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?

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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?

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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.

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.

Mission as an Act of Worship

Please enjoy a free excerpt from our next book from Ben Connelly, A Pastor's Guide to Everyday Mission: Navigating the Paradox of Leading God’s People and Pursuing God’s Mission. Releasing at the start of June.

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John Piper famously begins Let the Nations Be Glad with:

Missions is not the ultimate purpose of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is the fuel and goal in missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God… But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord… I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High.” Missions begins and ends in worship.

Participating in God’s mission is an act of worship.

“Missions exists because worship doesn’t”

But our participation in his mission is not a man-made response, as if in an attempt to pay a debt to God, a counsel of Christians considered multiple options and landed on missions. Instead, like every other act of worship, this was always part of God’s design. These words are on the last page of Let the Nations Be Glad:

The ultimate goal of God in all of history is to uphold and display his glory for the enjoyment of the redeemed from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. …The church is bound to engage with the Lord of glory in his cause. It is our unspeakable privilege to be caught up with him in the greatest movement in history—the ingathering of the elect from every tribe and language and people and nation.

From Genesis to Revelation, we see God unfolding his story of redemption. And at least from Genesis 12, when God tells Abraham he’ll be blessed in order that “you will be a blessing” (v.1), God involves his people—as inadequate, unskilled, and disobedient as we are—to fulfill that mission. This continues through both Testaments, as God calls both his Old and New Covenant people his “nation of priests.”

Jesus, of course, is the climax of God’s mission. As the ultimate Sent One of the Father, Jesus entered the darkness of this world and pursued the people God sent him to. As the most well-known verse in all the Bible says,

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. – John 3:16–17

And when he returns to the right hand of the Father, the Son promises his followers that the Spirit will come and empower them to continue the same mission he started during his time on earth.

God wants missionaries at the ends of the earth and at the end of the cornfield.

If this is new for you, here are just a few of the clearest biblical passages that display God’s design for his people to serve as his missionaries; to make disciples of those around us:

[God] through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. – 2 Corinthians 5:18–20

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. – 1 Peter 2:9

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me [i.e., Jesus]. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18–20

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” – John 17:15–18

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” – Romans 10:14–15

Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! – Psalm 96:2–3

Ministers, we cannot ignore God’s mission, nor abdicate our pursuit of it, obedience to it, and position in it! Mission is commanded by God. Mission is at the heart of God. Mission is why Jesus came to earth from the right hand of God. Mission is an act of worship to God.

GOD CALLS ALL HIS PEOPLE MISSIONARIES

To be clear, none of the verses above were written exclusively to “paid” ministers. They’re written to every Christ-follower—because God’s call to mission goes far deeper than just those of us who are paid by Christian ministries. On one hand, this is a relief. We’re not in it alone! On the other hand, the fact that God’s mission is shared among his people makes it an even more vital part of our lives. We’re not missionaries because we’re ministers; we’re missionaries because we’re Christians!

MISSION FOR NON-MINISTERS

For the people we lead, their role in life—student, lawyer, mother, teacher, or friend—pales in comparison to the identity that God has given them in the gospel. For example, because of who God is and what he does, every follower of Jesus is a son or daughter and an heir of God; every Christian is also simultaneously a sinner and saint. Non-ministers (in the sense I’m using the term) don’t get to reject those identities when they enter the classroom or courtroom, because their identities are deeper than their roles. In the same way, missionary is part of every Christian’s God-given identity. In Christ, God gives us “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18); thus, all Christians are part of reconciling the world to God. In 2 Corinthians, God calls us all his “ambassadors” (those sent to a foreign land, representing a dignitary) and, in 1 Peter, “priests” (mediators between God and others). In Acts 2, Jesus sends his people out as his “witnesses.” In Matthew 5, he calls us “salt of the earth” and “light of the world.” Over and over, the Bible shows that God has gloriously woven mission into our very identity in Christ. It goes far deeper than the other roles we may play. Anyone who calls himself or herself a Christian, God calls his missionary.

MISSION FOR MINISTERS

But let’s pull our chairs together, lower our voices, and make sure no one’s listening as we talk honestly. For paid ministers, the hard part of living in the both-and of ministry and mission is this: It’s easy to call on the doctors, lawyers, EMT’s, and pizza deliverers in our ministries to live for God in their careers, but we think we already do, all day everyday day! While it’s easy to call students and retirees to sacrifice and lay down their lives for God, we get paid to do exactly that! The roles that we play are already saturated with Jesus-y things; the tasks we complete involve talking about and modeling godliness. In fact, if we happen to find time for mission in the midst of our consistently-crammed calendars, we may feel that we’re actually stealing time from someone in our ministry. “And those are the people who I should prioritize, right? While mission sounds good biblically, it’s so darn hard. My board’s already breathing down my neck. My people are just so needy.” We couldn’t possibly leave our flock of 99, in pursuit of one lowly lost sheep…could we?

GOD CALLS MINISTERS TO LEAD HIS PEOPLE WHERE THEY SHOULD GO

We’ve all heard the phrase “as goes the leader, so goes the organization.” In more biblical terms, Peter calls ministers to be “among” our people as “examples to the flock” (1 Pt 5:2), and Paul’s leadership involved calling others to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). As leaders, we’re called to model for our people, the life we’re calling them to. So here’s the reality for those of us in leadership in Christian groups: as a ministry leader, you must also serve as its lead missionary. If you’re a leader in a church, then you need to lead your people into mission unless you’re content with your church’s growth being primarily by transfer.

If you lead a parachurch organization, then you need to lead your people into mission unless you want to find yourself surrounded with already-Christians. If you’re a leader in any other type of ministry, then you need to lead your people into mission unless you want to wake up one day and realize how insulated your world has become.

Honestly, the few of God’s people he’s entrusted to my inadequate oversight and stewardship are far more likely to go somewhere if I lead them there. Sheep need shepherds; ministries need leaders. And if we’ve taken up the mantle of serving others by leading God’s people, then it’s up to us to lead them where they need to go. Whatever other titles, roles, and duties we may have, if we believe that all Christians are called to “go and make disciples,” we must first embrace that part of the gospel DNA that runs through our own God-given blood: We are missionaries. Then, as leaders of other gospel-formed missionaries, we must step into the title, role, and duties of being lead missionaries of our organizations.

IT’S NOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK

Next, we dive into the deep end of this issue, lay a biblical foundation, and will be awakened to the reasons many ministers neglect a life of mission. This truth may leave some of you feeling godly conviction. It may, however, leave you feeling guilty or shameful and unsure of what to do.

Any feeling of inadequacy, guilt, or weakness is simply a glimpse of the biblical reality for every minister. So if you feel regret for your lack of pursuit of God’s mission, the gospel encourages you. The Apostle Paul—arguably the greatest missionary ever—says:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. … Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. – 2 Corinthians 12:9; 3:5–6

If you’re feeling unsure of what to do or the next step to take, then know that the rest of the book is devoted to helping you. In the remainder of this guide, you will consider biblical principles, heart postures, and practical ideas to weave God’s call to mission into the chaotic tapestry of vocational ministry. But it’s not as hard as you may think.

You likely know someone whom God has given the gift of evangelism—he’s the one who can make friends with a Buckingham Palace guard; she’s the one whose very presence seems to make people fall to their knees and declare their need for Jesus. Praise God for giving that gift to some of his people—but it’s not required to be a missionary. To some of his people, God has given the gift of evangelism, but to all of his people, he’s given the mission of making disciples. As the lead missionary in your ministry, you don’t have to be “that guy” or “that gal” to lead others to make disciples. There are no specific traits, Myers-Briggs types, or DISC profile necessary to lead your organization to live out our missionary identity in Christ. It’s not as hard as you may think.

In fact, the first requirement for being a lead missionary is the first requirement for most of a life of following Jesus: love.

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Ben Connelly, his wife Jess, and their daughters Charlotte and Maggie live in Fort Worth, TX. He started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts29 network and Soma family of churches. Ben is also co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers, 2014). With degrees from Baylor University and Dallas Theological Seminary, Ben teaches public speaking at TCU, writes for various publications, trains folks across the country, and blogs in spurts at benconnelly.net. Twitter: @connellyben.

4 Experiences Young People Need to Flourish

The transition from high school into adulthood is bumpier and more confusing than at any other time in history. I remember a quiet moment the night after my high school graduation thinking, “What in the world am I going to do next?” What happened included attending an expensive private college, dropping out after one semester, working at a Lumberyard, traveling to Buffalo to look at a ministry internship, turning it down, and getting hired at the church I was serving at.

Whether you are 18 or 68, you can’t predict your future. The dream is never the reality. Life unfolds so much different than anything you could have ever imagined—especially when you are following Jesus.

How will I position myself to flourish in this next season of life?

To most of us, this isn’t comforting. The tension of the unknown hovers over us like a dark cloud. It would be so much easier if God would just “direct our paths” as Proverbs 3:6 says he’s supposed to. Following Jesus would be easier if there was giant red footprints painted on the ground and neon signs flashing, “God’s Will For You, Straight Ahead.”

But think about this for a second, does your heart burst with love while you’re following an IKEA instruction manual? Probably not. If so, you might just want to keep that excitement to yourself.

God forms us as disciples not by teleporting us to a destination but by inviting us to evaluate priorities, weigh options, seek counsel, and then make decisions. Who ends up as a more emotionally intelligent, faith-filled, wise individual—the person following detailed instructions or the person making decisions?

Many children grow up in highly controlled Christian families and lose themselves when they go off college. The kids know how to be controlled by their parents, but they never matured to the point where they could walk in love. Their decisions were made for them through a rigid structure and plentiful rules, so although they “did all the right things” at home, they were robbed of the opportunity to mature that comes through decision-making. It cost them dearly.

We orchestrate our lives around a big story that we trust in. The habits and decisions of our daily life are expressions of living that story.

Thankfully, that’s not how God fathers us. He doesn’t dictate our path, but invites us to wrestle with the grand questions of our purpose. He doesn’t have us on a leash and then yank us back on track when we wander too far off course.

He doesn’t lead us by controlling our details; instead, he tells us a great story, wins our affections with his goodness, and invites us to bumble around as we find our place in his Kingdom.

So if you feel confused and run down by the question of, “What is my calling in life?” Take it down a notch. Ask a simpler question. If you are facing a tough decision or a transition right now ask yourself, “How will I position myself to flourish in this next season of life?”

The prophet Jeremiah gives us a compelling picture of flourishing in any season of life:

Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

– Jeremiah 17:5-8 ESV

You will either become a shrub in the desert or a tree planted by water. The difference is where you plant yourself.

For the tree, difficult seasons still come. Times of drought come. Extreme heat comes. But because the roots are taking in life and health from the water the tree continues to be healthy in any season. In fact, it says the leaves “remain green.”

How can you plant yourself somewhere like that? How can you put yourself in a position to flourish in any season of life?

I want to suggest that there are four experiences you need to flourish after high school. Four experiences that will help you thrive in this next season of life and beyond. If you are a young adult thinking through what’s next, whatever it is—make sure these experiences are a part of it.

1. Confirm Your Faith

Before you can work out at my gym, you have to take a fundamentals class. In the course, you learn basic body movements. Most of the time, people can’t perform these simple movements correctly because of mobility issues associated with their lifestyle.

The class is to protect me from jumping into an exercise I think I understand well enough (like a clean and jerk) and then hurting others or myself through my lack of knowledge and coordination.

What if we offered more fundamental experiences like this to young Christians? When we use the word “gospel,” we can’t assume we’re all on the same page. Every year at Adelphia, the one-year discipleship college I lead, we have students come in the fall who have grown up in church their entire life and can’t articulate the gospel.

Without explicit training in the fundamentals of faith—not just hearing it but studying, writing, and then teaching it to others—our “Christianity” deteriorates into sentimentality, moralism, or pointlessly vague deism.

2. Rip Up the Script

I’m a college dropout. At the time, my parents and grandparents thought I was destroying my life. My wife always makes me qualify that story by explaining that I now have a doctorate—but that’s not the point.

The point is God brings great fruit in our lives when we rip up the script that has been handed to us. We all have some sense of the path we are supposed to take. That path may be informed by the American Dream, our parents, or even our ambitions. Notice: none of those people are vested with the authority of God.

When God speaks to us, he doesn’t shrug nonchalantly and say, “Just keep doing what seems rational. Whatever culture is telling you to do, just aim for that.”

If you’re looking to flourish in this next season of life, try detaching from the ordinary. The old business axiom is true, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

3. Integrate Your Identity

Are you living one whole life or a bunch of fragmented lives? If you’ve ever felt that you are one person at work, another person at home, and another person with your friends—you might have fragmented identity syndrome.

One of the cures is to plant ourselves somewhere where our work, play, worship, and downtime are all with the same people. In many cases, you may even live together. In my book One Year, I refer to places like these as “short-term communities.” Others have called them, “immersion experiences.”

The benefit of an experience like this is that it serves to integrate our identity. During a short period of time, we can begin to see how God’s presence nourishes our ordinary moments. In this sort of community, our vision is expanded to grasp how every area of our life connects to God’s purposes.

4. Transition to Adulthood

Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost write, “The loss of meaningful rituals of initiation into adulthood is considered by some to be the primary cause of delinquency and malformed adult identity, especially among men, in the West.”[1]

What are they getting at? Cultural anthropologists would tell you that virtually all people groups throughout history have a rite of passage. A rite of passage is a checkpoint that someone moves through to become something different. You enter the experience as an adolescent and, upon completion, emerge as an adult.

• In the Amish rite of Rumspringa, teens age 14-16 are invited to either leave the community or to choose baptism in the church.
• Jewish youth experience bar/bat mitzvahs.
• The Massai tribe (Keyna and Tanzania) requires their aspiring warriors to hunt and kill a lion with a single spear.[2]
• The Australian word “walkabout” originates from an Aboriginal rite of passage in which young men live unassisted in isolation for six months.
• Many Native American tribes sent their young men into the wilderness for several days of fasting and soul-searching.
• In Europe, the gap year—a year off before pursuing higher education—is an “accepted and expected rite of passage.”[3] This seems to be increasingly true of Canadian young adults as well.

So here’s an important question: What is the rite of passage for a young adult in the United States? What is the clear transition point between being an adolescent and being an adult? Are you drawing a blank? There’s a reason for that.

Hirsch and Frost argue that the lack of a defined experience to transition adolescents to adulthood is a primary cause of dysfunction in our country. This trend is on display on a national level.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have written at length on “delayed adulthood” and “prolonged adolescence.” Young men and young women are delaying the key sociological tasks that define adulthood longer than ever before.

What are they doing instead? Well the cultural path to mature adulthood is to go to college, experiment, and stay just sober enough that you can get your degree. The less acceptable (but frighteningly popular) option is to live in your parent’s basement as a full-time video game indulger, part-time Taco Bell employee.

Also, you have a band and you’re currently lining up a big-time tour (traveling in your car). Also, you are 29 years old. We aren’t producing emotionally mature, spiritually vibrant adults if the critical transition moment is a landmark birthday or sending someone off to college. It's not enough.

Poised to Flourish

Leaders, how will you help the young people in your ministry prepare to flourish? To flourish, they need to confirm their faith, rip up the script, integrate their identity, and transition to adulthood. Whether you create these experiences or farm them out to established ministries, help your young people in this process.

Aspiring adults, you are only young once, but you can be immature forever. Don’t let that be you! How will you position yourself to flourish in this next season of life and beyond? Plant yourself well. Plant yourself by the stream. Plant yourself in space that will offer these critical experiences. That’s the beginning of flourishing for the rest of your life.

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[1] The Faith of Leap, p57

[2] http://list25.com/25-crazy-rites-of-passage/

[3] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/gap-year-why-your-kid-shouldnt-go-to-school-in-the-fall/article570898/

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Dr. Sean Post leads a one-year discipleship experience for young adults called Adelphia. He has authored three books. His great joys in life are spending time with his wife and three kids, eating great food, and CrossFit.

The Reluctant Missionary

When my wife Emily and I moved to Mexico, I self-identified as a reluctant missionary; God called us to the mission field, but I didn’t go singing like one of the astronauts in the movie Armageddon. Since then I’ve sweat more than I thought possible. And much of what I was reluctant about, I’ve navigated with forward momentum. Sure, I’ve bumped my head a few times, even caught it on fire, stalled a van full of mission trip guests roughly eight times in one outing and now have the language capacity of a 3-year-old with a speech impediment, but things are good.

The Lord has helped us make sense of a lot in eight months. We’ve learned a lot about each other, our marriage, his mission, and Mexican traffic patterns. Over and against all these, though, he’s taught me the most about my reluctance as a missionary.

I only want Grace to write a dramatic, perfect sentence in my story. I don’t want to relinquish the whole narrative.

At its core, my reluctance wasn’t about language barriers, selling my truck, or an inordinate amount of sweating. It wasn’t about disputed dreams. Sure, those things were there. But at its core, my reluctance fundamentally was about Grace.

Grace is scary.

In The Reason for God, Tim Keller writes about a woman who gets her heart around grace. She realized if she could earn Grace, she can demand of it. If she can crowbar Gods love, then God is in the hot-seat. She’s paid her tax and got skin in the game, so God needs to ante up. But, if God loves us, saves us, by grace—due to nothing on our end—then there’s nothing he can not ask from us.

If you’re like me, that’s comforting at first, but immediately terrifying.

I want Grace, but, if I’m honest, I only want a kind of Grace that steps in to rescue, but then leaves me alone. I only want Grace to write a dramatic, perfect sentence in my story. I don’t want to relinquish the whole narrative.

But Grace doesn’t co-author.

That was my predicament: I wanted a sentence about grace, but God pens entire stories with it. And when your story is penned by Grace, it means your story is not about you. Grace is so scandalous that it enters your story without permission. And, Grace is so scandalous it will send you into others’ stories without permission.

I’ve learned grace not only saves; grace sends. And grace sends wherever grace saves, which, again, makes us uncomfortable.

Grace goes “far as the curse is found.” Grace goes and sends us into every nook-and-cranny of the world that’s been warped, desecrated, and bothered by sin, selfishness, and stupidity.

The Ordinariness of Grace

Grace isn’t shaped or stopped by geography, class, race, intellectual status, plausibility structures, income level, or click-bait. Grace isn’t skeptical, which means it walks up to whoever it walks up to and says, “Follow me.”

And grace doesn’t only send cross-culturally. For most, grace won’t send you farther away than family, friends, neighbors, school, though, it very well might. But it will send you deeper into those people and places. Grace is extravagant, but grace dwells in the everyday.

Grace sends us into the extravagance of the everyday, which is the hardest place. Because it’s in the everyday that we’ve grown accustomed to “this is just the way things are.” But grace isn’t content with “the way things are.” Grace won’t be content until things are “the way they ought to be.” Grace hears through the white-noise of life. Grace hears and sees the vulnerable, the overlooked, the unjust, the crooked, the condemned, and the mistreated who’ve faded into the everydayness of our lives. And grace sends us there.

Things might be a tad more dramatic, at times, for the cross-cultural missionary, but no matter where it’s the same rhythms of relationship, trust, conversations, patience, prayer, and more patience that are part of the “sent” life anywhere.

Because we’re saved by grace, there’s nothing it cannot ask of us.

Grace scares us from the comfortable, predictable stories we want.

Even death looked at Grace and said, “You’re too much for me.”

The Stubbornness of Grace

Grace is stubborn, like a hurricane. You can board up the windows of your heart and stack sandbags around your story, but it’s a losing battle. Grace will out stubborn you, every time.

When Grace comes and we hear the shutters of our stories crack against the walls of our hearts, our knee-jerk reaction is to hide. We scramble to grab whatever vestiges of our personal narratives we can salvage and batten down the hatches. But what sounds devastating and scary and brutal isn’t the sound of destruction. It’s the sound of a new story.

Grace isn’t a bully. It’s as stubborn as a hurricane, but it’s as careful, intimate, and personal as a good storyteller.

At first, it seems like an arrogant actor, shoving your carefully crafted script back in your face. But Grace isn’t an actor in your little narrative; it’s the director. And your script isn’t being shoved back at you.

Rather, you’re being offered a part and invitation into a story not less than yours, but so much bigger.

It’s a story you may know nothing about, but you’ve always wanted. It’s a story more ancient than the cosmo and more new than morning dew.

It’s a story that knows the depths of human suffering and the astronomical heights of joy. It’s a story as everyday as grocery shopping and as outrageous as climbing Everest.

It’s a story that knows the pangs of division, racism, and human brutality, but glories in reconciliation and resurrection. It knows the powerful may appear to have all the cards, but the meek shall inherit the earth. It’s a scary, foolish, subversive story, and is full of surprises.

I’ve seen Grace take a young boy isolated in hardened, confused fear and change him into a team player on the soccer field. I’ve seen grace use bunk-beds to remind a mom her kids have a Father who cares for and sees them.

I’ve seen Grace take a sewing class and make it ground zero of empowerment and dreaming in an impoverished community. I’ve seen Grace take a five-year old’s ashamed, rotten smile and give him the biggest set of chompers you’ll ever see.

I’ve seen Grace give a young girl new life in Christ the same week she welcomed a new baby brother. I’ve seen a young boy with special needs have the best day of his life carting around a stalk of plantains.

I’ve seen Grace transform a young girl from someone who thought she’d never get through high school to someone who was signing up for her first university class.

The Surprise of Grace

But Grace was here long before we were and Grace will be here long after we’re gone. Truth is that Grace surprises people everywhere everyday. And these surprising narrative twists happen in-between the hard and dark plot points.

But that is the point. Grace isn’t writing a clean, tidy, white-washed, quarantined story that’ll drop out of the sky one day. It’s an inside job.

The story of Grace is mysterious and transcendent, but it knows the dust of the earth. Grace knows of a world where life, justice, and beauty flourish all the live long day and Grace put on flesh to bring it here.

Grace came from the extravagance of Heaven into the everydayness of Earth. And Grace knows the depth of a tomb so we can know the heights of the Kingdom. I’ve learned that Grace scares us from the stories we want, and surprises us with stories we could never ask for, nor imagine.

So, wherever Grace sends you today—a college classroom, an office, a newborn’s crib, a bus stop, a funeral, a doctor’s office, a community center, a hard conversation, an urban elementary school, a church building, a grocery store, a nursing home know this: Grace will not send you where it will not surprise you.

And that’s good news.

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Ben and Emily Riggs serve in Cancun, Mexico, on staff with Back2Back Ministries, where they seek to protect and restore vulnerable children and strengthen at-risk families. Prior to that he served as Director of Storytelling for Apex Community Church. Ben blogs at Logline and writes for Back2Back. 

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?”

4 Considerations for Small Town Mission

  Editor: We are excited to announce our newest GCD Book title Small Town Mission: A Guide for Mission-Driven Communities written by Aaron Morrow. You can buy for your Kindle today. It will be available in paperback shortly.

Small Town Mission is a practical guide for gospel-centered mission in small towns. If you haven't noticed, people who live in small towns have limited options for restaurants, shopping, and books about mission. Small towns desperately need normal, everyday people like farmers, factory workers, teachers, secretaries, and small business owners who think and act like missionaries to reach their friends, neighbors, co-workers, and extended families for Christ. This book aims to help local churches in small towns do that. After all, mission isn’t just something that must be prioritized globally and in big cities; it must also be prioritized locally and in small towns.

***

“I really like it, but it’s just different in some ways.”

Michelle and Karina were second-grade teachers in town. Todaythey were grading their second-quarter papers together in the empty teacher’s lounge. They often chatted there and had gotten to know each other quickly from being on the same teaching team at school. They also went to the same church, which was a few minutes down the road. Michelle had just asked Karina how their town compared to the place where Karina had just moved from a few months earlier.

“I bet the grocery store is a lot less crowded than the big city you moved from,” said Michelle.

“Yeah, but I think some of the differences go beyond just the population,” Karina explained. “Even being a Christian is different in some ways, as weird as that sounds.”

“What do you mean?” asked Michelle, as she leaned in with interest.

“Well,” she answered, “in my last church they really emphasized that if you’re a Christian then you’re a missionary wherever you are, like here at school. I don’t know how to put it into words, but there are just some things about living and working in this small town that confuse me when it comes to being a missionary.”

“Tell me more about it,” Michelle asked as she grabbed another stack of papers to grade.

Karina was on to something. 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.

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. As we discussed in chapter 7, 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 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 there are parts of your life that 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

Again, for better or worse, 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-engineer your marriage, family, and business. 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. —

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.

4 Essentials For Cultivating Disciples

The Church is constantly conversing about what discipleship should look like. These conversations only buttress the truth that proper discipleship strikes at the heart of the Christian faith. Without right discipleship, our faith deforms. It turns into a circus, social club, dead “orthodoxy,” or worse. In my estimation, the church has overcomplicated matters. We must return to fundamentals of cultivating disciples and enjoy liberty in each of our cultural expressions of those fundamentals.

1. Retell The Story

Storytelling has always been foundational to the Christian faith. In the Old Testament, God rescues Israel from Egypt in dramatic fashion. He could’ve entered Egypt day one and rescued his people in a variety of ways, but he didn’t. He chose to do it with plagues. He chose an angel of death. He chose to part the Red Sea. He chose the desert. Then after these chapters in his grand story of redemption, God gives his people a gracious law and as he gives it he keeps using phrases like “Do this because I redeemed you from slavery” or “When you teach your children, remind them of how I brought you out of Egypt.” Story was essential for the faith of his people. When they rejected God as their God, it was because they forgot where they came from.

In the New Testament, Jesus enters the promised land where his people are again under captivity. He comes preaching the kingdom—which includes freedom from slavery. But this freedom was not the kind people thought he would bring. He brought freedom from the body of sin—a freedom that can never be taken away. So Jesus lives, dies, rises, and ascends to heaven. Many years thereafter the primitive New Testament church was versed in the oral re-telling of the stories of Jesus’ life. Can you blame them? The majority of the church to begin with were Jews who were used to re-telling stories as a way of life, but the church grew to include Gentiles as well. We of course know that within a century we have what is now known as the New Testament. But stories of Jesus were essential for maturing disciples within the covenant community. It should be no different in the church today—except now we have a sure foundation in the written Word. Do not neglect re-telling the story of our redemption in every square inch of life.

2. Church Gathered (Gospel Received)

Disciples must be made within the covenant community. The Church gathered is where God calls his people to hear his Word—sung, read, preached, eaten, and sent. This time is where we rehearse the story so that its re-telling sticks to our bones. It is where the one story intersects with people from every nation. This is the place where wounds are healed, friendships formed, and charity is born. It is where God speaks. If this time as a gathered community is neglected then disciples cannot be cultivated. Discipleship happens in the church before the face of God. We hear him speak the gospel to us through the liturgy and we receive the gospel full in our hearts ready to go out.

3. Church Scattered (Missio Dei)

God does not keep his Church gathered, but scatters her among the nations. He sends her out as light into darkness—on mission to make disciples. She goes out to “teach all nations,” to work as his image bearers, and to be fruitful and multiply. Without going out on mission, the Church maims herself—a light under a bush sets the bush on fire. Many of the cultural deformations the American church faces, for instance, are a result of her failure to go out and be fruitful and multiply. We have lost our doctrine of marriage, sex, and family and when the light fades, is it any surprise that darkness advances? But we are not scattered alone on solo missions. We are scattered together as a living body. This is not inconsequential. Community is necessary for our mission in the world. We need each other to survive and when we forget that we place ourselves in peril.

4. Family Worship (Liturgy For Life)

Families must imitate the liturgy of the Church in the way it worships from morning to night and specifically in its set aside times of worship. If the Church gathered misfires in her liturgy, is it any wonder that the Christian family misfires? We have a skewed liturgy in many churches and little to no worship in many Christian families. Families must retell the story from Genesis to Revelation. We must read, pray, sing, and eat together. And when we do so, this liturgy for life leaks into all areas of life.

****

Disciples are born out of the Word—told as story, rehearsed as we are gathered, shared when scattered together, and rehearsed in our homes and all areas of our life. When one of these pistons misfires, the engine malfunctions. However, I have confidence that in the Church we will not shrink back. Even when we are faithless, God is faithful. Thomas Oden says, “The providential reason God allows heresy among the faithful, according to the ancient Christian writers, is to challenge the worshiping community to correct its exaggerations so as to bring it back into the balanced consensus” (A Change of Heart 165). Maybe in God’s providence he has allowed misguided methods of discipleship to bring us back to the tried and true methods. God the Father and King Jesus have sent the Spirit to build his Church—and he will build. Work faithfully in ordinary ways with ordinary means. No exaggerations needed.

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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!

How The Lord’s Prayer Transformed My Heart

For most of my Christian life, prayer has been more of a duty than a joy. Maybe you are like me and have had these kinds of thoughts while praying:

• Hmmm…That didn’t take very long, I must be doing something wrong, what else can I say?
• I know God wants to hear my thoughts but I feel guilty asking for so many things.
• Wait… Shouldn’t I pray for some missionaries or something?
• Ohhh… I’m sure I have sin to confess but I’m running short on time, I’ll deal with that next time.
• If God knows what I need before I ask him, why do I need to pray?
• Oh ya, I remember hearing that I should pray for my child’s future spouse, I guess I’ll do that now.
• What was that formula for prayer again? Adoration, Confession, Supplication….I know I am missing one…
• I really love my friends, I guess I should pray for them right, ok, what do they need?
• Wait…Did I just fall asleep again?

Prayer is hard. It’s hard work to prioritize your schedule. It’s challenging to quiet your phone and your mind. Even after you have persevered and have managed to sit down and get quiet before the Lord, a million uninvited thoughts plow through your mind. Prayer is difficult. It’s an ongoing battle to stay focused. Especially when little people are poking their fingers under your bedroom door and begging for juice.

I believe Jesus understood our difficulties with prayer and that is why he said, “When you pray, pray like this” (Matt 6:9) …he actually meant it.

For a year now I have been using the Lords Prayer as the template for my daily prayers. It has been a huge blessing and revolutionized my prayer life. As I lie down in my quiet place, I take time to meditate on each word of the Lord’s Prayer. As I focus on a word it primes the pump, so to speak, and prayer begins to flow. As I follow the format of the Lords's prayer I am led through the progression of the gospel. Each statement brilliantly flows into the next. My prayer resounds as a glorious symphony of worship, gratitude, repentance, and surrender. My heart overflows with joy as my life is laid bare in surrender before him.

Also, if I happen to loose my train of thought or get interrupted, I can recall the last phrase I focused on and more easily get back on track.

I am grateful that Holy Spirit has helped me take Jesus’ words about prayer to heart. The drudgery has vanished and joy has emerged. This prayer has given me a humble confidence as I pray, because I know that if I am following Jesus example I am doing it right. It is amazing what happens when we actually listen and obey Jesus words.

Walking through the Prayer

Great spiritual teachers throughout the centuries have taught that the first thing you should do when you start to pray is stop. Put your hand over your mouth and pause. Be still for a moment, reflect, and remind yourself who it is that you are approaching. Perhaps, this would be a good practice for us.

"But if you want to make contact with God, and if you want to feel His everlasting arms about you, put your hand upon your mouth for a moment. Recollection! Just stop for a moment and remind yourself of what you are about to do." – David Martyn Lloyd-Jones 

Below I will offer a brief summary of the significance of each phrase in the prayer then offer a sample of what praying that phrase with it in mind might look like.

OUR

“Ours” reminds me that I am not an only child but part of God’s eternal family.

God, I praise you because you have chosen a family for yourself and have rescued us out of the kingdom of darkness. Thank you that I am one of your children, even though I am rebellious and didn’t want to be saved, you pursued me still. God, I look forward to the day when your family will live together, with pure hearts, on the new earth with you.

FATHER

“Father” reminds me that God is my real and better father.

God, I praise you because you will never disappoint me, loose your cool with me, or fail to teach me an important lesson. God, you are my real father, you designed me before time began. You know the number of hairs on my head. You know me better than I know myself, you even know my words before I speak them.

IN HEAVEN

“In Heaven” reminds me how massive God is.

God, you are my father and you sit enthroned above the earth. You have stretched out the night sky like a curtain and hold the oceans in the palm of your hand. Father, you designed the universe and spoke it into existence. Your wisdom and knowledge is unfathomable. You formed the intricacies of my D.N.A as well as galaxies, upon galaxies, upon galaxies. Father, you are all knowing, all powerful, and perfectly good. You are the only one who is completely trustworthy. There is no one greater than you and no one can thwart your plans.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME

WHOA! By the time I get to this line I want to shout.

God, may your greatness be echoed throughout the universe. May you receive the fame and praise and honor you deserve. Father, I look forward to the day when every knee will bow before Jesus and confess that he is Lord, for your glory and fame.

YOUR KINGDOM COME

“Your kingdom come” reminds me that life on earth right now is the opposite of your kingdom. All creation is broken and there is tremendous suffering because of the fall. It is horrendous and God’s heart is broken.

Father, send Jesus back to earth. Please send him now to put things right again. Come Jesus, so that justice may be served and you will get the praise you deserve. Please come so that my rebellious heart will be made right. Please come so that death, suffering, and rebellion against you will come to an end. Father I look forward to the day when Jesus crushes Satan, when the hearts of your people are made perfect and the earth is made new. I look forward to the time when we will be together in joyous obedience under your gracious and generous reign.

YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” reminds me that God’s timing for Jesus’ return is perfect and that there is still more work that needs to be done.

Father, I ask that your will be done on earth. That your people will be transformed by the power of the gospel. That your people will love and serve you, that the church will become a great light and the lost will see you and desire to know you. Lord, lead us to the people in our city whose hearts have been softened by your Spirit. So that they may hear the good news that their sins can be forgiven. I ask that gospel-centered churches would be planted across Alaska and around the world. Please, raise up faithful gospel-centered elders to lead your people. Father, help me to be obedient and be a good steward of all that you have entrusted to me. Empower me by your Spirit, help me to be pure in heart, and live out your will on earth.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD

“Give us this day our daily bread” reminds me that it seems silly now to ask my all powerful, all knowing, and good Father for anything. My small needs suddenly appear trivial. But God tells us to present our concerns to him, so I will.

Oh Father, may my deepest desire be to do your will. Would that be my sustenance to obey you. Father, I ask that you will provide for our medical expenses. I trust your ways. Father, I ask that you will keep our cars running. We depend on you for everything. Father, I ask that my children’s heart’s will be miraculously transformed by the power of the gospel. I commit them into your hands. Father, you are the one who owns all things and you know what I need even before I ask. I trust my needs to your wisdom.

AND FORGIVE US OUR SINS

“And forgive us our sins” reminds me how desperately I need a savior, suddenly the depth of my sin is overwhelming.

Father, my heart is darker than I can ever imagine. Please show me where I have disobeyed you today? Show me my patterns of sin that I am blinded to. Oh,God my sins of omission our fathomless. I admit that I have failed to steward every deed, thought, word, possession, and relationship for your glory today. Father, I praise you because my life is hidden in Christ and when you look at me you see Jesus. Otherwise, I could not stand before you.

AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO HAVE SINNED AGAINST US

“As we forgive those who have sinned against us” reminds me of how much I have been forgiven by God. In light of that, how can I not forgive others who sin against me?

Father, show me if there is anyone who I am bitter or angry against. I forgive them. I can’t hold it against them. You hold nothing against me.

LEAD US THROUGH TEMPTATION

“Lead us through temptation” reminds me how weak and vulnerable I am to deception.

Father, lead me through the temptation to make much of myself. Father, lead me through the temptation to find the good life outside of you. Father lead me through my love of comfort, show me where I am deceived, and how your ways are better. Thank you for your faithfulness in leading me through past temptations. I praise you Jesus because you were tempted in every way just like me, but you did not sin!

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

“Deliver us from evil” reminds me that we live in the already and not yet. We live between D-day and V-day. Jesus has secured the victory, but the battle still rages on.

Father, I live in a fallen world, please protect my family. Protect us from the attacks of the evil one. Protect us from the evil actions of others. Protect us from sickness and disease. Protect us from natural disasters. Please protect our hearts, bodies, home, property, and online presence. Father, I surrender to your will and your ways. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

—

Tracy Richardson (@alaskagospelgrl) serves at Radiant Church in Fairbanks, Alaskaas the Church Planters Wife. She loves to study scripture, throw parties, and run trails. She has a B.S.S. in Fine Art and Literature. She is also Mamma Bear to two wild cubs.

Don’t Lose Heart

My friend didn’t believe me anymore. What I had been telling her for months about the offer of forgiveness from Jesus seemed like foolishness to her and she wanted us to stop talking about it. Another woman blamed me for what happened with our mutual friend. Our friend had made some choices which landed her in drug rehab. If I was truly serving Jesus and serving our friend, I would have stopped her, the woman said. I should have seen it coming, she thought.

The influence I was seeking to have with a group of women was unwanted and they let me know. My thoughts on the Scriptures simply didn’t fit with theirs. Their solution was for me to change my views to ones that would make them feel comfortable.

My courage wavered. I felt like I had lost. I counted questions and doubts instead of sheep as I tried to fall asleep. I knew what was true, but the discouragement was hard to shake that week.

Don’t Lose Heart

“We don’t become discouraged,” said a man who had it far worse than I did.

The people he’d shared the gospel with and led to faith in Jesus were questioning his ministry.With the influx of influence by other famous pastors, he seemed like a small fish. Those he had loved and shepherded questioned his ministry credentials. Was he truly qualified? Why wasn’t he more successful? If he was a good minister and God was happy with him, they reasoned, then he should have more followers and more resources at his disposal and a lot less suffering.

Yet, in response to these detractors, Paul said “Therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:1).

In the face of his circumstances, Paul responded in 2 Corinthians by saying that his ministry is not about him or how others evaluate him but about God and his work. Paul’s credentials don’t matter. Instead, the transformation that comes from knowing Jesus is the proof of the message. (2 Cor. 3:2) Moreover, how people respond to Paul’s message of the gospel is not in his hands. They aren’t responding to him, but to Jesus Christ himself.  So he isn’t worried about whether or not he’s successful enough for them. It is God’s evaluation that counts and he’s the one who calls Paul to suffer for the sake of the gospel.

In spite of this criticism, Paul won’t change his message. He does not change God’s word to make it more palatable (2 Cor. 4:2). Rather, he states the truth and has no reservations. If we don’t hear, there’s a reason, he says. And that reason lies in our hearts, not the message. Because something has to happen for us to really get the gospel. Something in our hearts changes for this message to take root. We need light.

Hearts Need Light, Not Us

God who said “Let light shine out of darkness” must say it again (2 Cor. 4:6). In the darkness before creation, God spoke and brought something from nothing. He brought life from death and void. He brought light into darkness, so in the same way, he shines light into hearts. He brings light so that we would see that the knowledge of God’s glory is in Jesus Christ; he gives light for us to see the message of the gospel. When he does this, he’s truly doing a recreation act in our hearts. Dark, dead hearts see the light and are transformed.

It’s like the canal that runs through the center of an old city in Croatia where I used to live. The canal looks lovely with floating boats and scattered bridges, but when you look down into it, you realize it is the origin of the smell you were avoiding. Its dark waters betray what may be flowing through it. When you hear it’s named the Dead Canal in the local language, it changes your perspective. It’s dark and dead—just like the hard, blind hearts before God speaks into them. That’s what the disappointed women in my week didn’t know or had forgotten—hearts need light to see the message of the gospel. That was why Paul’s ministry was not as successful as the Corinthians thought it should be—hearts need light to see the message of the gospel. It is true and it can be depressing. However, if you look up the hill behind the same Croatian city, you see the headwaters of the very canal flowing down next to the ancient castle, clear and full of light and vitality. It is a picture of hope, because that contrast is the change God makes in people. He moves our hearts from dead and dark to alive and light—by his work and not the work of any person.

Reminding Our Hearts

By God’s mercy, he’s given his people the ministry of proclaiming Jesus. But when “success” seems as far away as Croatia, we don’t give up. No matter what others say about our achievements, our tactics, or our message, we recognize the transformation people need is not in our power to give. It’s not the message that needs to change.

While there are discouraging weeks, in this ministry there is great hope. Even when they don’t believe us. Even in the face of criticism. Even when we’ve seem to have lost. Why? Because God still shines light into hearts. He still opens eyes. He still builds his church. We don’t lose heart. We continue to proclaim Jesus, for he is the one with the power to transform. And he has promised that he will.

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Taylor Turkington has worked for a church in the Portland area for the last six years, teaching, discipling, and training. She loves being involved in the equipping and encouraging of people for the work God has given them. Before her church life, Taylor worked as a missionary in Eastern Europe and graduated from Western Seminary with a M.A. in Biblical and Theological Studies. Currently, Taylor is a student at Western in the D.Min. program. She loves teaching the Bible, and speaks at seminars, retreats, and conferences. Taylor is a co-founder and co-director of the Verity Fellowship.

Originally appeared at The Verity Fellowship, “Don’t Lose Heart.” Used with permission.

Salvation: Past, Present, & Future

It is well said by many in the church that the Christian is not who he’s supposed to be, but by God’s grace he is not who he used to be. This well worn saying strikes at a truth we all know intellectually and experientially but get discouraged by in the aftermath of sin: sanctification doesn’t happen overnight. It is painful and progressive. By way of example, I think of my friend, we’ll call him George. George used to be dominated by alcoholism, but now by the empowering of the Spirit he has been sober for several years. In the earlier years of his struggle, however, this was not the case. He might go two weeks without a drink only to go on a weekend binder. He’d repent, muster up his strength, and get back on the wagon. Two months, maybe four, and he’d fall off again. While stuck inside this cycle it was easy for George to get discouraged. Didn’t Jesus die to save him from this mess? He hated alcohol, but like a dog returning to its vomit he kept returning to it (Prov. 26:11). That’s where fellow sojourners on this journey toward glorification had to meet with him and remind him of the truths that would get clouded by his sin. If he were to fall off again tomorrow, Jesus’ grace would still be there to help reorient him towards the fixed goal.

One step forward, two steps back. Such is the awkward dance of sanctification. But we do not dance alone. Jesus is our masterful dance instructor, never missing a beat, but always extending a hand to pull us back to our feet when we trip ourselves up.

God has Saved Us

Many people write the date they accepted Christ in the front cover of their Bible. It is a helpful reminder, an ebenezer to the day God first introduced himself to you. Yet, we risk misplacing our faith in a particular date in time instead of a particular person who entered time and took on flesh (Jn. 1:14). While from our human perspective it is helpful to remember the day we acquired a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, it is all too simplistic to think of that as the day we were saved.

Instead, salvation was purchased for us on a cross in Calvary some 2000 years ago. Long before our mothers had planned to birth us God had planned our second birth. Paul says, “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Jesus knew the names of those he was dying for even before they were born.

In eternity past, God decided it was good for him to make man in his own image (Gen. 1:26, 27). At the cross, he chose to ransom some of every tribe, tongue, and nation and in the future he will bring many sons and daughters to glory. Our salvation, in one sense, was entirely determined in the past by the triune God.

God the Father had a plan and a purpose to accomplish our salvation the moment our first parents sinned in the Garden. As Adrian Rogers was fond of saying, “The Trinity never meets in emergency session.” This plan was then executed by the son who was obedient even to the point of death (Phil. 2:8). He, as the second Adam, succeeded in the desert in contrast to the first Adam who failed in the garden. It was the Holy Spirit who led the Son to the desert (Lk. 4:1) and now indwells all who trust in Christ. All of these events were sovereignly ordained prior to the birth of those of us alive today. When understood and contemplated they should overwhelm our hearts and bring us joy. We have been saved indeed. All that was done to accomplish this was determined in eternity past. And all of it accomplished by grace; we can do nothing to add to it. We can nod in agreement with the truth that “we are great sinners, but Jesus is a great savior.”

Yet, in another sense, our salvation has not been completed.

God Will Save Us

The death of Christ is not our only and ultimate hope, although it was necessary to purchase salvation for us. Paul says that we are hopeless without the resurrection of Christ and should be pitied (1 Cor. 15:19). If the death of Christ was the payment for sin, his resurrection is the proof of purchase to take home the prize.We don’t worship a dead Savior, but a Savior that defeated death and promises that we will too if we place our faith in him.

So long as we toil in these earthly bodies we fix our gaze toward the renewed heaven and earth (2 Pet. 3:13) where even the presence of sin and death will be removed. Jesus’ earthly ministry (Rom. 5:10) and substitutionary death (2 Cor. 5:21) purchased for us nothing less than paradise. It purchased life for our dead souls at the cross and in the future will cast death itself into the grave.

At times Christians have been accused of being “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” This criticism is a sort of evidence that most of us understand (at least in part) the future hope of our salvation. Yet, something gets missed. Our hope is misplaced if it is in the paradise. Paradise isn’t important without the one who we are with in that paradise. Jesus promises the thief on the cross paradise in his presence (Lk. 23:43). Note this.

Perhaps you’ve heard the hymn “I Will Trade the Old Cross for the Crown.” While it may comfort us in our suffering, the song misses the gospel. One line talks of carrying a cross for the Savior, but no line about the cross he carried for us—a glaring omission. Furthermore, the hymn writer sets our hope on obtaining a crown in exchange for a cross. But in Revelation 4 the elders cast down their crowns at the feet of Jesus because of his worth and glory. We will receive crowns, no doubt, but we’ll return them to King Jesus.

When we think of our future salvation, we must cautiously direct our thoughts not to the crowns we will receive but to the King who is worthy of our worship. It is there, with him, that every tear will be wiped away and death will die (Rev. 21:4). We will cast our gaze on him and see him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). His righteousness will dwell there and that will be enough (2 Pet. 3:13). He will be more captivating than the paradise that merely provides the background for his glory. So God has saved you, he will save you, and he is saving you. Past. Future. And now we move to present.

God is Saving Us

We are a fickle people. As another hymn states, we’re “prone to wonder…[and] leave the God we love.” But God has redirected our hearts and minds via signposts to what we need most—himself. We draw encouragement from the actions of God in the past that secured for us salvation. We set our hope on a future day when we will see him face to face. But God is not distant and confined only to the past and the present. His grace is here for our taking now.

Paul writes,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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. – Romans 5:1-2

Through Jesus we stand in grace. Yes, we stood in grace when he saved us in the past. Yes, we will stand in his grace in the future when he himself serves as the light of the new heavens and earth (Rev. 21:23). But we are short changing ourselves if we relegate God only to the past and the future. Paul David Tripp, pastor and writer, says:

Many believers have a gap in the middle of their gospel. They understand salvation past—the forgiveness that they have in Christ; and salvation future—the eternity that they’ll spend with Christ. But they don’t understand the present benefits of the work of Christ in the here and now.

We have a mediator interceding for us at the throne of God at this very moment (Rom. 8:34). This should be cause for rejoicing. We have peace with God, not because we have put down the gauntlet, but because Jesus has absorbed our sin in his body on the tree. Because we have placed our faith in him, we can boldly approach the Father (Heb. 4:16). He is not mad at us; we don’t have to avoid him. Do not neglect to plumb the depths of this great grace.

The prosperity gospel teaches us to demand earthly rewards in the here and now—rewards that Christ himself rejected in the desert (Lk. 4). We should reject this over-realized eschatology found in the prosperity gospel. We will enjoy physical blessings in the end, but as I stated that’s never the point. The point is a person. So as we daily struggle with sin and discouragement over our slow progress in sanctification, we should boldly claim the blessings we are promised now. In Jesus Christ, all of God’s promises are yes (2 Cor. 1:20). We can commune with God now in preparation for seeing him face to face. We have the Spirit of Christ within us. We have Jesus enthroned in the heavens interceding for us. We have everything we need to make it home. Rejoice in hope of the glory of our God!

—

Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Summit University) is the Family Life Pastor at Christ Fellowship Church in Fallston, MD. Prior to that he served at a church plant in Troy, NY 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 Hardcore Grace and the recently started Family Life Pastor.

Why Are We Chasing?

“I wonder whether, in ages of promiscuity, many a virginity has not been lost less in obedience to Venus than in obedience to the lure of the caucus. For, of course, when promiscuity is the fashion, the chaste are outsiders.” – C. S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring”

Each of us have a core status that we long to achieve or earn and the pursuit of that status drives us in just about everything we do. These statuses become for us what Lewis called “The Inner Ring”—a small, selective, elite society of people who have become a clique of which we yearn to belong. Those societies don’t have to be recognized globally or at the highest level, but they do have to be recognized within our own spheres of local life. For each of us the allure of acceptance, applause, authority, or abundance is a siren call for our lives to chase and do all we can to achieve the societal connection of that particular Inner Ring.

But why do we chase these things? In short, we’ve made fundamental exchanges that have generated consequences that are ultimately killing us. These exchanges are not only true universally for all of humanity, but they are seen specifically in each of our lives. No one is exempt from the “Great Exchanges” that we have made and no one is exempt from reaping the consequences of those exchanges, yet it is those very exchanges that have left us hungry for the achievement of being part of the Inner Ring. Let me detail three exchanges that we have made and the way they have left us pursuing Inner Rings.

From Imago Dei to Imago Stati

The first exchange came at the hands of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and has been a consequential exchange that you and I make daily. We have traded our identity in God for an identity in our status. Genesis 1-3 spells out this exchange.

In the beginning God creates and makes all things in the universe for his glory. He is the Creator and the King and all things are made good in his sight. Nothing is out of place, nothing out of alignment, all things are identified properly and beautifully. Even humanity is created and called “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Yet what makes the creation of male and female unique is the nature of their creation and relationship with God. God himself declares that humanity were created “in his own image” (Gen. 1:27). Beyond resembling God in terms of his dominion over all things being made in the image of God means that humanity was created in relationship with God. Just as God exists completely in relationship with and to himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit so humanity was created to bear God’s likeness in community with one another and live in perpetual relational union with him. The imago Dei marks humanity as representatives of God and relationally close to God. In the beginning, we were made to bear the identity of belonging to and with God. Nothing else in all creation bore that mark.

The exchange came, however, with the crafty serpent’s deceit. Instead of our first parents understanding their identity as being representatives and relationally unified with God, they were led to believe they were not unique to God—that they were instead lacking something of God’s image in their lives, namely his moral capacity to “know good and evil” (Gen. 3:4). What Satan deceived our first parents into believing was that a unique relationship with God was less desirable than obtaining a shared status with God. At the moment they believed that lie, the pursuit of an Inner Ring began. No longer did they love the imago Dei (image of God) they were created in, now they longed for the imago Stati (image of Status) that they did not yet possess.

The fallout from this exchange was nothing less than death. Their capacity to attain the Inner Ring they so desperately longed for was impossible. Instead of becoming like God, as the serpent had promised, they became disenfranchised from God. The relationship was broken and the imago Dei was, as John Calvin puts it “erased.”

Humanity had lost their original relationship and reality.

It’s because of this exchange, from relationship to status, that all of us live in the pursuit of Inner Rings. Our original relationship has been lost and now to find worth, value, and identity we chase the status symbols of the Inner Ring. Instead of existing as beings with value, dignity, and worth we’ve become creatures who chase after the status we do not have. Exchange number one is the exchange of identity through a relationship to identity in a status. It’s death for each of us.

From Provision to Performance

The second exchange we made was the exchange from the provision God had for us to the posture of earning our own way. We exchanged God’s riches to find and fix ourselves on our own accomplishments. Again, Genesis 1-3 demonstrates the template of this exchange.

According to Scripture, God’s creation of the universe wasn’t to set it up as a empty, desolate environment that would grow and be cultivated into maturity. He created a mature world with mature plants, mature animals, mature human beings and placed our first parents into a luscious and beautifully abundant Garden. Adam and Eve lacked absolutely nothing. They had all the provision of food, shelter, abundance, and pleasure they could ask for. Nothing was missing.

Yet the Deceiver came and sought to convince us otherwise. Our first parents were told that God was holding back, that his love for them was inadequate and insufficient. More so his provision of wisdom and knowledge was incomplete. What God was doing was not providing for them, but withholding the very things they needed to make it in the world. The lie was sown and we believed it!

We believed that God’s good provision wasn’t sufficient for the long-haul. We looked at the options; either we could rest in God’s perfect timing and provision for us or try to provide for ourselves more completely. We chose to earn rather than receive. Humanity decided in that Garden and every day since then that our best step forward is to pursue and perform to earn a status, rather than enjoy the provision of everything from God’s generous and gracious hand. We’ve chosen to earn our identity rather that receive and live in the provision that God has for us.

Imagine after working a full 10-hour shift you head home from your job. On the way home, you stop at a favorite restaurant to buy take-out for your family to enjoy. You stop at the florist and pick up a beautiful bouquet of flowers to bless and encourage her as well. You stop at the Redbox and pick up that movie your children have been longing to see. You head home to bless your family. However, when you get home you notice a line of cars out front of your house. People are walking in and out with various things. One person walks out with your television, another with your children’s favorite toy. Someone has a plate of grilled chicken and green beans. As you rush into the house you find your wife with a distant look on her face. “What are you doing?” you ask. “Well,” she says, “I really don’t like the way you’ve been providing for us, in fact I think we can do it better ourselves.” And with that your favorite chair is hoisted out by another unsuspecting couple looting your possessions. Everything is for sale.

That is the kind of folly that we have embraced. Instead of enjoying and trusting God’s good and faithful provision for us, we’ve turned into performers trying to earn our way forward. We’ve jumped out of the identity given to us as God’s people into the pursuit of making a name for ourselves. We’ve rejected the faithful provision of God’s hand for us and have decided to earn our own way forward. What God said through Jeremiah certainly is true of us, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13).

From Common to Exclusive

If the reason why we pursue Inner Rings and the societal acceptance they bring comes from an exchange of our identity and our provision, we are in pretty bad shape. However, the hole we have dug down for ourselves is deeper still. The first two exchanges are enough to destroy us, yet there is a third. It is the exchange of the common for the delight of the exclusive.

What did Adam and Eve have in the Garden? They had identity, they had provision, and they had community. They related perfectly with God and with one another. They enjoyed perfect unity, harmony, joy, delight, compatibility, and acceptance with God and with one another. It is readily apparent that our first parents enjoyed and held all things in common together. Nothing divided them or their relationship with God. This is the essence and origin of the word “community”—common. Humanity was designed and created to be a common people.

Yet the seduction of Satan was great. The common wasn’t the best or most beautiful for the world. God was holding out. He was holding back. He was being exclusive. He was being the “One Percenter” hoarding the wealth to himself while Adam and Eve were left to lack and not possess. Satan’s attack hits right at God’s exclusivity. “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” By twisting God’s words he created the tension of common and exclusive. As Eve responds, she affirms the provision of God, “We may eat of fruit of the trees in the garden” but also identifies where God has exercised his exclusive rights. “You shall not eat of this of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden” (Gen. 3:3). Humanity lives in the common, but God deals with the exclusive.

Humanity’s exchange on that day has broken our community. In trading the sacred commonality of life together in an attempt to possess the exclusive reality of God, we’ve been at each others throats ever since. The entire race fell into corruption and decay when that exchange was made. No longer was there unity; disunity prevailed. In shame, our parents hid from God and one another embarrassed by the nakedness their sin brought. Adam shifted the blame to God and his wife for his sin. A curse of death fell upon the human race.

Now—let me absolutely clear—God is an exclusive being, one of a kind in the entire universe, and he is good and right. He alone is worthy of all power, glory, authority, splendor, and majesty. He is wholly other than us. No one can attain to his greatness and glory and no one can possess his majesty. The very word “holy” which describes who God is throughout Scripture (see Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8) is loaded with the sense of God’s unique rarity and exclusivity. He in no way is evil, unjust, or malicious in withholding things from us. He is God; we are not. And yet, just as God is exclusive in his nature, he also exists eternally in perfect community. His creation of humanity was creation of us into common unity with him.

The Fall came for us in our exchange. We desired the exclusivity of God for ourselves. We were seduced into thinking our common unity as human beings was worthless. Satan created an evil dualism that we follow to this day. He appealed to fear of being an outsider, not having, and not being part of the exclusive club who possess “the knowledge of good and evil.” The serpent attacked the idea of the common and elevated the exclusive. We traded the joy of community as people made in the image of God for the pursuit of God’s exclusivity as God.

Inner Rings Crafted

I am sure that as Tolkien and Lewis sat around a table at The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford they shared thoughts of the pursuit together. One crafted a legendary tale in which the pursuit of the Inner Ring became a pursuit of The One Ring. The other saw it lived out in every life as men and women traded the identity they were created to posses for the status they sought to obtain. He saw it as we traded the good provision of God for the enticing self-reliant attempts to earn our own way. It showed up in our rejection of the common beauty of one another for the prestige of being one of the few.

In the beginning, there were no Inner Rings. We were created perfectly in community with God and with others. We enjoyed the security and comfort of full and abundant provision. We were children loved and accepted by God. The reality is that we were part of the greatest community, the greatest Inner Ring; God’s special and uniquely imprinted creation. And, in a moment, we gave it up for a lie. We bought the myth that we didn’t have enough; that there were Inner Rings left for us to obtain. As soon as we bought that lie we fell immediately into the Pursuit. We’ve been chasing “The Precious” ever since.

—

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.

Good News in a Bad News World

If you only spend a few moments watching or reading the news, it's obvious that the world no longer resembles the peaceful reality of Eden. Death, destruction, famine, hatred, greed, and brokenness are not the exception today, they are the norm. They are so common that these things are sometimes described as inevitable or expected. No one expects life to be perfect or to go on forever—but we know, in our core, it should not be this way. Doesn’t it all seem out of place and unnatural? (Guess what? It is.) How did everything get this way? We find our answer in Genesis 3.

Satan, the enemy of God disguised as a serpent, challenges God’s command to stay away from the tree. He asks Eve, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). We see later in the Bible that Satan likes to twist God’s words (Matt. 4:1-11). He convinces Adam and Eve that God is a liar, and that God is holding out on them. He convinced them that God doesn’t want them to be like him, so he tells them to stay away from the tree (Gen. 3:3-6).

After being tempted by Satan, our ancient parents ate the fruit, immediately noticed that they were naked, and hid from God. They were ashamed. They were self-conscious. They were scared. They had disobeyed their Creator, and they knew it. They handed over their God-given responsibility to God’s great Enemy.

This was the first sin.

Sin, Death, and the Bad News of the Garden

Sin can be described as anything (whether in thoughts, actions, or attitudes) that does not express or conform to the holy character of God as expressed in his moral law. Sin is rebellion against God, first and foremost. Some say that to sin means to “miss the mark.” When we sin, we don’t just miss the mark—we point the bow in the other direction and shoot into the sky. Sin causes us to “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and leaves us under God’s wrath (Rom. 1:18). It doesn’t just cause division between people or cause us a little more trouble that we’d like; it brings division between people and life, and because of sin, death is now something we all must deal with.

Sin is bad news, and the creator of all bad news in the world.

The gut-wrenching stories we see on the news every night are an integral part of living in a world infected by sin. But sin also brings division between God and people. We see this immediately when Adam and Eve were taken out of the Garden of Eden because of their sin against God. Their perfect relationship with him was damaged from then on out (Gen. 3:16-19). This left mankind freefalling toward utter destruction.

Not only were Adam and Eve punished for their sin, but the consequences of their rulebreaking affects every person born afterward. They passed the nature of sin to their children and it’s been passed along ever since. The Apostle Paul says that “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” and that “one trespass led to condemnation for all men” (Rom. 5:12-19).

Sin runs in the family. Sin is a disease that would make the bubonic plague blush. Sin is deadly, in every sense of the word. It’s the real Black Death. It brings not only physical death, but also spiritual death.

Our bodies are buried in the ground, but even worse, souls without Christ are banished to Hell, a place of torment and never-ending separation from God (Matt. 25:46; Jude 1:7; Rev. 21:8). As Scripture tells us, physical death can and will be defeated, but spiritual death lasts into eternity. Adam and Eve, and all of us, were made to live forever with God. Now, we all are sentenced to death from the very start apart from his forgiveness (Rom. 3:9-18; 6:23).

We need to be delivered from sin and its effects. The apostle Paul felt the soul-crushing burden of sin, and he wanted to be done with it. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:23–25).

Good News in a Bad News World

But there’s good news in this bad news world. Deliverance from sin, the undoing of Satan’s work in the Garden of Eden, is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As John says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Simply put: Jesus came to conquer Satan and restore the world to its rightful King.

Jesus is the most important person that lives—and ever will. He sits alive today in the heavenly places as the Cosmic King, inviting sinners to repent and place their complete trust in him for the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life.

It's all about Jesus. This Galilean carpenter is the hope of the world. The entire plan of God (Gal. 4:4-5), the whole swing of the Scriptures (John 5:39), and the sum of human history all lands squarely—like nails ripping through flesh, bone, and wood—on Jesus (Eph. 1:10). All things belong to Jesus, and all things were created by Jesus (Col. 1:15). And right now, all things are held together by Jesus, from Haley's Comet to the micro-skin-flake falling from your fingernail, Jesus is in control. “In him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17) and, "he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).

Is that your Christ? Do you have towering thoughts about the Lord Jesus, or are they reduced to a first-century Israelite who had a knack for healing and preaching? “Who is Jesus?” isn’t the mega-stumper question on the SAT. This isn’t the dreaded pop quiz question that you know you studied but can’t remember. This is eternity. This is your life now and your life to come.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus asked his disciples this very question. “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?'"(Matt. 16:13–15). Is Jesus just a teacher? Is Jesus just a healer? A popular prophet? Captain of the fib team?

Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). So, what then? Who is this man?

Like the great C. S. Lewis said,

Socrates did not claim to be Zeus, nor the Buddha to be Bramah, nor Mohammed to be Allah. That sort of claim occurs only in Our Lord and in admitted quacks or lunatics. I agree that we don’t ‘demand crystal perfection in other men’, nor do we find it. But if there is one Man in whom we do find it, and if that one Man also claims to be more than man, what then?

The quest for the Biblical Jesus is of first importance. We can be like Adam and Eve and run away to a substitute, or we can be like Peter and stumble our way toward him.

—

Brandon D. Smith works with the Holman Christian Standard Bible and teaches theology at various schools. He is also co-author of Rooted: Theology for Growing Christians. You can follow him on Twitter.

J.A. Medders is the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Tomball, TX. He and Natalie have two kids, Ivy and Oliver. Jeff digs caffeinated drinks, books, and the Triune God. He blogs at www.jamedders.com and tweets from @mrmedders. Jeff’s first book, Gospel-Formed: Living a Grace-Addicted, Truth-Filled, Jesus-Exalting Life, released this November from Kregel.

This is an excerpt from Rooted: Theology for Growing Christians by J. A. Medders and Brandon D. Smith. Get it on Amazon here.

An Interview with Joey Shaw, Author of All Authority

"When we are at the end of our wits with suffering, or when we feel entirely useless in shame, depression, and insecurity, or when we fight the hoards of Satan's army in temptation, let us be comforted that the Spirit intercedes for us in the theater of our hearts, and Christ intercedes for us in the theater of Heaven." — Joey Shaw, All Authority: How the Authority of Christ Upholds the Great Commission

CHELSEA VAUGHN: Being a mission pastor, you have to be strategic, yet in your book you don't hide your dependence on the Holy Spirit. When did you begin to see the connection between dependence and strategy?

Joey Shaw: At the intersection between strategy in human decision making and dependence on the supernatural God is the person of the Holy Spirit. In my view, dependence on the Holy Spirit empowers careful planning and effective execution of a strategy. Some people think that dependence on the Holy Spirit somehow works against, side steps, or intervenes on strategic thinking.

But the Bible teaches otherwise. The Bible calls the kinds of decision making that pleases God “wisdom”. “Wisdom” means being both strategic and dependent on God. “Wisdom” sums up strategic, insightful, and maturity in perspective. Consider Eph. 5:15-16: "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” “Look carefully” means diligently, accurately, precisely, thoroughly. Further, think about the phrase “making the best use of the time”. The greek term implies buying things when there is scarcity. No one believes that we should go to the supermarket and buy our food without some kind of a “plan”, or some “strategic” frame of mind.

I’ve learned from the Scripture and from experience that dependence on the Holy Spirit is demonstrated through hard work, not in the absence of it. The Holy Spirit empowers our hard work. Consider the apostle Paul’s testimony of working hard: "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” (1 Cor. 15:10) Paul worked hard according to the grace of God worked out in his life and ministry by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit works in both spontaneity and intentionality. He comes both when planned (e.g., when you share the gospel, do you not plan on the Holy Spirit empowering the Word?) and when unplanned. Just because an action is spontaneous does not make it more or less spiritual. Intentionality and spirituality do not work against each other. Rather, intentionality is a characteristic of mature spirituality, as it displays wisdom.

Consider the apostle Paul’s use of “skilled master builder” in 1 Cor. 3:10: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.” Paul is thoughtful about how he works. He knows his role. He knows his goals. And to accomplish his goals he aims to be a “skilled master builder”. He calls on others who build on his foundation to “take care how he builds upon it.” Every builder knows that they must employ strategy to properly and effectively use their resources in order to achieve their goals.

Of course, we need to be ever aware of the deception that the better our strategy alone the better the product. Strategic decisions may lead to productivity, but it is the Holy Spirit of God alone who can produce God-magnifying fruitfulness.

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. – Psalms 127:1-2

CV: You must have a fervent prayer life if you can live believing in Christ's authority with freedom. Tell us the story of how and when your prayer life changed.

JS: Years ago, I preached a short sermon from Jn. 15:5, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” As I studied for the sermon, I was profoundly impacted by the truth that it is God alone who produces fruit and that our “strategy” for obtaining that fruit is abiding in Christ. After working through the text, I had to repent for aiming at being productive in my own power, rather than aiming at being fruitful in Christ’s power. That fundamental change in me instantly matured my prayer life. I realized that my prayer life is the proof of the extent of my dependency on God. I saw that I could only bear fruit while abiding in the one who has all authority and power: the Lord Jesus.

CV: I love your use of poetry, what do you hope readers will gain from this unique addition to a book on the great commission?

JS: I hope that the poetry in my book complements the narrative like a musical soundtrack complements a movie. A musical soundtrack elevates our senses and affections while we watch the movie play out; so I hope my poetry elevates your senses and affections while you work through the book. I say in my book, "Poetry is, for me, a way to express the inexpressible and lead others to do the same. It gives me a taste of the food that only the saints at the feast of heaven eat.” (Pg. 6)

CV: The poem in "Go Therefore” (p. 66) was stunning. What lead you to write this?

Though few around observe your labor,

Christ sees all—the best and least.

One day those few you sought with vigor,

Will sing with you at the Feast.

JS: I wrote this poem specifically for a missionary family serving in the inner regions of China. Most of their ministry is unseen by their family, their global Christian fellowship, and even their local church. In this kind of context, it can be tempting to feel forgotten, isolated, and alone. So I wrote a poem to remind them that they are never forgotten, never isolated, and never alone. Not only that, they will see the fruit of their labor one day. One day, King Jesus will welcome them alongside His ransomed people from their host people group—all who are Christ’s among them!—and they will live forever in fullness of joy with Christ in God.

CV: The concept you've implemented within The Stone's mission structure is unlike anything I have seen. How do you suggest people discern which position they're called to (i.e., Goer, Sender, Mobilizer)? Do you think these positions often interchange?

JS: I suggest people discern if they are called to be a “Goer,” “Sender,” or “Mobilizer” the same way that they discern God’s will for all their particular decisions not specifically spoken to in the Bible. That is, they should discern this through listening to their “spiritual gut”, through the counsel of their biblical community, through analysis of their circumstances, and ultimately and supremely, through submissive study of God’s Word, the Bible. I’ve written extensively on these variables in a series on “how to discern God’s will”, which you can find here.

People can learn more about how we at The Austin Stone Community Church engage in God’s mission among unreached peoples here.

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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…

9 Reasons to Prioritize One-on-One Discipleship

Few people in our local church shout “Amen!” when I preach which may be a testimony to the quality of the sermons. Yet every once in a while, I preach something decent. I know this because some of our members will grunt and nod their heads aggressively. This has become the telltale sign that I’ve said something helpful or convicting. The easiest sermons to preach are sermons on discipleship, particularly the necessity of fulfilling the Great Commission. The grunt per person ratio is off the charts on those Sundays. One Sunday, the general tone of agreement led me to believe those to who heard me preach were particularly ready and willing to take personal ownership for the mission of disciple-making. My assumptions led me to seek out disciple-makers for young believers in our church actively—either those who came to faith through our church’s ministry or those who had only been walking with Jesus for a short time. It made sense to target those who had known Jesus for years and pair them with a younger believer so they could fulfill Jesus’ call to teach one another to do all things that Christ commands (Matt 28:18–20).

But the more I attempted to engage the church in discipleship, the more I found that far too many of the seasoned saints had no idea where to begin or what to do. They acknowledged their responsibility to make disciples and had a relationship with someone who needed investment of time and training, but the mature believers were unsure what disciple-making should look like. Though they had attended church for years, many had passively learned that disciple-making was something that the staff or structure of the church was supposed to accomplish. If someone needed to be taught the basics of the Christian life, they assumed that Sunday school, small groups, or sermons would do the trick—what those structures could not accomplish would be the work of the professional pastors or ministry leaders.

Over the years, the gap between the mission of disciple-making and the actual practice of most Christians grew wider and wider. Many knew they should be making disciples and wanted to do so, but they simply didn’t know how.

I’m convinced that a return to the practice of one-on-one, life-on-life discipleship is one of the most critical needs for today’s church.

Here’s why:

One-on-One Discipleship Allow Every Member of the Church to Carry Weight

We laughingly jest at the “80/20 rule” (20% of the people in the church do 80% of the work) and wonder why our churches lack the every-member ministry we know God desires. Many attendees, much less members, sit as bystanders to the life of the church. They show up, sing the songs, listen to the sermons, give an offering, and leave through the back door. Often those without meaningful investment in the work of the church are the first to complain when their needs are not met or the leaders do something they don’t like. So, how do we call these people out of passivity and into action? Giving out bulletins before a service is unlikely to do the trick. We need more. A culture of one-on-one discipleship among the members of the church would communicate that everyone has a vital role to play in the spiritual health of the body. Passive consummation and petty squabbles would likely be minimized if it was assumed that every member of a local church was going to meet with at least one other Christian on a regular basis for the sake of their spiritual growth and transformation.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Honest Conversation

We’d love to assume that believers are ruthlessly honest with each other at all times—be it the 5-minute conversation in the hallway of the church or sitting around in a living room during a weekly small group gathering. But we know this is not true. Nor is it reasonable. Most settings simply do not allow for the level of honesty we need to fight sin and pursue holiness. It would be unwise and unhelpful for a man to confess an ongoing battle with pornography in a mixed-gendered small group. Even if this man were bold enough to share with the men in the group, he will likely struggle to mine the depths of his sin in this setting. The men in the group may be able to listen, pray, and encourage him with the Scriptures, but he’ll need one or two men who are willing to meet with him and walk with him through what is likely to be a long process of repentance and change.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Personalized Application 

Consider the difficulty when a college student raises her hand during the typical Sunday morning sermon or even in a Sunday school class and saying, “Yeah, I understand that, but this just doesn’t make sense to me yet,” or “That may be true, but I’m not sure how it applies to my life.” These settings aren’t designed for personalized care. Most sermons and classes operate at the 30,000-foot level—trusting that God, by his Spirit and through his church, can apply the truth of his word to the needs of each person in attendance. This move from broad teaching to personalized application happens best in one-on-one discipleship settings.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Evangelism and Discipleship to Unite

Churches with a culture of one-on-one discipleship have no question with what to do with someone who comes to faith in their church. First, the person who was most instrumental in sharing the gospel with the new believer should be the go-to source for ongoing discipleship. Following baptism, these two can continue to fan into flame the good work that God has started. If the person came to faith apart from a relationship with a church member, such as through a Sunday sermon or big event, then the church has a farm system of ready, willing, and capable disciple-makers. Imagine the long-term fruit that could result if every church could say to new believers, “We have someone who would love to walk with you for the next year as you grow in your faith.”

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Ongoing Accountability

Genuine change happens when someone brings sin out of the dark and into the light—both to God and to fellow brothers and sisters. Then the fight begins. Hard work must be done to put protective measures in place to aid in one’s pursuit of holiness. A man who finds his identity in his job and neglects his family needs to confess this sin to another brother and have this man hold him accountable to being home for dinner, putting his phone down at night, and playing with his children. These actions cannot change the human heart, but they are a means by which we can spur one another on to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24).

One-On-One Discipleship Allows for Burden Bearing Relationships

In an age of incessant social media chatter, we assume that every believer is surrounded by people who will pray when they hurt, and love and support them when they suffer. A simple glance at your Facebook feed will almost certainly find another person asking for prayer. Yet, in an age of constant connectivity, people are as lonely as ever. While Facebook “friends” may like your post or offer prayers of support, it is impossible to bear another’s burdens in a meaningful way via technology. We need someone to sit with us, listen to our muddled conversation, make us something to eat, and pray while we cry. We need burden-bearing relationships. Those that know us know where we hurt, know where we are weak, and are willing to drop everything to be by our side (Gal 6:1–10).

One-on-One Discipleship Allows Other Ministries to Thrive

Discipleship relationships are not an alternative to small groups or Sunday school. In fact, they enhance the work that happens in these groups. One-on-one discipleship frees small groups from the pressure of assuming that they must accomplish all the heavy lifting of disciple-making. Most groups know that they can’t teach the Bible, apply the word to each group member, care for the wounded, make new guests feel welcome, live on mission to their neighborhood, promote passionate prayer, and practice biblical hospitality. The thought that all of these laudable goals must happen between 6–8 p.m. on a Tuesday night or 9–9:50 a.m. on a Sunday morning is a crushing burden. A church filled with a culture of disciple-making can trust that their groups don’t have to do it all, freeing these groups to do the very things they do best.

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Mutual Growth

One-on-one discipleship is often explained as if it is only for the benefit of the younger Christian who is being discipled. Yet, ask one of the older women in our church who has engaged in this work and she will insist that the process of discipleship was as transformative for her as for the new believer she served. Do you want to grow in your hunger for God’s word? Meet with a younger Christian and have them ask you questions about the Bible. Do you want to see change in your prayer life? Meet with someone who doesn’t have it all together and is looking to you for help. Do you want to see change in your personal sin struggles? Invite someone into your life and say, like Paul, “follow me as I follow Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).

One-on-One Discipleship Allows for Healthy Relationships

Biblical community is a buzzword in the church; however, like a mythical unicorn, biblical community can be easy to define, yet hard to find. Sunday services alone are unlikely to create the deep love we long to see among the people of God. But one-on-one discipleship can. Imagine what happens if, over the course of five years, a member of your church has met with five to seven people (one or two a year) for the purpose of intentional discipleship. In these relationships, they have cried and laughed, talked and prayed. They’ve seen God transform them both and they are better for it. Though they may no longer meet, the deep love they have for one another will be unmistakable. Now, assume that those with whom they’ve met are also meeting with others and doing the same thing. Multiply this process by the number of members of your church and imagine the love that would permeate your local church (Jn 13:35).

Discipleship relationships are not one of a host of options on the buffet line of spiritual formation alongside Sunday sermons, small groups, Sunday School, men’s or women’s ministry or a host of other good activities of the church. Certainly, people can’t do everything, and expecting a person to take part in every ministry the church has to offer is unreasonable and unhealthy. Yet, one-on-one discipleship relationships are not optional extras once the other ministry obligations have been fulfilled. Like the Sunday gathering of the entire church and some form of community group (either Sunday school or small group), those seeking to participate in the life of the church in a meaningful way should regularly be engaged in one-on-one discipleship—for the good of others, the good of the church, and their own good as well.

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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_

Longing for My Real Home

After two years of focused theological study I realized my soul needed a good story. It’s not that I don’t love reading theology, but during this season I wanted something different to stir my heart. I knew any old story wouldn’t work; no, it was time for a fairy tale.What better fairy tale than C.S. Lewis’ classic masterpiece The Chronicles of Narnia to awaken my heart? As a child, I never read The Chronicles of Narnia. As a matter of fact, I never read fairy tales. Much like Lucy Barfield, Lewis’ granddaughter, I had outgrown fairy tales all too quickly. Thus, his words to Lucy in his dedication were all too timely, “But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” That day had finally come for me. Little did I know how deeply I would be impressed by this fairy tale and the truths it directed me towards.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, I quickly discovered a world so magical and captivating that adequately explaining the impression it had upon me is difficult. It’s like a delicious secret only to be savored by those who have taken the journey through Lewis’ fairy tale, by those who have stared Aslan in the eyes. I could give excerpt after excerpt that resonated with my soul, but seven articles couldn’t contain them all. Perhaps the words found within those excerpts should be reserved for persons brave enough to take their own journey into Narnia.

Instead I will present two overarching reasons why this series of books left a profound impression upon me and why I am convinced that every person—young and old—should read The Chronicles of Narnia to drive them towards maturity as a disciple.

The Depiction of Aslan Directs Your Heart Towards Christ

The way in which Lewis portrays Aslan is glorious! He first appears on the scene as the One who sings Narnia into existence. The reader discovers he is a Lion, but no ordinary lion. His mane is like gold, his eyes radiant energy, his voice causes the ground to shake and tremble. He is resplendent and terrifying and wonderful all at once! Children can know him intimately and yet he is mysterious beyond the magician’s knowledge. He is always at work, but he never does the same thing twice. He can defeat his enemies with a single paw, but walks willingly to his own death. The reader understands that when you come face to face with Aslan you forget about everything else.

Magical Lions don’t exist. Yet, there is a true story about a real Lion that this one points us to. Lewis draws so heavily from the biblical depiction of Jesus when forming Aslan’s character, I could not help but think of Jesus as I read about the Great Lion. The parallels are striking. Every time Aslan appears on the page and does what only Aslan can do, your heart is directed toward the true Lion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who has done what only he can do (Rev. 5:1-14).

My affections were stirred afresh for Jesus in wonderful, childlike ways during my time in Narnia. I was reminded that I serve a King who isn’t safe, who isn’t tame, but is good beyond comprehension. It brought to remembrance my own story of encountering the Lion for the first time and all of the adventures that have ensued since. It softened my heart towards Jesus and his perfect work on my behalf. Essentially, I found that reading about Aslan presented me with wonderful opportunities to meditate upon Christ.

The Depiction of Narnia Directs Your Heart Towards the Eternal

From the creation of Narnia in book one until the revealing of the “real Narnia” in book seven I was enamored with this land. Narnia—the land Aslan sang into existence, the land where children rule as kings and queens, and the land that houses talking beasts. Oh Narnia! How I loved your hospitable beavers and friendly fauns. How I longed to partake of a hot meal by Mrs. Beaver or witness a sunset laced with colors seen only in Narnia.

Something about Narnia in all seven books points you towards the eternal. It causes you to long for something transcendent, something more. Yet, in book seven, when the old Narnia gives way to the real Narnia, the words of the Unicorn are piercing, “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”

As I read those words, I felt hot tears fill my eyes which splashed onto the page. The unicorns words resonated with my own longing for my true home. I, like so many of you, know what it’s like to feel out of place while searching for satisfaction in a fallen world. I know what it’s like to long for my real country, my real home.

These words reminded me that one day I’ll close my eyes for a final time and open them to discover that I have finally come home, finally arrived at the land I have looked for all my life. So often we are afraid of death, terrified of eternity, and anxious about the unknown, but we must remember that our future land is not unknown. It’s home! It’s the land we’ve longed for all along! Thus, this fairy tale directs us forward towards the true reality we will one day experience in Jesus’ consummated kingdom.

Lasting Impressions

Narnia made a lasting impression on me at a mature level, but that doesn’t mean it’s reserved for adults. If you are a parent, I encourage you to read this series to your children at the appropriate age and use it as a springboard to talk about Jesus and eternity. It gives children a framework in which they can think about Christ and the new heaven and earth in a way that is real and concrete to them. Even if they don’t understand all of the implications Lewis is making, the idea of this glorious Lion living in a perfect land will stay with them until one day (just like Lucy and me) they will return to savor the parallels more fully. May you and your family grow in your love for Jesus and his eternal kingdom as you read The Chronicles of Narnia together!

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Whitney Woollard is passionate about equipping others to read and study God’s Word well resulting maturing affection for Christ and his glorious gospel message. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and a Masters of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. Whitney and her husband Neal currently live in Portland, OR where they call Hinson Baptist Church home. Visit her writing homepage whitneywoollard.com.

Paying it Forward

Once we start to realize that discipleship is an everyday, all-of-life process for our own lives, we’re halfway to understanding God’s call. The other half of that call is seen most clearly in the great commission, where God calls his people—all his people—to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). Part of our own discipleship is “paying it forward”: seeing God not only work in us, for our own discipleship, but also seeing him work through us, for others’ discipleship. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us that a primary way we grow into maturity in Christ is through “speaking the truth in love” to and with each other (Eph 4:16). God didn’t design discipleship to primarily happen alone. All-of-life discipleship—learning to follow, trust, and obey Jesus in the everyday stuff of life, and training others to do the same—requires submitting to and obeying God’s Word in three key environments: life on life, life in community, and life on mission.

LIFE ON LIFE

God’s means of your growth, redemption, and restoration is others in your life who are committed to bringing your brokenness out into the open and bringing the gospel of Jesus to bear on it. The layers with which we’ve covered ourselves have to be pulled back, and we can’t do that kind of work alone. We have to get close. We have to be seen and known. This is what we call life-on-life discipleship—life that is lived up close so that we are visible and accessible to one another, so that others can gently peel back the layers and join us in our restoration.

Jesus lived life with his disciples. He was close enough to really know them. He observed what they believed by watching how they lived. He became closely acquainted with their brokenness so that he could see their wrong thinking, wrong believing, and wrong acting. They were exposed. And as they were exposed, Jesus helped them to be restored.

LIFE IN COMMUNITY

If you look at the life and ministry of Jesus, and subsequently the ministry of the apostle Paul, you certainly would not come to the conclusion that one-on-one discipleship is best. Jesus discipled his followers while they experienced life together in community. We know they “got it” because the story of how they continued to live tells us they were devoted to one another in the day-to-day stuff of everyday life. Jesus’s way of discipleship cannot happen in one-on-one meetings alone.

The church is Jesus’s body. It has many parts, but it is one body, so it takes many of us committed to each other’s development to help us each become more like Jesus ... We all need many people who love Jesus around us to do this. Every person in Christ’s body is meant to work this way. You are meant to play a part in equipping and encouraging others. God intends for all of us to actively engage in disciple-making in light of our unique design so that we both do the work and equip others to do it.

LIFE ON MISSION

Jesus didn’t say, “Show up to class and I will train you.” Nor did he say, “Attend synagogue and that will be sufficient.” No, he called the disciples to join him on the mission (“Follow me”), and while they were on the mission with him, he trained them to be disciple-makers (“I will make you fishers of men”).

In other words, Jesus taught them the basics of making disciples while they were on the mission of making disciples. They could observe everything Jesus said and did. They could see how he rebuked the religious leaders who tried to make it harder for people to come to God. They were able to watch his compassion and care of people being ruined by sin. They couldn’t overlook his willingness to heal and help the broken. And the power he exerted over demons was clearly on display. They listened, watched, and learned in the everyday stuff of life. After a while, he invited them to share in some of the work he was doing. Sure, they messed up, a lot, but he was there to help, to correct, to clean up—to train them—while they were on his mission. They were in a disciple-making residency with Jesus.

After the disciples had spent time watching, learning, and practicing under Jesus’s watchful eye, he sent them out to begin to practice what he had taught them. He did not send them out alone; they went together. Then they returned and reported to Jesus what they had experienced. All did not go perfectly. So he trained them in the areas of their weaknesses and failures. He did this kind of ongoing training with them for more than three years. As a result, when he finally ascended to heaven, they had been prepared to fulfill the mission. The best training for mission happens while on mission.

MISSIONAL COMMUNITIES

The necessity of these three environments is the basis for what are commonly called “missional communities”: the Christian life—and the gospel identities and rhythms we’ll start to consider next week—cannot be lived alone, nor can it be carried out as one person among several dozen or a few thousand, which is the context of many American church gatherings. Instead, the best venue for living as disciples of Jesus happens in the context of a few other disciples, mutually committed to growing each other’s lives and faith, pursuing God’s mission together.

Missional communities are not programs of a church; missional communities are the Church.In other words, the way God intends his people to live and thrive as disciples of Jesus is in the context of a community, growing in the gospel and on mission together. It’s in this type of community that life on life, life in community, and life on mission discipleship most easily happen.

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Jeff Vanderstelt is the visionary leader of the Soma Family of Churches and the lead teaching pastor of Doxa Church in Bellevue, Washington. Vanderstelt is the author of Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life. He and Jayne, his wife of 22 years, have three children; Haylee, Caleb and Maggie. 

Ben Connelly started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts 29 network and Soma Family of Churches. He is the co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers) and also leads church planting for the Soma Family in North America. Connelly, his wife Jess and their kiddos Charlotte, Maggie and Travis live in Fort Worth, TX.

Jeff Vanderstelt and Ben Connelly. Saturate Field Guide: Principles & Practices For Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life. Saturate, ©2016. Used by permission.

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.

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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.

The Antithesis of Anxiety

We sold our home today. We signed the papers, handed over the keys, and completed the seven month process which felt all-consuming. Each stage seemed overwhelming—from the painting and redecorating at the beginning, to the actual packing/loading/moving/unpacking at the end (and all the “Hurry up and hide the toys, we have a showing!” in between). But dependence grows beautifully in the soil of overwhelmed.

During moments on this journey, fatigue and stress felt more real than anything else. Too many mornings immediately ushered in our mental to-do list. I hated the gnawing, low rumblings of anxiety just as much as I hated the snapping tone I heard come from my lips. At times the weight of all I felt responsible to accomplish was crushing.

“Do not be anxious about anything …”

I believed a lie. The circumstances were difficult, yes, but they were not what made my chest tight and my heart heavy. What did was believing the lie that I was responsible to affect change, to make sure that things went as planned, and to hold it all together. In the moments when I took my eyes off of Jesus and only noticed the waves, I was believing that I needed to make the water still again. It was pure, modern-day, totally-understandable-in-the-eyes-of-our-culture idolatry. Deep in my heart I was not trusting God really was who he says he is or that he would really do what he has promised.And in response to this blatant treason, my Savior King never left me. He never pointed a condemning finger or cast me away for my sin. The Spirit convicted and lovingly drew me back.

“…but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Apart from God’s grace I would not desire to pray, nor have the ability to access the blessings which prayer was designed to give. In my own strength, even on my most disciplined day, I could not drum up the righteousness to grant me access to the Holy, All-Powerful, Righteous Creator of the universe! He alone, out of the overflow of his own goodness and love, pursued me and granted me that access by the shed blood of his perfect Son, Jesus. He is very well acquainted with my broken condition and knows every moment of idolatry—past, present, and future. Yet He bids me, “Come.” He tells me to bring my anxiety and fear to him, as minuscule as they are in comparison to his greatness. And this Omnipotent God, who holds the stars and planets in place, bends to minister to me, a housewife in Ohio, who is disobeying him and robbing him of the glory he’s due. He draws me into his presence.

As I lie on my cluttered bed, tears flowing along with repentance, the Holy Spirit does what only he can. He exposes the lies, interposes the Truth, washes, comforts, and redeems. His commands are always for our joy, so when we’re told to be thankful instead of anxious, it is not another item to add to our to-do list. Rather, the Lord knows that anxiety cannot remain when we remember the greatest reason of all to be thankful: We get him! When we are in Christ Jesus, the reality of our right-standing before God, our temporary time here on earth, and our future, eternal home with him is the truest reality. The tasks don't disappear, but instead of believing that the outcome is dependent on my own works, I trust and rest in God. Resting in God’s economy is not the absence of our work, it is a heart-state that recognizes his ultimate authority and our position before him.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Peace.

The perfect antithesis of anxiety. Just as my idolatry-produced-anxiety robs God of glory in my life, his perfect peace graciously given frees me to rightly enjoy him, thereby more rightly reflecting him to others. John Piper’s assertion that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him” is confirmed right in the midst of a partially-packed box and piles of laundry. I talk to my kids more like Jesus when I am filled with his peace. I work on the to-do list with joy and grace when I remember that God is ruling and reigning and that he loves me. When my heart and mind are guarded against anxiety in Christ Jesus, I am freed to rest in the truth that he not only saves me, but he also keeps me, all for the praise of his glorious grace!

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Myra Dempsey lives in the Columbus, Ohio area with her husband, Andrew, and their 3 children, Eli (5), Esther (3) and Gideon (1). Myra works part-time as a Licensed Professional Counselor and School Psychology Assistant.  She blogs at dependentongrace.com, contributes to the blog for her home church, at vineyardgrace.org, and has been blessed to be the keynote speaker at the iAm conference in Powell, Ohio, an event for teen girls. She loves reading, writing, and talking about God’s glorious grace!