The Story of Us

 “Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. ‘Till death do us part’ or ‘As long as we both shall live’ is a sacred covenant promise – the same kind Jesus made with His bride when He died for her.”  John Piper 

I never imagined on a hot summer day on July 2, 1983, that Jane and I would someday be married for forty years. Please understand. We meant our vows, “till death do us part,” yet when you’re in your twenties, imagining what life and marriage will be like in your sixties is a bit like dreaming about space travel.
  We don’t have a perfect marriage and have had our share of marital storms. We know full well that we’re both sinners and desperately in need of God’s grace and will be to our last breath. There are some things though that we’ve learned in four decades together. Maybe they will help you in your own marital journey.
  A healthy marriage has two hosts. Jane and I dated once in college and then found each other again after she had graduated and was teaching in the Chicago suburbs. I’d left college and was saving money to return and finish by doing commercial roofing…in Chicago. We reconnected and like most couples, we bent over backwards for each other. We were perfect hosts, working to continually please the other because that’s what a host does.
  But when you’re a guest at a hotel, you don’t make the bed or hang up wet towels. Marriages deteriorate when spouses become guests, not hosts. They expect to be served rather than to serve. Hosts even talk differently to guests than guests do to hosts. Don’t hate me…but I don’t like cats yet I wouldn’t talk to a stray cat the way that some spouses speak to each other.
  Opposites attract and that’s a blessing. Jane is from Michigan, I’m from Atlanta. She grew up in the country and had a mile-long driveway. I grew up in the city. Jane is an extrovert and loves meeting new people. I’m an introvert and can feel drained by being with people. Jane loves a very planned life and schedule. I’m spontaneous and am more of a “go with the flow” type. Jane is time oriented and rarely late. I’m event-oriented, which simply means that I don’t move on to the next thing until the present one is done. I think that the last time that I was early was for our wedding. Yet, rather than these becoming sources of irritation, they’ve become what Scripture calls “iron sharpening iron,” helping us both grow.
  What originally attracted you is still there. If most couples would take a step back, they’d find that what irritates them about their spouse is about five or ten percent of the marriage. 90% though is fantastic! But what do they focus on – that small percentage. And frequently what drives them crazy are the very things that originally attracted them. For example, one of the things that attracted me to Jane is that she is so kind. I’m embarrassed to admit that when I was in business, I was nicknamed “the butt kicker.” Yet I’m not sure I’ve seen Jane angry more than five times in forty years and none of them (amazingly so) were at me. Jane was originally attracted to my assertiveness but there were times that my assertiveness embarrassed her. Thankfully we’ve both grown in grace, yet those same traits are still there. Instead of being annoyances, they’ve become traits of gratitude.
  If you fight, keep it clean. Periodically, a couple will tell you that they never fight. Mark it down – they’re either lying, very boring, or highly medicated. Disagreements and fights help us grow. But in forty years the word “divorce” has never been used by either of us, even as a joke. My mentor, Dad Cummins, taught us that. Dad married us and did our pre-marital counseling. Most of us fight like our parents did instead of biblically. They were our greatest teachers of what marriage was like for the first years of life. My Dad was a rageaholic, interestingly, so was his Dad. Jane and I have learned to keep it toned down. It’s hard to get very angry when you talk softly. You must also avoid becoming “historical.” In the midst of the conflict, it’s tempting to bring up past grievances that have nothing to do with the present issue for extra ammo. Then, keeping it private is vital. Other than our children, very few know that we’ve had any disagreements. But some couples take pleasure in airing their dirty laundry, looking for allies. They do pay back when they have an audience to shame their mate. God’s Word commands us to not “let the sun go down on our anger” (Ephesians 4:26). A healthy marriage keeps it cleaned up. That means it’s wrong to hold grudges or pull off some ongoing silent treatment.
  Have a united front. Too often when a couple is having issues, they think that the solution is to have a baby. It’s not. Children are the great dividers. Because we tend to believe the way that we were raised is the best one, children learn early to play Mom and Dad against each other. Parents will disagree on parenting styles, just do it privately, not in front of your children. The same is true with marital disagreements, like in-laws or holidays. Stay united and keep disagreements private.  
  When you draw closer to the God of love, you’ll draw closer to each other. Do you know what the percentage of divorce is for a couple who prays together? Less than 10%. That’s one reason the Bible teaches that Christians must marry Christians. You can’t pray together if you don’t have the same Heavenly Father. A personal devotional life is essential to a healthy marriage. As we individually spend time in God’s Word and in prayer, we love God more. In love, He corrects us, which is often in how we’ve wronged someone, frequently our spouse. Think of it as a triangle with God at the peak and you and your spouse at the far angles. As you move closer to God, you’re moving closer to each other.
  There’s a lot more. The bottom line is that both Jane and I believe that based on Scripture believers should have the happiest and most fulfilled marriages. That’s because we have resources lost folk don’t have – the Holy Spirit indwelling us, God’s Word guiding us and a local church family encouraging us! Forty years ago we said, “till death do us part.” We meant it and we’d do it all over again, yet it’s all by God’s grace!!

Can we help you spiritually? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Antifa Lives Matter

“Racism isn’t a bad habit; it’s not a mistake; it’s a sin.

The answer is not sociology; it’s theology.”  Tony Evans

I grew up in a racist culture. Looking back I’m ashamed to admit this but I was a racist and I didn’t have a clue that I was. Racism was the norm, even though I was in a “Christian” culture and part of an evangelical church. It was a sin and the result of both spiritual blindness and hardheartedness.

  It’s been so long ago that I can’t remember when God changed my heart. I do vividly remember many years ago listening to John Piper preach during Moody Founders’ Week and share his own journey out of racism. Like me, Piper was born and raised in the south. I sat there and wept quietly as I listened as he shared his own path to spiritual freedom from the sin of bigotry. His journey was very similar to my own.

  Please understand, I don’t struggle with “white guilt.” It’s worse. I struggle with “white church guilt.” As a child, the church I grew up in was very missions-minded. In the 1960’s they were giving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to missions, but somehow in their understanding of the Great Commission and reaching the ends of the earth, they missed that it included “Samaria” – the world right next door.

  It was heartbreaking for me later to learn that an African-American pastor that I greatly admire, Dr. Tony Evans had sought to be a member of my church and was declined simply because of the color of his skin. At the time he was attending Carver Bible College, a Christian Bible college for African-Americans in Atlanta that my church, that same church, financially supported, as long as “those people” kept in their proper place. 
  Racism is evil! Yet, a lost world will not be able to solve it. New laws and new systems will at best bring about external conformity. Only Jesus Christ can change hearts and bring about transformation from the inside out.

  Please understand. We do need laws and programs to protect and help minorities and the disenfranchised. Racism though is first a heart problem, not a skin color issue.  

  When communities and neighborhoods changed and minorities moved in, it was a time of “white flight.” Churches often followed their members to the suburbs and I understand that. What was wrong and where I believe that the Church failed terribly, is that we didn’t leave anything behind. Because though the ethnic make-up of the people in those neighborhoods that were left had changed, there were still people who needed Jesus in those neighborhoods. It may not have been “safe,” but Christianity has never been about being “safe.”

  Study the book of Acts and you’ll discover a pattern of missions that lines up with Jesus’ command to begin with Jerusalem – cities were a priority. Yet, perhaps because of our obsession with quick growth and “bodies, bucks and buildings,” the American Church has focused on the suburbs.

  History shows that wherever the gospel has gone, poverty and crime have decreased and education, health and social harmony have increased. Instead of wringing our hands and shaking our heads at the dire straits of our urban areas, we need to repent of our lack of compassion and mission. God loves the city and His people are to love it, too!

  Our enemy, Satan, loves division among God’s people. The Church that is to be a united army for the Lord reaching the lost is dividing over the non-essential, yet missing the non-negotiable. It’s dividing over black lives matter, blue lives matter, all lives matter. The Bible is clear – God loves everyone and Jesus died for everyone. That means that Antifa lives, looters lives, even white supremacist lives matter. And while we’re bickering in the back seat, our cities are dying without Christ. Jesus died on the cross for the whole world – for Antifa and cops…and everything in between. The gospel doesn’t allow us to discriminate on who matters, who we’re to love, and who we’re to seek to reach with the gospel.

  Many believers need to read a short book in the New Testament, Philemon and see how God reached into a Roman prison cell to rescue a prisoner named Onesimus and revolutionize his life with the gospel. Our gracious God is still reaching what we too often file in the “unreachable” category.  

  What can we do? In Matthew 9:37-38, Jesus told us, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

  We need to pray and pray earnestly. This is a God-sized problem. Too often we come with a new program or funding or look for governmental intervention. Because racism is first a heart problem, the gospel is the only cure. It’s our problem because we’re commanded to be gospel-people and gospel-driven. We’re to bring Jesus’ light to the darkest places. It’s time to light a candle and stop cursing the darkness.  

  We need to volunteer. Jesus said there are already laborers, but they’re not out in the field. I’m so thankful for those who are, like our missionary, Tom Kubiak, who is planting his 2^nd Chicago church, this one on the south side. Dr. Tim Keller’s call for church planters to come to the cities is finding open hearts. Many are returning to our cities to make a difference.

  We need to financially support church planters. God is raising up a generation who are willing to go and plant churches in our cities. Let’s pray that the Lord will touch some in our own church who will go to one of our cities and invest their lives, making a difference in eternity. The fields of the world are crying for laborers and so are the fields of our inner cities.

  We must love the neighbor who is near. It’s easier to care for those you never interact with and make a stand for them. We’re commanded to love our neighbor – period. We are self-deceived when we say that we love our black “neighbors” that we don’t know, yet hate those near us. You can’t love someone unless you first know their name. Jesus doesn’t qualify that love with their ethnicity, political party, or behavioral choices. We’re commanded to love the ones for whom Jesus died – that’s everyone.

  In 1955 Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian – five missionaries willingly gave their lives and were martyred by the spears of the Auca Indians. Their sacrifice became the catalyst of a new missionary movement. American Christians left the safety of home to go to the fields of the world. Please pray that as we have seen the tragic deaths and fires in our cities, that this will ignite a Holy Spirit fire in us, in our churches to reach our cities with the gospel. That’s how we will have true and lasting change. It’s time for the Church to be the Church! It’s time for us to take the Great Commission seriously!

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Guilt Free!

God has dealt with our guilt. It is the best news in all the world. It is the only strategy that owns up to the truth of God's righteousness and the depth of our debt before Him…Jesus removes our guilt.”  John Piper

  William Shakespeare might have made a great psychotherapist. He accurately described guilt in Macbeth as “life’s fitful fever.” Anyone whose suffered pangs of guilt knows that the Bard nailed the essence of this spiritual malignancy. It contaminates our life and even invades our dreams. An obsessed Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, incessantly washing her hands, screaming, “Out damned spot. Out, I command you! … Why should we be scared, when no one can lay the guilt upon us?” All the soap and water in the universe couldn’t wash away the dirty guilt in her own heart.

  What is guilt? It’s that awful feeling which hits us in the pit of the stomach when we know we’ve done wrong. We’ll do almost anything to get rid of it. It’s the dread of the past; a pain that wells up because we committed an offense or failed to do something right. It’s a phantom pain, a bit like amputees experience after a limb has been removed. Some experience this same kind of dread obsessed by the memory of some wrong committed years, even decades ago. It never quite leaves, crippling the enjoyment of life and relationships with others. They live in fear that someone may discover their past failure.

  Guilt is the bane of human existence. It’s one of the most crippling maladies of the soul. Psychiatrists and doctors say that unresolved guilt is the number one cause of mental illness and suicide. Psychologist Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University studied guilt, discovering that the average person spends approximately 2 hours a day feeling guilty.

  Yet, guilt is God ordained and for the most part, guilt is constructive. It’s like an electric fence that gives us a jolt when we stray beyond our boundaries. Like pain, guilt tells us when something is wrong. When you feel it, you don't just sit there, you do something about it. It’s guilt that ultimately drives us to God, to the Cross and to Jesus Christ as our Savior.

  Guilt cannot be ignored. We were not designed to handle guilt. Either it’s forgiven and we’re free from it, or we must attempt to escape it…but it can’t be escaped. Guilt is the “hound of heaven.” Yet many still try…

  Some seek to blame game away guilt. Adam and Eve established a pattern continuing to this day – the Blame Game. They rationalized their choices, blaming others…even blaming God. We foolishly think that if we can blame someone or something, we’ll feel less guilty. It doesn’t work.

  It’s why many are incessantly angry or critical. Those can be coping mechanisms for a guilty conscience. If you can aim anger toward parents, spouse, circumstances, job, ad nauseam, it’s a distraction from peering into the darkness of your own heart at your failures and personal responsibility.  

  Some attempt to relabel guilt as a disease. It’s common to relabel moral failure as a disease or some addiction, but calling sinful behavior a disease isn’t really helpful. If guilty behavior is a “disease,” isn’t it unjust to incarcerate someone for actions they did as a result of their addiction? We don’t lock up cancer victims. I can’t help it if I get sick, but I volitionally choose to have another drink or engage in some wrong behavior. 

  Some attempt to excuse guilt with a victim mentality. It’s the rational of “I’m poor. It’s why I steal.” Yet, what about individuals who are poor, yet never steal and even choose to work to change their economic situation? Being poor is not morally wrong; stealing is. It’s as silly as if I were to suggest that because I’m bad at math, I don’t have to pay taxes. Children are victims; adults are volunteers. 

  Some attempt to anesthetize guilt. Countless individuals seek to self-medicate, numbing the pain of guilt with substances or behaviors. The cure is frequently worse than the disease. Think about the myriad of “aholic” terms commonly used; workaholic, shopaholic, rageaholic, even chocoaholic. Some take medications to hopefully silence symptoms of guilt like paranoia, anger, stress or depression. (Please understand, not all mental health issues are guilt related). It’s why there may be seemingly no end to the treatment because the root problem is never addressed – guilt.  

  God gave us a conscience to make us aware of sin. There’s never been a civilization that didn't have laws…rules about right and wrong. The moral codes of every civilization prove there’s an objective authority who has set a standard. The human conscience is evidence of God's existence and His standards for behavior. As we violate His standards, we feel guilty.

  Is there a cure for guilt? Yes! It’s the Easter story. Ultimately, God is the One we offend when we sin. That means only He can provide the remedy for guilt. It’s why Jesus came to earth to die. He’s our Substitute in that Jesus took the punishment for our sin so we could be forgiven and right with God. God wants us to be free from guilt. Through Christ, He’s wiped our record clean and wants us to live in freedom. “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:14). 

  Jesus’ death on the Cross and His resurrection is God’s cure. When we trust Him, He forgives our sin, cleansing our conscience of guilt. When we trust Christ as Lord and Savior, sin and guilt are gone. In God’s courtroom, they’re eradicated, as if they’d never even happened. It’s why we begin a new life in Christ with a clean slate. As a new creation, God gives us His Spirit, empowering us so that we’re free from sin’s penalty, power, and ultimately in heaven, it’s very presence. Christ’s Cross is our emancipation proclamation from guilt!   

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.

Some times I just don't say thanks enough....

“The things we take for granted are dreams to many people.”

  Forgive me. I’m having a full blown senior moment…I truly hope that I’ve said this before. If I haven’t though, I apologize. Sadly, I know though I haven’t shared this in a long time. So please do not take that as ingratitude. It’s not. I am very, very thankful! In fact, Jane and I both are.

  Every year since I became your Pastor, our church has willingly underwritten the costs for me to attend a conference. Sadly, that is not the case for some of my colleagues (though today it is for most).

  One of my greatest fears in preaching is growing stale, or worse, irrelevant. Like you, I’ve sat under someone’s preaching and wondered at times, what I was doing there and how can I graciously extricate myself? I truly hope that you don’t do that here. Yet, when a pastor is isolated, it is easier for that to happen. Age adds to the isolation.

  The Bible reminds us that “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17). Yet, just as nearly every field needs continuing education, the same is true of pastors. Yet, one of the handicaps of being a pastor is that you rarely are able to personally hear and experience preaching and Bible teaching…but every believer needs it. 

  One of the verses that staggers me is 1 Corinthians 1:21, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” In other words, God has chosen to use the “foolishness of preaching” to work in hearts and bring glory to His Name. That amazes me! There certainly seem to be more effective tools that God could use, like a miracle or two. Even a drama or well done animation would seem to be more effective. Yet, God has chosen what seems like, humanly speaking, to be a poor choice as a communication tool to share His Word and message. And I know that often feel very inadequate to the task and awed that God would use me.

  While I seek to feed my own soul by spending time in the Word and prayer, there’s something about being under Bible teaching that feeds your soul in a way that “self-feeding” will never do. And though I work at focusing on the worship music when we sing together as a family at Grace, there is something very freeing about sitting in a worship service where you have no responsibility for any parts of the worship service.

  Probably, all of you can relate. You know what it is to have the whole family, extended family with cousins by the dozens, over for a huge meal. Maybe something like Thanksgiving or Mother’s Day. You’re trying really hard to enjoy the meal, to focus on the conversations and interactions. Yet, in the back of your mind, you’re wondering if the gravy is burning, or if the pie tastes okay. Because you’re the host, when the toilet backs up or they run out of ice, you’re the one that they come looking for.

  As a pastor, I pray before I come on Sundays and then must work to stay focused on worship and the main thing every Sunday. But if it’s too warm in the auditorium, or if the slides aren’t working correctly, or if no one showed up to teach a class or work in the nursery, or even a child is crying in the midst of the service, my mind turns to what is taking place.

  Add to that, the burden of the burdens coming into the worship service each week. As a pastor, I often know what others may not know: someone struggling with a difficult marriage or child; an individual being defeated by sin or doubt; someone seeking and checking out this “Christian” thing to see if it’s real. It could be a brother or sister with a loved one in a crisis. Every pastor who is seeking to be faithful to God’s calling on his life feels that burden. Yes, he rejoices with those who rejoice, yet he weeps with those who weep. Joseph Parker used to say, “If you preach to hurting hearts, you will never want for a congregation; there is one in every pew.” 

  So there is something freeing about sitting in a worship service and being totally focused, and having the Spirit touch your heart through the music or preaching. Many a time, I’ve wept as I’ve been in those places, as the Spirit worked in my own heart. I’ll never forget sitting many years ago under the preaching of John Piper as he bared his soul. John, like me, grew up in the Deep South and was raised in bigotry. I remember him sharing his own journey and tears poured out of my eyes, as I realized that his journey was also my journey…and I had never quite seen it like that before.

  Last week as Jane and I sat under the preaching of J.D. Greear, Paul Tripp and Steve Brown to name a few, our hearts were stirred. Our souls were stretched. We grew! And you made it possible. We even heard a new version of the Doxology that I can’t wait for us to learn and sing at Grace!

  Conferences are filling and exhausting. Maybe it’s because preachers are cheap, they usually start early in the morning, go all day and then end late at night. You find yourself stuffed spiritually, a bit exhausted, but it’s a good tired.

  Let’s be honest, with a church budget, there are seemingly an infinite amount of items where we could direct our funds. (If you don’t believe me, ask our Church Treasurer). Thank you for making our soul care, spiritual growth and sanctification one of those focuses. Thank you so much for not begrudging us that time away. Thank you to so many for stepping up and taking on extra responsibility so that we could focus where we were at, knowing that things were in willing, capable hands here at Grace.

  And most of all, thank you for letting an aging, bald, “well-rounded,” geezer be your pastor for over a quarter of a century. God has so greatly blessed me with you and this local community. Please don’t tell, but I know that I’m the richest man in town and I have one of the biggest and best families! May our Father bless each one of you as you are a blessing to Jane and me!