Remembering the Fallen

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Mark Ashley

It’s Memorial Day here in the USA.  We enjoyed our annual local parade with the high school marching band, the VFW, mounted police, emergency vehicles with sirens blaring, an active soldier who was the grand marshall, one lonely politician decked out in his politician-style jeans and long sleeved red shirt (on a really hot day), lots of Little League teams with candy flying in every direction, the Amercian flag many times, and our church’s float that replicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It’s the unofficial beginning of summer so the barbecues are going, the swimming pools are open, the radios are blaring, and the parties are just getting started.

But what we celebrate today is not the launch of summer fun.  Today we remember sacrifice.  Today we remember true heroism.  We enjoy many freedoms in this nation and it’s worth remembering why we have those freedoms.  As much as politicians like to accept the credit, they didn’t secure these freedoms.  Pop stars and athletes didn’t secure these freedoms for us.  It wasn’t academia, that has all kinds of theories about what freedom is and isn’t and who ought to have and who shouldn’t, that did the necessary deed to give themselves those very freedoms.  It wasn’t entrepreneurs with innovative business plans, nor was it preachers across the land lauding the gift of freedom.  No, it wasn’t any of these.  It was men and women like my Uncle Stanley Geraldson who died on October 10, 1944 when his bomber was hit by an aerial burst bomb while on a mission and crashed in Borneo.  If you want to genuinely celebrate your freedom and thank those who actually secured it, go the the cemeteries and look at the markers decorated with American flags.  Go to the VA hospitals and see the wounded soldiers.  Look at those who fought for freedom and lived to talk about it, men like my dad who served in the South Pacific, and Frank Valentine (a member of my church) was fought in Europe and was awarded a Purple Heart.  They’re the ones who made our freedoms possible.  They’re the ones who left home and family, literally risking all for the cause of defending freedom.

The words that Abraham Lincoln spoke in his Gettysburg Address apply not just to the soldiers of the Civil War, but to all who have fallen in battle for the securing and sustaining of our freedoms.  He called them “these honored dead” from whom “we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”  He continued with the exhortation that the only appropriate response to their ultimate sacrifice was that we “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

How our nation needs “a new birth of freedom” and an accompanying appreciation for the responsibility attached to it.  May we not waste our freedoms on trite and selfish pursuits.  This freedom cost dearly, and it is a price few of us have had to pay.  We have it at others’ expense.  Honor them and their sacrifice by wisely using what they’ve given.

It bugs me when people take credit for what others have done.  So today, don’t thank the politicians for your freedom.  Don’t thank the rock stars or the ball players.  Don’t thank the professors or the preachers.  Thank the soldiers.  But above all, thank God.

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“Celebrity Pastors”

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Mark Ashley

I just returned from a conference that centered on the Gospel.  It featured some well-known preachers, what some might call “big-name” pastors; others might use the description “celebrity pastors.”  In fact, I’ve heard one of these pastors described as having the status of “rock star” among young evangelicals.”  You can check out that conference here.   In addition to the plenary sessions there were several panel discussions, one of which took up the topic of “Celebrity Pastors: “Indecent Exposure?”  The discussion centered on the celebrity-like status achieved by pastors who typically (1) lead large churches, (2) author books, (3) serve on influential boards and councils, all of which give them considerable name recognition and influence in the evangelical community, resulting in them (4) being sought-after speakers.

The 40-minute discussion revolved around whether or not this celebrity phenomenon was a good thing or a bad thing.  It was impossible to delve deeply into the subject with the time constraints.  There was open and honest dialogue among the five panelists, several of whom would be placed into this celebrity category.  One panelist raised the question as to whether the conference itself contributed to this celebrity-pastor phenomenon by scheduling the “big names” to address the 8,000 registered attendees, knowing they would draw in the crowds.  He expressed the opinion that predictably turning to the big names to address the big crowds feeds this celebrity craze.  He tossed out a challenge that, to make a visible statement against celebrity pastors, the conference organizers invite a “no-name,” common, ordinary pastor to preach to the thousands at a future conference.  His remark was applauded by some.  But not by me.

It is true that we live in a celebrity-crazed culture and I detest it.  But does celebrity equal sinful or does being popular equal being prideful?  Is it wrong to become famous?  Of course it depends on what one is famous for, but this discussion isn’t about wannabe celebrities who thrust themselves into the limelight every chance they get, who plaster their faces on the covers of their books, and who insist on Perrier in the pulpit.  No, the men at this conference were men who have risen to notoriety through powerful preaching that is faithful to the God’s Word, and effective, yet humble, leadership.  Is it wrong to have thousands who want to hear and learn from and even follow a person like that?

I sometimes get the impression from the non-famous that fame is wrong; that somehow the only way one achieves fame is by compromising important things and being driven by ego.  Our world (if television is any indication of our world) is over-populated with under-talented and over-confident narcissists.  But that doesn’t mean every famous person has walked that pathway to get to where they are.  Becoming famous, in and of itself, is neither righteous nor evil.  It’s worth noting that a celebrity doesn’t achieve that  status alone.  Their accomplishments may make them a candidate, but it’s a clamoring public that casts the deciding votes.

I am okay with the fact that there are pastors who rise to higher levels of recognition than other pastors, whose ministries reach farther than other’s.  I am fine with the fact that I pastor a church of 200 plus while other pastors in the area lead churches of 2,000 plus. I am okay with not being a best-selling author (though writing a book is on my bucket list).  I’m not jealous of them.  I’m not suspicious that they’ve compromised something important to get there.  I am thankful for the reach of their ministries into so many lives.  I don’t envy their speaking schedules or their fame.  I don’t think that is due to my being an unmotivated or under-achieving person.

So why am I really okay with, even thankful for, “celebrity pastors” and why do I think it’s unfair to be perjorative with the label “celebrity” when referring to them?

  1. The Church’s History.  There have been celebrity pastors from the beginning.  The apostles were the most famous Christians of the first century, and it didn’t take long for other teachers to begin to rise to prominence and popularity.  Can it really be said that Paul, even in his own day, was not famous among the existing churches?  What about Martin Luther and John Calvin?  What about George Whitefield who was the most celebrated preacher in Britain and America in the 18th century, one time preaching to a crowd of more than 30,000?  By every standard of today’s “celebrity pastors,” Charles Haddon Spurgeon was one.  By the age of 21 he was one of the most popular preachers in 19th-century London.  Thousands filled the auditorium where he preached every Sunday and it’s estimated he preached to more than 10 million people in his lifetime.  His sermons were transcribed, published and sent around the world on a weekly basis.  And there was D. L. Moody, so popular that the President of the United States came to hear him preach.  Every generation in the church’s history has had men extra-ordinarily gifted by God to affect the lives of numbers beyond the ordinary.  The current generation is no different.  Today’s celebrity pastors walk in honorable footsteps.
  2. Jesus’ Parable of the Talents.  In this parable, a master gave five talents to one servants and only one to another.  Seriously, 5 to 1.  You tell me who was given some advantages.  The bottom line was the master gave the talents however he chose and the recipients were responsible to use what came from the master for the master.  One pastor may be given great communication ability, excellent writing skills, natural leadership gifts, a magnetic personality, and (I need a fifth…) a double-portion of the spirit of Elijah, while another pastor is just given the ability to preach.  Is that fair?  That’s not even a valid question.  Each is to use what he is given, and accept the fact that quantities of giftedness, passion, aptitudes, personality, and experiences given to any singular guy won’t be the same as those given to another.
  3. The Holy Spirit’s Gifting.  The Holy Spirit distributes gifts for ministry “as He wills.”  Every pastor is gifted however the Holy Spirit decides he will be gifted.  This has nothing to do with personal or pastoral worth.  It has everything to do with divine assignments.  Some pastors are gifted by God for ministry beyond, sometimes way beyond their own congregations.  That call belongs to the Head of the Church and the Spirit’s work.  What He gives to one He has no obligation to give to all.
  4. The Faithful Pastor’s Responsibility.  A pastor is to provide an example worthy of being emulated.  Can a pastor have too many people watching him, too many wanting to hear him preach, too many reading what he writes, or too many following him?  Of course not.  And besides, he’s not really in control of that.  At some point the number of people watching, learning, and following a pastor moves him into the celebrity category.
  5. God’s Sovereignty.  I trust in the sovereignty of God (illustrated in the parable of the talents and the Holy Spirit’s gifting).  How that applies to this discussion is this: I wouldn’t want to go to a conference and hear me preach.  I actually prefer to go to a conference and hear somebody better than me preach.  Going to a conference and hearing someone like me wouldn’t encourage me in my ordinariness.  I am not saying God could not use that person in my life because He could.  I’m just saying that I don’t go to conferences every week, nor every year for that matter.  I’m not going to go to a conference featuring the “ordinary.”  I live with that every day of my life.  Now here’s the sovereignty of God part.  If I really had something to say that 8,000 people needed to hear me say and that God wanted me to say to them, I believe God would put me on the platform before those 8,000 to say it.  If that platform isn’t given to me I am just fine with accepting the fact that it’s not a platform God wants to give to me, though it will be a platform He gives to another.  There’s no place for jealousy in the presence of God’s sovereignty.

So for me personally, I don’t see anything gained by by having a fellow “ordinary,” unknown pastor invited to preach in a big-venue conference.  I don’t seek it.  I don’t need that kind of validation for the legitimacy of ordinary ministry and ministers.  If that’s under-achieving then God will have to convict me of that.  Perhaps the only regret I have with not being one of these really gifted pastors is this: I feel for my congregation.  If these “celebrity pastors” so stir my soul, so feed me, so challenge me, and so inspire me, what might my congregation be like if they had that kind of pastor speaking into their lives every week?  I’m not saying that to rag on myself.  I say it because I love my congregation and I want the best for them.  I believe I’m where God wants me and that means I’m the pastor for this flock, not someone more famous or more gifted than me, for now anyway.  I don’t feel I’m missing out.  I just hope my congregation isn’t.

I thank God for the kind of celebrity pastors who don’t see themselves as celebrities and whose ministries bless way beyond what any of them ever dreamed.  They truly are God’s special gifts to His Church.

P.S. If you’d like to read a response of the panel member most skeptical of “celebrity pastors” to what he heard and experienced at the conference, you can read it here.  He rightly concluded that this particular conference was not about featuring celebrity pastors but serving ordinary pastors.

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Strength

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Mark Ashley

Held in its unyielding clutch he released himself from death, and a horrible death at that.  To make sure eyewitnesses would see that the his formerly occupied burial niche was empty, he tossed aside the two-ton stone sealing off the opening allowing them to enter.  It all happened in a flash that left veteran guards paralyzed with fear and shaking in their boots.  It was one of those displays of raw power and uncontestable strength as a dead man came back to life.

The last enemy standing is often the last standing because it is the nastiest, or the strongest, or the most clever, or the one with the greatest survival instincts, able to dodge the blows and outmaneuver the adversary.  Death is that kind of enemy.  It is the “last enemy to be destroyed,” according to 1 Corinthians 15:26, the last enemy standing.  And what an enemy it is.  Death has bested every human being that ever lived and it still is at an astonishing rate of more than 150,000 per day.  Sometimes it comes with great violence and forewarning, and other times it simply sneaks in quietly and does its dirty work.  There is no place on Earth able to hold death at bay.  None can resist it.  The longest survivor was a character named Methuselah.  It took death 969 years to beat him, but it did.  Death conquered Samson, one of the strongest men to ever live.  Death felled a giant named Goliath.  Decades later it defeated the mighty warrior-king David.  The wisest man who ever lived was Solomon, but he didn’t outsmart death.  Death has taken down the godly and the ungodly.  It even did its deed to Jesus, more viciously than it had ever been toward anyone else.

However, when death took on Jesus, it wasn’t ready for the counter-stroke.  Death struck Jesus on the cross and laid Him in a tomb, like it had done thousands and millions of times before.  But this time it was different.  This time someone struck back.  That had never happened before.  This time the firm, cold, unrelenting grasp of death was peeled back and its victim was freed.  He defeated death.  Finally, someone stood up to death and beat it at its own game — death beat death.  Finally someone proved himself stronger, and when he did, he didn’t just defeat death.  He didn’t just capture death.  He destroyed it! (1 Cor. 15:26).  Death, the greatest, the strongest, the most unrelenting enemy of mankind was defeated.  What amazing strength it took.  It took God-strength and in the end, the last man standing was not death, but Jesus.

In Philippians 3:10 Paul expresses his desire to know the power of Christ’s resurrection.  It’s not a desire to know about it, but for this resurrection power to be the power operating in his own life.  Leonard Ravenhill writes that “Calvary expresses the love of God.  The resurrection explains the power of God.”  This is the standard power that is active in the life of the believer.  The strength that destroyed death is coursing through my life.

When I think of God’s strength operating in my life it’s easy to think of it as my empowerment for religious service like preaching a sermon, witnessing, or leading some church or missions endeavor.  But it is more than that.  It is the source of strength to do some amazingly difficult things:

  • like giving strength to conquer a whole host of fears and insecurities rather than be paralyzed by them
  • like giving strength to speak up when something should be said rather than keeping a cowardly silence
  • like giving strength to shut up when good judgment demands it
  • like giving strength to step out and step forward instead of staying put where it’s comfortable or being intimidated into retreat
  • like giving strength to forgive the person who said or did that unforgiveable thing
  • like giving strength to overcome racism no matter how deeply embedded it may be
  • like giving strength to care enough about hurting, needy people to actually do something
  • like giving strength to break a bad habit

Sound impossible?  Defeating death was impossible, too, but Jesus did it, and in doing it he made possible our own victories.  If this strength can destroy death, it can handle any of the matters just cited.

The sooner I exercise the strength given to me through the power of Christ’s resurrection, which is an exercise of obedient faith, the stronger I’ll be in ways that actually matter.

Today I’ve been letting the empty tomb remind me of of just how awesomely strong Jesus is.  It makes my “But I can’t” sound like what it really is — unacceptable pathetic whining.

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Weakness

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Mark Ashley

I don’t like to be weak…

  • the one who loses at arm wrestling
  • the one who couldn’t survive two minutes in a boxing match without being knocked out cold
  • the one who can only haul half of a package of shingles up the ladder to the roof while the others are slinging a full one over their shoulders
  • the one who needs help picking up and moving the big, stuffed chair to the other room instead of just hoisting it and moving it myself
  • the one who can’t figure things out without someone giving some input, advice, or answers
  • the last one picked for the kickball team

It’s embarrassing to be weak in a society that values strength.  It can be demeaning.  I don’t like the vulnerability of it.  I don’t like the riskiness of it.  It makes life more dangerous and definitely harder to be weak.  I don’t like the insecurity of it, especially living in a world where victory goes to the strong, in a culture increasingly shaped by a “survival of the fittest” mentality.  To be weak is a distinct disadvantage whatever the expression of weakness may be – physical, intellectual, emotional, atheletic, creative, or leadership.

Weakness stinks.  I don’t like it and I don’t want to be it.

But then I’m brought to this day, Good Friday.  I am taken to a place named “Golgotha,” meaning place of the skull.  It was a place of death which made it a place of filth and uncleanness.  And there planted vertically on that desecrated ground is a vertical piece of wood intersected by a horizontal one on which a beaten, bloodied person has been fastened with nails through his hands and through his feet, guarded by soldiers, and jeered by onlookers taunting him to free himself and come down from the cross and show them just how strong he is.  As cruel as this scene was, it was not an unusual scene in the Roman Empire of the first century.  It was one way in which they terrorized the non-Roman citizens into submission to their authority.  An execution like this was for the scum of the earth.

The irony of this scene is that by all appearances it is another case of the strong defeating the weak.  Trained and physically strong Roman soldiers carried out this deed upon a man who could barely walk to the place of his own execution.  Highly trained and religiously strong leaders provoked this deed and insulted a man who endured it with silence.  What’s most shocking is that this man was God.  Yes, the same God who said, “Let there be light!” and there was light.  The same God who said, “Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion.”  Yes, that same God “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory.”  It was that God, the Son of God, who became man, that these men brutalized and mocked.  The created conspired against and then crucified the Creator.  The One who holds the universe in His hands and in whom all things consist hung in helpless, humiliated weakness as a prize trophy in front of his tormentors while His life’s blood drained from His body.  And then, He died.

Death is the ultimate demonstration of our our weakness.  We die because we’re mortal and because we’re sinners.  We can’t change our mortality any more than an ant can change itself into a man.  We can’t erase our sinfulness any more than a leopard can erase its spots.  We’re weak.  We die.

On the cross Jesus exalted human weakness over human strength.  On the cross a torn and taunted man died at the hands of strong and arrogant men.  But in that moment of weakness, that Man crushed His arch-enemy Satan; He released a multitude of people from their enslavement to Sin; and He defeated that last and most sinister enemy called Death for all eternity.  That is what He did in His weakness.  Just think what He will do in His strength!  That’s why these words ring so true, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).  On the cross Jesus demonstrated what God can do through weakness.  He shames the the wise and the strong and brings them all to nothing because the ultimate aim of God in all that He does is that His glory be displayed and enjoyed.  The pathway to that enjoyment is weakness filled with God’s grace, not strength filled with myself.  Understanding and embracing that is what leads to this confession:

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong. (1 Cor. 12:9b-10)

The sooner I embrace weakness as a blessing, even with its embarrassment, vulnerability, danger, and risk, the sooner I’ll know just how complete and satisfying God’s grace is.  Today, I’ll let the cross remind me of that.

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Facing Fifty

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Mark Ashley

Ok, so it’s arrived.  I turned 50 yesterday.  Benchmark birthdays strike each individual differently.  For me fifty has proven to be a big one; well, a challenging one, to be honest.

Maybe it’s because a “half-century” genuinely sounds old (though I’m still too young to qualify for senior specials off the restaurant menu).

Maybe it’s because I’m the youngest son and brother in my family but being fifty doesn’t sound so young anymore.

Maybe it’s because I’m realizing how much of my life is now in the past tense and there is still so much more I want to accomplish.

Maybe it’s because youth is so highly prized on our culture and being fifty takes me out of that ideal category

Yup, I’ve been reflecting on these things a bunch trying to decide how I would process this milestone birthday.  In all honesty I haven’t been all that thrilled with its approach.  When asked why by a friend recently I replied that I once dreamed that I would have accomplished more by the time this day arrived.  I guess that is a veiled way of saying that the approach of my fiftieth birthday was stirring up feelings of disappointment with myself.  My friend immediately pointed that out to me and sent me down the pathway of rehearsing a list of accomplishments in which I should find great satisfaction.

So as I face fifty, here’s a list of accomplishments that reminds me just how great my first half-century had been.

1.  Saved by God’s grace – technically not my achievement by any stretch of the imagination,  but all of God’s.  He did it; I received it. Praise his name!

2.  Married happily to my best friend for 25 years now.  We are still in love and faithfully devoted to one another.  Neither of us would choose differently if given the opportunity.

3.  Three fantastic children who call me “Dad.”  I didn’t say “perfect” children for those keeping track.  That would never work – perfect children with an imperfect dad. My sons and daughter are a joy to me.  All three have professed faith in Jesus Christ as Savior.  My boys are about to graduate from an outstanding Christian university, one heading into local church ministry and the other open to what the Lord has for him.

4.  I still have my parents and have the privilege of ministering to them in their later years.

5.  I have great relationships with all my siblings.  We’re relationally close and we’re not at odds with each other.  By fifty many families have fallen to pieces.  By God’s grace mine hasn’t.

6.  I have had two wonderful local church ministries, one in New York for three years, and the church I’ve now been part of for 21 years.  I get to pastor a great congregation.

7.  I have made some very close friends in my first fifty years.  By this point in my life I’ve had a lot of friends walk into my life and then, due to a variety of circumstances, they’ve left (I’ve reconnected with some of them on Facebook). But I’ve also had a few who have entered my life and stayed, some for a long time (one in particular for more than 30 years).  At fifty I’ve come to realize how truly great an accomplishment it is to have real friends.

8.  I’ve been to Europe, Africa, and South America where I’ve had the opportunity to preach, teach, and meet brothers and sisters who follow the same Jesus that I follow and worship the same God I worship. Life-changing!

9. I’ve learned to preach.  I’ve learned to lead (it doesn’t come natural to me).  I’ve learned to love a congregation.  I’ve learned to cook.  I’ve learned to install a light fixture (did my first one successfully last week).  I’ve learned to be a husband and a dad.  I’ve learned to listen.

I’m sure this list could go on, but it’s long enough to remind me that I am a man whose first fifty years have been momentous.

I can’t wait to see what lies ahead.  I’m not oblivious to the inevitability of difficulties.  I just can see looking back that what lies ahead is a future of more learning and more growing and new accomplishments.  I’m pretty certain the years ahead will be lived with family and friends who love me.  God’s not done yet.

Maybe fifty’s not so bad after all.

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