Broken or Transformed: An Essay on Our World

Alright, correct me if I'm wrong, but the world is broken. I was just reading the paper (which somehow is seldom encouraging these days) and found an article on the front page concerning binge drinking, and on the same cover an article about crime increases, but more hurtful still, a central story that read "Honduran military ousts president in coup," and that was just before I could turn the page. I really do have a heart for the people of Honduras after being part of a mission trip there and meeting some amazing people. Unfortunately there has been turmoil within even that ministry we worked with and now it consumes the entire country.

Look around, you see sex idolized, drinking as a solution, being homosexual as an "alternative lifestyle". Its o.k. But it isn't supposed to be. This is not the way this world was supposed to work. When it was set in motion God desired a relationship with him, being blameless before the God of the Universe. In a world where we can't disagree with another person's religion at the risk of being called intollerant. In a world where entire people groups can be made to look like something they are not by the media. In a world where the sex trade is the most expansive it has ever been. In this world, we don't belong. But sometimes we do. If death is the "great equalizer" as Martin Luther calls it, then what seperates us from the world. Hebrews says we are all appointed one time to die and then face judgement. We're going to end up just like the world, dead.

For some that should scare the crap out of you. For others, its merely fact. Romans 12:2 states that we should no longer "conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [our minds], so that [we] will be able to test and approve what God's will is..." We are supposed to be different. Do you understand that??? Because frankly sometimes its hard to tell. The old mantra, practice what your preach comes to mind. I'll be the first one to tell you that I stumble and fall constantly. Just last week when I thought I had been doing a good job battling lust I fell yet again. So I'm far from perfect, and I'm not trying to claim that I am anywhere close. But sometimes people take it a step to far. It's going to biblestudy and saying the right thing only to go to parties on the weekend and drink illegally. It's going to church and when the pastor preaches he's always not directing his questions at you. You're ok. It's walking around with the label Christian when you're sleeping with your girlfriend/boyfriend and you don't care what God has to say about it. Some of us are HYPOCRITS! In the words of Casting Crowns we put on our "painted grin" and we hide from the truth, behind a stained glass masquerade.

In a broken world, in a broken time, with broken men, do we dare stand apart? Do we dare do the right thing at the risk of our reputation, at the risk of our friends, at the risk of our lives? So that's my challenge today. Stay apart. Be different than the world. Christ came to usher in a new covenant, a new relationship with God. Now he can sympathize with us like it says in Hebrews 4:14-16. We have a God who understands that the world is corrupt and broken. So why don't we ask him what to do? I mean its only logical right? If you know someone who has the answer why not ask? Or better yet, start with what that all-knowing source has already told us. Let us be a light to the world, like John Winthrop once said - a city on a hill.

This doesn't start with instantly being good, with doing everything right. This starts with simply admiting what we already know. The world is broken, but as my friend Nathan Sifers told me the other day; "Do not fear, God is near, God is here." And it really is that simple, once we start to see the world through God's eyes we too have a desire to see it healed. The only way to bring that healing is to show God's love to the world, to be the hands and feet of Christ enabled by God through the Holy Spirit. That starts small, in everyday life. So be in the world but not of it. Do not conform to the broken state surrounding of you. Be transformed. Renew your mind, get to know the God who created every single man, woman, and child; every plant, every sea; everything on this earth. To Him be the Glory! Amen!

-matt

Lord of All

So yesterday in church I really connected with a song we sang in worship, Lord of All by Kristian Stanfill. It just resonated with me, the lyrics just blew my mind.

"There is none so high and holy,

King of Kings, the one and only.

You are adored,

You are the Lord of All"

I mean there are a lot of times when we sing worship songs and we sing about actions or experiences or ideas, right not Marvelous Light comes to mind. I love that song, don't get me wrong. Its just that in that song we sing of the work Christ has done by conquering sin and death. We don't specifically praise God for being who he is. I think that's a key part to our worship that sometimes we don't ever really think about. Again, songs like Marvelous light sing of God's love saving us to him which is also another reason to praise God. The coolest thing about God is that he is so big and has done so much that there are infinite reasons to praise him. He is a Marvelous Light (John 12:46), He is the Lord of All (Revelation 19:11-16), He is the great I Am! (Exodus 3:14).

Just a reminder to simply praise God for who he is, because he's better than we could ever imagine.

-matt

Same Old Story: An Essay on the Same Old Stuff

So I’m sitting in Realife. The band is playing. The songs are up on the screens. Everything is just like it always is. But I can't sing. I fumble for words. But I just can’t bring myself to let them out. I just felt fake. Like I don’t really mean what these lyrics are saying. They sang of redemption, of a God of Love, of grace. But I didn’t want to believe it. Sure I knew in the back of my mind that He loved me regardless of anything I could do, I’d even heard Stephen talk about it that morning, about how indescribable Abba’s love really is. I knew it. But I didn’t know it. A song or two roll by, I honestly don’t have a clue I couldn’t bring myself to get involved, to worship. And then My Glorious by Christ Tomlin was struck up.

It’s a good song, most have heard it before. You know those few songs that just bring you to tears every time you hear them? They just bring you facedown in front of the Lord? Yeah, not one of those. It’s just another song. One that I’ve sang a thousand times and felt no more direct connection to God than with any other song. But as I was listening, as was all I could do, I latched onto to a particular phrase: “God is bigger than.” It made me start thinking; God is bigger than ______ (blank). It was then that I realized what my problem was, why I couldn’t look God in the eye so-to-speak. I was ashamed of my sin.

We don’t ever really think about it like that do we though? Sin is always just an idea, a notion, an ambiguous sort of thing that we really aren’t ever having much of a problem with when someone else brings it up. I didn’t even realize that’s what was holding me back. But as that short phrase just hit me, I really started to have my eyes opened.

I just began to simply list them out, my heart began to overflow. God is bigger than my sin. God is bigger than my pride. God is bigger than my fears. Then it got deeper. God is bigger than my worries about my mission trip. God is bigger than my lack of faith. God is bigger than my cowardice towards him. God is bigger than… you name it. For the final two or three songs I just kept them coming. My heart was overflowing; I had found this sweet release. So if you would, stop for a minute.

Yeah, you. Really stop and at least think about this crazy concept with me. We have a God who, like it says in Hebrews 4:15-16, is able to sympathize with us because he’s already done this rodeo. He’s lived as a man, and he beat sin, Satan, death, and the grave. His brutal beaten body hung from a tree, the most gruesome form of death and torture any man will ever have to face. All for me. All for you. All for us. Phil Wickham described it with the lyric “walls we couldn’t move came crashing down.” God beat the worst, there is nothing he left unconquered. He’s bigger than it. Your sin, he beat it. He’s bigger than ______. Fill it in, he OBLITERATED it. It’s gone forever.

That was part one. Part two is what Amanda talked about. Her talk revolved around knowing God, and how else can you know someone than by talking to him. Yet again, I restate myself. This is nothing new. I’ve heard this talk before; I’ve taught this lesson to my fourth and fifth graders, to my En-Fuego kids I mean it’s not earth shattering new news. But it is. I’d shut down. Locked the gate to my soul and refused entrance to the King of the UNIVERSE. Sounds kinda dumb when you put it in writing doesn’t it? But it compacted on what God had been stirring in my heart earlier. That He IS bigger than my struggles. But he isn’t just a behemoth of Might. He also is Abba Father, daddy. He loves us. He loves Me. And all he is asking that I’d come play with him. That I’d just be in his presence once in a while. That we could just have that relationship again (not that we’d ever lost it, I’d just hidden my eyes). Now it’s cool to look back and get what I had to relearn and I have no doubt I will need to relearn again before even this year is over. God is BIGGER. He loves me. My sin has been CRUSHED. All he wants, in the whole wide world is to be with me. Me, scrawny, 5’6”, 130 pound, scraggly, teenage, me. And that hit me.

So to all of you who have “heard it all before”, hear it again.

That’s all for now.

-matt

Christ on the Cross

This is a brutal message, but we can't just pretend the Cross isn't offensive can we?

-Matt

Hebrews 4:12-16

12For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. 14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.