I remember as a child forming a personal relationship with the alphabet on letter at a time. I had 26 flashcards, and one by one I’d memorize the name of the letter on each card. ABC formed the simple first triad, DEF the almost as simple second. G was the last letter of my last name, although for some reason it always reminded me of my father. Since the most dynamic and flash characters seemed crowded at the end, I’d work backwards at times from ZY and X – a triad so exotic its members rarely, I was told, appeared in words at all. As a memorization device for each letter presented itself, the seemingly infinite catalog of symbols grew smaller and more manageable, and began to collect meanings, my own invented meanings as well as those apparently shared by the rest of English speaking America.

Over the course of my learning, a pattern emerged. The names of the letters always resembled their sounds as they occurred in a word. The letter T was called T because it made a T sound, as in CAT or HAT. The letters Q and U almost always appeared together and made Q and U sounds as in QUIET and QUIT. But suddenly I encountered the problem of W.

This letter not only defied explanation, but it also presented myriad contradictions. Why was it called W? It made the sound wah, not the sound W. W wasn’t even a sound, it was a description of the way the letter looked. If we were going to call this one W, why not call it instead double v? Why not call it M upside down? For that matter why not call X two crossed lines, or O circle? W contradicted the pattern. Furthermore, it was the only letter which contradicted the pattern. Thus I found it impossible to remember.

As I stared at the flashcard W. I knew that a problem had arisen for which logic and reason provided no solution. Three choices presented themselves. I could rename W in an attempt to bring it more in line with the other letters. This was the pedantic option. I could initiate a lifelong boycott of W, and all words containing it, to protest the inconsistency. This was the rebellious option.

The third choice was the most practical, but also the most frightening. I could accept W, and change myself. I could alter my notion of the alphabet. After all, what value in there in relentless consistency. Isn’t the alphabet more interesting with one letter that refuses to conform to the pattern of the other 25? I could go on building words, and one day even sentences and paragraphs, using W as though it were just another letter, but all the time remembering its difference. An unfolding took place inside my body. I knew then the third choice was the road that lay ahead for me, and also I had some inkling of its consequences. I must become W.

Grace doesn’t fit the pattern. Never has, never will. I had to lead a bible study last night about grace, focusing on Ephesians 2:8 and 9. I’ve done this bible study dozens of times, but last night, let’s just say it bombed. To be honest, understanding, receiving, and living out of grace is a challenge. Nothing in the world is like it. It’s just like the letter W. As I think about grace, a problem arises for which logic and reason provided no solution. Three choices presents themselves. I can change the qualities of grace in an attempt to bring it more in line with other ways of life – a quasi blend of wage grace. This is the pedantic option. I can initiate a lifelong boycott of grace, to protest the inconsistency. This is the rebellious option.

The third choice is the most practical, but also the most frightening. I could accept grace, and change myself. I would alter my notion of God and the universe. I pray that you would accept grace, that an unfolding would take place inside your body. The third choice is the road that lays ahead of you, and you must understand the consequences of this option. Epic must become grace.

As a Christian, sometimes the realities of the fallen world are lost in the distractions of this life. As Epic at Davis is going through evangelism training it is encouraging to see students take action toward learning to share their faith. The training is helpful, but it isn’t enough. A heart for the lost must also be cultivated so we aren’t just sharing our faith out of duty, but out of the truth and out of joy in that truth.

So why is it important then to grieve for the lost. It is not something that we should do or have to do. I can’t tell you that you need to grieve for the lost. Grieving occurs as a  response to recognizing the reality that we are living in. Here’s the thing, we grieve for the lost, but we do not pity them. For no one pities one who has died. We grieve for those that died. So it is with the lost, for the lost are dead in their transgressions. We grieve for those we love when they have died; death is understood as a point in time and grieving is a process from that point onward. Over time the process of grieving takes us to a point of acceptance of the current reality.

For us to grieve for the lost is not enough. For the lost who are dead in their transgressions can be reconciled to life through Christ. So our response to those that are dead in their transgression is never pity, not merely grief, but action and intention to share the Gospel which can bring life.

So as we learn to share our faith, take a moment to reflect on what the truth is in regards to spiritual life and death. A couple questions.

1.Why does God grieve?

2.What is the reason for Paul’s anguish and sorrow?

Romans 9:1-5

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Mike

It seemed that almost everyone had expectations, or a false self, to impose on Jesus’ life. In living faithfully to his true self, he disappointed a lot of people. Jesus was secure in his Father’s love, in himself, and thus was able to withstand enormous pressure. He left his family of origin and their expectations of a carpenter’s son and became an innerdirected, separate adult. As a result, he disappointed his family. At on point, his mother and siblings wondered if he was out of his mind (Mark 3).
He disappointed the people he grew up with in Nazareth. When Jesus declared who he really was as the Messiah, they tried to push him off a cliff (Luke 4). He remained self assured in his beliefs, regardless of the outrage of the crowds in his hometown.
He disappointed his closest friends, the twelve disciples. They projected onto Jesus their own picture of the kind of Messiah Jesus was to be. This did not include a shameful end to his life. They quit on him. Judas, one of his closest friends, “stabbed him in the back” for being true to himself. But even though they misunderstood him, Jesus never held it against them.
Jesus listened without reacting. He communicated without antagonizing. Yet he deeply disappointed the crowds. They wanted an earthly Messiah who would feed them, fix all their problems, overthrow the Roman oppressors, work miracles, and give inspiring sermons. Somehow Christ was able to serve and love them, again, without holding it against them.
He disappointed the religious leaders. They did not appreciate the disruption his presence brought to their day to day lives or to their theology. They finally attributed his power to demons. Nonetheless, Jesus was able to maintain an non-anxious presence in the midst of great stress.
Jesus was not selfless. He did not live as if only other people counted. He knew his value and worth. He had friends. He asked people to help him. At the same time Jesus was not selfish. He did not live as if nobody else counted. He gave his life out of love for others. From a place of loving union with his Father, Jesus had a mature, healthy “true self.” This love from God the Father, I believe, was the power that allowed Christ to suffer and die to show the wealth of God’s love and grave for sinners.
The measure of God’s love for us is shown by two things. One is the degree of his sacrifice in saving us from the penalty of our sin. The other is the degree of unworthy that we had when he saved us.
We can hear the measure of his sacrifice in the words, “He gave his only son” (John 3:16). We also hear it in the word Christ. This is a name based on the Greek title Christos, or “Anointed One,” or “Messiah.” It is a term of great dignity. The Messiah was to be the King of Israel. He would conquer the Romans and bring peace and security to Israel. Thus the person whom God sent to save sinners was his own divine Son, his only Son, and the Anointed King of Israel – indeed the king of the world. A person of amazing worth.
When we add to this consideration the horrific death by crucifixion that Christ endured, it becomes clear that the sacrifice the Father and the Son made was indescribably great – even infinite, when you consider the distance between the divine and the human. But God chose to make this sacrifice to save us.
The measure of his love for us increases still more when we consider our unworthiness. “Perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” Romans 5. We deserved divine punishment, not divine sacrifice.
I though about it at our last retreat of solitude. God didn’t die for ducks. He responded to our value as humans. This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than ducks. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for ducks. They aren’t bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.
There is only one explanation for God’s sacrifice for us. It is not us. It is “the riches of his grace”. It is all free. It is not a response to our performance and worth. It is the overflow of his infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall undeserving sinners, at great cost, with what will make us supremely happy forever, namely, his infinite beauty.
So this is my message: to your face, you are not what you do, you are not what you own, you are not what others think. You are loved by God. That is your identity.

For the Christian, there is suffering. For the non-Christian there is suffering as well. Our beliefs (or unbelief) cannot change the fact that there is pain and suffering in this world. But what of our God? If God is all good and all powerful, like I as a Christian believe, then why is there suffering and pain in the world?

This is a question that many atheists pose and often use as the reason for their philosophy in life. At first glance it proves that the Christian God is not real because since there is pain, God cannot be both all good and all powerful. The atheist would claim that since there is pain, then God shows he is either not good, or not able, thus disproving the Christian God’s existence. It is also a question that many Christians pose that can cause doubt in who their God is because of the same reasons that many atheists will point to. It is a great question to delve into because it is a legitimate one but it is also one that has been given a more than satisfactory answer to. Even though an answer is given, it still is difficult to wrap our minds around it. At the same time, when we are experiencing pain and suffering, the last thing we want to hear is an expository on why our good God allows pain and suffering.

If you are currently experiencing pain (and to some extent we all are), this will not provide the comfort that you are looking for; but hopefully it will help us all better understand the God of the universe and His purposes. Anyways, lets jump right in. C.S. Lewis in his book “The Problem of Pain” does a wonderful job breaking things down. Here is an excerpt from his book that gives a great set up to understanding the existence of suffering,

“In the fallen and partially redeemed universe we may distinguish (1) the simple good descending from God, (2) the simple evil produced by rebellious creatures, and (3) the exploitation of that evil by God for His redemptive purpose, which produces (4) the complex good to which accepted suffering and repented sin contribute. […] A merciful man aims at his neighbor’s good as so does ‘God’s’ will, consciously co-operating with ‘the simple good’. A cruel man oppresses his neighbor and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil he is used by God, without his knowledge or consent, to produce the complex good — so that the first man serves God as a son, and the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God’s purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John”

Looking at this excerpt we must understand that God is sovereign (in control). He is able to use things that are both good and evil for his purposes. The simple good that is descended from God includes mans ability to choose. We were given the choice to obey God or not to obey God. Looking at our world today mankind has chosen to disobey God.  The choice that God gives us is intrinsically good; however, because we are given that choice, we as man have rebelled against God and as a result produced evil.

Now the evil itself is not the pain and suffering. The pain and suffering is a result of the consequences of evil. But God, has put himself into the center of that suffering in order to redeem man but man must choose to be redeemed or else he continues doing evil. The savior is there because God knows the extent of our suffering, and the horrific nature of our evil and how we are enslaved to it, his goodness is why Jesus is here. Jesus himself suffered for our sake. He took on the wrath of God so we could be reclaimed by God as righteous. God uses both evil and suffering in order to carry out his goodness with his perfect wisdom.

God’s wisdom is the last thing I want to touch on. We as humans have finite wisdom. God’s wisdom is infinite. He knows everything and it is all at the forefront of his mind. Many of the things God understands are things that we do not. I think a full understanding of goodness and evil is included in that. I heard a great quote recently from a woman named Rachel Barkey who was dying from cancer. As she was speaking to a congregation she said “God allows in his wisdom what he could easily prevent with his power.” God is powerful enough to rid the world of suffering and pain. Instead God has chosen to use suffering and pain to bring more people to a relationship with himself and that is the greatest good.

Mike

Excerpt from C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain. 1940

Rachel Barkey quote is from her speech entitled “death is not dying”. It can be found here http://deathisnotdying.com/.

Last Thursday’s talk (or even the last two Thursdays) was about God’s unconditional love and acceptance podcast now!). Accepting and experiencing this unconditional love and acceptance is often times one of the hardest things to do because of the world we live in.

In this world, everyone tells us that we need to be a certain kind of person in order to be worthy of love; whether that means getting the grades, the job, the degree. Or, it can be dressing a certain way, listening to certains kinds of music, having “popular” interests,  or anything we do in order to “fit in” and feel accepted (high school, anyone?). When I started walking with Christ, the need to be loved and accepted from the Christians around me would manifest itself as I started to read a lot, listen to a lot of sermons, etc. These things in themselves aren’t bad things, as they were meant for good! But if I were to be honest, a closer look revealed that although I wanted to experience more of Jesus in my life, my heart and motives were tainted by using these things as a means to impress people… and thus earn their love and acceptance. I still struggle with this!

And here is the paradox of the Christian life: as long as we keep striving to earn love/acceptance/approval from others, we fail to experience the love/acceptance/approval that comes from God through the cross of Jesus Christ… and it’s out of this experience that we can truly love others and serve (see 1 Jn 4:16-19, Lk 7:36-50).

So, as promised, here are some resources I’ve found to help all of us do some heart-work with the Lord to accept and experience his unconditional love and acceptance:

UPDATED: I keep finding things from John Piper this time around. An excerpt from a sermon in 1999 on why faith (trust) glorifies God:
Illustration for Children: Why Faith Glorifies God

 

An Article by John Piper:
How is God’s Love Experienced in the Heart?

 

A collection of articles on the love of God, looking at this at all sorts of perspectives:
Discovering that You Thrill the Heart of God!

 

A letter accounting a pastor’s struggle to experience God’s love (everyone struggles):
Are You Struggling to Experience God’s Love?

 

A study into the book of Romans so that we can be sure of God’s love:
Romans 5:5-11 – How To Be Sure of God’s Love

 

A practical group exercise that may seem interesting:
“Back Graffiti”

 

Probably the best book I could recommend on learning to experience God’s love is Desiring God. It’s no easy read, but it’s worth it! John Piper dives into how God is most glorified NOT when you serve Him, but when you most enjoy Him… you glorify God the most by experiencing the love He has for you!
Piper’s theme for the entire book is:

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
Desiring God can be read for FREE online here.
If you’d rather have the physical book, you should be able to find it at most bookstores, but the cheapest place I found it was here.

 

 

And here’s a song, just because it’s been in my head for a few days now and it’s wildly appropriate:

In case you missed it or just want to hear it again, here’s Howard Wong’s Testimony that he gave last Thursday in Large Group! Thanks for sharing, Howard!

If you’re reading this from Facebook or from a Feedreader, click here to go to the testimony.

Howard’s Testimony

by Jonathan Dodson

Over the past three decades, I have failed in countless ways in being a disciple of Jesus, in obeying and honoring Him as my Redeemer and Lord.

I’ve wandered the wasteland of religion in an attempt to earn the un-earnable favor of God. I’ve chased the pleasures of the world, in an attempt to satisfy my infinite longings with finite things. And neither the legalistic rules of religion nor license from rules in worldly living have satisfied.

These twists and turns on my discipleship path have not honored Christ. Yet, despite my failures, year after year, the desire to honor and obey Christ has not withered. In fact, it’s grown even amidst failure.

“Sharing Your Faith”

Along the way, I’ve come to understand that following Jesus alone is not really what it means to be a disciple. Both the church and the parachurch taught me that being a disciple means making disciples. I was told that this meant two primary things. First, I should be active in “sharing my faith.” Second, I should find Christians who are younger in the faith to tell and show what it means to be older in the faith.

It took me quite a while to realize that this practice of making disciples was incomplete. Making disciples requires not only “sharing my faith,” but also sharing my life — failures and successes, disobedience and obedience.

Making disciples is not code for evangelism, nor is it a spiritual system whereby professional Christians pass on best practices to novice Christians.

Professional Disciples vs. Novice Disciples

But I preferred only to disclose my successes, to pass on my accumulated wisdom and knowledge, while hiding my foolishness and ignorance. It’s not that I wasn’t making disciples; people gobbled up my platitudes and piety. The problem was the kind of disciples I was making, disciples who could share their faith but not their failures.

Why did I embrace this kind of discipleship? Should blame be laid at the feet of the church or parachurch? Not really. It was my fault. My motivation for obeying Jesus (in this case, making disciples), had shifted from attempting to earn God’s favor, to earning the favor of my disciples. “Disciple” had become a way to leverage my identity and worth in relationship with others. As the dispenser of wisdom and truth, I was comfortably placed on a pedestal. The more disciples I made, the better I felt about myself. My motivation for discipleship was to receive praise, worth, significance.

I was a disciple lacking authenticity and community, motivated by a mixture of genuine love and lust for praise.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of good intentions and a lot of good fruit from these relationships, but in a sense, I was still following Jesus alone. The professional/novice relationship created a comfortable distance, not only from admitting my failures but also from genuine community. I stood at the top of the stairs of discipleship, instead of sitting in the living room with fellow disciples. I put the best foot forward and hid the ugly one behind me.

Disciple had become more of a verb than a noun. Less about a community centered on Christ and more about an activity centered on what I know.

The Gospel is for Disciples Not Just Sinners

Fortunately, Jesus is big enough for my misunderstanding of what it means to follow Him. As I continued to “disciple” and read the Bible, I was struck by the fact that the disciples of Jesus were always attached to other disciples, that they lived in community. This community was authentic.

They confessed their sins and struggles alongside their successes. But they also seemed to continually come back to Jesus, not merely as their example, but also as their identity, their entire sense of self.

The New Testament is filled with exhortations to keep Christ at the center of our discipleship, not only for instruction but also for transformation. I began to realize that Jesus is not merely the start and standard for salvation, but that He is the beginning, middle, and end of my salvation. He is my salvation, not just when I was 6, but every second of every day.

Contrary to the unforgiving demands of religion, Jesus forgives us when we fail. He doesn’t kick us when we are down, but dies to lift us up. Unlike the deception of worldly pleasure, Jesus offers true satisfaction and joy. Instead of wooing me into death, He leads me into life, His resurrection life.

It slowly became apparent to me that the gospel of Christ was where I was meant to find my identity, not in impressing God or others. Refusing to share my life with others, especially my failures, was a refusal to allow the gospel of Christ to accomplish its full breadth of redemption in my life.

Very simply, God was leading me into a kind of discipleship with the gospel at the center, a constant, gracious repetition of repentance and faith in Jesus, who is sufficient for my failures and strong for my successes.

Jesus frees me from trying to impress God or others because He has impressed God on my behalf. I can tell people my sins because my identity doesn’t hang on what they think of me. I can be an imperfect Christian because I cling to a perfect Christ. As it turns out, the gospel is not just for sinners; it’s also for disciples, disciples who sin.

Discipleship with Jesus in the Center

This kind of discipleship is, in the end, not about what I do but who I am — an imperfect person, clinging to a perfect Christ, being perfected by grace.

And in this I am not alone. I am one disciple among many. I no longer stand at the top of the stairs but sit in the living room, where we share our faith and our un-faith, our obedience and disobedience, our success and our failure.

With Jesus at the center, we can encourage one another to persevere in faith, to endure in suffering, to increase in love, to multiply in mission, bypassing the professional/novice distinctions. With Jesus at the center, we can obey from our acceptance not for our acceptance. With Jesus at the center, we can be the church to one another and to the world, without bearing the burden of perfection, a burden reserved for the Spirit, who through grace, makes us more and more like Christ.

With Jesus at the center of discipleship, I immediately enter into grace and into community. Where making disciples flows from being a disciple.

Jesus doesn’t reject me when I fail, and His constant acceptance frees me to succeed in following Him. And that moves me into hopeful confession: both of my sin and in my Savior.

Copyright 2009 Jonathan Dodson. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. This article was published on Boundless.org on June 25, 2009.

I thought this would be a good article to share to help us gain perspective on what discipleship is. As I am learning more about it, I am seeing that it is a communal thing. A couple questions to ponder,

Is our view of discipleship consistent with Jesus’ discipleship? What needs to change?

How can the community in Epic, and among believers here in Davis help foster discipleship that is true to how Jesus did discipleship?

Mike

We’re trying something new! I had the chance to interview John Sun over webcam, who recently graduated from UC Davis. John was involved with Epic during his four years in college.

I asked him to share a little bit about his experience and what God has done in his life and what God is bringing him to now! If you’re viewing this on Facebook or from a FeedReader, click here in order to see the video interview.

The interview ran a little long! Hopefully future ones won’t be as long, but it was great hearing from John Sun! I also noticed that my volume is a lot quieter than his. I’ll get this right next time, sorry about that. John says he misses all of you

In the book UnChristian, the author David Kinnaman quotes an outsider who described Christians in this way, “Most people I meet assume that Christian means very conservative, entrenched in their thinking, anti-gay, anti-choice, angry, violent, illogical, empire builders; they want to convert everyone, and they generally cannot live peacefully with anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe.”

My friend Chris Tan who was involved in Epic a few years back gave a memorable talk where he mentioned that most people understand Christianity from the viewpoint of the media. He explained how the primary exposure of many teenagers to Christ comes from shows like Southpark. Kids will here Cartman screaming “Eff Christ” and that’s that.

The way the world views Christianity is deeply skewed and oftentimes absurd. However, it has been very encouraging to see how Epic students have embraced our savior and are growing in stature as a result. It has been a blessing to see students understanding of Christianity shift towards truth.

There is still much work to be done though. To share the good news in our modern times is not just a one way message. We also have to combat the worldviews that have disparaged Christianity. We have to meet people where they are at and have a decent understanding of how they got there. Then we can start to build trust by loving them and representing true Christianity to them.

Let me pose a couple of questions.

What would be the first thing you would want to communicate if you were talking to someone about your faith?

How would you communicate such a thing amidst the preconceived notions about Christianity from the world?

Philemon 6, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.

Mike Aalseth

Beneath the surface,
in the shadows I hide.
Afraid of what I become,
when I walk in the light.
I only show the parts of me,
that appear to be clean,
but you desire for,
my all to be redeemed.

I am so afraid of my decay.
I am sick and tired of running away
I cannot stay in hiding
and fake who I am
Will you recognize my face?
Will you accept my meek embrace?

As I learn more about myself, and about the God who created this place in which we dwell, I am struck by how often I try to hide certain parts of me. I am constantly upholding an image of myself that doesn’t match up to who I truly am. The truth, I’m a beggar, in desperate need of a savior. Finding that savior was the sweetest moment of my life.

The two questions posed in this poem here is towards the body of believers. If I walked into your home as a beggar, would you recognize me, and would you accept me as I am?

Mike