presbyblog

I was reading in 2 Peter this morning. Sometimes things stand out a little more than normal — things I have seen but not seen; that I have read but never really considered.

“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3. I tend to read right through stuff like this — kind of like, “Ok, yes, that’s good, that’s nice, that’s right.” But stop and think about it for a moment: we have everything we need for life and godliness. How often we think, “If only I had this, if only I could do that, then I would be able to be a good Christian.” I cannot count the number of times I have heard Presbyterians lament the lack of some quality or opportunity that is preventing them from sharing Jesus with others. It is a lie we tell ourselves. He has given us everything needed for life and godliness.

Then came the part that really hit me

For this very reason, you must make every effort to:

• support your faith with goodness,
• and goodness with knowledge,
• and knowledge with self-control,
• and self-control with endurance,
• and endurance with godliness,
• and godliness with mutual affection,
• and mutual affection with love.

For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This exhortation is a description of the life of discipleship. It is a profound description of Jesus’ Passion.

Faith is the foundation and beginning of the life of discipleship. It is not the stopping point.

Faith must lead to goodness; that is, the choice to pursue that which God commands.

How do you know what God commands? Knowledge. The only way to gain knowledge is to be invested in the life of a community which is itself invested in the study of God’s word. The author of Hebrews chastised listeners/readers with this word, “Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the based elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:11-14)

Knowledge of God’s commands — not for our oppression, but for our liberation and freedom in holiness — frames our self-control. Self-control (sometimes patience, sometimes obedience, sometimes action, sometimes passive) requires endurance because self-control inevitably involves choosing to do the right thing and choosing not to do the wrong thing, and that’s not always easy. In fact, self-control is difficult because the wrong thing would be easier, more fun, instantly self-gratifying, etc. And the wrong thing does not just go away; it continues to present itself as a pleasing option which must be endured and resisted.

Endurance yields godliness. It is not a self-righteousness we seek; rather, we humbly praise God for giving us the strength to endure. Our priority is to worship God, to glorify God, and to enjoy God; endurance is, as Eugene Petersen once entitled a study of the Psalms, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.”

Godliness is not its own end, either. Godliness does not isolate us from others, it draws us to others. The example of Christ illustrates the point: Jesus did not take his holiness as a reason to distance himself from others; he thrust himself into the midst of community after community in order to express God’s love for those who were lost. Mutual affection is what believers are called to express. We do not have to be Lone Rangers, we are called to partner in Christ’s service.

Mutual affection manifests love. This is more than Hallmark sentiment – violins playing – soft lighting kind of love — this is the kind of love that goes obediently to the cross in the midst of turmoil, controversy, and even betrayal. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)

All of that is true and I can trace it through and I can still get to the place where I am thinking, “Ok, yes, that’s good, that’s nice, that’s right.”

But then comes the kicker: “For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And I thought, “Wow, there it is.” God has given me everything needed for life and godliness; am I being effective and fruitful? Are we being effective and fruitful in the congregation I serve? In our presbytery? In the denomination?

Responding to those questions will be tomorrow’s reflection. Today, I just want to sit and dwell in the questions.

We had a marvelous Palm Sunday at Chula Vista Presbyterian Church.

Two things stood out to me: the marvel of answered prayer and the marvel of God’s redemption of brokenness. Hence, yesterday was marvelous.

Answered Prayer

The answered prayer relates to an ongoing, persistent prayer of this congregation: namely, to see more involvement of young families. Yesterday’s service included the presentation of a Music and Drama Camp that we held during the local school’s Spring break. During the course of the last week, eighteen (18) children learned about 20 minutes of songs and dialogue. Without scripts or music in front of them, they sang God’s praises and shared the gospel message joyously.

What made this more marvelous than simply being cute was the visual of the melting pot of boys and girls singing God’s praises — reminding me of the promise of the heavenly worship to come. It could not have been cast more perfectly, and God did the casting. Some were church kids, some were church familiar, and some had no prior experience hearing or singing the gospel. All were engaged, having fun, and manifest joy.

I hope someone shares a picture (there were plenty taken) so that I can link or post. A picture cannot capture the whole spirit.

Redeemed Brokenness

Later in the day we had our Adoracion service, our Spanish language worship time.

This service is filled with singing and praise. My Spanish is embarrassingly limited; but I am able to understand more than I can speak. Further, I am culturally about as Anglo as you can find so I am highly attuned to what is going on around me so as to try to avoid being a distraction by unintentional faux pas.

One of the songs was a confession of sin and brokenness. I watched as the people singing experienced the profound sense of alienation from God through their rebellion and sin — tearful and humble people beseeching God for forgiveness and mercy.

As I describe it, I think it is important to note that I observed these things but they were not done as a show f0r my benefit or to impress me. Moreover, it does not happen every time in worship. There are corporate prayers of confession and times for personal confession during the liturgy — and those do not trigger highly emotional responses.

The assurance of pardon was received with relief and joy. There was a perceivable lightness to those who had gone through the process.

It caused me to think about how lightly I take confession. I do not take sin lightly, but I realized how quickly I cling to the assurance of pardon. I come into confession with the expectation of forgiveness. On the one hand, it is nice to know God calls me to confession, is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and is gracious and merciful. On the other hand, I wonder how complete is my repentance if I fail to contemplate the scope and significance of the consequences of my sin. Perhaps I was more attuned because we are approaching Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

How awesome is our God who deals with the totality of my sin.

When I ponder how God saw fit to have me serve in a border ministry,  these kinds of things reveal some of the ways I have been blessed.

Update: here are the pictures.

From the first service:

From the second:

“O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” That’s the beginning of Psalm 136 (NRSV).

The last half of that — “for his steadfast love endures forever” is repeated in this Psalm twenty-six times. Yes, it is the chorus of a call and response; but reading it out loud, I could not miss the emphasis that God’s steadfast love endures forever.

God’s love is steadfast. Rock. Solid. Actually, it is even more than rock solid. God’s love is impenetrable and unbreakable.

God’s love endures. It is not subject to erosion. It does not fade. It does not fluctuate or waver.

God’s love is forever. It exists before time, through time, and beyond time. There is nothing in all of creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Psalm recounts God’s steadfast love enduring forever in the midst of creation, in the affliction of his people, in the victories that have been won, and in his provision for all the earth. The chorus is repeated twenty-six times. For me, at about the twelfth, it began to sink in that the Psalmist was making a point.

Now is included in forever. God’s love is enduring even now. I can count on it as I look forward. I can see it as I look back. I can trust in it now. There is tremendous comfort in dwelling in the richness of that love. It is an encouragement of hope; that my limitations, flaws and failings do not disqualify me from God’s love.

God’s love:

1. does call me to repentance and to seek his mercy and forgiveness,
2. is the standard by which all is measured, and
3. is deeper than all the depths I will ever be able to plumb.

So, today, I am remembering. I am remembering the blessing of God’s word, “O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

I serve on San Diego Presbytery’s NextWave Administrative Commission. This commission has been handling congregation requests to transfer to San Diego Presbytery.

We had a meeting this morning. We spent a great deal of time talking about leadership; and reflecting how the current structure of our denomination not only does not — but cannot — develop leaders who will be able to guide adaptation into a healthy, growing community of faith.

Our structures are designed to preserve the status quo. They function to squelch initiative. We talked about how innovation and experimentation in congregations are thwarted by the emphasis on committees. We talked about how the culture many people experience in their own congregation plays out at presbytery; the regular turnover of people assigned with the responsibility of administering institutional forms of ministry — many of whom who dread the thought of more meetings. We talked about how the General Assembly is ill equipped and ill designed to produce a meaningful community of congregations acting in concert to spread the gospel.

Now, it is easy to throw stones. We also talked about how much work it has been to engage our own presbytery in conversations relevant to our missional life together. We have all participated in conversations that begin, “The presbytery ought to…” without recognizing that weare the presbytery. The presbytery is not someone else, somewhere else, doing something else for us.

The upshot of this conversation today was that we will be asking the presbytery for this administrative commission or its successor to have authority to function as a culture-creator; that is, we would like to facilitate the conversation and relationships going forward. The goal is to be intentional about presenting the presbytery with options we (not it) need to engage in order to pursue the call to be ambassadors for Christ where God has sent us to serve. We have the sense that there is an unstated mandate to fulfill this role based upon a recent pre-presbytery meeting where our work was discussed.

Exercising leadership involves helping people move through a time of change, to address a challenge at hand. It often involves getting them to let go of things they hold dear — habits, patterns, loyalties, and part of their identity. The unspoken hurdle of leadership is addressing and managing loss. It is why “new” things seem so much easier; there are fewer things that need letting go.

The goal for this new time is to build and deepen the connections that already exist here in San Diego Presbytery. We have taken a number of steps over the last years in order to move in this direction: declaring our Essential Tenets and Reformed Distinctives, as kind of an identity creating piece; and, acting to change from a governing body to a mission sending agency in which we understand Jesus’ charge to “be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This is still a change in progress, but that is the change upon which we are looking to build.

“I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”

I came across this in 3 John this morning. It stopped me because I realized just how true it is. It is something I cannot take for granted. It is humbling and awesome.

To hear that my children are walking in the truth is an affirmation that prayers have been answered. First, they know the truth. More than an intellectual understanding, they have a personal relationship with the LORD. As much as I love them, I rejoice they know the love of the Jesus. Second, all my flaws, all my errors, all my stubborn pride have not been a distraction or a stumbling block for them — or, at least, not a determinative stumbling block.

It also raises for me the awareness of how difficult is the walk. The challenges I face, they face. The world in which they live discourages their walking in the truth. They face the temptation to buy into the empty promises of security in wealth, in fitting in, and self-fulfillment. Putting their trust in God — loving God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength; and loving their neighbor as themselves — has given them a peace that I admire.

They are not perfect. They have flaws and errors, too. They have episodes of pride. Yet, with the confidence of those who are forgiven and are made righteous by the blood of Jesus shed for them, they know joy. Their joy in Jesus Christ is my great joy.