Grace and Disgrace part 2

In my last blog, I wrote about how we tend to view people through the lens of disgrace, while God views us through the lens of grace.  When someone does one bad thing, we tend to write off all the good things about them--to us they are in a state of disgrace.

On the other hand, God views us with grace--despite the fact that we are sinners by nature (also by action), God writes off all the bad things about us when He looks at the one good thing Jesus did.

In other words:
Our disgrace-filled mindset: Allowing one bad action to overwhelm all good in a person.
God's grace-filled mindset: Allowing one good action (by Jesus) to overwhelm all bad in a person.

That's a little over-simplified, but it works as a summary.

Obviously, it's not good that we treat people by the rule of disgrace, when God is treating us by the rule of grace.

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a story about a servant who was in debt to his master.  Verse 24 says the man owed 10,000 talents.  A talent was 20 years wages for a day laborer.  Just for comparison purposes, if you worked at California minimum wage 8 hours a day, five days a week, one talent is the same as $332,800.  So, if you owed someone 10,000 talents, that would be $3,328,000,000  ($3.3 billion).

Obviously, if you owed someone $3.3 billion personally, you would be in enormous debt.

In the story, the master is going to take everything from the servant, including his family, but decides to forgive the debt instead.  The servant asked to have more time to pay back the debt, but the master decided to just eat the loss of 10,000 talents.

After the servant's debt was forgiven, he found a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii (v. 28).  A denarius was about one days' wages for a day laborer.  So, by California minimum wage, one day's earning would be $64.  The second servant owed the first one 100 denarii, which would be like owing someone $6,400.

The second servant couldn't pay the first, so the first one had him thrown in jail.  The master heard what happened, re-instated the debt of the first servant, and had him thrown in jail and tortured.

When we convert the numbers to modern approximations, we see how ridiculous the servant was.  If someone forgave you for a $3.3 billion debt, you would surely not care about the $6,400!

Jesus says that when we fail to forgive others in spite of God's forgiveness of us, we are doing the same thing!

In fact, after Jesus says the master threw the servant in jail to be tortured until his debt was paid, he says, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

When we allow people's sin to put them out of our good grace, we not only are ruled by disgrace, but we are choosing to live outside the rule of grace.  God views us through that lens, but He doesn't have to, and Jesus gives us fair warning that we can place ourselves back in debt.

So, all that to say...Forgive!

Forgive people when they sin against you.  Forgive people when they sin in general.

Don't keep a record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5).  When we live based on disgrace, we look at all the good things people have done in light of the bad.  Instead, we ought to assume the best in others (1 Corinthians 13:7--love "always hopes").

Look at the good and bad things people have done in light of the fact that you have been forgiven and commanded to love.

Talking to Hippies about Jesus Part 3

It's taking me a lot longer to tell this story than I anticipated. A lot of other things are going on in my life so I'll have to interject some other blogs also.

But as far as the story about Will and Kim goes, I think we were at the part where Josh Mello and I had just introduced ourselves.

Will and Kim lived in Bolinas, which is in Marin County, and about halfway between Bodega Bay and Point Reyes. Kim said she grew up Catholic, but went to a Southern Baptist College in Florida. She said she had become much more open to other religions since moving west, since she had to be. But, she told us that she always felt best when she was "on the Jesus path."

Will was a lot younger looking than her. He was more into general spirituality, but also talked a lot about "God and Christ."

I told them I'd gotten some people to start cooking some food for them inside, and pretty soon, Lauren and Eric had brought it out for them.

I left Will and Kim with Josh Mello, Lauren and Eric, and went inside to start the meeting. Mello and Eric took them to Wal-Mart to see if they could get a tire, while we talked about the parable of the shrewd manager.

Throughout the night, I tried to tie in the concepts in Luke 16 with what was going on. It wasn't hard, really.

Jesus said to use money to make friends for the sake of eternity. He said that what you do with little, you will do with a lot, and what you do with money shows what you will do with eternal things.

It turned out that all the tire places were closed, and I learned that Will and Kim were on their way back to camp out in the church parking lot. They live in their van.

Back at our meeting, I shared how I believed that God had given us the resources to help Will and Kim. Not just because they need material things, but because people like them go to the church knowing that Jesus wants us to help. When they show up, we build a relationship with them, and then fail to help, they leave the church angrily. Will had told us earlier that he left the church as a child because it didn't help people in need. He said that the two of them always try to help others, even when they have less than most people in our society. This was a new attitude for me. And I shared it with the rest of them.

So, we took a low-key offering to pay for a tire. I had one of the guys look to see how much a tire would cost. Online, it cost in the low $40 range. So I figured it would be $50 or $60. I didn't share the cost, just that I believed God has given us the resources to answer the questions he presents us with.

Prayer is more than just about requesting things from God. It's about preparing your heart to answer when God has requests for you.

So, some of the people hung out as usual, and a few of us went to talk to Will and Kim (who were back from the Wal-Mart tire center by this point).

Lauren, Julie, Josh Mello, and I ended up talking to Will and Kim until about 11:30 that night. What did we talk about? Stay tuned for the best parts of the story.

Talking to Hippies about Jesus Part 1

I have a story to tell. I took place on a great day in March 2009.

It was the day before Saint Patrick's Day. It was the day I met 2 hippies traveling to Mount Shasta. They had been in Marin County--in Bolinas.

It was also the day I was supposed to lead a young adults' group through the parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16. Originally, I was going to talk about that parable a few weeks earlier, but at the last minute I'd shuffled things around, and now I was stuck with this parable on March 16.

Most scholars agree that it is the most confusing parable. I'll explain it briefly. Jesus says that this manager knew he had to trick his boss to keep his job and/or make a deal with his boss' debtors so that when he got fired they would love him so much that they would welcome him in.

Jesus is making a point that we should be resourceful, thinking, prepared people.

In Luke 16:9, he says that we should use worldly wealth to make friends for ourselves and in doing so, we will find ourselves welcomed into eternal dwellings.

In verse 10, he explains that whatever you do with a little shows what you will do with a lot, and in verse 11, he tweaks that a little and says that whatever you do with money shows whether or not you are trustworthy to have/use eternal things.

Then, he says we must love God and hate money (verses 13-15).

All in all, the passage is saying to love God, and use money to care for other people. In doing so, he will entrust us with more.

It was in this context that God brought 2 needy hippies to our church, and it was in this context that a group of 15 young adults did what they read in the Bible and met their needs.

Keep reading the next few days to hear the story of Will and Kim and all the amazing things God taught me through my experience with them.

2 Ways God Speaks to Me

Recently I've been in a season of wondering why I'm not hearing God's voice. I've gone through doubt. I've been in a place where I would question why I'm more concerned with getting people to mature in their walk with Christ while I wasn't believing much outside of my head. I wanted to see God as more than a system of belief.

I know that there are seasons in our lives where faith is all we have. Seasons where God asks us to press into him. Seasons where it's OK to have a system of belief instead of an intimate relationship with Jesus. Sometimes God lets us go through these times.

When you plant a lawn, you have to stop watering it as much after awhile. This helps the roots to go deeper. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus says that the reason the seed sown on the rocky places dies for lack of root.

In the same way, we need to go through times where we don't hear God as much. That deepens our roots.

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In essence, this is the meaning of Lent. We press into God. We are patient. We wait.

Lately, God has again spoken to me in ways that are clearly His voice and not my own thoughts.

Around a month ago, I was mowing the field at church and came up with a whole plan of how I would organize church volunteers to do this work. About 3 hours later, my dad said we needed to look at making budget cuts, and that he wanted to know my opinion on having volunteers do the landscaping and janitorial work for the church.

I laid out my plan of how it could be facilitated in a way that didn't overwhelm anyone, and how it would help teach the members of our church about stewardship, and help them better understand and live out Jesus' teachings.

I knew that God had spoken to me through timing.

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On Saturday night, I couldn't sleep. It was the daylight savings time change, but I ended up laying awake in bed until 4:35 AM. I think Julie fell asleep around midnight. (That's only 3 1/2 hours because of the time change). When I lay awake and can't sleep, I ask God, "Why am I awake? What is it that I need to pray for? What do you need to tell me?"

I know God works in those times when we can't sleep.

At first I was thinking about all these ideas of how to do modern liturgy. Stuff like responsive readings done with video that could work at a Good Friday service.

Then I questioned, "why do I want to get people to respond to this?"

I didn't feel like much of what I wanted to teach was taking root in my heart. I believed it in my head but it didn't bring me great joy that "he was crushed for our iniquities"(Isaiah 53).

I spent awhile (it was 2 minutes. It was 20 minutes. I'm not sure--I was sleepy) asking God to move in my heart.

I wanted him to speak to me in a way that was for my relationship with him, and not to show me how to lead.

I think He did. In the next hour or two, it became so clear to me how to implement a number of changes in the young adults' ministry in our church that would not only benefit the young adults in our church, but our church as a whole. And in doing so, it would take so much pressure off of me.

I feel that this new ministry approach is God's way of saying, "take my yoke upon you, for my burden is easy and my yoke is light."

I won't say what it is yet, but I will say that it is called the LIFEcycle, and that the L stands for Listening to God.

It's simple, includes all major parts of what we do as believers.

I'll introduce what we're going to be doing here on my blog sometime after I introduce it in real life. And this all depends on whether any of it actually happens.

But I feel like I have God's vision now for what to do, and while it still means I'm leading and doing, it also puts me in a better place as a disciple and as a listener of God.

Mustard Seed Part 4: The Kingdom of God grows and grows and grows

One of the coolest things about mustard is that not only does each plant grow quickly, but it can spread so fast and so extensively that it can wipe out whatever plant is supposed to be growing in a field.

This picture is just one field that I happened to be driving past.


All around Santa Rosa right now, mustard is in bloom. It is a great reminder that the Kingdom is growing, and also a reminder to live for that Kingdom today.

I wonder if we would live more like Jesus taught if we were putting ourselves in situations that are like the parables more often. Does living near mustard help me? Would watching sparrows help me?

Incidentally, I saw a sparrow perched in that mustard field, but we were driving, and I couldn't take another picture. Too bad. The Bible makes a point of the fact that the mustard plant grows large enough for the birds to sit on it.

I'll keep my eye out for more interesting mustard pictures or facts, but for now, that's what I know about mustard.

Mustard Seed Part 4: The Kingdom of God grows in other kingdoms

One interesting thing about mustard being a weed is that it grows in the midst of other crops. I've read places that because it grows so fast and spreads so fast and so much that it can actually choke out planted crops.

Here (as in Israel, where Jesus was when he told the story), the mustard will grow in the middle of the rows of grapes in vineyards. Here are some examples:



Above is a normal one, here's an edited one:



So, my reminder is that the Kingdom of Heaven (as represented by the mustard) grows in the midst of other Kingdoms (represented by the fields). Sometimes, it's not supposed to grow in those fields, but it does.

I don't think Jesus was making this point when he told the parable, but it's still a good thought, and it is true.

And, here is the most Christian picture of all time. I'm glad I got to take it:


1. Mustard (Mt. 13)
2. Vineyards (a lot of parables Jesus told)
3. Mustard is a weed, Jesus told a lot of Parables about weeds
4. The road at the bottom: The narrow and wide roads
5. Streams of light coming down from the Heavens
6. The wires at the top signify the power of God.
7. This is getting ridiculous

But, I bet if Jesus was walking around with some disciples and came to this spot, he would tell 4 or 5 parables.

Mustard Seed Part 3: The Kingdom of God grows like crazy (tons of pictures)

First off, please don't steal my pictures. Ask if you want to use them!

This is part 3 of my Mustard Seed series based on Jesus saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed" in Matthew 13.

Today I want to focus on how quickly Mustard grows. Mustard can go from being just a tiny sprout to being 2 or 3 feet tall in just a couple of weeks.

Not only that, but it can spread throughout a field quickly. Here are a bunch of pictures I took last weekend of the mustard fields in Sonoma County (in Alexander Valley). None of these were planted. These are all weeds.



Above: A pretty huge field full of mustard. There will be a panorama in a few posts to show you the scope of how much mustard there was there.


You can get an idea of how expansive this mustard field was, based on the size of that old Oak tree and barn in the background

This picture doesn't have as much artsy processing going on, so you can see what the mustard fields look like. This shot is taken from the top of a nearby mountain (we had just come out of the snow), and you can see just how much the yellow mustard has spread throughout the vineyards.

Clearly, mustard not only grows quickly as an individual plant, but rapidly spreads throughout its environment. It reproduces faster than it can be controlled.

In the same way, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed.

Mustard Seed: Part 1

Click to enlarge

This is the first of what I hope will be many blogs about the parable of the mustard seed.

This parable, even though it is so short (Just 2 verses--Matthew 13:31-32), is loaded with meaning.

Parables are meant to be simple analogies that serve to educate those who want to learn, and to confuse those who don't want to listen.

We can only take them at face value and shouldn't delve too deeply into looking for more hidden meanings.

But, in the case of this parable, Jesus simply says, ""The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."

So, we know we can learn a lot about the kingdom of heaven through researching mustard seeds and mustard plants.

Here in Sonoma County, CA, we have the same climate as Israel. We have tons of grapes (this is a wine-grape growing region), much like Israel. Another result of our similar climate is that in the late winter/early spring (now), we have mustard growing everywhere.

In the next few blogs about the mustard seed, we'll explore the biology of the mustard plant, and I'll share some pictures I took today as I went for a nice drive with my wife for Valentine's Day.