About Our Father's Business

Nate preached at River Run Church on Sunday and we wanted to share it with you here!


July 13, 2014 - Investigating Jesus: Our Father's Business (Luke 2:41-52) from River Run Christian Church on Vimeo.

Rest in the Company of Love

Prayer.

It's a fuzzy thing sometimes.


We all know what it is... but when asked to explain it, or what it's purpose is, or why we need to pray... well, there isn't always a clear cut answer.



I know people who pray all the time, but it is always popcorn type prayers, you know? The kind of prayer where you just ask God real quick to do something, say amen, and then just move on.

There is nothing really wrong with it, in fact for new believers or people who have been struggling in their faith, I encourage starting there. My problem with it is that I just don't ever see Jesus do that kind of thing.



And hey. I am guilty of it.

Treating God like a great grandpa who HAS to give me what I want, or some magic genie, or wizard in the sky whose only purpose is to serve at my beck and call.



I just don't see Jesus living or praying like that.

When I approach God, I often to try to persuade Him that I am worthy of something or that He should act on my behalf. But there is no reason God should act on our behalf—none is worthy of His intercession.

Breaking Free

Sometimes what we need to cure our fat egos is a strong dose of God. Long before a certain visionary “discovered” the earth was round, God sat enthroned above the circle of the earth. Long before men were so “enlightened,” God formed the light and the darkness. Long before the first billion dollars was invested in exploring space, God’s own hands stretched out the heavens. Long before there was a “beginning,” God had already planned the end. Like Peter on the mount of transfiguration, we’re so caught up in the tabernacles we want to build that we sometimes miss a fresh revelation of God’s glory right before our eyes. If only we could realize that we make life so much more complicated when our approach to life is “all about me.” Do you know why? Because the rest of the world never cooperates. No one else appears to have gotten the memo. When we see ourselves as the center of the universe, we live in constant frustration because the rest of creation refuses to revolve around us. Life vastly simplifies and satisfaction greatly amplifies when we begin to realize our awesome roles. God is God. Frankly, it’s all about Him. Thank goodness, He is the center of the universe. So how can we live with such a God-centered mentality? Freely! Because with God, it’s all about us. We seek to please Him. He seeks to perfect us—and life works. Not without pain, but with purpose. Without the Potter, clay is just dirt. “The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” ( Gen. 2:7 ). “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” ( Isa. 46:9 ).

- Beth Moore, Breaking Free

God Doesn’t Suffer, But He Did Anyway

This is the first in a series of posts examining characteristics of God. Scholars call this Theology Proper. The point we are seeking to make clear is that what we believe about God is relevant to us today. Justin, the author of this post, lives what he preaches and his heart and mind are focused on helping the Church as a whole wrestle with these concepts and come to a clearer understanding of the God we live for and worship.

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Ring Ring…..Ring. Your familiar ringtone stirs you from peaceful sleep. Hello? You muster in a groggy voice. It’s your mom…she….she is in the hospital….they don’t think she has much time. You jolt up in your bed. The next few hours are nothing like you wanted them to be. You rush to throw on some clothes and get to the hospital, details flood in but none of it seems real. Life was perfect only a couple hours ago but now…this. You say goodbye as best as you know how. In the mix of emotions you yell at God and wonder how He let this happen. You want Him to be there. You want Him to fix this…to comfort you. Sure she is in heaven now but what about you? You are the one left with your dad and brother to deal with the aftermath. You are the one who has to live through Christmas without her, Thanksgiving without her, birthdays without her. Through the tears you may only be able to look towards the sky and wonder why.

Does God even care?

Does God suffer? You may have never asked this question, but it needs to be asked. How you decide to answer this question determines how much hope can be found in human suffering. You may have a few questions like:

What about Jesus on the cross? That looks a lot like suffering.

Doesn’t God suffer alongside me? That is how He comforts us isn’t it?

Does a suffering God mean a weaker God? Could an all-powerful God suffer?

Well, the answer may surprise you.


First off, we need to understand that suffering has a couple definitions. The one I’m guessing you think of first has to do with experiencing pain. The definition you may not have thought of means “to be subject to.” If anything else has power over you it could be said that you “suffered” under it. I’m going to ask you to think like a philosopher for a minute. If you are experiencing a painful event in your life you are suffering because it hurts and you are suffering because something beyond you causes you to hurt. The loss of a loved one is beyond you but it causes you pain. You could also talk about anyone who has authority over you as causing you to suffer because you are subject to them. People can suffer under the rule of a king. That doesn’t necessarily mean the suffering is painful. It could just be something or someone causing you to feel or act a certain way. We are going to focus on suffering as in being subject to something because that captures what is ultimately happening when you suffer in a painful way.

Invisible Friends

Have you ever noticed that everybody brings their invisible friends to church? Think about it. When was the last time your were in church and someone (not from your group) voluntarily sat in the seat immediately next to you or your group? If this has ever even happened to you, how comfortable did you feel? Look at how your church fills up before service. No one sits right next to each other. They always leave a seat open for their invisible friends.

I don’t know why this bothers me so much, but it does. It screams superficiality. It prohibits real community.

Seeing Double

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth.

Isn’t that just beautiful?

There’s something restful in the simplicity of that statement. I pray we never miss that. The Bible doesn’t apologize for God or His creation. It doesn’t start with eloquent attempts to convince you of His existence, nor of His ability to create ex nihilo. The very idea that either of those base assumptions is even questionable is foreign to the authors of Scripture. It was foreign to Jesus. And I think, if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s foreign to you and me.

I think in our heart of hearts, each one of us knows that, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. How could he not? (A question which, interestingly enough, people are desperately trying to answer. I’m not convinced.)

It’s key that we understand this, because this is only the first part.

Rediscovering Grace

I have to say every time I feel like I am getting it, you know this whole following Jesus thing...

I get wrecked all over again.

In fact, grace is so amazing that there is more than one thing to say about it. By grace we do wonders (Acts 6:8), by grace we are justified (Rom. 3:24), by grace we exhort (Rom. 12:3), by grace we build (1 Cor. 3:10), by grace we work hard (1 Cor. 15:10), by grace we give generously (2 Cor. 8:7), by grace we use our gifts (Eph. 4:7); by grace we are strengthened (Heb. 13:9), and by grace we are saved (Eph. 2:8). Every good thing we do, every true thing we believe, every bit of resting, every bit of striving, every mercy and every effort is by grace (James 1:17).

God has this way of forcing me to rediscover and wrestle with the concept of Grace over and over and over and over again...

And then again and again.

Have you had this kind of experience?

Swimming in the Water of Life

The more I’ve sought God’s heart, the more I feel that I’ve misunderstood Him. His wild heart, I’ve tried to keep in a box and tame to my liking; His courageous and fierce love, I’ve tried to mute into mere kindness. I’ve tried to contain Him, control Him, and the more I’ve realized how big God is and how small sometimes we make Him, the more I see that I’ve only been drinking His free gift of the water of life. I haven’t been swimming in it.

In the Bible we aren’t really invited to “come and swim” in the gift of life - it would be a pretty weird invitation, one Jesus’ disciples would probably hear and just kind of look at Jesus. Swim? Really, Jesus? Why can’t you say something normal like ‘Come and live’ or ‘Come and drink of the water of life?’ And He does.

In John 4:13-14, He says, “Everyone who drinks of this [tangible] water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

He invites us to come, to come and drink, gulp it down if we need to, but I think that maybe in that invitation, He means something more. Maybe He means that after we’ve learned to drink a mere glass of His love, He’s going to teach us what His water looks like, tastes like, feels like, by pouring it out on us. Pouring it over us, around us, beneath us, behind us - showing us just how big of a God He is, that He can not only fill us, but fill every crevasse around us, every crack of brokenness within us. When we only experience His living water by drinking it glass by glass, it would be easy to begin to believe that God’s gift of life is small, and containable. 

Finite Failure; Infinite Hope

Last week, I was given the opportunity to speak at my youth group. It was a great experience, but it was just one of those times where, whether or not it's true, you feel that you've failed. Have you ever had one of those times? I just knew, as I was giving the message and after I finished, that my heart and mind were not in the right place. And I could have done so much better. Regardless of what everyone else thought or could say, in my eyes, I felt I had failed.

That's always how it is when we mess something up, isn't it? People can try to convince us we did fine, that we didn't make that big of a mistake, that it wasn't noticeable, but we are our own worst critics. Though our convictions tend to waver so often in other areas of life, we are convinced, so stubbornly, of our failure. If you've ever failed (which, I'm pretty sure you have since you're human), or if you're half as hard on yourself as I am on myself, you know that those feelings of disappointment and even shame are heavy. I was disappointed.

Simple Sunday

“Do not fear the conflict with passions and sin, do not flee from it: where there is no struggle, there is no virtue; where there are no temptations for faithfulness and love, it is uncertain whether there is really any faithfulness and love for the Lord. Our faith, trust and love are proved and revealed in adversities, that is, in difficult and grievous outward and inward circumstances, during sickness, sorrow and privations.”

 -St. John of Kronstadt