Jesus heard them and answered, “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.”

Mark 2:15-17, Good News Translation

I haven’t thought through some of his points, but others hit home really strong:

I find it instructive that the New Testament writers themselves seldom, if ever, pack all of the aspects of the gospel equally in any one gospel address. When studying Paul’s gospel speeches in the book of Acts, it is striking how much is always left out

Instead of going into, say, one of the epistles and speaking of the gospel in terms of God, sin, Christ, and faith, I point out the story-arc of the Bible and speak of the gospel in terms of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We once had the world we all wanted-a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict. But by turning from God we lost that world. Our sin unleashed forces of evil and destruction so that now “things fall apart” and everything is characterized by physical, social, and personal disintegration.

Yes! I discovered a few years ago how much more sense the gospel makes to my generation when you start with a thorough treatment of our race, as a whole, explicitly rejecting God and plunging our planet into death, disease and degeneration. Realizing that they were born into the rebel camp helps teens understand why God is their enemy from the start and it does so in a way that is more compelling to someone who doesn’t understand how much their “personal” sin is actually against their creator.

1. Sent: Living the Missional Nature of the Church by Ed Stetzer (should be nearly finished by the end of the year)
2. Do Hard Things by Alex & Brett Harris (good, but a little too social-justice oriented for me to be super-excited about it)
3. Holiness By Grace by Bryan Chapell (great theology, but so thickly written it was a bit of a chore to get through it)
4. Bauckham’s, JND Kelly’s & Hiebert’s detailed exegetical commentaries on 2 Peter (read a good chunk of each, I figured together they counted as 1 book)
5. Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (ok, so it’s an easy, fun book — those count too!)
6. Scarlet by Stephen R. Lawhead (also fun, part of a Robin Hood trilogy)
7. The Lively Art of Writing (excellent book, recommended by Mrs. Jordan)

Of course, that doesn’t count the books I’ve started:

1. Robert Ballard’s Bismark: Germany’s Greatest Battleship Surrenders Her Secrets
2. Dune by Frank Herbert (one of the few fiction authors whose writing style I very much admire)
3. The Gospel & Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever (excellent so far, forward by C.J. Mahaney)
4. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart (I really like this book so far)
5. Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp
6. Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp (on parenting teens – wrote a promotional article for it in the TFC newsletter)

How about you? What have you been reading?

When I saw you for the first time
you were hanging with a thief
And I knew my hands were dirty,
and I dropped my gaze.
Then you said I was forgiven
and you welcomed me with laughter.
I was happy ever after.
I was counting the days
when you’d come back again.
we’ll be waiting for you
When you comin’ back again?
we’ll be ready for you
Maybe we’ll wake up when…
maybe we’ll wake up when
you come back again.

lies.
Let’s be blunt.
We’re a little unfaithful.
What do you want?

Are you still listening?
`Cause we’re obviously not
We’ve forgotten our first love
We have lost the plot.

And why are you still calling?
You forgave, we forgot.
We’re such experts at stalling
that we’ve lost the plot.
lost the plot

When you come back again
would you bring me something from the fridge?
Heard a rumor that the end is near
but I just got comfortable here.

I struggled for a long time on my own, trying to figure out where our theology and practice went wrong. But recently, I’ve been hugely encouraged by a whole bunch of theologically solid believers, pastors, churches and speakers who have been distressed by the very same thing – and, more importantly, has figured out the answer and have been living it. The movement as a whole is called the Missional movement and the group that best characterizes it is the Acts 29 Network, a loose association of theologically-solid, missionally-minded churches across the nation.

I’ve been taking TFC’s staff and student leadership team through an excellent bible study called Sent: Living the Missional Nature of the Church. So far, Session 2 (of 5) hit me the hardest. Here are the five paragraphs that I liked the most:

There is a better way. The better way is to stand for justice and to serve those in need – but never let anyone tell you that you can bring justice but you can’t bring Jesus. The better way is to lead the pack in meeting both physical and spiritual needs. The better way is to put aside our preferences in favor of the gospel message. The better way is to contextualize our message into our community, recognizing that the HOW of ministry is in many ways determined by the who, when and where of culture. To do that, we must actually be involved in our culture rather than opposing or running away from it. When we serve in the name of Jesus, we carry the message of reconciliation. And we are truly representing Jesus and His kingdom inside the context of our present culture.

Of course, it’s the “living among non-Christians” part that I think we have a big problem with. It seems we have developed an unhealthy fear of the culture around us. We are surrounded by cultural ideas that seem to threaten the very core of our beliefs – like lack of absolute truth, flexible morality, and situational ethics. But in response, we have retreated inside the walls of our churches to form holy huddles. We have decided that holiness is keeping ourselves separate from sinners and not sin. We have created Christian music, Christian basketball leagues, Christian schools and Christian breath mints so that we don’t have to rub elbows with people who might challenge our faith.

Sometimes that means not giving my opinion about everything, and always it means not getting in the way of the advance of His kingdom. As an ambassador of Christ, I don’t act on my own behalf; I act in the authority of the very Creator of the universe. Ambassadors don’t try to re-create a walled-in version of their home country in foreign land; they purposely spend a majority of their time choosing to live among others in an effort to represent their homeland. That means we have to get engaged in our community as ambassadors.

• Ambassadors remember the renewing work Jesus has done for them.
• Ambassadors find themselves living in – and engaging – this world, but not buying into the world’s systems.
• Ambassadors choose to find hope in the cross, and with the authority of Jesus, tell others about the reconciliation that’s available to them.
• Ambassadors have to get over their own fears, prejudices, hang-ups, and preferences so that they are willing to go wherever Christ calls them and do whatever He says to do.

It is this love – the same love that compelled Jesus to die willingly and without protest – that still compels us outward. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15:
“Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: if One died for all, then all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised.”

Minor Nitpicks about Sent:

It seems like Stetzer believes we have a dual mission: serving and saving. As he says on page 41: “Dr. Luke, in his Gospel narrative, saw this mission in terms of serving and saving. In Luke 4:18-19, a passage showing the inauguration of the ministry of Christ, Jesus claimed He was coming to bring good news to the poor. He was coming to heal the blind and bring freedom to captives and the oppressed. Jesus came to serve. And this is still a great part of our ministry of reconciliation.”

It seems to me that Jesus’ mission was “to seek and to save”, which are really two components of the same thing, rather than “to serve and to save”. I think the church has a single mission, to “make disciples”, which admittedly has two components, baptizing (implying evangelism) and teaching to obey Jesus’ commands, but it’s still one mission.

Serving (or I would call it Loving) is not a part of our mission, but rather a core part of our character as believers and Christ-followers. It should dramatically influence how we live and how we go about our mission, but it itself is not our mission or our end-game. Just like a teacher in a school may well show a great sense of humor or show genuine concern for students who are abused at home – and these things will aid him in his mission – his mission is still to teach. I’m not saying that we as individuals or corporately shouldn’t do things for people’s welfare, just as the school-teacher may startup a free breakfast program for kids or an after-school counseling program for abused kids – but the heart and intent of such programs must be to help the kids learn. Its critical for the school and the teacher to remember their mission. If the teacher or the school decides that counseling abused kids is more important than their learning and want to change missions, they need to leave the school context and start up an independent counseling program.

The same goes for the here-and-now element of the Kingdom of God. It is not a part of our mission to bring in the Kingdom of God, rather the kingdom-among-us should be a reflection of the character of Christ-followers and the character of a community of Christ-followers. Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t think about and work on developing a genuine, devoted community, but I am saying that we shouldn’t get it confused with our mission, which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

How are these things changing my life and the life of my family?

It’s hard to know exactly how things will take shape, but I know that I must (and we all must) obey Him by being a light, shining in a secular community, once again. I can’t turn back the clock and enroll as a student at Whatcom Community College again, but perhaps I can be a light in a whatcom county amateur writers community or graphic design community or maybe even, somehow, in Whatcom Community College again.

God owns all the cattle in the world — or to use the modern equivalent, all the crude oil. He’s got all the resources He needs. And we know He loves these teens far more than we do — in the words of Hosea (11:8), my heart is turned over within me, all my compassions are kindled. So the dilemma is this: if He wants so badly to minister to teens and He’s got all the resources and power to do so, why isn’t this crazy-awesome ministry happening? What’s standing in His way?

We are.

God is waiting for us to obey His call. You see, God likes to call and send humans to partner with Him. Even when He saves Paul miraculously, He still sends a human to cure his blindness and baptize him. But when God sends, sometimes we’re like Jonah — disgusted by the people we’re sent to. Or, more likely, we’re like the Christians in Jerusalem — ignoring the Great Commission because we’re just too comfortable where we are. God had to resort to persecution to push them out of Jerusalem to spread the good news.

God is waiting for us to humble ourselves. He opposes the proud; He doesn’t bless their ministry. When we trust in ourselves and our brilliant ministry strategy, He will have nothing to do with us. It’s only when we rely on Him — walking in His Spirit — that He will reward our efforts. As our Master said, whoever lives in Me will have much fruit; apart from Me you can’t do anything (John 15:5).

And most importantly, God is waiting for us to have faith. In the absence of faith, He refuses to work. So much so that He says He cannot do miracles in Nazareth because of their lack of faith and says that it is people’s faith that heals them. When we believe in God’s immense power, it will drive us to plead with Him for real heart-change instead of trusting in our own efforts.

God wants to work in these teens — far more intensely than we give Him credit for. Let’s let Him work by obeying His call to get involved in their lives, humbling ourselves by walking in the Spirit and believing so ardently that it drives us to prayer. In the end, may He get all the credit, since He’s the One who’s really behind everything.

Do you agree that God wants to minister to teens? Are there other reasons He refuses to work in our ministry?

You would think Jesus He would kick off His instructions to His followers on how to live (Sermon on the Mount) by contrasting with the Pharisees’ hypocrisy. But He starts by pronouncing blessings – rewards and joy for those who live in uncommon ways.

All nine blessings are important, but Jesus does a few things to rivet our attention on the ninth:

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

A Blessing Set Apart

• The first eight blessings pronounce “blessed are those who” – referring to all people for all time who fit the category (merciful, meek, etc). But the ninth pronounces “blessed are you when” – referring only to Jesus’ followers.

• The ninth blessing is more intense than the eighth. They’re not just “being persecuted”; people are insulting, persecuting and saying all kinds of evil about them.

• The ninth blessing is more specific than the eighth. It is not just for those persecuted because of righteousness, it is for those persecuted because of Jesus.

• The first eight blessings form a unit with book-ends that share the same reward, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”, but the ninth reward is a superlative of the first and eighth rewards: “your reward is great in heaven”.

The Testimony of Scripture

The Sermon on the Mount’s opening isn’t the only place in scripture where suffering for Jesus is elevated as a high privilege.

Paul talks mysteriously of “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”[1]. In writing to the Philippians, He speaks of suffering for the Lord as a precious God-given privilege on par with the privilege of faith in Christ[2]. When the apostles suffered, they rejoiced that they had been “counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the Name”[3].

Yet we have the exact opposite reaction: we rejoice that we have not had the opportunity to suffer for our Lord and we pray we never will.

Until a couple weeks ago, even I thought these blessings didn’t apply to Americans because we have a 1st Ammendment right to the freedom of religion. But as we studied this passage in church, I realized that the promises of scripture stands opposed to the thought: All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted[4]. If they do these things while the tree is green, what will they do when it is dry?[5] If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.[6]

Why don’t the Promises Ring True?

If these are the promises of scripture, why don’t we find them to be true in our experience? The answer is contained in the next words from our Savior’s lips.

Immediately following the blessing of being persecuted for Him, Jesus gives a double-warning against losing the vibrancy of our witness: the first against losing our taste and the second against hiding our light under a basket.

I believe that we have lost our vibrant witness for both of these reasons and that they are the very keys for re-gaining it – and with it, the blessing of persecution.

Faceless Suburbanites

The first warning, salt losing its taste, is a warning against blending in with the culture around us. We do this by living the full-potency righteousness in Matthew 5-7. When we look at it, we begin to make excuses: we don’t have the time or money to live for others like Jesus did.

The truth, of course, is quite the opposite, but it is painful. It requires stripping down our monthly planners and budgets to find and minister to the sick and poor among us. I’m ashamed to say that I need a lot of work in this area.

Redefining Courage

The second warning, about stuffing our light under a basket, is not so much about being different as it is about hiding our differences. Paul asked people to pray that he would be courageous with the gospel and we see the theme of courage and boldness running through Acts from beginning to end.

But somehow we’ve redefined courage, such that “so-and-so knows I’m a believer” is courageous. Take a second to look at the apostles and we realize that bold evangelism means bringing the gospel to the lost in a way that is both relevant and convicting. One of the reasons we’re afraid to do this is that we’re afraid of suffering disgrace for the Lord – because we don’t see persecution as the blessing it truly is.

May we aspire to be worthy of suffering disgrace for our Lord, as the apostles did, speak the gospel boldly and enjoy the fellowship of sharing in our Lord’s sufferings[7].

1. Colossians 1:24
2. Philippians 1:29
3. Acts 5:41
4. 2 Timothy 3:12
5. Luke 23:31
6. John 15:20
7. Philippians 3:10