House setup

The setup of our new house is going well. We got off to a slow start, but are now in the home stretch. It wasn’t easy trying to find what we needed in a big town, and with slowly improving language, but we learned a lot about the city and a lot of Kurdish by immersion. The challenge was frustrating and fun at the same time. At one end we needed to know how to understand directions from a national who was just trying to help, then try to communicate to the shop owner what we need (how many, what size, what color, etc.), and then on the other end, we had to try and talk with the delivery guys over the phone on how to find our house. (Keep in mind the delivery guys speak Kurdish and there is no address system here in Erbil.) In less than a week we should have our bedroom furniture. The girls are excited to be able to put their things away and stop living out of suitcases! The biggest items left to purchase are furniture pieces for the living room. We have found something we really like, but we are nearing the end of our budget, so we have a tough decision to make.

Click here to see some pictures of our house and here to see some fun pics from around the neighborhood.

Flowers of Kirkuk

We had an amazing opportunity this past weekend. One of our new neighbors (who is American) works in the film industry. When we met him a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned a movie premier that was coming up. Last week he gave us an invitation to attend here in Erbil. The movie was shot completely in Kurdistan 2009 and entered in the 2010 Rome International Film Festival. There will also be a premier in Sulymania this week and then it will be sent to Los Angeles as the Iraqi Oscar submission for 2012. The movie is titled “The Flowers of Kirkuk.” The setting is 1988 when some of the most severe atrocities were carried out against the Kurdish people by Sadaam Hussein’s regime. It is love story between an Arab woman and a Kurdish man who work together to help those who are being mistreated. The movie is very powerful and moving, touching on human rights, women’s rights, ethnic cleansing, forgiveness and redemption. Click here to see a trailer and here to read a review. It was a cultural opportunity that does not come along often in this part of the world, and we were so thrilled to have been invited!

Forgiving Spirit - Tim Keller (2)

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Next installment from Tim Keller series on I Cor 13

Love is patient... it does not keep a record of wrongs.

Matt 18:21-35

The parable of the unforgiving servant

Patience - long tempered – refers to metals that melt only at high temperatures. Long suffering… spiritual patience is the inner power to bear injury and sufferings without meltdown. This is a choice to bear your sufferings; you choose to accept them, not to let them steal your joy.

To bear others resentment/injury without meltdown – a forgiving spirit.

Hebrews 12:15 – Take care lest any harboring root of bitterness, which springing up, defiles many. Why is anger depicted as a root? We always minimize and hide anger. It works in a hidden way. Long suffering counteracts this when we don’t let other people change us. If we don’t forgive, it infects a long grade spiritual fever that can fester and “spring up”.

What is a forgiving spirit? 3 things that you need to do to have a forgiving spirit. Took pity, canceled the debt, and let him go. First aspect – do not take revenge; you pay down the emotional debt. Most people make the other person pay. Don’t harbor, gossip, slander, etc. Seeing the other person hurt may make you feel better, but it passes into you and melted you. If you make the other person pay, it changes you… it controls you. Pay it down yourself, absorb it. Don’t just ignore it, absorb it. It hurts, it’s hard. It’s costly to you, but slowly the anger will go out. Depending on the size of the wrong, it can take at long time. But you are free, you have maintained your shape, you haven’t had a meltdown.

Second, he was moved with compassion – took pity. Our first reaction when wronged is to stress the differences. If order to have a forgiving spirit, you have to stress the commonalities, not the differences. Deep in all us is a desire to justify ourselves. So when wronged you immediately need to feel better by feeling more superior to the other person. But when you stress commonality, you see that you can be just as harsh, just as stupid, just as wrong sometimes yourself. “I am fallible. I am weak. I am confused. I am mixture of good and evil. So is this person.” If you do that, you get your freedom.

Third thing – no revenge, identify with the person, and then let them go. Our first response can be to demand justice. If you don’t first personally forgive, you’ll never get justice. Without a forgiving spirit, you are really seeking revenge which is selfish, not loving. The last mark of a forgiving spirit is it doesn’t like conflict, but it doesn’t avoid it. It doesn’t do vengeance, but it doesn’t avoid confrontation. When you move out into the world like that, you and you alone will be free.

One more point – how are we ever going to do this? “Take pity” is the Greek word used about Jesus more than any other word. When we seek justice, we are like this servant who chose to act like a king and throw his friend into jail. We have to behold the King who became a servant, who came knowing, not that he MIGHT lose it all, but that he WOULD lose it all. He came and died with the last words, “It is finished.” Which literally it means, “It is paid.” If you look at all HE has done for you, the infinite debt for everyone, you can be glad to show him how much you love him for doing that by doing it for others. You are dearly loved, so be patient, live with a forgiving spirit. THEN you will be free.

Practical grace - Tim Keller (1)

Over the next weeks as time permits I will be posting some notes from a series of sermons by Tim Keller. They are all based from I Cor 13. The notes hopefully will make sense to you, but they are really for me to remember. They will seem a bit long, so skim as you like and maybe you'll find some nuggets as well. I hope you get something from them.

If you like the series, here is the link.

I Cor 13 - Love and practical grace

Many times when read it is followed by a deep sigh, this is not what Paul meant. The Corinthians did not think this was a lovely passage.

V 1-3 describes what the Corinthians are like – gifted/talented

V 4-7 almost every Greek word that shows up has already been used to criticize them – all the things they are not. Your giftedness is great, but your character isn’t much. Your DOING is great, but your BEING stinks. The emphasis should not be on performing.

You can be the most successful, most talented, but if you irritable, impatient, self-absorbed, self-pitying, and anxious, you got nothing, you are nothing. Character is everything.

What the Bible says about heart character doesn’t fit into most discussions about virtues.

What is heart character? What is inner love/joy, the super-natural change in character God can bring?

2 negatives and a positive, 2 things it is not and 1 thing it is.

Inner heart character is not the same thing as being gifted.

Faith to move mountains is a leadership gift. Prophecy is direct revelation. You could have these and be spiritually nothing, not a Christian at all. “Many bad men have had spiritual gifts (Matt 7:21). …Gifts of the spirit are excellent things, but they are not things that are inherent in the nature as true grace and holiness are. Gifts of the spirit are then as it were as precious jewels that a man carries about him, but true grace in the heart is at were the preciousness of the heart itself by which the soul becomes a precious jewel by the Spirit of God.” Edwards

It is possible to give your talents to God, and not give your heart. Giftedness is so different from spiritual growth in grace and spiritual character.

2 questions:

If that’s true, why would God work in people who are weak Christians or not one at all? He is a very kind and loving person. Just think how crummy the world would be if only mature Christians could do the work of God.

How is it possible to do great works and have little or no grace? You mistake your talent for character. You mistake gifts for grace. We assume the gifted is walking with God. Because we do this, lots of times lots and lots of talent can be spiritual poison. It is possible to do, do, do and be nothing.

Am I hiding behind my abilities and underneath I am joyless, I am always feeling slighted, I am impatient, I am irritable, I do keep a record of wrongs, I do give up...?

Second thing… it is not just being GOOD. I can be good, but gain nothing. What we really need is not talents, what we need is moral virtuous behavior. This list unites the liberal and the conservative type person. Give to the poor… die for the faith.

Paul is going deep, and pointing out the virtue lists are still not down to the heart level. They can be done for two very different heart motives. You can be committed and still be nothing.

GAIN nothing. Gain = to count. You can do it all, and you still don’t merit, or earn, anything. You can DO all these things without being loving. If you do behaviorally loving things, to get a sense of worth, they are worthless. They don’t please God and they don’t help anyone else.

Love – to serve other people instead of yourself. If the reason you are kind to someone, even an incredibly generous person, is to count, to know others will see me as kind, to know that now God will love me… it is about YOU, not others. You are being loving without love.

How do you know this is really about you? 2 things the text tells us – a. This list. It is more subtle, below the rules. This is how you are with people in private. Are you impatient? Do you get irritable? Are you harsh? Are you vain? Are you self-centered? Are you driven? Are you always getting your feelings hurt? b. There is a loveless service; the final test is the last verse. Real love doesn’t give up, doesn’t fall down. The way you’ll know is when an amazing loving relationship is over, it turns to disdain almost immediately. When the whole relationship was about you, and not the other person. It wasn’t love at all.

Not gifted, not good, it is about BEING GRACED. First, inner character comes from a completely different way to approach God. “Gong and cymbal…”, Paul is talking about temple worship. It was a spectacle, epic pageantry. God or gods had be attracted and merited. Paul is saying it is possible to get into the church and DO all the right things and still worship like a PAGAN. “Look I count… look at me don’t you want to bless me.” You can be very christiany and not become a Christian. To get so wrapped up in it, and not see that how fundamentally different Christianity is from every other religion in the way you approach God.

The implication is you are supposed to know you count with God before you do it. Not out there meeting some inner vacuum you have, but a response to fullness, not emptiness. How do you do it? In almost every English translation, the words in v4-7 are adjectives, but it is really a set of verbs. Paul is strikingly personifying love. This translation is better - “Love suffers a long time with patience. Love shows kindness. Love does not burn with envy. It does not get inflated with its own importance. It is never rude and ill mannered. Rather love joyfully celebrates truth, gives all kinds of support, never loses faith, never exhausts hope, love never gives up.” Paul is deliberately not giving a set of rules; he is giving us a person who is love. Two reasons for doing this: 1. You will never be a loving person if you see it as a list of rules that you have to breathe life into. It is a living active power that has to get a hold of you and breathe life into you. 2. He is thinking of somebody specifically. In the context of the whole book of Corinthians, he is telling them they are forgetting the cross. How can they fight and bicker with each other in light of the cross? How can you be so emotionally needy if you remember the cross?

Where is the ultimate example of suffering patiently? Where do see you the ultimate example of not keeping a record of wrongs? Where do you see the ultimate example of love never giving up? Jesus, by enduring the cross, put his happiness into your joy. It is a love that has been done to you and for you FIRST.

Jonathan Edwards’ definition of love – love is putting your happiness in the happiness of others. When you put your happiness in the happiness of others, so their happiness is the only happiness you have. It’s the other person’s joy that is your joy. There is no other joy. You can’t produce that, but you can pass it along, when you realize you have already gotten it from somebody else.

You have to change your entire approach to God and see the ultimate source of love is Jesus dying on the cross.

New Pics

Here are a few pictures from around town and the neighborhood kids.

Around town - here.

Neighbors - here.