Well it’s been almost one full year since President Obama’s official inauguration on January 20th, 2009.

My question is still the same:  will President Obama be forced to eat grass like an ox?

What I mean is this:  will President Barack Obama have a King Nebuchadnezzar experience?

In Daniel 4, King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream.  God sent Daniel to interpret it for him and apply it.  It turns out that the dream is about King Neb’s own prideful quest for glory and majesty and God’s judgment for it.  But King Neb was apparently not okay with that interpretation because soon after he is found walking on the roof of his royal palace saying this:

29 At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, 30 and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”

Are you seeing what I see here? King Neb is getting cocky here.  Wonder how God feels about this little roof-top gloating?

31 While the words were still in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, 32 and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” 33Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.

God wastes no time and responds quickly.  His voice falls from heaven and addresses King Neb’s pride and vain glory seeking with a promise to scatter him from his kingdom, make him live among beasts, make him eat grass like an ox, and endure this for “seven periods of time” until he knows something.  Well what is this knowledge he is supposed to know that is gonna rescue him from this animalistic reasonless time?

“Until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will”.  So God wants the King to know that it is actually Him that rules the kingdoms of men and therefore gives this kingdom of rule to whoever He wishes.  This is a stark humbling slap in the face of King Neb’s pride!

In other words, here is what I see going on here:

1. God is the real Ruler of Men
2. As the real ruler, He deserves the credit, glory, and praise for giving these kingdoms by HIs power not man’s, and for His glory not man’s
3. God is the Giver of kingdom rule authority to man, therefore man is the Receiver
4. The Giver gets the glory
5. Any king (or ruler) who has a kingdom of authority did not build or establish it but acquired it from a Divine giver outside of himself, that is God
6. Therefore all praise and credit go the Giver, not the Getter
7. This serves to rightly exalt the Giver to His proper place and to humble (or debase) the Getter ot his proper place
8. Therefore this should instill in the Getter great amounts of humbling gratitude, honor, privilege, and pleasure in partaking in such Divine Giving.

Thankfully, God does not leave the King in His humbling state of beastality.  He lifts him up and graciously give the knowledge that He requires.

The Demander Delivers the Demand and Redeems the Request.

In other words, the requirement God gave to the King of “knowing” is then granted by God (The Great Requirer) to the Requiree (the king).

34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,

for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”

Three main things just happened here:

1. Eyes were lifted to heaven
2. Reason was returned
3. Praise was given

Three questions this begs:

1. Who lifted their eyes?
2. Who returned and received the reason?
3. Who gave the praise? Who received the praise?

Three answers given:

1. Nebuchadnezzar lifted his eyes
2. The King’s reason was returned to him by God
3. The King gave praise to God.

So the King lifted his eyes, God returned the King’s reason back to him, and therefore the King praised God.  Did you catch all of that?  Daniel did not say “the king found his reason” or “discovered his reason” but says that it “returned to me”.

This proves that it came to him from outside of himself.  Since he immediately begins to bless God and not boast in himself, one can reasonably conclude that God must have been the Returner of this reason and the King must have been the Returnee.  How amazing is God in designing and reigning over His people.  God returns the reason so that the King would then “know” what God required him to “know”, that God is the one to be praised!

So let me summarize this:

1. The King/Getter of authority, who deserves NO praise, becomes prideful and praises himself
2. God/the Giver of authority, who deserves ALL praise, becomes angry at the king’s pride and takes away his reason by banning him to a debased life of bestiality, eating grass
3. The King lives like an animal without reason for seven periods
4. He then lifts up his eyes to heaven (upward rather than inward)
5. God returns the king’s reason to him
6. So that the King can now respond accordingly to this newly received reason and knowledge by simultaneously praising the subject of the knowledge and the Giver of the knowledge, both one in the same: God!

As John Piper says, Daniel tells the story of “the pathway of a man from the pride of self to the praise of God through the valley of humiliation.”

And guess what readers? It was all of God!

• It Began with God – A DREAM
• It Progressed with God – AN INTERPRETER [Daniel]
• It Advance with God – A VALLEY
• It Ended with God – A PRAISE

God graciously gave King Nebuchadnezzar a dream, an interpreter of the dream, a warning through the dream of what would soon come to pass, a divine presentation and confrontation of his sin (pride), a gracious trial of humiliation, and finally a knowledge that led to the praise God required! God is so good.

But the story doesn’t end here.

36 At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.

Here we see God with even more grace, reestablishing King Neb’s kingdom and blessing him with faithful servants, greatness, and more opportunities to give his Giver more praise and honor that He deserves.

It all ends with a thematic purpose in the last verse: “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”

So how does this long story related to McCain, Obama, and the upcoming Presidential election?  If you don’t know by now then I have failed to do my part.  It relates because all men, especially those in high positions of power, are subject to perhaps what is often the very root or fruit of most sin: PRIDE! Pride of self, exalting oneself, boasting in one’s ability, praising one’s power, doing by and for the glory of oneself!

This is the same SIN that cast Satan, the angel of light, out of heaven away from God’s presence and cursed to an everlasting Hell forever.  So readers, this is of extreme relevance and importance. Will John McCain and Barack Obama give in to the desires of their flesh? Will they seek their own glory? Both claim a faith in God or “faith” in general. What will this faith prove to do?

Watch and be careful because often pride is veiled in what I call FALSE HUMILITY! Anyone can attempt to appear humble, while inside they are raging with PRIDE!

Therefore all men are in need of one thing: HUMILITY! Only God can humble a man.

We must pray that God would do what it takes, come valley or mountain of humiliation, to keep our leaders seeing themselves as privileged RECEIVERS and not deserving GIVERS!

No matter who wins the election, remember these things will never change:

1. God is still God!
2. Jesus is still King!
3. God alone is the Giver of power and the Receiver of glory
4. Man alone is the Receiver of power and the Giver of glory
5. Man’s only role is to stay humble in light of God’s deserving boasting

I pray that President Obama never has to taste of God’s often painful valley of humiliation, unless He deems it so. I pray that President Obama will give honor, glory and praise where it’s due. God the Father.

*Inspired by John Piper’s Believing God on Election Day regarding the coming 1988 Presidential election of either Bush or Dukakis!

Here are my top reasons for pursuing biblical unity in all that I believe and live in my Christian life: (in no particular order)

1. I am a child of a triune, fully unified God
2. I love Jesus Christ and His Good News
3. I love the church, the universal, catholic church
4. I love the Holy Spirit
5. Jesus’ prayer in John 17 – His glory and fame is on the line!
6. I love people
7. I love the mission to make disciples
8. I love my wife
9. I love my daughter
10. I love theology
11. I love the Word
12. Sin is real, dangerous and hopeless
13. I love creation
14. I hate the Fall and all of its effects and fruit
15. Division in the Church is real, unfruitful and counterproductive
16. Infighting prevents outreach
17. “Unity” today has been lost in translation, especially in Christian circles
18. Time must be redeemed because the days are still evil
19. Jesus is coming back soon!
20. I’m still breathing…

I list these primarily to be stated, not debated.

I’ve always been a stickler for words.

Even though my mouth seems to run like a gushing fire hydrant. Much to my dismay, language is typically my greatest strength AND my greatest weakness. So I’ve learned the hard way to choose my words wisely. To say things carefully. To think before I speak, not speak before I think.

Words matter. They bring life, they bring destruction. They influence people and situations.

Today some of the most popular ways to greet somebody and meet somebody are by asking first “How are you?” and then “What do you do?”. These questions seem harmless and normal at the surface. But at the root, they are philosophically aiming the focus of the meeting to less significant things and more transient things.

I believe that because of the day in age we live in, all people struggle with one primary issue: selfishness exhibited through self-indulgence, self-preservation, self-exaltation, self-help, self-seeking, and so on and so on. And the world we live in puts the focus on a person’s condition and feelings and a person’s career path.

This is evidenced by the two above questions:

1. How are you? – the focus is on the well being of the person, specifically the feelings of that person at that moment in time. For example, “How are you doing?”.
2. What do you do? – the focus is on what the person does for a living, their career path or choice of success and income. For example, “What do you do for a living?”.

The reason I think these two questions are significant is because they lead the meeting down a certain path.  A path that tends towards temporary and unimportant matters. Surely these questions are not evil by any means. And there are many times when asking these questions is not only perfectly fine but appropriate. However they point the asker and the askee towards a typical worldly focus of conversing and living. That of feelings and work.

Simply put, I think the more appropriate and eternal question would be to ask “Who are You?”. Why, you ask? Because the question in this life is not How much do You make?, What is your career?, How much do you own?, What are your accomplishments?.

The question in this life that will matter in the next life is “Who are You?”. Or better yet, “Whose are You?”. This refocuses and aims the question towards the target of greatest significance: identity and nature! Feelings don’t matter. Work or career are not that crucial. Rather who a person is matters most. This is what is eternally important.

This is not a “become a better you” or “find your true self within” type of identity revelation. It’s not a self-revelation. It’s a self-realization. Who you are at your core is what defines you. Your nature is who you are by, well nature. Finding your true self can only be realized once it is revealed. And it is not a self-realization. It must be an “other-revelation”. It must be a divine-revelation from God almighty. He shows you who you are. Then He reveals to you Whose you are.

So maybe we should stop asking people all the time “How are you?” or “What do you do?” but rather “Who are you?” or “Whose are you?” or even “Who are you becoming?”. Strange looks will come. But they always do with new words, trends, and terms.

Why not start a language revolution? Be a word rebel. Fight to redeem the language for the sake of God and for people. It just may change a life. It just may change a person, forever.

I simply want the Gospel to not just inform but guide and drive my words. When the Gospel, or Good News about God’s goodness in His Son Jesus Christ, changes a person, it does so by proclaiming to them words of power, truth and grace! So a Christian who embraces the Gospel now has a new heart and a new language; a new vocabulary.

So, “Who are you?”.

I am the worship leader at church in the ‘Boro in southern Georgia. It’s been quite a journey of faith and fire. Through it all, God’s been more than faithful. I just pray I’ve been fruitful.

I have had many people pour into me as worship leader here for the past 9 months. I’ve also had to figure many things out on my own; often the hard way. So I want to help out worship leaders, song directors, and music directors because I needed help and still need help.

Here are some excellent key resources to help you in your efforts to not only lead your worship team but in leading the congregation (with your pastor) to exalt in the worship of God through singing!

Media

• Pandora – one of the best ways to fill your heart and mind with song ideas is to setup a free account here at the internet’s #1 free, custom radio station. It’s also an excellent tool to help you find a varied style that is not only honed into your personal preference, it’ll stretch your abilities and talents.
• YouTube or GodTube (now called Tangle) – you’re way behind if you haven’t discovered YouTube yet. This is a great way to not only hear song ideas but to see them performed. Also an excellent tool to watch and learn to play different songs and instruments. Just create a Free account, save your videos and you’ll always have them. Good way to integrate sermon excerpts and inspirational worship media too.

Song Databases and Search Engines

• I Will Worship – a simple, FREE and wonderful resource for a huge variety of songs from a variety of artists: from rock to alternative to worship to praise to hymns to contemporary to classic to underground to mainstream.
• Guitar Hymns – excellent resource for hymns played on guitar

Favorite Artists and Ministries – who offer free resources

• Sovereign Grace Music – countless free mp3s, chords, lyrics, piano, guitar and lead sheet music. Just click on “Store”.
• Lead Worship – Free songbooks, lyrics, and songs from Paul Baloche
• Tenth Avenue North – great new band who is very scripturally sound and fresh. They have very convicting and encouraging journals online and free lyrics and behind the song stories.

For the Worship Leader’s Heart and Leading

• Worship Matters – Bob Kauflin’s personal blog. One of the best and most comprehensive blogs on how to be a godly worship leader, lead a team, and the ins and outs of worship team all through our worship of God.
• Desiring God blog – personal blog of John Piper and Desiring God ministries

Not Free Resources

• Praise Charts
• Gospel Software

That’s it for now. I hope these help. I hope they assist you in leading your local church in worship by singing praise and ascribing goodness to God.

One of the most powerful and liberating articles I’ve ever read on believing and applying rightly the Gospel, is Pastor Tim Keller’s “The Centrality of the Gospel”.

It’s available here for free.

Especially crucial in Pastor Tim’s article is his explanation of the “two thieves of the gospel”, religion (moralism) and irreligion (hedonism). Both are dangerous enemies to the grace of the Gospel and the glory of God. Both are rooted heart issues of unbelief that steal our joy, squash our hope, quench our thirsts, quiet our minds, and confuse our lives into thinking either we must work hard to earn God’s favor or we can’t earn God’s favor so why work at all? Both are very self-satisfying and damning.

Please read this article.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from it:

• “the Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our life — spiritual, psychological, corporate, social — by thinking, hoping, and living out the “lines” or ramifications of the gospel. The gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating, working, and behaving”.
• “All our problems come from a failure to apply the Gospel”.
• “The main problem, then, in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people’s problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel — a failure to grasp and believe it through and through”.
• “All of us, to some degree live around the truth of the gospel but do not “get” it. So the key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the continual re-discovery of the gospel”.
• “The gospel shows us a God far more holy thatn the legalist can bear (he had to die because we could not satisfy his holy demands) and yet far more merciful than a humanist can conceive (he had to die because he loved us)”.
• “We must bring everything into line with the gospel”.
• The Gospel and Worship:  “But the gospel leads us to see that God is both transcendent yet immanent. His immanence makes his transcendence comforting, while his transcendence makes his immanence amazing. The gospel leads us to both awe and intimacy in worship, for the Holy One is now our Father”.

To all you church-hoppers, church-shoppers, pew jumpers, ship abandoners, captain haters, hill-diers, preference martyrs, stake nailers and wedge drivers who have burnt bridges by leaving churches in wrong ways for wrong reasons:

the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His cross demands that you humble yourself, love your brothers and sisters, and seek for unity and peace with the churches you have left in ruins by going back for reconciliation.

Too often, Christians in their pride and prejudice, pickiness and preferences have acted like “a bull in a china shop” toward the churches they have left. The Gospel demands that these Christian bullys return to these china shops for a mass cleanup and reconcile not only with the customers (church members) but the china shop owner (pastor/leaders).

It’s high time us bullys clean up our messes for the sake of the Gospel.

This is not my idea. It’s been designed and decided on by the entire trinity of the Godhead: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I get this from perhaps the sweetest of all the words of Christ, the High Priestly Prayer in John 17.

Jesus says:

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Wow, did you catch that? Jesus, in a prayer for His saints for Himself and His Father’s glory, prays for perfect harmonious unity for the purpose of missions. Did you catch that? “Just as you, Father are in me, and I in you, that they may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (verse 21).

This puts a more serious bent and perspective on the damage done by Christian bullys who stormed out of a church. If they left in a sinful way for sinful reasons with a sinful heart, then they most likely did damage to the unity of that community of believers and therefore (like Christ prays) prevented the nearby world from believing in Jesus.

Let me say it again simpler: The bully causes a ruckus, storms out of a church with hurt feelings and hurt people, leaves a mess, causes division, the body suffers, the leadership struggles, unity is threatened, and therefore the local community is either preached a false Gospel or a nonexistent one. In other words, No Gospel At All is Preached!

Even Paul argues for unity once he learns of the bullying and division and immaturity going on in the church of Corinth in the first chapter of first Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Here Paul, embarassingly, has to remind the Corinthians believers why he was chosen by Christ: not to baptize but to preach the Gospel. And to do it not with eloquence or excellence but with authenticity so that the cross of Christ would be displayed as it truly is: powerful and purposeful and effective!

Paul is pleading with the Corinthians to stop creating cliques and groups and causing quarrels but rather to unify under Christ Jesus. Not under any favorite teacher, preacher, sermon, doctrine, preference, style of worship or other perifferal non-essential of the faith.

Its the same today. Same thing different day. Believers today are fighting over their personal favorites and preferences and prideful version of Christianity rather than submitting to the unity and power of the cross of Jesus Christ by the Spirit. They are, in a sense, bullying their way through the pews to manipulate and govern and let their boisterous voices be heard. They will not stop until damage has been done.

If you can relate to what I am speaking of and you have been this raging bull, the damage has already been done. The bridge is burned. The fires have raged. The wood is singed. The ashes are piled up. The smoke is almost done smoldering. The damage is done.

However, praise God it’s not too late to rebuild! It’s not too late to go back. It’s not too late to reconcile. It’s not too late to rediscover the beauty of the unity of the cross of Jesus Christ. What you must do is humble yourself, seek out the offended, take the initiative to seek restoration, and fight hard to reestablish a relationship of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

I know first hand what it is like to transition from gentle lamb to raging, fiery bull. Unfortunately, I was the bull in the china shop. I stormed out of a church in 2005 that I grew up in for 11 years. All of it over hatred for the man who led this church. If I’m honest I’ll ask these questions:

• Did I seek out this pastor for conversation?
• Did I seek to understand him?
• Did I pursue a relationship with him?
• Did I seek to honor, respect, love, and submit to his person and office?
• Did I seek to see him as a brother in Christ, giving him the benefit of the doubt?
• Did I seek to encourage, exhort, edify, build up?
• Did I seek to ask more questions than make demands?
• Did I seek humility towards him or pride over him?
• Did I speak kindly and gently about him and his character and office?
• Did I seek for peace, unity, kinship, and reconciliation?

The answer to all of these questions is a big fat NO!!!

I was too caught up in my own arrogant and damning pride to see the error of my own ways. The log I had in my own eye kept me from seeing clearly to actually help him with the specks in his. Grant it, reasons I left were largely theological, which very well could have been resolved if I had chosen the fight side of the “fight or flight mentality” rather than the flight side.

Typically the bull’s preference is to make a lot of noise, do a lot of damage and then run out. Not fight it out and stick around to help clean up and restore.

I am aware and encouraged by God’s mysterious sovereignty to take me out of that church and where I am now. Even with my own sin and pride to leave in a wrong way. Even though I may have done great damage to the testimony of Christ and to the preaching and applying of His Gospel. Yet there is not a day that goes by that I don’t regret and doubt my decisions of hastiness, desperation, impatience, hopelessness, and unbelief in the Gospel.

The simple truth is: I left too fast, too wrong, and too foolishly. There are people I should seek forgiveness from and those I should seek to forgive. Some of them leaders. It will take much humbling on my part to go back and reconcile. It doesn’t mean I have to go back permanently and rejoin for membership. But think of what power may come if I stepped out of my comfort zone for the sake of the prayer of our Lord and Savior, to gain unity among brothers so that Christ would be glorified and the world may believe.

Is it possible that the world is in grave unbelief now and the church is in a destitute state now because of an extreme lack of unity? Could it be that we don’t preach the unity of the cross accurately let alone period? What if the church came under the cross together? What would the world see?

The world would see Jesus; and more specifically they would see God and the oneness of His love and grace.

So Christian, what are you gonna do? The Gospel demands reconciliation whether you want it or not. If you are a creation of the cross of Christ, then you have been given the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). Your main duty of delight is to reconcile others to God, to each other, and to King Jesus! What does that look like?

Can you go back to that church you left in a rubble? Can you retreat in humility and seek out restoration? Can you forgive? Can you reach out? Will you obey the Gospel? God calls you to glorify Himself by glorifying His Son. One major way that happens is to be reconciled to your brothers and sisters in Christ. Being divided against them is unloving and hateful. And 1 John warns that those who do not love their brother cannot be born of God.

If you don’t love your family, you are not a child of God. Those are strong words. Do you believe them? Can you go back?

I will. I can. I must. Let’s go together. For the sake of the cross. For the sake of their unity and ours. For the sake of the world’s faith. For the sake of God’s glory.

It may take time, a lot of it. But it’s more than worth it. Let’s rebuild these burnt bridges. Let’s lay down our pride. Let’s embrace the humility of the cross and love our family in Christ. Clean up the china you bull. Repent and have faith in the unity and restoration of the Gospel of Christ. God forgives as you forgive others.

What are you gonna do? Maybe you need to write a hand-written letter. Maybe you need to show up in person. Maybe you need to buy lunch or make dinner and invite them over. Maybe you need to serve them by doing radical Gospel service for them. Maybe you need to privately confess. Maybe you need to serve under their leadership for some time. Maybe you need to seek them out for counsel for a while. Maybe you need to publicly apologize and repent before many.

Take a leap of faith. Make sacrifices. Take the initiative. Do the right thing, come what may.

You’ve heard of OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But is it possible to have a Christ-centered disorder? Is it possible to be obsessive about being Christ-centered, Gospel-centered, Gospel-driven, Christocentric or Gospel-focused?

Unless you’ve been asleep the last 5 years or more, this Gospel-centered and Christ-centered lingo and terminology has become very popular in the Evangelical Christian world; especially among Reformed circles.

There is Christ-centered worship, Cross-centered marriage, Gospel-centered churches, Cross-centered clothing, Gospel-centered rap, Cross-centered bookstores, Christ-centered children’s ministry, etc.

To be Christ-centered simply means that Christ is the center of all doctrine and therefore all of life for the Christian. Likewise to be Gospel-centered means all of one’s doctrine and life flows out of, through, and back to the Good News of Jesus Christ and His glorious cross. At the very heart of the Christian’s life is that he has been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit by, well, News.

The Gospel is news that is extremely and eternally good. The news and its goodness is that God has provided a way for man to be reconciled back to Himself. News necessarily must not just be told and passed on but proclaimed, heralded, lifted up, written on hearts, heard in streets, raised on banners, and spread like the best and hottest gossip around.

The question then is not so much what does it mean to be Gospel-centered or even should a Christian be Christ-centered. The question is, is it possible to become obsessed with being Christ-centered? Can one become overly attached to the Gospel?

I’ve heard some criticism towards the whole Gospel-centered and Christ-centered movement that they are going too far in trying to be focused on Christ. They are extreme and very simplistic by minimizing everything down to just the Gospel. They are missing so many other good things about God. They are minimalistic and reductionist in their thinking and living. There is more to life than just the Gospel.

To which I ask, WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

The whole counsel of God? Okay. And where is all that culminated in one place? His holiness, judgment, mercy, wrath, grace, love, forgiveness, redemption, glory, goodness, kindness, patience, etc.

THE CROSS!

The love of God for everyday people? Okay. And where is that best seen and displayed? THE CROSS!

Theology? Discipleship? Evangelism? Church growth? Church planting? Missions? Feeding the poor? Relationships? Yeah, okay. And where do all of those find their ultimate purpose, drive, and fulfillment? THE CROSS!

Correct me if I’m wrong here folks but isn’t the cross of Jesus Christ, the flesh and bones and blood of the Gospel, where everything about God (who He is and what He has done), Jesus (who He is and what He has done) and man (who we are and what we have done), the center of everything? I mean if we’re gonna major on something, focus on one thing, make much of a single thing, shouldn’t it be the cross of Christ? The Good News, the Gospel, about God’s love for sinners and God’s love for His own glory? Both of which are culminated at the cross.

So, to claim somehow that Christians who desire to see, think, feel, believe, and live Christ-centered, Gospel-centered lives are extreme, unbalanced,  missing it, or obsessed is unreasonable and naive.

The cross is everything. The Gospel is the center of the target. Jesus Christ is God most effectively translated. And the cross is God most gloriously manifested. And the Holy Spirit of God is God most powerfully displayed.

To be too obsessed with being centered and focused solely on the Gospel of God in Christ Jesus is to be too in love with God. Is that even possible?

Once Christ-centered Christians, or those who desire such, grow too accustomed to the desire to be Christ-centered to the point of dryness, emptiness, and unfruitfulness, then being cross-centered becomes the latest fad. It becomes stale and dry and as boring and lifeless as dishwater.

We must truly be Christ-centered not just in our professing, thinking or believing. But most truly in our doing, acting and living.

To be Christ-centered means one is striving to live Christ-like. Then the terminology and mindset of being Gospel-centered has power and meaning because the Christian is not only believing the Gospel but is be-living the Gospel. That is what it looks like to be cross-eyed, Gospel-centered and Christocentric.

Too obsessed? I think not.

Our love for God and the Gospel of His Son should daily ever increase in thought and feeling and living that we become more and more obsessed with it. This is a divine obsession that is healthy and eternal.

If a Christian is to be obsessed with something, be obsessed with Jesus Christ. Be obsessed with His Gospel. Be obsessed with the cross. And live like you are truly obsessed with it.

This is not a disorder. This is radical, insane, crazy alien lust for the one thing that will satisfy our hunger and thirsts: God in Jesus Christ!

So I found this awesome book. So awesome, I bought it for my pastor instead of myself.

But it will prove to be a great tool for doodling ideas and thoughts period. But especially ideas on how to apply the Gospel to the business world.

The book is “The Back of the Napkin”. You must buy it and use it. I know you have doodled on a napkin or collected fragments of a newspaper to write an idea down. Same concept yet more intuitive.

Enjoy.

The Gospel drives us to hate the sin of the people in culture not the culture of the people or the people in the culture. Hating the culture is unintelligent; hating the people is ungodly.

I had a very striking conversation with my dad and dear brother Jeremy. We started to talk about the recent tragic losses of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. That led naturally to discussions about our culture and society as a whole. We talked about everything from the evolution of technology from ipods and twitter to increased violence in schools and a loss of meaning in communication today.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we live in a world obsessed with technology; especially pc technology. By pc technology what I mean is technology that is linked or influenced by the use of a personal computer: the internet, ipods, mp3 players, iphones, webcams, twitter, myspace, facebook, google, youtube, etc. Pc technology is literally exploding off of the scene in a rate that most people cannot keep up with the tidal wave of growth. What’s really sad is I am nearly 28 and have already started to notice that I struggle to interpret the lingo and terminology of today’s youth from 12-18.

In our fascinating conversation I noticed that Christians typically have three main reactions or philosophies toward the culture they live in (I like to think in threes, it captures both extremes and a middle road but I am not so naive to think that there are not more that I don’t know of):

1. Sectarianism – Ultra-conservative; Fundamentalism; Legalism
2. Missional – Fundamergents; biblical
3. Syncretism – Liberalism; Emergent; Antinomianism

Let me say from the onset that I don’t believe words are inherently evil; so words like “conservative” and “liberal” are not bad.  We only make them evil by the connotations they bring up in our mind and the most popular definition they are given by our culture at a specific time.

However, the word conservative and liberal have both come to bring good and bad connotations. More liberal-minded moralists typically consider conservatism a threat. And more conservative-minded moralists typically consider liberalism a threat. Liberalism is usually associated with a looser more relativistic view of morality and life. While conservatism is usually associated with a tighter more absolute view of morality and life.

Nonetheless, these are the definitions I will use for this post.

Christian Sectarianism

A definition:

This is the view that all of culture (including man and his ideas) is inherently evil, bad, unbiblical, ungodly, and in total and complete rebellion to God and His ways.

A response:

Sectarians thus respond by separating themselves from as many aspects of culture as possible including music, entertainment, arts, theater, clothing styles, certain languages and terminologies, certain peoples and groups of people, political stances, historical views, science, education, etc. Since the culture is evil, then separation is necessary to live a good and pleasing life to God. The more separate from culture, the more holy they become. As separation increases, sanctification therefore must be increasing. The more distance between culture and church, the closer the church gets to God.

A problem:

The problem with sectarians is that they find themselves so far removed from culture that they actually become out of touch to the point of having no part in the conversation of culture. They aren’t able to properly translate the Gospel of Christ into their culture. They are stuck on their own terminology, definitions, appearances, and views so much that the culture struggles hard to see not only what they are saying and doing but how it’s even relevant.

An encouragement:

Problem aside, sectarians are least on the right track with their professed love for God’s holiness and their hatred for what appears evil or dishonorable to God. However, again, they “love” God only at the expense of not loving people enough to actually meet them where they are so that the Gospel can powerfully and accurately infiltrate their culture.

Christian Syncretism

A defintion:

This view, on the opposite side of the spectrum from sectarianists, holds that all of culture is good, if not beneficial, God-ordained, and pleasing to God.

A response:

Syncretists thus respond by fully embracing culture and what it has to offer. Like sectarians, syncretists too measure the success of their mission by their distance to culture. However, sectarians see success in a far distance from culture while syncretists see success in a very close distance to culture. The closer one gets to embracing and becoming at one with the culture, the closer one gets to the honor of God and the fulfillment of one’s mission. An increase in becoming like the culture (somehow) becomes an increase in becoming like God. In other words, the closer one gets to his culture the closer one gets to his God.

A problem:

The problem syncretists have is the exact opposite of sectarians (who would’ve guessed that?). Syncretists end up placing too much importance on intimacy to culture. They place nearness to culture over nearness to God. They draw near to man and his ideas and expression of those ideas at the expense of knowing and honoring God more. Like the sectarians, they too become irrelevant to the culture because they lose touch with who God is and what He is like. The closer they get to conforming to culture, the farther they get from God. Thus the culture sees no difference or powerful message from the syncretist, only yet another group within the culture; same basic message different way of preaching.

What the culture needs is a starkly different message, even if it is preached in a similar way.

An encouragement:

The good thing about the syncretist, apart from his major dangerous flaw of leaving God for culture, is that he pursues man where he is. The syncretist seeks out man at all cost. Like Paul says “be all things to all men…”. The problem though is the syncretist stops there. He can do great at being all things to all men. But he misses Paul’s point in being all things to all men, “so that I might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). Or even Paul’s next statement: “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings (1 Corinthians 9:23).

The syncretist forgets that the best way to reach into culture and love men is to save them, to do it for the sake of the gospel. What is the Gospel’s sake? To reconcile men to God. The end is that God may be glorified by the salvation of His people. The syncretist places a false sense of unity and harmony through all-encompassing acceptance at the expense of God redeeming for Himself a people.

Christian Missional

A definition:

Okay so this term has been tossed around to and fro the last 5 years or so. Especially by the likes of Mark Driscoll (who may have termed it), Ed Stetzer, Albert Mohler, and more. The best definition I can give is:

the view that culture is owned and ruled by God’s sovereign mysterious hand, that it contains both good and evil, that nothing is inherently evil but rather the  hearts of men who create and express ideas of culture are evil, and that God is not only capable of but will eventually redeem all things back to Himself, including the culture; that there are many honorable things about culture that show God’s grace, creativity, and love; and that God has designed His gospel to infiltrate the culture, kill sin wherever it is found, love men wherever they may be, and lead them to Himself wherever He finds them.

A response:

So missional Christians have a strong sense of the importance and power of life to be not only founded on Jesus Christ and His Gospel but God’s Word, the Holy written, infallable, inerrant, fully divine authoritative unchangeable and sufficient Bible. And they have a duel passion for both God and His glory and man. Therefore missional-minded Christians realize they live within the culture to live among the culture so that they can go into the culture and spend their time loving people where they find them in the culture. This helps the Gospel be culturally relevant, because it has purchased a people out of that culture, and still not be like the culture. Cultural but not of the culture. This is how God has designed it.

A final comparison:

So for example, a sectarian Christian would say that rap music or hip hop style clothes are sinful because they are of the culture of the world. A syncretic Christian would say that rap music and hip hop clothing styles are perfectly fine, even when not sung in Jesus’ name because they celebrate the diversity and creativity of God. But the missional Christian would say that no music style or clothing style (unless immodest) is inherently evil but the hearts of the ones producing or wearing it is evil. And that God finds great joy and wisdom in redeeming a people out of those cultures, not to reverse their cultural tattoo, but rather to transform their heart and mind, leave them tattooed so that they can preach the Gospel and live Christ Jesus in and among their cultural tatoo.

Syncretists love and embrace the culture apart from a theological view of God primer. This love for culture at the expense of God’s demand for holiness and proper Gospel exclusion can border a hatred for culture. Sectarians border a hatred for the culture by professing a sole love for God at the expense of loving people. Being missional means loving God first and then loving people. It doesn’t mean embracing culture, it means embracing the people of culture. It doesn’t mean rejecting culture totally or rejecting the people in the culture but the sins of the people in culture.

The Gospel draws a balance line between loving the people in the culture, seeking to understand the culture so as to best meet the people who live in the culture, and then hating the sins of the people in that culture.

The Gospel must necessarily redeem a people within their culture so that they can live as light and salt inside of their culture. Yes the Gospel does redeem a people outside of their culture to be extracultural missionaries to other cultures. But here I am referring to the power of the Gospel to take a rebel, change him into a child of God and a joining priests with King Jesus, and send him to find other rebels to make them priests.

That’s awesome! And that doesn’t come at all from loving culture at the expense of living for and loving God’s glory (syncretism) or from hating culture at the expense of loving people (sectarianism). It comes from loving God, loving people, and hating everything in the people that hates God!

Embrace the Gospel. Don’t hate the culture. Don’t hate the people in the culture. Don’t love the culture. Hate their sin. Love the people. Love God. Believe and live the Gospel that hates sin, not the container that holds or displays sin.

The Missional Gospel: Love God, love people, hate sin, and do it all in your culture for the glory of God!