This Crazy Life of Ours

The Queen had the audacity to ask me the other night, "So...do you think we're signing on to a life of never-ending craziness?"

"Of course we are."

Our adoption this time has taken 25% of the time it took with Peanut.  25% of the time.  That's crazy. The mountains we have seen God move have been Himalayan, and that's crazy - but He never got tired, thankfully.  We are flying out in a few days (we even got reasonable airfare).  That's crazy.  We'll come back to a slew of medical appointments, which will open up a whole new can of craziness.

But through it all, I can absolutely say this:  we never would've seen God move in the ways He has if we had stayed comfortable.

May that be a lesson we continually live - and may you risk something and find it to be true too.


P.S.  Happy Anniversary to Heritage Park.  Thanks for putting up with me for 7 years.

Sermon Notes from Sunday, 2.16.14 on Galatians 1.10-2.6

Here are the sermon notes from Sunday, 2.16.14, on Galatians 1.10-2.6.  You can get these notes in PDF and the sermon audio at sermons.heritagepark.org.  You can also download the audio via our podcast on iTunes.

Galatians

Part 3 – The Importance of your Story

Galatians 1.10-2.6

Paul’s argument:

·      You say that I dilute the Gospel by not including circumcision as a necessary part of following Jesus

·      I say that you are distorting the Gospel by making it solely for Jews or those willing to become Jews

·      You say that the Gospel starts in Jerusalem (and is thus Jewish)

·      I say the that Gospel starts in Jesus (and is for the world)

You have a story

·      Key Words – History, Revelation, Commission

Your story overcomes objections and answers questions

·      Your story carries authority because Christ carries authority

·      Challenges to our story are not answered with argument but with ethos

·      It is inherently invitational:  inviting people into your story and God’s story

Pastoral thoughts:

·      Relationships are bridges for truth

·      Relationships don’t get built without time

·      People can reject the truth but cannot refute your story

·      Tell your story in such a way that the right person gets the glory

Prayer Update on the Adoption

I'm reposting this from my wife's blog because this is where our family is right now:

Before I ask you to pray for a miracle, I want to tell you that it has been done before.

When we were waiting on Peanut, we received our TA in record time.  You can read about that HERE.

Now we need a TA so we can go get Maggie.  We have been told that it takes generally 2-4 weeks and they have seen it come in 1 week only 1 time before.  If we could get our TA in one week (by this Friday) we could travel next Thursday to get our Maggie.  There is a chance we could still travel if it comes on Monday or Tuesday but tickets go up in price as you get that close to travel and we would have a little more trouble getting a consulate appointment so this Friday would be ideal.  

Would you pray with us that we could travel to get our baby girl next week?  Pray that China would look at her condition and be motivated to move quickly on her behalf.  Then if you are feeling motivated to pray some more, some inexpensive plane tickets would be AWESOME!

Thank you from this momma's heart

I have found a new prayer for my kids...

I have found a new prayer for my kids in an unlikely place.  The biblical book of Job.

And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great. [Job 8.7]

Bildad, Job's unfriendly friend, says this to Job in the midst of his suffering.  It's in the context of God's justice in the world and, essentially, a call to repentance.  We know how the story goes:  Job wasn't particularly guilty of anything except loving God so much, so Satan was allowed to test him with disaster, disease, and dumb friends.

Terrible friends though they were, they didn't necessarily lie.  God is just.  God does rouse Himself on behalf of those who see Him (8.4-6).  Those things are true.  They just weren't particularly helpful to Job - and for the record, not particularly helpful in the hospital room either.

That is all digression to come back around to this point.  I like the prayer that leapt in my heart when I read 8.7 this week as part of my McCheyne reading plan.  

I like it because all four of my kids have faced hardships in their lives in the earliest of stages.  The Bear has a hereditary issue that is degenerative which we discovered at 4.  The Ninja had emergency surgery at 6 weeks, had significant food allergies until he was 2, and almost had his liver shut down at 18 months.  The Peanut started life in a different country and has physical challenges of her own.  And the latest addition (who isn't in our possession yet) may very well top them all with her situation.  

Though the beginning was small, may their latter days be great.  And not just great.  Very great.  Influentially great.  Powerfully great.  Love-soaked great.  Loyalty-stained great.  Much-fruit great.  Very great.

A new prayer birthed in a dad's heart.  You're welcome to join in for your own kids in the same way.

Sadness for Philip Seymour Hoffman

I have one primary thought about the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman's passing.  I have other thoughts, secondary ones about the media coverage surrounding him and his circumstances.  Those I will save for another post.

The primary thought I have had as I reflect on him is the terrible hole in his heart that created the need to feed heroin into his veins.

We all have the same issue.  It's a vacuum in there, something like a black hole that keeps consuming and consuming and consuming.  Some need affection, so they feed the vacuum with relationship after relationship.  Some need significance, so they throw status symbol after status symbol into the hole to see if it will fill.  Some need purpose, so they go running from cause to cause and often wear themselves out.

On and on we could go.

The secret of this pursuit is its vanity.  It's as ridiculous as you individually throwing one grain of sand into the Grand Canyon at a time, claiming you're going to fill it.  The Bible says it's like that because eternity as been placed in our hearts and, therefore, nothing temporal can fill it.  Nothing.

Not a new job.  Not a new relationship.  Not a new possession.  Not anything.

Certainly not heroin.  It may numb us - anything can sate for a moment.  But it can't satisfy.

I'm sad for PSH because of the hole in his heart that caused him to put heroin in his veins.  And I know that's a human epidemic.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Sermon Notes from Sunday, 2.9.14, on Galatians 1.1-9

Here are the sermon notes from Sunday, 2.9.14, on Galatians 1.1-9.  You can find the sermon audio and these notes in PDF at sermons.heritagepark.org.  You can also download the audio via our podcast on iTunes.

Galatians
2 – When Another Gospel is not Another Gospel 
Galatians 1.1-9

The Facts: Jesus died for our sin – Jesus delivers us – God designed His rescue plan

Deserting

• We have a deep-rooted proclivity to self-justify (which leads to condemnation)
  
• There are people who want to distort the Gospel for their gain
  
  Distorting
  

• By rejecting it – “I’m not guilty”
  
• By replacing Him in it – “the church = Christ” instead of “church = body of
  Christ”
  
• By denying parts of it – more liberal theology (no deity -> no atonement ->
  just a teacher -> moral revolution)
  
• By denying implications of it – HWP vs. Acts 14
  
• Be adding to it – the problem of the Galatians
  
  Why is this a big deal?
  

• There is a curse for those who do
  
• The exclusivity of Christ demands the exclusivity of the message about Christ
  
• Distorting the Gospel is Deserting God 
  

The Beauty and the Beast

We've had a few situations in life and church and ministry and life (can I repeat that?) that remind me of the Beauty and the Beast.  Here's the beastly part:

People sin.  They're really good at it too.  I wish I could exclude myself from this category.  I wish I could somehow exempt my kids or church members or any number of folks I care about from this.  But I can't.  We're all jacked up.  Everyone of us.

But the beauty?  Sheesh.  It's gorgeous.  Sunrise or sunset, take-your-breath-away, stop-and-stare, mouth open, pancake-sized eyes, maybe even a little-bit-of-drool kind of beautiful.  It's the kind of beauty that finds a rose in the middle of a trash heap.  The contrast is actually what enhances what's is inherent within it already.

The beauty is the redemption.

Lives are changed from getting t-boned and bashed by circumstances to a steadiness of foot amid the wreckage.  People go from an immature, selfish, emotional two-year old to people you'd count on to be your pallbearers.  The tree bark that your nose is pressed into and is so uncomfortable and threatening becomes a reminder that there is a forest and not just a tree, so the perspective changes and the big picture is something better than you could have ever painted - heck, ever imagined.

The kicker for me is that I often times find myself desiring the beauty of redemption without the beast of what we need to be redeemed FROM.  If there's not a messy artist's studio, there's no amazing art that comes from it.  It pushes me toward patience until the beauty shows itself.

Be patient, Trent.  Be patient.

A Letter to Kacey Musgraves

Dear Kacey,

I like country music.  A lot.  You kind of strike me as positioning yourself as the Alanis Morisette of country music, though I'm not sure that will work out so well in the end.  However, I want to do my best to give you the benefit of the doubt without sounding like that guy.  But your song really stinks.  It's no good.

[Editorial Note:  in case you don't know the song I'm talking about (for readers, not Kacey, obviously):

Make lots of noise and kiss lots of boys
Kiss lots of girls if that's what your into
When the straight and narrow gets a little too straight light up a joint, or don't
Just follow your arrow wherever it points]

If I were to truly follow my arrow wherever it points and everyone else did the same, we'd have anarchy.  If my arrow pointed to me robbing a bank, that would certainly be bad.  And the argument gets made back that goes something like this: "Well, as long as you're not hurting anyone it's okay."  The problem with that is our actions and inactions always have consequences on those around us.  So your exhortation to the young women who like your music is seriously detrimental to their lives and to the world they live in.  If a young woman followed her heart to roll up a joint and smoke it if she wanted to, ended up in jail, and stood before the judge, "Following your arrow" is not a defense acceptable in that situation.  But more than that, if they followed their arrow to any number of desires, it turns into bad news in a hurry.

The problem, Kacey, is that the human heart is tragically and deceitfully broken.  Tragically because of the potential that it holds and yet is marred.  Deceitfully because lines like "Follow your arrow wherever it points" actually make sense to the broken human heart even though it's terrible advice and the heart is socially incapable of actually living that way.  Again, if everyone truly followed their arrow, you can easily envision how a mom would up and leave her kids because she wanted to go rock climbing for a month.  It really is impossible.

Here's what I do appreciate about your song.  You have it right in a powerful way:  it's damned if you do and damned if you don't.  If you try to live on the aforementioned straight and narrow, you can end up in bad shape just as easily as if you threw constraint to the wind and became the best hedonist you could.  Your diagnosis is absolutely right.  Your cure is worse than the disease though.

Instead, there's a God who loves you and wants to heal, mend, and unify that fragmented heart of yours.  I know because He's done that for mine.  Instead of following the arrow, I'm following Jesus.  And He's a much better leader.

Sincerely,
Trent

Galatians on the Horizon

I'm kicking off the book of Galatians in the coming Sundays and because it might be slightly interesting to know why, I though I'd offer the rationale.

Our church has been pushed by the Holy Spirit (in the best possible way) to create a Culture of Invitation within our church family.  We understand that to be that the baseline expectation and most basic strategy of evangelism for our church membership is to consistently invite people to church:  neighbors, friends, coworkers, the lady at Kroger, the guy at the KwikLube, and a ton of others.  In order to see lives transformed by the Gospel, part of what needs to happen is people need to be in a place where they are exposed to the preaching of the Gospel.  We would never want to take away from a person sharing the Gospel across the table from another person, but we also know that can't always happen in a work environment, at the grocery store, or other places where legal or time restraints impose themselves.  But an invitation to church is different.  It can happen any time and any where.

So we encourage our people to ask, "Do you go to church any where regularly?" (that last word being a key word).  And then respond accordingly.

Because we are being pushed along by the Holy Spirit in this, we are taking on the book of Galatians which is Paul's beautiful treatise on Christian Freedom and the nature of the Gospel.  Throughout the book, Paul does a kind of compare and contrast of "This IS the Gospel" versus "This is NOT the Gospel."

What better way to expose people to the reality of what God has done for us in Christ and how He has pursued us?

Please join us in praying that God will draw people there and then transform their lives through the preaching of His Word.

Sermon Notes from Sunday 1.26.14 from Luke 6.46-49

Here are the sermon notes from the final installation of the series, Apprentices, that has as its heart defining who we are as a church.  You can find these notes in PDF and the audio at sermons.heritagepark.org.  You can also get the audio via our podcast on iTunes.

Apprentices

Part 4 – Teach to Transform

Luke 6.46-49

Great Commission:  teach them to obey

• To become that kind of apprentice, you don’t get a bigger checklist or more consistent checklist – you become a different kind of person
• God doesn’t want you to obey but become the kind of person who normally obeys Him

These are the pictures of biblical transformation

• It is not external change, though you can expect external change
• It is a foundational change at the level of the heart

Two Formative Truths:

Jesus has the authority to speak

• He answers the question of autonomy

Jesus has the intelligence to speak

• He answers the question of relevance

Transformation more consistently happens in circle than in a row

Why we do Circles (convinced from biblical models, church history, and personal experience that these are the best)

• You are transformed by them
• You get to live out Jesus’ commands
• You know you are not alone
• You get to play a role in others’ transformation

How we do Circles

• Sunday School
• Weekly Small Groups
• Weekly Bible Studies