Okay it’s not quite the same as saying, “I play football for the New York Jets.”  It doesn’t have the same ring as, “I’m an IRS Auditor.”  But can you imagine what it’s like to be me?  When I introduce myself to people — specifically people who did not grow up in church, or for whatever reason do not understand all the finer points of “no we are not really like that church” distinctions — I am immediately at a great disadvantage.  

“So tell me about yourself?”  They ask.

“Well I am a pastor,” I say.

I half-cringe when they ask me the next question, “What kind of church?” Why do I half cringe?  Because half of the people think of a little church named Westboro Baptist and they are a church which take the name Baptist even farther into disgust and disrepute than most Baptists have ever been able to take it…though we have valiantly tried. So I find myself saying, “I’m baptist, but not the kind of baptist that you initially may think of when you hear the word baptist…not those baptists.”

But now, I probably won’t even get to the “what kind of church” question.  People’s eyebrows will arch and their eyeballs will roll as soon as I say pastor.  “I’m a pastor.” It will be, “oh yeah pastor, like the pastor who left the waitress a note on the bill saying, ‘I only tip God 10%, why should you get 18%.’  Wow, so you’re a pastor.”

If  you didn’t hear about the pastor (actually a lady not a guy, not sure why that seems important to me, other than I’m trying to distance myself in any way I can) who did this.  It’s been all over the social-media universe.  A pastor ate at Applebee’s with a group.  The group was large enough that an automatic tip of 18% was added.  Apparently the pastor felt that was too large a tip, so she crossed out the tip and left the note.  “I only give God 10%.  Why do you get 18%?”

Now I have all sorts of problems with this statement.  For example, the concept of the tithe (giving the first 10% to God) arises from the theological principle that everything I have belongs to God already. So when I tithe, I’m not giving God anything.  I’m actually celebrating what He has already given me.  I could also go to the passage in Corinthians where Paul says that God loves a cheerful giver…and what I know about cheerful givers is that they love to bless others.  Finally in our culture, it is recognized that we tip, at least in part as a payment for services rendered.  The tithe is not a payment to God for services rendered and to refrain from a tip is close to stealing from those who do render you services.

All in all, what’s really missing… is a spirit of generosity.

In studying the amazing growth of the church of the first century, Rodney Stark — a Princeton Sociologist — wanted to know how a marginalized, persecuted, often uneducated group of people were not only able to survive but thrive. He concluded, “A key reason was their willingness to sacrifice themselves out of love for each other and for their world.  This sacrifice released an explosion of light and heat the world had never known.”

I would rather be known for that…than 10% tips.

Somehow we need to get back to that kind of sacrifice.  Perhaps it could start with a challenge to the Christians in my own community to make sure that the waitresses at every restaurant in town are fighting for the Sunday-after-church crowd, because nobody tips like those crazy Christians.  I’m going to start there…but let’s not stop there.  Let’s redeem the name Christian (it originally meant “little Christs”) by so “sacrificing ourselves out of love for each other and the world” that we let loose a new explosion of light and heat that draws the world to Jesus.

Oh yeah, an Applebee’s waitress — not the one who waited on the pastor’s table — posted the receipt online.  She was fired.  One report indicates she was fired as a result of the pastor’s complaint about the receipt being posted online.  I think for awhile if someone asks me who I am… I’m just gonna be Dan.

I know that headline is so common in the sports world right now, that it might not even be noticed.  But I just figured I would join the trend and get my confession online.  I cheated.  Nope, no PED’s to make my sermons better.  Nope no fake deaths to engender sympathy in the annual vote for best pastor.  (Surely they have one of those somewhere?)  But I cheated.  

I cheated on my fast.  At Calvary we embarked together on a 21 Day season of prayer and fasting…and I told you that I would be fasting from food, facebook and tv.  I’ve been doing pretty good on the facebook and tv part.  (I did do a facebook search for a young man from a family that Lynn and I served in MN, but no posting, replying, friending, or liking.) But one night… I did eat.

Someone with whom I was fasting — I won’t mention her name, but it’s the only woman to whom I’ve ever been married — called me from Pittsburgh, at a restaurant, with my daughter.  I was all alone at home.  Well I was with Josh, but that’s sometimes like being all alone at home, and when she confessed that she had eaten.  Well it was a weak moment at the end of my first week of fasting.  I hung up and thought, “If she can do it, I can do it.”  So I ate.

I ate a baloney sandwich with cheese.  The baloney wasn’t that great but the bread…wow, carbs.  Then I had a few mashed potatoes with peas, that was amazing.  To top it off I had a piece of Josh’s Digiorno’s pizza with pepperoni.  I almost burnt my mouth, trying to eat it so fast.  Okay I didn’t top it off with the pizza.  I also had three nacho chips from the purple bag and a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  That’s all…that I remember…and I haven’t eaten since.

Why am I sharing this?  Well partially for encouragement.  Some of you have been fasting and you cheated/broke/ate or peeked at facebook.  This isn’t a legal thing.  It’s not a religious thing.  You didn’t fail unless you quit.  Start again.  This is for you, it’s not a way to impress God.  Start again.

But even more than the encouragement, a thought hit me in the midst of my feasting and I wanted to share it with you.  When it hit me, it actually made me pause and pray.  I prayed, “God would you please make me this hungry for you.  Would you please make me so hungry for just a taste of you, that a week without you will cause me to dive into you with the same intensity that I just dove into this food?  Make my heart miss you, like my mouth misses the taste of food and my stomach misses the presence of food.  Make me hungry for you.”

The Bible is full of great hungry-for-God scriptures to ponder and pray.  Like…

• “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 to seek him in his temple… My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’  Your face, Lord, I will seek”  (Psalm 27:4, 8).
• “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”  (Psalm 34:8)
• “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:1-2).
• “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty!  My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.  Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young — a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.  Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you… Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Psalm 84:1-4, 10).
• “‘For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…’ Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry’” (John 6:33, 35a).

Have you ever felt that hungry for God?  I’m not planning on cheating on my fast again but I am hanging on to the memory of a Monday evenign feast and asking God, “Would you make me that hungry for you?”

Last week at Calvary I asked people to put their ears on.  Jesus would occasionally use the phrase, “Those who have ears to hear let them listen… ”  Be honest, some of us use ears for tasks other than listening.  I’ve grabbed my kids by their ears.  Some of  you have multiple piercings so that you can carry around valuable pieces of jewelry.  Many of us use our ears to remember where we put our iphone (or other sources of music).  Be even more honest, some of us hear without listening.  There is something incredibly vital about listening for those who follow Jesus.  Jesus is called the Word.  Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing.  God created the world with a word.

I’m not sure we really understand the power of the words that come from the mouth of the Living God, the one who creatively spoke the world into existence.  Time and time again in the Bible, we are confronted with the power of the words of God.

• In fact in Psalm 107:19-20, the Psalmist writes… “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them from their distress; he sent out his word to heal and deliver them...”  The words of God bring healing.   But if we don’t listen we’ll miss it.
• Or how about Romans 15:4…  Paul writes, “…everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”  The words of God bring hope.  But if we don’t listen we’ll miss it.
• Then there’s Psalm 119:105-107…  ”The Psalmist writes, Your word is lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.  I have suffered much, renew my life, by your Word O Lord.”  The word of God brings renewal and revival.  New energy, new love to redeem old hurts.  But if we don’t listen we’ll miss it.
• One more…  2 Timothy 3:16-17, for those of  you who have big dreams for what God might do through you, who want to go out and do good with your life, who want to not only discover but live out the calling God has for you..  Paul writes, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”   If we don’t listen we won’t be prepared to do good.

And God still speaks.  There are many ways that God speaks to his people…dreams, visions, prayer, circumstances, other people, the Holy Spirit. But there is one avenue, one living avenue of communication that must form the foundation of our listening relationship with God.  It’s the Bible, the Word of God.  The Word of God is a seed that gives birth to new life. It is living and powerful.

At Calvary we are in the midst of a season of prayer and fasting — 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting.  Fasting is a spiritual discipline of emptying space in our lives, hearts, minds so that we can be filled with something better.  Listening is a form of fasting.  It’s emptying myself of the need to generate and propagate my own ideas so that I can be filled with someone else’s words, and in the end there are few things that will give us more life, than the richness of God’s words.

Last weekend, I gave the challenge to put our ears on, to push the stop button on our mouths and say, “God show me, tell me. I’m listening. I’m looking. Let me see my neighborhood through your eyes.”  Listen.  Practice with people.  Ask someone how they are doing, and then actually listen for the response.  Read the news as though it was God writing you a letter about his heart for our city. Listen to your neighbor as tho God was speaking to you…and as you listen pray, “God break my heart for the things that break yours.”

If there is anyone in the world who should be known as the world’s greatest listeners, it’s the followers of the Word.  Put your ears on.

(If you want to listen to last week’s message, click

Last weekend we started a city-wide sermon series on the book of Nehemiah called, How to Heal a City.  In the opening scene of the story Nehemiah finds out how broken Jerusalem is and he writes, “When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.”  In so many ways at that moment Nehemiah was living life large at the top of his game, happy and comfortable.  But God uses the brokenness of Jerusalem to take Nehemiah on a journey from happy comfort to holy discontent. If we want to be people who make a difference in the world, we need to take that same journey.

What do you mean by that Dan? What is holy discontent?  A few years ago we were on vacation in Newport Rhode Island and we were going for a walk on a path called the Cliff Walk; billion dollar mansions on one side, and a priceless coastline and ocean on the other. We came to a point called 40 Steps.  It was forty steps down from the path to the rocks of the ocean.  So we went down the steps to the platform and of course Josh (my youngest) wanted to go off the platform and onto the rocks. I said ok and he was off climbing the rocks by the surging waves.

He came back a few minutes later and said, “Dad there’s this cool waterfall on the other side, you have to see it.” So I got down off the platform onto the rocks (right by the sign that said, “Danger…”) and walked around to the other side.  Sure enough a cool waterfall appeared in front of us.  I told Josh we should get a closer look.  I grabbed his hand and started walking towards the waterfall on what looked like slightly damp black rocks — they weren’t black rocks, the black was this fine wet black moss — and I took about three steps, when my feet went backwards from underneath me.  I introduced my face to the rock and slid down into the water.  Bleeding from my eye and my nose, just trying to hang on to the rock, the waves were hitting me, going over the top of me, and trying to pull me off the rock as the water rushed back.  Somebody up above said to Lynn, “Is that your husband in the water?”  “No…he wasn’t going swimming.” But sure enough, she looked and it was me.

I don’t really know how deep it was at that spot, all I know is that every time I tried to climb up the rock, a wave would smash me up and try to pull me out.  The rock was so slippery and I’m hanging on, just wandering how I will ever get out. I’m breathing heavy, (because we had to walk like a half mile to get there) my arms are tired from hanging on and then I saw Josh (about 9 years old) standing against the back of the cliff.  He had an anxious look on his face and the thought came to my mind, “If he fell in, I don’t know if I’d be able to save him.”  And then immediately another thought, “I can’t stand this. God I’m ready to get in shape.”

See my shape was broken. My fitness needed to be rebuilt. That experience led me on a year long effort to get back in shape.  But here is the holy discontent question, “What is it that brings us to the point, where our hearts are motivated enough to change something that is broken?”  Somehow we have to come to the point where our hearts are filled with holy discontent.

In his book, “Holy Discontent” Bill Hybels writes, “I believe that the motivating reason why millions of people choose to do good in the world around them is because there is something wrong in that world…something so wrong that they can’t stand it.”

So ask yourself, “What wrecks my heart?  When I look around at a broken world, what is it that really breaks my heart…what is it that I just can’t stand?  What is my holy discontent?”

And don’t miss that I said, holy discontent. One of our problems today is that we get our contents confused.  We are content about things that should wreck our hearts and we are discontent about things that don’t really matter. When I look around it seems like the people who really live life, the people who make a difference, the people I want to be like are people who deeply care about something that matters.

Bob Pierce was the founder of World Vision, what has become one the largest Christian relief and development organizations in existence today. But it all started with holy discontent. One day as a young pastor in Korea, Bob watched with disbelief as a young girl in third world Asia died while standing in line for food. When Pierce tried to find out why, he was told there just wasn’t enough food at the head of the line. That birthed a sacred frustration in Bob’s heart & he wrote in the margins of his Bible, God break my heart for the things that break your heart. He went home gathered people together and started World Vision.  In 2012, nearly 100 million people in almost 100  different countries received physical, spiritual, and social help and it started with the holy discontent of Bob Pierce.

I believe we each have a holy discontent with our name on it. How do I develop a holy discontent?  For the next 21 days at Calvary we are taking a challenge to fast and pray that God would break our hearts for the things that break his heart.  We are fasting and praying for opportunities to partner with Christ in the healing of our own lives, our families and our community.  It starts with holy discontent.

This week a young man asked his mother a question, “Can people who shoot people go to heaven?”  She responded with some thoughts on grace, but  He kept pressing and said, “Mom, there has to be a line at which God says ‘you crossed it, you’re going down.”  To be honest that question redirected my thoughts for the Christmas Eve message.  Take the question out of its Newtown setting and I think we all struggle with the questions of lines.

Is there a line beyond which God’s grace cannot extend?  Where is the line?  Have I crossed it?  Am I close?  Has someone I care about crossed that line?  If I crossed it, can I ever go back?

But isn’t Christmas a reminder of the lines that God will cross.  In fact at the heart of Christmas we discover the wild grace of God that obliterates the lines.  There are no lines it cannot cross; no lines which can form a barrier to God’s grace.  In the story of Jesus’ birth we catch a glimpse of how far his grace would go, but we didn’t understand the full extent.  It’s not just the line between heaven and earth, it’s far more profound.  Not till we moved from the manger to the cross, did we begin to understand how far grace driven by love would go.  The cross obliterates every line.  The cross is not on the other side of the line, it occupies the center and nothing can stop it.

That changes things.  Think of the words you have heard in the last year.  Newtown, fiscal cliffs, scandal, child abuse, cancer, funerals, divorce, hunger, poverty, Benghazi, suicide, sex slavery, unemployment, and Christmas; it reminds me of the old language game.  “Which one of these words is not like the others?”  The truth is when Christmas gets tacked on to the end of a dark world, it seems out of place, but Christmas was never meant to follow the “and” at the end of a list.  Isaiah called Christmas, “the light shining in the darkness.”  John called Christmas, “the beholding of the glory of God full of grace and truth.” Christmas is the turning point of hope, the coming down of heaven to earth, the peace-is-coming event.

And Christmas is the wild, line-obliterating grace of God let loose in the world.

Please understand the existence of this wild, line-obliterating grace does not diminish the tragedy of darkness and evil, but rather the darkness simply reveals the glory of this grace.  If this grace is not wild enough to forgive us for our evil, it will never be strong enough to heal us in our hurts.  As we look back over the last year, we see the darkness, but light fills our hearts and minds.  Everywhere we look we see Christ-light shining in the darkness.

I have watched people foster children, sponsor and adopt children.  I have listened to people who have shared the message of hope with their friends.  I have served beside those who are giving their time and their money to bless people in need.  I have listened to the stories of wild grace let loose in the land.  It gives me hope.  For darkness is simply the absence of light and there is so much light.  Lines are simply the absence of grace and there is so much grace.  It is my hope and prayer that the light and the grace of Christ would simply blow you this Christmas — in fact that it would blow you well into 2013, because that would mean that we had the best Christmas ever!

Last night around 1:00am, I stood in a park across the street from our home.  Gazing up at the brilliance of a sky filled with stars and meteors, my mind was saturated by the prodigal grandeur and glory.  Looking at the stars I felt strangely hopeful. Today as I hear the reports of tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, my heart hurts.  As our four children have grown, rarely would a fire engine or ambulance race by me, without a twinge of a “where are my kids” fear.  According to current reports, the parents of close to 20 children, in one community, have realized one of our greatest fears.

One of the most authentic Christmas songs we sing is the classic by Phillips Brooks.  You know the words, “O Little Town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie, above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”  We have these silent, night visions of Christmas…visions of peace on earth or at least in my home…visions of comforting angelic encounters…worshipful moments quietly, restfully pondering awe-filled experiences. But that’s not everyone’s experience of Christmas is it?

A few years ago, someone shared a special Christmas memory with me.  It was a great family-moment kind of experience, but she ended the e-mail with the words, “I’ve talked to so many people lately who really have no good Christmas memories.   And it seems wrong, so unchristmas, unless you hang out in Matthew’s version of the Christmas story.  In Matthew 2, a group of magi come to King Herod in Jerusalem.  They told Herod that they had come to worship a new born king.  Upon hearing these words, Herod and all of Jerusalem was troubled, stirred up by this talk of a new King.  Everyone was stirred up because both Herod and the Caesar of Rome had a habit of killing people and destroying communities whenever their rule and power were threatened.  The story continues with Mary and Joseph getting word that they need to run for their life because Herod wants to kill Jesus. Another peaceful Christmas moment. Not exactly our idea of a great Christmas tradition. It gets worse.  When Herod finds out that he’s played the fool to three wise men, he goes on a murderous rampage, killing all the baby boys two and under in the Bethlehem district. Not exactly a Kodak moment.

There is an essay on Christmas, called “The Battle of Bethlehem.” The author focuses on the last part of that first verse of O Little Town of Bethlehem. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” I have to admit, I never noticed the imagery behind those words — hopes and fears.  Can you imagine that? All the hopes and all the fears of all the years colliding in one little town. Great hope and great fear locked in unseen mortal combat.

What is hope?  We use hope as a synonym for the word “wish.”  Biblical hope is not a wish, it’s a fact that merely hasn’t taken place yet. It’s a confident assertion about what we know to be true even though we have yet to see it.  The Hebrew word has more to do with waiting than it does with wishing. We wait; we don’t wish. Biblical hope is a sure steady looking forward to the future; a calm assurance that no matter how bad things are, no matter how dark the night, a time is coming when life and the world will be set right.

The time of that first Christmas was a time of extreme poverty.  Jesus was born in a country ruled by brutal tyrants who did not value life; a world where your friends either starve or hang on a cross. He grew up in a world where the poor were neglected and the only people who have good news were the rich and powerful.  He was born in a world where the dark just kept getting darker.

But then this heavenly messenger comes to a young woman named Mary and tells her that in her womb will be formed, the Son of God, from her womb will be born, the true giver of peace, the real Savior is coming. And this hope, this subversive begins to form in her heart.   The word subversive refers to an attempt to overthrow something.  Christmas is the start of a subversive effort to overthrow the darkness, to overthrow evil, to overthrow fear.

This is our hope.  It hasn’t fully happened yet.  But I believe it will.

Some will wonder how a good God could let this happen, especially at Christmas time.  Perhaps God let Christmas happen, precisely because we live in this kind of time. I don’t have the answers.  I can’t even imagine what this community is going through.  I can’t imagine.  But I can pray.

I will pray for hope.

Can I tell you something?  You were made for more, but something—or someone—is holding you back.  Your mind was created with a capacity for wonder.  Your heart was created to experience a love that has no boundaries.  But something—or someone—is trying to conform you to a dull life, a me-centered life, a life that is less than you can imagine.  Christmas is one of those times when we sense this capacity for more.  We walk through the Christmas season, as the anticipation grows, but how often do we come to December 26, with a wistful sigh of disappointment, like we missed it?  “I’ll do better next year,” we think, “I’ll get Christmas right next year.”  But what if I told you that we will never get it right till we understand it better?

C.S. Lewis called this world, enemy occupied territory, and then wrote, “Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say landed in disguise and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”  Christmas is subversive.  Christmas is revolutionary.  Christmas gave birth to a resistance, led by Jesus.

Jesus leads us to resist the pull of a me-shaped Christmas and the myth of more.  He calls us to resist religion and fear, consumerism and busyness.  He challenges us to resist the activities that drain our souls.  He’s not asking us to reject Christmas.  He’s simply calling us to return. What if Christmas is less about the big productions, and more about the resistance?  What if Christmas has less to do with the 450 billion dollars spent on gift cards, ipads and bad Christmas sweaters and more to do with a subversive gift of hope given to a child?  What if the something more for which your heart longs, could be found in a simple act of worship in the midst of holiday busyness?

Two weekends ago, at Calvary we all received wristbands with the words, “Join the resistance” and “ONE%.  What is that all about?  A few years ago, I was playing with some numbers — like the average Christian gives less than five percent of their income to the church, and the average church gives less than five percent of its income to those in need outside of its walls — and I realized that the average Christian gives less than one half of one percent to those in need around the world.  In the midst of the numbers I sensed Jesus challenging me to lead us to double that number.

In the last five years we have given $687,465 to those in need around the world.  Our goal this year is over $200,000.  As we have given our ONE%: We have helped families adopt children from around the world. We have helped get children off the streets and into a home in Rwanda.  We have given hundreds of families a Christmas they didn’t think they could afford.  We have given hope to 200+ children in Myanmar and the Dominican Republic, the hope of a home with food to eat, the hope of an education, and the hope of a future.  We have started a school that is sending out national missionaries in Myanmar.  The list goes on and on.

ONE% given by many can accomplish so much.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving today, we have so much for which to be grateful.  I can’t think of a better way to give thanks to God for what we have been given, than by giving others the opportunity to give thanks to God for what they have been given.

I would like to invite you to join me in resisting a status quo Christmas.  How do we resist?  I won’t say, “Don’t participate in Black Friday.”  Some of you who dive into Black Friday will spend less on Christmas consumption than some of us who do not.  But I will say this… before you make your Christmas gift list, go to our ONE% website.  Look at the pictures, read or listen to the stories and consider the ways in which you might resist a status quo Christmas by giving ONE% to those in need around the world.

Have a great thanksgiving.  I am so thankful to God for those who have given to ONE% over the years.  You have given so many children, so many reasons to be thankful.

As I’ve been pondering and praying about our Christmas teaching series at Calvary, one of the phrases that sticks out are the words, “Fear not.”  It was the standard Christmas greeting; interestingly it was also the standard Easter greeting.  Of course as I think about it, those words are sprinkled throughout the whole Bible.  In fact, if you put all the versions of “Fear not!” together — “Don’t Be Afraid;” “Be Courageous;” etc — it is the most common command in scripture.  But here is the deal, we are empowered to obey the most common command, by virtue of out trust in the most common promise.  God says, “I will be with you.”  Fear not, for God is with us.

What do we fear? It’s not even 48 hours since the end of the election and I’m already tired of the “be afraid, be very afraid” messages coming from Christians.  It’s as though we think that God has never been in a situation where He had to contend with a King, a Dictator, a President or a people with whom He disagreed.  Fear not.

What do we fear?  I grow increasingly skeptical of the transformative power of politics…and I started out pretty skeptical.  Be assured, I applaud Christ-followers who feel called to invest in politics, as long as your primary passion is to see politics transformed by the power of gospel.  Politics will not change the world, but the gospel can change politics. How often in the last decade plus have we commented about the flaws of our political system?  Partisanship, negative campaigning, the continual quest for power, lost moral compass, lack of stewardship, and the list could go on and on.  So why do we keep hoping that a flawed system with flawed people will save our country from whatever drain we believe we are circling? Politics is just as much (maybe more) in need of transformation as any other area of culture and life.  But fear not, the gospel is even able to transform politics.

What do we fear?  Don’t mistake my lack of passion for politics as a denial that our country needs change.  Don’t mistake my skepticism about the power of politics for a lack of passion about the moral, social, and economic issues that face our country.  I just don’t believe that the passing of any law will transform our country or stop the downward spiral.  I personally find it difficult to passionately proclaim in the church, that the law could not bring life, while passionately proclaiming that the hope of our nation is to be found in a law?

I think our nation needs a hope that goes deeper than politics.

While I think we should keep our government accountable, and be involved at whatever levels we can, the real issue we are facing today is the need for the transformation of the heart.  Of course our nation is in desperate need of change, but the change we need comes from the gospel.  If we saturate our lives with the gospel, if we make the gospel our priority passion, then we need not fear.

Let me tell you what I fear.

I’m afraid that Jesus is more disappointed in his church, than we care to admit, and it has little to do with how we voted.  We have too often thrown our hope outside the gospel, and in the process we have embraced a version of the gospel that has little hope.  I believe that the church is the hope of the world, but only when the hope of the church is Jesus.

I’m afraid that we — the church — are far more responsible for any downward spiral of our communities or country than we tend to acknowledge.  And again it has little to do with how we vote.  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t vote.  It’s a great privilege to live in a country where citizens can be so involved in the governing process.  But where does Jesus or Paul list involvement in the political process as part of the strategy for transforming people, culture or country?  What we need to ask ourselves is how close are we to becoming the church Jesus envisioned, when he said, “I will build my church.”

An Old Testament prophet named Isaiah said words that have been quoted every Christmas for thousands of years — how’s that for a retweeting record — “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders…” You know what I think?  He’s got big shoulders.  Fear not and follow close.

As each party — did you ever wonder why people would put political and party together in the same sentence — puts the finishing push on their story and election day looms large, I thought I would give my blog readers a few Biblical guidelines for Christ-followers.

REMEMBER THE SOURCE OF YOUR HOPE: If our hope is in our candidate, our hope will crash.  If our hope is in the economy, our hope will crash.  If our hope is in politics, our hope will crash.  When Easter rolls around next year and you hear the ages old refrain, you will not hear the words, “The economy has risen, it is risen indeed.”  You will hear the words, “He is risen.  He is risen indeed.”  Our hope is in the King and his Kingdom.  Every kingdom outside of His Kingdom is a kingdom with a little k.  Put your hope in the big Kingdom.

OUR PRIMARY CITIZENSHIP IS NOT HERE:  It’s said more than once in the Bible, but no one says it more clearly than Paul, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” (Philippians 3:20).  In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul calls us ambassadors for Christ, which again has this sense of an elsewhere allegiance.   U.S. law says that if you were born in the U.S. you are a U.S. citizen for life, so it’s not illegal to vote…  but I wonder how worked up we should get about it if we do?

IF YOU ARE BLUE OR RED YOU’RE DEAD: Sorry the rhyme popped into my mind (did it again) and I couldn’t get it out.  What I mean is this: If your primary identity if found in your political party you’re on track to miss life.  Jesus said that his followers would be known, not by the color of their states, nor by the votes of their booths, but by the love they have for each other.  If my Facebook news feed is any indication it is not easy to be known for our love for each other and be passionate about our platform.

THE CENTER OF CHRIST’S ATTENTION: Is not and will not be found in the halls of political power.  Christ’s great interest in the world today is the church.  When Jesus is seen in the opening pages of the biblical finale, he is not seen walking through the halls of the great universities, or sitting on the thrones of political power.  He is seen walking in the midst of His church.  If you want to be where the action is in the days when eternity is on the line, invest in the church.  The church is the bride of Christ, in all her disglory.  He sees us as we could be, not just as we are…and he knows that His bride, His body, His church is the hope of the world.

BE WARY OF OUR BENT TOWARD POWER:  Specifically power we can control.  When the church gets cozy with the power of government, it rarely seems to go well for the world.  One day Christ will bring His government, until that day He calls us to lead through servanthood.  He calls us to live by dying.  He calls us to gain by giving.  He calls us to consider others as better than ourselves.  He calls us to the cross.  I don’t see the cross in either political platform.

MAKE A COMMITMENT TO FULFILL YOUR CHRISTIAN (POLITICAL) DUTIES:  Chief among those duties is to pray.  The Bible doesn’t say that it’s a sin to not vote, but it is clearly a sin to not pray for those in governmental authority over you.  Next week we will know for whom we are called to pray.

REALIZE THAT ON ELECTION DAY THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAT GOD CALLS YOU TO DO THAN VOTE.  I don’t know what that might be…I’m just saying that it might be…

Finally, some of you might feel that my guidelines do not take seriously the right, responsibility, and value of voting.  You may be right, especially on the value part.  I’ve gone through enough presidential elections — each one labeled as the most important election we have ever faced — to wonder what difference was made from one party (there’s that word again) to the next.  I know there are important issues about which Christians are passionate.  I just don’t see government making a difference.  I think our only hope to make a credible, lasting difference in our communities, and in our country, lies in Christ-followers loving Christ with all their hearts.  As a whole we don’t, not at the moment at least.  There are too few of us who can say like Paul, “I count everything else as rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.”

I have great hope for our country…because I have great hope in Christ.