LN 11: "He Came to Shine" (12.23.07)

[Message MP3 coming soon]

SUMMARY

We were reminded by the children’s Christmas program that Jesus is the Star of Christmas. However, that title can be misleading for us Americans. When we think of stars, we think of movie stars posing for pictures, American Idols grasping for stardom, and rock stars worshipped at concerts. But Jesus is not the “rock star” of Christmas. Rather, He is the One who came as Light. In John 8.12, we read, “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” Light was associated with God. Scripture speaks of the light of God’s face and the light of God’s presence. The references are too numerous to mention. But Psalm 27:1 is a good example. It says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation.” It’s interesting that some Jewish Rabbis believed the Messiah’s name was “Light”. This belief probably finds its origin in passages which speak of the Messiah such as:

* Isaiah 42.6-7, “I … will make you to be … a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
* Isaiah 49.6, “I will also make you a light for the Nations, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
* Malachi 4.2, “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.”
* Even Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, sang, “the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Jesus is the light of God’s self-revelation and His salvation.

Then Jesus added that whoever follows Him will never walk in darkness. To follow is to trust and obey. As William Barclay, puts it, “To be followers of Christ is to give body, soul and spirit into the obedience of the Master.” There is a Jewish proverb that further emphasizes what it means to follow. It states, “Follow a rabbi, drink in his words and be covered with the dust of his feet.” The picture is following your master so closely that you are covered by the dust he kicks up while you walk along the road. Jesus says, “whoever follows me (whoever drinks in my words and walks so close so as to be covered by the dust of my feet) will never walk in darkness.” They’ll never live in darkness.

Darkness is a metaphor for the hopelessness, sin, futility and alienation of life lived apart from God. Darkness is the way of the broken world – the way of those who have turned their backs on God and refuse to be turned around. Darkness is the curse of sin and death that we have inherited from the original sin in the Garden of Eden. But Jesus says that whoever follows Him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

The light of life is either ‘light which issues from the source of life’ or ‘light which gives life’. Or in this case, it is both. Jesus is the light from heaven who came to dwell with people. He is also the light which gives life. He reveals the way of salvation. He is the Way of salvation. Jesus is the Light of life.

But what exactly does this light do? I believe that the Light of life does three things.

It REVEALS. And it reveals in three ways.
* Light permeates and thus the Light of Christ permeates us. It affects every area of our lives. Following Christ is not a half-hearted venture. We can’t allow Christ into parts of our life and keep Him out of others. Every area of our lives – work, rest, play, politics, marriage, family – all of it must be permeated by the Light of Christ.
* Light uncovers. Because the Light of Christ permeates us, it reaches into areas, revealing things we would rather remain hidden (like lifting up a rock and seeing critters scurry away from the light of day). That can make us uncomfortable. But that is the way of Christ. He receives us as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way. He changes not simply our behaviors, but our mindset, attitude, motives and desires – our hearts.
* And light guides. We began this series with two images of light: a lighthouse and a flashlight. A lighthouse is a dependable beacon that guides ships through treacherous places to safety. A flashlight is used by those who go out personally in search of the lost, troubled and dying. And so we can look to Christ (like a lighthouse) to guide us to the safety of salvation. But Jesus doesn’t just stand there. He comes to us. Jesus entered the world’s mess to rescue us from slavery to sin and bondage to death. He comes to us and leads us.

So, light reveals, but it also REPELS. We read at the beginning of John, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Some translate this: “the darkness has not overcome it”. That is the nature of light: it dispels darkness. Where light is, darkness cannot be. When you shine a flashlight in a dark place, you remove the darkness from that place. So it is with the light of Christ. The light of His presence removes the darkness – the hopelessness, sin and futility of life lived apart from God. When we are filled with the light of Christ, darkness has no place in us nor power over us.

And finally, Light RENEWS. Without light, life would not exist. Light causes things to grow. All living things need light to grow, blossom and produce fruit. And light heals. Some people are known to have Seasonal Affective Disorder which stems from seasonal change and lack of sunlight. One of the primary treatments is light. In a sense, only light can help. Similarly, every person has or has had Spiritual Affective Disorder. It comes from living apart from God and only the light of Christ can help. For the Light of Christ renews us – it heals us and causes us to grow. It gives us life and life to the full.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jesus is our light and our salvation. In Christ who we are, who God is and who we can become is revealed to us. In Christ we are kept safe because His light repels the darkness. And in Christ, we are being renewed into the men and women we were created to be.

Jesus is the star of Christmas because He is the Light of the world. He came to shine so that we could be brought out of darkness and into his wonderful light. Follow Him. Come out of the darkness of trying to make it on your own and follow the Light of the world. Give yourself - body, soul, mind and spirit in obedience to Him. Drink in his words and be covered with the dust of his feet. For He says to you: whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.


POINTS TO REMEMBER
Jesus said, “I am the light.” And He said it in an interesting place. The context is the Feast of Tabernacles in the Temple in Jerusalem. It is said that on each night of the feast, the temple court was lit up by large golden bowels filled with oil. (It was said that there was no court in Jerusalem that was not made bright from the light of the temple.) Then, in the brightness of the lamps, men of piety would dance and sing praise as the Levites played their instruments. And the dancing and praising continued until dawn. It was at the end of this feast, after the people had experienced the light of the Temple, that Jesus declared, “I am the light of the world.”


SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER
John 1.1-9; John 8.12
Psalm 27.1
Isaiah 42.6-7; Isaiah 49.6; Malachi 4.2; Luke 1.76-79
1 Peter 2.9
Isaiah 60-61

LN 10: "He Came to Serve" (12.09.07)

[Message MP3 coming soon ...]

Summary

In her poem “Maker of the Galaxies”, Madeleine L’Engle writes:
O maker of the galaxies,
Creator of each star,
You rule the mountains & the seas,
And yet – oh here you are!
You ride the fiery cherubim
And sail on comet fall.
You teach the seraphim to hymn,
And yet - you left it all.
You left the realms of fire & ice.
Into a young girl’s womb you came.
O God! This was the sacrifice!
Nothing will ever be the same.

That poem expresses the wonder of the Incarnation: that in Jesus Christ, God came near. It also expresses part of the sacrifice of the Incarnation – that the Son of God left the glory of heaven to enter the sin of earth. He set aside His glory to be a servant.

We learned last week that Jesus came to save. This week, we learn that it is precisely because Jesus came to save that He also came to serve.

In Mark 10.45, Jesus states, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus did not come to be served. Jesus did not come to demand His rightful honor and worship. He came to save us from the wrath of God (which we deserve) by giving His life for us (which we did not deserve). John 3.17 states, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Jesus came to serve by giving His life as a ransom for many. As the Lord had spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”

Now, this servant-nature of Jesus is expressed in more depth in Philippians 3.5-9. This passage reveals what theologians often refer to as the two states of Christ: his humiliation (in that He humbled himself, became nothing, taking the nature of a servant) and exaltation (in that “God exalted Him to the highest place”). For our purposes here, we will only focus on the humility. We read: “… Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!"

We learn from this passage that Jesus was and is “in very nature God”. The word behind this basically implies that which truly and fully expresses and characterizes a given reality. The author of Hebrews expresses it this way, “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.” Jesus displayed the image and glory of God. He is, in His very nature, God.

And yet He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Many see a parallel here with Adam in Genesis, for Jesus came as a Second Adam - to do what Adam and Eve failed to do. Unlike Jesus, Adam saw equality with God as something to be grasped; something to be sought after (the word means ‘something to be seized’ even ‘plunder’). The temptation that led to the Fall was that the serpent promised, “you will be like God.” That pride – that attempt to be like God and thus to be a little god – that subversion of God’s rightful place at the center of our lives – that was the original sin. Jesus came to be faithful and obedient where Adam had failed. Jesus, though He had every right to be acknowledged as God, would not seize those rights. Living as a perfect human being, He resisted the temptation to grasp after divinity.

Jesus laid aside His rights and His glory and made Himself nothing. Literally the text says, ‘he emptied himself’. The word in the original language means “to deprive of power; to lay aside what one possesses; to make empty; take away the status or position of something.” In coming to earth as a real human being, Christ laid aside His glory in order to take on humankind’s shame. Jesus limited His glory in order that he could be born in human likeness. However, the focus of the text is not so much concerned with what Jesus took out of Himself, as it is on the fact that He poured Himself out. Jesus emptied Himself by pouring Himself out; giving Himself up for us. In Isaiah 53.12, speaking of the Suffering Servant, we read, “he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Jesus poured Himself out so we could be saved. And because He came to save, He came to serve.

And so we read that Jesus took the very nature of a servant. The word there is actually ‘slave’. The One who was in very nature God became in very nature a slave. He who is everything became nothing. Born in obscurity in a sheepfold, living humbly, homeless during His ministry, dying as a criminal and buried in someone else’s tomb, Jesus came on the level of a slave – without advantages, rights or privileges. And He came as the Servant of the Lord, to suffer and bear the guilt of our rebellion.

Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, Jesus humbled Himself. Jesus was truly God and truly man. This truth is vital to the Incarnation, because, as mentioned before, Jesus came to succeed where Adam failed and to pay the penalty for that failure. The two main fall-outs of the Fall are sin and death. The Fall made sin and death inevitable for human beings. Therefore, in order for Christ to reverse the Fall, He had to deal with sin and death and to do that He had to be both God and man.
- Only a human being could pay the debt of human sin. Only a human being could represent other humans before God. But only God is without sin and only God can carry the weight of the world. So, to deal with sin, Christ had to be both God and man.
- Only a human being could experience death, but only God could conquer death. So again, Christ had to be both God and man. As John Calvin wrote, “since neither as God alone could he feel death, nor as a man alone could he overcome it, he coupled human nature with divine that to atone for sin he might submit the weakness of the one to death; and that, wrestling with death by the power of the other nature, he might win victory for us”.
- Only as a human could Jesus bear our sin, but only as God could He be without sin. Only as a human could He die in our place, but only as God could He rise again and now “hold the keys to death and Hades.”

To accomplish that, Jesus humbled Himself. And this humility was to the point of death. Jesus humbled Himself as a slave. And as a slave, He was obedient – obedient to His purpose of giving His life as a ransom for many. Jesus didn’t have to die, but he did so out of obedience – obedience to the plan of God to save human beings. Jesus said, “I lay down my life - only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”

Jesus came to serve. This passage from Philippians explains that Servant-nature of Christ. Additionally, our passage from John, presents what that Servant-nature looks like. Jesus gave His disciples, both then and now, a picture of what it means to be a servant. In John 13:1-5, we read: "It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him."

Proper etiquette of that time required that guests, upon entering a home should have their feet washed by a servant. Foot washing was a menial task – so low that it was listed among tasks that an Israelite servant should not have to do. And yet as Jesus’ last Passover supper with the disciples commenced and no one had their feet washed (and evidently no one was willing to wash the feet of their peers), Jesus got up took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. Jesus, (interestingly, knowing His position and power) in an incredible act of humility, thus identified Himself as a slave.

And He did this, we are told, to show “the full extent of his love.” Jesus loved His disciples to the very end. Even as Jesus washed their feet, Satan was approaching. His betrayer was sitting in front of Him. His trial and abuse and crucifixion would take place within hours. And yet, Jesus took the opportunity to show His love. And His actions expressed and foreshadowed the extent of His love. This foot washing illustrated Jesus’ entire ministry and mission. He came to serve. He came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. And it foreshadowed what would soon take place: Jesus would be poured out as a sacrifice so that all who believe would be saved. He made Himself a servant and washed their physical feet, but soon He would, through His death on the cross, wash their sins away. As the hymn states, “Here is love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood when the Prince of Life our ransom shed for us His precious blood.”

And so, it is precisely because Jesus came to save that He also came to serve; for He came to give his life as a ransom for many. He made Himself nothing, humbling Himself to the point of death. He came to show us the extent of God’s love – what love is – who God is.

But it’s Christmastime, not Good Friday. It’s time for lights and angels, animals and shepherds and a little baby. I understand that sentiment, but we miss the point of Christmas when we fail to see that the cross is why the baby came. Jesus came to die. He took on human flesh in order to show us the extent of God’s love. He identified with us in life so that we could be identified with Him in His death, as He took our place. He lived among us so we could have life: that is the message of Christmas. And He lived among us so that we would know how to live: that is our mission as Christians.

The Philippians passage begins with these words: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus …” We are to have the attitude or better yet mindset of Christ Jesus. Jesus did nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit. In humility He considered others and looked to the interests of others. He poured Himself out for others in obedience to the Father. He fulfilled the two greatest commandments: to love the lord with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And we are to have the mind of Christ.

The passage from John’s Gospel states, “When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." Jesus gave us an example of humble service to follow – actually, of love. As we follow Christ, we must love one another not simply with words or in sentiment, but with actions and in truth. That is the message of Christmas and the model of mission.

Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Therefore, we are to live, not to be served but to serve and give our lives for the sake of others. In other words, we are to love others as we have been loved.

And as we have seen, to love is to give yourself away.

*******

SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER

(linked to the English Standard Version on Bible Gateway)

He came to serve - Mark 10.45

The nature of a Servant - Philippians 2.3-11

Poured out - Isaiah 53.12; Psalm 22

He gave His life - John 10:14-18

An example to follow - John 13:1-17

LN9: "He Came to Save" (12.02.07)

[To listen to the Message, click here]

[photo from www.thenativitystory.com]

SUMMARY

In her poem “First Coming”, Madeleine L’Engle writes:

He did not wait till the world was ready
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
- Madeleine L’Engle, Wintersong, Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2004

That poem expresses the wonder of the Incarnation: that in Jesus Christ, God came near - to share our grief, to touch our pain, He came with Love.

The Incarnation is the focus of Christmas, but it is also crucial to the mission of the Church. The fact that the Word, Jesus Christ, took on human flesh (while retaining His divinity), lived like us and with us, interacted personally with us and gave His life for us, is both the essence of Christmas and of mission.

So what is the INCARNATION? I want us to consider the meaning, motivation and purpose of the Incarnation.

What is the MEANING of the Incarnation? Incarnation means the “act of being made flesh” and refers to the second Person of the Trinity taking on human nature. The apostle John describes it in John 1.14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” But the Incarnation is not merely the birth of Christ, it involves the life, death and resurrection of Christ. It is the entire earthly ministry of Jesus. One of the early church fathers, Irenaeus, once wrote, “Jesus Christ, in His infinite love, has become what we are, in order that He may make us entirely what He is.”

What is the MOTIVATION behind the Incarnation? The motivation is love. Emil Brunner, when writing about the Incarnation, uses the idea of movement. He says that the Bible is basically the proclamation of the self-movement of God. In other religions and philosophies God does not move, for that would be considered a sign of imperfection. However, as Brunner states, “The God of the Christian faith, the Three in One, the Living God, is Himself motion, because in His very nature He is love.” Love requires movement, because love is always directed toward an object. God is love and therefore, in a sense, God is the motion of love – love within Himself and yet directed toward us. Again, Brunner writes, “The Bible is the book in which the ever-recurring theme is this strange assertion: that the God who has created the world and who fills all things, who holds all things within his hands, the Omnipresent and Almighty – comes.” “In the Son, as the Son, God is the self-moved, the God who Himself descends into the world.” (The Mediator, 286). What wondrous love is this!

What is the PURPOSE of the Incarnation? The purpose is found in the fact that God’s love is saving love. Jesus said that He “came to seek and to save what was lost”. He came to save. We see this in our passage: Luke 4.14-21. This passage expresses what that salvation looks like.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me.” The presence of the Spirit in Jesus’ ministry is a recurring theme in Luke. In 4:14 we read, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit;” in 4:1, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit returned form the Jordan;” and in 3:22, “The Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.” And so, the presence of the Spirit marked Jesus not only as a prophet, but as the Messiah. For the title Messiah means “Anointed One”.

“to preach good news to the poor.” To preach Good News is to proclaim the Gospel (Gospel literally means “Good News”). And He would share this Good News with the poor. Now, this did not mean that Jesus only spoke to those in a certain income bracket. Jesus had plenty to say about money and the difficulty that wealthy people have in coming into the Kingdom, but “the poor” in Scripture are not simply an economic category. The poor were not just people without cash, they were people of diminished status or disadvantaged conditions, those in the margins of society, even outsiders. The poor were also “poor in spirit” – those who were humble; those who were afflicted and unable to save themselves and therefore looked to God for help; those who had a humble dependence upon God. Jesus had compassion on the impoverished and calls His followers to care for the needs of the poor, but we must recognize that ultimately we are all poor - spiritually bankrupt apart from God’s grace. And so the Good News is for us. It is received by all who recognize their broken condition and need for a Savior.

“He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.” Who are the prisoners and what are they held captive to? 2 Timothy 2.26 describes those attempting to live outside of Christ as being caught in “trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” Scripture also refers to every human as being a slave to sin. Apart from the life-transforming power of Christ, we are in slavery to sin. We are the prisoners and sin is what holds us captive. But Jesus came to “proclaim freedom”. Now, the word behind that refers specifically to the forgiveness of sin. And so, Jesus clearly had the fallen human condition in mind. Jesus came to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. But we may say, “What’s the big deal about simply proclaiming freedom? You can proclaim anything.” That’s true. But the difference lies in who’s proclaiming. In the beginning, God spoke and the universe came into existence. When God speaks, things happen. So when Jesus, who substituted Himself for us, proclaims the forgiveness of sins, they are forgiven. If Jesus declares that we are free, there is nothing in the cosmos that can hold us captive. We read in Scripture, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

“and recovery of sight for the blind”. Who are the blind? Anyone who has ever sung “Amazing Grace” knows the answer to that: “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” Jesus literally healed the blind. However, throughout the Bible, blindness is used as a metaphor for the effects of human disobedience against God. God is light and therefore trying to live apart from God is the equivalent of living in darkness - in blindness. But Jesus was sent, according to Scripture, “to be a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” But how does He do that? I think C.S. Lewis says it best. He once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it. But because by it I see everything else.” Jesus opens our eyes so that we can see ourselves for what we are, the world for what it is and God for who He is. Jesus is called the Dayspring, the Rising Sun. In Him we can see everything else. In Him we see what is true and good and beautiful and enduring. In Him we see God and His eternal plan and everything else is eclipsed by that vision.

“to release the oppressed.” The root of the word translated ‘oppressed’ means to be broken in pieces. The picture is of pottery broken on the ground or a spirit broken by oppression. As human beings, we know brokenness. We know psychological brokenness, emotional brokenness, physical brokenness, sexual brokenness, moral brokenness, spiritual brokenness. We look around and see the broken pieces of humanity scattered all about. We see the hurt, the pain, the disillusionment, the despair – broken marriages, broken families, broken children, broken lives. And these broken pieces cry out. Jesus came to heal our brokenness. He came to pick us up and, piece by piece, put us back together. Once again the word release, meaning forgiveness, is used, revealing that though we are broken by sin, shattered by our guilt, crushed by our shame, Jesus grants forgiveness bringing relief and release from the burden of sin and guilt and shame. And Jesus releases us not only from the oppression, but also from the oppressor. Satan does not want you to be forgiven or feel forgiven. Satan is the accuser who wants to shackle you to your past so that you can have no future. He wants you to be weighed down with a sense of failure and futility, so you can’t move. Satan delights in your despair. But if the Son has set you free, then you are free indeed. If Jesus sets us free, there is nothing in the universe that can bind us. And so let Jesus break your chains and throw off your burden. For He came to release the oppressed.

“to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” Jesus declared that the Kingdom of God had arrived – that salvation was at hand. The image is of the year of Jubilee in the OT Law. Every fiftieth year was to be a Jubilee year. During that year, slaves were set free, debts were forgiven and property could be redeemed by its original owner. Jesus has, in a sense, brought about the year of Jubilee. He has set us free. He has forgiven us. He has redeemed us. In Christ, we experience the year of Jubilee. For the apostle Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 6.2, “I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.”

Jesus came to save. That is the basis of Christmas, the hope of our lives and the core of Christian mission. He did not wait until the world was ready. He came when the need was deep and great. Jesus did not wait until we were ready or our hearts were pure or our lives were in order. While we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. He came into our unsteadiness and our prison, our need and our grime. He shared our grief and touched our pain. He came with love.

And He comes even now with love. He comes even now to save. He is ready to set you free and give you life. And the life He gives us involves a calling – a calling not only to receive His love, but also to share His love. We are saved from the brokenness of the world so that we will, as Christ’s ambassadors, re-enter that world and, like Christ, share its grief and touch its pain. Because we are so loved, we go with love – the love of Christ. That is our mission. That is our hope.

He came with Love. He came to save: receive the Good News and rejoice!

POINTS TO REMEMBER
“The coming God is the loving God, and only the coming God is the One who truly loves. For He only is the One who Himself goes forth to seek; the One who Himself moves in search of the beloved … This “coming down” of God, this condescension, this coming of God to men, is the proof of His unfathomable Love … It is the Love which gives its very self, the Love which pours itself out for the sake of the beloved. It is the Love which is all the greater the less claim the beloved has upon It, the less it is worthy of such love. Hence the coming of God as Love can only be fully known where it is the coming of God to sinful man, the seeking of those who have fallen away, of those who have been unfaithful. Here alone does the divine Love unveil its whole incomprehensible wealth and richness: in the Atonement - where God gives Himself to the sinful creature, in order that He may once more and indeed fully restore the fellowship which had been broken between man and God.”
- Emil Brunner (The Mediator, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1947 p. 287)

“He who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.”
- John Calvin

“To be poor in spirit is to acknowledge our spiritual poverty, indeed spiritual bankruptcy, before God.”
- John Stott

SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER
Incarnation – John 1.1-14; 1 John 1.1-4
He came to save - Luke 4.14-21
Life apart from/in Christ - 2 Timothy 2.26; Romans 6
Our sin and Savior - Isaiah 59
Jesus the Servant of the Lord - Isaiah 42.1-8
Now is the day of salvation - 2 Corinthians 6.2

LN 8: "Conformed" (11.25.07)

[To listen to the message, click here]

SUMMARY
The mission of the Church is fulfilled in Christ through. We have seen this in His proclaiming the Kingdom of God, His Great Commission, His compelling love and, now, by conforming us to Him.

Conformity is practically a bad word in our individualistic society. We cherish our popular notions of freedom and autonomy. No one has the right to tell us what to do or what is right or wrong. We follow our hearts. In our culture, people want (or at least pretend to want) to do their own thing; go there own way; to be different … just like everyone else. But it’s ironic that we, who say we don’t want to be conformed to anything, conform to everything, all the time. If we didn’t, why would companies spend millions on marketing and advertising? The truth is everyone conforms to something. The question is: what will it be?

This is an especially pertinent question for Christians because we are called to be conformed to Christ. (A Christian is one is trying to live like Christ). It’s also pertinent because, as Christians, we struggle with being conformed to the world. And often, we don’t struggle enough.

In Scripture we read: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12.2); and “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 1.14-16).

And so, to be light for the nations we must not be conformed to the world, but rather transformed. But how are we transformed? We are transformed as we conform to Christ. How do we do that? What does that look like? Jesus shows us John 14.30-15.17.

To be conformed to Christ, there are certain things that must be RECOGNIZED.

First, we must recognize the Crucial Nature of Mission. At the end of John 14, Jesus said, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. "Come now; let us leave.” This was the Upper Room Discourse before Gethsemane and the cross. Jesus knew Satan was coming and so He said, "Come now; let us leave”. What did Jesus mean by that? One scholar believes that the natural sense of that statement in the Greek language is a military one, meaning: “let us go meet the advancing enemy” (C.H. Dodd). Therefore, this statement could be paraphrased as: “The ruler of this world is coming … let us march to meet him.” In that sense, Jesus’ statement is a call to arms – a call to engage the enemy. There is an enemy, a hostile force in this world. But the enemy is not “those kind of people over there.” No, scripture tells us, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” That is the enemy to engage: evil in the world and especially in us.

But how do we do that? How do we engage the enemy and go out in mission as light against the darkness? We must recognize the Incredible Nature of the Church.
- Jesus used the image of the vine. The vine was often used as a symbol of Israel. They were the vineyard that the Lord had planted. But they had failed to produce good fruit and so the Lord sent the True Vine. Jesus said, “I am the true vine.” He is the Vine, we are His branches, connected to Him and one another. What a picture of the Church – fruit bearing branches nourished by the Vine! Our identity, purpose and power are found in our connection to the Vine! And that picture is also powerful because a vine exists to bear fruit. That is its purpose. As William Temple wrote, “The vine lives to give its life-blood.”
- Jesus provides another picture of His followers. We are His Friends (14-15): “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” J.C Ryle states, “There is nobody so rich, so strong, so independent, so well off, so thoroughly provided for, as the person of whom Christ says, “This is my friend”. No greater dignity could be given to us. No greater evidence of God’s love could be given than Jesus giving His life for us His friends. No greater impetus for mission can be found than friendship with Christ. And no greater incentive for people to believe in Christ than to become a friend of Christ. As we come to Christ and live in obedience to Him, we are His friends.
- This however should not lead us into a sense of self-importance, for this friendship is born of grace. We were chosen. Jesus says in the next verse, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.” As Bruce Milne writes, “Therein … lies the ultimate encouragement in mission. We go, not because we are worthy, or equipped, or attractive, or skilled, or experienced, or in any way suitable and appropriate. We go because we have been summoned and sent.” By grace, we are chosen to go and bear fruit.

Those are the recognitions, now we look at the REQUIREMENTS – things that need to take place in our lives.
- The first is Pruning. Jesus said (1-3), “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” It has been pointed out that the vine dresser does two things to ensure as much fruit as possible – in winter he cuts off the dry, withered branches and in the spring removes the useless growth from the branches. He clears off and cleans up. Branches that consistently do not bear fruit are removed, while those that do are pruned. Pruning in the Christian’s life takes place through the Word, the Spirit, the Church (others being shaped by the Word and Spirit), circumstances and trials. We don’t always like pruning and we often wonder why God allows certain things to happen – why being a Christian is so often difficult. But the purpose of pruning is that we might grow and be more fruitful. The Lord disciplines those He loves. God trims and cuts us that we might grow and live more fruitfully.
- The next requirement is Abiding in Christ. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." Bearing fruit is the work of Christ in us. It is impossible without Him. To be a Christian is to abide in Christ, to remain connected to Him. To abide in Christ is to remain in His love: to rejoice in it, depend upon it, do nothing to grieve Him, but rather do what delights Him, to keep his commands. Not to do that is to be fruitless and disconnected from the vine. We must bear fruit. Now, none of us do this perfectly, but to never do it is a sign of something wrong.
- Part of abiding is Prayer. Prayer is crucial to mission. Milne writes, “In the work of mission, the church advances on its knees.” Prayer is one of the ways that us branches are nourished by the Vine. And so Jesus encourages us in v.7 “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” As we abide in Christ (are seeking His will and plan), we can seek God confidently in prayer. As we seek His will, he will answer our prayers according to His will.
- But abiding in Christ is not simply an inner state, it requires Obedience. “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.” Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” We show our love by living the way God wants us to live.
- And we abide in Christ as we Love One Another. Jesus said, “This is my command: Love each other,” and “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” We are to love like Jesus loved – sacrificial, self-giving love. We are marked as disciples by our love.

As we abide in Christ (pruned, praying, loving, obeying) certain RESULTS take place. We read in v8, “This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” When we bear Fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) we prove that we are Jesus’ disciples. And as fruit bearing disciples, we bring glory to God the Father. Therefore, we find ultimate fulfillment because we are doing what we were made to do. We were created for God’s glory. As the Westminster catechism states, “The chief end of human beings is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” And therefore another result is Joy. Jesus says, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

Our society looks at this and thinks, ‘a life of conformity and obedience and monogamous faithfulness to one Person – ugh! What could be more restrictive and constricting and demeaning and dull and dissatisfying?” But the reality is just the opposite. True life, true love, true purpose, true joy is found in being conformed to the character of Christ, obeying His good commands (living His way), bearing fruit as we abide in Him, and being faithful and loyal to him as our one and only Lord and Savior. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Discipleship means joy.”

Only a life that is being conformed to Christ is compelling to the world. Only a life that is filled with the light of Christ can shine in the darkness. People need to hear the Good News, but they also need to see Christ in us. He is the Light of the nations, but He shines through us. And so conformity is not a bad word when we are being conformed to Christ. For that means that He is re-constructing us into the men and women we were meant to be.

I love the words that were etched into Ruth Bell Graham’s gravestone – words she noticed while driving on the highway one day and wanted as her epitaph: “End of Construction. Thank you for your patience.” May that be said of each of us at the end of our lives: End of Construction. Our lives are in process. We are not perfect nor are we complete. God is at work in us (and He who began this good work will see it through to completion). May our lives be a process, a journey, an adventure of becoming conformed (re-constructed) into the likeness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


POINTS TO REMEMBER

“The gracious indwelling of God with his people is not an invitation to settle down and forget the rest of the world: it is a summons to mission, for the Lord who dwells with His people is the one who goes before them …” (Leslie Newbigin).

The problem is then: How can we be light for the nations if we are like the nations? If we are just like the world, we have nothing to offer the world. We try to be “relevant” to the world rather than compelling. We want to fit into the world b/c we think that then we will have an audience. But what was the method of the One who called His people to be light for the nations? God set His people apart. He called them to be distinct from the other nations in order to be light to them. Now they misused this calling and became self-focused, but that was not the intent. God made Israel “holy” not so that they would be “holier than thou” but that they would be an example and a guide for the nations around them. If we are not conforming our lives (albeit imperfectly and often inconsistently) to the likeness of the One we proclaim, then we have nothing to proclaim. You can’t give what you don’t have.


SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER

Do not conform to the world – Romans 12.2; 1 Peter 1.14-16
Likeness of Christ – Romans 8.29; 1 Corinthians 15.45-58; 2 Corinthians 3.17-18; Philippians 2.1-11
The real battle – Ephesians 6.10-18
Being transformed – John 14.30-15.17

LN 7: "Compelled" (11.11.07)

[To listen to the message, click here]

SUMMARY
“You know what the secret of life is?” That is what the old cowboy Curly, in the movie City Slickers, asks the main character, Mitch.
Mitch: No, what?
Curly (raising his index finger): This.
Mitch replies: Your finger?
Curly: One thing, just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don't [matter].
Mitch: That's great, but what's the one thing?
Curly: That's what you've got to figure out.

What is the “one thing” that gives direction and motivation to your life? What is at the center of your life? What is your core – your motive power? What drives you? What causes you to get out of bed in the morning? What makes life worth living? What motivates you? And to bring it back to the theme of our series, what motivates our mission as the Church? Last week we looked at the Great Commission – to go make disciples. What moves us to do that?

I believe that what should be our answer for both these questions (personal motivation and that of the Church) is one and the same. The Apostle Paul states it in 2 Corinthians 5:14: “Christ’s love compels us.” That is the “one thing” - the love of Christ. That is where the meaning of life is found.

Read: 2 Corinthians 5.11-15. What made Paul and those with him so confident in what they believed, so passionate, so committed to telling the story of Jesus in its truth that people accused them of being out of their minds? It was the love of Jesus Christ, as expressed in His death and resurrection for us. That was the compelling force in their lives.

“Christ’s love compels us.”
What is love? Love is often considered, by our silly society, to be a feeling or emotion. It is equated with sex or self-love or some wishy-washy, spineless tolerance. But love is not merely a feeling, it is a decision. It is a commitment. We often define love in human terms, when in reality love is defined by God Himself. “God is love.” Therefore, God defines love. If you want to know what love is, you must know God, for God’s activity with His people (His unmerited self-giving) defines love.

And so, it’s not simply love, but Christ’s love, that compels Paul. So, what is the love of Christ?
The love of Christ is expressed in His death.
- We see this in 1 John 3.16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”
- And in 1 John 4.9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
- Jesus Himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
And so the love of Christ is seen in His death for us. Jesus took our place. He took our punishment, our brokenness, our failures, our guilt, our shame. He carried it for us and took it away. Our anger, our resentment, our hurtful words and actions; our cheating, our addictions, our perversion, our self-focus – all of it condemns us to eternal death and separation from God. But in an act of undeserved love Christ died in our place so we could have life with God. Do you understand that? The reality of that? The cosmic repercussions of that? When we look at Jesus, we see the love of God.

And the love of Christ is also expressed in His resurrection. He not only died for us, He was raised for us so that we could be raised up out of death like Him and with Him. He was raised to plead our case at the Father’s right hand so we have access to God through Him. And He was raised so that He might come again to bring us into life eternal. If you read the Gospel story and are not able to sing “Jesus Loves Me”, you better read it again, because you’ve missed the point.

Christ’s love is compelling. Something compelling is something that has a powerful and irresistible effect or influence. The love of Christ is compelling. It has a powerful and irresistible effect. The word in our passage has a few different shades of meaning. It can mean to hold together, to surround, to control, to compel. And so it gives us a picture of the compelling nature of Christ’s love.
- Christ’s love holds us together. Christ’s love heals our brokenness and makes us whole. It pieces us back together and sustains us. Apart from the saving and sustaining love of Jesus, we would remain broken or fall apart.
- Christ’s love surrounds us. The word can be translated hem in or encircle. Christ’s love is a surrounding love – a shield before us and a guard around us.
- Christ’s love controls us. We are gripped by His love. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” Because we owe our lives to the love of Christ, that love redefines us, giving us a new direction and motivation. The love that redeemed us rules us.
- And Christ’s love compels us. It is a motivational force. It is a pressure that causes action. His love is so potent and powerful that it constrains and impels us and urges us on.

But what does Christ’s love compel us to do? What is compelled by Christ’s love? Everything – every aspect of our lives. There is to be no secular/sacred dichotomy in the life of a Christian. In Christ, all of life is sacred. Everything that we do (whether it be business or pleasure) is to be inspired and influenced by the love of Jesus Christ. The love of Christ is the motivation for life and for mission. It is the one thing that makes sense of life and makes life worth living.

POINTS TO REMEMBER
Our society suggests that everyone must find there own “one thing”. I don’t buy that. I believe there is only one thing that makes sense of life and makes life worth living. And that is the love of Christ.

Dante describes this love in the final vision of Paradiso as, “the Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.” God’s love, as revealed in Jesus Christ, holds the universe together. It moves the sun and other stars. And so, it move us.

Why are we often not compelled by Christ’s love? Why are we, in the Church, so often lethargic, complacent, self-interested and scared? Where is the burning in our hearts?
- Maybe we haven’t taken seriously what Christ has done.
- Maybe we haven’t taken seriously the purpose of what Christ has done.
- Maybe we have allowed other, lesser loves to distract us.

To know Christ’s love, according to Jesus, all you have to do is repent and believe.
- To stop trying to be God yourself and hand control to the only true God.
- To turn away from all the dead ends in your life and to follow the Way of Jesus.
- To confess your brokenness, failure, inability, your helplessness and hopelessness – and to believe that Jesus is your only Rescuer and Hope.
- To ask for forgiveness and find God’s incredible mercy, acceptance and love.
And when you do that – when you truly repent and truly believe, you will know and experience the love of Christ. A love that will not let you go, will never disappoint, and will satisfy your deepest longing. A love that will hold you together, will surround you, will lead you and will compel you to really live.

So, do you know what the secret of life is? One thing. His name is Jesus and His love for you is beyond words.


SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER

[Linked to biblegateway]

Christ’s love compels us - 2 Corinthians 5.11-15
Christ’s Love - 1 John 3.16; 1 John 4.9-10; John 15.12-13
Compelled to do what? - Galatians 2.20; Philippians 3.7-14

LN 6: "Commissioned" (11.04.07)

[To listen to the message, click here]

SUMMARY

The “Great Commission” teaches us that, as followers of Christ, we are a commissioned people. But what does that mean?

Commission is a word that, at it’s root, expresses beautifully the Christian calling. Commission comes from ‘com’ meaning ‘together’ and ‘missio’ ‘the act of sending’. Therefore, being commissioned has to do with being gathered together and sent out. To commission is to entrust someone with a task or duty and granting certain powers or authority in order to accomplish that task. To commission is to empower someone for active service. And that is what Jesus did for His disciples. He entrusted them with a task and gave them the authority and power to accomplish it.

And what Jesus commissions His followers to do is to make disciples. That is the one imperative in the Great Commission. Our mission, as we follow Jesus, is to invite and help others to follow Jesus. But how do we do that? In Jesus’ final words to His disciples in the Gospels He tells us.

- In Matthew, Jesus tells us we are to baptize in the triune Name and teach others to obey everything He has commanded us.
- In Mark’s longer ending, we are told, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”
- In Luke we read, “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (24.45-48). Luke echoes this in the beginning of Acts: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
- And in John, Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”

Now when we put all this together, I believe we find that:
We are called to invite and help others follow Jesus
by preaching and teaching about who we follow
by witnessing as to why we follow
by serving and showing how we follow
and by joining them to the One we follow and with those who follow.

* We make disciples by preaching and teaching about who we follow. Preaching means to announce, make known, publicly proclaim, to tell everywhere. The picture is of a herald making an announcement. Though not everyone will deliver a sermon, per se, every Christian can, in their own way, tell someone else the story of Jesus. Likewise, not everyone is called to lead a classroom, but every Christian is called to be willing and able to teach others. We teach our children. We teach co-workers when they ask a question or come to us with a problem. We teach through example. And not only that, we can bring others to where the Good News is being proclaimed and explained (i.e. the Church).

We make disciples by proclaiming and explaining who we follow. We make the Good News of Jesus Christ known. We teach others to obey everything Jesus has commanded us. And what has Jesus commanded us? That we love God with everything we’ve got and love one another as he has loved us. Our message is love. Our activity is love. Our motivation is love. We make known the love of God. A love that calls for response.

* We make disciples by witnessing as to why we follow. Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses.” A witness is one who testifies to something out of first-hand knowledge or experience. The disciples, who had been with Jesus during His earthly ministry were witnesses of what He said and did – His teaching, miracles and character. But that’s the just disciples, we may respond, so we’re off the hook, right? Wrong. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have, in some way, experienced Him - you can, in some way, bear witness to the grace and transforming power of God in your life. And if you can’t that’s problematic. Not that you have to have some wild testimony (e.g. I was a drug-dealing, bank-robbing gang leader in prison …), but either God is real in our lives or He is not. In our witnessing to God’s work and presence in our lives, we express to others why we follow.

Now, there is one more thing about being a witness. Not everyone wants to hear the truth about God. The world doesn’t always applaud when we witness to the fact that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. In fact, the world is often hostile to such assertions. The proof of that rests in the Greek word for witness. The word is martyr. As Christians witnessed to their faith in a hostile culture, the word took on the meaning of “one who tells what he believes, even though it results in his being killed for it”. What is your witness like? Are you so confident in Jesus Christ that you would face death to bear witness to Him – to stand for His truth, His reality, His way? What about simply facing rejection or awkwardness or ridicule?

* We make disciples by serving and therefore showing how we follow. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” How did the Father send His Son? In humility, as a servant. Jesus said, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus came to serve. And so if we are going to follow Jesus, we must likewise serve. Our attitude must be like that of Jesus. Jesus not only gave us a message to preach, He gave us a model to imitate. In serving others, we show the love and truth of Christ. In laying down our lives for others, we bear witness to the validity of the Gospel. We not only talk about it, we live it. Our method has to match our message. How can we convincingly speak to others about Christ’s love and humility, service and sacrifice if we are not willing to humble ourselves like Christ and serve those around us? (the poor, the sick, the self-satisfied, the despotic boss, the pain in the neck co-worker, the grumpy neighbor, the antagonistic colleague …) We follow Jesus by being like Him.

* Finally, we make disciples by joining them to the One we follow and with those who follow. The ultimate expression of this is baptism and profession of faith, being marked as belonging to God. But the practical expression of this is that in disciple-making, we are not simply getting people to join our group or to be like us, we are bringing them to God through Christ. The point of disciple-making is not to make 100 Presbyterians or 100 Baptists or 100 conservative evangelicals or 100 little copies of us (heaven help us!), the point is to bring them to Christ – to help them be like Christ. We join people not to a movement or perspective or denomination, but to Christ Himself. Our responsibility is to help bring people into communion with God and with God’s people. So we have a responsibility to welcome, accept, and embrace others, just as Jesus did for us. We then involve them, encourage them, and hold them accountable as we would want them to do for us.

We are a commissioned people with an overwhelming responsibility. How could we ever conceive of having any measure of success at it? Because we are not called to go alone. Jesus promised, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Christian mission can only take place if Jesus is present. Without Him, we can do nothing. But with Him, nothing is impossible. We can follow Jesus anywhere and do anything because He is with us. Jesus gives us a great commission, but He gives an even greater promise. The promise of His presence.

How will you respond to this? Think back to our previous messages. Will you be like Jonah and run away from it – away from the people God is calling you to reach? Or like Abraham, who even though he didn’t know exactly where God was leading Him or what would happen, stepped out in an act of radical faith and followed? Will you go with Jesus and be light for the nations?

POINTS TO REMEMBER

“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”

It’s fitting that the Great Commission begins with this scene of worship, for as John Piper says, “Missions begins and ends in worship”. Piper writes, in his book, Let the Nations Be Glad:

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory … But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish ….When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God’s true worth, the light of missions will shine to the darkest peoples on earth.”

Our commission to make disciples of all nations begins and ends in worship. We will only go and make disciples when we have a passion for God – a fervent desire to glorify Him. Worship fuels mission.

SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER

The Great Commission - Matthew 28.16-20

The other "Commissions" - Mark 16.15 ; Luke 24.45-48 & Acts 1.8; John 20.19-21

Jesus' "all authority" - Daniel 7.13-14

Importance of preaching - Romans 10.13-15

The importance of experience in witnessing - Acts 4.18-20; 1 John 1.1-4

Jesus' example of serving - Mark 10.42-45; John 13.1-17; Philippians 2.1-16

LN 5: Kingdom of Light (10.28.07)

[To listen to the message, click here]

SUMMARY
The mission of the Church is rooted and inspired by God’s redemptive rule over His people. That is the substance of our message and the motivation of our mission.

We often misunderstand the phrase “the Kingdom of God”. We think of the UK or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or we have Medieval pictures in our heads of castles and knights and pageantry. However, the phrase in the Greek actually refers to the kingship, reign or rule of God. As R.T. France states, “the kingdom of God is not making a statement about a thing called ‘the kingdom,’ but about God, that he is the king. Thus, ‘the kingdom of God has come near’ means ‘God is taking over as king,’ and to ‘enter the kingdom of God’ is to come under his rule, to accept him as king.”

The Kingdom of God is then the redemptive rule of God over His people, made possible through the work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Life under the reign of God constitutes a new world-order, a new value system, a new allegiance, a new hope, a new future. It is a radical in-breaking of God into history and human lives.

We read Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Mark 1.14-15: “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Jesus’ public ministry began with those words – a proclamation of the Good News. All the centuries of Israel’s history, the promises to the Patriarchs, the words of the prophets now were being fulfilled in Christ. His coming signaled the beginning of the end. The waiting period for God to intervene was over. Now, in Jesus, God was invading time and space to accomplish the redemption of His people. In His life, death, resurrection, ascension and promise to return, Jesus made it clear that the kingdom is here. It is both a present reality and a future hope. In Christ, we experience the rule of God now and will experience it fully when Christ returns.

This message calls for a definitive, two-fold response: repentance and belief.

Repentance means to turn around – to change ones heart and ways, or better yet, to switch allegiances. Repentance is an action rather than a feeling. Biblical repentance is:
- Radical. It involves a complete turn around – a resetting of ones direction and purpose in life.
- Unconditional. Repentance is not offered with conditions and excuses. We don’t say, “Lord, I’ll repent if you get me out of this situation,” or “I repent, but it really wasn’t my fault.” True repentance is unconditional. We fall down before God and confess only our guilt and need and ask only for His forgiveness and mercy.
- Comprehensive. It involves every area of our lives – outside and inside, behaviors and motives, our actions and our hearts. We can’t repent a little. It’s all or nothing.
- Costly. It involves sacrifice. It involves giving things up. Stopping behaviors, battling thoughts, starving sinful lusts, throwing off our old nature. There is a death in repentance – death to the old way of things – death to our corrupt, sinful nature.

Belief involves faith, faithfulness and trust. James Dunn defines faith as, “a reliance on God that becomes the basis and motivating center for all conduct and relationships” (Jesus’ Call to Discipleship, 27). The call to believe is a call to be defined by faith. And this faith has content. Jesus said, “believe the good news.” The Gospel message then – the good news that God has invaded the human condition bringing salvation and life through Jesus Christ – this message is to be the core of our lives. It is to define who we are. We are called to cling to God’s sovereign and redemptive rule.


POINTS TO REMEMBER
What is to be our response to the reality of the Kingdom of God?

Recognize God’s rule. We must recognize that God is King and we are not. We didn’t make ourselves. We can’t sustain ourselves. We are fragile and powerless. No matter how strong or smart we think we are, we are dependent upon God’s upholding hand.

Relish God’s rule. Our response is not to be just a sterile, stoic recognition of fact, rather we are to enjoy and take pleasure in God’s rule. We like to think that we are in control and can make it on our own. We think happiness and fulfillment comes from being the masters of our own fate. But in reality, that only leads to emptiness and despair. The fact that God is in control, that we are not left to ourselves, that His purposes for our salvation have been and will be fulfilled – that is stuff for celebration. God’s sovereignty brings joy! So delight in God’s redemptive rule!

Reconcile others to God’s rule. Because we recognize and relish God’s kingship, we are then called to plead with others to be reconciled to God. We want others to experience the freedom, relief, love, acceptance, life, joy, peace and hope we have. We want to help others delight in God’s redemptive rule!

Relinquish our rule. This is another way of saying repentance. We must relinquish our stubborn and false belief that we can rule ourselves; that we can do it on our own. Difficult though it is, in order to follow Christ, we must relinquish our rule and submit to God’s control.

Rely on God. This is another way of saying belief. We relinquish trust in ourselves so that we can trust in God. Like Peter, we cry out as we find ourselves sinking, “Lord save me!” And we grab hold of Jesus’ outstretched hand.

*******

The Church, during some of its history, has misunderstood the concept of the Kingdom. I think of Charlemagne “evangelism” tactic of forcing conversion on conquered peoples. Or the Crusades which tried to defend and expand “Christendom” through warfare. But the Kingdom of God is not a human domain. It is not a political or geographical entity. It is the rule of God. The Kingdom then is not something we build, but something God builds. We don’t bring about God’s reign, He does. As we read in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.”


SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER
The Kingdom foretold - Daniel 2; Daniel 17.13-14
The beginning of Jesus' ministry - Mark 1.1-20
Jesus sends out disciples with His message - Luke 10.1-12
Relishing God's Rule - Psalm 95; Psalm 47
Ministry of Reconciliation - 2 Corinthians 5.11-21
Kingdom of Light - Colossians 1.3-14

LN 4: "Light-Resistant" (10.14.07)

[To listen to the message, click here.]

To follow God in mission, we must have a heart like His – one that is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and forgiveness.

Only when we have a heart like His can we truly be light for the nations.

SUMMARY

God calls His people to be light for the nations, but in the story of Jonah, we see someone who was light-resistant. We are familiar with the story of Jonah, at least the first half of the story. It is one of the few OT stories that make into children’s Bible story books. It’s a favorite for Sunday School because it inspires such neat crafts. However, what we tend to focus on is not really the focus of the story.

I believe the primary focus of the story is God’s compassion for the nations and Jonah’s resentment of it. We see the compassion as the story ends with the LORD asking Jonah, “should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?” And we see the resentment when Jonah, in anger, confessed that he fled for Tarshish because he knew God was merciful and did not want Him to be.

Along with that, we find a secondary focus on repentance. The Ninevites - the brutal, pagan enemy of God’s people, whose wickedness apparently ‘stunk to high heaven’ (in that it came up before the Lord) – repented as soon as they heard the word of the LORD. And yet, how many prophets had spoken to the people of Israel to no avail? Repentance is therefore called for from Jonah, from Israel and from all who read this story. (to read the story, click the picture)

Jonah is a portrait of how not to be a missionary. Jonah was light-resistant. As we read his story, we see his negative attributes.

*We see Rebellion. God clearly gave him a calling and he willfully rejected that calling and ran away from God.
*We see Fear and Hatred. Not only was Jonah afraid to go to Nineveh, he hated the people of Nineveh. To him, they were not broken human beings in need of God’s compassion, they were the enemy, outside of his concern and God’s compassion.

*We see Resentment. Jonah resented the LORD for being who He was. He resented the LORD showing compassion and pity to those who Jonah thought should have been shown the edge of a sword or a ball of fire from heaven.
*We see Hard-Heartedness. Jonah, in this instance, was not acting like a man after God’s own heart. His heart was hardened to the objects of God’s mercy and to God’s mercy itself. He would have rather died than to see God bless his enemy.
*We see Provincialism. Jonah wanted God’s mercy to be confined to the borders of Israel.
*And we see Selfishness. Jonah was more concerned with his own comfort that with the 120,000 lives in the city.

At the end of Jonah’s story, we are left wondering if and hoping that Jonah repented. But a bigger question is: are we willing to repent? Can we see, in Jonah’s failures, some of our own? Are we willing to turn away from them?

Do you have a heart for the lost – a heart like God’s? If the answer is “no”, then you need to ask God to change your heart. To follow God in mission, we must have a heart like His – one that is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and forgiveness.


POINTS TO REMEMBER
We see the negative attributes in Jonah, but the real question is can we recognize them in ourselves? Aren’t we often like Jonah?

*We drag our feet at God’s calling or even try to run away. We ignore the calling of God upon our lives. We try to dismiss or explain away God’s voice.
*We are afraid. We fear interacting with people who might reject us or hurt us.
*We struggle with hatred. It’s ok when God calls us to work with impoverished people or orphans or people who show up at our doorstep, but not so ok when called to minister to people who are hostile to us (who vote differently that we do or who practice lifestyles we don’t approve of).
*We sometimes resent God’s mercy. Like the older brother in the Prodigal Son or the Pharisees, we wonder: “How can God love those kind of people?”
*We can be hard-hearted. Do we have a heart for the lost like God does? Does Christ’s love truly compel us to be the light of the world?
*We can be provincial. We want to restrict God’s activity and His mercy to the walls of our church.
*And we can be selfish. We like things our way. We like to be comfortable. Too often, we in the Church are more concerned with the songs we sing (or don’t sing) or with our buildings or our appearance than we are with those who are lost and dying.

Far too often the Church, called to be the light of the world, is light-resistant.

We, who know we are loved by God – who are called His Bride, His Friends, the Redeemed, must also realize that He also loves the world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It is precisely because God loves the world, because He has compassion on the lost and pities the broken; it is precisely because He is “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” that we ourselves are saved. Why do we horde the Good News of that grace?

We are blessed with mercy so that we will be a blessing – not just to people who are like us – but to the hostile, messed-up, wicked culture that surrounds us.

*Honestly ask yourself if you have a heart for the lost – a heart like God’s.

And if the answer is “no”, I challenge you to ask God to change your heart.*

SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER

[linked to biblegateway.com (click on text)]

Jonah mentioned elsewhere - 2 Kings 14.23-25

Character and glory of God revealed to Moses - Exodus 34.1-8

The LORD's compassion - Psalm 103.13; Psalm 145:9; Ezekiel 33.11

We were lost at one time (and are saved by grace) - Ephesians 2.1-10

We are ministers of reconciliation - 2 Corinthians 5.17-21

Future for the nations - Isaiah 2.2-5; Psalm 22-27-31

LN 3: "Bound For Blessing" (10.07.07)

[To listen to the message, click here.]

SUMMARY
The LORD sent Moses and the Israelites on a mission to enter the Promised Land, to be His people and to be a light for the nations. Moses knew that this mission would be impossible if the LORD was not with them. And so, he prayed to the LORD, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

As the Church of Jesus Christ. We have a mission to bring glory to God by reflecting His character. Our mission is to love God and each other and to show that love to the world so as to be light for the nations that God’s salvation may reach the ends of the earth. Without God’s presence, that is an impossible mission. Our mission can be overwhelming, but being a covenant community helps us.

In its simplest form, a covenant is a mutually binding relationship. Covenant is how God has chosen to relate to His people. God relates personally and faithfully in the binding relationship of a covenant.

Three of the most important covenants are the those with Abraham, with Israel and the New Covenant Jeremiah (31:31-34) spoke of. In all three of these, the original promise given to Abraham (of land, descendants and being a blessing to the nations) unfolds. However, it is only in the New Covenant that the promise is fully realized. And that is because the New Covenant is fulfilled in Christ. At the Last Supper Jesus declared, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

And so, as we are in Christ, we find ourselves in covenant with God just as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all Israel were. We are a part of the new covenant. We are in a binding relationship with God, with one another and with a responsibility to the world. As a covenant community, we are bound for blessing – bound to God, bound to each other and bound to be the light of the world. We are bound for blessing – to receive God’s blessing and to be God’s blessing to others.



POINTS TO REMEMBER
Our mission can be overwhelming, but being a covenant community helps us. It means that as we fulfill this mission from God in the world, we have five things to support us.

* We have the Promise. The promise to Abraham is still good. As His covenant people, God promises to bless us and to make us a blessing to the nations. He has chosen us and called us to receive His blessing of grace and to then be a blessing to others.

* We have the Precedent. The Church has roots. It is not some new-fangled idea or movement. The Church was founded by God from the very beginning. We are part of God’s plan and purpose for creation and salvation. We are part of God’s faithful covenant people throughout history.

* We have other People. We are not only connected to the saints of the past, but also to the saints of the present. In salvation, God has made a people for Himself. We are called out to be gathered in so that together we can be sent forth. God has given us companions for the journey of following Christ – He has given us the gift of each other. Though Jean-Paul Sartre (in his play “No Exit”) says that, “Hell is other people,” and though sometimes we may feel he is right, our brothers and sisters in Christ are blessing we need to appreciate.

* We have the Power. Scripture explains that God’s writing His law on our minds and hearts is actually the work of the Holy Spirit in us. As people of the New Covenant, we have been given the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit gives us power to be missionaries of God.

* We have God’s Presence. Through the covenant, God has always guaranteed His presence. God is with us. And that is good news, for without God’s presence, we can do nothing; we can accomplish nothing. God’s presence is the greatest promise. Jesus comforts us with this promise in the Great Commission: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

We are bound for blessing – to receive God’s blessing and to be God’s blessing to others.
We have been given the promise, the precedent, the people, the power and the presence for mission. So let’s go.

SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER
(linked to biblegateway)

Moses' prayer for God's Presence - Exodus 33:1-17

Covenant with Abraham focusing on the land - Genesis 15
Covenant with Abraham focusing on descendants - Genesis 17:1-14

Covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai - Exodus 19-20:21

The New Covenant - Jeremiah 31:31-34

Compare Luke 22:20 with Exodus 24:7-8

Jesus is the Mediator of the New Covenent - Hebrews 8-10

The Great Commission - Matthew 28:16-20