It’s not every day an artist sings a bold song about gossip, slander, divisiveness and the sins of the tongue spoken of in James 3.

— Lyrics: —

Our tongues are like matches
Our ears are like trees
Our words are like sparks on dry summer leaves
It doesn’t take much for the flames to rise
And turn a soul into a forest fire

From Justin Taylor’s Blog. Happy (late) Independence Day.

Jonathan Rourke as CJ Mahaney from Resolved on Vimeo.

I have been reading a chapter from “Charity and It’s Fruits” by Johnathan Edwards. He is addressing our tendency to believe the worst about each other, to spread lies about other people, and to believe reports without verifying them. I’ve put the entire chapter in a PDF file you can download here. Here’s a sample quote to wet your appetite.

“Merely hearing a flying and evil rumour about an individual, in such a thoughtless and lying world as this is, is far from being sufficient evidence against any one, to make us believe he has been guilty of that which is reported ; for the devil, who is called “the god of this world,” is said to be ” a liar, and the father of it,” and too many, alas ! of his children are like him in their speaking of falsehoods. And yet it is a very common thing for persons to pass a judgment on others, on no better ground or foundation than that they have heard that somebody has said this, or that, or the other thing, though they have no evidence that what is said is true.”

So here’s my crazy idea. We do a 24 hour prayer chain for our church. In other words, for an entire 24 hour period, there is someone praying for Metro Life Church. One or more people pray in one-hour shifts. We could start at 9am on a Saturday morning, and then end at 9am on Sunday. At the conclusion of the chain, everybody who was part of the chain will gather at the church building Sunday morning for the 9am pre-service prayer meeting.

What this means is that some of you are going to have to commit to praying from 2-3 am, and 3-4 am. That sounds kind of crazy, but I’ll bet you have it in you. In fact, I’ll bet at some point in your life you stayed up all night and lived to tell about it. Anyway, after you pray you could post some element of your prayer on our Facebook page so we can see the types of things people are asking God to do.

What do you think about that? We’re going to try it out this Saturday and Sunday and are looking for 24 brave souls to get on their knees. If you want to participate go to our Facebook Group I AM (praying for) Metro Life Church. If you’re not a member yet, send a request and I’ll join you. Once you’re in the group, click “Discussions” and leave a comment specifying which hour you’ll be praying.

Hey, it’s me, the evil Alter Ego again. I know I took a bit of a break, but that was just so that I could rekindle my loathing of scripture. But I’m back now, and more feisty than ever. The verse that I want to talk about today is Matthew 16:18 when Jesus says:

“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

Now before you get all religious and churchy on me and ramble on and on about how wonderful your church is, let me provide a little dose of reality. The church is the one of the biggest failures in the world. If your Jesus really knew what was going on inside the four walls of the average church, he would probably be disgusted.

Do you think he would really accept the fact that Christians are hypocrites? Do you think he’d be happy to learn that churches are chock full of people who only care about looking good to others on Sunday, while they drive by homeless people on the streets on their way to their fancy houses and problem free lives? In the real world people have issues. Not everything is black and white. You think a mother wants to commit abortion? Of course not. If she could have her own little perfect world that Christians enjoy then of course she could choose to have a baby. But I hate to break it to you that in the real world bills have the be paid and choices have to be made. If Jesus really does have the compassion you say he has, then logically he’d understand people’s circumstances, right? But if the church Jesus said he would build included the types of self-righteous Pharisees that fill churches today, then I don’t think he would have been so enthusiastic about the church.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how I can doubt the success of the church. Look at all the churches in the world. God is building his church. No, actually, God’s not building his church. Men are building things that they call churches. They are constructing buildings that people gather in to talk about how much better than the rest of the world they are. You can build a nice building, but if you really cared about anyone other than yourself you would take that money and give it to the poor. Buildings are useless. They just sit there and collect people’s tithes. Why would Jesus want to build a building? Didn’t he toss some tables and kick people out for selling stuff in church once? Jesus came to break down religious institutions, not create more.

If you Christians would get your act together you’d break down all  your denominations and solve real problems. Instead of condemning sin and fake problems, you’d focus on true solutions to genuine needs of poverty and social justice. Instead of trying to legislate morality, you could free people to live how they want and overcome their issues the way they want. Instead of trying to scare people with your conformist doctrine by taking about hell all the time, you could free them to be who they are and to live the lifestyles they were made to live.

The evidence is right in front of you. Why do you think churches are full of older people, while the young folks are turning away in droves? You want to reach them, right? Quit talking about your religion that they can’t relate to and start talking about real issues. It’s hilarious to see pastors ranting on and one about dusty books and sound doctrine, and other terms that people could care less about. Then, after talking about nothing but theology week after week, they wonder why their kids are not interested. Hello, maybe it’s because you and your church are not interesting. The world does a way better job attracting people than the church ever has. Yet how many years have to go by before people in the church realize that what they’re building couldn’t have been what Jesus had in mind.

If Jesus was really building today’s church, why does it have so many problems? I think if he saw the church today, he’d probably tear it down.

————————————–

Now that my evil Alter Ego is done with his rant, let me share with you my perspective on the church, in all her glory and with all her issues:

I have seen a mystery,
The hopes of prayer and prophecy,
And rising from all peoples see, she comes.
Rescued, ransomed, lifted up,
Crowned with mercy, clothed in hope,
The object of all heaven’s love, she comes.

It is the church,
The hope of all the world,
And here I fix my heart and hand,
I cannot turn away!
It is the church!
The passion of God’s Son,
The goal of history, come.
You’ll see we’ve nearly reached the day.

And she will be all glorious;
Fitting for Him whose bride she is.
In that day, in that day (repeat)

Words by Stuart Townsend.

Here is the speech I gave at the Regent Academy graduation earlier today.

————–

COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
TRA GRADUATION, JUNE 5TH, 2010

For our commencement, I am going to read a portion of scripture, taken from Leviticus 10:1-3, a short story about Aaron’s sons, the fate of Nadab and Abihu.

10:1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized [1] fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, parents, extended families and graduates, I am honored to give this commencement address, and to do something that I don’t believe has ever been done in a graduation speech. Although I have no way of proving this, I am wagering that in the long history of thousands of addresses that are given to graduates each year, that nobody has ever read the story of Nadab and Abihu. I would even go so far as to say that nobody giving a commencement address has even considered reading the story about God killing Aaron’s sons.

That’s not typically what commencement speeches are about. This is an occasion to celebrate the accomplishment of graduation, and to look toward the bright futures that are represented in the graduates sitting before us. And so typically a commencement address is filled with uplifting phrases about the graduates’ unlimited potential, extolling the human ability to accomplish anything we set our minds to, encouragements to do our best and God will do the rest, and reminders that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

If I were to craft this along the lines of a typical commencement speech you may come away with nebulous nuggets of wisdom such as the best way to predict your future is the create it, that if your ship doesn’t come in, you should swim out to it, that if you simply did what you were capable of you would astonish yourself. Who knows? You might even hear some wisdom from Master Yoda, who said, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

God’s motive: Exalting himself

In light of all these wonderful things that could be said, why on earth would I read a story about God killing Aaron’s rebellious sons? Here’s the reason why: in the years since my graduation, I’ve learned that God has a different way of motivating us. If God were to stand up and give an inspirational speech it would sound quite different than what most human speakers might offer. If God were here giving a commencement address, talking to you graduates about what the rest of your life entails, motivating you to accomplish everything he has set for you to do, I don’t think he would start his speech by talking about you. I think he would start his speech by talking about himself.

I’d venture that to guess if God were here speaking to you at the commencement of your post-graduation life, as you embark on the journey of discovery toward college, career, marriage and family, he might even give you the same message he gave Aaron when he killed his sons: “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.”

The words spoken today over these graduates are the same words spoken over the lifeless bodies of Aaron’s sons, the message that God’s primary concern as it pertains to each of our lives is that his name be glorified. This goal of the exaltation of God in all things describes not only our purpose for being here today, but it also describes the way that God motivates people. God does not motivate people by telling them to look inside themselves for that extra strength needed to get to the top. God motivates us by telling us why we were made, reminding us that we were made for one purpose: to glorify the name of Jesus Christ. And that reality gives meaning to our lives and becomes a source of grace that compels us to offer up our lives to him in service to his name, rather than extolling our own names.

Our potential to glorify God

There are some similarities between these graduates and Nadab and Abihu. Aaron’s sons were young men who seemed to have potential and bright futures ahead of them serving the Lord. They were highly esteemed and came from a good family. They seemed to have everything going for them. Like our graduates, they looked forward to long lives fruitfulness in pursuing the works of service God had seemingly prepared for them. I really hope that’s where the similarities between you graduates and Aaron’s sons end. I’m certainly not suggesting than any of you are going to suffer the same fate they experienced. I certainly hope that’s not the case. I’d hate to see any of you drop dead today. That would put a real damper on your family’s celebration of this moment.

Aaron’s sons had potential, and these students have potential. They were privileged, as our graduates are to have the opportunities to serve the Lord. Here’s the mistake that Aaron’s sons made—a mistake that is included in the Bible for us to learn from—they presumed upon that opportunity, they took it for granted, and did not remain faithful to the instruction of the Lord. They invented their own way instead of doing things God’s way. They chose an alternative, unauthorized way of serving God other than the way God said he was to be served.  Like these two young men, each of you graduates are going to be tempted and lured by the world to be unfaithful and disobedient to the Lord. Nadab and Abihu offered unauthorized fire and young men and women ever since have been similarly tempted to turn from the Lord, to pursue worldly passions, to overstep the boundaries meant for our protection, and to play with fire. The lesson of history is that if you choose to go down those paths and play with fire, you will experience the consequences.

The sobering reality that we live with in light of these verses is that God is willing to go to extraordinary lengths and to do surprising things in order to ensure that his name is glorified. Having his own name praised meant more to God than even the lives of Aaron’s sons, which he dealt with to glorify himself. On a day in which we are celebrating our graduates accomplishments and potential, this brief story instructs us in the reason why we celebrate these things. God hasn’t changed, and if he was here giving a commencement address, I think his message might have three simple points:

1. That I care more about my glory than any of your accomplishments or future plans
2. That I created you for my glory, which gives new meaning to your accomplishments and future plans
3. Today I am commandeered your lives in such a way that your accomplishments are really mine, and your future plans are mine, to be used as I pleased, to sanctify you and to honor my name before all people.

That’s what God is doing. At this commencement he is charging you to choose today who you and your house will serve, to be strong a courageous in your service of him, and to trust him that his way of doing things, his gospel which seems foolish to the world and will seem foolish to you at times, is the wisdom that will preserve you as you move forward, and will guide you as you remain loyal to it.

Closing Charge: how will you choose to glorify God?

Graduates, here is the choice you have: you can worship God by living according to his Word, or you can invent your own way of doing things. You can allow the fire of passion for his glory to smolder in your heart, or you can play with the fire of the forbidden. You can study, or you can plagiarize. You can follow God’s plan for marriage or you can go along with the world’s plan for sex. You can contend for the faith and boldly preach the gospel to your co-workers, classmates and teachers or you can succumb to the ideologies of this world that deny the truth of the Gospel for all its worth. Like the disciples in Acts, you can be counted among those who by their courage turn the world upside down, or in cowardice you can allow the world to turn you upside down. You can honor the Lord by being obedient to him or by being disciplined by him.

As I read your biographies and your future ambitions, the places in the world you plan on going, the topics you plan on studying, the families you plan on raising, the friendships you plan on cultivating, the professions and skills you plan on developing, the country you plan on serving, the people you plan on reaching, and most importantly the local churches you plan on building, I was amazed at the potential of this group. As Mr. Fitzgerald read the words of Dr. Seuss last night: oh the places you’ll go.

But as I was reading the program, my amazement at your potential wasn’t based on anything inherent to you, but on the grace of God that is so evidently at work in and through you. In his grace, God has truly blessed your parents by giving you to them as a gift. He’s blessed you by allowing you to grow up experiencing his faithfulness in so many ways. He’s put you in a church that he’s kept strong through the faithful preaching of the gospel. And now he has given you a vision of how he wants you to take your place in that church, humbly pursuing the ambitions he has given you to partner together in this great cause of advancing the very gospel that has shaped your life. Whether you end up going to West Point, working for a way cool magazine, or doing the way cool thing of becoming a wife, mother, husband or father, the high callings that each of you are pursuing are nothing less than the divine call of God on your life giving you an opportunity to make your lives count for his glory.

And so in closing, my prayer is that you would pursue these plans in a way that he authorizes, according to His Word, protecting your testimony and the witness of the church, to bring blessing and not reproach on the name of God who has promised that he will be regarded as holy among those who are near him and glorified before all people. May your life be one in which God chooses to glorify himself not by correcting you, but by commending you.

Thank you.

If you cast your vote for whether or not Jack Bauer will die in the season finale, I will randomly draw a name from the group that picks correctly and give out a free copy of Dave Harvey’s new release, Rescuing Ambition.

The purpose of this giveaway is not only to promote this new book, but to let you know about a couple of ambitious causes I believe in. In addition to voting, please click on and look at the following efforts to make a difference in our state on the issues of abortion and health care.

Now, to the matter at hand: will Jack Bauer die in the series finale?

Will Jack finally die?

Here are the reasons why Jack Bauer, for all his heroics and ambitions, could die in the season finale:

1. The final episodes were recorded after they decided to end the show

2. Jack said last week, “I don’t plan on coming back from this.”

3. Renee Walker has already died (along with Teri, Nina and any other woman he’s been involved with)

4. The rumored 24 the Movie could be a hoax, or cover an earlier time period

So, what do you think? Leave a comment with your vote.