A Joy Thief

My church recently started teaching through Philippians. We’ve just started a couple of weeks ago, but it’s been an incredible experience so far! Not only are my pastors excited about Philippians, but also the people are really excited about learning from Philippians! I’ve never experience such community effort and involvement in an expository book series. Its almost like Philippians is a fresh, new letter from the Apostle Paul to Sovereign Grace Church of Greenville, and we’re thrilled to learn from it!

The key to this community effort is the small groups throughout the week. I meet with my community group every Friday night from 7p-10:30p (SGM lingo “caregroup”). A lot happens during my community group such as cultivating relationships, accountability, confession, prayer, healing, and breaking the bread; but a central part of my community group is the 2 hours we spend together as believers praising God and discussing the biblical text we heard on Sunday. Our goal is to discern how God is speaking to us as we live our everyday lives in Greenville 2009 – some Fridays it’s encouraging; other Fridays it’s really messy (as sin always is); but always I leave with hope in the gospel and a deepened bond with the body of Christ.

This last Friday night at community group, the community group leader asked a similar question for discussion that was asked the previous Friday before. “What robs us of our joy, and how does understanding the gospel and who we are in Christ remedy this problem?” I remember thinking about this the previous week but not sharing it for various reasons, so this time a response was burning on my mind, and I had a rare opportunity of group silence to blurt out some weak jumble of words about what robs me personally of the joy I should experience in Christ. I feel that I’m a better writer than speaker, so let me share what is burning in my mind and what I was trying to say. This happens to me a lot at community group; but for various (usually selfish/prideful) reasons, I don’t share.

What robs me of my joy in Christ is selfishness. Various specific sins are involved in my selfishness such as greed, laziness, idolatry, lust, pride, fear of man, and ignorance; but it all points back to me. I love being the center of my universe. Paul lived a life that is antithetical to how I generally live. Philippians speaks of this selflessness over and over again. The point was made at community group that we are created for another. He ought to be the center of my universe. Paul says in Philippians 2:17 that he rejoices when he is poured out like a drink offering for their sake. Paul found joy when he was totally forgotten and taken advantage of. This is not a selfish sadistic pain in pleasure but a pleasure in reaching outside oneself for the glory and profit of another.

I know that my life does not reflect this reality. I’m always thinking about me: “How do I feel?”

”Why is my energy so low?”

“Why doesn’t so and so do this?”

“How can I receive God’s blessing?”

“Maybe if I say this then so and so will be impressed and think I’m such a grace-filled Christian.”

“Maybe God will know how much I love him if I do such and such.”

“My life is great because I haven’t done any serious sin and I read my Bible everyday and go to church and pray for the missionaries and witness to at least one person a week.”

I’ve been guilty of all the above multiple times. Even the pursuit of joy itself can be selfish. Joy is a result of pursuing hard after God. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Joy is a product of totally living for another.

In reality, this is an anti-American lifestyle. Our pop culture teaches us that it’s all about me. Our churches teach that it’s is all about you pleasing a stern God or conversely you receiving some blessing from a loving God. Even forgiveness of sins can become selfish if we lose sight of why. It was mentioned at community group that Jesus endured the cross because of the joy set before him in glorifying the Father. It’s all about the Father. We suffer for the Father. We feel good for the Father. We breathe for the Father. We laugh for the Father. We are forgiven for the Father. We play for the Father. We serve for the Father. We love for the Father. We joy in the Father.

When we reach outside ourselves, then we experience true joy. As the Father reached out of Himself to us, so we must reach out of ourselves to Humanity. The Father loves the church, so I must reach outside myself to the church. The Father loves the world, so I must reach outside myself to the world. The Father loves me so I must live my life wisely and with stewardship and yet reach outside myself to others no matter how ugly, dirty, or beautiful. I am bad at this. I hate reaching out of myself, yet I can testify that I’ve experienced the greatest joy and growth when I stretched my limits of self-comfort.

I don’t fully understand selflessness because it almost seems like a logical contradiction. I don’t quite comprehend the fact that I am entirely God’s possession not my own. I don’t know how to live this fact out without erring on the side of selfishness whether legalism or passivity. This is where the gospel (God reaching out to me for his glory) comes into play every single day. But I do know that I’m called to reach outside myself for the Father. It is in this pursuit I find joy.

This is why I loved community group this last Friday. God is a relational being who has ordained a relational community to exist on earth bound by the gospel called the church whom I love as Paul loved. May we pour out ourselves as sacrifices in this modern world for the Father and thus experience joy.

Recent Lessons From God

Recently in the past month, God has taught me several lessons especially in the past two weeks. I thought I would share some of them for the benefit of others and to testify of the active working of God among us who believe. These aren’t profound lessons, but they are real, incarnate lessons that I’m learning with real situations in the past weeks.

• God calls us to live in wisdom, that is, to make wise choices and do them. This is in contrast to living as I feel, want, or desire though these emotions are a part of living in wisdom.
• God really does give wisdom to those who ask Him. (James 1)
• Manhood requires commitment and decision even when that calling doesn’t make sense in the outcome.
• Covenant love is better than lust, but requires devotion to Christ alone and commitment to pursue Christ supremely.
• God has called me to the kingdom of God and the local church not a specific ministry or movement (i.e. SGM, Acts 29 Network, SBC)
• I love the gospel and those who likewise love the gospel (i.e. SGM, Acts 29 Network, Gospel Coalition)
• No matter what I must pursuit Christ first and supremely; anything else is idolatry.

Father Forgive Us

A new song from the brothers over at RESOUNDworship.org

Father, forgive us when we fail to hear your call
to share your perfect love with those outside these walls.
We have the greatest gift, the truth of Jesus Christ;
we’re sent to go and tell the world.

We believe in God the Father,
we believe he sent his Son,
we believe that Jesus died and rose again.
We believe he brings forgiveness
and his Spirit changes lives.
We will live this gospel in his name.

Faith without action is as lifeless as the grave,
so may our lives proclaim that Jesus Christ can save.
We are your hands and feet, your workers on the earth,
we’ll show our faith by what we do.

by Andy Irons

“With this song I wanted to write about how we as Christians are called to take our faith out of our church buildings, and into the world around us. The chorus is a simple creed, that reminds us of the fundamentals of our faith, and the verses are a challenge to live that faith out. The verses take their inspiration from Jesus’ great commission to his disciples at the end of Matthew; ‘go and make disciples of all nations’, and from James chapter 2, picking up on the powerful challenge that ‘faith without deeds is dead.’” – Andy Irons

Listen to song here

Cave Trip Report

My brother John, my uncle Bert, and I did some hardcore caving this last 4th of July weekend in Georgia. We left my place in Greenville around 6a and began the 4 1/2 drive to Rising Fawn, GA. On the way, we stopped at Wally World In Dalton, GA and picked up some last minute items as well as some lunch. We arrived at Sue’s Market in Rising Fawn around 12p and started unloading our caving gear. The hike up to Byers Cave is about 45 minutes long up Fox Mountain and down a deep valley. Since there is no trail to the cave, we had to bushwack it for part of the way until we found the cave which is about 50 ft. from the bottom of the valley floor. We were burning up from the hike, so we got into the cave as quickly as possible around 2:00p in order to cool down. The entrance tunnel is about a 300 ft. crawl opening up over a 10 ft. flowstone drop into the Lunch Room. We took a short break here to cool off and change the batteries in our LED headlamps before beginning the strenuous trek to the middle cave. The first two drops were a lot more wet and slick than last time, so they were kind of tricky to get down without either doing a faceplant or busting a tailbone. From there, we shimmed over a 4 ft. wide crack with a 30 foot drop. On the left side of the crack, you could see a small hole were other people had belly-crawled past the crack, but I think its easier to put your back against the top part of the crack and shuffle with your feet on the other side of the crack. Past the crack was sharp 90 degree bend opening up above a canyon. This is where we had to stop last time because we thought we might want to have some rope to help get down and up. So Bert rigged a rope, and we got to try our rappelling gear for the first time down this 20 ft. rock face into the narrow canyon bottom. We were stuck for awhile looking around for the continuation of the passage, but eventually John found a small crack at the bottom of the canyon that seemed to continue on. The crawl wasn’t too bad going in except for the first part which I had a hard time squeezing my hips and chest through. I guess this part is called Hitchcock’s Easy Crawl which continues as a belly-crawl for about 100 ft. Hitchcock’s put us right above the main borehole area of the middle cave right next to the register. We took the borehole to the left about half a mile and ended up in a large formation room. Apparently there is more passage that descends to the lower cave in this area but we didn’t find it. We went back to the register and went to the right past several scary pits. At the end was a nice formation area with several bacon ceiling formations. Here we discover the Rabbit Hole which really is a man-sized rabbit hole. John went down first and we ended up in a stream passage that had several smaller side passages. Downstream there was a small underground lake and it looked as if there was more passage beyond the lake but we didn’t press it to see. After exploring for awhile, we went back up the Rabbit Hole into the main borehole and decided to descend down a steep pit in the middle of the borehole which we dubbed the Slime Climb because of all the slick mud on it. The Slime Climb opened into about a 60 ft. drop with multiple shelves which had a stream at the bottom. We got our rappelling gear and descended down several ledges until we were near the stream passage. For there, we explored the stream passage which didn’t go to far upstream because a 25 ft. cliff with a waterfall block the way. Downstream another 15 ft. waterfall prevented us from exploring downstream too far. We could have rappelled further downstream but we didn’t have enough rope with us. I had a lot of trouble ascending back up the 60 ft. drop because we were just using a Prusik knot for safety and just climbing the ledges up. At this point my legs were starting to cramp from fatigue. We finally got up to the borehole passage and began our trip out of the cave. We were all really tired, so climbing out of the cave was quite the job. At one point in the cave just before the borehole, we had trouble getting back up a ledge because it had no good handholds or footholds and to make matters worse there was a crevice just below the ledge that dropped down 20 ft. Three of us were standing below the ledge above the crevice which just waiting for one of us to slip and take the plunge into the room 20 ft. below. I ended up boosting Bert up and then he held a handline and helped John and I up. Hitchcock’s Easy Crawl was definitely a lot harder crawling back and it really made my elbows hurt on the sharp rocks. We got back to the slippery slides and had a lot of difficulty getting back up them because of the lack of grip on the rock. Finally, we managed to crawl out of the cave at 1:00a, 11 hours in the cave.  Since there is no trail to the cave, we ended up bushwack in the dark almost the whole way back to the car which wouldn’t be so bad except there was a lot of poison ivy. We finally got back to the car and drove to Chattanooga to get a motel for the night. I just about fell asleep on the way back driving, but we finally found a Motel 6 at around 3:00a. Byer’s Cave was definitely worth the energy and time, but I think I can only handle all the adrenaline rushes and climbing and squeezing about once a month max. The next day we went to Rusty’s Cave which also is on Fox Mountain. Rusty’s has a 40 ft. entrance pit which was a lot of fun to repel down. Rusty’s also has a lot of good formations in it. Rusty’s also in mostly just walking and some scrambling over slick rocks which is a lot easier than Byers. We’ll definitely need to hit Rusty’s again since we ran out of time this trip. Anyway, the whole caving trip was a success and worthwhile. Its amazing to see God’s creation inside the earth! God really had no reason to create the beauty inside caves which most people never see except for the fact that God loves beautiful things!