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cause if you ain't first, you're last, and Jesus is first.

Feb
18

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The Worst Greatest Story Ever Told – Part 1 – Elevation Church

Category: Genesis, Gospel, Redemption, Spiritual Reflection Leave a Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to a Furtick sermon.  Used to do it every day on the way to and from work because usually I had an hour commute, tore through most of the content available online.  Lately things have been busy and I just haven’t had the motivation to feed my soul.  But tonight I decided to pull up the newest stuff and listen while I was washing the pile of dishes I’ve neglected in my kitchen sink and I have to say, that same spiritual awakening/food came right back and I love it!

The basic premise of the first message in this series focuses on the fall of man in Genesis 3 and the lie that the Serpent speaks to Eve, “…has God not said?” Here’s the scripture for reference:

Now the serpent was more subtle and crafty than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And he [Satan] said to the woman, Can it really be that God has said, You shall not eat from every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees of the garden, 3 Except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. 4 But the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die, 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil and blessing and calamity. 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good (suitable, pleasant) for food and that it was delightful to look at, and a tree to be desired in order to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave some also to her husband, and he ate.

Satan made Eve question what God had actually said to her and Adam.  He asked the question in such a way that required Eve to think more into it.  It was not simply a yes or no answer.  He draws her in by causing her to remind herself of why God said not to eat the fruit from that particular tree.  She believed God, that she would surely die if she ate from it.  But the Serpent returns with information contrary to what God said.  ”You shall not surely die…”  ”And here’s why God didn’t want you to eat that fruit: you’ll be like Him if you do.”

Now, Furtick briefly touched on one little detail in his sermon that made me think a bit.  If God didn’t want them to eat from the tree, why did he put it in the Garden in the first place?  Good question….  I remember times in seminary where we would sit around and argue for hours over this kind of stuff.  Whether God knew man would sin and fall, whether he’s responsible for putting the tree there, or whether he created the Serpent himself are all good questions, but in the end irrelevant in comparison to the act which was ultimately accomplished for us by His Son, but that’s a little later.  The big glaring truth in this first section is obvious, God’s first command was one of freedom, not of restriction.  ”You may eat the fruit from [any] of the trees in the Garden…except that one in the middle”.  God gave them freedom, because freedom without choice is not freedom at all.  The restriction of not eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was one of love, for our good, not for destruction.  God knew the harm that knowing of evil could cause for his creation and he commanded them not to touch it.  When it comes down to it, the tree had to be there, the choice had to be there for God to express his love to his creation.  Without the tree, we would be drones, not able to freely return love to our creator who made us, and because of the tree’s existence and our fall, one man hung on a tree to bring us back into right relationship with the one who once walked in the Garden among us.

Adam and Eve take the fruit and become aware to the knowledge of good and evil.  They realize they are naked, and they’re ashamed.  They hear the Lord walking in the cool/spirit of the day.  The Hebrew text uses the word “ruach” for cool/spirit, most commonly used for spirit, describing the day and for me it sets a calming, yet frightening image of the Lord moving through the Garden.  They are a afraid and they hide.  When the Lord finds them and asks them why they were hiding, they responded with “we heard you, and we were naked, so we hid…”  The first question God asks them has such weighty implication in light of the grand scheme of the Gospel, scripture, and life that it pounds with heavy beats against the walls of my heart… “who told you that you were naked?”  Its as if every lie Satan has ever posed to man is held up to the blinding light of God’s truth, “who told you that you were naked?”  God created man to not be ashamed, afraid, wanting, selfish, etc…but because we believed a lie and gave into our own selfish wants, we fell out of that perfect mindset God had for us.  Those piercing words, “who told you that you were naked?” come from the mouth of a God who is not at all asking the question for his own knowledge of the answer; rather, He’s asking so that we might recognize our deceiver and our belief of a lie.

7 Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apronlike girdles. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? 10 He said, I heard the sound of You [walking] in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11 And He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? 12 And the man said, The woman whom You gave to be with me—she gave me [fruit] from the tree, and I ate. 13 And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled (cheated, outwitted, and deceived) me, and I ate.

God then pronounces the punishment.  Pain in childbirth, having to work the ground by the sweat of his brow to get it yield food.  No longer were we in right relationship with our creator.  That day, we died.  But God being rich in mercy and loving-kindness had a plan from the beginning.  It was not plan B, not plan A, it was THE plan.  God knew we would fail, but that was inevitable for us to be able to love him back.  His first act of love toward us was to wipe the slate clean for a time until the plan could come to fruition.  The scriptures say that God made a garment out of skin for both Adam and Eve.  God could have very well made a skin out of nothing, but I think the significance here was that something died/was killed for our shame to be wiped away.  Even in our utter weakness and failure, God still is there waiting to clothe you, pick you up again and help you keep moving. Consider it foreshadowing.  It was pretty clear at that point what needed to happen for things to be right again.  And it would get even clearer in Genesis 22.  A sacrifice had to be made.  Not just any sacrifice.  The perfect sacrifice of his only son and that sacrifice’s resurrection would eventually be the conclusion of this particular redemption story, and there was no greater way for God to show his love to us than in this way.

Sep
1

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Who I’m Meant to Be: Part 1

Category: Ephesians, Sanctification, Spiritual Reflection Tags: , , Leave a Comment

For those of you wondering where the rest of my blog went…it was blacklisted by Google (or at least Chrome saw it that way, IE just gave an error) for malware.  No idea how that happened.  I attempted to fix the problem per their suggestion, but it was not resolved.  I requested a review of my website and they never responded.  My intention was not to lose everything, but it seemed easier to wipe the slate clean and start fresh than try to export and import databases.  Anyway, here’s to starting new!

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of sermons on the way back and forth to work, and one idea in particular keeps popping up.  The idea of putting off the old self, and putting on the new self. This idea has permeated through everything I’ve listened to.  Even if the sermon had nothing to do with a particular scripture that speaks of the old and new self, the idea of changing into what Christ wants me to be is brought to the forefront of my mind in every instance.  Call it introspection. Call it sanctification.  I believe that the more I’ve spent time with the Lord lately, the more He’s pointed out just how far I am from being like Him. The more I’m reminded of what Christ would have me think, do, say…the more I’m reminded of how utterly incapable of measuring up without Him.  With that said, I’d like to unpack a passage that Mark Driscoll preached on at Elevation Church a while back.  Here’s the scripture, in the Amplified version (I’m not as much a stickler about translation/paraphrase as I was in seminary :) ) Ephesians 4:17-23:

17 So this I say and solemnly testify in [the name of] the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the heathen (the Gentiles) do in their perverseness [in the folly, vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility] of their minds.

18 Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and perception, the willful blindness) that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart [to the insensitiveness of their moral nature].

19 In their spiritual apathy they have become callous and past feeling and reckless and have abandoned themselves [a prey] to unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity [that their depraved desires may suggest and demand].

20 But you did not so learn Christ!

21 Assuming that you have really heard Him and been taught by Him, as [all] Truth is in Jesus [embodied and personified in Him],

22 Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion;

23 And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude],

24 And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness.

As I thought about this passage, and the sermon associated with it, I began to look at my life in retrospect.  A lot of change has happened over the past year and a half.  I’m a different person than I was in 2010.  In some respects I don’t like who I believe I’ve become, and often I find myself wishing I could go back to being the way I was in college.  I find myself reminiscing about how easy things were, there were no worries, no responsibility to provide, things were easy.  As I think of how I would have approached this scripture back then, my reaction is almost a joke in comparison to the way I feel today.  Back then, my old self could be described in three words or less.  I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on things, spiritually speaking.  The only sin I really saw myself struggling with was lust, but hey…every guy struggles with that, its not that big of a deal, right?  I had it together, right?  I suppose the Lord just wasn’t speaking loud enough, or I wasn’t listening enough back then.

Today, my old self (the dying self – I’ll explain in a minute) can be described as: selfish, doubtful, slothful, untrusting, deceitful, impulsive, prideful, etc.  The list could go on.  It seems that as of late, the Lord has been crushing me every chance He gets by pointing out my sin through scripture, conversations, situations.  The thing is, I can relate with the way Paul talks about the Gentiles in this passage.  I chose the Amplified version because I feel that it really emphasizes the depravity of man before Jesus steps in.  I thought I had it together!  I thought I was a pretty good person!  And the crazy thing is, I thought I learned Christ in the right way!  I thought I had a proper understanding of sin.  But how could I have a right understanding of sin (and consequently grace) when I only believed that I struggled with one sin?  Could I really only have been sinful in only one specific area?  Absolutely not! You see, you cannot have a proper understanding what it means to put off the old self until you come to the realization of how sinful you are.  And that realization only comes through meditating on the commands of Christ and just how unable you are to obey those commands without His help.  And subsequently, you cannot understand what it means to put on the new self until you understand grace and sanctification.

Y’all, many times over the past few weeks listening to these messages I’ve found myself thinking, “man if I could just go back to the way I thought back in college things would be so much better”.  The truth of the matter is that I was just as much a sinner then as I am now.  Even better now, Christ is pointing out my sin and gradually conforming me to who He wants me to be.  Yes its harder, but its so worth the struggle, to be like Christ!  That’s who I’m meant to be! Not to be like Jason, but to be like Christ!

But this is a process.  Before Christ, you are stuck in the sinful self, with no way out.  Once Jesus comes into the picture, He offers the option of a new self.  We would all like to think that as soon as we trust in Jesus, the old self is entirely dead and we immediately transform into the new self, but you know as well as I do that the old self likes to rear his ugly head every now and then. That old self is still there, however weak he may be.  ”Being constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude]” is a daily task.  That’s why I like to call the old self the “dying self”.  Because the more we do battle with old self, and put him off, the weaker he gets.  Our new self may get weak in the process, it happens: we get tired, but we have food to feed the new self to bring him back up to strength, like a bodybuilder who’s just wasted himself working out, giving him food to repair only makes him stronger.  That killing of the old self and building up of the new is called sanctification. For me that food is listening to sermons and getting filled up in the mornings, for you it might be listening to worship music, either way, you have to get fed.

Putting on the new self isn’t as easy as it sounds.  I didn’t think it was that hard until I understood how sinful I am.  Now that I realize how hard it is, the reward of becoming more like Christ when I trust him is all the more sweeter.