So, domain name ideas for be the gospel. These are open:

http://bethegospel.org/

http://beingthegospel.com/

http://beingthegospel.org/

Suggestions? Thoughts? I want to snag that domain just to have it.

Also, look for Being the Gospel Part 1 Installment B: Thoughts and considerations for the bride-devotee. I felt like I didn’t say all I wanted to in my last post. Also, I made myself out to be a proponent of limited atonement. More on that soon.

-Riley

I thought I’d start out in an area in which we young people could use a good dose of biblical truth in, especially at ages that have us hustling and bustling around.

The format for these will admittedly involve a good amount of ‘debunking’, but will not be statements that are only  made to simply debunk. Also, the words that will be read in these installments I do not claim as truth. Only the scripture used I claim as truth. I have no authority, especially not perfect biblical authority, and therefore my comments can not and will not by necessity be viewed as the ‘right way.’ I know that this is probably understood, but the last thing I want to do is sound like I’m getting up too high on my horse. If i begin to sound like that, somebody shoot me down to size.

So, it’s not only about you. Did you know that? Do I know that? And if we say we do, do we live it? Now, I’m not in this instance talking about thinking about the neighbor next door, or dropping a couple of coins in a collection can for the Salvation Army, or sending a postcard to an American soldier. Those have their place and importance, and we’ll get to those. I’m talking about a sold-out devotion to the bride of Christ. A love for her, and an understanding that Jesus came for the church — not for you.

Let’s enter into a little bit of serious Riley Sheehan debunking here. From my original ‘rant post,’ if you will, if I were to take that cross section I represented with bland religion, and take that cross section I represented with inconsiderate zeal, one thing a good amount of people from each would have in common is a misunderstanding of the Bride. And tragically too often a misunderstanding of the Bride comes from a misunderstanding of the gospel. The attitude is this: “Jesus came for me. Jesus died for me. Jesus saved me. Now Jesus and I are in an awesome relationship, he loves me and I love him, it’s just Jesus and me.”

As the rain falls from heaven I’m lost in your love
Your overwhelming Jesus
And were walking together holding hands
Oh it’s just you and me Jesus

Leeland – “The Door”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not throwing Leeland out the door here. He’s an awesome, Jesus-loving dude with some pretty crazy looks going on there. The guy has proved that he knows the gospel. And he has a burden for the world knowing the gospel. I have to admit, though, when I heard that lyric (which, coincidentally, kicks off a pretty stinking awesome track on their new record) I shifted in my seat a little bit.

Where does scripture say anything about Jesus and a person just hanging out by themselves? Scripture does say a lot about the church. Scripture does say a lot about the bride. But nowhere does scripture make it obvious that the relationship we have with Christ is exclusively ours. We use the saying “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” often. Yes, our relationship with Christ is personal. But it is personal because we each individually accept the message of Christ and each individually believe in Him.

Hate to say it, Leeland, but Derek Webb hits the nail more on the head here.

I haven’t come for only you
But for my people to pursue
You cannot care for me with no regard for her
If you love me you will love the Church

Derek Webb – “The Church”

That has to be one of the most beautiful and truthful whacks-in-the-head I have ever received about my care for the Bride. Jesus came for the bride. Not for you, not for me, but for the whole church collectively. It’s ridiculous to imagine Christ walking through a peaceful garden holding an ear, or an arm, or a big toe. When Christ comes together with the Church one day, he won’t come individually to you, or to me. He will come to his Bride. The whole body. If the gospel were only about us, I would be the bride. You would be the bride. Christ would be a polygamist. But instead scripture gives us the image of a Bride and a Bridegroom.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. ²⁸In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰because we are members of his body. ³¹“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³²This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ³³However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians 5:35-33 ESV

This analogy is infinitely profound. Christ came for the Bride. He loves the Bride. Any notions you or I have about an exclusive relationship with Christ, a “you-and-me-Jesus” mentality is easily swept aside by the notion that Christ didn’t come for only one. Also important to understand is the idea of the bride being sanctified. Your daily Christian walk and growth in faith is important, but Jesus looks at the body as a whole. He looks at the bride as his collectively dirty lover, one he will continue to clean. One he will continue to sanctify. Your daily Christian walk is only a piece of the sanctification of the whole Church.

So let’s get some practical points down.

1. Christ Didn’t Die Exclusively For You – your freedom is found in the fact that Jesus came to save and sanctify a Church, and you have been blessed because of his love and mercy to allow you to be a part of her. The first step in a love for the Church is an understanding of Christ’s love for the Church.
2. Christ Won’t Sanctify Exclusively You – all believers collectively as the Bride will one day be completed in sanctification and be presented to the great Husband. Make sure your daily Christian walk includes the lives of others. We weren’t meant for departmentalized and separated living. We were meant for collective sanctification. Pray, study, and love other people, and be just as concerned for their sanctification as you are for yours.
3. Christ Didn’t Die for an Organization – if church is just a check off the list, rethink your reasons for going. Are  you concerned with the people in the room with you, or do you keep to yourself and your own circle of friends? (that one cuts deep to me. ouch.) Do you want to grow and be held accountable by other members of the Bride, or do you casually skate in and out, unconcerned with the other faces? Do you hold  your devotion to a name or a building over your devotion to a people? If so, you might have a misunderstanding for what Christ came to die for. Christ didn’t die only for you, but he also didn’t die for Insert-Your-Church-Name-Here church. He died for the bride.

I fall so pathetically short in all of those areas. And I think we could all use a good bit of Bride Refresh. So when we’re heading off to college, or starting a family, or even getting up to go to church this coming Sunday, let’s strive to understand the totality of it all. The gospel is that Christ’s love for the Church was so great, so immeasurable, he endured death on a cross to sanctify her and to marry her. He loved her, a harlet, a Bride whose arm has no regard for the leg, whose ear has no regard for the eye. And collectively, a harlet whose body had no capacity for loving her Husband. Through Christ’s love for Her, those who by faith partake in being the Bride may be collectively sanctified and brought together for the great Wedding Day, when the Bridegroom will call upon his Bride to enjoy her forever, and the Bride will have the ability and privilege to enjoy her Husband forever.

Let’s be burdened for the Bride, and therefore be the gospel.

-Riley

I’m going to begin to search for what it actually means to put my blog post about my current generation to action. The posts will hopefully follow some sort of pattern.

Watch for more.

Also, anyone got a better name for the installments than “Living it Right?”

-Riley

“Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.’ ” (Luke 7:6-9 ESV)

Dude. Just the concept of Jesus saying that about someone gives me shivers.

So today I was in World Geography and I was bored out of my mind with about 30 freshmen sitting around me. So, I decided to write a rant about something that’s been on my mind. Here goes, straight off the college-ruled notebook paper.

My concern for the young people in the American church is great. Either we are marked by stale, tolerant indifference and a dispassionate, unconcerned, God-minimizing Christianity, or we are marked by a careless, heartless zeal that thrives on emotion and controversy and throws around harsh sermon quotes like catchphrases. The former glorifies morals and the latter glorifies self. We teeter and totter between worldly extremes, but hardly ever fall on a Christ-exalting ground. If only we would taste more of the true essence of the gospel! If only we would lay down our pride, our arrogance, our systems, ourselves and taste what is good! Instead we enslave ourselves to broken laws. Instead we enslave ourselves to the worship of quarrels. We seek tolerance over Truth. We seek our egos and alienate the lost. We push away wholesome bread and opt for sipping on bland religion and popping potent pills of emotion.

-Riley

Sometimes you just read something in scripture that makes your whole inner being want to scream out in triumph, confidence, fear, joy, trembling, etc.

As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am unworthy to tie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear the threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Luke 3:15-17 (ESV)

Wow. Can I get an amen, or something?

-Riley

“And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” And he said to them, ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.”

Luke 2:48-51 (ESV)

I remember so many times when people I’ve known have talked about the first part of that story in a kind of “Jesus really showed them!” sort of manner. Like Jesus would be saying it quite matter-of-factly, even condescendingly. That’s not the way I see this passage, especially in light of the true character of Christ and verse 51. I imagine Christ being disturbed that his parents were upset, and being quite concerned about it. I imagine his statement of “Did you not know?” to be out of love and concern rather than I-trump-you-ness. And when you talk about verse 51, it’s obvious Jesus recognized his earthly authorities (a curious subject. It seems a strange paradox that Christ would be the ruler of all things in heaven and on earth yet have earthly rulers he was submitted to i.e. parents, governing rulers). At the heart this display and others were out of respect and love, and for example.

-Riley

So, I was inspired to write a blues song about the latter part of Romans 7. Here she is. It’s called “My crooked soul”. Typical E7 A7 E7 B7 E7 progression.

My Crooked Soul
© 2009 Riley Sheehan

Well down below salvation’s glow
Therein my members lies a law
A law of sin and of injustice
That foils that which made me whole

My crooked soul, my crooked soul
Glory comes slow to my crooked soul
Good things I want I don’t extol
But rather heed my crooked soul

When law of sin and law of heaven
In my spirit often meet
There is a battle of my desires
Each seek the other to defeat

My flesh is evil in all its wantings
Although my soul has been renewed
So even though I hear the Spirit
I do what I don’t want to do

My crooked soul, my crooked soul
Glory comes slow to my crooked soul
Good things I want I don’t extol
But rather heed my crooked soul

Who will deliver this man so wretched
From these chains of dismal war
Thanks be to Jesus Christ our Savior
That I am slave to sin no more

When He shall come, this world I’m leavin’
To be in Glory with the Lord
This wretched man will be delivered
And he will serve two laws no more

My crooked soul, my crooked soul
Glory comes slow to my crooked soul
Good things I want I don’t extol
But rather heed my crooked soul

Good things I want I don’t extol
But rather heed my crooked soul

Admittedly, logic is simultaneously my biggest enemy as well as my biggest ally.

The fuel behind most of my discussion is, quite honestly, a desire to learn and a desire to grow. However, there’s often a separate notion that I struggle with that creeps up alongside that more genuine. I call it the spirit of “debunking” (to use a term used in jest by these great thinkers). I think a more common name for its instances in my life are pride.

D0n’t get me wrong, I’m not throwing in the towel on my spirit of debate and discussion that sadly, many loathe. I’m also not frowning on honest questioning of obvious sources of sour theology. I’m just admitting that often my desire to ‘debunk’ what I think is flimsy theology overshadows what should be the all-encompassing desire to learn more about God to the glory of Him and encourage others to do the same.

So, here’s to logic and all of her wonderful confusions and misunderstandings! And, here’s to hopefully a more dedicated pursuit of a gospel-centered growth in understanding of the LORD.

-Riley