Pastor Tony Lutyk

About Pastor Tony Lutyk

Tony Lutyk is the Campus Pastor at Love Church Gainesville. He’s an excellent leader and communicator who has a talent for throwing in some wit and humor when he preaches. He’s passionate about God’s Word, seeing people reach their full potential in Christ.

Posts by Pastor Tony Lutyk:

January 6 2022

Soul Filter

Pastor Tony Lutyk Blog, Contributor, new

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.7.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”-82px||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|phone” custom_padding=”||12px|||” custom_padding_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.6.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”0px|||||” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”|0px||0px|false|false”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.6.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https://8kwd60.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/SoulFilter1920x1920.jpg” title_text=”Hydrate” disabled_on=”off|off|on” _builder_version=”4.9.7″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”||8px|||” border_radii=”on|8px|8px|8px|8px” box_shadow_style=”preset1″][/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.7″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Neue Montreal||||||||” custom_padding=”||25px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ inline_fonts=”Ogg Medium” sticky_enabled=”0″]In 1854, the world’s greatest city was gripped by fear. An outbreak of the disease known as Cholera was sweeping across London, England, killing people seemingly at random in a terrifyingly brief window of 24 hours. The randomness was the product of confusion around how the disease worked. No one really knew how Cholera thrived and was transmitted. So, when one house on a street would have an entire family stricken with the disease and all of their neighbors would fine, it only added to the terror. Thousands of otherwise healthy people were being bedridden, and many were dying with no known cure.

And into that fear stepped maybe the most important person you’ve never heard of: an English physician named John Snow. Snow, helped by a Reverend named Henry Whitehead, was treating victims of the outbreak when he made an earth-shattering discovery: all the victims, regardless of where they lived, had drawn and used water from the same well pump on Broad Street. Although the limits of microbiology at the time meant that he couldn’t prove conclusively that the pump was responsible, he was able to convince the local authorities to remove the handle of the Broad Street pump. When the handle was removed, the outbreak quickly ended.

Dr. Snow is considered the father of epidemiology, and his discoveries lead to one of the most important breakthroughs in the modern world: the idea that poor sanitation leads to the transmission of disease. His influence lead many major cities in the Western World to invest heavily in sanitation infrastructure in the second half of the 19th Century, and if you track life expectancy trends in the Western World you will find that they have doubled since the implementation of modern sanitation.

All this progress happened because Dr. Snow discovered something powerful: what we allow into our bodies, even if it is microscopic, can make a big difference. So, we should make sure we have a filter. The same is true for our souls.

This principle is worth considering as we enter a season of prayer, because 21 days of prayer is intense. Many of us are fasting, reading multiple hours of scripture, and gathering daily to seek the presence of God in order to get a greater, deeper and more powerful experience of the presence of God.

But greater presence always demands greater sacrifice.

Greater presence always demands greater sacrifice.

This is true all throughout scripture, and a great example of this comes from Exodus 19, when God is about to renew his covenant with his people through Moses, and verse 12 he tells Moses to do something very strange, “Mark off a boundary all around the mountain. Warn the people, ‘Be careful! Do not go up on the mountain or even touch its boundaries. Anyone who touches the mountain will certainly be put to death.”

Now that seems a bit harsh for the God of love and grace. But remember, He is also the holy and eternal King over all creation. And because of this, there are certain things that he will not allow to be brought into his presence.

That’s the challenge of prayer. Prayer begins as a conversation with God, but as you pursue the life of prayer you discover that prayer is a greater revelation of the spiritual truth revealed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6, that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The God of the universe wants to make your life His dwelling place. This is why a greater experience of the presence of the holy God of heaven demands a greater degree of holiness. Because God sees the sin that seems microscopic to you and me for what it is; an affront to his nature that is slowly poisoning our souls from the inside out. And he will not allow it into his presence.

It’s not that God doesn’t love you, it’s that God has standards about where is presence will dwell.
So, as we ask God for revival, it is worth remembering that every documented revival that we have record of included an embrace of a greater degree of personal holiness. Not so that God will love us, the cross already proves that he does. But a pursuit of holiness is what he is worthy of. As we journey together in prayer, I would encourage you to ask God for the gift of conviction. Allow him to place his finger on an area or two of your life that he wants to change. Because you have not been left alone to struggle, you have been given the gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit. And with God, all things are possible. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.6.0″ _module_preset=”default” width_tablet=”80%” width_phone=”80%” width_last_edited=”on|tablet” max_width=”1920px” module_alignment=”center” locked=”off”][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.7.4″ background_color=”#ffffff” width=”100%” max_width=”1920px” custom_margin=”0px|0px|0px|0px|true|true” custom_padding=”51px|60px|51px|60px|true|true” custom_padding_tablet=”60px|40px|60px|40px|true|true” custom_padding_phone=”40px|20px|40px|20px|true|true” border_radii=”on|10px|10px|10px|10px” box_shadow_style=”preset1″ box_shadow_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.1)” locked=”off”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.0.3″][et_pb_blurb title=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9hdXRob3IiLCJzZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJiZWZvcmUiOiJCeSAiLCJhZnRlciI6IiIsIm5hbWVfZm9ybWF0IjoiZGlzcGxheV9uYW1lIiwibGluayI6Im9mZiIsImxpbmtfZGVzdGluYXRpb24iOiJhdXRob3JfYXJjaGl2ZSJ9fQ==@” image=”https://8kwd60.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/TonyLutyk2.png” image_max_width=”150px” content_max_width=”860px” image_tablet=”https://8kwd60.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/joshbairdblog.png” image_phone=”https://8kwd60.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ShawnBaird2.png” image_last_edited=”off|tablet” image_max_width_tablet=”150px” image_max_width_phone=”150px” image_max_width_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.9.1″ _dynamic_attributes=”title,content” header_font=”New Montreal Medium|600|||||||” header_text_color=”#333333″ header_font_size=”22px” header_line_height=”1.4em” body_font=”Neue Montreal||||||||” body_font_size=”16px” body_line_height=”1.9em” text_orientation=”center” animation=”off” header_font_size_tablet=”18px” header_font_size_phone=”17px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” body_font_size_tablet=”15px” body_font_size_phone=”17px” body_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” custom_css_main_element=”font-weight: 400;” border_radii_image=”on|200px|200px|200px|200px” box_shadow_style_image=”preset1″ box_shadow_vertical_image=”10px” box_shadow_blur_image=”20px” box_shadow_color_image=”rgba(0,0,0,0.1)”]@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9hdXRob3JfYmlvIiwic2V0dGluZ3MiOnsiYmVmb3JlIjoiIiwiYWZ0ZXIiOiIifX0=@[/et_pb_blurb][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

April 28 2021

On Grief and Glory

Pastor Tony Lutyk Blog, Contributor, new coping, Grief, Loss, pain

That was my response to a friend who recently brought me some bad news. I had been expecting this particular piece of bad news for a few weeks at this point, but the shock of actually hearing that my fears had entered reality was something I needed to deal with.

The trouble is, I received this news on a Sunday, and Sunday is not a day that I am capable of dealing with much of anything. We all have those days, don’t we? The big days in our schedules, the moments where we have to be ready to bring our best and the pace of our schedule will not allow us to confront reality. And so, it was when I received bad news on my big day that one of the most honest things that I have ever admitted about myself to myself leaked to the surface.

I’m really good at compartmentalizing.

A younger version of me would have looked at this particular skill as a leadership strength. I don’t let bad news weigh me down, I’m strong I can handle whatever life throws at me, feelings are for people with other personality types or Enneagram numbers.

The trouble is that I have been following Jesus too long. I’ve now seen too much. I’ve experienced pain, loss, disappointment, disillusionment, grief. I’ve seen what ignored pain can do to my soul and as a pastor, I’ve seen what it can do to marriages, families, and children.

I’ve come to realize compartmentalizing is not a skill. Compartmentalizing is a trap.

What makes God good is not that God shields us from pain, it is that God redeems pain for an ultimate purpose.

There is no quicker way to get stuck in grief and pain than to ignore it. This was the conclusion of a psychologist named James Pennebaker, who ran a study in the late 1980s of the health of 60 Holocaust survivors. Pennebaker and his team interviewed the survivors about their experiences in the Nazi death camps and group the respondents into a few categories. One category he classified as “high disclosers”, meaning they were willing to talk in great detail about their experience of trauma. Another category he classified as “low disclosers”, meaning they were unwilling to discuss their experience of trauma in any detail. One year later, the study revealed that the “high disclosers” had to visit their doctor half as often as the “low disclosers”.

What this means is that our willingness to open up about our pain is directly correlated not just to our emotional and spiritual health, but to our physical health as well. Maybe James, the brother of Jesus knew what he was talking about when he wrote, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (James 5:16)

I could ask the question of why we don’t do this, but the answer is obvious. It is scary to confront our pain, our grief, and our sorrow. It highlights the brokenness of our world, the brevity of life, and the misguided illusion of control so many of us cling to for our security. We fear pain, loss, grief, and death. So, it is simply easier not to look; to pretend that we can out-smart, out-work, or out-pray what is an inevitable part of the human experience. Pain, loss, and death are the consequence of our fallen sinful world, and while not every moment of pain in our lives is directly tied to a sin that we have committed, the words of our savior in John 16:33 lend us a sobering reality of life, “in this world you will have many troubles and sorrows.”

And yet it is the second half of this verse where Jesus offers us a hope that is so different from the hope we try to grab onto with our compartmentalizing. Jesus says, “But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” The hope of Jesus is not that this world will get better. It is certainly possible, but it is not guaranteed. The hope of Jesus is that he has overcome the world, he is resurrected, sitting on an un-assaulted throne in heaven, and we have the Holy Spirit alive on the inside of us right now as a deposit of the hope of glory that is our inheritance as followers of Christ.

Pain is unavoidable. God is good. Those two facts seem to be contradictory, and yet they are both true. What makes God good is not that God shields us from pain, it is that God redeems pain for an ultimate purpose. And it is why God wants more for us than compartmentalization. Because the solution to pain is purpose, and purpose makes the process worth the pain.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.6.0″ _module_preset=”default” width_tablet=”80%” width_phone=”80%” width_last_edited=”on|tablet” max_width=”1920px” module_alignment=”center” locked=”off”][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.7.4″ background_color=”#ffffff” width=”100%” max_width=”1920px” custom_margin=”0px|0px|0px|0px|true|true” custom_padding=”51px|60px|51px|60px|true|true” custom_padding_tablet=”60px|40px|60px|40px|true|true” custom_padding_phone=”40px|20px|40px|20px|true|true” border_radii=”on|10px|10px|10px|10px” box_shadow_style=”preset1″ box_shadow_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.1)” locked=”off”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.0.3″][et_pb_blurb title=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9hdXRob3IiLCJzZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJiZWZvcmUiOiJCeSAiLCJhZnRlciI6IiIsIm5hbWVfZm9ybWF0IjoiZGlzcGxheV9uYW1lIiwibGluayI6Im9mZiIsImxpbmtfZGVzdGluYXRpb24iOiJhdXRob3JfYXJjaGl2ZSJ9fQ==@” image=”https://8kwd60.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/TonyLutyk2.png” image_max_width=”150px” content_max_width=”860px” image_tablet=”https://8kwd60.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/joshbairdblog.png” image_phone=”https://8kwd60.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ShawnBaird2.png” image_last_edited=”off|tablet” image_max_width_tablet=”150px” image_max_width_phone=”150px” image_max_width_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.9.1″ _dynamic_attributes=”title,content” header_font=”New Montreal Medium|600|||||||” header_text_color=”#333333″ header_font_size=”22px” header_line_height=”1.4em” body_font=”Neue Montreal||||||||” body_font_size=”16px” body_line_height=”1.9em” text_orientation=”center” animation=”off” header_font_size_tablet=”18px” header_font_size_phone=”17px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” body_font_size_tablet=”15px” body_font_size_phone=”17px” body_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” custom_css_main_element=”font-weight: 400;” border_radii_image=”on|200px|200px|200px|200px” box_shadow_style_image=”preset1″ box_shadow_vertical_image=”10px” box_shadow_blur_image=”20px” box_shadow_color_image=”rgba(0,0,0,0.1)”]@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9hdXRob3JfYmlvIiwic2V0dGluZ3MiOnsiYmVmb3JlIjoiIiwiYWZ0ZXIiOiIifX0=@[/et_pb_blurb][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

March 4 2021

Think Again

Pastor Tony Lutyk Blog, Contributor, new, Trust

Imagine that you are stuck in traffic on Route 66 on your way home from work. You’re in one of the two middle lanes that is crawling along, when suddenly you notice the right lane is moving. Your instincts tell you to wait; surely this lane will eventually start moving. But then five more cars pass you, and you reconsider. You decided to be bold and merge into the right lane.

And, of course, the moment you do, the right lane grinds to a halt and the middle lanes begin moving. Why must we constantly overthink every decision when our instincts are usually right? If we could just learn to trust ourselves, life would be so much better.

But is that true? Is overthinking really the problem that we think it is? Are our gut reactions really more powerful than our measured reconsiderations? In 2005, Justin Kruger, a Psychologist at the University of Illinois, published a paper in which he decided to find out. Researchers monitored the midterm exams for 1,561 students and counted the number of eraser marks on the paper, comparing the final answer to the correct answer. What they found is that 51% of the changes were wrong-to-right compared to 23% were right-to-wrong.

So, what made these students so bold to challenge their own gut reactions? Were they all living by the mantra of Jerry Seinfeld to his friend George Constanza, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite must be right,”?

Hardly. When Kruger interviewed the 51% who changed their answer from wrong to right, he discovered that 75% of them expected there would be more changes from right to wrong than from wrong to right. They changed reluctantly, in spite of their assumptions.

When you submit something to God, He always replaces it with something better.

What Kruger discovered is that while changing our answers from right to wrong isn’t more common, it is more memorable. You remember the time changing lanes on the highway didn’t work because it is incredibly frustrating, and you feel dumb; you don’t remember the dozens of times you changed lanes and it worked out better.

This is what has come to be known as the First Instinct Fallacy. It is the idea that our first instincts and assumptions, while not necessarily bad or wrong, carry a greater weight in our own estimation than they might merit upon closer examination.

This is not that big of deal, of course, when it comes to what lane to crawl along in during rush hour traffic or what line to pick at the grocery store. However, when it comes to our assumptions about life’s big issues, this form of confirmation bias can keep us from applying the truth of God’s word to things like relationship, family, morality, and politics. Because if my gut instinct is correct, why bother checking it against the truth of God’s word?

The truth is that we do not want to submit our gut instincts to anyone, God included. And yet, this level of submission is what the gospel requires of us.

Jesus himself highlighted this point with a very strange illustration in Luke 9:23, when He says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Jesus says it’s not enough merely to deny yourself. You must also take up a cross, an instrument of torture and death, every day to be his follower.

This is why being a truly devoted follower can be so challenging. There are parts of you that do not line up with the word of God. These parts can be assumptions, beliefs, behaviors, habits, or mindsets. And because they are our first instincts, we think they are true, good, and right. But they are not true, good, or right. They feel good, but they are killing us. Still, letting go of them will be difficult. It will feel like a kind of death.

But the wonderful thing about Jesus is that He is a resurrected savior. When you submit something to Him, He always replaces it with something better. This is the testimony that echoes across history from a Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus, who spent years trying to stamp out a heretical movement in first century Judaism called the way because he knew this is what God wanted. Until God Himself met Saul on the road to Damascus and invited Him to think again.

Saul reacted to his encounter with the living Word of God with humility. And through that humility came freedom, influence, and authority. That’s the power in dying to self. You might sacrifice the fleeting comfort of self-reliance. But in Christ, that death is met with a resurrection, and it is that resurrection that our world is dying to encounter. So, let’s be a church that is ready and willing to think again.

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January 26 2021

The Power in Persistence

Pastor Tony Lutyk 21 Days of Prayer, Contributor, new 21 Days of Prayer, Persistence, Prayer

Like many of us, I like to use the dawn of a New Year as an opportunity for some self-reflection and goal setting. Some of us do New Year Resolutions, some prefer setting goals for the year, some of us just know of a couple of areas that we’d like to see get better in 2021. The trouble is that the math isn’t on our side. A recent report in Forbes Magazine article found that 80% of New Year Resolutions don’t make it to February, and only 8% of people achieve their New Year Resolutions. That’s stunning.

And yet somehow it makes perfect sense. Because anyone can start, it’s the finishing that’s the challenge. This is why it’s so difficult for us to unlock the blessing of God. Because the key to accessing God’s best for us is found in making a proactive decision to continually place God first in every area of our lives starting with the habit of prayer.

The key to accessing God’s best for us is found in making a proactive decision to continually place God first in every area of our lives starting with the habit of prayer.

The trouble with this is, of course, the word continually.

We have to place Him first over and over again or else we will begin to drift. And we never seem to drift towards healthy decisions. When it comes to our diet for instance, no one drifts towards a kale salad, we drift towards Krispy Kreme! The same is true for us spiritually. There is power in persistence.

But the process of developing the habit is where too many of us get frustrated with prayer. Because let’s be real: prayer is not amazing all the time.

Prayer is never bad, but sometimes those moments seem ordinary. Maybe we find it hard to concentrate, we don’t hear an audible voice from heaven, or we grow tired of praying for the same things over and over again. We want to experience the power of God, but we chafe under the mundanity and discipline required to cultivate a life of prayer. And too often we simply settle for rote platitudes and a half-engaged mind when we pray because we know prayer is something we’re supposed to do, if we even stick with the process at all.

This is common frustration, but it stems from a skewed perspective many of us have about what prayer actually is. Prayer is a conversation with God. It is a foundational element of our relationship with the Creator of the universe specifically because it is a relational interaction. The theologian Edmond Clowney says of prayer, “The Bible does not present an art of prayer, it presents the God of prayer.” Prayer is primarily about developing our relationship with God.

Where did we develop this notion that prayer was different than any other relationship? Is every interaction you have with your spouse, your children, or your friends mind-blowing? Of course not. But it is the consistency and regularity of your investment into those relationships that makes them meaningful. That’s why prayer is so powerful. It is not the answer that makes prayer great, it is the presence of the God who answers that makes prayer great.

The true value of persistent prayer comes from the health that develops in our souls when we connect with the glorious God of the universe and grow in our relationship with him. And just like any other intimate relationship, growing requires intentionality, consistency and persistence.

The true value of persistent prayer comes from the health that develops in our souls when we connect with the glorious God of the universe and grow in our relationship with him.

No one knew this more than Jesus, who believed so completely in this idea that He decided to model it for those of us who take the call to follow Him seriously. One of the most astounding verses to me in the entire Bible is Luke 22:39, “Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives,” (emphasis added). And at the Mount of Olives, Jesus did what He usually did there, He prayed. God incarnate modeling to His followers the power of persistent prayer on the night before He would go to the cross to pay for humanity’s sins.

Too many of us want the power without the patterns. We want to see God do the supernatural, but we are not willing to invest in growing our relationship with the God of the supernatural. But Jesus knows that your life will chase your usual. So, as you lean into prayer during 2021, when developing the habit of prayer becomes challenging, frustrating, or just mundane, remember that your persistence is laying the foundation of your intimacy with your Heavenly Father. And the rewards found in intimacy are so much greater than simply an answered prayer.

November 17 2020

Unintended Consequences

Pastor Tony Lutyk Contributor, new

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In the 19^th century, the British government ruling Colonial India had a problem. A public health crisis had emerged in the capitol city, Delhi; an infestation of cobras. The venomous snakes were so numerous and ordinary Indian citizens were having such regular encounters with the deadly reptiles that the government decided they needed to act quickly to solve the problem. So, they instituted a bounty. For every dead cobra a citizen turned in, they would receive a monetary reward. And the bounty worked. After the first few years, the population of cobras and the number of deadly incidents in the city plummeted dramatically.

But then, a few years later, something strange happened. The bounty remained in place and people continued bringing dead cobras to receive the bounty, but the population of cobras began to rise dramatically and the number of deadly incidents skyrocketed to rates that exceeded the number before the bounty was even instituted!

What happened? People began breeding cobras to cash in on the bounty. The bounty that was intended to reduce the number of deadly snakes ended up creating an environment conducive to see the population increase artificially.

This story is a perfect illustration of a phenomenon Harvard sociologist Robert Merton calls, “the law of unintended consequences”. Merton posits essentially that the outcome of our actions have unintended consequences that are beyond our ability to control or predict. And these outcomes fall into three categories: unexpected benefits, unexpected drawbacks, and perverse results. The cobra effect would fall into the category of perverse results. But Merton’s larger point is instructive; there is a limit to our ability to control outcomes in our lives.

True hope is not found in our ability to control outcomes tomorrow, true hope is found in the recognition of and surrender in love to the one who is in control.

Nothing has done more to illustrate the truth of Merton’s idea than the year 2020 itself. COVID-19 and our collective response to it has shaken nearly every part of our life and daily routine. The economy, our healthcare system, our education systems, our mental health, our physical health, our practice of religious faith, our work life and even the manner in which we relate to our friends and family have felt the effects of the unintended consequences of our response to the virus.

This is why Merton’s ideas can actually produce a little despair if you really consider them closely. Because the implication is that human beings are not smart enough to predict the future. We cannot fully grasp the consequences of our own individual actions, let alone our collective actions. It is truly impossible to predict what tomorrow will hold.

But the good news for those of us that follow Jesus is that while predicting what tomorrow will hold might be impossible, we don’t have to be filled with fear, stress, or anxiety because we know who holds tomorrow. The writer of Hebrews says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”. That means that his nature never changes. It’s not dependent on the quality of my circumstances. On good days and bad days, he remains the same. In unexpected benefits, unexpected drawbacks, and perverse results, Jesus remains the same. He has the same love, the same power, the same grace, the same sovereignty, and the same mercies that are new every single morning.

Jesus is the same. And because Jesus is the same, we can trust him to be the God of the unintended consequences. Because if Jesus is the same, then it is impossible to surprise him. He’s prepared for all the outcomes and he has something good in every single one.

That is why the Apostle Paul could write in the book of Romans, “All things work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to his purposes”. All things, every unintended consequence is working together for good under the sovereign power of the God of unintended consequences. True hope is not found in our ability to control outcomes tomorrow, true hope is found in the recognition of and surrender in love to the one who is in control. Whose nature never changes. Who has never been surprised. And who is working for the good. In all things.

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September 1 2020

Drop An Anchor

Pastor Tony Lutyk Contributor

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“Is the height of the tallest redwood more or less than 1,200 feet?”

This is the first of two questions that was asked to a group of research participants visiting the San Francisco Exploratorium asked about Redwoods, which are known as the largest trees on planet earth. The participants were then asked a follow-up question; “What is your best guess about the height of the tallest redwood?”

What makes the Exploratorium study so interesting is who the questions were being asked by: a psychologist named Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman was interested in studying people, not trees. So, he took a second group of research participants and asked them an almost identical pair of questions with one important difference; “Is the height of the tallest redwood more or less than 180 feet?”

Kahneman then gathered all of the guesses about the height of the tallest redwood (380.1 feet is the correct answer for those who are dying a little on the inside without this information) and estimated the difference between those who were asked if the difference was 1,200 feet and those who were asked if the difference was 180 feet.

The results? The median guess for those in the 1,200 group was 844. The median guess for those in the 180 group was 282.

What Kahneman’s experiment demonstrates is a psychological phenomenon called the anchoring effect. Most people don’t really know anything about trees. It’s a moment of uncertainty. And we HATE uncertainty. So, the way that the human mind reacts to uncertainty is to search quickly for something certain, like the last number a researcher plants in our brain through a question. That number becomes the anchor for our thinking, and that anchor, more than logical reasoning or rational thinking, has a powerful effect on our decision making.

So, what’s anchoring you?

It has been a while since our world was this uncertain. Between a global pandemic, social isolation, civil unrest, an upcoming election, a tumultuous global economy, the strangest start to a school year in living memory, and the mere existence of Facebook, I personally cannot remember a time when the world felt this collectively erratic. The world needs the Church now more than ever. Yet Christians are people too, struggling with the same weight that humanity is carrying in this moment. And like the rest of humanity, in uncertain times Christians will also reach for an anchor.

The world needs the Church now more than ever. Yet Christians are people too, struggling with the same weight that humanity is carrying in this moment.

So, what’s your reference point? What does your mind reach for first in the midst of uncertainty? Is it your 401K? Your political ideology? Your relationship status? Your likes on social media?

These are, of course, fine things. But they cannot be first things. First things must be solid, secure and unchanging. That’s the whole point of an anchor. An anchor that shifts is no anchor at all. What people need to make it through uncertain times is a certain foundation.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is found in Hebrews chapter 6. The author of Hebrews is writing to a church whose members are facing uncertainty, persecution and expulsion from their community. These are people who need encouragement, and so the writer of Hebrews gives them encouragement in the following verses of 18-20: “So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.”

What I love about this passage is that the writer of Hebrews points us to hope, but that hope is not that our circumstances will change. There is no certainty in that. Instead, that hope is in the character of God. And God’s character never changes.

So, there is hope for our souls in uncertain times. There is an anchor. This anchor is the certainty of God’s Word and His promises to us. The question for us is will this be our anchor?

This has been God’s challenge to me over the past few months. Am I willing to drop an anchor? Because anchoring is not something you can do passively. Am I willing to run to God, His presence and His promises first – before I check the news, Facebook, ask my friends, or even run through every potential outcome in my mind as my anxiety rises? Am I willing to pray first? Trust when I cannot see the outcome? Obey when I do not understand? Am I willing to drop an anchor into the promises of God?

Because the world is looking for that same certainty and stability. My friends are looking for an anchor. I wonder what they see when they look at me?

Tony Lutyk is the Campus Pastor at The Life Church Manassas. He’s an excellent leader and communicator who has a talent for throwing in some wit and humor when he preaches. He’s passionate about God’s Word, seeing people reach their full potential in Christ, and he misses hockey more than he can adequately express.

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Don’t Look Away

Pastor Tony Lutyk Contributor

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In 1997, a researcher named Arthur Aron made two complete strangers fall in love in a laboratory in Berkley, California in 90 minutes. He used no tricks, had no sophisticated pairing algorithm, no alcohol or drugs were used, and the subjects did not even share a meal. His secret? He simply sat his subjects down across a table from each other and gave them 36 questions to ask each other. The questions were designed to gradually become more intense, with each question requiring an increase in vulnerability. Then, the subjects ended their session by staring directly into each other’s eyes for 4 minutes without saying a word. That’s it.

Two of his subjects ended up getting married.

Why? Dr. Aron’s theory is that there is a connection between behaving relationally close and feeling relationally close. So, if you want to get close to someone, you have to act the way you want to feel.

I was reminded of Dr. Aron’s study when I recently read a famous passage in Acts 3 of Peter and the beggar at the gate called Beautiful. Having grown up in Sunday school, I have burned into my mind the phrase, “silver and gold have I not…”. But what jumped out to me this time were the three preceding verses. You have this poor man who cannot walk begging outside the temple. He sees Peter and John coming to the temple, asks them for money, but isn’t making eye contact with them. Peter and John have to literally say to the man in verse 4, “look at us”.

How broken this man must have been.

Eye contact is profoundly powerful. The first social interactions that all of us had involved no words, only sounds and faces. Psychologists disagree on the exact percentage of communication that is non-verbal, but they all agree that the number is above 50%. For this man to not even have the ability within himself to look his fellow man in the face is profoundly sad.

And yet what is convicting about this passage for me personally is how Peter and John react to this man. Because they do not just offer him healing, they also offer him dignity. They look him in the eye and say, “I don’t have money, but how would you like to walk?”

It’s so easy to walk through our world and turn a blind eye to the pain. To not ask questions of the hurting. To avert our gaze in the presence of injustice. To avoid problems and conversations that have no easy answers. And yet it is often those very problems and conversations that our world needs the people of God to wade into the most. But if we won’t relationally and lovingly engage broken people, we will sacrifice the relational platform the miraculous power of God requires.

Maybe the reason this story has been personally convicting for me is that I’m an introvert. I’m quiet, new people can make me uncomfortable, and so averting your gaze can become a self-protective habit for people like me. But I also want to be a follower of Jesus that loves the people in my community the way God loves the people in my community. I think I have some distance to travel on that journey, and maybe you do too. If that’s the case, Dr. Aron’s research gives us the first step on that journey. Let’s be a church that looks our neighbors in the eye and moves towards the hurting and broken. Let’s be a church that acts the way we want to feel.

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Three Little Words

Pastor Tony Lutyk Contributor, Current Series Easter, gratitude, pain, suffering

“But at least…”

I have found myself saying these three little words a lot over the past few weeks, more than any other time I can remember. They always show up in the same part of a conversation. They are preceded by something the pandemic has made worse in my life and are often accompanied by their sister statement “I can’t complain”. Then these three little words are always immediately followed by a dutiful recitation of something that is still good in my life that I probably should be grateful for.

Now, there is nothing wrong with gratitude, but what I have noticed is that when I use these three little words, I am not engaging in real gratitude. Instead, I have been using these three little words to quickly move past a moment that reveal our collective current reality:

I am suffering. And so are you.

This season is taking something from us. It’s different for each of us, but the reality is the same. We are suffering.

Human beings have an aversion to suffering. We hate it, we resist it, we run from it. But what happens when there’s nowhere to run? When everywhere we would normally turn for distraction and comfort is closed, cancelled or deemed “non-essential”?

The beauty of Easter arriving for us in this moment is that Easter reminds us of what anchors our hope. Christian hope is not blind optimism, it is found a person named Jesus who makes the God of the universe tangible. And in this pandemic moment, the Easter story reveals something about God that has anchored my hope in the middle of our suffering. It reveals that God understands my suffering.

The cross was not just any form of death. The cross was horrific, barbaric, and designed to inflict both maximum physical pain and psychological torture. Jesus died slowly, painfully and in total humiliation. Jesus knew all of this was coming, and yet he accepted the suffering to bridge the gap created by my sin. The prophet Isaiah, looking forward hundreds of years to the life of Jesus, described him this way, “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.”

Your suffering is not abstract to God because he knows what it is to suffer pain, shame, rejection and isolation.

So if you are in pain, embarrassed about your situation or struggling with any part of this pandemic, know today that God feels what you are feeling. You are completely seen by your Heavenly Father. Don’t run from him. Don’t slip into easy denial. Be honest with God about how you really feel, what has really been taken and what you are really going through. Gratitude is indeed powerful, but it is most powerful in the light of reality. Because Easter reminds us that when you bring your real pain to God you are not just bringing to a God who understands, but a God who is victorious even over death itself.

January 15 2020

Not a Sermon Just a Thought

Pastor Tony Lutyk 21 Days of Prayer

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As we enter into the first week of Twenty-One Days of Prayer, my prayer for you is that you would learn to embrace and love the journey of prayer. I think most of us think of prayer as a simple conversation with God, and in many ways prayer is just talking with God. But anyone who has attempted to embrace a life of prayer knows that prayer is much more than a simple conversation, in both profoundly good and profoundly frustrating ways. In fact, I would be bold enough to say that no one who has ever tried embracing prayer as a regular part of a lifestyle of faith has avoided this profound frustration.

The reason for this is that so often when we come to God in prayer, the posture of our heart sets us up for failure. When we come to God, we come with our agenda, “God I need this, God I want you to do that, God please come through here”. We enter into the presence of God for a conversation with someone who can do something about our situation. And then nothing happens. A frustration builds and creates a lack of motivation when nothing we are asking for happens after a day, a week, twenty-one days, a month or even years. And we wonder what’s the point of even having this conversation when God never seems move or even to respond in the situation.

If you’ve ever experienced that frustration with prayer, my encouragement to you is to reexamine your perspective on prayer. For almost two thousand years, the Christian understanding of prayer goes beyond the idea of a conversation with God and instead embraces a view of prayer as a discipline. Prayer is not simply how we hear from God, how God connects with us or a method to grow in our intimacy with God. It is all of those things, but in addition the habit and discipline of prayer is means by which God conforms our desires and our character to his will. The ultimate point of prayer is not a transfer of information or getting God to do what we want. In fact, Luke 22:42 tell us that even Jesus prayed a prayer that God answered with a resounding “no”. But he didn’t respond that way because he was rejecting Jesus, but because there was a greater “yes” on the other side.

The true gift of prayer is not in the answer itself, it is in the intimacy and growth that comes in the journey of following God through the highs and the lows of life and being willing to continually return to his presence in prayer regardless of the circumstances. So pour your heart to your Heavenly Father during these three weeks. Let him know exactly what you want, because honestly he already knows anyway but he still wants you to ask. But don’t let His answer determine your behavior. Let these twenty-one days serve as a catalyst to a new habit of prayer that can shape the rest of your life of walking with God.

— Pastor Tony Lutyk

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