Simply Jesus Pt. 11: “… That You May Keep Your Own Tradition.”

Millions of hardworking Americans were most likely drinking more coffee than normal this Monday morning because, well, the summer Olympics only comes around every four years.

It’s also fair to assume that a decent percentage of these sleepy-eyed laborers are like my father: They aren’t really sports fans, but feel a profound tug on their heartstrings when it’s the USA against the world. Traditions have a way of causing the heart to override the better judgment of the head.

The love of and commitment to traditions have also led the people of God to develop a long history of casting aside His commands for the sake of our traditions. Whether it is the syncretism of pagan religious practices merging with the Church, or slavery, theft, wars and imperialism being justified in the name of manifest destiny, worldly traditions have had an uncanny way of worming their way onto God’s rightful place on the throne of our hearts. 

Such was the inner condition of a group of Pharisees that Jesus encountered in Matthew 15.

“Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,” he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. ‘But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’” – Matthew 15:3-9

Evidently, the Jewish people of that day had developed a tradition that enabled them to legally break the fifth commandment. If one didn’t want to take care of his parents when they were older, one could simply declare some of his estate “Corban”, or a gift devoted to God. The money was supposed to be used for the upkeep of the temple, but no one ever collected on what was owed. The children kept the money and the parents died in need.

The Gospel writer, Matthew, displays Jesus using a few choice words in His rebuke of these greedy Pharisees. However, Cyprian, the 4^th century bishop of Carthage helps pull the curtain back a little further regarding the emotional state of the Lord in that situation.

What obstinacy is that ... to prefer human tradition to divine ordinance, and not to observe that God is indignant and angry as often as human tradition relaxes and passes by the divine precepts, as He cries out, and says by Isaiah the prophet, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship Me, teaching the doctrines and commandments of men.” Also the Lord in the Gospel, similarly rebuking and reproving, utters and says, “You reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition.” – Cyprian 250CE, Volume 5, p. 685 [CD-ROM]

Jesus has a particular hatred of hypocrisy. And in Matthew 15 the Pharisees are labeled hypocrites for honoring God with their lips while their hearts belong to the perks their traditions provide.

Recently, Michael Phelps has been receiving a lot of press about his faith. A few years ago, Phelps had a crisis of sorts, and ended up going to rehab. While there, ex-Football player Ray Lewis gave Phelps a copy of A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

Evidently, the book made an impact on Phelps, for in an interview he stated that it, “turned me into believing there is a power greater than myself and there is a purpose for me on this planet.”

When I was 20, I attended a few AA classes. Unfortunately, Phelps’ comment sounds much more like what you’d hear at a typical AA meeting than a public profession of one’s Christian faith. So, did Phelps become a Christian there in rehab while reading Purpose Driven Life? I don’t know, but I do know that shortly after coming out of rehab, he proposed to his girlfriend, and they had a kid together.

Even though Phelps had a son out of wedlock immediately after coming out of rehab, and never actually publically professed Jesus as Lord of his life, it didn’t stop a large portion of American Christianity from claiming him as one of our own. Why is that?

America has a storied tradition of exploiting others while feigning faithfulness to God.

The torture and enslavement of Africans, and denial of African American Equal rights. Natives being raped, pillaged, murdered, deceived and forced into virtual concentration camps. Women being denied the right to vote until 1920. Child labor laws not being enacted until 1938. I’m only scratching the surface.

American Christian culture is so quick to latch on to anyone who mentions God or prayer, and claim them for Jesus, regardless of that person’s lifestyle. Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Bill & Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush and President Obama have all named the name of Jesus, yet what kind of fruit do they bear? 

Donald Trump has said and done some of the most egregious things one can fathom for a person running for office. Then self-proclaimed prophetess Paula White alleged that she led him to the Lord, and suddenly James Dobson, Wayne Grudem and a host of other leading evangelical leaders are endorsing him?

Never mind that after his supposed conversion, Trump supported his wife’s previous nude picture shoot. Never mind his sly insinuation that gun owners could take care of Clinton should she win. Never mind that he hasn’t repented of his greed or the way he verbally abuses others. As Dobson has said, we need to cut Trump some slack because he is a ‘baby Christian’.

Did you notice the worldly tradition? The ways of the world trumping the commands of God in Dobson's statement? Where is the idea of ‘baby Christians’ being cut slack in areas of sin found in the Scriptures? Nowhere.

The thought is found all over American Christian culture, though; just like the idea that if you’re recognized as a famous or influential contributor to society you don’t need to be repentant as a Christian.

Michael Phelps is a once-in-a-generation swimmer, and we should enjoy and celebrate his achievements. But this world and its traditions are fading away. Only the Word of God and those who live it out will endure forever.

Simply Jesus Pt. 10: “Jerusalem, How I’ve Longed to Gather You…”

One of the great joys of being a parent is the opportunity to disciple your children. No youth minister, teacher or coach has as profound an impact on our kids’ lives as we do.

An important lesson I regularly try to impart to my son is that choices matter. Every day, we either make the difficult decisions to act in ways that help bring about desired goals, or we choose easy paths at the expense of God’s best for us.

In an attempt to explain to him the harmony between God’s sovereignty and humanity’s free will, I have used the analogy of the dynamics within the game of dodgeball.

The ultimate, sovereign ruler in dodgeball is the referee. He’s fully in charge of the game. He can stop, start or pause the game, remove and reinstate players, and in the summer day camp version, he can even insert himself into the game as a player/ref.

However, even though the ref is the ultimate ruler, he doesn’t control the players’ thoughts and actions. They have the free will to think and act as they please. They can stand cowering in corners, or they can repeatedly attempt to take members of the opposite team’s head off. All of these actions have consequences, whether good or bad.

From cover to cover, the Bible displays God as the ultimate sovereign ruler. Yet, from cover to cover, the Bible also reveals mankind’s freedom to either accept or reject God’s gracious promptings.

One passage that is often cited to support mankind’s free will is Matthew 23:37. A few days before being murdered, Jesus said to the Pharisee-filled crowds, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”

Any parent can identify with Jesus’ statement here. We want the best for our kids. Yet, no matter how much we counsel them, no matter how passionately we direct them away from disaster and toward life, at some point they will choose to follow their heart and experience the consequences.

They are going to spend periods of time without brushing their teeth and end up with cavities, even though you saw them standing in front of the bathroom mirror with their toothbrush. They are going to gleefully watch and listen to things they know they shouldn’t absorb while away from your house, and little by little hearts get hardened. Pushing your warnings aside, they will fall in love (lust) with someone that is not at a place in life to love them in a godly way, and experience a heartbreak that God never intended them to go through.

Though many people angrily shake their fists at God, one of the main reasons for much of the suffering in this world is humanity's free will.

The conversation about free will began long before Calvinism and Arminianism in the 16^th and 17^th century. It began before Augustine in the 5^th century. The issue of free will was critical to the Christians of the first 300 years because the only folks who professed to be Christians that claimed humans didn’t have free will were the Gnostics. That’s right, the people 1 John 4 says are under the influence of the antichrist.

This is an example of one famous early Christian teacher commenting on Matthew 23:37:

If any one is unwilling to follow the Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], but it is not beneficial. For it is in man’s power to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good; but [such conduct] brings no small amount of injury. … Man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was created. Advice is always given to him to hold tightly to the good, which is done by means of obedience to God. … The Lord, both showing His own goodness, and indicating that man has his own free will and his own power, said to Jerusalem, “How often have I wished to gather your children together, as a hen [gathers] her chickens under her wings, but you were unwilling!” - Irenaeus 180CE, Volume 1, p. 871-872 [CD-ROM]

After doing extensive research on the early Christians’ writings on the issues of God’s sovereignty and humanity’s free will, I decided to devote an entire chapter of my book to discuss how they harmonized the two subjects. Here is a short excerpt:  

God is absolutely sovereign and the ultimate ruler of all. He created all things and reigns over all things. Nothing happens that He is not aware of, that He does allow, or that He will not use to accomplish His good, pleasing, and perfect will. … God is not a wicked slave master who toys with His slaves by offering them liberation while knowing they are incapable of achieving it. He does not delight in punishing them when they fail with extreme tortures that would put our world’s cruelest sadists to shame. God is love, and love can only thrive where there is the opportunity for it to be either chosen or rejected. Love requires free will.

When my wife and I adopted our two beautiful African American children, the last step was for the family to stand before a judge and be questioned. Our prospective son and daughter could not have made it through that step if we had not first drawn them to ourselves. By the time of the court hearing, they had lived in our house for six months and were every bit a part of our family. However, at the courthouse that December morning, the judge gave them the opportunity to say they wanted to go back into foster care with a different family. We had already chosen them, and I’m so glad they chose us back.

Mankind was created by God with free will. The greatest command Judas was given is the same command all of us have been given. We must choose to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and choose to love our neighbors as ourselves. Like Jesus, we must choose to rely on God’s power and choose His choices.

By God’s grace, may we choose to model for those around us the difficult but good choices we want them to make.

Simply Jesus Pt. 9: “Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant”

Matthew 25 tells the story of three servants and a master who goes away on a journey. Before he leaves, the master entrusts each servant with differing, yet enormous amounts of money. The amounts are measured in talents, which equaled roughly 15 years’ wages of labor.

The first servant is asked to steward five talents. So if one years’ wage equaled $30,000 in today’s economy, that man would have been entrusted with $2,250,000 of the master’s money. The second servant is blessed with two talents, and the last with one.

When the master comes back from his journey, he asks the servants to show him what they’ve done with his money. The first and the second both double what they were given. To both of these servants, the master says, “Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

The third servant, however, has a different report to bring his master. He says, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.”

Ask yourself, was the master a hard man who reaps what he doesn’t sow? I have a hard time believing that like a man who joyfully empowers others and make them millionaires is a hardened, selfish person. Yet, the third servant possesses that opinion of his master.

How would one develop such a warped view of the world and others?

Irenaeus wrote about this subject and gives tremendous insight into the matter:  

The vessel of His goodness, and the instrument of His glorification, is the man who is grateful to Him that made him; and again, the vessel of His just judgment is the ungrateful man, who both despises his Maker and is not subject to His Word. He has promised that He will give very much to those always bringing forth fruit. … “Well done,” He says, “good and faithful servant: because you have been faithful in little, I will appoint you over many things; enter into the joy of your Lord.” The Lord Himself … has promised to give very much to those who bring forth fruit, according to the gift of His grace. – Irenaeus 180CE, Volume 1, p. 791-792 [CD-ROM]

Irenaeus shows us a root sin issue within the third servant. Ingratitude.

This man was blessed to serve an incredibly generous and empowering master amongst good and faithful fellow coworkers. What an amazing environment to show up to everyday! Yet, a filter of ingratitude framed his reality, and in the end cost him everything.

Do you frame your past, present and future with a filter of gratitude? I realize that can be a difficult discipline to develop, but doing so can completely set the tone for how your day, week, month or year turns out.

Today I go in for my second ACL and third meniscus surgery on my right knee. It’s the fourth time the knee has been operated on, all because of basketball. The difference is that this time I’m married, have two kids and countless more responsibilities.

When disappointments like this take place, there’s always a temptation to feel victimized, shake your fist at the heavens and angrily shout, “Why did this have to happen to me, God?” In those times, it’s important that we remember the truth of Romans 11:35-36, “Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.”

Paul tells us in Romans 11 that God doesn’t owe us anything good. Everything we love, everything we have is because of God’s goodness. Our lives are gifts, and we should be thankful.

But while a grateful attitude will bring many blessings to one’s life here on earth, what is more important is the potential affect it has on one’s relationship with God and eternal destiny.

At 36, I know I’m not an old man. But the older I get, the less I take things like healthy knees for granted. The older I get, the more I realize how generous God is, and the more I want to serve Him. The older I get, the less I care about what heaven is going to be like, and the more I just want to hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” 

I'm grateful that He's given me the opportunity to serve Him!