I was finally baptized on Sunday, November 8, 2009 at Frontline Silver Spring at the age of 33. Though baptized as a baby, I figured it was about time I was baptized as an adult & professing follower of Jesus Christ.
…That was basically the theme of a sermon I heard this morning. The speaker defined righteousness as “good people doing good work.” And here I thought “none is righteous, no, not one” and that any righteousness Christians have is solely due to the imputed righteousness of Christ. The only reason we can be considered righteous is because God gave us this righteousness, and it’s not of ourselves. There’s nothing we can do to gain righteousness. Compared to God’s law, our “righteousness” is like filthy rags.
The speaker insinuated that we could attain righteousness through our own efforts. That through training and discipline, we could become righteous and live lives full of joy and peace.
Whatever this ideal life is, it’s certainly clear that people like the Apostle Paul never attained it. Paul clearly wrestled with his fallen nature and never suggested anyone could live a righteous life through their own power.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
- Romans 7:18-20
Today’s speaker didn’t mention anything about the limitations of our fallen natures and our total reliance on Christ to sanctify and redeem our lives to prepare us for good works. Want to be righteous? There are no tips and tricks. Ask God to make you righteous. All of your unrighteous living is due to an unrighteous heart and your fallen nature. There’s nothing you can do to change those. You need God to do it for you.
So, instead of telling people that they can affect their righteousness through behavior-modification, you should be driving people to their knees, asking God to make them more Christ-like by changing their hearts, and thus enabling them to do good works and live “righteous” lives. Instead of depending on ourselves, we should be depending on God.
And you shouldn’t set the expectation that people can attain totally righteous lives in a fallen body and a fallen world. That’s not possible. We won’t be capable of that until Christ returns and we have new, righteous bodies.
Like Paul, we should expect to fight a constant battle between our desires to serve God and the desires of our flesh. We will never overcome this until Heaven.
Thank God our righteousness is not based on our own behavior, but is solely based on Christ’s behavior. His perfect righteousness is ours by faith alone. When you find yourself sinning and in the midst of guilt, just have faith in Christ’s righteousness and be grateful that you will always be considered righteous in God’s eyes, because of what Christ did for you.
I’ve had a lot of exposure to a singles group lately, which I don’t attend, but have friends who do. I won’t mention the name of this group, but if you’re close to the situation, you can probably figure it out. I actually attended this group for a brief stint several years ago, but never connected with anyone there. I never thought the environment was truly very friendly.
The problem with singles groups is that whatever the group hopes to accomplish, the ultimate reason most people are there is to meet someone to date/marry. Whatever spiritual, outward-focused goals the group may have, the members have an overriding selfish goal for being there.
If the attendees were truly there for worship, then they would go to the normal church service. But they’re there to meet potential mates.
I noticed that the dynamics are different for the men and women who attend. The women, while still inwardly competing with one another, find strength in numbers. They huddle and form strong friendships with the other single women. This makes them a large pack and actually less approachable — which is ironic, because I assume they want to be approached.
The men, on the other hand, view all the other men as competition and want nothing to do with building close friendships with any of them. Depending on how desperate they are, they may give a token pleasantry to the other guys if cornered into a conversation, but some will be downright rude to you, if they see you as worthy competition.
Social times at these meetings closely resemble a situation in wildlife, where the lions (men) cirlce a pack of gazelles (women), in search of their prey. Since the women have formed these tight packs, it’s harder for the men to find a target. But when a gazelle breaks away from the pack, then several lions immediately descend on her.
I met several guys this weekend, who attend this group, and with one notable exception (a very friendly guy named Leo), most of the men seemed very reluctant to make my acquaintance. Instead of being greeted with a warm handshake, I was metaphorically peed upon by the “dominant” males.
Now I’m the last person to compete over a woman, and when I find myself in those situations, I’m totally content to walk away and wait to cross paths with another person not wrapped up in such dynamics. But I’m still fascinated to see such primitive behavior on display within modern day interactions.
I’ve concluded this weekend that it’s good that I’m not involved in this group and will stop going to their social functions.
It’s not that I’m not looking to meet my own potential mate. I would just like to do so while serving God in ministry. I don’t want to go to a meeting/event solely designed for the purpose of meeting someone. I want to meet someone through service — someone who shares my calling for evangelism and communication through new media. The only way I’m going to meet someone like that is by doing those things and seeing who I meet in the process.
Last Saturday, I had the good pleasure of meeting my friend Megan in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland on a beautiful summer day for lunch at Red Rock Canyon Grill. After a very long conversation about life, family, and God, we hit the streets of downtown Silver Spring, handing out a large stack of fliers promoting The After Party.
I don’t know if it was the weather, the time of day, or the Silver Spring location, but everyone we came across was very friendly and receptive of the fliers we were handing out. …Well, very receptive of the fliers Megan was handing out. I was having about the same amount of success as my two previous attempts. Where I stumbled on my words, Megan seemed to flourish in her fearlessness at approaching every person she came across. After a while, I simply relied on her to do the approaching, while I assisted her with following up with further questions.
We eventually got into a rhythm… She would approach, hand them the flier with vague description. Then I would follow up with specifics, like how the event was at the Round House Theater just around the corner next to the AFI Silver Theater. We used this system over and over and over again, until it became second nature.
Next to Megan, I became less confident in my ability to approach the strangers that we passed. Whereas, Megan’s confidence issue involved answering the questions these strangers had about The After Party. When people had questions, Megan looked to me to answer them. I was very confident in that role, so we ended up making the perfect team — each with a part to play.
We had a few notable encounters…
Megan was so bold in her approaches, that she often went up to cars stopped at stop lights to hand out fliers. She often went to typical “cool” guys in their “cool” cars, who would feel proud of the fact that an attractive girl took interest in them. When these guys reciprocated interest and looked to extend the encounter or invite Megan to stay with them, I would always step in and give them a wave and a smile and make it clear that the two of us were together.
That was also the case when she approached groups of guys on the street. One group wanted her to join them for lunch, so I had to turn around and make my presence known.
As we cruised up and down the streets of downtown Silver Spring, we also ran into a Christian woman, who was looking for a local church. We told her about the Frontline campus in Silver Spring, and she said she looked forward to checking it out.
One of the worst/best interactions came near one of the parking garages. We handed a flier to an older guy (in his 40s), who asked us if he should bring his wife. We said yes, slightly puzzled why he would think otherwise. He then inquired more, finally admitting he thought this was some sort of “swingers” event. I don’t think Megan understood what he meant, until we talked about it much later.
Finally, my favorite moment of the day came when Megan approached an older woman (seriously, Megan was approaching people way outside the typical Frontline audience). The older woman asked us specifically what the event was about. We told her it was a church event, discussing what happens after you die. She pressed us further, asking us what we thought happened when we die. Megan looked to me to give an answer, so I went straight into the 1-minute gospel message. This wasn’t hard, because I had just produced a video, which explained the Gospel in a nutshell.
I told the woman that I believe there is a God and a place called Heaven. But this Heaven requires absolute perfection to enter. Since we — the three of us — aren’t perfect, there’s no way we could get into Heaven, unless something outside of us interceded. Thankfully, God loved us so much that He sent his Son, Jesus, to come to Earth, live a perfect life, then die on a cross to pay for all of our mistakes (since the penalty for sin/mistakes is death). Once Jesus did that — died, paid for our sins, then rose again — anyone who has faith in that sacrifice for salvation will be seen as perfect in the eyes of God. And thus, will be admitted into Heaven.
I didn’t say all of that, but rather boiled it down to… I believe there’s a Heaven, but you have to be perfect to get in. Since none of us are perfect, we wouldn’t be able to get in. But thankfully, God sent his son Jesus to die and pay for our sins, so that we can get into Heaven. (You see, the woman never stopped walking, so I had to tell her this in the span of one block.)
When I was through summarizing the Gospel, the woman stopped, turned to us, and said, “That is the best summary of the Gospel I’ve ever heard. Short and to the point.” I thanked her, and she was on her way.
Megan thought that it was a wonderful compliment, and I was certainly glad to have received it.
After handing out fliers for about 3 hours, we finally gave out the very last flier in my stack. It was 6:30 PM, and we were beat. We sat on a sidewalk bench for a while, reflecting on the successes of the day. We then talked about other ways we could work together on other ministry projects. I was very happy to have finally found someone who I could partner with in ministry.
On Friday, I spent the late afternoon (from 5-7 PM) handing out fliers to The After Party all around the Ballston area in Arlington, Virginia. When I arrived at the Ballston metro stop, I quickly found three other Frontliners with stacks of cards to hand out. After some swift instructions from the location leader and a quick prayer, we all split up and handed out the cards however we saw fit.
A fourth guy showed up, so I gave him half of my card stack. I didn’t really see any of the guys after that. Since they seemed to be staying close to the Metro, I decided to hit the streets.
I found that walking down the streets and handing cards to the individuals I passed had a better reception rate than handing cards out to the clusters gathered at the Metro. I believe this is because when people think you’re genuinely interested in them as individuals, they are much more likely to be open with you. (This actually helps prove a hypothesis I have about the drawbacks of “mass” communication, but I’ll save that for another blog post.)
I wasn’t familiar with walking the Ballston streets, but I just kept going — and when I felt lost, I just asked people how to get to the Metro.
Because I had plenty of time between “sets,” I was able to completely reset after each attempted interaction. I had time to analyze the successful attempts and overcome the unsuccessful ones.
Other than people taking the cards and thanking me, I had several notable interactions. I talked with one girl, who inquired about the organization behind The After Party. I used my typical opener, “I’d like to invite you to an event my church is having this weekend.” Her response was, “That depends on what kind of church it is.” I told her it was a nondenominational Protestant church in McLean. She was unfamiliar with McLean Bible Church, but did say she was skeptical of nondenominational churches in general. “Some of them can be pretty crazy,” she said, then admitted that she had recently moved to the area and was looking for a Baptist church in Arlington. I assured her MBC taught sound doctrine and invited her to check out Frontline Arlington. In retrospect, I probably should have suggested she check out Cherrydale Baptist as well.
I found one young Asian man sitting on a bench under a tree and handed him a card. He took it, even though he said he already received one at the West Falls Church metro (yep, we had a team over there, too).
Another Asian student I came across was very friendly and receptive of the card. Not to be stereotypical, but I don’t recall any Asians refusing the card.
After a while, I started focusing on people who looked unfriendly. I never approached anyone who was talking on their phone or had earphones in. But there were some very serious-looking, no-nonsense people who I made an effort to approach. Unfortunately, true to their appearance, they almost always refused the card.
Eventually, I only approached young women — using some of the old pickup skills within my social arsenal.
One particular situation involved me standing back, waiting at an intersection. I waited for an attractive girl to pass by and make solid eye contact. When one finally did, I gave her a smile. She smiled shyly, dropped eye contact, then reestablished eye contact before passing by completely. I waited. After about a minute, I hurried to catch up with her. She was two blocks down the street before I finally caught up with her. I ran the last few steps toward her — to feign being out of breath. I called to her, then said I really wanted to invite her to this event my church was having. She was visibly pleased that I had stopped her, but then quite confused that all I wanted was to hand her a flier. I back-stepped away with a smile, said I hoped to see her there, and left her with an experience to ponder for the rest of the day.
That was probably my favorite experience of the day. In a past life, I probably would have asked the girl out right then and there. But these days, I’m more interested in introducing women to Christ. I guess you could say I’m Jesus’ wingman.
