Asbury Church

There are three dead ends facing the church in our time.

We could accommodate, let go of anything the culture finds offensive.

We could double-down and shout judgement more shrilly.

We could withdraw and try to remain pure and unpolluted by the world.

But those three options are all dead ends for the church.

There is only way forward.

In week 02 of our “Love Goes First” series, we are asking, “How should the church proceed in our time, in this culture?”

Our answer: to GO.

“What do we do now?”

There is lots of talk about division and polarization these days, but what should we actually *do* about it?

In a nation of 340 million people there are millions of people who don’t think like you, vote like you, look like you, maybe even people who hate you.

For the church, reaching others is not an option: it is a command from Jesus.

How are we going to reach the people that hate us?

This is the question we will be answering in our “Love Goes First” sermon series, and it’s the reason that I wrote my new book “Love Goes First.”

In week 01, we are just getting the lay of the land.

It’s not 1955 or 1995 or even 2005 any more.

America has changed, and if we are going to reach others, we have to understand those changes.

Welcome to Negative World.

What if there were no more mercy? What if the Lord just turned off the tap that allows mercy to flow so that there were no mercy for *anyone*?

In our series on Jonah, we’ve come to the last chapter, one of the most explosive and unsettling chapters in the entire Bible.

In Jonah chapter 4, Jonah is so angry he would rather die than live.

Why?

Because he hates God for being a God of mercy. The Lord has chosen to forgive the wicked people of Nineveh, and that makes Jonah sick.

I can identify with Jonah—I have a hard time with the idea of God showing mercy to people who are wrong.

And yet, that’s not how it works. It’s either all, or nothing. That is, either the Lord gives mercy to everyone, or no one. He’s God, and I’m not, and he can show mercy to whomever he wills.

What if there were no more mercy for *anyone*?

What if we lived in a world in which there were never any forgiveness, never any chance to start over?

When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we confess that there is a mysterious connection between our willingness to extend mercy to our enemies, and our own reception of mercy from God.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

This is a hard truth. Let’s talk about it.

What If The Best Way to Defeat Your Enemies Is to Convert Them?

God’s mission is this: to go to the greatest possible lengths, not to defeat his enemies–but to convert them.

In Jonah chapter 3, for example, we see that Jonah is sent to Nineveh on a mission from God. Why God wants to save the people of Nineveh.

In our day, the mission hasn’t changed—we are to pray and fight for the conversion of our enemies. God is sending us.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk this past week should make it clear that evil is real and that there are people who wish us harm.

The people cheering on a murder and then brazenly posting videos of their celebrations—these are people who need to know the Good News of Jesus.

How will they hear it if we don’t tell them?

The same Lord who sent Jonah is sending us. It will take everything we are and everything we have—it is literally the most important thing in the world—to reach the world for Christ.

We have enemies, yes. But the way of Jesus is not for us to seek to kill our enemies, but to be willing to die to convert them.

What Charlie Kirk’s murder has done is opened up a door into enemy territory, and we must be bold to walk right through it with the message of Jesus.

Are you in?

The only thing worse than being caught

is NOT being caught.

Here’s what I mean by that:

As painful as it can be to be caught and confronted when we are doing something wrong, nevertheless being caught gives us the opportunity to repent and change direction.

Otherwise, we might continue in sin until it’s too late to turn back.

This is what we see in Jonah chapter 2. Jonah has been publicly identified as running away from the Lord, and the sailors throw him overboard.

Then comes the famous three days and three nights in the belly of the fish.

What that ordeal enables Jonah is an opportunity to repent.

(We shall see whether he avails himself of that opportunity or not.)

It’s the same with us—being caught in our sins can become a good thing, if we take the opportunity given to us by the grace of God to actually change direction.

There is a Latin phrase that I like: “Esse quam videri.”

Which means, “To be, rather than to seem.”

In other words, it is about what’s really true and not what we pretend to be true.

The little book of Jonah is a profoundly unsettling story, and one of the things it does is show us the gap between who Jonah says he is and who he actually is.

It turns out that Jonah, despite what he says, is very far from being a God-fearing prophet.

Reading through the book of Jonah will cause us to examine our own lives.

"Where is the gap between who I really am and who I pretend to be?”

Are you on the Standard Plan or the Sunday Plus Plan?

In our final installment of the What I Learned on Summer Vacation sermon series, we looked at a basic principle Jesus teaches the disciples:

In the Kingdom of God, if you lean in you get more.

This is a secret that all-too-few Christians know; it’s a life hack that will change your life

It’s one of the saddest things I can think of:

What if God were ready to bless but we weren’t ready to receive?

In this latest installment of our series What I Learned on Summer Vacation, we talked about the urgency of preparation.

I love what the Apostle Peter told the early church:

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

“Preparing your minds for action….”

What a great exhortation.

This past Sunday, I talked about some really big things we have coming up, and what it will take for us to be prepared for God to use these things and do something great.

Ever seen that bumper sticker, “God is my co-pilot”?

Heard that song, “Jesus, take the wheel”?

I totally get the sentiments behind that kind of thing, but over the summer I’ve been really troubled by the underlying, unspoken ideas that go along with those sorts of sayings and sentiments.

The reason why is because the Bible teaches that God created humanity to represent him and rule over the non-human creation. God’s desire is not to control us, but to save us and shape us so we can join the divine mission.

Every year, I come back from summer vacation with lots of things on my mind to share with Asbury.

This year, it’s one simple verb that has really got me thinking: the verb “learned.”

As in “I learned to be content” (Philippians 4:11).

Here’s why that word means so much to me.