Vision Month (Week 2): Renewed by Love

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
September 6, 2009


Drama: Table is set at center stage with: large bowl (preferably glass); two large spoons; tongs; medium size glass bowl; pitcher of water; hand towel; 50,000 won bill; large variety of strange ingredients (mustard, kimchi, corn flakes, peanut butter, dirt, old bugs, chocolate syrup, fish, etc.). Next to table is a large trash can with liner.
Person A:
1)Pick up 50,000 won bill and slowly, carefully shows it to audience.
2)Put 50,000 won bill into large glass bowl.
3)Slowly and dramatically add all “ingredients” to large glass bowl.
4)Mix thoroughly.
5)Smell and attempt to taste.
6)Dump bowl into garbage can.
7)Exit stage.
Person B:
1)Enter with Person A. Sit in chair at stage left.
2)Watch A do everything; smile at 50,000 won bill; look disgusted as A adds and mixes ingredients.
3)When A goes to dump bowl into trash, B says: “NO!” [This is the only spoken word in the drama.]
4)Go to table. Get tongs. Remove 50,000 won bill from trash. Hold it up slowly to show audience.
5)Pour water into clean bowl.
6)Put 50,000 won bill into clean bowl. Clean 50,000 won bill.
7)Dry 50,000 won bill with towel.
8)Slowly and dramatically show 50,000 won bill to audience. Kiss it; hold it to your heart; and exit stage.
(This drama and it's application were taken from a story in the footnotes of Rob Bell's Sex God.)


“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. …
“Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves. They will reign over the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.'
“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female, he created them” (Genesis 1:1, 24-27).
We are created in the image of God. We are God's representatives on earth. We have something of the heart of God deep inside of us. We are infinitely and inherently valuable.
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ … God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family … and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:4-5).
We are God-like – all of us, and God loves us deeply, unstoppably – all of us! This is the root of the gospel. This is the root of our faith. This is the root of our church. God loves us. God loves us all! No matter what your life is like, no matter what has been done to you, no matter what you have done, no matter how messy or stinky or dirty your life is, God loves you. God will always love you. God will never stop loving you.
God loves us. And this has changed our lives.

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
“God showed us how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
“Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. …
“We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect …
“We love each other because he loved us first” (1 John 4:7-12, 16-19).

We are able to love each other deeply because God loved us first. Love comes from God. God is love. If we have God, we have love. If we have love, we have God. When we love, God lives in us. When we love, people see God.
Love is the root of God. Love is the root of our church. Love is the root of our mission. Love is the root of our vision. Love is the root of who we are and who we are trying to become.

What does it mean to be be “renewed”? It means to learn to love. We are being made new; having the image of God restored in us (Colossians 3:10). Like an old antique that has lost its luster, God is restoring us, renewing us, reshaping us, so that we look like him again. And what does God look like? Love. It's all about love. We become like God by loving and being loved. We live the life of God by loving and being loved. This is why we are here.

But what is love? That's a basic question, right? What does it mean to love someone? How do we know real love when we see it? If God is love, how do we know when the life of God is living in someone?
Paul gives a beautiful definition of love in his letter to the church in Corinth: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
We can learn a lot from this passage. John said God is love, so that means: God is patient and kind. (God is not impatient with us. God doesn't get angry easily.) God is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. God does not demand his own way. (God wants us to live his way, but he'll let us go our own way. He'll let us.) God is not irritable, and God keeps no record of being wronged. (God's not like us. He doesn't have a long list of all the people who have offended him and all the things they've done wrong.) Are you angry about the injustice in the world? Well, so is God. God never gives up. God never loses faith in us. God is always hopeful for us. There is nothing we can do to make God turn away from us. There is nothing that can be done to us to make God turn away. God endures with us through every circumstance.
And you can give yourself kind of a self-test to see how loving you are. Just substitute your name for the words “love” and “it.” Let's try it together. I'll say my name, and you say your name.
______ is patient and kind.
______ is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
______ does not demand its own way.
______ is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
______ does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
______ never gives up.
______ never loses faith.
______ is always hopeful.
And ______ endures through every circumstance.

So how did you do? How did it feel to say those those sentences? Were they true? I think some of us stopped after “I am patient” – oh, ughh, hmmm, that hurts.

Jesus said, “'You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-39). Wow! That's pretty important, right? Everything depends on how we love.
But the two most neglected words of this passage are “as yourself.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” How loving are you toward yourself?
Are you patient and kind with yourself, or are you impatient?
Are you more rude to yourself than you are to others? Do you cut yourself down: “Stupid, stupid, stupid, why did you say that?!!”
Do you keep a record of your wrongs? “Oh, Josh, remember that time when you did THAT! You are such a screw up! Oh, man, that was dumb!”
Do you ever give up on yourself? (I'll never be able to do this. Why am I trying?)
Do you lose faith in yourself? (I guess I get what I deserve. No one will ever really love me.)
Do you love yourself? Are you delighted that God made you? Do you know that God loves you deeply just as you are?

And what about loving God? Are you patient with God? Do you get angry with God easily? Do you keep a record of God's wrongs against you? “When I get to heaven, I'm going to ask God about that and that and that!” Do you give up on God? Do you lose faith in God? Do you stick with God through every circumstance, even when you don't understand, even when everything seems to be going wrong?

We all have a lot of room to grow here. But as we live in God and in God's love, then we can begin to really love like this. God's love actually makes us new. It changes us. It restores us. It brings us back to our original purpose and begins to fulfill our potential. Remember, we were created in the image of God. We are like God. God's heart is stamped in our hearts. We are deeply valuable to God. God loves us so much, he died to be with us and to restore us.
A young Christian writer/speaker/activist named Shane Clairborne was going to his 10 year high school reunion, and he had to fill out a survey about his life now. The survey asked his profession. He didn't exactly know what to put. He doesn't have a regular job. He hangs out with people and writes stuff and helps people and just generally loves people with the love of God. So he wrote that. Lover. His 10-year high school reunion book announced him as a professional lover.
Really, that is what all of us are. That is our calling. That is our design. That is why God made us. God is love and “what God does most is love us” (Ephesians 5:2). We are made in his image, his likeness. Our deepest calling in life is to be professional lovers. Sure, you're a teacher, a scientist, a businessman, a mom, a student, but first of all, you are a lover. You are a person who loves and is loved. You are a person who loves God and loves people. You are a person who is so radically changed by the love of God so deep in your heart that in everything you do – whether teaching or researching or cooking – you love people. This is our design. This is God's intent for us. This is what we are about as a church, and this will change the world.

Let me finish with two little stories. One of my friends is learning to play the violin. One day, his violin teacher was walking down the road near his house, and he saw an old man pushing one of those recycle carts. But this guy didn't have cardboard or cans in his cart. He had a whole cart full of old violins. The violin teacher stopped to talk with the old man. He asked him where he got them. The haraboji said, “Agghh, these … they're just trash.”
The violin teacher started to look through the cart, and he found one violin that looked very old. All the strings were missing, and it was very dirty and scratched, but it was obviously old. “How much for this one?” he asked.
“Mmmhh … I'll give you that piece of junk for … man won” (10,000 won).
The violin teacher took his new prize home. He cleaned the violin and put new strings on it, and inside he saw some numbers 1 – 7 – 9 – 2 and something he could not read. So he decided to take the old violin to an antique music shop. The antique dealer held the violin very carefully and whistled. He looked at every part of the violin from every possible angle. When he saw the numbers on the inside, he said, “That is when this violin was made: 1792. And this scribbled word is the name of the maker – a famous violin craftsman from Germany. This violin – how much did you pay for it?”
“Man won.”
“Well, it's worth 750,000,000 won (칠억오백만원)! This is a rare treasure, and if you can find out it's story and how it came to be in Korea, it will be worth even more.”
This is a true story. Now that violin teacher plays beautiful music on that violin every Sunday in his church.
This violin was renewed by love. The tender love of the violin teacher restored it to its rightful purpose. Filled with his love, it was able to make beautiful music again!

I want to introduce you to David. David was born in Russia, and he spent the first years of his life in a Russian orphanage. But David is not ethnically Russian. It seems that either David's father was a worker from South Asia, maybe India. When David was born, his mother brought him to the orphanage.
David spent 4 ½ years in a rural orphanage far out in the Russian countryside. As the years went by, David showed a lot of intelligence and a joy for life. However, no one wanted to adopt him because of his dark skin. The doctors and nurses and orphanage workers became more and more concerned for David. They knew that with each passing year it would be harder for David to find an adoptive family. Most families want younger children.
But then, by chance, Ruzanna saw David's picture on an adoption website. She was not really looking for a child to adopt, but as soon as she saw the picture and his bright eyes, something clicked inside her heart. She knew instantly that she wanted to adopt David. She made the long journey by train to David's orphanage out in the countryside to visit him. Two weeks later, after completing the paper work, Ruzanna came back to the orphanage and took David home as her son.
Ruzanna says, “I am not prone to sentimental things. But I think that every child is in itself a miracle, so we should learn to love all children. David loved me with a crazy, intense love. I was just scared. I wasn't read for it, personally. I still have to learn love. That's what I'm doing.”
David's kindergarten teacher pulled Ruzanna aside and said David had special talents in music. So Ruzanna took David to a music school, and he began to play violin. David excelled so much with the violin that his teacher advised Ruzanna to find a master teacher to guide David in his music.
When his new teacher found out that David was adopted from a small orphanage in the countryside, he said, “Lord, this is simply a miracle, a holy deed, because this boy was rescued. Think about it! Do you understand? There would be nothing – none of this. Nothing like this could happen there. He's a great little guy. I'm so glad he's in my class. … When he starts to play music , he puts everything into it! Full concentration! There is no one and nothing else! He understands perfectly. That says a lot about it, of course, very talented. This ability to focus, and instantly – this is amazing!
David has become somewhat of a modern legend in Russia. He has won several musical awards and frequently participates in international competitions.1
David was unwanted and rejected. He was stuck, with nowhere to go, no way to fulfill his potential. But Ruzanna loved him, and David was renewed by her love. He flourished and grew and blossomed. Talents no one imagined bloomed in him. Value and character no one could see came shining out of him like a diamond in a black rock. He was made new by love.

An old beat up violin was really a treasure handmade by a master craftsman. A rejected orphan was really a violin prodigy waiting for the opportunity make music. They were renewed by love. What could God's love do for us? What could we become?
Here at KNU International English Church our vision is that we will all be renewed by God's love to love God, ourselves, and others. Take a risk. Love somebody. Let somebody love you. God can make us new. Take a risk. Love and be loved, and let's be made new together.

Imitation (Ephesians 5:1-21)

(August 16, 2009 - KNU International English Church)

Some people say, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” In other words, if someone imitates you they are paying you a high compliment.
I guess I should feel pretty flattered, then. Sometimes, Emma tries very hard to be just like me. Sometimes, when we're sitting together reading a book, I'll notice that she has her legs crossed just like I do. Sometimes, I am shocked to hear her say the same words I say. (Usually, they are good words. But most parents know that they have to be really careful what they say around their kids because those kids are sure to say the same things later on!) Sometimes, Emma even gets dressed up in my clothes. [[picture]]
And she even learns quickly when we are wrestling and play boxing. [[video]]

Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Imitation is also the highest form of worship. God has made us to be like him, and it pleases him when we are. Let's read Ephesians 5:1-21.

Imitating God – living like God – is best thing we can possibly do. If we follow through the passage, imitating God sounds pretty good:

• “Live a life full of love” (5:2).
• Be thankful (5:5).
• “Live as people of light” (5:8). Be radiant!
• Be “good and right and true” (5:9).
• Be wise (5:16).
• Make the most of your opportunities and time (5:17).
• Sing together and make music from your hearts (5:19). Go to Nore Bangs!
• Tell God, “Thank you,” all the time (5:20).
• Live together with respect and mutual submission (5:21).

I think we would all agree that this is a beautiful way to live.
But it is also difficult. As beautiful as the God-life is, it is still difficult to actually live it in our day to day lives. Paul gets this! As soon as he tells us to imitate God's life of love, Paul starts giving warnings:

• “Don't allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices or bullying greed … gossip … dirty or silly” talk (5:3-4, The Message).
• “Don't let yourself get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him” (5:6, TM).
• “Carefully determine what pleases the Lord” (5:10).
• “Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose those things for the sham they are” (5:11).
• “Be careful how you live. Don't live like fools” (5:15).
• “Don't live thoughtlessly” (5:17).
• Don't piss your life away with drunkenness (a rough paraphrase!) (5:18).

God's life is in us. Verse 8 reads, “but now you have the light from the Lord.” This actually says, “but now – in Christ – you are the light.” That's why we're supposed to live like people of light! We are light!
We were originally created in God's image, created to be like God (Genesis 1-2). Unfortunately, we all went our own way and did our own thing, and now we don't look very much like God. But God has reclaimed us. He has chosen us again into his family as his dearly loved children. Now God wants to breath his Spirit into us, just like he breathed his Spirit into the very first Adam. He wants to make us come alive with God-ness. We are like balloons waiting to be blown up. We are like wax statues waiting to come alive. We are like human-robots waiting to have a real heart and a real mind.
What does it look like to come alive with God's life? Verse 1 gives us the overall summary: “Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love.”
But in the Greek text verses 18-21 are one long sentence. Paul loves long sentences. What we have is, “Continuously be filled with the Holy Spirit” and then several modifiers, explaining what a life filled with the Spirit is like: singing together, making heartfelt music, giving thanks all the time, and submitting to each other.
This gives us a reverse image of God. God is passionately loving. God is joyfully singing and making music. God is deeply thankful. God submits and serves. If we imitate God (live the God-life), then we will live like this too. And this is a goooood way to live.

But, alas. We are not so good at living the ways we want to live. We intend well, but we don't follow through. We start well, but somewhere along the way we lose focus. We get sidetracked or distracted, or we just get tired of the effort. And we often end up living in ways we never wanted to live. Sometimes we live in ways that are completely opposite to how want to live, ways that are completely opposite to the God-life which is in us!

Our life is like a garden. God planted us with the seeds of his character. God put his life deep in our souls. We share the task of tending the garden with God.
But we have not been careful. We have gotten distracted. We have not tended to our garden regularly. Weeds have come in. The stakes holding up the tomatoes and peppers have fallen over. The soil has become dry and cracked. In one place, a piece of plastic trash has grown over the strawberries, and they are starving for sun – yellowing beneath the plastic.
We have not been careful, and the God-life is dying within us.

Our life is like an old gas street lamp. We burn with the life of God. We give light to the world. We give joy and peace and safety in the darkness.
But we have not been careful. We have been lazy. We thought our light would keep going out without any attention from us. The smoke has dirtied the glass on the inside. Pigeons have pooped on the outside of our lamps. One one side, a kid threw a rock and cracked the glass. The light is still burning, but it doesn't really help anyone. The light is still in us, but not much light goes out.
We have not been careful, and our lives block the God-light from shining through us.

Our life is like a stage, and we are bad actors. Some of my friends make fun of Keanu Reeves. The joke goes like this. This is Keanu Reeves when he is angry. [[bland expression]] This is KeanuReeves when he is sad. [[same bland expression]] This is Keanu Reeves when he is happy. [[same]] This is Keanu Reeves when he is terrified that he might die at any moment. [[same]] He never changes. No matter what's happening, his face is exactly the same.
Other actors or actresses change radically from character to character. You know sometimes, you can hardly tell it's the same person. They really get into it. If they are doing a prison role, they go live in a prison for a week just so they can understand what it's really like to be in prison. If they are playing a prostitute, they'll interview a dozen prostitutes so that the character comes from inside them and shows in their faces and all they do.
Not Keanu. No matter what role he is playing, his voice and his mannerisms are exactly the same. He's always just Keanu Reeves doing or saying something new in the same old way.
God has invited us into the drama of life, and he has given us a role to play. “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children … Follow the example of Christ … Be filled with the Holy Spirit.” What is our role? God wants us to play Him – God! We are the body of Christ, and together we present God to the world. God wants us to really get into character so that it is almost as if His character comes alive in us. God wants us to do character research: “Carefully determine what pleases the Lord,” and “Understand what the Lord wants you to do.”
But, unfortunately, we tend to be bad actors. We go into every situation just being the same old us. We don't shape our character to be like God. We have not done the research. We have not been spending time with God so that the life of God naturally comes out when we get on the stage of life. We haven't studied the script and thought about how God would say our lines. We just wake up and go out there and start acting.
We have not been careful, and we are not acting in line with God's character.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Our lives don't have to be a run-down garden. Our lives don't have to be a clouded-over, pooped-up street lamp. We don't have to be bad actors on the stage of life. We don't have to be careless about how we live. We can choose to be careful.
Let me suggest a few ways that we can be careful to live out the God-life which is in us.
1)Identify 3-4 basic practices that will help you live the God-life. If you are a gardener, you need to pull the weeds, water the plants, and provide supports. If you are a lamp-lighter, you need to clean the glass and make sure the lamps stay lit. As people of God's light, as gardens of God's seeds, what do we need to do to live the life of God. What do you – you in particular – need to do every day or every week or month to make sure that you are living the way you really want to live? Take some time and write those down.
2)Be accountable to a trusted friend. Form a group of 2 to 6 people. Tell them what your 3-4 basic practices are. Then ask them to make sure you are doing those. Meet together every week or two and talk about it. Are you tending the garden of your life? Are you faithfully representing (acting out) God's character in your world?
3)Look for God moments. Paul said, “Make the most of every opportunity.” Pray that God will give you eyes to see when he wants to act through you, when he wants to do something especially loving or grace-filled through you. Every day, the opportunities are there, but we miss them. Let's ask God to make us more aware. Let's ask God to help us listen a little more closely and to take those opportunities for him to shine through us.
4)Lastly, thank God more often. Did you notice how much this passage talks about thankfulness and joy? Let there be thankfulness (5:4). Sing together, make music in your hearts, and give thanks for everything (5:19-20)! Joy and thankfulness are fundamental to the life of God. Usually it's a choice to be joyful, so choose joy. Act out the character of our joyful God. You may just find that life is better that way.

Let's go back to those three basic images we talked about earlier.
What will the garden of our lives be like if we are careful? What will it look like if we carefully tend the garden, pulling weeds, picking up the trash, making sure all the plants get enough water and sunlight? “What happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find our selves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely” (Galatians 5:22-23).
What will the street lamps of our lives be like if we are careful? What will it look like when we clean up our lamps? It might look like Isaiah's words to Israel: “Arise Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see. For the glory of the LORD rises to shine on you. Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth, but the glory of the Lord rises and appears over you. All nations will come to your light; mighty kings will come to see your radiance. Look and see, for everyone is coming home! … Your eyes will shine, and your heart will thrill with joy” (Isaiah 60:1-5)
What will the stage look like if we really get into the character of God as good actors and actresses? It might look like Paul's words to the Corinthians, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God!'” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20)

“Wisdom … has prepared a great banquet, mixed the wines, and set the table. She has sent her servants to invite everyone to come. ... If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit. If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer” (Proverbs 9:1-3, 12).
“So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise” (Ephesians 5:15).
Be wise. Be careful to live out the God-life in you.

Strippers for Jesus (Ephesians 4:15 - 5:2)

(August 9, 2009 - KNU International English Church)

About five years ago, some of my friends started a new church in Gardner, Kansas. Gardner is a small but growing suburb in the center of the USA. Trinity Family Church is a lot like our church. They are progressive Nazarenes. They have a good band, and people wear casual clothes. They have a young pastor and mixed group of people. In many ways, they are very similar to us.

But Trinity Family has one thing we don’t have – a ministry to strippers. Yes, I said strippers – women who get paid to take off their clothes.

A few years ago, some of the women at Trinity Family felt called to love and to serve people who were never going to walk through the church door on their own, people who normally don’t feel comfortable or welcomed in church. Their attention focused on the two strip clubs in town, and they started a ministry called Love Wins.

In 2007, some of the church ladies went to the strip clubs with homemade cookies and gift bags. This scene was repeated again and again. The church ladies brought Christmas gift bags, chocolate covered strawberries, lotions, all kinds off stuff – again and again. They didn’t ask them to come to church. They didn’t tell the people at the strip club that they were a bunch of sinners on the fast track to hell. They just gave them gifts and talked to them and loved them.

They also gave them the opportunity to be equals. When Trinity family was collecting money to help struggling families have a good Christmas dinner, they allowed the strip clubs to donate too. (In the past, other churches refused to take the “dirty money” from the strip club workers.) When Trinity family did a service project at a local homeless shelter, they invited the staff of the strip clubs to join them. Strippers and bouncers and ushers and Sunday School teachers worked side by side, planting flowers and painting walls. It was beautiful!

This beautiful story has all four of the big themes of today’s passage from Ephesians: stripping (or taking off clothes), putting on, truth, and love. Listen for these themes as we read Ephesians 4:15 – 5:2.

OK, so let’s unpack this. We’ll start with the stripping theme – of course! I know the version we read doesn’t use the word “stripping,” but that’s what it’s talking about. “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life” (Ephesians 4:22). The word is the same word for taking off clothes or burdens, and the word for “old” means “worn out” or “worse for the wear.”

And while we’re at it, let’s be clear about putting on, too. “Put on your new nature, created to be like God.” This is a word for clothes, too, and the word new here means “fresh, unworn, or unused.”

Paul is saying, “Strip off that old worn out way of life, and put on a fresh, custom made God-life.” On the authority of the Word, I declare today that God wants us to be strippers!

But what exactly are we supposed to strip off? Paul gives us quite a list of actions to strip off. In fact, “stop telling lies” is literally “strip off lies or falsehood.” Verse 22 gives us a good summary: “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life which is corrupted by lust and deception.” Lust and deception – these are opposites of truth and love. The old worn out way is lust and deception. We want to use everything and everyone for our own purposes. That’s not a very acceptable way to live, so in comes the deception. We have to hide our lust from others and also from ourselves. This way of life gets old fast, but we’re well trained in patching it up.

Really all of the other sins listed fit into these too. Stealing is a combo of lust and using deception to get it. Our lust for stuff and people pushes us into “foul or abusive language,” out of control anger, and all sorts of bad stuff.

Now, as church people, we can be really good at deception. We can focus all of the attention on those bad people out there who do the really bad stuff. When we think of lust, we usually think of things like – well, strip clubs, and the people who go there. We can jump all over this word “lust” and poor burning judgment down upon “those” people who are “ruining” our society.

But all of this judgment and criticism can actually be a secret form of lust and deception. We lust for power and for value. We want to have power and value over others by condemning them. We are attempting a magic trick called “slight of blame.” They are the real lusters. My look down a girl’s shirt when she’s bending over is innocent male instinct. My hunger for money and clothes are natural and justifiable. Look at them! Look at those SINNERS!!! (I wonder if sometimes we scream so loud about the sinners because we secretly are secretly angry that they seem to be having so much fun.)

This is a complex form of deception. The simple truth is we are all sinners. We all struggle with lust for power, sex, and money, and we all try to hide it through deception. The truth is we all need grace and healing.

Here’s the amazing part. For those church ladies in Kansas to go to those strip clubs in love, they had to start stripping first. They had to strip off their pride. They had to strip off their concern about what others think: “What will people say if they see me in a place like that?!!” They had to strip off their judgmentalism. They had to strip of their harshness. Maybe some of them had to strip off their anger and bitterness because the threat a strip club poses to their men and to their marriages.

Before we can love people who are different from us, we have to strip. We have to strip off our old worn out way of thinking and acting.

OK, but what do we put on? “Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy” (4:24). If we stop here, this can lead us into judgmentalism and hypocrisy again. -- We are righteous and holy, and you are not! -- But if we keep reading, we find out what righteousness and holiness really are:

“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God” (4:32 – 5:2). What is holiness? What is righteousness? It is to be like Jesus: to be kind, to be tenderhearted, to forgive, to love, to give.

We put on the new us, the God-like, Christ-like us. We put on truth and love. Truth and love. Live the truth. Live love. Live God. “Put off falsehood, and tell your neighbor the truth.” Stop stealing and hoarding, and start sharing. Stop being rude to others, and start being kind. Stop tearing people down, and start building them up. Stop holding grudges, and start forgiving. Stop burying your anger; when someone hurts you, tell the truth in love.

Why? Why should we stop living in those old ways? Why should we put on truth and love in our every day life?

• Because God has a better plan for us. “Even before me made the world, God loved and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” (1:4).

• Because we are part of God’s family (1:5). Family loves. Family tells the truth.

• Because God “gave us new life when he raised Christ from the dead” (2:5).

• Because “God saved us by his grace when we believed. We can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God … none of us can boast about it” (2:8-9).

• Because “together, we are his house … a holy temple for the Lord” (2:20-21).

• Because “we are all parts of the same body” (4:25).

• Because “God through Christ has forgiven” us (4:32).

• Because God uses us to heal each other.

“Instead we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love” (4:15-16).

I want to finish today with a letter from Guido, a part-owner in Bonita Flats, one of the strip clubs served by the Love Wins ministry in Gardner, Kansas.

As I get older, I realize that a lot of my views on life seem to change. One of them is the subject of religion. I grew up thinking that religion was all about control of the people, and if you didn’t fit the mold you were thrown to the other side of the line. Either you’re a good person or a bad person. Most of my experiences with churches have been bad ones. I believed: “You don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you.” They criticize you if you don’t follow their rules even if you didn’t know the rules.

From what I know of Jesus I thought he talked to all people and did not judge them but explained what they should be doing and let them figure out what they needed to change.

My opinion has changed over time, but more in the past couple years. A big influence in my thought change has come about because of a couple, who years ago I would have judged as those church people and avoided like the plague. It all started one day when my door guy at work called me and said some church ladies were there. I thought “Oh NO! Here we go again.” (Several years before some church ladies had been in our parking lot picketing and handing out negative brochures.) He said they were leaving some gifts for the girls. I think he asked them if they had paint bombs in them because he was also leery.

After talking to the employees and the staff I found it odd they would bring stuff to dancers and thought: “What’s their angle?” So this happened again. The ladies came to the door, dropped off gifts, smiled, then left. I thought, “That’s nice,” so I had my bartender put together a basket of nice things for the ladies and drop it off. I later thought to myself: “Wow! I’m interacting with church people”.

As time went on, our opinion of religious people changed. We discussed a volunteer project at Our Fathers House (a homeless shelter) in Paola. When we showed up, I think Donnie and Erin were shocked not only that we showed up but in good numbers also. Now, I’m a big burly guy who is not intimidated easily, but I will tell you - this was a situation that I’m not accustomed to. I thought: “Wonder what all these other church people think of working beside strippers and people of our sort?” Well, the answer to that is everything went fine. I actually talked to Donnie (the pastor) for a long time, and it was a comfortable conversation, and one of the best I’ve had in a long time. I really enjoyed our discussions. And I think it opened each other’s eyes a little. I know it did mine.

I like that Donnie and his group do things more like how I thought JESUS did things. We have done another day at Our Fathers House, and I hope we can do another one soon.

I have read the church blog, and I find it interesting that they were as leery of us as we were of them. The staff and the dancers have responded to the ladies in a great manner, and we all were happy to find someone to take our Christmas family donations because in the past we have been denied by other religious organizations’ because of what we do for a living. Also we felt the love enough the girls felt they should return the love with baby gifts for Donnie and Erin.

I think this program has even worked on me. One day Erin and the ladies came in. When they left, a new girl came up and said, “Why were they here? They’re just here to condemn us for what we do.” I told her that’s not true. I told her not to be so judgmental. Now she’s judging them like she thinks all churches do us. I told her that they are the nicest people you will ever meet.

Since then I have had two people ask me what I know about religion. They said they were never taught anything about God. So I told both they could call (Trinity Family Church), and these people would be glad to help with their questions without judging. Not in a million years would I have thought I would be sending friends to church people to learn about GOD.

So my opinion has changed a lot over the past couple years due to some very different people. So I guess the Love Wins ministry works, and I hope more churches learn from your great example. Thanks for giving us a chance to see another side of religion. Keep up the great work
GUIDO

No one else can speak your truth. No one else can love your love. No one else can wear the clothes of Christ the way you can. We need you to strip off that old worn out life. We need you to put on the God-clothes of truth and love, grace and forgiveness. We need your voice. We need your love. We need your life!

God Is an Atheist

KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
June 7, 2009

-- This sermon is part of the ONE PRAYER SERIES. --

(( Before the sermon, we will watch this video.))

I am an atheist. Don't look so shocked! You are an atheist, too. So is God. We are all atheists.
If you don't believe in God, you are an atheist. If you do believe in God, you are atheist.
Huh?
The early Christians were called atheists because they rejected the gods of Rome. They had the audacity to say that Rome's long-honored gods were false and that there was only one true God. So people called them atheists – people who don't believe in the gods.
Good Christians are still atheists in this sense today. Stan Martin was a professor here several years ago. He was fond of saying, “So you're an atheist … OK, tell me about the God you don't believe in. I probably don't believe in him either.”

Let's read our Old Testament Lesson: Isaiah 44:6-20.

J.B. Phillips wrote a little book called, Your God Is Too Small, and in it he argues that the greatest barrier to faith is poor, weak, small, piddly images of God.1 So often, we believe these bad images of God, and they really mess us up. Let me tell you about the Gods I don't believe in – at least I don't believe them most of the time.

God is not the whammy hammer. You know those little games at arcades or outside restaurants with the big rubber hammer. There are little moles or creatures who pop up at random times, and you have to pound them back down as fast as you can. Some people believe God is like that, just pounding us down as fast as he can - “Oooh, there's another uppity human! I'll get him! Pow! Pow! Pow!” God is not the whammy hammer.

God is not your father or mother. Yes, God is our “heavenly Father,” but God is not your mom or dad. God does not possess your father's weaknesses or your mother's quick temper. If your Dad was hard to please, if your Mom was a push-over, don't confuse that image with God.

God is not old-fashioned. God is definitely old, but God is also very, very young. Infinity goes both ways. Tradition is important to God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But reformation is equally important to God. God is all about carrying forward the old traditions in new powerful ways. Jesus' biggest conflicts were with the old-fashioned religious leaders.

God is not the global wealth distributor. When we look out at the world and we see people living in poverty and kids dying before they go to kindergarten because they don't have clean water, then it's easy to blame all of that on God. But God isn't up there pressing buttons and pulling strings and sending money to some countries and taking it from others. God created the planet and the means for wealth, and he told us to share it. The distribution is our problem.

God is not a harsh, pressing coach. This is probably my greatest temptation. I believe that God really does expect a lot from us, but sometimes all I can hear is that whistle blowing in my ears: “Faster, Broward! Push harder, Josh! Don't quit! Don't give up. No rest, no rest, no rest!” God is not like that.

God is not a teddy bear. Sometimes we don't really want a God. Sometimes we just want this idea of a warm protector, something we can cuddle up with on dark, scary nights. God is much bigger than that.

God is not a TV dinner. I don't think you have these here in Korea, but in America – the land of super junk food – we have TV dinners, with these little compartments. Peas over here, mashed potatoes over there, baked chicken in the middle, and a little bit of cobbler for desert. Everything is neat and orderly, defined and easy, definitely convenient. God is not like that – some judgment and love on each side, some salvation for the main course, and heaven for desert. God is way messier and much less convenient.

God is not our friendly cruise director: “OK, now is everyone having a good time in life? Remember to put on your sunscreen. Ooooh, look, dolphins!” As my dad used to say, God is not primarily concerned about our happiness, but God is concerned about our goodness and the goodness of our world.

God is not gray. God is not lifeless, joyless, humorless. You might think God is like that when you look at some Christians and some churches, but God is full of joy and humor and laughter and hope and love and color and beauty.

God is not male. God is bigger than that. Both males and females were required to make humans in God's image (Genesis 1:27).

God is not white. God is way bigger than that. The human Jesus was probably a person of color, with coffee-and-cream-brown skin. But God himself is bigger than any color or ethnicity.
God is not American. Christianity is not American. America was fairly late to enter the Christian religion – only for the last 25% of Christianity's existence. God is bigger than any nation or people or group.

God is not Christian. It's not really fair for any of us to speak of “the Christian God.” God was God long before Christianity, and God is not religious. It's not like God needs a religion to understand himself or to relate to himself.

We could go on and on. God is not a sissy. God is not an environmental abuser. God is not definable. God is not in a box. God is not a beggar who only wants our money. God is not a church employee. And one of my personal favorites: God is not a nagging wife. So many gods, so little time.
We are like those people Isaiah talked about. We have crafted these gods out of our own imaginations and experiences, and we trust in something that can't help us at all. Yet most of the time, we can't bring ourselves to ask, “Is this idol I'm holding in my hand a lie?” (Isaiah 44:20).

But deconstructing all of these false gods is not enough. This still leaves us atheists and faithless, rootless and anchorless. We need to disbelieve these small, inadequate gods, but we equally need to believe deeply in the one, true God.
Today is Trinity Sunday. Around the world today, people will celebrate God as the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As Christians, we believe that God is fundamentally one and three. There is one God, but in a deep mystery, God exists as a family: Father, Son, and Spirit. All are one, but each is unique.

((Earlier in the service we read two passages, which you should read now if you are reading along on the net: John 16:5-15 and Galatians 3:1-14.))

There is no way that I can explain God to you today. But when we think of God as Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit), a few windows open up to help us understand something of who God is.

First window: God is mystery. It has always been amazing to me that the Christian theologians who were most important in the development of the doctrine of the Trinity were also the most emphatic about God's mystery. Take for example, Tertullian, the guy who “invented” the word Trinity. He said, “That which is infinite is known only to itself. … our very incapacity of fully grasping Him affords us the idea of what He really is.”2
The Bible pushes us consistently to think of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – one God. But when we face this reality, we must admit that we don't really understand it. God is an amazing mystery. “Holy God to whom all praise is due, I stand in awe of you.”

Second window: God is diverse. We have heard some about this already from the Native American theologian, Richard Twiss (Video: "My Neighbor's Music"). If God is truly Three-in-One, then God is diverse at the very core of God's being. God – the essense of all that is – is diverse!
This has profound implications for us as a community. Here in this church, we will always have differences of opinion, differences of taste, and differences of theology, but I hope that we will never let those differences drive us apart. Somehow, we draw closer to God as we find unity in diversity. Somehow, in God's great mystery, we come to know God more fully when we come to know and to love people who are different from us.

Third window: God is humble. When we read about how God interacts with God, it is amazing how humble God is. There is this beautiful give and take of love and affection, a mutual submission and uplifting.
Jesus only does what he sees the Father doing. The Holy Spirit only speaks what he has heard from Jesus. The Father shares his glory with the Son, and the Son returns glory to the Father. The Spirit brings the Son glory. Everything that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and the Son shares it freely through the Spirit.
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are completely open to each other. They have nothing to prove. There is no competition. They are completely secure in each other's love. They are fully humble and cooperative.
Any time we see arrogance or pride, that is a lack of God. Any time we see competitive worth-proving, that is a lack of God. God is humble.

Fourth window: God is welcoming. In John 17, Jesus prayed one long prayer for his disciples: “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. … Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. … Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them” (John 17:22-26).
God is a diverse, loving family, and God welcomes us into that circle of love. In Jesus' greatest, longest prayer for his disciples, he prayed that we will all be included in the flow of love between Father and Son, that we will enter the river of glory and love in the Family of God.
In one of Jesus greatest stories, he tells about son who ran away from home and wasted his inheritance on wine and women. When he comes home, he is covered in dirt and pig slop, but the Father runs out to greet him. The Father hugs him and kisses him and welcomes him into the family again. God, the Holy Trinity, is constantly welcoming us into the loving life of God.

Fifth window: God is flesh. There is a Mexican meal called chili-con-carne. It's chili (or stew) with meat. God invaded our world in the human baby Jesus, and theologians call that the incarnation. That means literally: the en-flesh-ment of God, or God becoming meat. God took on flesh. God became muscle and tissue and bones.
Our greatest window to understanding God is not a set of truths or logical principles. God's greatest self-definition is within a 33 year period of history. God's greatest answer to all of humanity's problems is expressed within the life of one human body. Jesus is God-con-carne – God with meat or flesh. God wanted us to understand God, so God took on flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.
This means a lot for us. The incarnation, the en-flesh-ment of God, implies that we will not convince people about God with logical arguments or powerful speeches. Peter Rollins, an Irish theologian explains, “God is not revealed via our words but rather via the life of the transformed individual”3 and – I would add – via the transformed community. People will not be very attracted to God by what we say, but they will be deeply attracted to God if we live God, if God is re-incarnated, re-enfleshed in us, if God takes on a body again in us. And this is what God is after all the time! God wants to live in us so that he can show himself to the world through us and heal the world through us.

God is not like us. God is not like those humans in authority over us. God is not the embodiment of our deepest fears. God is not the giver of our cheap hopes. Don't believe in those false gods. God is bigger. God is better.
God is … the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, Spirit. God is mystery. God is diverse. God is humble. God is welcoming. God is flesh.

So the next time you start talking about religion or God with someone, and they say, “I'm an atheist,” you can say, “That's OK. I am an atheist too, and so is God.” Then, the two of you can start talking about the gods you don't believe in, and … maybe … just maybe … your friend will begin to see the one true God living in you.

Acts 2 - The Holy Spirit Is PINK (?)

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

May 31, 2009

Read Acts 2.

As I thought about Pentecost this year, I couldn't help thinking of the song by Pink, “I'm coming up, so you better get this party started.” This might be a stretch, but I wonder if Pink is a metaphor of the Holy Spirit? Listen to some of the words:

I'm comin' up so you better get this party started
I'm comin' up so you better get this party started
Get this party started on a Saturday night
Everybody's waiting for me to arrive
Sendin' out the message to all of my friends ...

Last week, Yoni read Jesus' words: “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised … you will receive power when the the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere ...” (Acts 1:4, 8).

Making my connection as I enter the room
Everybody's chilling as I set up the groove
Pumpin' up the volume with this brand new beat
Everybody's dancing and they're dancing for me
I'm your operator, you can call anytime
I'll be your connection to the party line

I'm comin' up so you better get this party started
I'm comin' up so you better get this party started

“Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit …” and people from all around town “heard the loud noise” and “came running” (Acts 2:2-6).

Pentecost was God's coming out party. The disciples kept trying to talk Jesus into coming out in the open as the Messiah, but instead he stubbornly went to Jerusalem and died. Then, after God raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus kind of hid out with his disciples, teaching them quietly. When the disciples asked Jesus if it was finally time for him to “come out” and show the world who he is, Jesus basically said, “That's your job, and the Holy Spirit will help you do it. Now, go to Jerusalem and wait for the party to get started” (Acts 1:6-8). Then, Jesus left.

Now, on Pentecost, God finally comes out. God finally shows himself to the world. There is wind. There is fire – all kinds of cool stuff. But by all the other people show up, they don't see the wind and the fire, they just see a bunch of people talking in different languages.

Even at God's big “coming out party,” he only shows himself through his people. He fills his people and shows himself to the world through them. Even at the big party, God is still quiet enough that some people say those first Christians are just drunk. It's not all that different from when outsiders look in at the church and say that religion is just a crutch or that Christians are a little crazy. Something real is happening – something big enough to get attention, but not something clear enough to convince everyone right away.

So Peter steps up to explain to the crowd what they are seeing. Peter basically says three things.

1. This is a God thing. We aren't drunk or crazy or stupid. God is working in us, just like he promised.

2. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. This is Peter's main point.

3. Repent and let Jesus give you a new life through the Holy Spirit.

For us to really understand what the word “repent” means we need a little background. Josephus is the most famous Jewish historian in – um – history, but at least once he played the role of international ambassador. In 66AD, Josephus was sent on behalf of Rome to try to stop the Jewish rebellion. Josephus told the Jewish leaders that their plan of rebelling against Rome would only lead to destruction (and it did). Instead, he offered an alternative way – peaceful compromise. Josephus talks directly to the rebel leader and says that all will be forgiven if the leader will “repent and believe in me.” Josephus wanted them to give up their deadly plans for independence and trust him and his plan for a new way of life.¹

Jesus said almost the exact same thing: “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:14).

We are all kind of like those Jewish rebels. We've got our own systems, our own ways of doing things, and our own plans for how our life is going to work out for us. Peter is saying, “Listen folks, give up your own plan because it isn't going to work. Your plan will just mess everything up. Put your trust in Jesus' plan instead. That is the plan for real life. Change your plan. Change your trust system. Start over. Refocus everything on Jesus. God will not only forgive you; God's Spirit will live in you” (Acts 2:38-39).

Well, it worked. God's coming out party worked. On the first day, 3,000 people were baptized. That's a big party!

But what happens when God comes out? What does it look like when God really starts to work in his people? What are the basics of God's party?

The first Christian party basic is: Trust in Jesus as our Messiah. Peter and the Jewish Christians spent many long hours explaining that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Jesus fulfilled the ancient Jewish prophecies. He was the one all the Jews were waiting for.

But if we are honest, that doesn't mean very much to most of us. Most of us don't really care if Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. We don't really care very much what Jesus meant to people 2000 years ago. We don't need to be set free from Rome. We don't operate within the old Jewish system of sacrifices and hand-washings. We don't really feel the need for a Jewish Messiah.

However, we deeply need to be set free. We deeply need to be healed, to be forgiven, to be empowered, to be refocused, to be led into this uncertain future, to be loved and to learn how to love. We need Jesus to be our Korean Messiah, our American Messiah, our African Messiah, our suburban-middle-class Messiah. We need a Messiah to lead us out of our dysfunctional systems into the God-way, the Kingdom of God that is all around us. Jesus fulfills our hopes. Jesus fulfills our deepest dreams, our heart-longings.

We need to understand Jesus as our Messiah for our age and our time and our culture. Jesus is leading us out of our broken down systems which are going to destroy us, and Jesus is offering us a new way of life – a life of love and trust. Becoming a Christian, means putting our trust in Jesus in this life now to live a new life now.

The second Christian party basic is: Live Deep Christian Community. They believed, they were baptized, and they “devoted themselves” to the basic Christian teaching, to fellowship, to eating together, and to praying together. They lived deeply. They shared deeply. They rejoiced deeply. They opened their homes and their hearts to each other. “And a deep sense of awe came over them all.” This kind of community is basic to Christianity. If you don't have this, something is missing from your life. If you don't have this, you haven't fully repented and trusted in Jesus' way – because this is what he taught. This kind of community IS Jesus' way.

The third Christian basic is: Be Filled with the Holy Spirit. A basic part of Christianity is having God in us. We actually live out the life of God. Paul said, “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

The Holy Spirit is not always obvious to others. Even at Pentecost, the other people didn't really get what was going on. But they see that something is different, and, eventually, people start to ask questions. That's when the cycle starts to repeat. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, when we live with love and grace and generosity – like those first Christians, then people around us notice, and more and more people join the party.

More and more people put their trust in Jesus as their Messiah, too. More and more people live deep Christian community. More and more people are filled with the Holy Spirit, and on and on and on. “And a deep sense of awe” comes over us all … “And each day the Lord” adds to our “fellowship those who” are “being saved.”

So the three Christian party basics are:

1. Trust Jesus as our Messiah.

2. Live Deep Christian Community.

3. Be Filled with the Holy Spirit.

But these can happen in almost any order. The twelve apostles started with deep community. They didn't know Jesus was the Messiah when they started following him. Cornelius and his household kind of started with being filled with the Holy Spirit. God just sort of exploded in them, and then they figured everything else out.

It's not a three step process, but we've got to have all three ingredients, or we aren't fully Christian. We've got to have all three of these basics or we aren't really following Jesus or experiencing the new life he has for us.

When we have all three of these, life is radically different. We are being made new by God's love. God is changing us. God is teaching us how to be friends with others, and God is changing the world through us. (Sound familiar?)

About 2,500 years ago, there was this crazy old prophet named Ezekiel. God made him do and see and say crazy stuff, but hey, he lived in a crazy time. God's people were slaves in Babylon. Most of God's people decided that the God of Israel had lost the religious wars. God was a washed-up, dried-up, loser God, and Israel was a washed-up, dried-up, loser people.

One day, Ezekiel has this vision of a whole valley full of dried bones. These bones were long-dead, crusty white. God says to Ezekiel that these dry bones represent Israel – God's people. Have you ever felt all dried up, tired out, whithered, exhausted, used and abused? Have you ever felt like a failure? Have you ever stepped back and looked at your life and said, “This isn't going to work. I just can't do this”? Sometimes, it feels like all we are are dry bones – like we have nothing left to offer, nothing left to give, nothing left to be.

God tells Ezekiel to speak to the dry bones. God tells Ezekiel to tell those dry bones that God is going to make them live again, that God is going to breathe his Spirit into them and give them new life. And the bones come together – all clickety clack – and form skeletons. And muscle grows on them, like a science fiction movie, and then, skin grows. And finally, God breathes his Spirit into those dead bodies, and they all come to life and stand up.

Then, God tells Ezekiel to say this to the people of Israel: “I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home” (Ezekiel 37).

God has the same offer for you. Whoever you are. Wherever you are in life. Whatever your religious background. No matter what you've done. No matter what has been done to you. No matter how dry your bones are. God says, “I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again.”

If you can imagine it, maybe God is speaking to us in the words of Pink, “I'm coming up so you better get this party started.” God offers us a whole new groove, a brand new beat. True Christianity is a new way of life for all of us. There is a new kind of party happening here.

Today is the day of Pentecost. Today is the day of the Spirit. Put your trust in Jesus as your Messiah. Live in deep community. Be filled with the Spirit of God, and you will live. Your life will never be the same. God will “come out” among us, and a party will get started that will change us all forever. If we really let God come out in our lives, we will never be the same. Never.

1N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1999), 43-44.

Acts 10 - Dangerous

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

May 17, 2009

I grew up in Texas, and Texans love Country Music. I grew up singing songs by Garth Brooks, songs like:

I've got friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh, I've got friends in low places

One of Garth Brooks' less famous songs is, “Unanswered Prayers.” The song is in a story form. He meets an ex-girlfriend at a football game, and he remembers how he prayed – how he begged – God to give him this one girl. Then, he looks over at his wife and thanks God for NOT answering that prayer. “Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers,” he sings.

I've been thinking this week that some of our prayers are pretty dangerous.

God, make me patient. Be careful what you pray for, right?!

God, make me like Jesus. – Uh, dangerous? Hello! He died on a cross!

God, help me to trust you. Remember what happened when Peter trusted Jesus. He ended up walking on a stormy sea.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. - Everyone who sins against us? No matter what the sin?

God, lead us. Show us your will, and help us to follow. - Yeah, that will get you into trouble every time.

What about this one? We pray this one every week here. May God make us a loving community that changes our world. What if God really starts answering this prayer? What if God really starts fulfilling our vision? What if God pulls us together with all kinds of diverse people – people we are uncomfortable with, people who don't normally go to church, at least not our churches, people who might need our help? What if God really helps us to love like he loves? Would our hearts break more often? Would we have to change how we think, how we talk, how we work? What if God started changing the world by doing a radical change right here in us, right here in this church? What if God starts by radically changing you?

That is dangerous! Do you really want God to answer that prayer?

The book of Acts begins with a big vision: “In just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5). In a few days, you're going to get God!

But the disciples don't get it: “OK, Jesus, but when do we start forming an army to kick out those dirty Romans? Are we there yet? Is it time yet? Now? Now? Now?” (1:6)

Jesus responds by making the vision even bigger, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (1:8).

And the disciples seem to kind of stand there and scratch their heads and say, “Huh, I wonder what that means.”

But they keep meeting together, and on the day of Pentecost, God fulfills his promise. He pours out the Holy Spirit in an amazing way, but God goes beyond their expectations. People from all over the world can understand everything the disciples as if the disciples are speaking the languages from all over the world. From day one, Jews from many different cultures and nations are included in the Churchs. (Acts 2) Dangerous!

Then Peter and John heal a crippled guy and get in trouble. And how does the church respond? They pray for boldness and courage and miracles. (Acts 3-4). Dangerous!

The very next scene is two people who try to cheat on their offerings. They stand there and lie to Peter's face, and then they fall over dead. Now, I honestly dont' know what that means, but I do know it's dangerous! People falling over dead in church – it doesn't get much more dangerous than that! (Acts 5)

The apostles keep preaching, and God keeps working. The religious leaders put the apostles in jail, and God busts them out. Dangerous! Then the apostles go straight back to the Temple and start preaching again. Hello! Dangerous! So the religious leaders order the apostles to be beaten with whips, and what do the apostles do? They thank God for letting them suffer like Jesus and go out and start preaching again! Dangerous! (Acts 5)

Next, the church has some problems with their widows feeding program. They decide to appoint seven guys to do the social work, so the apostles can do the teaching. But Stephen, one of the social work guys, starts healing people and doing miracles and teaching and debating and preaching about Jesus. That's not his job, remember. And, he gets arrested and killed. Dangerous! (Acts 6-7)

Then, the poop hits the fan. People start attacking Christians all over the place, and the Christians scatter. They run for their lives, but everywhere they go, they keep talking about Jesus. Dangerous! (8:1-4)

Philip goes to Samaria and tells people there about Jesus. Samaritans were half-Jews, religious rejects. Good Jews wouldn't even touch a Samaritan, but Philip tells them about Jesus. Dangerous! Then, Peter and John get in on the action and start praying for the Holy Spirit and preaching to other Samaritans. Dangerous stuff, here! (8:5-24)

Then, an angel sends Philip to convert that “genital-free African,”¹ and he asks, “What should hinder me from being baptized?” (8:25-40). So Philip breaks new ground. He baptizes a non-Jew who doesn't even have his male-parts – a big problem for Jewish culture. Dangerous!

Meanwhile, Saul is going around busting up as many Christians as he can find. He goes all the way to Damascus, in Syria, looking for Jesus' followers. Then the Holy Spirit knocks him to the ground and blinds him. That sounds dangerous! God tells a Christian named Ananias to go and help Saul because Saul will take God's message to the gentiles. So Ananias brings this Christian-killer into his home and helps him become a Christian. That is definitely dangerous! (Acts 9)

The story really picks up in Acts 10 with this guy named Cornelius. Cornelius is a Roman army captain. An angel shows up and tells him to send for Peter. He doesn't say why. He just says, “Go get Peter.” Dangerous!

Now Peter is living with Simon the tanner, Simon the leather-worker, Simon the guy who kills animals and pulls the skin off their dead bodies and scrapes the flesh off and stretches it out on racks to dry. Simon's house stinks so much that he has to live by the beach so the wind will blow away the stink from the drying animal skins. Simon is a Jew, but he is an unclean Jew. The very fact that Peter is living with Simon shows that Peter has already started abandoning some of the traditional Jewish rules. Dangerous!

Peter is up on the roof praying, and he has a vision. He sees all kinds of animals – clean and unclean, kosher and forbidden. Remember, Jews have very strict rules for what kind of meat they can eat. Asking Peter to eat pork would be kind of like asking us to take a bite out of a rotting human eyeball. It's not only gross; it challenges our very identity as people. So Peter says, “Uh, Homie don't play that!” or in more technical language, “Not at all, Lord.” Did you catch that? Peter said “no” to God!! So God says, “Don't call something unclean if I have made it clean.” Dangerous!

This is not the first time God has challenged Peter's religious rules. Years earlier Jesus said, “Can't you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you?” (Mark 7:18). Peter didn't get it then, and he doesn't get it now. It's just too dangerous for a good Jewish boy.

So the Spirit whispers in Peter's ear, “Three guys have come looking for you. Go with them without any reservations.” That sounds pretty cool – a supernatural doorbell with a hidden camera – but also dangerous, no questions, just go. Peter tops off the danger by inviting these gentiles in for a meal.

The next day they all go to Cornelius's house – also dangerous, as Peter points out. Jews aren't supposed to be hanging with Gentiles. That's just not allowed. Peter tells them about Jesus. He tells them about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, and he says, “Everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name” (Acts 10:43).

That's where our passage picks up. Let's read Acts 10:44-48.

What is happening here?

• God is breaking out of the church's religious expectations.

• God is answering their prayers – far more than they expected.

• God is welcoming outsiders. God is opening the doors of the church for all people everywhere.

• God is teaching Peter the gospel just as much as God is teaching Cornelius the gospel.

• God is converting/saving Peter just as much as he is converting/saving Cornelius.

The Holy Spirit is working in amazing ways. Peter and the other Jewish Christians have a choice.

They could hinder the Spirit, put shackles on the Spirit, deny what they see, keep their religious expectations, keep their limited vision of God being only for the Jews, in the Jewish ways, within the Jewish systems.

Instead, they choose to work with the Spirit – even following the Spirit into dangerous new territory. This is truly dangerous! They aren't Jewish. They haven't been circumcised. They aren't committed to eating Jewish style foods. The only thing they have got is God, and Peter says that's enough! Dangerous!

Last week, Megan preached on the Ethiopian eunuch, and she quoted Rob Bell's discussion that Philip's difficult choice. If he followed the clear movement of God in his life, he would have to break a religious rule. Bell says, “This is the tension throughout the early church. What do you do when your religion isn't big enough for God? What do you do when your rules and codes and laws simply aren't enough anymore? What do you do when your system falls apart because the new thing that God is doing is better, beyond, superior, more compelling?”²

I liked that so much, I borrowed the book from her. Bell says lots of good stuff:

• “Everything's changing. … The gospel is leaving its former confines … and it's heading to the ends of the earth. And that means nothing looks like it used to.”³

• “Jesus is inviting them to participate in a reality so liberating and compelling that Jerusalem can't contain it. The disciples can't fathom something that new and transcendent.”⁴

• “Acts is a story of movement, motion, progress. It's people being caught up in something that simply must expand, and stretch, and go. Because no one city, no one religion, no one perspective, no one worldview can contain it.”⁵

What happens when God starts to do what he promised?

What happens when God actually starts to fulfill the vision he has given us?

What happens when gay people and hard drinkers and lots of migrant workers and liberals and fundamentalists and people who don't care much about religion and maybe don't even like church – what happens when they start coming here? What happens when they become members here and make their homes here?

What happens when God fulfills our vision beyond our expectations?

What happens if other churches get angry with us? What happens if people persecute us for our actions or style? What happens if people say a church like this doesn't belong in Korea or in the Church of the Nazarene?

What happens if the religious leaders call us into their offices and question us and argue with us and shout and condemn us because we lift high the cross of Christ and shout world-wide-welcome to all who come?

What happens if people leave because they don't want to be part of this kind of church?

What happens if all of this happens, but we can see undeniably that God is working? What happens if we can see the Holy Spirit working, filling people, saving people, transforming people – filling us, saving us, transforming us?

What will we do then? What will we do? What will you do?

I hope – I pray – that we will do just what Peter did, just what the early church did. We will remain faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ at all costs. We will simply tell what we see God doing and tell how we are trying to follow the Holy Spirit's leading. When we face a choice between our religious rules and the work of the Holy Spirit, I pray that we will choose God every single time, every single time.

I need to get better at this. We all need to get better at this. As God fulfills his promises among us, we will face these choices more and more.

Be ready. This is dangerous! Are you ready to get dangerous?

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1Rob Bell and Don Golden, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, 93.

2Ibid, 101.

3Ibid, 107-8.

4Ibid, 110.

5Ibid, 112-113.