Provo. In Three Tweets.

Last week Rachel and I got back from Provo, where we'd spent a few days ministering and sightseeing with some great friends of ours. Here are three tweets that well sum up what i'm thinking about, post Provo.

Any step away from the sufficiency and supremacy of Jesus in all things is a step towards cultdom.
— Ed Goode (@Ed_Goode) July 7, 2014

I don't think cultdom is a word, (and neither does my spellchecker) but you know what i mean. Provo is 98% Mormon, which means that everyone you meet is LDS, or lapsed LDS, or pick and choose LDS. There are some weird and not so wonderful things that the LDS church teaches and practices, but in the final reckoning, it all comes down to their view of Jesus. Simply, for the LDS Church, as for every other derivation from Christianity, and every other false religion, Jesus isn't quite enough. Sure, just like everyone else, they want Jesus on their team. They want Jesus in their paradigm, but as a cheerleader, not as a Saviour. As an example, not as a payment. Every step we take away from 'Jesus paid it all,' is a step towards a man focused, man pleasing, man imagined religion.

As indicated by the next tweet:

A man just asked, "How do you guys make it without temples, no priesthood, and no authority?" Bryant said, "We have the Bible." #winprovo
— Logan Michael Wolf (@loganwolf85) July 4, 2014

Provo hosts one of the biggest 4th July festivals in the country, so for part of the trip we helped work the New Morning Church booth there. We were sort of out of the way down an alley, so my suspicion is this guy wanted to come and find us. You see how tweet one links with tweet two? Jesus isn't sufficient in the LDS system, so they need a priesthood and temples. Jesus isn't sufficient in the LDS system, so neither is He authoritative. It's a killer. Get away from Jesus, and His Word and you're on sliding scale with women bishops on one end, and your own planet when you die on the other. In our lives, and in our ministry, we must be careful, we must labour all the time, to make sure that we're not just paying lip service to Jesus, but heart service. If not, we'll be cut adrift into the wasteland of our own ideas, and today's cultural mores.

Want to experience a foreign missions trip without leaving the States? Go to Utah.
— Ed Goode (@Ed_Goode) July 9, 2014

I've spent all of nine nights in Provo, so i'm no expert, but it's a different place. Provo is blessed/plagued with moralism. Blessed, because your car probably won't be keyed by a drunk college student in the middle of the night, plagued, because everyone thinks their OK, jack. It feels different. Their history is not America's history, their way of life not America's way of life. Their monuments are not America's monuments. I think it was CS Lewis that said if the devil ran a town the churches would be full (think about it) and i can only imagine he was on his way home from an undocumented trip to the Beehive state when he wrote those words. In ministry, and particularity youth ministry, particularly in the Bible belt, we must slough off every temptation to present a moral Gospel, and instead, with Bibles open and guns ablaze, preach the risky, dirty, bloody, leper-touching, i'm alive so let's have breakfast on the beach, Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

What Provo is Teaching Me (II)

Personal reflections in a public space are a difficult thing. We've all got that friend on Facebook who seems to think they're writing in their private diary, but at the same time, i think i'm learning some things that are worth sharing, but i guess that'll be up to you to decide!

In Provo i learnt that the Gospel is our only hope.

Ok, so i knew this already, but it's easy to lose focus on that isn't it? Mormonism is a dense plot of thorns and the Gospel is the only sword that will cut through them. It's easy to think that to introduce Mormons to the Gospel you have to go for the jugular on some of the things they believe. But you don't. The truth speaks for itself, it shines the glory of God out for those that will see it. Obviously there is a huge need for culturally sensitive outreach, for well thought out apologetics, but only if they flow from and to the Gospel.

In Provo i learnt Church planting is hard, so we need to do it.

It's not just Provo that needs a Christian church. It's Francis, and Heber City, and Park City, and South Summit and the innumerable communities that line the interstate on the way to the airport. Church planting out there is hard. It's not just that Utah is full of Mormons, it's also that there just aren't that many churches there. In fact, leave the Bible belt, and there aren't very many churches anywhere. Plant a church 'out west' and you'll probably be up against it. But this is Christianity isn't it? We move away from leisure, like Christ, so that others can move towards God. We who are rich become poor, so that those who are poor become rich.

In Provo i learnt If you're good enough, you're old enough.

You don't need to cross an age threshold to serve the Lord. You just have to have a heart for God and people. Cities need churches, and we need to produce the men who are going to plant them. We might be the men who are going to plant them. Logan and Grayson discovered their passion, and lived it out.

Jesus never leaves us.

Jesus' last words in Matthew are so precious. I will never leave you. On the plane, i'm with you, when you knock on a door, i'm with you, when you have a difficult conversation, i'm with you, when you're discouraged, i'm with you. I am always with you. Beautiful.

What Provo is Teaching Me (I)

This will probably come in two parts, one more 'theological' and one more personal. Or, this post will mutate into the sort of thing you give up on half way through...

For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

We arrived back from Provo yesterday evening. Five days had flown by, and we came home with mixed feelings. I always want those sort of trips to be longer, i always leave feeling more burdened by what we didn't do that pleased with what we did. But we a lot for three days.

I shared with you before we left that Provo is overwhelmingly Mormon. In fact, soon Provo will be the only city in the world with two Mormon Temples. The Provo/Orem metropolitan area is literally bursting at the seems with Mormons. It's like the Bible belt on culty steroids. What is Mormonism, basically? From my far less than expert point of view, it seems that Mormonism can be summed up as a system whereby man aims to gain reward by pleasing God. This has some positive side effects. There's a great volunteer spirit in Provo, it's clean and public places are well looked after. We spent a morning picking up litter and weeding a popular running and biking trail, and didn't pick up a single fast food wrapper or beer can. But the (eternal) negatives obviously far outweigh the (temporal) positives.

I defined Mormonism as a system for man to please God. That doesn't sound like a bad thing does it? Evangelicals want to please God, no? I want, very much to please God today in my marriage and ministry. So what's the big deal? Well the big deal, Christianity is about what Jesus has done to please God, not what we must do to please God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 spells this out in slow motion. For our sake, that means, God did something for your benefit and mine that we couldn't do by ourselves. What did He do? He made Jesus to be sin. He counted to Jesus' account all the sins that we've committed today, and yesterday, and forever. And this was a big deal, because Jesus had never sinned. He is the spotless lamb, He is the true Israelite who has the law written on His heart. He is the High Priest in Melchizedek's order, He is the eternal Son of God. And His Father out all our sins on Him.

Why? What benefit does that give us? So that...we might become the righteousness of God. In the glorious economy of God the Father, He looks at you and me, and sees Jesus perfect righteousness. He doesn't see my sin, or your sin, His face doesn't flicker with anger as we approach Him, His mind doesn't weigh up whether or not our prayers deserve a hearing. We become the righteousness of God.  We approached our Father clothed in our blessed brother's robe, that we might receive a blessing from Him.

I missed out a part though. We don't become this righteousness by works. This righteousness comes in Him. In Him might be two of the most important words in the Bible. In Him, you and I are righteous. Not because we have pleased the Father, but because Jesus has. In Him, we have hope, not because we are worthy of merit, but because Jesus is. In Him, in Him, in Him!

Baptism doesn't save, vicarious baptism doesn't move relatives from Hell to Heaven. It's all in Him. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because we are in Him. We've been given precious treasure in pots of clay, not so that we can paint the outside of our pots but to show the surpassing power belongs to God! Not us! Not to us, only to Him.

Are you in Him? Are you connected by faith alone to Christ alone? Don't please your Father to earn His smile today, He smiles on you because of Christ, and this frees us to labour joyfully for His glory.