My Response to a nation out of control...

Today I am sensing the need to respond to the events of this past week in regards to the SCOTUS decision regarding same sex marriage.  My initial response mirrors that of the Rev. Franklin Graham who wrote this week, "I pray God will spare America from His judgment, though, by our actions as a nation, we give Him less and less reason to do so."  Years ago, Franklin Graham's father wrote that "if God does not judge harshly the United States of America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah."  Two prophetic voices that today fall on deaf ears.

In my own journey as an evangelical pastor, I have stood for a biblical position on both morality and human sexuality.  When the rule of God's Word was violated, I called it sin.  In response to those actions, I have lived in a world filled with physical threats both to myself and to my family.  I have found that quite interesting in that those threatening me claim to be a part of the LGBT community, and their normal outcry is for acceptance and love.  Where does the threat of violence fit into that?

Yesterday, the leadership of my denomination, the Church of the Nazarene, shared a statement that I feel reflects my heart in its response to the events of this week.  They wrote, "Our commitment to the orthodox biblical Christian faith remains the same. We continue to call Nazarenes around the world to a life of holiness, characterized by holy love and expressed through the most rigorous and consistent lifestyle of sexual purity. We further call our people to a generosity and graciousness of spirit that extends kindness to those who do not share our belief. We pray that God will help us be examples of His truth in a world that needs to see God’s love demonstrated in word and deed more than ever."  As I make that statement my own, I am left to share my heart with these words:

• I believe that each of us is seen as precious in the eyes of our Creator.  It is because of that indescribable love that God sent His Son Jesus to this world which ultimately sent Him to the Cross where He died for the sins of mankind.

• In the eyes of that loving God, "all have sinned and fall short of His glory" (Romans 3:23).

• To that end, each of us comes to God with the same sin stain on our hearts and our only hope of forgiveness and to enter into right relationship with Him is through an active repentance and turning away from sin - which makes the finished work of Christ on the Cross to forgive our sin a possible reality for each of us.

• Recognizing that in this world even the definition of sin has been questioned, I yield to the words of John Wesley who defined sin as "a willful transgression of a known law of God."  That statement ultimately takes me to the source of truth in my life, God's Word, the Bible where I find a catalog of sin for which man is eternally responsible.  Any hope of finding peace with God and forgiveness comes through a willful rejection of that catalog of sin, and through active repentance and a personal relationship with Christ, I can find not only forgiveness, but restoration of standing in relationship with God through Christ.

• To that end, I confess that the sin of homosexuality or the transgendered life is equal to the sin of any other form of sexual sin condemned in the Scriptures, and therefore must be met with an active repentance and a personal relationship with Christ in order to find forgiveness and peace with God, including the promise of heaven.

• I have used the term "active repentance" throughout these points to refer to an active and willful turning away from sin (in all of its forms) as the foundational first step to entering into a personal relationship with God through Christ.  Without that "turning away from" sin, there can be no forgiveness and relationship cannot be entered into with a God who is Holy.

• Having said that, I do not condemn the individual, caught in a web of sin, and do not say that they are beyond the grace of God.  But without a willful turning away from the sin that embraces their life, they cannot find forgiveness or enter into right relationship with God, not on the basis of what I think, but on the basis of what God's Word says.  Paul writes in Romans 6:1-2, "Shall we continue in sin that grace might increase?  May it never be!"  God's Word is clear!  The life of sin must come to an end before a life of righteousness can be achieved.  No matter what the sin is, whether homosexuality or lying, lesbianism or stealing, transgenderism or idolatry, adultery or prejudice...no matter the sin -- all must be turned away from and actively repented of to enter into a right relationship with God through Jesus

• If you hear what I am saying, I am not one who rejects the sinner (the individual), but rather I am one who rejects sin (the act).  Thus, regardless of the sin which any one of us is guilty of, all of us must repent and turn away from it if we want to live in right relationship with God.

• In that light, I can tell you that the forgiveness of sin, deliverance from sin, and the establishment of a whole new way of life and living can be achieved.  I am one who testifies to deliverance from an addiction to alcohol and drugs.  I am one who testifies to a deliverance from anger and acts of violence against others.  I am one who has been forgiven of and delivered from lying, stealing, and cheating, all things I did to support my addictions and sinful habits.  I am one who knows peace with God, not because I have embraced a life of sin, but because through an active repentance of my sins I have embraced a relationship of righteousness and holiness made possible by a personal relationship with God through Christ.  I am one who knows that God can forgive, deliver, heal, and restore a sin-filled heart to one which embraces righteousness, truth, and the teachings of the Bible.  Am I perfect?  No.  But I am forgiven and in those times when challenged by sin and temptation, I am met with the ministry of the Holy Spirit who strengthens my resolve and enables me to embrace righteousness, peace, and holiness through my relationship with God.

• So today I embrace the words of Paul who said in 1 Corinthians 10:23 that just because things are lawful does not mean that they are profitable.  Case in point: though SCOTUS made homosexuality lawful in the eyes of civil law, to embrace homosexuality as a lifestyle is not profitable if you want to live in relationship with the God who condemns sexual sin.

In conclusion, I am committed today to one thing - being gracious and accepting of the individual caught in sin, while being wholly committed to standing against ALL acts of sin.  I will love yet preach the need for repentance.  I will teach of God's ways, not man's ways.  I will uphold God's truth and reveal the sins of our world as standing in judgment, not by me, but by the One who alone can Judge, the Creator God who made us both male and female, and expected us to live in heterosexual relationships that honored Him, not in homosexual relationships which are dishonored by Him and called sin.  I will love yet hold fiercely to this truth -- God is committed to restoring all of us to right relationship with Him, but for that to happen, we must reject all sin and repenting of it, seek His grace and forgiveness, lest by continuing in our sin, we are judged eternally for it.

Marginal or Missional???

Recently I attended a seminar in Urbana, Illinois in the DCPI Track entitled Becoming at Mentor or BAM. In the midst of the three days we spent together, one of our speakers identified two characteristics of churches. One he called the "Marginal Church" and the other he called the "Missional Church."

A marginal church is the church that if it closed, the only ones who would notice it was gone would be the people who left.

A missional church is the church that if it were to close would create an uproar in the community and they (the community) would say "You can't go! You are too vital to us."

There is a lot of talk today about churches -- the ones who seem to be making a difference and the ones who don't. For me the words of this presenter redefined all the issues. If my church were to close today, what would the effect be? Are we marginal or missional?

My dream is to pastor a church that is so vital to its community that the community could not do without us. In time, that is who we will become. But for now we are on a journey that daily is challenging us to stretch further, work harder, and serve more to impact Salina for the sake of the Gospel. We exist to depopulate hell by populating heaven with radical followers of Jesus Christ. We are not about the business of just being "christian." We want to be followers of Jesus Christ who live to seek and do His will in all things. That is our passion. That is our purpose. And that is the trajectory of our church.