Why Mourn a Victory?

Ezra3:10-13

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:

“He is good;
    his love to Israel endures forever.”

And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

         

            The book of Ezra co-chronicles Israel’s return from exile with Nehemiah. There is some debate as to which story began first, but historical clues tell us that they were concurrent for at least some portion of the story. This passage leaves me with a simple question: “Why mourn an apparent victory?”  In this passage Israel is being restored! Ezra is leading the rebuilding of The Temple of Jerusalem. Nehemiah is rebuilding the great walls of the city. Why mourn? I wonder if only the older generation mourned while the younger generation shouted for joy because the older crowd recognized their part in the exile. Even though Israel had been lost to Babylon for 70 years, this passage says that many of them remembered the original temple. It is certainly feasible that they were part of the sinful generation of Israel that caused God to pour out judgment on them via Babylon.

            I minister to middle-schoolers, high school students, and college/young adult aged students. I see in them such potential for greatness. I see in them such determination that I never saw in myself or my peers. I truly believe that the coming generation of Christ-Followers will see greater things than any of us have ever seen or could dream of. I believe a revival of Spirit and of the Church is coming for them and for us.

            I hope that my generation of ministers can rejoice when we see the young people we work with have great victories and not mourn over the “would-a, could-a, should-a’s” of ministry. If the next generation is to take the Church of Jesus Christ to new heights it is my prayer that my generation of ministers will stand beside them in victory feeling as though we poured everything that we could into them and connected them with Father as much as we possibly could.

            It is my prayer today that I will leave nothing on the table. It leaves me dreaming I will waste no opportunity to reach a young person for Christ for they might be the one to change the world.

            Where does it leave you?

Will You Fight For It?

I well remember them [my afflictions],
    and my soul is downcast within me.
²¹ Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

²² Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:20-23

            If you read the first 19 verses of Lamentations chapter three you will find a laundry list of similes describing Jeremiah’s feelings of loss about the destruction of Jerusalem. They detail how he feels forsaken by God. He says, “…like a lion in hiding, he dragged me from the path and mangled me” (v. 10-11). And then there’s my personal favorite, “He has broken my teeth with gravel” (v. 16a). So how do we get from that utter sadness and despair to these verses talking about the love and faithfulness of God?

            Jeremiah says when he remembers all of his problems he is saddened to his very soul. (Let’s pause here to say that spending your time recounting to yourself all of your difficulties is a recipe for depression anyway.) Then he “calls to mind” three aspects of God that give him hope: Love, Mercy (compassion), and Faithfulness. It’s no accident that he had to intentionally call those qualities of God to mind. Sometimes you just have to fight for it.

            I challenge you today to take a quick mental examination of what your focus is drawn towards. If it is drawn towards your problems and difficulties, it’s time to fight to call to mind the Love, Mercy, and Faithfulness of God. Will you fight for it?

The Energizer

     I am a youth pastor. One of the privileges and dubious honors of youth ministry is over-nighters and lock-ins. A “more seasoned” minister than myself once told me that each lock-in takes one year of a youth pastor’s life. I’m beginning to come around to his point of view. Last weekend my students, some of my leaders, and myself played laser tag from 11:30pm to 7:00am with maybe 2 minute breaks between rounds. It was exhausting, but it was tons of fun and probably one of the best lock-ins ever.

Who do you depend on to give you more life?

     Over the course of the night we played a variety of games like Elimination, Capture the Flag, and Royal Rumble. The variety kept it fun and made the night go by super fast. One game we played was particularly interesting. It was called “Energizer.”

Here are the rules: 

1. Each player starts with 25 lives and 100 shots.

2. One player is the “Energizer.” This player shoots his own team
mates. Each time he hits a team mate they get +25 lives and +100
shots.

3. OBJECT: Stay alive, defend your energizer, and destroy the enemy’s energizer.

     I was the energizer. Let me just go ahead and say…it was stressful. “Pastor Justin I need more lives!” PJ, help I’m out of shots!” “Pastor, I need help!” It was like that scene from Bruce Almighty where a divine Jim Carey is overwhelmed by prayers and pleas for help. (Maybe I didn’t have the weight of the world on me, but at 3:00am it was certainly stressful).

      Students, one of the real blessings of life as a youth pastor is being there for students who have hit a spiritual stall or roadblock. We YP’s work very hard to cultivate real relationships with our students so that you will come to us in your times of spiritual need. People, parents and students, often say thank you after they have navigated through a difficult time and my frequent response is, “It’s what I do.” I promise I don’t say that flippantly! That is not my Schwarzenegger one liner; it’s my view on what God created me to do. So to the students who are reading this, from my church or not: Talk to your Youth Pastor. He or She wants to help you, to pray with you, and love you through the tough times of life. That said we have a second job as well.

     Colossians is a book of the Bible that is really a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Colosse. He wrote them many things about how to live and he gave them many words of encouragement. Then he finishes his letter with this statement:

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. (Col. 4:12)
     You see Epaphras was the man who had founded the Colossian church. He planted it and watched it grow and his prayer wasn’t that his church would grow, but that the believers created by it would be mature and fully assured. Another important task of the Youth Pastor is to get you ready to spiritually take care of yourself. Students, there is going to come a day when your Youth Pastor can’t be your Energizer for your dwindling faith. You will reach a point of no return where you can’t fall back on that person anymore or it won’t be enough. Ask yourself if you treat your Wednesday night youth service like life support for your faith. You come in dead and expect the worship band and your pastor to rub the paddles together, yell “Clear!”, and shock you back into faith in Jesus. That only works for so long before you flatline.

     Students, I want you to know that today, I’m pledging to renew my efforts for you in prayer. I will “wrestle” for you in prayer. I will pray that you will not need to fall back on someone else to give you a spiritual booster shot so that you can keep on living, but will, “stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I hope you will renew your efforts to grow up big and strong…in Jesus.

Troy: The Battle Makes the Story

            I love action movies. The cheesy ones, the ridiculous concepts, and the “that could never happen!” movies are just awesome. But the ones I love the most are the ones that are made on an epic scale. I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, not for all of their nerdy goodness, but for the massive scale of the battle scenes. Everything just seemed larger. That’s what I loved about the movie Troy.

            For me, the film Troy was perfect for a number of reasons. I’m a big fan of both The Iliad and The Odyssey. Epic poems are awesome. I’ve always loved Greek mythology. So when I found out Troy was coming I was super pumped. I saw it the weekend it debuted and it is a great film. I’ve got to tell you though; the opening sequence kind of let me down…

            Let’s set the scene here. Barren dessert battlefield. Two armies facing off. The leaders decide to have their champions fight instead of killing hundreds of men. I’m thinking, “Finally! Achilles gets to whoop some tail! This is what I’ve been waiting for!” The scene is drawn out perfectly. Slowly acceleration as Achilles runs, obvious bad guy, escalating music, huge evil guy vs. small good guy…and then it happens. Achilles jumps and appears to lightly poke the pad guy with his sword and he falls down dead. I remember audibly, in the theatre saying, “That’s it!” I wanted a battle! I wanted shields to crash and blows to be exchanged! The battle is what makes it good right? The battle is what tells the story. If the movie had ended right there I might have walked out. Troy stinks if it ends in the first ten minutes! Sometimes the conflict really makes the story.

            Think about all of your favorite Bible stories. Would you want to read, “Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and the Hot Tub at Nebuchadnezzar’s  Palace Because Everyone Resolved Their Differences?” or “Daniel and the Cuddly Puppies’ Den?” Would kids in Children’s Church want to sing: 

            Joshua, didn't fight Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.

            Joshua, didn’t fight Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.
            Because they decided to walk around, around, around.

          Sometimes the conflict really makes the story and without it there wouldn’t BE a story.

            If you’re in a conflict right now ask yourself, “What kind of story does God want to tell through me and this situation?” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I love conflict or that you should seek out hard times to give God a chance to prove himself. He doesn’t need our help to prove his greatness. What I am saying is that if you’re in the middle of a conflict you can take solace in the fact that God is the one who’s writing your story. In fact he’s the “author and perfecter” of our story (Heb. 12:2). Trust him to write a good ending.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4