How Can I Work on Improving My Marriage?

In Part II, "Remodeling", of his "Staying in Love" series, Andy Stanley. Falling in love requires a pulse, staying in love requires a plan. Falling in love is about attraction while staying in love is the right action.

The Juno question from last week was, "Is it possible for two people to fall in love and stay in love forever?" When some of us hear that question, we think it is possible even though it is against the grain of society. That's God's thumbprint on us to want that. Remember that, in order for us to stay in love we have to make love a verb and we have to "do" love. Then, remember, that Jesus said to love one another the way that He loved us.

In Phillipians 2, we find a letter from Paul who is summarizing much of what he saw in the way that people who knew and witnessed the life of Jesus responded. In verse 3, it says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit".  In essence, if you want to stay in love, don't compete. The next verse is the heart of the message and what Andy believes is key, "but in humility consider others better than yourselves". Value others above yourself. Literally, act like that person is more important than you. Make decisions as if he or she is more important than you.

Have you ever been around anybody who is more important than you? Have you ever been to a wedding where everyone stood in line to see the groom or bride but no one noticed when you walked in? It's the same way when you go to the boss's company party or when you are somewhere that honors a national hero. So, if we think about these people, how do we treat them? We often defer to them. We don't correct them. We laugh when they're not funny. In that moment, the key is respect. We pay attention to what we say and how we say it. That's how Paul says we have to treat our spouse. Every day, all the time, we have to treat them like they are more important.

Think about your most valued possession. You keep it clean, cared for and you watch out for how others treat it. There's a sense of awe in it. When we first met our spouse, this was what we had for them. We were awed and in love. So, we know we know how to do it.

Yet if this weren't enough, verse 4 says, "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." Andy says that this is particularly hard for him and us because we are naturally interested in certain things and not naturally interested in some of the things that our spouses are interested in.

Recently, Sandra has put Andy to the test because she is very interested in growing a garden. "Part of the reason I'm not interested in gardening is because she doesn't want to plant anything that I want to eat....I don't know where this goes and all of the sudden I'm feeling threatened." So, Andy said it's a decision he has to make, although not a big decision. It's not a decision about who is going to garden when the other can't or is Andy going to eat what she plants. Rather the question is; Will he find a way to become interested in the garden and express interest?

"It's funny when I ask women what their husband's do...I remember asking this one woman and her answer was 'I don't know but it has something to do with wires.'...That's about all she knew. She really needs to come up with a better answer or learn to be interested in what her husband does!"

We need to get out of our comfort zone. We know how to do this. When we first fell in love, we'd say things like "Oh, I love to run, I'd love to go fishing or I'd love to meet your parents." All of this is so ideal and we might say, "Yeah, Yeah...I got all that", but at this point, Paul takes us to the part where Jesus says love one another the way I have loved you. He points out the fact that the model isn't our parents' example, but Jesus' example. verse 6 & 7 say, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

In essence, Jesus, although He was God never leveraged his position as God. He never commanded people to move at the dinner table even though He was the most important. Every time he came into the room, He was the bride, hero, writer, boss or president, but He never used His position. Rather, Jesus "emptied himself". Jesus decided to place Himself under us. He subordinated His own will to us.

Did He humble himself by coming home early for dinner, by paying attention in conversation, by staying within the budget or by picking up the kids from school? No, of course not. What He did was, He submitted Himself even to death. Now, Jesus inherently had a dilemma. He could either maintain His rights, the respect due Him, His correctness in all situations, getting all that He truly deseverd on earth or He could fulfill His purpose on earth. But He couldn't do both. Jesus put our greatest need ahead of what He rightfully deserved. He put our salvation ahead of His glory. He opted for relationship over respect.

We can't have it both ways either. That one thing that God has given us a desire for requires that we die a little to it. We've had relationships before, but they didn't require the same things. We can't kid ourselves and think we can do a long term relationship any other way. The key for us is in God's Word.

The other day, after their kids' baseball games, Andy and Sandra were heading back to the car. He and she heard a woman telling her husband, "and get the chairs...get the bags...". She turned to Andy and said, "I can't imagine talking to you that way." Everything the woman said was true, but it was demeaning. It sounded like an awful marriage. You can spend the rest of your life being right, winning the arguments, getting them in shape, but you will not be in love at the end of your journey. Thank God Jesus did not come into the world to be right. He could have walked around calling everyone sinners and condemning them, but He didn't. He loved us.

Find me two people who've decided to treat each other more importantly than the other and I will show you two people who will be in a marriage that lasts. It's hard, but it's a lot easier than a bad marriage.

What Should My Spiritual New Year's Resolution Be?

"A New You Resolution" is Andy Stanley's first message of 2010.  It is a message about setting New Year's resolutions and about setting goals in general.  According to most experts, about 40% to 50% of you will have New Year's resolutions at the start of each year.  Also, according to various articles he's read, about 30% to 40% of these resolutions will be broken within the first week and 90% or so of these will be broken within the first 6 months.  One particular article outlines the fact that the most popular resolutions based, on a poll, tend to be th same year after year after year.  These New Year's resolutions, in order, are:

1) Weightloss
2) Manage Money, Save or Get Out of Debt

3) Get a Better Job

4) Spend More Time with Family

5) Quit Smoking

6) Eat Right or Get Fit

7) Get a Better Education

8) Reduce Stress

9) Getting Greener

10) Volunteer to Help Others

How many of you have one of these goals?  How many of you have the same goals this year?  "I'm not a big one on goals", says Andy. Generally, he keeps the same goals on a single bulletin board..  They are simple goals and tend to be the same.  A few of these goals are to stay out of debt, have so many nights of dinner with the family, amount he wants to put into savings and generosity goals.  Most of these goals are stated in percentages.  That's pretty much it. 

Andy doesn't have 20 goals like some very organized people.  "You know these people; with the notebooks and tabs...They even have goals for their spouses...They have points and subpoints...and chart them...When I'm around those pepole, it's very intimidating and I feel like a complete loser."

Andy says the reason he is not a goal kind of person is because he was "kind of scarred" as a child.  Because Andy wasn't motivated, his dad seemed to get frustrated with him, especially since his dad had grown up as a teen who started a lawn cutting business, had a paper route and  walked 5 miles to school in the snow.   Well, one day when Andy was in high school, his dad decided it was time for Andy to set some goals.  Andy thought to himself, "but if I set goals, it only sets me up for failure."   His dad sent him into a room, dropped a pen and paper in front of him and even left a book on setting goals for Andy to read to help him.  Andy didn't know what to write.  "What if I set the wrong ones?!?  What if God wants me to do one thing and I write down something opposite of that?"  Andy pondered for what seemed to be days ("It was probably only about 20 minutes").   Mr. Stanley came back in the room to see what Andy had done, but Andy had not written anything down.  "My dad had to be thinking, 'I have to get another kid!'".

New Years resolutions are a good thing.  Andy and Sandra will set some resolutions sometimes like not eating sugar for a period of time.  But in today's message, Andy wanted to make a suggestion as it pertains to resolutions; not to replace them, but to set alongside these goals.  However, in Andy's opinion, the concept he wants to introduce is probably more important than setting goals and most people don't focus on this either. 

"I think what's more important than 'what do you want to achieve' goals is 'what do I want to be' goals."  He is not talking about occupational goals, but rather what do you want to be as a person.  It is always a mistake to decide what you want to do before you determine who you want to be.  What you are always determines what you do!   What you are at your core points you to what you are going to do. 

Society pressures us to accomplish much and to always do more.  It rewards bigger houses, nicer cars and more money.  But, it is always a mistake not to decide what you want to be first.  Think about it.  Look at all the politicians, entertainers and athletes.  We hear about things that these people do that are so extraordinarily stupid!  We think, "Why would anybody with that much money do that?!  Why would anyone married to her or why would anyone with that much fame or power do those things?!  Look at what they've achieved!" 

A person's potential or a person's talent or ability to achieve has the potential to take them further than their character can sustain them. 

Us mere mortals who just get up everyday and do the normal things are baffled by others bad decisions, but yet we are capable of these same mistakes too.  Your character will ultimately determine what others think about you.  Your character will determine the health and the fulfullment of those relationships.

Andy discovered the concept he seeks to introduce many, many years ago.  He was in love and about to get engaged to Sarah.  During that time, in the late 80's, there were a series of scandals.  Politicians and high level religious figures were under intense scrutiny.  As he sat back and watched these people show the public what a complete disaster they were, it dawned on Andy that he probably needed to determine what kind of person he wanted to be.  Even though his thoughts were, "if I had that much money, success or power, I would never have done that", he says none of us know what we would do in a high position.

Then a second thing happened.  Andy was a youth leader at the church and they were doing a series on courage.  Andy decided to do a lesson on Daniel and the Lion's den from the book of Daniel.  He was reading the story and knew he had read it before, but this time, the scriptures jumped out at him in a brand new way.  The context here is that Daniel was a Jewish boy taken out of his home in Jerusalem as a captive in Babylon.  He served under three kings and lived a long time.  These kings recognized Daniel to be so wise that they promoted him through the ranks even though he was Jewish and this made those around Daniel very jealous.  But the scripture speaks directly to the subject of what do we want to be.  Daniel 6:3-5 says this:

"Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally these men said, "We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God."

The administrators tried to find corruption in Daniel, planning to turn it on him, but they could not!  He was "trustworthy and not negligent".  Finally, they decided that the only way to nail this guy was in terms of his faithfulness to his God.  Andy thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be great to be that kind of man?"  If someone were to investigate him, they would find integrity on the outside and on the inside.  But Andy knew that this doesn't happen by accident.  This has to be very intentional. 

So, Andy began to read and to study, trying to drill down on the notion of "character".  But it is a very nebulous thing.  About this time, someone gave Andy Stephen Covey's book "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".  In that book, Mr. Covey suggests that people take the time to think about the major people in their lives and then ask the question, "If these people were to stand up and say something at your funeral, what would you want them to say?"  Andy decided he was going to do this exercise.  So, morning after morning, he went through this exercise.  It took about a month to do this.  But he wanted to write what his friends, his kids, his wife, his boss, etc might say about him at his funeral.  After he wrote out their speeches, he then pulled out 8 important character traits that stood out as most important to him.  It was an extraordinarily helpful exercise. 

Whenevery you set a goal you should always ask the question, "why should I set this goal? "  One of the things that surfaced in Andy's exercise was Honesty.  "But why," he thought, "is honesty so important? What is at stake to being honest?"  Why would anyone want to be so committed to honesty that it cost money, time and sometimes reputation?  Andy spent a lot of time on this and finally decided that honesty is the foundation of every single healthy relatinship.  To be dishonest is to pull the rug out from under these relationships. 
Another important character trait of Andy's was to be Pure.  But why?  People laugh at this value because it can be so corny, but Andy discovered the powerful idea that purity paves the way to intimacy . What's at stake with purity is that failure to have purity is failure to be able to be intimate. 

Generosity was another valued trait of Andy's, but he had to find out why.  What is at stake with Generosity?  Generosity is what allows owners to be free from "being owned" or controlled by what they own.  If this is a foundation of who you want to be, it is important to know why. 



After Steven Covey outlines this exercise in his book, he then points out that what you want said about you at your funeral is your personal definition of success.  This had a powerful impact on Andy.  "As I looked at those 8 words (the 8 character traits), this is how it affected me."  If people said, "Andy was the best preacher ever, Andy had a great car or Andy had a great job", none of these were in the funeral speeches he wrote out for himself.  What's more, if he were to accomplish any of these things, it would mean nothing at his funeral.   However, to be dishonest, for Andy is to fail.  To not be generous for Andy, by his own definition, is to fail.  To be disloyal as a friend is to fail.  So, for Andy, these 8 words became a perimeter for his behavior .   Andy is now free to plan, to achieve and do whateve he wants to within these perimeters, but the moment he steps outside of this perimeter, he is a failure.  Once you have set this kind of goal, you will be a success by your own definition! 

That was 20 years ago and Andy can still rattle off those 8 character traits.  What motivated him to do the exercise at the time was fear.  He was about to get married.  He goes on a funny side note about  how his proposal was not glamourous.  Sandra said, "You dont have to do this."  That was how romantic it was.  Whatever it was, though, that drove Andy to do this exercise, it was the most healthy exercise he has ever done as it relates to goals.  When Andy fails in these areas, within his perimeter, he feels more guilty than the average person.  He focuses intensely on these 8 things because he has defined them himself.

Urging us to follow in suit, Andy points out, "You are going to be something this year, aren't you?  You are going to accomplish some things, but you are going to be something, right?  Why not decide?....What you are ultimately determines what you do.  Who you are determines if you are a person worth knowing...I want to challenge you to sit down and begin this process...Every body is different, but whether this is a morning or series of mornings, you owe it to yourself to start figuring out who you want to be."  Here is what you are going to discover.  "It's what God wants you to be, too!"  He wants you to be a reflection of Him. When you get to the bottom line, 99% of these character traits are going to be what your heavenly father is trying to bring about in your life anyway.  
Andy then points out that the church wants to help you become what you want to be.  It encourages you and others to come together in the way of Commuity Groups.  These groups help you to become accountable to what you want to be.  At the end of the day, who you are will ultimately determine what you do.  Take some time, however you decide, to at least ask the quesiton,  who do I want to be, what's at stake and what does the perimeter around my behavior need to be?

This is not in Andy's message, but in summarizing this, I ran across a very useful for goal setting.  It's http://www.stephencovey.com/.

Why Would Matthew Point Out King David's Faults?

All of us have extended family members that we're not exactly proud of. We love them but we're glad that they might live a couple of states away. We enjoy the holidays, but all of us have dysfunctional characters in our clans. "I'm sure somewhere they're talking about my dysfunctions too." says Andy Stanley as he opens "Promise Keeper", the fourth of his "Unexpected Christmas" series.

Jesus had dysfunctional characters in his family line too. What Andy has done in this series is study the genealogy found in Matthew, one of only two gospels that tells the Christmas story. Interestingly, Matthew begins the Christmas Story with the genealogy of Jesus. What Andy points out to us is that Matthew takes the time to pause each time he mentions the "colorful" (and not in a good way) characters along the way. These are strange, R-rated and unusual characters. Matthew draws our attention quite pointedly to them. But why would he do this? Well, as is the theme of the "Unexpected Christmas" series, these individuals are all part of and even the point of Christmas.

Matthew seeks to help us understand that God invites us, not based on what we have done, but what He has done for us. So, to prepare the people for this kind of message, Matthew talks about how Jesus is related to Moses and David, but he also points out all the other people who needed God's forgiveness. What's more, Matthew points out the faults of the men closest to Jesus. In fact, in this message, you will know this person as a great man of God. But when Matthew gets to this person's name, he slams on the breaks and forces everyone who's reading his gospel to see this man's flaws. This was a man who was most closely related to Jesus in terms of character and ethics, but he was, at least at one point, an incredibly dismal failure. Out of insecurity, this man told a lie that caused 82 to 85 priests to be put to death. This guy put to death a friend to cover up something he himself had done. This was a guy who ran around on his wife and this was a guy whose children even went to war against him.

The man we are talking about is King David. Matthew says, this is the genealogy of the Messiah, the son of David. Jesus was actually the great, great...great grandson of David, but prophetically, he was the son of David. Listen to how Matthew introduces David in the genealogy. Matthew 1:6 "...and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife." Why not introduce David as the builder, as the psalmist, as the warrior or even as the little shepherd boy? He is a man that Jews most closely associated with Jesus. Why focus on a chapter of David's life that he wishes he could undo? Why would he focus on David's biggest failure? Andy suggests that Matthew is reminding his Gentile audience that even David was a sinner and a failure as a leader, as a friend, as a father and as a husband.

Second Samuel 7:8 begins a story which takes place 1,000 years before Jesus. There is a prophet named Samuel and God wants him to go anoint a new king of Israel, out of Bethlehem at the home of Jesse and his sons. Samuel tells Jesse to call in his sons. Samuel sees the first strapping young son and he says to himself, "this must be the new king", but God says "No". Samuel then looks at the second son and thinks to himself the same, but God again says "No". Samuel goes to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sons, but each time, God will not confirm a king. "Do you have any more sons?", asks Samuel. Jesse says, "Yes, but it is only my youngest son, David. Samuel beckons for David, sees him, receives God's confirmation and anoints David as Israel's next king. David then blows his nose and runs out to take care of the sheep.

Years later, David is in his palace. He looks out and sees this tabernacle, which represented where God was believed to reside and David decides to build a temple for His Lord. God sends Nathan the prophet to David with good news and not so good news. Nathan says God took David from the pastures and made him a ruler over nations. God says He will make David a name great like the greatest names on earth. To make a point, Andy asks, "How many of you already knew about King David before you got here today?" Virtually everyone knows of King David, so essentially this promise from God came true and it was predicted 3,000 years ago. David is now remembered as one of greatest men to ever live. Nathan also tells David that when his days are over, his offspring will also have their kingdoms established. But Nathan then tells David that David won't build a temple for God, but rather his son (later Solomon) would. God says through Nathan, "I will be his father and he will be my son" which basically means that God would be the loving disciplinary of his lineage. His love would never be taken away from David as it was from King Saul. God promises David that his house would forever endure with Him. This was an unconditional promise.

Four chapters later, we see the story of David and Bathsheba. David sees his general Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, on a rooftop bathing, becomes interested in her and invites her to come be with him in the palace. Bathsheba becomes pregnant with David's child. So, David, to cover up his wrongdoing, invites Uriah home from a war. But no matter how hard David tries to get Uriah to sleep with his wife, each time Uriah sleeps outside of his chambers because he says he can't sleep with Bathsheba in the comfort of his home while his men are fighting and dying in battle. Frustrated and angry, David calls Uriah's superior Joab to tell him to send Uriah to the front of the battle lines and then to withdraw his troops, which will basically give Uriah a death sentence. After Uriah dies courageously fighting, David brings Bathsheba into his home as his wife.



What David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. God had to decide whether or not He would retract his promises made long ago to David. So, God sends Nathan to confront David. David falls to his knees saying he had sinned against God. God forgives him, but he punishes David through his children. His sons war against each other and several betray David. Even Bathsheba's child dies in all this. BUT God never withdraws His promise because it was an eternal promise. In fact, 990 years later, a man named Joseph and his wife Mary made their way to Bethlehem, even then referred to as the "City of David". God kept his promise. All that David suffered was simply the consequences of his own actions.

If you are Matthew and ex tax collector who knew what it was like to have his sins forgiven, you would know the meaning of grace. Here, Matthew is trying to tell the story of how Jesus came into this world to forgive the entire world of sin. How could he tell this story without telling the story about David and God's eternal promise to him? Matthew made the point that there was a promise made by God to ALL people. It was a promise and an unconditional covenant. How could Matthew not focus on the most revered Jewish man in all of history? Just as God kept His promise to David, He will keep his promise to all of us. Matthew felt this was a perfect example!

In the book of Luke (2:10), the angel says (listen to this now through a new filter) " I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people..." This is for all people, not just people of God, or Jews or good people or bad people it is for ALL PEOPLE. I hope that when you hear "city of David", that from now on you will think of the promise that God made and kept with David. A Savior was born in this town . He was to be the Messiah and Lord.

God promises us peace. The only way He can give us peace is to remove that which is between us and Him. We might negotiate and justify our sin, but God says it separates us. We might think that we have done too much to even deserve what God has done. But we have to see that we have forgiveness through Him. We just have to embrace it and believe the covenant of God with us, not based on what we have done or promised to do, but on what God has promised to do for us. Now through Christ, the final penalty has been paid, but it is not a covenant of two parties, but just one: God. We can all have the peace of God in spite of ourselves.

As long as we keep sinning and as long as we keep negotiating our sins, we will never have peace. It just doesn't work. The promise of Christmas is peace, which is the price of our Savior's life, not through what we are doing but through our Lord, Christ Jesus.

What Were the Disciple's Darkest Hours?

In the "One Prayer" series sponsored by some of the largest churches in the nation, Andy Stanly talks about our darkest hours and God's presence during these times. One of the most dramatic moments in all of human history took place in an environment... we've come to know as "Upper room" The disciples and Jesus were coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. This was a time when the Jewish people would come and celebrate the memory of the time when their people were finally delivered from Egypt after 400 years of slavery. Their ancestors were told by Moses to paint the blood of a lamb over their doorways which would mark their homes to be "passed over" by the angel of death when all the first born children of Egypt were to die because the Egyptian Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go despite warnings from Moses.

The disciples and Jesus had been through so much and they had had Passover several times together. But at this moment in the Upper Room, things seemed to have spiraled downward. People were trying to get Jesus alone so they could arrest Him. More and more, they were experiencing rejection and persecution. Jesus was, even now, talking about His own death. "Things are going to be bad in Jerusalem." He would say, which left the disciples wondering why He wanted to go to Jerusalem in the first place. Not only was it dangerous, but they had to sneak into the city under the cover of darkness to avoid being seen. It was a time when there were no shouts of joy or shouts saying, "Hosanna!" No one could even know they were in the Upper Room.

Mark 14:17 talks about this event; "When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me." So, here they are in one of the most intimate settings of their culture, at a dinner table, and even as the disciples were in their darkest hours, Jesus now is telling them that one of them will betray Him! What's worse, they knew who this person would betray Jesus to because things had gotten so bad and they now knew His enemies.

"They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, "Surely not I?" "It is one of the Twelve," he replied, "one who dips bread into the bowl with me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born."

As we look at our Bible, it is not a book about great times and wonderful living. It is a book about the troubled times from the lives of people who discovered that in the midst of uncertainty, God was still trustworthy. This is a book where we read about Joseph, who was hated by and sold into slavery by his brothers. But we go on to know that God was with Joseph all along. We read about King David, who found out his son had raised up an army to kill him, but we later find out that God was with David throughout his ordeal. We read about the first-born children, in Egypt, who were ordered to be killed, but we found the God was there! We read about the how the all the babies in Bethlehem were killed, an entire generation, but we know know that God had the world in His hands through the birth of Jesus. We read about the times when it seemed like evil had won and the bad guys were successful, but then we see that God was there.

Now, in the Upper Room, Jesus begins breaking bread and pouring the wine, saying that the bread is His Body and the wine is His Blood. It was more death talk to an already somber group. What's worse, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells the disciples that all of them would fall away. He tells Peter that he would deny Jesus.



"Here's my question for you...as we continue to experience extraordinary uncertainty in our families, in our jobs, with our children, with our culture, with our leadership, with our Congress, with our Senate...with our economy...with our scholarships. Can you trust God...when there's absolutely no evidence of His activity in your life, in your culture, in our country and seemingly at times, in our world? Our answer to that question will determine our response to the uncertainty in our lives right now." The dilemma right now is that we sometimes equate God and God's presence with physical blessings.

But, if you had gone to the disciples back in time and asked them, "When were the darkest moments in your ministry?" They would probably say it all began in the Upper Room. These were likely the darkest because it probably seemed like they had wasted all this time with Jesus. But then, if you asked the disciples, when did God do His greatest work in each of them, they would likely say that it was during those darkest hours!

"That's a difficult message for American Christians...But this is not only our story because it is reflected in the Gospel...but this is our own experience....The greatest things begin in the biggest messes...This is what God does...Will we maintain faith when we cannot see His hand? As our faith begins to waiver as we look to the left and the right, now more than ever, (the Bible) is the place we need to go." We might hear this message and say this is all fine, but this won't change our circumstances. It won't get us a job or put our kids back in school or heal our land. But although this doesn't promise a cure for the storms, it allows us to embrace our circumstances with the knowledge that God is still in charge.

"When Sandra and I were in the Washington for the Inauguration...they took us to this giant hall to wait for President Obama...we weren't standing in line, we were just spread out...the President was going to be coming out...I was standing behind...Reverend Otis Moss. He was born in middle Georgia in 1835...he was an orphan...as a 16 year old, he saw the worst that this country had to offer...at 19, he decided to be a preacher...he became a part of the core group of friends with Martin Luther King...He experienced racism and hatred that many of us never will...but he kept his faith...As he shared with Coretta Scott King right in front of me, he drifted off and said, "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him...Now, (Rev Otis Moss's) "all things" were so different from the "all things" that many of us have experienced..."But Pastor Stanley, sometimes it takes him a while"...I was about to meet the President, but I realized I had just met a saint...God will not stop working. He still has your world and your family in His hands. I just met a man who maintained faith through horrible circumstances.." The end of the verse, Pastor Moss did not quote is "and for all who are called according to His purposes."


Our faith often rests in our knowing that God still has our whole world in His hands.

How Can Two People Stay In Love for 62 Years?

Beginning his series "Staying in Love", Andy Stanley's first message, "the Juno Dilemma", opens with him saying, "I'm always hesitant to mention movies...but how many of you have seen the movie, 'Juno'?" It's about a teenage girl who gets pregnant and has to decide what to do. She lives with her father and stepmother and she eventually decides to give the unborn baby to another couple as an adoption. But as the story progresses, Juno begins to learn that this other couple has problems to. About 2/3's of the way through the movie, there is this tender conversation between Juno and her father where Juno asks a profoundly important question that sits atop our modern society. "Dad, I just need to know that it's possible for two people to stay happy together forever." Don't we all ask this to ourselves?

The reason this is such an important question is because, despite all that we've seen, the state of our current or previous marriage, what we've seen in our parent's marriage and what we generally see in society, there's something in all of us that thinks this is STILL POSSIBLE. There is a glimmer of hope in us that we can be in a life long love story. "I think that is a little bit of the image of God in you... and in me." We know the world out there and we know that it isn't probable that we will have this kind of a lasting marriage, but we have the hope that we will. We have the hope that, by some miracle, our lives will reflect the love story.



We would all like to know that there is that one special person who we sense is out there that we could live happily with all of our lives. Early on, we begin looking for the person to whom we'll fall in love. "We need to spend about 10 seconds talking about 'falling in love' because that's all it really takes...if we have a pulse" There's people out there that make our hearts flutter. "It's so easy to fall in love with all the new forms of communication and ways of meeting people, but it's never been more difficult to stay in love." Few people have ever been around a couple that remains romantic and maintains a healthy "staying in love".

The laws of relationships in our society are so wrong, but yet we've adopted them making it impossible for us to stay in love:

Do unto others as they deserve to be done unto,
Do unto others as they do unto you
Do unto others as your mood would have it
Do unto others so as to get them to see things your way
Do unto others until you wear them down and get your way
Do unto others until you are ready to leave

Sometimes we see that people stay together, but we usually also see that they aren't happy. We, as a society, are completely ill-equipped to know HOW to live happily ever after. The other thing that makes it so hard is what we felt growing up. "A bunch of smart people got together and found out what it takes for a child to grow up in a nurturing environment to be emotionally equipped to engage in long term relationship." Here is that it takes; massive doses of respect, encouragement, comfort, security, support, acceptance, approval, appreciation, attention and affection. Sounds like the family we all grew up in, right? So, if that's what is required for us as adults to have a long term relationship, how difficult is it then to meet someone else who has had the same experience? "When we get married, are you going to constantly demonstrate to me respect, encouragement, comfort, security, support, acceptance, approval, appreciation, attention and affection or are you just cute?....or do you just have a good job?" Over time, our relationships turn into strangleholds trying to squeeze these attributes out of each other.

The disturbing statistic is that 40% of the children in our society today are born without a dad. We can argue all day long about supportive single mothers, but if it takes all of these characteristics for a healthy long term relationship, these children are really going to struggle!

Another thing that makes this extremely difficult is that our society has a really low threshold of pain relationally. It doesn't take much before we decide to get out. The message we get every day is that, if we are unhappy in a relationship, it's because we haven't met "the right person". "You chose poorly and you need to re-choose." But if you ask someone whose been happily married for 20 years plus, they will tell you that there were many times when they asked themselves the question, "had they married right person?". Choosing the right person is certainly a part of it, but becoming the right person is the hard part and that's the part where we get little or no help in our culture. The odds are against us in our society. It is possible, but not probable.



But into all of this chaos, Jesus speaks to us the foundation for enduring relationships. What he says to us is so counter intuitive but it works. "Don't take my word for it, just ask someone who has a long term relationship....Here is what you are going to find..." In John 13:34, Jesus says, "a new command I give you." In this passage, the Greek word for "new" means extraordinary, hidden and discovered, remarkable. He says, "love one another." But listen to what Jesus does in this sentence. He takes a word that we normally use as a noun and uses it as a verb. It's an imperative. It's a command. People say they are in love, but Jesus might say, "no, no, no. You used to noun. Now I want you to verb." We can't feel it. We have to do it.

Jesus says if we want to foster love and help it grow, we have to choose to do so. The foundation for staying in love is to make love.... (it's funny when Andy pauses here) a verb. The feeling is like the caboose of the train, that is no longer what it used to be, the engine. "The more you make love a verb, the more you will make love". Love is something you do. When you actively love one another, it will enrich the relationship. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He says, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." In other words, Jesus was saying He doesn't want us to take our queue from society or even from our parents. He tells us that He will teach us to love.
Years later, the apostle Paul put it another way, but he uses a word that is offensive. It just sticks a little harder. But it is a powerful word that helps us understand HOW to love. In Ephesians 5:21, it reads, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ". Paul says the foundation of marriage is mutual submission. We should make each other the priority. If we have ever seen this in a relationship, we can see love is alive and well. This is a choice we have to make. We might think it doesn't make sense, but it is the key to staying in love.

"One of the greatest things about being a pastor is...we get to see a man or woman who both grow up in a dysfunctional home...they come to know Christ...they choose to accept the principles that Jesus gives us...and they choose to incorporate these things in their home...and then these two meet...they then marry...but their marriage is reflective of not of what they experienced growing up, but of the way they understand Christ loves us." They take the cue from their Heavenly Father. In learning to submit, they take their queues from Jesus who submitted to us. "It is a privilege to see these people genuinely in love after years of marriage."

(Fran & Marlo Cowan (married 62 years) playing impromptu recital together in the atrium of the Mayo Clinic. He turned 90 in February.)

That thing that is so wonderful about falling in love can actually be maintained and can even get better! But it's not because you chose or picked the right one. It's because you did the right thing. You chose EVERY DAY to make your love a verb. That's a lot different from saying, "You are so good for me. I need you. You have what it takes." Do you know why most romantic comedies are so short? It's because not long after the funny ending, it gets serious and problems start arising. They have to end the movie before it gets bad.

What does it mean to truly live in a marriage of submission? Andy saves much of this for his next message, but he encourages us to practice focusing on what it would look like in our current relationships to regularly submit to one another.

Why Should God Be Part of Our Laws?

"God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will." Lyndon B Johnson

"...the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God." John F Kennedy

"The way is plain, peaceful and generous...if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." Abraham Lincoln

"With God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us." Ronald Reagan

Continuing his two part series, "God and Country", Andy Stanley reminds us that sometimes when things surface nationally which intersect with things we find in scripture, people that do what he does (minister) have to say something in response. The question Andy poses is, "Where is God in the national conscience?" Every nation has a conscience. As individuals, our accountability to God speaks our conscience, but who or what speaks to our national conscience if not God?

Just a few weeks ago, we saw a great example of our national conscience. The insurance giant, AIG, received money from the government to bail themselves out of a financial meltdown and then it was made known that the high level executives were still going to be receiving enormous bonuses!! Obama, in sharp response, said something very interesting. He essentially said, "the executives that receive those large bonuses ought to give the money back." But it was an "ought to" and the public seemed to come together and agree. But what was behind the "ought to"? Where does the moral conscience come from; the President?

We are a nation that continues to appeal to something that guides us, but what is it? Last week, Andy pointed out that clearly, the national conversation involving God has fallen out of favor. The reason that it isn't cool or politically correct to mention God on the national stage is not necessarily because it's not fair or because it's not comfortable nor is it because we've intellectually moved past God. The primary reason God has been pushed out is because of our own wealth and affluence.

In Proverbs, we see that affluence and humility are not good mixes. The more stuff we have, the more we tend to give ourselves credit, the less humble we are and the more we push out God.
"Give me neither poverty nor riches, but only my daily bread." We have far more than we need as a nation. Increasingly, as a nation, we continue asking "Who is God?" We've become less dependent on Him, more arrogant because of "our own achievements" and hence, not in need of God. The reason we have moved God out is because we have been so incredibly blessed by Him!

In Deuteronomy 8:6, Moses is about to lead the former Israelite slaves into the Promised Land, but before they enter, Moses wants to remind the people there's two things they have to remember;

1) There's law
2) There's accountability to God

Our forefathers stated that we would be a nation not of a king, but a nation in awe of God. Moses, as the leader of Israelite's Exodus, warned the people as they reached the Promised Land. He implored them, that when they were blessed, not to forget the Lord God. Moses knew that prosperity and humility don't coincide very well. He warned that, with prosperity, they would lose their humility and forget their need of a God.

"Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me."


When we think that all we've accomplished is purely with the strength of our own hands, we are at that moment not accountable to anyone. When we are unaccountable, we become more unjust as we look out more and more for our own interests. When a nation loses any sense of divine accountability, it becomes more and mores unjust to its people. Read about history. The natural overflow of unaccountability to God is the exit of justice. Free enterprise, capitalization the American way of life is awesome until we lose God. Then free enterprise becomes an excuse to hoard as the executives of AIG did. At this point, "free enterprise" becomes a symbol of injustice because of the hoarding. The only way to push back on hoarding and injustice is to then impose more laws in an attempt to "legislate morality". But with so many laws that can be broken even because people are unaware that such laws exist, that is when a nation loses its freedom. The American view of life is wonderful until we factor God out. Injustice becomes part of the culture. We forget our God.

"But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today."

If any nation in the world believes this, it should be us. It should be America because we have truly been a blessed nation. It is God who designed our nation.

"If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God."

At this point, we might say to ourselves, "Boy, I'm glad we're not a nation that had a covenant with God! I'm glad I'm not an Israelite! Does God really punish destroy a nation because it pushes him out? Read history; it happened time and time again. Israel was eventually destroyed. Perhaps the arrogance that comes along with forgetting the Lord our God doesn't need the overt intentional judgment of God, perhaps it carries an intentional judgement of its own. Maybe a lack of humility has its own implications. Perhaps it's just sowing and reaping. Moses reminded the people that, like nations before them, there would be a price to pay for leaving out God. It was ultimately the people's decision.

The sad thing, but the hopeful thing, is it doesn't have to be this way. We can try to factor God back into the equation. What's more, it hasn't always been this way. Andy loves to read history. Several years ago, Andy read Steven Ambros book, "D-Day". It is a big thick book about all the minutia leading up to D-Day. Ambros outlined the U.S. build-up prior to our invasion of France. It was known that we would attack France, but the secret was when and where we would strike. So on June 6, 1944, when we finally launched the invasion, the news was announced on the radio that the invasion had begun. Instinctively, when our nation became aware of the news, despite our amazing military of 130,000 trained troops and 250,000 other people who had mobilized to support the troops, there wasn't a sense of a national question, "Who is the Lord?" In fact, it was quite the opposite of today. On D-Day President Franklin Roosevelt used the radio to gather everyone and lead them in a national prayer. Can you imagine? The nation, as a nation, prayed, despite our own careful plans, despite our powerful military and despite our advanced technology. We prayed.

Here is (a segments of) that prayer;


"Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. These men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944

The New York Daily News threw out their other articles and printed the Lord's Prayer on the front of the newspaper. The company Lord and Taylor never opened that day. The president of the company sent all employees home to pray. The New York Stock Exchange paused for two minutes to pray. The editors of the NYT printed we pray for the boys. Special church services took place across the nation. In Columbus, Ohio, the mayor used sirens as a call for the entire city to stop in prayer.

We understood that even with our great military might, we still NEEDED the Lord. Not everyone agreed with the endeavor. There was conflict, but the people came together. A few years later, we witnessed the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King. Our nation came to a point where we understood that principles of scripture should impact the law of our nation. Luther appealed to our national conscience. Even thought it was different and uncomfortable, King was right according to scripture.

On August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, King spoke the words of his most famous speech, "Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, (quoting from the Declaration of Independence) "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Then, Martin Luther King closed with a line we all know by heart, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."



Aren't you glad that after the second World War, a group rose up and said we can't talk about God in politics law and social civil service? These people said all we need is a court, a system and laws. They think we can justly rule ourselves. But, if there had not been a national conscience during the Civil Rights Movement, there very well might not have been a Civil Rights Movement!

The leverage point during these important times in history was our understanding that God created all of us equally. To remove Him is extraordinarily dangerous. We only have to look at history to see where that leads. To do so will leave us looking at ourselves, our arrogance. We think we can become unaccountable to God, but it has consistently led to injustice. It leads to moral ambiguity, which leads to the erosion of civil rights.

This is not the time to lose heart or to be afraid. We should be afraid of our own arrogance which leaves us asking "Who is the Lord?". It leads us to abandon the notion that God blesses.
Maybe it's time to end our prayers with, instead "God Bless America", with a sincere appeal to God to bless our nation despite it's gradual rejection of Him.

Does Anyone Remember the Official U.S. Motto?

Opening his two-part series, "God and Country", Andy Stanley talks about how many of us have had a few conversations with the television screen, because we agree or disagree with something we see. Many of us think that if Washington would give us an hour of their time, we could solve so much. There are many debates that we could talk about or argue. "I think there is another debate going on behind the scenes that we need to talk about", says Andy. Every once in a while, in the life of a nation, a social issue will intersect with the Bible. When these crossroads take place, sometimes it's up to us to speak up. Andy originally thought this idea would only require one week's attention, but there was so much information that he made it into two.

At the heart of this issue is our national conscience. We all have a conscience individually and God speaks to us through it. Sometimes, though, we can become calloused to our conscience. In our society, we have collective conscience which can be family values or a corporate culture. This can be easily seen when a family with one set of values gets together with a family of another set of values. Such value conflicts might surface in the areas of language, television/movie filters, video games, music or alcohol. "I was actually recently in the reverse of that which was a little embarrassing." Andy and his family got together with another family who found that movies and video games in his house weren't as tightly screened as they were in their house.

In addition to a family conscience or a corporate culture, our nation has a collective conscience. "How many of you, if you knew you could get by with it, would still hesitate to take a big bag of fast food trash and throw it out the window on the way down the highway?" Virtually no one would do this because we, in the U.S., are very litter conscious. This is simply an area of the national conscience that has been drilled down into us as a society. It is one of our do's and don'ts.

The anti-slavery movement in England and the U.S. was led by the conscience of these two countries. The civil rights movement was another example of a war of conscience. Laws and regulations of change were made as a result. Abortion has been another example of degrees of tolerance, which the nation has accepted. Child pornography is wrong in our society. Men in our society don't marry 11 year old children. You can't marry 3 wives in our country. But what are our values based on? Why the high cringe factor when we talk about the legalization of drugs? Child labor laws are strict in our civilized society. We have naturally developed an "ought to be" conscience as a nation.


There are two general observations of a conscience:


1) When there is a strong collective conscience about something, you don't have to have a lot of rules because everything is more or less understood. In a healthy community, there simply don't have to be a lot of rules. If it is understood, for example, that stealing is inherently wrong, then there don't have to be rules to outline specifically when stealing has actually taken place. If stealing is not understood, then we are likely to be over legislated. The reason that laws are getting out of hand in our modern day is because the courts are now trying to legislate morality. Imagine a society where we define our conscience by what a court says!


2) A conscience has to be informed. Someone taught us that littering was wrong. In Romans, Paul is talking to a group of people who didn't have biblical laws . Romans 2:14-15, "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." This talks about how, in the absence of laws, the moral conscience takes over.


Now, we have a national conscience, but what originally informed it? A sense of personal and corporate accountability to God, our Creator. In general, it was established by a general sense that there is a God. "I'm not arguing that the founding fathers were all Christians", but Andy is stating that there was a general sense of a Creator. Look at the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; life liberty and the pursuit of happiness." These men were saying "we are going to start a nation. We are going to break off from England and we are going to outline our identity as a nation." The second line of the Declaration of Independence invokes the presence of a God!


There was some hypocrisy of these values when slavery arose, which eventually led to the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address includes, "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom." President Lincoln voiced the notion that we are a nation under God. In the 1950's, the phrase "one nation under God" was put into the Pledge of Allegiance. Then, just 53 years ago, something happened that eludes many of us. Our country got a brand new motto. On July 30, 1956, the 84th Congress declared it's official motto, under President Eisenhower, was to be "In God We Trust"!!


If tomorrow, you walked into Home Depot as an employee and yelled, "You can do it", the response would be "And we can help". If you walked in to the offices of the University of Georgia and yelled, "Go...", others would respond, "Dogs!" If you yelled, "Eat..." in a Chic-Fil-A office, you'd hear "...More Chicken!"


But what if every principle of every public school got on the PA system and said, "Kids, we trust God"? Can you imagine? There would be lawsuits everywhere! It's the national motto!! We have drifted so far away from God talk in our society, we can no longer say it in our institutions. Now it's strange if a public school teacher said the U.S. motto. God has, over time, been pushed further and further to the side. Did you know that every year, there is a group who sues to take the "So help me God" part out of the official oath. Why? It probably isn't the concerted effort by individuals to eliminate God. It could largely be part of the fact that some people, in the name of God, have done some ridiculous stuff.


Why is this subject so important? The reason is our national conscience is tied to the existence and the presence and the centrality of God. It has everything to do with how we view Do's and Don'ts of our society. As God is moved aside, we lose much of our sense of accountability to God. And if God, then, is no longer central to our conscience, something else has to take its place.



This is a debate between the grateful and the accountable to God, versus the ungrateful and unaccountability to God. For the ungrateful and unaccountable, in their heart of hearts, they don't feel accountable to anyone. If you take God out, there is no accountability. Look at your own life when there wasn't God in your life. Do you remember how you lived? Are we going to be a nation of gratitude and accountability or is it going to be a nation of "In We We Trust"? If we can pull God back to the center, we can finally reestablish the foundation of our national conscience.

"If our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is tied to Creator God and we remove Creator God from the dialogue, then what is the new basis or protection for those rights? We don't know where it will go, but we do have the clues as to where it has gone in other countries. Typically, when it falls onto regulations and laws, eventually those rights go away.


Homework from Andy's message which he request is for us to try and recall the last time a President prayed in public. Also, he asks if we will ask others what our national motto is just to gauge awareness.

What Is the History of the Cross?

For his Easter message, "The Final Hours" at http://www.northpoint.org/messages, Andy Stanley opens by talking about the symbolism of the cross. The cross is such a familiar icon, but the difference between our associations with the cross is so extremely far removed from the association made in the first century. In some ways we really do a disservice to our faith by using the cross as a symbol. The significance of the cross is lost on us because crucifixions stopped centuries ago.

Interestingly, the cross did not become a symbol of Christianity for 300 years after Christ died! In fact, for a time following the crucifixion, it was against the law for Christians to draw a cross or to put it into the form of art because they knew how torturous a crucifixion was. There was nothing glamorous, romantic, artistic or spiritual about the cross. It is quite different today, but not in the first century. It was something you didn't look at. It was a symbol of suffering and shame; the degradation of humanity. If anything, men would protect their children from seeing such a site. The cross was used as a form of execution by Alexander the Great and for 300 years past Christ in the Roman empire. It became a symbol of mass execution. If you saw the movie "Spartacus", when the slave rebellion led by Spartacus was finally contained, they crucified his each of his troops and posted the crosses at the point of battle all the way down the road leading to Rome. It was a display of over 6,000 men hanging from the crosses. It wasn't a hidden execution or far away. Crucifixes where put up at main thoroughfares, such as major intersections, bridges and outside the marketplace. Rome wanted people to see what would happen to people who would rebel. Crucifixions were a billboard for the strength and might of the Roman empire. Romans were never crucified. Crucifixions were reserved for slaves and enemies of Rome.

So, crosses were certainly symbolically different back then than in our time. There were thousands and thousands of men crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem during the Jewish war around 60 or 70 AD. This was when Rome finally destroyed Jerusalem. On one particular day, over 500 people were crucified on a scaffolding. The Romans soldiers had to stop, at one point, because they ran out of wood. Crucifixions were extremely common, yet out of the thousands of crucifixions of their time, the reason the cross is a symbol to us to us today is because of one single crucifixion; that of our Lord Jesus Christ. Around 300 AD, after the elimination of the practice, we began using it as a testament to our faith and we now see the cross everywhere; even wearing it as jewelry.


If we take our understanding of the cross we know today and set it aside, we can focus on the cross as it was understood in Christ's time. Constantine said it was an embarrassment that our Savior died on a cross. Andy moves to the gospels saying that the amazing thing about these books is that the disciples wrote in as much detail as they could to document the greatest story ever told. They included everything they could remember about Christ's life and the crucifixion. While much is described about the ministry of Christ, when He was arrested, the story seemed to go into slow motion, describing much of the courts prosecution. The only way to have Jesus executed was to prove he was an enemy of Rome. The religious leaders had to pin on Jesus a crime, so they pulled in false witnesses. But the testimonies of the witnesses were inconsistent, so they were thrown out. All the while, Jesus waited in silence. Finally, the high priest asked a question that Jesus CHOSE to answer. It was if he waited to because He knew what would happen. The question was, "Are you the Messiah?" The high priest was asking if Jesus was the descendant of David; the King of the Jews. If Jesus said yes, He would be viewed as a threat to Rome.

Mark 15:2-25 continues the story. Pilate couldn't understand why Jesus would not defend Himself. Pilate was amazed. A lesser man would fall to his knees to beg for mercy, to beg for a quick death or to beg to be sold into slavery. Pilate tells Jesus that he has the power to free or crucify Him. Sensing Jesus is innocent, Pilate then begins to look for a way out. It so happend that the trial was taking place during Passover. On this holiday, Pilate would typically earn the favor of the people by releasing someone who was thought to be unjustly imprisoned. So Pilate came up with a plan. He would take someone who was dispised by the people; a man like Barabbas and Pilate would give the people the choice to crucify Barrabas or to crucify Jesus. But the hate of the religious leaders was so intense, it drove the the people to demand the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilot, still seeking to wash his hands of the matter, asked "Why? What crime has he committed?" But the people angrily demanded Jesus death.

So, Pilot had Jesus flogged. In the movie, the "Passion of Christ", it shows the incredible detail of what happens in a flogging. Many people would die at this point. In fact, as part of the flogging process, it was necessary to apoint someone to make sure the person being flogged didn't die. Pilot presented Jesus, after He had been flogged, back to the people, hoping this would be enough to satisfy them, but it wasn't. So, the guards took Jesus, beat Him, put a purple robe around him and placed a crown of thorns on His head, mocking him as the "King of the Jews". There was nothing spiritual, inspiring or romantic about it.

Beaten beyond recognition, Jesus was led to Golgotha, "the place of the skull" and was forced to carry the crossbeam of the cross. Along the way, he was offered wine mixed with myrrh whcih like being offered a narcotic, but Jesus refused it. When we get to the point of crucifixion in Mark, all the detail seems to stop. There was no elaborate description because there was no mystery of a crucifixion. The first century reader knew exactly what happened in a crucifixion. For us, we've never seen nails driven into someone's hands, watched the gasping for final breaths or watched someone bleeding to death.

They laid Jesus down on the crossbeam. The nails in His "hands" were actually driven through the wrist bones. He was then hung from the top of the cross. Now,there are eyewitnesses that were in Auschwitz who said that when the Germans would hang someone by their wrists, without any support from their feet, they would last for only about an hour. This is because you cannot fully exhale in this position. These same eyewitnesses said that if the feet were weighted down ,the victims would die within ten minutes. The Romans didn't want Jesus to die too fast, so they drove the nails into His feet so that He could lift a little higher to stay alive. For about 6 hours, Jesus hung there. He was crucified at roughly 9am and was gone around 3pm. Even in His last moments, Jesus said "into Your hands I commit my spirit", which was another statement of choice by Jesus to die.

Jesus died in the place of rebels and criminals because he chose to, not because others did. Whereas, the cross had been a symbol of punishment, for Christians, it is a symbol of choice by our Savior. CS Lewis once wrote, "the crucifixion did not become common in art until all who saw a real one died off." Jesus paid the price for our sins. This wasn't just any death, it was a horrible death. In Phil 2:8, Paul said that Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

So, what do we do with this? The symbol of the cross just doesn't do justice to our faith. In the book of Acts, it explains the passion of the people who saw the ultimate price that was paid by their Messiah. For Andy, his response is that he wants to be even more obedient. Every time this story is told, something breaks in the hearts of those who hear it and who may be far away from our Savior. But we have to respond to the story. It is unavoidable and it stands in the middle of history as a reminder of God's love, our rebellion and our forgiveness.