OF FIRST IMPORTANCE...

Guys like Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler... John Piper are rocking my world right now..
These guys can teach the Word...

I'll give you some of Matt Chandler...
Here we go..

We find ourselves within the confines of the Bible Belt, and there’s all these kind of oddities and kind of weirdness to a life in suburbia, Bible Belt, (Houston) area. And as a pastor within that cultural context, I find myself in the same conversations over and over and over again when it
comes to spirituality.

Like, people want to talk traditional vs. what we would call ourselves, more missional and focuses. They want to talk music.

They want to talk about dress, whether it’s right or wrong for me to be wearing blue jeans right now,
-whether this angers the Lord or not if we should wear hats or not wear hats,
-how loud should the music be.

You know, you have to deal with weird statements like, “Well, I want my kids to know the hymns, and they don’t know the hymns.” In the end, I want my kids to know Jesus. I don’t care what song they’re singing.

-I end up getting into these questions about whether beer or wine is sinful whether it’s not. I always try to be really honest: light beer is sinful, regular beer is fine…according to the Scriptures.
-We get into whether we’re allowed to see certain movies or not.
-I always end up once a week, no matter how hard I try to find it, over a cup of hot tea, talking about the end times. And I try to be honest: I don’t know. I know He’s coming back. I know I want to live today like I actually believe that, but if you get too deep outside of that, you’re
going to get into a lot of conjecture. And so, we end up talking about that often.
-I end up talking a lot about philosophy of ministry in terms of small groups and Sunday school
and why we do them. And on and on and on it goes.
-Eldership vs. deaconship vs. staff led. We’re in the Bible Belt, this is what we do.

I’ll even find, “Hey, what do you think about this church? What do you think about that church?” Like, everybody’s been wounded by some church around here. If you stay here long enough, we’ll light you up too, but that’s a part of…everybody’s sinful.

You’re not going to find a non sinful place. It’s going to happen. Wherever you gather sinners, redeemed or unredeemed, sin happens. They’ll try to bait you, “Did you hear what such and such is doing? Hmm?”
-This is what I find myself in. And then, if the seminary guys get through the filter that we’ve built to try to avoid them, I end up having to talk Calvinism vs. Arminianism and I end up talking gifts, whether the gifts are dead or whether the gifts are alive and well. And this is what we do, because if you’re a churchman in the Bible Belt, these are kind of consuming ideas.

I mean this is what we talk about, “How do we…My church doesn’t do Sunday school…Well, beer is evil, it’ll kill you…”

And we love to get together and talk about what in the end, although important, are peripheral things.

They’re not the main thing.
In fact, in some of those instances, they’re so far down the line, they’re not even
numbered. So, what’s the main thing? What is, as the apostle Paul will soon tell us, what
is of first importance? Because I think that if you get the main thing down, then there’s
all this grace all over the place. If you get the main thing down, then all of a sudden,
there’s a lot of grace and there’s a lot of freedom and there’s a lot of friendships vs. nonfriendships and a lack of grace and a whole lot of judgment. Yeah, if we could just get
the main thing down, then all of a sudden, maybe all the other things aren’t as important.
Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe I’m right.

Let’s get into 1 Corinthians 15:1-2. “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I
preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance...” Everything else gets melted away here because Paul, who wrote 75% of the New Testament, the guy that wrote this book that we’re in, is going,
“Of everything I wrote, of everything I talked about, of everything I unpacked for you, let me give you what’s of first importance. Let me give you what you can’t mess up. If you mess this up, everything else is off. Even if it’s right, you’re off in how you operate in it. You’ve got to get this right.”

Okay, so here we go. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”

And then, God in the flesh, Jesus shows up on the scene and has His blood
drained and carries away the sins of the world. So, what's of first importance? The
sacrificial, ransoming, expiating, propitiating cross of Jesus Christ.

But he doesn't stop there; he keeps going. “For I delivered to you as of first importance
what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

Now, here's something very intriguing.
Mainly, when you hear the cross of Jesus taught, it just kind of stops there. But it doesn't stop there when New Testament writers address it. They don't address the cross of Jesus Christ and the resurrection as two separate instances but rather one in the same event.

Over and over again, you'll hear about the cross and the resurrection, the death and the resurrection. These ideas are inseparably linked to one another. Christ died on the cross, absorbed the wrath of God, carried away the shame of mankind, was buried...this is the idea that He actually died. There's a lot of National Geographic and Discovery Channel speculation about whether He was dead or not.

I still contend that when you get beat nearly to death and hung on a cross for at least eight hours, lungs filling up with blood, and then get stabbed in the heart underneath your ribcage by a spear, you don't pop up two days later.

I'm just contending that you don't just show up two days later going, “Touch My side. Go ahead, feel My hands, Thomas.”
I'm just contending.

MY NOTE:

Let's focus on the thing of first importance... not the peripheral things.. not the opinions based on speculations... not man-made traditions that we are so full of.
The thing of first importance is that God loved you so much that he came down and clothed himself in flesh and dwelt among us... and he Died and Rose again.

done.

More Matt Chandler...

I love the way Matt Chandler demonstrates the points that we sometimes miss when reading the bible...
This guy preaches sermons an puts them on the church's website so you can download the sermon notes. Unbelievable!

Matt Chandler got it going on...
Take a listen.

Let's look at one more, and then we'll go ice down our drinks. Let's go to Matthew 19. We'll pick it up in verse 16. “And behold, a man came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which ones?"”
I love this dude. He is all of us. “You want eternal life? Keep the commands.”
“All of them?” I love this guy.
He's like, “Surely there are certain ones that are more varsity and then other ones that I don't really have to follow.”
I love this guy because he is us.

So Jesus plays the game and He says to him, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Now, let me talk with you because I want to give you a type of person in here, I want to give you some insight. If you tend to fall into the category of those who struggle with religion, and what I mean by that is if I could type cast it, it's a person who's grown up in church their whole life and for whatever reason, everything in you makes you want to be the “good kid” and you do everything you can to follow all the rules and you do everything you can to appear like you're perfect, if you struggle with that, then you need to pay attention to what happens next, because listen to what the rich young ruler says. “The young man said to him, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?"”

Did you see what just happened here? All the rules, everything he's supposed to follow, everything externally that he's supposed to look like, he looks like. He's obeyed the commands, he's done what he's supposed to do and he's following Jesus around now going, “Something's still missing. Something's still wrong.”

Could it be that observing religious rituals just might not bring you anywhere close to salvation? It seems so. Let's finish this story out because Jesus is going to do what Jesus does.
Verse 21, “Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."”
He just did it again. Jesus never asked that of anyone else.
He goes to the fishermen and goes. “Hey, follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men.” He never tells the Pharisees, “Quit being Pharisees.”
But this guy? This guy says, “How do I follow you? How do I have eternal life?”
“Alright, sell all you have, give it to the poor and come on.” Now his response is going to be wildly different from everyone else's response that we've read so far. So let's watch him. “When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

Now, the similarity is the sorrow. Zechariah had sorrow, David had sorrow, Paul has some sorrow in him and the woman at the well definitely had sorrow. So the sorrow isn't the difference. The difference is this man's sorrow led him away from the Lord rather than towards Him.

So in every other moment, this catastrophic thing and men and women humble themselves before God as God presses on that raw nerve, they press into Him and they find Joy, depth and salvation.
This man gets that nerve pressed, and instead of submitting to it, he immediately goes, “I'll find another way,” and he leaves the Messiah and we never hear from him again.

The difference between this man and everyone else we read is that in everyone else we read, there is a rejoicing, a transformation of life, a fullness of life and a conversion that takes place. And in this man's life, we never hear from him again. The last we hear from him is he's
filled with sorrow as he walks away.

So here's the spiritual truth. Maybe when we get busted in our sin, when He disciplines us when we're defiant, when He confronts us in our ignorance or He wounds us in our strength, when business starts to fail, when marriage gets difficult and we don't understand calamity, when disease infects the body and isn't going anywhere, when sorrow enters the life, what if these things aren't happening to us because God's angry with us?
What if they're happening because God loves us too much to save us from them?
What if in them God is displaying His deepest mercy?

Who are you to counsel God?

More from Matt Chandler... Im enjoying this

"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" (Romans 11)

Now, to some degree, we do have revelation from God, so we do know some of the mind of the Lord. He gave us the Scriptures, He speaks to us in dreams and in visions and in words of knowledge, never that go contrary to the Scripture, but He speaks to us in all these varying ways.
The Bible says He speaks to us through creation. So, God has, in some sense, revealed Himself at some level to you and me, but not so much that we would ever be able to counsel Him.

So, He might have revealed some of His character, some of His attributes, some of His will to mankind, but He has not given us enough information to ever go, “Um, I've got to ask You something here. I'm watching what You're doing here, and I just think... just hear me out, have You thought about this?” and have God go, “Well, holy Me. I have never thought of that. Thank you. What would have happened right there? I would have messed the whole universe up. Praise Me, you are awesome.”

Nobody gets to counsel God. Nobody gets to give God advice. Nobody gets to straighten God's path, no one.

It's this next part of the text that I think is absolutely terrifying. Let's look at it.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
Alright, if everything is His, you have nothing to give Him that He doesn't already own. Which means, if you cannot give gifts to God, you cannot put Him into your debt. Which means, in the end, God owes no man anything. He owes us nothing. Your very existence has been gifted to you by His grace.

Every bit of laughter, every great morsel of food, every smile is His mercy and grace, and He owes you nothing.

Now let me tell you why this is so terrifying. Because now if this is true, we have nothing to negotiate with Him on and nothing to bargain with Him on.
But most Evangelicals believe that we have a position of bargaining.
And so, we come to the throne and we say, “I'll do this, and You'll do this. And if I do this, then You'll do this for me.”
And in the end, God says, “You keep trying to pay Me off with stuff that's already Mine.”

“I'll give You my life.” (us)
“Please, I'll take that life if I want it. I'm God.” (God)

“Well, I'll serve You.” (us)
“I'm not served by human hands as though I needed anything. What are you going to do, give Me something to eat? What are you going to do, fix My house? What are you going to give to Me, as if I'm lacking? I'm not lacking.” (God)

And so, here's where it starts to reveal idolatry and pride in us. We want to say, “I'll do this and then God will bless me with this.”
Wrong, who says? Well, bad preachers do.
Besides them, who says? Ministers with no respect for the Scriptures say, who preach out of emotion instead of texts, who tickle ears with no fear of God.

He owes you nothing, nothing. Not health, not long life, not love, not a husband or wife, not healthy children. He owes you nothing. And you have nothing to give to Him that He doesn't already outright own or possess. And so, most people want to go, “Well, what about serving Him and following Him?” Well, in reality all God has to do is reveal Himself to you fully and you'll gladly with full joy serve Him. He won't force the issue, He just has to reveal Himself as He is.

No man goes back to saltine crackers when he's had fillet. For you college kids, no one goes back to Ramen noodles when they've had other stuff. I mean, nobody eats a piece of fillet and all of a sudden never wants it anymore. God never forces anyone to love Him, but as He reveals Himself, men follow. They can't help it.

Out.

Who has known the mind of the Lord?

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen."
-Romans 11:33-36

I took a breadk from blogging for a very long time... a long time. So, here is what you have missed in my life. I have been listening to Matt Chandler, another one of my favorite preachers. He was preaching and he said something that was very interesting. I will be posting some of his preachings in text. You can find this on his church's website. Take a listen or a read. Whatever.

"We took our kids with us, and while we're driving down there, my four year old says, “Do you know where you're going?” And I made a blood covenant never to say this, but I almost said, “If I have to pull this car over...”
So, my wife just gets to chuckling. She was just laughing, and then she was like, “Well, do
you?” And I was like, “Woman, I'm on I-35. You just take it straight down.”
Then Audrey, “I think you're lost.”
“I think you're about to get a spanking.” Naw, I'm just kidding.
But it's kind of comical isn't it? Like, this is my four year old. She gets lost in the house. She really does...and we don't have a big house.
This is my four year old who freaks out if she ends up outside all by herself all of a sudden. This is a girl who has no sense of direction, who has no idea of which way to head to get anywhere, and she's in the back seat asking me, “Do you know where you're going? I think you're lost.”
I was like, “Well um, you can't spell your name. So, there's that.” Just kidding. I'll stop before someone turns me in.

He's like, “Are you serious? You're going to scrutinize how God governs?
Do you know how small you are?
Do you know how tiny your little brain is?
Do you know how inadequate you are to even grasp your own life?"

"You don't even understand what events brought you here today. You're going to scrutinize God?
You can't comprehend and figure out your own shortcomings, you own failures, why you're drawn to sin, why there are things that master you.
And yet, you'll scrutinize God?”

I mean he's like, “I mean, you can do it, but surely you're like the four year old girl in the car seat asking dad if he knows where he's going. Surely that's you're role then.” And listen, these next two verses, it's where God becomes very terrifying. And I know nobody wants God to be terrifying, we want Him to have wings and like a little star shiny thing and we want Him to just go, “Love for you and for everyone.”
And we kind of want to make Him like a fairy, like Tinker Bell from “Peter Pan.” We want Him
fluttering about, and we want to be able to give Him stuff and put Him in our debt. And we want to be able to control Him and say how He should govern, but let me tell you something. The God of the Bible isn't so much the one most of us learned about in Sunday school."

Wow. I just love it when he says that sometimes we, as God's creation, try to govern Him and tell Him that He does not know where He is going.
We don't even understand why we get caught up in our own mess.
We dont even understand why we feel the way we feel sometimes.
My God!

Let me finish like Paul finished the eleventh chapter of Romans
"To him be glory forever. Amen."

Real Deliverance!

Deliverance!
I used to hear that a lot when I was a child.
"Liberacion!" the hispanic preacher would shout at the top of his lungs.

It was crazy! Just imagine this... 500 people at church... As soon as the preacher would shout, they would jump like Jordan, and run all over the church. You remember that? I know you do. I remember it being a huge temple.

OH WOW! I got a flashback!
Allow me to share it with you. I am not poking fun... these are just good memories. Hehe.

I remember once when I was a kid, all of my friends used to huddle around the altar (in front of the stage at Church). It would be like 20 of us.
As soon as the music started going, and the ladies would start dancing (in the spirit), my friends would shoot out like rockets and run all over the church...
I was kind of emabarrased (or maybe I was backsliding. Hehe), so I only did it once or twice. I guess I was always scared that I would trip and all my friends would trample me!
Abraham, my brother, did it many times. (He was more spiritual than me. Hehe). You can ask him. He will laugh when he remembers. I'm laughing now. Too funny.

Now that I think about it, I remember one time.
Reminisce with me... 20 kids (ages 9-12), in a huddle jumping to the music. Instead of lifting up thier hands in worship to Jesus, they would get so agitated that they would elbow each other and soon start a fight. Picture all that adrenaline flowing. I know some of those guys came out with black eyes and bruises before the preacher would even start his message. I know this, because many of those were my friends. Hehe.
Ahh! Goodtimes. Goodtimes.

Deliverance has taken a new meaning for me. The excitement of being delivered is just an emotion. You cry... or shout... or maybe you meditate, because you have had the understanding that you can be delivered... You now understand that Jesus can and will deliver you. That is an awesome emotion!
You may show it and express it in different ways.

I believe deliverance does not happen when you get emotional.
Deliverance happens when the flow of blood stops for the lady that had a discharge of blood for 12 years. (Mark 5)
Delieverace happens when the guy at the gate called Beautiful starts to walk (Acts 3)
Deliverance happens when Bartimaeus can now see, knowing that before Jesus came... he was blind. (Mark 10)

Deliverance happens when Jesus has done the work in you.

I leave you with this.
Emotions are OK. It's part of the human being.
But don't get so wrapped up in your mentality as to think that you can force God to deliver you.

You might be very dead, Lazarus, that you do not have emotions to show the people around you. But, I tell you this, Jesus will do a work in you. You will come out hopping out of your grave just because Jesus has to get all the glory.
No emotions. But real deliverace.
That's what I want.
I sometimes get emotional. I sometimes don't.

But I pray that you don't judge me when I don't.
Let Jesus stop the blood from flowing.
Let Jesus heal the lame.
Let Jesus give sight to the blind.
Let Jesus raise from the dead.

Real deliverance.

»Hope for a Religious city.

Today I met a lawyer.

I was at Starbucks today reading Ed Stetzer's "Planting Missional Churches." It is such a good read on church planting. While reading the book, I saw this well dressed guy, maybe in his late 30s early 40s, sit in the table in front of me. He took out a bible and a book.

I glanced every so often and saw him highlighting and writing in his bible. So, I decided to get to know him a bit. What? I'm kind of friendly... I said "kind of." Hehe.

It turns out that he was not a pastor or a "minister" at a church. He was a lawyer and was on his break... reading the bible. It totally gave me hope. Seriously, this guy has a carreer and is reading the bible... not only reading, but studying the Bible!
Who does that in their lunch hour?

I felt like the prophet Elijah when he cried out, almost giving up, thinking that he was the only one that was left of the prophets. Hehe. God told Elijah not to worry, He had 700 other prophets that had not bowed to the false god Baal. Wow!
It was a good conversation. He helps kids in foster homes. He takes them in and cares for them with his wife. He has 4 children right now. He shared his heart with me for children in foster homes. Awesome. I love to meet people that are doing and attempting to do something for the community.
We talked about church planting...
-How we need to have a church that transforms the community and not only meets on Sundays.
-How we need a church that transform people's lives and not only puts a good show on Sundays.

The conversation gave me hope!
In a city where Religiosity rules over people's lives... there is an army of people that want to step outside of the box and let Jesus have His way.

I know there are many people like that in this city (Houston), I wish I could get to know you.
Whether you be a lawyer or a kid that wants to plant a church.
Comment me, email me, call me.
Let's get some hot white chocolate mochas.

»Women on Pants. Hehe.

I got a question from one of my myspace friends. Hehe. If you receive this, I guess you are my friend too.
Anyway, the question went a little like this:
"What is your view on wome wearing pants?"
With no disrespect to my friend that asked this question, but who cares what I think?! No one.
So let's rephrase it.

"What is the BIBLE's view on women wearing pants?"

Good enough?
Here we go.
What is the Bible's view? None!

I'm serious... I searched and searched the Bible but Jesus never told women not to wear pants!
By the way, I really want to meet the guy that started telling ladies not to wear pants. I want to ask him, "Where did you get that opinion from?" Because he certainly did not get it from the Bible.

The Bible does not declare that it is a sin.
I have to clarify this because there are a lot of people that have been taught that women that wear pants are in sin. Wow.
Now... for those that want to debate this (religious people), I know what scripture you have for me.

If you can turn your bibles to Deuteronomy 22:5
"A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God."

Without spiritualizing this verse (like we have alaways done), read it like a normal person. Hehe. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? Think about it.

I believe that God was drawing a distinction between male and female. This verse is for thsoe that God has to ask:
-"Hey, what are you? Are you a man or a woman? I made you a man, but dude, you got blush on your face and purple eyeshadow? What the?"
-"Hey, didn't I make you a woman, why do you come out with a shaved head and baggy jeans looking like a dude?"

Leviticus 20:13
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination;"

What do these verses have in common? They have the same word in them: ABOMINATION.
If a guy looks like a woman (Deuteronomy 22:5) and another guy sleeps with him (Leviticus 20:13), the BIBLE says that it is an abomination.
Simple. Get it?

I have two wishes for you, my dear reader:
1). Do not be so hurried to change everything right now.
2). Do not be judgemental of others that share or don't understand yet. PLEASE!!!

NOTE:
Since there are a lot of people that have grown up with a very legalistic view on this issue, my prayer is for you to be humble, not rebellious.
Picture this: A teenager that is bitter at his parents... he can't wait until his 18th birthday, because he says that then he will do things that he has never done. He will drive, he will move out, he will smoke, he will drink, he will have sex. He will do everything that he cannot do at the age of 16. And the moment he turs 18, he blows it and he ruins his life.

That is my fear for some people that have grown up in legalistic homes. You have been tied to so many man-made traditions, and now you have found a bible and started to read it. You have found out that many of these things that were taught were just man-made doctrines.

My wish is that you won't be so hurried to change everything... but with patience and humility, change.
This is not only for the "women on pants" issue... this is for all the unbiblical issues that we have been taught.

Like that 16 year old kid, when he turns 18, he will go to the extreme and will mess up his life. Do not mess up yours.
Be wise, be biblical, and change.
Repent as you go and seek Jesus' forgiveness.

Stop acting like you got it altogether.
Your righteous actions are like a polluted garment. (Isaiah 64:6)
Goodnight.