He Gives and Takes Away: In Memory of a Friend, Father, and Missionary

I woke this morning to the news a friend of mine, his wife, and their three children died in car accident last night. They were travelling as a family to their final training before departing to be full-time missionaries in Japan. Just short of nine years ago Jamison was a groomsman in my wedding. This week Emily and I will celebrate our anniversary, but we will do so with heavy hearts. Jamison was a dear friend of mine, and more importantly a co-laborer in the kingdom of God. I have many fond memories of him, and a lot of grief at this unexpected news. I must admit, I don’t know what to think, let alone what to write in the face of such a devastating loss. My grief though cannot be compared with the sorrow of the family impacted by this tragic loss.

I am not sure why I am even writing this, probably because writing helps me to process what is going on, and I have a lot to process today. I met Jamison freshman year at Northwestern, he had known my wife Emily in high school, and in a short time we became good friends. I remember the hours we spent playing football, basketball, and volley ball and just hanging out and growing in our faith that first year.

Today many of the conversations we had are running through my mind as I think of Jamison and what made him the man he was. He was a man of God. He cared for people and he loved God. Jamison was a true friend who helped me through a difficult time in my life and who helped to shape me into the man I am today. What I remember mostly is his passion for God and his deep belief in God’s sovereignty. One night junior year, Jamison and I had a discussion about Calvinism. Jamison was explaining to me why Calvinism was true and how his class with Dr. Helseth had shaped his thinking on this topic.  My response was typical; in my obstinate tendencies I explained why Calvinism didn’t make any sense at all. God does have a sense of humor as it wasn’t long before I admitted my errors and adopted Calvinism (also after having a class with Dr. Helseth). Jamison was shaped by this view of God, his sovereignty, and that true joy could be found in the gospel alone. That is what motivated Jamison to be a missionary, a friend, a father, and a godly man.  

It was this trust in the sovereignty of God that led him to desire to be a missionary in Japan. He wanted to dedicate his life in service to God. He had a passion to bring glory to God by living in dependence on God’s sovereignty. That was who Jamison was. Last year, we sat down and talked about his upcoming ministry and what stood out to me was his dedication to sacrifice what he knew and loved here in America in order to follow God’s call for his life to Japan. He wanted others to know the God he knew.

Jamison and Katheryne trusted in the sovereignty of God.  They lived that out without regret. They died in service to God’s kingdom and I do not believe they would change a thing if given a chance.

Picture from Jamison's blog

It is at times like this that we who are left behind start to question God’s goodness and his sovereignty. Why now Lord? Why on the eve of seeing all that his family worked and sacrificed for to serve you that you would take them? It simply doesn’t make any sense to me at all.  I have no capacity to get my head around it today. This though is not what Jamison would want for me or for us. He would look at me and remind me that God is good and that he is sovereign, even when this sovereignty is bittersweet and makes no earthly sense.  

Here are some thoughts on what I believe Jamison would want from us this day:

• Jamison would not want us to question God’s goodness and his sovereignty. In the face of this suffering, he would remind us to trust in who God is even more. To draw near to God when we don’t understand why this is all happening. He would want us to turn to God in faith and trust especially when it’s difficult. He would encourage us to continue to praise God for who he is. 
• He would want this tragedy to somehow and some way further God’s kingdom. Jamison and Katheryne dedicated their lives to bringing God glory and to expanding his kingdom through reaching the lost. As they are now in God’s presence, that desire has surely only increased. They would want us to share the gospel knowing it is the only hope for a world full of tragedies. They would want someone else to pick up where they left off by bringing the good news to Japan.
• Finally, Jamison would remind us there is no balm and no healing for tragedies like this found in the world apart from the gospel. What comfort and what hope is there offered in secularism in the face of such an unthinkable tragedy? None. There is only trite sayings and an avoidance of the all-consuming nature of death. Yet in light of God’s sovereignty and the gospel of Jesus Christ, we may mourn, but we do not mourn without hope.  In the cross of Christ death has been overcome and a new creation is coming where there will no longer be such tragedies. The Pals family is with the sovereign Lord who they love and they are now at peace. There is hope alone in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jamison, Katheryne, Ezra, Violet, and Calvin have entered that rest which is promised to God’s people. It is days like today that I long for that rest to come to this earth with a renewed vigor. Come Lord Jesus, quickly! The Lord truly does give and take away, but his name remains blessed.  God remains sovereign, and in the cross even this terrible tragedy is overcome by the blood of the Lamb. That is our anchor in times like these.

“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul”

Maranatha!

Levi Secord

The Tyranny of Feelings

Feelings are not inherently good or evil. They are not inherently true or incorrect. They can be any of those.  Sometimes Christians get a bad reputation for being against feeling anything. While that generalization is not accurate, it may appear that way to the world because Christians are not to become slaves to our feelings, or to the feelings of others.

In our relativistic culture, personal feelings have become the ultimate truth or reality. If someone feels a certain thing, then it is true to them and is to be encouraged, unchallenged,  and that is all that really matters. This is how our world operates. Christians rightly refuse to bend the knee to the cultural obsession with feelings. This  causes us to appear stoic to a world obsessed with feelings. 

Why is this important? Our culture has rejected absolute truth as the standard to live by. Despite our culture’s claim of not having an ultimate standard, it in fact does. When you remove one standard something has to fill the void. Since everything has become hyper-personalized and truth matters not, the feelings of individuals have supplanted truth. Feelings are absolute. They are not to be questioned. They must be accepted and listened to, even if they have no basis in reality or truth. The problem with the rise of feelings to prominence is that our feelings are a terrible taskmaster who rules with an iron fist.

Sadly, our culture is experiencing this tyranny everywhere we look. We have safe places on campuses where students are free from all “threatening ideas” so that they feel however they want. We see the feelings of an immoral and perverse culture played out in our national media, entertainment, and politics constantly. In no uncertain terms American culture is reaping what it has sowed when it bent the knee to personal feelings as the ultimate standard.

As I look out at this culture one other thing becomes painfully clear—all this emphasis on our feelings has left us not feeling very good at all. Feelings are not ultimate; they can be and often are wrong. If I feel that I can fly like superman that does not make it so. Christians are not to be driven by feelings alone, rather our feelings must be shaped by the truth.

The Problem of Inaccurate Feelings

In Christian ministry, whether preaching or counseling, I am constantly faced with helping people shape their feelings so that they align with the truth rather than allowing their feelings to tell them what is true. This is a monumental task in our current culture.

Just a few weeks ago a man came into my office convinced that the Holy Spirit had abandoned him. When I asked him how he knew this, he replied, “I Just know it. I can feel it.” I empathized with his predicament, but I did not stop there. I walked him through Scripture (truth) where it is rather clear that when you are “sealed” by the Holy Spirit that you are indeed sealed forever. No matter how much truth I gave the man from Scripture, he would not turn away from his incorrect feelings. For him, feelings were ultimate, not truth, and not Scripture.

This line of reasoning, the unquestionableness of feelings, is the false gospel of our culture.  To even suggest that someone's feelings can be incorrect is modern-day cultural blasphemy. How often does the phrase, “I feel like God wants me to be happy,” or something similar get thrown out as a trump card in modern evangelicalism? The problem is we have absorbed so much of our culture that we do not even recognize that we have allowed this false gospel impact the way we think, live, and feel.

One of the major problems I face in my own life is that I am tempted to feel something which is rooted in a lie. Sometimes my feelings are deceptive. My feelings are also constantly changing, God’s truth doesn’t. And if I embrace these deceptions then I am need of repentance because I have sinned. I do not have the right to feel whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want. To do this is idolatry at the altar of the self. There is no enlightenment or salvation found in how I feel. But Scripture reminds us that the truth will set us free.

This is important to remember, you do not have the right to feel however you want. Such thinking not only ignores the gospel but it is anti-gospel. This is a major battleground of growing in personal godliness. You will not grow to be more like Christ by chasing your feelings, but changing them to align with the truth of Scripture.

Our culture tells us to “follow our heart” to our own destruction. Our culture tells us we need “safe places” to feel whatever we want. Our culture tells us feelings are ultimate. But the gospel says repent. The gospel says your heart is treacherous. The gospel says the truth will set you free. The gospel says we are to renew our minds with the truth. The gospel says we are to put off the old self and to put on the new. We need more  gospel and less "safe places."

The Cancer Spreads to the Church

There has been discussion lately about the church being a safe place for people to feel without being confronted with arguments or truth. While we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we must not adopt the attitude and reasoning of the world. Feelings are not inherently bad, but they must align themselves with the truth.  While it is true there is a time for silence and a time for weeping with those who weep, none of this should be done out of a respect for the unalienable right to feel whatever you want. That is not the gospel. We must not make arguments that appear to protect our culture's idolatry to feelings by labeling the church a "safe place to feel" without any consideration for the truth.

The church is not a safe place to feel whatever you want. While the church should be a place where you can express your feelings, but you should be doing so in order to examine your own heart. We are called to repentance and this includes repenting of incorrect feelings. God’s Word, the gospel, is sharper than any sword and it should cut us to the heart, including our feelings. This means the church is not a place where we can emote whatever we want while neglecting reality and the gospel.

When I bend the knee to my feelings alone this leads me to wandering away from God and toward sin. But when God’s truth shapes my feelings, then I draw near to him. If the church adopts a list of feelings from the world which are not able to be questioned, if we transform the church into a “safe place” where feelings reign supreme, then we forfeit the gospel. If we do this, then we are bending our knees to the false gods of this world instead of God of the universe.

The Irony of it All

This is where things get a little crazy. Our culture which rejects absolutes, which rejects morality, is constantly telling us how we should feel about the latest event or tragedy. They claim no absolutes exist and then when something happens which offends their (im)moral standard they demand that everyone feel as they do! If you do not feel as they do, then your feelings are incorrect and must change, otherwise you fall short of their (un)holy code. And so the feelings of the (un)holy majority take their place as dictator on the throne demanding that there be no challenge to its reign! Our cultural feelings will suffer no rival. So our culture which claims no absolute morality ironically has a very strict (im)moral code.

The problem is too often Christians line-up to show the world they can feel exactly the same things in pretty much the same way as the world does. If there is something which should cause us to not feel very good, it is the eagerness many Christians possess to appear righteous  according to the unrighteous standards of our society.

Christians must remember that feelings alone are a terrible tyrant which will never be satisfied. Feelings without the truth of the gospel will be controlled by our sinful desires. We must remember that we cannot serve two masters;  the truth is important and it must inform how we feel.

Christians are only to bend the knee to Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. And his call is for us to renew our minds, to repent of incorrect feelings, and to follow him no matter the cost. If we find our identity in Christ, and not the tribes of this world, our feelings will look a lot different than the abject tyranny our culture tries to pass off as freedom.

No, the church is not a safe place to feel whatever you want. It is not a place where feelings reign supreme. But the church is the only place to find true peace and true rest in the light of the truth of God’s gospel. In his kingdom feelings take their proper place and form. That truth is the foundation for how Christians should not only feel, but also how we think, act, live, and love.  

How Jesus Thinks About False Teaching

The letters to the churches in the book of Revelation are like tests, they tell us what a church should care about and what dangers a church must avoid. These seven lettersshows us how Jesus wants his churches to behave, what they are to value and what they are to reject. There is a lot we can learn by reading what Jesus rebukes churches for and what he praises them for doing.

In his message to the church of Ephesus (Rev. 2.1-7) Jesus warns the church because it has forgotten its first love. This is generally what we think of about the letter to Ephesus. Recently as I was preparing for fall Sunday School, I reread this portion and what jumped off the page was what Jesus praised the Church of Ephesus for doing. Jesus says in verse two, “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.” He then elaborates in verse six, “Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”

Jesus praises the church of Ephesus for not tolerating false teachers and he praises them for hating the works of those false teachers. Why does Jesus praise them for hating false teaching? Part of the reason is that Jesus hates false teaching.

In our culture it is considered a virtue to be accepting,  this is even true in the evangelical church, so much so we are very accepting of aberrant and even false teaching. We accept false teaching but we often reject those who stand against false teaching. But Jesus in his letters to the other churches rebukes those churches who accept, tolerate, and endorse false teaching (2:14; 2:20). It is not a good thing to be indifferent to or accepting of false teaching.  How a church responds to false teaching, whether they accept it or reject it, is one of the major tests of its faithfulness. Why?

False teaching is not just being in error about any belief or doctrine. False teaching is a corrupting of the core of the Christian message, the gospel, how we are saved. If a corrupted message of salvation is believed, those who believe in it will face destruction. In other words, false teaching is not neutral, it brings harm to people who accept it. Therefore Jesus hates it and he calls his people to hate it as well.  

The danger does not stop there. If a church allows false teaching to go unchallenged it weakens the entire body of believers leading to spiritual decay and even spiritual death. False teaching is spiritual cancer and it only spread if the church does not oppose it.

If we desire to be faithful to Christ, we must examine what teaching we approve of, which teaching we tolerate, and which teaching we hate. If there is no teaching which you respond to with a firm hatred of its evil, then you need to reexamine what you believe. Far too often we accept,  invite and even promote false teaching in America today. We do this to our own harm, as well as the harm of others. Jesus hates false teaching, we must as well. The question becomes, “Do we?” This is one question Jesus asks his churches.  We must be prepare to answer it.

Survival of the Fittest (Except for Gorillas)

The big news over the Memorial Day weekend was not remembering those who served, but the outrage over the Cincinnati Zoo shooting and killing a Gorilla in order to protect a four year old who fell into the gorilla’s enclosure. In response to the Zoo’s actions, many are outraged and are demanding justice for this gorilla, Harambe. The fact this is such a big deal is rather odd, but not surprising. 

This event presents Christians with a unique opportunity. As conversations continue about this event, whether it is around the watercooler, the backyard, we should seek to use this event as a test case. What I mean by this is we must not ask and answer the questions our society wants us to, but rather it is time to be shrewd by challenging our cultural assumptions in the hope of exposing our need for the gospel. Why? Because the contradictions of our society are on full display in our reaction to this event, and by asking the right questions we may help others to see clearly. Jesus often did this, people would approach with an agenda or question, and he would not answer play their game. Rather, Jesus would get to the heart of the issue. We should try to do the same. 

With that in mind, I suggest asking two questions to anyone who is upset, or even outraged, by the death of Harambe the gorilla:

1. "Isn’t this just a display of survival of the fittest in action?" Our culture accepts Darwinism as ultimate truth. If Darwinistic evolution is true, then this universe is governed by and even improved through the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Only the strongest, most adapted survive, if a species does not adapt in accordance with this world, then they are to die off. In this situation at the zoo, the gorilla was not the fittest species, in fact he was posing a threat to a species that is fitter than he is. So the gorilla died by the hands of the fittest—a man with a gun. So what’s the big deal? Is it survival of the fittest or not? Does this ethic not apply to gorillas? Is this not how the universe works? Humans supposedly are just highly-evolved primates, while gorillas are slightly less evolved primates, so who cares that the more evolved one won? This is how it is supposed to work in Darwin’s universe. The follow-up question to ask to this is, “Would anyone be so upset if a lioness killed an endangered Cheetah to save her cubs?” No, of course not. If Darwinism is true as our society claims it to be, then there is nothing to get upset about here as it is just one animal killing another animal which occurs daily in the wild. Moreover, such an action is supposed to be the means through which the universe improves. Our society has no right to say, “Survival of the fittest, except when it comes to gorillas and humans.” But of course, deep down our evolution believing society knows humans are different than gorillas, no matter how hard they pretend otherwise. The very fact that our society is so upset about this gorilla dying at the hands of the stronger species displays clearly the hypocrisy of our society. Deep down our culture cannot help but acknowledge that humans are different than gorillas.
2.  "What is justice anyways?" As people begin to scream for “justice” for this gorilla, we must insist that they define for us what justice actually is. You cannot have justice without some form of moral understanding, some moral foundation. Again, assuming that Darwin is correct, the moral ethic/foundation of the universe is survival of the fittest. If this is indeed what is true, then must be our judge of what is just. So justice, in a Darwinistic world, belongs to the strongest, the most adaptive, and Harambe the gorilla got his justice. He was weak and he lost to the strong—that is justice in a Darwinistic universe. In Darwinism this is good. Our society tells us every day that there is no universal morality, which necessitates that there is no true justice either. Our society has no foundation to talk about justice in any other terms. So as silly as it is to call for justice for a gorilla, it is downright absurd to do so from the position of Darwinism and moral relativism. Why should we demand some punishment upon the strong for killing the weak? Would not such actions just be fighting against the universe? Isn’t it morally good to further natural selection by killing off the weaker species? I mean, why care about endangered species anyways, shouldn’t they learn to adapt and evolve in order to survive? If not, then that is just the way of the universe.  

These are the questions we must ask our society. We do not ask these question in order to win an argument, but in hopes that others may begin to see the foolishness of our culture’s current false religion. Deep down we know what justice is, and we especially know it when we are wronged. The problem is the worldview of our society has no business talking about justice, let alone demanding it. It at these tension-points of our culture that we need to apply pressure in order to expose our culture’s insanity.  And once they see this insanity, it is time to point them to true morality, the Christian faith. If you want to know what justice is, and what it is not, you need a universal, Creator God. We have him, and our culture needs to meet him. 

Slavery, Abolitionists, & Compassion: Part 2

In the first part of this post we established that all unrepentant sinners are slaves to sin as Jesus points out in John 8:34. Slavery to sin is far worse than any physical slavery mankind has ever employed. Jesus as the true abolitionist, is the one who fights against slavery and he is the one who ultimately brings true freedom (John 8:36). As Christians we also work in this ministry of freeing people from slavery, a slavery we were under once. 

We also saw that Jesus combated slavery to sin by calling some slaves the “sons of the devil” and this action was an act of compassion on his part.. Jesus’ compassion took the form of opposing slavery in every facet he encountered. To those entrapped by sin and who hated their slavery he showed tender mercy pointing them to freedom via repentance and belief in him. To those who were arrogant in their slavery, who claimed to be free, he took out his verbal baseball bat and started to swing also calling them to repentance and faith. The method changed, but his heart motive, compassion, remained the same.

So this leads us to the question, as little abolitionists who are working for the true abolitionist, “How do we show compassion to those enslaved by sin?” Let’s start with a list of what would not be compassionate:

• It is not compassionate to walk up to a slave and to affirm him in his slavery. Our world tells us we are to accept and affirm people for who they are, in bondage and all. By this world means to affirm them and encourage them to continue on in their sin, no matter the consequences. If we view sin correctly, as Jesus did, we would recognize that affirming someone in their sin is like approaching a slave on a plantation and saying to them, “Slavery is good for you. It is the core of your identity. I accept you as a slave. Carry on.” This is a far cry from compassion.

• It is not compassionate to approach a slave and to say their slavery brings out that person’s true self. We as a culture are told to place ultimate confidence in our own view of ourselves. The finest shifting sand around. To be holy in this culture, it is our job to build up other’s in their pride by seeing them primarily by their own self-identification. But if this self-identification is actually slavery, if it will actually lead them to death, how should we respond? We must not approach the slave to sin and say, “Those chains around you really bring out the colors in your eyes. They make you look so beautiful, they display your strength and that you are true to yourself.” This again is not compassion, this is in fact the opposite, this is hatred toward the slave.

• It is not compassionate to accept or support the laws and societal forces which are arguing for and enforcing slavery upon the masses. Can you imagine if the abolitionists of the 1800s walked into Congress and said the laws put in place to further slavery were good things? Can you imagine if the abolition movement had turned a blind-eye to the legal forces in place in America that legalized slavery? Would such actions be compassionate? Would such actions have helped those trapped in slavery? But yet we are told time and again to do just that. Love would dictate that we oppose all the forces which seek to further slavery in our society.

• Finally, it is not compassionate for a former slave who is now free, who knows the way to freedom, to refuse to show those in bondage the way to freedom. The success of the Underground Railroad, and of people like Harriet Tubman, is displayed as people, even former slaves, cared for those who were suffering so much that they risked life and limb to lead them to freedom. We too are former slaves to sin, we have been set free by Christ, and in turn we are to lead others to freedom.

The analogy of sin as slavery is important to keep in our minds. As we war against this wretched form of slavery there are many battlegrounds we must fight upon. We must expose the forces of this world which argue for slavery for what they are—lies which lead to bondage and death. We must oppose the laws of the land which seek to normalize and promote slavery and which at the same time seek to prevent true freedom. We must also look with sympathy on those trapped in slavery and show true compassion by pointing them to freedom, even when they are so deceived they think they are already free. This is the example Christ gave us. This is true compassion.