Jeffrey Smith's Blog

Injustice Beware

It is nearly impossible to try and explain the vastness of the world of sports. From physical fitness, competition, and teamwork, to leadership, merchandising, and downright national pride, sports is big business…huge business. The professional sports industry alone is twice the size of the auto industry and 7 times larger than the movie industry.

 

Sometimes an issue arises in the world of sports that transcends sports itself. The blog I am writing today will be considered by some as sports related. Although it is within the realm of the sports world, I feel it is more human related.

 

The dreadful story that has been developing at Penn State for the last week or so has been in my head for days. For those that may not be aware of the story I would suggest reading about it before reading the rest of this blog. Be warned it is graphic and sickening yet it is a story that cannot be avoided.

 

 Within this real-life horror story we find a man in a position of authority and influence that used his power to prey on innocent, at-risk children. We also see legendary leaders above him forever tarnishing their own legacies for failing to respond to the injustices in an appropriate way. Instead of talking about this story directly, I am choosing to make 3 critical observations based on these events.

 

 

1.            There will always be people in positions of authority that will abuse their power and influence to get what they want.

 

2.            There will always be people that prey on the innocent for their own benefit.

 

3.            There will always be people that know injustice exists, yet do little or nothing to prevent it.

 

I want to take these three heartbreaking statements and ask myself how I plan on responding to each of them in my own life.

 

1.            There will always be people in positions of authority that will abuse their power and influence to get what they want.

 

 

Other than Jesus my favorite Biblical personality has always been David. David had a tremendous love for God yet he was very human. David taught us how to worship yet he also showed us how far we can fall when we don’t cling to the one that we should be worshipping at all times. David used his authority as king to obtain Bathsheba, the object of his desire, he also used authority as commander-in-chief to have Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, murdered on the battlefield. David had one key element that I desire to have. He always turned to the Lord when he failed.

 

As a senior pastor I have a great deal of autonomy. Sure I have elders and a board of directors and I willingly submit myself to spiritual authority, but none of those people see my heart. It is my responsibility to make sure at the end of each day my heart is pure before God.

 

Having a pure heart before God is the only way to insure that we don’t use authority for my our benefit.

 

We can’t go back and rewrite history or change past events but we can make a decision to lead in a way that brings dignity and honor to whatever position of leadership we may hold.

 

2.            There will always be people that prey on the innocent for their own benefit.

 

My wife is one of my heroes. Not only is she an extraordinary woman of faith who inspires thousands weekly, she is a great mom, wife, and friend. Her faith is nearly unshakable. Few would assume this incredible woman grew up in an environment of sexual abuse. We have been together for 16 years and I stood beside her as she literally went through heartbreaking trials trying to overcome the devastation she endured for so many years growing up as a young child. The abuse she went through began when she was younger than my 9 year old daughter. To imagine someone taking advantage of a child is unconscionable…yet people do it daily. As a matter of fact every 2 minutes someone is sexually assaulted in America.

 

Deuteronomy 18 actually warns people not to sacrifice their own children to false Gods! That is so messed up I can’t even comment. We have to be aware of these types of people in the world. They exist!

 

Without becoming a jaded person I believe we can try our hardest to prevent abuse from occurring in the first place. Make it tough on these jokers!

 

For instance, our kids don’t spend the night with anyone. I don’t care who it is. Do other parents criticize us for that decision? Yes. Do we care? We couldn’t care less. Some of the atrocities that take place against children in particular are created when kids are put in awkward situations and they don’t know how to respond. I was sexually abused as a child myself, once with a relative and once at a friend’s house. I believe we should teach our children how to recognize inappropriate behavior and how to respond.

 

Sidenote

I am generally referring to American culture although statistics show that 75% of Aboriginal girls under the age of 18 were sexually abused. 75% of Aboriginal victims of sex crimes were females under 18 years of age. 50% were under 14 years of age. Almost 25% were younger than 7 years (Alliance of Five Research Centres on Violence, 1999).

 

We must be aware that these atrocities exist.

 

3.            There will always be people that know injustice exists, yet do little or nothing to prevent it.

 

It will be a great shock to many when they stand before the throne of God someday and they are judged equally as harshly for what they DIDN’T DO.

 

We are all very aware of sins of commission. We are taught from the time we are children that taking the Lord’s name in vain is a sin, stealing is a sin, murder is a sin. We get that. What we do not seem to get however, is that we are equally accountable for what we fail to do. We are accountable for not worshipping, for not honoring God with our finances, for not speaking up when people are talking negatively about others.

 

King Ahab did nothing to prevent the murder of a man that refused to sell him his property. His wife did most of the dirty work in arranging this man’s death but ultimately what we fail to prevent or intervene on behalf of, we become responsible for.

 

It’s not that people don’t realize that something is wrong. People don’t want to be inconvenienced. We all have been faced with awkward dilemmas where a child was being spanked a little too hard in public and we try to decide whether to say something or not or maybe someone is demeaning another person publically and we want to say something. We are not called to be Batman. We are called to be messengers of hope. People that are being hurt deserve to know about God’s love and hope. If that means intervening at times, so be it. Sometimes that is picking up the phone and calling the police.

 

I was in a theater in 1995 when a dad was cursing and slapping his son in the face before the film in front of everyone. A very large African-American gentlemen approached him and kindly said, “sir if you slap that boy again in front of me I’m gonna slap you in front of him”. The arrogant father told the man to mind his own business, proceeded to slap his son again and then got his jaws nearly slapped off for 5 minutes straight.

 

There is a difference between vigilante justice and vigilant justice. One seeks to punish the criminal personally, the other is committed to not only awareness of injustice but actively pursuing justice through legal means.

 

This year City of Life had an awesome opportunity to partner with Love146.org, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to ending child slavery and exploitation. A song I wrote was featured on their fundraising CD. One of our friends, Leigh Ramsey spearheads an incredible outreach called She Rescue Home. I am so thankful that there truly are committed people that dedicate their existence to the eradication of injustice.

 

I believe each person should try and find something to be a part of that makes a difference.

 

 

Here are my personal responses to the original statements I made.

 

1.             I always want to leverage my own authority for the benefit of the one’s I am leading.

 

2.            I want to value those that cannot help themselves and make life tough for those that would abuse them.

 

3.             I want to be a part of not just proclaiming what is good and right, but defending it as well.

 

 

We shouldn’t allow events like this to make us bitter in life. It doesn’t mean all leaders are bad. It doesn’t mean charity organizations can’t be trusted. It doesn’t mean you can’t trust anybody. It means we must reflect on our own lives and how we can make the greatest difference for God that we can in this short time we have on earth.

 

As much as our own hearts break for injustice, God’s breaks infinitely more.

 

Psalm 33:5
 says, “The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.”

 

Christ was sent that through Him ultimate justice could be eternally established.

 

I want to end my blog with the lyrics of “You Stand”.

 

For the brokenhearted

For the ones who are alone

For the weary stranger

For the ones without a home

You stand, You stand

 

For the ones who’ve been oppressed

For the ones without a voice

For the hurt and the abused

For the ones without a choice

You stand, You stand

 

Your arms are open wide

Your love is abounding

You are our hiding place

With the enemy surrounding

You stand

 

My sisters, my brothers

All nations, all colors

Lord, for every soul
You stand

The hungry, abandoned

Will someday see You standing Lord

You Stand, You stand…

 

 

How Should We Feel?

I am a Christian. I am a husband, father, son, and friend. I am a pastor. I am an American. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the source of my feelings on a particular issue because I am complex. We all are. Because I am a Christian, I strive every day to make sure that I have a Biblical worldview, that is to say, a view of life that is entirely seen through the lens of God's Word. This is not always an easy task. Why? Well, because as I mentioned I am a husband, a father, a son...etc... there are so many things that make up who I am. Plus, I am just straight opinionated. 

Last night it was announced that one of the most evil men of recent history was killed. Is there an appropriate way to feel when you find out an evil man has been killed? The reason for my question is pretty straightforward. The responses to the news on Twitter and Facebook seemed mixed within Christian circles. Granted I would say that nearly 80 per cent of the reactions were some level of relief or joy, there were some that were uncomfortable or offended that people were rejoicing over this man's death. 

Back to the whole Biblical worldview thing. I make a decision every day to let the old me die and to allow the one to live who has been redeemed by Christ. It is not easy but it is necessary. One thing that deeply bothers me is when something happens and people respond by throwing out random scriptures to build an argument. For instance I've been seeing a lot of this:

Proverbs 24:17

¹⁷ Do not gloat when your enemy falls; 
   when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, 

BOOM! (as someone wrote on Facebook last night) Argument over. Not so fast my friend. Notice there is a comma there. I realize that punctuation is not inspired but common sense tells you there is something that follows.

¹⁸ or the LORD will see and disapprove 

   and turn his wrath away from them.

If you gloat over your enemies you are doing God's job for Him. He is about ready to execute judgement. Don't get in his way by having some premature celebration when they stumble. It is the same principle as bragging about fasting and other spiritual disciplines that are best kept secret. Whatever reward or praise from men you receive you should enjoy because God certainly is not going to give you any more. This is also referring to enemies that are ALIVE. Let's keep reading.

¹⁹ Do not fret because of evildoers  or be envious of the wicked, 

²⁰ for the evildoer has no future hope, 
   and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.

The lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. This is the ultimate end for all evil. To be snuffed out. People who only want to talk about God's love fail to realize that God's justice is what makes His love real in the first place. There can be no true love without justice. I wonder if people were happy when they found out Hitler was dead. If people actually rejoiced was that unchristian? I mean, he only killed about 6 million people. I believe it is important to credit God for all of our victories. This insures He will keep fighting our battles for us as He did for Jehoshaphat. Let God fight for you, then rejoice in Him.

As a husband I mourn for the 10's of thousands of widows who lost their spouse because of this man's wickedness. As a father I mourn for the 10's of thousands of parents who lost children because of this man's wickedness. As a son I mourn for the 10's of thousands of children who lost parents because of this man's wickedness. As a friend I mourn for the 10's of thousands of friends who lost friends because of this man's wickedness. As a pastor I mourn for the 10's of thousands of souls who are lost forever because they didn't know Jesus, including Osama bin Laden. As an American, I mourn for the victims of 9/11 and their families. Surely this brings up old pain that has been tucked away. I not only mourn though, I celebrate this symbol of victory over one of the most painful moments in US history. As an American I am proud of our armed forces and their dedication to finish the job. 

I believe this could potentially be a polarizing moment for Christians but I hope it is not. I hope everyone has a little grace for others that just simply don't see it the same. 

 

 

 

Spiritual Gifts: Part II

Better to Receive?

If God gave you a gift would you receive it? That is the question I ended Part 1 of this blog with. I think when the question is asked with no context, almost anyone would enthusiastically say, “Yes!” God has, in fact, given us many gifts. Salvation is the greatest gift of all.

Rom 6:23



23            For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I am happy that I received God’s gift of salvation. When it comes to the gifts He has given us there is such an awesome degree of intentionality on His part. It makes me want to treasure the gift all the more. As a shepherd, or a pastor, I appreciate the gift God has given me to help lead people closer to Him, to watch over them and to build them up. We see in this scripture that the Lord gave these gifts, which are many times are vocational, specifically so Christians could be built up.

Ephesians 4:8, 11&12

8            When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.

11             And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 

12             to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

What is really cool about God’s gifts is that He never regrets giving them. (Think of gifts you’ve given ex’s…Grrrr)

Romans 11:29

29            For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

I am trying to stress how special we should feel when offered a gift by God. The true value of a gift is when it is received with joy.  

In the final installment of this blog on spiritual gifts I will address the gifts themselves and I will try to outline their functionality for the individual believer and for the church as a whole.

Until then get in a receiving kind of mood ;)

Spiritual Gifts: Part I

A Wild Church

<sub>1 Corinthians chapters 12, 13, and 14 have always been so awesome to me. Let me explain why. The church Paul was addressing the church at Corinth, one of the most immature, enthusiastic, sinful, yet hopeful churches imaginable. They were messing everything up. They didn’t know how to do communion. They were going wild using spiritual gifts without order. They were having orgies and yet still showing up to worship passionately. They were trying to one-up all the other leaders in the church with their deep spirituality while still practicing extreme paganism. These people were wild, but they loved Jesus. They were new in their faith but they didn’t quit just because they were doing it wrong. They kept pushing forward (with the help of one extremely wise apostle).

In these chapters you find an amazing story of Paul explaining the “gifts” of the Spirit to these energetic people. The context of these chapters is one of rationale and gentle correction. He is not chewing them out. He is lovingly explaining why they are doing things wrong and how to get a proper perspective.


Go!

"Spiritual gifts” is really a beautiful term. I love gifts. Most people do. I also love giving gifts. At Christmastime, my favorite part of our tradition is handing everyone their gifts from me and saying, “go”. (Ok.OK. receiving an autographed Bobby Bowden helmet doesn’t exactly stink). It is generally rather insulting to the one giving a gift if the other person will not accept or receive that gift. In Nigeria I had a precious, hard working man that came up to me with a huge smile on his face after my teaching that night. He explained that he had been liberated by the message and he would never be the same. He took off his watch and put it in my hand. It was a gift. My first thought was to graciously decline but I looked into this mans eyes and saw through his adorable toothless smile that this gift represented much more than a watch,  and to receive it would mean the world to him. I put this cheap watch on my arm and watched the tears stream down his face in gratitude. I received it gladly.

I am going to write a part 2 for this topic and I will explain some of the functions of the gifts for our lives. I felt it was best to start the concept with the framework so you can meditate on what a gift is.</sub>

_{If God gave you a gift would you receive it?}

_{Part 2 is coming soon…}

Living Martyrs

I received an email from a person who was thinking about the story behind “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan. If you are unfamiliar with the story I suggest that you search You Tube for the testimony, it is powerful. The idea is that a young man said in a prayer meeting that he would die if it led to a youth revival in this nation. That night he died in a car accident. The song was written by his best friend the next day about the young man meeting God for the first time.  This email was pressing on me because the person was wrecked at the fact that they did not believe they could literally lay down their life for a stranger. They began to feel guilty because of their concern for their children and their own life above self-sacrifice. I have been studying a lot lately about love. The giving of one’s self to prefer another, actually really simple, yet complex stuff. I wanted to post my response to the email in this note as I felt it shed some light on this subject of sacrifice. I asked the person if they would mind me posting this in my blog and they said, “No”, so here it is: It is a process, when living for Christ, to become accustomed to death.  I believe when you look at the apostle Paul, he typifies this statement perfectly. He was already used to death BEFORE he came to Christ, the killing and persecution of Christians. We find through his writings even more talk about death. "I die daily, It's no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me, to live is Christ to die is gain", it goes on and on. The thing that makes this dudes life so legitimate in this area is that he spent so much time in jail learning how to die to himself, then he eventually had his head cut off. So he could be described as having "a life of death". When you are maturing in Christ, or even extremely mature in Christ for that matter, it is easy to ask yourself the question, "Do I have what it takes to lay down my life ?". Sometimes this is more of a contemplative thing as we try to search ourselves for fortitude. But as we see with Paul, the laying down of one's life is a process of maturity. When Jesus said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a brother", there are so many layers to that. The first layer of that is "love your neighbor as yourself", not running into a burning building to try and see if you can rescue anyone. If literally dying for another person were the purpose of our lives, it would be extremely non-spiritual to choose a career that was not life threatening. There is a death that must occur in order to truly PREFER someone over yourself. That is hard enough by itself. As beautiful as the story is of John Mark McMillans friend who said he would lay down his life if it brought revival to this youth of this nation, it is not any greater of a statement than people who die daily to themselves, that Christ may have His way in the lives of everyone they meet. In fact it is the SAME THING. I would call this, with great respect to all men and women who have literally given their lives for Christ, being a LIVING MARTYR. The thing that becomes so difficult about being a living martyr is how many TIMES you must die.  Google "Maximilian Kolbe" and read his beautiful story. It is self-sacrificing to say the least, but I believe we must learn to give our life away regularly in order to fulfill our greater destiny or else martyrdom would be the goal of our faith. The Bible says it is appointed ONCE for man to die, then the judgment. When we leave this earth, it is at our appointed time. Everyone dies. Making sure everything in between was the way the Lord wanted it is the hard part. God bless There is a lot of dying to do while we are living. Luke 9:23-24 23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

Booksmart

Remember Algebra II? I do. Let me prove it: -b ± √(b2 -4ac)]/2a. I can recite that to you at any given moment. The Quadratic Formula. On this test my score was 100%. Not because the principles and concepts of the Quadratic Formula are embedded in my brain, rather I had a teacher who sang it to me to the tune of, “When the Saints Go Marching In”. I will not make you wait much longer to decipher the meaning of this blog. I walked into a Christian bookstore the other day and something hit me… The amount of books in the store made me feel weird. Topics ranged from “becoming a more liberal conservative” (no comment) and “having great Christian sex” (uh….) to “what’s wrong with the Church” (wow, thanks for the diagnosis). Writing a book is no crime, (neither is writing a scarcely read blog) but how necessary are these books? I sometimes shudder as I hear my church members talking about the Christian books they are reading. People are reading more books about how to read the Bible, more than they are actually reading the Bible. “But Pastor Jeff, the Bible can be confusing…” LAME! So can the DMV line. In classic Seinfeldian tone I offer the question, “Who are these people”? A book I recently read talked about revolutionizing the way we reach out to the world. Ok…sounds cool. When I read the bio of the author, his only credentials included “going on a few short term missions trips”. I do not want to diminish what this man has done nor do I want to discourage people from writing books. I feel there are many who have a powerful call to write. My point is simple. People need to stop writing books when they have not lived out the subject matter. If you are going to critique the entire Body of Christ on It’s problem, you better have demonstrated It’s solution in a very tangible way. These contemplative questions do not lead to answers in my opinion. They lead to more questions. I have had the opportunity throughout my years of ministry to speak with many brilliant theologians. I have met men that are so knowledgeable about the scriptures that they could recite entire chapters by memory! But many of those same men have no passion for the things of God and some have been self-proclaimed agnostics. How sad to know all about the Creator yet fail to know Him. Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. I couldn’t agree more. James 2:18 says , "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. I want to live the kind of life that affects the people around me. If my theology only leads me to heady discussions of the Godhead and not to a life lived unto Him, I have a flawed theology. Knowing about Him should make me want to know Him more. Imagine a chef that no longer enjoys food. What a tradgedy! There is nothing wrong with knowledge, the pursuit of knowledge, nor the sharing of knowledge. But knowledge gained through experience is far more valuable than knowledge gained through the written page. Go live it.

Relativity

There is a question floating around the spiritual airwaves these days. As a fourth generation preacher, I must admit I have a lot of things about my ministry style that may be characterized as “old school”. I actually do altar calls. Despite my best efforts I have a “preaching voice”. I do not use the phrase “seeker friendly”. It may seem as if I am taking a jab at those who have a different approach than I do. I am not. I try every day to use the things that have been given to me to make sure that I am being as effective for God as I can in every way possible.

 

Now…on to that question. The question is, “Is the church relevant in the world we live in”. It is an interesting question I must admit. Growing up in a denomination that was anything but forward thinking, I saw countless opportunities slip away to reach hungry people with the gospel. It was truly heartbreaking. Especially in light of the fact that my aforementioned denomination, once a thriving organization, has decreased in size by nearly 50% in the last 20 years. Could our culture’s fascination with presentation diminish the effectiveness of older styles of ministry? On the surface the answer would appear to be yes. Many young leaders and pastors around the world are building mega-churches based on everyday-life teachings, multiple convenient locations, cool multi-media, interactive websites, great music, dramas, coffee bars, and small groups. All of which are great ideas in reaching people.

 

My concern is this. If Christians concern ourselves with being relevant to the world around us, we may miss a very important question that must be instilled by Christians to the world around us. Is my life relevant to God? Isaiah 49:1 says:  Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name. That one scripture indicates a life that was created with intentionality. I hope people can feel that question burning in their heart after they spend time with people of faith. What Paul did at Mars Hill makes me weep when I think about it. Not because he was such a brilliant strategist, as many would suggest, but because he loved people so much that he wanted that question to resonate in their hearts. Is my life relevant to God? I have no doubt that this question also burned in the heart of King Agrippa as Paul passionately shared his testimony with a heart of love. King Agrippa even stated that he was almost persuaded to become a Christian.

 

Paul and Silas (and friends) were certainly known as “these who have turned the world upside down”, but was it their impeccable methodology that yielded this unforgettable moniker or was it lives wrought in prayer and commitment to the Cause?

 

Never let it be said of me that I am not using the era I live in to spread the gospel to every corner of the earth while there is time but, never let me rely on stylistics over substance when living my life for God. I’m 36. I want to be relevant. I just want to make sure I’m relevant to Him first.