Have you seen those Visa Gift Cards you can buy in the check out lines at Wal Mart?  They are cards on which you can place any amount of money, and then use like cash to make purchases anywhere Visa is accepted.  Now, imagine that the next time you go to Wal Mart you purchase one of those cards and place on it ALL of your net worth.  That’s right.  Imagine that you were to go to the bank and empty your checking and savings accounts.  Then imagine you were to sell every asset you own (property, cars, clothes, technology, etc.) on Craig’s List and eBay.  Imagine you were to cash out your entire IRA and college savings plans.  Imagine you were to liquidate all of your net worth into cash, then imagine you were to place all that cash into a shopping cart at Wal Mart and push it into the store, walk through the check out line, and hand ALL of that cash to the check out clerk, instructing them to place ALL of it on a single Visa Gift Card.  Can you imagine that?  I want you to visualize walking out of Wal Mart with a single credit card in your wallet on which your entire net worth rests.

Now, I want to ask you a question:

Who would you trust enough to give that card to?

Your spouse?  Your kids?  Parents?  Friends?  Anyone?  No one?  What would influence your decision?  Who would you trust or not trust and why?  Seriously . . . I want you to think long and hard about that.

This Sunday at Wildwood, we are going to be concluding our short 2 part series “Pay it Forward.”  In this week’s message, I will be sharing some perspective on the role of finances in the life of the Christian, including looking at Jesus interaction with the Rich Young Ruler.  After years of reading this passage and rationalizing it away on different levels, I have been challenged by it anew this week.  If Jesus asked for “it all” why would I be hesitant to give it to Him?  As I wrestled with that notion this week, I felt as though God encouraged me through the analogy I gave above.  My thoughts on this may surprise you.  My hope, though, is that by looking at God’s Word together, we will all be encouraged to trust Jesus more in our lives, remembering who He is and the way He cares for us.  Join us as I share some of what God has been teaching me on this topic this Sunday at Wildwood in either our 9:30 or 10:50 service.  Hope to see you there!

On October 15, 2011 I did possibly the manliest thing I have done in a very long time. Together with 7 other dads, and 14 total sons, I ascended Mount Scott inside the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge near Lawton. Mount Scott is an interesting “hike.” Apart from the paved road that serpentines the park’s tallest peak, there is no set path up the mountain. Getting from the parking lot to the summit required our group to work together and plan well in order to make it to the top without serious injury.

To say that this hike was one of the manliest things I have done in a while is not an exaggeration. The hike was full of elements of pure manhood. If we had only killed our own lunch and cooked it over an open flame, the hike would have had everything. Even still, the hike had:

1. Danger. Though we were not taking our life into our own hands, we all were taking our emergency room co-pays into consideration as we hiked the mountain. Hopping from boulder to boulder was fun, with an element of risk. We loved it.
2. Someone who needed us. Nothing gets guys moving more than realizing that someone is depending on us. The 14 sets of little eyes (all under the age of 10) followed our direction and example as we pointed the way and pulled the little ones up the mountain side. It was awesome.
3. Teamwork. I would have matched our 8 dad sherpa crew against the “We are Family” Pittsburgh Pirates of the 1970’s as a picture of partnership. No one on that mountain had one son . . . we all had 14.
4. Fun. We laughed a lot, cheered alot, and cracked on each other all the way up the mountain. It was perfect.

In the end, we all made it up the mountain together. When we got back in the car and drove back to Norman, Josh actually cried for about 15 miles of turnpike time . . . he simply did not want the trip to be over. To be honest, I didn’t want it to be over either. The rush of climbing that mountain has not soon left me.

So, all of this has got me thinking about life and fatherhood. I want to issue a challenge to dads of sons everywhere. Dads, we should not simply wait for Mount Scott moments to join together. We need to be a band of brothers. We have way more important hills to climb than a pile of rocks in southwest Oklahoma. We need each other to help each other guide our sons to the top of the mountain of manhood. We need to have a year round adventure for our kids where we guide them through:

1. Danger. The world today is a scary place. Satan is very creative in the way he attacks us . . . like a lion going after his prey. The risks for our lives and our boys lives are real: pornography, laziness, disrespect, materialism, lack of a fervency in following God. The danger is real . . . the spiritual lives of our sons are at stake. Instead of turtling up over this, let’s join together in facing this challenge with the enthusiasm we had on Mount Scott. Confronting this danger and surviving helps give us adventure every day with our sons!
2. People who need us. Our sons need us. They need our guidance to navigate the ascension from boyhood to manhood. Their 14 sets of eyes are looking to us for an example of how to live and instruction on how to respond in a difficult world.
3. Teamwork. We need each other. Being a dad is a difficult and important task, and effectively climbing this mountain with our sons is way easier with 8 of us than with one. Helping our sons get from here to there demands that we not have only our own children, we have “14.”
4. Fun. We need to celebrate the victories, laugh at the mistakes, and enjoy the ride together.

I am writing this note as an open call to Dads everywhere to challenge us to step up our game in 2012. Let’s link arms and raise a generation of world changers for Jesus Christ. It is my hope that this post prompts groups of men to have a conversation over the next month where they talk about how to be more intentional in raising their sons to manhood. We need to do this, and we need each other to do this. There are no solo hikes up mount manhood.

The more I live, the more I am convinced that the world has far too many boys who shave (as Mark Driscoll calls them) and far too few real men. Dads, God can use us to change that reality. Let’s lean in together and see a new generation of men emerge. Discipleship starts in the home, and God wants to use us to make a difference in the lives who sleep under our roof. Let’s do that together. OK?

I spent the past few days in Bartlesville celebrating the holidays with family.  We had a great time quoting lines from Elf, opening presents, eating way too much, and getting schooled in Scrabble by my 10 year old niece.  In other words, it was a perfect holiday.  Since I grew up in Bartlesville, any trip back home brings back all kinds of memories – good and bad.  In many ways, I have grown into a different person since I moved away from there 20 years ago.  Some of those changes have been positive, some have been negative.

One of the changes that I would consider negative, is my general optimism about life.  When I lived in Bartlesville I was much younger, and much more optimistic about my future.  Let me give you an example.  Back in 1984 when the Olympics were in Los Angeles, I remember dreaming that one day I would be a part of the U.S. Olympic basketball team.  I loved playing basketball, and thought I had a “realistic” shot at making the team one day.  I actually did the math and thought that I would only have two chances to make the team – 1992 and 1996.  I thought I would only have the chance for those two Olympics because I would be in the NBA in 1997, thus making me ineligible for an amateur competition (the Olympics at that time were only open to amateurs).  Best I can tell, I wanted to be an Olympian for three reasons:

1. A love of America.  Putting on the stars and bars and taking on the world was an incredibly motivating idea.
2. A love of Basketball.  I thought I had the skills to compete.
3. A love of Mary Lou Retton.  Remember the 1984 games?  As an 11 year old, I thought if I could just meet her, I had a chance . . .

Anyway, by the time 1992 rolled around, I no longer lived in Bartlesville . . . and I no longer thought I could be an Olympian.  Though the inclusion of the professionals did not help me (thanks a lot Dream Team), the reason I did not make it to the Olympics in 1992 was that I was not good enough to make the team.  Time has an incredible ability to kill our dreams, doesn’t it?  The longer we live, the more we are in tune with our own abilities and liabilities.  The more basketball I played against better and better competition, the more I realized that I was not going to be the next Mark Price or even the next Tim Legler.  My talent ceiling was 6A sports in Oklahoma.  Getting a realistic picture of what I could accomplish caused me to alter my idealistic notion of being a Olympic champion.

What about you?  What did you used to think you were going to grow up to be?  How has time changed your hopes and dreams?

While it is fun and nostalgic to look back on our dreams of fame, it is tragic when we let the passing of time ebb away at the confidence we have in our spiritual lives.  For far too many of us, we trust God with less with each passing year.  This happens because over time we become more and more acquainted with our lack of ability to accomplish things we genuinely desire.  Year after year, an illness remains, a relationship deteriorates, a sin struggle lingers, depression clings on.  Because of the persistent nature of some of our struggles, and our lack of ability to change them, we begin to trust God with less.  As we become aware of our liabilities, we begin to limit our expectations.  When we limit our expectations, we shrink our dreams.  When we shrink our dreams, we have a tendency to shrink our God as well.

The flaw in all this is that we are attaching our hopes and dreams in the areas that matter most to us only to our own ability.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we have a God we can trust for things way larger than that!  Think about it: if you are a believer in Jesus, you are trusting God for forgiveness of all your sins.  Your ability to be forgiven has nothing to do with your ability to accomplish something yourself, but it has to do with God’s ability to do more to you and through you than you could ever do alone!  God forgives by sending His Son to die on the cross for us.  That is how we are forgiven.  However, as believers live out their spiritual lives, we can allow time to cause us to focus more on what we can do and less on what God can do.  When we do that, our vision for tomorrow deflates.

This year, this Christmas, I want to encourage you to inflate your vision again.  Trust God more this coming year for things bigger than what you can accomplish on your own.  I want to encourage you in this direction by looking at the first few words in Luke 2 tonight.  At the beginning of the story of Jesus birth, Luke says this, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. . .”  If you have been a Christian for a long time (or if you have recently watched the “Charlie Brown Christmas” special), no doubt these words are very familiar to you.  In fact, the name Caesar Augustus is one of the most famous names of any Caesar in the history of the Roman Empire.  But who was Caesar Augustus and why do we know his name today?  Answering that question is a very interesting story.

In 63 BC, a young man named Gaius Octavius was born.  Octavius was in the Roman army.  At that time, a man named Julius Caesar was the dictator of Rome.  Julius noticed the great skill and leadership ability that Octavius had.  Octavius was Julius’s nephew.  Julius had no children of his own.  Unknown to Octavius, Julius had written into his will to adopt Octavius upon his death, and make him the heir to his fortune and political successor.  On the Ides of March, in 44 BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated by political adversaries in the Roman Senate.  Octavius was summoned to Rome to hear a reading of his late Uncle’s will.  In the will, Octavius found out his future would be changed forever.  He had been post-humously adopted by his uncle Julius and at the age of 19, Octavius had become the leader of Rome.  As a tribute, Octavius took on Julius’s name “Caesar,” making him Octavius Caesar.  In 42 BC, the Roman Senate deified Julius Caesar, making him the “Divine Julius” and Octavius, “The Son of the Divine” or as we might say, he became known as the “Son of God.”  Then, in a twist that changed the course of Rome, Octavius changed the Roman constitution making himself an Emperor and Rome an Empire.  At that time, they changed his name to Augustus . . . which means “Sacred one” . . . Thus Augustus Caesar became known as the Sacred One, the Son of God.  He was the leader of the world at the time of Jesus birth.

Caesar Augustus was such a powerful man that he was able to speak a word and make the entire Roman Empire move.  When you are an emperor and people think you are a god, you have lots of power.  That is why when Caesar developed a new tax code and said that people needed to go to their ancestral homes to register, people started walking – among them Mary and Joseph.

Now imagine that you were alive in the Roman Empire on the night that Jesus was born, and imagine that you were walking with a set of travelers to the town of Bethlehem to register for the census.  Imagine that someone were to say to you that alive in the world at that time was one known as the Son of God, the Sacred one, who would be known for 2,000 years and counting into the future.  Imagine that someone were to tell you on the way to Bethlehem that 2,000 years later all of human history would hinge around this Son of God and what He would accomplish with His life.  Imagine that someone were to tell you that 2,000 years later, people would look at pictures and symbols of this Sacred One and think of how the Son of God had changed their lives.  Imagine that.  I would imagine that if someone would have told you all that on that night, you would have thought they were talking about Caesar Augustus.  In reality, however, they were talking about a child that would be born later that night in a cave and placed in an animals feeding bin.

Despite the drastic differences between Jesus and Augustus on the first Christmas night (one in a manger, the other on a throne), the world has come to remember the one, only because of His association with the other.  Think about it, the man who was responsible for starting the Roman Empire . . . the man who was known as a god by the most advanced civilization in the world at that time, would be known to us only because he was the ruler at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ.  As Andy Stanley has correctly said, Augustus Caesar is merely a footnote in the history of God’s Story in Christ.  Men and women, we serve a God who can make a baby born in a manger infinitely more powerful than the leader of the “free world.”

This Christmas, as you ponder anew what the Almighty can do, I want you to stop limiting what God can do.  I want you to renew your belief that God can do big things.  As the Christmas story is read and you hear of Caesar Augustus, I want you to remember the power of God.  Caesar thought he was a god and tried to make himself famous, but in the end, he was a footnote in history.  Time has taught us of the limitations of human power.  However, time has also taught us of the enduring nature of God’s story.  When we are attached to Christ, He can do infinitely abundantly beyond all we ask or think.  I want you to trust God again for big things this year, because we serve a big God.

Now, I want to ask you this question.  Who are you trusting tonight?  For the problem of our sin.  For the problem of our uncertainty.  For the problem of our mortality.  For the things you truly long for.  Who are you trusting?  Yourself?  The best a person could do is what Augustus did . . . and he is rotting in a tomb.  Trust instead in the One who has gone from the manger to a throne that will never be unseated.  He can offer us forgiveness, and hope.  He is the One we orient our history around.  His story gives meaning to ours.  My dreams are bigger because I am a part of  His team.

As we head into Christmas this year, however, I wanted to share an additional thought about a Christmas themed flash mob I saw on the Internet recently.  In the flash mob filmed below a food court at a shopping mall was invaded at Christmas time by a choir singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah.”  The unsuspecting crowd was eating their Sbarro one minute, and the next were hearing a large choir surrounding them declaring that the “Kingdom of this world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ!  And He shall reign forever and ever!”  What a scene!

As I have posted to this blog earlier this season, the “Hallelujah Chorus” is one of my favorite songs.  I absolutely LOVE the lyric of this song.  It is such a strong statement as to the majesty of our God.  I actually teared up doing the dishes last night singing this song (no joke).  In a world that is cruising along toward destruction while eating its slice of Sbarro, it is such a powerful reminder that our God reigns!  As we live out our lives in this world, believers are called to be a flash mob declaring this truth in the public square. The question is, will you and I join the chorus?

There is a great scene in the 1995 movie “Apollo 13″ where Tom Hanks (playing the part of Astronaut Jim Lovell) sits in his back yard staring at the moon.  Lovell was soon to pilot the famed Apollo 13 spaceship all the way to a lunar landing.  As he sat in his suburban backyard on terra firm, however, Lovell was thousands of miles away from his destination.  While staring at the moon, Lovell closed one eye and extended his hand in front of him.  The captain then extended his thumb up into the air.  The camera switched to Lovell’s perspective and showed us the captain’s ability to make the moon disappear behind his thumb.

Now, two possible explanations exist regarding Lovell’s disappearing moon technique:

1. The disappearance of the moon was an optical allusion created by the close proximity of the finger to the eyeball.  In other words, it was a matter of perspective.
2. Tom Hanks has an extremely large thumb!  In other words, his thumb is bigger than the moon.

Of course, option one is the correct answer.  It also serves as a helpful reminder to you and me.

In our lives, the problems we face everyday have a very close proximity to our eyes.  Medical issues we deal with, relationships that crumble, dreams that are dashed, are so close to where we live that they feel absolutely enormous.  In fact, they feel so big, they can even cause us (as we close one eye of perspective under the strain) to not be able to see God in the midst of our difficulty.  As we ponder this phenomena, two possibilities exist:

1. We have some really large problems . . . larger than the God who created the universe.
2. We are allowing our current circumstances to create an optical allusion blinding us to the reality of the presence of our God.

This Christmas season, many of you are no doubt dealing with difficulty.  In fact, I would hazard a guess that virtually all of us are facing a tough trial of some kind.  Because of that, we might have a tendency to miss God this holiday season.  Under the stress and strain of life, we squint our eyes and see only that which is attached to our own hands.  However, do not be fooled.  God is there!  The infant born in Bethlehem is not small in stature . . . He is larger than life, and He is our Immanuel – God with us.  Because of this, we can sing loudly the chorus to the hymn “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” -

O Tidings of Comfort and Joy!  Comfort and Joy!  O Tidings of Comfort and Joy!

We are comforted because God does not disappear from us . . . He has come to us in Christ.  We have great joy because when we open both eyes of biblical perspective, we can see that the Lord has been here all along.  Remember, Jesus last words to His disciples were, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  This promise opens our eyes to dispel the allusion that we are alone.  He is here, and He is bigger than all of the problems and issues we face.  We can trust Him with all our problems, big and small.

George Whitfield

When the story of 18th century western church history is told, there are three names that simply must be included:  John and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield.  Growing up within the Church of England, these three men each came to a genuine faith in Christ later in life.  After their conversions, these men followed Christ in a radical way, spreading the knowledge of Christ to the common people.  These three men were some of the early fathers of American Evangelicalism because they had an interest in taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people wherever they were.  Instead of staying inside large stone cathedrals, these men took to the open air, holding outdoor revival meetings and church services where thousands were in attendance.  In a day before microphones and high tech audio/visual equipment, Whitfield alone preached to as many as 30,000 people in one audience!

Charles Wesley

Given their common threads, it is not a surprise that these men were friends and had a great deal of respect for each other’s ministry, even though they had some theological differences.  Charles Wesley wrote over 7,500 hymns in his lifetime.  Some of these hymns were incorporated into Whitfield’s open air revival meetings.  One of Wesley’s hymns that Whitfield used was a hymn Wesley titled, “Hark, How the Welkin Rings!”  (The word “welkin” means “vault of heavens”.)  This song had the same tune as another famous Wesley hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today!”  Whitfield loved the song, but did not care for the opening line.  He changed the opening line to further connect this song with the birth of Christ.  His new first line was the now famous, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”  Whitfield made this change, but never asked his friend Wesley for permission to do so.  This outraged Wesley.  Even after Whitfield’s version grew in popularity and became very well know, Wesley refused to acknowledge or sing the Whitfield abridged version of his song.  Can you imagine that?  The author of one of the most famous Christmas songs ever written never sang it!  About 100 years later the tune was changed to the current form by Felix Mendelsson.

What are your Christmas traditions?  What do you do every year at Christmas time that you would be very upset if it changed?  For some it is the day and time that presents are opened.  For others it is the songs that you “should sing” in church or on Christmas Eve.  For others it is a particular service (and time) that must be attended or a particular passage of Scripture that must be the text for that service.  Whatever it is, there are somethings that just “have to happen” in order for it to be Christmas for you.  What happens if your form changes?  What happens if you open presents on Christmas day instead of Christmas Eve?  What happens if you sing “Manger Throne” instead of “Silent Night”?  What happens if the “wrong passage” is preached at the Christmas service?  If these changes happen, will you refuse to sing?

May we learn something from Wesley’s folly.  May we learn that most of the traditions we embrace today have evolved over time.  Santa Claus has not always been at the mall, Candles weren’t always a part of Christmas Eve services, and at one time, it was the “Welkin,” not the “Herald Angels” that were ringing/singing.  At one time, maybe the greatest Christmas hymn in existence today sounded like an Easter song to our modern ear.  The key is not the form, but the spirit behind it.  Whitfield and Mendelssohn improved Wesley’s hymn.  Is it possible that God might be using some of the changes in your Christmas worship celebrations to increase your soul’s rejoicing this season?  Don’t refuse to sing.  Join the angel chorus and worship Christ the new born King!

I have attached below the original lyrics of Wesley’s hymn, “Hark How the Welkin Rings!”

“Hark, how all the welkin rings,

“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”

Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb!

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus! Our Immanuel here!

Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.

Mild He lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.

Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp Thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner Man:
O! to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.”