During the height of his Reformation battles, Martin Luther reportedly said, "Here I stand; I can do no other."  With slightly lower stakes and sometimes lesser motivations, popular musicians have turned their songs into the same kind of statements.  These songs declare in four minutes why the artist has made the kind of life choices that have gained notoriety outside the recording studio. So here they are: my five favorite Statement Songs of them all. 5.  The Beatles, The Ballad Of John and Yoko.  Why did John marry her?  Did she really break up the most influential band of them all?  The song will tell you all you need to know.  Or not.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai9-I3M9wck   4.  The Rolling Stones, Respectable.  It was the late 70s, Canada's prime minister married well over his head, and she in turn partied with the Rolling Stones.  So how did the band respond to the negative publicity?  Tongue in cheek, of course.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptDz5BwAgXQ   3.  Don Henley, Nobody's Business.  Just after the Eagles' first breakup in 1980, Henley was mired in controversy surrounding a party, some cocaine, and a girl.  Did he offer a mea culpa?  Yeah, right.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-GRclYgudM   2.  John Mellencamp, Small Town.  Why does Mellencamp have that potent blend of nostalgia and vitriol?  Was it nature or nurture?  This song suggests the latter.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CVLVaBECuc     1.  The Dixie Chicks, I'm Not Ready To Make Nice.  When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, the Dixie Chicks were touring in Great Britain and native Texan Natalie Mains said this onstage:  "...we don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."  The country music establishment responded by forcing the Dixie Chicks into exile.  But if you know anything about biblical history, you know exile produces great art.  Biblical or not, this is some of the best.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojL_35QlSI    

Sunday's sermon brought out the English major in me. Huh? By that I mean it all hinged on John's use of language -- his wordplay, really -- in describing the circumstances around Peter's three-fold denial of Jesus.  At every turn in the story, Peter is either a bystander, or he is standing still, or he is still standing.  In contrast to every other New Testament description, he is not moving. And with that kind of stagnation comes the inevitable devastation. So here is Sunday's message.  Entitled "Fail," it lands at this bottom line:  When you stop moving, you start denying.   ------------------------------------------------------------------ Can I give you some really juicy church gossip? Not from this church, of course, but another church? And the gossip that I’m going to give you is the best gossip of all – it MAY be true. Or it may NOT be true. It’s speculative! Perfect! It’s almost from the realm of legend, this gossip I’m fixin’ to give you. You ready? Here it is. Peter – whose life and letters are the subject of Movementum – in the years of the early church (like after most of the books of NT written) would walk by a crowd of people at a church meeting and they’d imitate the crow of a rooster. Like this: (audio clip). Yes! They’d be at some quarterly or semi-annual or even annual gathering, and a group of preachers huddling around drinking coffee and talking, checking their iPhones for messages, because that’s what preachers do all day since they are so important, and Peter walks by and he’s sort of a big deal, and one of the folks in the circle would crow like a rooster. And Peter’d turn in anger and ask, “who was that?!” And they’d be like, “Wasn’t me!”   And why was that a phenomenon in the early church? Because of this story in John 18, a story that is pretty familiar even to a lot of people who aren’t regular in church and don’t read the bible. And, like most good stories, this one actually starts before the story begins with Jesus’ predicting Peter’s future actions in John 13:37-38: ³⁷ Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” ³⁸ Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times! So with that sort of in the background, jump ahead five chapters to the night before Jesus was crucified in 18:15-16: ¹⁵ Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, ¹⁶ but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there and brought Peter in. Now: note a couple of things here. First, this “another disciple” is probably-though-not-certainly John & in John’s way of referring to himself in the third person, we learn here that he is better connected than Peter in the same way that we’ll learn in chapter 20 that he runs faster than Peter as well. Second – and more on point with this talk – you see that “John” here does the kind of thing that Peter normally does … meaning, taking the initiative and getting involved … while Peter acts in a way that’s very out of character: waiting outside at the door. So something is already amiss, something has gone awry w/ Peter’s behavior. Then look at 18:17: ¹⁷ “You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you?” she asked Peter. He replied, “I am not.” READ No I am not. Oh Lord, if you’ve been paying attention in John you know that Jesus’ main way of referring to hisself is I AM & all of a sudden Peter negates that. I AM NOT. It’s the kind of wordplay that highlights the contrast – and I guarantee you that it’s not by accident that John words it that way. And look at what he does afterwards in 18:18: ¹⁸ It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself. Standing still, motionless, doing what he can to ensure his own comfort. Tuck that away. Because, then – after an interlude in which Jesus is interrogated by the religious and political authorities and denies nothing – Peter’s story picks back up. Look at 18:25: ²⁵ Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?” He denied it, saying, “I am not.”   See that? Still standing. He’s Elton John! (play clip) And he gets asked the question yet again and denies it yet again, with that same NEGATE THE I AM formula as before. Not only is he denying who he is but it’s pretty clear he is denying who Jesus is. And I love the way the question gets asked: “You aren’t . . . are you?” Almost giving Peter an easy opt to deny self and deny Savior. These days it’s so similar & you might get asked this way: You don’t really believe the bible, do you? You don’t really believe Jesus is different from other religious figures, do you? You don’t really believe your body is a temple of the HS, do you? You don’t really believe in hell, do you? And then comes Round Three, when a relative of Malchus, whose ear Peter had cut off in 18:10 (I wanted to work that story into Movementum but couldn’t figure out how!), asks in 18:26: ²⁶ One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?”   And the third denial followed by the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy in 18:27: ²⁷ Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow. And – legend or not, gossip or not – that tale & that failure haunted and hunted Peter the rest of his life. The Rock wasn’t so steady when the crisis hit. And maybe, just maybe, the early church leaders took the opportunity rub salt in that wound (no doubt in Jesus’ name!) by crowing when he walked by. Or maybe not. Either way, this denial was a central story in the early church and in Peter’s life because it is in all four gospels in all its vivid, gory detail. (BTW, this separates Xnty from other faiths – we present our heroes as fully rounded characters, full of features AND flaws.) But there is an incredible pattern in the story that makes its point all the more compelling. It involves the subtlety of the language and, again, it’s not accidental because John – like Mt, Mk, and Lk before him – is a genius. In 18:15, Peter abdicates his normally active role and waits outside. In 18:16 he’s there waiting. In 18:18, he is standing, not moving. In 18:25 he is STILL STANDING, still warming himself. And in between those two scenes is Jesus’ being interrogated where he stands up and denies nothing while Peter stands still and denies everything! Again, not by accident! And so I contrast standing still Peter with standing up Jesus, I contrast Peter here with every other reference to him in the NT where he is like a perpetual motion machine, opening his mouth, moving his feet, walking on water, leading his posse, and the implication is clear for us: When you stop moving, you start denying. When it comes to your living relationship with Jesus Christ, if you stop progressing, you start dying. When you stop advancing you start failing. When you become satisfied with standing still you will run yourself over. John is so brilliant – he shows us by the lack of motion surrounding the fall, that When you stop moving, you start denying. Think of how true this is in life. A friend told me about an outdoor wedding in the swamps of south Georgia on a 100 degree day back in June. The air was still and deadly. You’ve been in that oppression where it just feels the air has stopped moving and has started sinking all over you. Or stagnant, standing water (AV). You wanna go swimming in that? No thanks! What is standing water like that good for? Nothing but attracting mosquitos. Or do you know what happens if a shark ever stops moving? It dies! Suffocates! It has to be moving to breathe! Even more important to them than attacking ppl of the NC coast in the summer of ’15! They have to move to live. And it is the same with you and with me. If we stop learning, if we stop growing, if we ever say “I’ve come as close to Jesus as I want to; I’ve invested enough of myself as I’m going to” … then death and denial are just the next step. You’re never more vulnerable than when you are stationary. Complacency precedes compromise. And here’s the thing: when I talk about stop moving & start denying, it’s not only God you’ll deny. Because I doubt if many of you will be asked a question as overtly as Peter was and I know you won’t be asked it in the midst of such historic circumstances. No, the denial goes deeper than that.   You’ll be denying your best self. That’s what was so sad about Peter! He was not a coward! He was not timid! He wasn’t one to choose his own comfort over the progress of the Kingdom! Lord, we know that much later he was so brave for Jesus that he was crucified upside down for his faith. So the authentic was bold and courageous and thoroughly sold out for his faith. Yet in that moment when he stopped advancing, when he was still standing and standing still he became so vulnerable to acting contrary to the better angels of his nature. In contrast to his own gifting. So: have you seen that? As you look in your rear view mirror, do you see that? Have you seen how in those seasons where you decided you’d had enough Jesus but didn’t want too much of him that you were vulnerable to denying what was truest about you? That’s when you started drinking too much. It’s when you found the computer more interesting than three dimensional people. It’s when you lost the ability to filter out the negative, the critical, the hateful and you ended up hurting the people you loved the most. Sure you were denying your faith but just as critically you were denying the authentic you, the you for whom Jesus died, the you for whom his resurrection promised you new life, and everyone in your orbit ended up paying the price. And for more than a few of you, it is not a rear view mirror thing. It is a today thing. You settled in and settling in really just set you up for failure. You’ve been taking it easy and that was really a prelude to getting taken down.When you stop moving, you start denying;  and the light just went on for a number of you. You know what is interesting but true? Every failure, every denial has a prelude. The fall starts before the fall. Even with THE fall! Did you know that in Genesis before the man & woman took the bite of the apple the woman had already added to the words of God and the man had already abdicated his protective role? Something was awry before they bit! Same with Peter in this story! He’s standing when he should be advancing; warming when he should be soldiering. And it’s the same with you. Some of you here aren’t in denial mode, you don’t have your failure fatigues on, but you’re playing the prelude. It’s the compromise that resists the pull of a LifeGroup. It’s the mental laziness that says, “I’d rather watch Family Feud than read Scripture.” It’s the false confidence that says, “If I contact her on Facebook, no one will know.” It’s the most dangerous place you can be because you’re falling already and you don’t realize it! I just want to wake you up now so I can prevent regret later. When you stop moving, you start denying. So: MOVE. Think of it this way. You send a college and they don’t go to any classes. You’re . . . upset! . . . because you paid for what they never used. Huh. Jesus paid it all and we have this privilege of responding with give me more. You know who is most vulnerable in this whole area? Those of you who’ve been at it a long time and those of you who refer to yourself as “mature.” There’s a danger in that designation and a peril to your veteran status. And I so believe that moving involves two main things, both of which we try to give you every resource possible to take advantage of: 1) daily time away and alone – (isn’t it ironic that to move you do have to be still every?). That being still is the surest way to advance. Bible on lap (or phone!), dedicated time where it’s you and the Lord. 2) LifeGroup and/or Reveal classes. Most of you advance better in community than in isolation. That’s why we’ve got LGs (explain). And then I know some of you advance best in more of a classroom format; that’s why we have Fall & Spring Bible Classes (AV) with best teachers around, anywhere. You’re never too old to learn!   Like 90 year old Priscilla Sitieni of Kenya, the oldest elementary student in the world. Do you know why she enrolled in grade school? So she could learn to read. Why? So she could read her bible. I’d say she committed to keep moving. As Harry Truman said, “the only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.” Yes they are.   Because when you walk by a group of people at this church or any church, I sure don’t want them to imitate a cock crow in front of you. I want them to say, “that guy or that girl is on the move.”  

We're adding a parking lot. We're remodeling buildings. We're hiring staff. We're mobilizing volunteers. We're praying over the site. We're replicating what it means to invite all people into a living relationship with Jesus Christ. We're getting ready for Good Shepherd, Zoar Road Campus to launch in early '16.    

Entourage was one of those sermons that was all about who we are and where we are going as a church. My prayer is that its strategic place on the calendar, coupled with its logical next step of our LifeGroup Launch event, will lead to an increase in both our number of LifeGroups and numbers of people who take part in them. Back in 2013, I finally learned how to preach this type of sermon . . . a learning that, naturally, came from Andy Stanley.  In his hands, small group life becomes less a matter of "shoulds" and "oughts" and more a matter of regret prevention.  That perspective has given new energy to the ways I give these kind of messages, and I pray that increased energy leads to greater impact. So here is Week Two of Movementum, a message called Entourage, containing this bottom line: When you have pain behind you and confusion in front of you, you need an entourage around you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- So much of life is spent in the “in between” time, isn’t it? One thing as finished, some other major thing looms, and you’re left to wrestle with the “in between.” Lord, for those of you who believe in Jesus this is true on the grandest scale as we live in the constant “in between” of Easter and then Jesus’ Return. Been a long, long, in between times for both the human race and that subset of Jesus’ followers! But it’s true in the smaller and in the more mundane. Sometimes you wonder what to do in a busy day when you are in between appointments; a lot of you snack when you are in between meals; sometimes when you have a very difficult decision to make you feel like you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. And then some of you are in between jobs, others are in between churches (we welcome you today!), others are in between relationships, and even a few of you are in between marriages. A place some of you have been before. And the reality is that we often make some of the most god-awful decisions in those in between times. In fact, some of your greatest regrets – that relationship you wish you hadn’t started, that investment you wish you hadn’t made, those substances you wish you hadn’t tried, the email you wish you hadn’t sent – have all come in the times in between the times. And this episode we’re going to look at from the life and letters of Peter finds him stuck in one of the most remarkable in between times of them all. We’re all about Movementum in this season of our lives at Good Shepherd and we’re going to spend a number of weeks looking at the life Peter lived and the letters he wrote. And the reason I want to dwell on him is this: (aside from the fact that I’ve never done it before!) he was always in motion. He was like a perpetual motion machine, and that motion started with his mouth because he had that uncanny talent of having his tongue in motion before his brain was fully in gear. He talked before the thought. Any of you know about that? But in other ways, he was always moving. The first to drop his fishing nets and follow Jesus. The first to stand and declare Jesus is the Messiah. The first – and only! – to get out of the boat and start walking on the water, however briefly (but he still walked on it longer than you ever did!). Actually, the worst trouble Peter ever got in to was when he STOPPED moving – but that’s another sermon for another time. Yet Peter’s perpetual motion almost always led him somewhere. In spite of his many flaws, his movement generated momentum that propelled him ever closer to Jesus. Ever deeper into trusting Jesus with his next breath. Closer to that keen awareness that you can count on God, that you can wake up in the morning certain that God knows your name and is worth placing at the center of my life as opposed to wearing as an accessory. And Peter’s movementum in these brief three verses from Acts 1 means everything. Here he is with his peers, his posse, his entourage. Let me read the verses for you and you circle all the movement words: ¹² Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk^[c] from the city. ¹³ When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴ They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. All over the place! But you’re probably like, “OK, they walk ¾ of a mile, they went up some stairs, they took roll, they prayed. What’s the big deal?” Only everything. Here are my favorite initials: CIE. Context is Everything. And at the beginning of Acts, the context is, frankly, more than everything. Look at Acts 1:4-5: ⁴ On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. ⁵ For John baptized with^[a] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with^[b] the Holy Spirit.” OK, wait. Sort of the definitive “in between” isn’t it? Now look at Acts 1:6-8:  Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” So Peter and the others are WITH Jesus, he’s resurrected from the dead and so that’s kind of freaky to begin with and then to these people who have likely never been more than 20 miles away from home (like from here to Chester!), he gives an impossible assignment. They must have been like, “huh?” And then, as if it couldn’t get any weirder (as if talking to a previously dead guy isn’t odd enough!), look at 1:9-11: ⁹ After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. ¹⁰ They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ¹¹ “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Whew! A human rocket! And the end result? Jesus is gone. Promising a return but for the here and the now, that Savior is gone. He left them once already, on the cross, but this departure has even more finality to it. Bewildering to this motely crew of fishermen. Painful. For Peter, add to that the memory of his own betrayal of Jesus on the night before crucifixion (you may have heard of it) and in this ultimate in between time he finds all kinds of pain behind. Pain of his betrayal, of Jesus’ rocketry. Pain & abandonment. But he looks ahead from his “in between” and what? Confusion. You want us to do what? BE MY WITNESSES. When? AFTER YOU RECEIVE THE HS. Where? TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. Like as far as Spain? FARTHER, YOU JUST DON’T KNOW FARTHER EXISTS YET. Got an agenda? NOPE. YOU BE THE DETAIL GUY. So behind him there is pain and before him there is confusion and what I know is that Peter is not the first and certainly won’t be the last to have that kind of in between dilemma. Pain behind, confusion ahead. You, here, know that. Some have the pain of divorce behind you and in front of you loom the new, confusing rules of dating and romance and blending. Others have the pain of abuse behind you (parents, spouse, significant) and the future has the confusion of who can you trust? Someone has the pain of a child who can’t get it together no matter what you do and ahead is the confusion of how to correct, redirect, heal . . . or let them be. Or, even, some of you have the behind you pain of a disappointment with God and a confusion in the future of do I want to invest that much of myself in faith again? The series may be Movementum but you’re caught up in a major in between. Which is why despite all the hiking, climbing, gathering, and praying in this little story, the most telling part may well be the most stationary of them all: the roll call of 1:13c-14: Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.  A list of names. Luke goes to the trouble of listing names. To people caught up in the drama of this once in history “in between,” Luke lists some names. They’ve just seen a human rocket (!) and Luke goes to the trouble of telling us they gathered together to wait & to pray. And then I see how, when you’re stuck in the in between that THAT may be the most progressive, forward moving action of them all. Here’s the deal: When you have pain behind you & confusion in front of you, you need an entourage around you. Yes! Because if you have trauma behind and indecision ahead, the worst thing you can do is to press ahead alone! Self-correction is merely a prelude to self-deception & that may be source of pain today. Because we want your in between times here to lead you to experience in a vital & tangible way that God can be trusted. That you’ll live by his direction, that which is revealed in his word and which is unveiled through your experience. That’s what faith is; that’s what a living rel w/ JC is. And know this: it doesn’t come to life in isolation but only in the middle of an entourage. While you’re part of a motley crew. (Not them! AV) It did for me! I remember heading up to college in NJ when I was 18. Been a Xn for about 18 months. Behind me is the pain of leaving Texas, of admitting I weren’t good enough to be a pro tennis player and before me is life’s ultimate confusion: how in the world am I gonna survive 4 years in NJ? (Oh, and survive a hard college surrounded by uber smart people in an alien landscape.) Answer? Our college Xn fellowship. I joined an entourage of like-minded Jesus people in an environment that even in the 80s was pretty hostile to him. That entourage is actually where I first heard the call to ministry. REF And the pattern continued; arrive in Monroe and there was Wade Broome (AV) & others and then 9 years later we get here and there’s Mary Hutto (AV). At every step of my Xn life, God planted me in unlikely entourages so that in the in-between of shedding the old & embracing the new my faith came to life.  When you have pain behind you & confusion in front of you, you need an entourage around you. You’re the same. If you’ve been “in Christ” for any length of time, you know that it has been other people who have shaped your faith. Nobody’s spiritual autobiography says this: I figured it out all by myself & I grew in faith by spending time w/ Jesus alone. No one. To see the invisible God, you really need to see people with skin on living his life out. We believe this so much here. That’s why our pivotal strategy for a l r w JC is LifeGroups. Circles & not rows. We know not all of you but we also know for most of you. We are fanatics about providing you with an opportunity to get into a holy entourage. Between 2013 & 2015 we’ve had a major uptick in the #s of people in LGs, but our progress just demonstrates how much farther we have to go. But in the LG growth, you all have pastored, encouraged, navigated, and entouraged your ways together into lrwJC. My best moments as pastor here come when I see some of you outside the church, together, ask how you got connected and you’re like “Oh! We’re in LG together!” It’s so cool because people’s connection to the church stops being with me and starts being with each other and the Jesus who bonds them together. And look at 1:14 again: READ. Note: women. In our day, not a big deal. In that day, an enormous deal. Co-ed praying did not occur then! Except through Jesus. It shows us that from the beginning holy entourages were all about breaking down the natural barriers that people build up between not only genders but groups. Every LG here is an opp to be a miniature replica of this full on, full color body. My favorite happening along those lines is a couple who came in in part because they had been at a church that had an . . . unfortunate . . . record of racial reconciliation and so they immediately joined a LG in which they were one of the few Anglos. They brought diversity with their pink pigmentation. Perfect! When you have pain behind you & confusion in front of you, you need an entourage around you. But hear this: you may get in a LG and it won’t work. You’ll discover the truth of those song lyrics (project, dissolve): To dwell above with the saints we love, That will be grace & glory; To live below with saints we know, That’s another story. True! You know what you do? You never attend one again! Just like you never eat out at any restaurant, ever, if you have a bad meal once, right? Never go to another movie if one is bad, OK? Absurd! Try another LG! We have a whole system to work that out. And while you’re there, in a LG, can I give a hint? So that ppl don’t sing that song about you? To be interesting, it helps to be interested. Edit your own long talking, ask about ppl’s lives and as you connect for bible study, prayer, and life together, you can help each other discover that God is in fact trustworthy in the in between. When you have pain behind you & confusion in front of you, you need an entourage around you. Because I want your in between times to be not a prelude to decline & regret but instead preparation for growth & progress. Where you know by experience that God is good and that he knows your name. Where you realize that you’re hurt from the past and bewildered about the future sometimes the best moving you can do is to place yourself square in the middle of a motley crew of others trying to figure it out as well. Like the guy in my Mens LG who was explaining to us once why he joined: “I realized that if I died, I didn’t have six people to carry my casket.” Well, now he does.

Of all the statistics and anecdotes regarding the differences between those raised in chronic poverty and those raised in middle class comfort, this one has haunted me the most: