I’m doing the Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers this year — mainly because I tend to shirk and slack. Any reader (or former reader) of this blog can attest to this.

Will you join me?

There will be a fuller post on this tomorrow. Seriously.

I am ASTONISHED that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again…

If ANYONE is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, LET HIM BE ACCURSED.
(Galatians 1:6-9 ESV)

I’ve been haunted — nagged, almost — by this idea of “Gospel Transformation” lately. The idea that the Gospel — the Good News that Christ, through his death, burial, resurrection, and reign, is bringing Kingdom of God to fruition — is not just news to be heard, and not even just news to be believed, but news that actually transforms. Instead of waiting to be acted upon, this news acts upon us (and everything around us).

Crazy.

I tweeted some thoughts on this (in 140-character-or-less bites, of course) a little while ago. Some “highlights” . . .

The church — the LOCAL church — is to be an agent of Gospel transformation in the lives of individuals, in the city, and in the world. (#)

“Gospel transformation” is that change that takes place when the Good News of Christ’s Kingdom comes to bear on whatever it will. (#)

“Gospel transformation” is not a one-time change, but a God-initiated, God-advanced, God-achieved process. (#)

“Gospel transformation” is not limited to individual lives & souls, but extends to families, neighborhoods, cities, and the whole world. (#)

“Gospel transformation” (generally) flows, however, from individuals out to further & larger spheres (family->neighborhood->city->world). (#)

As Jesus takes his royal throne in his peoples’ hearts, transforming them, they are then released for mission as his Kingdom agents. (#)

“Gospel transformation” will find its completion in the victory of Christ over his enemies and the full renewal of his people and world. (#)

Until then — the Second Advent of Christ — we work, wait, and say “Come, Lord Jesus!” (#)

At our church, we often say “Grace Changes Everything”. That phrase has become something of a rallying cry for us. Grace — the unmerited, undeserved, unwarranted love and favor that God gives through the Gospel — really does change everything. Not just “us”, though it certainly does change us. It’s only through believing the Gospel that anyone is taken from spiritual death to spiritual life. It’s only through believing the Gospel that anyone is freed from the bondage of sin and freed to LIVE. It’s only through believing the Gospel that anyone will ever be reconciled to God. Grace truly does change us.

I once thought that was the end of the story. Repent of sin, believe the Gospel, Jesus saves you, and now you go on and do the best you can, asking Jesus to forgive you when you mess up along the way until you die and “go to Heaven.”

Wrong. Grace changes everything.

The Good News isn’t just the news that God’s Son died on a cross for our sins and rose for our salvation (though that’s certainly a BIG part of it). The Good News is this — the King and his Kingdom are here. The King and his Kingdom are coming. Jesus wins. Jesus is setting and will set all things right. He is bringing his reign of eternal shalom to bear on all of Creation. And as if this News wasn’t enough, he calls his people to participate in the bringing of this Kingdom to bear! Not that we somehow “partner” with God, as if we’re his equals, but that we — as individuals and as we gather in local congregations — are his agents, affecting this transformation. Through his regenerated people, God is establishing his Kingdom.

Think about it. You, Christian, are working to bring the Kingdom of God when you . . .
- worship with God’s people
- pray
- call an unbelieving friend to repent and believe
- show hospitality
- teach someone viable job skills
- buy a homeless guy a meal
- create something beautiful
- work with integrity
- et cetera and so on

These are ways in which God is making our neighborhoods, cities, and the world look a little bit more and more like the coming Kingdom every day, and he’s elected to use broken, jacked-up imbeciles like us to do it. Crazy.

The Gospel is news that transforms. If Grace has changed you, then heed God’s call to change things.

Greg, our pastor at Grace Central, has been on a much-needed and well-earned sabbatical for the last couple of months, so preaching duties have fallen to myself and our super-fantastic church planting intern (and new dad), Joe Haack. (This is not a joke. He really is super-fantastic.)

Anyway, this last three weeks of the sabbatical, I’ve taken on a series focusing on Christ’s work as our Prophet, Priest, and King.  Naturally, I’ve bungled the recording of the first two sermons — the first one (“Prophet”), I just forgot to start recording before I stepped up to the pulpit, and the second (“Priest”), I forgot that the MacBook we usually use to record wouldn’t be at the church, so I neglected to bring mine.

So, here’s another sermon manuscript for you, this time on Christ as our Priest. This was preached this morning.

“Jesus our Priest”

I want to start off today by talking about mercy and baseball.  Now, when most folks think of “mercy” in the context of the game of baseball, they think of this Little League rule that says once a team has scored so many runs in one inning, then they just move on to the next and give the other team a chance.  That’s not what I’m talking about here, though.

The first few years of my athletic life as a child were spent playing soccer.  I neither enjoyed it, nor was I any good, so eventually my parents decided to sign me up for Little League Baseball, and I loved it. I became a student of the game, learning not just the rules of play and strategy, but about the teams, legends, and great players of the day (which would’ve been the late 1980s).

That’s why I felt my age a little bit last Monday. I was watching ESPN SportsCenter, and they were running a special report on the 20-year anniversary of Pete Rose’s banishment from baseball.  On August 24, 1989, Rose, the legendary Cincinnati Reds player, the greatest hitter of all time (and one of the game’s greatest managers), was permanently banned from baseball.  He had committed what some baseball purists would consider the “unforgivable sin” – betting on Major League games (a charge which he vehemently denied until finally admitting it in 2004).

Ever since Pete Rose’s ban, there has been a clamor around baseball that swells around late July or early August of every year.  That’s when the Hall of Fame induction ceremony takes place, and the question every year is “should Pete Rose be allowed in the Hall of Fame?” — “Will baseball continue to deny its ultimate honor to of its greatest players?”  In 1995, Mike Schmidt, the legendary Phillies third baseman took the opportunity during his own Hall of Fame induction speech to lobby for Rose’s reinstatement to baseball and induction into the Hall.  Many of Rose’s former teammates and players, while not denying his wrongdoing, have spoken out for baseball to again open the door to him.  Even Rose himself, after admitting his transgression, has applied for reinstatement multiple times, yet has been denied at every turn.

It’s plain to see that Pete Rose really wants back in.  He longs to return “back home” to the game. He longs to receive (or at least receive consideration for) the honor that so many feel he deserves.  He once said this:

People have to understand I wish this would have never happened. But I can’t change it. It’s happened. And sitting here in my position, you’re just looking for a second chance.

For all of his sincerity, work, and apparent contrition, however . . . he can’t get that second chance. Those doors are forever closed to him.  Forever closed unless and until the Commissioner of Baseball decides to have mercy on him and open that door again.  Whether or not Pete Rose will ever be (officially) reconciled with the game that he loves is in the Commissioner’s hands.

We’ve all been in similar circumstances, haven’t we?  Perhaps not to the degree of being banned for life from baseball, but we’ve all seen an important relationship disintegrate, lost a satisfying job, or been in some other situation where we longed to return to someone or something, but it was utterly out of our own power to do so.  We’ve been trapped in consequences we didn’t intend, but that we did set in motion, and are powerless to stop.  It’s the same with sin and how it alienates us from God.

Without an advocate to work on our behalf, any effort to come near to God, no matter how sincere, fails.  When we examine scripture, we see that because Jesus is our Great High Priest, we can know God.

Now, when we think of “priests”, we probably think of them as guys (or gals) in clerical collars who work in a Roman Catholic church. They’re called “priests” because their role is seen as a continuation or a succession of the God-appointed priests of the Old Testament.  Those priests served God’s people in many ways. They heard confessions of sin and prayed for the people.  They brought the prayers of the people — their hopes, dreams, and fears — before God as their intercessor.  Central to the role of priest, however, was the offering of sacrifices to visibly show that sin was very real and deserving of death, while asking God for his gracious forgiveness.  Afterwards, he would proclaim God’s words of undeserved blessing and forgiveness upon them.

The first thing we’re going to examine from the Scriptures is that . . .

Jesus our priest bore our sins as our sacrifice.

Let’s look at the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, verses 3-6

Isaiah 53:3-6
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 52:13 through the end of 53 is commonly called one of Isaiah’s “Servant Songs”. He sprinkles references to “the Servant of the Lord” through chapters 40-55, fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Now often, the title “the Servant of the Lord” in Hebrew literature and lore referred to Israel as a whole, but sometimes the servant is a distinct person within Israel with a calling to serve Israel and beyond.

Here, Isaiah describes this servant as a “man of sorrows”, but not his own sorrows. They weren’t his and he didn’t deserve them. No, these sorrows belonged to us. Isaiah says that the Servant of the Lord has borne “our griefs and carried our sorrows”. This is our junk to deal with, but God shifted the blame to Jesus Christ as he died for the guilty. “The LORD”, it later says, “has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.

There’s a big theological word for this: “imputation” — it literally means to charge to someone else’s account. Guilt has to be paid for somehow.

Let’s say you’re in a car accident — even if it’s just a fender-bender, someone has to pay the cost if it’s going to be made right. Now, it might not be those at fault who end up paying for it. Sometimes the victim has to eat the cost, but either way, if it’s going to be made right, someone’s account is getting charged.

It’s the same with our Father God. He hates sin. HATES it. He is a forgiving God, but he does not simply turn a blind eye to the sin and evil — our sin and evil — that fills and damages his world.

How can God deal with this? Look at verses 4-6 again. Folks, that was our punishment to bear. WE deserved that. But God, out of love for us, charged that debt to a substitute. Our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, put himself in our place. The weight of our guilt was imputed to him.

We say here at Grace Central that “Grace Changes Everything”, and this is what we’re talking about — the love and mercy of God, undeserved and apart from ANYTHING we could ever do, given freely to those who believe. This is grace.

Some of us here this morning are longing for this grace. What does Jesus say? He says “come”.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
“Come, for everything is now ready.”
“Come to me, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant.”

Won’t you come? We are all like sheep, wandering away from God aimlessly after our own attempts at self-righteousness. Our Great High Priest says “come”.

Jesus our priest reconciles us to the Father.

Jesus’ priestly work on earth wasn’t limited to bearing our sin, but he also reconciles us to the Father.

Turn to Romans 5:6-11. Let’s read.

Romans 5:6-11
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans is a letter written by the Apostle Paul, and the purpose of this letter is really two-fold: first, he wants the people of the church at Rome to understand the content of the Gospel of Jesus — the message that he lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we should have died so that we can be accepted and loved by God — and second, to experience the power of that Gospel in their lives.

So here we have Paul, explaining to the Romans just how good they have it and how gracious Jesus really is, and he does it by talking about who we might find worth dying for.  He says that someone might, on very rare occasions, die for a “righteous” person (that is, one who is morally upright) or a “good” person (that is, one who has done much good), but that Jesus’ love is so insane and unbelievable that he went ahead and died for sinners.  That might go over our heads for a minute — many of us have heard this passage, or even if not, we’ve heard that “Jesus died for sinners”.  Let’s slow down for a minute and really think about what Paul’s saying here, though.

Think of the most vile, despicable human being you can.  Maybe someone like Charles Manson.  Osama Bin-Laden. Maybe, if you saw the film Inglourious Basterds this past week (like I did) and all you can think of is Adolf Hitler.  Well, Paul, the writer of this letter, was just as bad.  Here’s a man who murdered Christians, because they were Christians, and who Jesus saw fit to save!  Paul is saying “Jesus died, not for the righteous and the good, but for sinners.  Not only sinners, but sinners as bad as I am!”

He goes on to say that we’ve been “justified” (that is, declared righteous) by Christ’s blood, saving us from the just wrath of the Father, but he doesn’t stop there.  That would almost be good enough!  But no, he goes on to explain that we have also been reconciled to God through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Let’s say you’re broke.  Utterly penniless and destitute.  You’ve found an abandoned apartment building, and you decide to take up residence there.  You’re a squatter.  Now, imagine that one day the owner of the building shows up, and there you are.  No right to be there.  No standing before him to say “but I live here!”  But . . . he doesn’t kick you out — and he doesn’t let you stay either.  No, he takes you out of that filthy, cold place and moves you into his own home at his own expense, adopting you into his own family.  This is what reconciliation to God is like. What grace!

We can know and walk in the confidence and assurance of being reconciled to our Father God through the priestly work of Jesus.

Jesus our priest intercedes on his peoples’ behalf, and will forever.

Still, Jesus’ work as our priest didn’t end after his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven.  No, he is alive today and continues to minister to us by interceding on our behalf.

Let’s look at Hebrews 7:23-25

Hebrews 7:23-25
The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

I don’t know if I can preach that any better or more clearly than it’s stated there in the Scriptures.

Here, the author of this letter is contrasting the “former priests” — the Old Testament priesthood — with the priesthood of Christ.  He says plainly that while the former priests all died (creating the need for multiple priests) Jesus “holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever”.

One of the functions of those former priests was to intercede or pray for the people — to take the people’s concerns, needs, questions, doubts, and fears to God.  Jesus now does that for us.  Do you ever wonder why we end our prayers with the words “In Jesus Name”?  It’s not a magic formula or something we need to check off so we know we’ve done it right.  Jesus himself said many times that when we go to God the Father in prayer, that we should “ask in his (that is Jesus’) name”. Why? Because we have no standing to dare come before the Father, but Jesus does.  We pray through him, in his name, according to his will, and he is our Great High Priest who goes before the Father with and for us.

It’s not that we have to say the words “In Jesus Name” at the end of our prayers in order to be heard (though that’s a good practice).  It’s that we need to know and recognize that it’s only through Jesus that the Father will hear us.

Therefore, with Jesus as our Great High Priest, we can boldly ask the Father to line up our hearts with his, meet our needs, forgive our sins, and keep us from temptation.

Back to Pete Rose for a minute.

Time will tell whether or not Major League Baseball will reinstate him.  Even if they do, it might not be until after he dies.  Tell you what I think — I hope they do reinstate him.  I think that he deserves it.  Yeah, he broke the rules, and he shouldn’t have done what he did, but he’s a legend.  He’s not “bigger than the game”, as some might say, but the game is better for having had him.

We can’t say the same for ourselves and how we relate to God.  God is not better for having had us.  We don’t deserve “reinstatement” into his family.  We deserve nothing but his condemnation, but grace changes everything. And Christ’s continual work as our Great High Priest is an outworking of that grace.

LET’S PRAY.

There it is: my first sermon, preached tonight.

Go easy.

Resolved: with God’s help, to lose not another moment of this life to vanity, but to work, study, pray, teach, play, and even rest with all vigor, to the glory of God.*

I’m 30 today.

* (No, this is not one of Edwards’ Resolutions, but it’s partially inspired by them.)

• Zoë started kindergarten last week.  The initial separation was difficult for her (surprisingly . . . first day of preschool last year was easy), but when we came to get her, everything was great.  She’s really enjoying it, and already doing well, academically and socially.  Amy and I are sending her to a really good Christian school, but we’re not anti-public school or anything.  We’re just anti-THESE public schools around here. (They’re… not good.)
• I still like being married.
• It’s reported that Amy likes it, too

Church

• Things are going well.  We’re planting another Grace Central congregation (with a view toward even more over the next ten years). Folks are being gathered, forming relationships, believing the Gospel, serving eachother.  It’s cool to see Jesus work in and through people.
• Greg has been preaching through the book of Ezra, which is just what we need to hear at this stage — the story of God rescuing his people from exile, and then working through them to build his temple.  He’s doing the same now — his temple now known to be his people, the Church.
• (Feel free to subscribe to Grace Central’s podcast to hear these sermons, by the way.  Maybe you’ll want to come join us! The iTunes link is here, or you can subscribe manually here.)
• I’ll be preaching my first sermon (ever) at Grace Central some time in the next few weeks.  Please pray for me as I study and prepare to deliver God’s Word to his people.
• Home groups are starting back up in a couple of weeks after a Summer hiatus. We’re looking forward to that.

Tech

• I’ve been enjoying Ubiquity, a new experimental extension for Firefox. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like Quicksilver, but for your browser. You should just watch the video and try it out for yourself. It has the potential to change the way we browse.  Seriously.
• We got an Xbox 360 a few weeks ago.  I’ve actually been using it as a media extender (thanks to Rivet and a Linksys WRT54GS w/ DD-WRT firmware — in bridge mode) almost as much as I’ve used it to play games.  The ability to watch HD video podcasts on our TV rather than on my Macbook’s screen is pretty darn nice (not to mention streaming the iTunes library to the TV, as well).
• (My Xbox LIVE gamertag is raekwon00, by the way. Add me as a friend!)
• I added an Airport Express router to our home network (this is in addition to the Airport Extreme and the aforementioned Linksys).  This little thing is fantastic for extending your network’s range or creating a dual-band 802.11n/g network.  It’ll come in handy if I’m ever again in a hotel with wired-only internet as well.

Music

• I wish I had something to report here. I need some new tunes. Suggestions?

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

I wonder how many of my fellow African-Americans voted for Senator Obama primarily for his color (and rhetorical skill) rather his character (and policies). Of course, no one’s actually allowed to say this. If you’re white and you say this, you’re labeled a racist. If you’re black, you’re a self-hating Uncle Tom.

Ah well.

Unless, of course, you like your kids learning their Bible stories as simplistic, poorly-illustrated morality plays with absolutely no connection to the person and work of Jesus, that is.  Then, by all means, keep the one you have.

Zoë’s loving hers, and so are Mommy and Daddy.

(* Feeding to the dog or shredding for use as rodent bedding are acceptable substitutes for burning.)