Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Although there are a few blogs I frequent and benefit greatly from, I consciously try not to pass on too many links.  I don’t go to blogs mainly for links to other places (and I assume you don’t, either).  I go to blogs mainly for that particular individual’s thoughts and writing (and I assume you do, too).

Doug Wilson’s latest post, though, is penetratingly biblical in a way that I need.  And it’s about a person and a subject that is very close to my heart.  I might have titled it “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?”  He titled it “Hubrizo Like Crazy.”

This is the Jesus I am getting to know.  This is the jagged-along-the-edges Jesus.  This is Jesus raw.  Raw, real, and untamed.  Be careful that you don’t follow a different one.

Letter to an Old Friend

I spent a couple hours today writing a hand-written letter to a guy I used to play baseball with back in Little League and high school.  He’s in prison now.

His dad (he was adopted) coached our teams for about seven to eight years, so we saw each other quite a bit.  We didn’t know each other well, though.  You know how high-school and sports relationships can be.

My mom found out a few months ago that my old teammate was in prison, and she told my old coach (his dad) that I might be willing to contact him.  It’s taken me awhile to get to it, but God stirred me to do it today.  I share it for a few reasons: it contains much of my testimony which I love to tell; it reminds me of all the people in my past who need to hear about what God has done in my life through the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and I hope it might inspire some of you to write or call an old friend and renew a relationship that the Gospel might flow through.  Every one of you has lots of people in your past, people who need to hear about the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.  Pick up your pen, get on the phone, or pull out your keyboard.  You have life to give.

Please pray for my friend.  Perhaps God may be pleased to send heaven into a joyful pandemonium over one sinner who repents.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

R—,
        David Gundersen here.  Man, it’s been a long time.  I’m twenty-four years old now, been married for almost three years to Cindi, graduated from The Master’s College in 2002, and am in my third year at The Master’s Seminary training to be a missionary or a pastor or teacher in the States.  I work at The Master’s College overseeing a dorm of seventy-five guys.  I’m in my fourth year doing that.  (The Master’s College and Seminary is in southern California, thirty miles north of Los Angeles.)
        It’s amazing that it’s been almost a full decade since the years that I was in centerfield and you were at first base, playing for the Athletics and the summer league Sandites, trying to beat the Yankees and the Rebels and the Zephyrs, and whoever was in that Sapulpa summer league.  I seemed to move around in the batting order, but you were always third or cleanup, and deservingly so.
        I tried to get in touch with R—– Z——— a couple years ago when I was back in Sand Springs visiting my family, but I got a wrong number, I think.  Have you kept in touch with any of the guys?  I talked to C—– a couple months ago and heard where you were at.  I wanted to see how you’re doing.  I can’t pretend to understand or to be able to fully commiserate with you.  I bet it’s really tough, though.  I’d love to talk to you sometime, if you’re up for it.  I’ll give you my contact information at the end of this.  Feel free to call collect or write.
        I guess there’s no way to communicate how different I am now.  I’m sure all the guys are in some ways, but my life is turned around.  That probably makes you laugh since I was always the shy, squeaky-clean, church-going homeschooler who never cussed. :)  But I was so self-serving… I don’t know if this will make sense, but my heart was so wicked in those days.  All I cared about was what people thought of me.  It was all me, me, me.  I’m sure you didn’t know this, but when I was a senior, playing in that Sapulpa summer league, I was just starting to see this and to understand how desperately I needed to be forgiven of my idolatry — my self-idolatry.  I had been miserable throughout the fall of 1997 and much of the spring of 1998 because God was convicting me of my sin.  I knew I was going to hell and that I deserved it, clean mouth and all.  My years of church-going would never earn me a good standing before a perfect God who rightfully demanded perfection.  I was scared to death, R—.
        But during the spring and summer of 1998, I began to learn why Jesus Christ had come and lived and died and rose again.  I had always known why in my head — you know how I attended church throughout the years — I just didn’t recognize that I had to see my sin and my helplessness and my need for a Savior.  And I was being called to repent from my sins and trust in the sacrifice of Christ in my place as the only way that I could be forgiven and reconciled to God.  And praise be to God — He gave me the faith to trust Him and to turn to Jesus.  Seven years later, I can’t help but be devoted to living and dying for the one who gave His life that I might live.  The one who died for lawyers and schoolteachers and politicians and welders and bank-tellers and criminals and prosecutors and drug dealers and homeschoolers.
        During the spring and summer of 1998 (my senior year), I was also deciding where to go to college.  Before, all I wanted was to play baseball somewhere, and maybe major in business or athletic training.  Then I visited The Master’s College, a Christian liberal arts school.  The people were amazing.  Authentic, unashamed Christians who loved me like we had known each other since childhood.  So I came.  I tried out for the baseball team, made it, and played for a couple months of fall ball.  But I began to realize how many opportunities there were to be involved in different relationships and activities at school, so I “retired.”  The main reason was that I was taking a first-year class in biblical Greek and was noticing that I couldn’t do baseball and Greek at the same time (I could’ve if I had been disciplined, but I wasn’t too disciplined my freshman year).  So I chose Greek.  Can you believe that?  I still can’t sometimes.  After years of dreaming about playing ball at the highest level I could reach, I walked away.  God was redirecting my heart.  My sophomore year, I decided to major in Biblical Languages (Greek and Hebrew) because I loved studying languages and wanted to understand the Bible better.  I also ran the intramural sports program that year, so I didn’t fully leave sports behind. :)  During my junior and senior years, I got involved in student leadership in the dorms, and God continued to solidify my desire to be in Christian ministry full-time, a desire that I first had my sophomore year.  I graduated in May of 2002, was hired as a Resident Director in July 2002, got engaged in July 2002, got married that same December, and started grad school in May of 2003.  I’m planning on graduating from seminary in May 2006 and either staying on as an R.D. for a year or two more, getting further training, becoming a pastor or teacher in the States, or going overseas to do Christian missions work.
        So that’s my story.  Christ is now at the center, which is the happiest thing in the world.  Life as a Christian is hard — really hard.  I feel like an alien and a foreigner, because Christ’s values are so different than the world’s.  And a lot of people who claim to be Christians are hypocrites and posers, which makes life sad and wearying.  But fellowship with true believers who live like the Bible says to live and who are fully devoted to Christ is a joy.  And no matter how hard life is, I know that I’m forgiven and am on my way, in a few short decades (at most), to heaven.
        You may be wondering if I’m telling you my story because I want you to turn to Christ, too.  Absolutely.  I hope and pray that you will, because He is full of grace and mercy, and He will abundantly pardon.
        Give me a call sometime if you want.  I’d love to know how you’re doing and what you’re thinking about as life goes on.  Whether you’re bored or want to talk baseball or Bible or life, I’m here.  I think God had us on the same team all those years for a reason.

Your Friend, David “Gunner” Gundersen

Of All the People in the World

I am amazed that Christ never pitied Himself.  Of all the people in the world that we would think would have the right to indulge in some well-earned self-pity, Christ is certainly the foremost.

He did not come to be served but to serve.  He did not come that others might lay down their preferences for His sake, but that He might lay aside not only His preferences but His divine glory for their sake.  He considered others’ interests above His own every day of His life.  He did not minister to the healthy, but to the sick.  He gave to those who had no means to repay Him.  He never did His own will — He would never have allowed Himself to — but the will of the Father who sent Him.  He was the epitome of selflessness.

The devastating difficulty of being such a giver is that when others don’t respond the way you’d like them to — when they don’t appreciate your grace, when they don’t value your ministry, when they don’t react with gratefulness for your sacrifices — self-pity is the natural response of the sinful heart.  “I give and I serve and I sacrifice for you, and this is what I get?”  But Jesus never said that.  And I am astounded that He never said that.

I am astounded because not only was He underappreciated and undervalued and unnoticed, but the neglect that He received pierced far deeper.  He was abused.  His own did not receive Him.  He was not welcome in Nazareth, His own hometown.  The people whom He loved and whom He came to deliver sought His life early and often.  The “religious leaders” who ought to have been His like-minded partners in kingdom ministry stood staunchly against Him at every turn.  His closest friends and companions all abandoned Him in the darkest hours of His life.  He died miserable and alone.

But He did not die throwing a pity party for Himself.  His last breath on earth was not accompanied by the thought, “I can’t believe it — I come to give my life for these people and this is how they treat Me?  Forget them.“  Rather, He finished three decades of generosity by saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  And then He died, rose again, ascended to heaven, and continued giving — and He will not cease to give for all eternity, to those whose sins He Himself bore on the cross they deserved.  Do you not love this man?

Jesus Christ was amazing.  Oh, how I want to be like Him.  To be able to give and give and give and at the end of it all to still be saying, “Father, bless those whom I have served.  Forget me.  Bless them.”  My flesh wants to say, “Ok, it’s been a long week, I’ve really spent myself for others the past few days, and it’s high-time someone knew about it.”  Or (a back-of-the-mind thought), ”I think I’ll take about ten minutes and think of all the hardships I’ve faced and sacrifices I’ve made over the past month.”  Or, “Woe is me… life is so hard.”  The man whose life of unrelenting sacrifice we will never even comprehend much less imitate never even thought these things.  He lived a life of free grace, never demanding to be repaid by self-focused, self-congratulatory pity.

I am amazed that Christ never pitied Himself.  Of all the people in the world…

Raw Conversations

There are conversations, and then there are conversations.  I just had a conversation.  No holds barred, judgment-day honesty, heavenly likemindedness.  One of those conversations with no trace of self-consciousness, no thought of self-preservation, no center but Christ.  It wasn’t scholarly or academic.  It wasn’t guarded.  It was raw.  And it’s funny and sad to me that we’ve made up other categories of conversations.

Ever feel like your conversations are frivolous?  Like we’re all wearing a lot of spiritual make-up?  Like you’re living life at a formal banquet where the girls are in heels and the guys are in tux’s and everyone’s doing their best to make an impression, all the while knowing that none of us are acting like who we really are?  It’s dangerous to start noticing things like that, because it implies you need to change.  It implies that we all need to change.

But even while we squirm around in our formal duds and hack our way through awkward pleasantries and duck and dodge through the obstacle course of surfacy conversations, we like it.  Because who likes things raw?  Who likes things real?  I guess if you have to call it an admission, I’ll admit it: I do.

It’s funny that we mock lawyers for not being genuine.  We caricature politicians as being cheese-ball.  Yeah, we’re a lot better.

Maybe if we were actually in hell when we had our conversations, we’d be a bit more honest.  We’d all know exactly who each other were.  We’d know what we deserved, and we’d know that we all deserved it.  God would be the only one on display, since we’re so obviously jacked up so as not to be impressive in the least.  Eternal punishment has a way of humbling a man.  And knowing that you deserved it and didn’t get it has a way of shattering a man.  As it is, though, we try to be cool.  I’m fine, you’re fine, we’re all fine, and all the while, nobody’s fine.  Who really believes that he deserves hell?  No, what I deserve is a kinder, gentler version of hell.  I deserve the simmering version, not the boiling version.  Because I’m just not that bad.

What, did Jesus die for somebody else?

I’m not saying that my goal in life is for every conversation I have to be about how screwed up we all are.  I’m just saying that authenticity is irreplaceable.  When you meet a person who just straight up, all-out loves Christ and keeps His commandments, you know.  At the end of the day, it’s pretty hard to mistake the work of the Holy Spirit.  People like that are genuine, because they’re unashamed.  They don’t flinch in the face of fakery.  They don’t stutter when speaking the truth.  They don’t waffle when opening their heart.  They live out loud.  And someone may be the quietest person in the world but live out loud.  Soul-deep blamelessness is unmistakable.  Heartfelt passion for God cannot go unnoticed.  Self-sacrificing love for others is never fully invisible.  These people know who God is.  They know who they are and what they’ve done.  The “-tion” words aren’t old to them.  They love the old, old story about salvation and redemption and adoption and reconciliation and sanctification and glorification.  And they don’t love anything else but that.

If you can’t think and speak honestly and without self-pity about your sin and your weariness and your gut-wrenching burdens and your unthinkable thoughts, then you probably don’t praise and thank and adore and magnify the Lord with much rawness, either.  Not that you should always be spontaneous.  I’m a very calculated person, by nature and by choice.  I think it’s a good way to live — the best way, for me.  But calculation and premeditation should not mean hypocrisy and superficial and hiding.

The world needs to see more out-and-out Christians.  More let-it-all-hang-out Christians.  More loud-living Christians (understand what I mean by “loud-living”).  More blameless and holy and radical and childlike Christians.  And the church needs to see the same thing.

The apostles didn’t “preach.”  They cried out.  Nathan didn’t say, “Hey David, I’d like you to think about something.”  He said, You are the man.  Ezra didn’t mumble, “Lord, looks like we messed up again — sorry about that.”  He pulled out his hair, plucked out his beard, tore his clothes, and said, Our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens (Ezra 9).  David said, Adore, tremble, dance, cry, leap, clap, and shout.

So what’ll it be?

How will you deal with your sin?  A tuxedo or a torn robe?  How will you praise God?  With a mumble or with a shout?  How will you speak to others?  With tight-roping self-preservation or with wide-open love?  How will you serve?  With a schedule and a list of conditions or with a free spirit and an unforced heart?  How will you share the Gospel?  With a stammering tongue or with the voice of an ambassador speaking the words of the King?  And who will you try to look like?  Like a mannequin, or like the living and breathing Jesus?

The world, the church, and the glory of God are waiting.