Tony Wheeler dot Net

I’ve been meditating the entire day on this one simple word.  Behold.  Heard a good sermon this morning at Compass Point, pastored by my friend Chris Elrod.  Compass Point is going through a series on Baggage right now.  I was going to write something about this last week, but lost my train of thought somewhere and figured it best not to write anything at all.  Chris structured much of his sermon around 2 Corinthians 5:17.  Therein lies that one little word that has been marinating in my soul all day.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says this:   Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; BEHOLD, the new has come.  (emphasis mine) ESV version

Many of you, like me, have heard this verse countless times.  Maybe you’re from a Restoration Movement background like me where you heard it in the NIV where the second line simply says ‘The old is gone, the new has come!”  I think we’ve missed the richness of this verse by translating it the way that we do and replacing BEHOLD with an exclamation point.  Behold gives the verse a new meaning for me.  Let me expand upon the new meaning.
Today’s message was all about emotional baggage.  If everyone is honest, they have tons of it.  I’ve got tons of it.  My wife has tons of it.  Our friends that we took to church with us today have tons of it.  Some of us carry baggage that isn’t even ours.  A quick summation of the message is that if you’ve entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ, all that crap doesn’t matter, so stop letting it matter and live in the fullness of life that Jesus has for you.  If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; BEHOLD.  Ask a recovering drug addict who enters into relationship with Jesus if they beheld when the monkey was lifted off of their back.  Ask a 75 year old who is dying of cancer and enters into a relationship with Jesus if they behold.  Ask the ex-homosexual who is reunited with his wife and kids after meeting Jesus if he has beheld lately.

Why do I make this point?  I ‘met Jesus’, as we sometimes say, in 1991.  I’m not sure that I even knew what beholding was then and I think I just grasped the fullness of it today.  I’m pretty sure that I became a worse person after the old was gone and the new had come.  I’ve thought from time to time about my faith journey in relation to other’s faith journeys and I’m simply amazed at my own lack of beholding.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I recognize God’s work in my life.  I’m amazed that He has chosen me to be in relationship with him and to complete his mission here on earth.  But, when I look at some of the people around me and their level of beholding, I’m humbled and ashamed.  I’ve been in relationship with Jesus for 17 years.  That is more than half of my life. I’ve encountered people who met Jesus yesterday and have done more beholding than I have in my entire life.  So, why do I say all of this?

The more I have read over this verse in 2 Corinthians, the more I have decided that the entire gospel is encapsulated in these few sentences.  In Christ, I am a new creation.  In Christ, YOU are a new creation.  In Christ, WE are new creations.  The old is gone.  BEHOLD, the new has come.  So then why in the world do we carry these bags with us wherever we go?  Why as these new creations do we insist on taking the hurt, pain, embarrassment, screw-ups, addictions, etc along with us for the ride?  If we really believe that we are new creations and that the old is gone, why in the heck does any of that old stuff need to be with us?  Let me be frank.  I think it is because all of that crap is a crutch.  Jesse Ventura may think that religion is a crutch for the weak minded, but really I think all of the baggage is a crutch.  We like to have something to hang onto when we blaze the new trail ahead of us.  Chris talked a bit about this in his message today.  He mentioned that we like to be identified by those things and that we aren’t happy unless everyone else knows about those bags we bring with us.  It gives us some sort of sick and twisted false sense of security.

Here is my take and I’ll make it quick.  We need to be doing more beholding.  People who have a newer relationship with Jesus and people that have been through some crap have awesome beholding powers.  We need to lay claim to the first part of this verse that we are NEW CREATIONS.  We’re new.  We’re not whatever our past says we are.  We’re new.  We’re free to start fresh.  We get to call a do-over.  We need to stop and behold the roses.

I’ll probably write some other thoughts on this as the week progresses.  I’m headed to Orlando (20 miles away, haha) to a conference this week.  If you’re there, let me know!

Since we have moved to Florida, pretty much every evening we take a walk around the neighborhood.  One of the things that has become a tradition is stopping by the 7-11 that is just down the street.  I’m a fan of Slurpees…Coca-Cola Slurpees.  It is almost as good as an ice cold Mexican Coca-Cola from a bottle in Tijuana.  Well, the other night we embarked on our nightly walk and while I was waiting outside for my wife, I noticed that there was a plane doing skywriting.  The first few words were already blurred, but I could already tell where this was heading.  I pointed it out to my wife. Her immediate reaction was that someone was proposing to someone else.  Always the optimist, I tell you!  I knew that it was some sort of Jesus Loves You, turn to Him sort of message.  You see, these things happen all the time around beaches and in Florida in general.  Keep in mind that we live about 9 miles away from the Happiest Place on Earth, so the population density is quite large.  As far as reaching a large number of people with the message of the Gospel, I guess that this is a great place to spread the message.  I’m just not sure that sky writing is the way to do it.  I’m sure that somewhere in the masses of people who were strolling through the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT that the message reached someone.

So, I’m curious to poll the audience here.   Would you consider this to be an effective method of sharing the Gospel.  Here is my take:  The sky writing vanishes after about a minute.  After an admittedly quick search of Google, I found a site that gives some pricing.  10 characters costs 1995.00 USD to start.  For my money and the money of any organization that I am a part of, that is not an effective use of resources. I’m not trying to bash those that did this skywriting, I’m just wondering out loud.  I’m sure that when the Wright Brothers first started flying, some itinerant preacher thought it would be a good idea to announce the tent meeting in skywriting.  Back then, it probably was.

What are your thoughts??

My friend Chris Elrod wrote two very powerful posts recently. In one he talks about the ‘emergent church’ and in the other he talks about the ‘mythical Jesus’. I gotta tell you that I read both of these posts with great interest because I’ve been interested (like the rubbernecks at a car wreck) in the whole emergent movement for a number of years. There are some non-theological issues that I think the emergent movement has right on. I’ve long held that if Christians were doing EVERYTHING that Jesus taught that there would be no need for homeless shelters, soup kitchens, welfare, and all of those social programs that so many rely on the government to provide. Yes, of course, the poor have always been among us and always will be, but I think it would look much different than our current system. But, theologically speaking, I think Chris is right on. It is absolutely stupid that leaders, teachers, pastors, and authors throw out the Word of God as some plain old book that is filled with neat stories that may or may not be true. Jesus lays it all out pretty well in the Sermon on the Mount (more specifically Matthew 5-7). Of course, you would have to believe that Jesus is who he says he is and that this book that we supposedly are to follow is true. That really is where the chasm occurs. If a person cannot believe the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, then what are they basing their ‘faith’ upon? I do realize that people in countries without the scriptures in their hands believe in much of the same things many of you and I believe in, but they seem to have gotten the word in some other fashion. The emergent people have the Word and are parsing it in their favor. The funny thing is that these people are doing a lot of good in the world, but they are doing it under false pretenses. I’m not intending to call anyone on the carpet, I’m just stating some of the thoughts that were sparked in my head by reading what Chris wrote. As he said, some of you may choose not to fellowship with me because I don’t agree with your theology. That is fine.

Honestly, I know Chris well. He is a solid God-fearing and Christ-loving man. He would give you the shirt off of his back and a bottle of water or ten. He loves other people more than he loves himself and takes every opportunity to show them that. But he is a serious guy (kinda strange since he used to be a comedian). He is serious about God. He is serious about His Word. He is serious about seeing everyone in Polk County, Florida come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and will let nothing stand in the way of that. That is why he comes across as ‘I don’t have time for this crap’. He doesn’t have time for it. The flock that he leads really is his first priority and love. I’m not really trying to defend Chris here. He doesn’t need me. He has a congregation behind him. I’ve met some of them. Polk County borders some pretty serious redneck areas and Chris has been a chaplain to a number of prisoners. (Also, I think the Russian Mafia is pretty active in Central Florida…don’t ask why I know that) He is covered.

Anyway….go read his posts. I’m sure that these two posts will break both his email inbox and his server. What they don’t know is that Chris probably never will see any of the hate mail. Chris, PREACH!

This made me smile. Thanks to Margaret Feinberg and The Pyromanics. Click on pic for full size.