Whole

Everyday we encounter big and small decisions and circumstances upon with we base our fickle, picky, varying and fleeting satisfaction.

  • Where should I eat today?
  • Should I get a new car (which one)?
  • Who should I date / marry?
  • How many kids should I have?
  • Which job offer should I accept?
  • Which church should I attend (or any)?
  • When should I retire?

We truly ask questions like this all the time, and most of them are completely normal and appropriate questions without a “right” answer (example: we’d be terrible parents if we didn’t care about how our kids turned out; we’d be terrible employees if we didn’t care about our careers). The questions is this: What rests on the answer? The smaller everyday questions simply hold a quick “what will make me briefly happy at this moment,” whether that happiness is what perks up your taste buds or what will garner the approval (and acceptance?) of others, which makes me happy.

But the larger questions that have long-term impact is what we are really talking about. In what and in whom are you finding your wholeness, rest, hope, satisfaction, life?

This is what was happening in Isaiah 55. This is the last chapter written to the exiled-Israel (Isaiah 56 is written to Israel after they had been set free). God’s people had been captive for 70 years and, understandably, have decided that God has forgotten them, or even worse, forsaken them; that his promises and word were void and Babylon was now their permanent home. They had decided to forget the hope, promises, love and relationship of God and get comfy in their Exile. And into this Isaiah makes one final plea:

Isaiah 55:1-2
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

This may as well be (and actually is) written directly to us. While we are sitting at the world’s dinner table, stuffing our faces with treats, the Lord is calling us hungry and unsatisfied children to come to the Real Table; to not get filled up on the debilitating fast-food piled high in front us but to, like baby birds, open up and be treated to the food that will make us whole.

To make this practical, to help us see what other “foods” we are ingesting, think about the big “If Only’s” you have in your life. Every one of us have a laundry list of “If only ___, then I’ll be whole, happy, satisfied, at rest.”

  • If only we win this game.
  • my kids turn out ok.
  • If only this job works out.
  • If only I had more money.
  • If only I could stop this sin.
  • If only he would love me.
  • If only my medical report comes back clean.
  • If only I could get enough sleep.
  • If only I get into that college.
  • If only God wasn’t mad at me.
  • If only I wasn’t mad at myself.

This list is infinite, and personal to each of us. The issue is rarely the thing itself. It’s a gift from God to be loved, to have a career you enjoy, to win a game. The problem comes with what is resting upon those good things, and realizing that their shoulders aren’t strong enough to carry my wholeness. My heart-satisfaction cannot find home in things that are movable and transient; on other things and people; on lives that, by definition, are just as weak and needy as I am.

Into this The Gospel calls us to a place of steady foundation and hope. The very thing we’ve been created for – wholeness with God, manifest in peace with creation and one another – has been offered in the Person of Christ. The highest desire we all have – satisfaction – isn’t far off. In fact, He’s come. And is here.

As our small group was talking about this last night, one of our friends (Grace Hooper) made a glorious and profound prayer, asking that God replace our “If Only’s” with “You Are’s” and God’s sure promises. To see and repent of these other foundations and be overwhelmed with the Truth of Who God Is as our only unfailing and eternal hope.

  • Replace “If only she loves me” with “God is Love” (and loves me personally)
  • Replace “If only I had more money” with Matthew 6:30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
  • Replace “If only my kids turn out ok” with the Truth that our Real and Loving Father cares perfectly for us and our family: “Galatians 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
  • Replace “If only God liked me” with “There is therefore now condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

God is not a spoil-sport, wanting us to forgo the satisfying morsels of this world, settling for shallow spiritual platitudes. He’s actually trying to save us from the gut-wrenching despair of eating food that will only give us spiritual G.I. issues while spoon feeding us the Bread of Life, Christ himself. Even as Jesus was on the way to the cross he served the Passover Meal to his disciples, passing out Bread (his body) and wine (his blood), but leaving out the necessary and traditional lamb, which would represent the sacrifice needed to cover Sin…because Jesus himself IS the Lamb who finally and fully pays for our sinful pursuits of false satisfaction while finally and fully fills us not just with spiritual wholeness…but with HIMSELF as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, indwells as we now find our life “hidden with Christ” (Colossians 3:3), the satisfaction that can (1 Peter 1:4) “never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you” — but not just in heaven so we’ll be satisfied on “the other side,” but accessible now in the person of the Holy Spirit who is our Living Hope.

Shamelessness

We throw around the word “shame” like cheap plastic beads from a mardi gras float.

  • That quarterback should be ashamed of himself.
  • Is this the best you can do? You are a disgrace.
  • I can’t believe you did that … you should be ashamed.
  • I can’t believe I did that … I am ashamed of myself.

Professor and speaker Brené Brown differentiates guilt and shame like this:
Guilt: I DID something bad.
Shame: I AM something bad.

Brené’s TED talks on shame and vulnerability have been incredibly popular, revealing how we all, to different degrees and due to different circumstances, perform a shame-dance to a violently oppressive shame-song whose lyrics tell us that we are worthless, unlovable and isolated. Shame lobs our past at us like grenades, robbing us of our dignity, hope and future. But for all who are in Christ, Shame is a liar.

When I hear the accusing voice,
That whispers hopelessness in my ear;

When I am overwhelmed by my own sin
and tell myself that I’m a failure

When I am told by others that
that I am an utter disappointment


When my darkness is revealed to the world
and I am sure that my life is over…

I have to decide: Where I will take my shame? What will I do?

Will I go the Secular route, which tells me that I am fine just the way that I am? That there is nothing wrong with me. That my “brokenness is beautiful” and I don’t need to worry about the fact that I have causes pain to others, betrayed my Creator and broken the Image in which I have been made. This is mere ignorant, hurtful blindness that tries to convince me that I don’t need a Savior; it castrates the Gospel.

Or will I go the Religious route, which tells me that I am a disappointment to God (in fact, I probably made baby Jesus cry) and that I need to try harder, be better and never do it again. If I don’t watch out, I will either be kicked out of God’s love or, more likely, realize that I’ve never been saved in the first place.

  • Secular wisdom tells us that we don’t need Jesus
  • Religious wisdom tells us that we are too far from Jesus
  • The Gospel tells us both, and neither: that we are infinitely far, yet have been brought all the way home because Jesus, the Son of God himself, carried our personal shame into his shame-filled trial and onto the shame-filled cross so that he could be shamelessly raised from the dead.

Isaiah 50:6-7a
I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
from disgrace and spitting.
7 But the Lord GOD helps me;
therefore I have NOT been disgraced..

Jesus didn’t only need to die for us but also needed to go through a horrifyingly shameful and disgraceful trial where he was spit on and mocked because he had to take the full brunt of shame that our sin deserved. Sin, at it’s root, is a betrayal of our Identity, of God’s Image engraved into our souls. In a state of Christlessness, shame is a very appropriate response because, like Adam and Eve, we are betrayers of the Almighty and find ourselves “naked and ashamed.”

And so Jesus needed to take on shame, pay it’s full price and replace our shame with His Glory. In Christ our Identities have been utterly transformed, even re-created. We are not longer “naked” but have been clothed with Christ:

Galatians 3:27
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

And so now realize this — our IDENTITIES have been utterly renewed. There is certainly room for guilt when I am convicted by the Spirit that my behavior has been for my glory and not the Lord’s, but there is no more room for shame because I AM A CHILD OF GOD…my IDENTITY is not my behavior, but given and secured by Jesus Christ himself. The Devil (the “accuser” and the “deceiver”) will whisper in our ears that this isn’t true. He and his minions will tell us that we either don’t need Jesus or we are too far from Jesus. But he is a LIAR. We must combat these lies with the Truth of the Gospel…the greatest antidote to the disease of shame is TRUTH. We need to combat lies with what Gospel tells us…over and over again. In an effort to do this I have included below a downloadable/printable sheet with 32 proclamations of your Identity in Christ. To get you started, here’s a few:

Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

1 Timothy 1:7
…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control


A Much Greater Rescue

Where do you go when times get rough? When you are in some sort of pain (physical, relational, spiritual, financial etc) and you can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel? We all have a a myriad of salves to apply to the wounds that this world inflicts, each with varying degrees of effectiveness. In the midst of these storms where resources seem scare and rescue seems distant, I have some good news, some bad news and some great news.

The Good News is that the very One that has perfectly, lovingly, personally and purposefully knit every atom in all of creation together has set his heart on you, even in our moments of chaotic confusion, anger, sadness, frustration, darkness and hopelessness. God himself passionately invites us to come to His throne of Grace in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16) because He has unparalleled compassion for us, desires only good things, and possesses the power to rescue. He says “come to me” when the storm is so loud that we truly can’t hear ourselves think because He has been through that storm, and a much much greater storm, and has come out on the other side unscathed. You can get more on this from my blog a couple of week ago called Gospel Butterfingers.

The Bad News (it’s not really bad news at all, but it might feel bad) is that sometimes God intentionally doesn’t deliver us right away (or maybe anytime in this lifetime) from the “thorns in our flesh” (2 Corinthians 12). Sometimes we are crying out to God in the middle of a lightning storm and He, for reasons we can’t fathom, doesn’t pluck us up and set out feet on sunny shores. And it’s really frustrating. And I often will get upset with Him for not coming though (in the way that I insist that he comes through). The reason for these seasons and situations of “bad news” is actually the Great News.

This is what the Lord was telling Israel while they were in exiled slavery to Babylon. They desperately wanted freedom (just like we would). And God said “Yes! But not yet, because I have A MUCH GREATER RESCUE.

Isaiah 49:6
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

You see, pleading with God to rescue us from our “everyday storms” is important. God wants us to come in prayer at all times, including these times. But he ALSO wants to conform us into the image of His Son. He wants SO MUCH MORE than our temporary happiness and comfort. We are so easily satisfied with being safe, having enough stuff and minimizing the causes of anxiety. But God’s plans are infinitely above my own, and He will do what He needs to do in order to mold me. See how C.S.Lewis addresses this in one of the all time great writings (1941) The Weight of Glory:

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased

C.S.Lewis – The Weight of Glory

The Rescue from our Sin

So, what if God’s goal for us is radically different than our goal? We will be perpetually dissatisfied and frustrated, accusing God of not coming through. Maybe my goal of a happy and content life that is relatively void of problems isn’t what Jesus was talking about when he promises us the “abundant life” in John 10:10. Maybe Barbara Duguid is right in her (really great) book Extravagant Grace when she says “that the richest fruit of God’s work in our hearts would be evidenced by increasing humility and dependence on Christ for everything, rather than in a ‘victorious Christian life.'”

Maybe God doesn’t just pick me up out of my mud-pit because this is exactly where I learn how much I need Him and where I will learn that true satisfaction will never be found in creation but in the Creator. Yes, it can be painful and really frustrating. It causes deep tears and angry accusations. It whittles me down to nothing…and what is left is sheer need: need for a rescuer that is beyond myself, but one that has come to give me a far greater rescue…a rescue not from temporary discomfort but from sin itself. A rescue not even just from sin, but a rescue from the tyranny of myself. A rescue not even for my own sake, but also for his Glory.

The Rescue For Himself

Isaiah 49:3
And He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

Right there in the middle of God promising to send the Ultimate Israel (Jesus) to deliver the Rebellious Israel (you and me) he says that it will ultimately be for his own glory. God excitedly and at great sacrifice has brought us the absolute Ultimate Victory through Jesus Christ, delivering us from every shred of bondage and slavery. And in the process, He is even more glorified as we, like join in with all of creation in:

Isaiah 49:13
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted.

Yes, please immediately and passionately go to God’s throne in the midst of the storm regardless of it’s severity. Go sit with your Abba Father when the thunder claps and you are hurt and afraid. And while you are doing that, and while you are passionately asking for a reprieve, join with Jesus in his Grand Finale saying “yet not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). As I do that, as I pray that, may the Lord give us eyes to see His Greater Rescue. May he help me fathom the depths of his Ultimate Rescue; that sometimes He gives us relief from the storms of life, but always and forever He gives us life after The Storm of Sin, Fear and Death. And upon this hope I can trust that what John Piper wrote is true:

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
John Piper

Perfect Fear Casts Out Fear

We live in an age of anxiety. Even though we have more safeguards to prevent danger and more means of rescue from danger, we are a people wrought with fear. All of these protections have convinced us that life can predominantly be controlled. But, in fact, it can’t. It often feels like we are on a raging roller-coaster with nobody at the control panel as we wait for the next disaster to happen. And for many of us that are more acutely plagued with fear and anxiety, this problem is coupled with spiritual shame as we tell ourselves how faithless and weak we are to not trust God’s love, power and plan. And down the black hole we go.

The good news (and frustrating news) is that fear is one of the most common issues we see all through scripture.

  • Adam said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (Gen 3:10)
  • God’s people were afraid of their Egyptian captors (Exodus 14)
  • God’s people were afraid to go into the promised land because of the overwhelming “giants” (Numbers 13)
  • The Shepherds were afraid of the angels (Luke 2)
  • Jesus’ disciples were afraid of the wind and waves (Matthew 8)
  • Peter was afraid for his life while Jesus was being crucified (Luke 22)

The incredible news it that “Peace” is also one of the more pervasive commands and promises God has for us:

  • God told Abraham to not be afraid to go to the Promised Land (Gen 15)
  • God told Jacob to not be afraid to go down to Egypt (Gen 46)
  • The angels on Christmas morning told the Shepherds “Fear Not”
  • Jesus told all of us to not be afraid because God even takes care of the birds (Mt 10)

Fear comes when we see a “Future without God.” We see real, imagined or potential problems and quickly deduce all the painful outcomes that could result. We naturally fall back into believing that our worlds, our problems, our lives are spinning out of control and about to fall of the cliff. It’s not that we are faithless, it’s actually a great deal of faith…faith that:

  • God isn’t loving enough to desire what’s best
  • God isn’t powerful enough to do what’s best
  • God isn’t wise enough to know what’s best.

We don’t mean to believe this, it’s just where our natural minds and hearts go.

So what do we DO about it? Is there a help, a cure, a hope?

Yes, but slow.

Believing and actually “resting” (the foundational definition of “peace”) in the Lord is a very slow marinating process. We swim in an insta-pot and instagram pool. But learning to trust is slow, and involves us, by the Spirit’s power, to re-focus out eyes off of the potential car-wreck and onto the whole journey. When I am struck with fear, I am forgetting the whole story and the character of God. I am forgetting the infinite proofs that God has always carried his people through the waters and fires. I am allowing what MIGHT happen to eclipse what HAS happened and, in the end, what WILL happen. I am believing that God is small and powerless; that his love for me is weak; that his arms are too feeble to carry me; that his wisdom is too faulty to know what is best for me and the world.

And so, once again, the initial weapon against our problems isn’t to “try harder” (“Just stop being afraid!”) but to believe differently….to be overwhelmed with the glory of God. The greatest weapon against earthly fear is the “Fear of God” — to be overwhelmed like Isaiah (in Isaiah 6) with the mind-staggering holiness, beauty, glory, power and perfection of the Lord.

Let’s look practically at a real-life example in Matthew 8

Matthew 8
24 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25 And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” 26 And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 And the men MARVELED, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

The wind and waves were real. The potential danger was extreme. But their eyes (just like mine most of the time) were not on Jesus but on the problems. Instead of being in awe of Jesus, they were in awe of their problems, and their own comfort. And this issue is debilitating, hindering us from living the passionate ambassador-lives to which we have been called and empowered to live. God isn’t slapping our hands for being fearful, He’s working to set us free from the slavery of fear that keeps us from fully enjoying Him and this life he’s gifted us. He’s setting us free from the shackles of this world that scream at us that “this is all there is.”

That’s why Jesus gives us this gift:

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Jesus himself gives us Peace (doesn’t just tell us to be at peace) and He himself IS our peace. He has even given us the Spirit of Peace, the Holy Spirit, who resides in us to speak peace into our hearts when the rest of the world is screaming chaos and fear.

And so today, when fear begins to gurgle up from the springs of your heart, take some deep breaths and fight mis-belief with Gospel-belief. Ask the Spirit to overwhelm your mis-belief with the True-belief that Jesus has always carried you through and, as we see in Romans 8 over and over, will carry us through to the end.

Gospel Butterfingers

Think about when you totally blank on somebody’s name…you know that you know it, but the name is hiding somewhere in a dark corner of your brain. It can be embarrassing to say the least. But what about other much more important bits of truth? Sometimes is it really hard to hold on to Truth, especially in the dark when your hands are shaking, the time you need Truth the most. It’s not Truth that is changing, but our grip on it.

It is this gospel-butterfinger epidemic that spurs Isaiah (and all of Scripture) to perpetually give us hope-reminders. It’s not because we are dumb but because we are forgetful, prone to let situations eclipse the Sun of Righteousness.

Isaiah 40
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah is talking to a people that had been taken into Exile away from the Promised Land and seemingly away from God and His Promise. He is reminding his brothers and sisters that blinding circumstances don’t negate the Truth of God; that he has, is and will always carry his people to completion. We will absolutely grow weary, faint and fall exhausted. Our grip on Truth and Hope isn’t enough. We have to be the ones being held by the One that will not grow weary, whose grip does not grow weak and who is wholly unable to let us fall.

But I so easily forget.

So here are some memory-tools God has given us to remember. They are little “means of grace” that we can utilize in times of forgetfulness, like a cheat sheet on your 8th grade English test, but these aren’t cheating.

Look Backwards

1 Samuel 7:12
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the LORD has helped us.”

These “memory stones” would remind all who walked by that God had indeed miraculously showed up at that place in time, and he would do it again

Look Forwards

Psalm 30:5b
Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Whatever we are in, even the most frustrating and confusing times, are only part of our journey. In this life The Author that started us out and is still writing. But when the final page is turned, it turns out that we’ve just gotten through the introduction to our life’s book, the rest beginning in Revelation 21 where there is no weeping or pain.

Look Upwards

Psalm 13
1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The most common genre in the Psalms is the Lament, and almost all of them end in worship. The pain and frustration is real, but turning from darkness to the light of worship helps train our hearts that Hope overcomes Evil.

Look Around

1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up…

We deeply need each other. As we’ll see in the next step, we get utterly blinded and confused. So I need brothers and sisters around me to speak Truth into me. When I can’t hold onto Truth myself I need others to hold onto it for me, sitting with me as the voice and presence of God.

Look Inside (1)

Psalm 42
Why are you cast down, O my soul,and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation.

We all constantly talk to ourselves, telling ourselves what is true, false, good, bad, satisfying etc. Like I said in the last block, we so often tell ourselves (and therefore believe) in the lie that things are hopeless and God doesn’t care (or isn’t real, or is powerless). The Psalmist would have internal arguments as he went along the path of life, speaking to his soul to stop believing a lie and hold on to Truth.

Look Inside (2)

Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

More importantly than looking to an internal conversation, we can find assurance, hope and even peace that God himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit is literally inside of us, speaking not only to our own hearts but also praying to The Father on our behalf “with groanings too deep for words.”

Look Outward

2 Corinthians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Maybe it seems impossible, but loving others when we are having a hard time holding onto love ourselves will actually lift us our souls. It helps knock us out of the dark whirlpool as we see that we are not alone; that pain is universal and God has rescued us in order to be His rescuing agents for others.

Look Christward

Romans 8:32
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Ultimately our greatest hope is looking to Jesus himself, and resting in the Truth that if God went to the absolute greatest extent imaginable in order to rescue us (the sacrifice of His own Son) then he will absolutely continue his rescue-operation.

Scripture is brutally honest about the pain of this world, not asking us to minimize or paint the pain with a facade of “just trust Jesus.” We are invited to come to him with out true pain (like Mary and Martha did when their brother Lazarus was sick and dying) while also having expectant and open hands for him to hold as he walks us through the dark.

Uncle Ricos

Uncle Rico – from Napoleon Dynamite

“Back in ’82 – I used to be able to throw a pigskin a quarter mile…if couch would have put me in 4th quarter, we would have been state champions.” – Uncle Rico

Those of us who are “past our prime” (though we would be hard-pressed to realize, much less acknowledge it) struggle with these illusions (or are they delusions?) that we “still have it.” Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite was absolutely convinced that he was still amazing and could make it to the big time. He had these “memory remnants” of days gone by and spent his time trying to recapture it…but as you watch the movie, it is comically sad how blind he was to his reality.

And this is why our flag football team in Asheville, NC was called the Uncle Ricos (I’m #2)

We were all past our prime (though some of the guys were still pretty young and talented.) When we ran, it felt like we were flying down the field…until we watched each other run, and reality set in. We were slow, got winded easily, and had brittle bodies (I had 2 shoulder dislocations while playing in this league). Yet we pushed on in defiance to time and reality. We would also play in tournaments put on by the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte and actually do pretty well in the 35+ division. Until one day we faced off against a squad of ex-Arena-League players. It was utterly embarrassing how slow and inept we were compared to these other men.

This is where we find Isaiah in Isaiah 6. He was part of the extended royal family of King Uzziah (who had just died) and was an incredibly gifted communicator. Like all of us, he was created in God’s image and was a man of infinite value. And like all of us, he was broken. We, like Isaiah, have these memory-remnants of who we used to be. We intrinsically know that we are designed as valuable and powerful, yet we are also broken (like the Uncle Ricos). We are no longer who we were in the garden when we literally would walk in the cool of the day with one another, among creation, face to face with the Almighty God himself. When we rebelled and committed treason against the Lord, creation was shattered. Yet we are constantly unaware or in total denial of this truth…until we come face to face with True and Utter Greatness…much more than ex-arena-league players. I mean UTTER GREATNESS

Isaiah 6:1-5
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

Look at Isaiah’s reality break into focus. Through in the world’s eyes (and his own) he was powerful and elite. But when he was put into contrast with The Almighty God in His Perfect Greatness….he was ruined. His actual depravity could no longer hide in the flood of light. To understand this better, let’s look at what the Seraphim (which literally mean “the burning ones”) sang: “holy holy holy” — this tripling of the world “holy” (called a “trisagion”) is extraordinary to say the least. When a Hebrew word is doubled (like we saw in Isaiah 1 with how “estranged-estranged” we are) it is essentially a super-superlative. To triple a word is inconceivable. And not just any word, or any attribute of God…it’s his Holiness. To boil it down, God’s holiness is his absolute “otherness” — it’s all of his other superlative attributes melted into one another. For God to be “holy holy holy” is for him to be superlatively love/love/love; superlatively power/power/power; superlatively just/just/just; superlatively mercy/mercy/mercy.

Now we can have the smallest understanding of how Isaiah felt being in God’s holy/holy/holy presence. He was fully aware of Exodus 33:20 where God said “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” — now Isaiah was looking at God face to face, saw His transcendent beauty and his own despicable filthiness…yet, instead of dying, God brought him the only thing that could save his life: atonement.

For Isaiah it was in the form of a live coal from the fire of purification. For us it’s the living Son of God that became 100% immanent, among us as The Immanuel, that came to be literally be “with us” to bring us atonement and into a face-to-face relationship with the Transcendent God. We know this because, instead of us dying like we should (like Isaiah should have), Jesus himself died in our place. And when he did:

Matthew 27:51
And behold, the curtain of the temple (remember Exodus 25) was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

This is the very curtain that separated the presence of God in the “holy of holies” from the rest of the world, through which the High Priest, after a blood sacrifice, would go once a year in order to acquire atonement for God’s people….so Jesus became the High Priest, was himself our final blood sacrifice, and brought us atonement, which results in the here and now a perfect face-to-face relationship with the Transcendent God.

Go back to the Uncle Rico. Before Christ, we were stuck in our memory-remnants, only vaguely remembering who we were and living as if we could live on our own power. But now, in Christ, we are a New Creation! We have had a renewal and re-creation as Image-Bearers. We have the Holy Spirit who is literally IN us, and the train of his robe fills his new temple: US! We are no longer relegated to building up our own image and fighting for our value. We are His and glorious beyond measure because of Him in us.

And so we can join Isaiah after his atonement

Isaiah 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,“Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Seeing our infinite need, God’s infinite beauty, and now our infinite rescue, we are sent out into our world (both near and far) with his infinite love and power to bring hope to the hopeless, light to the darkness, love to the lonely…like he did for us.

Estranged Estranged

We are the most connected people that have ever lived. And are shockingly isolated.

  • We are convinced of our rightness.
  • We have enthroned ourselves.
  • We believe that others orbit around us.
  • We treat others as our subjects.

The real issue, the foundational problem, is that this is actually how I treat God. I believe that my way is better; my plans are wiser; my solutions more satisfying.

We have been meticulously designed by God to be knit together with him, under his loving and righteous rule, and to be knit to one another in humble love. Which is exactly how we are NOT living. And so, with a broken heart, the Lord sees our betrayal and calls it like it truly is:

Isaiah 1:4b
“they are utterly estranged”

Estranged. Disconnected. Alienated. Alone. Runaways.

But it’s actually even worse than that. The wording is one of handful of “Word Doubling.” God says that we are “Estranged Estranged” — when a word in Hebrew is repeated back to back, it is going exponential. For instance, 2Kings 25:15 talks about a super refined silver by calling it “silver silver”. We do the same sometime. For teenagers there is an enormous difference between saying “I like him” vs saying “I like like him.” The second involves a much higher degree of passion and heart. And this is exactly what we are being convicted of in Isaiah. We aren’t just estranged from God, we are estranged estranged. In our pursuit of self we have utterly and completely estranged ourselves from our Loving, Providing, Caring, Holy Father (compare this to the younger prodigal son from Luke 15). We want to white-wash it and convince ourselves that we aren’t that bad or that far away. We point to the ways we don’t act like that or reduce the holiness of God in order to not seem so unholy (more on that next week in Isaiah 6).

But God is very painfully clear in Isaiah 1:4. In this one verse He explains in 7 different ways how dislocated we have become from him.

Which makes His Grace and Love all the more!

The more I own the truth of my estrangement, the more amazing I realize that God is because of how far he has come to get me; how much his love must have; how powerful he must be. Jesus himself intentionally distanced himself from The Father to come to Creation, and even more so, he was estranged-estranged on the cross because that’s how far he had to come to get us, and that’s the payment that had to be made on our behalf. Isaiah, 700 years before Jesus, knew this was going to happen and said it like this:

Isaiah 53:4-5
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

May we all truly hear the miraculous and (almost) unbelievable Good News. We have been brought home and the Father through the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit currently, as you read this, has perfectly and utterly “UnEstranged” you. If you are in Christ, he has perfectly paid for and wiped away (see Isaiah 1:16-18) all of our scarlet sins, making them and us pure in him…and this not from ourselves but by faith through Jesus. Your Father, right here and now, has given you “peace” and “healing” (Is 53:5). He sings over you; is satisfied with you; has brought you into him arms and his home. You are no longer estranged…and has set us free so that we can, starting right now, enjoy Him forever.

Prayer:
Holy Spirit, gently open my eyes to how far I have run from you, and then quickly and surely convince my heart that you have come to get me; that I am a new creation that has been brought home with my brothers and sisters to be satisfied in and by you. Convince my heart of your love and forgiveness, and point how how I am an empowered instrument of your Grace right now in the community around me.

Prodigals

Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt (1669)

In Luke 15 we find an incredibly diverse and divided crowd following Jesus, a crowd of insiders and outsiders; spiritual elites and spiritual rejects. Into these lives Jesus told three parables about how we all passionately wander from Home, and how we have a Heavenly Father that is relentless in his pursuit of us. He paints the picture of a Shepherd searching for his 1 lost sheep and, after finding him, carries him home and throws a party. He then tells about the woman who lost her coin but is stubbornly cleans and searches for that which is really valuable to her. Finally…the prodigals. The granddaddy of all parables. This brilliant story introduces us to a passionate family. A young son that passionately seeks fulfillment in sensuality; an older son that passionately seeks fulfillment through his image and approval that comes from his “goodness”; a loving father that passionately pursues each son in an effort to bring them “home.”

Henri Nouwen had a life-altering encounter with this parable when he sat in front of Rembrandt’s painting called “The Return of the Prodigal” (seen above, and here is a link to a larger version online). He sat in front of it for days on end, searching the intricacies and hidden beauties, discovering aspects of the story’s characters that could easily go unnoticed:

The Younger Son

This wayward boy is so desperate, so alone, so ashamed.

He has come home barely dressed, with a shoe dangling from his foot and his head shaven, revealing his societal rejection and desperation. He is emaciated and clothed, unlike his father and brother who are wearing royal robes, in mere rags.

This is the sinful nature. This is the story of all of us. Every person that has ever lived outside of Jesus himself has run to the “far off country” to live our “own truth” and find our own satisfaction. We have all been made in our Father’s image, and have taken His resources (life, breath, skills, abilities and finances) to search for life. And, without fail and without exception, has left us emaciated, desperate, hungry and alone.

The Older Son

To the back right of the painting we see an older son, dressed just like his dad in the family robe, looking down in disgust, scorn and judgement. He has all the fancy clothes, fancy shoes and staff of authority. Very understandably, he would be so upset and feel shunned. He was the good kid! He was the one that followed the rules, stayed at home, helped dad out. And now that the younger son took his part of the Father’s inheritance, every dime that was spent on bringing him home and throwing him a party was actually coming out of HIS part of the estate. IT WASN’T FAIR! And so it is with us elder sons. We see ourselves as better and elite. And it leads to a strengthening of our arrogance where we claim “I would never do that!”…and then shamefully saying “I can’t believe I did….that” because we truly thought we were better. Us elder brothers may appear close to the Father, but in reality we are so far away. We have no more intimacy and no more love for the Father as the Younger. The worst of it is this: we are so horrendous lost, but don’t even realize it, and don’t want to accept the Father’s grace because, honestly, we don’t think we really need it…because we think we’ve earned his favor.

The Prodigal Father

And then there is the Prodigal Father (Tim Keller’s book “Prodigal God” is an absolute essential read!). “Prodigal” means outrageously excessive, and it’s not just about excessive licentiousness. The Father’s grace, love, joy and generosity are infinitely beyond Prodigal. As you look at the painting, really pay attention to the lighting. The whole focus is on Him. It’s on his compassionate face; on his right hand that virtually covers the younger son’s whole back, powerfully holding him dear; on his left hand that is the motherly hand of tenderness and compassion. This Prodigal Father went running down the road to carry his boy back home. Culture would have mocked and shunned a story about a dad like this. Men of any prominence would absolutely never bring a rebellious son back into the family; would never run down the road; would never passionately hug and lavishly kiss his son. But this Father did. He (as the text literally says) flooded his child with kisses and embraced him with outrageous compassion. Through the robe and ring, he renewed him to his original family status. No second class. No probation period. Just outrageous restoration.

Do you see the Father this way. Do you see Our Heavenly Father running down to road to embrace your smelly, filthy self? Our Heavenly Father sent his own son to a “far off country” called Creation to search us out, and then take our place in rejection among pigs, even being nailed to a cross surrounded by criminals, so that the rejection we absolutely deserved would be given to Jesus, fully paid. And now, with Jesus as our True Elder Brother, we are given his rightful inheritance, along with the Ring of Power so that we can successfully, by his power, (as seen in Ephesians 6:12) wrestle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

If you’d like to dig in a little more into this Rembrandt painting, HERE is a link to a lot of quotes from the book…but I would strongly encourage you to read the whole thing. It reveals a facet of the Gospel I’ve seen in few places.

Ransomed & Renewed

Isaiah 35:4
Say to those who have an anxious heart,
“Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”

We are about to begin a worship series on the book of Isaiah (Fall 2019), which is exciting and overwhelming. The book of Isaiah is split into “Before – During – After.” It starts with the Lord telling a rebellious Israel that He is going to send them into “Exile” at the hands of their greatest enemies, and that their worldly efforts of power and money will only make things worse. BUT…God will not (actually…CAN NOT) forget them, and will passionately, lovingly, powerfully and surely ransom them from Exile, and re-plant them, restore them, renew them, into the Promised Land.

Can you imagine what it would have been like to be at the bullseye of this prophesy? Can you imagine the stress, fear, questions and accusations that would result from being taken into desolate exile?

Though from our comfortable couches we can’t truly understand the heart of an exiled Israel, in our own ways we absolutely struggle with this anxiety.

  • When my sin causes me dark sorrow.
  • When it feels down to my bones that God has abandoned me.
  • When the hopes of my life lay shattered on the hospital floor.
  • When I can’t seem to “catch my breath” in life.
  • When the weights of expectations and disappointments crush me.

Into this oppression the Lord (in Isaiah 35) whispers deep winds of hope and even joy. This hope, this Gospel, doesn’t minimize the darkness in the least. Actually, quite the opposite. The deeper the darkness, the brighter the light; the deader the dead, the more alive we are made. Whereas God brought Israel out of slavery to their greatest enemy, God has brought us out of our slavery to our greatest enemy: ourselves, our sin. In the person of Jesus God literally meets us in our exile, in the middle of our deepest pain, disappointment, fear, anxiety, doubt, failures, hopelessness. He doesn’t just call us out of it…he CARRIES us out and gives us new life. Look at the next verses:

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

  • In our brokenness, we are blind; but God renews our sight.
  • In our sin, we are deaf; but God restores our hearing.
  • In our weakness, we are lame; but God re-creates our legs.
  • In our death, our voices are suppressed; but God reopens our mouths.

And not just us! God HAS and WILL renew creation! Isaiah goes on to promise that waters will overtake the desert and result in forests of peace where there is no death, no fear, no brokenness. And the means for this rescue and renewal; the way God will do this unimaginable healing — the Highway of Holiness, which is the person of Jesus, who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He has personally come into our Exile, and was exiled from the Father on the cross so that, through his payment God will have shower us with “recompense” (reward).

Yes, it is really hard to see when you are in the dark; to believe this kind of beauty can spring from the ground of our deserts; to hold onto his glorious hope when our failing senses tell us that all is lost. But it’s true. This life has been secured on our behalf and God is not only going to rescue us FROM the Exile of sin and death, he is renewing us FOR true life. The end of Isaiah 35 paints this picture:

10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Blind-Turn

Luke 12:16-21
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

I am preaching through a short series on parables and realize how many amazing ones are going to be missed…like this shockingly relevant and practical one from Luke 12 on the plans we make in life.

Back in the early 2000’s the Land Family Five took a glorious road trip from Houston to Colorado in our bright red Nissan Quest minivan. We wound our way up into the Rockies and were able to stay at Camp Redcloud outside Lake City from which we were able to have amazing outdoor adventures, like 4×4-ing up ridiculous mountain roads. After a week of encircling the Colorado Rockies we began our long journey back to Houston, leaving Grand Junction and heading East on I-70 toward Denver…and then it happened. The Quest went into a coma on top of a mountain pass. Just simply stopped with no sign of life. Like any “real man” (whatever that means) I got out, opened the hood and looked ignorantly at the engine (truly having no idea what I would be looking for). After sitting and wondering what to do for a while, I decided to just turn the key…and with utter shock, it started! Well that was good enough for me. I started to drive toward Denver, assuming Jesus raised my van from the dead. Until he didn’t. 10 minutes later the van, while heading downhill on the other side of a mountain pass, lost all power and life. I was going 70 mph with no power brakes or steering, with three kids in the back. I man-handled the van around some turns and down an exit ramp (I think it was Glenwood Springs). In the end, we found a really cool hotel where my wife and I had our own room (only time on the whole vacation) and our son Trevor stayed in the living room, which had a fireplace that turned on and off through a light switch, which I think was his favorite part of the whole vacation.

This place wasn’t even on our radar, and nobody could have predicted our van’s narcolepsy (it turns out it was an O2 thing since oxygen at 15,000 ft is a little different than oxygen levels in Houston). This was a “blind turn” — totally unexpected change of course. And it was great. As you can tell, Some 17 years later, it’s one of the most memorable parts of our entire trip. And I am certain that you all have so many of these stories. Some of them are great, while many of them are deeply sad, painful and faith-jarring.

  • When your climb up the career ladder turns into a tumble.
  • When your romantic journey turns into a bloody war.
  • When your white-picket-fence life turns into Chernobyl.
  • When your strong body begins to rebel.

So what do you do when your life gives you roller-coaster whiplash?

How do you respond when the steering wheel turns suddenly and you are headed into the unknown, unplanned, uncomfortable?

In the Luke 12 parable we find ourselves in this man that is living for himself and everything is going even better than planned….only to have the ultimate BlindTurn hit him square in the jaw. Even when we are doing our very best and trying to seek the mind of Christ, Our plans are not the same as His plans (Prov 16:9)…we get knocked around and try to find our bearings, wondering why “this” happened and where God is on this journey.

The disciples thought this very same thing:

Matthew 16
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Can you imagine the shock of these disciples?! Can you imagine the BlindTurn Jesus was warning them about? This was absolute madness…so Peter understandably rebukes Jesus, telling him that this was ridiculous.

But on this side of the Cross, this was the most glorious blind turn imaginable. It’s going around a mountain curve only to come upon the greatest view with the greatest sunrise even known. It was scary as the car careens around the turn; and infinitely glorious on the other side.

And this is the life the Lord has promised, and offered. It’s frustrating and scary; oftentimes sad and disconcerting; oftentimes deeply dark; oftentimes full of tears of joy, or tears of sadness. And because the darkness of the Cross-turn turned into the even more shocking blind turn of the empty tomb, we can trust the TurnMaker. Even if it hurts and leaves me out of control, I can trust the One who has promised to keep me, hold me, go before and behind me, knit me, fulfill me and, when it is time, bring me home. This by no means makes the hard blind turns easy, but it certainly makes them hopeful…that they are turns to glory. Because that is what Jesus secured for me on the Cross, and out of the Tomb.