May
11
2009
Come Die With Me
Last night I was officially installed as Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge. It was an amazing night. As one new church, we celebrated God’s promise to build his church. Through the praying, praising, preaching, and taking of vows, God came near and reminded us that it’s all about him and his glory, his fame, his renown. God’s presence was indeed thick and unmistakable. He was, “surely in that place.”
My friend Os Guinness reminded all of us that the church in America is indeed facing a crisis and the answer is not structural renovation but spiritual renewal. He exhorted all of us from Exodus 33 to never stop praying, “Lord, show me your glory.” When the weightiness of God rests on the church and spills out from the church, the world is changed. It was a great reminder that the ultimate factor in the church’s engagement with society is the church’s engagement with God.
And then one of my dearest friends, John Wood (senior minister of Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville), charged both the congregation and me to die. With God-fueled fire in his eyes, he reminded all of us that bearing fruit requires death. Jesus said we must die in order that we might live. Daily Christian living, in other words, is daily Christian dying: dying to our trivial comforts, soul-shrinking conveniences, arrogant preferences, and self-centered entitlements, and living for something much larger than what makes us comfortable and safe. God does everything through people who understand they’re nothing. And God does nothing through those who think they’re everything.
Through these men and the vows that both I and the congregation took before God to love and support one another in mutual service, God reminded us that he will do great things if we embody his life giving Gospel for each other and the world.
I believe this one new church will thrive beyond anything we could ever ask or imagine if it’s packed with Gospel intoxicated people: people who understand that since Christ laid his life down for us, we must lay our lives down for others; people who love sacrifice over safety–serving others rather than being served. A Gospel saturated church is a church filled with people who give everything they have because they understand that in Christ they already have everything they need. It’s a church filled with people who, like Jesus, love giving up their place for others, not guarding in their place from others.
So, having been duly installed and charged, I invite all of you to spend your life dying with me.
Let this one new church show the watching world what human life and community can look like when a pack of God-centered missionaries spend their life seeking to serve rather than be served.
Fasten your seatbelts.