Chuck Ryor

Rick Harrison of the History Channel Show “Pawn Stars”

It happened again today.  It does at least once a week.  Someone told me I look like the guy from Pawn Stars.  The jury is still out as to whether or not I think that is a compliment.  Or if it’s true.  Bald, white guys with goatees all look the same, and now share a common experience with every non-anglo group in America who often hear insult in that refrain.  I’m only insulted because it reminds me of how old and out of shape I am.

It brings up the question of who do you look like?  Various television talk shows have featured versions of “Which famous person do you look like?”  Back when I was in college, that game also happened to be one of my favorite entrees to talking to girls.  Apparently, I now look like a guy from the History Channel.  What about you?  Send me a photo and let me see the comparison.

Perhaps you’ve heard the phraseology that Christians are supposed to be “Christ-like.”  The essence of this Scriptural admonition comes from Philippians 2:1-7:

“If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,  taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

During Christmas season we hear a lot about the glory of God in the birth of Christ.  Less often we talk about the humility of Christ inherent in his incarnation.  Jesus was awfully comfy in the warm community of Father, Son & Holy Spirit.  Angels worshipped and served Him.  He was royalty from all eternity past.

He left those heights to come low and be with us (“Immanuel” = God with us) and embody perfection in our humanity. Jesus condescended to earth and was willing to be subjected to the judgement that only sinful humanity deserved.  He didn’t consider his status with God something he would hang on to or as Philippians 2 says, “to be grasped, but made himself nothing.”

Because His life is worth infinitely more than the sum of all of humanity, his blood would satisfy the justice of God and free us from God’s justifiable wrath.  The degree of a Christian’s security in the presence of God is proportional to the value of Jesus’ life.  We sign Christmas carols because of this thrilling reality!

O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Til He appeared and the soul felt it’s worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

How glorious Jesus is underscores how amazingly humble he was in leaving heaven to rescue broken humanity.  His humility amazes me.  If you really want to stand out amongst a culture where the masses (including ourselves naturally) are pursuing their own glory and honor at any cost, try imitating the humility of Jesus.

The greatest compliment anyone could ever give us is to say that we looked like Jesus.  Unfortunately, Christians haven’t very often fallen to the claim that they all look the same.  That’s a pity.  We all should be humble like the Savior.

“He must become greater; I must become less.” – John the Baptist in John 3:30

Just finished listening to a sermon by my friend, Rankin Wilbourne.   His subject of what to do with our ambition as followers of Christ is something I’ve contemplated for a while.  I’d encourage you to listen to the message yourself, it’s HERE!

As a church planter it is my ambition to see Prism Church be an effective ministry for Jesus Christ in LA’s San Gabriel Valley and the world.  That’s on my good days.  On my bad days, I want to see the church succeed so that I can feel good about myself and look good to my peers.   It is the “love of distinction” that is such a huge idol to all of us, including pastors.

For instance, there is a strain of thinking in ministry that says a healthy church is always growing numerically.  Presumably, people look at the church in the book of Acts and see phenomenal growth and assume that this is the way it always should be.  The result is a ministry philosophy that says if your church is small or shrinking or leveling off attendance-wise, you must be doing something wrong.

I’m not arguing for a church that shrinks or disagreeing that many times churches that are leveling off numerically are doing something counterproductive to their growth.  However, I am concerned that many churches and pastors suffer unnecessarily from the burden that they are not making a big enough splash for Jesus because they aren’t growing at a particular rate.

The call of the ambitious Christian is that which was John the Baptist’s call – to make Jesus famous.  To have him increase, even at the expense of our own need for affirmation or sense of accomplishment.

The Bible features multiple examples of men and women of God whose effectiveness trajectory peaks at some point and then declines…often sharply.  Take Moses, for example.  He leads the Israelites out of Egypt and delivers the 10 Commandments to the people in the desert.  And that’s about when things started going south.

First of all, how many new adult believers would Moses pick up in the desert?  No one but Jews were around once he and his flock entered the wilderness.  Wandering for decades in the desert would mean that his flock of believers grew by births only.  As well, along the way a significant chunk of his adult demographic died in the desert by virtue of judgments of God or by natural causes.  By the time Moses got to the Promised Land, he was so ticked off at the obstinate people that he struck the rock of God in anger and was prohibited from entering into Jericho with the other Israelites (see Numbers 20).  As the kids say, “Sucks to be him.”

My favorite example of what I’m talking about – or most frightening if I’m honest – is that of John the Baptist.  This brother had it going on as the forerunner of the Messiah (Mark 1:2-3).  Large crowds, bold preaching, “radical” and “crazy love” for God.  He was doing it all right, right?  At the apex of his ministry (in his young 30’s), John baptizes Jesus.

And just like that he was out of the limelight.  Some of his closest disciples were troubled by this and actually said, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.” (John 3:26).

John’s response, “He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:30)

You may think that John would have at that point retired in contentment to his Lake house in Galilee.  Not so much.  In fact, he continued proclaiming repentance and the arrival of the Messiah to smaller and smaller crowds.  At one point he began to doubt whether or not Jesus was really the Messiah (Luke 7:20).  In his last “outreach event,” John’s preaching so irritated Herod the tetrarch and his mistress, Herodias (his brother’s wife), that he was arrested and eventually beheaded.

What’s my point?  Rare are the occasions where Christian ministers get to preach their last sermon from a deathbed to their ever-increasing throng of followers.  It looks as if Billy Graham will get such a privilege.  However, most of the rest of us will see a success trajectory like Moses and John the Baptist.  In order to be comfortable with this reality, we will have to find our greatest joy in simply being the children of God – regardless of our circumstances or the results of our labors.

It only makes good sense to have as our greatest ambition to be the glory and honor of Jesus, because even in the case of great loss or our death, Christ’s fame can still be advanced.  And that’s a good thing, because physical death is where all of us are ultimately headed.

To kick off the Advent Season on November 27, I had the privilege of speaking at two wonderful churches in Tallahassee, Florida: Four Oaks Community Church (pastored by my good friends Erik Braun & Paul Gilbert…and other great guys) and CenterPoint Church (a congregation of my friends with whom I started that community in 2003).

Through this season, I believe that it is critical for us to remember it is about knowing Jesus and enjoying Him.  I hope that if you’ve not heard this message from Acts 8, you’d listen and enjoy!

“The Real Miracle in the Desert.”

I had the chance to share the gospel with a couple of friends today.  These are relationships I’ve been building for sometime and I was pretty excited to tell them of God’s love for us in Christ.  The experience has taught me again that great joy resides in getting to tell others of the love God.

Psalm 98:1-3 - “Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.  The LORD has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations. He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

Jesus declared in Matthew 28 that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him subsequent to his victory over sin and death on the cross, and his resurrection from the grave.  According to the Nicene Creed of legitimate Christian churches, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

Psalm 98:9 - “Let them sing before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.”

The beauty of the gospel is not that God unjustly ignores our sin or unthinkably redefines our sin as unoffensive, but that He exacts His justice and demonstrates His mercy simultaneously in Christ.  We justly deserve to be punished, but Jesus is mercifully substituted for us.  Our sin is absorbed by Him (even thought He is holy) and His holiness is absorbed by believers (even though we are sinful).

This is how the gospel can make us simultaneously “ok” with God and yet broken, sinful people at present.  Martin Luther used the Latin phrase, “Simul justus et peccator” (simultaneously just and sinful).  It is in response to the undeserved salvation given to believers that we “burst into jubilant song.”  (Psalm 98:4)

We are not celebrating because we are naturally righteous and God is coming to reward our faithfulness.  We sing before the Lord because he judges the people “with equity.”  In the case of the believer who is relying on Christ to have taken their just punishment, justice will be delivering to the “justified sinner” a reward that only a holy person would deserve.  It’s a gift from Jesus.

That’s God’s grace.  That’s the Gospel.  That’s what amazed me again this morning and I pray would amaze my two friends.