The Perfecting Church

Grace is all about redemption and restoration -- because rules were not enough. Grace is the love of God at work in our lives -- because rules were not enough. Grace is the multi-purpose tool God uses to bring us to His desired end -- because rules were not enough. Grace is God freely giving us the life He recovered for us through His death, burial and resurrection -- because rules were not enough. Grace is God's forgiveness, acceptance, favor and power bringing us to a place of complete wholeness in Him -- because rules were not enough. We are saved by grace through faith, not by our own works. He chose us -- because rules were not enough.

Antonia was a fortress and military barracks built in Jerusalem by King Herod around 19 BC. It was named after Marcus Antonious, better known as Mark Antony, a powerful general under Julius Ceasar whose leadership helped to establish the Roman empire. It was here at Antonia, three days before the resurrection of Jesus Christthat the most famous public trial in human history took place. A trial far more significant than "Marbury vs. Madison," "Brown vs. Board of Education," or "Roe vs. Wade". This was the scene of the Passover Trial of Barabbas and Jesus. Barabbas was a notorious rebel and murderer. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher and a miracle worker, who called Himself God. This very public trial famously ends with Barabbas being released and Jesus being scentenced to death by crucifixion. Barabbas was released not because they found him innocent of his crimes but because his crimes of murder and rebellion were less offensive and more tolerable than the crime of claiming to be God -- Give Us Barabbas!

On this Sunday, Palm Sunday, one week before His cruxifiction, Jesus, the King and Lord of the universe, took the lowest position in all of creation. He prepared Himself to become the sacrificial lamb for the sins of all mankind. His followers were still confused about His role in their lives. They walked with Him. They performed miracles with Him. They promised they would never leave Him. But they were still incapable and unprepared to live the life that He had lived before them. They weren't ready to be water boys. The water boy willingly takes the lowest position in the room, becoming the servant who knows His infinite value to others.

Rules limit the ability for God’s love to be expressed through the freedom of His spirit. Human nature will create rules to establish authority or self-righteousness that frequently minimizes our access to God’s grace and power. As we have received the liberty that comes from the redemptive work of Christ, we must fight to receive that freedom and extend it to others. We must become freedom fighters not self righteous rule followers.

God the Father is generous, and so is His grace. Our Father doesn't believe in 'just enough'. His grace is always more than enough. His grace is not given because we have done good works, but so we can do good works. Our Father's grace looks to find its abundant expression in our lives, so it can flow through us into the lives of others. It's our trust and dependence upon His grace that gives us more access to it. Too often, like orphans we run in grabbing just what we need becuase we don't trust the Father's goodness. But God knows apart from Him we can do nothing. His desire is for us to believe that He is so we can.

If we can experience it, God's grace can overcome it. His grace is sufficient for the thorns that this life is filled with. His Grace doesn't keep us from all of life's struggles. His grace gives us all we need to overcome this life's struggles. When we learn to trust the sufficiency of God's grace, we enter into an entirely new world. We enter a world where thorns no longer have the power to convince us that God doesn't care. We enter a world where thorns are a chance for God to show us just how much He does care. His grace is the answer for our thorns.

Most of us have never experienced the deep and inexhaustable riches of God's grace because we've never learned the life of confession. We keep thinking we have to earn His favor. We keep thinking there's some work we must perform in order to get a blessing. But confession begins, where trust in ourselves ends. Confession begins when we accept the fact that God is good and His grace is all we've got. Confession begins when we realize His grace is all we will need. Confession is us telling God all we are, so we can receive all that He is. Confession is the door to God's grace.

Rules were not enough. They never were and they never will be. When Jesus arrived, the religious leaders of His day were neck deep in rules. They had added an elaborate system of no's, cant's and dont's to the orginal 10 commandments God had given to Moses. But the rules were and still are incapable of giving us what we all desperately need, a relationship with a living and present God. The rules were given to show us a need we had but couldn't see, a need that only His grace could meet. He isn't the God who simply stands over us with rules. He is the God who kneels down with us over and over again. He freely gives us a grace that saves and provides the strength we so desperately need to stand with Him.

The question that life begs of us and taunts us with is, "do I have what it takes?" The finale of broken things seeks to change that question and cause us to ask of ourselves, "are we willing to become what it takes?"

God loves our cities and gave us His keys to unlock transformation

Sometimes things are broken for so long we just accept them as normal. Nothing demonstrates that truth more clearly than the world in which we live. God's orginal plan was to govern this world through man, a creature made in His image and after His likeness. We were created with the distinct ability to relate to God, know His will and extend His Kingdom into the earth. The course of humanity was altered when we rebelled against God, turning His garden into a graveyard by ushering in a curse. This world is no longer the expression of God's will. It's a place of two Kingdoms, one headed towards destruction and one being established in and through an entirely new race of humans. For some, this world has gone from garden to graveyard, and for others from graveyard to garden.

Jesus came to a place that was broken in every way. He saw the pain of broken people, the devastation of their broken plans, and the division of a broken world; all that God created was in a state of ruin. It was a wasteland desperately seprated from all the Father envisioned and desired. Jews hated Gentiles, men oppressed women, the rich oppressed the poor and the widows were fending for themselves. But against all odds, in three short years, Jesus and His followers began turning the world upside down. Many found hope, peace and joy in His Kingdom. People began giving themselves to see His will established in their lives and the lives of others. Today over two thousand years later, Jesus wants nothing more than to enter our broken world again. This time He wants to enter through us, reaching and redeeming our neighbors and those we once avoided.

There are very few times, if any, when our plans and God's plans are exactly the same. We often rush to conclusions and lay out details that are quite different from those God has in mind. The simple truth is: we were made for God's plans; He was not made for ours. Life is most rewarding when we bow our knee and confess with our mouths, "Thy will be done and thy Kingdom come." If we haven't found out yet, we will soon discover that God has signed us up for things we would have never signed ourselves up for. And in the end we are best equipped for His will, not our own.

We are so accustomed to being the center of our world. Every one of us has a plan for our own little world, or at least we've had one at one time or another. Those plans shape how we see the world, God, and other people. We think and judge who's for us and who's against us based on how we see them fitting into our world and our plan. But the truth of the matter is that that way of thinking is very broken. We are not the center of our world, and seeing the world through the lens of our self-contrived plans leads to a life of brokenness and disappointment. We are a part of God's plan and the world; everyone and everything in it is His. He made it all. Life for us really begins when we look for God and surrender to His plan. One of the hardest lessons in life is learning to embrace the idea of seeing our plans as broken so His plans can prevail. Everything going wrong can lead to everything going right.

God loves broken things. He makes no apologies for that part of His personality. From Genesis to Revelation we find God visiting, helping, pleading with and giving Himself for the broken. Jesus showed the same tendency toward broken things picking a cast of the "most unlikely to succeed" as His very closest followers. Unfortunately, the fallen world we live in teaches us to do just the opposite. We're taught from a young age to avoid the broken, hide our flaws, and pretend to have it all together. The problem is this approach to life is more flawed than we are. Denying our desperate need for the God of broken things just leads to more brokenness. In the end those who are found in Him and made whole are those who are willing to admit that they are broken.