Who was Jesus?

To say there's a lot of interest out there about who Jesus is, would be a colossal understatement. I did a Yahoo! search on "Jesus" just to see what would happen--it came back with 678 million different web pages for me to peruse (over 2/3 of a billion different websites that refer to Jesus!!). If I were to visit 1000 sites a day, it would take me just over 1857-1/2 years to see them all.

And I wonder, if I were to examine them, how many of them agree? Because it seems to me that there are as many opinions out there about Jesus as there are people--everyone's got their own take. Here are some of the answers I found out there:

• Barbara Thiering, author of the book, Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls, contends that Jesus "was born, according to the modern calendar, in the year 7 BC, in a religious community near the Qumran plateau, 25 km. east of Jerusalem. His mother conceived him while she was engaged to be married, at a time when people in the community she lived in still considered her to he a virgin. As a result, some regarded her son as illegitimate. In later life, he married twice and fathered three children. Emerging as a religious leader, he was arrested for infringing the rules of Judaism. As punishment, he was sentence to death, but survived a bungled execution. His loyal followers helped him to escape and he spent the rest of his life in hiding, meeting with friends and helping his associates to write documents that would spread his ideas. He was 70 when he died, possibly in France."
• David Bergland, the 1984 candidate for president on the Libertarian ticket, opines: "Jesus was not divine, but was a prophet, a fabulous man who taught morality through parables, and gathered a great following.... he may or may not have been crucified, but his followers went on to build a religion and a church based on his teachings. The basis for this belief is, typically, that millions of people have believed in him for 2,000 years so he must have existed. But being the son of God, the miracles, death and resurrection-that’s just a bit much for anyone with a healthy stripe of skepticism."
• From a Jewish perspective, the official website of the Jews And Hasidic Gentiles - United To Save America insists, "The man known today as 'Jesus'... became a 'king' (over the Christian church) who changed the original Law, doing away with the Hebrew calendar and the Biblical holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos the Festival of Tabernacles, Passover, etc.). He disregarded the one, infinite G-d of the Hebrew Bible in favor of a new 'trinity' that included himself. And he repeatedly broke the Law by committing terrible sins, while openly challenging the G-d-given authority of the rabbis of the Sanhedrin.
  Naturally, Jesus did sometimes pretend to respect the Law, but whenever he thought he could get away with it, he turned right around and broke that same Law. In Matthew 5:17-19, he declared that he came to fulfill the Law, and in Matthew 23:1-3 he defended the authority of the rabbis. But the rest of the time, he rebelled against the Law—thus showing that his occasional words of piety were meant only to hide his evil agenda."

But, of course, the divergence of opinion isn't surprising--or at least it shouldn't be. People were divided about Jesus from the very beginning. In Matthew 16:13, he asks his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" and they responded with all sorts of answers that various people had offered up:

• John The Baptist
• Elijah
• Jeremiah
• One of the prophets

Today, we wonder how people could confuse Jesus with these other personages. But in an age without mass communication and photography, it would be easy for people to confuse Jesus and John the Baptist--they had a similar message and both called the people of Israel to repentance because of "the kingdom of God." When people are going off of second- and third-hand reports, it's natural they might confuse the two.

When people confused Jesus with great Biblical heroes from the past, they were essentially saying that Jesus' ministry reminded them so much of what they had heard about these historical figures, he must be some kind of reincarnation or a second coming of these great men. And in fact the last prophecy in the Old Testament promises, "I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes" (Mal. 4:5). We understand John the Baptist to be the prophet like Elijah who prepared the way for Jesus the Messiah, but the people back then thought perhaps Jesus was that Elijah figure, or some other person from Israel's history.

Nicodemus, in John 3, approached Jesus and told him, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." What remains implicit is that Nicodemus nevertheless is having trouble figuring out what to make of Jesus' ministry. Jesus routinely criticizes the Pharisees (a group to which Nicodemus belongs) who are simply doing the best they can to obey all the commands and precepts of God flawlessly. What Jesus pointed out is that God was looking for an internal transformation, not external compliance, and most of the Pharisees did not love what God loves. It's a question of identity--would the Messiah really come down on the most religious, most holy, most respected Jewish leaders of the day, and instead hang around with prostitutes and lepers?

In Matthew 13:54-55, we read that the people of his hometown took offense at him and were amazed by his teachings: "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked. "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?" In other words, they asked, "Isn't he just an ordinary person? Where does he get off?" It's a question of identity.

Although characters in the Bible struggled with Jesus' identity, the writers of the New Testament did not. They simply presented Him as the divine Son of God. The Gospels declare that he is who he claims to be. So in the end, the question about Jesus is really a question about scripture--is it reliable? Can it be believed? When the Bible records what Jesus said and did, is it accurate?

We can either accept the Bible as trustworthy, or reject it as fanciful myth-making. But we should have reasons for whatever judgment we make. As we go through our weekly message series series on "The Messiah", I'll be blogging about why I believe the Bible to be trustworthy and true, and why we can believe in Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Alpha and Omega, the Lord Almighty who reigns supreme as God over the universe.

Comfortable Christianity

Over the last month on this blog, we've looked at "The Easy Three-sy", the easy, less demanding versions of The Key Three, which are the core values of our church. Whereas a real, authentic faith produces Real Spirituality, Real Community, and Real Story, the Easy Three-sy settles for fake versions of these vital expressions of the Christian life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who died in a Nazi concentration camp, wrote famously in his seminal work, The Cost of Discipleship, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

That's not a very popular notion with most American Christians. In America, we've been conditioned to believe:

• that the fastest and the easiest is the best,
• that suffering and sacrifice are useless,
• that convenience is a necessity,
• that waiting for anything is a bother,
• that pleasure and fun are inalienable rights.

If you don't believe me, just watch our commercials. Every product and service promises instant, easy, convenient fun for the purchaser:

• Are you tired of the hassle of going to the dry cleaners? Then buy our easy dry-clean-at-home solution!
• Have you had it with knives that go dull and have to be sharpened? Then get these knives that chop through steel and never need sharpening again!
• Overwhelmed by all the phone calls from creditors? Then call us, and we'll send you our proven system that simply and quickly transforms your debt into wealth!

So in a culture where running errands is understood as suffering, it's easy to see how death is a tough sell. And yet that's, of course, what Jesus expects of us: "Anyone who does not carry his cross and folllow me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27 NIV). As his listeners well understood, a cross was not just a heavy burden to carry, but was the principal device of torture and execution in the Roman Empire at the time. Today, Jesus might say, "Anyone who does not sit in his electric chair and follow me cannot be my disciple." And just in case he hasn't been explicit enough, to drive the point home, he reiterates just 6 verses later, "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (v. 33).

Jesus's expectations for us fly in the face of the "Comfortable Christianity" most of us have consumed for most of our lives--the Easy Three-sy we've grown accustomed to. But if Jesus's expectations are different than our own, whose ought to shift or bend?

I think that notion is worth pondering for a while. Here, I'll stop typing for a little bit while you chew on that thought.

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Just a casual scan through the Gospels reveals much about the kind of lives that Jesus expected us to live, as his followers:

• "When they arrest you, do not worry"
• "All men will hate you because of me"
• "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body"
• "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it"
• "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me"
• "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first"
• "A time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God"
• "In this world you will have trouble"

It's a wonder that we can read any of these words and still believe in a comfortable Christianity. Yet it happens all the time. Somehow, we just skip over these words of Jesus (and much more from Paul, Peter, James, and the rest!), and we figure that they don't really apply to us, somehow. After all, we're Americans! We don't do the suffering-thing. (When the world criticizes church-people for being hypocrites, this is what they are talking about--they're willing to at least respect all-out commitment, even if they don't agree, but to live the same life that everyone else is living and call it better somehow? That's a little hard to swallow.)

So the question for American Christianity, in a way, becomes... How do we become less American and more Christian?

You see, this isn't a struggle for our brothers and sisters in China, Iraq, Egypt, India, and North Korea--they don't have this problem at all. In a way, when there is no external persecution coming against the Church, the living of a Real Faith becomes much more difficult; there is no crisis that forces us to choose it, we don't recognize our impoverishment that shows us how much we need it.

So Real Faith is born from all the little choices we make along the way:

• Will I always give to God sacrificially of my time and money?
• Will I worship with reckless abandon, regardless of what others may think?
• Will I reveal my weaknesses and failures to others so that I can grow to overcome them, even though it makes me vulnerable?
• Will I talk with my neighbors and coworkers about Jesus and my church, not knowing whether my talking will be welcome or not?
• Will I serve others when I have the opportunity to serve myself?
• Will I continually say "yes" to God, regardless of how much he asks of me?

Will you?

Fake Story

This morning we had an all-church-family gathering, where we talked about some of the challenges and obstacles that face our church body in this current climate. I was so proud and grateful for the Real Community we enjoyed together, as we had people asking hard and honest questions, receiving hard and honest answers, and telling their very personal stories about what God is doing in their lives. We took off our masks and intereacted with one another as real people. It was an awesome time together.

As people opened themselves up and shared their stories from their hearts, I was struck by the realization of how the combination of Real Spirituality (our authentic relationship with God) and Real Community (our authentic relationship with one another) really does serve as the foundation for Real Story (our authentic relationship with the world). When God is active and working, and we are sharing life with one another on a personal level, we have something relevant and attractive to share with the world around us. I want to remind everyone who was here this morning to remember to share the stories you heard with the people that you come in contact with this week.

Real Story is sharing with other people the real difference that a relationship with Jesus makes in our lives. Real Story is talking about the problems of a life without Jesus and how knowing Jesus makes all the difference in every way that matters. Real Story is sharing about our own journeys and the journeys of others we know in a way that the people around us can relate to it, and then inviting them to come consider a life with Jesus.

But when we're living lives of Fake Spirituality and Fake Community, we can't talk about how Jesus makes all the difference--because he makes hardly any difference at all. We haven't made the decision to obey God in every area of our lives; we pick and choose what we want to obey and what we don't. And our lives look just like everyone else's lives. Our biggest fear is having our masks ripped off to show our hypocrisy. When that happens, all we have to offer the world is Fake Story.

Fake Story is trying to attract people to our church without relationships. If we don't have an authentic relationship with God or an authentic relationship with other people in our church family, we certainly can't develop an authentic relationship with those outside it--at work, in our neighborhood, in our kids' t-ball league. So we don't talk to them about Christ, about our church, or about the difference God can make--we don't have the foundation for that. What we do is work the registration table at the Easter Egg Hunt, or put a car in the Trunk or Treat, or sit at the Hospitality Tent at Soccer Camp. And hopefully, somehow because people's kids have gotten free candy, that will make them want to come to a worship service on Sunday morning and pray to receive Jesus as their personal Savior. Fake Story just doesn't work.

But that was never the intent of our outreach events. They were always intended to be a tool for relationships, not a substitute for them. They were meant to be a way for us to build closer relationships with the people in our lives, by providing us an opportunity to interact with them in a different context, to introduce them to other people in the church, and serve as a way for us to follow up with them afterwards--maybe even inviting them to attend, if our relationship with them is at that stage. But the event can't do all that by itself; it serves as a tool for the relationship, not a substitute.

The other way that outreach events can work successfully is if we establish new relationships with people at the event. If someone comes and we get the opportunity to start up a conversation with them, we might find some common ground with them and use that to meet together with them again so that the relationship can keep going--setting up a play date with our kids, for example. Then we can talk more about our church and our relationship with Christ. Again, the event is a tool, not a substitute.

But Fake Story can't handle relationships. Fake Story doesn't want to get close to people outside the church. Fake Story doesn't want to reveal anything too personal, or get in a place where there might be uncomfortable questions. Fake Story doesn't want to deal with unchurched people's messy problems or complicated lives. Fake Story wants to keep the lines of distinction clear and easy-- Us ............ Them--so that there will be plenty of space in-between.

Fake Story is rooted in fear--fear of being discovered as a fraud, fear of being labeled as a Bible-thumper, fear of being rejected, fear of going out on a limb, fear of being asked a question we can't answer, fear of looking foolish. So Fake Story is rooted in selfishness. Because none of our fears relate to the other person; they only relate to me. Fake Story is concerned only with me, not with them. If we were concerned about them, we'd cross over into Real Story, and share with them the truth that could save their souls and transform their lives.

You see, Fake Story is EASY. That's why these are called the Easy Threesy. It's convenient Christianity, life on my own terms with a Jesus Christ insurance policy for my soul.

But Christ's call is to something deeper, something richer, something REAL. Easy is FAKE. The only kind of faith that matters is the faith that actually costs you something (Mk. 10:17-23).

Can you get over your fears? With Christ's help you can. But are you willing? Will we do the hard thing of holding out the Hope of the World to the people that God has placed in our lives around us? Will we tell and share the Real Story?

Fake Community

Last week, I didn't put anything up on this blog because I was on vacation over the 4th of July holiday in Kentucky. But this week, we're continuing our examination of The Easy Threesy, looking at Fake Community.

I believe that one of the most serious problems of the American church is that we pursue shallow, insignificant, insincere relationships with one another. We may not immediately see this as a spiritual issue that has any impact or reflection on our relationship with God, our ability to serve him effectively, or the power of our witness to the world, but that is preceisely the case.

Our Core Value of Real Community is all about having real, authentic, vital relationships with one another within our church body. For our relationships to meet the criteria of Real Community, we need to practice several essential habits:

• Giving preference to the needs of others, rather than our own comfort;
• Utilizing our gifts, abilities, and talents to serve others and build them up, instead of serving ourselves and feeding our own egos;
• Recognizing the value of each member's uniqueness, and how both our strengths and our weaknesses can bring glory to God because of our connection with one another.

For any of these habits to become anchored in our lives, it requires difficult conversations, truthful self-revelation, accountability, deep respect and love for one another, and honest dialogue. That's exactly what Fake Community simply will not tolerate. Fake Community:

• Places a high premium on easy relationships; it steers far clear of any relationships or conversations that could become difficult, uncomfortable, or potentially awkward.
• Sees ministry as a platform for exalting oneself--whether in one's own eyes or others' eyes. Our ministry--not our identity in Christ--becomes the proof of our value and worth;
• Gives lip service to loving other people, but grumbles and complains behind their backs about all the ways that they are irksome, irritating, and obnoxious. Fake Community is a fault-finding community, not a grace-giving community.

It really comes down to this: Do we exist for others, or do they exist for us? That's a very important question that gets down to the essence of our approach to all our relationships. On the night of his betrayal, after celebrating the first communion meal with his disciples, Jesus got down on his knees and washed each of his disciples' feet. As he did so, he asked them, "Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." The text tells us that the reason he did this was to show them "the full extent of his love." (Jn. 13:1-17).

You see, Jesus lived a life that was all about service, and nothing about self. He came to serve, not to be served--even though he was worthy not only of service, but honor, power, glory, worship, devotion, obedience, reverence, and much more. But he didn't claim his right to these things. He humbled himself and took on the nature of a servant--to show us the full extent of his love.

A Real Community of Christ-followers--a group of people who actually seek to imitate Jesus in their lives--will nurture in themselves this same attitude that was in him (see Php. 2:1-11). Here's what happens if Real Community has been supplanted by Fake Community:

• Grudges, grumbling, and gossip spread like a virus, squeezing out room for forgiveness;
• Relationships are weak, so that they aren't able to stand up under difficult conversations. Either those conversations never happen, or they lead to a rift or separation;
• Error, sin, and wrong attitudes are excused ("Oh, that's just Sally"), ignored, and not addressed so that relationships stay shallow and insincere;
• When someone admits a failure or shortcoming, it creates awkwardness and discomfort in others because they expect everyone to keep up appearances. For someone to remove their mask and refuse to play the "image game" might mean that others will also be expected to reveal their own failures. The loss of a good image is the ultimate fear of Fake Community;
• There is no sense of one's place in the body of Christ. Each member is a lone ranger--no authority, no accountability, no external expectations or standards. If such elements were introduced, they would elicit cries of "legalism!" and "authoritarianism!"

And the outcome is that we do not really know anyone, and no one knows us. We are lonely, isolated, and scared--when the family of God is meant to provide love, compassion, and care. Further, we have nothing interesting or compelling to offer a world that needs to see what love in action looks like because they're too jaded and cynical to believe that it really exists. Jesus said, "All men will know that you are my disciples by the love you have for one another" (Jn. 13:35). Fake Community ensures that they will not know--it emasculates our ability to tell others about Jesus. How can you tell if you have a problem with Fake Community?

• When someone hurts you or slights you, do you say anything to them about it?
• Are you eager to understand others' point of view? Do you ask questions before jumping to conclusions?
• Are you patient with the weaknesses and failings of others?
• Are you eager to serve and to give to those who have needs?
• Do you take the initiative to connect with others so that they don't have to?
• Do you serve without expectation of reward, recognition, or appreciation?
• Are you grateful for who God has made you to be, with all your abilities and talents, to serve him and others in the body of Christ?

"No" answers indicate a tendency toward Fake Community. We can go through the motions, be in a small group, serve on a ministry team, and shake hands in the lobby--but if we keep people at arm's length about who we really are on the inside, we will never "get" what the church of Jesus Christ is all about. We will miss out on all that God has for us, and we will undermine the very mission of the church, the whole reason the church exists.

It's hard to belong to a Real Community. It takes effort and diligence. It requires honesty and vulnerability. Sometimes we'll get hurt. Sometimes we'll want to hide. But the payoff is so great. When we are connected with people who truly know us--the real us--and still love us, warts and all, we become empowered to live a life that is rich and free. It is so liberating to remove our masks and stand boldly and confidently with each other as beloved children of God!

Easy relationships are fake relationships. That's why Fake Community is one of The Easy Threesy. And fake is boring, it's pointless, and it's unattractive. I'm not really sure why anyone would want to waste their time with it, and yet we do. It's so much more enjoyable to get to know a real person instead of the mask they wear. It's so much more purposeful to talk about the real issues of life instead of the trivia. And it's so much more compelling to invite others to experience a depth of love they never realized was possible instead of another circle of shallow relationships they don't need.

Why not venture out into Real Community? Let's start being real with one another. Let's really give and receive the kind of love that Christ has poured out on us.

Fake Spirituality

Last week, I talked about how both belief and unbelief can coexist, side by side, in our lives, and I tied it in to our core values--Real Spirituality, Real Community, and Real Story. When we are not following God completely, these vital components of a genuine faith degenerate into Fake Spirituality, Fake Community, and Fake Story. Lately, Pastor Brent and I have been calling these "The Easy Threesy" instead of The Key Three.

But beware! This degradation happens more easily than you might think, and unless we stay vigilant in our relationship with God, we are certain to drift into The Easy Threesy. This week, we're examining Fake Spirituality.

Real Spirituality is about possessing an authentic vertical relationship with God. For our relationship with God to be authentic, there are several important criteria:

• We have to accept at the most basic level who he is and who we are. He is the Creator; we are the created. He is the Master; we are the slaves. He is the Father; we are the children. He is the Sovereign; we are the subjects. He is the Leader; we are the followers.
• Because of the nature of this relationship, we have to accept his commands, his will, his plan, his cause, his wisdom--we have to live life his way. So we use "our" possessions, time, health, abilities, relationships, careers, and opportunities for his purposes.
• Finally, we must understand that he is the proper object of our worship, and we must strive to eliminate all competitors for our heart's affection, staying connected to him in prayer and through his Word.

Fake Spirituality cleverly and subtly seeks to subvert each of these markers.

• While giving lip service to God's authority, Fake Spirituality tries to soften God's complete and total demand on our lives. We end up fudging around the corners by being "reasonable," adopting our own notions of God's identity, instead of accepting who he has revealed himself to be. This can happen in a thousand different ways. One of the most common ones I hear is the insistence that "God would want me to be happy." And that idea is used to justify a wide variety of sin--even adultery and divorce! So the practitioner of Fake Spirituality continues to claim to accept and follow God, but it is not God as he has revealed himself to be through his Word.
• When we start to make God "reasonable," it changes the kind of demands that he places on our lives. We begin to say things like, "Well, God would never ask me to give up my golf league; after all, there's nothing wrong with golf." And of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with golf, but God will ask us to give anything that stands in the way of us accomplishing his purposes for our lives. We will miss a call to enter the ministry, a call to serve overseas, a call to build a bridge with our next-door neighbors. In essence, we stop listening to God's demands to pursue a life of our own comfort and convenience, life on our own terms.
• A person possessing Fake Spirituality may be at church every Sunday, but they do not have God as their object of worship. They might worship pleasure, power, possessions, popularity, or prestige. It might be career, thrills, politics, or alcohol. It could be anything... except God. For a person of Fake Spirituality, they may still pray, but they will find their prayer times dry and empty, and their prayers will go unanswered--because there is a lack of desire to truly hear what God is saying to them. When God demands something that we refuse to surrender, we lose our close connection to him.

Here's the problem: One event of obedience is never enough. We may experience a spiritual breakthrough in our lives--a time of learning, where we begin to understand God in a deeper way than we ever have before; a time of surrender, where we give up our resistance and humbly accept God's demands for that moment in our lives; a time of victory, where we overcome an addiction or a habit that has kept us in bondage--but that time will pass, and God will call us to experience him again a deeper level.

We cannot rest on that past success--God calls us to experience ongoing success in our lives. Surrendering to him is a continual process that never ends. To be people of Real Spirituality, we must learn to make surrender a habit--that we would constantly ask him what he would want from us next, and then seek to do it. In other words, that we would come to God, saying "yes" to him in advance--whatever it is that he wants to do.

Here are the tell-tale signs of Fake Spirituality, so that you can test yourself to see if you've wandered into complacency in your walk with Jesus. Do you live with:

• A nostalgia for the past, when you felt closer to God?
• Devotion to a program or ministry that at one time served as a tool for your growth?
• Longing for a person that God had used formerly to draw you to himself?
• An attachment to a particular style of music, preaching, or worship service--and if you don't have your preferred style you "can't worship"?

When we have fallen in love with the forms over the Former, it means trouble for us spiritually. There is no method, no person, no program that God deems necessary, but many times we are quick to override him. We declare things necessary that God has not, and in that way we demonstrate our refusal to accept his lordship over our lives. We demonstrate our Fake Spirituality.

You see, it's easy for this to happen. In fact, it happens all the time--it's the Easy Threesy. Real Spirituality, a vital, authentic vertical relationship with God, takes concentration and effort. It takes focus and determination. But O! What a joy to walk closely with God! To sense his presence and care, to know his faithfulness and love, to rest peacefully in the midst of chaos, to rejoice in the middle of suffering--it is the most wonderful thing in the world.

What is it that's holding you back? Why not say "yes" to God right now, and enjoy a return to Real Spirituality?

You believe... but how much?

In Mark 9:14-29, the Bible records an interesting story about a demon-possessed boy whom Jesus' disciples were unable to help. The demon had robbed the young man of his speech, and would throw him to the ground in foamy-mouthed convulsions.

When the father brought the boy to Jesus, Jesus made a comment that seems a little harsh and maybe even out-of-place: "O unbelieving generation! How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?"

Unbelieving? Really? It's not as if Jesus had been around. Prior to this, he had been up on the Mount of Transfiguration, with Peter, James, and John. In fact, he had only just arrived on the scene. So since the father didn't have access to Jesus, he tried the next best thing--he asked some of Jesus' disciples for help. He asked the disciples whom Jesus himself had already commissioned and given authority to drive out demons (Mk. 6:7) to liberate his son from the evil spirit that was controlling his life.

But it seems that Jesus' appraisal of the situation was right on track, after all (imagine that!). For the father says, "If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." Jesus responds, "'If you can'? Everything is possible for him who believes." And the father immediately answers back, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.

What a very interesting statement. It seems that belief and unbelief are not mutually exclusive, that we can possess both simultaneously. There are not many opposites that fall into this category, making belief and unbelief a rather unique pair. For example, it would be difficult to see how a light or a TV or a stove could be turned off and on at the same time. Not many people would ever think of saying, "I am relaxed; help me overcome my stress!" But belief and unbelief seem to be different.

At a recent conference, Craig Groeschel, pastor of Lifechurch.tv in Oklahoma, made the insightful observation that Christians usually live with and move among three different levels of belief:

• I believe in the gospel enough to benefit from it.
• I believe in the gospel enough to contribute to it comfortably.
• I believe in the gospel enough to give my life to it.

At the first level, we believe enough to accept and enjoy the benefits of following Jesus--forgiveness of sin, assurance of eternal life, peace, hope, joy, acceptance, self-worth--but we don't want our faith to cost us anything.

At the second level, we begin to realize that it's not just about accepting God's love for us, but about loving God in return. So we begin to contribute our money, our time, and our talents and gifts for his use. We might join a small group where we can practice loving other people, or begin serving in some ministry to benefit other people. But, of course, we don't allow our faith to get in the way of the things we really want, like weekends of camping, our golf league, and a flat-panel TV or a big house. We contribute--but up to a point--not in a way that's going to inconvenience ourselves.

At the third level, there is no longer a concept of serving oneself. Faith and life are intertwined, and every decision, every dollar, every priority is made from a perspective of how best to serve and grow the Kingdom of God. There is an abandonment of self and a total commitment to God and his glory.

Groeschel says that true clarity comes not from the identification of these three levels, but from understanding that success at level three, can easily cause us to slip back into level two. This is because level three is where we grow spiritually, where our capacity for impact is expanded, where our understanding of God is deepened, and as we adopt this new level of belief, allowing it to sink deep into our hearts and minds, in time it becomes the new "normal" for us. It becomes a regular part of our lives. What was once sacrificial and challenging, now becomes... comfortable.

To return to level three, we must listen closely to what new steps God is asking us to take--steps that will lead us again out of our level of comfort and into the level of radical obedience and trust. And if we consistently resist what God wants to do in us, if we keep on saying "no" to him repeatedly, we find ourselves back at level one. We aren't really contributing to the gospel at that point--no matter what it looks like on the outside. Our spirituality becomes a matter of keeping up appearances. We're really only in it for the goodies we get, the benefits we find.

Belief and unbelief actually live quite easily side-by-side.

So it's as if Jesus is saying to us, "You believe... but how much?" The Bible tells us that Jesus will not do miracles where there is a lack of faith (Mt. 13:58). Faith in him is a condition that he places on everyone who comes to him, asking for his help. And without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).

In our church, we talk often about Real Spirituality, Real Community, and Real Story--our Key Three. Our Key Three are all about living out a level-three faith. But there is a level-two version of these values that we often settle for--Fake Spirituality, Fake Community, and Fake Story. Together, they make up an unconvincing, unattractive, unfulfilling life. Starting next week, we're going to be exploring these counterfeit rivals for the vibrant, level-three faith that Jesus died to bring us.

But until then, you might start asking yourself, "How much do I really believe?"

God Is...

For One Prayer 2009, we're focusing on the topic "God Is..." I mentioned today that we could spend every week for 100 years on this theme and never exhaust the richness and depth of the identity, activity and character of God. So, just for kicks, I figured if I were going to preach on this for a year, what are the first 52 topics I'd be sure to cover:

God Is Infinite
God Is Sovereign
God Is Intense
God Is Holy
God Is Waiting For You To Do Something
God Is Calling Us
God Is Right Here
God Is Right On Time
God Is On Mission
God Is An Anchor
God Is Deep
God Is Compassionate
God Is God
God Is Community
God Is One Of Us
God Is A Shelter In Trouble
God Is Trustable
God Is The God Of Abraham, Isaac, And Jacob
God Is I Am
God Is Father, Son, And Holy Spirit
God Is Patient
God Is All About Relationships
God Is Unfoolable
God Is Mysterious
God Is Omni-Everything
God Is With Us
God Is Our Liberator
God Is Life
God Is Light
God Is Better Than Anything (Even Coffee!)
God Is Perfect
God Is Strategic
God Is Really Smart
God Is Awesome
God Is Hilarious
God Is Knowable
God Is Dying To Meet You
God Is Creative
God Is Emotional
God Is Inexhaustible
God Is Responsive
God Is A Parent Of Brats
God Is Right
God Is A Change Agent
God Is A Procrastinator
God Is A Being, Not A Philosophical Construct
God Isnowhere
God Is A Delegator
God Is Persistent
God Is Extravagant
God Is Not Willing That Any Should Perish
God Is Accepting Friend Requests

What does your list look like? Who do you know God to be? Let's hear it!