Free from Condemnation

We are born with a default setting of brokenness.  A rippled effect throughout the course of history vibrates in us that someone is wrong; and we feel the weight of it as we run from it.  Since we were originally created to feel love, acceptance, wholeness, and peace, we naturally try to run from these antithetical stories via distraction, intellectualism, legalism, liberalism, or a host of other ways.

But we cannot escape the trouble within

When the reality of this brokenness grows up, it is called condemnation.  Over time, our hearts move from simply observing this brokenness to mourning within it.  Condemnation is the guilt that comes with seeing the things we have done to contribute to this fallen world: broken relationships, lost opportunities, lack of discipline, fractured love, ulterior motives, relentless addictions, and so many other things.  This condemnation and guilt accumulates and our hearts are so heavy that we actually poison ourselves with the weight of this fractured story.

But there is a solution

God is greater than our heart.  He has actually taken a world that rebelled against His shalom, and infused His love and grace in it in such a way as to heal the brokenness.  Jesus is the infusion of God's love into the world.  And not simply a passive love, but Jesus actually took on both the brokenness of all humanity and also the condemnation that spawns as a result of it, and put them to death when He died.  Him assuming our place in judgment means that our source and substance of guilt is not just covered over, but released.

Our hearts can now be confident before God.  For those who follow Jesus, the truth of this expansive, freeing love which drew up Christ on the cross has now been unlocked within us.  Out of this grace unlocked, we can then love others in a way that is not fractured by the broken love of the world around us.  We can love others without obligation or motive, because the true love of Jesus longs to serve others out of who they are, not out of what they can give us.  Good deeds are much more potent than good words. 

And not only can this new, whole love equip us to serve others without obligation, it also allows us to serve others in a way that calls them into this new reality.  True love in action always draws people into truth about who they are and who they could be.  Loving others in truth serves them in a way that is both self-reflective and Christ-reflective, deeds and truth are married under the banner of Jesus' love.

^"Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.  By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him;  for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything."

          - Saint John

The Space Between Grieving and Despair

My Dad died a few months ago. I took care of him through a prolonged, painful, extended suffering and watched him die slowly in front of me. I also preached his celebration service (link here, more posts to come on this).

From my very personal and real experience of suffering and death, there is something that I as a Christian must wrestle with, a spiritual no-man's land that anyone can fall into when suffering. This is the space between grieving and despair. 

Let me explain. 

Mourning/grieving is good. It's cathartic. It's human and it's necessary. Jesus designed us this way to express and feel as He expresses and feels. The Bible says we are made in God's image, and grieving loss is actually part of how we reflect His character. 

But it is important to note that our grieving turns into despair when it stops focusing on Jesus in our loss to solely on the loss apart from Him. That happened to me the day after my Dad died and I recognized that despair immediately. I had transitioned from grieving and mourning the amazing Dad I had, to slipping into a despair of life itself.

This shift happens when the source of our hope moves in the grieving heart from Jesus to these lost relationships. Unknowingly, our heart will seek to shift away from the hope of Jesus, and rest in experiences that will never happen, conversations that will never again be spoken, and regrets that will never be reversed. 

Frankly, I had never experienced a despair like that before and it was scary. But I started to meditate on Jesus, what He looked like, how He talked...simply meditating on the person of Christ. When I did, He shared with me a vision of heaven and of my Dad worshiping at Jesus' throne. It was a beautiful, spiritual vision that infused hope back in, and moved from despair back to grief and mourning. 

Despair ignores Jesus in the mourning and grieving. It produces hopelessness. 

Grieving and mourning give voice to the longing of the soul that all is not right, that death is theologically, morally, personally, relationally, inherently wrong, and it hurts like hell because that's where it came from. 

In the times of suffering and pain, we are freed by Jesus to embrace grief fully, to mourn passionately, and reject despair intentionally.

To a Better Way: Affirmations in the Life of Joshua Young

I am not perfect despite what I used to believe.

I am not who I used to be.

I have changed, am changing, and will change because Jesus is working in me.

I am focused on being more like Jesus, and that is 'God's will' for my life, not a job, ministry, or relationship.

I am not my faults, failures, and short-comings.

Brokenness will persist in my life until Jesus brings perfect peace, not until then.

Healing from brokenness is not a destination, it is a pathway.

I am not defined by past relationships, hurts, and pain.

I have hurt others and am free to forgive myself, because Jesus has forgiven me.

I cannot let my past failures define my present perspective on reality.

My broken engagement is not a pattern and does not determine my future marriage.

I am not as prideful as I used to be, but I'm more prideful than I should be.

Jesus was humble for me so that I can be humble in Him.

I'm free from pride, anger, and striving.

I can rest in what has already been done for me.

I am forgiven because of Jesus' death.

I am free because of Jesus' victory.

I am alive because of Jesus' resurrection.

Just because my Dad is dead does not mean I am not still his son.

God is my Father and he will fill in the gaps that my Dad's death has left in me.

There is a reason for Dad's death and Mom and I's part in it.

Jesus redeems every pain, every hurt, every suffering, and every sin for His glory and my joy.  He has consistently and clearly met me in the threshing floor of my life, picking up what I see as garbage and mistakes, and creating sometime new and beautiful out of it.  There is hope

He brings healing in my brokenness, love in my pain, joy in my suffering, peace in my despair, hope in every challenge.  He loves me enough to not deliver me from my sufferings, but give me the strength to bear under them.  He cares for me enough to not leave me in despair and guilt, sin and lies...but to call me to a better way.  There is a better way.

There is no chasm of sin or suffering that can separate me from His bridge-building love.  There is no misstep that can thwart me from His purposeful path.  There are no winds of choice too strong to lead me away from the coastline of His grace.  There is security.

Jesus is all-rightness, and He makes me right because He took my wrong and obliterated it on the cross.  

I am free.

Turning Another Page: London Religion 101

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page” - St. Augustine

It is a strange thing to wake up in one continent and sleep in another.  It’s even stranger to do so without delays, troubles, or stressful circumstances.  I am pleased to say that today offered me both of these luxuries!

In case you did not know, I have the opportunity to travel to London with a team of pastors and church leaders on a 10 day exposure trip to post-Christian culture in western Europe.  The organization is called The Upstream Collective, and the feature leaders of the trip are Dr. Ed Stetzer and Daniel Montgomery.  I have been fundraising, stressing, praying…and finally God has allowed me to come to Europe again without any troubles at all!

Immediately after a brief, five-minute meeting upon arriving in London, we set out for an Muslim mosque.  The missionary we connected with has developed a relationship of mutual respect and love with the local Imam for over five years, just living out the Gospel.  They have actually become very close friends, and the Imam shared with us some of what he believes as it relates to God and faith and also gave us a quick overview of the Islamic religious culture.  As our team saw the local missionary interact with the Imam, there was such a sense of love and brotherhood between them that it could not have been a better reflection of the love Christ has for the lost!  This missionary in London is a joy to be around, and his love for the Muslim community and his Imam friend in particular was worth flying 1500 miles to see.

We continued our tour to include a Hindu temple, Sikh temple, and a Church of England location.  And, if the religious exposure wasn’t enough, we finished off the evening with a full-blown Afghani dinner. 

AND, all of this was in the first four hours of our time in London!  The intensity was vibrant and the experience more than beneficial to begin understanding the religious culture of Western Europe.

The cultural diversity of London far surpasses anything found in the States, including New York City.  This gives rise to subcultures so deep and influential that people from the home countries of these religions want to live in London because it is quickly becoming the hub of religious activity for Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim religions.  And with this heavily charged atmosphere, the depth of spiritual oppression and depravity is like an insurmountable weight upon my heart.  Yet God has provided some faithful people to devote their lives to leading these colorful, beautiful, diverse, yet lost people to Jesus.

There are a few things I would like to note from our debriefing time after visiting these places:

1.  The people in Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh religions FAR surpass even the most devout Christians in terms of intensity and dedication (Muslims wake up every single morning at four am for prayer, no matter what circumstance)

2.  The worship services for these other religions are more integrated than in America.  The children kneel before their false goddess Vishnu alongside of their parents.  There is no separation of children from the joint worship service.  They observe and repeat whatever their parents do.  This leads to a high level of assimilation from children into their parents faith.

3.  In America, our faith is mostly seen as a compartmentalized hobby to entertain us, but with these religions in London they are a way of life and dictate every, single facet of their existence.

4.  These false religions do not osculate with models of ministry, they have a specific worldviews and perspectives to which they approach every dimension of their life, without compromise.  Their methods are driven by the needs of their ‘followers’, but the message and almost all basic principles are the same as they have been for thousands of years.

These four notes lead me to four interpretations and four questions to ponder this weekend:

1.  In all of these false religions, the person has to work to earn their favor with God.  Christians have a freedom because Jesus earns favor FOR us with God through His death on the cross. Unfortunately, we forget that Jesus saves us to run a race…not to descend into spiritual atrophy.

How can we translate this freedom of grace into a call to serve?

2.  American, evangelical parents most-often shoo their children away on Sunday to their own service, denying basic discipleship to them yet passing on the blame to the local church when things go wrong with their youth. 

How can pastors train parents to disciple their children in worshipping Jesus from infancy to maturity?

3.  The incredible amount of dedication and religious fervor is unspeakable.  For example, the Imam memorized the entire Koran, reciting the entire book throughout the month of Ramadan from memory.  As a Christian society, there are very few, if any points throughout all of church history where this dedication has been recorded on a consistent or community basis.

How can pastors lead their congregation back to the “joy of their salvation” so they can do ministry out of a joy within them instead of an obligation coming from outside of them.

4.  In popular Christian culture, there is a look to and dependence on models and methods to drive church ministry.  These most often have damaging effects on a church’s theology.  Yet in these false religions the theology has remained virtually untouched for hundreds if not thousands of years. 

How do churches break out of the model-seeking mode and develop a core biblical theology which will stand the test of culturally driven methodology?

And so tonight in London I turn another page in the narrative of my life and my ministry, enjoying the story God is penning in my life.

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What are your reactions?  What are you distressed about when you read this account?