What kind of Father is God?

Dear Crosswalkers,

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

- Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT)

In his book Invitation to a Journey, author M. Robert Mulholland Jr. tells the story of a woman he knew who was troubled by the fact that her birth was the result of an unwanted pregnancy.  She agonized over the identity of her father.  Who was he?  What was he like?  As a follower of Jesus, she had a hard time believing that God purposed her into being even before He made the world, as the verse above indicates.  He writes:

Her mother was a prostitute, and she was the accidental byproduct of her mother’s occupation. Although her life’s pilgrimage had brought her to faith in Christ, blessed her with a deeply Christian husband and beautiful children, and given her a life of love and stability, she was obsessed with the need to find out who her father was. This obsession was affecting her marriage, her family, and her life. She told how one day she was standing at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes, with tears of anguish and frustration running down her face into the dishwater. In her agony she cried out, “Oh, God, who is my father?” Then, she said, she heard a voice saying to her, “I am your father.” The voice was so real she turned to see who had come into the kitchen, but there was no one there. Again the voice came, “I am your father, and I have always been your father.” In that moment she knew the profound reality of which Paul [speaks in the verse above]. She came to know that deeper than the “accident” of her conception was the eternal purpose of a loving God, who had spoken her forth into being before the foundation of the world.

What a story!  God’s eternal Fatherhood lies behind the circumstances of your conception, birth, and life.  This Sunday we will close out our Mythbusters series by looking at “Myths about God the Father.” Father’s Day is always a big day at Crosswalk!  We will have a gift for all men in attendance, as well as a special gift for all Dads.  Please invite the men in your life to church this Sunday!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor John

The Light of the World Cup?

Dear Crosswalkers,

The World Cup of soccer (known to the rest of the world as football) begins on Friday, June 11, in South Africa.  This is the first time the World Cup will be played on African soil.  The venues are scattered over 10 stadiums in 9 cities.  The projection is there will be 2.74 million spectators with a TV audience of some 40 billion people watching the 200 hours of soccer. This is truly a world event, in spite of the fact that it receives relatively minor attention in the United States.

This Sunday we will be challenged by our Lord’s teaching that his followers are “the light of the world.”  For 2,000 years, followers of Jesus have tried to live up to this high calling to shine with the light of the Lord into the world’s darkness.

How are the believers in South Africa and the world of soccer shining with the light of Jesus?  Well, in South Africa and beyond, Christian groups and churches have mobilized to take advantage of the opportunity to shine with the Lord’s light during the World Cup. The local organizing task force is called, “The Ultimate Goal” (TUG).  I like that name!  The coordinator of TUG is Tim Tucker, who says,“This is our time and our moment. Never again in our lifetime will we have this unique opportunity. We need to seize the moment. We have the message and the vehicle to deliver that message. If we don’t rise to the challenge it will be gone tomorrow.”

Many churches have planned special services, festivals, and soccer tournaments.  All for the blessed purpose of sharing the good news.  140,000 packets of player profiles and testimonies, a full schedule of games and venues, and steps to faith in Christ have been prepared for distribution.  Athletes in Action have produced a special DVD called, “The Prize” which features high profile Christian players such as Kaka, Lucio, Marcus Senna, Nicola Legrotalle and Tim Howard.


Brazilian Star Ricardo Kaka
One example stands out.  Ricardo Kaka, known as Kaka, is a world class soccer player and plays for the Brazilian national team.  He has also been diligent about sharing his faith and shining with the light of Jesus.  He was reared in Brazil and had tremendous potential to be a world class soccer player.  But then tragedy struck.  At the age of 18, his future in soccer was brutally stopped by a career-threatening injury when he slipped at a swimming pool and fractured his back.  Doctors said he would not only never again play soccer, but feared his injury could lead to paralysis.  Fortunately for the footballer, Kaka miraculously recovered! Since then, out of a heart of gratitude to God, Kaka has been living for the Lord.  He was married in 2007, and he and his wife shared that they honored God by remaining virgins until their wedding night.  He is serious about his faith!  He donates one tenth of his yearly salary to his Brazilian Church. He shares his faith!  He is a sterling example of what Jesus meant when he looked at the his disciples and said “You are the light of the world.”

My hope is that God will energize us to take advantages of the many opportunities that come our way to do good in the name of Jesus and share with others the difference the Lord has made in our lives.  This Sunday we will celebrate the wonderful proclamation that the Lord Jesus still makes to his followers today:  “You are the light of the world!” In his name, I encourage us to shine!

See  you Sunday,

Pastor John

Salt of the Earth

Dear Friends,

In his book Led by the Carpenter, author James Kennedy writes this this scene:

A man walked into a little mom-and-pop grocery store and asked, “Do you sell salt?”

“Ha!” said Pop the proprietor. “Do we sell salt! Just look!” And Pop showed the customer one entire wall of shelves stocked with nothing but salt:  Morton salt, iodized salt, kosher salt, sea salt, rock salt, garlic salt, seasoning salt, Epsom salts, every kind of salt imaginable.

“Wow!” said the customer.

“You think that’s something?” said Pop with a wave of his hand. “That’s nothing! Come look.” And Pop led the customer to a back room filled with shelves and bins and cartons and barrels and boxes of salt. “Do we sell salt!” he said.

“Unbelievable!” said the customer.

“You think that’s something?” said Pop. “Come! I’ll show you salt!” And Pop led the customer down some steps into a huge basement, five times as large as the previous room, filled wall, floor, to ceiling, with every imaginable form and size and shape of salt, even huge ten-pound salt licks for the cow pasture.

“Incredible!” said the customer. “You really do sell salt!”

“No!” said Pop. “That’s just the problem! We never sell salt! But that salt salesman, Hoo-boy! Does he sell salt!”

The point is this:  Salt that stays on the shelf doesn’t do any good at all!  Jesus called his disciples “the salt of the earth.”  It’s an amazing statement.  He is speaking to a small handful of peasants!  He is saying, “You inconspicuous, insignificant people, you disciples of mine, you who will soon disown me one and all, you who will exhibit such little faith, you who will sleep when you should be watching and who will deny me when you should confess me, you who will falter in your walk with me…  You, and you alone are the salt of the earth and the light of the world!”

Martin Luther made an interesting observation about salt.  He said, in effect, the one thing you never do with salt is to salt salt!  In other words, you salt food, you never put salt on salt!  In the same way, he concluded, followers of Jesus are to be representing the Lord in their communities and in the world.  Salt on the shelf does no good at all!

This weekend, Crosswalk church will be involved in our community.  We will have a booth at Sunnyvale’s Art and Wine Festival, where we will bless children with balloons and face-painting, and share information regarding our church and school.  Others will serve food and feed the homeless at the Refuge in Sunnyvale.  The Journeymen from Crosswalk will lead worship, and our own Angel Hernandez will be sharing the good news. On top of those endeavors, we will honor God by worship this Sunday!  Please pray for all our efforts to be salt and light to our community!!

This Sunday we will continue our Mythbusters series, and we will look at the charge leveled in recent times by the new atheists that Christianity in particular and religion in general has been a curse on the world and has done more harm than good.  Friends, it is a myth!  Lord willing, we will bust it open by our Lord’s teaching about being salt and light!  I hope to see you at worship this Lord’s Day!!

Blessings,

Pastor John