About me

what’s love got to do with it?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:45:50 -0400

I took these pictures yesterday at Hershey Park as my children
and I were on line waiting for our opportunity to ride Fahrenheit.
That first drop is absolutely insane!

Of course, being a pastor, my mind began to reflect on the
Scripture. I was thinking about John’s words concerning love in
1 John 4:7-12. I recently preached on this text for our church and
for the women at the local jail.

Because we were created in God’s image, with his law written on
our hearts, we inherently know that there is an ideal love that we
long to experience. Over and over and over again this longing is
frustrated by our experience. That’s because our experience is more like the ups, downs, twists and turns of Fahrenheit than the settling, comforting peace we want. Tina Turner was ready to chuck the whole thing when she sang, “What’s love but a second hand emotion?” There’s a reason that song, and others like it, hit the top of the charts!

I “love” the way John tackles the love topic in these five verses of 1 John 4. He’s made what I call a “love sandwich.” I think that eating this sandwich will help us wade through the murky waters of love in this fallen world.

Love on the Inside
The first slice of bread is laid down in verses 7-8:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

John has been a bit repetitive in this short letter in telling Christians that they ought to love one another. In 2:10 he says, “Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.” Then in 3:11 he says, “this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” And here he is again saying that there’s no such thing as a loveless Christian. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, he’s calling you to do a self-assessment.

“For the loveless Christian to profess to know God and to have been born of God is like...claiming to have been born of parents whom we do not in any way resemble.”

Since this is a blog and not a sermon, I’ll simply say this and move on. As Christians we can’t go along criticizing how those who are outside of the church are living, or what they think and believe about God, without first and simultaneously being willing to examine how we are living and loving inside of the church. And not “that church over there” either, but you and the one you’re a part of right now.

Love on the Upside
There’s a line in an old commercial that goes something like this, “A sandwich just isn’t a sandwich without the great taste of Miracle Whip.” Well, with or without Miracle Whip, if you take out the stuff in the middle, you don’t have a sandwich, just two slices of bread.

John gives us the ‘stuff’ of this love sandwich in vv.9-10:

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

We can’t shape what it means to say, “God is love,” into our own box. I run into folks all of the time who want to reject the parts of the Bible that they object to while saying that they simply believe in a “God of love.” The love of God was made manifest. God didn’t hide his love from us, he revealed it. This “love on the upside” is love from above. How did he reveal his love? He sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. If anyone really wants to understand what the love of God looks like, if you really believe that God is love, you must fix your eyes on the cross of Jesus Christ.

The gruesome scene of Jesus Christ bloody, battered, and hanging on the cross is an “illustrious and singular proof of divine love towards us.” As Tim Keller reminds us in his book The Reason for God,

“Our culture...has no problem with a God of love who supports us no matter how we live. It does, however, object strongly to the idea of a God who punishes people for their sincerely held beliefs, even if they are mistaken.”

Our error is thinking that God ought to love us because we’re lovable and sincere. The cross takes us out of that delusion. The cross is the illustration of God’s perfect love. Far from condoning sin - and letting us be deluded into thinking that he supports us no matter how we live - because God is light his love has found a way to expose our sin. And because he is a consuming fire, in the cross his love has found a way to consume our sin without destroying the sinner, but rather saving him.

Love on the Outside
John lays the other slice in vv.11-12:

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

He comes back to the call to love one another in v.11. He’ll let us know in v.13 that this is possible because God has given us of his Spirit. This final point I want to make is on the issue of witness. “No one has ever seen God...” John said the same thing in his Gospel (John 1:18). The interesting thing is that there his point is that it is Jesus Christ, God the Son, who has made the Father known to us. He repeats himself here with a slight nuance. Jesus has already been crucified and buried. He’s already risen from the grave and ascended to the Father. He and the Father have already sent the Holy Spirit to his Church. So, in speaking to the Church, John says now we are the witnesses to the love of God for all to see. No one has ever seen God. How can he be known? When God comes to dwell in us we begin to love in the same costly and self-sacrificial way.

This is, in fact, the solution to the flighty, up and down love rides we take. The amazing thing about God’s love is that he pour it out on those who hate him and want nothing to do with him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us. If you’re now in Christ, you were at one time an enemy of God and object of his wrath. Apart from the love of God in Jesus Christ, we’re not looking to give anything, much less all that we can, for our enemies. We may be willing to do things that benefit people in need, but let it be someone who’s caused you immense pain, or people who want to ridicule and demean you. Apart from the love of Christ, you want nothing to do with folk like that.

So much more can be said, and probably ought to be so I welcome your comments. Unless you know the love of God in and through Jesus Christ, you don’t know that God is love. It is this perfect love from above that has come down to us in Jesus, that both moves and empowers us to love both inside and outside of the church.

Pastor Irwyn

reconciliation blues

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:20:07 -0400

What type of music comes to mind as you reflect on your experiences of “life together” in the Christian Church?

One of the books I’m reading this summer is Ed Gilbreath’s outstanding work, Reconciliation Blues, A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity. I won’t go into great detail on the contents, but simply commend it to you. As an African American pastor in a predominantly white denomination, much of what Ed writes resonates with me as our particular church pursues a multi-ethnic ministry.

Singing the Blues
I’ve written in a previous blog that although the pursuit of ethnic reconciliation in the church is a gospel imperative, it’s hard. In the first chapter, “Living in Two Worlds,” Ed poignantly expresses the frustration of his experience in white evangelical Christianity when he says that it, “has meant living within a religious movement that takes for granted its cultural superiority.” If black Christians are singing the blues, much of it is due to the implications of this statement.

For example, I had the privilege of attending one of the best seminaries in this country. In fact, the only reason I’m not saying it was the best is because I don’t want to seem arrogant! At any rate, I recall taking History of Christianity II, which covers the Reformation to the present day Church. When given the opportunity to offer feedback at the conclusion of the class I said that if we based our knowledge of the church in America solely on what we were taught in the class we would have no idea that the black church ever existed. The entire significant history of what God did in bringing people to himself out of the brutality of chattel slavery was blanked. I doubt it was intentional, but it was the practical outworking of an assumed, albeit unconscious, cultural superiority. The history we were taught was not just for history’s sake. Rather, it was so that we would glorify God for what he’s done in building and sustaining his church. The students missed an opportunity to do that when the history of the black church is blanked. So what do you do when you have the blues?

Keeping the Vision
I smiled when I read the questions Ed supposed some of his readers would ask.

“If it’s such torture, why does he stay? Why doesn’t he just pack his bags and get his black behind out of those white settings? Find a black church. Find a job at a black organization or in a secular context, where diversity is less of a struggle. Drop the racial angst and just live life.”

Truthfully, if you share Ed’s experiences, you have asked yourself those questions in some form or another. “Why do you have me here Lord? It would be so much easier if I were in a more comfortable cultural context.” Even though you know that reconciliation is a gospel imperative, the questions still arise. They arise because we seek what is perceived to be most comfortable. Regardless of our situation we’re always tempted to believe that the grass is greener on the other side. But here’s the question, what did it cost Jesus to make peace (reconcile)? You know the answer. The price for our peace with God was the cross. In Him we have one another. I love the way Bonhoeffer puts it, “We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.” This by no means negates the challenges, or blues we sing. What it does is help us keep the main thing the main thing. In our thankfulness to God for what he has given us in Christ how often do we thank him for the gift of, “brothers [and sisters] who will go on living with us through sin and need under His blessing?” (that’s Bonhoeffer again)

At City of Hope Church we have a dream of a church community that reflects the diversity of our local community. The question is do I love the dream of this Christian community more than I love the Christian community itself? The dream is pretty useless if we’re not willing to bear with the blues as God makes the dream a reality.

This really hit home on last Friday night. We had our second community forum discussing issues around race in America. We had a panel made up of four members of the church, an Italian American woman, an African American woman, an Egyptian American man, and an African American man. We had great conversation as each shared their background and experiences of ethnic prejudice. I sat amazed at our Lord because these folks are an accurate reflection of the make up of our church. I said to myself, “Look at what God is doing!” Here are people who apart from Jesus Christ would not be joined together seeking to glorify God together with their lives.

When God blesses me to experience and be a part of this work he’s doing, I say with Ed Gilbreath, “Nah, I’m not ready to leave the playground just yet.” The blues better help me to appreciate the fact that joy still comes in the morning.

Pastor Irwyn

How can any christian african american vote for obama? throwing the race card on an all black table

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:15:44 -0400

This is a question posed and responded to in an excellent blog entry by Pastor Eric Redmond on his blog A Man From Issachar. I encourage you to read it thoughtfully.

Pastor Irwyn

perceptions & truths about christianity & christians

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:33:26 -0400

The summer is upon us, and we just finished our sermon series in Genesis. As mentioned in a previous post, our messages this summer will be focused on questions, issues, criticisms, and concerns about Christianity and Christians that have come up in recent conversations.

Below are the list of topics we’re covering from July 6 through August 24. We’ll definitely be continuing the conversation online.

What's the Word? - Much of the comments/conversations boil down to questioning the reliability of the Bible.
Before I'll Be a Slave, I'll Be Buried in My Grave - Christianity is viewed as restricting people from being free.
The Hypocrite Church - "The church is full of hypocrites, why would I want to be part of that?"
The Irrelevant Church - "The church lives in a Christian bubble and is out of touch with reality."
What's Love Got to Do With It? - Many folks say that they believe in a God of love, or they say, "love is my God". What does it mean that "God is love"?
Fanatic vs. Faithful, the Intolerant Christian - "All Christians care about are abortion and homosexuality, they could care less about the things that really matter."
How Wide is the Gate? - "Christianity is too exclusive. How can Jesus be the only way to God?"
Why Do I Have to Hurt? - "How could a good God allow suffering?"

If you find yourself in the Columbia area this summer, come through and worship with City of Hope Church one (or two) Sunday evenings!

Pastor Irwyn

Dwelling in the city - part 2

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:11:17 -0400

It’s taken me a while to get back to this subject, but I didn’t forget. In between my first post and this one, Acts 29 has posted a few of the messages from the DWELL conference here on the left column.

Joy in the City
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

What makes you smile about where you live? There’s a lot to smile about in Columbia, Maryland. As a whole, the public schools are among the best in the state. The public library system is outstanding. People are generally “civil”. After stumbling across Columbia in our apartment search back in 1997, once we moved here my wife and I found Columbia to be a “family friendly” community. Although we have crime and blight here, it’s not at the level of the surrounding counties (yet). It was recently voted one of the best places to live in our nation. So, plenty of people smile when they think of this community.

People move here for many of the reasons stated above and more. But what if none of these things were true of Columbia? Would there still be something to smile about? You can probably anticipate that I’m going to answer that question in the affirmative. The fact of the matter is, there has to be something else, something bigger and better, that makes you smile about your city if you are going to be able to dwell well.

Every community is broken and fractured in many ways. If I smile at life in my community only because it has less blight and more of the things I desire than other places, then I’m disillusioned at best. Either I’ll be ill equipped when those fractures reach my doorstep, or I’ll be unwilling to invest any part of my life in those broken areas, or both. I might be willing to throw some money in the direction of the problems, but I’ll run as fast as I can away from engaging myself.

At the conference Eric Mason of Epiphany Fellowship helped us to see what that “bigger and better” thing was in his message on Dwelling Incarnationally. He asked the question, “What will it look like when Jesus heals the fractures and reigns in this city?” Have you ever asked that question about where you live? That vision can bring a smile to your face because it is based on the joy we have in Jesus Christ, in his power to heal, redeem, restore, and resurrect. That vision transcends the circumstances because we know that what is to come is far better than what is. It will not come in fullness until Christ returns, but he may give us tastes here and there as he transforms people’s lives and communities.

I am continually amazed by what we’re told in Hebrews 12:2, “for the joy that was set before him,” Jesus endured the cross despising the shame.

Jesus had a motivation for his work. There was indeed something that moved him to endure the cross, to remain on the road to immeasurable suffering, unjust suffering, a most necessary suffering for our sake. It is described here as “joy”. His glory was laid aside and veiled, left in the hands of the Father. Jesus’ taking a human nature meant that the unbearable weight of the sins of the world would rack his person. In the shame of the cross he bore the pain of humanity in our fallen-ness. He endured not for pain, but for joy. Joy, then, was not just an idea, or a far off fantasy. To be worth the pain, the joy must exceed it in measure. It must outweigh the pain. What is the nature of a joy that makes excruciating suffering worthwhile? It must be out of this world! For no thing that this world can offer, even if we think of the most desirable material possessions, is worth the pain of the cross.

The joy set before Jesus was the magnification of the glory of God, not only as many sons and daughters come to faith in him, but as he reclaims his entire creation...even your city.

So let me ask you again. What makes you smile about where you live? Is it only the pleasures that your city has to offer, or is there something deeper?

In Christ’s love,
Pastor Irwyn