Clint’s Blog

From A Burning Bush to a Burning House (Romans with J.D. Walt)

Prayer of Consecration
 

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.

Jesus, We belong to you.

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
 
Scripture

 

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Romans 1:18–23 (NIV)

 
 
Consider This
 

Chapter 1 of Romans takes us on quite a journey.

Yesterday we stood together in awe of the burning bush of the New Testament. Today and tomorrow we will stand in shock before a burning house.

The burning bush:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

The burning house:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

The real dilemma we must solve here at the outset—as it relates not only to the letter to the Romans but to our very hearts, homes, churches, and cities—is this one: Where will we focus? Will we focus on the burning bush or the burning house? Will we focus on the problem of sin or the power of the gospel? Will we focus on the crucified-risen Messiah or the chaotic mess in the world and our lives? Will we focus on the diabolical problem of sin and its myriad manifestations or the singular solution of salvation in Jesus Christ?

The seduction is to think you can choose both. To try and choose both is to choose neither. It is to wind up stuck in the eddies instead of the river (i.e., Romans 7 vs. Romans 8). We will not deny sin here. We must not. Sin is undeniably real. It is diabolical and devastating and yet it is a distraction. Sin’s most deceptive and successful strategy is to consume the conversation and crowd Jesus out. We cannot deny sin’s reality. But we must deny sin our focus. We must reserve our unfettered and undeniable focus for Jesus himself, only, ever, and always.

 
Prayer
 
Jesus, we belong to you. Yes, Jesus, I belong to you. As we enter into the abyss of sin, we want to fix our eyes on you. We are sinners, which is to say we are profoundly susceptible to distraction and deception. We want salvation, not just a little bit but comprehensively. We know this salvation will not come by focusing on sin and trying to defeat sin but by being fixed on Jesus who has defeated sin and on belonging to him—believing more, beholding deeper, and thereby becoming completely his. Come Holy Spirit and prepare the way for the Lord Jesus like never before. Praying in his name, amen.

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The Burning Bush of the New Testament (Romans with J.D. Walt)

Prayer of Consecration
 

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.

Jesus, We belong to you.

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
 
Scripture

 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Romans 1:16–17 (NIV)

 
Consider This
 

Today’s text is nothing short of a burning bush—on fire and consuming but not consumed. It has burned with brilliance from the day it was inspired by the Holy Spirit and written on parchment.

Billions have warmed to its fire and been found in its light. If Romans can be summarized (which it can’t) this is it.

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I am a poet. I just decided one day many years hence.1 I wrote the poem below back around Easter after meeting up with an old friend. While I know my verse will not do the text justice, I am certain my normal commentary is wholly inadequate. I call it . . .

The Hard and Beautiful Truth

“I don’t want you to think I’m not a good person.”
That’s what my old friend said to me
upon meeting again after decades apart
and a long confession of her broken story.

I assured her with The Hard and Beautiful Truth:

“You are not a good person.
I’m not either.
We are broken sinners.”

Something deep in me (and maybe you too)
wants to believe we are good (or worse that we are bad)—
that we just need to lose twenty pounds,
drop a few bad habits, and try harder to be better.

Then I assure myself with The Hard and Beautiful Truth:

Good people and bad people is a lie
from the pit of hell,
and the way from good to great (or bad to worse)
paves the way there.

Jesus only goes from
Death to Life
Lost to Found
Slave to Free
Broken to Beautiful

Then she asked me, “If you are not good, what are you?”

“LOVED,” I said.
“I am loved,
and you are too.”

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

 
Prayer
 
Jesus, we belong to you. Yes, Jesus, I belong to you. And you belong to me. I am so weary of trying to fake goodness and appear better than I am. Who am I fooling besides myself? Wake me up to the beautiful truth that nothing bad I have done renders me worthless and nothing good I have done renders me worthy. Jesus, while I was a sinner you died for me. You love me. I just want to keep saying it. You love me. You love me. You love me. Until the sad tears become happy tears and all is well with my soul. So I say I love you and I love you and I love you. Praying in your name, Jesus, amen.

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Give Me 100 (Romans with J.D. Walt)

Prayer of Consecration
 

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.

Jesus, We belong to you.

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
 
Scripture

 

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

Romans 1:8–15

 
 
Consider This
 

Can we get our bearings a bit on what is going on here?

Rome, in the first century, was the capital of the world. It was a city of around a million people. The early church in Rome, not to be confused with the modern day Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, was a series of house churches likely comprising a total of about one hundred people.

Get this fixed in your mind. We are in the most powerful city in the first century world ruled over by the most powerful (and cruel) man in the world, Lord Caesar (Nero). The threat is a hundred lower-class people scattered across the city (meeting in homes) who are ostensibly being led by a dead man who was reportedly resurrected from the grave and ascended to Heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, Lord Messiah (Jesus).

It gets better. We are reading a letter written by the apostle Paul around the year 50ish to a tiny church planted by the apostle Peter several years earlier and behold what is unfolding . . .

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.

The faith of a hundred people is being reported all over the world, and they didn’t even have the internet. By the power of the gospel of Jesus, through the obedience of their faith, one hundred people—bound by love and federated by freedom, would plant the flag of the kingdom of God in such a way that the Roman Empire would ultimately come undone at the seams.

Maybe that’s why John Wesley would write centuries later in the midst of the great British Awakening, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.”

This letter to the hundred Christians in the several little Roman house churches is easily the most important letter ever written in the history of the world—not because of what it says to us but what it said to them. For today, my friends, we are them. And Rome is now another name for home. Our ten-year-olds are killing themselves at epidemic rates. Our schools have become slaughter houses. The Democrats and the Republicans and the seductive, toxic politics of outrage will not save the day. Only Jesus can.

That is the message of the letter to the Romans and to us. The gospel of the kingdom of Jesus is the simple yet comprehensive solution for all that is broken in our lives and in the world.

In the first century in a city of a million the faith of a hundred was being reported all over the world. Two months ago, in this the twenty-first century, we witnessed the faith of nineteen college students light the first fires of great awakening in this century so far. And I do not exaggerate when I say their faith is being reported all over the world.

What could happen if we woke up and began to move in the obedience of faith in our time?

 
 
Prayer
 
Jesus, we belong to you. Yes, Jesus, I belong to you. I am in awe of you and what you can do through the simple obedience of faith. Would you awaken this in me. I confess I think I grasp what it means but I likely have no idea. I offer you my beginner’s mind. Teach me. Train me. Open the eyes of my heart. Enliven the hope of my spirit by your Spirit. We are in need of awakening. We are desperate for you. Praying in Jesus’s name, amen.
 
Questions
 
Tell me a story of the obedience of faith in your life, a time when you moved by faith in response to some way Jesus was leading you or your family or church. What happened? What is happening?

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What Is Your Calling? (Romans with J.D. Walt)

Prayer of Consecration
 

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you. 

Jesus, We belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
 
Scripture

 

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:1–7
 
Consider This
 

What is your calling? People expend so much energy, throughout their lives, trying to figure out what exactly is their calling in life. We tend to think it is a specific career or vocation or some particular job. Many spend much of their lives feeling as though they have missed their calling. You feel stuck in a job you can do but don’t love. More challenging, you spend a lot of time wondering if God wants you to be doing something other than what you are presently doing—like maybe you are supposed to go into “the ministry.” College students live in enormous anxiety about needing to figure out what they are going to do with their lives before they graduate. I tell my own collegiate children regularly to relax—Jesus didn’t even get started until he was thirty. 

I’ve got good news for all of you. You don’t need to figure out your calling. It’s already set in stone. Did you catch it in today’s text? It is right there in verse 6. 

. . . you . . . are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

This is your full time vocation. It is your 100 percent job 100 percent of the time. You are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Even better, this is your identity. You are called to belong to Jesus Christ. He tells us who we are and why we are here. Every possible question and quandary in life can be answered if approached from this singular starting place. It’s why we begin in this place of consecration every single day on the Wake-Up Call—Jesus, I belong to you. Promise me that you will never, ever, ever, skip that. Yesterday’s consecration is not sufficient for today’s calling. 

Our calling must include and inform our job or career but it is much larger and far more comprehensive than our work week. It’s why the whole concept of retirement is an absurdity in the kingdom of Jesus. Calling transcends retirement. Sure, you can quit your job, but you can’t retire from your calling. In fact, I call the years between the ages of sixty and eighty the “kingdom prime.” And over eighty is “kingdom super prime.”

I once heard a Mother Teresa story I will never forget. A young adult showed up at Mother Teresa’s convent to work with lepers. He was put in a back office processing documents and records. Very unhappy, the man somehow got to Mother with his grievance. He said to her, “Mother, I came here from across the world to work with lepers, and all I am doing here is paperwork. My calling is to serve lepers.” She lovingly yet sternly replied, “Son, your calling is not to serve lepers. Your calling is to belong to Jesus. Now get back to the paperwork.”
 
Prayer
 
Jesus, we belong to you. Yes, Jesus, I belong to you. From this place we can go many places but until we get to this place, though we may go everywhere we will have gone nowhere. Jesus, open up the message and the meaning of this ancient letter—perhaps the most significant letter ever written in the history of the world. Take us to Rome and then translate Rome to our home. And yes, Jesus, you are our home for that is what it means to belong to you. Praying in your name, amen. 
 
Questions
 
Jesus I belong to you (. ? !)  How do you punctuate that sentence in your life—with a period, a question mark, an exclamation mark, a comma? Say more. 

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Knowing Your Calling (Romans with J.D. Walt)

Prayer of Consecration
 

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.

Jesus, We belong to you.

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
 
Scripture

 

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:1–7

 
 
Consider This
 

What is your calling? People expend so much energy, throughout their lives, trying to figure out what exactly is their calling in life. We tend to think it is a specific career or vocation or some particular job. Many spend much of their lives feeling as though they have missed their calling. You feel stuck in a job you can do but don’t love. More challenging, you spend a lot of time wondering if God wants you to be doing something other than what you are presently doing—like maybe you are supposed to go into “the ministry.” College students live in enormous anxiety about needing to figure out what they are going to do with their lives before they graduate. I tell my own collegiate children regularly to relax—Jesus didn’t even get started until he was thirty.

I’ve got good news for all of you. You don’t need to figure out your calling. It’s already set in stone. Did you catch it in today’s text? It is right there in verse 6.

. . . you . . . are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

This is your full time vocation. It is your 100 percent job 100 percent of the time. You are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Even better, this is your identity. You are called to belong to Jesus Christ. He tells us who we are and why we are here. Every possible question and quandary in life can be answered if approached from this singular starting place. It’s why we begin in this place of consecration every single day on the Wake-Up Call—Jesus, I belong to you. Promise me that you will never, ever, ever, skip that. Yesterday’s consecration is not sufficient for today’s calling.

Our calling must include and inform our job or career but it is much larger and far more comprehensive than our work week. It’s why the whole concept of retirement is an absurdity in the kingdom of Jesus. Calling transcends retirement. Sure, you can quit your job, but you can’t retire from your calling. In fact, I call the years between the ages of sixty and eighty the “kingdom prime.” And over eighty is “kingdom super prime.”

I once heard a Mother Teresa story I will never forget. A young adult showed up at Mother Teresa’s convent to work with lepers. He was put in a back office processing documents and records. Very unhappy, the man somehow got to Mother with his grievance. He said to her, “Mother, I came here from across the world to work with lepers, and all I am doing here is paperwork. My calling is to serve lepers.” She lovingly yet sternly replied, “Son, your calling is not to serve lepers. Your calling is to belong to Jesus. Now get back to the paperwork.”

 
Prayer
 
Jesus, we belong to you. Yes, Jesus, I belong to you. From this place we can go many places but until we get to this place, though we may go everywhere we will have gone nowhere. Jesus, open up the message and the meaning of this ancient letter—perhaps the most significant letter ever written in the history of the world. Take us to Rome and then translate Rome to our home. And yes, Jesus, you are our home for that is what it means to belong to you. Praying in your name, amen.
 
 

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"Roots" by Dan Wilt

“Roots” – Our Series For Advent

"Roots" by Dan Wilt

Several years ago my father became interested in genealogy. He bought an account at ancestry.com and ended up tracing our family roots back to the 17th century in Scotland and England. He enjoyed sitting down with me at the computer and looking back at our ancestors and learning as much as we could about where they lived and how they ultimately settled in America. I was struck by how their stories were a part of my story, even though I had not been aware of them.

We all come from a family line of people who were shaped by where they lived and what they did. And we can learn more fully about the story of our lives by learning about the story of their lives.

The same is true of Jesus. Author Dan Wilt of Seedbed has written a daily Advent devotional that explores how we can more profoundly understand Jesus’ heart and mission by exploring the stories of people in Jesus’ family tree. Jesus is fully God, of course, yet he is also fully human, with ancestors and a family tree that is rooted in the land of Israel and the story of how God worked in and through them.

We’ll explore how Jesus, his mother Mary, and his adopted father Joseph all come from the family vine of the great King David, the son of Jesse. We’ll use as a map the idea known as a “Jesse Tree”, which is an an approach to the preparation season of Advent, leading us toward Christmas, that encourages us to revisit stories from the Old Testament to help us gain insights into the family line of Jesus and the spiritual mandate of the child born to save the world.

I look forward to exploring Jesus’ roots during this Advent season! If you would like to read along using Dan Wilt’s daily devotional, you can order the eBook from Amazon here, or directly from Seedbed here.

Grace and peace,

Clint


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A People of Grace and Truth

One of the most noteworthy things about Jesus’ life and ministry is to note that the people who were the least like Jesus were the same people who the most attracted to him. Jesus was the perfect image of a holy and righteous God, a man who went his whole life experiencing the same temptations that we all experience, and yet he resisted every one and never sinned. You might expect people who were great sinners to be uncomfortable around Jesus, and maybe even be repelled by him. But the opposite was the case. People who were under the power of shameful sin loved to spend time with Jesus. Why?

The answer certainly isn’t because Jesus downplayed or neglected talking about the moral commands of God. When Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), not only did he teach about God’s moral commands, Jesus intensified them. He would say things like, “In the Mosaic law, you are told not to murder. But I say that if you harbor resentment and anger toward another, you’ve already committed murder in your heart.” Yet, that high moral and spiritual calling that Jesus gave continually didn’t seem to prevent people from flocking to him.

The reason is because Jesus also reached out passionately to those who fell the most short of that high moral and spiritual calling. Jesus communicated over and over again that he loved and accepted the worst of sinners. And as those sinners followed Jesus and spent time with Jesus, they were transformed from sinners into saints.

What does this tell us as the church? It tells us that our calling is to follow the same pattern. On one hand, we proclaim the high call of holiness to our community and our world. And on the other hand, we offer never-ending grace and acceptance and welcome to each and every person we encounter. Doing both faithfully can often times be messy, but it is worth it, because that balance of grace and truth will transform the world.

In Christ,

Clint


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Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent. Lent is a season of renewal. It is a season that calls us to repentance and renewed faith in the good news of Jesus and his kingdom. I want to invite you to consider what you might give up or add or give out so that you may be able to journey with Jesus this Lent.
 
Our Ash Wednesday service is tonight at 6:30 PM. It will be a drive-in service, similar to our weekly prayer times. Drive to the front parking lot in front of the sanctuary, and tune your radio to 102.5 FM to listen. At the end of the service we will give the imposition of ashes starting at both ends of the lot. After you have received the ashes, you may leave the service. 
 
We also have daily devotions that many of our church members have written for the season. You can receive them via mail or email, and to sign up you can contact Kristina at the church office (334.283.2195). You can also read them on our website. I also read them every morning at 8 AM on the church’s Facebook Live page.
 
There is another opportunity to join with others in praying for renewal. Seedbed has started a Lenten prayer ministry, and if you’re interested in being a part of it you can read the ways to participate here.
 
I believe that nothing spurs on on to holiness like simply knowing and hearing the gospel anew, so here is the message I want to give you on this Ash Wednesday: The Lord who loves you reminds you through the scripture that God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Because God is rich in mercy and loves you deeply, God has lavished grace on you through Jesus, in whom you have redemption through his blood. You are God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ, for acts of good faith. Remember that you were created by God for glory, and nothing less than moral and spiritual grandeur is good enough for you.
 
Grace and peace,
 
Clint

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