Saturday shortly after noon, I filled up the dog bowl on the back porch with water and pitched dishes in the dishwasher so that I could head out with Melissa for a bite to eat and maybe a little shoe shopping. She’d spent the night with Keith and me in the country and we’d had a lazy Saturday morning over coffee and conversation. I’d set out my purse and keys and decided to wipe down the kitchen counter before we walked out the door. Just as I sprayed the cleaner and grabbed the dishtowel, Melissa walked in staring at the screen of her phone with the oddest expression.
“Mom, I don’t know if it’s true or not but I’m seeing references on Twitter to Rick and Kay Warren losing a son.”
She was ashen. My stomach flipped and, over the next few minutes as she read to me bits and pieces of breaking news, we feared the worst. I felt a hot sickness in my throat. My relationship with the Warrens is the same as most of yours. I have simply been served and led well by them. Although I had the joy of ministering to women on the Saddleback campus some years ago, my stay was brief and our schedules were wrapped entirely around the event. I have not had the opportunity to get to know the Warrens in the way that personal friends know one another but I always knew in my heart that I’d like them so much. We’re similar ages and in similar seasons with our families. Meanwhile, I have loved them and esteemed them in Christ as faithful and mighty servants of the living Lord Jesus Christ. And quite possibly, among the mightiest to ever serve this generation.
Within an hour of Melissa walking into the kitchen with those first pieces of news, someone very close to the Warren family confirmed the tragedy on Twitter. We were heartsick and not for media personalities or even public servants. We were heartsick for a family of real people with breakable hearts. And we wept. Many of you undoubtedly did as well.
An odd mix of feelings overtook me with increasing force through the afternoon and into the early evening. The sadder I got, the madder I got. Mad at an astonishing satanic force that stoops viciously and swoops in unscrupulously to attack children and to prey on their weaknesses as they grow up, shooting so relentlessly at one spot that they can barely get to their feet between arrows. I’ve been that child and many of you have, too. Madder still that the devil in all likelihood delights in nothing more than targeting the children and dearest loved ones of true servants of God. Nothing tries our faith like the suffering of our children. At the end of the day, our faith is what the devil is after most. Without it, it’s impossible to please God. This is why Paul could say with relief nearly palpable on the page of his final letter, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.I have kept the faith.”
We’ll all finally make it to our finish lines but the cliffhanger along the way will be this: will we keep our faith? That isn’t the same thing as keeping our salvation. I don’t believe my salvation is something I can give back. I received it by grace through faith from Christ Himself and my works don’t secure it no matter how my woes obscure it. His grip never loosens. Nothing can snatch us out of our Father’s hand. What’s at risk is our active belief in who God says He is, what He says He is like, and what He says He can do.
Is He good? Is He faithful?So the enemy sets out to knock the feet of our faith out from under our walk. And there is nothing more effective toward that end than targeting the ones we love most on this planet.
I don’t say that to scare you. I say it because I believe it is the hair-raising truth. No, we are not abandoned here as victims on this damaged sod. We are not abandoned at all. Our God is with us. The Spirit of His Son is in us. We are more than conquerors through the One who loves us. We are not at the mercy of Satan. We are at the glorious, life-breathing mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, a mercy that leads, as Jude 21 says, to eternal life and will ultimately spill like a river into a sea of reality where no sufferings of our past will compare with the glory of our present. In the meantime, greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world but make no mistake. This is a vicious world we’ve been left to serve. One God still loves or we would not still be here.
And then, in that mixture of emotions Saturday afternoon, I got madder and madder at the bullies in the Body of Christ. I thought how much it turns out that the Warrens have been through personally and, if they are like most leaders, all the while putting out fires and putting up with a bunch of trash-talk from people who would call the same Jesus Lord.
God help us. In the words of James, These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters.I don’t believe one of us here in this community thinks that leaders should be immune to questions, constructive criticism, and accountability. That’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about here. I’m talking about bullying. There are Scriptural means for going to a brother or sister to reason with them about matters we genuinely consider to be off base, misleading, or in error. You and I both know that much of what happens out there in public forums is the furthest thing from biblical.
It is slander.
I went on a walk through the woods Saturday late afternoon and did something I don’t often do. I cried angry tears. I got so mad that I could have hit somebody. I kept thinking how believers attack one another and sling stones at each other like the other can’t bruise or break. And all the while that person may be in so much personal pain that it’s nearly unbearable. I’m not transferring this to the Warrens. I do not know them personally. I’m telling you what I know to be true about most people out there. Most of us are in significant pain of some kind. That doesn’t mean defeat necessarily. It just means pain.
Life is hard enough without hatefulness rife in the Body of Christ. We are called to carry one another’s burdens, not pile relentlessly on top of them. We can still hold one another accountable. We can still ask questions. We can still disagree. But we can do it with respect.
I’m sick of the bullying. The mud-slinging and the meanness. I’m sick of careless, idle words thrown out there in the public square and professing believers in Christ standing on the necks of their own brothers and sisters to sound smart and superior. As if it’s not enough that we are surrounded in this culture by Christian haters, we’ve got to have our own hater-Christians. It’s insane.
When we turn people into caricatures, everything’s game. The moment we depersonalize them, our consciences harden and we can mock and slander at will and have a blast doing it. Snide blogs and tweets and Facebook posts about various leaders can also be effective ways to jump in their spotlight. Bullies aren’t just mean. They’re self-serving. They’re platform-hunting. They have to borrow one to perform.
No, I don’t think that saying all of this will change it much but some things still need to be said. Sometimes we need to speak up and call something wrong. There’s a bigger issue in the Body of Christ than immorality. It’s hatefulness. If the greatest priority Christ assigned to us was love, the gravest offender is hate.
Just about the time cynicism threatens to overwhelm us and turn us into the very people we can’t stand, genuine love – the real thing – erupts right here on this earth like concrete breaking open to a spring. Compassion and tremendous affection are pouring forth from the Body of Christ for the Warrens right now. It is right and it is lovely. We have been served well by them and have learned so much from them. To respond with expressions of love, comfort, and intercession is our honor and privilege. We must and we will.
But even now at the hardest moment of their lives the Warrens can teach something vital if we are willing to learn. Their heartbreak demonstrates what has always been true but has never been more profoundly overlooked: these who serve us publicly also suffer privately. They are not caricatures. They are not just personalities. They are people living on a painful planet with the rest of us.
The Warrens will come forth like gold. The enemy will not win. They will fight the good fight. They will finish the race. They will keep the faith.I love the Body of Christ. I don’t want want to get cynical. I don’t want to sit around and hate the haters or I become one. But this morning I just want to say this. We can love each other better. Let’s do. People have enough hurt. Let’s be careful with one another.
Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” (Psalm 37:7a GW)
Surrendering your life means:
- Following God’s lead without knowing where he’s sending you.
- Waiting for God’s timing without knowing when it will come.
- Expecting a miracle without knowing how God will provide.
- Trusting God’s purpose without understanding the circumstances.
You know you’re surrendered to God when you rely on God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work. You don’t have to always be "in charge." Instead of trying harder, you trust more.
You also know you’re surrendered when you don’t react to criticism and rush to defend yourself.
Surrendered hearts show up best in relationships. You are not self-serving, you don’t edge others out, and you don’t demand your rights.
The most difficult thing to surrender for many people is their money. Many have thought, "I want to live for God, but I also want to earn enough money to live comfortably and retire someday."
Retirement is not the goal of a surrendered life because it competes with God for the primary attention of our lives. Jesus said, "You cannot serve both God and money," and "Wherever your treasure is, your heart will be also."
The supreme example of self-surrender is Jesus. The night before his crucifixion, Jesus surrendered himself to God’s plan. He prayed, "Father, everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine.”
Jesus didn’t pray, "God, if you’re able to take away this pain, please do so." He began by affirming that God can do anything! He prayed, "God, if it is in your best interest to remove this suffering, please do so. But if it fulfills your purpose, that’s what I want, too."
Genuine surrender says, “Father, if this problem, pain, sickness, or circumstance is needed to fulfill your purpose and glory in my life or in another’s life, please don’t take it away!"
This level of maturity doesn’t come easily. In Jesus’ case, he agonized so much over God’s plan that he sweated drops of blood. Surrender is hard work. In our case, it requires intense warfare against our self-centered nature.
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“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35 NIV)
The Bible is the most despised, derided, denied, disputed, dissected, and debated book in all of history. This Bible has been under attack for centuries — for everything you can imagine.
Yet the Bible is still the most read, most published, and most translated book in the world. And, most importantly, it’s still changing the lives of those who apply what it teaches.
One of the reasons I believe the Bible is God’s Word is that it has survived so many attacks throughout history.
Despite all the attacks throughout history, today the Bible is the greatest single source of culture. It’s the greatest single source for music, art, and architecture. If you take the Bible out of culture, you would destroy most of the major music, artwork, and architecture of the past 2,000 years. Even much of our English language comes from the King James Bible.
The Bible has flourished in spite of unrelenting attacks during the past 2,000 years.
Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (NIV). The only item on the planet that will last is the Word of God. Everything else will burn up, because truth is eternal.
Voltaire, the famous French philosopher, was a brilliant atheist. He wrote a number of tracts deriding the Bible. He once made a very bold statement: “One hundred years from today the Bible will be a forgotten book.”
Today, everyone has forgotten that quote — not the Bible! After Voltaire died, for nearly 100 years, his homestead was used as the book depository for the French Bible Society. They sold Bibles out of his house! It’s now a museum. People have forgotten Voltaire. Nobody forgets the Bible.
No matter what attacks come the Bible’s way, it always survives — and it always will. You can depend on that.
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“Praise him, you highest heaven and the water above the sky. Let them praise the name of the Lord because they were created by his command. He set them in their places forever and ever. He made it a law that no one can break.” (Psalm 148:4-6 GW)
Someone may have told you at one time that the Bible isn’t scientifically accurate. That person is wrong. They’ve either never studied the Bible or never studied science.
God sets up the laws of science; he made sure that his Word doesn’t contradict those laws.
Johannes Kepler, the famous mathematician and astronomer, once said, “Science is simply thinking God’s thoughts after him.” In other words, God established the laws of physics, and then we discover them.
The Bible wasn’t meant to be a scientific textbook. You don’t study the Bible to build a rocket. And the Bible doesn’t use scientific language. But the Bible never gives bad science! Not once during the 1,600 years in which the Bible was written does it give bad science. In fact, it’s always ahead of science.
For example:
- For thousands of years, people believed that Earth was flat. But God said 2,600 years ago in Isaiah 40:22 that God is enthroned above the sphere of Earth.
- For thousands of years, people believed something held Earth up. Hindus believed huge elephants did it. The Greeks believed Atlas did it. The Egyptians believed five columns held the earth up. The Bible never says that anything is holding the planet up.
- For thousands of years, people believed that the number of stars were finite. But Jeremiah 33:22 says the number of stars can’t be counted.
In 1861 a very famous book came out called “Fifty-one Incontrovertible Proofs that the Bible is Scientifically Inaccurate.” Today, you can’t find a single scientist on the planet that would agree with any one of those incontrovertible facts. They’ve all been disproved by science.
The Bible says, “Praise him, you highest heaven and the water above the sky. Let them praise the name of the Lord because they were created by his command. He set them in their places forever and ever. He made it a law that no one can break” (Psalm 146:4-6 GW).
The second law of thermodynamics doesn’t work today and not work tomorrow. It always works because it was true and made by God.
Truth doesn’t change.
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“No prophecy ever originated from humans. Instead, it was given by the Holy Spirit as humans spoke under God's direction.” (2 Peter 1:21 GW)
The Bible is the most read book in history. It’s also the bestselling book in history and the most translated book in history.
Yet it’s more than that. It’s also God’s Word — God’s very breath. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (NIV).
That means the Bible isn’t just a good idea. It is God’s Word to us. One of the reasons I can know that the Bible is true and trustworthy is that it has thousands and thousands of prophecies that have come true and will come true in history. Every one of the Bible’s prophecies have either come true exactly as God predicted or will come true sometime in the future.
The Bible contains more than 300 prophecies about Jesus alone — all written a thousand years before he was born. The Bible prophesized about when he’d be born, where he’d be born, and how he’d be born. He couldn’t have manipulated his birth to fulfill those prophecies.
It also predicted how he would die. A thousand years before Jesus died, David described Jesus’ death on the cross in one of the psalms. He didn’t use the word “crucifixion” because no one knew that word then. Long before the Romans were even thinking about crucifying people, David described it.
Only God could have known that.
What are the odds that I could make 300 predictions about you and every one of them would come true? It’s so astronomical, you couldn’t write the number down. It takes more faith to believe that the Bible’s prophecies were a coincidence than to believe that God planned them.
The Bible says, “No prophecy ever originated from humans. Instead, it was given by the Holy Spirit as humans spoke under God's direction” (2 Peter 1:21 GW).
During Bible times, nobody wanted to be a prophet. The law in Israel was that a prophet of God had to be correct 100 percent of the time. If you were wrong just once, then you were considered a false prophet and would have been put to death. A prophet better be right!
And the Bible prophecies were right — every one of them. You can trust the Bible because what the Bible predicts comes true.
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Teams will need to coordinate together to decide what your community outreach project will be in the afternoons based on the talents and gifts the Lord as brought to your team, as you all be serving together due to the size of the team.
There is the possibility that your team will be serving some of the time in Port-au-Prince preparing our nursery facility for the arrivals of our little ones. So, you will most likely be doing renovations,/painting/construction in the mornings, then community outreach projects in the afternoons.
Some examples of community outreach projects are bible clubs for children and/or adults (skits, crafts, passionate teaching of God's word, games, music/songs); sewing ministry (where you teach sewing lessons and offer free "hemming" to community while sharing Christ); life skills class (woodworking, welding, sewing, basic English classes, sign language classes, etc); rice/bean distribution and/or feeding ministry.
In any type of community outreach, it is hard to predict how many the Lord will draw in, but we usually find that 100 or so usually come. So, simple usually works best. You can also divide your time and mix it up every afternoon if you have several different skills/gifts.
Here is another thought -- you may also consider a "good manners" class for our Alex's House kiddos for the days (2 afternoons or so) you will be with them - general social etiquette, table manners, etc. -- this could be a lot of fun and definitely needed:)Does that sound fun? Then why not go with us? The dates are March 16-23. Email me if interested and I'll get you some more info.
