I am excited that we are on the verge of our big journey at Fellowship. This journey is the one year journey through “The Story”. We will be looking at the one continuous story of God through the Scriptures.
In this study we will learn to see our Lord as a God who is always on Mission and that he calls us to live as a missionary people of a missionary God.
We will see the whole of scripture as an unfolding story of God and his work to redeem his people.
I will be blogging twice a week through this adventure. One post a week will be around the idea of our Missionary God, and the other will address the issue of us as a missionary people.
I am on day five of my trip to teach in Ethiopia and I am reminded again that:
For 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. Ephesians 6:12
I am reminded of the spiritual darkness that presides here in Ethiopia. I am sure it exists as much in North America, but it is much easier to see here. The people address it and know that it exists, they have just simply learned to deal with it and live alongside it.
I have had a chance to make some great connections for our desired partnership in Ethiopia, I have gained much knowledge, much insight, but I have also learned the difficulty in seeing the corruption that is prevalent in the “church” here. There is much talk and seeming signs of growth yet there is darkness in much of this, and one must be very careful to see the truth of what is behind much of the growth and energy. It is not always positive or Godly.
The good in these struggles for me is that it makes the grace of God through Jesus Christ that much more important. We must maintain a strong faith in the sanctifying work of the cross.
I pray for my true brothers and sisters in Christ here in Ethiopia and I pray that those leading the Church astray would be exposed by the light of the gospel.
For many years as a follower of Jesus, as well as many years as a pastor, I was afraid of loving people. No, that is not correct, I wasn’t afraid, I was simply not called to love people, or so I thought. The calling I had received from the churches that I was a part of was to WIN people, not to LOVE them. Every aspect of relational involvement with people was geared at winning them over to the side of Christ. I was taught an adversarial and competitive stance that lead me to see people as the enemy, or at best those to be conquered. It was after many years of ministry that I came to understand the joy of truly just loving people.
One of the freedoms that we need to experience is to be free to love people not see them as opponents to be challenged and conquered. Now that is much easier to say than to do, because many say that they are going to change their behaviour, but they don’t change it correctly. Change is not always correct, sometimes it is just change.
Often people think they are loving when all they have done is changed their perspective on people. They view them no longer as opponents or competitors and begin to view them as projects.
I always give the example of my daughters as my understanding of the difference between people as projects verses truly loving people. I never see my 5 daughters as a project, or as people I am trying to “turn into Christians”. I simply love my girls and as a reflection of that love I desire the best for them, and the best I could hope for them is that they will come to know and to walk intimately with Christ.
It is that kind of love I have had to learn to develop for my neighbours and friends. To do this means to walk in true community with people, and to walk life with them. We need to be planted among the people and we need to allow our roots to go deep. We need to take up residence among the people that God has planted us.
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry
and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your
daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.
Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Jeremiah 29:4-8
This last weekend I had the privilege to share at our Alberta Baptist Association annual meetings about what God is doing through us at LFC. As I had short notice about my sharing I did a quick mental survey and heart check about what God has been doing. I was overwhelmed by all the good things that we are seeing as God is blessing our desire to follow him.
As I pondered the great things that God is doing, the image of freedom came to mind. I have been apart of the Church my whole life, that is a half of a century for those who are counting, and I have never felt more free than I do now.
I shared with my brothers and sisters that we have consistently sent the message of freedom to our people in three very specific ways and they are:
Freedom to LOVE people not WIN people
Freedom to BLESS our greater community not continue to bless the over blessed saints
Freedom to PRIORITIZE RELATIONSHIPS over PROGRAMS
In the next number of blog posts I want to take some time to unpack these three freedoms as a reminder of the joy we have in serving the Lord and living as his ambassadors here on earth.
I have been overwhelmed this week with amazement over the amount of violence, hurt, hate and tragedy that exists in our world. It started on Monday with the bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, then the report of an earthquake in Iran, series of bombings in Iraq and then last night with the massive explosion in Texas.
Life is full of tragedy, and while some would use this information to say there is no God, I would state that it is a sign of the world choosing to liveas if there were no God. Choice of self over God has led to a world that consistently reflects life outside of God’s will.
I have done a number of funerals over the last few months and many of them have been due to tragic situations. At each of these funerals I needed to address those in the room who would question as to where God was in all of this tragedy. The answer is that these things were not God’s will and that his heart breaks as ours do at times like this. I have stated that “due to sin in the world there are many terrible things in this world that are not God’s will.”
We, those of us who but our full trust and hope in Jesus, know that we belong to a different kingdom that will only be fully realized when Christ returns. Until then we wait and try to make the world reflect this coming, perfect Kingdom in any way we can in the here and now.
I have a coffee mug that has on it the word Maranatha. It is from a youth conference that I attended many years ago in Portland. I looked at it this week and was struck by the word. I then read a blog post by Ed Stetzer that stated:
There is just one use in the New Testament of the Aramaic word phrase, “Marana tha. Paul writes, “Marana tha
that is, Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22). Most translate it as a cry
for King Jesus to come soon. Yet, that one word has become a cry for
Christians in pain, persecution, and much more.
This marathon tragedy drives us again to our Maranatha cry– “come quickly, Lord” and set things right.
Let us continue to pray for those caught up in these tragedies, but let us also pray for those in our neighbourhoods and workplaces, on our streets and on our sports teams, that walk in the darkness of this world with no real hope.
I have been reminded over these last few months of the joy of doing life together. I often struggle to make time for community. I struggle for two primary reasons. The first is due to the fact that life is very busy and it is just difficult to find time to be with others or to have people in our home. The second reason is that I am introverted by nature.
Through the years it has been my introversion that has kept me from enjoying community, but over time I have learned to appreciate the need for others in my life. A few days ago we enjoyed the fun of having our Community Group meeting in our home and sharing a meal together. We were spread across the house eating, but over time all of the adults ended up around the table in the dinning room. We simply all wanted to be in the same room together. What a joy this was.
It is easy to over strive to make time together spiritual and miss the idea that just being together in community and sharing life together is in itself a spiritual act. Trust me, being together is not enough. We need to pray for one another and encourage each other in the Word. We need to pull each other along toward Christ, but we must not miss the fact that the Lord has created community not as a structure but a spiritual act.
Now I do not fight my introversion as much as I fight the busyness of life to make sure that I do not miss out on the privilege of experiencing the spiritual gift of community.
In preparation for Easter this year I have been doing a lot of reading and studying about the incarnation of Christ and specifically about his resurrection. This is such a profound and foundational teaching for the Church, I thought I would post a good article I read on this topic.
Here is an extended quote from an article Tim Keller wrote titled “A Case for the Resurrection” in the magazine Relevant. It was subtitled: “Author and pastor Tim Keller on why Christ’s Resurrection is more than just a story.”
The resurrection was as inconceivable for the first
disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us
today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The
Greeks did not believe in resurrection; in the Greek worldview, the
afterlife was liberation of the soul from the body. For them,
resurrection would never be part of life after death. As for the Jews,
some of them believed in a future general resurrection when the entire
world would be renewed, but they had no concept of an individual rising
from the dead. The people of Jesus’ day were not predisposed to
believe in resurrection any more than we are.
Celsus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the second century A.D., was
highly antagonistic to Christianity and wrote a number of works listing
arguments against it. One of the arguments he believed most telling
went like this: Christianity can’t be true, because the written accounts
of the resurrection are based on the testimony of women—and we all
know women are hysterical. And many of Celsus’ readers agreed: For
them, that was a major problem. In ancient societies, as you know,
women were marginalized, and the testimony of women was never given
much credence.
Do you see what that means? If Mark and the Christians were making up
these stories to get their movement off the ground, they would never
have written women into the story as the first eyewitnesses to Jesus’
empty tomb. The only possible reason for the presence of women in these
accounts is that they really were present and reported what they saw.
The stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty and an angel declares
that Jesus is risen.
Please check out the Relevant website to read more.
It is always interesting to me how the theme we are studying at Fellowship ties to the stuff that is happening in our community. This last month or so has been a stretching one for me and for our community as many tough things have happened among us and among those tied to us relationally.
At the same time we are studying the Kenosis, the voluntary emptying taken on by Christ in the incarnation. The “emptying” is actually summed up the taking on of the additional nature of humanity and along with it the giving up of the independent and continuous use of all that his deity would afford Him. Only by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to accomplish the will of the Father would He rely on his divine nature.
All of this was put into place that He might be the humble servant, redeemer and mediator that we so desperately needed, and for all this we are told that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow and tongue confess Jesus as Lord to the glory of the Father.
With all that has happened over the last few months I have to rest in the fact that this perfect God-man has the world in His hands and I can trust Him.
One of my favorite songs over the last year or so has been “Farther Along” by Josh Garrels a good old Portland boy. The song says that Life does not make sense but “farther along” the journey we shall see more clearly, but for now we trust in the Lord and trust that all things will bring glory to God the Father through Jesus Christ. Here video of the song and the words from the song are below. I hope you enjoy.
Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
So, cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by
Tempted and tried, I wondered why
The good man died, the bad man thrives
And Jesus cries because he loves ’em both
We’re all cast-aways in need of rope
Hangin’ on by the last threads of our hope
In a house of mirrors full of smoke
Confusing illusions I’ve seen
Where did I go wrong, I sang along
To every chorus of the song
That the devil wrote like a piper at the gates
Leading mice and men down to their fates
But some will courageously escape
The seductive voice with a heart of faith
While walkin’ that line back home
So much more to life than we’ve been told
It’s full of beauty that will unfold
And shine like you struck gold my wayward son
That deadweight burden weighs a ton
Go down into the river and let it run
Wash away all the things you’ve done
Forgiveness alright
Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
So, cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by
Still I get hard pressed on every side
Between the rock and a compromise
Like the truth and pack of lies fightin’ for my soul
And I’ve got no place left go
Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown
More glory than the world has known
Keeps me ramblin’ on
Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall
I’m free to love once and for all
And even when I fall I’ll get back up
For the joy that overflows my cup
Heaven filled me with more than enough
Broke down my levees and my bluffs
Let the flood wash me
And one day when the sky rolls back on us
Some rejoice and the others fuss
‘Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess
That the Son of God is forever blessed
His is the kingdom, we’re the guests
So put your voice up to the test
Sing Lord, come soon
Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
So, cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by
As I have been preparing for our new teaching series for Easter I have been stretched in my understanding and application of the doctrine of the Incarnation. I have always been intrigued by the meaning and implications of the Incarnation.
In the Incarnation we find a solid theological foundation for the Gospel and the hope the Gospel brings. Our study of the Incarnation will bring us to the understanding of the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made in taking on our form and becoming like us. In this move He became our perfect High Priest who could understand our frailty and He became the one that would accomplish what we could not do for ourselves.
Jesus also set the pace for what it means to contextualize the truth of the Gospel into the lives of those that He walked among, Through this He shows us how we need to live life as His representatives. We must look at the life of Christ as an example of how to live and the Gospels become our primer on how to live life well.
Hey Fellowship community. Welcome to our new Blog. We will use this as a place to share additional content for our journey together. We will be kicking this blog off with our new Easter series entitled “Kenosis: An Emptied Easter Celebration.”
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