Who is God?

I am taking a personal evangelism class this week and we have to write a one page summary on a topic to share each day in class. I'll post each this week as I finish them. Below is a brief summary answering the question: Who is God?

          God is the creator of the entire universe. Because he made everything he owns it all; he rules over it all; he holds it all together with the same power by which he created it. He set it in motion and set the rules by which it operates. God created everything and upholds it all simply by speaking it into existence. Nothing can thwart his design.

For all eternity God exists as one singular being with a mysterious relational essence. He is unified in purpose, in power, in glory, yet he has always been satisfied in his perfect intertrinitatarian relationship of love; the Father, his perfect image, the Son, and the everlasting love between themselves, the Holy Spirit. God was perfectly joyful in his own relationship, but out of the overflow of his goodness he created the world, with a particular emphasis on people who would reflect his relational joy, so that his loving Spirit would indwell them as he does God himself.

Throughout history God has revealed himself to be a strong provider and protector, supplying every need for his people and lovingly keeping them from greatest harm. God is a judge who will punish every evil and right every wrong which has infected his perfect creation. God is the commander of the most powerful host of angelic soldiers while at the same time he is the kind and gentle father to his weak and needy children. He has a tender heart toward the outcasts of society, toward the meek and lowly, toward the abused and broken. He guides all of history to bring them to himself that they may be healed, lifted up, and cherished experiencing his perfect joy.

In one of the greatest mysteries in the world, God became a man, Jesus, who lived, breathed, walked on this earth experiencing hunger, sadness, joy, pain, and longing as we have yet without once straying from the perfect will of the Father. By his eternal power he performed miracles of healing, miracles of creation, miracles of forgiveness. Even though he deserved all honor he worked for the honor of others. Even though he possessed all the riches of the world, he had no place to lay his head. Even though he himself was the source of life, he died at the hands of Roman executioners. But death could not contain him; rising from the grave after three days in the tomb and ascending into heaven after 40 days among his people he now sits upon his throne in heaven as sovereign ruler of the world working for the good of his people.

But he did not leave his people alone; he sent his Holy Spirit so that he would not only dwell among us, but within us. The Holy Spirit convicts people of sin and judgment. He reveals truth to the darkened heart and brings sight to the blind. He exists as the enactment of God’s perfect will and proceeds from the Father and the Son as the perfect love they enjoy forever. This same Spirit dwells not only in the Godhead but also within his own people, enabling them to experience true joy, to know his truth and his will, to love others as he has loved his own. The Holy Spirit guides his people through this broken world, comforting them through difficulty until he renews it all back to perfect glory.

He Holds All Things Together

I had the honor of preaching at Hope Baptist Church in Mankato, MN just over a week ago. Below is my manuscript.

What goes through your mind when you hear the word “sovereignty”? More specifically, what do you think about when you hear that God is sovereign? The truth that God is sovereign is all over Scripture, but how many of us actually live as though Jesus is Lord; as though he is truly supreme over everything in existence?

Last year during one of the blessed opportunities I was given to share a message with you, I was struck during our singing time when Jim suggested that we sing such truthful songs as liars. We sing such worshipful songs, such God-exalting lyrics, and our hearts are often far from him, and we leave worship unchanged by such magnificent truths. That hit me square in the face. Here I am at seminary being inundated with glorious biblical truth. I pray that I don’t walk away from this season unchanged! And one thing that I need to hear over and over is that Jesus is supreme over all things; he is better than all my simple desires; he is better than my grades and my systematized theology; he is bigger than my fears and more powerful than my failures; he sees everything done in secret and holds my next breath in his hands. Jesus is Lord. He is sovereign. Everything was made for him and everything points to his supremacy.

That is the purpose of the book of Hebrews and that’s what I want to focus on this morning. I want to lift Jesus up as the sovereign ruler over every moment of our lives and think about what that means for every day I exist in his creation.

Open your Bibles with me to Hebrews 1, and we will look together at the first four verses.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

We don’t know who wrote the book of Hebrews. It doesn’t begin like the other letters of the NT which identify the author and the audience before getting into the content of the message. The title comes from tradition which recognized that the content of the letter clearly assumes a strong Jewish background. The author intends to convince his Jewish readers that everything about their religious system were symbols meant to point to a far greater reality. Angels are simply glorious beings intended to magnify the glory of God. Moses and the prophets were merely human instruments to proclaim the words of God. The priests were imperfect mediators who went to God on behalf of the people. The Old Covenant was a system devised to daily remind Israel of their need for salvation. All of these things anticipated the coming of someone greater than all of it, who would fulfill all of it, and who would bring glory to God by satisfying all of it.

And the author wastes no time revealing who is supreme over all of the Old Covenant. Clearly these first four verses refer to Jesus as the one who is greater than all the Jews clung to so tightly. Though his name is not used, the titles and the actions that describe him are meant to lead us to see that this humble Jesus who walked the earth and was executed like a common criminal is actually more powerful than the greatest king; his words carry more authority than the most righteous prophet; his sacrifice more perfect than all sacrifices ever offered.

The introduction to the book of Hebrews lays the groundwork for why Jesus is greater than all of this; Jesus is Lord!

What does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord? The word can be a simple title, meaning someone of higher class or authority, especially of a person who is your master. We should mean that when we say that Jesus is our lord. He calls the shots in our life. He gets to decide what is important to us and what we do with our resources. We don’t pursue anything unless we first determine whether or not it fits into his plan for us as his servants. Yet when the NT writers say that Jesus is Lord, they mean even more than that.

First we see that Jesus is supreme because his words have the authority of God himself. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, he didn’t command the people by saying, “I have some really good ideas on how to worship God.” No! He said, “Thus says the LORD!” Prophets didn’t proclaim in the streets of Israel based on their own authority, but on the authority of the LORD. Any prophet who proved to speak without the authority of the LORD was to be killed; it was blasphemy to assume the authority of the LORD. Jews knew that when the LORD spoke worlds were created, enemies were defeated, life overcame death. And Jesus spoke not like a prophet, but with the authority of the LORD himself.

We also see that Jesus is supreme because the glory of God radiates from him. The glory of God was something special to Jews as well. God’s glory led them out of Egypt with great power, through the Red Sea and the wilderness and into the Promised Land. The glory of God filled the tabernacle and the temple to signify that God dwells with his people. When the glory of God was near the people, they could overcome sin and temptation, they could defeat enemies that pressed in on them, they would prosper. And when the glory of God departed from the temple, they fell into idolatry; their enemies captured them and took them into exile. The glory of God resides among those God is pleased with, and the book of Hebrews says that not only does the glory of God dwell with Christ, Jesus is in fact the exact representation of God’s glory! Jesus said that if you have seen him you have seen the Father; if you know him you know the Father. To see the glory of God, says the writer of Hebrews, is to see Jesus.

And finally, we see that Jesus is supreme because his name reveals his nature. Verse four says he has inherited a name more excellent than the angels. After fulfilling all the Father had for him to do on earth, he sat down in heaven with the authority of the name above all names. What is that name? When Moses met God in the burning bush, he asked God, “What is your name?” God’s response was, “I am.” From that time on Israel knew God by his covenant name, not just God, but Yahweh, which means “to be”. His name reveals his character, the one who exists and causes all things to exist without anything outside of him influencing his existence. We depend on God in every moment to exist, but God simply is. This name was holy and was to be revered says the third commandment, so later Jews, afraid to offend God and be taken back into exile, would never speak the name. Instead, when they would read his name written down they would think of “I am” but they would say “my Lord.” Instead of saying “Yahweh,” they would read it but say “Adonai.” This tradition held even when Greek speaking Jews translated the Old Testament into Greek; they translated the name Yahweh, not as a transliterated name, but simply using the Greek word κυριος, or Lord. That is why when you read your OT, you see LORD in all caps. These are instances when the Hebrew should see the name Yahweh and read “Lord.”

What is the point of this brief lecture on translations? Turn briefly to Philippians 2:9. In his letter of encouragement to the Philippians, Paul sings this hymn about the humble glory of Jesus and climaxes his song by saying, “every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.” I don’t think Paul is saying that everyone will submit to Jesus as their master. He is making the bold statement that Jesus is “I am.” If that is not true, then Paul is committing blasphemy. The name which Jews revered so highly, the name that nobody but God himself can claim, Paul is attributing to Jesus. Jesus himself made the claim of that name multiple times in the book of John, clearly saying one time, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And that, too, is what the writer of Hebrews is claiming. Jesus, carrying the name of “I am” and with that name he is supreme over all things.

He holds creation together by the power of his voice. He unfolds history by willing it into existence. He sets up nations and brings them to ruin. All things point to him and are for his glory. He can do whatever he pleases, and he has determined that what pleases him most, what brings him most glory, is being the perfect sacrifice for sins, being the perfect priest mediating between God and sinners, being the perfect king, working to redeem a people who find their greatest joy in submitting to him.

Before asking how this truth should change your life, I want to look to a few specific examples in the world to magnify your understanding of Jesus supremacy over all creation and history. We see from verse three that the word of God, Jesus, holds all things together by his own will. Colossians 1:17 and Romans 11:36 speak to this as well, that all things hold together by him and all things are not just made through him, but for his own purposes. So what types of things hold together by the word of this supreme Jesus?

Psalm 19:1 declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Did anyone see about a month ago the incredible image NASA released of the Andromeda galaxy? It was the clearest, highest resolution photo NASA has ever obtained of such a distant object. Andromeda is the closest galaxy to our galaxy, the Milky Way. The photo shows 100 million stars clustered together in the one galaxy that is 40,000 light years across and 2 million light years away from us. And this is one of 100 billion galaxies, and God upholds their moment-by-moment existence by speaking them into being.

Those are the enormous things that Jesus is bigger than, but look at the small things that he creates with such fine-tuned detail. As technology improves we are able to see smaller and smaller things, but it always seems like there is something smaller. Scientists used to think that the body was made up of millions of cells that resembled little more than a tiny, empty bubble. Then they looked closer and realized that each of these millions of cells were incredibly complex little factories each containing a library of information working to create energy to power your body. Then they looked closer and realized that each of these millions of little factories was made up of complex molecules which were made up of dozens of atoms. Each atom–unable to be seen by even the most powerful microscope–is made up of a nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by tiny electrons whizzing around in orbit. I remember my college chemistry professor teaching us some theory that we don’t actually know what an electron is because they travel so fast and so randomly that if you saw one it would instantly be gone without any idea which direction it went. But God knows exactly what it is made up of, where it has been, and where it is going. But even these protons, neutrons, and electrons are made up of even smaller things like quarks and neutrinos. These subatomic particles moving around at the speed of light move one frame at a time in God’s eyes.

Getting more personal, look at how incredible God has made our bodies. Psalm 139 God knit us together in the womb; we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We start out as a single cell and in the period of 9 months we are a fully functioning person ready to take in the beauty of God’s creation. We have eyes to see more color than the greatest camera and focus quicker than the fastest lens. We have a heart that never stops supplying every cell in your body with every nutrient it needs. We have a brain and nervous system that is faster and more complex than the most powerful supercomputer ever made. And God creates each one with a unique ability to reflect his glory.

I was amazed a couple weeks ago at God’s incredible design of our blood-clotting system. I was at work cutting some paper with a scissors and sliced my pinky finger up really bad; probably bad enough that I should have gotten sttiches to hold it closed. I quickly wrapped it up with gauze and within minutes it stopped bleeding; within a few hours it had completely clotted up; and today you can barely even tell there was a cut. I was able to worship God for slicing my finger open and watching his handiwork in action.

God isn’t just in control of physical matter, but of time as well. God is outside of time as we know it. 2 Peter 3:8 reminds us that a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day. Because he holds time in his hand he has patience to wait for the last of his sheep to repent even if it is a thousand years from now. But he also knows what happens in the smallest fraction of a second. It only takes a moment in time for you to decide to move your hand, and then send the signal from your brain to your hand, then for your hand to move and send a signal back to your brain so you perceive that your hand did move. But God sees your decision and brain signal happening as though it were a slow motion video. At any time during the processing of your thought he, in his sovereignty, could interrupt your decision to move your hand and prevent it from happening.

God holds every moment in time and every smallest particle of matter in his hands. So it should be of no surprise to us, then, that God orchestrated all of history to climax into what Galatians 4:4 refers to as “the fullness of time.” What is the fullness of time? Paul uses the phrase to describe the moment in history when god had moved all world events into the perfect place so that Christ could accomplish his redemptive mission and word could spread quickly to the whole world. All of creation, all of history was made for this moment.

The Greeks conquered the ancient world and everywhere they went they forced their language and culture on every other culture. They thought they were improving the world by unifying everyone under their “superior” language. But God was using their common language to make it easier to spread the word of Christ around the world.

The Romans conquered the Greeks, kept their language, and built high-quality roads between every city in the empire. They set guards along every route to make military mobilization, trade, and communication happen quickly and safely. They thought they were making their empire prosper, but God was using their roads and army to make it easier to spread the word of Christ around the world.

The Jews were exiled and dispersed around the world and instead of returning home many started synagogues in cities all over the Roman empire. The Romans granted Judaism legal exemption from worshiping the Roman gods and Caesars and offered them protection from religious opposition. The Romans thought they were just trying to keep the peace in their kingdom, but God used these decrees to create multiple safe venues to spread the word of Christ around the world.

Jesus is supremely sovereign over every detail of time and space. That isn’t a truth that we should store in the back of our minds for a test in seminary, or for a theological debate, or for acceptance into the community of Calvinists. It should radically change our lives. Not a single decision of my day should be made without considering God’s control over my life and Jesus’ work of salvation to bring the glory of God into my heart.

So now I want to transition to making it practical for our lives. What does it mean for me that Jesus is Lord?

First I want to speak to those who have not yet submitted to him as Lord. The majority of the world acts as though Jesus has no authority over them. You may think to yourself, “I create my own destiny. I create meaning for myself and do what makes me happy. I don’t need Jesus.” But it does not matter whether you submit to him or not; Jesus still holds your breath, your body, your very existence together. Our belief doesn’t make him sovereign, he is sovereign. You couldn’t think without him giving you a brain, upholding your brain, and creating each moment for your brain to exist. You live in a fragile world; the chair you sit in, the heart beating in your chest, the ground beneath your feet are all held together by his will. At any moment he could determine that your life no longer exist. Yet by his kindness, by his patient mercy he still gives you opportunity to acknowledge his glory. Alexander the Great too thought he was conquering the world by his own authority. All of the Caesars of the Roman empire thought they were ruling as the only influence on their own desires to control their own destiny. But in it all God was orchestrating their decisions to shape world history for his own purposes. All of history was created for this purpose, that the loving pleasure God was satisfied to experience in his Trinitarian nature would dwell within his people. The rise and fall of nations, the creation of galaxies and quarks, the knitting of your life together was all done so that Jesus would come to “make purification for sins” so that we who failed to even acknowledge him could be made to see and savor his glory. We act as though Jesus has no authority in our lives. We steal his right to reign in our hearts. We reject the goodness he desires for his creation. The greatest good he has in mind for us is that his Holy Spirit would dwell within us so that we would experience the great joy he has enjoyed for eternity. Yet we say to him, “No thanks. I’ll create my own happiness.” What fools are we to reject the greatest joy there is. And God will have no hesitation in the end of time to cast away all who reject his eternal joy into an eternal state of misery.

Though his creation rejected him, Hebrews says that Jesus made purification for sins. That is he took God’s rejection of sinners upon himself, so that those who repent and trust in him could still receive the joy that only Jesus knows. And when we receive that eternal life with him, the supremacy of Christ is no longer a threat to our joy, but becomes in our hearts the only source of it.

What do I mean by the supremacy of Christ being our source of joy. Now I speak to those who have put their faith in Christ. God’s sovereignty over all things shouldn’t scare us. It shouldn’t be a threat to our pleasures, but the only confidence of obtaining true pleasure. It should be a truth that leaves us with assurance, confidence, and joyful thankfulness.

First assurance. The writer of Hebrews wanted to encourage the Hebrew Christians wherever they were to stay faithful to Jesus. Jews had begun to fight against the spread of the gospel saying that those who became believers were abandoning the true faith. Jews tried to convince their brothers that turning to Jesus was abandoning the covenant God made with their fathers. But the author of Hebrews wanted to bring assurance to them. Because all of the covenant pointed to Christ, it would be a rejection of God to stay with the Old Covenant. The Jewish believers weren’t sure which way to go, they lacked assurance. But because Jesus is supreme over all of these things we can know for certain that we are saved. If you want assurance in your salvation, don’t look to what you do to impress God, look to Christ and savor his supremacy over all creation. If you want assurance look to what God has already done in the world, moving kings and empires so that Christ could die for you. If he can do that, he can take your simple prayer of faith and give you abundant trust in his promise to keep you.

Secondly, knowing the supremacy of Christ will give you confidence. If I am fearful to speak the truth boldly, I have lost sight of God’s sovereignty. If I am fearful to be more generous with my time, my money, my body, or my words, it’s because I have forgotten that God holds it all together anyway.

When I know in my heart that I must speak up about something, I debate in my mind what the consequences will be. Usually staying silent wins out because worldly consequences seem like the worst that could happen. Never do I introduce into my internal debate the idea that God gave me the lips, the voice, the breath to speak what I ought. I don’t thank him for these truths and I don’t speak knowing that he also controls the moments that follow my words. If I truly believe that Jesus is greater than my fear, greater than my existence, greater than the sound waves that my voice produces, then I will speak boldly trusting that he will do whatever necessary to modify those sound waves, open any ears who hear them, and create joy in their hearts to also rejoice in the supremacy of Christ.

Finally, because Jesus is supreme over creation we can rejoice in his goodness in creation without making it our ultimate end. I wrote much of this sermon at a beautiful city park near our house. The park is on a lake with walking trails all around it, beautiful trees, a gorgeous blue sky, and in the summer animals singing God’s praises all together. It is a fantastic place to sit quietly and feel God’s glory shining all around. And while I wrote this sermon I thought about my wife who was at home waiting for me to return, thanking God that I get to enjoy the incredible pleasures of marriage with such a beautiful woman. Yes, God created her and he created the pleasures we share together and I rejoice in that. The park I was at had an art gallery with interesting pieces of art from local artists that cause me to look at them and say, “What incredible creativity God has placed into the minds of his image-bearers!”

We have such potential as image-bearers to reflect his beauty, his creative glory. There is so much in creation to be thankful for. We weren’t created to be spirit-creatures floating around in some strange ethereal existence. God created flowers, birds, and squirrels for our enjoyment of his creative glory. He created physical marriage to give us a small taste of the intimate and intense pleasures that we experience when his Spirit dwells within us. He gave us taste buds and hunger to match a thousand different flavors of foods so we can sample the infinite variety of reasons to savor Jesus. We don’t honor God when we deny physical realities believing that spiritual realities to be better. We glorify him when we enjoy the physical realities with Spirit-filled hearts of praise for the one who sovereignly created them for our joy.

And we keep ourselves from making any temporal pleasures ultimate because they all come from his hand. And we know they are tainted by sin and one day he is going to restore them to be even greater than they are now. Jesus is better than all of these things. Though we enjoy them for his glory, because He is better we hold loosely to them for the sake of knowing him, savoring him, rejoicing in his creative work and trusting him to hold our future.

My Excellent Wife

Today is our 9 year anniversary. I wrote this thinking about the Proverbs 31 woman and thanking God for blessing me with an incredible wife.

An excellent wife I have found.
More precious than the fairest jewel,
To seek love elsewhere I would be a fool.
To her my heart is joyfully bound.

Above all else she seeks my good.
She works to bring my soul such rest,
Her joy to serve without behest.
Comforts me with her loves food.

Her beauty lights a darkened room.
A heart of gold refined in fire,
To honor Christ her highest desire.
Adorned to please her heavenly groom.

She cares for those who have a need.
Hospitality is her trade,
Tending to those whom God has made.
That they too may gain hearts freed.

Her laugh brings joy at endless length
Whatever praise that I receive,
Due to the one to whom I cleave.
Clothed with dignity and strength.

Be a Parent, For it is God Who Will Change Their Hearts

Everyone is an expert parent...until they have kids. We all have ideas in mind on how we would do things in certain parenting situations, either based on how our own parents did or did not raise us. Some people, like me, spend a ton of time reading and asking questions from experienced parents in order to be as prepared as possible for the arrival of the little sanctifiers.

With six years of parenting down (and now three kids with more on the way) I am thankful that God gave me so many resources ahead of time. It has prepared us for inevitable challenges and been a grace to create some sense of order in our home. It doesn't guarantee that our kids will always be well-behaved and especially doesn't guarantee their salvation, but it gave us something to aim for, something to evaluate ourselves, not so much our kids.

Early on in our parenting as we were establishing our family's routines and traditions with our children's early obedience and ultimate salvation in view, we had so many people who felt like they wanted to throw cold water on our fire to be godly parents. I believe their motives were honestly good, but it was discouraging. So many people wanted to remind us that our kids salvation didn't depend upon us so they would say, "You can't guarantee they'll believe in Jesus. Your kids will have to give an account to God on their own. You could be the best parents in the world and they still might reject your faith."

Yes, that is true. But it always bothered me. Did God not intend the family structure to have influence on the children in the home? What is the point of God's wisdom for the home if we are just supposed to resign to the fact that 80% of our children will turn away from Christ? It seemed to me that the exception to godly parenting was losing your children, not the rule. But something so different is playing out in our churches.

Most people fall into one of two ditches; we either set up a bunch of rules and boundaries thinking we will create obedient children through our own effort (even though they are biblical rules) or we resign to the fact that we don't have control over our children's hearts anyway and don't apply any biblical principles. Both produce children who don't know true grace. But we don't have a category for walking the narrow path in between. We usually just say that we need to balance the two.

I've never been a fan of the balance argument. It sounds to me like compromise; sometimes we need to give a little on grace and emphasize the law and others we need to stand firm on our boundaries and forget grace. Isn't there a place where both justice and mercy express themselves?

Oh right. The cross! In redeeming us, God doesn't relax his justice to set us free from our sin. That would be corrupt (Prov 17:15). Our salvation is a mystery in which God creates Christ's righteousness in us so that we are no longer guilty sinners and Jesus takes our sin upon himself so God can justly punish our sin (2 Cor 5:21).

How, then, does this apply to parenting?

I think the process of progressive sanctification parallels our parenting. Salvation isn't complete the day we are converted. God continues to actually make us righteous through a process we call progressive sanctification.

Writing to the Philippians, Paul commands something strange for the sanctification of a believer: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12-13). Sanctification is a process by which we pursue faithfulness and through that God shows that he is working in us. Paul is serious when he commands believers to remain diligent and faithful, but then he says also that God is working our sanctification in us. It is the mystery of God's sovereignty and our responsibility.

A parent's role should be getting clearer. We do not seek a balance between our role as parents and God's role as the shaper of a child's heart. It is both. Work out your parenting with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in your kids.

We work because God is working in us. We parent because God is parenting through us. It is not an either/or dichotomy. Godly parenting is 100% diligence on the parents' part and 100% trust that God is working in us to produce salvation in our children.

An example of this is the response of the Israelites who just returned from exile to rebuild the city of Jerusalem to their opponents who sought to disrupt their rebuilding project. In Nehemiah 4, Sanballat mocked the Israelites and threatened to prevent them from finishing their work. Israel's response was a perfect example of diligent work trusting in the sovereignty of God. "And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night" (Neh 4:9). They trusted God to protect them as they set people around the city to protect them. Faithfulness is neither praying to God to work and doing nothing nor is it doing the work without praying to God.

And so goes parenting. We work to teach our kids about God and his work in the world through the word. We work to discipline them when they are disobedient. We train them with wisdom in godly living. We have high expectations for the person they are to become and we aren't surprised when their sin (or our own) trips them up along the way. And we do all this with complete hope, not in the effectiveness of our parenting, but in the power of God to use it for the good of our children.

I Believe in the Holy Spirit

With small children in tow it is difficult for me to pay close enough attention to every Sunday sermon that I can recall significant themes from the message. Pastor Jason preached a couple months ago on something I don’t even remember, but one line stuck in my mind, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”  He gave a couple of examples in which this statement applied, but I immediately went to circumstances in my own life in which I wasn’t acting as though the Holy Spirit had the ability to overcome the obstacles I feel are insurmountable.

As I think through some circumstances in my life that simply seem impossible to resolve I have begun to preach to myself, "I believe in the Holy Spirit." It has become my anthem this year and I pray that it becomes part of my life. I should never say to myself, "That cannot happen. It is too difficult." Or I cannot see a single person as beyond the hope of the gospel thinking, "He will never be able to see it," or "She could never comprehend such difficult things." God made us all to revel in his glory. He made us all for relationships with him and with each other. Who am I to say any person or situation is beyond the power of God. It is by his Holy Spirit that he transforms lives and works incredible faith into his people.

I am a type A personality. I organize everything in my mind before putting it onto paper or into action. I plan everything out before making decisions. I need to see a clear path to success before taking any action. This does not lend itself well to trusting God because I tend to lean on my own ability to understand. But God is using seminary to break down this trust in myself and give me opportunities to test my conviction that "I believe in the Holy Spirit."

God has blessed me with a gift to understand things and make comprehensive connections quickly. So far this has been a great blessing to my family during seminary because it helps me accomplish more in the limited amount of time we have available for studying. However, my Hebrew class has been somewhat frustrating to me; not because I haven't been able to understand Hebrew, but because it is not organized in the way my mind finds useful. It has been a struggle to do the heavy lifting for the class without seeing the value in the way it is presented. But two people challenged my prideful assumptions. Andy Naselli made a comment to me at a picnic that learning Hebrew is a "worship of dependence." While we may not see the value of it in the midst of it, we do the hard work trusting that the Holy Spirit will help us endure and at some future date it will begin to transform into more of a worship of praise experience. It was a reminder that I can't fit everything into my mind's compartments, but I need to "believe in the Holy Spirit" to honor God through it.

Similarly, during class with John Piper, as I was marveling at what a privilege it was to learn from such a great mind he confessed that it is such a struggle for him to write. He slows down so much and puts so much thought into every word because he wants every word to be fruitful. If John Piper struggles that much to produce something of value for the church, what hope do I have? Why should I continue? My ability to quickly comprehend complex truths is nothing to boast in when I don't use it in a way that depends on God to help me do the heavy lifting and produce something of value. I need to remind myself that "I believe in the Holy Spirit" to dig deep into his word to come away changed and prepared for ministry, not simply adding more knowledge to my mental library.

So where has this conviction led our family today? As our youngest daughter continues through our second year of life we have decided that we are ready to add another child to our family. We chose to once again pursue a child through adoption, but wondered what the best option for our family is. Adoptions take a lot of time and cost a lot of money, neither of which we have much of. How are we going to pay for it when our checking account has been shrinking to pay for school? How are we going to find time to travel to pick up a child when we have very small windows of time in between school and work? As we considered our options we realized that we started to go down the path that seemed to make more sense to our concrete-sequential minds; the cheapest and most time controlled options were our preference. But God was having none of that. He wanted to remind us that "We believe in the Holy Spirit."

Through circumstances that I will share more of over the coming months God has given us a passion for children at an orphanage in Uganda. We know people in Uganda and have met others who have adopted from there. We are convinced that this is where God would have us, even though it is going to cost money that God will have to provide and it needs to be timed in only a way one who is in control of all time can arrange. But we are done trying to force God to work according to our own plan. We are ready to see the God do what seems impossible. We are convinced of this: "We believe in the Holy Spirit."

In a Pressure Chamber

I just turned in a big paper due this semester for Dr. Piper and I feel like I landed safely on the other side of a huge hurdle (not necessarily confident in my grade, but just glad the work is complete). Going through my heart was excitement that the end of the semester is near. I am feeling a kind of "senioritits" in only my first semester of my second year (I still have five semesters to go). Thoughts of winter vacation already fill my mind and my vision for after seminary work is narrowing in focus.

But then I also feel a little guilt for wanting the semester to be done. Isn't this what I wanted to do? Hadn't I left my job to go to school again? Aren't my affections moved by what we are studying?

Of course they are! I am so thankful for my time here. It is an incredible privilege to have this opportunity to learn from such godly men. Yet this hasn't been a season of life that has come with ease. We've given up a lot to be here. We have experienced some of the biggest challenges of our lives. Every minute of the week is scheduled with church, school, work, and parenting. Sometimes the pressure feels too much to handle and I look forward to the release.

A helpful image came to mind as I considered the opposing feelings of wanting to be here and wanting to be finished. I am in the barrel of gun that God is pointing in the direction that I will be of most use to his purposes. At the moment the heat and pressure around me is propelling me forward. As I travel forward I bang up against the side of the barrel which keeps me focused in the right direction. If it were a shorter barrel the shot wouldn't be as accurate. It is precisely the boundaries of the barrel that I keep bumping against that focus my direction better for more effective ministry. I don't enjoy bumping up against the sides and feeling the intense pressure inside, but it will make me more useful in the end.

So, I continue in my training thankful for the season of intense focus looking forward to the launch into ministry at the end.

Holy Vocation

There is a funny thing I've noticed when I talk to people about my career choice.  When I talk about being an engineer people have all kinds of questions about roads and bridges.  They have a curiosity about how projects get done and what I am doing to fix the problems with roads that they use regularly.  People are intrigued by my engineering and even passionate about roads.  It seems everyone is a traffic engineer giving me advice on how to fix roads and signals.

But when I tell people I'm leaving behind engineering for ministry, currently attending seminary, they get quiet and serious.  Their demeanor changes.  They tip-toe around their speech; hide their beer behind the napkin dispenser; apologize for saying, 'shucks.'  It's not that they disagree with my views (though they probably would if we started talking more); but it is like they somehow feel that suddenly they are in holy company and they should remove their sandals and only speak in reverent tones.

But why should this be different for any believer?  We are a priesthood of believers; everywhere we go we are ambassadors for Christ.  Everything we do represents God in us.  Whether we are computer programmers, pastors, engineers, homemakers, or street hot-dog vendors, we have the amazing privilege to bring that holy passion for God to whatever career venture we choose.  People should see our work no matter where we are as a high calling; something we take seriously and do with joy and excellence.

So enlivened by the importance of this task is a friend from seminary who determined he was going to drop out of his pastoral pursuits and get a job as a marketing manager in downtown Minneapolis.  He is one of the brightest guys in our cohort with incredible maturity and he decided he could better glorify God by mingling with the downtown professionals at an entry level professional career position.  While I am saddened that our class is losing such a bright mind, I am thrilled about a guy who really wants the light of Christ to shine in a normal office job.  He has a holy ambition to make Christ known even in a cubicle.

Just a couple weeks after I heard this news from my friend an elder at church preached on the high calling of the work of every believer.  It was both encouraging and convicting.  Not-working is dehumanizing.  We were made to reflect God's work in creation by being at work with creative joy ourselves.  We are to provide for our families with contentment as God provides for us.

During the last year of my struggling to know what I am doing here I often wanted to quit my job so I could devote more time to studying, get more involved in ministry, and spend more time with my wife and kids.  I thought that my job was a hindrance to what was more important and prayed regularly for God to provide some other means of provision so I wouldn't have to work. But I have been convicted that the job keeps me connected to God in a more personal and satisfying way.  I get the pleasure of representing Christ to people in downtown Minneapolis.  I get the honor of showing what excellent work looks like from someone with a heavenly perspective.  I get to taste the goodness of providing with my hands and my mind for my family.

One thing from the sermon that really caught my attention applied to our motivation for hard work.  The world works hard to earn something; a raise, a promotion, a paycheck to buy more things.  It is a merit system in which we tie up our identities.  Who we are becomes defined by our position, our income, and our toys.  Or, the job is simply a necessary evil means to something else more enjoyable.  For me, it was just the thing that provided me the opportunity to do what I preferred to do, being in a classroom and reading books.

But work should be different for the believer.  We don't work dutifully for approval or personal gain, but we work diligently from approval and gain.  Everything we need was earned for us in Christ.  God will provide for us everything that is necessary for contentment in Him.  From there we can put in hard work during the day and find great peace and satisfaction in the work because we aren't doing it to gain anything but to simply reflect what has already been gained for us.

My eyes are continually being opened to the blessing which is my current engineering job.  God ordained it as a means of abundant provision for my family, but it has also taught me more about continuing to be in the world and savoring the opportunity to image his diligent, creative activity in the world.  He has given me a platform to share the gospel to people this country boy would have never had access to.  God forgive me when I complain about the high calling of cubicle work and give me a holy ambition to shine your creative light on the streets of downtown Minneapolis.