Austin Stone is all the rage here right now - it's an Acts 29 church plant that's blown up into a mega-church: big screens, pounding music, lots of young people, you feel like you're at a rock concert.
It's easy for presbyterians to be cynical about stuff like this. And while there are probably things we could (perhaps rightly) critique, I'd rather focus on what I appreciated this morning - organizationally: impressive; theologically: the book table was loaded with Keller & Paul Tripp; musically: it was very well executed. Yes it was loud, and the songs had multiple climaxes and went on way too long, but people were there. And they were singing!
If this just so happened to be a church in the PCA [feel free to insert your own denominational hashtag here], we'd all be peeing ourselves with excitement (because deep down, we all think our church is best, and we really crave "success" to validate that conviction). Be honest. I'm there too.
After some singing (again, it was good!), one of the pastor's stood up and announced they'd lost someone this past week. Remember that guy you heard about on the news, that American teacher who was gunned down in Benghazi? (if you were like me you saw the headline, but didn't bother to click the link - after all, what's another murder halfway around the world in Libya?)
Well, the man's name was Ronnie Smith. He was a former pastor at Austin Stone. And here we were in his home church the Sunday after his slaying. Whoa.
What came next was really good. They actually let Ronnie preach the sermon, by pulling a video out of the archives from when he preached two years ago. I'm not normally a fan of pastors on video. This was an appropriate exception. [You can actually watch it here - and I'd recommend you do].
It was an impressive sermon: Just Ronnie telling the story of redemption, simply by quoting verses from Generation through Revelation. It was really, really good.
And it was weird at the same time, to think the guy I'm watching is dead right now. Or, more accurately, if the biblical story is true, he's not dead at all, but he's with Jesus. Very sobering. Very potent.
And to realize this man gave his life for that message. That's good.
Unfortunately, it's not me. And it's probably not you either.
Most of us who claim to be Christians bail on Jesus all the time. We fail him in our words and deeds, our thoughts, our desires, in the thousand little capitulations we make every day. We avoid death like the plague (and sacrifice, and hardship, and suffering).
And what struck me is this. I can look at Ronnie and make him a hero, and say, "I'm going to strive to be like him! I'm going to be stronger, braver, tougher! I'm going to be willing to die for Jesus!" (Sound familiar? Peter told Jesus the same thing, right before he died: "Even if everyone else leaves you, I won't. I'd DIE for you!!!")
But he didn't. And neither will I.
You see, if I take Ronnie Smith for my example, I'm going to end up discouraged. Because I'm going to fail, just like Peter did.
Fortunately, there's somebody even better than Ronnie. There's a guy who didn't just die, gunned down in a street by the political operatives who opposed what he stood for; there's a guy who was cut off from God himself, in order that I might not be.
In other words, there is someone so hell-bent on rescuing ME that he actually entered this war-torn world and died in my place, so that I might live and have life abundantly. And that ought to give me great comfort as I face the uncertainties of this world, coupled with the failures of my own making.
If Jesus was willing to die for me, he's going to finish what he started, no matter how much I fail him. And that's what I really need to hear today. The power of Ronnie Smith's death is that it points me to an even greater death. And that's the re-centering I need every Sunday morning.
