Foundations – CONNECT to Grow

There is a great lie that comes straight from the pit of Hell. It’s an insidious lie, one designed to set us up for a fall. It’s whispered seductively into our ear from the world, from our enemy, and from within our wicked hearts. Want to know the worst part? Most of us grab hold of that lie and never realize that we are moving into treacherous territory.

So, what is the lie? It’s that you can be a faithful Christian apart from Christian community. It comes along with other lies meant to lead us away from God’s will. The message of God’s Word is dumbed down until all we’re left with is “Jesus came to save me from Hell, period.” The Great Commission of Matthew 28 becomes, “Make converts” rather than “Make disciples,” and the Great Commandment of Matthew 22 means, “Have a warm, fuzzy feeling about your personal God and don’t be mean to the guy next door.” And, the answer to Cain’s question in Genesis 4, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” becomes “Of course not! Watch out for number one and don’t butt in where you’re not wanted!”

Oh, how our enemy loves it when we buy into the lie. Cornelius Plantinga wrote an excellent book, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, about this subject. You see, sin is alive. It is fueled by wicked desires of our heart and demonic powers around us. Sin has an agenda, to undo all that God wants done. And its methods are almost predictable as it advances its agenda…

1. Isolation. Has there been a time in your life where something you had done was so awful in your eyes that you were ashamed or afraid to share it with other Christians? Maybe you’ve had bad experiences with Pharisees when you hoped to find Christians, finding condemnation rather than grace. Maybe your view of the Christian journey is warped and you believe that, upon saving you, God also sanctified you, making you righteous rather than imputing Christ’s righteousness to you. Either way, sin is at work to drive you into hiding.


2. Perversion. Once you are separated from those who would be available to help you discern falsehood, you are given over to the lie, convinced it is true. Have you ever heard a husband say, “I think I married the wrong person and now God has shown me the person I should have married in the first place”? Apart from healthy Christian community, the boldest lies become believable and our character flaws continue unchecked.


3. Anti-evangelism. Finally, sin makes you an evangelist working against God. Look at the drug addict who can barely afford his own addiction. Yet, he seems to have plenty of drugs for his buddy to share because he’s winning converts over to his rebellion. Or how about the person who gets worked up over some issue in the church. Maybe it’s a legitimate concern; usually it’s a preference issue. But it’s not good enough to allow sin to fester in his own life. He needs to make disciples who agree with him.

So, what’s the solution? Well, the answer to that question is complicated, but it starts with a commitment to participate in healthy Christian community. That is one reason that discipleship at Grace Church is done in small groups. Healthy group is the place where we can help one another to be faithful to the Lord. Besides, most of what we are called to do involves other people. You can’t withdraw from community and be faithful to:

Accept one another (Rom 15:7), admonish one another (Rom 15:14; Col 3:16), pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another (Rom 14:19), carry each other's burdens (Gal 6:2), confess your sins to each other (Jas 5:16), be devoted to one another (Rom 12:10), live in harmony with one another (Rom 12:16), be patient, bearing with one another (Eph 4:2; Col 3:12-13), spur one another on toward love and good deeds (Heb 10:24), submit to one another (Eph 5:21), and love one another (Jn 13:34; Rom 13:8; 1 Th 3:12; 1 Pet 4:8; 1 Jn 4:11).

Face it. We were made for community and saved to community. And God intends that we would serve and be served, know and be known. And community is where we are safe. What happens when we are separated from healthy community?

Be careful! Watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Foundations - Servants of a Generous God

My former pastor used to tell us, “You can’t out-give God!” Some people would take that to mean, “If you give to God, He will give you more back.” But the pastor didn’t intend it that way. That’s a really whacked view of God. It’s not that He needs money and we are the lenders He comes to, paying us back with interest. Even worse, some people see Him as a heavenly slot machine, one set to always pay out big.

What my pastor really meant, even if he didn’t communicate it very clearly, is that you can’t possibly give more than God gives since everything is His! David wrote in Psalm 24, “The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” It’s not that you give to get. Rather, it’s that everything you have been given belongs to Someone else and you are entrusted with it for His sake and no one else’s.

Shortly after coming to Grace Church, I had the opportunity to meet with a couple in the church who wanted to share their disappointment in me. They told me, “We were in favor of you coming to Grace because you haven’t been a pastor all your life. You know what it’s like in the real world. We thought you’d be different than the other pastors!”

You see, I had asked them to consider their life in light of Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:46-47). I was hoping to help them realize that everything that everyone has is a grace from God, both to the believer and to the unbeliever. The difference is not in the gift, but in how it is used. The unbeliever (Ed would have me call him “pre-believer” – that’s one reason I love having Ed in my CONNECT group), believing the gift is his, lives for himself, a life that serves his own personal advancement and comfort. The Christ-follower understands that everything is the Lord’s. That which is entrusted to him is a stewardship and the Master will hold the steward accountable for what he has done for the sake of the Master (Matthew 25:14-29).

Does this apply to money? Of course. How about my SHAPE for ministry? That’s why it was given to you! It’s one reason we don’t just talk about spiritual gifts when we discuss serving at Grace. God made us to be servants of Him. That includes our unique passions and our personalities. Even the awful events of our life are important to how God intends to use us to serve His Kingdom purposes. And if that’s true, it means that even our time is His. And this is why that couple is frustrated with their pastors, because they still don’t understand that they belong to the Lord. Maybe it’s that we don’t communicate it clearly enough or come across as self-serving. Maybe it’s because they still want to be the rulers of “their” lives.

The reason Giving and Serving were lumped together during Foundations Month is because it’s all about Stewardship. That is why I have committed both spring and fall to helping the members of our groups understand why Service is vitally important to their Christian journey. Your see, our lives are not about having all the right answers on a Bible quiz. They are about being faithful to our Lord. Bible content is incredibly important since it’s in Scripture that we understand who and how we are to be. But it’s in the implementation of that information that God brings about transformation in our lives. And it’s thru that implementation that He changes the lives of others. Consider the worldview of Paul in the following passage. Look at how he decided how to live his life in light of the stewardship given to him. And this doesn’t just apply to him; it’s part of his instruction to the Corinthian church on how they are to live in light of the Gospel:

“Everything is permissible”-- but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”-- but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience’ sake-- the other man’s conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for? So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God-- even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. 1 Corinthians 10:23-33

Our God is a generous God. We are to be like Him. And He is our Lord. We were saved to serve Him.

Baptism, then what?

I had intended to blog today about the Foundations of Giving and Serving, but an email to me has set that post aside for a bit. I told you I have a heart for Baptism and this is one reason why…

Steve,
Thank you so kindly for my baptism this past Sunday.
I had struggled w/this step for over a year. It was a huge monkey on my back! I knew I had to do it, and wanted to so badly. I knew that I needed to be obedient to God and follow through w/this. He was calling me to get baptized, I heard Him, but I continually backed away at the last minute. It was sharing my salvation story that held me back. I am ashamed of the person I was before I became saved. I didn’t want to be looked at as that man. On that note, I do truly believe that it is the journey that I had lived that has led me to be the man that I am today; nowhere near where God wants me to be, but on the right path.
Sharing my testimony on Sunday morning was...relieving! It let out so much tension that I had about it. About halfway through I actually lost my train of thought.....I saw all the empty seats and wished that the room was overfilled w/people! That caught me off guard, b/c 5 mins beforehand I wished the room were empty!
I prayed a lot yesterday that there was one person out there that heard my testimony.... someone that could connect w/it and lead them to get saved, become baptized, or move a step closer to where God wants them to be. Yesterday was a huge step for me.......now I am ready to go further down this journey that God has for me, whatever that may be.
We were out gardening yesterday afternoon. My 7 year old daughter, while pulling out some hateful groundcover next to me, looked up and nonchalantly told me that she was so proud of me for getting baptized. What an emotional moment! Thank you Steve!
Stephen

Folks, I was totally pumped after participating in 18 Baptisms on Sunday morning. But this email sent me clean over the top! This is at the heart of Meeting & Moving. Yes, I love seeing people giving themselves to the Lord, trusting in Him alone for their salvation. But I’m equally thrilled when a believer takes a step of obedience. You see, all of us are on a spiritual journey. Let’s face it. Sometimes we stall out along the path. Occasionally, we even take a step or two backwards.

Do you want to run a good race and finish well? Want to know the secret? Want to know the missing element from many Christians’ lives? It’s biblical community! I don’t mean coming to church on Sunday morning for an hour. I mean living out the “One Another” commands that the Lord gave His church, living out the Gospel life-on-life with others who are also trying to finish well.

So, what advice am I offering to those who have been baptized this last weekend? Get into a good CONNECT group and continue to grow in the Lord.

Foundations – Baptism

OK, I admit it. I’m a sucker for Baptisms. The main reason is probably that the Baptism Ministry was my first ministry exposure and it truly launched my life onto a completely new trajectory. See, I didn’t realize what discipleship was all about, but I learned about it as I served in the Baptism Ministry.

I saw lives that were being radically transformed by the power of God through the Gospel of Grace. Some people coming to the pool were at the highest highs, because God had miraculously intervened and they truly felt the freedom of forgiveness of sins and His immeasurable love. Others were trusting that He would rescue them from the dark pit of their despair, putting their hope in Him to be faithful and true even when they felt their weakest. I used to tell my mentor that I could feel the spiritual energy around the Baptistery. I was reminded of how I had cried out to God for rescue. I also remembered how He had made His presence known to me in very tangible ways, breaking through my engineer’s skepticism and showing me that we was not the fabrication of feeble, powerless, pathetic creatures. No, He was and is and will always be exactly who He has revealed Himself to be in His Word, and I fed off of that experience in the lives of others.

But Baptism is also the beginning of our journey of obedience. Christ didn’t command His church to “make converts,” but rather to “make disciples” and to engage in “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Since we don’t and can’t do anything to provide for our salvation, our part becomes seeking faithfulness in our walk with Christ. The evangelistic cry from Acts is repeatedly, “Repent and be baptized.” Our immediate response to God’s calling isn’t church attendance, classes, or even Bible study, but Baptism. That’s the first step! So how is it that there are so many people who claim to have given themselves fully to the Lord, yet they haven’t been baptized, maybe even years later? What will they say when their works are passed through the fire and the Lord says, “Hmmm, was it simply an oversight, or why haven’t you done the most simple thing I asked of you?” Don’t read this wrong. Baptism doesn’t save you. But, what does it say about the condition of your heart if you are unwilling to take even the very first step of obedience.

What do you think, what do you feel when you hear the word “Baptism?” How about when you see a Baptism? Do you get excited for what God is doing in the lives of others? Does it spur you on in your walk of faith, challenging you to take your own next step, whatever that might be? Is it Baptism? It’s not too late. We’re baptizing dozens of folks this Sunday, March 21. Let me know that you’ve decided that the wait is over and you’re ready to follow after the Lord. Pop me an email today (scburghart@meetgrace.org). And, if you don’t remember what Baptism is like, watch this video…

Love Your Enemies

This weekend, Pastor Scott preached to us from the end of Matthew 5 about loving our enemies. This raises two great questions: “Why should I love my enemies?” and “How do I know if someone is really an enemy?”

“Why should I love my enemies?” To get the answer to this question, you need go no further than the passage from Matthew 5. Verses 44-45 state, “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Jesus is saying, “Prove that you are truly adopted sons and daughters of your Father in heaven by being like Him. He loves and blesses all people whether they love Him or hate Him.” God does not love people based upon what they do, but rather according to who He is. People who love their own are understandable. Truly unexplainable love is love for those who are seeking to harm you. And that leads to the second question:
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“How do I know if someone is really an enemy?” This is the question I really wish to address in this post. Since we obviously love our friends and Jesus has now commanded us to love our enemies too, why didn’t Jesus just say, “Love everyone!” Well, in essence, He did. Jesus doesn’t see “love” in light of friend or foe. He loves both. For Him, the difference between those two categories is a discipleship issue. In John 15:15, Jesus says that He calls His disciples “friends” because He is instructing them in the plans and ways of the Father. They are His ministry partners and He is committed to helping them to grow as disciples. This is radically different than how we decide who is a friend and who is an enemy. We think that a friend is someone we have fun with and an enemy is someone who causes us to feel discomfort or pain. But that is decidedly unbiblical. Pain is not only unavoidable, but it is a necessary component for growth as a Christian. How else could you develop patience, long-suffering, and perseverance? But we don’t look at things through the eyes of faith, but from our flesh. When someone causes us pain, we quickly decide that she must really be an enemy. Once we have made the determination that she cannot be trusted, we can enter into the war against her or, our usual preference, we can begin to distance ourselves from her. But Proverbs 27:6 says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” Generally, your enemy will use flattery to deceive you in order to destroy you. Notice that Scripture indicates that a friend will “wound” you, but you can trust that person. Why? Because she wants to help you grow. At the risk of smacking a hornet’s nest, I suggest that you consider a loving parent who spanks (don’t read “brutalizes”) an unruly child in order to correct and train. So, the proof is in the relationship. It’s not whether or not you feel pain, but the outcome (or intended outcome) of the painful experience which determines friend or foe.

So why the lengthy discussion? Because group life can get very uncomfortable at times. I’ll go one step further: Group life should get very uncomfortable at times. It is through the pain that we come to grips with the sin in our own lives and the inauthentic community within our gatherings. And, like the unruly child who is being corrected, we have a choice to make. Are we going to throw a tantrum and withdraw from community, from true friends, and from God, or are we going to respond in genuine brokenness and repentance and fall anew into loving, accepting, trustworthy arms which will gladly receive us and rejoice in our victory over sin?