Full manuscript of the talk here.
Discussion Guide here.
Guide to Spiritual Practices here. 

It's New Year's Day, which means it's time for that peculiar ritual of resolution making. We could call it the ritual of Good Intentions. Because making resolutions has become something of a cultural joke, something we all participate in. I want to be fit this year (why do you think gyms make you pay your membership a year at a time? Because they bank on New Year's business!). I want to read more. I want to spend more time at home.

I want to be more spiritual.

That's the one that always killed me. Growing up in the Church, New Year's was when I always decided that THIS would be the year I finally read my bible more or prayed more or whatever.

And of course, we know that the joke of Resolutions is that they are gone by February. Gyms are pretty slow in November and December. And while a few of us keep our resolutions, most of us let them fall by the wayside.

Today, I want to challenge Beavercreek Nazarene to be a people who are better than average. I want to be a part of a Church, part of a people who use 2012 to become more than we are right now.

I want to be a part of a Church in January 2013 that blows our January 2012 minds.

Download a full manuscript of the talk here. Download the discussion guide here.

Since my name is JR., people have always had a tough time with it. I get called “Junior" or "RJ" more often than you might think. Once some of the other staff and I went out to karaoke, and I wrote my name – JR. Forasteros – on the paper. When it was my turn, the DJ announced me as “Junior Foresters”, much to the amusement of my friends. And of course it stuck, so it’s not uncommon to hear me referred to as “Junior Foresters” when I show up somewhere. I always enjoy showing up somewhere where someone else has made the nametags, because I never know what’s going to be on my nametag. I’d say my name is correct on nametags other people make for me about 25% of the time. Some of you with tough names know what I’m talking about. Right? It’s an odd experience to walk around with a name that’s not really yours on your nametag, a name that someone else gave you.

But it's true that we wear labels other people have put on us.

We usually call this “victimization”. And I don't think it's possible for us to live in this culture without becoming victims at some point. I've shared before about how I left my previous church, when a pastor at a neighboring church decided he didn't like what I taught, so he misrepresented me online and in person to dozens of other pastors. I ended up having to leave my previous church position over it. I felt like he'd slapped a big "Heretic" sticker on me, and that all these people who didn't know the first thing about me saw. And the crazy part is that he still sort of lives up in my head. When I meet new people and they want to talk theology, I get a little shy. Because even though most people don’t see it, even though I don’t think it’s true or right, I still wear that nametag sometimes. What's your label? You may have a worse story than I do. Maybe you're the victim of some kind of abuse. Abuse is shockingly common in our society. And when you're the victim of some kind of abuse, it scars you. I know that because what I endured was relatively minor, especially in the grand scheme of things. And I know what I felt. I have close friends who have been verbally or physically abused by parents or significant others or spouses. I have several close friends who were sexually abused. And between the Priest scandals and the Penn state stuff, we know that abuse is far too common in our culture. Even the abuse of children. You want to talk about what it means to be a victim? To be on the receiving end of violence? Those kinds of abuse scar you. You leave those experiences with labels that other person has given you.

They stay in your head, telling you lies about yourself. Make you feel weak. Violated. Afraid. Like damaged goods.

Worst of all, when you're abused, when you are the victim of someone's violence, you feel totally isolated. Alone. You feel trapped under this label that's been put on you. Trapped by what that person has done to you.

The good news is that you're not alone.

Did you know that one in seven men was sexually abused as a child? And for women the number's much higher - one in three. That means that in this room, at least 80 people are the victims of sexual abuse. If you're one of them, you're not alone. And even if you’re not the victim of abuse, know that we all get what it’s like to be a victim. You’re not alone. Not even a little bit. And today, we meet a woman who was the victim of sexual violence, too. Someone else's choices ruined her entire life. But she refused to give in to despair, to let his choices define her. In fact, I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that all the women we've been learning from in this series are part of some dysfunctional or tragic family systems. And since human nature hasn't changed in the past 3,000 years, you know as well as I do that the systems they were a part of saddled them with labels. People talked back then the way people talk today. Tamar was a Black Widow - the woman whose husbands kept dying. She was poison. Toxic. Rahab was a prostitute. Shameful. Ruth was a foreigner. An immigrant. She was the Enemy. And this week, we meet a woman named Bathsheba.

Bathsheba teaches us that we don't have to live as a victim of someone else's choices. We can be victors over them through Jesus.

Download a full manuscript of the talk here. Download a Discussion Guide here.

This year for Advent, we're working our way through the Genealogy of Jesus found in Matthew 1. As any good Jewish person would, Matthew begins his story of Jesus with Jesus' pedigree. He wants you to know what kind of family Jesus comes from. That's a pretty normal thing to do, right? When you meet a new person, you want to know some of their story, some of where they come from. Especially for leaders, we want to know about their families. These days, everyone's always digging for skeletons in the closets. The embarassing family secretes everyone keeps. The weird relatives who get sat in the living room instead of at the big dining room table. We don't usually lead with those relatives. We keep them hidden as long as possible. And that was certainly as true in Jesus' day as it is for us now. Which is what makes Jesus' family tree here in Matthew all that much more odd. Because Matthew includes five women in the genealogy - something no one did back then. But even more interesting is the women he chose to include. They're not the heroes of the Old Testament. Their stories are embarassing. They're awkward to read (as everyone who was here last week already knows). It seems like Matthew intentionally led with the skeletons in Jesus' closet. Which is, of course, exactly what he did. Because by leading with these stories, Matthew is sending a clear message about exactly what kind of Savior Jesus is. He's not a squeaky clean savior. Not a spit-and-polish Lord. Jesus is the kind of Messiah that gets down in our Mess. Let's read the genealogy through this week's star:

 "This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar). Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron was the father of Ram. Ram was the father of Amminadab. Amminadab was the father of Nahshon. Nahshon was the father of Salmon. Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab). " Matthew 1:1-5 (NLT)

Rahab. The second woman Matthew mentions in the genealogy. Who is Rahab? Well, her story is told back in the book of Joshua. Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan, which was the Promised Land. Before they cross into Canaan, Joshua sends two spies in to scope out the situation, and that's when we meet Rahab.

" Then Joshua secretly sent out two spies from the Israelite camp at Acacia Grove. He instructed them, "Scout out the land on the other side of the Jordan River, especially around Jericho." So the two men set out and came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there that night. " Joshua 2:1 (NLT)

Wait, what?! Rahab is a prostitute?! Surprising, to say the least. It sort of makes you want to flip pages in your Bible, to say, "Are you sure we got the right Rahab? Surely there's got to be another Rahab in here somewhere!" Well, the only other Rahab in the bible is a giant mythical sea creature - imagine the Loch Ness Monster on steroids and HGH (LNMGH?). So given the choice between the two, it seems that this Rahab here is our woman. Jesus has a prostitute in his family line?! That's shocking. Can you imagine if some reporter figured out that one of the Republican Presidential candidates had a mother who was a prostitute? It'd be shameful. It'd be embarrassing. And so too here. It's shocking, even offensive that Matthew would include Rahab in Jesus' family tree. It says a lot about the state of the contemporary Church that we are so bothered by this sort of story. Most often these days, Church is a place you clean yourself up to go to. And even though we've mostly gotten away from having to wear "Sunday Best" to go to Church, we haven't let that shift penetrate to our souls. Church is a place you don't show weakness. You certainly don't talk open about the sin in your life. Morally speaking, we clean ourselves up. And that's not only a perception we have inside these walls. I can't tell you how many times I've been talking with someone who finds out I'm a pastor and they say, "Oh, I haven't been to church in years. I'm sure if I came now the building would burn down around me" or some similar sentiment. We have created a Church culture that says, Get your act together, then come check us out. That's why the story of Rahab is so awesome. Because she was a prostitute. Wow. Her story reminds what the Gospel really looks like. What Grace really looks like. Rahab's story reminds us of who we are, and what the Church can and should be.

Here's a manuscript of the full talk. Here's the Discussion Guide.

We've been confessing that this process of grieving is good. That it's necessary. Because if we don't move through the grief, we get trapped in it. And we can't look forward to what's next. We really and truly believe that This is Not the End. That the road doesn’t stop here. That God is making a new road for us. That something better is just over the horizon. So today we look ahead. Because the grieving process doesn't end in despair. Eventually, we come to Acceptance. When we talk about Acceptance, we're not talking about sitting on our hands, glumly sighing, Ho-hum, I guess life goes on. Acceptance is the moment in the grieving process when we acknowledge that what we've lost doesn't finally define us. That we are more than what we've lost. That there's a full, rich, vibrant life on the other side of our life. One that might not even be possible had we not experienced the loss. It's what we hear God encourage the Exiles in Isaiah 43:14-21. Here the prophet is speaking to those very people who have experienced the total loss of their culture. Who've witnessed everything stripped away. They've been forcibly deported to Babylon, a foreign country. And here's what God says to them:

This is what the LORD says-- your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "For your sakes I will send an army against Babylon, forcing the Babylonians to flee in those ships they are so proud of.

It's interesting to me that the first thing God does is remind them (and us) that God knows what our situation is. God says, I know you’ve lost your way. I know you're in Babylon. And I'm going to do something about it. That's good news... God knows where we are. God knows that we're struggling - as a culture, as families, as individuals. God knows the anger we feel, the sense of injustice. The despair. God understands that everything's changing, that nothing's the way it used to be. God understands, and God is going to do something about it. What?

I am the LORD, your Holy One, Israel's Creator and King. I am the LORD, who opened a way through the waters, making a dry path through the sea. I called forth the mighty army of Egypt with all its chariots and horses. I drew them beneath the waves, and they drowned, their lives snuffed out like a smoldering candlewick.

God reminds the Exiles of their own story. God says, Don't you remember that I am your creator? I made this whole world out of nothing! And I am the God who saved you from Egypt. When your ancestors were slaves in Egypt, when they couldn’t see a way out, when they thought escape was impossible, I parted the Red Sea and made a dry path for them to cross it. I made a road where there wasn’t one before. And when Egypt pursued them, I destroyed the armies that threatened them. Remember that? Remember when they thought it was hopeless and I came through? Remember when they felt overwhelmed and I saved them? Remember when I made the impossible possible? Do you remember that? Which makes what God says next hilarious:

But forget all that-- it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.

Forget it? But you just told us to remember!

For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. The wild animals in the fields will thank me, the jackals and owls, too, for giving them water in the desert. Yes, I will make rivers in the dry wasteland so my chosen people can be refreshed. I have made Israel for myself, and they will someday honor me before the whole world. -- Isaiah 43:14-21 (NLT)

God says, Baby, you ain't seen nothing yet! All the ways I've worked in the past? Nothing compared to what I've got up my sleeve next. What I'm about to do is going to Blow. Your. Mind. Don’t you see it? I’m making a new road. A way where there wasn't a way before.

God is still in the business of making the impossible possible.