Jesus is BIGGER

Today we bring 2010 to a close and tomorrow we start 2011, a new year.

What happened to you in 2010?

You experienced many wonderful events in 2010, but you also suffered. You felt pain. You experienced loss. You watched dreams die. You felt more deeply what it means to live in a broken world.

What happened in 2010? Whatever hard things happened, they probably feel very big. Here’s the good news: JESUS IS BIGGER.

What will happen to you in 2011?

You will experience many joys and triumphs in 2011, but you will also suffer. You will experience unexpected pain and loss. For some of us the suffering will be significant. For some of us the suffering will be small. But, we will all have new experiences of suffering in the New Year.

What will happen in 2011? Whatever hard things will happen, they will feel big. Here’s the good news: JESUS IS BIGGER.

Good News for the New Year

The best news for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day is that Jesus is bigger than all our news. The bad news that came our way last year and the bad news that will come our way in the new year–Jesus is bigger than all of it.

Jesus is Bigger. Jesus is Bigger. Jesus is Bigger.

Jesus is Big. And Big Jesus sits on a Big throne. Big Jesus is also sovereign, wise, and good. From his Big throne Big Jesus is doing his job of showing himself to be bigger than all the sin, pain, and brokenness in our lives and in our world.

Big Jesus is a Big Redeemer. He never wastes our pain. He redeems every drop of it. Last year’s worst news is being redeemed, transformed, by Jesus. How can this be? Because Jesus is bigger. He’s bigger than your bad news, my bad news, the whole world’s bad news. He is so Big that he makes all things new.

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I  am making all things new.” Revelation 21:5

The best news for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day is that Jesus is bigger than all our news. This New Year, may you experience more deeply what it means to live in a world that’s being redeemed, a world that is governed by a Big Jesus. Happy New Year!

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of  living water,
and  God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:17

How to Prepare for 2011

Last year I posted the following thoughts about closing out 2009 and starting 2010. Before this week ends I will carve out time with my wife to do this for 2010/2011. A number of my friends have starting doing this and they really like it. Here you go:

Last year, on the first day of 2009, my wife and I made a “What Happened in 2008″ list. We wrote down every significant event in our lives that we could think of from 2008 (birth of our second child, trips we took, major lessons God taught us, that hilarious night we’ll never forget, etc.). After making that list, we then began to talk, pray, and dream about 2009 and set some goals for 2009.

This year, we did the same thing. Today we wrote a 3 page “What Happened in 2009″ list. We then asked ourselves some questions and did some praying and dreaming for 2010. We’re finding that this new tradition gives a great sense of cohesiveness, history, and focus to our life together. In the future I imagine it will be helpful to look back at these “what happened” lists and remind ourselves of how God was at work in our lives in the past.

I got this idea from productivity guru David Allen. If you’re wanting to do something like this, below is an excerpt from Allen’s latest newsletter that can help jump start your listing and thinking. We don’t use all of Allen’s prompts and questions, and we have added questions of our own, but we’ve found that many of Allen’s prompts and questions generate great discussion in bringing closure to the old year and focus to the new year.

…here are some questions that can guide you in your 2009 review and 2010 goal setting. When I go through these kinds of questions I like to consider my answers in several areas:

Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Financial
Family
Community Service
Fun / creativity / recreation

COMPLETING AND REMEMBERING 2009
Review the list of all completed projects
What was your biggest triumph in 2009?
What was the smartest decision you made in 2009?
What one word best sums up and describes your 2009 experience?
What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2009?
What was the most loving service you performed in 2009?
What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2009?
What are you most happy about completing in 2009?
Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2009?
What was the biggest risk you took in 2009?
What was the biggest surprise in 2009?
What important relationship improved the most in 2009?
What compliment would you liked to have received in 2009?
What compliment would you liked to have given in 2009?
What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2009?

CREATING THE NEW YEAR
What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2010?
What advice would you like to give yourself in 2010?
What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2010?
What would you be most happy about completing in 2010?
What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2010?
What would you most like to change about yourself in 2010?
What are you looking forward to learning in 2010?
What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2010?
What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2010?
What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2010?
What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2010?
Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2010?
What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2010?

You Don’t Need a Good Therapist, You Need a Good Story

I used this quote in my sermon today:

The same impulse that makes us want our books to have a plot makes us want our lives to have a plot. We need to feel that we are getting somewhere, making progress. There is something in us that is not satisfied with a merely psychological explanation of our lives. It doesn’t do justice to our conviction that we are on some kind of journey or quest, that there must be some deeper meaning to our lives than whether we feel good about ourselves. Only people who have lost the sense of adventure, mystery, and romance worry about their self-esteem. And at that point what they need is not a good therapist, but a good story. Or more precisely, the central question for us should not be, “What personality dynamics explain my behavior?” but rather, “What sort of story am I in?” -William Kilpatrick, Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right From Wrong.

Fortunately the Bible offers us one big story to be part of, a story that is primarily about God and his gospel, and secondarily about us. God is both the author and the major character of this story. We play a significant, but supporting role. Don’t come to the Bible mainly looking for proverbs and principles to live by, come to the Bible mainly looking to be swept up into an epic story, an epic journey, of walking with the one true God.

Merry Christmas from the Buzzard 5

The manger is worn.

The cross is bloodied.

The tomb is empty.

The throne is occupied.

This makes for a Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

The Gospel is Not Like Dessert

Many of us grew up in families where dessert was this delicious thing you could taste and enjoy only if you ate all your dinner.

We had to earn dessert.

“Eat all of your dinner, every last piece of broccoli, then you can have dessert. If you don’t eat your dinner, no dessert tonight.”

Friends, the gospel is not like childhood desserts!

The gospel is something delicious that you may taste and enjoy right now, for free. You don’t have to do anything first! You don’t have to eat broccoli before you can taste gospel.

Grab your fork, or just use your hands. Dessert is served. Dig in. Forget about the broccoli. There is a gospel feast spread before you. It’s delicious, tasty, free, and unending. Take, and eat. Fill yourself on the good news of Jesus–on who he is, what he has done for you, what he is doing for you, and what he will do for you.

Have your cake. Eat it too. You will never run out. Don’t just “say grace,” eat grace. Enjoy grace.

Date Idea

Men, here’s a date idea for you as you move towards the New Year.

A few weeks ago I took my wife out for coffee.  I brought six sheets of paper and two pens with us. I asked my wife to do three things with her three sheets of paper:

Paper #1: Write out your ideal year. I prompted her with questions like: What rhythms do want to have to 2011? When do you want to take vacation, etc?

Paper #2: Write out your ideal week. I prompted her with questions like: How often do you want to be out of the house, taking the boys places? How many times a week do you want to go for a run? Is Tuesday night still the best night for our date night?

Paper #3: Write out your ideal day. I prompted her with questions like: What do you want your mornings and evenings to look like? When can you get 20 minutes alone, just you and your Bible, and have a little break from the kids? When do you want to go to bed?

While Taylor filled out her three sheets, I filled out three sheets of my own. After about 30 minutes, we compared notes. We started to dream. We talked through how to make some adjustments and intentionally live out our days/weeks to better serve each other as we head into the New Year.

We had a lot of fun doing this and we’ve already made some important adjustments to how we’re doing life/marriage/work/parenting, adjustments that have brought refreshment to our home.

Men, you have a life and a wife. Be intentional about how you live your life and love your wife.

Ask God For Things

In the past I have urged people in prayer meetings to spend time in praise or confession or meditation without moving on too quickly to intercession, and I have then been frustrated when they strayed into petition. But I see now that this attitude was wrong. To ask God for things is a profound act of faith. It is a recognition of his majesty, goodness, and power. It is more an act of worship than many of the songs we sing half-heartedly, for through it we acknowledge his sovereign grace. We may think of petitioning as unsophisticated. We may long for advanced techniques that smuggle some kind of achievement into spirituality. But these simple prayers truly express trust in divine majesty and truly confess our need before God. People who pray in this way are those who have really grasped the freedom of the Father-child relationship that is ours in Christ.

-Total Church, p. 148

Bible Reading Plans for 2011

I don’t care what kind of a Bible reading plan you use. I just care that you have a plan.

The New Year is coming and this is a good time to create a plan for how you will regularly get your face into the Word of God in 2011.

I change up what I do every year. This past year I camped out in the Psalms. I read through the entire book of Psalms every two months. Other than preaching/teaching prep, that was the only Bible reading I did this year. This year I felt drawn to devote myself to slow, meditative reading and prayer in the Psalms. It was a rich year of Bible reading for me! (Some of you would love doing what I did this past year: read Eugene Peterson’s Answering God and then spend the year reading and praying the Psalms).

Twenty days ago I got excited about doing something new and went ahead and started on a fresh new Bible reading plan that I will continue on throughout 2011: Grant Horner’s Bible Reading Plan. This is an ambitious plan, much different from what I did this last year. About three weeks in, I’m really enjoying working through a lot of Scripture every day. I especially like that I will work through Proverbs and Acts every month. Surprisingly, this plan doesn’t feel like a task to get through. I’m loving it. I’m meeting with Jesus every morning through this plan. The reading tends to take me just 30 minutes. Then I typically spend another 5-10 minutes meditating on and praying through a verse or two that particularly struck me from my reading.

God gave us the Bible so that we could know and enjoy him. The Bible is God speaking to you, the living and active words of God written down on paper. I don’t care what kind of a plan you use, but decide on some sort of a plan that will put you in regular contact with God’s Word in 2011. I’ve given you two ideas. Google “Bible reading plans” and you’ll get 200 more ideas.

What Bible reading plan do you currently follow?

Revival in Silicon Valley/San Jose

Some good things are happening in San Jose, the heart of the Silicon Valley. From today’s Wall Street Journal:

The revival of Silicon Valley is on display at the juncture of San Jose’s North First Street and Highway 237, which for years was largely undeveloped. But this year, networking-technology firm Brocade Communications Systems Inc. moved into a new 525,000-square-foot corporate campus in the area as it hired 600 new employees, boosting its headcount to about 5,000. Retailer Target Corp. has opened a store a few doors down, and a hotel is set to open nearby next year.

“We grew in a tough time and added people in a really challenging environment,” said Mike Klayko, Chief Executive of Brocade, which increased revenue 7% to $2.1 billion in its fiscal year ended in late October. He added that Brocade currently has another 325 open jobs in Silicon Valley. “We’re interviewing all the time,” he said.

Silicon Valley is inching ahead of the rest of California, showing the best signs of life in the state’s still-ailing $1.9 trillion economy. Over the past six months, the unemployment rate in the technology-heavy Northern California region has eased more quickly than the rest of the state as local companies such as Brocade and Juniper Networks Inc. have ramped up hiring and expanded operations.

Economists say Silicon Valley’s revival is likely to have some spillover effects into other parts of the state’s economy. A decade ago during the late 1990s tech boom, Silicon Valley’s growth fueled a construction boom around the region and beyond as people moved to homes in the area to commute into the Valley.

…Indeed, the Silicon Valley area is already helping to spur the overall California economy. Since late 2009, the region has accounted for almost 12,000 of the 66,000 jobs–or about 18%—that California has added back, according to Beacon. The San Jose area is also one of two metro regions in California—the other being Orange County—that has recently shown sustained job growth, said Mr. Thornberg.

When Life Gets Easier, Don’t…

I’ve noticed something. Maybe you’ve noticed the same thing.

When coming out of a hard season, when life starts to get a little bit easier, I’ve noticed that my prayer life slowly becomes a little less active, a little less desperate. Is this ringing a bell?

I think it’s crucial that we notice and address this. Why? Because such a downshift in our prayers signals the subtle beginnings of idolatry–life gets easier and we slowly begin putting our trust in the improving circumstances (better financial position; better work performance; more notoriety; etc) rather than the God who improved our circumstances.

Notice and address this.

The first key is to notice that this is happening. Notice the tendency of your heart to shift attention and prayer away from God because now you think you don’t need God like you used to when life was hard. That’s a lie.

The second key is to address what’s happening in your head and heart. Remind yourself of where your ultimate security lies, remind yourself of your ultimate treasure: God. Praise God and thank God for your easier life (he wants you to enjoy the graces he gives you), but wake up every morning and be crystal clear with yourself–you stand in desperate need of God, your circumstances could change in an instant, your great comfort in life and death is that you belong to God and that in him you have a rock to stand on no matter how hard or easy your life may be at the moment.

When life gets easier, don’t pray less. When life gets easier, enjoy God, go to God, commune with God even more. This will protect you from the subtle creep of idolatry.