How to Be Great Like God

This week we continue our series on making disciples in the arts.

I moved to Boston in 2009.  
When I arrived there 
I came upon a Christian community 
that was in shock.
The previous spring
Same-sex marriage was forced through the legislature.
Those who were politically savvy 
understood
that if this went through in Massachusetts,
New York would be next, 
and within a year or two,
Same-sex marriage would be the law of the land.
And it was.
The slippery slope is real.

These folks had lost a big battle,
and a lot of people were in shock
and defeated.

I was new in town,
so I just listened to people.
I asked questions.
And I discovered an interesting thing.
In the 1990's
the Pride lobby
came up with an ingenious plan.
They took volunteer jobs in offices
in the Massachusetts state house.
They stuffed envelopes,
took out the trash,
and ran errands.
They were political volunteers.
They helped out.
And in the process,
they got to know the legislators.
And as the "culture war" 
issues heated up
these legislators,
a lot of whom were supposedly Christians,
would leave their office
and face angry constituents.
The Christians were standing there with signs,
and petitions, and bullhorns--
Trying to win the day.
And then the legislators would go back to their office
and they would get served coffee and donuts by a friendly,
multi-color haired,
lesbian.
The legislator had a name
and a face,
and a friendly volunteer
on their mind
when they went into the vote.
And they had a bunch of angry
screaming Christians
that they would have to face
afterward.
You do the math.

And the Christians I talked to
resented the “dirty tricks” the pride lobby
played by volunteering in the offices.

It was then 
that I learned the power of what Jesus 
said in today's gospel.
"If any man desire to be first,
he must be last of all,
and the servant of all."
Irony.

And we are back to the heart of discipleship.
We are moving toward birthing a discipleship movement 
in the arts.
And this issue,
servanthood,
is key.
The heart of the disciple
is one that goes low.
You have to 
as they say,
choose "downward mobility."
Servanthood is the opposite of pride.
And pride is the poison
killing the church.

As many of you know,
I get a lot of emails and messages.
In 2009 I went through a season where 
I was getting around 5000 emails a day.
And a generous ten percent was genuine hate.
That's a good education in media.

I have a strange name.
Yes, I am aware.
And when I get emails from strangers,
there is a trend.
It is amazing how many people
for whatever reason,
change my name.
I get called "chris" 
or "john" 
or someone called me "johnny" this week.
Argh.
And the worst is "C.J."
This week an app on my phone changed my name to "Christi."

I've been accused of having a Messiah complex,
and some people actually think it's a title I have adopted
like "Grand Poobah."
And generally,
the more religious a person is
the more apt they are to change my name.
So let's think about this.

I was taught that if you do not know a person's name,
as a matter of respect and honor,
you address them in print as the name appears.
And if you are unsure,
you may ask them if that was an error,
but you don't assume that it is wrong.
And you don't assume 
you have the right to change a person's birth certificate.
Here is my New York Birth Certificate,
just so you know
that the accent is real
and the name is too.

These people are not interested that
I am named after my great-grandfather
who mostly raised my dad.
They don't know he was named for his father
who died when he was a child.
They don't know that my great-great grandfather
was Jewish, and that he took the German word
for "Christian" as his name 
to avoid dying
in a pogrom.
We don’t know what his given name was.
That's why I don't change it.
Pride makes you blind
and spiritual pride makes you double blind.

Two and a half years ago
the Lord asked me to start wearing 
a clerical collar.
I resisted God for seven weeks,
and then accepted that he is God, and I am not.
It was one of the greatest deaths I have experienced.

The response from Christians was almost immediate:
I was accused of pretending I was a priest.
I was told I was misrepresenting myself.
I was accused of worshipping the sun,
worshipping King Charles,
and that I didn't believe the Bible.
The level of basic disrespect and rudeness
from Christians has been astonishing.

They didn't know that in 1997 
I made the choice between faithfulness to the Gospel
or a promising career in the Episcopal church.
I made this decision after eight years of very good
and very expensive ministry training for the priesthood.
The decision ruined me financially, and professionally.
And they didn't know I was doing all the stuff
that a priest does, 
with a lot of real fruit,
for sixteen years before I put the collar on.
The same folks who had no problem with my 
ministry and authority before the collar
were suddenly bothered by a little white piece of plastic.
Spiritual pride
is what is killing the church in American and Britain,
and it is the core reason
the church in the US has lost over 30% in the past 20 years.
People think they have their theology right,
but they are getting every thing else wrong.
Again and again,
Christians are quick to correct
and see the fault in other people
without asking questions.
When you start from the place that you are right
and you have the authority to correct others
you are going to become a judgmental jerk.
And the root of that is pride.

There is only one cure for that.
And it is the same cure I proposed last week
for thinking like the 
world, the flesh,
and the devil.
You have to follow Jesus to the cross.
The cross is the only antidote.
You have to die to your own ways,
Your own opinions,
your own agendas.
You have to assume you do not know the answers,
and submit yourself to God.
You cannot be great in the Kingdom
until you are the servant of all.
Going low is the way to greatness
as a disciple,
and in the Kingdom.

When I was a student at Houghton,
when it was still a Christian college,
their motto was
"Raising up Christian scholar-servants."
They believed their mission was to send servants
into academia,
media,
business,
and society.
And because we were called to be servants
our education was rigorous. 
It was a tough place,
and they said to us every day,
you need to be a life long learner.
You need to learn something new every day,
and you need to read fifty pages a day 
for the rest of your life.
Wow.

Why,
because if you want to go low,
you have to be the best at what you do
so that nothing is a threat to you.
And we see this in the life of Esther
and Mordecai,
We see it in the life of Daniel.
We see it in the life of Paul.
And ultimately,
we see it in the life of Jesus.

James said,
God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.

When you have a solid foundation,
and you are confident in who you are
you can take the lowest seat at the table.
And folks will see the substance in you,
and call you up to the front.
When you choose to empty the waste baskets,
and volunteer for the less than grand jobs,
you have opportunities to see things very few people ever see.
You get to know things.
And the more you lay down,
the higher God can raise you up.
This is the secret.
You don't climb your way up in the Kingdom.
That's the world's thinking.
The Kingdom is built on the foundation of a Lamb
who was slain.
The law of the universe is the law of death and resurrection.
You choose to die to something,
and the greatest death is to your pride.
And when you choose this,
the resurrection life of Jesus
the power of the Holy Spirit,
cannot resist.
The Holy Spirit
loves the humble.
The Holy Spirit loves those who choose
to go low, and not advance themselves.
This is what listening to God 
and doing what God says is all about.
It is not my way, but yours Jesus.
It is not my way, but yours Jesus.
And that is perfect theology.

We are living in a time
when many people are living under the illusion
you can use marketing and the internet
to build a big ministry.
This pattern of guys who are getting caught 
taking advantage of women
is not about sex.
It’s about power.
Bill Hybels was power hungry.
Building big ministries is about power.
And you can make anybody feel like it is the Holy Spirit
if you make the music loud enough.
I used to joke that the ministry game 
was all smoke and mirrors.
Now it really is.

As you know,
God asked me to go low 18 years ago.
It was about the ministry system.
It has been a personal death by a thousand cuts.
And it has been about going low.
You have no idea what it is like,
when you are taught 
how to grow a church from twelve to a thousand in three years,
how hard it is to teach less than ten on Zoom.
Every Sunday is a real surrender.
It has transformed me.
God is calling us to make disciples.
Discipleship is about transformation.
I am slowly listening to God
about big changes to my ministry.
God is saying create an alternate media platform
for Christian artists,
untainted by the Gospel Coalition or Charismatic crazy,
and that I need to start making my ideas
open source.
In other words
God is saying start giving stuff away.
God is calling me to be the last of all 
in the Christian arts scene,
and the servant of all.
God is calling Belonging House to greatness.

This is a tough message.
Pride has to die.
People are replacing the Holy Spirit
with dopamine,
and the Lord is grieved.
We have to go low.
We have to empty ourselves,
and let the Lord lead us into a place
where we are the servants of all.

There are a lot of folks who have written books
about how Rome became Christian.
Protestants think that it was from the top down,
that Constantine created a syncretistic religion 
and forced it on people.
That's just ignorant.

The truth is a lot more interesting.
It comes down to three things:
thinking,
miracles, 
and servanthood.

The pagan philosophers and poets had run out of ideas,
and most of it was drenched in sex.  
The Christians were more articulate,
and had answers to deep questions and could express them well.

Pagan Rome had primitive medicine at best.
Healing and miracles were common place 
among the Christians.
Many, many people came to Christ simply because of the miracles.

Christianity gained it's first foothold,
among slaves and soldiers.  
It was the servant classes who carried the gospel
into the houses of leaders across the empire.
In fact,
many surmise that Constantine embraced Christianity
because his whole army was already Christian.
They would fight for a leader who shared their faith.
Rome became Christian
not from the top down,
but from the bottom up.

Jesus emptied himself
and became a servant,
and because he surrendered more than anyone else
in all creation,
He was raised above everything else.
This is why his name is above every other name.
This is why at the name of Jesus
every knee
and every tongue
will bend and confess.
This is heart of the kingdom.
And this is how you become great like God.