Tag Archives: Philosophy of ministry.

The Word of God in the life of the believer.

My sin, your sin and the honor of Christ.

Sin hurts. 

When a Christian fails or falls into sin, all who love them are wounded by what they do. The Savior is insulted by the deed. And most difficult to repair, the world has one more compelling reason to think we are all fools for believing Christ and trusting his promises. Your sin makes Christ appear to be an inglorious liar. 

Guard your heart. Christians are connected to every other redeemed person. We are members of one another. When you fail, we all who know you feel it. We all grieve what you have done. We who love you and who love God are deeply affected by what you do in disobedience to God. So close is our connection to you, that when you fail, we are bruised. 

When we fail, the whole Church is stabbed by our treason against God. My sin affects you. You feel it with a sorrow deeper and more tender than any other human connection. When you sin, it breaks my heart. 

My sin hurts you. Your sin hurts me. Consider the price those who love you must pay when you disobey and do what you know is sin. Private sins become public. Hidden sins are brought into the light. The things done in secret are shouted from the rooftops. Of course. Jesus promised they would (see Luke 12:3). 

Your life matters. We are members one with another. We are the Body of Christ.

Standard
Understanding Christ at the focus of God's glory.

Redeeming church

The church’s power comes from the likeness to Christ, and that alone.

The church is powerful in worship when it is most like Christ in character, in the choices Christians make, and in the love they have for God. The church is commanded to imitate Jesus Christ and to live (“walk”) like Christ lived (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1, and others).

When the church does not imitate Christ, it fails in its witness and it fails in its worship. When it bears a resemblance to Christ and when it is holy and God-focused, its worship is sublime and the impact it has on the world is far-reaching. It only takes a few who are serious in their worship of God and their love for God to change the world.

Dwight L. Moody said, “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.” Why has the world not yet see that man or woman (in Moody’s day)? Moody was not the only solitary, obedient Christian to ever live. Moody is often quoted as an example of one who would “give his all for Christ” and as an inspiration for people who were not seeking Christ as they ought. But it is not correct to presume that the church has never “seen that man or woman” who is fully consecrated, and that there has never been a man who is completely set on serving and glorifying God. In fact, the New Testament presumes that those kinds of people would be just the sort who make up the Church (in the day that Paul wrote Ephesians).  Moody, I think, with an appreciation for the “lay it all on the line” attitude, is wrong. The church must be a place, an assembly of people who are faithful and consecrated, a “holy people,” or we are not being the Church at all. So the world has seen those kinds of people, people who are fully consecrated to God and totally given for Jesus Christ on lots of occasions throughout history. Perhaps less so today, but that can be corrected.

Redeeming the church is the work of Christ.

The effectiveness of the local church is the sum of the lives of those who live in it. If one is weak and failing, the whole church will be weakened and bear that failing, too. If the church is strong, those who are weak and indecisive will be helped to grow and to become the people that God envisioned when he thought of the church before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:4a, “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

The redemption of the Church was accomplished on the Cross and by the Resurrection. Our work of redemption is only to live as those who have been redeemed. To experience the power of God, the Spirit of God, and to know the love of God. We experience these gifts and graces in community.

The vision of the local church is grand. It is people who have been redeemed living their lives for the glory of God. It is people who were sinners, finding full forgiveness and the life of the Spirit of Christ within them, living for him, knowing Christ in their most inner self, and having a part in the eternal work of God here on the Earth. The church is where God most perfectly is worshiped and given glory now in this age. That is our work and in the future, in the age to come, that shall be our work forever.

Walking worthy.

Ephesians 4:1 calls Christians to live “worthy of the calling to which you were called” and then adding, “with all humility” then “with gentleness with patience” and concluding with “bearing with one another in love.”

The foundational relationship of the church is with God. Our mutual relationship, each of us individually and then all of us together, is with God. Our love for God unites us together to be a group of people who love God and serve him both alone and individually and then together as one Body. We experience unity of identity and purpose that is created by the same Spirit who lives within each of us. So we are “eager to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” We have “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who is over all, through all, and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).

The apostolic vision of the local church is staggeringly grand. The implications for our lives is transformational. But we who are in the church must live as those who were once dead and are now alive; as those who were lost and are now found; as those who were slaves to our passions and lusts and are now free of them. Christ has set us free.

We have received grace.

We live as those who have received the grace of God in full measure. Ephesians 4:7, “Grace has been given to each one according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” These gifts are tied to the descension of Christ to come to Earth and to live among us and to die as our Substitute and Redeemer. And these gifts are tied to his resurrection from the dead and his ascension back to Heaven. He came to be gracious to us. He rose to announce and publicly declare his work was not only finished but that his perfect sacrifice was acceptable to the Father. His return to Glory and his gift to us of the Spirit is to apply all his graces — all of them — to us and to fill us as his people with the Spirit of Christ (the Holy Spirit of God who dwells in our hearts), so that Christ would live in us who believe. We are truly, each of us, Temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) and together we are the Body of Christ.

The church is the vessel receiving the gifts of Christ.

Christ gave gifts to the church for “the building up of the Body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ …” The gifts are (in part) “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.” Christ fills all things with his many gifts (Ephesians 4:10b), but he fills his Church with his gifts so that it may be “equipped … for the work of ministry.”

Spiritual growth. Love for one another. Obedience to the Lord and Head of the Church. Doctrinal fidelity and faithfulness. Holiness. Truth-speaking. Building up the Body in love. These are the lofty evidences that the church is God-focused and that it is filled with the Spirit of Christ.

How could the Spirit of Christ indwell the hearts of dozens, hundreds of people and not shape them into the likeness of Christ? How could the Spirit of God give gifts to the church and not have the church brought to maturity where those who are a part of it are “no longer children tossed around by every wind of doctrine” or tricked by “human cunning” or corrupted by the “craftiness in deceitful schemes” of men (see Ephesians 4:14)? The Spirit of God, who is called the Spirit of Christ, he forms the believer into the likeness of the Savior in very specific and definitive ways.

Believers are made holy by Christ’s atonement as Christ is holy. They are obedient to God the Father, as Christ was obedient to the will of the Father. We will never be perfectly obedient in this life, but obedience must be present in the church — even the Lord’s prayer asks, “may your kingdom come and your will be done on Earth and it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Is that prayer not answered in the lives of God’s children who trust in Christ? See Romans 1:5 and 16:26 where the “obedience of faith” is mentioned as the goal of the apostolic ministry and as essential witness to the validity of one’s faith in Christ. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

The church is the focus of the glory of God in the world today.

Our destiny is to “attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). Our faith unites us. The knowledge of the Son of God redeems and sanctifies us. We are brought to maturity in our faith and in our lives and labors, no longer being children — dependent, unknowing, unsure, easily misled, controlled, or confused, but moving toward maturity. We are mature, stable, solid in commitments, clear about what is important, focused on the glory of God in all things, laboring diligently with the days we have on Earth to see that Christ is worshiped and glorified as he ought to be worshiped and given glory. Ephesians 3:21, “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” That is the purpose of the Church.

Blue asters covered with dew drops

Standard
Worship

The receiving church. A received ministry.

The local church is people who receive the ministry of the Word. The reception of the Word is an act of faith by God’s people and this happens when they come under the faithful proclamation of God’s Word. They claim his Word as their own and then do all they can to live it out.

The receiving church would not be in competition with any other church in terms of size or budget. It has no need to envy another church or ministry in any way. The receiving church doesn’t measure itself by the latest trends nor does it need to have slick techniques and marketing strategies in order to grow. It grows, as the early church grew, when people who receive the Word are helped to grow in faith and faithfulness, and they experience in themselves what it is to give God more glory. The church should not labor to grow numerically. It must first seek to grow spiritually. It is God who gives the increase in spiritual maturity, then it is God who adds the numbers.

The receiving church doesn’t create a culture of excitement or build on emotions, but our hearts are filled, and our joy overflows in God and for no other reason. We gather to hear God’s Word and receive what he has to say to us directly by means of those who faithfully teach or by him who preaches. We do not stir people so they will be excited. We help them connect with God and the excitement takes care of itself.

The pastor in the receiving church prays for his people. The pastor loves his people. The pastor knows his sheep and tends them. The pastor doesn’t own the sheep and he is careful to remember that they belong to God, — but he provides for them and he is accountable to the Lord of the sheep to give them what they need. When the Word is received by God’s people, they hear and receive the Word of God into their lives with joy, sometimes with tears, but always with gratitude.

A received ministry sets people free to serve as God has called them. They are able to use their imaginations, plus prayer, guided by the Spirit who lives in them, and they serve as they are led out of their love for God and in obedience to the Word. They do not sow their faith just so that the church will grow. They labor diligently and at great cost, so that God may be more glorious.

The received ministry results in spiritual growth and real joy within God’s people. The chief and ultimate purpose of this ministry is to bring glory to God. The result is that we might become the people God wants us to be. The receiving church brings people to spiritual maturity so they can know more of God, so that he will receive from us more praise and honor and glory.

Image

Standard
Philosophy of ministry., The Word of God in the life of the believer.

The Strong and the Weak

Surveying key issues in Romans 14 and 15. Strong and Weak Vs Faithful.

Paul gives instructions to those who are strong to be kind to the weak, in Romans 14:1. Then in Romans 15 (after a little summary) he tells everyone to get along for Christ’s sake.

When reading the instructions to the “strong” it was very easy to think of all those “weak” people out there and to conclude that the duty of the strong (like me or perhaps like you) is to put up with “them.” But it is interesting that Paul never defines who the strong ones are and who are the weak.

Have you not noticed that sometimes we are strong and sometimes we are very weak? Paul seemed to know that people who think they have it together have to be given a stringent reminder to be kind to people who don’t.

Is it not true that when we fail, and act like a weak person, at that moment we depend on the “strong” to put up with our non-sense? We depend on the strong, whoever they are, to cut us slack, to bend over backwards, to give us grace, and to be quick to forgive us, when we are full of ourselves?

Romans 14:19, “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up-building,” and you could add, “no matter who you think you are.”

Paul zeroes in on faith as the test of how we may consider what makes up strength and what makes up weakness. When you are living by faith, when your choices are informed by faith, when you are expressing your faith verbally and in the way you live, then that is good and acceptable. You can be weak (in the way you act and in your understanding) but if your faith is true and your heart is given to God, others can put up with you. It is when you don’t live by faith and when you fail to believe God’s promises or trust his Person, that you get into trouble, and putting up with you at that point in your life is a waste of light and power. When you are faithless, even the strong can’t help you and they shouldn’t.

Paul’s instructions don’t give the weak permission to act like jerks. His wisdom doesn’t give the strong permission to overlook stupid and gross sins in those who are “weak.” There is a place of commonality between strong and weak and that place is our faith.

The church today seems too concerned to incorporate people into their system and programs, into their way of thinking and their alien god-speak and other strange dialects that we hear being spoken among the religious, and not concerned enough about teaching people who truly and savingly believe in Christ to simply get along with each other with true and unvarnished love.

We are called to accepted one another like Christ accepted us (see Romans 15:7, “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”) The strong want the weak to shape up. The weak are tired of being left on the outside.

Those who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus are accepted by HIM. The command is simple: If Christ received you, receive each other. This is a picture of the Church that Jesus is building.

Image

Standard
Worship

Reverence, the fear of God, is essential faith.

“Then they who feared the LORD spoke to one another and the LORD heard and listened to them. He prepared a scroll of remembrance before him of those who fear the LORD and who honor his Name.”

Malachi 3:16

We speak about God differently when we remember he “hears and listens” to us. When we worship him, we worship differently when we remember we are worshiping God as God, not merely coming to God for him to meet our needs, fix our problems, congratulate our goodness, or forgive our failures.

God “hears and listens” and we are changed by him when we worship him. He remembers us who fear him. He never forgets us who revere and glorify his name.

We love to think that God is specially in the building where we are worshiping. He is not. We love to think that our gifts and the sacrifice of time in that hour or two is all he requires of us. That is not what God requires of us. We love the security of letting others take charge of our worship, we believe they are better at it than we are. They are not better at worship; they cannot worship FOR us. We hope the religious officials are speaking for God. They may not be; what they say always needs to be tested by Scripture. 

Worship is coming with people who know and love God, giving him praise, hearing his Word, and recounting what he has done: Praising him, hearing him, remembering  him. It is not entertainment. It is not a school. It is not a religious club. 

Sin keeps the preacher proud (my greatest struggle) and the people at a distance from God. Sin makes the building the sanctuary instead of the sanctuary being wherever God is. Sin makes our moments of worship the exception to our week, not the consummate expression of what we’d been doing every minute, every hour of every day, no matter where we were or what we were doing.

God “hears and listens.” The worshiper delights in God alone. The religious fear (dread) and forget God, or they try to own him. The one who fears the LORD reveres, honors, and praises God and him alone. Nothing else is admitted to his praises. Nothing else is tolerated. It is necessary in this day to state: Only the worship of God is permitted in the worship of God.

God remembers those “who fear the LORD and who honor his name.” 

Image

Standard
Glory of God

The glory of God as the reason for all ministry in the local church.

The glorious church exists to praise God and to give him all honor.The focus on the glory of God means that people are worshipers and recipients of the grace of God, and they are never to be used. People bring their gifts and talents, their faith and their abilities, but what they give to God does not make God more glorious. It makes God’s people more aware how glorious God is. The church adds nothing to the glory of God. Since God has all the glory that exists, there is no glory to be extracted from God’s people. There is nothing from the efforts of people that will ever make the church greater in glory or more pleasing to God. The best it can do is experience the glory that God has made known about himself.

The church is great because of the Christ who is at the center of all we do. We believe that the Gospel has enough power in itself to provide for the needs of the glorious church. The Gospel doesn’t need the church. The church needs the Gospel. Only when Christ is our Substitute, our Savior, our Only Qualification, our Great Hope, are we pleasing to God.

The glorious church does not exist for greater numbers of people and for fabulous amounts of money. That implies that bigger is better in glory. But all glory is already God’s, so the numbers’ game is foolish.

In the glorious church, numbers never come into the equation in considering whether or not to create a new ministry or a mission. Practically, to be sure, there is an accounting of what is possible (do we have people with the gifts necessary to do this work? or do we have enough financial resources available to complete this work?). There will never be indebtedness for ministry. But we will be free from the love of money, knowing that God will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

Our ministry scope and reach is only calculated on the basis of the glory that God possesses, not on numbers and finances. This changes the reasons for which we exist and the purpose for every ministry. We never use the calculus that “if we could attract X number of people, then we could generate Y amount of money.” We may ask, “How can we tell more people about the glory of God?” “Who in our church has a vision-yet-unfulfilled that we can help bring into reality, so God’s glory will be praised, displayed, and experienced through these wonderful believers who have themselves experienced the glory of God and desired to tell others about this glorious God that they have known by faith in Jesus Christ?”

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

2 Corinthians 4:6

Image

Standard