God's Suffering Servant/Our Suffering Savior

Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lifted up,
and shall be exalted.
As many were astonished at you—
his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
so shall he sprinkle many nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
for that which has not been told them they see,
and that which they have not heard they understand.
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.

1st Sermon in Comm. of Biblical Truth

"When Worlds Collide"

My friends from MVNU came to visit me in Chicago, and just like that 2 worlds of my life (MVNU & Moody) collided in one of the most epic collisions since Jay-Z and Linkin Park. Here is the recap:

Look what I can do ...

you give me a camera, and i go crazy

Summer's Over and Season II is upon us

Rise of the Falcon - Season II

"A Greater Season for a Breakthrough"

Cedar Point Anomaly

I am ashamed to say that I got addicted to a certain musical, that I will go unnamed. Seeing the musical's main character having all his friends around him and my separation from all my best friends made me want to have them all together at one time, at one place. That's when it hit me, we should go to Cedar Point.

So I send a massive text message to people to get them to go. Three people were all for it, mostly everyone else did not immediately respond. My potential guest list was at about 10-12. I decided to shoot for 8. Tragedy struck as 1/2 of my best friends chose not to go. Then another great friend declined. But I was still looking at about potentially 6. So another friend going buys a 4 tickets on a deal I found.

A maybe was looking like a definite, and another person was silent, but then said she would go. Unfortunately, when she found out about the date, it turns out she had another engagement that day.

And then there was 5. I tried to get a 6, but they declined. Then, one of the people ended up having a wedding that day, and forgot to tell me she couldn't go.

And then there was 4. Four is a good group to go with, and since we had 4 tickets, I tried to make sure that the 4 we had was for sure. Well, one of the people I tried to get in touch with did not answer texts or calls. Then I get a call one morning and he said he couldn't go because of work.

And then there was 3. Well the last 3 were solid so I knew I had to try to find a 4th for that day. It was me, a guy, and girl, so I was hoping to find a girl that we all knew. Efforts were unsuccessful. Then another person had to backed out for personal reasons.

And then there was 2. I felt like Paul when he wrote that the only one with me now is Luke (2 Tim. 4:11a). All that was left was me and the person who bought the tickets. He mentioned that he might have something going on that day, and actually we didn't go yesterday.

lol

At first, it was kinda depressing, but now that I look at it, I actually think it's funny. Turns out you can't get what you want or desire most. We must remember that we can't force things to conform to our will. We must be willing to acknowledge that even if we are narcissist, that the world does not bend to our wants. Our lives are not about getting what we want and being happy. I wanted a Cavs championship, but we lost, and I wasted this summer wanting something as unattainable as a championship in Cleveland.

So this further contributes to the worst summer of my life. Can't wait til it's over ...



T-minus 13 days ...

Then ...

Hello Chi-town 2.0

Turning Point

Fear cannot begin to describe what I am feeling now, as I have taken the 3rd step to the rest of my life. I have been fighting off the UMC because I never really liked it. I never wanted to be caught up in denominationalism, and thus wanted to be in a non-denominational church, but someone once told me that the animal does not exist because it within itself functions like a mini-denomination. What separate it is that it has no denominational affiliation. Essentially, I recognize it as “Indy”.

Anyways, Thursday night’s service at MRI finally broke my defensive shell to fight off the influence of the United Methodist Church. Our theologian this year was a pastor of a Methodist church with Baptist-background roots. His theology initially seemed more Baptist, but after some further investigation, his theology was nearly even with some agreements and disagreements on both sides. He confirmed that it was possible to have Baptist theology in a Methodist realm, and has offered to help me to preach without getting into issues of theology and doctrine.

I guess what I am looking at is the fact that my life is about to change, and how being a pastor has been solidified. Going forward it finally hit me what was before me. Knowing you’re pregnant is drastically different from having the baby in your arms for the first time, and all this time I was focused on knowing that being a pastor was down the road, but it seemed as though in an instance the reality of it all hit me. I feel this is where God is leading me, though against what I want, but I don’t have peace about it all together.

Once the realization of going through the process fully hit me, I thought about what was ahead of me, the stress, the pain, falling from a high place of praise in the eyes of others and God to a lowly, forsaken stature shadow of a man. Keeping in mind scandals that arise from undisclosed sins of my past that still echo in my heart and the fact that there will be people who will willfully want to bring me down, some internal, as in family, some external. I thought about my family, the pressures that will arise from ministry and family, pressures on wife and kids. That I must be extra careful to be sure of the wife God gives me because she must be called to this position as “Pastor’s wife”, my partner in ministry. It is essential to be matched up with God’s choice because we will need each other in ministry and will need to pray with each other.

Thoughts of an escaping the UMC when I need to or knowing when I need to disagree because what I am being asked is ungodly. Was coming forward a rash, premature, or ill-advised move? I will soon now. I just petition before God that this be His Will and doing because if it isn’t, then I want no part of it. That is why at this particular point in my life, I really need to rely solely on God because He is the only one who can give me comfort in this period and show me where I am going. I am scared and I see the pain that lies before me and even being warned of the politics of bishops who oversee and appoint pastors, and basically have control over people. When do I rebel against what a bishop is forcing me to do when I know God has something else. One thing I do see somewhere down the line is that I might have to leave the UMC…