The last few years at Good Shepherd have been highlighted by a number of Sunday mornings in which we used the sermon time to give plain proclamation of what it means to be saved by grace and then used the response time to give a clear invitation for people to enter into that salvation experience on the spot.  That morning.  In church. Each time, the response has been overwhelming. Instead of “every head bowed and every eye closed and if you’d like to come to faith, open your eyes and look at me,” it’s been “every head up and every eye open and if you want to respond to God’s love by becoming a Christian, stand up when I say the words, ‘Jesus is Lord.'”  And people stand!  And this past Sunday, instead of asking "stand-ers" to come forward, we invited them to remain in the Worship Center and join in a song of praise -- an appropriate act of worship as a new convert. So it was a day full of prayer, decision, and celebration. There was one other new wrinkle this past Sunday: we spontaneously invited people in the congregation to share in the celebration with the "standers" and then escort them to the lobby for information sharing at the conclusion of the service.  It was a way to get the people of Good Shepherd to "own" the evangelism process rather than contract it out to the hired staff.  After all, we reminded them, it takes all people to invite all people. Here's an email response I received on Sunday from one of those mature believers who escorted a new convert to the lobby: Just wanted to tell you that I thought the altar call this week was great.  I considered it an honor to walk Angie and her daughter and Katelynn to the lobby.  Renee and I gave her our #s and she seemed genuinely touched.  It was a way to involve US in the calling, which we was so meaningful.  I always pray for the kingdom during those times, but to get celebrate too was great.   And in reflection on what’s happened over the last several years, I’ve realized two primary benefits from simplifying the message to magnify the impact. 1)  People become Christians.  In the moment.  Sitting in seats that have been prayed over, surrounded by God’s people, and immersed in Gospel proclamation, they move from lost-ness to found-ness and from blindness to sight.  It’s thrilling. 2)  Long-time believers find their own faith strengthened.  It’s like J.D. Greear reminds us: you never get beyond the Gospel, you merely move deeper into it.  Here’s a portion of another email I received from someone who has walked with Jesus for years:  And the people who know Jesus and are in a living relationship with Him never get tired of hearing the story. No, they don’t.  

For years, my favorite bible to read had a page layout something like this: Note:  each verse stands out, separated from what came before it and what comes after it.  For years, I found such a layout to be both easy on my eyes and an aid to bible memory.  After all, when every verse in the text stands alone, it is that much easier to focus on and memorize. But now I realize that such a page layout has a downside as well:  while it may help bible memorization, it weakens the sense of Scripture contextualization.  In other words, such a page layout can subtly -- or not so subtly -- deprive the reader of the ability to read each verse in the context of what precedes and what follows. And remember: the authors of Scripture did not write with chapters and verses (they barely used punctuation in the modern sense), as those reader prompts were added centuries later. So these days, my preferred page layout for the bible looks more like this: Perhaps this is a small matter. Unless it's not.

Many of you know that I spend a fair amount of my time in a role commonly described as "pastoral counseling." People make appointments, come in either as individuals or as couples, and share their burdens with me, seeking at some level to have both a human and a divine solution to their dilemma. And so I sometimes wonder:  "How is this ministry any different than -- much less better or worse than -- what a conventional psychotherapist would provide?" (Well, aside from the fact that what I and other pastors do here isn't fee-based.) So, here are some answers. The Top Five ways pastoral counseling is both similar to and different from its marketplace counterpart. 1.  Both pastoral counseling and conventional psychotherapy hope to raise awareness of the influence of the past on the present.  Almost all of us have mommy issues or daddy issues or both.  One purpose of both counselor and therapist is to help the congregant/client to recognize all the ways yesterday impacts today.  As one seminary professor memorably told me:  the role of therapy is to turn down the volume of the tapes (family history) so that you can hear the voice of God. 2.  In both pastoral counseling and conventional psychotherapy, good listening is both art and science.  I am grateful for the counseling classes I had in seminary.  I am even more grateful for the summer I spent in Clinical Pastor Education, working as a student chaplain at a Lexington, Kentucky hospital.  Both those experiences taught the skills and techniques of listening for the often subtle clues as to what is really taking place in people's lives. 3.  Posture matters.  Whether a pastor or a therapist, how you position your body communicates volumes to the person who has come seeking help.  Whether sitting back or leaning forward, body positioning is a vital part of serving as a "non-anxious presence" in a time of turmoil.   So those are three similarities.  What about some differences?   4.  Opportunities to tell the truth.  I sense that as a pastor, I possess a slightly greater freedom than my therapeutic colleagues in stepping out of counselor mode and into exhorter mode.  In other words, when I hear the congregant articulate plans or thoughts that are a) self-destructive; b) unbiblical; or c) self-destructively unbiblical, I have the freedom -- even the responsibility -- to call them out.  The key is to say a hard thing in a soft way.  On one occasion I was able to help a friend see that he was using the poor example of his father (see point #1, above) as an excuse for his own misbehavior rather than as fuel for his rehabilitation.  Telling the truth liberates both counselor and counselee. 5.  Ability to enter into spiritual warfare.  Some time ago, a fellow pastor and I were trying to help a young woman through a difficult season of life.  As the young woman shared some of what other people had told her about herself, I realized (Or did the Spirit tell me? Did God prompt me?) that this was no longer "just" pastoral counseling; instead this was spiritual warfare.  The woman had heard and believed lies that ultimately came from the father of lies, Satan himself.  So we stopped the counseling, prayed with the laying on of hands, and rebuked Satan.  We became Christian soldiers in the midst of spiritual warfare.  Just as importantly, the young woman became part of her own triumph, as she prayed with us, declaring herself to be a blood bought daughter of the King and no longer a product of lies.  Counseling became battle with the forces of darkness and, on that occasion at least, the True Light came into the world.  

Below is a sermon that STARTS with a promise to offend, ENDS with a triumphant declaration regarding the authority of Christ from a second grader's mouth, and in between takes a tour of one of Scriptures most majestic mountaintops:  Philippians 2:5-11. It also led to an invitation to receive Christ as King and we did the invitation in such a way that the people of the church came to own the follow up.  Because it takes all people to invite all people. Here is The Empty Throne, a sermon with this bottom line: Jesus gave up his rights as God to make us right with God.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In just a minute, I’m going to tell you the most offensive thing I can possibly tell you. Is that OK? But before I do, I have to tell you about the friend of mine in the Monroe church who if you said or thought something odd or confused used to say – and this is how to “talk Monroe” – you ain’t right. Always with a grin, usually with a poke, but each time with a little bit of seriousness underneath all that frivolity: you ain’t right. Say that with me: you ain’t right. Perfect! There are actually so many ways in which that memorably spoken sentiment is quite true. A lot of you are in relationships – romantic relationships, married relationships, family relationships, work relationships – and something has gone off. You’re speaking on different levels and no matter how hard you try to “right” that particular ship, it’s still listing. You ain’t right. And then as we head into cold & flu season, you know how this works with my body? Maybe with yours, too? I get an infection here (nose) but then my whole being is off. Some small inflammation here makes the rest of me out of whack. Last winter I was out of it mid January to mid February – thought it was just because we were having Beyond! – but I wasn’t right. Others of you have issues with your ears or your balance and when that vertigo or Minear’s hits, WHEW! you ain’t right! I guess all that makes me think of the country song from about THREE generations ago now: if loving you is wrong I don’t wanna be right. Classic lyric, horrible advice. But some of you might even be there today. But I tell you all that stuff to lay the groundwork for the most offensive thing I could possibly tell you. Something so offensive many people I know can't handle it. Ready? On your own, in your natural state, you ain’t right with God. I know that’s not politically correct, I know I’d fail a sensitivity training class, I know that’s not the picture of God you learned from Bruce Almighty (AV) or Oh God (AV) but it’s true. You and me and every one of us here from birth until a decisive faith encounter . . . we ain’t right with God. And the scary, deadly truth is that if we die without righting that ain’t right, then we stay on the outs with him, which his just a nice way to talk about going to hell. I guess I put my Baptist on today!   Which brings me back to Empty Throne and back to one of the all time great sections of Scripture, Philippians 2:5-11. At first glance this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with either hell OR Christmas – or, for some of you, the hell that is Xmas – until you realize that it actually has EVERYTHING to do with it. Look at 2:5:  In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:   So from this general idea of relational health in the Philippian church, Paul then takes this incredible detour into what it means to be God, what it means to be Jesus, what it means to be you. Because look next at 2:6a: Who, being in very nature^[a] God, Now wait wait wait. I say this a lot, but maybe you weren’t here. Jesus was not a great man. He’s not our role model. He didn’t BECOME the Savior when God discovered that he was a really good guy. We’ve got plenty of those. But we’ve only got one Jesus and only one man who was God wrapped up in a human body. Like “in the beginning God” God. That God. Like all of God was in Jesus. That God. Like “let us make man in our image.” That God. Like there has never been a time when Jesus wasn’t. He has always been. That’s why he’s eternal. The best you can hope for is everlasting – from your moment of birth (or conception) into eternity. But I wasn’t before Nov. 1961. You weren’t before your birthday. Not so with Jesus. He never wasn’t. Which means, to the degree we can know what the realm of God is like, that he was on the throne as Creator receiving honor, praise, adoration, and glory from all the heavenly beings. He was on his thrones surrounding by adoring fans! For real! Forever for real! James says he dwells in unapproachable light. He was as high as infinity can get, higher than our minds can conceive. This is not a cliché; from what we can piece together, he is THAT. But yet look at the next phrase – and this is what it means to be God – in 2:6b: did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; He abandoned all that. He vacated, relinquished all his privileges. He didn’t use his position to receive more praise & more glory & more adoration (and as someone who lives for words of affirmation, that would be impossible for me to leave!) but instead . . . drum roll please . . . he rather, he made himself nothing   Made himself nothing. So he goes from being EVERYTHING, making EVERYTHING, owning EVERYTHING to having nothing. We means he left his throne and entered our real. He had the right to stay, to claim, to lord, to receive; he gave that right up. He abandoned the adoration; relinquished the respect. But there’s more: look at 2:7b: by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,    take the very nature of a servant. Notice: very nature God & Servant. So skillful!! Interchangeable? But notice also the de-escalation: God becomes a man, and then not just any kind of man, certainly not a noble man, but a servant man. Born into an oppressed people, a forgotten people, an occupied people in the little land of the Jews. But there’s one more escalation in 2:8: And being found in appearance as a man,     he humbled himself     by becoming obedient to death—         even death on a cross! Man – Servant Man – Crucified Man. Did you know that crucifixion was a method of execution reserved for the lowerest classes? That if you were a land owner or a noble, they had more dignified ways of killing you? I didn’t know that til this year! The bible never ends in stuff to teach you! Anyway, Jesus goes from Everything, All things to nothing & the death of a nobody. And think about that phrase – becoming obedient unto death. Who did he obey unto his death? The Romans. The Jewish priests. His executioners. People spitting at him. Folks hurling insults at him. The very people he had created and the same ones who uncreated him! The creator puts himself at the mercy of his creation and no mercy comes back. Chilling. Man, all this lets you know – when you see the de-escalation from Man – Servant – Crucified – that the crucifixion actually began at conception! It was a long, inevitable train from vacating his throne to assuming the cross! He gave up all rights to all things.   Think of all that he exchanged when he emptied heaven’s throne of himself. He exchanged glory for gore. Praise for punishment. Adulation for humiliation. Adoration for abandonment. He had the right to all that stuff forever without interruption . . . but he relinquished it. And . . . why? 2 Cor 5:21: ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin^[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Oh, on our behalf. He became us so might claim him. And … do you remember how I told you that super offensive thing earlier? That naturally, born that way, you ain’t right with God? Well, it turns out that there was one way, exactly one way for all of us ain’t rights to get right. And it’s laid out in breathtaking beauty and simplicity in Philippians 2:5-11. Here it is: Jesus gave up his rights AS God to make us right WITH God. The empty throne was an indispensable part of the plan to have a full heaven. Because in all that leaving and emptying, Jesus took on not just servanthood and nothingness but sin as well. The sin sickness that all of us have. That unbalances us. That gets your conscience. That makes you keep secrets. That makes you hide stuff. That makes you sneer at other people. That makes you have a string of broken relationships. That’s what he came for. He’s not a sage. He’s the Savior. He’s not a wise man. He is Wisdom. He is not our example. He is the Exalted One. Jesus was most vividly God precisely when he was the most painfully human. He had to leave the throne to take the cross. And that’s what he did. Because without it, we were curtains.  Jesus gave up his rights AS God to make us right WITH God. See, when we transfer our trust to him – we joyfully acknowledge that we ain’t right and we celebrate that he gave us up right to make us right – we receive something phenomenal. Have you ever heard of Double Jeopardy? Not the game show! The legal concept? (Some of you have not only heard of it, you’re actually living it!!) Anyway, in Double Jeopardy, you can’t be tried for the same crime twice. No re-trial if you were found not guilty the first time or even if you were found guilty but they want to do a heavier sentence. No DJ. Well guess what?! Became of the empty throne and the full cross, you won’t face Double Jeopardy for your sins. Even better: Jesus was already tried on your behalf, FOUND TO BE GUILTY, and suffered the punishment! So you can’t be punished for what he already paid for! Hallelujah!  Jesus gave up his rights AS God to make us right WITH God. And man, do I love how this section of Philippians ends in 2:9-11: Therefore God exalted him to the highest place     and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,     in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,     to the glory of God the Father.    Heh – he dies the death of a no name and in response God gives him the name above every name: Lord Jesus. But even more I love that picture of the end of days when ever knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Every December we have to remind you: his first Advent is simply an appetizer for his Second Coming. He is coming back. And look at all those knees and tongues! Any exceptions? Ha! You know what it means? The same people who spat at him on GF will one day sing to him. The ones who hated him will honor him. The ones who crucified him will one day call out to him. Marvelous to think about. And I am giving you this message on this day so that when he DOES come back, your knees and your tongues will be in practice. Because on that day, believe me, you will either praise him out of habit or by force . . . and you want the former and not the latter. Jesus gave up his rights AS God to make us right WITH God. Which is why I love what happened with one of the GS kids at school a couple of years ago. It was December and the teacher was reading a Holiday/Christmas themed book to class. Here’s the note she sent to mom and dad: I read a book called Bartholomew’s Blessing, which is about the animals going to see the baby in the stable. The book never refers to the baby as Jesus but if you know the story, you know that it is Baby Jesus. The books says the animals are going to see THE PRINCE. After about three times of me reading THE PRINCE [your son] piped up and said in a loud voice, “He is NOT A PRINCE! He is THE KING!” I totally agree so from then on, I read “king” instead of “prince” . . . Not a Prince. He is the King. Yes indeed. Will you let him be yours? Today? Jesus gave up his rights AS God to make us right WITH God.

" . . . whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” The unforgiveable sin is not something you do. It's an attitude you have. It's not an act you commit. It's a journey you take. And it becomes a journey that takes you.  It comes from all-consuming, uncontrollable envy, and it starts so young.  Mark my words:  it begins with your envy towards people that becomes your envy toward God.  If you don't check it, this desire and this resentment will grow and grow until God becomes the target of your envy . . . Envy steals, and taken to its logical end it will rob you of your salvation.  It's not an action.  It's a journey.  And I don't want any of you to take the first step. Celebration restores what envy steals.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------   The post you’ve just read is an excerpt from Head Scratchers, available now from  Abingdon Press. In fact, it is super available at Good Shepherd this coming Saturday morning from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. We sold out of books at our most recent signing event at church, so we have ordered a limited number of all three — The Shadow Of A Doubt, The Storm Before The Calm, and Head Scratchers. So we wanted to schedule an event during the day and at the beginning of Christmas shopping season.  As with all books sold at the church, 100% of the proceeds go to On Eagles’ Wings Ministry for young girls rescued from sex trafficking.  Neither the church nor I make a dime off the sale of these books. Remember:  this Saturday, December 5 from 9 to 10:30 a.m.  What better way to start your Christmas shopping?