Christmas and Grace

    “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11-14)

     In the short letter of Titus, containing only three chapters, Paul packs in the exhortations to practical godly living so that we, may adorns the doctrine of God our Savior (Titus 2:10).

     But how are we to do that? What is our motivation? Shall we, like Ebenezer Scrooge, grovel at the sight of our own sins and ask God for another chance to improve ourselves? This would be the Gospel according to Scrooge.

    In contrast to this, Paul grounds God’s calling in our lives, to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled godly lives, on the great fact of Christmas. And what is the great fact of Christmas? It is the fact that, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. In other words, our motivation and our focus is not on our performance at all, but it is found in the grace of God which appeared in the coming of Christ at Christmas. Our salvation, which he accomplished for us, produces the fruit of our godly living in this present world as a display of his grace at work in us. It trains us, not by coercion or force, but by transformation and faith.

     The word appeared is epiphany in the Greek, and was used in contemporary Roman society for the elaborate displays of the Roman emperors who made their grand appearances to inspire awe and admiration (and eventually to demand worship) from the people. What Paul says, (without even using the name Jesus), is that on that first Christmas, grace appeared, which is the reason we celebrate Christmas. Christmas is a celebration of the grace of God that has appeared in Jesus Christ. So the evidence of that grace continues to be displayed as his people set their hearts and hopes upon his perfect life, his sacrificial death and his glorious resurrection and return. 

Robotic Relationship

     As I was meditating on robotics, having read a provocative article from the last issue of Popular Science, it occurred to me why I take such great comfort in a Scripture like Isaiah 26:3 which says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you”.

     The article on robotics was suggesting that robots might become our new best friends. The concept of Social Robotics is gaining ground as robots are being used not only to do mechanical work and provide information, but also to be an encouragement to people by empathizing with them and creating the impression that they are more sentient than a mere machine.

     So I pushed the button on my iPhone 6 and asked Siri: “Siri, will you be my friend?”  Siri answered, “You’ve been my friend since day one, Hal.” Of course Siri does not have a body like a robot, but you don’t really need a physical form, just a personal presence, a voice…someone who seems to care about you and is willing to share your feelings.

     I imagine that our smart houses and smart cars in the near future will be programmed to do many of the routine functions in the home like changing the television station, adjusting the thermostat or lights etc. But I can also imagine someone just speaking to that invisible presence and saying: “I’m feeling depressed”, and hearing a reassuring response; like the one that I got from Siri who replied to my statement of feeling depressed by saying: “Life, as I understand it, is sad, beautiful, and everything in between.” So now we have artificial intelligence and artificial empathy. I guess that works if you are content to live in an artificial world. 

     The great privilege of prayer for the Christian is that we are able to access the personal presence of God through Jesus Christ at any time and know that he hears, understands, bears our burdens, provides us with wisdom and empowers us to be and do all that he has created us to be and do. 

     There is nothing artificial about Christ or his real presence by his Spirit as we read his promise in his Word and discover that he keeps us in perfect peace when our mind is stayed on him, because we trust him. I’m not against robots, I’m just afraid that some people will try to find in machines and technology the comfort, consolation and counsel that God has already wonderfully provided in Christ.

Mule Christianity

     Making disciples who make disciples is the central thing that we are called to do in terms of our mission. It is a task given to every believer and to the whole church. Discipleship is something that we have often talked about and tried to implement. However, we have failed to address the issue of multiplication based on the principle of sharing the Gospel in a transforming and transferable way (T²).

     I’m not sure how I missed the importance of this over the years. I suppose we assumed that Biblical preaching, or a well-ordered church that emphasized evangelism and discipleship as part of its message would be sufficient. The reality is that preaching, alone, does not produce disciples, and even a small group ministry, whether it is home cell groups or Sunday School classes, misses the individual’s personal responsible ministry of making disciples as a way of life.

     Our focus on spiritual transformation and the spiritual maturity of the believer, while absolutely essential, has resulted in an unbalanced approach that has unwittingly been fueled by the self-centeredness that is at the core of our human nature. Our standard for healthy growth has been focused on how much we have grown spiritually, and if we are leaders in the church, on whether or not the people we are ministering to are maturing spiritually. But we have missed the key element of making the truths that we teach fundamentally transferable in nature. 

      By transferable I mean we are learning and maturing for the sake of others. I must find others with whom I can teach and share the life and truth of Christ that I am enjoying. The whole key to a growing organism is the multiplication of life. Of course that multiplication needs to be healthy, but if otherwise healthy cells are not multiplying we have a sterile situation. 

     We have been engaged too long in a kind of mule Christianity. The mule looks a lot like a horse and has many features that are similar to the horse. It can even do many of the same things a horse does, but it is not a horse. And one of the key differences is that the mule is sterile and does not reproduce.

      Don’t be a mule Christian. Make sure that you are allowing the Gospel to transform your life in such a way that it leads to transference of that Gospel message and life to others (T²).

One Body

    “So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” Rom 12:5

One of the most important elements of discipleship is the element of accountability. The principle of accountability can be well established by the very nature of the church described as a body. We, as individual members, are “members of one another”, which suggests connection, dependency and accountability. 

    We can appreciate the connection, because we all like to be connected and included. It is the longing of the human heart reflecting the image of God to be relationally oriented. We understand that there are sometimes problems with people relating to other people because of past hurt and disappointments in relationships, which manifest itself in fear, mistrust and avoidance of others. But as a community of believers in Christ we are here to bring God’s grace to one another in a way that affirms Christ’s love for us and our love for one another.

     We can also appreciate dependency, because we are aware of our own inadequacies.  We are grateful for brothers and sisters in Christ who are gifted by God in ways that we are not. This realization helps us to celebrate the strength and contribution that each individual member brings to the whole body. 

     The principal of accountability is important to our connections with people and with Christ because our default mode is self-centeredness and self-justification. This tends to make us manipulative or withdrawing in relationships in ways that distort our call to minister to one another. This is not only spiritually harmful to others; it is harmful to the person who is in this mode of behavior. 

     The principal of accountability is also important when it comes to our dependency on one another. We need each other in the body of Christ in the same way that the human body depends upon its individual members.  The eye needs the ear and the ear needs the eye. If one part of the body refuses to function as it should the whole body suffers. 

     Therefore, accountability is the necessary support system we need because we are aware of our tendency to neglect our own soul, and the ministry we are called to provide for others. Unfortunately, the very word accountability tends to be taken in a negative way. It sounds corrective, and it is, but it more than that. It is intended to help people assume the responsibility that is ours as members of Christ’s body. Perhaps the word responsibility is a better way of describing the love and commitment to Christ and one another that should be in our hearts as we serve together. May God grant us a church body of “responsible disciples”.

Making Disciples

     One of the great challenges that we face in our churches today is maintaining a clear focus on the mission that Jesus gave us when he left. In simplest terms it was to make disciples who will make disciples. I believe that it would help us to evaluate what we are doing by asking ourselves whether or not we are intentionally trying to do this, and if what we are doing is working. Jesus was a genius. His teaching and example provide a model for us to follow in order to accomplish this task. Jesus poured his life into a few men who in turn, changed the world by discipling others, who went on to disciple others.

     We are all familiar with the Great Commission, in which Jesus calls us to go and make disciples promising his presence as we give ourselves to this work. The Apostle Paul further defined this process in 2 Timothy 2:2: and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. We know that we should be doing this, but a lack of clear definition concerning the process of disciple making has left us with a vague sense that this is something that we are engaged in by the various ministries that we are involved with in the church. But the truth is that we are not doing a very good job of making disciples who make disciples. 

     We have unwittingly fallen into a methodology built on the dynamics of addition instead of multiplication.  From the very beginning God instituted the Cultural Commission on the basis of multiplication by instructing Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28). Jesus’ Great Commission calls us to multiply in the same way spiritually by making disciples who will in turn obey the great commission by making disciples. Consider this illustration from Greg Ogden’s book Transforming Discipleship, where he presents a contrast between someone personally seeing one person come to the Lord every day for a year, as compared to investing in one other person for an entire year. Things start slow for the intensive one on one guy compared to the daily conversions of the evangelist. But at the end of 16 years the evangelist has almost 6000 converts, but the discipleship guy has over 65,000 disciples.

    The reason for pointing this out is not to suggest that the problem in the church today is merely one of wrong headed methodology, but rather to remind us that Jesus’ strategy for building his church is part and parcel of what it means to take his word seriously and obey it. As Dietrich Bonheoffer said in his classic book, The Cost of Discipleship: “Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” 
     I think that Robby Gallaty is right in his book, Growing Up: How to Be a Disciple Who Makes Disciples: “When the church becomes an end in itself, it ends. When Sunday school, as great as it is, becomes an end in itself, it ends. When small groups ministry becomes an end in itself, it ends. When the worship service becomes an end in itself, it ends. What we need is for discipleship to become the goal, and then the process never ends.” 

Building Yourselves Up

    Spring is here! As of March 20th, which was the spring equinox for 2014, we have been enjoying this season of new life and beauty. Of course the contrast between winter and spring is not as noticeable in our particular location since our winters are spring-like compared to the colder climates in the higher and lower latitudes. It’s all about location and angle. It’s the 23.5-degree tilt of the earth that is responsible for so many things. At the Equinox the earth transitions in its tilt in relation to the Sun from one hemisphere to another. This simple tilting of the earth is responsible for all of the complex changes that occur in weather, plant life, animal behavior, ocean currents, the length of our days and nights etc.  I take this simple fundamental point of the earth’s tilt as a key to understanding so much about life on earth.

     In the same way, we must understand that our relationship to God through Jesus Christ is the fundamental principal by which all of the other complexities in our life are worked out. God has determined to conform us all into his image, and is working all things together for this good purpose (Rom 8:28).  As Christians we have the responsibility of keeping ourselves in the direct sunlight of his love (Jude 21). But how do we do that? Jude tells us in verse 20:

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God… (Jude 20-21a)

     Is it springtime in your soul today? Are you enjoying the springtime of life and renewal in Christ’s love, or do you find yourself chilled by an unseasonable winter of the soul? Join us in reading through the Scriptures, memorizing your weekly verses, applying them to your daily life, praying spirit prompted prayers, worshipping and serving Christ together with your brothers and sisters in Christ and taking seriously the Biblical imperative of making disciples who will disciple others.

     But even as you walk in these things, remember that all of the life and blessing that comes to us and flows through us, is based on the grace and merits of the Lord Jesus alone, and never on the basis of our own performance. He’s the springtime of our soul and the very life of his Church.

He Lives In Me

     One of the first verses of Scripture that I memorized as a child was Gal 2:20 which says:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

     This verse has become a life shaping verse for me, providing needed perspective on the Mission Statement which I have adopted for my life: To know Christ and to make him known. I know that Jonathan Edwards rightly insists that the glory of God is the life mission of every Christian, and this has found fresh and creative expression in the current writings of John Piper and others. But I love Galatians 2:20 and this simple Mission Statement for several reasons.

     I like this verse because it reminds me of who I am. This is fundamental to the direction of my life since “being precedes doing”. Notice all of the “I’s” and “me’s” in the verse (7 times). And yet the verse is not about who I would like to become, but it is about who God has made me to become in Christ.

     To know Christ then, is the proper starting point because by knowing him, I come to know myself and God’s revealed purposes for my life that are found in Christ. I read about them in his Word, but I experience them by faith in my living union with Christ, “the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God”. 

     This Mission Statement and this verse is Christ centered, and relationally dynamic. It is about knowing Christ, which is a process, and as the verse states, it is about living life by faith in Christ in a way that reflects his worth and purposes. As 1 Peter 1:8 puts it, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

     This mission statement not only focuses on knowing Christ, but making him known, which encompasses all of the grace-works and mercy ministry involved in a Gospel-centered life. Indeed, apart from our making him known by our ministry in everyday life, we cannot really say that we know him. This is the point that Jesus makes in Matthew 7:21-23, Not everyone who says to me, ‘ Lord, Lord, ’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven…I never knew you, depart from me. One may be involved in religious work apart from faith in Christ, but one may not have true faith in Christ (knowing Christ) without having a heart set on mercy and ministry in his name (making Christ known) (Mt 25:31-46).

     Have you considered a Mission Statement for your own life? The good news is that God has a mission statement for all of us that he has revealed in his Word. Ask God for the wisdom to find the best way to personalize that statement in your own life.

Biblical Perspective

     “Why is the sky blue?” It’s a question I can imagine my, (almost three-year old), twin grandchildren asking me. They are still asking these obvious questions (that most people have stopped asking) because their little minds are experiencing the wonder of life as new comers to it all. They are also under the delusion that their Papa knows everything (I’ll play that for all its worth).

     All of the colors of the light spectrum, (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet), travel from the sun to the earth as white sunlight until it strikes something that reflects, bends or scatters it. The earth’s atmosphere is composed of various molecules that scatter the light. Because the wavelength of the color blue is shorter than some of the others, it is scattered a lot more than the other longer waves of light, and consequently we have a blue sky.

     Just as our eyes perceive the sky to be blue because of the filtering that takes place by the atmosphere, so our understanding of God’s Word is filtered through many factors that are at work in our culture and in our mind. It would be helpful if we were more aware of this in a meta-cognitive way as we listen to God’s Word. A heart that is covetous or that is fearful of the implications of God’s word is not a very receptive heart. A mind that is filled with prejudice or pejorative notions will have a difficult time thinking clearly about the meaning of God’s word. In other words, we might only see blue, because that’s the way our filter works. 
     Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees who wanted him to provide them a sign from heaven. Jesus pointed out: “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. ’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening. ’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”

     Jesus then explains their problem: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.” The fact that they were asking for a sign, when the Son of God was standing before them is confirmation of their spiritual blindness. 

     It is possible in our western society and our scientific age to be so swamped by materialism, pragmatism and scientism that we lose Biblical perspective on how to think Biblically about our possessions, our values and our choices. It is difficult to maintain an honest view of science that sees the ultimate limitations of science alongside it’s penetrating insights unless we believe that God has provided us an infallible record in both books of revelation (natural and special), and that these two infallible records will not ultimately contradict each other, but compliment one another.

     Paul warned us in Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Acts of the Holy Spirit

     I’ve been reading through the book of Acts and highlighting every mention of the Holy Spirit. The full title for the book of Acts is, The Acts of the Apostles, which, could have been subtitled, By the Acts of the Holy Spirit. With the coming of Christ and his atoning work, and the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost, the dawning of the new creation and the age to come has broken upon us. We are living in these last days of promise, regenerated and empowered by God to be his holy people and to carry out his mission.

     The subject of God’s power is an important element in all of this. But we must not confuse things and think that God’s power (dynamis, from which we get our word dynamite) is something that may be used at will in the same way that we flip a switch and turn on the power for lighting up a room. It is not a matter of us using God’s power, but of God using us by means of his empowering. This shifts the focus from our primary concern of using God’s power for “success in ministry” to being holy and therefore usable as an instrument of power in his hand. This was at the heart of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians:

     That according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. (Eph 3:16-17)

     Paul is praying for converted Christians who already possessed the Spirit, but he is praying for their progress and strengthening by the Spirit in their inner being. This is so that Christ would be enjoyed and made known in and through the life of the believer.

     God’s power is demonstrated in Acts by his miraculous works, and by the Spirit anointed messengers who preached a Spirit given Gospel. But this power is also seen in the Spirit wrought reception of that Word in those who believe the Gospel and experience God’s transforming power as evidenced by an ever deepening desire for holiness which, will inevitably result in spiritual fruitfulness and ministry. 

Knowing God

     Christians who do not read books are not much better off than people who can’t read. Both kinds of people tend to fall into the category of “low information Christians”, who are content to be spoon-fed on Sundays. As we begin the new Year, and you commit yourself to reading through the New Testament in 2014, I want to challenge you to also read a classic Christian book which I would rate as the most important book for the Christian to read besides the Bible. If I only had one book that I could recommend, it would be this one: “Knowing God” by J. I. Packer. This is a book that will inform your mind and stir your soul by providing a clear, insightful, and engaging presentation of the Gospel and what it means to know God, which is the essence of the Christian life. Jesus defines eternal life by saying, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3). There are twenty-two chapters in the book, so you can easily manage a chapter a week and finish it in half a year. Packer states in the preface to his book: 

     “Now this is a book for travelers, and it is with travelers’ questions that it deals. The conviction behind the book is that ignorance of God—ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him— lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.” 

     I agree with Packer’s assessment, and having read this book several times with great profit, would commend it to you as required reading for the Christian life. The opening chapter of Knowing God begins with a lengthy quote taken from a Sunday morning sermon by Charles Spurgeon, preached on Jan 7, 1855. At the start of a new year Spurgeon challenged his church to make it their goal to know God. I have included an excerpt from that quote here:

     “It has been said by someone that “the proper study of mankind is man.” I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father.”