The Manifest Presence of God

"Then Moses said to [Yahweh], 'If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?'" (Ex. 33:15-16).

One of the important aspects that distinguishes the People of God from all other peoples on the face of the earth is that we experience "The Manifest Presence of God."

It is true that the Bible teaches that God is omnipresent, that is that He is everywhere at all times. It is impossible to go anywhere that God is not also there. "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you (Ps. 139:7-12).

Yet, there are numerous times throughout scripture where God's Presence becomes tangibly real and localized to His people. He led His people through the wilderness as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. He met with Moses at the tent of meeting. He filled the newly dedicated Tabernacle in the wilderness and the newly dedicated Temple in Jerusalem. And in the New Testament, he came like a mighty rushing wind in the upper room and filled His people on the day of Pentecost.

This is what Jewish scholars have called the "Shekinah" glory of God. And what John Wimber used to call the "Numinous" of God.

I am a sucker for video's of returning military people surprising their family when they return home. I sob like a baby. But in today's connected world, I know that military families are in constant contact through email, Skype and even texting. It is not like the families are not communicating regularly. But there is something about the reunion of family members that brings an emotional bond that is impossible without their physical presence.

The Manifest Presence of God is the only thing that distinguishes His people, the church, from all other peoples and groups. What makes the church any different than the Rotary Club or the Elks. We are all associations that gather to benefit society and do benevolent works. But the Church is different because of the Presence of God.

Having grown up in a liberal mainline denomination, I can say that, without the Presence of God, we can go through the motions of church liturgy--sing the songs, tithe, eat donuts and drink coffee, perform baptisms and take communion--but without the Presence of God, it is empty religion.

God promised Abraham that He would bless him and through him He would bless all nations. Walter Kaiser, Jr., in his book, Toward an Old Testament Theology, says that the blessing is in three parts and is stated in part or in whole throughout the Bible. "I will walk among you, and I will be your God, and you will be my people" (Lev. 26:12). You see the blessing of Abraham is the promise of God's eternal Presence.

And what happens at the end of the Bible, when God wraps up all of redemptive history? "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God's dwelling place is now among people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God'" (Rev. 21:3).

I think it is time for the church stop settling for religious activity and instead pursue the Presence of God. Let's call out to Him, "Don't send us from here if Your Presence does not go with us! What else will distinguish us from all the other societies and social groups on the face of the earth unless Your Manifest Presence comes with
us?" Amen.

What Is the Gospel?

The word "gospel" comes from the Greek word euangelion which literally means "good news."

We call the first four books of the New Testament "The Gospels." That is, they are the Good News that  Jesus announced and that his followers have sought to continue to announce to the rest of the world ever since he passed the baton to his disciples.

Just what is the content of the Good News?

In Mark's account, Jesus begins his public ministry this way:
"After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 'The time has come,' he said. 'The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!'" (Mark 1: 14-15).

Many theologians agree that the crux of Jesus' message is that something he called "The Kingdom of God" (or "Kingdom of Heaven" in Matthew's Gospel) had somehow arrived and was now present and available to anyone who would respond to it. 

Jesus communicated the in-breaking of the Kingdom through both his words and his actions. When he performed miracles like healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers and casting out demons, he was demonstrating and illustrating the reality of his message.

"But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you" (Luke 11:20).

The term "Kingdom of God" needs to be understood in order to grasp just what Jesus was saying. We tend to think of a kingdom as a geographical location. But the New Testament uses the term to describe a condition more than a location. The Kingdom of God is the condition where God's rulership is acknowledged, where His dominion holds sway. Thus, when we pray in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..." we are asking God's dominion to come and be made manifest on earth where we live in the same way and to the same degree that it is manifested in heaven, the place where God's Kingdom rule is fully manifested.

Jesus Himself is the One who brought the Kingdom to earth. His favorite term for himself was "Son of Man." This is probably an allusion to Daniel's prophecy:
"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed" (Dan. 7: 13-14).

So, Jesus is the One who brings the Kingdom to us, the One who is to receive our worship. His message ends with, "Repent and believe the Good News!"

To repent literally means "turn around." That is, the only response to the Good News is to turn away from whatever direction you are going and turn towards the Son of Man himself. Jesus brings the very presence of God and God's rulership to us. In order to enter into the Kingdom of God, we turn to Jesus and place our trust in him. 

Jesus, himself, is the content of the Good News. In him the Kingdom of God has arrived. Have you turned the direction of your life towards him and placed your trust in him? 

I'll write more on the Good News in my next blog.

There Be Waterfalls Ahead

Have you ever been on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland?

The ride begins innocently enough. You are floating quietly through the bayou, listening to someone plucking a banjo, watching the fireflies and waving to the diners in "The Blue Bayou" restaurant. Then, suddenly you plunge down a waterfall once, then twice, and the ride has begun.

That's kind of like what the month of March has been for me. Suddenly, I have taken the initial plunge of announcing the changes to our church and, in two more Sundays, will be taking the second one as we close down the operations of Walnut Valley Vineyard Church (WVVC). I have had the continual feeling of "butterflies" in my stomach, like I do when I contemplate taking those plunges.

It is a reminder of what the Kingdom of God is often like. It seems like I am waiting and yearning and crying out for God to move. And then, when He does move, it comes suddenly and is outside of my control and I find myself crying out to Him again to stop so I can catch my breath.

I have to remind myself that I can't have it both ways: either I want God to be in control; or I want to be in control myself. And when I am sitting quietly and in my right mind, I know that I want God to be in control.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2: 20).

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it" (Luke 9: 24).

So there's the rub. If I truly want to live the Jesus-life, I must die so that His resurrection life can be lived through me. So much for the illusion of control.

How about you? When you are sitting quietly, in your right mind, are you committed to dying to the self-determined life so that the Kingdom life of Jesus can be lived through you? It is better to make that decision now, while the banjo's are plunking and the fireflies are twinkling than when you go hurtling down the waterfalls that are sure to come.

Swept Away

I often think of God's Kingdom as a kind of powerful river. When we place our faith in the King, He invites us to get swept away by the current. And one of the ways we often experience that current is when He calls us to send out workers into the harvest.

Jesus sent the 12 out two-by-two (Matt. 10 and Luke 9) to extend His own ministry. And in Luke 10, he sent out "72 others" to do the same. At the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus delivers the "Great Commission," essentially commanding the church to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28: 18-20). And at the beginning of Acts, Jesus tells His disciples to "be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1: 8).

The book of Acts is the story of the Gospel being brought "to the ends of the earth" by the Holy Spirit-empowered disciples. A good example is in Acts 13, 1-3:

"In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off."

In two Sundays my church will be laying hands on someone who has been my Youth Pastor for the last four years. He is leaving us to serve a sister congregation as Assistant Pastor. I feel proud and happy for him as he goes, but I am also feeling the pang of loss.

In my years as a member and then a pastor at the Anaheim Vineyard, I got used to building relationships with pastors and leaders, often to see God "send" them somewhere else to serve the Kingdom of God. John Wimber, the founding pastor, often said that God called us to send our best. And when we did, that spirit of generosity would result in increased blessing.

The answer is not to protect myself from the pain of losing relationship, but to embrace it as a part of Kingdom life. Each one of us is called to jump into the stream called the Kingdom. It has a force all its own. And when we jump in, we will be swept away in it's powerful current.

This weekend, a friend of mine who planted a church 16 years ago surprised me when he showed up unannounced at our Sunday service. At lunch, we were able to reminisce about the adventures of Kingdom ministry that have made our lives so exciting. On two sides of the continent, we have impacted the lives of many others.

And we agreed that, as pastors, we can't cling to people as if we own them. They belong to God. He will lead and carry them to their own destinations.

Instead, let us rejoice that the Gospel is being carried "to the ends of the earth." And let us look forward to swapping "Holy Ghost stories" when we meet again.

Healing and the Kingdom of God

The following entry is a response to a request from a long-time friend who is encountering some "cognitive dissonance" as he and his family attend a Pentecostal/Charismatic church. I make the entry with a lot of humility, but I offer my opinion in hopes it will help people as they seek to "do the stuff" (a John Wimber-ism by which he meant actually doing the works of the Kingdom, rather than simply studying about them). Hopefully this is not so academic that it fails to be practical for you.

My friend's church has taught that "you never ask God for what he has already promised or purposed for you...instead, you are to make 'declarations.'" In other words, asking shows a lack of faith; declaration shows a confidence in God's promises.

This particular issue goes to the heart of what distinguishes the Vineyard movement from Pentecostal/Charismatics (and also what tends to confuse our Conservative Evangelical brethren). You could say that the Vineyard is defined by the dynamic tension that exists between these two streams of Evangelicalism.

The titles of two books summarize the Vineyard position between the two. Rich Nathan and Ken Wilson's book, Empowered Evangelicals, says it all. We are a movement that wants to take the best of Pentecostal experience (empowered), leaving behind what we view as its excesses; while we hold on to a solid Evangelical approach to biblical/theological scholarship (evangelicals), but leaving behind the tendency to minimize the present miraculous work of the Spirit.

The other book is Bill Jackson's Quest for the Radical Middle. Once again, the Vineyard has sought to live in a dynamic tension between the fresh work of the Spirit, and a solid commitment to biblical theology. In other words, holding both the Word and Spirit in balance.

This all flows from the influence of George Eldon Ladd, late Fuller Professor, whose Gospel of the Kingdom, and New Testament Theology are foundational for understanding John Wimber's teaching about healing. In Jesus, the Kingdom of God broke into the present evil age. His words and His works were evidence of the reality of the presence of the Kingdom. Jesus passed on to his disciples his Kingdom ministry. And they have passed it on to their disciples. And on and on...all the way to us.

One of the key aspects of the Kingdom is that it has "now come" and is still "yet to come." This"now-and-not-yet" quality of the Kingdom characterizes everything we experience in this present evil age.

Take, for instance, our salvation. We enter the Kingdom and are saved when we place our faith in the King (2 Tim. 1: 9). Yet, we are "being saved" as we go through a process of transformation in this life called sanctification (Php. 2: 12-13). And we "will be saved" when the future promised Kingdom arrives in its glory (1 Pet. 1: 5,9).

Pentecostal theology has tended to argue that physical healing is included in the atoning work of Christ based on Isaiah 53, Matt. 8: 16-17 and 1 Pet. 2: 24 and therefore, we must just claim what is rightfully ours and exhibit unwavering faith in the work of God. There is not enough time to do a thorough exegesis of these passages. Suffice it to say that you must make several hermeneutical leaps to conclude that healing is guaranteed in the atonement.

If we say that healing is guaranteed in the atonement and that faith is the only way to access that healing, we must conclude that people are not healed solely because they lack faith in some way.

Just a quick survey of the New Testament shows that healing did not always occur for Jesus or the apostles. Jesus could not do many miracles (Mark 6: 5). God refused to heal Paul's "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12: 7-10). Timothy's ailing stomach condition (1 Tim. 5: 23). The Pentecostal explanation is that they lacked faith. The Kingdom explanation is the now-and-not-yet of the Kingdom.

Yes, faith is necessary for healing. But if you analyze the healings in the New Testament, sometimes it is the faith of the pray-er (like Jesus healing the man at the pool Siloam) and sometimes it is the faith of the receiver (like the woman touching the hem of his garment.)

Does this exclude making declarative pronouncements? Not at all. When we are led by the Spirit to command healing, we do it. When we are led by the Spirit to lay hands on someone and pray for them, we do that. Every time that someone is healed, it is evidence of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. Every time that someone is not healed, it is evidence that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully consummated. So...we pray again.

"Lord, may your Kingdom come, may your will be done, here on earth as it is being done in heaven (where your Kingdom is fully consummated)."

I welcome comments on this topic.

Israel, Palestine and the Kingdom of God

With the recent speeches by President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel has come back into focus in the news.

While we all may have political views on the conflicts in the Middle East and the prospects for peace, as a pastor, I think it is important for us to keep a balanced perspective on what's happening so that we don't throw fuel on the fire.

Last night I got into a heated debate. It was hard for me to hear another point of view. If I, who think I am a good listener, can become so heated, then just imagine how it must be for people who are immersed in the conflict.

I want to comment on the biblical and theological issues, more than the geo-political ones.

First, dispensational theology--by way of the Scofield Reference Bible, Hal Lindsay's "Late Great Planet Earth" and the "Left Behind" series--have dominated the American popular evangelical Christian understanding of the relationship between Israel and the End Times. Applying what is, in my humble opinion, an overly literal hermeneutic, dispensationalists look for a coming age when the Church is removed from the scene and God will literally fulfill the promises for a Kingdom of Israel in the Holy Land.

This was my understanding until I became influenced by the simple teaching of George Eldon Ladd, late professor of New Testament Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. In "The Gospel of the Kingdom," Ladd shows a continuous progression in the flow of biblical eschatology. We are in the "now and not-yet" stage between the first and second coming of Christ. The Kingdom of God is now here, having broken into history by the incarnation of the Messiah. Yet, the Kingdom of God awaits its consummation at the Second Coming of Christ.

Jesus received the punishment for sin, literally taking upon himself the curses that came with breaking the Old Covenant. Yet, in that very act, he forged a New Covenant (Jer. 31). The church is now the people of God, the "New Israel," grafted into the cultivated olive root.

Israel as a nation, largely rejected the Messiah, and was "broken off" (Rom. 11). Yet not all. A remnant remains (like Paul himself). At some point, before the end of this age, the Jewish people will experience a movement towards faith in Jesus as the Messiah that will graft them in again. The result will be a new covenant people of God, composed of Jew and Gentile, together.

I believe that Israel as a nation is a miracle that is indeed a sign of the end times. Yet, I do not believe that God plans to work through Israel for the salvation of the world. Otherwise, the work of Jesus becomes just "one way" that God accomplishes his purposes. No--Paul's discussion in Romans 11 points to a unified purpose of God to save both Jews and Gentiles.

Lastly, we Evangelicals need to remember that there are hurting people in Palestine who need to know Christ and, indeed, that there is a church under persecution in Palestine that is hurt when we become so pro-Israel that they are labeled as enemies of Palestine. Let us constantly support them in our prayers by praying two things: peace for Israel and peace for Palestine.