Betrayer, denier and thief...

A betrayer, a denier and a thief… I am all of those and Jesus knows it! Still he loves me. Wow.

John 18 begins with Judas betraying his friend, Jesus. In the middle of the chapter, Peter denies his Lord Jesus 3 different times! And then ends with the crowd choosing Barabbas, a thief, over Jesus, the Lord. All in one chapter. If you live long enough, and it won’t take long, a good friend will betray you. Sometimes the betrayal will be for money or prestige or some other currency such as fame or control. Judas gained 30 pieces of silver and no longer had to listen Jesus speaking grace and tru

th. Whatever the trade, betrayal happens and it stings.

Part way through JN 18, Peter, one of the inner circle of the disciples, denies he even knows Jesus. He cares more for personal comfort than he does for Jesus. I hear stories of people being betrayed and rejected day after day. And just like everyone else, I’ve experienced both. And it stings deep.

The end of the chapter paints the crowd evil as he they scream for the freedom of the thief Barabbas and condemn the Savior Jesus to death. Doesn’t make sense, does it? And yet, experience life enough and you will experience someone that prefers a scoundrel or a thief over you. I’ve experienced that also. And yes, it really does sting way down deep.

All of that is bad news but here is some really bad news. In the same way I have been betrayed and denied and had friends choose something evil over a faithful friendship, I have done likewise. Every time I have chosen the voice of fear over the faithfulness of Jesus, I have betrayed him and denied knowing him. I’ve preferred the voice of a thief or liar over the voice of God every time I have chosen to listen to the world over Jesus or tried to recreate God in my image. I have chosen comfort or the approval of people over the love of my friend and king, Jesus. The really really bad news is that… so have you. We all have. We have all experienced it and all have likely treated others the same way. And we have all traded in Jesus for fame, popularity, peace, money, sex and ambition.

But that’s what makes the gospel, the good news, so utterly amazingly beautiful - Jesus knows all that and loves me anyway…. And loves you anyway. He became the thief, the denier, the betrayer when he took up the cross. He cried out as he hung there, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!” Jesus knows well the sting of our betrayal and preferences. Listen my friend, it isn’t just that Jesus forgives you and me, though he does that to the uttermost. He takes our sin and puts it as far as the east is from the west. He doesn’t stop with forgiveness but continues with restoration. He restores us to a right relationship with him… an intimate relationship of friendship. He is the Lord of all, King of Kings yet he calls you and me friends. He walks, sits, loves, aches with us. He feels the sting with us. And somehow, as we join in the sting of suffering with Jesus, we become more like him. And know a deeper joy and peace. To be known and still loved?

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”  Keller, Meaning of Marriage

Grace for the Journey.

Harrison

Dear Friends,

Have you ever noticed the rules of the elevator?  There is the “face the front” rule and the “fold your hands in front” rule but the one that intrigues me the most is the “don’t talk to anyone about anything” rule.   That one is unbreakable!  What is going on there?   Are we afraid of the repercussions?  People were created for community yet we hide from each other!  In elevators, neighborhoods and even in our homes. 

There still remains a longing in our heart to live as we were created.  Starbucks sees it.  Have you ever noticed that Starbucks doesn’t advertise their coffee as much as they sell the “Starbucks Experience”?  Starbucks knows that people are longing for community and their coffee (good as it is) is really just a part of that community building process. 

In Genesis we see that it is not good for man to be alone.  Now surely God is talking about primarily about man and his relationship with a woman but the principle is still there!  It is not good for man to be alone and God created people to be with each other.  God sees it.   Starbucks sees it.  Why do we keep fighting it?  Why do we fight living in community with each other?  The reason is that we are broken people.  Because of Adam and Eve’s little fruit incident, we don’t live as God intended us to live but rather live “broken”. We hide because we fear betrayal from those we might dare to trust or love… and pretend that living in such fear is somehow safer than living in a community of grace. We hide because we are not nearly as self-righteous as the façade we erect around weary souls.

Through Jesus Christ, what is broken will be restored.  As people restored by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ, we can live in freedom and joy without having to hide in broken bushes.  Next time you are in the elevator, exercise your freedom, build a community of grace, say “hello”.      

On second thought, don’t wait for the elevator, quit hiding in your house and build an authentic Christian Community of Hope right where you live. Tear down walls and build bridges of hope. Enjoy it!  Its how God made you to really live.

Living in Grace,

Harrison Spitler, Pastor

A Beagle Kind of Faith

Have you seen the TV commercial* with the beagle that lives inside a tube?  It’s a commercial advertising heartworm medicine and makes the advertising claim that the best way to protect your dog from fleas and heartworms is to either live in a sealed bubble-like tube, insulated from the world or give your dog their daily meds. Strange isn’t it that a dog would live in a plastic tube! In fact it’s downright preposterous! Dogs, especially beagles, aren’t designed to live in a plastic tube. They are designed to chase rabbits through brambles, dig under fences, wake the neighborhood while they howl at the moon and lick the chocolate off their human’s face.

Dogs aren’t designed to live in a bubble and neither are Christians. Yet so often I see Christians hide in plastic bubbles to keep from interacting with the world.  I’ve done it myself and cringe at my foolishness and lack of love and faith.  Sometimes Christians even build these insulating tubes to keep from being tarnished by each other. The irony is that such bubbles designed to insulate can end up being quite cold and toxic.  If it wasn’t so sad, it would be just ridiculously funny. Christian, we follow a God that left the “bubble” of heaven to live among his creation, to sleep without a pillow or a house to call his own, to live with those that would hate him, to love on those that would kill him, to die that we would live. Doesn’t that seem a long way from the bubbles that we create? Do we really believe that someone that does not trust Jesus would want to step into our sterile bubbles? Jesus didn’t come to live in a bubble. He came to live with man. And he calls us to follow him. Follow. Jesus.

Christian, go chase rabbits, dig dirt, wake the neighbors and lick the chocolate! (maybe scratch that last one ;) )  Get out of your bubble and live life as God has designed you to live it – in the world.

By grace,

Harrison

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeTGb3a7n1U

Dear SouthLake Family,

Sunday evening, July 23, marked a significant moment in all our lives. It was more than turning the page to the next chapter of a book. It was opening the cover of a new book. It’s a new life with new hope, new dreams, new loves… let’s don’t stop short of his new life. The gap between our old life and new life is spelled out in 2 Corinthians 5 which we will unpack this Sunday. John Newton sings of it as well in Amazing Grace –

“Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see”

An event from my life a few decades ago illustrates well the transformation Christ brings about in us and individuals and as a community.

***********

It was a cold day, spitting rain and windy. Still I was out in it fishing. With weather like that, there is little surprise that I didn’t catch any fish! But I didn’t come home empty handed… Moving along the shore I heard a noise from an empty boat shed. Curiosity got the better of me and I moved in to check it out. In the back right corner, something cowered. It was winter on the lake and all the summer residents had long since departed. The only live animals anywhere around were sure to be wild. This one could have been a wounded deer or a rabid coyote! I should have been more careful but instead I went on in. I was 13 year old boy so who knows what was I thinking!? The mass turned out to be a very large yet scrawny, shivering, wet, muddy and matted German Shepherd. She had some open sores and something was wrong with one of her legs. And she was so very scared. She was nothing but a mongrel that many would have just put to sleep. I remember thinking that if she lived, this mongrel would need a name… so I called her Duchess.

It took a while but I coaxed her out, fed her from my hand, bathed her and treated her wounds. Many days passed before she learned to trust me. I never did find out where she had come from. She had been lost and was found, wounded and near death but was now healed and healthy. She had been alone and now had a family. Over time Duchess became a strong shepherd. Instead of being afraid at the touch of her master’s hand, she became ridiculously devoted! She had been a filthy mongrel but within a month, I found her sprawled on the sofa! This mongrel loved the life of a Duchess!

My life is so much like that mongrel’s. With a soul that was lost, matted, muddy and afraid, I was far from God. Yet he pursued me. He came into the dark corner and called me out. He bound up my wounds, healed my soul, gave me a new name and a place at his table. And I am ridiculously devoted to Christ Jesus my Lord!

God’s hand of lavished love and incomprehensible grace might be strange to you but do not fear his touch. He calls you out of the darkness to give you a place at his table. Christ came that you might have life and have it to the fullest.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Jesus in John 10:10

Anchored in Grace,

Harrison

It's NOT about the Whale!

It’s not about the whale. It’s not about Jonah. And it’s not really about Nineveh. Jonah is really about God’s character. Will he show compassion to an evil community of people? Will he show compassion to a stubborn, pride-riddled, religious man? Will he connect the two? Will he connect us? Would God love Jonah and Nineveh enough to entangle innocent sailors in his plot to rescue them from their own stubborn evil?

Jonah is an incredibly encouraging account of God’s compassion for us, our church and our city. It’s a great account of how far the Father will go in order to rescue a city and a man.

How much does God really love? The series will launch at 10am, Sunday, January 10. Come along for the journey.

Grace Community Church @ Marvin Ridge High School

BIG & little

     I think we often make too much of the wrong things. I am a Christian. Many of you that read this are Christians as well. That means we trust and follow Jesus Christ. We trust his finished work of the crucifixion and resurrection to atone for our sin and reconcile us to God the Father. But often instead of fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12), we have our eyes fixed on our sin or the sin of others. We get obsessed with a particular sin or sinful lifestyle. For example we might become all engrossed with the sexual immorality of others but ignore our own idolatry. An idol is anything or anyone or any way of life that you love more than God. It's an idol if it gives you your identity, your self-righteousness or turns your heart from complete devotion to God alone. Its easy to feed our idols and ignore God. It's easy to become captured by the sin of others but ignore our own lack of love.
      It isn't that many Christians make too much of some of the BIG sins but that we make to little of the excused little sins. We excuse away a lack of love, a lack of forgiveness, a lack of compassion and mercy. We excuse away our inactivity in evangelism and caring for orphans, widows, the poor and oppressed. If we trust Jesus, we follow Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5  teaches us that old things have passed away and we have become new creations. As new creations, Jesus has given us grace to follow where he leads. And thankfully he keeps giving us more and more grace!
      God captures us with his love. Exodus 20 - And God spoke all these words saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out or the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me."  If you are a Christian, then God has brought you out of slavery to sin and made you a new creation. What he calls us to is a life of love and sacrifice, mercy and giving, living in the world but not of the world, a life of joy even in the midst of pain and unfailing hope in the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
      Lord, I pray your love will so capture us that we love you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and that we will love others as you have loved us. That's the big thing. Thank you for your big grace.

Let it go!

Rusty! Let it go! Drop it!               

                                                                

I have this big red Labrador. He tips the scales at 105 pounds and eats anything that doesn’t eat him first.  Rusty’s biggest problem is that he is a messy people pleaser. Sound familiar? Rusty is under the illusion that I want him to bring me shoes – anyone’s shoes will do. It doesn’t matter if they are clean or covered in mud, he just brings me shoes. He will get a shoe or a pair of shoes in his mouth and follow me around the house, soaking them in his slobber. (He also likes to soak Mickey Mouse in slobber... )

In that way Rusty is like a lot of us. We carry stinking stuff around too. We carry sin, baggage, bitterness, unforgiveness, stress, pain, worry – the junk of life.  And we don’t want to let it go. We might even act like Rusty and follow the master around but still with the smelly mess hanging from the jaws of our soul. We can’t just let it go! We get attached to all that mess and even let it become a part of our identity.

But here’s the gospel. It looks like this. Rusty follows me with his smelly mess until I tell him to sit, to rest. He does that and I put my hand under his jaw and tell him to drop it. Rusty drops the smelly slobber covered shoe into my formerly clean hand. But then he looks to me for the promised replacement. And he gets it. I’m not sure what he thinks is great about a rock hard dog bone that Purina has somehow convinced dogs is something akin to caviar. But to Rusty, it’s the stuff of life!

Jesus says come to me. Rest. Drop your smelly slobber covered mess into my formerly clean hands. Take instead my peace, my joy, my salvation. Give me your mess and let me give you… me. 

His hands are open – drop it.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30

Anchored in Grace,

Harrison