A Day on Campus: Sabastian and His Girlfriend Idol

Ty Stevens, a UMKC junior, and I got to share our faith with five San Diego State University students a month ago on campus. The last conversation we had turned out to be the best.

When we asked Sabastian, an SDSU junior who was sitting in Starbucks, to describe his life in a few words he said: sad and lonely. He didn't go into the specifics right away but we eventually learned that his girlfriend of nine months had just broken up with him. Sabastian said that it was funny that we ran into him because he has been thinking about going to church for the first time in his life due to the hard situation he's in right now. Since he was ready and willing to hear the gospel, we took the opportunity to apply the gospel to his situation.

I shared Romans 1:25 with him which says that all of us have turned from worshiping the true God and have instead worshiped the things God's given us in creation. In Sabastian's case (and hey, I've been there too) the object of worship was his girlfriend.

Making a girlfriend a “god” creates problems.

First, by making his girlfriend a god he was putting unrealistic expectations on her that only God Himself can meet. This is part of the reason why his girlfriend broke up with him.

Second, since all his time and energy went toward making sacrifices for his girlfriend, he sacrificed all of his guy friends in the process. So now that Sabastian's “god” girlfriend has rejected him, he has no friends to help him through his loneliness – since pursuing his girlfriend isolated him from other relationships.

I reminded him that God is the only one who, if you seek Him and worship Him alone, will never fail you. Sabastian said that all of this made a lot of sense and that he wants to continue learning about the bible. He is going to join us for bible study next week.

We were really excited and thankful to God for connecting us with Sabastian today – who was so open, honest, and humble due to his circumstance. I think he is close to following Christ.

The conversation today reminded me that students seem to be the most receptive to the gospel when the “gods” they are pursuing fail them - when they realize that they need something else, something stronger, to both save them from their brokenness and fulfill their deepest longings.

The Beautiful Plan of Redemption

These are some verses that I've been meditating on a lot lately. I've arranged them to help me think through telling the story of redemption to others.

God created us in His image and was in perfect relationship with us (Genesis 1-2).

We were deceived and turned our backs on God (Genesis 3).

Since then, no one has been righteous. Not even one. All of us fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:10, 23). We deserve to be eternally separated from God for all eternity (Romans 6:23).

Since all of us have turned from God and are unable to save ourselves, God planned a rescue operation that was only His doing (Jonah 2).

Jesus was the plan (John 3:16).

He went to the cross to give us His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

We receive Jesus' righteousness as a gift (Ephesians 2:8-9) after we hear the gospel proclaimed to us (Ephesians 1:13) and the Holy Spirit convicts us (John 16:8) of the bad things we've done and the good things we've worshiped apart from God (Romans 1:25).

Some religious people reject God's rescue plan through Jesus and so they create other things to do to appear righteous before God (Romans 10:3). These people will not spend eternity with God (Matthew 7). These people experience worldly grief (a guilt that spurs them to make themselves holy by doing good things), not godly grief (a guilt that spurs us to call out and plead with Jesus to give us His holiness) (2 Corinthians 7:10).

For those who do not cling to their own righteousness, but plead for mercy, the Holy Spirit is sent to dwell in their hearts and renew them them day by day so that they can become the people that God intended them to be (Titus 3:4-6). The Holy Spirit produces in these people the same kind of loving affection for God the Father that Jesus had (Galatians 4:6).

These people become confrontational messengers and go on to spread the news (Acts 2:38) that Jesus is our only hope to get back into right relationship with the Father again (John 14:6).

One day Jesus will come back to completely put an end to Satan, sin, and death (Revelation 12:10).

When that happens, just like the beginning of the story, we will live in perfect relationship with God and dwell with Him forever (Revelation 21:3).

Quick Musing On Heaven

I have heard over and over again from students back in Nebraska and here in San Diego that good people are going to heaven. The problem is that morally good people are some of the worst out there! We tend to view sin in terms of outward behavior rather than an inward reality. It's easier to spot sin in a guy getting drunk than a religious person's pride who judges that drunk.

This is the problem with our view of heaven.

If these type of “good” people are going to heaven, then heaven will not be heaven at all. Heaven will be filled with tons of morally good prideful people who do not worship God as their savior but worship themselves as being their own savior.

When someone comes up to me and says that most people are going to heaven (minus a few Hitler types) then I let them know that heaven won't look much different than the world we live in now.

What if heaven was a place where pride didn't exist? What if heaven was not place of boasting in self, but a place where Jesus was boasted in as being our savior?

That is the true heaven and most people don't want to go there. How can we know? Well, if people aren't willing to enter into gospel-centered communities here on earth – places they can come into, confess sin, and worship Jesus – why would they want to do that when they die?

God is a God of justice. He will let people have what they want.

If some people want a heaven where they deserve to be, filled with morally good people who think they deserve to be there as well, then God will let them have that. But, it will be hell since this place will be void of people who are humble and void of the presence of God.

If other people want a heaven where they don't deserve to be, and they trust in Jesus as their only hope to get there, God will grant them their request.

A Day On a Cali Campus: Tuan and Tolerance Idol

In the last post I talked about encountering Edgar who has made family the end goal of his life. One of the other students I met, Tuan, has made tolerance his end goal.

Jon, a Virginia Tech student, and I listened to Tuan talk about how much he appreciated Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and so on. He tolerates all religions.

Tolerance is the air that post-modern students breathe. It sounds so good on the outside, but is one of the most destructive ideas on the college campus right now. Tolerance is the idea we should accept the beliefs or worldviews of everyone. It's the belief that there are many roads to heaven as well as many ways to live.

I told Tuan that tolerance at first glance seems like the most ultimate form of love. But, when you put tolerance through a “real life grid” its weaknesses are exposed. For example, if a father or mother does not have a worldview for his kids to grow up in, the family will fall apart. If every idea that the kids acted on was tolerated by the parents, it would end up bringing chaos to everyone's life. True love is shown when the kids are restricted to listening to and following their parent's wisdom. The way which seems narrow to the kids is actually the best way.

To use another example, if a patient has cancer and is in need of chemo or radiation, why would he/she want the doctor to tell them that there are other people out there with other alternatives – such as “positive thinking”? Would that be a loving thing to say or do? Of course not.

Christianity is amazing. It is the only religion in the world in which God came to the earth Himself to clear up the confusion on truth. He said, “I am the way.” This leads us not to speculation, but to revelation.

Yes, Jesus' message is narrow (exclusive), but it is also good news since it offered for everyone (inclusive). When we worship Jesus and trust in Him as the only way to salvation, it makes life much less confusing.

When every answer is right, no answer can be right. That's what tolerance promotes - a false sense of love by accepting everything. But in the process, everyone stays blind because no one has knows anything for sure.

A Day On a Cali Campus: Edgar and His Family Idol

Today I spent all day at UCSD sharing my faith with some top notch students from around the country.

UCSD is an interesting animal of a campus. They are incredibly smart. Their library is designed to be the “tree of knowledge”. There is even a long sidewalk shaped like a snake that stretches hundreds of feet next to the library. We heard today that this liberal University is allowing students to put student-made pornographic videos on the campus TV network for the whole campus to see.

The students are chasing after noble things. One of the students I met with today, Edgar, is a non-practicing Catholic who said that is greatest goal in life is to have a great family.

Having a wonderful family is a great thing, but if it is the end goal, life will be much less than what God intended it to be.

If you are like Edgar, you need to know that if family is your ultimate object of worship, comfort, and security then you are in danger. What if a member of your family dies? What if your spouse leaves you? What if your child doesn't become an “A” student or a star athlete?

If any of these things happen, it will result in depression or bitterness. Why? Because the thing (in this case family) that we make an idol or god, if fractured or destroyed, will leave us with nothing to fall back on. Hope, comfort, and security will be stripped away from us.

The good news is that Jesus confronts family idolatry and offers a better solution. He died on the cross so that we could have the opportunity to have Him be the supreme object of worship in our lives rather than family. And if we trust in Him, our families actually become better!

How?

If someone in your family passes away (and Jesus is supreme in your life), He offers to be your comfort and offers to give you hope that you will get to see your family member again. If your spouse leaves you (and Jesus is supreme in your life), He will remind you that He will never leave or forsake you. If your child doesn't meet your academic or athletic standards (and Jesus is the supreme in your life), you will be able to love your child unconditionally since Jesus loved you without any conditions even though You didn't meet his expectations.

Family is a good thing, but when made ultimate, becomes a very bad thing. Jesus is Edgar's only hope to have the family he desires.

The Curse of Technology

Is technology a blessing for the world? Yes and no.

Yes, because technology allows us to fulfill the cultural mandate in Genesis which tells us to subdue and bring order the created world. We are to beautify and cultivate creation using our creative juices. Technology helps us to advance good in the world.

But is technology always good? No, because technology can bring a wedge between us and God. One of the first instances of this that we see in the bible is The Tower of Babel story (Genesis 11). The technology of bricks had been invented and so the people were eager to do something with this technology. The bible says that they “wanted to make a name for themselves” and so they started building the biggest, baddest, tallest building they could. They didn't use their technology to worship God, but they used it to try and become like God (which is how the serpent enticed Adam and Eve).

Technology increases our pride and decreases our dependence on God. It increases our ability to control ourselves and the world we live in.

Today, we really don't have a huge dependence on God. We can walk into our cool garage, get into an air conditioned car, drive to our air conditioned work and repeat the same steps on the way home. Because of technology we can be comfortable all day long without recognizing the scorching heat outside. Meanwhile, the farmers a few miles away are pleading with God to send rain! But even now days, we don't even have to depend on God to grow things. We can just engineer what we want. We are like God!

Technology can allow a sermon about Jesus to be spread to a million people but it can also allow a porn film to be spread to ten million people. The internet porn industry makes more money than professional basketball, football, and baseball combined.

I was reading a puritan prayer this morning and I am amazed at the amount of dependence this writer has toward God. He writes, “May the gales of they mercy blow me safely into harbor. Secure me by thy grace as I sail across this storm sea.” He sees himself as a ship with no engine (this was easier to picture for him because they had no engines at the time). He realized that all he could do was set his sail and depend on the wind of God's Spirit to guide him, protect him, and carry him along to the harbor of heaven.

I love technology more than most people. But I need to repent often of the way it insulates me from thinking about and depending on God.

Jesus Raised The Bar To Impossible

The Sermon on the Mount almost blew the audience out of the... well, off the mount. It was profound and engaging, but probably the worst news some of the people had ever heard.

Sure, all the verses with “blessed” in them sounded pretty good. But when Jesus said (Matthew 5:20) “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” That's when the jaws dropped.

Modern translation: “Unless you become more holy than your favorite priest or pastor, there is no chance of you getting to heaven.”

And then Jesus decided to rub it in a little more (vs. 48) when he says, “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus keeps raising the bar throughout the sermon: First, he tells us that we can be blessed by living a Kingdom-centered life (Our response: I can try hard to do that). Then, he tells us that we can be blessed if we become more holy than the holiest pastors in our lives (Our response: That seems impossible). Finally, he tells us we can be blessed if we are absolutely perfect like God Himself (Our response: That is impossible).

I know its good for us to raise the bar every now and then, but it seems like Jesus is taking the bar and beating us with it! What's going on?

Well, like all good mystery novels, Jesus inserts a clue earlier on the sermon. He says (vs. 17), “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” In other words, Jesus is saying that He didn't come to bring a new teaching or start something new – but to perfectly obey all the laws and to fulfill all the prophesies that had been around since the beginning.

Simply, Jesus was telling them: “I'm here to live the life that you should be living, but can't.” And we know that Jesus also went on to fulfill the prophesies by dying the death we should have died.

Jesus raised the bar to impossible, but instead of condemning us for not being able to jump over it, he was condemned (even though he was perfect) for our sake on the cross and therefore transfers his victory to us. In addition, he has given us the ability now to work towards the bar of perfection through the power of the Holy Spirit.