J.C. Ryle

The last several years I have spent a lot of time thinking about growth and change. It seems to me that if what we believe is true about Jesus Christ living inside our lives by the person of his Spirit, there should follow signs or indications of his presence. After all, how could the God of the universe take up residence in my life and something not give or change?!

And yet. What do I see and experience? Am I being stretched by growth pains? Am I really all that different today from who I was two or ten or fifteen or twenty years ago? Has "Christ in you" (me) (Colossians 1:27) radically altered who I am, how I think, what I say, where I go, how I spend my time and money, or what I live for? And yet.

Transformation of our lives is to be the norm for Christ-followers - "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son" (Romans 8:29); "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18); and "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). Conformed, transformed, formed all point to the same spiritual reality - there is to be less of Tim and more of Christ in my life as time goes on.

The painstakingly slow process of spiritual growth can be discouraging. Recently I was reminded of a theological truth that provided encouragement. I was reading J.C. Ryle's classic book on Holiness written in 1877. In a section of how justification and sanctification differ Ryle writes, "Justification is a finished and complete work, and a man is perfectly justified the moment he believes. Sanctification is an imperfect work, comparatively, and will never be perfected until we reach heaven. Justification admits of no growth or increase: a man is as much justified the hour he first comes to Christ by faith as he will be to all eternity. Sanctification is eminently a progressive work, and admits of continual growth and enlargement so long as a man lives." Ryle wants us to realize that justification is instant but sanctification is gradual.

Ryle again, "Let us not expect too much from our own hearts here below. At our best we shall find in ourselves daily cause for humiliation, and discover that we are needy debtors to mercy and grace every hour. The more light we have, the more we shall see our own imperfection. Sinners we were when we began, sinner we shall find ourselves as we go on; renewed, pardoned, justified - yet sinners to the very last. Our absolute perfection is yet to come, and the expectation of it is on reason why we should long for heaven."

Don't mistake Ryle as someone who is soft on sin. He takes sanctification just as seriously as he takes justification. He works hard not to confuse the two. And all through Holiness he persistently fixes our attention upon Jesus, "The Lord Jesus has undertaken everything that His people's souls require; not only to deliver them from the guilt of their sins by His atoning death, but from the dominion of their sins, by placing in their hearts the Holy Spirit; not only to justify them , but also to sanctify them."

I am thankful for these good words from J.C. Ryle!

25 Years - early memories

Being asked by a Board member during my interview what I thought about "picture shows" (movies)? The implication being I shouldn't think anything but bad about them and not encourage people from the church to attend movies.

Telling Heather that even though I had accepted the church's offer to become their Senior Pastor I had no idea what they were going to pay me. Salary never came up in any of our discussions and I didn't think it was right for me to bring it up.

Feeling really young since just about every adult in the church was older than me and wondering how I was going to lead and pastor people who had me beat in years, experience, and wisdom.

Being told in the first few weeks by two elders that even though they thought highly of me they did not vote for my coming because they thought I was too young and couldn't do the job.

Driving up to Willamette Falls Hospital on my first day on the job to visit an elderly man from the church, walking into his room, and being told by his wife who was standing over him that he had died just a few minutes earlier. I did my first funeral before I preached my first sermon.

Sitting at my desk in my office trying to figure out how to schedule my time, set my priorities, work by a list of goals, and find out from God what I was supposed to preach on as I got started.

Choosing the book, Well-Intentioned Dragons, to read with my elders in hopes of setting the expectations by which we would serve together (Amazon.com gives this description of the book -

"Every church has them - sincere, well-meaning Christians who leave ulcers, strained relationships, and hard feelings in their wake. They don't intend to be difficult; they don't consciously plot destruction or breed discontent among the members. But they often do undermine the ministry of the church and make pastors question their calling. Based on real-life stories of battle-scarred veterans, Marshall Shelley presents a clear picture of God's love for those on both sides of the problem. He describes tested strategies to communicate that love and turn dissidents into disciples."

Setting a first-year goal of visiting every family in their home for the purpose of interviewing them regarding their feelings about the church and assuring them of my love and hope for the future.

Encountering more hurt and wounded people than I expected to find, quickly realizing my limitations, and learning to pray out of desperation, fear, and longing.

Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 - March 22, 1758) has been called America's greatest theologian and most influential thinker. During his life time he worked as a parish pastor, missionary, and college teacher. He published many books and works which have never gone out of print and are widely read today.

One of my goals this summer is to both read about Jonathan Edwards and read him. A couple of months ago I read Jonathan Edwards And The Ministry Of The Word: A Model of Faith and Thought by Douglas A. Sweeney who has published a number of works on Edwards and knows his subject well.

This morning I started reading Jonathan Edwards on Beauty edited by Owen Strachan and Douglas Sweeney from The Essential Edwards Collection published by Moody Publishers. The book has five chapters on the beauty of God, Creation, Christ, the Church, and the Trinitarian Afterlife.

Edwards identified seven attributes that demonstrate God's beauty - eternality and self-existence, greatness, loveliness, power, wisdom, holiness, and goodness.

I was struck by something Edwards wrote about God's goodness, "God delights in the welfare and prosperity of his creatures; he delights in the making of them exceeding happy and blessed, if they will but accept of the happiness which he offers." Edwards asserted of God's goodness, "this is goodness that never was, never will, never can be paralleled by any other beings." When kings give good things to their subjects, "they do but give that which the Almighty before gave to them."

According to Edwards God's greatest gift of goodness is seen in the giving and self-sacrifice of his Son for the sin of the world. "There never was such an instance of goodness, mercy, pity, and compassion since the world began; all the mercy and goodness amongst creatures fall infinitely short of this."

It is plain to see that I am going to feast on Edwards over the next several days. He is God-centered in a manner in which few of us are today.

The Pursuit of God

In 1948 A. W. Tozer wrote The Pursuit of God. I was given the book shortly after I became a Christ-follower in 1974. I read it soon after. And I have read it many, many times since. Next to the Bible, I have read The Pursuit of God more than any other book in my library. Right now I am on another Pursuit reading binge. I read the book in May and I continue to pick it up in June to re-read highlighted passages. Unlike any other book, Pursuit draws me in every time I pick it up. Though I am familiar with its content it always seems new when I go back to it.

One chapter that has grabbed my attention of late is "The Universal Presence." Here are a few favorite quotes:

"What now does the divine immanence mean in direct Christian experience? It means simply that God is here. Wherever we are, God is here. There is no place, there can be no place, where he is not. No one is in mere distance any further from or any nearer to God than any other person is. (p. 62)

"The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of His Presence. His manifest

only when and as we are aware of His Presence. (p. 64)

"The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms

at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter of miles but of experience. (p. 65)

"I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they (those in history who knew God

intimately) had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something urged them Godward. They had spiritual awareness and they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response." (p. 67)

Lord Christ, I pray for spiritual receptivity. I want to be open to heaven. I desire to live with a Godward look. Increase my spiritual awareness. Show me how to cultivate this. Grant me the lifelong habit of spiritual response. In Jesus name, Amen.

Admiration of the Godhead

"Some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead. So let us begin with God. Back of all, above all, before all is God: first in sequential order, above in rank and station, exalted in dignity and honor. As the self-existent One He gave being to all things, and all things exist out of Him and for Him.

'Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou has created all

things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.'

Every soul belongs to God and exists by His pleasure. God being Who and What He is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and complete submission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less."

(A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, p. 101-02)

The words of others

Rather than write something myself I want to share some favorite words of others with you in this post. These are quotes I have come across in my reading over the past several weeks. I will let them stand on their own:

C. S. Lewis
“For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”

C. H. Spurgeon

The minister who does not earnestly pray over his work must surely be a vain and conceited man. He acts as if he thought himself sufficient of himself and therefore needed not to appeal to God.

E. H. Peterson

I realized that this was my place and work in the church, to be a witness to the truth that dazzles gradually. I would be a witness to the Holy Spirit's formation of congregation out of this mixed bag of humanity that is my congregation - broken, hobbled, crippled, sexually abused and spiritually abused, emotionally unstable, passive and passive-aggressive, neurotic men and women. Men at fifty who have failed a dozen times and know that they will never amount to anything. Women who have been ignored and scorned and abused in a marriage in which they have been faithful. People living with children and spouses deep in addiction. Also fresh converts excited to be in on this new life. Spirited young people, energetic and eager to be guided into a life of love, compassion, mission and evangelism. A few seasoned saints who know how to pray and listen and endure. And a considerable number of people who pretty much just show up. I wonder why they bother. There they are. The hot, the cold, the lukewarm, Christians, half-Christians, almost Christians. New-agers, angry ex-Catholics, sweet new converts. I didn't choose them. I don't get to choose them.

John Stott

When I enter the pulpit with the Bible in my hands and in my heart, my blood begins to flow and my eyes sparkle for the sheer glory of having God's Word to expound. We need to emphasize the glory, the privilege, of sharing God's truth with people.

Jonathan Edwards

Oftentimes in reading it (the Bible), every word seemed to touch my heart. I felt a harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light, exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing ravishing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading. Used oftentimes to dwell long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders.

Ernest Hemingway

You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another (Jake Barnes to Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises).

George Herbert

He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.

Frederick Buechner

For the first time in my life that year in New York I started going to church regularly. My reason for going was simply that on the same block when I lived there happened to be a church with a preacher I had heard of and that I had nothing all that much better to do with my lonely Sundays. And then there came one particular sermon with on particular phrase in it that does not even appear in a transcript of his words that somebody sent me more than twenty-five years later so I can only assume that he must have dreamed it up a the last minute and ad-libbed it - and on just such foolish, tenuous, holy threads as that, I suppose, hang the destinies of us all. Jesus Christ refused the crown that Satan offered him in the wilderness, Buttrick said, but he is king nonetheless because again and again he is crowned in the heart of the people who believe in him. And that inward coronation takes place, Buttrick said, 'among confession, and tears, and great laughter.' It was the phrase 'great laugher' that did it, did whatever it was that I believe must have been hiddenly in the doing all the years of my journey up till then. It was not so much that a door opened as that I suddenly found a door had been open all along which I had only just then stumbled upon.

Patti Griffin

When you're lost and you're found

And you're found and you're lost

And you're dancing with no one around

You're coming home to me, just remember

You're coming home to me.

This people

The last two and one-half weeks have been pastorally taxing. The biting, gasping reality of cancer. Graveside service for a well-loved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. An extended period of fasting for Holy Week. Humble confession of my past leadership failures to old friends and talk of how that caused them great pain. The sudden, unexpected death of Emma Knopp in a car accident. Two full services to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning. Emma's graveside service followed by her memorial service attended by 750 people, the largest group of people ever to assemble at CAC. Chairing an Administrative Board meeting dominated by our discussion of church finances not keeping up with expenditures for the last five months. Reaching deep into the bottom of the barrel to come up with a message for Sunday morning. Facilitating a group of John Barber's family and friends to remember his death in a motorcycle accident one year ago at the place he died just across the Columbia River from Astoria. And there's more that must be kept confidential in honor of those who have let me into their pain, struggles, and setbacks.

But interspersed with the above were some moments of light, laughter, and fun. Like Hannah coming home from the University of Oregon for the weekend to celebrate Easter. Like going to hear Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller in concert at the Crystal Ballroom. Like enjoying our favorite food at Pho Van's restaurant with four other couples from CAC.

Today was my sabbath day. I try to take Thursday for myself, to do whatever I have to do to bring rest and renewal to my soul, mind, emotions, and body. I got up early and drove into Portland to one of my favorite coffee shops. I read. I journaled. I sat and stared into space. I people-watched. I tired to relax and let go of everything I was carrying. I listened to Patty Griffin blaring out of my car speakers on the drive into Portland and back to Canby. I swam one thousand yards. I ate Pad Thai for lunch. I took a nap. I read a few of my favorite blogs. I ran four miles and listened to an interview on my iPod with a philosopher-theologian-church planter from southern California on the challenges of leading a church in our postmodern culture. I ate dinner and spent some time with my family. It has been a good day and I am thankful to be alive!