It's me, mike hillebrecht

Genesis 1:1 KJVR
(1) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

You’ve read or heard it preached a million (it seems) times. It’s gotten to the point where you ignore the syntax, the linguistic plurality, the hermeneutical nuances (who comes up with these terms), and the root word extractions. Today, in your mind, God created. Big whoop! This big ethereal being with no time on His hands decides to play Betty Crocker, says a few words, waves a wand and poof, life on a big blue orb is thrust into an even bigger black void of nothingness, all of it trying to make some sense of why…Oh crap! The chicken is burning! Great, just great. Thanks a lot God! There, how did that feel? The bible says to give thanks in all things. Did you feel the love in that one?

Life. God. Love.

Each one of these is centered on one thing: relationship. If you’re like most people when first reading Genesis 1:1 you didn’t see anything resembling relationship. You, like me and most people, see God, a singular entity doing God-type stuff. Generally, as a matter of course, you learned that there was God, the Father, Jesus, the son, and Holy Spirit, three in one. While you recognized that they all existed, their relationship always was kinda murky. Sure you have a relationship with one of them which is maybe stronger than what you have with one of the others but…well, someday this will make sense. And you live your life.

Life is fast and furious and you go to church to get some rest with God because that’s what you’re told to enter into. But then you’re in the race again and somehow you’ve got to relate the sermon to your life which is traveling at break-neck speed. Some how, some day it will make sense. But it never seems to, week after furious week. Life seems to be a paradox of contradiction, a state of being that no being longs to be long in. So you force yourself to make sense of it all, to rationalize the contradiction. You follow the path that mankind has taken since the beginning, you make a myth.

It seems harmless enough as it eases the stress of having to explain why in your life, in your mess, in your distress, in your pain, in your shame, in your humiliation and embarrassment, in all the matters that seem to matter, God, His peace and security, His love and acceptance, His hope in you…well it just didn’t seem to show up. So in our myth we place God on this throne high and lifted up above us, seeing into every nook and cranny of our lives and we know, we just know that we did something wrong. This is Him judging our actions, our thoughts. He is removing Himself from our unworthiness.

So we plead the blood of Jesus, cleanse us, please, so that we may be back in right standing with GAWWD! Some of our myths wonder if there is even a drop of blood left in his body because we have expended so much of it trying to come back just one more time to GAWWD. There is the great myth of Jesus being the good cop, who will hear our plea and shield us from the wrath of the bad cop, GAWWD. This same myth also features Jesus once again being beaten senselessly on our behalf so that GAWWD can look down from his mighty throne and reach out to embrace us. Curiously, in most every one of our myths Holy Spirit is just a mute, paralyzed bystander.

Myths are weird. Intellectual myths are even weirder yet. However, they have become our means to explain the unexplainable, the contradiction to our perceptions. We create myths to align our perceptions to our beliefs. If you follow this out properly, logically, we create God out of how we believe he relates to us in our mess of a fast and furious life. They help us cope with the lack of life, the lack of love, the lack of God, and more importantly, the lack of a meaningful relationship with the one who allegedly holds the title of Father.

If this seems dark and foreboding, realize this is just the breaking of the dawn compared to some myths believers have created. You, even myself for that matter, would not want to peek into their inner darkness as they lift their hands in praise and shout “hallelujah!” at the pastor. And these are just the myths of the believers. Imagine those who have experienced an act of GAWWD!

This is what the grace of Jesus came into two thousand years ago and still resides in today. He came to reveal the Father, not as a continuation of our Adamic myths but as a truth found in a face-to-face relationship described “in the beginning.” At every point of our mythological journey with GAWWD, Jesus demonstrates the truth of the Father to us to properly align our perceptions to God. Paul calls this process “renewing the mind.”

Ask any man involved in a home decor issue with a woman what is the one statement that they fear more than any other and it will be, “I’ve changed my mind!” Nothing, not blood, vomit or dismemberment, sends a shudder through the male body faster than this statement. Not many understand just how hard it is to ramp up all your energies to complete a task only to have it delayed or sidelined by indecisiveness on the part of another. But that is just what God has to deal with from us. Kinda turned the table and caught you with that one didn’t I? Let me explain.

God’s kingdom is already around us, every living soul, and even those not so living. We move and operate in it often without even knowing we’re doing so. Father has an agenda which we are all a part of, yes all of us are a part of it, not apart from it. The hazard we face is the claim, “I’ve changed my mind.” Often we don’t even make the claim but do things that fulfill it. Our actions betray our thoughts.

The new covenant believer is actually encouraged to change their mind quite frequently in God’s word. There are a couple of terms in the Greek writings known as metanoeō and metanoia. The English translation for these terms shows up as the word “repent” and “repentance”, two words that have almost the same affect on unbelievers and believers alike, a deep shudder. The reason is quite simple if you understand the meaning of another word, a word which is actually French, a word from about the 1300’s which is a lot like the Old English word from the same period. That word is “repentance” which comes from the word “penitence.”

Allow me for a moment to delve into this French word that we’ve been applying to our Greek-to-English translation. Beginning with the root word of “penitence,” this word means to be penitent, sorrowful for one’s wrongdoings. Now this brings us an interesting consideration around the issue of being penitent. Penitent as an adjective means to expressing sorrow for wrongdoing; however as a noun, as in a penitent person, it is a person who confesses sins and submits to a penance. Penance comes from the Latin word paenitentia and it means a punishment undertaken as a token for sin; a discipline imposed by church authority.

Okay, let’s look at this situation and rightly divide the word, or in this case words. We have on the one hand the Greek-to-English words repent/repentance versus the French-to-English word repent/repentance. All words appear to be identical in meaning simply because no one looks at what translation the word is representing. But there is a BIG difference.

Let’s consider this bible quote, offered to us by John the Baptist and later adopted by Jesus. “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Does this mean, a.) Change your mind, change how you’re thinking about the kingdom of God not being near you, because it is all around you right now; or b.) get on your knees, snot and bawl about your unworthiness, confess your ineptitude to follow any commandments, ask for forgiveness promising to be better in the future and offer to sacrifice your time as punishment for your transgression BECAUSE the Kingdom of God in near. Which of these two scenarios do you believe to be the truth, A or B?

Before you jump in here with an answer how about thinking for a moment. I’m asking you to believe the truth belongs to either a.) the original Greek writings, or b.) a word 1,300 years after the events happened. Now I know that this is difficult to fathom that the entire concept of repentance in the church has been influenced by this blatant disregard to accuracy. Even those staunch theologians who have written volumes about the matter have been swayed by this propensity to flog a dead horse. So why am I even writing about this?

Someone said in a discussion the other day that we needed to “repent in our heart” for our actions. I almost fell off my chair! They obviously were sincere but ill-informed. You can’t change your heart. God does. He gives every new believer a new one, but that is the last one you get. Your mind on the other hand, you can change that as many times as you need to. Regrettably, this is not the attitude that this dear person was trying to communicate. They felt that we should get down on our faces with a contrite heart and wail for forgiveness before an all mighty God promising to change our ways of sinning (yes, that is exactly what I meant), to be better people and offer ourselves, our lives and commitment to His will, as the sacrifice required to see change.

Honey, pardon my abruptness, but you are too full of yourself and just what you think you have to offer. You need to realize that 2,000 years ago Jesus did all that needed to be done. He even admitted that it was finished. You, me, or anyone for that matter, who believes otherwise is just spitting in the wind. Sure it sometimes is good to the soul to get all genuflecting and snot up a storm about our sorrowful state of affairs -but – ultimately, the Father is just asking you to change your mind, not your goober-encrusted shirt. If you think that you must jump through some hoops and do a few dog-and-pony-tricks to make this change in your mind effective, go at it. It’s like those times when a child does something they are so proud of and they exclaim with glee, “Daddy, look at me!” and then they do it again and respond, “Daddy, look at me!” and then they do it again and respond, “Daddy, look at me!”and then they do it again and respond, “Daddy, look at me!”…are you getting the point? Once was great, but…grow up!

So the next time that you’re in a meeting and the speaker tells you that you need to repent for something, ask them if they mean repent according to the meaning of the Greek or according to the meaning of the Latin definition of a French word. Actually, you won’t even have to ask that if they are flagging people down to the altar. You’ll know right away that kids are trying to impress the Father again.

“Are you in or out?”

This is a phrase most commonly declared in card games to the undecided player. Do you want to participate in the risk and potential of winning or sit out for the next go around? If you’ve got a bad hand, then follow the advice of Kenny Rogers know it time to fold ’em. Yet if it’s a great hand, you’re all in!

Inclusion. exclusion, or all.

Church words! Whole denominations have been created to argue their perspective of a divine truth. Are you included at the exclusion of someone else? Why bother because I’ve been excluded from the “chosen frozen” and that is alright with me. “When we all get to heaven…” Does that include the excluded or only apply to us who are included?

Denomination.

How many pennies in a dollar? Easy answer for most adults – 100. All coins are a denomination of a main standard, in our case a dollar. Yet if you have 99 pennies you don’t posses a dollar. If it is a dollar you need, you will search high and low, in couches and dryer vents, sock drawers and under car seats to find the one that makes a dollar. Your search for a denomination drives you to feel complete and satisfied with what it will buy for you.

But what do you do if you find a nickel in your search? Do you rejoice at the added riches you’ve uncovered or do you toss aside four pennies because they aren’t needed anymore? What if you found a quarter? How do you feel about those twenty-one pennies who have been with you throughout the search but now seem like extra baggage you have to haul around? Does the higher the value of the find make you place a lesser significance on the rest which comprise the whole?

One.

“Father I pray that they be one as we are one.” Two being one, how is this possible? But Jesus is asking for something even greater, billions being one! In the bible there are two people groups clearly identified: Israel and those who aren’t. Israel was the chosen ones then, and still are today and will still be tomorrow. Everyone else, that’s you and me, your grandma, great aunts, fifth cousins from a second marriage, all of us together were not, have not, and never will be Israel. And yet…Jesus wants us to be one with Him and the Father.

Today there are over 7 billion people on this planet and maybe 100 million of them are recognized according to bible standards as Israel. Less than 1% of the entire world population, according to the bible standard, is included in Israel. The rest of the world is excluded simply by birth. Yet the various people groups of the world are clamoring to make Israel be like one of them even to the point of trying to look like Israel so that they’ll “fit in” when they come together with Israel.

One New Man.

“God so loved the world…” Our Father is big. He thinks and loves big. BIG! Trust me when I say that you will never think or love as big as He does. As a matter of fact, we all have greatly under-estimated Him. Does that exclude us? Nope. That is just our introduction to His big thoughts and love! In under-estimating Him we have minted a currency that will never equal the standard. Our various denominations all interact not realizing that when you bring them all together they still do not add up to the value of the one. If you want to get legal about it, we’ve counterfeited God by saying and doing things that do not measure up to who He truly is.

A counterfeiter knows what the true standard is but they are willing to use their own efforts to try to replicate that standard at the risk of being caught in the lie. These same counterfeiters in order to escape the authorities will create smaller denominations in order to pass them around to as many places as they can to get others to spread their misdeeds thereby not creating a trail that leads directly back to them.

However, out of the bigness of their love and the grace that extends from it, the Godhead created in Jesus one new man who would set the standard of everyone who followed him thereafter. Not follow him in thought and discipline, not in some creed or daily bible study program, but truly be created, or birthed after him. No special inclusion, or secret exclusion, but all encompassing just like their love. This is the value of their oneness that they desire for you and me.

Am I saying that we’re all born again? No, but for 2,000 years we have been after Him. And while the 99% still are not Israel, Love has declared that they are His, lock, stock, and barrel. Now I know that many will reject what I’m claiming here simply because their denomination doesn’t believe in such things. My question to you is what about under-estimating don’t you understand? Paul demands the renewing of our mind because he simple want to know, are you in or out?

Significant emotional events are the knots in the tapestry of each person life. Happiness or sadness, surprise or horror, fellowship or estrangement are just some of the trademarks we categorize these life changing events. Rarely do we realize that our lives are directed daily by the acceptance or aversion to these past events in even the simplest of choices we make.

Let me give you an example: Liver and onions. What is your first impression? Most will react in a very negative manner. I’d like to ask you to recognize when that first expression appeared in your life. What were the events of that moment; who was present; how did they react to your expression; where did this event occur? All of these questions help us to define a significant emotional event. However, they also help us to understand how you’ve distanced yourself from not only the dish, but in some instances, the people and places where that event occurred in your past.

Your reaction to any other objects present in the moment is directly proportional to the intensity of your emotions in these matters. As an example you could have had something happen in your life and there was a green tablecloth or a yellow pitcher that became a focal point during the event. Today you hate one of those colors or you love them for reasons that you really don’t know why. It’s simply because they were incidental props attached to a major memory.

What begins to happen in our lives after one of these type of occurrences is that we relive them, embellishing them and subtracting from them those items that, well honestly, just aren’t important any more. This replay of the past is what makes them significant. I once heard someone say that history doesn’t exist except as memories in a mind that is trying to come to terms with who they truly are. When you ponder on this statement properly, most people live there lives present-past. Past events define and shape their present beliefs and values.

Having laid all of this ground work, you’re probably asking, “What does this have to do with grace?”
Of late, I’ve noticed that a large number of people talking or writing on the subject of grace do so in the present-past format. Now I realize that this is a requirement in trying to describe how it affects each of our lives. However, I believe that we’re missing several vital elements in the discussion for a simple reason: We’re stuck at Jesus.

This past-present construct which is being followed seems to have stunted the development of our life by fixing our gaze on the “cross” rather than on the throne. I know that some of you will take me to task for that claim, but Paul is very clear on his perspective of things: he is present-future. He clearly recognizes that all his past died on that cross and is of no use to him, so he is pressing toward the high calling of Christ having set his eyes on things above. Now this is Paul speaking in a time when he could have witnessed the actual crucifixion. Here we are 2,000 years later, closer to the throne room realities and we’re still grappling with kindergarten theology.

Consider that Paul tells us in 2 Timothy that we were called to God’s purpose and grace before the foundations of the world. This is clearly before Jesus was on the world, yet no one likes to think of the potential of a grace life before Jesus. The significant emotional event of Jesus’ crucifixion has eliminated all prior references to a graceful life, despite the proclamation of him being the lamb slain before the world began.
Here is truth. You don’t have to believe it to be truth, simply because it is. Your web of significant emotional events were all addressed 2,000 years ago on a cross, long before you were born. But to trump even that truth is the one that you were chosen before the world began. Herein lies the significance of grace – your involvement in it does not diminish or enhance its power to influence all of humanity. It has been given to eliminate your history so that you may live His story to its fullest, a story which is on going, not stifled by the thoughts of “Woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

You can dwell on past hurts if you desire but that merely blocks the desire of the Father’s love from overwhelming you. You can reflect on the injuries of past relationships which will keep the warmth of the Spirit from emanating from within you. You can constantly draw back from a loss of friendship which will only keep you from hearing your greatest friend cheering you forward.

Today, right this moment, Jesus, a man, sits on a throne in heaven, mediating on your behalf a relationship through the Spirit based upon the gift of His life for the love of the Father. They, the trinity, are all in agreement right now just as they were 2,000 years ago. They know of no past in your life which hasn’t included them. That is how significant you are, have been, and forever will be to them. You are the value to the significance of grace!

This is the tag line to every late night infomercial. There is a formula that can be followed by anyone wanting to sell a completely senseless product to those insomniacs who troll the television networks. Pitch the product; give a series of outstanding testimonies; prepare the viewer to hear the price; pitch more of the product with testimonies following; then ask the viewer what they think it would cost to receive this outstanding product. Reduce the expected price three times and then show them the final cost broken down into four equal payments. Once you got their interest, hit them with the tag line, “But wait, there’s more!” Now you can unload all the add-on products that they might never have thought they needed to make their purchase truly a thing of beauty.

Do advertisers really think we’re that naive? Do they truly believe we can’t see beyond all the hyperbole, all the extravagance of video hype which goes into these infomercials so that the “more” is really that important to us? Apparently, someone is calling right now to one of those operators who are standing by even as we speak, ordering this next great wonder, so I guess that their job is considered a success.

How, you might be asking yourself, does this entire monologue have anything to do with the gospel of grace. Really it is quite simple if you understand Greek. Well, not really the language as much as the customs. You see back in the day when Greek conquest was all the rage in the known world, the term we know as “gospel” had the equivalent meaning as our infomercial do of today. Yes, the term does mean good news, however, in the social discourse of the time, everyone knew it to be the news that was too good to be true. Because of this understanding, it was a term which wasn’t employed a lot. Everyone knew it was hyperbole and exaggeration when the term “gospel” came into use.

So consider this as the backdrop to Paul’s message to the Gentiles. Here is this scholarly Jewish rabbi, one of God’s chosen people, telling the “heathen” that God not only wants a relationship with them too, but He has gone out of His way to see to it that they receive all the benefits of blessing, healing, cleansing, power and authority which come from this relationship. No this isn’t just some quaint little Sunday – excuse me – Saturday sermon with two quick points followed by a couple of songs. This is crazy good, I mean extravagantly acceptable; you know, over the top, blow-your-mind-kinda good! In a word: Gospel.

Paul would deliver his message and people, not religious people, but real desperate people would hang on every word he spoke. “How can this be so good?” would float through their mind. Then Paul would pause for a moment and hit them right between the eyes with, “…but wait, there’s more!” This would cause them to reel with anticipation at the next amazing benefit that grace has supplied to them. On and on he would regale them with this eternal love story until they were so full of the love themselves that they willingly offered the only acceptable response Paul wanted.

“What does it cost me to have this…this…whatever you have?” Paul would look at them with a deep penetrating gaze, nostrils flaring and bellow, “Price! The price has already been paid! It’s a gift. This is God’s gift to you! You don’t have enough money or influence to purchase this valuable gift. All you have to do is believe and receive what Christ did for you, for all of us.”

Outrageous! Outlandish! Wild foolishness! Those are some of the statements of faith from those who never “bought in” to Paul’s infomercial of grace. Did that deter him? Not one bit, because he knew that the next day would bring a whole new group of people who didn’t know what God had done for them. He just wasn’t some pocket fisherman. He was determined, like a good fisherman, to cast his net as broad and far as he possibly could. And the story he told may have seemed, like all good fish stories, to be a bit of an exaggeration. Yet is was his “gospel” that reeled them in.

So how is your Gospel of God’s grace? Does it invoke statements as piercing as Paul’s detractors? Can you deliver it with “…but wait, there’s more!” authority? Does your congregation, whether it be one or thousands, often respond, “…That’s just too good to be true!” Wouldn’t it be grand to have such infectious people surrounding our communities and barraging us with such…such…good news? It might even cause a person to give up late-night television! Nay, that is just too extreme!

You vs me. Us vs them. Competition is all the rage across the globe. It is fashionable to support your team, your company, your school, your community, your church, your country, your way of dressing and a whole host of other choices that are designed to separate you from someone else. Yet despite all that we attempt to huddle around for our own particular distinction, we are all equal according to the gift of grace.

Paul tells the Ephesians, a Gentile church of believers, that Christ, through the cross, broke down the wall of separation which kept Jews and Gentile from mingling in the Temple during worship, in order to create one new man through His sacrifice. Paul also tells the Galatians, Romans, and Colossian people, all who are Gentile believers, that there is no difference in them and the Jews, between slaves or free men for Christ is in all of them.

We all are familiar with the claims of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world…” The world was God’s concern, but Christ reconciled all of it back to God. Reconcile is an accounting term meaning to balance a matter to equal value. This stresses out a lot of people who live in the mentality of you vs me. From their perspective, there is a difference, or a value, that makes one of us superior to the other. However, the price of Christ, the measure of the grace given to each one of us through Him, has made us all equal in the eyes of Father.

Now I need to stress something here. All. What does that word mean to you? If your answer goes something like this, “Everyone but…” then you have a faulty understanding of All. To fix your understanding, you just have to get your “but” out of the way. That “but” has been the cause of more wars than anything else in all of the human endeavor. It was at the Garden when the serpent enticed the woman. “But” creates difference when there isn’t one present except in the mind of the “but-er.”

The critical matter here is that any renewing our mind has to take about the kingdom of God operating in our lives must first happen with our thoughts of equality. Jesus prayed that we would be one as He and the Father are one. This is equality. We are one with them too through the grace given to us. Yes, there is the question of who received more grace, however, what doe that matter? Are you jealous that someone got more than you, or happy that you got more that your neighbor? Pretty foolish thinking, isn’t that?

Grace, however much we each needed, amply abounded beyond any measure of sin that infected our lives. It made us all, you and me, them and us, believer and yes, unbeliever, all equal 2,000 years ago. Today we’re just as equal as we were then. Grace has not diminished at all.

So while you cheer on your team as the better, more worthy example of the contest, remember that God is cheering on His team too. They, you and I, are the worthiest of all through the gift of grace He has given us.

When was the last time that you were jealous because your neighbor watched television or mowed his yard? Or how about the last time that your coworker drove to work? Or perhaps the last time that our spouse washed clothes?
All of those things are pretty ridiculous reasons to be jealous I’ll admit. Being jealous means that you see something that someone else has and you feel that desire to have the same thing. It’s not a small desire but a burning passion that can cause you to even become highly enraged in certain instances. Take a moment to remember a moment you were jealous of someone and what it was that you so adamantly desired to have. Feel the passion once again rise within you at just the mere thought of this. Jealousy if pretty powerful.

The Apostle Paul writes in chapters 9 thru 11 of the book of Romans about his earnest desire to see his family members of the household of Israel to see the truth of what God has done through Jesus Christ. He recounts many passages from the prophets and the law which clearly indicate how Israel’s unbelief and adherence to the works of the law has blinded them to the grace of God. As you come to the close of the eleventh chapter Paul makes a remarkable claim. His desire is that Israel will become so jealous of the grace shown to the Gentiles that they will finally have their eyes open and embrace the gospel of grace which he is a minister of.

That is a remarkable statement that cannot be seen, let alone claimed to be in action, anywhere in the church today. How can I make such a claim? Look at your church, or even yourself as a believer. What would make Israel jealous? What do you have that they intensely desire to possess? Practically every church looks and operates just like the Jews do in the following of the law. Yet Paul says that it is the law that has blinded Israel to the message of grace. Well if Israel is blinded by it, how can the church not experience its same effect?

Paul is quite clear that it is the message of grace, the new covenant, the new creation realities found in the finished works of Christ are the driving factor to what will make Israel jealous. I know this is hard to accept, but as long as your life and the community of believers that you associate with are bound to any thing from the law you aren’t that special. You’re just plain. There is nothing super about you that anyone will be jealous about. In other words, you lack the ability to change the hearts and minds of people.

Now there’s something that most preachers won’t even think about telling you grace is capable of doing. Why? Because the moment that they begin preaching the truth about the liberty found in grace they know that they lose all control of the people they have gathered around them. Kind of a oxymoron approach isn’t it? You want people to experience the freedom found in Christ but not the freedom from my controlling you? The true, unfiltered, pure word of God’s grace cuts through all that **** and will make people who don’t have it jealous, period. So why not make it your mission to just make people jealous of you? I dare you!