4 Ways to Foster Faithfulness in the Face of Futility

The mammoth ship started sinking into the bone-chilling North Atlantic waters. Distress rockets exploded into the sky. You could hear the pandemonium and sheer terror over the buckling, twisting steel. Amidst the chaos, eight musicians began playing a serene, unearthly melody; “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as rumor has it. They kept playing when it was their turn to get into a lifeboat. They played faithfully until their untimely end, the sweet, soft sounds echoing off the unforgiving waters.

This April marked 106 years since the Titanic sank into the Atlantic, killing well over 1,000 passengers. Those musicians have mystified historians for the past century. What was going on in their minds? How could they keep playing in the face of certain death?

FAITHFULNESS IN THE FACE OF FUTILITY?

In the account of their last hours, we see a picture of faithfulness in the midst of seeming futility. So many times, we find ourselves in dim and seemingly hopeless situations. We might not aboard a ship sinking into frozen waters, but our hearts sink from the loss of a loved one, a battle with cancer, or feeling the weight of our bodies getting older and falling apart. We might not face certain death, but we have witnessed the death of our dreams; the death of what we thought our lives should look like.

Our day-to-day circumstances can feel like waves threatening to drown us in sorrow. The tempest tempts us to look away from our Savior and down into the swirling abyss. Too often we let circumstances take the rudder of our ship, steering us forward instead of into God’s promises.

We are so often faithless. But the good news is that God is faithful in the midst of our faithlessness (2 Tim. 2:13). God is committed to his people and his promises. But how can we be faithful to God in the midst of turmoil and trouble? How can we have an unwavering, unflinching trust in him? God’s Word gives us four ways.

1. ASK AND SEEK

First, the Bible tells us to ask and seek for faithfulness. The Greek word for faithfulness in the Bible literally means “being full of faith.” It means being reliable, steadfast, unwavering, not wishy-washy or fickle. God imparts this gift of faith through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and through the hearing of God’s Word. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (RoM. 10:17).

If we are to be completely dependent on God to open our eyes of faith, our prayer should be, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We should spend time daily reading and preaching the gospel to ourselves because God works in hearts through his Word by the power of his Spirit. God’s Word is our light when we find ourselves in dark, distant waters. His Spirit will be our bravery when everything is falling apart.

2. REMEMBER AND REMIND

The second way the Bible tells us to foster faithfulness is simply by remembering. When we reflect on what God has done in our lives, we can say, "The Lord’s loving-kindnesses indeed never cease; for his compassions never fail; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness" (Lam. 3:22-23).

The tossing waves won’t be so threatening when we know our God is bigger than the oceans. Our circumstances will seem trivial in light of eternity. Let’s choose to remember how God has been faithful, and let those memories embolden us to keep playing a beautiful tune to the glory of God in the midst of trouble and travail.

Not only do we need to remind ourselves what God has done, but we need to remind others of his faithfulness. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:12-13).

Telling others what God has done in our lives protects them from the enemy’s lies and from doubting God’s promises. We need to hear stories of God’s faithfulness daily, and so do our brothers and sisters. Like the eight musicians who played their way into their icy graves, we need others to stand with us, playing the song of God’s faithfulness into the long, cold night.

3. SURRENDER AND ABIDE

Third, the Bible tells us we can foster faithfulness by surrendering and abiding. The fruit of faithfulness is not the fruit of our works, but the result of the Spirit’s work in us. If you are in Christ, you are like clay in the potter’s hands. He is the one molding and shaping you in his image. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

When we abide, or remain in unbroken relationship with God, seeking to know him, to be like him, and to surrender to his work in our lives, we will bear the fruit of faithfulness in due time. But we can only do this by God’s keeping power.

We can take comfort that God is steadfast in his commitment to sustaining us. The Lord “will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” (1 Cor. 1:8-9).

4. REPENT AND OBEY

When the Titanic hit the gargantuan iceberg that doomed the “unsinkable ship,” most of the passengers were asleep because it was midnight. We too fall asleep. We get comfortable and lose the urgency in following Jesus. We give our allegiance to the idols of comfort, control, approval, or power.

Let’s heed this stark warning Jesus gave to the church in Sardis: “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you” (Rev. 3:2-3).

Jesus’ words here are startling and might even seem harsh. But when he called his people to follow him, he told them to take up their cross—to die to themselves—daily. Let’s search our hearts and ask the Lord to show us the sins we cling to. If we find we have been faithless, let’s repent and turn back to following Christ with all our might in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We can know God’s grace is sufficient and his power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). We can be confident that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Whichever comes first, Christ’s return or our last breath, let us be found faithful, by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s power. Let’s be on our guard, daily repenting from sin.

FINDING CALM AMONG THE STORM

As the Titanic disappeared into the dark waters, there was a faithfulness amidst the chaos and dread. Eight musicians played a lively tune as they met their earthly deaths.

In this world, we will have trials and tribulation but let’s be found living faithfully to the glory of God. May our lives be a startlingly beautiful, hopeful harmony resounding in the ears of the world around us.

When the storms of life come, let’s play our song all the louder, clinging to God’s promises. Let’s live lives that burn brighter by the day instead of sinking into the night. Let’s press forward by God’s grace power until we hear those sweet words from our Lord: “Well done, good, and faithful servant … enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).

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Delilah Pugsley is a wife, friend, sister, daughter and a Christ-follower serving in a church plant in Mid-Missouri. She writes on her blog https://www.graceinreallife.com, and you can reach her at delilahpugsley@gmail.com.

The Missing Component in Most Discipleship Strategies

Forget all the discipleship books you’ve read. Forget all the conferences you’ve attended and blueprints you’ve adopted. None of them matter. Not really.

What matters is how Jesus made disciples. So how did he do it? What was his strategy?

At first glance, it might appear that Jesus didn’t have a strategy. His strategy “is so unassuming and silent that it is unnoticed by the hurried churchman,” writes Robert Coleman in his classic The Master Plan of Evangelism.

Yes, Jesus had a strategy for making disciples. And “when his plan is reflected on, the basic philosophy is so different from that of the modern church that its implications are nothing less than revolutionary,” says Coleman.

So what was Jesus’ plan for making disciples?

JESUS’ STRATEGY FOR MAKING DISCIPLES

“[Jesus’] concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would follow,” writes Coleman.

People were Jesus’ strategy. And they still are today.

Jesus discipled people in different audience sizes: the crowd (25-5,000 people), the group (the 12 disciples), the core (Peter, James, and John), and the one (one-on-one encounters; i.e. – the woman at the well).

Let’s look at what Jesus did in each of these settings:

1. The crowd: Jesus often taught crowds of people that included believers and unbelievers. Jesus did not repeatedly address one specific crowd but a variety of crowds in the towns he traveled through.

2. The small group: This is where Jesus spent the majority of his ministry. After spending all night in prayer, he chose twelve men to be with him, become like him, and then imitate what he did. These are the men he entrusted with the future of the church.

3. The core group: In the most intimate moments of Jesus’ ministry, such as the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-13; Mark 9:1-13), he pulled aside Peter, James, and John to get an even closer glimpse at the kind of disciples he was calling them to be. Jesus knew he was entrusting the church to his disciples, and that these men would become pillars of it.

4. The one: The Gospels record many encounters between Jesus and one man or one woman. These one-on-one encounters were infrequent and focused; we don’t see Jesus having a follow-up conversation with those he discipled this way, and their conversations were typically centered on a particular issue.

Of these four components, Jesus gave the majority of his life to the community (his twelve disciples) and the core group (Peter, James, and John).

Now let’s turn to the church as we know it today and see how each of these components is incorporated into its discipleship strategy. Of course—these are generalizations—but I think this captures the norm in many American churches:

1. The crowd (25-5,000 people): Churches understand the corporate gathering. We disciple our crowds in weekend services, mid-week services, and Bible studies. In many churches, the crowd setting is viewed as the primary avenue for discipling.

2. The small group (12 people): Churches get this too, for the most part. Some miss this. Discipling the group takes places through Sunday school classes, community groups, small groups, life groups, discipleship groups, and variant kinds of study/social gatherings. The emphasis changes from church to church, but almost every church puts at least some emphasis on getting its people into smaller, more manageable groups to practice centering our lives on the gospel together and loving one another.

3. The core group (3-5 people): Churches have a variety of ways a small, more intimate group gather, study, and fellowship together. Churches discipling groups of this size do so through things means like weekly meetings, discipleship/study groups, prayer groups, accountability groups, pastoral internships or residences. These typically reflect single-gendered groups of three-to-five that meet for a fixed time with the purpose of applying the gospel practically to life, typically with the goal of multiplying.

4. The one (1 person): Discipling the one takes place in environments like coffee shop conversations, pastoral meetings, or focused mentoring. Much of ministry to one takes place face-to-face. Some of this type of ministry happens digitally, through phone calls, emails, texts, Skype, etc. Interestingly, for many, this seems to be the area of discipleship they think they need to spiritually flourish.

MISSING THE CORE COMPONENT OF DISCIPLESHIP

Churches get Sunday services. Churches often get small groups. We even get personal, one-on-one mentoring and pastoral conversations. But for some reason, many churches don’t offer anything to serve the most intensive component of Jesus’ discipleship strategy. Monumental moments with the disciples in the gospels take place—not with the many—but with the few. The core group is the missing component in most discipleship strategies.

“Jesus, it must be remembered, restricted nine-tenths of his ministry to twelve Jews,” writes Eugene Peterson.[1] Three of those twelve Jews were Peter, James, and John. These three men would have observed more than the others what Jesus said, did, and taught during the three years they followed him. While Jesus spent nine-tenths of his time with the twelve, he spent concentrated time with these three—his core group.

Peter, James, and John were present with Jesus during some of the most intense moments of his ministry and struggle, no doubt because Jesus was preparing them for their leadership roles in his soon-to-be church. Robby Gallaty notes there are at least five times where we see this in the Gospels:

1. At the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29).

2. At the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead (Mark 5:37).

3. On the mount of transfiguration with Jesus (Mark 9:2).

4. At the Olivet Discourse, when Jesus explained the end-time events (Mark 13:3).

5. With Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, just prior to his trial and crucifixion (Matt. 26:37).[2]

There can be no doubt that Jesus was intentional about his decision to include these same three men at each of these events. Nothing about Jesus’ discipleship strategy was left to chance, the church was his plan A—the only plan he made. He brought Peter, James, and John alongside him in these moments for a specific purpose, and that purpose served the future leadership of the church.

JESUS IS PAR FOR THE COURSE

So what does Jesus’ core group teach us? At the very least, we can say that Jesus discipleship methods are the example par excellence in content and context. In discipleship, Jesus’ way of walking closely with these three is par for the course of our lives. We should model his content and context; the content of Jesus’ discipleship is the Word of God, reflected in the Old and New Testaments which Jesus shows spoke of him (cf. Luke 24:44); the context of his discipleship methods were everyday relationships as he moved among the crowd, the twelve, the core group, and individuals.

We cannot overlook the content and the context of Jesus’ disciple-making strategy. These two elements work together to form men and women into followers. Therefore, we cannot embrace the content of Jesus’ teaching apart from the context of his teaching and expect the same results. We wouldn’t come to the table with just a recipe and expect to get a meal without bringing ingredients and doing some cooking.

Elton Trueblood noted the real problem facing the church back in the twentieth century:

Perhaps the single greatest weakness of the contemporary Christian church is that millions of supposed members are not really involved at all, and what is worse, do not think it strange that they are not. As soon as we recognize Christ’s intention to make his church a militant company, we understood at once that the conventional arrangement cannot suffice. There is no real chance of victory in a campaign if 90 percent of the soldiers are untrained and uninvolved, but that is exactly where we stand now.[3]

Unfortunately, this is exactly what the American church into the twenty-first century has been witnessing: a sifting of men, women, and children loosely affiliated with Christianity as the cultural winds have shifted from a Judeo-Christian worldview to a secular, post-Christendom one. With so many untrained or uninvolved, how does the church march forward in the shifting culture?

IT’S TIME TO BUILD AN ARMY

Before ascending to his seat of power in heaven, Jesus said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt. 28:19). Let’s identify the missing components in our discipleship and start making Jesus’ last words our first work—in our lives, in our homes, and in our churches.

And let’s start with making disciples out of the disengaged and disenfranchised within our ranks. The best way to do this is to round them up into core groups (you can call them D-Groups, DNA Groups, or Fight Clubs) of three to five men or women and enter into an intentional time of accelerated spiritual growth, for the purpose of multiplying each of the members into disciple-makers in the same way.

God’s kingdom will advance with or without us. If we want to be a part of its advancement, we must train soldiers. But we must start now.

[1]Eugene Peterson, Travelling Light: Reflections on the Free Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1982), 182.

[2] Robby Gallaty, Rediscovering Discipleship: Making Jesus’ Final Words Our First Work (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 143.

[3] Elton Trueblood, The Best of Elton Trueblood: An Anthology (Kirkwood, MO: Impact Books, 1979), 34.

Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of three, and the Managing Web Editor at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.

Boaz and the Power of Power

According to traditional interpretations, when Boaz sets foot in the story, readers breathe a sigh of relief and exchange knowing glances. We have met the hero. Let the romance begin! His arrival awakens hope that Ruth’s fortunes are about to change for the better. It isn’t uncommon to hear contemporary single women say, “I’m waiting for my Boaz.” But relegating Boaz to a romantic figure not only downsizes him and cheats him of the enormous credit he actually deserves; it also distracts us from the truly powerful role he takes and the deep gospel wisdom his story contains. For far too long, we’ve been cheating Boaz by caricaturing him as “the guy who gets the girl.”

Furthermore, that portrayal raises grave questions about his character. What kind of egregious abuse of power is involved when the owner of the field eyes a female gleaner with romantic motives? How will he dishonor his family by bringing home a bride who lacks social or economic advantages and, worse, is barren? Besides, if Boaz had marriage in mind, what was the hold-up? Why didn’t he at least send her home with his assurance that neither she nor Naomi would ever have to worry about hunger again? Instead, Ruth continues slaving in the hot sun for the entire harvest season.

In fairness to Boaz, the dissonance between the romantic version and the narrator’s portrayal of a man surely means Boaz deserves a closer look. We learn he is an older man of Naomi’s generation when he addresses Ruth as “my daughter” (2:8; 3:10, 11), just as Naomi addresses her (1:11, 12, 13; 2:2, 8, 22; 3:1, 16, 18). The genealogy at the end of the story reveals Boaz is Israel’s native son, born to a prominent family in the leading tribe of Judah. His grandfather Nahshon was the commanding general of the tribe of Judah and the third man in rank after Moses and Aaron. Through Obed, the son Boaz fathers by Ruth, Boaz becomes the great-grandfather of King David, the royal line that ultimately leads to Jesus. Talk about pedigree!

At their first meeting, Ruth knows nothing about the landowner in whose field she comes to glean. So her proposals to this daunting older landowner included a high degree of apprehension. International Justice Mission engages countless legal battles globally to counteract the abuse of widows when tribal strong- men seize their property, depriving widows of their only means of sustaining their families.5 That scenario plays over repeatedly in today’s world. It was the kind of danger Ruth faced.

THE PIVOTAL MOMENT

Much is made about the initial encounter between Ruth and Boaz in Boaz’s barley field. Without question, this meeting is the pivotal moment in the story. But no one could know ahead of time that things would turn out well. Good stories have tension. One of the key questions posed by the presence of Boaz is, how will this impressive man use his power and privilege? For starters, the enormous social and cultural disparity between them could not be more pronounced. They are polar opposites. He holds all the advantages.

The disadvantages belong to Ruth. Throughout human history and right up to the present, the differences between them are the makings of some of the most horrific violations of human rights. Only consider the explosive combinations: male and female, rich and poor, young and old, Jew and gentile, native-born and immigrant, powerful and powerless, valued and discarded. Anyone watching this nitroglycerin mixture would be expecting something terrible to happen, especially when her request implies criticism of how he’s managing his field.

But Boaz’s response to her request to glean in territory that was off-limits to gleaners is a show-stopper. He was not offended, although obviously taken aback. Her perspective on Mosaic law was eye-opening to him. Not only does he listen and grant her request, but he exceeds it with evident determination that nothing must prevent her from succeeding. He even serves her a meal. How countercultural is that?!

A MAN AHEAD OF HIS TIME

We must not miss the earth-shaking implications of his response. Boaz has just been introduced as a man who needs no improvement. In the eyes of the culture (and also of the narrator) he is golden. And yet, his exchanges with Ruth are eye-opening to him. He realizes what she is trying to do. Her perspective sheds new light on a business he has been running for years.

It is one thing for notable theologians such as John Calvin or Jerome to engage in conversation with noble women who are wealthy patrons. It is quite another for a man of Boaz’s stature to engage in conversation with a woman who culturally speaking is beneath him. He is bridging a cavernous gap. Yet, as the story demonstrates, and as he acknowledges, she is in every sense his match. The way he honors her bears that out and goes against the way life typically works in this world.

What if Boaz had dismissed, ignored, rebuked, or even abused her for violating social boundaries? How would the rest of the story have played out? Ruth and Naomi would have lived a hand-to-mouth existence. Naomi would not have revived. It never would have entered her mind to send Ruth to Boaz in hopes of finding shelter. Ruth wouldn’t have attempted to rescue the legacy of Elimelech. His land would have remained fallow until later—perhaps after Naomi’s death. The elders and villagers wouldn’t have witnessed this stellar man becoming even greater by making unrequired, extraordinary sacrifices for Elimelech’s sake. There would be no marriage and no Obed.

Boaz’s response raises a huge issue for Christians. One of the biggest obstacles to a deepening walk with God is resistance to rethinking our beliefs, listening to others, learning, and changing. All through the Bible, God is repeatedly asking some of the people who walked with him the longest to be willing to be wrong and to learn and grow. Sometimes walking with God means learning truth requires means rethinking your entire life. Abraham’s journey with God began in earnest when he was seventy-five—an age when people have a right to be settled in their ways. Abraham had to change, and with each change he grew deeper in his faith. More recently, after decades of ministry, a pastor began to realize he had gotten some things wrong. When one of his parishioners questioned what was happening, the pastor replied, “You gotta give me room to grow.” Room to grow and the courage to change— that reflects what happened to Boaz.

Boaz openly violates cultural expectations in his interactions with Ruth. Instead of showcasing patriarchal standards of masculinity, Boaz subverts them. He bucks the system. He is not held captive to dominant definitions of masculinity. He is free of such expectations and big enough to do the right thing, even when it costs him. In his interactions with this foreign newcomer, Boaz accepts her influence and in doing so discovers room to grow.

Boaz was a man ahead of his time. In the workplace today, equal pay for women remains an unmet goal. Boaz went beyond equality. So Ruth’s take-home pay was as much as fifteen to thirty times what a male harvester would pocket for a day of labor. Boaz pursued the spirit of God’s law—to seek justice for the poor and to feed them.

BOAZ AND THE POWER OF POWER

When it came to the obligations of the kinsman-redeemer and levirate laws, Boaz enjoys loopholes that would make a defense attorney salivate. He isn’t Elimelech’s nearest relative, nor is he Elimelech’s blood brother. Legally, he is beyond the demands of the law. Furthermore, Ruth’s combination of the two laws is highly irregular, especially in Naomi’s case, where the statute of limitations had expired. So when Boaz goes to Bethlehem to press the nearer kinsman-redeemer to purchase land he is likely to inherit anyway and to marry Ruth to produce a male heir for Elimelech, he’s pressing his case beyond the requirements of the law. It raises the question, how did Boaz get away with this?

Boaz’s self-appointed advocacy for Naomi on Ruth’s behalf demonstrates how radically out of step he is with his culture. At the male-dominated seat of government, Boaz gives women a legal voice. He assumes Naomi has property rights and insists that purchasing her land is an urgent matter. If that wasn't surprising enough, he bends the law to require the kinsman-redeemer to fulfill the levirate law too in lieu of a blood brother.

He also bends the law emphatically toward women’s rights—a concept unheard of in ancient times but a pressing contemporary global issue today. And Boaz, a heavyweight among Bethlehem leaders, proves unstoppable. Not only does he push through everything Ruth requested, he depletes his own estate to rescue Elimelech, just as he vowed he would. The fact that not one man attempts to oppose him signifies just how powerful Boaz was.

Boaz shows how male power and privilege can become a powerful force for good. He voluntarily makes extraordinary sacrifices beyond what the law requires. His story also refutes the misguided adage that the rise of women comes at a cost for men. The rise of Ruth influenced Boaz to become a better man—one of the best men in all of Scripture.

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Content taken from Finding God in the Margins: The Book of Ruth by Carolyn Custis James , ©2018. Used by permission of Lexham Press, Bellingham, Washington, LexhamPress.com.

Carolyn Custis James is an award-winning author and international speaker. She blogs at www.carolyncustisjames.com, as a Leading Voice at MissioAlliance, and at Huffington Post, is an adjunct faculty member at Biblical Theological Seminary, and a consulting editor for Zondervan's Exegetical Commentary Series on the New Testament. Her books include Malestrom―Manhood Swept into the Currents of a Changing World, Half the Church―Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women, and The Gospel of Ruth―Loving God Enough to Break the Rules. She speaks regularly at church conferences, colleges, and other Christian organizations and is a visiting lecturer at theological seminaries. 

Sermons Aren't Popcorn: Tips for Being a Good Listener to God's Word

We do it every week. We grab our coffee, greet some friends, sing some songs, and then sit down to listen to a sermon. Some of us Bible nerds even do it more than once a week through podcasts. We know sermon listening is good for us and part of the Christian life. We have been inspired, challenged, bored, distracted, convicted, and entertained by sermons. So we keep coming back for more.

But we don’t often stop to think about how to listen to a sermon.

There is a way to glorify God most in how we go about listening to a sermon, whether in person or online. Here are five tips to help us be sermon listeners and not just sermon consumers.

1. PREPARE YOUR HEART

Let’s face it. Between checking one more text, Instagramming our coffee, or scrambling to get the kids checked-in, much of the time we’re not even remotely prepared to take in a half hour or hour-long sermon.

Before giving into the Sunday morning frenzy, we must remember that we’re not at church for the sake of routine, but because we really believe the Creator of the universe loves us and wants to speak to us. As you find your seat or pew, take a deep breath, exhale everything on your mind, and ask the Lord to speak to you. A simple prayer, “Jesus you are here, I love you, I want to hear from you, speak to me,” can go miles in preparing your heart.

Leave your phone in the car if at all possible. Use a physical Bible and paper journal to keep you from digital distractions. Spend some time praying before the gathering if you can. Pray for the preacher, the church, potential visitors, and for yourself.

Come prepared to hear the sermon as a member of the church, not just a consumer of its services.

2. ASK BETTER QUESTIONS

How many of us come away from a gathering and we judge the whole experience like we would the latest Marvel installment? "How did you like the sermon?" "What did you think of the music?” “Was the pastor’s Iron Man or Ant-Man example funnier?”

The point of gathering with the saints and sitting under biblical preaching is not for us to judge the Word, but for the Word to judge us. Responding to God’s Word the same way we respond to movies will train us to treat it like cheap entertainment. We are called to be disciples, not consumers. Consumers come, take, and leave; disciples come, see, and go and tell.

Let me suggest three questions to ask after listening to a sermon, either to yourself or someone else.

What did God say to you? Sometimes God speaks through the sermon, prayer, communion, music, benediction, or a moment of silence. He loves to speak to his people. Let’s listen and ask one another how we’re hearing God through sermons. This makes it less about the jokes, antics of the preacher, personality or style, and more about hearing from God—which is the point! And God is faithful to speak through his Word even in the less “entertaining” or poorly articulated sermons because his Word does not come back void (Is. 55:10-11)!

How is God calling you to respond? In Hebrew, the word “hear,” or shema, means “listen & obey” (cf. Deut. 6:3, 4). The American version of listening is fine with just listening, even listening and responding enthusiastically to what has been said, but with no real change, obedience, repentance or transformation. We love to say, “Oh man, that was such a convicting message!” and then go on with our day as if we never heard it at all.

I’m afraid too many of us are content with just listening—listening that doesn’t result in heart change or genuine response. Jesus rebuked this kind of listening, calling it having “ears but never hearing” (Matt. 13:13). And in one of the most terrifying passages of the Bible, Jesus says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46).

Biblical hearing leads to biblical action. After listening to a sermon, we should ask ourselves how God is calling us to respond. Is he telling me to stop doing something? To start doing something? To think something different? To give something away? Questions like these bring sermon listening to life.

Who could you share this truth with? Sermon listening shouldn’t end with us. God invites us into a life of community and mission; a life of loving him and loving others. After all, faith comes by hearing the gospel, and hearing the gospel comes through the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). Others need to hear the Word we have heard!

Whether you are building someone else up or you have someone else help you in responding to the sermon, sharing what God speaks to us and how we will respond is one of the great joys of being the church! As you reflect on the preaching you’ve sat under, ask yourself who you could share with.

3. FIGHT ENEMIES OF LEARNING

Pride, stubbornness, and a lack of teachability are enemies of listening and responding to a sermon. That’s why Hebrews 3:15 says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” We can nitpick a sermons’ delivery, critique the personality of the preacher, pridefully boast that we already have heard this text before, or use the time to think through all the ways we would teach Scripture differently. These are all walls in front of our hearts that will block the Word of God.

This hurts us and hurts the church. Pride and stubbornness are not badges of honor in the Kingdom of God; they are not biblical virtues and we ought to fear them. Pray for humility and teachability. Ask the Lord to keep you from stubbornness. Assume the sermon application does actually apply to you.

I’m not saying to mindlessly embrace everything taught, but I am saying to prayerfully join a gospel-centered church, one that preaches the full-counsel of Scripture, and then submit to that teaching. There will be times where the application does not apply directly to you, or when your pastor was off on the text. But if applying the Word you heard is the rule—and not the exception—the more likely you will wrestle with your sin rather than scapegoating the preaching (Heb. 4:12). Pursue humility and default to submitting to the preached Word.

4. PRAYERFULLY PARTICIPATE WHEN TRUTH IS REPEATED

If you have been part of a church for a long time, you will inevitably begin to hear stories, illustrations, and applications repeated over and over. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Scripture repeats personal testimonies, commands, and evidence of God’s work and calls us to remember what God has done in the past.

As consumers, we want every sermon or gathering to seem new, fresh, or different. But the point is not to be entertained by something new, it’s to be transformed by something eternal. The next time you begin to think, I’ve heard this before, or I know where they are going with this, lean into prayer instead. Ask the Lord, “Why are you having me hear this again? What do I need to remember?” And pray for those in the room that may have never heard that particular point.

5. PODCAST SERMONS OCCASIONALLY AND RE-LISTEN REGULARLY 

The number and accessibility of podcasts, with godly men rightly exegeting the Word of God, is a gift of grace. But like any good thing, too much of it can be a bad thing. For the sermon-podcast junkies out there: be careful. You can listen to so many podcasts that you train your mind to hear a sermon with no response. Sermons can become means of entertainment instead of transformation.

We can also begin to build an imaginary or ideal preacher that doesn’t exist, making us unable to enjoy our local preacher because he’s not as funny as Matt Chandler, as astute as Tim Keller, or as passionate as Francis Chan. But that’s good! Your local church pastor is the one God gave you to hear from most regularly, and God intends you to hear his truth through their personality.

Be wary of listening to sermons so much that they become mere entertainment. Sermons are not popcorn. God has sovereignly placed you in a local congregation, so enjoy and appreciate your local preacher instead of binging sermon podcasts. Consider re-listening to a sermon that has spoken to you deeply. Reflect on it. Sermons are to be savored.

LET’S BE GOOD LISTENERS

Hearing God’s Word preached is a privilege. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Is. 52:7).

Let’s be good listeners of God’s Word, reveling in the beauty of the gospel and giving thanks for those who teach it.

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Jake Chambers is the husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to Ezra, Roseanna, Jaya and Gwen. He is passionate about Jesus and his church and has spent the last decade both leading a church plant in San Diego, CA and helping others plant churches. He is currently helping create a church planting strategy for Resurrection Church in Tacoma, WA and hopes to plant a church in his hometown of Gig Harbor, WA in the future. Preach, pray, lead, listen, write and recreate are the 6 ways that God has specifically called Jake to enjoy his presence and serve his church locally and globally.

Simplicity for the Sake of the Gospel

Simplicity. It’s one of our obsessions. Now that magazines, consultants, and television shows all have our attention, we’re eager to learn how to pare down to what really matters.

We feel glutted—overstuffed on overabundance. We are sick of our calendars and Amazon shopping carts being jammed full with far more than we need. Maybe less is more, we think.

A decluttered entryway. Leisurely evenings. A reduced pace of life. We’re searching for the simple life.

But to what end? What is it we’re after? What will fill the void created by our new, simple lives?

‘JUST BE THERE. THEY WILL COME.’

When my husband and I sensed God calling us to plant a church in our new neighborhood, the man we consider our spiritual father had some wise words for us.

“Do not get busy,” he said. “If you want to minister to your neighbors and your community, you need to be home. Don’t make a bunch of commitments. Just be there. They will come.”

I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t imagine our new neighbors stopping by and coming in for a while. And for months, they didn’t. For months our house was pretty quiet. Except for the occasional hello at the end of the driveway, we didn’t really know anyone.

Then spring came. We all emerged from our houses into the sunshine. Chats in the cul-de-sac turned into casual meals. Long talks at the mailbox rolled into afternoons on the front lawn. We threw a block party and invited all the houses up and down the street. Most of them came and stayed late.

From those informal moments grew regular gatherings, coffee, book club, frequent backyard cookouts. Our daughters became everyone’s pet sitters and babysitters. As we welcomed others in, they welcomed us into their foyers, kitchens, and lives.

Our mentor was right: we were just there, and they came.

SIMPLICITY GIVES BIRTH TO COMMUNITY

We carried this conviction to just be there into our church plant. Along with a handful of like-minded families, we wondered if God was asking us to start something simple—a community that loves Jesus, believes in the power of the gospel, and wants to just be there for our neighbors—and for whatever the Lord might want to do among them.

Church met in our living room on Friday nights. Kids spilled out into the front yard and the cul-de-sac. Cars lined the streets. Our patio was packed with people. Neighbors asked, “What are you doing in there?”

“Church!” we said. “You wanna come?”

Some did.

We were just there, and they came.

CREATED FOR COMMUNITY

We instinctively know it is not good for us to be alone (Gen. 2:18). We were created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26) who himself lives in the intimate community of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We long for—and need—deep relationships with those who are near.

Like many neighborhoods in the United States, mine is host to an array of activities, more than we could ever do in one lifetime. We have plenty to keep us busy: PTA meetings, trips to the gym, music recitals, and tennis matches, all of which are easy to attend without actually connecting with another person.

We tend to be physically present, but relationally absent. Our overstuffed schedules keep us moving at a pace that prohibits more than a reflexive wave or nod of the head. We long for more, but the buffet of options vying for our time makes it tough to connect.

And so, when someone is just there—when someone holds still and makes time to linger—we’re moved. We’re drawn in. We want more.

LOVED BY THE GOD WHO IS THERE

We’re attracted to Immanuel—God with us. We love, and feel loved by, the God who is there. He knows this; he made us this way. Throughout time, he has reminded us he is there.

• When Joshua took over leadership of Israel from Moses, God said to him, “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you … do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:5, 9).
• Though the prophet Isaiah God comforted Israel, "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Is. 41:10).
• In oft-repeated Psalm 23, David said to the Lord, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Ps. 23:4).
• Jesus’ very last words to his disciples before ascending into heaven were, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
• God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).

When we are just there, we reflect our Savior, who moved from heaven to earth to be with us (Phil. 2:5-11). By simply being there, we can be like Jesus, who gave up his throne in heaven to be with us. It’s a ministry of presence and, in this frenetic world, it’s a holy calling.

SIMPLICITY FOR THE SAKE OF THE GOSPEL

We Christ-followers don’t seek and offer simplicity for the same reason as magazines, HGTV, or Marie Kondo. We’re not offering up a Zen lifestyle or more time to perfect our hobbies. We pursue simplicity for the sake of the gospel. In offering our presence, we offer God’s presence to others.

Just being there is one of the best gifts we can give our neighbors who don’t yet know the intimacy and unconditional love of Jesus Christ. We are God’s temple and God dwells in us (1 Cor. 3:16). When we sit in the rocking chairs on our front porch with our neighbors, so does Jesus. When we spend enough time talking on the driveway and earn the privilege to hear of our neighbor’s cancer diagnosis, Jesus is there.

And just being there is one of the best gifts we can give to our brothers and sisters in Christ, too. A simple pace of life is an act of ministry in our church. Just being there—avoiding the temptation to fill our evenings with commitments, disciplining ourselves to be free and available to our church family—is ministry.

We isolate ourselves when we pursue a frenetic pace of life. We kill community by glutting ourselves on all the activities culture has to offer—both with the unbeliever and the believer in Christ. When we are too busy to gather, we lose something of the dynamic nature the God who is there.

A simple life, a simple schedule creates space for relationships, intimacy, and community. To just be there is to reflect our Savior to the lost and the found. When we are there, Jesus is there.

The world is on to something in its pursuit of the simple life. We all know there’s more to this life. May we, the church, excel in paring down and seeking the simple life. May we declutter our schedules and make space for one another. May we fill the void left by simplicity with community. May our simple lives bring God glory and loves to our neighbors. And may that community be one that lifts high the name of Jesus.

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Jen Oshman is a wife and mom to four daughters and has served as a missionary for 17 years on three continents. She currently resides in Colorado where she and her husband serve with Pioneers International, and she encourages her church-planting husband at Redemption Parker. Her passion is leading women to a deeper faith and fostering a biblical worldview. She writes at www.jenoshman.com.

Immigration: What's a Christian to Think?

Nearly everyone seems to agree that we have an immigration problem in the United States. The exact nature of the problem, though, is heatedly disputed.

DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES

From one perspective, our nation is facing an unprecedented invasion of  “illegal aliens,” who violate our laws upon entry and then become a drain on social services and public education systems, depress wages and displace native-born American workers, and then contribute to increases in poverty, crime rates, and even terrorism.

A campaign flier for candidates for the Carpentersville, Illinois, city council some years ago expresses the frustrations of many Americans:

• Are you tired of waiting to pay for your groceries while Illegal Aliens pay with food stamps and then go outside and get in a $40,000 car?
• Are you tired of paying taxes when Illegal Aliens pay NONE!
• Are you tired of reading that another Illegal Alien was arrested for drug dealing?
• Are you tired of having to punch 1 for English?
• Are you tired of seeing multiple families in our homes?
• Are you tired of not being able to use Carpenter Park on the weekend, because it is overrun by Illegal Aliens?
• Are you tired of seeing the Mexican Flag flown above our Flag?

Others see the current state of immigration as a problem for very different reasons. They see millions of people who have, usually for economic reasons, accepted displacement from their home countries to pursue a better life for themselves and their families in the United States, just as generations of immigrants have done before them.

Tragically, from this perspective, these people are not welcomed into our society but are scapegoated and forced into a shadowy existence by broken immigration laws, even though they contribute to our nation’s economy by performing a host of jobs, most of which few native-born Americans would be willing to do. Undocumented immigrant Elvira Arellano spent a year living inside a Methodist church in Chicago in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to avoid deportation that would separate her from her eight-year-old, US-citizen son. She became something of a spokesperson for this perspective:

Out of fear and hatred of an enemy you cannot find you have set out to destroy our lives and our families. As you knocked on my door, you are knocking on thousands of doors, ripping mothers and fathers away from their terrified children. You have a list of . . . Social Security no-match numbers, and you are following that list as if we were terrorists and criminals instead of workers with families. You are denying us work and the seniority and benefits we have earned, and you are taking the property we have saved for and bought.

From either of these perspectives, the immigration dilemma seems frustratingly simple. As both sides rail against the other, and against the government, where Congress has proposed competing bills but has yet to pass into law any substantial changes in immigration policy, we are left with the status quo—essentially the same status quo we faced a decade ago when we wrote the first edition of this book: an estimated eleven million people with no valid immigration status living and, usually, working in the United States. After the presidential campaign of 2016, in which immigration became a central issue, the debate over how to respond to immigrants in the country illegally seems more polarized than ever.

IMMIGRATION: SIMPLY COMPLEX

Since the first edition of Welcoming the Stranger, another category of “stranger” has become particularly controversial: refugees, who have long come to the United States with legal status at the invitation of our federal government, have joined immigrants without legal status as a uniquely suspect category of “foreigner” in the minds of many Americans.

As with the debate over illegal immigration, the refugee debate seems frustratingly simple to those on either side: to some, it is foolhardy to admit anyone into our country from nations plagued by terrorism, lest we welcome terrorists themselves. To others, welcoming the persecuted and oppressed is an unqualified good, integral to our national character. The two sides have a hard time understanding the other, as evidenced by harsh words shared over social media and even over family dinners and church potlucks.

Less vocal in these immigration debates are the many who suspect that immigration is actually a complicated, nuanced issue. Partisans of a particular policy position are apt to view the issue as very simple—right versus wrong, us versus them.

Yet, as political scientist Amy Black notes, it is these “easy” issues that often prove the most complex and the hardest to resolve since our presumptions keep us from hearing the other side. Within this debate, a growing middle recognizes this is not a simple issue. They want a more thoughtful, informed understanding of the issues than offered by the two-minute screaming matches by advocates of differing perspectives on cable news channels and talk radio.

WHAT'S A CHRISTIAN TO THINK?

Those of us who seek to follow Christ, in particular, face a challenge in sorting through the rhetoric to understand how we can reflect God’s justice as well as his love and compassion in designing a national immigration policy, and in the ways we relate individually to the immigrants in our communities. On first glance at the issue, we recognize that immigrants are people made in God’s image who should be treated with respect; at the same time, we believe God has instituted the government and the laws that it puts into place for a reason, and that as Christians we are generally bound to submit to the rule of law. Many are left conflicted, unsure of what our faith requires of us on this pressing issue.

Through the work of World Relief, the Christian ministry where we both work that serves refugees and other immigrants throughout the United States, we might find ourselves on a regular basis in a church, speaking with people about issues of immigration and citizenship, or in a congressperson’s office, talking with staffers about the need to fix the immigration system. Sometimes we speak in Spanish or with translation in Lithuanian, Arabic, or Cantonese to an audience of immigrants eager to naturalize or fearful of what a newly announced immigration-enforcement policy will mean for them and their families. Other times we are speaking in front of a predominantly nonimmigrant church group, answering questions about immigration policy. When we are in front of an audience of nonimmigrant evangelicals or before congressional staffers who are helping our political leaders form immigration policy, we find that many are asking the same questions we have often asked ourselves. This book seeks to address some of the most common questions and misconceptions that we and other Christians have wrestled with as we consider the immigration “problem.”

This book is written out of our own personal experiences with this dilemma, tracing through much of the investigation our own questions have led us to in seeking to understand immigration policy—and, more important, immigrants themselves—through the lens of our faith. While it would be disingenuous to pretend that we do not have strong opinions about how we (as individuals, as the church, and as a society) should approach this issue, our foremost interest is not to convince you of the virtue of any particular piece of legislation. Rather, we hope this book will encourage our sisters and brothers to take a step back from the rhetoric and combine a basic understanding of how immigration works, and has worked in the United States, we do not believe there is one Christian prescription to solve the immigration issue (though there may be decidedly un-Christian ways to view the issue), and there is plenty of space within the church for charitable disagreement on issues such as this.

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Taken from Welcoming the Stranger by Matthew Soerens, Jenny Yang, and Leith Anderson. Copyright (c) 2018 by Matthew Soerens, Jenny Yang, and Leith Anderson. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Matthew Soerens serves as the US church training specialist for World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. In that role, he helps local churches and denominations to address issues of immigration from a distinctly biblical perspective.

Jenny Yang is vice president of advocacy and policy for the refugee and immigration program of World Relief in Baltimore, Maryland.

3 Tear-Wrought Lessons on Suffering

If you haven’t experienced pain or sorrow or loss, you’re either young or dead. We’re all faced at some point with the fallenness of our world and brokenness of our own hearts. A parent buries a child, a family is ripped apart by divorce, a spouse is shattered by a diagnosis. It seems we might break under the weight of such pain.

When the pain gets so heavy we don’t think we can bear it, we ask the inevitable question, “Is this worth it?”

Paul has a startling answer to that question in Romans 8:18: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Is this some kind of Christian pep talk? No, Paul is not sharing a limp-wristed inducement, but tear-wrought lessons from his considerable suffering (see 2 Cor. 11:23-28). He shares three lessons we can all learn from as we face a world that’s not as it ought to be.

LESSON 1: SUFFERING HURTS

Paul first acknowledges suffering by calling it suffering. He doesn’t diminish the reality of sorrow and loss and sin. He calls it what it is—suffering. And sometimes considerable suffering, at that.

We often run from or ignore sorrow and disappointment. Or we try to somehow minimize it, numbing our pain. These coping methods won’t really help us cope at all, not in the long run, because we’re running to ourselves to fix our problems instead of running to God. But when we run to God and his Word with our pain, we discover a Father who acknowledges our pain and a Son who experienced it.

God knows our pain. He is not lounging in a La-Z-Boy in heaven while we’re struggling to keep our heads above water. Hebrews 4:15 reminds us “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

When we lose a loved one, when we cry until we can’t cry anymore, when we suffer abuse at the hands of others, when we endure chronic pain, we can run to a Savior who in every way knows what we’re experiencing and sympathizes with us.

Suffering hurts. And Jesus knows it. Run to him and listen as he validates your pain and acknowledges your suffering.

LESSON 2: GLORY HEALS

Paul’s second lesson is that our suffering—considerable as it is—is hardly worth comparing to the weightiness of the glory that is to be. Elsewhere he says that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Light affliction?! Is Paul invalidating his first lesson that our suffering is truly terrible? No. He’s saying that relative to eternal glory with Christ, our afflictions, no matter how unbearable, will seem momentary.

Paul says our glory will not only be eternal, but it will be weighty. This seems like a strange combination of words. We know suffering can be weighty, but glory?

Though it sounds foreign, when we think about the joys of a lifetime of marriage, of raising children from infancy to adulthood, or of deep and long-lasting friendships, the word weighty seems fitting. Or consider even a moment of happiness—when your new spouse says “I do,” or you hold your newborn or newly adopted child for the first time or enjoy a meaningful conversation with a close friend. Certainly words like fluffy, light, insignificant, or faint don’t describe these pleasures.

No, the joy we experience in such blessings is real, substantial, significant, and large. Real joy is weighty. And it is precisely the weightiness of such joys that make our grief so weighty. Yet it seems like the weight of pain always outweighs joy, doesn’t it? Can the weight of joy or glory really outweigh the heaviness of our trials, like Paul says?

If a glory this heavy seems impossible, consider this. The same God who provided the joy you’ve experienced with your spouse or parent or child or friendship is the same God who knows what eternal glory awaits you—and he says they can’t be compared! The glory that God has prepared for every one of his children is that heavy.

Eternal joy is greater than our suffering in length of time and in quality. Christian, catch God’s perspective. See that eternal joy is weightier than even our greatest sufferings here and now.

LESSON 3: FAITH HELPS

What is it that makes this eternal, heavenly glory so transcendently, seriously glorious? That it is centered on Christ (Col. 3:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 John 3:2). Admittedly, to the skeptic, this may sound more anticlimactic than floating around on clouds and playing harps. But for anyone who has seriously considered the character of Jesus Christ, and especially for those who have found in Christ the only perfection that will satisfy a truly good God, this resonates. The joy of a consummated relationship with Christ is weightier than any suffering on earth will ever be.

The joy of heaven is not just that there will be "no more death or pain or tears." The joy of heaven is that there is no more sin to keep us from living with and being like Jesus Christ completely and forever. Unhindered and uninterrupted fellowship with Jesus is the greatest joy heaven has to offer.

Suffering will exist, for now, no matter what your worldview. But if you don’t believe in God, then you will just be looking for another solution to the suffering, another way through the suffering.

The eternal glory Paul speaks of will also happen no matter what we think about God. One day this world and our suffering will come to an end, and one day believers in Christ will be enabled to live with him forever. No one can keep this from happening.

Faith in Jesus Christ is not only the means of salvation; it is also the means by which we enjoy salvation’s promises and assurances even now. Faith is the umbilical cord that connects our infant-like perspective on suffering to the nourishment available from a God who knows what it’s like to suffer as we do.

Recognizing the bigness of God, and of his grace through Jesus Christ, will feed our souls in the midst of this momentary suffering by granting us assurance of a glory infinitely weightier than even the most crushing pain.

IS YOUR SUFFERING WORTH IT?

Is your pain and suffering worth it? Is your crippling anxiety and grief worth it?

Yes. Your suffering is truly suffering. Your pain is truly heavy. But if you’re in Christ, you have a Savior who has experienced everything you have and more. He knows exactly how you feel and precisely what you need. He knows your suffocating at the hands of suffering, and he wants you to set your eyes on the eternal weight of glory he’s preparing for you.

May the weighty joy of the Christian faith be yours, now and for all eternity.

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Justin Huffman has pastored in the States for over 15 years, authored the “Daily Devotion” app (iTunes/Android) which now has over half a million downloads, and recently published a book with Day One: Grow: the Command to Ever-Expanding Joy. He has also written articles for For the Church, Servants of Grace, and Fathom Magazine. He blogs at justinhuffman.org.

Believer, Your Leaders Needs Your Prayers

I saw him stretched out on the floor behind the curtain, his face touching the concrete. The worship music blasted through the speakers while the few congregants sang in response. His sermon was ready, but he wondered what difference it made. The church wasn’t growing. He wasn’t paid. He faced pressure from his friends, his staff, and himself.

Can God do anything through me? he wondered.

Gospel ministry is a glorious weight, and every leader needs help holding it up. Paul, recounting the opposition and sufferings he faced, made a desperate plea to the Corinthians: “You must help us by prayer” (2 Cor. 1:11).

It's hard to ask for prayers from the concrete floor, but your ministry leaders have been there. Some might be there now.

They might not ask, so I’m asking on their behalf: Brothers and sisters, pray for your leaders.

THE LORD’S WORK IN THE LORD’S WAY

Francis Schaeffer opens the fourth chapter of No Little People with these lyrics from a song sung during his seminary graduation:

From ivied walls above the town

The prophet’s school is looking down.

And listening to the human din

From marts and streets and homes of men:

As Jesus viewed with yearning deep,

Jerusalem from Olive’s steep,

O, crucified and risen Lord,

Give tongues of fire to preach thy Word.

It’s fitting for a seminary graduation. Leaders want a burning desire to fuel the Word of God coming from their mouths. But it doesn't take long to realize inner desire isn’t enough. The flesh is no help at all (John 6:63). Only the Holy Spirit can spur you on and sustain you at the same time.

The Spirit’s leading of Jesus during his earthly ministry was the model for how he guides all God’s leaders along the same path: suffering, rejection, crucifixion, resurrection.

You must march through the valley of the shadow of death to find the green pastures beside still waters, the place all leaders want to take their people. It’s here, on resurrection’s path, that ministry makes its mark.

Schaeffer understood the difficulty: “Because the world is hard, confronting it without God’s power is an overwhelming prospect. But tongues of fire are not to be had simply for the asking. The New Testament teaches that certain conditions must exist. In short, they come down to this: we must do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way.”

With your expectations, conversations, and suggestions, are you helping your leaders do it God’s way? Or is the pressure to perform so high that they’re tempted to take shortcuts to appease the crowd?

Doing the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way is a treacherous road. Relying on God alone isn’t more comfortable for your leaders than it is for you—but the church depends on their faithfulness.

A PRAYING CHURCH

Who is sufficient for these things? Not peddlers of God’s word, that’s for sure. Trusting one’s ministry to God alone is for sincere men and women who have been commissioned by God, in whose sight they speak in Christ (2 Cor. 2:17). It's a high calling—and a difficult one.

But difficulty and glory are not enemies of God. Jesus said of Paul, "I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). It was foolishness to the world, even as it was the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:25). Paul’s response was not gloom but joy (Phil. 4:10–13).

But Paul knew Christianity was not his personal religion. It was Jesus’ kingdom movement, calling Jew and Gentile alike into a new family. In a family, everyone’s needs are shared. To fight the good fight, Paul knew he needed his family’s help. He needed a praying church.

To do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way, every leader needs a praying church. I've never met a leader that is too encouraged. Gospel leaders do not assume they are sufficient on their own.

It's likely no one is more discouraged about the state of your church than your leaders. You don't have to tell them everything that's wrong. They know and feel much of it already.

The church must realize it fights on spiritual ground. Maybe your leader needs practical tips—but not before they need your prayers. No ministry is more needed, and no ministry more overlooked, than the ministry of prayer.

A SPIRITUAL BATTLE

“Imagine,” Schaeffer said, “the Devil or a demon entering your room right now. You have a sword by your side; so when you see him you rush at him and stab him. But the sword passes straight through and doesn’t faze him! The most awesome modern weapon you could think of could not destroy him. Whenever we do the Lord’s work in the flesh, our strokes ‘pass right through’ because we do not battle earthly forces; the battle is spiritual and requires spiritual weapons.”

The flesh, the world, and the devil conspire against every leader. They need an army of holy warriors who pray with gospel defiance against the enemy, declaring that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).

We cannot take a sword to a demon fight, but that doesn’t mean we have to rely on our fists. Scripture tells us we can put on the armor of God himself (Eph. 6:14-17).  The individual Christian must put it on, but it must be used for the good of those who lead.

The key that upholds it all is prayer: “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18). A personal prayer life keeps God’s armor on the body.

To that end, Paul says, “Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (Eph 6:18-20) .

God’s armor is not just for solo missions. It is for the front-line battle as we stand firm in one Spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the sake of the gospel (Phil. 1:27).

When you pray for your leaders, you are playing no small part in the story of redemption. God uses good soldiers, and he knows every one by name (John 10:3).

MOMENT-BY-MOMENT RELATIONSHIP

Like all Christians, every leader needs a moment-by-moment relationship with God. In our day of professionalized ministry, many assume closeness with God is a given. But talking about God is not the same as walking with God, and the closer you are to ministry, the wider the trap grows. The enemy loves a church leader who treats God as a theory.

Paul fought against theorizing God. He knew the gospel was of first importance (1 Cor. 15:3). Knowing Jesus and him crucified mattered above all (1 Cor. 2:2), walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him was the only life worth living (Col. 1:10).

He also knew to endure to the end, he needed the prayers of his people. So when he wrote to his churches, he asked for prayer to stay faithful (Eph. 6:20), to be delivered (Rom. 15:31, 2 Thess. 3:2), to bear fruit (Col. 4:3, 2 Thess. 3:1).

What Paul wanted most—what every gospel-centered leader wants most—is to serve the Lord with gladness, resist temptation, and do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way. If Paul needed the prayers of his people, don’t your local church leaders need yours?

You can put your leader on the floor, or you can lift them up. Which will you choose?

“Brothers and sisters,” Paul pleaded, “pray for us” (1 Thess. 5:25). Your leaders plead the same.

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David McLemore is the Director of Teaching Ministries at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also works for a large healthcare corporation where he manages an application development department. He is married to Sarah, and they have three sons.

The Best Generosity Story Ever

I don’t think that this will be a huge shock to you, but human beings aren’t naturally generous. If sin causes us to live for ourselves, and it does, then one result of this obsessive self-focus is the effect it has on the way we think about and use our money. For most of us, the thing that drives the vast majority of our joys and sorrows when it comes to money is what it’s doing or not doing for us.

When we think of money, we tend to think first of ourselves: what do I need, what do I want, what dream can this money finance, what would I like to do that I have never done before, etc. I am not suggesting that we are never generous but that, for most of us, when it comes to money, generosity is a snapshot in a long video of self-interest.

A STORY OF GENEROSITY

But the biblical story is a generosity story. No words capture the essence of this story better than these: “For God so loved the world, that he gave . . .” (John 3:16). Having money in the proper place in your heart and life is not just about good budgeting and freedom from debt; the biblical standard is much higher. You know you have money in the right place in your heart when the culture of acquisition has been replaced in your heart with a culture of generosity, where joy in giving overwhelms joy in getting. Could it be that the primary purpose for money in your life is not that you would live but that, as God has lavishly done in your life, you would give? Could it be that we need something fundamentally deeper than a commitment to a good budget and reasonable spending? Could it be that what we really need is a brand-new understanding of the purpose for money, one driven by the gospel story?

Let’s unpack the generosity story, which runs throughout the main body of Scripture. It really is true that the narrative in the Bible is a story of God’s giving, giving, and giving again. If you read your Bible through the lens of generosity, you will be blown away by how lavishly generous your Lord is.

THE GENEROSITY OF CREATION

How can you even summarize the incredible gift of the physical creation? Whether it is the beauty of a sunset; the design of animals of every color, shape and size; the beauty of a single flower, we have been blessed way beyond our ability to recount.

In creating the world, God created a means by which we would be aware of him and learn things about him. One of the most precious things about the gift of creation is that it was purposefully designed to reveal the most important thing ever—the existence and character of God. Creation is the generosity of God on physical display for all to see.

THE GENEROSITY OF THE COVENANT

Hear these amazing words that God spoke to Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:2–3). This covenant confounds the normal way we think of things. It confronts us with the fact that God makes covenant with us, with all of those glorious promises, not because of what is in us but because of what is in him.

Thus it is with generosity. Generosity is the result not of the good in the one receiving but in the good-heartedness of the one giving. His response to wayward, idolatrous human beings is to lavish the blessings of his presence and promises on them, blessings and promises that not one of them would ever have the ability to earn. God’s covenant blessings and promises are his generosity on display.

THE GENEROSITY OF FREEDOM FROM SLAVERY

It’s the loving generosity of God that would cause him to raise up Moses and harness the forces of creation to be faithful to the promises that he made to Abraham and his descendants. Whereas our generosity is fickle and often failing, but not the Lord’s. His generosity is faithful and perseverative, so he never ever forgets, fails, or turns his back on anything he has promised. With a generous and faithful heart, the Lord unleashed his almighty power in a display like the world had never seen before and rescued his children from captivity, defeating the feared army of Pharaoh on the way. Because God makes generous promises, he is generous in the use of his power to fulfill those promises.

THE GENEROSITY OF THE CROSS AND FORGIVING GRACE

This really is the ultimate definition of generosity. There is nothing that could compete with Christ’s willingness to suffer injustice, torture, and death for us. What could be more generous than for a perfect man to be willing to bear the penalty of people who ignore his presence, steal his glory, and rebel against his divine authority? But Jesus wasn’t just willing; he found joy in doing so. So it is with generosity, which is never begrudging, never forced, and motivated more by joy than by duty.

THE GENEROSITY OF ETERNITY

Not only does God generously bless us with spiritual riches in the here and now, but he invites us to an eternity that is rich beyond our imagination. In generous love, he opens to us the doors of the new heavens and the new earth, where sin, suffering, and sorrow will be no more, and we will live in peace and harmony with him and one another forever without end.

It really is true that the great redemptive narrative is itself the world’s best and most important generosity story. This means that your hope in life and death rests on the fact that your Lord is a bountifully generous King, who sent his Son to set up a kingdom marked by its generosity of love, grace, forgiveness, daily mercy, and the faithful supply of all we need. So when he invites and calls us to seek his kingdom rather than work to store up physical earthly treasures, he is calling us not just to value spiritual things more than we value earthly things, but to be part of his generosity mission on earth. So much of the way sincere Christians look at money, finances, and budgeting seems to miss this gospel theology of generosity.

THE GOSPEL OF GENEROSITY

Without this gospel theology of generosity, discussions of money become about how to steward what God has given you, how to keep out of debt, how to fulfill your contracted financial obligations, how to have financial stability, how to anticipate your financial needs upon retirement, and how to ensure that you give God a tithe. None of these things is wrong, and all of them are helpful in some way, but the whole plan is devoid of the larger considerations of the call to be God’s ambassadors on earth. The normal plan is functionally devoid of gospel perspective and vision, and because it is, it focuses money and finances on personal need rather than on God’s grand gospel agenda.

Could it be that when it comes to finances, we have the whole thing upside down? When we think of money, we tend to think of it as God’s primary means of providing for us and, oh, yes, he has called us to give. Could it be that Scripture teaches that God’s primary purpose for money is that we would be tools of his generosity mission on earth, and, oh, yes, he also uses it to daily provide for us? Matthew 6:19–34 sets up a clear contrast between storing earthly treasures while obsessing about personal needs and seeking God’s kingdom. Jesus teaches that financial sanity begins with believing that you really do have a heavenly Father who will supply what you need. The radical message of Jesus is that that burden is his and not ours.

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Content taken from Redeeming Money: How God Reveals and Reorients Our Hearts by Paul David Tripp, ©2018. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187, www.crossway.org.

Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization. He has been married for many years to Luella and they have four grown children. For more information and resources visit paultrippministries.org.

You Don't Need a Passport to Reach the Nations

I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” – Rom. 15:20-21

I was twelve when I first read these lines from Romans. The unstoppable advance of the gospel immediately captivated me.

Stories of missionary heroes like David Livingstone, Hudson Taylor, and John Paton flooded my mind as I considered what gospel-pioneering work would look like.

With a Bible in one hand and a machete in the other, I envisioned myself blazing a trail through the dense African bush, fighting off snakes and lions to reach remote tribes with the gospel. I was convinced this was the life God was calling me to live.

Twenty-five years later, I’m still just as excited about reaching the unreached. But my role in this work has looked entirely different from my childhood dreams.

DASHED DREAMS OF REACHING THE NATIONS

Initially, passion for the gospel’s advance led my wife and me to leave the comforts of family, friends, and homeland to church-plant in a Muslim village in West Africa. But our baby daughter’s struggles with malaria led us back to the States.

I was crushed.

My childhood dreams of reaching the unreached had been dashed.

Or had they?

These days, I’m not sweating bullets under the scorching African sun. Instead, you can usually find me shoveling snow on yet another frosty day in western New York. I’m not halfway across the continent, but a few miles up the road at the local university, studying the gospel with young men and women who’ve never heard the good news. Instead of cutting my way through a jungle with a machete, I’m digging my way through conversations with chopsticks.

Through this season of ministry, I’ve discovered something that never occurred to me when I first read Romans 15. I had always thought of the unreached peoples as only being “out there.” But the truth is, they’re very much here, too.

We don’t have to cross the ocean or cut down a trail to get to the nations. The nations have come to us.

THE UNREACHED IN OUR BACKYARD

One of the most dynamic mission fields of our time might easily be one of the most overlooked. This past year, more than one million international students from all over the world attended colleges and universities in the U.S. Many of these bright, ambitious men and women came to us from countries closed to traditional missionary endeavors.

Some will be only here for a year. Others, for quite some time. After completing their studies, many will go on to become influential leaders.

An article from the Washington Times stated that nearly 300 current and former world leaders once occupied American classrooms before ascending to prominence in their home countries.

The potential to see the gospel advanced globally through international student ministry is truly staggering!

AN EXCITING—BUT CHALLENGING—OPPORTUNITY

Almost anyone involved in international student ministry will tell you that most of these students are curious about religion. Unlike their American counterparts, international students are open to discussions about Christianity.

And they’re eager to make American friends. Being far from home, many long for a sense of community. They are an ideal mission field that is ripe for harvest!

Making disciples of the nations within our nation, however, is not for the faint of heart. The challenges can be overwhelming.

Since English isn’t their first language, communication can be complicated. Most of these students have cultures and worldview perspectives that are drastically different from ours. Some come from countries completely closed to the gospel and therefore lack basic categories for basic biblical concepts. Even those from “Christianized” countries often have a seriously distorted understanding of the gospel.

Patience, love, and a long-haul mindset are essential if we’re going to reach these men and women for Christ.

HOW YOU CAN REACH THE NATIONS AT HOME

If you’ve read this far, you might be thinking, “Micah, I get what you’re saying. Reaching these people sounds awesome, but kind of scary.” Maybe you’ve never interacted with someone from another country. Perhaps you’re worried that you won’t know what to say or how to act. How would you even begin?

If you’re near a local campus with international students, let me encourage you to consider the following:

Partner with local campus ministries

Partnering with a student ministry on campus is probably the best place to start. There are a number of campus ministries effectively reaching international students. Our church has been able to establish a healthy, working relationship with one such ministry.

Through our partnership, we’ve had numerous opportunities to make connections and develop meaningful relationships with students. Some of them have come to know the Lord and are now radiant followers of Christ. Others are attending gospel studies led by some of the men and women of our church.

Working together, I’m thankful that my church body can multiply our time, efforts, and resources to advance the gospel.

Meet the international student advisors at your local college

I recently talked with a young man who is involved in a thriving international student ministry at his local church. When I asked him how his church started their outreach, I was struck by the simplicity of his response:

“We met with the international student advisors and asked them how we could help students adjust to college life. They were happy to have us help with things like picking up students from the airport, showing hospitality, and helping students learn about the city.”

Through simple acts of service, members of this church established relationships with both students and faculty that have opened doors for disciple-making ministry.

Organize an ESL conversation club

Opportunities to meet Americans, make friends, and practice English are usually big hits with international students, especially those with families. With a little planning and training, nearly anyone can organize an effective ESL (English as a second language) conversation club. Select a few conversational topics that might be of interest to students. Open your gathering with a few ice-breaker activities to help everyone feel comfortable with one another. Divide the students up into smaller groups where they can receive more personalized attention and opportunities for discussion.

As relationships are established, encourage volunteers to follow up with students in their groups to set up one-on-one gospel studies.

REACH THE NATIONS RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE

God may not be calling you to cross the ocean to reach the unreached. Instead, he might be asking you to drive a few miles up the road.

Through international student ministry, you can labor so that “those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand”—and you won’t even need a passport.

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Micah Colbert and his wife, Debbie, live in Buffalo, NY with their three children. In addition to planting and pastoring Gospel Life Church, Micah also works part-time as an ESL instructor in the city. Currently, Micah is working on developing disciple-making materials to help churches effectively engage in international student ministry and ESL outreach. You can visit his website at www.internationalbiblestudy.com.

Lessons From a Prayer Warrior

This is not an article for spiritual giants who spend three hours a day on their knees, attend every prayer meeting, and pack each spare moment with petitions and praises. If this is you, feel free to stop reading now (and pray for the rest of us).

This is an article for those of us who think the word “PRAY” is the most jarring four-letter word uttered in the church. It’s for those of us who struggle to pray, who are afraid to pray, or who feel guilty about our crummy prayer lives.

I get it. I struggle to pray, too. I don’t consider myself a prayer warrior or a prayer giant. I’m more of a prayer toddler.

But I want to learn to pray. Not set any prayer records—just learn to pray. I want to be a man known for prayer. When you don’t know how to do something, you ask an expert. So that’s what I did.

EAVESDROPPING ON A SAINT

A few years ago, I approached one of the matriarchs in our church, a woman twice my age who is considered a prayer warrior both inside and outside our church. “Will you meet with me—regularly—and teach me how to pray?” I asked.

She looked pleased and surprised. “Well, I don’t know about teaching you anything. But how ‘bout we get together, and we’ll talk to Father? I’d like that.”

For a few years she and I met for two hours every week. Talking and praying. Praying and talking. There was no formal agenda, no didactic teaching, no lectures. Just a man enjoying the privilege of being invited into this saint’s conversation with God.

ALWAYS A STUDENT

God taught me some crucial things about prayer in those days, things I’m still learning:

Prayer is about relationship. As Jesus often pointed out, God primarily identifies himself to us as “Father,” which is how my prayer mentor addressed him and talked about him—constantly. His presence as her Father was real. Even in her late 70s she prayed like a child sitting in his lap. She was always overjoyed to be with him. There was nothing better for her.

She has a childlike faith—the kind Jesus told us is a prerequisite for citizens in his kingdom. This has been an important and growing reality for me to grasp. As Paul E. Miller wrote in his excellent book, A Praying Life, “Oddly enough, many people struggle to learn how to pray because they are focusing on praying, not on God.” When I struggle with prayer, I wonder if I’m even thinking of God at all.

God cares about everything, no matter how small. Because she knew him intimately as “Father,” my prayer mentor would speak with him about everything. Most topics were fairly mundane. I was expecting her to lead me in high and lofty prayers of vision and outreach and mission and world-moving.

Her prayers extended half a world away—to her kids and grandkids in another state, to a missionary in Uganda—but even then, her prayers had dirt on them. They were earthy; smeared with fingerprints and splattered with mud.

But if God is our Father, doesn’t he care about these intimate details? Won’t he meet us in them? And when he does, won’t we truly know he cares?

When I get home from work, my three- and six-year-old girls, can’t wait to tell me about the cat that was in the backyard, the Calico Critter toys they were playing with, and the bird nest they created in their nature study. I can simply write them off and call them to more “important” things, or I can take their hands, get down on my knees, and revel in their childish simplicity.

Thinking God too important for seemingly “simple” things is actually a subtle form of pride. We consider ourselves too important to give him our attention and time—too self-sufficient to ask him for help. But Jesus said to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

Heaven comes to earth in our prayers, therefore our prayers ought to be earthy. Because we are involved in conversation with the God who sovereignly oversees everything, you better believe he cares about what’s important to you and me.

Real, deep prayer is biblical prayer. My prayer mentor is a woman immersed in God’s Word. Her prayers drip with the Bible. She devours it. She spends time in it for hours each day. She speaks and prays the Word.

I’ve known younger, less mature believers with active prayer lives. They talk with God throughout the day. They ask him for simple things and see him answer their prayers. They claim to hear from him, but oftentimes their claims seem unfounded and “out there.”

I have noticed that these dear friends—though attuned to God’s presence in everyday life—haven’t become deeply attuned to God’s Word. They have yet to mature through time spent listening to God in the Scriptures. As they do so, I can’t wait to see the kind of prayer warriors they will become.

My prayer-warrior mentor often claimed to hear from God. But when she told me what she heard, it was so intertwined with the Scriptures it was hard to doubt she was hearing from God Himself.

God often uses unanswered prayers to redirect my prayers toward his heart. My mentor has said numerous times: “Father loves to give good gifts” (see James 1:17). All gifts from God are good—even ones that are painful, unwanted, or unexpected—because they are from a good Father. When we learn to thank God even for the difficult stuff, we come closer to his will.

A friend was recently experiencing a high level of anxiety due to some unusual circumstances. I had been praying the issue would be resolved and her anxiety lessened. When I heard the issue was not resolved as hoped, I was reminded her anxiety would probably increase. Here’s where God took me in prayer: “Father, please use this delay and disappointment as an opportunity for continued growth in trusting you with her anxiety.” I don’t know if I would have seen the situation in the same way years earlier.

Some people pull more weight with God than others. This isn’t a very popular sentiment in our egalitarian society. It doesn’t mean some have better standing before God; we all stand in Christ’s righteousness. It simply means prayer warriors are those who have spent a lot of time with their Father.

As a result, they are increasingly able to love the things he loves. When they pray “your will be done,” they really mean it—they want his will to be done more than anything. And they have a clearer understanding of what that will is, which makes their prayers to the point and more powerful.

Their prayers are answered more often because they’re praying along with God’s heart: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16b). When my prayers go unanswered, I find it’s largely because they were the wrong prayers to begin with. Not that I shouldn’t have prayed them (we have to start where we are), but we become giants in prayer when we are able to untangle our wills from our prayers and instead wrap them up in our Father’s.

FIND A PRAYER MENTOR

I learned all of these things from time spent with a person, not an article or a book. In the end, I have only one piece of advice about prayer: find a prayer mentor.

Look for someone who loves Jesus intensely. They probably have gray hair. Their Bible will be well-used and worn-out. Most likely, they won’t think they can teach you anything.

Don’t let that stop you because they’ll teach you about the most necessary thing (see Luke 10:38-42).

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Mike Phay serves as Lead Pastor at FBC Prineville (Oregon) and as a Staff Writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He has been married to Keri for over 20 years, and they have five amazing kids. You can follow him on Twitter (@mikephay) or check out his blog.

Want to Know God's Will for Your Life? Start With This Question

If you’ve ever said, “I just want to know God’s will for my life,” this book is for you. If you’ve ever gazed at the trajectory of your life and wondered if you were headed down the right path or off a cliff, keep reading. By the time you finish these pages, I hope you will never have to question what God’s will is for you again. Or, at least, not the way you may have asked it in the past.

It’s a uniquely Christian musing, this question of God’s will. Those who have never called on the name of Jesus Christ are not the least concerned with discovering its answer. It reveals a believer’s awareness that, to be a follower of Christ, not every option is open to me: whatever the way forward, it is not wide but narrow. God has a will for my life, and based on my unsuccessful history of trying to follow the way that seems right unto man, I had better do my best to discern what that will is.

THE PROBLEM WITH ALWAYS WANTING TO KNOW GOD'S WILL FOR YOUR LIFE

But that discernment piece is tricky. When we reflect on what our lives were like apart from Christ, we tend to focus on the poor decisions we made and their ensuing consequences. How we spent our time, our money, and our efforts plays before us like a blooper reel, but instead of making us laugh it forces us to whisper, “Never again.” Before we believed, we did what felt right or what seemed rational to our darkened minds. But now we know our feelings deceive us and our self-serving logic betrays us. No worries, though. Now we have a direct line to God. We’ll just ask him what we should do.

Without meaning to, we can begin to regard our relationship with God primarily as a means toward better decision-making. We can slip into a conception of God as a cosmic Dear Abby, a benevolent advice columnist who fields our toughest questions about relationships and circumstances. Because we do not trust our judgment, we ask him who we should marry or which job we should take. We ask him where to spend our money or which neighborhood to move into. “What should I do next? Keep me away from the cliff, Lord. Keep me on the narrow path.”

These are not terrible kinds of questions to ask God. To some extent, they demonstrate a desire to answer the question “What is God’s will for my life?” They show a commendable desire to honor God in our daily doings. But they don’t get to the heart of what it means to follow God’s will for our lives. If we want our lives to align with God’s will, we will need to ask a better question than “What should I do?”

A BETTER QUESTION TO HELP YOU DISCOVER GOD'S WILL

We Christians tend to pool our concern around the decisions we face. If I pick A when I should have picked B, then all is lost. If I pick B, all will be well. But if Scripture teaches us anything, it is this: God is always more concerned with the decision-maker than he is with the decision itself. Take, for example, Simon Peter. When faced with decision A (deny Christ) or decision B (acknowledge him), Peter failed famously. But it is not his poor decision-making that defines him. Rather, it is the faithfulness of God to restore him. Peter’s story serves to remind us that, no matter the quality of our choices, all is never lost.

This makes sense when we pause to consider that no decision we could ever make could separate us from the love of God in Christ. God can use the outcome of any decision for his glory and for our good. That is reassuring. Peter was faced with two choices—one of which was clearly unwise. But often we must choose between two options that appear either equally wise or equally unwise. Often the answer to the question “What should I do?” could go either way.

Which brings us to the better question. For the believer wanting to know God’s will for her life, the first question to pose is not “What should I do?” but “Who should I be?”

Perhaps you’ve tried to use the Bible to answer the question “What should I do?” Facing a difficult decision, perhaps you’ve meditated for hours on a psalm or a story in the Gospels, asking God to show you how it speaks to your current dilemma. Perhaps you’ve known the frustration of hearing silence, or worse, of acting on a hunch or “leading” only to find later that you apparently had not heard the Lord’s will. I know that process better than I’d like to admit, and I also know the shame that accompanies it—the sense that I’m tone-deaf to the Holy Spirit, that I’m terrible at discovering God’s will.

But God does not hide his will from his children. As an earthly parent, I do not tell my kids, “There is a way to please me. Let’s see if you can figure out what it is.” If I do not conceal my will from my earthly children, how much more our heavenly Father? His will does not need discovering. It is in plain sight. To see it we need to start asking the question that deals with his primary concern. We need to ask, “Who should I be?”

THE ORDER MATTERS

Of course, the questions “What should I do?” and “Who should I be?” are not unrelated. But the order in which we ask them matters. If we focus on our actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self.

Think about it. What good is it for me to choose the right job if I’m still consumed with selfishness? What good is it for me to choose the right home or spouse if I’m still eaten up with covetousness? What does it profit me to make the right choice if I’m still the wrong person? A lost person can make “good choices.” But only a person indwelt by the Holy Spirit can make a good choice for the purpose of glorifying God.

The hope of the gospel in our sanctification is not simply that we would make better choices, but that we would become better people. This is the hope that caused John Newton to pen, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” It is what inspires the apostle Paul to speak of believers “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). The gospel teaches us that the grace that is ours through Christ is, by the work of the Spirit, transforming us increasingly into someone better.

But not just anyone better. The gospel begins transforming us into who we should have been. It re-images us. Want to know what it should have been like to be human? Look to the only human who never sinned.

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Content taken from In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character by Jen Wilkin, ©2018. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187, www.crossway.org.

Jen Wilkin is a speaker, writer, and teacher of women’s Bible studies. During her seventeen years of teaching, she has organized and led studies for women in home, church, and parachurch contexts. Jen and her family are members of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas.

'I Don't Know How You Do It': God's Grace for Foster Parents

As I stood there watching him sleep, I was reminded of the terrible reality that there are 430,000 children just like him in foster care across our country—and not nearly enough families to take them in. I had tiptoed into the room so I wouldn't wake him. Laying on a mattress wrapped in his red 'blankey' was a napping three-year-old little boy. While typically an explosion of energy, loudly bouncing around from one toy to the next, he lay there asleep and looked so peaceful.

We had received a call from Child Protective Services (CPS) a few days before saying there was a child in need of a temporary home. We accepted, and it wasn't long before a blue-eyed boy with long reddish-brown hair entered our lives.

'I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT'

Fostering is hard. A child comes into our home, alters the norm of our everyday lives for a number of weeks or months, and then by government order leaves as quickly as he or she came. Many find it difficult that we regularly let children we've grown attached to go back home, usually never to see them again. People often say to us, "I just don't know how you do it." That bewildered statement implies that we have some special gift or ability that others don't have, but the truth is, we don’t.

Foster care is hard at every level. It's hard when you first get a child. When a worker brings by a snoozing child at 3 a.m., your family is forced to make quick adjustments. Numerous scheduling changes have to be made. It might mean pulling the spare bed out of the attic, or it might mean running to the store for diapers and wipes.

And yes, it's hard when you've grown close to a child and they return to their family. Reunification is always the goal, so we rejoice when it happens, but that doesn’t make it easy. The last child was a part of our family for nearly a year. We celebrated her first birthday. We watched her take her first steps and heard her first words. Then one day the court decided it was time for her to go home, and just like that, she was gone.

GIVING US MORE THAN WE CAN BEAR

The challenges of foster care from beginning to end are often more than we can bear. It’s a struggle to incorporate another child into our family dynamic. The behavioral issues are frustrating and overwhelming at times. Juggling home inspections, doctor appointments, therapy sessions, and visitations can quickly zap our strength. It’s heart-wrenching to hear a child crying in the middle of the night, “My mommy doesn’t love me anymore!” while trying to convince her that’s not the case. We become well acquainted with our own weaknesses when we face these burdens.

On one occasion, I was exhausted and just about at the end of my rope. Already wondering if I was in over my head, I walked into our foster child’s room (who was supposed to be sleeping) and he had destroyed the room. I’m typically not a crier, but I wanted to weep at that moment. As I cleaned up the mess, I uttered to the Lord, “God, we need your help.” At that moment, I was reminded of my own helplessness and weakness.

But in our weakness, we are reminded that Christ is strong (2 Cor. 12:10). The Alpha and Omega never sleeps or slumbers (Psalm 121:4). He sees every tear shed and frustration expressed. By his power, not only did he speak everything into existence, but he continues to hold all of creation together by the power of his word (Col. 1:16-17). He is the one who sends forth the lightning and provides for the ravens. At his command the eagle mounts up, and he measures all the waters of the earth in the hollow of his hand. The nations are like a drop in a bucket to him, he stretches out the heavens like a curtain. He calls the stars by name, and because of his strength, not a single one goes missing (Job 38-40; Isaiah 40:9-31).

I’m not strong enough to face the challenges that come with foster care, but he certainly is. The great promise for the believer is that this powerful God will never leave us nor forsake us (Deut. 31:6; Heb. 13:5). We live moment by moment, depending on him and trusting that he will give us the exact amount of grace needed for each trying time.

HIS GRACE IS SUFFICIENT

I trust that the Lord, in his sovereignty, brings these children to our home. He sees every child’s unique situation and struggles. It's easy to doubt this, though. In spite of the teaching of the popular cliché, the Lord will give more than we can handle at times. He is gracious to take us to the end of our strength so we that we learn to rely on his. Without his grace, we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t handle another heart-breaking "good-bye." We couldn’t survive another long day filled with the challenges of foster care. Thankfully though, in those moments, his grace proves to be enough.

The staggering number of children in foster care can make us feel powerless. We often want to bring massive change all at once, but the Lord doesn't always work that way. While I wish I could help all the children in foster care, I simply can't.

But as I stood in my room that day watching that little boy sleep peacefully with his red blanket, I realized that even though we can't bring mass change, perhaps the Lord can use us to make a massive change in his life. We can't help all 430,000, but we can help this one.

That’s why we foster—to overwhelm the life of one child with the love of Christ for as many days as we get to share with him.

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Scripture reminds us often of the Lord's heart for the vulnerable and oppressed, especially orphans (James 1:27). His heart breaks for the 430,000. And as God's people, ours should too. We should be the most willing to die to our comforts, our dreams, and our convenience for the sake of the vulnerable and orphaned.

I recognize not everyone can take a child in, but we can all serve foster children in some way. There are ministries that provide creative ways for anyone to contribute by ministering to foster families and CPS workers. Some help collect needed items (clothes, car seats, etc.) that foster families can use, or help provide “parent’s night out,” where they offer childcare. Others adopt CPS workers and try to minister to them through encouraging notes and gifts. There may not be a ministry like this in your community, and if so, there's an opportunity to start one through your local church.

It’s not easy, but the Lord’s grace is sufficient. His strength is perfect to overcome every frustration and obstacle in foster care.

In our short time of fostering, we've cared for babies with meth in their system; we've had children from homes where they were left to live in their own feces; we’ve received precious children that bear the image of God, from dysfunctional and broken homes.

When you engage in foster care, you get a front-row view of the depravity of man. You get a glimpse into the darkness. But it's in the darkest places that the church's light can shine the brightest.

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James Williams has served as an Associate Pastor at FBC Atlanta, TX since 2013. He is married to Jenny and they have three children and are actively involved in foster care. He is in the dissertation stage of a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. You can follow James Twitter or his blog where he writes regularly.

The Essence of a Gospel-Soaked, Faithful Teacher

How did we get to a place where Christians turn against Christians in the name of political power? How did we get to a place where we demonize one another by oversimplifying our beliefs and convictions?

How did we get here? By quarreling over words and secondary matters to the neglect of what matters most; by not faithfully teaching and demonstrating those things which matter most. Without faithful teachers, God’s people have few, if any, guardrails against worldly pursuits and thinking.

But what does it look like to be a faithful teacher of God’s Word? In 2 Timothy 2, Paul paints three compelling pictures of a faithful teacher for his young protégé, Timothy: the unashamed worker, the clean vessel, and the Lord’s servant. Taken together, these three pictures convey the essence of a gospel-soaked, faithful teacher.

THE UNASHAMED WORKER

The first picture Paul gives Timothy of a faithful worker is a sharp contrast between a good and bad workman:

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness." – 2 Tim. 2:15-16

The good workman does his best to present himself as one approved. He is diligent about the work of teaching. He reads good books, takes classes, and disciplines himself to learn God’s Word. The good workman is humble. He knows he needs his instruction just as much as those he teaches. The good workman is careful to ensure he is presenting the Bible’s truths clearly and accurately. He knows the more clearly he presents God’s Word, the more powerful it is.

The bad workman, on the other hand, gets lost in endless controversies, inevitably entangling others in their foolishness. Their talk spreads like gangrene, infecting people everywhere it goes. Quarreling over such things as secondary or tertiary matters creates divisions and hurts the people you teach.

Don’t get tangled up in the parts of the Bible that are unclear when there is so much that is clear. Be like the good workman: present yourself as one approved, with no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

THE CLEAN VESSEL

Next, Paul explains that a faithful teacher is like a clean vessel:

"Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work."– 2 Tim. 2:20-21

“Vessels” refers to containers that would be found in one’s home in Paul’s day, like Tupperware in ours. Some vessels would have been used for honorable things, like eating, whereas others would have been used for dishonorable things, like washing feet.

We have a Tupperware cabinet in my kitchen (you know, the cabinet where every container falls out every time you open it). One of the “vessels” in that cabinet is a yellow, plastic bowl we use for thawing raw meat. I wash the bowl every time we use it, but even though I cleaned it, I’m not about to eat out of it. Why? Because that would be gross. That bowl is used for a dirty, or dishonorable, task.

In the same way, people are used for either honorable or dishonorable tasks. Without Christ, each of us was a vessel for dishonorable use—we were far from God and probably cared little for others. We were slaves to sin and set ourselves apart for dishonorable use.

But in Christ we have been made clean through the blood he spilled on the cross. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension justify us in the sight of God once our faith is in him. We have been cleansed, made holy, and are now set apart for honorable use.

Honorable vessels are “useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” As believers, we are useful to God in the sense that we are equipped to do good works here and now for people made in the image of God in a way that brings him glory (Eph. 2:10).

The words Paul uses—“honorable” and “set apart”—indicate that his clean vessel picture is about holiness. Paul wants to remind Timothy, and us, that holiness matters.

Holiness has fallen on hard times, though. We want to be accepted, so we wink at the number of drinks we have when we’re out with friends. We’re loose with our tongues, or we’re quick to laugh at a crude joke. But each time we participate in sin, we’re making dirty what Christ has made clean; making dishonorable what God has set aside as honorable.

Believer, pursue holiness and set yourself apart as useful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE LORD’S SERVANT

Paul’s third picture of a faithful teacher is the Lord’s servant:

"So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will."– 2 Tim. 2:22-26

Paul first tells Timothy to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” This is related to holiness, and it relays the Bible’s most basic instruction for how to deal with sin: to flee from it. As fast as you can.

Most of us have an overinflated sense of how strong we are. We think we can stand up to temptation and beat sin through sheer strength or willpower. But we can’t—that’s why Jesus had to die for us.

The Lord’s servant is not prideful. He knows he needs the grace of Jesus and the power of his Spirit to stand up to temptation. Sin and its consequences are scary enough to the Lord’s servant that he wisely runs the other direction. Instead of running to temptation, he should run to righteousness, faith, love, and peace. These are the fruit of the Spirit—attributes he will cultivate in us as we pursue them alongside him.

The Lord’s servant should also be gentle. In contrast to the devil’s quarrelsome servant, the Lord’s servant should be “kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.” Think of your relationship with the people you lead: are you kind to them? Patient with them? Do you endure their questions and hardships? Are you gentle in your conversations and sensitive to their struggles?

The world is filled with impatient, prideful, power-hungry leaders. God’s Kingdom should house leaders who are just the opposite. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t correct people when necessary—Paul clearly states that Timothy should be correcting his opponents. But he should be doing so in gentleness, because “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”

Be patient with your flock. Be kind to them. Love them. And if they have strayed, instruct them in gentleness, and perhaps they will come to their senses and find their way back to the truth.

JESUS IS THE FAITHFUL TEACHER

Faithful teachers should be like a good workman, a clean vessel, and a servant of the Lord. And if, like me, you feel woefully inadequate to be all of these things, then take heart, because you don’t have to be.

You don’t have to be the perfect workman, the cleanest vessel, or the greatest servant because Jesus is.

Jesus is the perfect workman who never shrank back from declaring the truth and correcting false teaching. He never mishandled the Word of truth. He never quarreled over inessentials and never tired of telling his people of God’s goodness and their need for salvation.

Jesus is the clean vessel who presented himself pure and blameless before the Father. He was an honorable vessel his entire life but willingly gave himself up to dishonorable treatment on our behalf. He was willing to be dishonored so that we could become honorable through him.

Jesus is the Lord’s servant who was perfectly pure, never sinning though tempted in every way as we are. He was focused, never straying from his mission to bring the gospel to bear on all mankind through his sacrificial death on the cross. He was gentle, treating the lowliest of men and women with the highest amount of dignity. He patiently corrected, continuously endured.

Jesus is the faithful Teacher. He is the only leader who can do all of these things. And it is only by looking to him and relying on him that we will become the faithful leaders he means for us to be.

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Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of three, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.

Why Gospel-Centered Community is Key to Reaching Millennials

In March 2017, PBS NewsHour interviewed Casper ter Kuile, an irreligious researcher from Harvard Divinity School about how Millennials are interested in spiritual matters, but not in traditional religious community settings. Casper says that Millennials are disregarding traditional religious congregations because they “don’t appeal to him,” and that he’s not alone—a high percentage of Millennials are doing the same. Casper says that he has found “countless examples” of Millennials finding new ways to create community that fulfill the same functions a religious community has, but without the religion. Some examples he lists are CrossFit, Afro Flow Yoga, and simply sharing a meal together. He says, “You may dismiss these communities as simple entertainment, but we’re convinced that this is the new face of religious life in America.” Casper’s right. His equation of a local church and CrossFit or yoga is unfortunate and inaccurate from our evangelical perspective, but in the eyes of many Millennials, finding community in a Sunday morning “Afro Flow Yoga” class is not really all that different from finding community in a local evangelical church—in fact, from their perspective, it’s better because their yoga friends don’t judge people like they believe a local evangelical church or other religious community would.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND GOSPEL-CENTERED COMMUNITY

For many Millennials, community alone, even if that community is built upon the superficial foundations of workouts or meals, is what provides the transcendent experience their souls so desperately seek.

For many Millennials, the community is the end in itself. The feeling of “belonging to something greater” is simply derived from hanging out with more than one person. “Greater” is almost used as a quantitative term, not a qualitative one. Even at it’s best, non-Christian Millennial community does community service work that might be “something greater” but is ultimately temporary.

For Christians, community is not the end itself. The feeling of “belonging to something greater” is actually derived from belonging to something greater, something better, something eternal. Unfortunately, what irreligious Millennials do not understand is that communities built around yoga mats or dinner tables cannot parallel Christian communities because, while they may look similar, their foundations are different—their reasons for meeting are different.

The foundation for an irreligious Millennial community is the shared interests in food or workout regimen. The foundation of an evangelical Millennial community is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and this community simply works itself out around dinner tables or church buildings. Millennials have their problems, and it’s fair to call them out on those. But when it comes to how they want to do church, Millennials’ preferences align with much of what we see in the New Testament. Just two examples are Acts 2 and Galatians 6. In both chapters, the local church functions more like a loving family than a rigid institution. Acts 2 shows us what it looks like when a church is drawn to repentance and generous giving so that the church might be unified in its pursuit of Jesus. Galatians 6 encourages Christians to bear one another’s burdens and to persist in doing good for the benefit of those who are in the faith.

So what does gospel-centered community look like? Gospel-centered community is built on the gospel (duh), but the gospel is a complex reality that has multiple facets and countless implications.

2 FOUNDATIONS OF GOSPEL-CENTERED COMMUNITY

First, gospel-centered community is built on sacrifice. The heart of the gospel is sacrifice. The good news is that Christ gave himself up for the sins of the world. Jesus Christ lived the perfect life we can’t live and died the horrible death we should have died so that, by his sacrifice, we can live with God forever. What does this sacrifice look in our church community, though? Does it mean we should be giving our lives for people? Possibly, but obviously that’s not very common.

Gospel-centered community requires us to sacrifice our time, our money, our emotions, our homes, our hobbies, and a host of other things we might rather keep to ourselves.

Gospel-centered community looks like sacrificing your time on a Saturday to help someone in your small group move, taking up money to help pay for a car for a single mother in the church, or hosting a missionary on furlough for a couple of months. All of this sounds uncomfortable, and that’s because gospel-centered community does not make comfort a high priority. Gospel-centered community, being built on the gospel, is characterized by the sacrificial love that members of the community have for one another, not by the toleration of selfishly maintaining personal comfort.

Gospel-centered community is not natural for many of us because our sinful hearts prevent us from wanting to care about others more than ourselves. We must rely on the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit to empower us to maintain the selfless, sacrificial love for others that gospel-centered community requires. This is no easy feat, and it requires much prayer.

Second, gospel-centered community is built on unconditional love. Next to sacrifice, nothing is more central to the gospel than love. Really, they are quite related. The unconditional love of God is what ultimately led him to sacrifice his Son to pay for the sins of the world. This love is unconditional because it is not based upon who we are or what we do. In the same way, as we think about gospel-centered community and what it might look like in our churches, gospel-centered community does not love conditionally. Our love for those in our church or in our small group must not be based upon what others can do for us. Our love for those in our church or small group must be based upon what Christ has done for us and for them. This sort of unconditional love means we cannot be content with each other discovering our “own truth” or doing whatever we think may be right. This sort of unconditional love requires us to spur one another on to holiness (Hebrews 10:24). We must love one another so deeply that we grieve when we see a brother or sister in Christ run astray the gospel.

It’s pretty clear how we show this love to others: we love people no matter who they are or how they might be different from us. Furthermore, unconditional love must withstand disputes and fights within the church community. The church is made up of a bunch of sinners, and the sin that involuntarily oozes out of our mouths and our hands will inevitably burn others like a sort of radioactive acid. When such filth and pain accompanies Christian community, the temptation is to bail on the local church. We must not do this.

Christ died on the cross for the people spitting at him and the people praying for him. We ought to love our community enough to endure the sins of the community. Christ loved us enough to save us from our sin by dying on a cross constructed in sin. We ought to love each other enough to forgive and love as he has.

If we are to benefit from the sacrificial love of gospel-centered community, we must also love sacrificially for the sake of our community. This can be burdensome. Sacrificial love is rarely easy—after all, it is sacrificial. But, by the grace of God, sacrificial love brings joy in its wake. Loving others as Christ has loved us is a worshipful, God-glorifying experience.

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Chris Martin was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He earned his undergraduate degree in Biblical Literature from Taylor University in 2013 and his Master of Divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2017. He started blogging when he was in the eighth grade and he continues to write online through various outlets today. He works at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, TN and lives outside Nashville with his wife, Susie, and their dog, Rizzo.

What if Pastors Stopped Sharing the Gospel?

What if, at a major continental conference, we asked every pastor in North America not to lead another person to Christ for the remainder of their ministry? If someone wanted to enter the Christian faith at their church, the pastor would redirect them to his people. It would no longer be the pastor’s responsibility to reach or attract unbelievers. If anyone was going to come to Christ, it would require direct participation from the individuals within the church body.

This is obviously a hypothetical situation for the purpose of illustration. But consider it for just a moment: if pastors stopped sharing the gospel and bringing people to Christ, what would happen to the church? With pastors pulling back, would church growth come to a screeching halt?

A CHURCH IN DECLINE

Plateaued and declining churches outnumber growing ones four to five in North America,[1] and denominations are reporting that high percentages of their churches are reaching few. America’s largest denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, reported in 2016 that 47 percent of their churches baptized two or less.[2]

You might think that reducing the pastor’s mission scope could have nose-dive level repercussions. Pastors are, after all, the main communicators of the gospel in our churches today. They also tend to be the most educated and socially adept people in God’s assembly (not that they don’t have some relational quirks and awkward tendencies). For those two factors alone, the mission of the church could substantially suffer if pastors were to stop sharing the gospel. But could it be that we'd see something surprising occur within the body of Christ?

What if across the wide spectrum of the Church, a mood of solemnity took place? A spontaneous-heart-and-knee-drop holy moment, where the church body in every region rises from its seats, comes to God’s altar, and with contrite and repentant hearts cries out, “Lord, we sense your Spirit in this. You are calling us to fulfill the very thing written in your Word. Lord Jesus, as your body, with our pastors now stepping down, we are ready to step up—to bear responsibility for bringing the gospel to the whole world! And we are willing to learn from our pastors all that is necessary to do that task more effectively.”

Seeing this heartfelt outpouring, pastors, too, all over the land might drop to their knees, exclaiming: “Lord, you have entrusted me with your people. I have been given the highest call to be their shepherd, but also the leader of your army. So Lord, make me a powerful equipper. Use me to unleash through them your symphonic gospel. May we see revival like the church has not seen since its first-century inception!”

Can you imagine this? I can.

BACK TO REALITY

Before you get too overwhelmed, there will be no such conference. No pastor has to stop living on mission; they can continue to be God’s messenger and minister of the gospel, uniquely called and qualified.

What I hope you get from this hypothetical scene of gospel-less pastors is a sense of how “pastor-centric” our congregations are. I believe the average church is far too dependent upon their leaders. From consultations with various church leaders, it seems to me that the lack of belief in church member’s mission abilities, coupled with inadequate training, is hindering the church’s potential impact at such a scale that it is unprecedented. Right now, North America has more unsaved people outside the immediate “joining circle” of the church (won’t attend with a simple invitation) than ever before. And our culture is continuing its plunge into pluralism.

A recent LifeWay study revealed that only 6 percent of churches are growing at the population rate of their communities.[3] Another survey from Christ Together found that 73 percent of respondents (all of whom were believers) were ineffectual with any non-believer.[4] The way churches are set up, with the pastor being the prime conduit of the gospel and a high ratio of church members being unengaged and ill-equipped for their gospel disseminating role, is not going to cut it any longer. Major cultural sectors will remain unreached unless God’s people rise into a new level of missional prowess.

I submit we have entered a new mission-necessitating era for the church’s growth. Yet even with the plateaued or declining numbers in so many congregations, many pastors are trying to do mostly the same “come and see” attractional devices to draw outsiders to check out their churches, when what is happening culturally has rendered this singular strategy insufficient.

MOBILIZING MEMBERS FOR MISSION

I played four years of college football and will always be a huge NFL fan. Though I am not part of the New England Patriot’s bandwagon, one day I listened to an interview with Patriot players who mentioned what their hoodied master, legendary coach Bill Belichick, required of them: “Do your job! Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. We need you to do your job, each one of you, and on every single play. Fulfill your responsibility, and we’ll compete at the highest level.”

What if the church adopted a similar playbook? What if pastors truly embraced their role as given in Ephesians 4:11–17? What if pastors heard the call to “Do your job! Equip the saints. Stop stepping on their mission responsibility. Do what Christ is calling you to do and expect them to do their roles.”

It was Paul, under the Spirit’s inspiration, who was first to see this divine architecture in its most nascent form. God’s infinite wisdom conveyed the eternal plan for how his church would redeem the whole world. In Ephesians 4, Paul discloses a simple top-down-and-out structure designed to create the highest level of mobilization. It is so simple it’s easy to miss: God has given gifts to equip the members for his ever-expanding work.[5]

GETTING EPHESIANS 4 RIGHT

Despite specific instructions from this Ephesians 4 passage, teaching pastors still do the bulk of the mission enterprise. Too often, a church is measured by its preaching prowess, not the messaging exploits of her people. Too often the pulpit leads others to Jesus, not the people. Too often it is church staff, not the men and women in the pews, who are baptizing. Why do we settle for roles that diverge from Scripture, as well as the equipping example of Christ, who raised twelve everyman types to lead his movement?

I long to see pastors switch their metrics and begin measuring themselves by their equipping effectiveness and their people’s mission fruit. To get there, we would have to stop reinforcing a dependency upon leadership and a sequestering of viable mission skills, and instead devote ourselves to creating solid structures for achieving the member’s empowerment.

I am not proposing a restriction on pastoral proclamation, of course. But I am proposing a focused effort to train and mobilize the men and women in our churches to be the primary agents of gospel proclamation. If we make this shift, we will find ourselves closer to God’s ecclesial design, we will unleash the potential of our movement, and we will see a resurgence of the people’s “acts” that made Christ’s name famous in the first place.

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Gary Comer is the author of six books, including the newly released, ReMission: Rethinking How Church Leaders Create Movement. He founded Soul Whisperer Ministries, an organization dedicated to helping churches develop missionally. Gary is a motivational speaker, faith-sharing skills trainer, community group campaign catalyst, discipleship path designer, and development consultant. His ministry is also international, involved in training leaders in the United Kingdom, Kenya, Egypt, and India. Connect with Gary at soulwhispererministry.com, or on Twitter/Instagram at @gcomerministry.

[1] Jared C. Wilson, The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto against the Status Quo (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 35.

[2] Kevin Ezell, Southern Baptist Life, 2016.

[3] Rebecca Barnes and Linda Lowery, “7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America,” Church Leaders, April 10, 2018. Available at: https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html/2

[4] Ryan Kozey, “Your Church on Mission: What’s It Going to Take?” (presentation at Southwest Church Planting Forum, October 29, 2014).

[5] Read JR Woodward’s Creating a Missional Culture for insight into the five top equipping gifts.

Big Lessons from a Wee Little Man

On my best days, I stand 5’6”. My wife, in a display of self-sacrifice typical of her, wore flats in our wedding so as not to—quite literally—show me up. The bond I feel to Zacchaeus, then, should come as little surprise. We have relegated his story from Luke 19 to the cute side of Christianity. If you grew up in an evangelical church, odds are you remember this tune:

“Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.”

A song like that never quite dislodges itself from your head, yet adult believers rarely sing it back or spend time considering Zacchaeus. Revisiting his brief moment within the story of Jesus reveals significant lessons and serious stakes. Zacchaeus isn’t just for children’s church or puppet shows—his interaction with Jesus raises implications we might rather avoid.

A RICH MAN BROUGHT LOW

Let’s quickly re-acquaint ourselves with Zacchaeus, this time with less music.

The first details Luke shares about Zacchaeus are his vocation and class. He clocked in and out as a tax collector, a vocation despised all along history’s continuum from Jesus’ day up through our own. It’s safe to assume Zacchaeus tried to dodge the question, “So, what do you do?” in social situations, though the story suggests he wasn’t invited to many parties.

Luke spells out Zacchaeus’ status as a matter of fact: “He was rich.” But his wealth didn’t come with a place of honor. As Jesus, the provocative religious teacher, walks through Jericho, Zacchaeus wants to see the man for himself, like everyone else in town. But he found himself crowded out and unable to see the mysterious rabbi.

“He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man. So running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since he was about to pass that way” (Luke 19:3-4).

On his way by, Jesus looks up and calls out, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house” (Luke 19:5). Jesus invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ house, pleasing the diminutive tax collector and flustering the crowd, who know not only what Zacchaeus does for a living, but what he’s like.

Jesus’ welcome and acceptance are not lost on Zacchaeus. Immediately, he pledges to give half of what he owns to relieve the poor and, hinting at ongoing sin, says he’ll repay “four times as much” as he has extorted from others (Luke 19:8).

Jesus, who always knew what he was doing, acknowledges he was after Zacchaeus’ heart from the jump and declares that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ home. Then Jesus restates his mission and locates Zacchaeus within it: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

SEEING JESUS

Zacchaeus’ story isn’t about climbing trees. It’s about a change of heart, a reorientation of desire that expresses itself through action. If like Zacchaeus, we want to experience salvation, then his response to Jesus warrants deeper reflection.

Zacchaeus’ response to Christ was a desire to change the way he lived. Zacchaeus had little public credibility left, but he was willing to debase himself further to see who Jesus was. Paul puts the same desire in his own words: “More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).

We sing words like these on Sunday mornings. In our public prayers, small groups, and coffee shop conversations, we claim we want to see and know God. But how many of us actually look for Jesus everywhere we go? How often do we consider knowing him—intimately, completely—as important as knowing about him?

Zacchaeus should be commended. Once he had even an inkling of who Jesus was, he put aside everything to see him more clearly. Will we follow his lead?

REJOICE AT AMAZING GRACE

Jesus’ outstretched hand of friendship to tax-collecting Zacchaeus laid the crowd’s heart bare. Rather than be amazed that Jesus wanted to spend time with this sinful man, they recoiled.

And so it is with us. We believe God can save the well-mannered pillar of our community. They’re already so good and so decent, we reason. We even recognize his intent with those on the other end of the spectrum, the poor or homeless person with whom we have no history.

We express less enthusiasm when Jesus begins to draw someone we can’t stand, someone who has hurt us, or someone we’ve watched lay waste to their relationships.

The childhood bully, the cheating spouse, the cheerleader for another political tribe. Can we find it within ourselves to recognize grace at work within them? Or will we grumble like the crowd, shaking our heads and wagging our fingers at Jesus?

A WHOLE GOSPEL

Even if you’re able to make peace with the story so far, Zacchaeus has to go and do something that completely meddles with our comfortable ideas of call-and-response, conversion, and repentance.

The evidence that he already has seen something in Jesus, that the Spirit truly is loosed within his heart, comes as he promises to restore what he has stolen and make others whole (v. 8).

We plunder others all the time, even when we don’t recognize it. We pinch a little dignity, steal a piece of their reputation in the eyes of others. What if the gospel, as it works within us, directed us to make others whole?

Our movement toward healing and restoration is not a means of earning favor with God. We can only make others whole because God has made us whole. He has restored all that sin, death and the locust has taken—and now, out of his storehouse supply (Phil. 4:19), we can play our small part, imitating him by doing the same.

BIG LESSONS FROM A LITTLE MAN

How different would our lives and relationships look if we adopted Zacchaeus’ mindset? We would repay any honor we’ve stolen, with interest (Rom. 12:10). Forgiveness withheld would be replaced with reconciliation. What we extract through shame and guilt would find its recompense in acceptance and affirmation.

Following in the footsteps of Zacchaeus, bending our gospel encounter into real life, we would pursue a whole and unified church by making others whole.

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and he only gets ten verses in Scripture. But the lessons therein loom large. Disciples who truly want to see Jesus would do well to hear ourselves in his song and sing it over and over.

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Aarik Danielsen is the arts and music editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Missouri, where he also serves Karis Church as a lay pastor. Find his work at facebook.com/aarikdanielsenwrites and follow him on Twitter: @aarikdanielsen.

A Roadmap for Faith Among the Faithless

Most of us know Esther’s story from Sunday school lessons, storybooks, and cartoons. But there’s a real problem with most of these versions. They’re mostly wrong. Not all of them. Just most of them. They make Esther sound like Daniel. They present her as if she is a pillar of virtue, a gorgeous, dignified Jewish girl who wins the heart of the king through the beauty, humility, and character imparted to her by her noble cousin Mordecai. When a crisis comes, she is more than ready to sacrifice herself for the Jewish people, confident that doing God’s will is more important than saving her own skin.

At the very least, her story is more complicated than that. And much darker. It’s less VeggieTales and more Game of Thrones, with a lot more sex, murder, and impaling than the usual version of the story would imply. (There’s actually quite a bit of impaling.) Mordecai and Esther’s motivations are sometimes murky and sometimes blatantly self-serving. Unquestionably, Esther and her cousin are profoundly compromised people when we meet them, having abandoned most of their Jewish identity for a Persian one.

THE SCANDAL OF ESTHER

Martin Luther hated the book of Esther, wanting it struck from the canon. He said, “I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities. The Jews much more esteemed the book of Esther than any of the prophets; though they were forbidden to read it before they had attained the age of thirty, by reason of the mystic matters it contains.”

For Luther, it was too Jewish, too heathen, and too scandalous. Yet these characteristics are what make the book so interesting.

Aside from Luther’s anti-Semitism (though one should be extremely wary of glibly setting that aside), the “too Jewish” charge is an interesting one. An annual feast called Purim commemorates the story of Esther, and in some communities, it’s the most celebrated feast and biggest party of the year. Why is that?

One answer is because for much of the history of the Jewish people, from Esther’s day to our own, Jews lived without a land of their own. They were in exile, looking for hope, for the promise that Yahweh hadn’t abandoned them. That’s the whole point of the story of Esther. Even in the darkest moments, when God seems absent, we can trust that he hasn’t abandoned us.

Novelist Walker Percy once wrote, “Why does no one find it remarkable that in most world cities today there are Jews but not one single Hittite, even though the Hittites had a great lourishing civilization while the Jews nearby were a weak and obscure people?”3 There’s something miraculous in the fact that God has sustained the Jews through multiple attempts to wipe them off the face of the earth, and the story of Esther attests to that miracle.

THE REAL MESSAGE OF ESTHER

For Christians, the story is a reminder that God doesn’t abandon his people, no matter how dark their circumstances, how compromised their hearts are, or how hidden he may seem.

Hiddenness is a theme that shapes the whole book of Esther. Mordecai and Esther have hidden identities. Haman—the story’s villain—has hidden motives. More important, God himself is hidden throughout the book. His name isn’t mentioned once, and his absence is a key feature of the story. God’s hiddenness is what makes Esther such an important book for our day too, a day when belief in God feels always resisted, always contested, when everything seems to have a natural explanation, and when our own experience often makes us feel as though God is, indeed, absent.

Luther’s charges—that it’s too heathen, too scandalous—are actually part of what makes the book brilliant. Other biblical characters, like Daniel, Joseph, and the apostles in the book of Acts, all exhibit tremendous faith in the midst of a hostile environment, and God shows up in dramatic, miraculous ways. But Esther and Mordecai are far frailer, more compromised, more human. They’re conflicted, out to save their skins and advance their careers or their social status. There is almost no religion in the book, only a call to fast that we can assume is also a call to prayer. So this is not a story about virtue and character, but about someone who has become acclimated to a godless world and has grown quite comfortable with it. It’s about compromise and crisis, and God’s way of preserving and renewing faith in the midst of it all.

DARE TO BE AN ESTHER?

When I was a kid in Sunday school, we used to sing a song called “Dare to Be a Daniel.” If you understand what’s happening in Esther’s story, you’ll never tell someone “Aspire to be an Esther.”

Yet this reality brings up a final reason this story is so important for us, especially now. Because if we’re honest, we do aspire to be an Esther—but for all the wrong reasons.

Esther embodies everything we think will make us happy. She is beautiful, rich, powerful; she has immense sexual charm and charisma; and she has a legion of servants at her beck and call. She’s kind of the Kim Kardashian of the Old Testament.

Why is Kim Kardashian so famous? Why does she show up on magazine covers, and why do entertainment shows and websites document her every move? It’s because her way of life is compelling. We think she has achieved the “good life”: fame, success, money, sex, power.

Esther embodies the same life . . . right up until her spiritual crisis comes (and Esther’s crisis, we’ll see, is every bit as spiritual as it is political). At that point, Esther has to reckon with God and her place as one of God’s people. She has to choose between power and weakness. Between safety and vulnerability. Between living a life of comfort and risking her life in hopes of saving her soul.

A STORY FOR OUR TIME

In [Faith Among the Faithless], I’ll retell the story of Esther. You’ll notice that I don’t quote the text much, and that’s intentional. For many of us, this is a familiar story, and I want to make the familiar strange, or at least fresh. If I have taken too many liberties, I apologize. I come from a long line of storytellers, and storytellers tend to emphasize the parts they like best. Here, I am not so much trying to entertain as to bring to your attention some of the details. I also hope to help you see these characters in their glorious, broken, and sometimes terrifying humanity.

I also want to retell the story because I think it is one of the best stories in Scripture. The characters, ironies, and plot twists make the story read like an Elmore Leonard novel. And . . . I hope that the elements of this story might surprise you a bit once again.

Most of all, I hope they give you a sense of the way forward in this strange in-between space we occupy. Whatever happens in the years and decades to come, we can be sure that faithfulness looks pretty much like it did three thousand years ago.

Sometimes it looks like Daniel: a steady path of spiritual formation and obedience. But sometimes, and perhaps more often than not in the world we occupy today, it looks more like Esther: a path of awakening, risk, vulnerability, and, ultimately, hope.

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Content taken from Faith Among the Faithless: Learning from Esther How to Live in a World Gone Mad by Mike Ciosper, ©2018. Used by permission of Nelson Books, Nashville, TN.

Mike Cosper is the executive director of Harbor Media, a non-profit media company serving Christians in a post-Christian world. He served for sixteen years as a pastor at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and is the author of Recapturing the Wonder, The Stories We Tell, and Rhythms of Grace. He lives with his family in Louisville, Kentucky.

Are You Ashamed of the Gospel?

I share the gospel like it’s a gift card at a kid’s birthday party—an obligatory present I hope they don’t open in front of me. Know the feeling?

If so, then we’re in good company.

Timothy was a young man in over his head and out on his own. He was being sent into the marketplace, the town square, and people’s homes to tell them that Jesus was crucified, buried, then rose from the dead after three days and that this was good news for them, who were sinners by nature and separated from God.

A SPIRIT OF FEAR AND TIMIDITY

Timothy, the young mentee of the Apostle Paul, was known to be a reluctant leader who was often timid and fearful. For some reason, he was prone to sickness, so much so that Paul mentioned his “frequent ailments” and told him to stop drinking water only and instead to drink a little wine, which was helpful for controlling stomach infections in that day (1 Tim. 5:23). On top of that, Timothy was young for his position of influence.

Because of his natural bent towards timidity, his recurring sickness, and his youth, Timothy was tempted to be ashamed of the gospel. That was a bit of a problem for the man whom Paul commissioned to guard the gospel in Ephesus, where he had recently founded the church.

Timothy was being asked to take the gospel of Jesus into a culture that didn’t want to hear about it. The people of Ephesus were living in one of the wealthiest places in the world. Many of them would have been living comfortable lives and were perfectly content to appease the gods so they could continue their pursuit of pleasure and happiness.

Things were going pretty well for the Ephesians, so who needed God? Who wants to hear about a suffering God that was killed on a cross then raised from the dead, and is now calling us to lay our lives down and follow him?

No wonder Timothy was timid and tempted to be ashamed of the gospel.

And no wonder we’re timid and tempted to be ashamed. Surely you see the parallels in his task and ours? Like Timothy, you and I are called to take the gospel to work and into people’s homes in a time where many are apathetic or hostile to what they think of as Christianity. They’re not quite sure what it is, but they know they don’t want anything to do with it because they’re doing just fine. After all, they’ve got a roof over their head, a job that pays, and a smartphone in their pocket. Why add God to the mix when things seem to be going okay? Why can’t they just keep pursuing the American Dream?

These cultural pressures make it seem so difficult to share Jesus with our neighbors and friends and family, even though we believe it to be good news for them. Why is it so hard?

REMEMBER THE GOSPEL

Fortunately, we have a record of Paul’s advice to Timothy. In his second letter to the young Timothy, Paul writes,

“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” – 2 Timothy 1:8-10

In this exhortation, Paul tells Timothy to remember the gospel. He tells Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel because God saved and called him to a holy calling. God set Timothy apart. God called Timothy not because of his own merits but because of God’s own purpose and grace in Christ.

The same is true of you, if you’re a believer. God has set you apart. God did that not because of your own merits but because of his own purposes and grace which he gave us in Christ, which was his plan all along. Now that plan has manifested itself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah who conquered death and brought us life and immortality.

Paul was reminding Timothy of the gospel he believed. He was calling Timothy to preach it to himself, for it is in remembering the gospel we believe that we receive the power to proclaim it. As we preach the gospel to ourselves, we are reminded of its powers and God’s grace, and it gives us the strength to preach the gospel to our friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors.

Paul knew this from experience. He braved angry mobs and academic elites. He faced people from his own culture and background. Oh, and most of these people wanted to kill him. Yet he stood strong and shared the gospel with them anyways. How?

FINDING CONFIDENCE IN THE GOSPEL

Later in this passage, Paul tells Timothy exactly where he gets his boldness from when he says, “...I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Tim. 1:12).

Paul isn’t ashamed of the gospel because he knows the power and majesty of the One he believed in. Paul’s faith in Christ convinced him that God is able to guard what has been entrusted to him, which was the transmission of the gospel to the nations.

Paul knew Jesus. He didn’t feel like he was on his own when he shared the gospel. He knew that God was ultimately in charge of the gospel he had been entrusted with—and God cannot fail. Even before time began, God had one plan for all of humanity—to rescue and redeem them by the blood of Jesus so that people from every tribe, tongue, and nation would bow down before him and scream out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty!”

Paul knew he was a chosen instrument. He knew he was important and loved by God. But he also knew that God could take the gospel to the nations with or without him, so it was simply an honor to participate in its spread during the short time he had.

The courage to share the gospel comes from the gospel. That’s what Paul means when he says to “share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God” (2 Tim. 1:8). God gives us the gospel, saves us by the gospel, then gives us the power to share the gospel.

DON’T BE ASHAMED

Are you ashamed of the gospel? Are you afraid to tell people about Jesus? Then remind yourself of the God who saved you.

When I’m fearful of sharing the gospel, I must remind myself of what I was like before knowing Christ—I was dead in my sins in which I once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, carrying out the desires of my body and mind, and was by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2:1-3). But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved me, even when I was dead in my trespasses, made me alive together with Christ—by grace I have been saved (Eph. 2:4-5)!

Oh, when I remember that God willed for his own Son to be crushed (Is. 53:10) that he might inherit broken, imperfect sinners like me, how can I not share his gospel? Father, keep the taste of your grace always on my lips and let me not shrink from lavishing it on your children. Remind me of the grace and mercy you poured out on me as I go and pour it out for someone else.

Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of three, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.

The Best Worst Day Ever

They had known him his whole life. As his aunt and uncle, they had watched him grow from a little boy into a man who had faithfully provided for his widowed mother and siblings. Then, as his public ministry began, they had followed him and had come to believe, however crazy the thought might seem, that their nephew, Jesus, was actually the Messiah, the One who would redeem Israel. But then the unthinkable happened. Right when they thought things were finally coming together, when Jesus had entered Jerusalem to songs of “Hosanna,” he had been betrayed, arrested, tried, and executed. The shock, fear, and grief that came crashing into their hearts would have been indescribable. Their dear nephew was dead. The Romans had done it again. Their nation would remain under their cruel oppressors.

And so, after a few days in hiding and mourning, when the Sabbath ended and they could travel, Cleopas and probably his wife, (another) Mary[i], began their journey home to Emmaus. It had been the worst weekend of their lives. But everything was about to change.

BURNING HEARTS

As they made the journey along the dusty road home, they were joined by a stranger. “What are you talking about?” he inquired. “Don’t you know what’s happened these last few days?” they answered.

They proceeded to describe how their dreams had been crushed beneath Rome’s heel. But then, as the stranger spoke to them, their hearts began to glow and then burst to flame again. Later they would say to their friends, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he . . . opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

What set them on fire?  What changed them? The resurrection and their new understanding of the Scriptures.

That Jesus would have risen from the dead was completely unthinkable to them, even though they had actually heard stories from those who had seen the empty tomb, and even though he had foretold it. They simply didn’t have a category for understanding what had just happened. So Jesus had to open both the Scriptures and their understanding. And that’s just what he did, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). And as he did this, their hearts, once shattered, cold, and unbelieving, were set ablaze.

In one short conversation, Jesus explained the meaning of the Old Testament to them. Although they were certainly familiar with it and undoubtedly knew that it foretold a Messiah who would bring redemption, they had misread it. They had assumed the Christ would be a powerful king who would establish an earthly kingdom, exalting their nation and expelling their oppressors. They had misread all the stories about Abraham, Israel, Moses, David, and Daniel as being about them and their ultimate earthly success. And it was their misreading that caused their confusion and sadness. So he opened their eyes and they began to see.

Filled with excitement and joy, they made the journey back to Jerusalem and brought the news to the eleven disciples. And then, the Lord “stood among them” (Luke 24:36) and repeated the same conversation with the whole group. He “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).

IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS

What was the meaning of the Scriptures? What had Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms been about? They were actually about the gospel.

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47).

The entire corpus of the Old Testament was about the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the God-Man who would become one of us, live perfectly, die shamefully, then rise and ascend bodily. It was about mankind’s need for redemption, as seen over and over again in the epic failures of every one of its “heroes.” It was about the suffering that everyone deserved and the patience and forbearance of the Lord who had held out his hands to a disobedient and contrary people “all day long” (Rom 10:21). And it was about the child of the woman who would trample under and crush Satan, the tempter (See Gen. 3:15).

But how would this happen? Shockingly, it would happen through the suffering of the only One who didn’t deserve to suffer, the Sinless Son. As much as his disciples had believed that Jesus was the Christ, they had missed this message entirely.

ARE WE MISSING THE POINT?

And so do we. We miss the message when we try to turn the Bible into morality tales that tell us how to have our best lives now. Be like Moses! Dare to be a Daniel! we’re told. We miss the message when we use it like tarot cards, predicting our personal future: Should I move to Atlanta? What does this verse say? And we miss the message when we read the Bible as though we’re doing our algebra homework, so we can get a good grade from God for the day.

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are about Jesus, our need for redemption from sin, new life, and his mission supply all that we need. It demonstrates the truth that all people are fallen and in need of redemption from outside ourselves. And it shows us where that redemption comes from: the second Person of the Trinity who took upon himself our flesh and our debt, lived the life no one had ever lived, died the death we all deserved, and then broke the power of the curse of sin for disobedience by rising on the third day.

What turned the disciples’ worst day into their best? Nothing less than the gospel. And when we read it the way he taught them to, our hearts will blaze into zealous fire too!

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Elyse Fitzpatrick is a frequent speaker at churches, retreats, and large conferences such as The Gospel Coalition and True Woman. She has an MA in biblical counseling from Trinity Theological Seminary and has authored 23 books on daily living and the Christian life and lives with her husband in San Diego, California. Learn more at www.elysefitzpatrick.com.

[i] http://www.jesus.org/death-and-resurrection/resurrection/who-were-the-disciples-on-the-road-to-emmaus.html