The Problem of Unity in the Church

It was time to eat, or so I thought. I came home at 5:30pm, ready for dinner with my new bride. She had agreed to make dinner, yet when I came home she was not scurrying around the kitchen putting together a meal that would impress Paula Dean. Instead, she was sitting on the couch, watching a show, and recovering after a long day of work. “When’s dinner?” I asked with obvious frustration that the meal was not ready.

“Dinner?” she replied, “It’s only 5:30. No one eats dinner at 5:30.”

Oh, I beg to differ, I thought, but thankfully I did not say it. In my home growing up, dinner was always ready at 5:30. It did not matter who was preparing the meal, unless something unexpected happened, the meal would always be ready like clockwork at 5:30.

Not only did I assume this was when dinner should take place, but I also preferred it that way. I enjoyed skipping breakfast, eating an early lunch, having dinner at 5:30, and grabbing a snack before bed. Surely, I thought, others had figured out the clear benefits of structuring their eating habits in this way. I mean, who wouldn’t?

My new wife—that’s who wouldn’t. Growing up, her family ate dinner at 6:30. Her dad’s work schedule hindered him from getting home earlier so they ate later. I came home that day ready for dinner, and she was just beginning to think about what to cook.

Marriage exposes these types of preferences. Some prefer a live Christmas tree, and some a fake one. Some prefer the sound of a TV or music playing all the time, while others love silence. Some want their toilet paper to greet them over the top of the roll and others from the bottom. Some want the house to remain in pristine condition throughout the day, and others could not care less. Some want a big family, and some only want one little princess. The list could go on and on.

Certainly, we are all united with God through the glorious gospel. Yet, preferences are inescapable—a God-given facet of what makes you, you and me, me. In most cases preferences are not right or wrong either. It is not “right” to eat dinner at 5:30 and “wrong” to eat at 6:30 (as I quickly learned). These preferences are based on our life history, our experiences, our gifts, and the uniqueness of our personality and they drive hundreds of decisions we make each day.

No two people’s preferences are exactly alike. Marriage provides a unique case study for the way two people with preferences are forced to work together to achieve unity. Either you find a style of life that will work for you both, or you are in for a miserable marriage. It doesn’t much matter if you eat at 5:30, 6:30, or somewhere in between, but you’d better pick one and make it work.

Christians are no different. We are all different—shaped by a vast array of circumstances that God has used to draw us to himself. We come to our roles with different sin propensities, influences, backgrounds, training, senses of calling, and experiences in the church.

These preferences make it challenging for diverse people to unite in the church. At times these preferences may move along stereotypical lines, with certain generations preferring a defined form, structure, or ethos within the church. But this is not always the case.

Certainly, not all seasoned pastors prefer a liturgical worship style and not all younger pastors preach in jeans. All people do, however, prefer certain things, and the intersection of these preferences is a potential battlefield for unity.

A Divided Church

Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth was written to such a church. Paul responds to the issues that he has heard that are hindering the mission of the church. The first, and perhaps the most important, was that the church was deeply divided.

To this church, Paul writes, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10).

Paul warned that preferential matters can undermine and hinder the work of the church. The unity that should be seen by virtue of Christ’s work can be veiled through needless divineness, likely the result of the following four factors.

#1 – The Voices that Influence Us

The preferences of Christians are often shaped by the voices that speak into their lives.

We are all prone to parrot voices of those around us. At first, this can be a good thing. When we begin our discipleship journey, few of us have any clue what we are doing, so we find other Christians we admire and mimic them. Over time, however, we can become a rote, thoughtless, caricature of someone else.

This reality is not as dangerous if you are modeling the preferences of a personal mentor or trusted friend with whom you have spent countless hours. But, in our day, this is often not the case. Rather than modeling the voices of mentors, we often imitate famous leaders that we only know via their podcasts, blogs, books, or sound bytes on Twitter. We respect them, so we try to become like them.

I’ve noticed this tendency in my own preaching. If I’ve spent too many hours listening to Matt Chandler preach, then I often find the tone of my preaching changes. If I listen to David Platt, I begin my sermons with “If you have a Bible and I hope you do. . . ” If I read Piper, then the frequency of the words “supremacy,” “exaltation,” and “glory” goes through the roof.

We admire certain people, pattern ourselves after them, and judge others who don’t fit this style as well. The fact that you respect these leaders is not wrong, but when you expect others to be like them to win your approval, then you needlessly isolate yourself from others. Not only that, but you squander the privilege of being yourself, choosing to become merely a replica of someone else.

#2 – The Theology that Compels Us

Theology can have a similar divisive effect. Here it is critical to make a distinction. Truth matters, and false teaching should be aggressively exposed and rebuked in the church. It is important that the church work to think rightly about God.

We should scour our Bibles in an effort to discern the faith that was once and for all handed down to the saints. We should work to align our preaching, teaching, and leadership to the revealed Word of God. Sloppy, trustless unity is not biblical unity.

Theological concepts compel Christians to take risks, love the marginalized, and pursue pastoral ministry, church planting, or international missions. For example, the idea that men and women around the world who have never heard the gospel are destined for an eternity apart from God has incited in many a passion for international missions.

In stunning irony, the very words that we use to speak about God and the way in which we use those words can be a tool Satan uses to cause division in his church. Christians often size-up others based on the particular words they use to speak about God and the theological camps in which they stake their claim. Many align themselves to certain theological systems or concepts, join forces with others who hold similar ideas, and avoid all those who don’t see things the same way. Such theological snobbery serves to divide God’s church.

Recently, I attended a meeting with a group of pastors and church leaders that included leaders from diverse generations. As the meeting concluded, one of my younger peers raised his hand and said, “This is great and all, but you guys have forgotten the gospel. Without the gospel, none of the rest of this matters.” This guy’s heart was in the right place (I think), and he wanted to remind us of the need for gospel centrality in our ministry.

What he missed was that these leaders had been talking about the gospel–they simply had not said it the way he would or used the same buzzwords that were important to him. Because they did not say it his way, he thought they had not said it at all. The result was that these established pastors felt undermined by a younger leader who had publicly shamed them for missing the gospel.

#3 – The Neglect that Angers Us

Preferences can also be formed negatively. We see something wrong and want to do something about it. A broken world certainly has enough pain and suffering to provoke anger in us all. From sex trafficking to malnutrition and unsafe drinking water to racial discord, we have plenty of pain to address. Christians often embark on their respective ministries in direct response to some unmet need in the church. From stale religious traditions to a lack of evangelistic intentionality to sloppy theology, we are all responding to something.

They are then stunned to learn that not everyone shares their passions. The person with a particular passion for orphan care may not understand why others are not heartbroken for these children as well. The individual with a passion to propel the church to think outside of the church’s walls may not understand those who have a passion to help the church formulate accurate theology. We are prone to forget that God has sovereignly orchestrated our lives, our circumstances, and our passions to prompt us to care about certain needs while doing the same in other people in order to prompt them to address other needs.

I had a wonderful experience in seminary. My time at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary was rich, and I was taught a deep love for disciplined theological insight. This, combined with my introverted and contemplative personality, means that trite, illogical, or unreflective teaching and preaching uniquely frustrates me. This is not true for others.

Many pastors were trained during a time when seminaries were far from a bastion of conservative theology, and they saw their peers fall prey to social gospel liberalism. For them, academic theology does not conjure up positive notions. Those who spend hours debating seemingly minuscule theological notions only to neglect the practical aspects of loving others and sharing the gospel anger them. If I am not careful, I can quickly fall prey to a sterile intellectualism that divorces theological reflection from a life on mission. For this reason, it is vital that I consistently acknowledge this propensity and repent when it hinders my leadership of God’s people.

#4 – The Mission that Drives Us

Finally, Christians should be those who are compelled to action. We see something broken and want to be a part of God’s work to fix it. God plants a mission in our hearts and we act. This passion often consumes younger believers who are just awakening to the beauty of the gospel and the mission of the church. Many are overly confident while still naïve, immature, and often foolish. They have a passion to experiment—to try things even though they may fail.

For example, a teenager in the youth group may notice the apathy in his church and determine to give his life to church-planting to counter this complacency. His passion for this mission may isolate him from the leaders who are laboring to bring change in local churches where apathy reigns supreme.

The seasoned believer may understand his mission differently. He has invested countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears into seeing a group of people conformed to the image of Christ through the local church. It may appear to those on the outside that all he cares about is the institution of the church, but in his heart he understands his mission to love these people faithfully. He may, unintentionally, feel threatened by younger men and women who come along—fearing that they may not love people the way that he does or harm the church he’s invested in for decades.

These factors shape every leader and make him or her unique and produce Christians with a unique set of preferences. The danger is when these preferences become ultimate—making us abrasive to others, dismissive of their counsel, and increasingly prideful—thinking that we have somehow mastered the art of doing church.

Unity does not mean that we relinquish our preferences, but that we have the wisdom and maturity to love and serve others in spite of our preferences. Through genuine effort and honest conversation, they can work to see beyond preferences and find a person who may love Jesus and his church just as much as they do.

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Matt Rogers is the pastor of The Church at Cherrydale in Greenville, South Carolina. He and his wife, Sarah, have three daughters, Corrie, Avery, and Willa and a son, Hudson. Matt holds a Master of Arts in counseling from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary as well as a Master of Divinity and a PhD  from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Matt writes and speaks for throughout the United States on discipleship, church planting, and missions. Find Matt online at www.mattrogers.bio or follow him on Twitter @mattrogers_

Adapted from a chapter Matt wrote with eight other leaders from Unite: Connecting Leaders from Diverse Generations, representing diverse generations and exhorting the church to find practical ways to forge unity.

A Fate Worse Than Eating Dog Food

There’s a haunting scene in the newest season of The Walking Dead that has stuck with me. After being captured by enemies, Daryl, a beloved character, is placed in a small cell. He is fed—and viewers are intentionally shown—dog food that is haphazardly spread on white bread. The dehumanizing effects of captivity are well portrayed. His captors want him to understand: he is not human, he’s something less, and he’s not worthy of human meals. His rights are no more than a dog in a cage. But it is not the diet alone that distinguishes humanity from beasts. More brutal than his daily lunch is his unrelenting isolation. The dirty, concrete cell is shown to be devoid of all light. Alone with nothing but his thoughts, his tormentors deprive him of any sense of dignity or community.

The detrimental effects of solitary confinement are well-documented. Yet, it is not uncommon for God’s people to live their lives as if they are ignorant of his Words: “It is not good that man be alone” (Gen. 2:18).

Marriage and Family Are Good

After God created all forms of animals to roam the land, sky, and seas, he makes man in his own image. However, none of the animals were a fit companion for this solitary man. So he makes another human utilizing parts from Adam himself, like him but different—complimentary.

God gives us the gift of lifelong companionship to combat the not-goodness of being alone. But companionship in marriage is not the only gift God gives to prevent aloneness. Shortly after joining the two in marriage he commands them: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28).

While marriage is not insufficient in itself, love often multiplies and expands beyond the initial parties. Similar to how God himself, lacking nothing, created others to share in his love (1 Jn. 4:8), he calls man who bears his image to multiply as well.

God gives us the gift of children who will outlive us and further our impact. Or as the psalmist puts it: “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth” (Ps. 127:4).

Marriage and Family Aren’t Guaranteed

So far my examples have been idealistic. While marriage is good, it is not promised to everyone. While children are good, the effects of living in a fallen world sometimes includes couples who are barren. Tragically, sometimes parents end up burying the children that were intended to outlive and out influence them.

As good as spouses and children are, they are common graces. A good marriage or a good family is not necessarily a distinguishing mark of God’s blessing. It is possible that a righteous man may lose his wife or family, and a wicked man’s family may prosper.

While marriage and family are important, they are not ultimate. While they are excellent, they are not eternal (Mt. 22:30). The kingdom of God, on the other hand, is.

The Church Is Better

The now and not yet of God’s kingdom is a difficult concept to grasp. Graeme Goldsworthy offers a helpful way of thinking about God’s kingdom: “God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule.”

Using this definition, God’s kingdom was fully realized in Eden, but then shattered after humans rebelled against him. This way of thinking also helps us to make sense of all the times Jesus refers to the kingdom during his earthly ministry. It is in our midst (Lk. 17:21) where people are willfully submissive to God. This is why the Church’s importance cannot be overstated.

In the Church, we get the clearest picture of the kingdom of God before it is fully realized. In it, people joyfully submit to God in worship and reverence. Sure, the Church is made up of various marriages and families, but it is of greater importance and longevity. In its walls, today’s families are united with those of some 2000 years ago as they place themselves under God’s rule as the benevolent father who has adopted a family for eternal life (Eph. 1:3-5). The saints perfected in heaven look down upon those being prepared for a future day where they will join them (Eph. 1:10).

The Church is also a home and a refuge for those that do not have spouses, children, or families. We are tasked to take care of the orphaned, the widowed, the barren, and the unmarried (Js. 1:27). And it is a primary sign of true religion.

The Beauty of the Bride

If marriage and offspring were essential, then Jesus would be less than perfect because he had neither. The profundity of this is full of warnings as well as encouragement. Warnings for those who deny the necessity of life in community. The “one anothers” of Scripture, as well as our commission to make disciples are impossible for the hermit. Jesus does not call hermits, but disciples who will make, mature, and multiply other disciples. This warning is just as needed for the introverted layperson as for the pastor that is tempted to neglect relationships in favor of study.

The encouragement is for those who desire a spouse or a family but don’t yet have one. For the single among us, they have an example in Jesus who lived a full life while never participating in the covenant of marriage. Similarly, the infertile inherit a family that transcends the bounds of their own blood as they are absorbed into the Church family that was bought by the blood of Christ (1 Pt. 1:18;19). Additionally, they imitate Christ when they adopt children and raise them as their own (Gal. 4:5).

The Kingdom Feast

Jesus further models for us how life in community is to be lived out. He chooses twelve disciples. Our influence in discipling relationships cannot be spread too thin or it will decrease in potency. He then shares life with them. The humanity of Scripture is worth noting here. My wife laments that so much of modern television and movies neglect to show the characters eating. (Even more lamentable is the pain they go through to show them fornicating—it is clear what appetites drive ratings.) But Scripture, as truth, accurately portrays humans as social creatures in need of sustenance. There is no shortage of bread broken among Jesus and his disciples.

Food, perhaps more than anything else, brings people together. “The Last Meeting” would be far less memorable in our minds than “The Last Supper.” It was over a Passover meal that Jesus chose to reveal the things of ultimate importance (1 Cor. 15:3) to his inner community of twelve disciples. A master teacher, he utilizes the meal as a prop to appeal to the kinesthetic, and visual learners, as well as the auditory ones. He would leave them, but not alone, they would have each other. No, instead he would be alone. Unaccompanied by his community, he would go to the cross.

Worse yet, he’d be forsaken by his Father (Mt. 27:46). We get a glimpse into one of the greatest mysteries of the faith when the Son suffers the Father’s wrath on behalf of sinful mankind. There, on the cross, he’d be stripped of his dignity (Heb. 12:2) as well as his clothes. His blood would be drained on behalf of humanity, and he’d be exposed to the elements, thirst (Jn. 19:28), and hunger. All to join us together as a redeemed community (Jn. 19:26; 27) under his lordship.

His last supper foreshadowed all these events. Even his betrayer, was welcomed at his table. He’d die alone, so that those who were once his enemies (Rom. 5:10) would not have to dine alone. He’d give us a glimpse into the future fully realized kingdom where unlikely guests are welcomed into the great feast (Mt. 22:10).

There at the feast, in the fully realized kingdom of God, we will dine on the finest food and drink the best wine (Jn. 2:10). But better than the food will be the fellowship of the redeemed with the Redeemer. For the distinguishing mark of the kingdom is not food (Rom. 14:17), but love. Solomon’s wisdom tells us that an unsatisfying meal with love is better than a great feast where there is no love (Prov. 15:17).

In other words, there is a fate worse than eating dog food—eating alone.

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Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Clarks Summit University) is the Family Life Pastor at Christ Fellowship Church in Forest Hill, Maryland. Prior to that, he served at a church plant in Troy, New York for seven years and taught Hermeneutics to ninth and tenth graders. He is married to Hannah and is raising an army of toddlers. He blogs at Family Life Pastor.

You can read all of Sean’s articles here.

God Has Come to Be With Us

Emmanuel is not not merely “God sent to us” or God doing something for us, God healing us, or even God speaking to us. Emmanuel goes beyond some function of God to his presence. God with us. This is actually the entire trajectory of the Christian Bible and the message of Christianity: Humanity can only thrive, be what it was supposed to be, healed and whole if it is with God. God with us . . . this is the blessing, this is what made the holy-lands holy, the chosen people chosen: God’s dwelling presence among his people, in that place.

Moses and burning bush, pillar of fire from heaven, and as Sharad so eloquently taught on last week, God in the whisper to the downtrodden. God’s redemption is about nothing less that estranged refugees being brought home yet again in the presence of God, with us. God’s resurrection is about nothing less than the sick and dying meeting the power of life in God’s presence.

This is the power of the name given Jesus: Emmanuel, God with us. This is the line that makes the restoration and recreation of the world in Rev 22 worthwhile at all: “The dwelling place of God has become the dwelling place of humanity.” God with us.

This is what Jesus came to be and came to make possible. Everything that was done was bringing that hope into reality. The healing of the sick, the teaching of the way to abundant life, the combating evil, the seeing, the hearing, and the touching the downtrodden, the oppressed, the heartbroken, the world crying out for a savior was experiencing the savior with us, in our world. The Incarnation is God with the depressed, the sick, the tired, the unorganized, the humble, the poor, the downcast.

Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor, the merciful, the mourners, the hungry, the pure, the peacemakers, the persecuted: for there’s is the kingdom of God and they shall see God and be satisfied.” Jesus clearly came for the humble.

GOD WITH THE AMBITIOUS?

What about the ambitious? What about the put-together? The task oriented achiever? What about the driven? The proud? What does it mean for God to come to us in our ambition? Does he come? Is he even needed?

Ambition put plainly: the drive to achieve goals, to move up, to better our lives, our standing, or our perceived self. The belief that we can make things better, at least for ourselves. Ambition is the deep belief that we can gain what we must and gain the things we desire: Whether it is a new position, new possession, or a new persona. Does God come to this person? More direct, does God come to us?

This is what Eugene Peterson wrote on the subject:

The one temptation that is dressed-up to the point of acceptance, with special flourishing in America, is ambition. Our culture encourages and rewards ambition without qualification. We are surrounded by a way of life in which betterment is understood as expansion, as acquisition, as fame. Everyone wants to get more. To be on top, no matter what it is the top of, is admired. There is nothing resent about this temptation. It is the oldest sin in the book, the one that got Adam thrown out of the garden and Lucifer tossed out of heaven. What is fairly new about it is the general admiration and approval it receives.

Our hearts and minds struggle to see this pride as an issue at all. This ambition, after all, is what New Year’s is all about: make some plans to improve your house, your body, and your life. Then, go after it. This is what it means to be American, and it works out well, doesn’t it?

This my own personal, seemingly, lifelong struggle: the drive to achieve, produce, and make a name for myself is what got me where I am. I pursued this life and took initiative to do and be what I wanted, without ambition, I wouldn’t have this life. To which Peterson responds:

It is difficult to recognize pride as a sin when it is held up on every side as a virtue, urged as profitable and rewarded as achievement.

This celebrated “virtue” gives credence to the struggle. That’s exactly what it is, a struggle to be self-sufficient. That’s what this life has really been all about. Our attempts to escape the pain of dependence on others. Or rather, the messing up of our lives, or even further still: our ambition is to rid ourselves of the pain of being let down by others. Our ambition is a shield from an unreliable world.

Only, sporadically, we take time and effort to step into this unreliable world and improve it. We step outside of our lives to help others gain what we have gained. This makes us feel even more secure.

AT GREAT COST GOD’S PRESENCE COMES

How does God with us sound in those ears? Is God’s presence necessary? How does the incarnation of God with us fill, engulf, transform, and bring hope to the self-filled, the self-engulfed, the self-improved, the self-reliant?

In our sickness we might think: “Yeah! God is here to help me make myself and my world better.” Or, in our ugliest: “God’s presence is the cherry on top of a pretty well made cake, if I have to say so myself.”

You might think: “God’s presence probably passes over people like that, God moves on to the ones who really need him.” But not so, God comes to the ambitious.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. – Philippians 2:3-8

Each of the four gospels of Jesus spend a disproportionate amount of time with Jesus speaking to the pharisees, the epitome of: “Let’s help God do something wonderful by fixing ourselves, by ambitiously making ourselves whole and helping others do the same.” Jesus engages them, he goes to them, he directs teachings and even piles of stories to them. Perhaps the best story is the one about a father and two sons, famously referred to as the Prodigal Son.

The hinge of this story for the ambitious is at the end, after the younger son has returned and been welcomed home, the story focuses in on the older brother and his stewing over his newly, and for the second time, lost inheritance. His plan was working and the father didn’t keep his end of the bargain—aside, this is usually how we know where our ambitions lay, when we are angry at God for his withdrawal or withholding of their success. This son refuses to partake in the party with his father and brother because his way of achieving acceptance, security, and success has been vanquished.

And yet, the father goes to him. The father walks to him and leaves his party to sit down next to the pouter and ask: “Why are you angry?” After hearing his sons pain of dashed dreams and worthiness the father says: “But I’ve been with you the whole time . . . this whole time you’ve had me, me with you is the blessing."

Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

God with the ambitious is found in Jesus giving up equality with God, emptying himself, taking our form which always leads to death, but Jesus goes further to the humiliating and wretched death on a cross. God comes to the ambitious, not with a more powerful voice or a show of power, but by being like us, by being a servant. By dying. By coming to our hurried and overwhelmed lives asking, listening, and speaking.

GOD WITH US INTERRUPTS AND EXPOSES

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

God comes to the ambitious, the same as he comes to the meek and persecuted: he comes bringing life, he comes with death, he comes to you with glory. His coming into your world induces worship of someone other than yourself.

He comes the same, but the impact is different. To the naked, hungry, and burdened his coming is like a much need rob, a much needed meal, and a quick rest. To the ambitious, prideful, and self-confident he comes like a wake-up call: “You are naked, hungry, thirsty, and burdened. You are in chains.” In the same way that the younger brother’s arrival home exposed the older brother’s ambition and self-bondage, Jesus’ inescapable arrival in the world exposes you.

"God with us" interrupts our ambition and exposes our fantasy, our lie, our bondage.

– God With Us Interrupts and Exposes Our Fantasy

The fantasy is you can somehow attain a world of security, peace, and prosperity for yourself. The fantasy of a world and each person in it conspiring to give you what you need or directly conspiring against you. Jesus’ arrival in the world alerts you that none of that is true.

The world is not about you: it’s about him, everything is made in and for him. His power and love is what sustains everything. Your feeble attempts to manipulate the ones you love, scheme to get the response, things, and relationships, prove to be nothing short of fantasy.

– God With Us Interrupts and Exposes The Lie

It exposes the lie: I can save myself. I can save them. I can save us. If I love enough, if I live well, if I do my bit I can save everyone. God with us awakes us to the terrifying mystery, power, and salvation and it isn't you! It's Jesus. God is with us to free us from the self-deception that we are God, too.

This reminds me of the Empire Strikes Back: Luke Skywalker abandons his training with Yoda to save Han, Leia, Chewy, C3PO in the cloud city. He goes full of belief that he can not only single handedly break into the city and find them, but also rescue them from Vader and hundreds of storm troopers. Upon arrival, he realizes the whole thing was a trap. His friends were only in danger because of his ambition to be the savior. His predictable desire to play hero is what created their horror. He also arrives to the reality, that it was a lie: he can’t save them.

God with us, destroys that lie. Why? Because we see the true savior and he looks nothing like us. We see Jesus with all his humility, grace, love, and power to pull back death by stepping into it. The incarnation shows us what real humanity looks like as much as it shows us what God is like. We see ourselves truly and God truly.

– God With Us Liberates Us from Bondage

Last, it frees us from bondage. We live in a cage of our own making. We are confined by our ability to love, forgive, and move. From the bondage, we are welcomed home to be with God. We are bound up in chains and don't even know it. The incarnation breaks these chains and ushers us into reality.

Similarly to the moment when Neo is awoken out of the Matrix to experience life as it really is not as it is nicely constructed to be. Except for us, instead of being liberated into a dark, metallic, and gloomy world, we are awoken into a world in which the God of heaven has condescended to make our gloomy world thrive.

This is the power of the gospel. This is the message of the gospel. This is the beginning of humility. This is very thing Paul is exhorting the Philippians in. God with us, is the only remedy to pride. This is the only invitation back to humility. The 19th century South African pastor, Andrew Murray describes this so well in his classic work, Humility:

When God created the universe, it was with the one object of making the creature partaker of His perfection and blessedness, and so showing forth in it the glory of His love and wisdom and power. God wished to reveal Himself in and through created beings by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable of receiving. But this communication was not giving to the creature something with it could possess in itself, a certain life or goodness of which it had the charge and disposal. By no means. But as God is the ever-living, ever present, ever-acting One, who upholds all things by the Word of His power, and in whom all things exist, the relation of the creature to God could only be one of unceasing, absolute, universal dependence. . . . As truly as God by his power once created, so truly by that same power must God every moment maintain.

The life God bestows is imparted not once for all, but each moment continuously by the unceasing operation of His mighty power. Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and highest virtue. And so, pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. It was the first sin. The first evil. In sin we lose humility.

Hence it follows that nothing can be our redemption but the restoration of the lost humility, the original and the only true relation of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven He humbled Himself to become man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him, He brought it, from there.

Here on earth, “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death;” His humility gave his death its value and so became our redemption. And now the salvation he imparts in nothing less and nothing else than a communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit, and His own humility as the ground and root of his relation to God and His redeeming work. Jesus to the place and fulfilled the destiny of man as a creature by His life of perfect humility. His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility. (emphasis mine)

God with us is our ransom. God with us is our liberation. The proclamation that God has come into your world means that you are not the God of it. At the conclusion, Paul says, “every knee will bow and confess Jesus as lord.”

Our response to this salvation and liberation through Christ’s humility will and is nothing less than worship. In that “one day” Paul describes, our confession will likely be this sort of prayer. May this be our confession, our hope, the beginning of our adoration of Jesus, God with us:

Jesus, you are worthy [we are not], our Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for you have created all things and for your pleasure they are and were created...Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! — Revelation 4:11, 5:11

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Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised?, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities, and Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com.

Killing The Devil's Radio with the Gospel!

George Harrison of The Beatles was right when he referred to gossip as the “Devil’s Radio.” In an age of overabundance of information, it is easy to tune into the frequency of social media where news are often blown out of proportions. Perhaps, in no other generation like ours is discernment required to such a great degree. While the gospel calls us to confess our sins, gossip confesses other people’s sins. Gossip broadcasts people’s weaknesses and sins in a whisper while others tune into the frequency. But it is always wiser to put a hold on any given subject until we’ve gained a fuller picture. We are all transparent before the Holy Spirit who sees and knows all our thoughts. I am transparent to my wife and other elders who speak into my life biblically and truthfully.

Everything is naked and laid bare before God, to whom everyone must give an account (Heb. 4: 12, 13). I believe we are to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another as priests (Jas. 5:16).  I believe in the kind of transparency that Paul said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (I Cor. 11:1).  But what is often passed off as Christian transparency is sometimes-

Faux-honesty so often used as an excuse for voicing various kinds of complaints, doubts, accusations, fleshly desires, and other kinds of evil thoughts.  This exhibitionistic “virtue” is often paired with a smug self-congratulatory sneer or a condescending dismissal of anyone who dares to suggest that propriety and spiritual maturity may sometimes require us not to give voice to every carnal thought or emotion—i.e., that sometimes discretion is better than transparency.

Sometimes discretion may be better than transparency precisely because it takes spiritual maturity to be entrusted with confidential information.  In some cases, you’re in the middle of a conversation with someone and the gossip had already started. What should you do in such a case?

1. Listen objectively without taking sides and hold back judgments.

“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Prov. 18: 17).  Listen with sympathy about the person being talked about, knowing that the person being talked about is not present to be able to defend himself/herself.  Don’t chime in or endorse!

In some cases, the person may come crying. When that happens, out of love for the person it is easy to believe everything the person says.  Sometimes, people cry not because they are innocent, but their burdens have become too heavy.  In such cases, tears can also be manipulative.

Think about when Esau returned from his hunt, he wept bitterly.  Esau was the victim of his own foolishness. He sold his birthright eagerly for a morsel of food to his brother, and when the blessing was given to Jacob (the swindler), he blamed it all on Jacob with tears—without admitting his own foolishness.  We are all skilled self-swindlers.  Besides it’s easy to feel sorry for the one who’s crying rather than the dry-eyed one–because when people cry, they can look like they’re the victim.  We must listen well with compassion, without being prejudiced in our discernment.

2. Gossip can destroy respect for the person being talked about.

It is wise to refrain from arriving at conclusions based on what you heard about the person. Gossip is second, third, or fourth hand information and when a morsel of truth is passed on, truth gets distorted and is diluted.

Even an element of truth becomes disproportionate and mixed up with personal opinions and judgments on the person’s character and reputation (sometimes this is done by well-meaning people).

For example: Person A may really respect person B, and because person A eagerly believed what he heard about person C say of person B, now person A has lost his trust and respect for person B (which may actually be partial truth but poisonous nonetheless).

Nothing may be as poisonous and destructive as gossip is in a community.

The Apostle James says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers” (4:10-11).  The word “speak against” is not necessarily a false report.  It can mean just an “against-report.”  The intent may be to belittle a person or be contemptuous.  It can mean to disdain, mock, or rejoice in purported evil.  These are subtler yet sinful forms of speaking against a person created in God’s image. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18: 21ff).  So we can either speak life or destroy a person with gossip.

3. Realize that chronic gossip is in itself a deep character problem.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The tongue, James says “is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (3: 8).  Proverbs says that those who gossip are untrustworthy: “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much” (Prov. 20:19).  In Asian cultures, group conformity tends to encourage people to avoid confrontations to the extreme, whereas in Western culture, individualism tends to  lead people to err on the opposite side of over confrontations (Mat. 18:10-15).  “Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered” (Prov. 11: 13).  Those who gossip to you will gossip about you because they are not “trustworthy in spirit.”  In any case, prayerfully discern when to avoid the gossiper next time, or gently confront the sin (recognizing the ugliness of your own sin and the grace you have received) (Gal. 6: 1-2).

4. Pour water (not more fuel) to the fire.  

In other words, refuse to become a channel of gossip and walk in love (Eph. 5: 2).  Leviticus 19:16 says, “Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life.  I am the LORD.”  Gossip is smearing a person’s character.  Gossip may involve details that are not confirmed as true.  It endangers a person’s credibility and can bring your neighbor’s reputation to ruins.  It is the opposite of the commandment to love your neighbor—who bear God’s image.  Even if the report being said about the person ends up being true, be hesitant to become a carrier of bad news.  Remember how instead of piling up all your bad records, Jesus has cancelled them on the cross (Col. 2:14).

Seek prayerfully for clarification; ask God, before you ask others, what to do with the bad report.  Proverbs 16:28 tells us how destructive gossip can become in relationships: “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.”  Fight the urge to add more fuel to stir up “conflict” that separates close friends.  Satan is the master of division!

Someone once said that gossip is giving others some strife instead of peace.  It always brings more strife than peace! Gossip pours fuel on the conflict setting the entire community on fire.  It poisons relationships and multiplies misunderstandings.  Gossip never has positive outcomes!  Besides, there is a lot of truth that need not be passed around by people who are recipients of God’s lavish grace.

Gossip is always on the erring side because gossip is confessing other people’s sin without giving them the chance to repent.

Gossip is a like a terrible drug and very addictive.  For many, it is impossible to live without passing on bad news about someone, some churches or ministries because gossip has become a chronic illness.  Hence, gossip becomes an idol—something you can’t live with—something that gives you a false sense of superiority and self-righteousness over others.

The solution is not to simply try and control the tongue, because to be free from gossip an axe must be laid at the root of gossip.  “The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness” (Jas. 3: 6).  Therefore, the root problem of gossip is in the heart: “for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Lk. 6: 45).  Pray and give room and time for grace, repentance, healing and restoration to take place in a relationship that has been torn by gossip.

“For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” –Proverbs. 26: 20

With the passage of time, as the gospel takes root in the heart whisperers repent, and if no “whisperer” passes on gossip, quarrels and strife will cease.  John Owen said, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”  Instead of kindling the fire of gossip, it must be killed.

While moralism flails at the branches, the gospel cuts to the roots of gossip.

Ultimately, Jesus was slandered on our behalf.  The Pharisees accused him of casting out demons by Beelzebul (the prince of demons) yet he was the purest of all (Matt. 12: 24).  All the accusations hurled at him were wrong.  Yet he endured them all on the cross for our sake.  He was accused of demon possession when he did not even know sin in purity.  Each one of us deserves to be put in His place, but we received what we did not deserve because of Him.

Even his most noble motives were challenged, yet in weakness he conquered the power of Satan, sin, and death. Jesus came not to condemn but to save sinners—which is the opposite of speaking against a brother or sister and hurting or destroying their reputation. In Christ, God offers us a clean heart, a new heart, with which we can honor our neighbors truthfully, and give praises to our God.

Do you struggle with gossip?  

1. There is nothing in our sinful nature that has not already been covered by the blood of Jesus, so confess your sins instead of other people’s sins.
2. Preach to your heart and say, “I am worse than what people think I am, but Jesus loves me more than I can ever imagine.  He already covered me with His own righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore, I am free to discern the evidence of God’s grace in others instead of lending wood to the fire of gossip.”

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Joey Zorina is a church planter in an artistic neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan.  He writes articles, essays and devotionals for Living Life, and blogs occasionally @regeneration).  He asks that you please pray for them and the Japanese.  You can connect with him at https://twitter.com/JoeyZorina

7 Reasons Why Faithful Church Attendance Matters

Going to church every week, week after week matters. If we know Jesus, we should desire to be with his bride. For all those who believe, have a church home, but don't attend consistently, I’m writing for you. If you're one of those spotty non-attenders, I’m writing to you in love but also in truth. Come home! Regular church attendance is not just good for the ministry; it's good for your soul, and for mine.¹ So why is regular church attendance so important? Here're seven reasons:

1. Faithful attenders prioritize God and his Word first in their lives.

A call for regular church attendance begins in what are likely the first written words of the Bible, the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:3 says, “You shall have no other gods before me.”² How we spend our time is the truest measure of God’s place in our lives. If we are quick to fill the time set aside for worshipping God with visiting family, going to the beach, attending concerts, or just relaxing, we are unintentionally saying those things matter more than God (Matt. 12:48-50, Lk. 14:26).

Just like we set aside time to listen to our loved ones, we need to set aside time to listen to God. Throughout church history God has used one constant to communicate to his people, the public reading and preaching of the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Paul tells us,

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

If we want to prioritize God and what he wants to say to us, we need to prioritize church in addition to our own quiet times with him.

2. Faithful attenders demonstrate their love for Jesus and His bride.

“I love Jesus but not the church” is like saying to a new groom, “I love you but not your bride.” The Bible describes the local church as the bride of Christ (2 Cor. 11:2 Eph. 5:24-27, Rev. 19:7-9, 21:1-2). It is impossible to maintain a thriving relationship with Christ while at the same time avoiding fellowship with a gospel-believing local church. When we commit to loving the church, we commit to loving Christ.

Parents should be especially driven to attend church regularly. The children of parents who do not attend church consistently are more likely to walk away from Christianity when they are old enough to decide for themselves. Why? Their parents demonstrated week after week that Christ is an add-on, an addition, and if life is too busy, it is okay to ignore him. Parents, please model for your children that Jesus is not only the Savior of your soul but the King of your life.

3. Faithful attenders receive the gospel anew every single week.

There is nothing more important than the gospel, than hearing anew that Jesus is a righteous substitute for sinful, broken, people—for you and me (Rom. 3:21-26, 2 Cor. 5:21). In Romans 10:17, Paul says, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” Even though we need to hear and believe the gospel every day, it is easy to go a whole week without giving this life-changing message a passing thought. One of the church’s roles is to boldly and lovingly tell us how bad we are and how great Jesus loves us week after week. When we love the church, we love the gospel.

One of the temptations in encouraging each other to go to church weekly is to do so from guilt, to say God won’t be pleased with you unless you go to church every week. That’s legalism, and it is death. So what does the gospel say? It says that in Jesus we already have a perfect record, and now we’re called to live it out week by week. God created us for good works (Eph. 2:10), one of which is worshipping with his body. Apart from Christ, I am nothing. In him, I am everything.

4. Faithful attenders help evangelize the lost and build-up new believers.

In the early church, the Holy Spirit used regular and passionate participation in the church in Jerusalem, a local church, to bring new people to faith in Jesus.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. – Acts 2:42-47 (emphasis added)

It is a miracle when the unchurched and non-Christians begin attending church. There are already a lot of new words, lingo, and patterns to learn. By not attending faithfully, we confuse the newly churched about what it means to follow Jesus. Not only is this a challenging time for a non-Christian attender, but there is also a spiritual battle taking place (Eph. 6:12). When we attend together, we fight the battle together.

5. Faithful attenders cultivate a heart-attitude of gratefulness.

Church attendance is good for the soul. If you’re someone who struggles with sadness or depression, find a church that has God-given joy and commit. It is easier to catch the joy when you are around others who truly have it.

Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. – Ephesians 5:19-20

One of the benefits of coming to church regularly is the opportunity to give (1 Cor. 16:2). Giving to God has the side-effect of producing a heart-attitude of gratefulness.

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. – 2 Corinthians 9:7

Worshipping regularly with fellow believers and giving to the local church can up-lift the soul and refresh us for our everyday life.

6. Faithful attenders encourage fellow disciples in their long walk.

The benefits of attending faithfully are enormous. In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Paul says, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” Regular church participation gives us the opportunity to use our spiritual gifts to build up the local church and bring God fame (Rom. 12:6-8, 1 Cor. 12:4-11, 12:28). The book of Hebrews says over and over how important it is for Christians to encourage each other and not fall away.

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. – Hebrews 3:12-14

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. – Hebrews 10:24-25

The potential consequences of neglecting church are serious—cultivating a hard heart, not sharing in Christ, turning away, and subjecting Christ to public disgrace (Heb 6:4-6).

Christ warned the Church in Laodicea they were lukewarm. In Revelation 3:16, the Apostle John says, “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” If you are a lukewarm attender, chances are you are a lukewarm believer. God desires that His followers repent from a lukewarm relationship with him and truly seek him. The Holy Spirit wants to set us on fire for God and His glory. Strong attendance helps us heat up our ministry temperature.

7. Faithful attenders bring joy to their leader’s hearts.

Elders, pastors, deacons, and other church leaders face many unsung battles. One of them is shepherding the flock; guiding people spiritually. One way the sheep can make it just a little easier on their shepherds is to come into the sheep pen regularly. Hebrews 13:17 says,

Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.

You give your leaders great joy when you tell them church matters, and you are willing to submit to their authority (1 Pt. 5:1-11). Scripture tells us that Christ is the “Chief Shepherd” (1 Pet. 5:4). When we submit to the under-shepherds God has put in place, we submit to the Chief Shepherd, Jesus. When the sheep show up, the shepherds rejoice, and I believe the Chief Shepherd does too.

Faithful church attendance matters!

If you're someone who doesn't attend regularly, I hope you'll be challenged to commit truly. It's time to step up! If you go faithfully but have a family member or church friend who comes and goes with the wind, feel free to share, but do so with love and kindness.

If you're a church leader, consider writing regular church attendance into your covenant or requirements for membership, then encourage your members to keep covenant.

Ultimately, this is not done for the sake of an institution or organization, but for the sake of our souls. We want to know and love Jesus, and he gave us his bride, the church, out of his deep love for us. Let's go to church!

1. Check out Matt Schmucker ’s “Those Toxic Non-Attenders” and Garrett Kell’s “7 Reasons Why Faithfully Showing Up Matters”—these two articles inspired this article which was originally written for my church.

2. All Scripture references are from the NIV

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Jonathan Romig (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell, 2013) is the Pastor of Cornerstone Congregational Church, a new church plant in Westford MA. He is also the author of the e-book, How To Give A Christian Wedding Toast.

Getting Off the Cul-de-sac

I recently found myself in a conversation with a woman who is a staff member at a Christian summer camp. From what she told me, they do a lot of great things at this summer camp. But our conversation turned tense when she invited (pleaded might be a better word) me to enroll my toddler in their swim lesson program. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for her adamance that it was exactly what my family needed. I told her that we have a membership at the Y for just that reason. But, she insisted, he would reap much more benefits from her employer’s version—the distinctly Christian version—of swim lessons. And here in lies the rub.

The Christian Cul-de-sac

“I have a dream,” started one of the most famous speeches in Western history. The speaker, who needs not be named, then went on to describe a vision of, as his savior called it, “earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

And by that, I mean, a world where our differences in culture and custom were acknowledged and celebrated while all men and women were simultaneously equal and free. Here we are fifty-three years later (to the day, as of this writing) and this dream has yet to be realized.

If I were to contrast Martin Luther King’s dream with the unspoken dream of my new friend from the summer camp they’d be as different as day and night.

There is an idealized town in parts of the Christian West where one turns off the main road to a little street with a cul-de-sac at the end. This is not a thru-street, so traffic is minimal, and there are speed bumps to keep the children safe from SUVs and minivans turning into driveways.

The fifty neighbors living on the street all look alike, make the same amount of money, have two point five kids, and can be identified by the little fish on their bumper. It’s a neighborhood watch community too.

Everyone knows everyone, so if they don’t recognize you, the only logical conclusion is to assume you’re up to no good. You will be reported and deported to another neighborhood because “your kind is not welcome here.”

This cul-de-sac is where mission goes to die.

In this neighborhood, we take whiteout to the “[as you] go” of Matthew 28:19. We don’t go anywhere, we’ve got everything we need in the cul-de-sac. We go to Chick-Fil-A (and secretly wish they were open on Sundays for our benefit) for our meals where the instrumental hymns serve as a discreet reminder of our faith.

We go to a barber shop (also inconveniently closed on Sundays) who’s owner goes to the Wednesday morning men’s prayer breakfast. Our children are members of a soccer team comprised entirely of people who attend our church.

The moms “fellowship” together during the games and use the guise of “prayer” to gossip about a woman who may have lost her salvation by deciding to enlist her kid in a public school.

And, of course, our toddler’s swim classes are distinctly Christian (because the doggy paddle was likely invented by one of the Apostles and how dare we allow the “pagans” to take credit for it).

Forgive my sarcasm. I write and cringe knowing I’m guilty of variations of these ideas as well.

The sentiment isn’t entirely wrong. There is a time and place when we will spend all our time solely with those who worship Jesus. That time is still future. And that place is a new heaven and new earth. Until we arrive at that time and place, we have a mission to give our lives to.

The Off Ramp

The ramp off of the cul-de-sac can be disorienting. After all, when you continue to loop around the same circle of houses over and over again it becomes second-nature, it becomes safe. You drive it in auto-pilot, you don’t even think when you drive a little over the shoulder to avoid a familiar pothole.

But the disorientation can also be life-giving. Do you recall being a little kid and your parents expanding your boundaries? Everything was so new and exciting. Before I was allowed to cross the street and go to the park, I had memorized every square inch of my yard.

But I had done so almost as a captive, unable to leave the confines of the fence. It was like coming awake for the first time to walk over to the park by myself. To feel the wind in my hair as I swang on the monkey bars. I also saw older kids there. And they would smoke cigarettes and curse.

Those last two lines can cause a lot of us to check out. As a father, I don’t want my kid to be influenced by older kids who smoke and curse. But when I think back on my own childhood, I didn’t learn curse words from older kids at the playground; I’d heard my parents slip and use them. And when I first smoked cigarettes, I stole them from grandpa—not an older kid.

This is the inherent problem with the Christian cul-de-sac. It denies and is often blind to its sins while putting the sins (or often just differences) of those outside of it under the microscope of judgment. But if we can get on the off ramp and leave our zone of comfort long enough, we will find that those outside of the cul-de-sac are not all that different from us.

We are all afflicted by sin and suffering and, no matter how white we paint our picket fences, they won’t keep out the sins that dwell within. We need to escape the cul-de-sac not just to bring the gospel to others but also to further press it into our own hearts. We desperately need to interact with others so we can remove cataracts from our own eyes and realize that we are more like others than we initially thought (after all, we all bear the image of God).

We need to be awakened to our own need for the gospel by entering into relationships that may at times be awkward because they expose our own biases and bigotries. These relationships require dependence on God—the one thing those white picket fences do not welcome because they are a testament to the lie that “we’re doing just fine”—because they are uncharted waters.

Yes, the off-ramp can be disorienting, but it is essential that we go in order to be obedient to Jesus’ commissioning. But it’s also beautiful. Who knew that on just the other side of the highway there was a pool three times the size of the one we have in the cul-de-sac? Not only is it bigger but it has diving boards and a water slide. And a whole lot of people that don’t know my Savior or me.

Why would I want to miss out on this experience? Out of fear that my toddler might be exposed to a curse word? Or maybe—worse yet—out of fear that a non-Christian might get close enough to me to see my own imperfections and need for a Savior? God forbid that this keep me confined to the cul-de-sac and forsaking our mission.

Over time, I’m convinced, if we spend enough time outside of the cul-de-sac, even the bigger pools, diving boards, and slides will lose their glitter as they are outshined by the beauty of souls longing for a Savior. If we make disciples where Jesus was previously unknown, we also mature in our own discipleship, for it requires courage and strength foreign to human nature. The courage and strength to reach out to those who might not know our Savior, but the honesty to admit there was a time when we didn’t know him either.

Yes, we’ll enjoy the fringe benefits at that pool—but they are only that, fringe benefits—but they will take a backseat to the better benefit of accompanying God in the only story that really matters: proclaiming his glory and making disciples who will worship him in spirit and truth. I could share more on this, but I’ve got a toddler who’s late for swim lessons.

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Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Summit University) is the Family Life Pastor at Christ Fellowship Church in Fallston, Maryland. Prior to that, he served at a church plant in Troy, New York for seven years and taught Hermeneutics to ninth and tenth graders. He is married to Hannah and is father to Knox and Hazel. He blogs at Family Life Pastor.

The Compassion of Community

An incoming freshman texted me at 11pm, which is approximately thirty minutes past my bedtime, and said she needed help. I immediately met her. She just got hit with the news that her mom was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. Her eyes filled with emotional tears, her breathing labored as she tried to speak through the sobs, and her shoulders slumped and shook with despair. I hardly knew this girl, but her grief drew out my compassion. Just as I felt my own eyes well up, my best friend and roommate walked into the room laughing. She had received a funny text and looked up to share the joke when she saw our current state. Immediately, she rushed to us and offered warmth and sympathy. She didn’t even ask this girl’s name but jumped in the mess to provide comfort.

When the young girl left and my roommate asked more about her, we both recognized the beauty in the pain. We didn’t have to know one another to share her mourning. It was a domino effect that happened both quickly and very naturally. If discipleship should look anything like the ministry of Jesus, then what we had just experienced was a very real representation. It reminded me that witness, compassion, and community are essential to a lifestyle of discipleship.

John 11:34-36

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

This excerpt is from the story of the relationship between Jesus, Lazarus, Mary and Martha. The series of compassion is unavoidable. However, earlier in this chapter Jesus is first told the news about Lazarus, and he responds confidently and unafraid of the consequences. Jesus is God, and his authority is duly noted in his initial words.

“This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

He doesn’t seem overly concerned for the emotional health of his friends, but simply declares that this tragedy will lead to his ultimate glory. Some may even say that he seemed to lack sensitivity towards the situation. However, just a few lines down, we see Jesus weeping over the friendship lost. How could a few lines cultivate such a change in response?

Clearly, he walked into an atmosphere that was emotionally intense. The text says that the anguish he witnessed in Mary and Martha moved his spirit and he was greatly troubled. His compassion was so deep that it caused uncontrollable sadness, and he wept. He cried so much that the people who had been ridiculing him a few verses before, turned and said “See how he loved him!” He didn’t hide his pain, and he didn’t declare his omniscience. He shared in mourning, he sowed tears, and he discipled those around him by doing so. He also validated their grief even though he knew Lazarus would be resurrected. The significance of identifying and sharing in pain was more than a teaching moment.

Discipleship in Community

This sliver of Jesus ministry helps illustrate something we don’t often give much opportunity—discipleship in community. Intentional discipleship is often secluded from community and has instead been left for meaningful talks in coffee shops or church on Sunday morning. This limitation is a disservice to all of us but also our community. Jesus went to Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. He entered into their lives and loved deeply as he ministered to them. Lazarus and Jesus were known as close friends, but Mary and Martha were there too. Jesus didn’t choose to isolate his relationship with Lazarus but brought his ministry into the community. Even deeper, the surrounding community received the benefit of their discipleship when they grieved the loss of Lazarus. Jesus knew that the community would reap great wisdom, even if it wasn’t exclusively sown into them.

Ironically, I can think of another story where community overlapped discipleship in my life. It was before an evening event, and the girl I disciple was expressing heartbreak over a boy. Her words, her insecurity, and her confusion were all so familiar. I wrestled similarly when I was in high school and couldn’t find freedom from the incessant self-doubt.

In the moment, I didn’t have any wisdom to offer, so I just sat and listened. My boyfriend called me and asked if I was ready to go and, on a time crunch, I said yes but asked for him to come in to get me. When he arrived he apologized for intruding and turned to leave, but I asked for him to come and sit. I encouraged her to share her heart with him, and I watched the conversation unfold. As she divulged self-doubt, insecurity, and rejection, I watched him fight for her in protection. I heard him express compassion and regard for her heart ache. It was the first time she ever had her value and self worth validated by a man. He didn’t gain by entering into her story, but she’ll forever remember the Truth he spoke. His vantage point was what she needed. He did what I couldn’t do because I invited him in. The grace of God is so often found in community. The body of Christ works together, fulfilling different roles and strengths at different times in the one true story.

Evidences of Community

John 11 shares numerous evidences of love shared in community. For example, Jesus left his plans to comfort his friends, Mary and Martha led Jesus in compassion, Jesus wept over Lazarus, the community around them witnessed, and Lazarus was resurrected. The story is an unexpected account of a raw ministry. They mourned together because they loved together.

Real life ministry is not taking every moment to teach, it’s not using every silence to impart wisdom, and it’s certainly not isolating from the pain. The ministry that Jesus gives is his presence—that’s the strongest witness of discipleship in community. The ability to step back and just be with people.

My challenge for you is to do this yourself. Invite people into the unknown and risky places of your heart, and don’t be afraid to step into someone else's. Don’t fear the complex boundaries of community just let your presence witness.

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Chelsea Vaughn (@chelsea725) has served a ministry she helped start in the DFW Metroplex since she graduated from college. She received her undergraduate degree at Dallas Baptist University in Communication Theory. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus.

4 Differences Between Small Towns and Big Cities

Significant differences exist between small towns and larger cities when it comes to being on mission. Below are four factors that significantly affect mission in small towns. Some of these have a positive effect on mission; others, a negative effect. This list isn’t comprehensive, but it’s a good starting point for analyzing and discussing the unique factors that affect mission in a small town.

Small towns desperately need normal, everyday people like farmers, factory workers, and small business owners who act like missionaries to reach their neighbors for Christ

Factor #1: Religious Non-Christians 

Not many people in small towns are atheists, Muslim, or new agers. Instead, small towns tend to be loaded with religious non-Christians. They may not go to church very often, but they generally believe that God exists and the Bible probably has something to say about him. Small towns tend to attract and retain people who are more traditional in their outlook on life compared to those in larger cities.

Religious non-Christians are generally receptive to talking about God and church, but it’s fair to say that they are also inoculated against the gospel. When a person is inoculated they receive a vaccine that is a weak strain of a virus. The body’s immune system then proceeds to adapt so that when it comes in contact with the real strain of the virus, it can easily fight it off.

Similarly, religious non-Christians grow up in churches that give them a weak strain of the gospel and, consequently, they build up an immunity to the real gospel. That’s why conversations with them about the gospel and faith often end with them nodding their head in agreement with everything you say, even though they don’t truly understand what you’re talking about.

Practical Advice 

Mission can never be done in the absence of prayer, but you’ll especially realize this when you’re on mission to religious non-Christians in a small town. Patience, taking a long-term approach to mission, is important. You won’t typically see many “microwave” conversions among religious non-Christians; instead, you’ll usually see “crockpot” conversions because it typically takes a long time for them to realize they have a weak strain of the gospel.

But take heart, because the Holy Spirit is sovereign over the crockpot! This is why it’s wise to avoid relying too much on short presentations of the gospel. More often than not, mission among religious non-Christians takes extended examinations of the lordship of Christ and the nature of the gospel before those concepts start to click in a meaningful way. This is why you should consider inviting people to your church, your small group, or to go through an extended one-on-one or couple-to-couple evangelistic Bible study.

People are often starving for a place to belong before they believe. This belonging kind of environment should be a safe place for religious non-Christians to enter into community and see—up close and personal—how their weak strain of the gospel contrasts with the power and abundant life of the true gospel.

Religious non-Christians also tend to have a high regard for the Bible. That’s why they’re generally not freaked out by opening the Bible at church, reading it in small group, or talking about it casually. However, even though they have a high regard for the Bible, the vast majority of them don’t know what it says because they’ve rarely been encouraged to read it for themselves. Therefore, don’t be afraid to conversationally use Scripture to discuss the gospel and faith. You’ll be surprised at how effective this is!

Factor #2: Change and Conformity 

For a variety of reasons, people in small towns are not typically open to change in comparison to people who live in larger cities. But this isn’t necessarily bad, because when people actually do change, they aren’t likely to change back to their old ways. This is often the case when someone becomes a Christian in a small town: they aren’t likely to turn their back on Jesus after they’ve switched their allegiance to him.

Similarly, the lack of change in small towns often leads to a high degree of conformity. For better or worse, there is a relatively narrow range of acceptable behaviors, choices, and ideas that people are generally expected to adhere to in a small town. And the smaller a town is, the narrower the range! For people who have odd personalities or embrace non-traditional behaviors, it’s often difficult to be respected in the goldfish bowl of a small town. In fact, Christians like this might even have a reputation that is ultimately at odds with their mission.

Practical Advice 

A veteran pastor in a small town once told me, “You can’t be weird in a small town. You need to be normal. You can’t scare people and expect to advance the gospel. You can maybe get away with being weird in Seattle or Chicago and still be great at evangelism but that doesn’t work in a small town.” If you think this might describe you, I would suggest talking with your pastor or a trusted friend and get their advice so that mission can advance in your spheres of influence.

Factor #3: Reputations Are Hard to Shake 

It’s often said that newspapers in small towns don’t report the news, they confirm the news. That’s because people know who you are and parts of your life are common knowledge around town (which wouldn’t be the case in a larger city). In fact, many people who live in small towns end up being celebrities without trying, and for all the wrong reasons. Even your police record will be common knowledge because all the citations are listed in the newspaper! For better or worse, people tend to know about the details and integrity of your marriage, family, and business. That’s why reputations are hard to shake in small towns and they tend to follow us around like our shadows.

Practical Advice

The reputation of the gospel is strongly tied to the reputation of our marriage, family, and business. This is especially true in a small town. This reality can be a helpful asset to your mission, or an incredible liability. If you are committed to being on mission in your town, it might be helpful to sit down with your pastor or a trusted friend and reverse-

In other words, if you want the reputation of your marriage, family, and business to point to the gospel, then you’ll need to decide on the series of steps you may need to take to make that happen.

However, as you go through this process, don’t accidentally make your reputation into an idol. If you do, you probably won’t take meaningful risks for the gospel, because your deepest desire will be to protect your reputation instead of advancing the mission.

Factor #4: The “Ten and Done” Principle 

A veteran pastor in a small town made a simple but insightful observation to me a few years ago about relationships in small towns. He called it the “ten and done” principle, and it forever changed the way I understood social dynamics and mission in small towns.

The “ten and done” principle is when people in a small towns typically make room for ten slots in their life for friendships, and once their ten slots are filled, then they are done building friendships. They aren’t necessarily done being friendly, but they are done inserting new friends into their slots. Each person’s slots consist of permanent and non-permanent friendships.

The permanent slots are friendships that are poured in cement. These permanent friendships usually consist of a person’s family, a few friends they grew up with, or other people they’ve grown close to along the way. The non-permanent slots may rotate depending on circumstances and stage of life.

For example, when a young mom has little kids she might have some of the young moms from her play group in some of her non-permanent slots. However, when her kids are older and play on a high-school soccer team, she might have different parents in her non-permanent slots from that group.

Keep in mind that this is only a principle, and not a rule, because it’s not equally true for everyone who lives in a small town. Some people might have a meager amount of non-permanent slots while others might have an abundance of them. Some might have considerably more than ten slots but they’re all permanent, while others might have far less than ten slots, due to their personality and social sensibilities.

Moreover, the cultural climate in some parts of the country can breed unspoken expectations for people to have higher or lower amounts of slots. But even though each person and place is different, the “ten and done” principle generally holds true for small towns across America. Many of us who have lived in small towns have certainly seen it in practice!

Practical Advice 

The “ten and done” principle creates a diversity of challenges when it comes to mission in small towns. If relationships are the foundation of mission in small towns, how should we do mission with this principle in mind? Below is a collection of thoughts that address this question.

New people tend to be the “low-hanging fruit” for mission in a small town, because not many of their slots are filled. Longtime residents need the gospel as much as anyone, but new residents are often the easiest people to connect with for the sake of mission.

Make room for non-permanent slots in your life for the sake of mission. If you don’t have non-permanent slots open, take account of your relationships and ask God how he wants to organize and prioritize your friendships. If you do have non-permanent slots open, be devoted to praying about which non-Christians God might place in your slots.

Don’t assume you know which non-Christians have non-permanent slots open. Be prudent in praying for wisdom and don’t jump to conclusions about who’s interested and available to build a reciprocal friendship with you.

For a variety of reasons, people who are single typically have more time and availability than their married counterparts. And they also tend to have a higher number of slots available than those who are married. Singles often have the potential to be some of the best missionaries in town. If you are single, consider leveraging this season of your life for the sake of mission.

The “ten and done” principle often means that being on mission at our workplaces is remarkably strategic. Many people in small towns have their extended families living in the area and they fill up each other’s slots. Consequently, some extended families in small towns could virtually be considered unreached people groups! One of the most strategic ways to reach these families is to be on mission in our workplaces, because people from these families are forced to be around their Christian co-workers for eight hours every day.

Some non-Christians have all their permanent slots filled with family and childhood friends. Therefore, consider strategically praying that God would boldly bring individual people like this to Christ so that they can be on mission to the rest of their family and childhood friends. This is one way that God infiltrates closed networks of family and friends in small towns. There are many people in small towns who have testimonies where God saved them and powerfully used them to reach their closed network of family and friends. Let’s pray that this would happen more often!

If your family takes up all your slots and they are already Christians, consider holding a family-wide discussion about what doing mission in your town should look like. Family is good and a blessing from God, but is your family’s mission focused on community with each other or are you a community that’s focused on mission?

—

Aaron Morrow (M.A. Moody Bible Institute) is one of the pastors of River City Church in Dubuque, Iowa, which was planted in 2016. He and his wife Becky have three daughters named Leah, Maggie, and Gracie.

Excerpted from Aaron Morrow’s Small Town Mission

Joyful Perseverance in a Hard Cultural Soil

One story is told of a medical missionary who went to reach a tribal people in a remote area of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1912. After seventeen years of laboring in the mission field, he went home utterly discouraged thinking he had failed. Several decades after he died, much to their amazement, a team of missionaries discovered a network of reproducing churches where he was stationed. At the moment, some of our brothers and sisters among the least reached people groups are hit by the harsh realities of following Christ, being stripped of their dignities, and flogged for the sake of the gospel. But they are embracing suffering in the cause of making disciples (Col. 1: 24). Remembering those who are persecuted for the sake of the gospel ignites my faith to persevere in our context (Heb. 13: 3, Phils. 1: 14). How about you? What are the daily challenges you face in making disciples in your context?

Every Cultural Soil Is Hard Without the Spirit

Our context in Japan presents itself with a unique set of challenges. The Japanese are the second largest unreached people group. And discipleship is costly! Jesus left the comfort of his vast heavenly home and entered our small world to live a perfect life we could not live and died the death we should have died. Because of him, we can enter into cultures—and bring lost people into his vast Kingdom with the gospel.

If you’re called to go and make disciples in a poverty stricken area in Africa, you give up the comforts of a developed country to live according to the standards of the people. Likewise, to live as a missionary in Japan and make disciples is costly, spiritually and culturally. The cost of living also goes higher up. Some missiologists have even called it the missionary graveyard because many missionaries go home discouraged after years of sacrifice (sometimes with little to no fruit).

But when Jesus calls us to leave everything behind and follow him, he's calling us to better things than the things he has called us to leave behind. He has called us to himself first, and then to a people group—wherever that may be.

Many Unreached Places in Our Hearts

Many places are still unreached by the gospel in our hearts. Personally, my greatest struggle as a disciple maker is that I want people to believe in the gospel and grow quickly so that they can make other disciples and multiply (2 Tim. 2: 2). In this process, I often forget how slow my sanctification is. When I first came to Christ, my life changed dramatically. In a matter of few months, everything in my life turned around. Because of the unique nature of my conversion experience, I tend to expect (by default) that same kind of progress in others. But I often forget, momentarily, that I am what I am today only by God’s grace (1 Cor. 15: 10). I forget that trying to make disciples without the power of the Spirit is like trying to drive a speedboat without the engine. I cannot disciple a person, much less disciple myself, apart from prayerful reliance on the power of the Spirit (Jn 15: 5). I’ve come to realize that making disciples is more like getting into a sail boat and letting the sails up, so that when the wind (the Spirit) blows we are blown further into the sea—by the power of the wind (Jn 3: 8, Rom. 8: 14).

In our disciple-making journey, the most crucial thing to remember is that we are being discipled ourselves. We are disciple-learners before we are disciple-makers. We are constantly in need of someone to teach us. And the Spirit of Christ who lives in us teaches us about all things (Jn 14: 26). In this disciple-making journey, we must stay teachable, as the Holy Spirit has come to conform us to the image of Christ (I Cor. 3, Rom. 8: 29). Who we are becoming is as important (if not more important) as what we do. And we can rest in our hearts knowing that only Jesus can truly be Jesus to people.  He must live his life in and through us (Gal. 2: 20).

As Bonhoeffer puts it:

“[Jesus] stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality. Since the whole world was created through him and unto him (John 1:3; 1st Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2), he is the sole Mediator in the world.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In this sense, only Jesus can be Jesus to others—working in and through us.

Planting And Watering Gospel Seeds

All we can do is to plant gospel seeds in the soil of a culture and prayerfully rest in God’s Spirit to raise up disciples who look like Jesus. Take, for example, the parable of the sower of the seed (Mk 4: 1-20). The parable has no focus on the strength or skill of the sower. Surely, the sower needs some basic knowledge to cultivate the soil, plant seeds, and water it. In some cultures, it takes time to cultivate the soil. Language must be learned; relationships must be built, and communities must be formed.

Moreover, Christians must have a good reputation with outsiders (I Tim. 3:7). We must stay in the community for the long haul, becoming all things to all men to save some (I Cor. 9: 22). People’s stories must be learned well before we bring the gospel to bear on them. Spiritual strongholds must be broken down (Eph. 6, 2 Cor. 10: 4). And people need to see the gospel changing us for them to believe in the credibility of our message (I Tim. 4: 16). So disciple-making has a lot to do with faithfulness, joy, and patience—all of which are also the work of the Spirit in us (Gal. 5: 22).

But if we look carefully, it doesn’t say that the soil wasn’t producing because the sower was performing poorly. What the sower was dealing with was the type of soil in which the seeds fell into. Although some fell on the rocky ground, along the path and thorns, the parable shows us the hope of the gospel:

“Those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold” — Mark 4: 20 (emphasis mine)

It doesn’t tell us how long it took, and he does not know how the seeds grew.

All the sower does is what every farmer does: “He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” (Mk 4: 27 emphasis mine). All of them heard the gospel, but these are hearts that have been prepared by the Spirit.  The sower can improve in what he or she does, but the Spirit prepares the “good soil” and multiplies disciples. Didn’t the greatest church planter say the same thing?

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth”  – I Corinthians 3: 6, 7 (emphasis mine)

Therefore, we are joyful even when people take an interest in us and start to trust us. Like parents, we enjoy seeing small steps taken by our people. It's like observing a baby taking his or her first steps. We take great delight in the little progress our people make even in their attitudes, as one missionary puts it:

"Ministry joys come whenever a person moves a step closer to Jesus, whether it is learning to trust us, becoming curious about why we are here or who Jesus is, showing an openness to change, seeking after God, or actually entering the kingdom. But it takes time. And this is the challenge" – Send Missionary

Jesus said that if “a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies. . . . It bears much fruit” (Jn 12: 24). Be encouraged. Keep tilling. Sometimes, the soil must be cultivated before gospel seeds can be sown, take root, and grow. It often takes time!

Remember, the growth of the disciple is not dependent on the skill of the disciple-maker, in the same way as the growth of the seed does not depend on the ability of the farmer, but on the seed and the condition of the soil. The power is in the seed (Matt. 13: 31) and the “good soil” prepared by the Spirit. Jesus is discipling all of us by the power of the Spirit. He has commanded us to do that which only he alone can do (Matt. 28: 18, 19), so that in our disciple-making we might rely on him and he might receive the glory.

In the end, we have great hopes that just as Jesus fell to the ground, died and produced many disciples, his Spirit will work through us, and in the lives of those he has called us to disciple (Jn 15: 16).

—

Joey Zorina is a church planter with The Bridge Fellowship in an artistic neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan.  He writes articles, essays and devotionals for Living Life, and blogs occasionally @outsidecampers and @regeneration). He asks that you please pray for them and the Japanese.  You can connect with him at https://twitter.com/JoeyZorina

5 Ways to Cultivate a Multiplying Culture

You can’t force multiplication to happen, but you can cultivate an environment where multiplication can happen. As a leader, you can create a culture where sending people out is expected, celebrated, and shared be the entire community.

Jesus does not simply call us to be a lovely community together, but he sends us out to our neighborhoods, towns, and cities to declare and demonstrate the gospel.

There are five important principles from the story of the Church in Antioch and the sending of Paul and Barnabas in Acts. Their story is not merely a pattern to follow but the essence of a multiplying culture.

1. Start With Thriving Communities That Make Disciples

The sending out of Paul and Barnabas from the church of Antioch doesn’t begin with the prayer meeting in Acts 13, but from the church’s inception. The story of the Church of Antioch’s birth is found in Acts 11:19-26.

Antioch was formed out of the ashes of persecution and the proclamation of the gospel from a few faithful people. They proclaimed that Jesus was Lord, and many came to believe. They relied on the Holy Spirit; they were generous, and they welcomed help for the formation of this church.

Ironically, Paul and Barnabas were first sent to Antioch because it was the frontier and outskirts of the church. They were sent to lay a foundation on the gospel, to encourage this church, and to bless them to remain faithful or to walk in obedience to the teachings of Jesus. Many people believed the gospel and became disciples of Jesus. As the church became rooted and thriving in the Holy Spirit, they morphed from being the outskirts to being the launchpad.

This story is not written as a bizarre one-off tale; it’s describing the ordinary movement of the gospel. The gospel that forms you is the same gospel will propel you to send. People in your community will leave your community to start a new work in another part of the city, another city altogether, or even another country and culture entirely. Sending is a function of gospel growth and maturity. Multiplication happens when disciples are being made, the gospel is being proclaimed, and people are growing in faith and obedience.

The foundational assumption of my upcoming book, Multiply Together is: when you make disciples, the effects reverberate through our cities as the gospel is believed, shared, and demonstrated through thoughtful engagement in making and redeeming culture. People following Jesus lead others to follow Jesus, which leads to the sending of others to start communities.

Multiplication begins with planting thriving missional communities centered on the gospel and faithful to pursue obedience. In other words, as we form disciples to love God, we will find leaders who can form environments saturated with the gospel. As we form disciples who reconcile, forgive, endure, and encourage others in the community, we will see leaders who can shape communities in that same culture. As we engage our neighbors and city with love, we will see leaders lead others in speaking and demonstrating the gospel.

– Gospel Enjoyment: Growing in Our Love For God Together

Missional Communities answer the discipleship command to grow in their enjoyment of the gospel. As redeemed, adopted sons and daughters of God, we are invited and ushered into a life complete and united to God. God has lavished every spiritual blessing on us; our calling is to receive that love and love God in return.

Missional communities have the goal of growing in our enjoyment of the gospel together. We grow together through reading the scriptures, practicing confession, repentance, and faith. Communities seek to know God and give him their hearts, minds, and strength. In this way, a disciple of Jesus is within a context where the gospel is not only spoken but devoured and ingested into their life. We imagine disciples flourishing in a spiritual life that impacts every aspect of their lives and results in worship.

– Community: Growing in Our Love For One Another

Missional communities are also created with the goal that everyone would grow in the aspiration to love one another. That the community would be one centered on God’s sacrificial love and marked by extending that love to one-another. Missional communities are a discipleship environment where we are challenged to give gifts, time, compassion, and peace to one-another freely. In other words, we grow in all the one-anothers of the New Testament.

These one-anothers are expressed through listening to each other and know one another's stories. We care for the burdens, pains, and struggles each person walks through. We celebrate, and we mourn. Also, we serve each other in our areas of need; whether it is yard-work or babysitting. Ultimately, community is a discipline of sacrifice and giving.

– Mission: Growing in Our Love for Our Neighbor Together

Lastly, missional communities are created to pursue mission together. We are called to not only love God and one-another but love our neighbor as we would love ourselves. We are to seek their flourishing. This applies to our wealthy CEO neighbor, refugees down the street in apartment complexes, and the children who are separated from their parents. Missional communities are structured around one common mission where everyone’s gifts and capacities get to work together to share the gospel in word and deed.

Missional communities grow in this area by conspiring to care, learn, show-up, and build relationships with those around them. Participating in this common mission reinforces the way we live on mission in the scattered everyday reality of life.

2. Expect to Participate and Send Globally

The thriving church of Antioch expected the Holy Spirit to advance the good news of Jesus beyond them and to use them. In fact, they had already given of themselves for people beyond themselves in chapter 11.

So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. – Acts 11:29-30

Before they considered sending a team of people to share the gospel, they had already given their wages, property, storehouses, and food for the well-being of people they did not know. They saw themselves as participants in a global kingdom and church, not an isolated one within their neighborhood. They had seen the need, and they had determined, as a whole, to send relief for that need. They were a sending church before they sent Barnabas and Saul.

Your community becomes a sending community long before it multiplies. A community that is aware of the hardships of other communities and takes the initiative to serve them is preparing itself to send. A community that is connected to others and not consumed by itself is fertile soil for multiplication.

3. Praying, Worshiping, and Fasting is the Fuel for Sending

We often think we must talk sending up and discuss it often to make it happen. We believe we can speak multiplication into reality. Only God speaks anything into reality. God sends while we pray, worship, and fast. God sends while we respond to what he has spoken. Worship is the “vision cast" of mission. You aren’t called to spread “vision”; you are called to worship, pray, and fast in light of God’s vision for the world. An inescapable reality in the book of Acts is that mission occurs in the midst of worship, because of worship, and results in worship. The elders of Antioch demonstrate this reality well in Acts 13 when Paul and Barnabas are sent in the midst of worship and fasting:

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. – Acts 13:2-4

The Holy Spirit sent them while they worship Jesus as Lord. A community that sends will be one that is regularly praying, worshiping, and fasting to adore God, who is in charge of his mission and the Holy Spirit who will accomplish it. Furthermore, that community will be listening to the voice of God with a dependence on him, knowing the Spirit will send.

Worship dependent mission reproduces enjoyment of the gospel. Worship fueled mission reproduces humility and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Worship inspired sending beckons everyone to listen to the Holy Spirit for what he is calling them to. It is through gospel enjoyment that we plant the seeds of multiplication and create a culture that sends. We are turning our hearts and minds to Jesus, the king of his kingdom, the author, and actor of the gospel. In this posture, we come to multiplication with humility, awe, trust, and joy. The scope of the gospel is on display, and the scope of mission becomes clear. We cannot cast a vision better than a God, who sent himself to love others and make the world whole. This creates the expectation that God will send.

4. PREPARE AND PLAN TO SEND YOUR BEST

In chapter 13, we can see the church and its leaders expecting to send not only their possessions but also their people. They even, you might suppose expected to send some of the most influential people within the church. Paul and Barnabas, who had spent a year being investing in this church, were truly gifted in discipleship, pastoring, and preaching the gospel. We get the understanding from the context of this passage that any of the strong and diverse leaders from Antioch were on the table for the expansion of the mission. They prayed, fasted, and worshiped and it became evident that Paul and Barnabas were to be sent. The church was willing to send any or all of their leaders.

Paul and Barnabas had been prepared for a long time. Barnabas was an initial disciple in the church of Jerusalem. He helped establish the church in Antioch and was a spokesman on what God was doing outside of Jerusalem. His name is a nickname, “Son of Encouragement”. Every mentioning of Barnabas to this point has been in connection with serving the church, loving the church, and going outward. It isn’t surprising God sends Barnabas; it seems obvious. Paul, on the other hand, seemed destined to go to the western borders of the Empire. Upon conversion, he knew he was saved to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. He new he would stand before rulers. Everyone knew he would. Despite a few nervous moments in the beginning, the church as a whole had committed to discipling, training, and nurturing Paul in his calling.

The two of them had been prepared for this moment through their whole lives. They had been taught the gospel, and they had taught the gospel. They had been cared for by the church, and they had cared for the church. The church of Antioch had welcomed them, learned from them, and loved them. Paul and Barnabas grew in Antioch, and they also helped others grow. Barnabas arrived at a young church without leaders. He left that church with leaders and maturity.

Leaders are called, developed, and trained within community and by the Spirit. As you establish a missional community, you will prepare and plan to send your best. Instead of keeping the more mature, bought in, equipped, and enjoyable people off limits and hoarding them in your group, prepare them to start new communities. Spend intentional time preparing for leading on their own. We see this evident throughout the New Testament, as communities freely give great leaders to the mission instead of keeping them.

Missional communities are simultaneously environments for discipleship and training leaders how to make disciples, which is the chaos and brilliance of communities making disciples. As you go, you prepare others to send. We ought to be constantly looking for the next leaders to develop. Multiplication might happen by sending out first-time leaders, or it may be veteran leaders leaving to start a new community. Regardless, we alway develop leaders.

5. The Community Gives Itself. It is Never the Same

Lastly, we see the principle of sacrifice in multiplication. Through prayer, grief, and anticipation that God will advance the gospel; the community sends people. To send, God works in the heart of a community to trust God. To trust that he will give you community everything you need. The people God gives you are the people God wants you to have. You must trust God’s goodness, grace, and ability to orchestrate his mission better than you can.

This is a sacrifice because the community will never be the same. You cannot replicate what was because the personalities, gifts, and perspectives of the community make it. As people are sent, what remains is not an old community and new one, but two new communities. One is sent out discovering how to be a community of disciples on a new mission or with a new group of people. The other remains and is rediscovering how to be on mission and community in the same place and with the some of the same people.

This is multiplication. In the last loving act of being a community, it chooses to give itself and never be the same again. For the sake of obedience. For the sake of gospel growth. For the love, they have for others who will enjoy a new endeavor of faithfulness.

But also for themselves to step into the new thing God has called them to in their current place and within their current mission. Multiplication is final communal discipline. In Acts 13, this is expressed by touching these men and praying for them. It’s a touching moment of a new reality.

—

Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised?, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities, and Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com.

Adapted from the final installment in our Together book series Multiply Together: A Guide to Sending and Coaching Missional Communities 

Killing Social Glory-Seeking Hearts

“We didn’t seek glory from people.” Or did we?

One of the darkest dangers of the Christian life is the pursuit of praise. We want people to affirm and recognize us for who we are, what we have accomplished, and the results of our efforts. Perhaps rightly so.Our culture at large gives renown and praise to celebrities for who they are, what they have accomplished and the things they have produced. We taught that if you want your life to matter, you have to have people pay attention.

Our culture at large gives renown and praise to celebrities for who they are, what they have accomplished, and the things they have produced. We taught that if you want your life to matter, you have to have people pay attention.

Disciples devour and dwell on the things of God found in the Scriptures. We pray. We kill sin in our lives. We serve others.

Consider the incessant reality of social media today. Masked as a vehicle with which to share your life with your “friends” these channels have become self-glorifying platforms in which we project ideal versions of ourselves for the world to like, favorite, and adore.

Forbes Magazine reported a recent study from the University of Houston that found that the “highlight reels” of social media were linked to higher rates of depression among users. Our social comparison of each other creates a culture in which everyone seeks to be the celebrity.

Even think about the videos that have gone viral across social media platforms. We call it “transparency,” but it is a kind of voyeurism and narcissism that causes a couple to share live on video everything from their kids spilling milk at breakfast to a heated argument, to the sad realization that she has just had a miscarriage. All of this to get clicks, likes, shares, and a social platform of celebrity.

We are seeking glory from people!

So how do we overcome this sort of glory seeking? Paul, writing to the Thessalonian church in one of his first letters sought to demonstrate this sort of challenge that he himself faced, and the remedy for that sort of glory seeking.

In a high charged socially-aware and omnipresent world today, we have to think through how to defuse our social-glory-seeking-selves. Paul gives us three remedies to the illness of social-glory-seeking.

We Live in Gentleness Among the World

In the context of Paul’s ministry he is speaking of the way in which he and his missionary team conducted themselves among the new believers there in Thessalonica. The paradigm he uses is that of a mother and her small infant child. He describes his relationship with the people there as, “gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thess 2:7).

Set in opposition to the glory-seeking orators and thinkers of Paul’s day he postured himself as someone who would hardly be celebrated or recognized in the world—a nursing mother.

Most mothers I know don’t get a lot of platform and social praise for the labor they do in raising children. Gentle mothers aren’t usually lifted up in our culture as the kinds of people that we should aspire to be. They aren’t the paragons of society, influence, and renown. Yet this posture should be the very first posture if we are to kill a social-glory-seeking virus among us.

You can’t build a platform or make much of yourself when you’re busy being present with people and listening to them. Pastors and ministry leaders who embody this don’t get to Instagram and selfie their every counseling conversation, tear-filled pleading for repentance, broken-hearted funerals, and hours of labor alone in a study listening to and pondering over the Word of God.

These kinds of leaders often do most of their work without Twitter announcing to the world their efforts, or a live-stream, webinar conversation with empowered leaders and entrepreneurial dynamos. The social-glory-seekers get those. This kind of leader humbly, gently works among his people feeding, shepherding, and loving them.

We Yearn For The Good of Others

Paul says that a second remedy to the heart illness of social-glory-seeking is the compassionate longing for the good of others. He describes his ministry this way, “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you…” (1 Thess 2:8).

Paul’s affectionate desire was a deep yearning and ambition for the good of that church. He truly loved them. The context of his ministry there and the conflict, persecution, and strife that befell him as he ministered to the Thessalonians knit their hearts together. As they went through the deep waters of adversity and struggle, they were bound up together in love and compassion.

This affliction-born affection radically changed the perspective of the relationship. We often like to envision Paul’s missionary journeys as being some sort of multi-city tour where he would book a venue, have a big entertaining gathering, amass a crowd, preach the gospel, and see hundreds if not thousands get saved.

He stuck around for a few days with a discipleship class, and then off to the next town to raise up the next evangelistic crusade power-assembly. How wrong we would be. His visit to Thessalonica was anything but that. Acts 17 paints the picture of civil discourse in the Jewish synagogue turned into a violent mob and a harrowing late-night escape to the next town. Nothing self-aggrandizing in this ministry but a beating from jealous religious zealots.

But this affliction-soaked ministry birthed deep love and concern for the good of others. Ministers that care only for the glory of the platform don’t worry themselves with the street-level stuff.

Seeking glory from people means working to make sure that people affirm and like you, not that you care about them. Paul saw the hostility and the rage against the new Christians firsthand in this city, and it moved him to compassion for those people and that city. Social-glory-seeking would count Paul’s work as a loss and a failure. He saw it as a means to love.

• Pastor, do you care for the good of those in your church?
• Do you yearn for the fruit of the Spirit to be prevalent among the flock of God?
• Have you shown up unannounced at the home of a friend who is living in folly to try and wake them out of their stupor?
• Do you pray with the lonely, elderly, sick, and shut-in? Or do you only care about the “wins” (blasphemous term!) of ministry and celebrate the numbers of success; attendance records and fiscal prosperity?
• Are you intertwined in the affliction of ministry or just the successes?
• Or are you busy retweeting the rave reviews of your books, declaring where you’re speaking on the tour next, and the fiscal perks of your work?

Killing the social-glory-seeking heart that is present among the ministerial ranks requires an affectionate yearning and care for the good of others.

We Share Our Lives, Not Just Our Message

No one will say that proclaiming the gospel isn’t necessary, or even important. However, an insidious trap has been set by our enemy. In a social-glory-seeking world we’ve been deceived to believe that our message of the gospel is a product with which we can dispense to the world, build a platform around, and amass a pop following of glory with.

But if we’re not seeking glory from people, why do we act like the stage is the pinnacle place of ministry in the world today?

Paul’s remedy is very different. “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess 2:8). For Paul, living in community was essential to defeating the monster of the glory-seeking me.

Sharing lives, not just messages required that people knew him, and that he made himself known. The believers at Thessalonica became part of Paul’s life. He had friends, he had meals with them, he shared everyday stuff of life.

Social-glory-seeking however creates false barriers. It puts out only the best and brightest of our lives for everyone to see. We may feel that we are “sharing our lives” but it’s never our failures, never our sins, never our weaknesses or losses. It’s always our wins. Does anyone really know us?

To kill this kind of glory seeking requires an imbeded-life together. We have to be known; we have to be sharing of ourselves—our joys, our worries, our frustrations, our aspirations, our true selves with others. I worry for leaders and pastors who are not in community life with people in their church.

They don’t express hospitality to the church; they don’t attend or participate in normal small groups; they create bubbles and barriers of protection and circles of trust that isolate them from the crowds, unless everyone see their faults and weaknesses.

Killing Social-Glory-Seeking

I am convinced that the postures of gentleness, affection, and imbeded-life together will keep us from seeking the glory that comes from people. We won’t have time to get caught up in seeking praise.

Instead what will result, especially among pastors and leaders, is hard work that engages the lives of the people in a community and church and the effective advance of the gospel at the street level.

These attitudes will produce a church life that is ripe for revival and gospel-advance. It will bring a contagious movement of the Spirit of God that will produce fruit for generations to come.

It won’t end with a celebrity parade or self-sticked spiking of the ball to tell everyone how great you are. It will conclude with honor, praise, power and glory to the King of all Kings—Jesus.

“For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything” (1 Thessalonians 1:8).

Reflections

• Pastor, do you care for the good of those in your church?
• How has social media contributed negatively to your spiritual health? Positively?
• In what ways have you sought glory from others?
• How do you overcome the social glory-seeking?

—

Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church’s Plymouth, MI campus. 

SaveSave

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Arguably the linchpin of the entire Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer fills a critical role in as Jesus taught his disciples. Up until this point, Jesus has issued his blessings as the Supreme King in the Beatitudes and has given marching orders to his vassals. He now arrives at the matter of prayer. “Pray like this,” Jesus commands.

Jesus teaches us to start our prayers by remembering we belong to God’s family—the family that God has rescued and is gathering together from all nations.

OUR

The Church belongs to Christ. His blood purchased her through the ransom of the Cross. Because of the Father’s election, the Spirit’s regeneration, and the Son’s propitiation, we belong to him.

When we pray our prayers, the entire army we call “Church” comes together to petition the heavenly throne room. Our God. Our Father. Our Lord. He is ours.

The Lord’s Prayer begins with corporate solidarity. We are one, and one are we. Together we make up the Body of Christ, and together we petition him. The Church is a unit that functions together in such a way as to be more than just a bunch of individuals who have shared interests in common. No, we are his, and he is ours. We are one in Christ, and together we approach him.

Together we make up the Body of Christ, and together we petition him

FATHER

But who is this God? Sure, we come together and approach his throne, but who is he? God is our Father, and we are his children. He is compassionate, patient, loving, and majestic. He is sovereign, yet approachable, and transcendent, yet immanent.

We can knock on his door at 3:00 am, and he will still let us in. We can approach him with whatever is on our minds because he is Father, which means he is love.

To approach our Father is to approach the infinite God of the universe with tempered fear and courageous boldness. He is both other and majestic. He is utterly distinct from his creation, yet his heart is so full of joy.

He takes part with his creation with much delight. His ear is never too full and his attention never too short; he is our Father, and our Father is eager to hear from his children.

HALLOWED BE

We are not careless when we approach our Abba. Yes, Father cares for you and me, but we aren’t flippant. If we wish to pray like this, we must be sober in our approach to the throne of glory. The throne is still holy. The fact that we can even approach his throne is only by the mercy and grace of Christ. We needed someone to let us in, and Jesus did just that!

God is holy, which means he’s entirely unstained by sin and evil. His clothes are white, and there’s no stain remover in heaven. Because of his morally uncorrupted nature, we pray that God’s name would be revered and honored as holy everywhere. We desperately want not to just see God’s glory, but to taste it as well. And not just taste it; we want to share it with the world!

To hallow something is to revere something as entirely distinct and separate. We wish to see the holiness of God on display in the world so people will respect and pay tribute to him. We say, “Hallowed be” because God is.

YOUR NAME

We long to see the name of God venerated in all nations. We want God’s name—his character, personhood, and glory—to be treasured, valued, and esteemed by everyone everywhere. The Lord’s Prayer is a global prayer.

We hope that God’s holiness, majesty, knowledge, love, wrath, purity, patience, loving kindness, justice, righteousness, and light will become the priority of all peoples in all nations.

The name of God is sacred. His character is wrapped up in these two words, “I AM.” God simply is. Because he is, we pray that his name be hallowed. To pray likes Jesus is to approach God with joy, happiness, fear, and trembling. We come to God together because he is our Father. And we want the name and fame of our Father to be revered everywhere! He’s just that important.

MATURING DISCIPLES

What about you and your prayer life? Does your prayer life reflect these things? Do you pray to our heavenly Father? Is there a hint of trepidation and elation in your prayers or are you glib about it? Do you come to God knowing that he is both “Father” and “holy”? What about the content of your prayers? Are they simply a reflection of whatever randomness you have going on, or is there a hint of cosmic significance?

When it comes to the issue of maturing disciples, we need to keep in mind that our aim is twofold:

• We want the glory of God to be revered in our lives and the lives of others;
• We desire to see the gospel restore the imago Dei in us.

Maturation takes time—it takes much practice to restore virtue in a heart once ruled by vice. To accomplish this task of learning from Jesus, we must be people of prayer. We must be people who live within the confines of the Lord’s Prayer; we must be people who practice the Lord’s Prayer.

Whoever you are, wherever you are located, know this: he is our Father, and he longs to hear from you. Turn to him this very moment, like a child to his father, jumping into his ginormous lap and know that his ear is turned towards you.

And let that joy ruminate deep within your soul with the prayer that everyone everywhere would hallow God’s perfect name. As we seek to make, mature, and multiply disciples, the Lord’s Prayer is the gold standard for accomplishing such an audacious vision.

Reflections

• Do you pray to our heavenly Father?
• How does prayer play an integral role in making, maturing, and multiply disciples?
• Why must we approach the Father through Jesus?

—

Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.

How Does Your Community Share Meals?

“Jesus didn’t run projects, establish ministries, create programs, or put on events. He ate meals.” – Tim Chester, A Meal With Jesus

Food is significant. Through food, Adam and Eve rebelled. Through food, God grows dependence in the Israelites in the dessert. And through food, Jesus holds up bread and wine during his last meal with his disciples—proclaiming the bread his body and the wine his blood. Food and drink transform into metaphors and tastes of the gospel.

In our efforts to go and make, we often forget that the very places we already inhabit are places that we have been sent with the good news of Jesus

Bread has an association with life that surpasses biblical imagery, but in Christ, it is the sufficient sacrifice. Wine too has gained traction, outside Christianity, as a sign of blessing, goodness, and often associated with blood. However, in Christ, wine becomes the image of blessing, goodness, justification, and cleansing that comes through Jesus’ suffering on our behalf. Jesus chooses a meal for us to remember the gospel. If the gospel forms a community, sharing this gospel feast ought to be as often as we get together. Jesus called us to remember him and his sacrifice for us through a meal. When we eat together, we commune around this truth.

Our Relationship with Eating

Humans have a unique connection with food. We depend on it to survive. We also turn to it for comfort and safety in overindulgence. Food, for some of us, becomes a medium for expressing our creativity, becoming art. Fundamentally, food reminds us of our need for something outside of ourselves. We have to take, receive, and eat to continue moving through this world. Meals are a daily reminder of our common need for God and his faithfulness to provide both physically and spiritually.

Communal Eating

In community, we regularly eat meals together instead of in isolation. At the table, we share our stories, we listen to one another, and we experience grace. The New Testament describes this act as "breaking bread" and invokes a giving and receiving of relationship in the most simple and unspoken of ways. The weekly communal meal is a spiritual discipline.

Through the meal, we engage one another as a family in Christ, and we engage Christ.

The communal meal begins through arrival or gathering. At this moment, everyone’s individual responsibilities, schedules, and to-do lists collide into an expression of community. The worries, struggles, fears, and happy news of each member comes rushing through the door. Your lives are hurried until this point. Your lives are physically separate until this moment. A weekly meal is more than logistics to work out but a spiritual discipline of being united. You are physically bound together by the table you gather around, the complete meal everyone shares in, and under the prayer recognizing God’s grace as you eat.

Through the meal, we engage one another as a family in Christ, and we engage Christ. The weekly meal is a fantastic space to grow in your love for one another. Let the conversations around the dinner table be focused and meaningful. Embrace this moment with honesty. As a leader, spark the conversation to be about more than the movies people watch and the latest sports scores.

Welcome Others to the Gospel Feast

Come, sinners, to the gospel feast; Let every soul be Jesus' guest. Ye need not one be left behind, For God hath bid all humankind. – Charles Wesley

We regularly sing this hymn at Bread&Wine. It is an anthem for us, and the church we aspire to be. A church that welcomes every soul as Jesus' guest into the most meaningful of tables. Our invitation to those in our city is not merely to dinner parties but into the family of God, into union with Christ. As we welcome the poor and powerless into our community meals and as we share the crucial nature of the elements of communion, we realize we are the sinners coming. We are the ones in need of his body and his blood. A community that secludes itself and its dinner table from the outside world will not only struggle to reach their neighbors but will fail to see their need for the Table.

Make Meals Meaningful

• Ask each other how the week is going and expect long, honest answers.
• Ask everyone a common question that will lead to deeper understanding of each other: What is your favorite summer memory from childhood? Or how do you prepare for the Christmas holidays?
• Ask about how each person is processing the sermon from Sunday, or about the service that was done as a group the week before, circle back to past hardships people have shared.
• Simple things to like what are you thankful for today. What was the hardest part of your day today?
• You could also have a person or couple in the “spotlight” where they can share in more depth their story, current spot in life, and what they are going through with the community having the chance to pray for them.

Reflections

• How does your community share meals?
• How can you eat with glad and generous hearts?
• How can you remember Christ as you eat?
• How can the gospel become clearer as you share a meal with folks?
• How often should you get together to share a meal during the week?
• How does your community remember Jesus in these meals?
• Most people eat twenty-one meals a week, how could anyone in your community share at least one of them with others?

—

Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised?, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities, and Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com.

How Do You Get Prayer to "Work?"

I say unto you, “Ask, and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you. For whoever asks, receives; and whoever seeks, finds; and to whoever knocks, the door is opened.” – Matthew 7:7–8

What a promise! Do you need anything? Just ask, and you’ll get it. Do you have problems that seem to have no solution? Just seek, and you’ll find! Do you only see closed doors in front of you? Just knock, and they’ll swing open! Getting from God’s hand everything I lack, everything I desire, and everything I want is what prayer is all about, right?

I’m not sure why, but sometimes I have problems swallowing that.

Jesus teaches us to start our prayers by remembering we belong to God’s family—the family that God has rescued and is gathering together from all nations.

I knew a precious lady—a friend I used to go to church with—whose name was Phyllis. Phyllis was an attractive, active, pleasant woman, full of zest for life and still quite young. She had a great husband named Fred who loved her, two married children, and her first grandchild on the way. Phyllis and Fred loved the Lord and were faithful in church. They were always in their place every Sunday.

One day, Phyllis was taking her customary jog when she noticed a nagging pain in her side. At first, she thought she’d pulled a muscle, but the pain persisted for several days, getting even worse. Finally, she went to the doctor. After a battery of tests, she learned that she had liver cancer. Immediately, she began the most aggressive treatment available. She went through all the misery and suffering that goes with chemotherapy and radiation, but her condition continued to worsen.

Finally, the doctors told her that the only hope of a cure was to have a liver transplant; however, to qualify, she must be clear of cancer in every other part of her body. Another even more intense battery of tests followed.

One by one, her vital organs were cleared until the very last—her lungs. I was in the room with Phyllis and her family when the doctor came in to tell her that there was a spot on one of her lungs, and that, because of this, there was nothing more they could do for her. She would be sent home and made as comfortable as possible until she died.

Immediately, we prayed, placing her in God’s hands, asking him to do what the doctors couldn’t do. During the weeks and months that followed, Phyllis and her family prayed fervently. A group of friends from church went to her house and had a special prayer meeting, asking God for healing.

About the same time, another faithful member of the same church, a friend named Nate, who was about Phyllis’ same age, was diagnosed with a serious and life-threatening skin cancer. We also prayed for Nate. The same group of friends went to his house and had a special prayer meeting. The same people. The same request. The result? Nate got well and is still in good health today. Phyllis, after months of excruciating suffering, died.

What are we to do with this? Here were two people who loved God, who were committed to him and ready to serve him. Both of them trusted in the Lord for healing. One was healed. The other was not. How do you explain it?

How do you get prayer to work?

Some might say it’s a question of morality: God listens to the prayers of good people and ignores the prayers of bad ones. But I’ve seen so much suffering by so many dedicated, moral people (and also the apparent blessing of a few people I didn’t think deserved it) that I’m just not buying that explanation.

Others might say it’s a matter of faith: you have to believe … hard. Maybe Phyllis just had that hint of doubt, and consequently, she wasn’t healed. But I remember a particular father who cried out to Jesus and said, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” Faith has to be something more than just believing hard.

Prayer, after all, is not getting what we want from God. It’s receiving from God all that he wants to give

Still others might say that it’s a matter of asking according to the will of God. My problem here is that I have so much difficulty sometimes understanding just what God’s will is in a given situation. Do I have to wait until I’m certain of God’s will before I can pray? I just can’t see God expecting us to live in this constant guessing game about what’s going on in his mind.

All of this leads me to the question that Jesus’ disciples asked him at the beginning of this passage: “Lord, how should we pray? John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. Why don’t you teach us?”

Jesus responds with a sample prayer that is only 45 words long, a promise, and two parables to give them an idea of just what prayer is. Maybe these stories can help.

Story #1: The Friend Nobody Wants

The first is a story about the kind of friend nobody wants. He shows up, knocking at his friend’s door at midnight, knowing that all the lights are out, and the family is most certainly asleep in bed. It’s an awful time—convenient for no one but himself. And the worst of it is, he has a ridiculous request: “I have a visitor in my house—another friend who came to see me—and I have nothing to feed him. Couldn’t you get out of bed, wake up your kids, bother your family, lose some sleep and wreck your work day tomorrow—just for the sake of going to your kitchen and getting me some bread to feed my houseguest?”

I like to think I don’t have any friends who would abuse me that way. But, in fact, I have had friends just like that. They only appear when they want something. One friend of mine customarily says (joking, of course!) “What are friends for if you can’t use them?” The truth is, I don’t consider people like that to be my best friends. They appear in front of me at the most inconvenient moments with some silly demand—and they won’t let me go until they get what they want. They’re not friends; they are people who see me as a means to their ends. They’re users. But at the end of the day, according to what Jesus says in verse 8, it’s not because the caller was his friend that the guy got up to take care of him—it was because of his boldness, his persistence, his stubbornness, and his unmitigated gall! Giving away the food was his only way to be free of the man, so he got up and gave him what he wanted. This story provides some interesting implications for prayer, don’t you think?

When I was a kid, my parents were missionaries in Mexico, and they worked with another missionary by the name of JT. He was legendary for his persistence. The story of how JT got his permanent residence papers is well known. Usually, it took months or even years to get papers, but he wanted to do it during the summer break of the school where he taught. The first day, he went to the immigration office with his paperwork and placed it on the counter in front of the appropriate official. The person said the words that all immigrations officials say, the world over, “Come back in 2 weeks.” (This doesn’t mean that the papers will be ready in 2 weeks, it just means you can come back in two weeks.) JT said, “That’s OK, I’ll wait.” And he sat down with a very thick book next to the person’s desk and waited. Ever so often, he would go up to the counter and say, “So where are my documents now? Are they ready?” Before the end of the day, this official expedited his documents, stamping, and signing them and sending them on to the next bureaucrat, just to get rid of JT. JT followed his documents to the next office and did the same thing. At the end of the day, he went home to rest, but the next morning he was right there when the office opened up again, book in hand, ready to irritate, annoy, and put people on edge until he had his visa in hand. Result: JT accomplished in two weeks what it sometimes took two years and thousands of dollars to do—he got his visa, and it didn’t cost a dime!

Is this what prayer is? Is it cutting through the red tape of heaven by our pure stubbornness and obstinacy? Is it making a pest of yourself, bugging God until He gives you what you want? After all, prayer is a matter of getting what we want from God, right?

Story #2: The Boldness of Claiming

Maybe the second parable will shed some more light. It’s an entirely different story. The person in the first parable gets what he wants not because of his relationship, but because of his boldness. The person in the second parable gets what he wants because of the relationship. It’s the story, or at least the image, of a father and son. If the child asks for a piece of bread, Jesus says, the Father isn’t going to give him a stone. And if it’s an egg he wants, the father isn’t going to give him a scorpion. Of course not! The boy is his son! He has rights! Fathers give the best to their children, not the worst. Let’s take advantage of the fact that we’re children of God. Demand from God what you want. He’s obligated to give it to you. It’s your birthright.

There are quite a few people who proclaim a message just like that these days. “God is a father who loves us. Like any father, he wants us all to be healthy and wealthy. If we don’t have everything we want, it’s  because we are not claiming our rights as his children.”

I used to work in a small church that was down the road from a massive “prosperity” church. The pastor of that church was famous because he was on TV every day, inviting people to a life of riches and well-being. All you had to do, according to him, was to send your money to his ministry and, in so doing, claim your birthright as a child of God. It was a huge church—a cathedral. Thousands of people went there, and thousands more sent the man millions and millions of dollars. Occasionally, some of these people would show up in our church. I called them the “refugees of prosperity.” They had given everything to this man and had ended up disappointed, disillusioned, and defeated.

Is this what prayer is? Claiming our birthright? Storming the gates of heaven and demanding what we want from our heavenly father because he’s obligated to give it to us? After all, prayer is all about getting what we want from God, right?

I don’t know. I still struggle with this.

It seems that, if this is true, the result will be spoiled children. And if it’s not, the result will be disillusioned children. There must be something more that we’re missing. And I think it might be in the very last verse of the passage.

The Answer to Prayer

Jesus says, “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Who said anything about the Holy Spirit? I thought we were talking about loaves of bread, fishes, and eggs. Sure it’s figurative language, but it makes sense that when we translate it into our contemporary lives, we’d be talking about houses, healings, and automobiles, right? No one asks for the Holy Spirit—and why would you? The Holy Spirit doesn’t make your life any easier. He convicts you of sin. He calls you to confess and to repent—change things around in your life. He reveals truth—truth that you’d often prefer to stay hidden! He demands commitment. He comforts us when things go badly, but I’d personally prefer that things just didn’t go badly so that I wouldn’t need any comfort. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to God’s children, obligating them to use them in serving him. The Holy Spirit produces fruit, binding us to live with the character of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is not necessarily at the top of most of our lists of things to ask God for; however, Jesus gives this one particular application in his teaching about prayer.

Maybe we should take a closer look at what Jesus is teaching in this passage. He responds to his disciples’ question, first with a model prayer that is made up of six brief requests—only one of which has anything to do with material things. And this request is just for the necessities of life. All the others ask for priorities that are not of this world—“Hallowed be your name . . . Your kingdom come . . . Forgive us . . . Lead us not into temptation . . . Deliver us from evil.”

Next, he tells two parables and makes a promise. One parable calls us to be bold in prayer—persistent—entering with confidence in the presence of the Lord to make our requests. The other parable speaks of God’s desire, as our Father, to always give us the best. But it doesn’t say that the Father will always give the piece of bread, or the fish, or the egg that the child asks for. It may be that what the Father gives is a nice warm vegetable soup. The promise says that whoever asks, receives. But it doesn’t say that he always receive exactly what he asked for. It says that whoever seeks, finds, but it doesn’t say that what she finds will be what she expected. It says that whoever knocks will find that the open door, but the scene on the other side of the door may or may not be what you imagined.

I’m starting to get the feeling that prayer, after all, is not getting everything we want from God. But if it’s not that, what is it? 

Prayer is About What He Wants to Accomplish

Maybe Jesus is telling his disciples—and, by extension, telling us—that prayer is more about what he has come to accomplish than it is about giving us what we want. He didn’t come to make us happy, or comfortable, or prosperous. Jesus didn’t come to fill our lives with houses, healings, or automobiles. He came to make us holy, to make us new, and to make us fruitful. We expect prayer to change things, and we are right to do so. But the first thing that prayer changes is not our circumstances or our health or our financial status. The first thing prayer changes is us!

Prayer is not about getting what we want from God. Prayer is about receiving from God’s hand what he wants to give. It is about opening our lives and our hearts to be changed, transformed, and prepared for his kingdom.

Conclusion

Remember my friend Phyllis? Let me tell you the rest of her story. From that day in the hospital and on, she and her family and friends began to pray fervently that God would cure her. As the weeks and months passed, she continued to grow weaker and weaker in her body. But an amazing thing happened. Even as her body weakened, her spirit grew stronger and stronger. At a certain point, she called her children to her and said, “I am confident that God is going to heal me. He may heal me by working a miracle in my body so that I can continue to live a while longer on this earth. Or he may heal me by taking me on to be with him in heaven now. I want you to know that either way, I’ll consider it God’s cure, and I’ll be happy.”

During those last months, her suffering was unimaginable. She lost so much weight that sometimes, from one week to the next, I couldn’t even recognize her. But at the same time, her face grew more radiant with each passing day. And her life during those days was an unforgettable blessing to everyone who knew her. Her family experienced a spiritual growth and depth of relationship with God they had never encountered in the best of times. Her Christian friends were encouraged and challenged every time they were around her; it was as if we could see eternity in her eyes. And her friends who were not believers saw in her such a compelling picture of God’s grace that some of them came to Christ as a result. No one who knew Phyllis during those days escaped the hand of God reaching out to us through her. And when the day of her death came, it was like a gift—a liberation. And her funeral was a celebration of God’s grace and provision.

Prayer, after all, is not getting what we want from God. It’s receiving from God all that he wants to give.

Ask, seek, and knock. Be bold in your prayers. Be persistent. And be trusting. Be prepared for God's presence to change you. Come to your Father with a passion for receiving from him what is best!

—

Dr. Glenn Watson teaches preaching at the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary. He is passionate about preaching that is Bible-based, gospel-driven, and story-shaped. He blogs at Preaching Prof.

Jesus Welcomed REAL Sinners. Do We?

In a very real sense, the work of Jesus is complete. When it comes to our standing as beloved, forgiven, delighted-in sons and daughters of God, “It is finished,” just as he said. His sinless life secured for us a new and irrevocable status—holy and blameless in God’s sight. His death fulfilled the requirements of God’s justice toward our sins. We are summoned by Scripture to make much of Jesus. It is stunning that Jesus makes much of us, too. Jesus lived the life we should have lived, and he died the death we should have died. Because of this, we are free. What a wonderful and humbling reality—God does not treat us as our sins deserve, because he has already treated Jesus as our sins deserve.

The work of Jesus continues in the world through Christians.

All this being true, there is still much work that Jesus intends to get done…through us.

Luke writes in Acts 1:1, “In the first book [the Gospel of Luke], O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.” Began to do and teach? How could there be more for Jesus to do than he what has already done?

That’s where we as Christ’s “ambassadors” come into the picture. We are now the chosen ones, sent into the world on his behalf, filled with his Spirit to represent him in the places where we live, work and play. The work of Jesus continues in the world through Christians.

Our calling is to labor in every way possible to model our ministry and message after his. We are to live as those who are “full of grace and truth” until our churches and ministries attract the types of people who were attracted to Jesus, and, by unfortunate necessity, draw criticism from the types of people who criticized him.

What does it mean to have a ministry atmosphere that is “full of grace” (John 1:14)?

Gandhi famously said:

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

Gandhi admired Jesus but found it difficult to reconcile how the Christians in his life seemed to represent Jesus so poorly. In his mind, this is what kept him from becoming a follower of Jesus.

As Jesus’ ambassadors, we need to listen very carefully to statements like this one. We must carefully and lovingly examine the common barriers that stand between the real Jesus and people’s false impressions of him—impressions which, unfortunately, have been projected to a watching world by sincere yet misguided Christians. Let’s consider some of these barriers, shall we?

BARRIER #1: CONDEMNATION

Writer Philip Yancey often asks people he meets what they think about Christians. Sadly, the answer he hears most often from people is that Christians are judgmental, intolerant, and holier-than-thou.

When the September 11 terrorist attacks took place on the World Trade Center, one very well-known (and deeply misguided) Christian leader confirmed this stance by saying on national television:

If you are a homosexual, a member of the ACLU, in favor of abortion, or part of the People of the American Way, then I point my finger in your face and say you did this. You made this happen.

A Christian friend of mine who is an actor once invited a gay friend over to have dinner with him and his wife. Their guest soon realized (from the Bible on the coffee table) that they were Christians. He then said to my friend, “You are a Christian, and you actually like me?” This kind of story causes my heart to sink. Does it yours?

Are we serious about being Christ’s ambassadors in the world? Then we must humbly wrestle with, and fight with love to reverse, the idea that Christians are against people who don’t believe like we do.

Whether this impression is true or merely perceived, it is still our starting point in the minds of many non-Christian people. If we are not guilty ourselves, then we are at least guilty by association with believers who have misrepresented the biblical Jesus with harsh, abrasive, condemning or withdrawn attitudes. We must take personal responsibility, as far as it depends on us, to replace pictures of a false Jesus with pictures of the real Jesus—the Jesus who came full of grace and truth, and who even welcomed “sinners” and ate with them (Luke 15:1-2).

BARRIER #2: SEPARATION

I believe that Christians who want to separate themselves and their children from secular people, secular things, and secular ideas make a big mistake. Christ’s ambassadors must resist this “us against them” and often fear-based mindset. We must do everything in our power to become friends with as many non-Christians as we can—no conditions attached. This must be a central, core value of our lives and also our Christian communities.

Consider Jesus. It was only the religious proud who withdrew from Jesus, criticized him, took offense at him, and wished to rid the world of him. But what about the prostitutes, crooks, drunks, gluttons and sinners? These all wanted to be near to Jesus, and they wanted to hear what he had to say. And Jesus obliged gladly—so much so that he became guilty by association, and was accused of being a glutton and a drunk and a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34).

We know that these accusations of drunkenness and gluttony were false—Jesus was tempted in every way but without sin. But Jesus was unapologetically a friend to the least and the lost—to all who felt ostracized and belittled by the religious communities of his day.

Jesus was willing to offend strict religious people if that’s what it took to convince broken sinners that he loved them and had hope for them.

Are we?

Jesus was repulsive to religious insiders and a breath of fresh air to religious outsiders.

Are we?

BARRIER #3: SMUGNESS

There is a price to pay if we get serious about cultivating atmospheres that are full of grace. The more we begin to befriend the kinds of people that Jesus did, we will experience resistance and even rejection from “the faithful.” They may even be our fellow church members. It’s a simple fact. When we do the kinds of things that Jesus did and love in some of the ways that Jesus did, some will take offense at us. And they will tell themselves that their being offended is because of their love for God. But anytime someone is offended by kindness that resembles Jesus, our Lord says that this person, rather than acting out of love for God, is acting as a child of the devil (John 8:39-47). It is Satan, not God, who is the hater of kindness. It is Satan, not God, who is the accuser of the people that Jesus loves.

Consider Luke 7, where a woman described as “sinful” enters the home of Simon the religious Pharisee. In the name of love, and in the spirit of radical grace, Jesus receives with delight her very un-orthodox display of affection toward him. Jesus breaks with religious customs, allowing this ceremonially and morally unclean prostitute to touch his feet. He breaks with social customs also, receiving her as his disciple—putting a woman on equal footing with men in a very paternalistic, misogynistic society where women were seen as second class.

Most scandalous, however, is the way that Jesus even breaks with moral customs to demonstrate to this woman how dear she is to him. She lets down her hair, which was grounds for divorce in those days—a woman could do this only in the presence of her immediate family. She also touches him with the tools of her prostitute’s trade. He lets her anoint him with a prostitute’s perfume and kiss him with a prostitute’s lips!

Of course, we know the rest of the story—Jesus was shunned as a man of ill repute by the religious people at the sinner party. To these smug Pharisees, showing positive attention to this woman—whom they judged as a sinner not a child of God, as a thing not a person—was evidence of moral compromise.

This story has serious ramifications for those who wish to represent Jesus well in a modern context. We must come to terms with the fact that if Jesus were a 21^st century American, he would not associate godliness with membership in a political party. He would not tell a lesbian she was “in sin” without also offering her a personal, no-strings-attached friendship. He would not talk about how smoking destroys God’s temple while simultaneously devouring his third piece of fried chicken at the church potluck. Jesus would not condemn adultery as being any worse than studying the Bible for the wrong reasons.

BARRIER #4: PRIDE

Becoming a friend of sinners begins with the understanding that we are much more like the “chief of sinners” than we are like Jesus Christ. Our approach with all people, no matter who they are or what their history, must assume the posture of “fellow beggars humbly telling others where to find the bread” (I got this magnificent quote from Steve Brown).

If we really want people to be impacted by the gospel and to enjoy the riches of God’s grace, they must first see in us the humility of those who have been, and continue to be, genuinely impacted by grace ourselves. Our humility must be authentic and not just an act. If we have never been brought low by God, we will approach other people from a high horse. And that is never any good for anybody.

Consider the Apostle Paul. He was not above humbling himself. In Romans 7 he gives us a window into his personal struggle with the sin of coveting—a sin nobody would see unless he told them—and the way that the gospel gave him hope in the face of his coveting. In 1 Timothy Paul identifies himself as the chief of all sinners. If we intend to reflect Jesus in our ministries and our messages, we need to get over our love for reputation and image. As the late Jack Miller once said, “Grace runs downhill.” We can only be drenched by grace toward the bottom of the hill.

And yet, how easy it can be to build our identities on how good we look—on being “model Christians” that people are supposed to admire because of how put-together we appear to be.But we must not do this. It is a trap and it will rob us of gospel power and effectiveness. If people around us are going to be changed by the grace of Jesus, they must witness the gospel working effectively in our lives—healing us of our sins and deepest wounds and fears. Changing us.

—

Scott Sauls is senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee and author of Jesus Outside the Lines and Befriend (releases Oct, 2016).

Used with permission from ScottSauls.com, “Jesus Welcomed REAL Sinners. Do We?”

The New Commandment and the Community It Creates

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” — John 13:34-35

In John 13-17, the Apostle paints the most beautiful picture of a missional community meal. Jesus serves and cleans his disciples feet to show that they are his friends and not his servants. He prays for his disciples and the impact they will make on the world. The whole occasion is filled with God’s love for this random band of brothers and the world they are sent to love.

In this passage, Jesus offers the clearest picture of a community centered on him. I wish every missional community meal in my home was like this. The disciples were together because Christ had interrupted their lives. The benchmark for acceptance into this community was allowing Jesus to wash and serve each of them. They were free to ask questions and to err; however, they were graciously turned towards God, his love, and his purpose in this world.

The command Jesus gives in this moment must not be ignored: love one-another.Each of them loved Jesus and were loved by Jesus. But that night there were questions hanging in the air: Would that love for and from Jesus change the way they loved each other? Would they become a unified family in Christ? Or, would they settle for isolated expressions of faith? These same commands and questions hang over our communities. So ask yourself, Will the love that each of you have received from Christ spill over into love for one-another?

Jesus doesn’t allow for an ambiguous definition of love. He makes clear what it means to love one-another: “There is not greater love than this, than to give one’s life for a friend” (Jn. 15:13). We must love one-another with the same kind of love God demonstrated to us: one rooted in sacrificial service. Jesus makes clear this is the only way to be his disciple. “This is how everyone will know you are my disciples” (Jn. 13:35). The mark of being a follower of Jesus isn’t prayer, meditation, knowledge, or musical tastes, rather it’s love for one-another.

Jesus is emphatic with this implication of the gospel. Anyone who receives the love of God will love their fellow disciple. He repeats the command over and over through the evening. We love God and love one another because Christ loved us.

Missional Communities must actively grow in their love for one-another. A missional community is a family more than it is a team. We live the gospel by loving one-another. This is biblical community.

Learning to Enter Community

In our culture, we call a group of people who care for one-another a community. Broken families, codependent relationships, and an epidemic of loneliness have created a ravenous hunger for community in this generation. This is what we long for in and outside of the church. Community has become something we consume to meet our needs, not an act of loving others.

Our desire and attempts at filling our needs through community has clouded our understanding of what community is. To understand what true community is we must clear the deck of all the things community isn’t, or rather, the way we attempt to consume community.

Missional Community Isn’t:

• A Social Club—centered on your relational and social needs.
• A Counseling Group—centered on your emotional needs.
• A Social Service Group—centered on your need to change the world.
• A Neighborhood Association—centered on your neighborhood.
• An Affinity Group—centered on your stage of life and preferences.
• An Event or Meeting—centered on a convenient time-slot.

To enter into true community, our desire to use community to meet our needs must be surrendered. Community cannot meet the needs you are seeking to gain from it. Turn those desires to God instead of community. Dietrich Bonhoeffer clarifies this well, “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”

Growing in Our Love as Family

The dominate metaphor for Christian community throughout the New Testament is family. God is father: We are adopted by him through Christ, we are brothers and sisters, we are heirs, and we have received every spiritual blessing. From Abraham onward, God’s purposes of blessing and salvation are worked out through a family. From Jesus’ death and resurrection onward, the Church becomes a diverse family belonging to a community that belongs to God. The family of God is characterized by the Father, who is loving, compassionate, gracious, merciful, patient, and just. Those who have been adopted into salvation are no longer orphans because of sin, but belong because of God’s love.

It is from this place of experience and knowledge of divine love that anyone is able to love others within community. We receive grace, so that we can extend grace to our brothers in Christ. It is from knowing God’s patience and mercy, that we live patiently and mercifully with our family. Christian community is authentic, generous, and caring because God is truth, grace, and love.

This sort of family is not an ideal we must realize, but a reality we participate in because of God’s work through us in Christ. Instead of finding our motivation in our own prescribed needs and desires, we cling to loving one other because we have received God’s love. Christian community is one of consistent and mutual extension of grace, truth, faith, hope, and love not for the sake of receiving it but from the joy of giving.

Growing in Love by Giving Yourself

Within this familial community, each of the “one another commands” makes sense:

• Comfort one another (2 Cor. 13:11)
• Agree with one another (2 Cor. 13:11)
• Live in peace with one another (2 Cor. 13:11)
• Greet one another (2 Cor. 13:11)
• Bear one another’s burdens—which in context refers to confronting sin and being burdened for the sinful brother (Gal. 6:2)
• Bear with one another (Eph. 4:2)
• Encourage one another (1 Thess. 5:11)
• Build one another up (1 Thess. 5:11)
• Do not grumble against one another (James 5:9)
• Do not speak evil against one another (James 4:11)

Through these “one-another’s” we become family in experience. These command are the process and action toward an authentic life of community where people care for one another. They are also commands that say unequivocally that community is a place of giving of your self.

Being a member of God’s family requires death to self. You must die. Community is costly. As the Apostle Paul write in Colossians 3:9, put off the old self:

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. — Colossians 3:9-11

Paul is telling us exactly the way toward familial community: become new through God and be formed in the image of God. Now, all of this sounds very utopian and pleasant. Who wouldn’t want to be “fixed” and experience a caring and authentic community where your burdens are carried, you are not alone, and you are known? We all would, but a community like this is costly. It requires a death to you. It requires leaving your identity—what you do, what you have, where you came from.

In the place of this dying self, you must cling to the new self which is being formed by God in his own image. They way toward an authentic community is God recreating us. In Christ, we are not known by our culture, ethnicity, status, or resources. Those labels do not fit within a missional community, because we are all defined by Christ. He is recreating every aspect of our hearts.

Paul, then, describes the cost and fruit of this new identity in Christ:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. — Colossians 3:12-17

We exchange our self-interest, self-definition, and approval seeking lives for one where we know we are approved of and chosen by God. The new life is one in community where we live with pure and loved hearts. Now we clothe our lives with kindness and humility! This is how we bear with one another, how we forgive one another: by being made new by God, by receiving new hearts of compassion.

Paul then points to a key pillar of community: forgiveness. We must not hold grudges, judge others, snicker behind others’ backs, hold their problems over them, or force them to earn our acceptance through right living. No, we don’t get to do any of those things and we shouldn’t want to. Instead we must forgive.

How can we forgive? We have been forgiven. Or, in other words, we received compassion from God who did not snicker at us or make us earn his approval. With a first hand knowledge of this kind of acceptance, welcome, and forgiveness, we must extend it to others. This will stretch us.

The pattern of life in this world is to use others’ mistakes, errors, and missteps against them and for ourselves. Our sins define us and their sins define them. However, in Christ, we are defined by the love God poured out on us to forgive us our sins. We are defined by that love. This love rules in community. This love overcomes burdens. This truth brings peace amidst all kinds of suffering. This grace produces thankful hearts. This is the love of Jesus. Paul says that this love rules community (1 Cor. 13).

You could sum up all of the one-another commands in the New Testament into this one: love one another. But what kind of love? The greatest kind of love: sacrificial. The love exemplified by Jesus on the cross, where he gave his entire self. On the cross, we see the love that is required within his community. We see on the cross the commandment lived out. Jesus doesn’t ask us to live out an ideal for our sake, or require us to do something he does not do. Jesus calls us to be conformed into the image of the Creator. To be like Jesus is to love like he loved and to extend that love to the ones he chose to love. This is why we love one another. What are the implications of letting this love rule our hearts as we live alongside others?

• We don’t give from the margins.
• We don’t give from convenience.
• We don’t give from comfort.
• We don’t give our left-overs.
• We don’t give from insecurity.

Rather we . . .

• We give ourselves with joy.
• We give ourselves with generosity.
• We give ourselves with truth.
• We give ourselves with humility.
• We give ourselves with forgiveness.
• We give ourselves with confidence, not allowing our community to live in sin, worship idols, and disregard Jesus as savior.
• We give because God gave Christ.
• We love because Christ loved us.

This is the type of familial community our souls actually crave. This is the only expectation big enough for lasting community.

—

Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised?, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities, and Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com.

How Does God Use His Word in Our Lives?

Trudy and Tony were referred to you from another church. You’ve never met them before today. They’ve come to you after already having seen a divorce attorney. Trudy tells you that she is “100% motivated to be in counseling” and “desperately wanting to see our marriage saved.” Tony is meeting with you because he feels it’s his obligation to “make one more attempt to save this marriage.” What do Trudy and Tony need from you first? Do they need truth—scriptural insight about sacrificial love applied to their marital relationship? Or, do they need love—to connect with you and to build a relationship with you so that they are ready to hear truth from you?

Which is most important in biblical counseling? Is the ministry of the Word primary and loving relationships secondary? Or, is the relationship central and you need to wait to share truth until you’ve established a trusting relationship?

Are these even the right questions? Does Scripture divide truth from relationship in ministry? Does the Bible rank truth and love? Wouldn’t that be somewhat like asking, “Which counselor is least effective, the one who ignores the greatest commandment to love God and others, or the one who ignores commands to counsel from the Word?”

The Bible never pits truth against love. It never lays them out on a gradation or ranking system.The Bible presents equal couplets: truth/love, Scripture/soul, Bible/relationship, and truth/grace.   

Just the UPS Delivery Man?

And yet we’re forced to ponder these questions about truth and love every time we minister to others. I was forced to ponder the issue again recently when I listened to an excellent closing session at a biblical counseling conference. The message was biblical, relevant, and powerful. The wise, godly speaker wrapped the entire message around the theme that the power in our ministry comes solely from the power inherent in God’s Word.

His concluding illustration put an exclamation point on his theme as he shared about the Christmas present he purchased for his daughter. The gift arrived two days before Christmas, delivered by the UPS guy. The speaker’s daughter, hearing the UPS truck pull into the driveway, bolted to the door to meet the delivery man. She snatched the package from his hands and raced to place it under the tree, not the least bit focused on the UPS delivery guy. The speaker concluded with the phrase, “We’re just the UPS delivery guy. The real gift, the great present is the Word that we deliver. We’re just the UPS delivery guy!”

I joined the crowd in “Amening!” I loved the illustration. I got the theme—the power is in the Word of God!

More Than Just the UPS Delivery Guy

But later that evening, I started asking myself: Is that the complete biblical picture? Don’t we always say that God calls us to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15), to make our love abound in knowledge and depth of insight (Phil. 1:9-11), and to share not only the gospel but our very own souls (1 Thess. 2:8)? Does the Bible really teach that only the message matters, or does it teach that the messenger’s character and relationship to the hearer also matter greatly?

Once these questions started whirring through my mind, I couldn’t sleep. Thinking about sharing Scripture and our soul, I turned to 1 Thessalonians 2. As I read those twenty verses, five biblical portraits of the biblical counselor emerged from the pages. I saw then what I share with you now:

Biblical counseling involves gospel conversations where we engage in soul-to-soul relationships as brothers, mothers, fathers, children, and mentors who relate Christ’s gospel story to our friends’ daily stories.

God calls us to love well and wisely. That’s why, in biblical counseling, we must weave together in our ministries what is always united in God’s Word—truth and love, which is comprehensive biblical wisdom and compassionate Christlike care. Biblical counseling is not either/or: either be a brilliant but uncaring soul physician, or be a loving but unwise spiritual friend. God calls us to be wise and loving biblical counselors.

We are more than just the UPS delivery guy. According to 1 Thessalonians 2, God calls us to share his Word with the love of a brother, mother, father, child, and mentor. This is vital to our ministries today, just as it was vital to Paul’s ministry in Thessalonica. Based upon 1 Thessalonians 2:2-3, 5-6, commentator Leon Morris notes that:

It is clear from the epistle that Paul had been accused of insincerity. His enemies said that he was more concerned to make money out of his converts than to present true teaching. The accusation would be made easier in virtue of the well-known fact that itinerant preachers concerned only to feather their own nests were common in those days. Paul was being represented as nothing more than another of this class of preaching vagrants.

Morris goes on to explain that in Paul’s day:

Holy men of all creeds and countries, popular philosophers, magicians, astrologers, crack-pots, and cranks; the sincere and the spurious, the righteous and the rogue, swindlers and saints, jostled and clamored for the attention of the credulous and the skeptical.

The Message and the Messenger

That’s why the unity of Scripture and soul and truth and relationship was so vital to Paul. In writing to the Thessalonians, Paul is saying, “You doubt my credentials? Then be a good Berean who examines the message and the messenger—what I say, who I am, and how I relate to you.” It’s the identical message that Paul sends to every young minister anywhere. If you want to validate your ministry, then “watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16, emphasis mine).

Paul writes 1 Thessalonians 2 to affirm his ministry as from God and to affirm the nature of all ministry from God by modeling the sharing of Scripture and soul, by embodying truth in love. It is God’s plan to use his Word powerfully when we share it truthfully and lovingly—like a brother, mother, father, child, and mentor.

The Rest of the Story: Ministering to Trudy and Tony 

What Trudy and Tony need from you is truth and love. They need scriptural insight about sacrificial love applied to their relationship in the context of a family relationship where you share Scripture and your soul as a brother, mother, father, child, and mentor.

What does that mean? What does that look like? In my next two posts for Gospel-Centered Discipleship, we’ll explore in greater detail Paul’s practical teaching from 1 Thessalonians about 5 Portraits of Gospel-Centered Counseling.

—

Dr. Robert W. Kellemen: Bob is the Vice President for Institutional Development and Chair of the Biblical Counseling Department at Crossroads Bible College, the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries, and served for five years as the founding Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. For seventeen years Bob served as the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary. Bob pastored for 15 years and has trained pastors and counselors for three decades. Bob earned his BA in Pastoral Ministry from Baptist Bible College (PA), his Th.M. in Theology and Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in Counselor Education from Kent State University. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-five years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, one daughter-in-law, Andi, and three granddaughters: Naomi, Penelope, and Phoebe. Dr. Kellemen is the author of thirteen books including Gospel-Centered Counseling and Gospel Conversations.

How We Read the Bible Matters

• I don’t really enjoy reading the Bible.
• I don’t get what a book written thousands of years ago has to do with my life today.
• I’m not really a reader.
• Did you know that people get drunk and have sex in the Bible?!
• I don’t understand what I’m reading.
• Did you know in the Bible there are these two people who were naked in the forest, eating fruit?
• I read the Bible everyday…Jesus Calling is my favorite.

These are all comments people have shared with me in regards to reading the Bible. One of them was from an 80-year-old grandmother, the other from a fourth grade student (bet you can’t guess which one).

So what is it about this book that is so complicated? Is it really that difficult to understand? Is it really relevant for today? What is going on with all the sex, drunkenness, murder, and naked people?

I didn’t grow up in the church, so my experience with the Bible was limited until I was about 20 years old. I just thought it was a list of rules to live by or some ancient book that told the story of the “two naked people in the forest, eating fruit.”

For many of us, perhaps we have learned that the Bible should only be opened on special occasions. Or that you should only turn to it when you want to feel good. Better yet, maybe you could just rip a verse out of context and make it mean what you what it to mean (hello, Jeremiah 29:11, anyone?).

It wasn’t until the Lord opened my heart to seek out truth that I discovered the life found on the pages of Scripture. And that’s when the paradigm shift happened: I learned that it’s not just if you read your Bible, but how you read it that will change everything. I learned a lie and three truths about the Bible that helped me understand who God is and what his plan is for us.

Let’s start with the lie.

Lie: The Bible is all about me

While the Bible is certainly for you, it is not all about you. It’s about God.

When we read the Bible, it’s to know and love God more. It isn’t to pull a verse out of context to apply like a Band-Aid; it isn’t to find a verse to thump those “in sin”; and it isn’t just to fill your head with more knowledge. It should produce a deeper understanding of God, a greater love for him, and lead us into worship.

Part of the reason I’m not a fan of many devotionals is they take you all over the place, pulling a verse here and there out of context, and slapping someone else’s meaning or application on it rather than reading an entire book of the Bible in its context.

Reading the Bible in a way just to “get something for me” is like only eating dessert at every meal. We all want it and it tastes delicious, but you can live off dessert. In the same way, if we only read for application, our diet of God’s Word won’t be sufficient. We need to observe what is happening and discover the meaning of the text to properly apply it.  This means we let Scripture interpret Scripture, or as my seminary professor would say, “We let the clear interpret the cloudy.” We look to other passages to help determine the meaning of the text we’re studying and allow the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Truth of God’s word. Understanding the literal, historical, and grammatical context will help reveal the correct interpretation of a passage, discovering what it first meant “back then” before we can understand how to apply it to our lives today. We also interpret correctly when studying within community or the context of the local church, under the leadership of elders and encouragement of other believers.

What a paradigm shift from what is sold to us in Christian bookstores: “Read this devotional for five steps to a better life!” That kind of me-focused-faith distorts what God’s Word is really for: to tell the redemption story of God’s people through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Truth: The Bible is meant to be studied

One of the best ways to help grow in the Word is to pick one book or section of Scripture and study it. Sit in the passage for a while, reread it, come back to it, look up words, and become familiar with it. Like a letter written to a loved one, you read it from beginning to end. So it is with books of the Bible.

Reading a book in its entirety changes how you understand it and, therefore, deepens your understanding of God and his redemptive plan. When we read, we read to observe (What do we see?), interpret (What does it mean?), and only then apply (How should it change me?).

When I began to study the Bible inductively (observation-interpretation-application), when I began to look for what it teaches me about God and how I fit into his greater story, the Bible came to life. Actually, it became my life. I enjoy reading the Bible, I see its relevance for my life and the world today, it increases my understanding of God, and it helps me know why all those people were getting drunk, having sex, and committing murder—to help me see that I am just like those people, a sinner in desperate need of a Rescuer.

Truth: The Bible has many applications, but only one meaning

While there are many translations of the Bible and many applications, Scripture has one meaning. Our job is to discover that meaning. We should never ask, “What does this verse mean to me?” but rather, “What does this verse mean?” Our job as readers and students of the Bible is to uncover the original meaning of the text, which reveals how it is relevant and applies to us today. Biblical truth can apply to us in many ways, but it only has one meaning.

Truth: The Bible is all about Jesus

The Bible is a collection of books and stories that point to a greater hero: Jesus. The Bible has 66 books, written over a time span of 1,500 years, by 40 different authors, in three different languages, on three different continents, about one message: God’s rescue mission for his people through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Bible is a story meant to be read that points to One who makes the unrighteous, righteous; the unclean, clean; the outcast, redeemed; the sinner, a saint.

This paradigm shift helped me to understand the Bible and, therefore, to better love and understand God and live in obedience to him. What has anchored me in times of pain and suffering has not been a verse I ripped out of context to chant when I’m anxious or afraid, but studying God’s Word in a deeper way. It’s knowing his character through understanding the big picture of Scripture from beginning to end that helps me (and all of us) endure suffering.

How we read the Bible matters—reading it will change your life and shift your paradigm completely.

—

Melissa Danisi serves at The Well Community Church in Fresno, CA and has been married for nine years. She spends her days encouraging and equipping women by teaching God’s Word and shepherding women. Her greatest passion is to see women walk in the freedom of the gospel and grow in their love of Jesus through the study of Scripture. She has written several bible studies and also enjoys one-to-one mentoring or small group discipleship. She is a graduate of Western Seminary, pursuing a M.A. in Ministry and Leadership with an emphasis in pastoral care to women. You can find her writing gospel-centered articles at selftalkthegospel.com, her church's blog , and her personal blog melissadanisi.com.

Adapted with permission from Unlocking the Bible 

4 Considerations for Making Friends

God has given me the gift of being friends with outsiders. I am not sure why, but when I move to a new place or visit a new place it seems as though God sends people to me so that I can enter into relationship with them. I am not talking about merely having acquaintances, but entering into a real relationship with people. It’s weird how often this happens. A quick example. I was going to golf with a couple of friends at a really nice course, so I went for a warm up round at another local course. I went out by myself and didn’t want to be bothered. Even when I went to check in the guy at the front desk at the golf course asked if I wanted to play with others I said “no . . . please put me by myself.”

God had other plans.

After the first hole, we were backed up on the second and two golfers in front of me asked if I wanted to join them, I quickly said no, I’m good. But they persisted, so I joined them. For the next four hours I listened to their stories, said very few things, but asked some questions and continued to listen to their stories . . . it was a good time. After the first few holes I found out that one of the golfers was a retired baseball player, and a good one at that. He bragged about the course we were playing on and then bragged about his local pub that he owned and asked if I wanted to join him afterwards. I, of course, accepted.

We went to his pub and he ordered a ton of food and drinks and just wanted me to try a bunch of food and in exchange it seemed like he only wanted one thing: someone to listen to his stories. I did. I barely said a whole paragraph in our 6 hours of time together, but by the end, he was my new best friend and we exchanged telephone numbers and we now are going to be playing golf together regularly. What I found very interesting is his simple statement at the end of our day. He said: “This was such a great time, I am so glad that you joined us today, it was a pleasure to meet you and I can’t wait to introduce you to all my friends.”

Funny to think that I had this much impact on him in merely 6 hours and I hardly said anything. Instead, I did what many Christians, or should I even say evangelists, do rarely: listen.

In keeping with this example, here are four consideration for making friends today:

1. Be Available

The church has done a really good job of many things in the last 100 years, but one thing that really sticks out to me—We’re busy. It seems like we are either coming from something or going to something. Rarely do we have time for the Spirit to engage us in our schedule when and where and with whom he wants. We are simply too busy for the Spirit to sovereignly interrupt us.

Start clearing up your schedule so that you can be ready for the Spirit to send you people to engage with. Not only that, but start doing more things in public where people actually are. If we do these two things and we add to this a simple prayer of asking the Spirit to send us people he wants us to engage in, then we’ll be ready when he does and more open to engaging the world around us with purpose, intention, and excitement.

My wife has said over and over the best way to start meeting people is by simply going to the same public space weekly. Find a place where people are and keep visiting that place over and over again at the same day and time week after week. Not only that, but invite friends alongside you and see the fruit of being available yet intentional.

2. Be a Listener

Some people assume that one of the essential qualities of a good evangelist is the art of not shutting up. It’s as if the wittier the person is with their rhetoric, the more we hold them high on the pedestal of a good evangelist. I believe the most effective method of engaging the culture is the opposite approach. Your average person simply wants someone to actually listen to what he or she has to say.

The importance of evangelistic listening actually should be pretty freeing for most people.  Many think that they must have some great answer to the most pressing problem in today’s world, but they don’t have the first idea on how to go about discussing that concern. In other words, I believe the abundance of social media avenues in our generation gives rise to a unique concern; many people spend very little time conversing face-to-face with people who will listen to them. So, just by you listening, you are giving them an answer to a problem that faces them—even if they don’t know it yet.

Don’t just be a listener, but think about a few of these things as you listen:

• What is a common thread in this person’s story?What seems to hurt them most?
• What do they celebrate most?
• Where do they need redemption?
• What do they see as their functional savior for their problems?
• How could Jesus and the good news be the answer to their hurt and their issues?

Be careful that as you think of these things you aren’t merely listening so you can be ready to speak next...that isn’t good listening. Listen so much that you desire the Spirit to tell you when to speak, if you are supposed to speak at all. I’ve found myself listening so intently to people that at the end of their rant, story, or whatever that I have nothing to say. But I am ready to listen and ask more questions for deeper understanding.

3. Be Curious

The worst thing you can do as you listen to people’s stories is to jump to conclusions and try to answer questions that they never asked. Be very curious and ask questions until they tell you they don’t want to answer. But I’ll be honest I’ve never had someone say that they don’t want to answer a question that I ask...and I ask very personal questions. But remember...if you are a listener and not merely someone who seems to think they have all the answers, people actually want to talk to you and go deeper with you.

The posture of a listener opens people up to talk about and come to you about very deep issues and they’ll give you permission to ask the deepest questions about identity, idols, sin that you desire to ask.

The easiest way to be curious is when you hear details of someone’s story, never come to your own conclusions on the “why” in someone’s story and keep prodding them and asking them so you can uncover the “why” as they would tell it.

I’m always curious when people tell me their stories. I don’t hold back asking questions. And they aren’t bashful in giving me answers to my questions and going even deeper than I expected.

I believe the deeper the story goes, the longer the friendship will last.

4. Be Transparent

When you hear brokenness in their story that you can relate to, don’t hold back in telling them so. When they are vulnerable, make yourself vulnerable. This is where the church has, for the large part, disappointed many people. We haven’t been willing to open up about our own sins and hurt, but merely desire to point out other’s. As you open up about your story and your hurt, it opens up an actual relationship. An actual relationship is a vulnerable, two way street, not merely a one way relationship.

Do not hesitate to go as deep as they are going or press further into your sins and hurt to allow them the freedom to go deeper as well.

At this point many in the world have been better than some in the church. They know they’re broken, but some in the church act as though they are whole, without sin. Because my wife and I are transparent with who we are, we’ve found that it helps us develop deep friendships with the world, while it hurts us with the church where we receive constant pushback. The church would rather the scars and hurt stay deep within, so that she can look as though she is without stain. The problem is that when you do this, you hold in contempt those you are trying to reach and they can feel it. They can see it. And, they disdain it...and you...then Jesus.

We must know that we are not Jesus, but we represent Jesus. We actually get to show people Jesus the more transparent we are, showing our brokenness. When we show our brokenness, yet have joy in Christ, it gives hope that maybe our friends can also be loved by our Dad through Jesus as well.

Jesus Calls Us Friends

Jesus was called a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” then uses that same term as he speaks to those who were merely curious about who he was, to his very own disciples, and even to the one who betrayed him. I believe this is very purposeful, as everything Jesus did was, to make sure we identify, not just a few of God’s image bearers, but with all of God’s image bearers. Just think of this. The King of Creation, who could be friends with anyone, sent his son down so that we could be called his friends, that we could make friends, and that we could do exactly what Jesus has done for us: show us who the Father is.

This is the whole point. Jesus continually tells us that the reason he was sent was to show the Father. So, as he makes friends, that’s why he is doing it—to show off the Father.

The one who created time, makes himself available for us so we could be available to others knowing he holds time in his hands

The one who knows all things, is a listener to what we need and desire, so he can give it to us for the sake of making disciples. “Ask and it will be given” (Matt. 7:7).

The one who created us and is the center of the ultimate story is curious about us and our story. Jesus shows this with all his questions to his disciples and especially to the woman at the well.

Jesus…the one who Created the heavens and earth and was completely free of sin and was transparent with his creations. He pleaded with God to see if there was another way in the garden, because he was genuinely troubled with what was about to happen and to show us what it looked like to have an actual relationship with our Dad.

If the church, which is us, would just listen and start practicing these four simple truths, I would bet we would see how easy it is to not only make friends but share the hope that is within us (1 Pt. 3:15). You see Peter tells us to always be prepared to give a defense of the hope that is within us when people ask. But, my question is this: Are people in such a deep relationship with us that they would come to us and ask us about our hope? Or, do we see evangelism as something we have to go out and “do” with those outside of relationship because we don’t have any friends who are different than us in both appearance or beliefs?

Relationships take time and patience, judgment and condemnation takes seconds. May we pursue relationships the same way that Jesus has pursued us.

—

Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade. Seth is an investment portfolio manager, serving as President of McBee Advisors, Inc. He is also a MC leader/trainer/coach and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Seth currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Stacy and their three children: Caleb, Coleman, and Madelynn. He is also the artist and co-author of the wildly popular (and free!) eBook, Be The Church: Discipleship & Mission Made Simple. Twitter: @sdmcbee.

The Arrival: Prince of Peace

Editor: Today we start our Advent series. There’s a natural sense of restlessness in our world which only Jesus’ presence can bring peace and resolution to. Our desire is to drive our hope toward the incarnate Savior during this season. Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth. —

For many the holidays are a time of joy and merry-making with family and friends. We all have our own traditions. My family enjoys driving through our local park decked out in Christmas lights, visiting a local holiday fair, and taking a carriage ride in an adjacent community. I shouldn’t forget the food. We love some seriously good eats. And would it be Christmas without watching the classics? Elf. Miracle on 34th Street. It’s a Wonderful Life. Home Alone.

However, not everyone’s holiday memories are joyful and merry. Wendell Berry gets it right, “It is hard to have hope.” No other season of the year amplifies this difficulty like the holiday season. All of our misplaced hopes rise to the surface of our hearts and cause discontent and hopelessness. In part this be may due to the holiday façade. Commercials with happy families and friends gathered around the table and the Christmas tree. TV shows where “Christmas magic” makes everything better. Or the picture perfect homes in magazines.

What a juxtaposition. Hopefulness, joy, and merry making and hopelessness, conflict, and loneliness. So what if Christmas isn’t very merry? What if Advent doesn’t feel hopeful?

A PRINCE OF PEACE ARRIVES

For those who are dreading the holidays because of fear, hopelessness, conflict, and loneliness, hear the word of the Lord in Isaiah 9:6-7,

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

A child was born who brings peace. God offers terms of peace that he meets in the arrival of His Son. Isaiah, as we read, calls Jesus the “Prince of Peace” (9:6). Hear what the angels say when they announce the arrival of Jesus:

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10 And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

ON EARTH PEACE

I love how the KJV renders this announcement: “[O]n earth peace, good will toward men.” There’s an expectancy only fulfilled in the gospel. We know the peace is delivered through Jesus Christ, but how? This advent proclamation of peace is the foundation for Paul’s theology of justification. Without this proclamation there’s no justification! So let’s read what Paul writes about peace:

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (Eph 2:13-16 see also 6:14-15 “the gospel of peace”)

19 For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col. 1:19-20)

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Rom. 5:1-2)

It’s in Paul’s magnum opus, the letter to the Romans, that he makes the connection undeniable between peace and justification.

So when someone asks Paul “How can a righteous God make peace with man through Jesus?” Paul would say, in shorthand, justification. Study the ministry of Jesus—it’s centered on bringing peace to those who are sinners, sick, scandalized, and the poor in spirit. Jesus embodies and acts out the divine peace through justification by faith in the Gospels, whereas Paul explores and mines these truths systematically in his letters. Latter in the prophecy of Isaiah, the prophet writes,

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (Is. 53:5).

Jesus was crushed for our transgressions which brought us peace. Notice that stark juxtaposition—crushed and peace. Words that are not normal bedfellows.

PEACE FOR FAMILIES

Jesus’s arrival marks the proclamation of good tidings for everyone whom God is pleased with by offering peace with God by Jesus’ blood! And isn’t that good news for families who are hurting this holiday season? The beauty of God’s peace is that it’s not just an individual thing. This peace is covenantal and forms a community of people who have received peace and who can share that peace with others. For the family in conflict there can be peace. For the family ruptured by divorce there can be peace. For the family separated by death there can be peace. For those who feel the weight of loneliness there can be peace. For the husband and wife mourning childlessness there can be peace. Remember Isaiah 53:5? God crushed Jesus to bring us peace and healing. Paul echoes this same sentiment with a twist: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”

Those same odd bedfellows (“peace” and “crush”). Satan who is the father of lies and conflict and the dark prince of this fallen world will be crushed under our feet. The authority that Jesus wielded is passed on to us. With his presence (Matt. 28:19-20) and Spirit (Acts 1-2), we are ambassadors of peace in this fallen world and Satan will be ultimately crushed by the authority of the God of peace and his Church.

Dispense peace this week. Plead and pray and trust that the peace of Jesus will be with you and that others might see and receive this blood-bought peace this Advent season. Come alongside those who are hurting. And if there’s conflict in your family, lead with peace and grace and mercy.

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace,

Hail, the Sun of Righteousness

Light and life to all He brings,

Risen with healing in His Wings.

Now He lays His Glory by,⁷

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

Hark! the herald angels sing,

"Glory to the New-born king!"

---

Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

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