Recommended Book - Against Calvinism by Roger Olson

I cannot recommend Against Calvinism highly enough. Calvinism is a pervasive thought in our times, especially in the community I pastor in. With the new resurgence of Calvinism, Calvinists try to set themselves up as the only intellectual/theological approach to being a Christian. Many young people are bamboozled by this. They want an alternative to the empty Christianity their youth ministries are giving them, and Calvinism seems to be the answer. This just isn't the case. Roger Olson does the best job I have ever seen making the case against this approach to Christianity.

Who would believe that a teacher who withholds the information students need to pass a course merely permitted them to fail? What if that teacher, when called on the carpet by parents and school officials, said, "I didn't cause them to fail. They did it on their own"? Would anyone accept that explanation or would they accuse the teacher of not merely permitting the students to fail but also of actually causing them to fail? And what if the teacher argued that he or she actually planned and rendered the students' failure certain for a good reason--to uphold academic standards and show what a great teacher he or she is by demonstrating how necessary his or her information is for students to pass? Would not these admissions only deepen everyone's conviction that the teacher is morally and professionally wrong? (85)

Bad Thoughts - Theology That Leads Us Astray

I hate the phrase, "Well, if it is God's will, it will happen." A phrase like that would mean that the growth of Islam was God's will. Mormonism, God's will. Constant war, God's will. The shootings in Connecticut, God's will. The list could go on and on. How asinine. Saying that what has happened and what is happening is God's will ignores the Bible, ignores our reality, and is really a device that will cause us to ignore God.

Two weeks ago, Tim Tebow, who was signed by the New York Jets in the offseason, was leapfrogged for the starting quarterback job. He had been waiting behind Mark Sanchez all year to get a start. The coach decided to not start Sanchez, but he also decided to start the third-stringer instead of Tebow. So Tebow is still the backup. Unfortunately for him, he became the backup to the guy who was his backup.

Tebow said, "I don't have regrets. I believe everything happens for a reason, and it's a learning opportunity for me and there's a lot I've learned, good and bad."

"Everything happens for a reason." That sounds all good and spiritual. It's nice that he has a good attitude, but the bad theology drives me nuts. True, everything happens for a reason, but when that is uttered in spiritual circles it usually implies that everything happens as a result of God. He's the "reason" they are implying. Lots of things happen due to reasons that are terrible. A kid gets killed in a drunk driving accident, not because God wanted that, but because we live in a fallen world and a person decided to be stupid, drink too much, and decide to drive. Kids get shot in a school, not because God wanted that, but, again, because we live in a fallen world and something went terribly wrong in a young man's head. God is not a puppet master, and we are not His puppets. God will use everything for His glory, but that does not mean that everything happens as a result of a God reason. Every day, things happen that are not what God wants to happen. Outside of His will. Outside of His plan.

I want to propose another phrase today. It's not as catchy as "everything happens for a reason" or "if it's God's will, it will happen," but it contains more truth than those two statements. "If God wills it, then we need to join in and make it happen. Or it won't." He is the solution. He has a plan for humanity and each one of our lives. But we, the church and His people, are the delivery method of that solution and are given the privilege to bring his plan into our reality.

We are free will beings. Just like the coach of the Jets could have chosen to start Tebow. Just like a drunk driver could have chosen to call a taxi. Just like the shooter could have chosen to not be a monster. They weren't being micromanaged by God. He's not in the micromanagement business. Well, at least not all of the time. He's in the prompting business.

We need to be careful to never let those words - that "everything happens for a reason" or " if it's God's will, it will happen" - ever exit our mouths or control the way we live. Try not to even think them. Those thoughts disempower. They belittle our importance as free will beings. They cripple our prayer lives. They stifle evangelism.

God doesn't need us to be puppets for Him to be great. He's already great. He's amazing in the way that He is patient and waits for faithful followers to bring about His will. And we don't need to be forced to be faithful. We need grace to be right with God; our own works cannot do that. But that grace is available to everyone. Each one of us needs to acknowledge that God knows the solution, the best plan for our lives, and He is waiting for us to be faithful. We have the choice to respond to His plan for our lives by surrendering to His will, loving Him, and loving others. God will use everything to bring about His will. But He is patient. If God wills it, then we need to join in and make it happen. Or it won't.

God knows our passions and our desires. He didn't create us to be a puppets, but to listen to Him and be a doer of His will. I once talked with a friend who is a talented artist and involved in church. I asked him, "So have you ever used your art skills for your church?" And he had never thought about it. That broke my heart. Somewhere we strayed off course and designed a church that didn't have room for each individual's creativity, passions, and dreams. Molded into bringing glory to God, of course. Every gift, every blessing, every talent is an opportunity to be used by God. Don't let the thought that you are a puppet prevent you from dreaming and doing what is on your heart from God. You aren't a puppet. You are a loved creation that has been blessed with passions and abilities.

If God wills it, then we need to join in and make it happen. Or it won't. And I don't want to live in a family, a community, a church, or a world where His will isn't happening. It starts with us. In the morning, when we rise, do we decide that we are going to live this day to bring about God's plan or are we going to spend investing in a plan that will eventually turn to dust, our plan. The choice is ours.

Put Me In The Zoo or Learning To Fly

Have you ever seen an eagle fly?

I have seen an eagle at the zoo. The eagle was locked up in a cage. It was an outdoor cage, probably designed to elicit the feeling that the eagle was in its natural environment. The powerful eagle sat there in the sun, staring at us through the fence. Despite being encaged, the eagle still looked majestic. I couldn’t help but think that there is something special about the eagle.

Two times, I have seen an eagle fly in its real natural environment. Once, I was driving over the Hoover Dam and as soon as I crossed over, an eagle swooped down nearly twenty feet from my car only to soar back up. Impressive. It seems almost a disservice to verbalize the experience of seeing an eagle fly because words cannot quite capture the feeling. There is a sense of awe. There is an experience of beauty as if beauty is something tangible. As the eagle flew by, effortlessly, I couldn’t help but marvel at the sight.

Let’s change gears for a moment. God did amazing things to rescue the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land: The plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the miraculous sustenance of manna in the wilderness. He proclaimed to them, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Exodus 19:4 ESV).

I love the phrase “on eagles’ wings.” The power. The swiftness. The beauty. The ease. The concept is repeated in Isaiah’s book: “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31 ESV).

God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and had some expectations for them. “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6 ESV).

God desired for His people to obey His voice and keep His covenant. Being His people wasn’t something that automatically happened by a declaration from God. God did choose them, but the Israelites needed to respond with obedience and faithfulness. Oh, how we long to just be zapped with a magic wand that transforms us into God’s people, but we have a choice to make. Daily. Obedience to God or enslavement to the sins of the world. Keeping our end of God’s covenant or living selfishly. The choice is ours.

The Israelites had a choice too; they chose the zoo. They said that they didn’t want to experience God directly (Exodus 20:19). After just experiencing the great, majestic, life-changing power of God, the chosen people chose safety. Instead of flying free and experiencing the world as God intended, they chose separation between themselves and God. Instead of majesty and beauty, they chose the cage. It’s like they said, “We don’t want you, God. We want someone else to be between you and ourselves. We want a zookeeper to feed us. We want the safety and security of a cage.”

God wants His people to know Him. When we know Him, we will know His voice. We will be able to act during His timing, properly discerning when to move and how to move. We will serve and not grow weary. As we grow in our relationship with God, we begin to know Him so well that we can distinguish His voice through the siren calls of our culture.

But the Israelites chose to not know God. And because of that, they missed out. They missed the beauty. They missed the majesty. They missed His glory.

Sometimes we do likewise. And we miss His beauty, His majesty, and His glory.

Are you flying?

Or are you an eagle at a cage in the zoo? The cage is always left open. Just open your wings and fly like you were always intended to.

Change Brings Change but There is an Idea that Keeps Us Chained

Change brings change, but there is an idea that keeps us chained.

When I was 30, I went through an early mid-life crisis.  I liked my job.  I liked my co-workers.  I liked my boss.  But I kept feeling that God wanted to do something else with me.  Along with that feeling, I also felt like I was locked into a job and could not change.  I had to be willing to change and overcome that sense of fatalism that held me back.

Change brings change, but there is an idea that keeps us chained.

That means that when we change, God changes his course of action.  Unfortunately, the idea of fatalism keeps us chained down to the ineffective life we sometimes find ourselves in.  Fatalism is the idea "that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unalterable."

At a previous job, I had friends that were really into astrology.  In astrology, your fate is locked in by the placement of the stars and your location on earth when you were born.  My friends were enslaved by their astrological readings that they received from their astrologer.  I don’t know what introducing a 13th star sign will do to those that base their lives on this line of thinking, but we can be assured that no fate can lock us into a future.  We must be willing to toss those chains that try to ensnare us aside and go after who we know God wants us to be no matter what the cost.

Throughout history people have found themselves locked into situations where the excuse they have used for what they are doing is that God wills them to live the way they are living.  It's when we think that we are doing everything right that we do not evaluate whether we can do things better, but the honest truth is that we can always change and do things better than we currently are.  There is always room for improvement.  We never reach the place of perfection in this life.  The relationships we are part, the organizations we serve in, and the communities we live in can always be improved.  Change is always an option to make things better.  

Do you ever struggle with the idea that you are locked into a situation?  Don't.  You can change.  God waits for people to change to bring about the change He desires.

Our church found ourselves in that place, we were doing things the same way that we had done them for 48 years.  And we were getting ineffective results.  A lot of good-hearted people were spending time in wasted service.  We had to change to get different results.

It is easy to find yourself in a similar trap where you think that you are doing all that you can and that your destiny is not yours to control. 

Let me be clear.  This is not an attack on God’s sovereignty.  He does work things to His will.  And He does promise that He will work all things for the good of those who love Him.  We can be assured that whatever He wants to happen will happen. 

But let's look at the Bible to get a clearer understanding.

As individuals, you might find yourself in similar situations as these Bible characters.

This story picks up with Moses on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments.  While on the mountain, the people below, with Aaron's help, build a golden calf and begin to worship it.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ”

And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

God says that He is going to destroy the people He rescued out of Egypt because of their disobedience.

We struggle with the problem of thinking these stories are fairy tales.  Here we have Moses communicating with God.  He was a regular person like you and me, yet God tells Him what He is going to do.  Then Moses tells Him that He doesn't want God to do it that way.  What's that do to our theology?

But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”

“And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people” (ESV).

“So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people” (NASB).

“And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people” (KJV).

The word literally means repent.  It means turning away from a course of action and doing another.  The Bible says that God repented.  Again I ask, what's that do to our theology?

It wasn't like Moses presented a new idea to God that God had never thought of.  We can't present God with a new idea; He had thought of all the ideas.  He knew all the options.  It appears that God was waiting for a person to be faithful and willing to lead His people.  Moses' courage and boldness showed God that Moses was that person, and God relented from the punishment that He said He would do.  God changed His mind.  When Moses changed, God changed, and the people were unchained.

Change brings change but there is an idea that keeps us chained.

And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.
excerpts from Exodus 32:1-26 (ESV)

People have choices.  They always have choices.  Moses had a choice.  The tribes of Israel had a choice.  The question is how do we respond when it is asked, "Who is on the Lord's side?"  Because if you listen carefully, God is still asking that.

When in a battle between church tradition and Scripture, Scripture should always win.  We can develop all sorts of beliefs about God when we abandon Scripture and start thinking in the ways of the world around us.  Fatalism is a consequence of that approach.  It dominated the church during the Enlightenment.  If you want a rational, reasonable god, then you would create a  god who does not change his actions based upon our actions.  This god would no longer directly interact with humanity except through providence.  The Christian world became less vibrant and less committed to living out the works of God because they created a reasonable god that preordained their salvation.  For nearly the last four hundred years, reason was king in our society and the church discarded Scripture for their well-thought out yet unscriptural fatalism.  We were ensnared by the prevailing thoughts of our time.  We must always come down on the side of Scripture when there is a battle between church tradition and Scripture.

Now, let's look at the story of Jonah.  Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and preach that destruction was coming their way because of their evil ways.  Jonah did not want to do it, but through a series of events, he found himself reluctantly prophesying to Nineveh and hoping for their destruction. 

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”

Jonah 3:6-4:1 (ESV)

This story carries a similar theme to Moses' story in Exodus.  God tells the people of Nineveh that He is going to destroy them, but the king of Nineveh calls the nation to repent of their evil ways.   God sees their repentance and changes His plans.  People change, God changes.  Imagine if the Ninevites believed that they were predestined to be punished (because God actually said He was going to punish them) and that they could not change their fate from God's "plans."

Change brings change but there is a thought that keeps us chained.

Here is the passage where the Bible says that God does not change.  It is in the middle of the context of God removing Saul as king and appointing David.  That's a change in case you missed that, so God says that He does not change in the context of making a change.  Now, we can either assume that God appointed the wrong person on purpose when He appointed Saul.  This argument would be that God wanted to teach the people a lesson in appointing a king over them who would fail to be faithful.  Or we can conclude that God had hope that Saul would be the king He destined Him to be, but that Saul stumbled and failed to live up to God's plan. 

Saul's changed and his changes brought about changes in God's course of action.

The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.”

Saul said that he did it to offer sacrifices to the Lord, but Samuel stated, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king…And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”  Excerpts from 1 Samuel 15:10-35 (ESV)

"He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind”  [1 Samuel 15:29 (NIV)].

God changed his course of action, but who God is never changes.  He is unchanging even when His course of action changes.  This was emphasized in the story of Samuel because the people would begin to think that God is wishy-washy when He removed Saul, the king He appointed, for David.    

Let's move from the historical times in Scripture and look at the benefits of throwing off the idea of fatalism.

•    Prayer Matters

Prayer not only changes us, but what we pray for influences the actions of God.  Prayer matters.  It's a meaningful conversation with the creator and controller of the universe, not some empty ritual that we must go through to become more of who He wants us to be.

•    You Can Change

You are not stuck into some fatalistic, predestined future.  God does have a plan for you, but you have to change (and you can change!) to reach it.

•    The Evil Around Us Is Our Fault

If God is in complete control, then all the evil that happens around us is His fault.  If evil is the consequence of our fallen decisions that have created a fallen world that we live in, then when bad things happen it is our fault, not God's.  Now, if fatalism was the view that Scripture taught, then God is big enough to live with the responsibility of all the wrongs committed in the world.  But fatalism is not the view of Scripture, so there is no reason that we have to go around and defend it. 

•    Your Actions Matter

Your actions matter.  God is waiting for faithful people to bring about His will.  There is a great disdain for good works in fatalism, but Paul wrote in Ephesians that we are saved by grace through faith for works.  We are saved for works.  We need to never get that confused with being saved by works, but, in this context, we are talking about how we can be total disciples and who God wants us to be.  We can choose to do more for the Lord than we are already doing. 

What do you think of when you hear the name "Nobel?"  More than likely, you think of the Nobel Peace Prize.  We probably wouldn't even know the Nobel if Alfred Nobel did not read his own obituary while he still had time to change his life.  When Alfred's brother died, the papers mistakenly thought Alfred had died and ran his obituary.  Nobel had a unique experience of opening up the morning paper and reading what people actually thought of him prior to his death.  He was not happy with the impression.

What would your obituary say that your life was about?  Is it about the things of God or the things of this world?  Have you really made any difference?

Nobel's obituary showed that he would be remembered for inventing dynamite and being a weapon's dealer.  And that is not what he wanted to be remembered by.  So he set up a trust to promote world peace.  Every year, we have the cause of peace promoted through the Nobel Peace Prize.  Nobel made a lasting impact because he changed his actions.

Most of us will not be fortunate enough to read our obituary and have time to change our lives.  But we don't need that wake-up call.  We just need to respond in faithfulness to God and do whatever He wants us to do.

That broken relationship that you are in, you can love the other person.  You can change.

That co-worker that needs to know Jesus, you can impact their life if you focus on investing in them.  You can change.

The community that you live in is just waiting for a group of people to bring about God's will.  It's not where God wants it to be because God lacks power.  God has all the power and can make His will happen, but He has chosen to work through us.  Our community is not where God wants it to be because His people lack faithfulness.  May we be the people who are willing to change to bring about the will of the Lord.

The truth is that God doesn't love you the way you are; He loves you despite the way you are. That's grace. But God loves us too much to not guide us away from the fallen way we are. God is all about change. And we can change, through the strength He provides. We can be more faithful and grow in Him so that we can become more of who He wants us to be.

You can change. Your church can change. Your family can change. Your town can change. Your nation can change. This world, it too can change. Everything is actually always changing. The question is whether we are working with God to change it for the better.

Change brings change. If we change, God's course of action will change and we will be in His blessings.  But there is an idea - fatalism - that prevents us from really changing.  Let us throw off the concepts of this world and live in the power of God.  Let's change!