Draft

Today, I was actually able to have a nice, slow day at home with my wife and daughter. It was a great day, with some house work (getting Zoe's room more ready for another baby. . .yes, I that it's 4 months early, but you try arguing with a pregnant woman!), spending time with my family, and, in between it all, watching some of the NFL draft! (It's been a long time since I've been able to watch any of that). As I was watching team after team select their next player, I listened to all the commentary by the announcers at ESPN: "Great player, tremendous upside" . . . "Lots of potential in this play". . . "This is a very strong, quick linebacker" . . . "A very smart player" . . . "I don't know why you'd select this player here with other much better players still available". . . .

It all got me thinking. . .are you amazed and blessed that our God and Father didn't select us like this? 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 tells us:

26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

Praise the Lord that He does not judge as man does; man looks at the outward appearance, but our God looks at the heart. In his draft (I know this gets a little Calvinism vs. Armenianism, but stick with me!) God did not chose us because of any great ability or potential; indeed, the scriptures tell us that God demonstrates His love for us in that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And, again, "how great is the love the Father has lavished upon us, that we might become the children of God." Let us praise our great, glorious, loving, and merciful God, for He has loved and chosen us first, so that we may love Him and choose Him in return!

The Humanity of Christ

From "Vintage Jesus" by Mark Driscoll and Gary Breshears:

The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is fully God who became a man and is "Immanuel," which means, "God with us." It is important to note that this is the opposite of many religions that teach that men and women can become God or at least gods. This was Satan's first lie! Conversely, our God Jesus Christ humbled Himself and entered into human history as a man to identify with us as our humble servant. As both God and man, Jesus alone can reconcile us to God as the only perfect God-man mediator. As theologian Donald Bloesch says, "Jesus therefore differs from other human beings in kind, not simply in degree."

One of the most astonishing things about Jesus is that as God He actually chose to come into our fallen, sick, twisted, unjust, evil, cruel, painful world and be with us to suffer like us and for us. Meanwhile, we spend most of our time trying to figure out how to avoid the pain and evil of this world while reading dumb books about the rapture just hoping to get out. Jesus truly lived a painful life that was fully human:

• Jesus was tempted to sin by the Devil himself
• Jesus had money troubles that included being poor, getting riped off, struggling to pay His taxes, and being homeless
• People attacked Jesus by spreading vicious rumors, physically abusing Him, and mocking and spitting on Him
• Jesus was continually jacked with by religious neatniks
• Jesus had some bummer days marked by lonliness, deep sorrow, exhaustion, and weeping
• Jesus' friends were a joke and no help in times of crisis; they even betrayed Him and turned their backs on Him
• Jesus' family thought He was a nut job
• Jesus bled
• Jesus died
• Jesus used His final breaths to forgive those who destroyed Him

For those who are sick, abused, burned out, tired, bedridden, flat broke, tempted, weary, hated, lonely, and dying, the humanity of Jesus on His darkest days is encouraging. Without these insights into Jesus' life, it would be difficult for us to run to Him in our time of need because we would be unaware of the similar experiences He had during His life on earth. Those experiences make Him a compassionate friend. Therefore, the humanity of Jesus is as important for our love of Christ as His divinity.

Doxa

This is from a message that Tim Smith, the worship pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, gave at a worship conference there. Tim was speaking about the Contextualization of Worship. . .while discussing this, he had this to say about worship:

"God existed before the foundation of the world; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe that He existed in that Trinitarian relationship, and in the past I've called that relationship 'worship', and I'm not completely sure that's the best word. . . the Bible calls it 'doxa,' glory. . . In John 17 Jesus is praying in the garden, and He says "Father, glorify me with the glory (doxa) I had with You before the world began." And I believe that God existed, Father, Son, and Spirit, before the foundation of the world in a mysterious, unbroken community of 'doxa.' It's more that worship. . .worship to us tends to imply the finite (us) reaching out to the infinite (God), and we believe that the Trinity is equality in being. . . there is still in a sense worship that goes on there, glory and mutual glorification between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, before the world began.

Out of that, creation overflows with that community of worship. And so He creates all the things through the different days of creation, and as the crowning work of His creative endeavors He creates man, and man is the only thing created in His image. And I believe that as man is the only thing created in His image, He has created us to be one who ceaselessly worships Him in the same way that God continuously pours Himself out in glorifying Himself, as it has been said "God is the only thing that can focus on its own glory on itself without it being pride and without it being sin."

So man was created in the image of God, and is created to be a ceaseless worshiper. And before sin entered into the garden, that worship was perfectly and endlessly focused towards God. But, as we know, worship did not stay that way, because sin entered into the world through man, who, I believe, was wanting and desiring the glory that only God Himself deserved. The King James translation expresses the lie that the serpent told to Eve as "If you eat of this, you will be like a god." I believe at the core of sin is a pride issue; we want God's glory for ourselves! And so sin broke that perfect community of worship between man and God. But, it did not change man's image, man still retains the image of God and still remains therefore a ceaseless worshiper, but now his worship is inverted, is misdirected, and now instead of pouring Himself out ceaselessly towards God in glory, he instead glorifies created things, and glorifies the ultimate idol, which is self.

But, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, we are not bound to that ceaseless, endless idolatry. Without Jesus Christ, the default mode of the human heart is idolatry. Idolatry is sin and sin is idolatry, they're one in the same thing. But, through Jesus Christ that right relationship can be restored; Jesus, who came as the ultimate worshiper and lived a life of perfect worship, ceaselessly glorifying His Father and proving that there was no defect in God's original work of Adam and Eve. And He took our sin upon Himself, He sacrificed Himself for us, so that we could be reoriented and we could know God again, and now He is the mediator and through Jesus we can now rightly give glory to God and that praise relationship can be restored in all of us.

Worship Like Mary

A beautiful thought on worship from Tim Hughes in his book for worship leaders, Here I Am To Worship:

'As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and said "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'" Luke 10:38-42

It's not every day that the Savior of the world pops in for tea. Mary and Martha must have been very excited. Straightaway Martha swang into action and exerted herself in all the preparations at hand. While she was rushing around doing all the work, her sister, Mary, just sat at Jesus' feet, hanging on His every word. Surely Mary was in the wrong here! Wasn't she being selfish and lazy? Eventually Martha lost her cool and turned to Jesus for help. Her question was brilliantly crafted and deserving of all sympathy and respect in the world: "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?"

The answer Martha received must have taken her by surprise. Jesus tenderly pointed out that she missed the point. The keyword in this passage is "distracted": "But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made." Martha thought she was doing the right and honorable thing. There was work to be done, and she was going to do it. By working hard, she would demonstrate to Jesus how much she loved Him.

However Jesus did not desire this from her. He desired Martha's intimacy--her company. In this short story, it was Mary who chose the right thing--the one thing that was needed most. She sat at Jesus' feet and enjoyed spending time with Him, learning from Him and discovering more about Him. Jesus was delighted by this response. Mary chose to watch and fix her gaze on Jesus before she chose to work.

As worshippers, we must take note of this lesson. We are very good at doing things--organizing events, planning services and attending prayer meetings. These tasks and events are important and worthy, bu they must never come at the expense of knowing God. . .
Before we play our songs and commit to serving Jesus, we need to adore and cherish Him. Sometimes amid the pressure to succeed we lose this focus. A passage of Scripture that expresses beautifully the heart of a radical worshipper is found in Psalm 27:4:

"One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and seek him in his temple."

Praise Habit: Child-like Praise

This past year, God has done more to work in my heart and mind on the topic of worship than at any other time in my life, and I can tell that He's still not done there. A while back, I was reading Praise Habit by David Crowder, and one main section in that book jumped out at me:

"We naturally understand praise. As kids, we talk about our favorite toys; later we praise pizza and foot ball players. Kids just know how to enjoy things. They give themselves fully to whatever has a hold on them. Remember as children how we would fearlessly hold up our favorite toy and petition anyone who was in close proximity to behold it?

'Look, Mom, look!'

We instinctively knew what it was to praise something. It's always been in us. We were created for it. It's a part of who we are. As kids, we were fabulous at it. But as adults we become self-conscious and awkward. Something gets lost. i think we do it to each other. At some point, I hold the toy up exultantly and you comment that it looks ridiculous to hold the toy up in such a way. It's not a cool toy like I believed it to be. It is worn and tired, you point out. And we slowly chip away at each other's protective coatings of innocence until one day we wake up and notice we are naked and people are pointing. . .

Think back. Try hard to recall what praise in its undiluted purity felt like. When you would dance with your arms fully extended rather than elbows bent, folded closely to your person in such a guarded fashion. Remember how effortlessly we sang the praises of things we enjoyed? It was so easy and fluid and natural. What if this kind of praise freely leaked from us in delightful response to God? What if life were like that all the time. What if we were so moved by who God is, what He's done, what He will do, that praise, adoration, worship, whatever, continuously careened in our heads and pounded in our souls? What if praise were on the tip of our tongues like a loaded weapon in the hands of a trigger-happy meth addict and every moment might just set us off? What makes us think our time on earth should be any different? What keeps it from being so?"