applicable and relevant.

Christians were even at the forefront of arguably the single greatest advancement in human history: the book. The earliest form of the book came on the scene in 1st century Rome. It was called a Codex, and it was to the scroll what the iPad is to the typewriter. It was cheaper to make, easier to use, and much, much more portable – which comes in handy when you are fleeing persecution.

So when churchgoers today argue that we don’t need all this technology in the church and that it’s not an important part of the Great Commission, just remember that the earliest Christians would beg to differ.

Maybe we should try harder at imitating the earliest Christians by using all available means of spreading the gospel to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

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High Five Thursday!

Have you ever been reading a story in the Bible and thought, “Man, if only I could have been there!”

Top 5 Biblical Fly-On-The-Wall Moments

Elemental Escape (Exodus 14:15-31)

How awesome would it be to be standing in the crowd with God on one side in a blazing column of fire while Moses is on the other side blasting an interstate highway through the sea? The chaos, the terror, the power, the elemental forces being tamed and manipulated right before your eyes.

It gives me chills just thinking about it.
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Now You See It… (Joshua 6)

There one minute; gone the next. The impenetrable walls of the mighty Jericho stood before the Israelites in all their pride and glory. After some lovely afternoon strolls around the city, a bit of yelling, and some Louis Armstrong, Jericho was reduced to a pile of rubble and ashes. Well, except for that one brothel.

Americans can’t get enough of destruction films in which the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Empire State building are destroyed by natural (or unnatural) forces, e.g. Independence Day, Deep Impact, 2012, etc.

This would be better than any of them.
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The Original 300 (Judges 7)

Long before Leonidas and his merry band of Spartans held off hordes of Persians, ninjas, and rhinos (???), there was Gideon. He was chosen by God to lead Israel’s armies in a counter strike against the evil Midianites, all 150,000 of them. Israel turns out 32,000 recruits to defend their nation. Even with that they are outnumbered 5-1. Through a series of questions (Are you afraid?), and grueling physical challenges (drink from this stream), basic training narrowed the field to 300 men, armed with nothing more than a pot, a torch, and a trumpet. Sounds like they got their battle strategy from the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living.

Anyway, the part of the story I would love to overhear and see is the conversation between God and Gideon as he explains his whole plan of attack. A saner man would have just walked away, but I guess Gideon was just crazy enough to believe that God knew what he was doing.
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The True Underdog Story (1 Samuel 17)

This is the story to which all other underdog scenarios are compared. The battle of David and Goliath.

We all know the story. The little shepherd boy (who for some reason always looks about 9 on the flannel graph) musters up the courage to fight the giant in a head to head (or head to waist) battle. One little stone goes up, up, up, and the giant comes tumbling down.

The part I wish I were there for is the part we don’t talk about in the children’s songs or Sunday school. After Goliath falls, David runs up, takes Goliath’s ginormous sword and beheads the not-so-friendly giant. Like a boss.
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Seeing is Believing (John 20:24-29)

This scene has always fascinated me. We know that Jesus experienced a physical resurrection, yet his body no longer seems to be bound by the laws of physics. He still eats and drinks, he still walks and sits down, but he can also walk through walls or something. Not quite like Casper, but somehow able to appear and disappear in the blink of an eye.

Well, the apostles are all gathered together behind closed and locked doors (rough neighborhood?), but this time, Thomas is with them. As if on cue, Jesus appears and shows Thomas his battle scars. I’m not so interesting in seeing the resurrected Christ. I don’t need to see to believe. I’m more interested in the physical, spiritual, and emotional response given by Thomas. His is the most sincere and profound confession in all the gospels. “My Lord, and my God.”