The Weight of Guilt

A couple posts ago (Confessions of a Christian), I said, “One of the things that hold me back [from following Jesus] is the fear of being labeled that, “Hippy, on the fringe, organic, crazy ‘Jesus’ guy”…and the fear of…failing Jesus…” That kind of fear is a heavy burden to bear. As heavy as it is, it may not be nearly as heavy as the other reason I haven’t jumped head long into friendship with Jesus…Guilt.  (READ MORE...)

Love = Obedience = Sacrifice

A couple months ago I had a conversation with a friend about what was more important, obedience or sacrifice. The point I was making was obedience to God’s voice leads to the surrender (sacrifice) and giving away of one’s self. It’s our sacrifice which reveals our obedience. He said obedience to God’s voice is far more important than our sacrifice, to which I 100% agree. Without obedience, there is no sacrifice that glorifies God. When I look back at the story of Jesus in the garden and recount His prayer before His crucifixion. Although He struggled and agonized in prayer over God’s plan for salvation, He ultimately submitted Himself and said “not My will, but Yours be done”. Then He obediently followed God's plan and willingly sacrificed all of Himself. His obedience HAD to result in sacrifice. I think we were essentially arguing different sides of the same coin. Regardless, that conversation has been stuck in my head (and the text history in my phone) for a couple months now.

Fast forward to my quiet time this morning and I read: But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.” 1 Samuel 15:22

That’s all it took to spur a recounting of the above conversation and solidify how obedience and sacrifice fit together. Obedience is no doubt the measure of our maturity in Christ. You want to measure your "spiritual maturity"? Here's one question you can ask (this is not THE only measure): Do I obey God when He directs me? Obedience is no doubt how we measure our success in Christ. My church (Element Church in Cheyenne, WY) recently re-worded our core values. Our first core values reads: Obedience IS our success! - Our success will not be determined by outcome but by obedience to God. Obedience is the measure. Obedience is what matters to God.

Sacrifice should be a result of our obedience. That is not to say that people sacrifice things and think they are doing it to the glory of God. Sometimes we have our own preconceived notions as to what glorifies Him and we go to great lengths to do those things, regardless of whether they are disobedient to God (i.e. the case of Saul above). Those things are often our way of bolstering our ego making them the result of pride and intended to bring us recognition. This is far from obedience.

Jesus said, "If you love Me obey my commands." (John 14:15). Obedience is the result and evidence of our love. We obey because we love. Sometimes God will ask us to sacrifice something. Every time God will ask us to surrender ourselves and submit to Him. Our only response is obedience. In that regard, our sacrifice, our surrender, our submission should only be a result of our being obedient to God. Anything surrendered outside of obedience is chaff and doesn't matter because it doesn't glorify God.

Here's how it goes: Love = Obedience = Sacrifice.

Any other order doesn't add up the same.

Striving for obedience,
Bruce

Biblical Guided Community v. Gospel Centered Community

Ok, so it’s a new year, and over the last year my bloggishness has lacked in frequency.  I don’t make resolutions, but I do plan on more blogtivity, so bare with me.

Over the last couple years God has really been working the importance of gospel community into my heart and mind, but it’s only been this past year that I’ve REALLY got to see it played out.  Over the past year I’ve been fortunate enough to see this group of young adults (that I was blessed to lead within Element Church’s college/20 somethings ministry called theSHIFT) form this community of believers where the accepting & fulfilling love of Jesus Christ was actually experienced and lived out. 

Never before had I had the opportunity to be part of a group that lived and experienced life together, but these people did.  They shared in each other’s successes and failures, in love and anger, gain and loss…they lived life, together, across the entire spectrum.  Now, I’m not typically a formula person, but I’ve been so taken by what I got to be a part of that I have spent the last year trying to figure out the nexus between biblically guided community and gospel centered community.  Before I get too much into it, I think it’s worth mentioning that community IS church and church IS community.  At least that’s how it’s meant to be.  They are synonymous with each other.

I first got to see the building of genuine community in this young men’s group that was intended to be a Men’s Accountability Group for theSHIFT.  The group was called Iron Sharpens Iron, or ISI.  As I began to see community develop within theSHIFT, I was able to look back at ISI and see a pattern forming.  It wasn’t a program, but a process and although not completely identical, it had an air of similarity.  Genuine community within a group can’t be forced.  It only happens as the Holy Spirit draws the group together toward Christ.  Here’s the process that I saw take place each time:  Fellowship  à  Seeking  à  Accountability  à  Sacrifice

I really felt like this process is what the Holy Spirit was leading me toward and had been leading theSHIFT toward for a long time.  But, I had to have some biblical basis for it.  So where do you turn in the Bible when you need to read about community?  Acts, of course.  Here is what Acts 2:42-27 says:

⁴²All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. ⁴³A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. ⁴⁴And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. ⁴⁵ They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. ⁴⁶ They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity ⁴⁷all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

Here is how I feel like it breaks down:

Fellowship:  This is the building connections within the group and identifying commonalities with other believers and with the members of the community.  In verse 42 it says, All the believers devoted to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), 46 & 47 says, They met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and enjoying the goodwill of all the people.  This step is vital to the building of community.  Fellowship with others believers AND fellowship with Christ is what draws you to wanting more for yourself, but also for the group as a community.

Seeking:  Like I said, two parts that can happen separate or simultaneously.  The first is the seeking of the knowledge of God and purpose of God for the group.  This typically comes in the form of studying and discussing God’s word.  Whether it be in a discussion about personal devotionals, Bible studies, or listening to the teaching of His word, the point is that the community is seeking to know more ABOUT God and what he requires from the group.  Verse 42 says, all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.

The second part is the seeking of the presence of God.  This typically comes in the form of corporate worship and prayer.  As the community seeks to grow closer to each other and God, they are drawn by the Holy Spirit to spend time in worship together, singing God’s praises, calling out to Him and lifting up prayer.  Verse 42 says, all the believers devoted to prayer.  Verse 46 & 47 say, they worshiped together at the Temple each day…all the while praising God.

Accountability:  This is a difficult for a lot of people, but as the Holy Spirit leads you into communion with Christ and draws the community together toward God, the need to be accountable to the leading of the Holy Spirit, to those above you, those beside you and to the group itself becomes something you cannot deny.  You may try to skirt it from time to time, but ultimately if you want what God wants, you give in. Verse 44 says, all the believers met together in one place.  I think this was intentional.  Not only did meeting together in one place bring them unity, but it allowed for an atmosphere where everyone was present before everyone and ultimately would have to answer to the each other.  This does not mean that everyone in the group has to have complete personal knowledge of your life, but someone in the group should and the whole of your life should ultimately be transparent to everyone else.

Sacrifice:  This is the hardest part for most.  Sacrifice is not only the giving of yourself to the group, but also giving as a group to others.  This may mean time, money, property, could be anything.  Verse 45 says, they sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. And verse 46 says, they shared their meals with great joy AND GENEROSITY.   Here’s the thing though, sacrifice is awesome, but without the goal being to bring the lost into fellowship with the group and ultimately with Jesus, it’s useless.  Verse 47 ends with, “and each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”  This was the result of the believers allowing Christ to invade their community and become the center of it.

I wanted to run through how I’ve seen this play out in theSHIFT over the last couple years, but it’s already too long, so I’ll post that in the next couple days.  Here’s the bottom line…

It is easy to get trapped in biblical guided community.  You can read God’s word, pick out the stuff that tells you what community should look like and model your group after it.  You can get together with friends, eat and drink, study, pray & sing worship songs together, meet all the time for accountability, even serve in the local soup kitchen together, but to what purpose.  To know each other better?  To secure your seat in heaven?  To pat each other on the back for how well you’ve beaten your struggles and temptations?  All the while people living next door are desperate for community and are headed for hell.  


Or you can allow the Holy Spirit to draw the group toward God, centered on Christ.  This will pull you out of your comfort zone.  You can and should do all that other stuff, but it has to culminate in the sending out of people from the smaller community into THE community to build fellowship with those in need of it.  This is what brings others into the greater community called The Church.  This is the seeking of the lost that Jesus was talking about.  If your group is focused on the lost being found and brought home, then your group is a Gospel centered community.

In Him,

Bruce

Loved People, Love People. (HP/HP, LP/LP Part 4)

So here it is…the last installment of Hurt People, Hurt People. Loved People, Love People. Here are parts 1, 2 & 3 (PART 1, PART 2, PART 3). For me, this whole last year has been SO much about what it means to love people. Do I always do it well? Nope, but I realize I don’t and I seek Christ to change that in me. I’m a work in progress…


So in original blog (HERE) I said,


“In John 15:12 Jesus says, ‘My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.’ Jesus was telling us that the way He loved us was an example of how He expected us to love each other. If you are truly the recipient of Christ's love, you WILL love others.”


As I’ve thought about (and I’ve had 4 ½ months since the original post to do so) I found myself asking, How did He love them? What were the things that Jesus did that we could follow after Him in doing; things that proved our love the way He did?


So in John 15:13, Jesus said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.” I'm fairly certain that what Jesus meant was that the greatest love is displayed in the laying down of one’s life for a friend. The idea being that true love for another means that you would literally do ANYTHING (even die) for that person. The point is that Jesus willingly laid down His life for those he loved (us). If we love Jesus we have to be willing to do the same for Him and by proxy for those He loves (everyone else). For the record, it’s not a foreign idea…thousands of people have laid down their lives for the sake of Christ. So this is what Jesus said about true love. BUT, He didn’t just say it; He followed it up with action.


The fact is you can say whatever you want, but if your actions don’t support it, it’s pointless and meaningless. There are three parts to the events leading up to and after Jesus’ crucifixion that, I think, displays the depth of His love for us and that I think are examples meant for us to follow.


The first were the pre-crucifixion events. The arrest, the poor excuse for what was called a trial and His walk up the hill in which He would pay our penalty. During that entire time Jesus was whipped, punched, slapped, spit on, had His beard torn out and beaten beyond being recognizable as a human. He was utterly humiliated. And He did it for us. At any time He could have ended the torture, after all…He’s God…but He chose not to. Instead He willingly endured humiliation for our sake. With that said, how much humiliation are you willing to endure for Christ? How much will you be humbled for the sake of your Savior? Looking at it deeper, how much will you allow that to translate to those people you say you love? Are you willing to be humiliated for the community that God has placed you in simply because you love them? Christ did and I have to believe that He expects the same from us. After all, where would we be if He’d have said enough?


The second is His willing surrender to the cross. I think I’ve already made that point. Actually, Jesus did. He said, (paraphrasing), “You show the depth of your love for your friends by what you’re willing to do for them and frankly I love you all to the point that I WILL die for you.” Then He did. The greatest display of God’s justice is seen at the cross, but in it we also see the greatest act of love. It’s the willingness of our savior to lay down His life as a ransom for ours simply because He couldn’t bear to be without us.


The last act has to do with His ascension. In John 16:7, Jesus said, “But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you.” Jesus was telling the Disciples that He was leaving them in order that the Holy Spirit could come. Jesus followed this up by explaining why it was necessary for the Holy Spirit to come. He said (v. 8-11), “And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more.” In essence, Jesus knew that in order for God to do what He need to, in the Disciples and throughout the world, He had to leave. He told them that if He didn’t leave the Holy Spirit wouldn’t come. And because of His love for them (and us) and His deep desire for God’s will for us, He willingly departed from us and ascended into heaven. How does this translate to how we love others?


There are times that in giving to someone else we block the presence of God. I once had a friend tell me (in reference to giving to a person that is obviously taking advantage of your desire to be Christ to them) that there is a threshold in which you are able to give to a person and they are still able to see Christ. But eventually, there comes a point where they no longer see Christ working through you, but rather only see you. It is at that point that it is essential that you step out of the way of God and allow the Holy Spirit to do His work. Sometimes stepping aside for the moment is the best way to love someone. You have to ask yourself, “Do I love them enough to step out of the way and allow God to do what He needs to do in them?” If the answer is “Yes” then move.


But you don’t just leave them. There will come a point that, if you truly love them, you step back into their life…you have to. The Holy Spirit will make it evident when that time is. The point of stepping back into their life is to be community for them. To encourage that person in the work the Holy Spirit has done in them. Jesus even set that before us. In John 16:16 He said, “In a little while you won’t see me anymore. But a little while after that, you will see me again.” Jesus was saying that even though He had to leave, so the Holy Spirit could do His work, a time would come when the Holy Spirit has completed that work and Jesus would return. That’s our example.

Loved people, Love People. It all comes back to the idea that people that are actively receiving the love of Christ just love people. They are compelled to; it’s their nature and character. The bottom line is this, words are meaningless without action. If you love Christ and others, you have to willingly lay down your life for Him/them (that is do WHATEVER you need to do to prove that love), you have to be willing to be humiliated for His/their sake, you have to be willing to step out of the Holy Spirits way to allow Him to work in their lives, all the while looking for that prompting to step back in and encourage them in the work He’s done in them.


In Him, 
Bruce