Hey there, Beloved…
I think many (most?) people misunderstand the entire nature of Christianity. Perhaps you grew up in Granny Smith’s Sunday School class where she taught you how displeased God was with your misbehavior. Or maybe you attended Catholic high school where Sister Athena of the Holy Order smacked your wrist every time you teased your brother. Based on these experiences—reinforced by Hollywood’s rendition of the First Self-Righteous Church of the Superior Ones—most Americans visualize cleaning up our behavior as the chief aim of our religion. To most, Christianity is simply one big shame-laden behavioral modification program. But is that true? Is this really what God wants for you and me? Let’s explore this in Deeper Thoughts below… But first… five super-simple reminders… · Experience “The Steps to Freedom in Christ” – THIS Saturday, April 27, 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. – a time tested, empirically proven tool that activates the believer’s authority and power in Christ to break free from the sin and thoughts that repeatedly entangle us. This special encounter will involve collective instruction, individual guidance, corporate worship, and a collaborative wrap up. This is so much more than a workshop or class. This is your time to biblically press into God’s presence and actualize your healing, freedom, and identity in Jesus Christ. Free continental breakfast and lunch included! Please click here to RSVP today! · Women: It’s not too late to join us for our seven-week women’s study on Thursday nights called “Knowing Rediscovered.” Learn how to hear God’s voice, discover our identity in Christ, and nurture the relationships we have. Click here for more info and to RSVP! o Also mark your calendars for breakfast and a prayer walk, Saturday, May 25. Click here for more details! · Men: Saturday, May 4, 8:00 – 9:00 a.m. a quick and focused men’s challenge morning. We’ll do a simple continental breakfast (coffee, donuts, snacks) and dive right into our discussion, prayer, and challenge time. Click here to RSVP! · Young Adults: TOMORROW—Friday evening, April 26, 20-somethings hang out and spiritual discussions. Click here to email Sherri Eads for details! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who already have spotless behavior. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… Tell me if I’m right. Most Americans visualize their spiritual lives going something like this: We try real hard to be good kids. Our Sunday School teacher says God is watching everything we do (oh, and Santa is keeping a careful record as well!). But by the third grade, we’ve already messed it all up. By high school, girls [boys], music, and beer are starting to take centerstage. Church is just plain boring. We launch off into college or a trade, get married, have kids, try our best to be a good father [mother], and work tirelessly to earn that next promotion at work. God occupies a 60-minute time slot on Christmas Eve and Easter and the occasional special church service our mom begs us to attend. As we get into our fifties and sixties, we start burying our parents, and then our friends, and *then* start thinking our own eternity might be important. By now we’re pretty sure Saint Peter has polished up his gold-plated measuring scale, and the good deeds and bad deeds we’ve done are getting stacked on either side. We cross our fingers that we’ve done enough good things, or donated enough to charity, or cleaned up our language well enough to outweigh all that teenage rebellion Peter stacked on his scale. Pretty soon the Pearly Gates will greet us; we’ll nervously stand in line to see what Peter has to say… Sound familiar? What is perhaps worst about this image of religion is how profoundly hopeless and helpless it is. It’s like we are just biding our time to learn our predetermined fate. We sincerely hope we’ve stacked up enough good credits, but deep down inside we have no idea. Oh, and then because it feels so helpless, we start getting cranky about the unfairness of heaven and hell. God’s expectations are wildly unrealistic. We feel defeated to improve our standing with God, so we just give up and decide it’s best to enjoy what little life we have left and ignore this unrealistic, punitive, judgmental God that Granny Smith or Sister Athena created in our mind. Born again Christians understand that real Christianity is nothing at all like what I have just described. We who have found authentic faith in Jesus Christ--rooted not in Granny Smith’s angry image of God, but rather in the clear and joyful revelation of the Bible—have discovered firsthand that God is abundantly merciful, outrageously gracious, unconditionally loving, and unstoppably present. His grace washes over our sinfulness in wave upon wave of merciful forgiveness. His lavish affection pursues us through every failure, every mistake, every doubt, and every broken corner of our lives. We who are truly born again in Jesus are truly free. We are not haunted by the fear of Saint Peter’s gold-plated scales. We simply trust the finished work of Jesus’ grace for us. And this changes us. We become entirely free. (BTW…we also know Peter has no involvement whatsoever with our eternal entrance exam. That job belongs solely to Jesus. And Jesus has already rigged the test by filling in all the answers for us… oh, this is so good!!) So… does my behavior matter? Of course, it does. But not in the way most people think Jesus sees it. In Jesus Christ, our behavior is the outcome of freedom, not the gateway to it. In Jesus, we do not behave our way into spiritual victory. To the contrary, spiritual freedom and spiritual victory lead us to a new behavior. Romans 1 reveals to us that ignoring God will lead us to humanism and hedonism. So, in that sense, the behavior of ignoring God and putting our affections solely on created beings becomes a gateway to isolation and spiritual destruction. But the story doesn’t end with Romans 1. After Romans 1 comes Romans 3 and Romans 6. Jesus meets our unrighteousness with his own righteousness, and he exercises a fair trade. He lays down his life to swap places with us. We have known crippling bondage created by our humanistic hedonism; he takes the jail cell for himself and releases us into unfettered liberty. We must believe this supernatural prisoner exchange has taken place. When we receive this gift by faith, we move into Romans 8 where a brand-new life, free of condemnation and free of sin begins to emerge. And then… only then… can we experience Romans 12 and Romans 13 where our behavior towards others and our behavior towards God will actually, substantively, and measurably change. Oh, beloved… Do you want to step into this so fully? Do you want to become entirely free? Let’s do three things: 1) Read it again. Cycle through Romans 1, 3, 6, 8, and 12. Sneak around Romans 13 and notice what thorough freedom and a transformed life in Jesus Christ might look like for you. 2) Come out Saturday to specifically walk seven steps into that freedom. This will not be another behavior modification lecture, I promise. It will be a life-changing discovery of the freedom already given to you with a guided pathway to realize it. More info and RSVP right here. 3) Come back out Sunday morning where we will continue into “Uncharted Territory: Taking Life Where You’ve Never Been” and explore the outcomes promised in Romans 13. This is real Christianity. You in?? Here we go! Much love to all… just like Jesus has for you… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend
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Hey Friends…
There is a massive risk that my teaching could come across as just another self-help, humanistic, pep-rally “Ted Talk” designed to make you feel better about yourself. There is plenty of that blather out there on YouTube and in podcast-land; none of it has changed your life. Which means it does not work. What I have to offer you is NOT more positive self-esteem. We have something so much greater: a profound theological truth revealed in the Word of God that must change our minds. I’ll tell you more about it in Deeper Thoughts below… But first…. · You don’t want to miss this… RSVP now! NEXT Saturday, April 27, we are having a “Freedom in Christ” day-retreat to walk through seven specific steps to actualize our healing, freedom, and identity being in Jesus Christ. Everything we have been learning in our study of Romans leads to these seven specific steps that Pastor Chris Campbell will lead us through. Join us for intensive learning, reflection time, and guided steps to take. Next Saturday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. at the church. Continental breakfast and lunch included; no cost! But please click here to RSVP today! · Next up for women: Starting Thursday, April 25th, join us for a seven-week women’s study called “Knowing Rediscovered” to learn how to hear God’s voice, discover our identity in Christ, and nurture the relationships we have. Click here for more info and to RSVP! o And… mark your calendars for the next women’s social event—breakfast and a prayer walk, Saturday, May 25. Click here for more details! · Next up for men: Saturday, May 4, 8:00 – 9:00 a.m. a quick and focused men’s challenge morning. We’ll do a simple continental breakfast (coffee, donuts, snacks and such) and dive right into our discussion, prayer, and challenge time. C’mon out… but would you RSVP by clicking here? · Young Adults (20-somethings): Come hang out together NEXT Friday evening, April 26. Click here to email Sherri Eads for details! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who don’t want to like themselves more. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… You were made for glory. That’s not a word we typically use outside of religious circles, so I imagine most of us don’t have a clue what that really means or how it is useful to our lives. “Glory” in its most simplified form means “the full identity of someone.” It speaks of the individual’s greatness, their fullness, their truest selves. When someone is seen for the entirety of who they are--no masks, no pretending, no façades—we see their glory. You might have used the word this way: Your precious three-year-old son goes streaking through your living room in his birthday suit while you have a few sophisticated dinner guests over. Everyone nervously laughs and says, “well, there he goes in all his glory!” Nope…nothin’ hidden there! In our crude and vernacular sense, that’s “glory”. When God unmasked Himself for all of humanity to see, it wasn’t a shameful revelation like your little kiddo offered you that fateful dinner-party evening. No, it was the stunning revelation of the wonder and fullness of His character, His identity, His nature. Nobody had ever seen God before. When He pulled the curtain back, we saw exactly who He is. And it was good. The event took place on a mountain 15 miles southwest of Jesus’ home in Capernaum. Prior to that bewildering day, Mt. Tabor was just another rolling hillside in the fertile Jezreel Valley of Galilee. But on this day, it would be the site where God made Himself fully known—where He revealed His glory. The barrier between this world and His was removed, Jesus’s body was transfigured, and God spoke directly about his identity (Luke 9:28-36). Another time they saw his glory: Jesus was at a wedding minding his own business. Either poor planning by the caterers or a super thirsty crowd had drained all the wine bottles. But they were only halfway through the reception. Jesus’ mom put the problem on his shoulders. (Was he the best man? Was he somehow responsible for the open bar?) His solution? Serve water. Lots of it. One hundred and eighty gallons of it. (Did you read that right? Check out John 2:6 and do the math.) As the servants followed his direction, they found those 180 gallons of water were no longer water. They were now 180 gallons of the best wine ever tasted. That’s nine hundred bottles worth. John Bar-Zebedee records that Jesus “thus revealed his glory” (John 2:11). Jesus wasn’t revealing the glory of his winemaking skills. He was revealing two things: His authority over the periodic table of elements—he transformed H2O into C2H6O (Google it… you’ll see). AND, more importantly, he was revealing how lavishly he solves our problems—900 bottles worth of lavishness. Bam. Mic drop. Where are you going with this, Chris? Here’s the punchline: John 17:22. Jesus is praying for both his immediate disciples and us—all who would follow him in the centuries and millennia to come. His prayer? “God, I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” Do you see it? You have been given glory—the same glory God gave to Jesus. Hold the phone. What? Yep. Jesus’ glory--his truest self, his fullness, his greatness—was shaped by God and given to him. And when that identity was fully unmasked, no façade, it reveals who God is. Then, in turn, Jesus hands over that very same glory to you and to me. The result? We see God manifest in us and it makes us an “us”—we become one body, unified directly with Jesus as we are unified with each other. Fast forward to our study of the Book of Romans: Uncharted Territory, Taking Life Where You Have Never Been. You’ve likely never thought of yourself so highly that you would possess the full glory--the same glory—as Jesus. This is somewhere you have never been. But Jesus has given this to you. What does it look like? Romans reveals that it is found in the measure of faith God has given you. We are to think very soberly about it (Romans 12:3). Since that same verse tells us to not think too highly of ourselves, we pass that test with flying colors (so we think) and assume we could never have this kind of glory in our lives. But a sober analysis of what God has really done will help us see that it is not we who are so glorious. It is God’s glory manifest in us as we accept by faith whatever He has placed in us. And sober analysis cannot reject God’s work by saying: “oh, I’m nothing special; God cannot use me; God is not interested in me; I don’t have any gifts…” To the contrary, if we recognize by faith what gift God has placed in us through Jesus, we can begin to use it to reveal God’s glory through us. This unified body of believers in which we live is all one big collection of individuals who have been given God’s glory--God’s identity—through our faith in Jesus. We see it by faith; we step up by faith; and in accordance with that faith, we begin to exercise the specific aspects of that glory. Confused yet? Do this: Read carefully Romans 12:1-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:1-31. Then come hang with us Sunday—10:00 a.m. in-person (best!) or online-livestream (if necessary). Let’s make some sense of this together! Can’t wait to unpack this with you Sunday… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend Hey Friends…
I have an addiction that I should tell you about. I can’t stop watching aircraft accident analysis videos on YouTube. That may sound a bit morbid to many of you--and just underscored why some of you are terrified of flying. But as a recreational aviator, it keeps me honest. As most aircraft accidents are the result of a pilot thinking one thing is true when it is not, I need to learn how to change my mind. Spiritual and relational accidents in our lives are almost always caused the same way: by our thinking. I’ve been in one near-miss that could have been a fatal aircraft accident; I’ve been in many near-misses and a handful of full-blown ball-ups in my spiritual life. I’ll tell you more about it in Deeper Thoughts below… But first…. · RSVP to experience ACTUAL freedom in Christ!! We will work seven steps to freedom, wholeness, healing, and strength at our Freedom in Christ day-retreat, Saturday, April 27 from 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Join us for scriptural discovery, guided prayer and reflection, and an actual pathway to reframe our thinking, habits, and experiences. Click here for more information and to RSVP! · TOMORROW: Saturday, April 13, 9:00 -12:30 - Church-wide Spring Spruce Up Workday. C'mon out for lots of fun and fellowship for all skill levels, abilities, and interests—indoor and outdoor, heavy-lift and light duty…whatever you will enjoy the most! · THIS SUNDAY: April 14, 11:45 a.m. Volunteer Info Meeting for serving our Kids and Teens – a no-commitment information and vision-casting meeting. Lunch included!! Click here to let us know you’re coming! · Did you miss Mt. Hope being featured on WAVA 105.1? I had the privilege to brag on you for an hour about the passionate culture and super-healthy dynamics you all are creating in our church. If you’d like to hear the podcast on WAVA’s Drive Home show, click here, and then scroll down through the podcast listing to April 8. OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who are as scared of Jesus as you are of flying. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… I’ve gotten a lot of things wrong over the years. How about you? Most of us are relatively slow to admit it. Confirmation bias as well as simple pride keep us from recognizing a particular spiritual or emotional cliff we are careening towards. The damage is entirely unintended, and we usually think we’ve done the right thing to prevent it. But the results speak for themselves, do they not? Oxford Dictionary defines confirmation bias as “the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.” In other words, we want something to be true, or we assume something is true, so we just keep assuming this even when evidence in front of us should tell us otherwise. In fact, the new evidence--while objectively contradicting our biases—is often used to confirm the bias rather than refute it. Most aircraft accidents are caused by pilot error—a series of poor decisions that sneak past warning after warning that something is not normal. The pilot assumes they are on the right course, doing the right thing, even when clear evidence is to the contrary. Most spiritual and relational catastrophes in our lives equally come from faulty thinking that careens past truth that is distinctly revealed in God’s Word. The scriptures give clear instruction on the best and healthiest way to navigate a particular experience. We either ignore the teaching, or worse, distort its guidance to affirm the ill-advised course we prefer to take. We see it in our interpersonal conflicts; in our identity; in our dysfunctional family patterns. We see it in our romance, our politics, our frictional acquaintances, even those who may be our enemies. Our society has fiercely trained us; cultural norms and human impulses demand common relational patterns and reactions. Worse yet, since we all live in this same culture and have these same human instincts, we all think we’re doing the right thing. We cling to the bias, even though the evidence suggests that it is not serving us well. I almost died in an airplane once. It was a very gusty, bumpy day. Being relatively junior in my aviating experience, I elected to purposely go fly in such rough weather to build my skills and confidence with landing an aircraft in gusty crosswind conditions. I was practicing a series of takeoffs and landings, flying a tight circuit around the airport traffic pattern between each takeoff and coming back around to land. The airport had no air traffic control tower, meaning each pilot had to self-report to others on the radio our whereabouts and intentions. I heard another aircraft announce on the radio that they were six miles away, inbound to land on a straight-in approach. My bias heard six miles away… no problem, I’m just making a quick turn towards the runway, and I’ll be well ahead of him. I called out to him on the radio with my intention but received no response—and most importantly, no confirmation of his actual position. Moments later, while a mere 200 feet above the ground and less than a quarter mile from the runway, a gust of wind kicked the nose of my aircraft a little to the left. Right there, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that other aircraft right below me… twenty feet below me! I was right on top of him, descending directly into him, both of us tracking to the same runway threshold. It was my confirmation bias that we were both safely where we should be--when clearly, we were not—that nearly cost us both lives. How about you and me in our day-to-day spiritual and relational experiences? Do we think we are on the right course, doing the right things, in the right way? But there… just in the corner of our eye… could there be an impending collision with another person that will have catastrophic emotional consequences? Years ago, the gust of wind that kicked my aircraft nose to the left saved me and that other fellow from certain catastrophe. Friends, I pray that the Word of God will blow a gust our direction today to save us from emotional damage and lead us to the abundant joy of well-framed relationships. For this to truly happen, we likely need to change our mind. God reveals to us in Romans 12:2 that we must no longer conform to the patterns of this world—to no longer navigate our human experiences with the confirmation bias our society has firmly established. God calls us to renew our mind—to be entirely transformed to a new way of thinking. When it comes to relating to one another, to God, and to ourselves, He gives us just one instruction: “Change your mind.” Do a little advance reading before this Sunday—carefully explore Romans 12. Do you see any specific instructions that challenge how you instinctively react to other people? To how you are focused in your relationships with others? To how you respond towards others who might even be considered your enemies? Do you see any wisdom in this teaching that contradicts how our culture has taught us to relate? Let’s continue into Uncharted Territory this weekend. This will change everything about our purpose and our relationships. This Sunday at 10:00 a.m.—in-person (best!) or online-livestream (if needed). Can’t wait to be with you all!! Much love to each of you… you matter to me and Sherri more than you know! Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend Hey Friends…
Sometimes I worry about coming across like a “snake oil salesman”—you know, the guy who promises you the world, but what he’s really selling has absolutely nothing to it. Now… don’t mistake me here: I know that’s not what I do. I know I am promising you something that has the reality of God’s very existence behind it. But I worry that some might feel like that’s what I’m selling. I’ll tell you more in Deeper Thoughts below… But first…. · Men: Breakfast and challenge TOMORROW morning—Saturday April 6, 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. Join us for great food, fellowship, and exploring the challenge of following Jesus as bold men of God. All are welcome… click here to give us a quick RSVP so we can plan for food! · Do you want ACTUAL freedom, joy, and abundant life in Christ? Spend the day stepping into actual and specific freedom, wholeness, healing, and strength through our Freedom in Christ day-retreat at Mt. Hope, Saturday, April 27 from 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Chris Campbell will lead us through scriptural discovery, guided prayer and reflection, and a practical pathway to reframe our thinking, habits, and experiences in Jesus. Click here for more information and to RSVP! · Church-wide Spring Spruce Up Workday: Saturday, April 13, 9:00 -12:30. We will have lots of opportunities to match your skill levels, abilities, and interests—indoor and outdoor, heavy-lift and light duty…whatever you will enjoy the most! · Volunteer Info Meeting for serving our Kids and Teens: Sunday, April 14, for a no-commitment information and vision-casting meeting. Lunch included!! Click here to let our family ministry team know you’ll be coming! · And for fun: Mt. Hope will be featured on WAVA (FM 105.1) TODAY, Friday, April 5 at 4:00 p.m. for the one-hour “drive home” with Brian Bales, who interviewed me about our church and all that God is doing. Tune in or catch it from their website at www.wava.com. OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who are ready to blindly buy whatever I’m selling. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… There was indeed potential medical benefit to snake oil. For centuries, the Chinese used oils from regional water snakes that were high in Omega-3s to treat arthritis and joint pain. When Chinese workers flooded into the U.S. to help build our railway network in the mid-1800’s, they brought this remedy with them to ease their aches and pains from hard manual labor. The practice quickly caught the attention of American charlatans who could sell just about anything with any promise before federal agencies began regulating marketing claims in the early 1900s. And the charlatans did just that with “oils” supposedly drawn from American rattlesnakes—which had zero actual medical benefit. “Medicines” such as Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment promised to cure everything from joint pain, toothaches, and sore throats to lameness and frostbite. It was “good for everything a liniment should be good for,” the advertisement read, which is rather suspiciously broad. It didn’t work. There was nothing to it. Thus, our modern vernacular “snake oil salesman” refers to someone selling you something entirely useless. (Oh, and Clark Stanley? In 1916, he was prosecuted by the federal government for fraudulently peddling useless mineral oil as a healing snake oil. He pleaded “no contest.” He was fined $20.00.) Now, I know you didn’t come here nor read this far to learn anything about snakes. Mr. Wikipedia and our buddy Sam can tell you whatever you want to know about reptiles. You’re here with me (if you haven’t bailed out quite yet) because you want something from God, and you know I’m going to offer you a cure to the ails and challenges of your human heart. But does any of it actually work? Is there anything to it? For me, I’ve done the research. I’ve taken the medicine myself. I’ve met with thousands of patients who have been cured by its supernatural ingredients. I will yammer on and on about it on Sundays, and in newsletters, and in online videos. I write books. I teach classes. I will sell this to anyone who gives me just a moment of their attention. But does it work? I believe many people who faithfully attend church or listen to online sermons secretly wonder if all these bold claims of a “transformed life” are real or just some 1800’s-era worthless ooze from a common rattlesnake. We smile and nod at the preacher, especially if he is entertaining enough and can hold our attention with some compelling testimony. But then we go home. The Bible he promised would change our life sits precariously on our nightstand. We thumb through it from time to time, but for many of us, we are lost. We don’t understand what we read, or we just can’t see its relevance to the stressful meeting we have at work tomorrow morning; or the argument we just had with our spouse; or the suffocating loneliness we feel trapped in; or the searing anger we feel when we watch the news; or the hopelessness we feel for our future. Preacher told me the Word of God would change my life. So, I took the medicine. But my soul still aches. What gives? This Sunday, I’m going to make the sales pitch once again. “Uncharted Territory: Taking Life Where You’ve Never Been.” It sounds suspiciously broad like a Clark Stanley liniment advertisement. It gets worse: This week will be “Part 12—This Changes Everything.” Really Chris? Everything? Yep. Everything. Romans 3 tells us we are made completely right with God--accessed singularly by our faith in Jesus. Romans 6 tells us we can live a brand new, resurrected life--no longer trapped in the endless cycle of sin, defeat, and brokenness. Romans 8 tells us we are more than conquerors in Jesus--that every circumstance in our life can be squarely in the hands of God and working for our good. Sounds too good to be true? Every circumstance? Is this some useless snake oil, or is it real? May I make one more important parallel between these promises and medicine? You know that most medicines don’t actually cure the root problem, right? They provide comfort and resources to manage our way through the pain caused by a root disease. We don’t dismiss the value of the medicine because it hasn’t cured us. We understand the medicine’s role. Medicine is usually not the cure itself; most often it is the bridge to the cure. And we know how to take it. Friends, this Sunday morning, our 20-week study of the Book of Romans will turn the corner from all the medical theory of how God heals our souls (Romans 1 – 8) to the practical instruction of how we are to take His medicine (Romans 12 – 16). But make no mistake: The instructions do not cure us. God alone is the “Great Physician.” God alone transforms the human heart. How you and I access that cure has everything to do with how we take His medicine. Will you join us to explore this a little further? The instructions are going to become amazingly clear. I’ll do my best to help you understand them. Do some advance reading if you will. This week, compare the promises of Romans 8 with the instructions of Romans 12. See if it begins to reveal anything to you… and then let’s meet! Sunday morning 10:00 a.m. in-person (best!!) or online-livestream (if you need). Much love to all… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend |
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