Boom, Roasted!

I consider myself blessed to have the calling on my life as a pastor. One of the great privileges of this calling is the opportunity to open God's Word and to be His vessel to communicate Truth to His Body of believers. There is nothing that stirs my heart in ministry like getting to preach the Word. In fact, I get frustrated when I do not have the opportunity to speak on a regular basis. Currently, God is allowing me the opportunity to speak on a weekly basis at our student worship gathering, Elevate.

We are currently in a series at Elevate called "CSI: My Life." It is based on the following question: "Is there enough evidence to convict you of being a Christian if your life was under investigation?" This series has been powerful for the first four weeks. There have been numerous students pray to receive Christ, and others have experienced authentic repentance. I have been stoked about each message of this series...until last night. Last night I had to preach one of the most difficult messages of my life.

The area that was being examined last night was the act of being kind. You might be shocked that a pastor would consider this to be a difficult message to deliver, but this area has been a struggle for me. Do not get me wrong, I consider myself to be a nice person. However, I have allowed myself to fall into the line of thinking that being nice is not funny. This is where my struggle developed. I often joke that God has given me the Spiritual gift of sarcasm. I embrace any opportunity I have to utilize sarcasm in my interactions. I convinced myself that this is what I do...it is who I am. Think about it, sarcasm is funny. Being kind to someone is not funny. No one laughs when you compliment someone. On the other hand, it is hilarious if you point out someone's imperfections. The latter was my focus because I love to get a laugh out of people. I was getting laughs, but damaging the advancement of the Kingdom.

I discovered the problem in my preparation for the message. The message came from Ephesians 4:25-32. I was studying these Scriptures and seeking God's direction on the text of the message. I was thinking of a way to introduce the message creatively and I remembered my favorite episode from the greatest television show on the planet, "The Office." I began looking for a clip from the episode where Michael Scott wants to have a roast in his honor. I thought this would be perfect clip because nothing that was said was kind. I finally found the clip that I was looking for. Andy Bernard sang a song for his roast and it goes like this,

I remember this episode vividly because I thought it was hilarious. Consequently, it provided an equally vivid picture of me and the way I use my humor sometimes at the expense of others. It was humbling to see myself in the characters as they were zinging each other. That was me. I could hang with the best of them when it came to classic one-liners. The painful reality is that is not something characteristic of a follower of Jesus Christ. It happened in my office, it was one of those AHA moments with God.

The moments following were beautiful for me because I had to repent before my heavenly father. Paul gives us an illustration of repentance when he writes about the thief in Eph. 4:28. Repentance is not simply stopping something, but it is doing something different in its place. Personally, this means that I need to use my words and humor positively. I am called, as a follower of Jesus, to build up the Body with my words. I am glad that God allowed me to get beat up a little bit by His Word because it was something that needed to change. I am not claiming perfection following last night. It will be part of my journey with God to replace the zingers with encouragement. I am thankful that at the end of the day it was almost as if God had said to me..."Boom, Roasted!"