In The Mode Of Doing

That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. –Colossians 2:2 & 3

           

There is a story told of a man who gave seminars all over the world on what a Christian must do to be a success.  The man died and went to heaven. The first day in heaven he decided to put on one of his seminars on doing. He scheduled a large room and thousands came to hear him. While he was speaking he noticed that Jesus was seated on the front row taking one page of notes after another, and this puzzled the man. At the break the man ran to Jesus and asked why He, of all people, would be taking so many notes. Jesus replied, “You see, this is the first time I have heard any of this Myself!” 

Doing makes the Christian life far too difficult!  It is not the doing that must come first but the believing. Doing emphasizes immediate results and will not see us through to the end. However, believing will see us through to the very end as it did every person of faith in Scripture. God has given every believer in every conceivable situation absolute attitudes to be kept. If we maintain those we will see the fulfillment in God’s fullness of time. Continue to love, to submit, and to train; we may not directly see the positive from our attitude, but remember, this is our long-term plan, and in the midst of the ups and downs our spirits will remain calm.

Now what has been said previously centers in this one simple Scripture. "But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (II Corinthians 11:3). Is the Christian life simple? Is the answer to living alone, living with others, raising children, not having children, and every other struggle simple? Yes, yes, and yes again! In order for the Christian life to be one of simplicity, we must first realize that God does not give answers to every situation, but rather reveals attitudes for every situation, and second, that if these attitudes are maintained, we will not be free from the day-by-day ups and downs, but we will see the fulfillment of the promises in God’s fullness of time. All of this promotes faith! “Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform" (Romans 4:20, 21). 

What we perceive in the Scriptures, we believe.  What we believe of what God has said, we can then be given His faith to solidify our belief to where it turns into action in our lives.  Michael has shown that to be the “mode of doing” that God wants in our lives. 

Why do we start out trying to “do” something without having that “true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, IN WHOM ARE HIDDEN ALL THE TREASURES OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE”…and we continue to “do” more to try and get the results of the “Christian life” that we want.  Egads!  How long does that have to lead to failure until we change?!?

Michael always turns us away from “doing” first TO believing God and trusting Him to be the One who actually “does” His work through us.  Well, amen!

The Character of Christian Hospitality

Today we continue our series on the character of the Christian. We are exploring how the various character qualifications of elders are actually God’s calling on all Christians. While elders are meant to exemplify these traits, all Christians are to exhibit them. I want us to consider whether we are displaying these traits and to learn together how we can pray to have them in greater measure. Today we will look at what it means for an elder—and for every Christian—to be hospitable. We will also see why God elevates this trait to such high importance.

Paul tells Timothy, “an overseer must be…hospitable” (1 Timothy 3:2) and echoes this in his letter to Titus (Titus 1:8). The Greek word for “hospitable” (philoxenon) indicates a love for strangers. In the day before the Holiday Inn, Christians were expected to extend hospitality to other traveling believers or itinerant preachers. They were to feed them and to provide them a place to sleep apart from dirty, dangerous, and unsavory inns. The word is naturally expanded to include other forms of hospitality.

But at heart, it indicates a willingness to invite others into your home for a short or extended stay.
Why is there such emphasis on this trait? Alexander Strauch explains by saying, “Hospitality is a concrete expression of Christian love and family life. It is an important biblical virtue. … Giving oneself to the care of God’s people means sharing one’s life and home with others. An open home is a sign of an open heart and a loving, sacrificial, serving spirit. A lack of hospitality is a sure sign of selfish, lifeless, loveless Christianity.” Hospitality is a tangible, outward display of godly character.

An open home displays Christian love but it also enables it. Hospitality creates opportunities for relationship, for discipleship, and for evangelism. It creates a natural context for modeling marriage, parenting, and a host of Christian virtues. While we are to teach others what the Bible says, we are also to demonstrate what it says, and we do that by inviting people into our homes and into our lives.

Is it only elders who are called to share their lives and their resources by opening their homes? No, this call goes to all Christians. While the Old Testament law places great emphasis on caring for and protecting the sojourner, this care for strangers is made even more explicit in the New Testament.

Peter writes to all Christians when he says “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9) and Paul tells the whole congregation in Rome that they must “Seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:13). The author of Hebrews says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2 ). Paul instructed Timothy to extend the church’s benevolence to a widow if she “has shown hospitality” (1 Timothy 5:9–10). Jesus taught that we will be judged on the basis of our hospitality, for when we love and welcome others we in fact love and welcome him (Matthew 25:35–40).

Strauch concludes, “Hardly anything is more characteristic of Christian love than hospitality. Through the ministry of hospitality we share the things we value most: family, home, financial resources, food, privacy, and time. In other words, we share our lives.”

Self-Evaluation

So, how about you? Would others say that you are hospitable? Engage with these questions and be honest with yourself and with God:

• How many people from your church have you invited into your home for a meal? When was the last time someone stayed the night?
• Do others come to you when they need help, or do you give the impression that you don’t want to be bothered?
• Is your family intentional about welcoming others into your home, even if they are different from you or if they make you feel awkward and uncomfortable?
• Why do you fear welcoming others into your life and your home? What promises has God given you that you can cling to for hope, peace, and assurance?

Prayer Points

Take heart in the truth that the God of the weak and the outcast welcomes you—and pray to him for his help in these ways:

• I pray that you would fill me with your Spirit so that my life bears fruit through loving deeds for others.
• I pray that I would hold loosely to all that you have given me and to know that my home, my food, my time and everything else belong to you. Help me to be a faithful steward of all of them.
• I pray that you would give me boldness to welcome others as you have welcomed me.
• I pray that the motivation of my heart would be that, through loving others, I might express my love for Christ. Please give me great joy and freedom in hospitality. 

Why Did God Create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

Why did God keep back just one thing from the people he made? Why would he make people in his image, then give them one prohibition? What was the purpose in that tricky Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Sinclair Ferguson addresses this in The Whole Christ.

I am giving you everything in this garden. Go and enjoy yourselves. But just before you head off, I have given you all of this because I love you. I want you to grow and develop in your understanding and in your love for me. So this is the plan:

There is a tree here, “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Don’t eat its fruit.

I know—you want to know why, don’t you?

Well, I have made you as my image. I have given you instincts to enjoy what I enjoy. So in one sense you naturally do what pleases me and simultaneously gives you pleasure too.

But I want you to grow in trusting and loving me just for myself, because I am who I am.

You can only really do that if you are willing to obey me, not because you are wired to, but because you want to show me that you trust and love me.

If you do that you will find that you grow stronger and that your love for me deepens.

Trust me, I know.

That’s why I have put that tree there. I so want you to be blessed that I am commanding you to eat and enjoy the fruit of all these trees. That’s a command! But I have another command. What I want you to do is one simple thing: don’t eat the fruit of that one tree.

I am not asking you to do that because the tree is ugly—actually it is just as attractive as the other trees. I don’t create ugly, ever! You won’t be able to look at the fruit and think, That must taste horrible. It is a fine-looking tree. So it’s simple. Trust me, obey me, and love me because of who I am and because you are enjoying what I have given to you.

Trust me, obey me, and you will grow.

God's Church is not 'Pretty'

This week we’ve been looking at various aspects of what it means to be the church. Today, I want to address the paradox of how the church can be both beautiful and ugly at the same time.
Jesus came into our fractured world to manifest the beauty of God’s reign and revolt against the evil powers that separate us from God and others. He came to revolt against and ultimately abolish every ugly wall that separates people from one another, whether this wall is Western individualism, classism, racism or religion. He came to end all hostility between individuals and people-groups while creating “one new humanity” (Eph. 2:15).

The reign of God is manifested to the extent that we who follow Jesus manifest and reflect this beautiful truth and revolt against the evil powers in our lives, our society, and our world that work to fragment relationships and isolate people.

The church is a kingdom community to the extent that it reflects and participates in the beauty of God’s own triune being. But this doesn’t mean that kingdom communities always look pretty.
“Pretty” is about how something looks. “Beauty” is about the way something is.
The beauty of kingdom communities doesn’t reside primarily in how pretty they appear. Their beauty rather resides in their authenticity grounded in love, revealing what the members of the community actually are. And the way we actually are is sometimes not very pretty.

To illustrate, I think my own small group community is beautiful. But it certainly hasn’t always been pretty! There have been times when different people in the group have felt misunderstood, excluded, mistreated, disrespected, judged or offended. We always love each other, but sometimes we experience deep conflict and pain. There’s been a few times when I personally simply wanted to opt out.

Now, our group could have easily avoided these ugly episodes by simply keeping things superficial and hiding hurt feelings behind a polite smile. We could have decided to look pretty. It’s my impression that this is how most people relate most of the time, especially in churches. Yet, while this superficiality may keep a group looking pretty, it’s actually profoundly ugly. For this isn’t authentic. This isn’t healthy. This isn’t loving. And for this reason, this isn’t kingdom.

If we are to truly reflect God’s love in the way we relate together, we must start by being committed to truth, even when the truth is ugly. God’s love is neither superficial nor duplicitous. To the contrary, God’s love always tells the truth.

Think about this. Jesus’ death on Calvary is the ultimate expression of God’s love, and it’s the single most honest statement in all of history. It’s the ultimate example of God “speaking the truth in love,” which is a practice disciples are called to imitate (Eph. 4:15). On Calvary, God speaks the painful truth about us as well as the beautiful truth about himself.

On Calvary God speaks the truth about us by demonstrating that we are sinners who were so desperately lost it required our Creator becoming a human, dying on the cross and experiencing the full brunt of our bondage to sin and the devil in order to save us. The ugliness of the barbaric crucifixion of the sinless Son of God exposes the true ugliness of our rebellious nature and our bondage to rebellious powers.

At the same time, on Calvary God speaks the beautiful and honest truth that, despite our ugly sin, he sees us as possessing unsurpassable worth, as evidenced by the fact that he was willing to pay an unsurpassable price to redeem us. And in demonstrating the truth about our sinfulness and unsurpassable worth, God demonstrates the ultimate beautiful truth about himself.

On Calvary, God reveals that he’s the kind of beautiful God whose love will not let anything ugly get in his way. He’s the kind of beautiful God who continues to love and pursue us, despite our ugly sin and self-imposed bondage to the powers. He’s the kind of beautiful God who is willing to do anything it takes (and it took everything) to reconcile us to himself. And he’s the kind of beautiful God who is willing to cross an infinite distance to enter into our humanity and the excruciating ugliness of our sin (2 Cor. 5:21). On Calvary God reveals the beauty of the perfect love he eternally is, precisely because on Calvary God was willing to enter into the ugliness of our sin.

On Calvary God “speaks the truth in love”—which is why Calvary is at once the ugliest and most beautiful event in history.

Now, where God reigns, it looks like Jesus. So, to the extent that God reigns in a church, this community will manifest the revoltingly beautiful honesty of Calvary. It will be a community of people who “speak the truth in love.” It will be a community of people who confront their own and each other’s ugliness. It will be a community of people who are willing to suffer in love as they work through their own ugliness and each other’s ugliness. And, for this reason, it will be a community of people who reflect the revolting beauty of God’s love.

Communities that forego this difficult honesty and rather insist on looking pretty preclude genuine community. Not only this, but their duplicity fosters emotional and spiritual sickness. Everything that needs addressing and healing is hidden, and, as John Bradshaw once said, wounds that are concealed are wounds that cannot be healed. By contrast, kingdom communities are beautiful precisely because they’re willing to be ugly. They replicate the beauty of the love of the triune God who revealed his beauty by diving headlong into the ugliness of our rebellion. And for this reason kingdom communities are healing.

When people are in communities where being loved isn’t conditioned by how one appears, one is able to risk being real about wounds and imperfections. And this openness and honesty is a crucial step in overcoming those wounds and imperfections.

Certainly my group doesn’t manifest this sort of kingdom love and honesty perfectly. Like everybody else, we are all works in process. But we have a level of honesty and vulnerability I’d previously never imagined. And, consequently, I have personally experienced a level of healing I previously didn’t even know I needed.

- Greg Boyd

Comfortable With His Will?

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him. Pray, then, in this way: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. --Matthew 6:7-13

The simple question occurs to us from time to time: If God knows what I need before I ask, and His will is going to be accomplished, then why should I even pray? Well, let us look at the facts. God is very comfortable with His will; it is a perfectly beautiful thing to every child of His. However, the more I focus on things of this earth and not the things of God, the more uncomfortable with His will I become and the more I must attempt to play God, for though I have God, I am living as though I do not. As I look at Him from a self-imposed distance, I become increasingly leery of His plans. What He is doing makes very little sense. In the end, I will come up with all sorts of anxiety-laden proposals for my life. 

The secret is that prayer is not primarily for changing the will of God but to make us comfortable with His will! As we acknowledge His nearness to us, His love, voice, and care will be experienced. Remember, it is unbelief to think we ever have to move into the presence of God, for we constantly live in His presence. However, we sometimes act like children confined to a very small room, and though the Father is near, we stand aloof, facing the corner with our backs to Him. As we experience the character of God in prayer, we can shout, “Thy will be done!” We see there could be nothing better than His will! We want it, we pray for it, we want it for others, and we are comfortable. 

Jesus made it very simple…”Thy will be done.”  Man makes it very complicated.  Because of man’s thinking, man typically does not approach these issues as God wants us to.  Let me give you an example:

     (Michael’s statement) “The secret is that prayer is not primarily for changing the will of God but to make us comfortable with His will.”  THAT is God’s thinking.

     (man’s thinking) “God, I want Your will to be …”

Why can’t we get where Jesus told us to get…”Thy will be done.”  And do everything we can to “acknowledge His nearness to us” and experience “His love, voice, and care”…i.e., His will.  Why do we operate in “unbelief” so much???

Let me summarize this day’s writing for me:

God is very comfortable with His will.

The secret is that prayer is not primarily for changing the will of God but to make ME comfortable with His will.

As I acknowledge His presence to ME, His love, voice, and care will be experienced.

As I experience the character of God in prayer, I will shout “Thy will be done!”

I want His will, I pray for His will, I want His will for others…I am comfortable with His will.

I SEE THERE COULD BE NOTHING BETTER THAN HIS WILL.

Well, amen.

The Purpose of the Church

Unlike most social groups, the relationships forged in the body of Christ are not ends in and of themselves. Rather, Christ calls us to unite with other believers for a unique purpose: to grow in, express and advance the kingdom revolution. We can gain clearer understanding of what the church is to be about by discussing three closely related aspects of its purpose, as spelled out in the New Testament.

Serving God. First, in response to God’s unfathomable love to us expressed in Jesus Christ, the church is called to love and serve God. As people who are submitted to the reign of God, we are called and empowered to live in a way that declares God’s worth, that is, that worships God. Our lives, individually and collectively, are to be living sacrifices, pleasing to God because they reflect the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Rom. 12:1-2; Eph. 5:2).

Members of the body of Christ are called not only to worship God with our lives, however. Individually and collectively, we need times devoted to ascribing worth to God through song, art, dance and other creative means. Following the pattern of Scripture, these special times of worship may include enthusiastic celebratory declarations of who God is and what he has done, as well as quiet reflective expression of love offered directly to God. Both are necessary to the spiritual health and vibrancy of the church.

Serving Each Other. A second focus of the church’s purpose is for kingdom people to love and serve one another. One primary way disciples do this is by taking care of the needs within their body. Having relinquished all our possessions and rights, in obedience to Jesus, we are to be ready to share with any who are in need (Rom 12:13).

Similarly, disciples are called to serve one another by allowing God to use their gifts to help others. The Holy Spirit distributes gifts throughout the body for the good of the whole (1 Cor 12). Some have a gift for pastoring, teaching or evangelism. Others have a gift of hospitality, administration or compassion. Still others are given supernatural gifts such as words of knowledge, the ability to speak in tongues and/or to interpret tongues or the ability to heal people. In appropriate contexts, all are called to offer their gifts in service to the kingdom community as a whole.

Finally, disciples within a particular church body are called to orientate their life around the community to such a degree that bonds of trust form. Only to the extent that this happens can we help one another become the bride Christ wants to return for. Only to the extent that this happens can we speak the truth to one another in love and experience Christ being formed in each one of us accordingly (Eph 4:15). Only to the extent that this happens can all the “one another’s” of the New Testament be implemented (See post on “one another’s”) in our kingdom communities in healthy, non-judgmental, godly ways.

Whatever form it takes, the way disciples love and serve each other in community is to reflect the love of the triune God and give reason for non-believers to acknowledge that the Father sent Jesus (Jn. 17).

Serving the World. The third focus of the church’s purpose is the world. Every individual disciple, and every local kingdom community, is called and empowered to love and serve people the way Christ has loved and serves us. The primary way we serve the world is simply by bearing witness to the Lordship of Christ and the reality of the kingdom he has brought into the world. By God’s own design, people are to witness the love and power of the triune God in his bride (Acts 1:8). They are to be demonstrations of the beauty of God’s goal for humanity and creation in their lives as his “first fruits” (Jam 1:18).

In bearing witness to the reality of the kingdom by how we live, we are offering hungry people an alternative way of doing life. Those who have grown sufficiently weary and sick of chasing after idols and have discovered the emptiness of life lived according to the pattern of this world are attracted to this alternative life. This is how the mustard seed revolution grows.

Along the same lines, the church’s ministry to the world includes reflecting God’s love and care by taking responsibility for the ills of society as God leads us. It’s not the job of the church to fight over and try to enforce what we think government should do about society’s problems—as though Christians were any wiser than anyone else about such matters. Rather, following the example of Jesus, our job is to simply live in a self-sacrificial way that reflects God’s love and concern for the victims of social ills and thereby revolt against the principalities and powers (Eph 6:12) behind all such ills.

- Greg Boyd

Dismembered: The Church and Individualism

Those God has saved are called to be the church, not go to church. This distinction is vitally important. The church consists of all those who entered into the new covenant that Jesus inaugurated by putting their trust in him and surrendering their life over to him.

Yet, the church is much more than a collection of individuals. Rather, when a person surrenders to Christ, the Spirit of God incorporates them into a living organism that the New Testament calls “the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27). Each newly incorporated individual is organically related to other members of the body the way a person’s foot is related to their hand, for example, or the way their eyes are related to their ears (1 Cor 12). In other words, each member of the body of Christ is related to every other member as part of a single, living organism.

This is difficult for many in Western culture to grasp, largely because our culture is intensely individualistic. We tend to define individuals over and against others rather than in relationship to others. We thus tend to view the individuals that comprise a given social group (family, church, nation) as more real than the social group itself. In our view, individuals can join and leave a social group without significantly affecting either the individual or the social group.

This is far from the view of the Bible (as well as most other cultures). The Bible views individuals and social groups as equally real. In fact, biblically speaking, individuals and social groups are two sides of the same coin. Who we are individually is inextricably associated with who we belong to.

This is why the Bible sometimes treats families, tribes, nations and even the whole human race as though they were single individuals. What happens to any individual affects the whole, and what happens to the whole affects the individual. Paul reflects this perspective when he talks about our identity “in Adam” and “in Christ” (1 Cor 15:22). There’s an important sense in which all humans formed a single organic entity “in Adam” and now are being formed into a new, redeemed, single organic entity “in Christ.”

Paul also reflects this perspective when he speaks about the church. When an individual surrenders to Christ and becomes part of God’s betrothed bride, they become organically united with other disciples. The idea of a disciple being unattached to the body of Christ is unheard of in the New Testament. To be “in Christ” means one is part of the body over which Christ is head (Col 1:18). From a New Testament perspective, a Christian can no more live unattached to the body of Christ than (say) a finger can live unattached to a hand.

Because we in the West tend to mistakenly think of church as a weekend gathering in a special religious building (based on the ideas discussed in yesterday’s post), many mistakenly assume that when Paul addressed letters to “the church” in a certain city (e.g. at Corinth, Ephesus.), he had in mind a single body of people who gathered together as a rather large group once a week. In reality, the regional churches Paul wrote to consisted of a number of smaller groups who usually met in each other’s homes. We know from archeology that homes of this period rarely could accommodate more than a couple dozen people, which means that the house churches early Christians gathered in had to remain quite small.

This isn’t to say early Christians saw anything wrong with large group gatherings, such as the kind Jesus attracted. When possible, Christians throughout a region gathered together for fellowship and worship (Ac 1:13-15, 2:46, 5:12). Yet, the primary unit where individuals practically participated with others as the body of Christ was a small house church.

This is much more than a curious historical fact, for everything the New Testament has to say about church life presupposes that disciples are living in close relationships with other disciples. For example, we’re told to admonish one another (Col 3:16), carry each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2), and consider others better than ourselves (Phil 2:3). And we’re encouraged to pray for one another (James 5:16), encourage one another (1 Thes 1:18), forgive one another (Col 3:13), and submit to one another (Eph 5:21). These and similar instructions presuppose followers of Jesus are sharing life together in deep ways. The level of trust involved in these “one another’s” isn’t something we generally have with mere acquaintances.

Very few people in America have relationships like this, which is why very few American Christians practice many of the New Testament’s 59 “one-another’s” on a regular basis. There’s simply no opportunity to develop the kind of relationships with others in which the “one another’s” are appropriate if your idea of church is getting together with people you hardly know once a week for a religious service that allows for little if any meaningful social interaction. Conversely, when people try to apply some of the “one another’s” of the New Testament to people they aren’t in relationship with, it comes across as judgmental.

In this light, when we hear the New Testament’s teaching that we are members of the body of Christ, we need to understand that it’s assuming we will be participating in communities that are cultivating deep and significant relationships. This is quite a challenge for the largely individualistic Western church today.

- Greg Boyd