Vineyard Church | Weekly Update July 31st, 2024

I am trying to decide if it is too smoky outside to open my windows. The tsunami of revelation that comes from this can be seen on the horizon, and I can feel the ground begin to shake as it nears. Early morning air has reached a near addiction for me because it is free. It cools down the house, sometimes many degrees below where the air conditioning is set. I crave the high of leaving for work knowing that before I have to buy air for the day, the brutal sun will have to do its worst to fight through those precious degrees of free air that has been ushered into my domicile.

Now the revelations hit. First, I just used the word domicile… Not sure what that was about. Next, I think somewhere along the journey I ended up old. I holler at my kids to shut the door, so the bought air doesn’t escape, and I am on a never-ending journey through my house turning off lights and muttering about how I need to train those precious wee lambs I live with that there is a corresponding “off” function associated with the “on” for each light switch we own. The ingenuity of the designers! I feel a tangent coming so I better focus here…

The things I care about pale in comparison to the things I used to care about. I am not saying that I am completely healthy or normal now, but looking back over 44 years, I see hills that I used to want to die on that now are hills I am not even willing to start up let alone crest (in fairness, making this about walking up hills is not fair word play because I have a strong antipathy towards inclines).

The change I am noticing the most is in how I feel about people. While I am developing more affection for the people God has put around me, I am also noticing small changes in how I feel toward those who offend me, how I feel about perpetrators, and how I feel about those who want me to know how wrong I am or wish harm on me due to my beliefs.

Where is all this coming from, and what does this mean today as I am struggling with what is too much smoke to let in with the free air? Last week as I was driving to and from South Dakota, I had a lot of time to listen to the car radio. In between 80’s and 90’s country (when it was real), Disney hits, the Bob Marley Station, and Jimmy Buffet Radio, I heard a lot of talk radio. Intentionally avoiding media has left me in a state of ignorance to how much the temperature has risen in turns of emotions in our country over the summer, particularly in the last two weeks.

I was still ruminating over this, and over the issues I heard commentary on and how I felt about them, when I began hearing and seeing reports about the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Watching the opening ceremony has never been a desire of mine; I place it alongside the dilemma in our house on Thanksgiving… when there is football to watch, who needs a parade?

Taking the time to watch the pieces of the events that offended many, I was shocked at how blatant the offending presentation was. I felt offended, angry and immediately began writing my blog in my head. Along with the mental typing came some mental editing, which is a skill that seems to have arisen with my newfound ancientness. I also did something that I didn’t often due as a younger man facing offense. I prayed.

While I was mentally typing, editing, and praying, I started to see responses roll in from every cultural corner. Politics, celebrities, and then responses from church leaders and Christians regarding the mocking spectacle of the Last Supper. The words I read in these responses resonated with me because I can identify times in my life when I would have charged up this hill ready to make a last stand.

Praying rather than charging led to a dialogue that has changed me. I felt God ask me “What were they doing?” My answer was, “They are mocking you God! They are mocking us for believing in you.”

“No,” I sensed God say, “go deeper; what are they doing?” This was a frustrating moment because I felt like my answer was right on the money… because it was. But there is more. There is more that I would have missed if it wasn’t for this pressing by the Holy Spirit.

The offending performance was a celebration of selfishness. Floats that celebrated and attempted to beautify pride, lust, greed, and gluttony floated down the river in Paris. The blindness of those that beautified these things, the deafness of those that celebrated these things, and the arrogance of the performance would offend me if God hadn’t led me to a place of pitying those that found a way to express the excess of secular culture.

I have a new application of what Paul wrote in Ephesians 6; "We are not warring against flesh and blood enemies but against the powers and principalities, the spiritual forces of evil." Alongside this is the resonating prayer of Jesus in Luke 23, repeated by Stephen in Acts 7: "Forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing. They are messing with powers they do not understand. They celebrate pride, the sin we know that comes before the fall."

So, what do we do? I echo the words of many who called Christians to fight… But not to fight in the ways of the world. When we choose to follow Jesus, the tools of warfare change as we sacrifice violence on the altar of grace. We fight with the tactics and strategy designed by Jesus, like what was presented in Mark 3:

"Who is powerful enough to enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods? Only someone even stronger—someone who could tie him up and then plunder his house." Mark 3:27 (NLT)

We fight by asking Jesus to enter the house, bind the enemy, and release us to plunder what is inside. We pray for those who don’t understand what they are doing, and we refuse the temptation to answer harm with harm. This is not about allowing or accepting the blasphemy of the age we live in; it is about not joining it by creating a ministry of reciprocity rather than THE ministry of reconciliation.

I am getting old, and the battles are changing. This isn’t because I am losing the will to fight or the energy to war, it is because I am more able to trust Jesus with His plan today than I was a day, week, year, and decades ago.

Let’s maintain the fight and pray this week. Go get them Jesus and bring us along to minister in your name.

Adam Greenwell
Pastor
Billings Vineyard Church | www.billingsvineyard.org