Lenten Thoughts Week 2

Dear Friends,

I appreciate Pastor Irwyn's encouragement that the source of our reality and hope is found in being desperate for Jesus if we are going to fulfill what God has planned for us in our church and in our communities. It is so easy for me to live independently from God and others and very hard for me to acknowledge that I need something else other than myself. Yet God is active in stripping me of my pride and unbelief, and making me desperate for Jesus.

Henri Nouwen in his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, (based on Rembrandt's painting on Luke 15:11-32) reminds me of my daily need for Jesus. The younger son demands his inheritance for he wants to live "free" from his father and enjoy the life he never had the opportunity to experience. Amazingly his father gives him his inheritance. I say amazingly because the son’s manner of leaving is tantamount to wishing his father dead. What the younger son is literally saying as he makes his demands is “Father, I cannot wait for you to die.” So you see the son’s leaving is a much more offensive act than it seems at first reading. Nouwen writes, “It is a heartless rejection of the home in which the son was born and nurtured and a break with the most precious tradition carefully upheld by the larger community of which he was a part. When Luke writes, “and left for a distant country,” he indicates much more than the desire of a young man to see more of the world. He speaks about a drastic cutting loose from the way of living, thinking, and acting that has been handed down to him from generation to generation as a sacred legacy. More than disrespect, it is a betrayal of the treasured values of family and community.”

This explanation is meaningful to me, not only because it provides for me with an accurate understanding of the parable but also and most of all because it challenges me to recognize the younger son in myself. When I look carefully at the many more or less subtle ways I have preferred the “distant country” to the home close by, the younger son quickly emerges. My pursuit for the “distant country” looks like this: I become so desperate for my work to prove me acceptable that I control and manipulate people; I become so desperate for people’s approval that I compromise or deceive; or I become so desperate for being right that I fail to forgive or accept people where they are. The younger son is in all of us because all of us struggle in experiencing that Jesus is enough for us. We all are desperate for other things than Jesus. As the younger son runs from his father’s security and love to find “freedom”; we too run from our Father’s security and love to find a false freedom thinking that we need other things to truly satisfy us whatever that may be for you (financial stability, beautiful home, job security, obedient children, healthy marriage, intimate relationships, drugs, sex, alcohol, approval of others, good reputation, etc).

However, we see in this parable the boundlessness of God’s compassionate love. Just imagine if you were the younger son who wished that your father was dead and now your father is running towards you and kisses you (both which were unheard of that day and many thought inappropriate, some say the father would look like a fool to do this). And then throws a lavish party! Incredible! This is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Even when we try to find our freedom and satisfaction in other things and moreover ignoring and rejecting our Father and His love; He runs, kisses and throws a lavish party for us at the cross. Because of the cross of Jesus, we are acceptable in His sight, his very own children who he delights in and rejoices over and forever forgiven. Incredible indeed! We are His beloved just like Jesus is His Beloved.

Are you desperate for Jesus? He is for you! Because He is for you, here what Nouwen encourages: “As the Beloved of my Heavenly Father, I can ‘walk in the valley of darkness and fear no evil.’ As the Beloved, I can ‘cure the sick, raise the dead, cleans the lepers, cast out devils.’ … As the Beloved, I can confront, console, admonish, and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation. As the Beloved, I can suffer persecution without desire for revenge and receive praise without using it as a proof of my goodness. As the Beloved, I can be tortured and killed without having to doubt that the love that is given to me is stronger than death. As the Beloved, I am free to live and give life, free also to die while giving life.”

This is what your relationship with Jesus is all about. Meditate, reflect and ask God the Holy Spirit to enable you to live as the Beloved, free and secure!

Warmly,

Jeffrey Rickett
Co-Pastor and Church Planter
City of Hope Church (PCA)

It Takes a Community

It Takes a Community

“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and returns to us as results.” Herman Melville

In Hillary Clinton’s bestseller, It Takes a Village, she passionately invites our society into the kind of village that enables children to grow into able, caring, resilient adults. I whole heartedly agree with her. Moreover, though, I want to apply this same kind of vision to City of Hope Church as it relates to growing each person into able, caring, resilient children of God.

As we begin to explore what this means for us, I want to consider two questions:

1. Have you ever wondered about the widespread problem of loneliness in our culture and how it might be tied to brokenness and ongoing sin?
   
2. Have you ever wondered why we can feel so disconnected even when we are surrounded by people and consumed with the busyness of work, family, and church commitments? Let’s see how this works out for us.

I heard a comment once that leads me to understand the heart of the above questions. The comment was from one who was in a small group, and even though he was active in this small group for a long time, he confessed that those in his small group did not one another all that well. How could that be, I thought, and then I was humbled when someone in my small group felt similarly and encouraged the group to go deeper with one another. Even those who have a heart for this can still be stuck in living independently from others and keep their masks on to prevent others from seeing the real them. But God’s work of personal transformation takes place within the community of God’s people. We can’t be people who say “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it” Or “You are on your own to get out of your mess.” Because as Christians we know that nothing can be further from the gospel. When Christ brings us into the family of God, no matter how much we messed up, we are never alone again. In How People Change, the authors discern, “yet many believers latch onto the hope of personal change while clinging to the individualism of our society. They have a “Jesus and me” mentality as they battle with sin and seek to become more like Christ. At first we might think, ‘Why not? After all, getting involved with people is complicated, messy and time-consuming. Who needs it? It is not very efficient when we have a lot of personal changing to do.’”

However, change is something God wants us to experience together. We are all part of a larger story of redemption that involves God’s people throughout the ages. God is about changing us together into the likeness of Christ. We can’t do it alone. We must not do it alone. In fact, God himself models to us community. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit live together in perfect fellowship, harmony, and unity. Again quoting from the authors of How People Change, “What each person of the Trinity is and does is always in union with the others. That even includes our salvation! At great personal cost, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all played a part in bringing us into the family of God. Their perfect fellowship as the Trinity was disrupted so that we could be brought into fellowship with God.” Don’t miss what they just said—we are part of God’s community at the expense of disturbing God’s own community within the Trinity.

Read Ephesians 4:4-6 and you get a feel of the community that exists among the Godhead. Paul uses the word “one” seven times. The unity of God is meant to lead in his family into unity and intimacy. The benefit to us is that we are one body, we have one hope, one faith, one baptism and “one God who is over all and through all and in all.” Get the big idea: God is a community and this is stamped onto all he creates. Bask, enjoy, and experience this truth for you personally and us corporately!

Warmly,

Jeff

Lent

The period of Lent is an important part of the Christian calendar. It represents “wandering in the wilderness” with Jesus. After being baptized by John in the Jordan River Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights. Adam failed when tempted by Satan, but Jesus, of course, triumphed. The seven weeks of Lent are a journey of spiritual preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection (Easter).

You may have never paid attention to the Lenten season, which begins Ash Wednesday (February 21) and concludes on Easter (April 8). I’d like to change that for us this year. Here’s why. We cannot do what God has called us to do – glorify his name, pursue authentic unity in the church, teach the truth, disciple, equip, and send, die to the flesh, live to the Spirit, seek and save the lost, take up our crosses and follow him, overcome the world, resist the devil, show love, grace, and hope to “the least of these”, raise resources, and many other things. The task is too overwhelming. We are desperate for Jesus, and without him we can do nothing.

In full realization of this, I’d like us to view this season of Lent as a Season of Consecration. In his book Ancient Future Time, Robert Webber reminds us that Lent, “calls us back to God, back to basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. It calls on us to put to death the sin and the indifference we have in our hearts toward God and our fellow persons. And it beckons us to enter once again into the joy of the Lord – the joy of a new life born out of a death to the old life.”

Lent is a season characterized by a sacrificial focus on spiritual disciplines. Make an assessment of where you are now. In what way is God calling you back to basics? Would the Lord have you sacrifice your time to wake up a bit earlier and join the corporate prayer meetings? Fathers and mothers, would the Lord have you reschedule your evenings to have regular times of family worship in word, prayer, and praise? Who is it that you can commit to praying with for one hour each week? Is there a meal that the Lord would have you sacrifice once a week to spend more time with him? One thing I plan to do is fast over my lunch hour during the week to spend time in prayer and Scripture reading. These are just some examples for us to consider.

As you consider this, please read and reflect on John 15:1-11. Jesus says in verse 4, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

Don’t just blow off these words or this call to a Season of Consecration. City of Hope Church Will Not survive or prosper if we are not desperate for the Lord. This is a seeking after and a hungering for Christ that must characterize us as a church. The time to make that the DNA of our church is now, at the beginning. So consider these words and prayerfully commit to something. You don’t have to broadcast what the Lord lays on your heart to all of us, but I’m open to and welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

We will schedule two “concerts of prayer” evenings during Lent for a time of corporate prayer and worship. Look for regular thoughts and suggestions from me throughout this season.

Lastly, please send me an email, give me a call, or speak with me at church if you have any questions or specific prayer requests.

In Christ’s love,

Irwyn Ince

Pastor
City of Hope Church (PCA)