Something I've learned about marriage

Eph 4:32 “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

I must admit, Valentines is one of my favorite holidays; I think it is because I really am a hopeless romantic at heart. Valentines is also a time when I stop and reflect on my marriage. How am I doing in demonstrating my love for my wife? How is our relationship; is it healthy, is it not healthy? Over the course of Kellie and my nearly eighteen years of marriage and twenty years of being together there is one thing that we have learned that has sustained our relationship and our love and affection for one another; that one thing is grace.

I believe most people go into marriage with love blinders on. Kellie and I certainly did. We think our spouse is wonderful and can do no wrong. We brush over their faults thinking mistakenly that we will be able to change them later or we see them as cute quirks that they have, but we don’t understand how those things will wear on a relationship after years of being together.

After being married to an individual for a period of time we discover that the ones we love so much have the ability to hurt us. They know us so well that they can say things that cut us to the core of who we are. They see all of the inconsistencies in our lives and will call them out from time to time; this can really sting.

They themselves are not perfect and disappoint us, hurt our feelings, take us for granted, do stupid things that we have to pay for because we are united to them. Both individuals in a marriage will do these types of things innumerous times over the course of a marriage.
They do not do it maliciously, most of the time; they just do it because they are flawed.

It’s part of the human condition. Each of us desires close relationship. It’s hard wired into our hearts. We desire to have someone to love and for someone to love us. Unfortunately we are all broken. There’s something in the human condition that’s not quite right. So that experience of love and loving someone else doesn’t come easy. It’s hard because try as we might, none of us is perfect and we all hurt the ones we love. This human condition, our brokenness, the Bible tells us is a result of our rebellion to God. It’s sin. None of us can escape it, its part of our human condition.

Yet there is a way that two broken people with a propensity to hurt each other can live together, keep their love intact, and actually grow closer to one another and more loving through time. It is a way that finds its fullest expression through Jesus love for us on the cross. The way is called grace.

Kellie and I learned early on that because we both had such strong domineering personalities that we were going to hurt each others feelings often, not intentionally, but we just would. We decided to keep short accounts with one another. We decided to always live in grace. Kellie may hurt my feelings, she may make me angry, she may get so task driven that she forgets to give all the attention my little heart desires, but it’s O.K. I forgive her for not being perfect, and in reality she has to offer much more grace to me than I could ever dream of offering her. But it’s this grace, this laying down of offenses, this choosing not to hold a grudge or to demand justice for all the wrongs that has allowed us to stay in love all these years, and to not only stay in love but for our love for one another to actually grow.

Why? Because we are able to concentrate on the things we find fascinating and endearing about each other instead of focusing on the hurt or woundedness that sometimes occurs as a result of being so close.

You know I thought I loved her when I was twenty-one, but I love her so much more at forty and grace has been the key. This Valentines Day I encourage you to make a new commitment to grace in your marriage; to not hold on to the wrongs but to live in a state of forgiveness.

Catch the Wave

AC 1:1 “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach” 

My family’s favorite type of vacation is a beach vacation. We love the sand and the sun, the sound of the surf and the waves, the beautiful water on Florida’s gulf coast. We love the beach, and my favorite beach activity is body surfing. I love getting out there and catching the waves. 

The best time to body surf is when there is a storm not to far off the coast that really kicks up the waves. There’s nothing like standing out in the ocean waiting for that perfect swell, feeling the waves pick you up off your feet, while all the time watching for the wave that will bring the best ride. Then you see the wave, an Everest of water barreling towards you. You feel the inflow of the current of the wave drawing you and everything else in towards its building power. You lift your feet off the ground and off you go, and if you catch the wave just right you are hurled towards the shore at a terrific velocity by it’s power. After your belly begins to hit the sand, you stand up, pull-up your shorts that are riding dangerously low on your hips, give a sly grin as you see the forty some odd yards you’ve traveled in a few seconds, and march right back into the water excited by the possibility of the next ride. 

Catching a wave is a thrilling exercise in relinquishing control to a power greater than yourself. 

I cannot make the wave. I cannot stop the wave. All I can do is either fight against the waves power or surrender myself to it and let it take me where it will. 

This is the same type of power we read about in the book of Acts in the Bible. In Acts we see God’s power breaking out all over the place, setting things to right. People are given access to the covenant promises of Israel not through the keeping of a religious system but through their allegiance to a new King. The measure of sin that had separated God’s people from their creator had been dealt with through their Kings confrontation of evil, death, and decay. 

We see that this wave of the King and His Kingdom is breaking to the shore of an age when all those who follow Jesus will be set free from death and decay and risen to a renewed life on a renewed earth where sickness, war, human trafficking, infanticide, genocide, racism, and everything that would have no place in God’s Kingdom will be done away with.  Heaven and Earth will be joined together knowing the rule of God on earth. This is the point of all the sermons in the Book of Acts in the Bible.  These sermons serve as markers helping us understand the narrative action of the book. 

In the first of these sermons occurs when Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost and proclaims that God’s presence is no longer found in a nation, or a city, or a temple, but in the people who have given their allegiance to Jesus as King. 

He points them back to the Old Testament prophets and says this is what they have been anticipating. This was the wave they were longing to catch.  Peter says to thse who have assembled because of the outpouring of the Spirit that Israel has rejected their true king, Jesus of Naxareth.  He says repent and catch the wave.   He challenges those who have gathered to get caught up in the trajectory of a world that will one day be set completely to right by the dynamic action of this King. 

It’s what Peter says to the ruling council in Jerusalem as he testifies before the same court that convinced the Roman presence in Israel to crucify Christ. He tells them the wave of God that has been building, pointing to the eventual setting to right of all things.  Peter says this wave has crested in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He calls the gathered to not be left behind.  They need to let the wave take them to the place where all things are set to right.  

This hope is also seen in Stephen’s speech right before he is stoned to death. He calls Israel to remember its long history. He recounts to them how God has been actively moving in their history drawing them towards the moment when all things are redeemed and restored . 

He says the decisive moment has occurred in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He reminds them that there have always been people who have embraced what God is doing and those who have stood in opposition to it. There have been people who have ridden the wave and those who have tried to hold back the tide. Those who ride the wave get to go on one incredible ride and those who fight the tide find themselves battered by it. 

The world will be renewed. 

Evil has been defeated and will one day be destroyed. 

The Caesars and false kings of the world will find their knees bowing and tongues’ confessing Jesus Christ is Lord. To some this is the blessed hope to others it is the stone of offense, but this is the gospel. This is the wave that has broken and is now pushing history towards the shoreline of a renewed heaven and earth. 

Each of us has the opportunity to catch this wave or to try to hold it back. We catch the wave by becoming followers of Jesus and allowing his wave to take us where ever it will. 

For some of us it might look like fight against human trafficking, or laboring for racial equality, or being like Mother Teresa and caring for those no other will care for, praying for the sick or feeding the poor. 

The wave that draws us nearer to shore line of God’s renewed Kingdom can take us to so many different places, and the places will always look like the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Catching the wave looks like saying yes to God when he calls us to dare things that bring an intersection between the Kingdom of Heaven and earth. This year when we felt like God was calling our church to build a well in Uganda and it was going to cost 50,000 dollars. We knew there was no way we could raise that type of money, but it was what God wanted us to do, so we said yes and raised 51,000 dollars. 

When God asked our church to not build a building but to fight against the materialism and commercialism of an age that says the church’s mission should be to a consumer instead of transforming the world; it didn’t make sense, but we said yes and we are just starting to see what God might do through a church that will seek his Kingdom before it seeks it’s own. 

Even when a group of us prayed for a friend who came into the church having to use a walker and left under the strength of his own legs because of the healing God provided, none of the prayer team had the power to heal someone, but God did. He asked us to pray and we did and we saw a glimpse of what the shoreline is going to be like when the wave finally arrives. Have you caught the wave? If you haven’t you have no clue as to what you’re missing. Stop trying to hold back the tide and instead allow the wave to take you for a ride.

If You Never Try, You’ll Never Know

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Hebrews 11:6

John Wimber, the founder of the Association of Vineyard Churches, once said, “Faith is spelled R.I.S.K.”

When I was in my twenties God gave me a vision for a different type of church; a church that was contemporary, one that fostered authentic community, and one that transformed its community into a better place. For seven years I told God why I couldn’t do that. I told him I didn’t know enough, I didn’t have the credentials I needed for that to be a possibility, and I couldn’t afford to take the financial risk with my young family. God was calling me, but I wasn’t following.

I was suffering from a serious lack of faith.

If you were to ask me at the time, I would have said it was a lack of faith in myself. In reality it was a much larger issue than that it was a lack of faith in God. I didn’t believe God was powerful enough to work around my inadequacies. So I told God no, and I experienced a miserable seven years of running from the call of God on my life.

However there came a time shortly after turning 31 that I surrendered to the call and I took the risk. God empowered me to plant a church of over 500 people that has planted six churches out of it in less than a decade that if you were to total them up are running between 1100-1200 people. Because our church reaches so many college students we literally turn over a fifth or sixth of our congregation every year as those students graduate, which means that we have sent out about as many leaders as the size of our church over the last decade. We’ve fed the poor, brought relief to areas of the U.S. that have experienced disaster, waded into the Human Trafficking issue, brought clean water to an area of Uganda, housed the homeless, sent the first medical missions team to the Tepajan Indians, helped establish missions in India and Mexico, and the list could go on. Literally, thousands upon thousands of people’s lives have been touched and changed by the Vineyard Chattanooga.

That all began because a small group of people decided to take a risk. God called, we took a risk, and thousand’s of lives have been changed. Now that’s a little simplistic because there was great sacrifice involved, but I can tell you every sacrifice I’ve had to make so far has been worth it. God has backed up his end and then some. So my question to you is what vision has God placed on your heart? Where is he asking you to step out and take a risk?

What if you fail you may ask, O.K. what if you do? Is it the end of the world? I’ve got a better question, “What if God uses you?” What if he takes that vision he’s placed on your heart and breathes life to it, and it takes off. What could happen because of it? How many lives could be changed? How many people could experience hope? You can sit there and do nothing, you can risk nothing, and never experience the power of really being used or you can step out, risk, and see what God does. You know what the difference between people who see God do incredible things and people who don’t is? The difference is risk. Faith can’t be rewarded where faith is not found. Take a risk.