The Joy of Glory

*Last night, at our annual SVCC family meeting, I briefly reflected on 2017. Below are the thoughts I shared in the form of a letter.

My Dearest Shades Valley,

With each passing year, Holly and I feel the Lord sinking our roots deeper into this community. It is still my prayer that Shades will be the only church I ever pastor. To that end, Holly and I recently purchased a new house that we hope will be our forever home. We are sinking our roots deep and not just geographically, but relationally. As you know, at the end of 2017, we found out we are expecting our fifth child…another little boy. This means that more than half of our children will have been born during our days at Shades, and you are helping to raise all of them! You are their family. You are our family. And, we are daily in awe that God has graced us with you. We continue to sink our roots deeper into this community because this community has sunk its roots deep into us.

Shades is a place with deep roots which have a way of digging into your heart, grabbing hold, and never letting go. I believe this is so because of the ultimate ground in which we, as a church, are rooted… the ground of the Gospel. And, we will only continue to be the community God has created us to be if our roots remain in the Gospel. Therefore, it is vital that we constantly remind ourselves of how everything we do is rooted in the glory of Jesus. This is why, at Shades, we talk about four roots or four ways that we dig down into the glory of Christ: Worship, Serving, Community and Mission. And, just like my family’s roots have pushed down deeper into Shades this year, I believe that we, as a faith family, have pushed our four roots down deeper into Christ in 2017. Let me mention just a few ways, not to brag on us but to boast in God’s grace, for all we do is empowered by being rooted in him.

So… in 2017, we sank the root of Worship ever deeper into the Word as we continued our journey through the Gospel of John. We also spent the Lenten season digging into what it means to be a cruciform community; and, through the Word, God continued to conform us to the cross of Christ. He has also shaped us through music as our worship team has kept on writing new songs that ever put the praise of Jesus on our lips. Rumor has it that pretty soon you may be able to carry a couple of these songs with you wherever go. Deeper still the root of worship grew as our art’s ministry hosted “The Feast.” They led us to worship Jesus through the symbolism of Passover via all sorts of artistic mediums. So, whether in word, song, or art, all our worship has and will continue to aim at rooting us in Christ.

Likewise, the root of Serving grew in 2017. I cannot possibly list all the ways you volunteer and sacrifice yourselves for one another, and your serving continues to grow year after year. Two examples from 2017 of new serving ministries come to mind. First, Shades of Motherhood has reached out to serve moms within and beyond our community. It has been amazing to hear testimonies of how so many have been cared for and encouraged through times of celebration and mourning. Second, the WRAP ministry has engendered a new awareness in our body concerning the needs of adoptive and foster families. Further, they continue to enlist new volunteers to help met these needs. All of this is happening from the bottom up, not the top down. These ministries haven’t been designed, planned, and executed by the staff. No. God’s people, you, have answered the call to take all you’ve been equipped with and use it to serve one another, pointing each other to Christ. Your serving roots us deeper in Jesus.

Now, the root of Community grew like a weed with incredible speed in 2017. I’m not even going to guess how many children were born among us last year, but it is an observable fact that our nursery is buried in babies. We are literally making disciples! And, there is no sign this multiplication will slow down any time soon, for we also had an abundance of weddings in 2017 (including our own discipleship pastor…finally). All joking aside, last year the Lord added to our community through new community groups, new leaders, and new partnerships with other Homewood churches. We shared in Lenten devotionals and a Reformation celebration with brothers and sisters from across our city; and, I believe, the Lord is going to use this unity more and more for the spread of the Gospel. The purpose, the root of our community is Christ!

And finally, if all our worship, serving, and community are rooted in the glory of Jesus then our Mission must be also! We are a people who long for Christ’s glory to be known from Birmingham to the ends of the earth. And, last year our root of mission dug down as we saw new believers come to faith and be baptized. It dug down through the West Homewood Farmer’s Market continuing to connect with the surrounding neighborhood. It dug down through sending a hurricane relief team to Florida and a mission team to Cambodia. It dug down through the commissioning of people out from our body to domestic as well as Global mission. And it continues to dig down as we persevere in prayer for the Lord to raise up more laborers for his harvest. We have been and must continue to be a people whose mission is rooted in the glory of Jesus!

So, Shades…in 2018, let’s sink our roots even deeper! Through all our worship, serving, community, and mission let’s delve into the infinite depths of Jesus. Let’s go into the world in peace, having courage, holding on to what is good, honoring all men, strengthening the faint-hearted, supporting the weak, helping the suffering, and sharing the Gospel. Let’s love and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is with us all. Let’s sink our roots deeper into the glory of Jesus because he has sunk the roots of his love deep into us.

I love you all,

Jonathan

*Spoken word written and performed by Luke DeMarco for Shades Valley Community Church’s 2017 Easter service. Audio recording coming next week.

Death in His Grave
I stand before the cross of Christ, mostly unaware of all my Savior suffered.
We see the Cross everywhere, and it’s certainly not a bad thing,
But let’s just acknowledge the fact that this is the only instance in human history where in instrument of torture has become a t-shirt design.
I forget the weight of His glory.
I forget the weight of His cross.
It’s meaning, though full,
Tends to get lost amongst the costly commodities this world deems worthy of worship.
But let’s stop looking at this jaded glimmer of this dying world,
And let’s fix our eyes on this… Cross,
As well as the King that bore it.

This King, anticipated by the prophets of old,
Who told the old world will fold with the cold sting of death,
And new life would emerge from the same breath that breathed life into Adam.
The Messiah was coming,
The Spirit of God was on him,
and He will send hell running back into the darkness from whence it came.
This world would never be the same! So the world looked longingly for the chosen One.
Little did death know he would be running from a carpenter’s Son.

Our king come down in humility,
There was no beauty in His appearance that we should desire Him,
Even though we should have longed for Him, and yet…
He desired us,
Despite the fact that our DNA was drenched in the very darkness He came to kill.
He still loved us, even while we were His enemies.

And enemies we proved ourselves to be.
While our Savior came to portray the image of God,
We hung him on a tree.
But make no mistake, the Savior’s will was free.
He knew this was coming, and He still came willingly.
After two years of ministry,
This carpenter King brought himself to cavalry,
This Beacon of Heaven, had brought himself to misery,
For the sake of us… why?

Because he loved us.
And we looked straight back into those mercy-filled eyes,
And denied Him.
We gazed at His glory and exclaimed “Crucify Him!”

And He made no defense.
No plea for mercy escaped his lips.
When we stared him down in our courtrooms,
Asking Him to state his case.
We had no idea that the Judge of Heaven had taken our place!
The crown of eternity was willingly replaced with a crown of thorns.
We mocked Him, and beat Him, and he bore our scorn.
Despite all this… we found Him innocent!
Yet our sin-torn hearts beat against Him.

It was then we placed this cross on his shoulders.
Both citizens and soldiers were thirsty for innocent blood to be spilled
In our sinful state, we desperately wanted the Living God killed. Little did we know…
It should have been us walking to Golgotha,
holding the cold weight of this cross.
It should have been us suffering this loss,
But behold, the Son of Man walked in our place.
Disfigured, disdained and defeated.
The hands that held the earth in place were cheated,
As we pierced them to pieces of wood.
The Firstborn of all Creation was hoised up,
As we stood idly by, mocking his precious name.
“If you are the Son of God, pull yourself off this cross!”

You were battered and beaten.
And our scoffing cries, drenched in lies,
was against all that you and I were made to do in the first place.
Worship was our purpose, but goodness was purged by the fallen fruit of Eden’s trees.
Instead of falling to our knees in repentance,
We mocked Him through and through.
But as the sun and moon turned their heads in disbelief,
The temple veil was torn in two.
What kind of love is this??

As the Savior breathed his last,
Every sin, mistake, and blemish of the past
Was covered in the blood and water that flowed from his side.
Jesus has drunk our wrath and bore our pride.
He died in our place, sin’s hunger diminished.
He hung his head, and through the blood and tears whispered,
“It is finished.”

—

But this is not the end.
And it never was. For our God, who mends
What’s broken, has spoken of this redemption since the beginning, before all the sin we’ve done.
The Father did not simply send his Son
To bend and break under the weight of sin and death.
But on Day Three… the Savior once again took a breath!
And the bandaged body of Christ began to have a heartbeat once more.
Beating out death by death,
Our Savior left His tomb, sealed by the stone.
The Man of Sorrows, who died all alone,
Has now become the Name above all names,
And He sits on His glorious throne.

He has conquered death,
And brought his Bride, the Church, out of hell’s clutches.
So we will walk through the valleys that go by death’s name,
We will walk through the flood and the fire just the same.
We lay our lives down, we consider all as loss.
For the sake of Christ,
We now live from His cross.
We are no longer orphans,
We are no longer slaves,
We are now children of God,
Bought with the blood that he gave.
Praise the name of Jesus!
He is mighty to save!
Worthy is the Lamb who lay death in his grave!

Revelation 21:1-8 (click here)
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:3)

Reflection
God with us.

Think about it… just as it was in creation so will it be in consummation… all because of Christ.

We were created to be God’s people… his community… with whom he dwelt. But, we broke fellowship. Through our sin, creation and community were corrupted.

Yet, the entire storyline of the Bible declares that our God has not abandoned creation or his community… no… he comes for us! He will redeem us, reconcile all things, and dwell with us again!

In the tabernacle, he came to dwell amongst his people.

In the temple, he came to dwell with his people.

In Christ, God dwelt with with his people as one of them.

In the Holy Spirit, God dwells in his people.

And the day of consummation is coming when God will complete our redemption through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and “He will dwell with [us], and [we] will be his people, and God himself will be with [us] as [our] God.”

Looking forward to that day is meant to provide us power  in the present! Power to be his people, sacrificing ourselves for one another and for the sake of his kingdom! We don’t have to make our lives all about building our own kingdom because we know that we are citizens of an everlasting kingdom that is coming! We can give our lives and sacrifice all for the sake of one another and the Gospel… we can be a cruciform community precisely because the community of the crucified Christ will be brought to consummation!

We must set this vision of community before us day after day… as we currently live amongst corruption we look and long for the day of consummation! We testify to it’s coming by living cruciform lives right now!

Oh Shades… let us be the cruciform community God has created us to be and called us to be! May he proved the power as we look forward to the consummated community of his kingdom!

*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.