Wet Shoes and Grateful to be Here

                “O man, my shoes are wet,” I thought to myself.  The shoes I’ll be wearing all day!  I kept walking.  I was hiking near my home.  It’s a beautiful hillside pasture with a wooded area, just under 1 square mile, and open to the public. 

            At 7:45AM, not much of the public was out walking the pathway through the tall, dew-soaked grass and copse at the north end.  With the morning fog not yet burned off, the pasture possessed a numinous quality I badly needed.  This year, 2019, I have had more sleep-deprivation than at any point in my life. 

            What kept me up last night?  Watching my beloved Detroit Lions lose to the, grrrr, Packers in a game in which the refs did all they could to ensure a Green Bay victory?  Possibly, but, I don’t think so.  I’ve been a Lions’ fan for too long.  They always lose to Green Bay that way. 

            So then, why could I not fall asleep until 2AM?  Why did I awake at 5AM? 

            A possible explanation is the wrestling I’ve been doing with God for much of this year.  The Almighty calls all of us to live as disciples of Jesus.  Part of my calling dating back to 1990-1991 has been to serve as a lead pastor of a church.  The arc of my career led to this calling and I embraced it with joy and unbridled enthusiasm.  Since 1997, I have been a pastor.  My self-definition is encapsulated in five words: Jesus follower, dad, husband, pastor. 

            My rounds of Jacob-like grappling with the Lord this year have me right back at the same calling, I think.  I think God still wants to me be a pastor.  So where is all the stress coming from? 

Life is different now than when I started, single, young, wide-eyed, optimistic.  I’m still optimistic.  But I have 25 years of lumps under belt.  That’s no condemnation of the churches I have served.  I love each one and still feel incredibly tied to my current church and my previous one.  But ministry, by its nature, beats the pastor up.  I am no exception.  The lumps cast everything I love – my family, the church, the Lions – in a more sober light.  And yes, I love God, and the lumps temper how I see God even as I realize God is more amazing than I previously comprehended. 

            So, I am as called as I ever was.  I love God more than I ever did. I love my family so much it hurts sometimes. I love the church and think about it all the time.  And worrying about these things, the very best things in my life, literally keeps me up night.  It’s not very inspiring for me, the pastor, to admit such anxiety.  Have I not read Matthew 6:25-34?  O, I have, trust me.  If I could control it, and force myself to not worry, I would.  But, I don’t know the future.  That unknown gets in my head.  I don’t know what else to say.  Points for vulnerability?

            This morning, I got to the office early and decided to walk and pray.  I wasn’t going to walk the pasture.  Didn’t want to get my shoes wet!  But then I passed a friend on the sidewalk.  He’s also a pastor and had just come from that same pasture.  He told me how wonderful it was.  I decided, tired or not, I needed that. 

So I walked.  And I met God in all His glory.  Well Ok, maybe not all His glory, but as much as He wanted to give me.  As much as I could take.  God did not give me any promises for the future.  God just let me know he was with me.  I don’t know any more than I did before I started walking.  I just know I got to walk with God.  As I finished the loop, I looked down at my now drenched shoes.  I thought, wet shoes, and I’m grateful to be here.

Here’s the best part.  God, who met me in that field, that “thin space,”[i] is here with me as I sit my desk.  It’s 1 in the afternoon and I’m tired.  Come on man, 2AM-5AM?  But, God is with me.  That’s all I get.  That’s enough.

---

[i] https://www.asacredjourney.net/thin-places/

Called to New Creation

One of my heroes of the Christian faith is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who was hanged in a Nazi concentration camp for his small role in a plot to assassinate Hitler.  Bonhoeffer had been teaching theology in the United States.  He did not have to go back to Germany.  He was free and clear.  But his faithfulness to Christ compelled him to return home, face the dangers, and try to do his part to help his countrymen.  He was courageous and faithful and because of that, he died. 

          What was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “call” from God?  Was he called to be a theologian?  Was he called to be a martyr?  When I read a biography about Bonhoeffer, I was amazed to learn that one of his earliest jobs was as a youth minister in a German-speaking church in Spain.  I thought, “I can relate to that.  I’ve been a youth minister!  In a small way, I can feel connected to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”  What a thrill for me.

          What was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s call from God?  He was called to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  It is the same call God has for you and for me.  For Bonhoeffer, the call dictated how he would approach dating, which he put off for a long time.  By the time he was engaged to marry Maria von Wedemeyer, it was too late.  He was arrested before they could marry.  It’s sad, but it was a part of the testament of his life, a life lived following Jesus.

          His call led him to serve as youth pastor at that church in Spain.  His call led him to study theology and teach in New York.  His call led him, while in New York, to worship at a black Baptist church in Harlem and teach youth Sunday school there.  His call led him to go back to Germany.  And while he was in prison, prior to his execution, his call led him to stay even when he could have escaped.  He stayed in prison as an act of solidarity with others who were not getting out. 

          We have spent three weeks examining what it is to live as a person called by God.  Each one of us is called.  I occupy the role of pastor, I am called to that role, but I am no more called than anyone else here.  My calling is different than yours, but yours is just as much a call from God. 

My primary call is the same as Bonhoeffer’s and yours.  His call, my call and yours all stem from the heart of God who beckons all people to come to Him in faith and repentance.  We turn from sin and run into the outstretched, waiting arms of our loving father.  Jesus the Son bore our sins on the cross.  We are saved from death and saved to life as followers of Jesus.  In the disciple life, we live the life God saved us to live. 

          As called people, we live in fellowship – at the communion table and at the common table. We share life together.  A second way we live as called people is in the living of the Gospel story.  The story of our lives and the story of God are brought together in Christ, and we spend our lives telling the story of the Gospel.  A third we way we answer God and live as called people is forgiveness.  We live as forgiven people which means we receive forgiveness and we give it.  Today we receive as a fourth aspect of our calling.  We are called to be a part of a renewed humanity.

          Passages from 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 paint the picture. 

          In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, “So it is with the resurrection of the dead,” and he describes the contrast from the body we have now – bodies that are dying, and the body we will have when we join Jesus in resurrection.  Resurrection is a part of new creation – God’s plan to reclaim His original creation, which was good. God will reclaim the world and the universe, through the cross cleanse us of sin and defeat death, and all will be as God intended in the beginning.

          Right now we still live under the shadow of the Fall, Adam and Eve’s original sin.  Right now we live with sin in the world and with the shadow of death cast over us.  We are all dying but God calls us to something else.  To answer and to live as called people, we live as those who will live eternally.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrected body is imperishable, raised in glory, and raised in power.  It is a spiritual body.  This does not mean it is immaterial.  In Heaven, we are not shades and we are not beams of light.  We have bodies, but as 1 Corinthians 15 says, we bear the image of the man of Heaven.

          The Spiritual Body cannot be harmed nor can it be killed.  Our resurrection into these spiritual bodies is made possible by the death of the Son on the cross and is the work of God the Spirit.  As we turn to faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit goes to work in us, transforming us.  The transformation is complete at the resurrection at the end time on Judgment Day.

          We see signs of this transformation in how we live here and now.  In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes, “From now on … we regard no one from a human point of view. … If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.”  We are still in the world where pain is present and the effects of sin and death continue to plague mankind.  However, we see this world from God’s perspective and we begin to invite people we meet to move from the story of sin and death into the story of eternal life. 

          How do we live with this eternal perspective when we are surrounded by cancer and depression, drunk driving fatalities and the complete breakdown of marriages and families?  How do we, with a straight face, claim to see the world from God’s heavenly vantage point when stories of terrorism and refugee crises abound?  How can we talk about abundant life and eternal life in our world of death?  There’s an orphan crisis in numerous countries.  Abortion – the death of defenseless babies – is accepted as a normal practice.  Decency is mocked and political vitriol seems to lead to more success than truth telling. 

          I asked the discipleship groups of our church to discuss this question.  If you could eliminate any one thing from human experience – arthritis, heartache, taxes, diabetes – anything, what would you choose?  What would you remove from the human condition so with this thing gone, life would then be richer, more fulfilled, and happier?  What would you choose to get rid of?

          When God created the world, the human condition was “good” from God’s perspective.  This means to be human was to be healthy, to live forever, and to be in right relationship with God and with other humans.  The renewed creation, the resurrected existence in the eternal kingdom is the experience of living in healthy bodies that never die and it is the experience of being in right relationship with God and with people.  James K.A. Smith says the call to new creation is “a call to be human, to take up the vocation of being fully and authentically human, and to be a community of God’s people who image God to the world.”[i]

          When we read 2 Corinthians and talk about us becoming new creations, this is what is meant: healthy bodies that live forever in right relationships; relationships of love.  We live to thrive and to create, just as our God created us.  We live to make something of the world – something good, something useful, something beautiful, something delicious, something melodic, something joyful, something life-producing. 

          Of course, this call can only be answered as the Holy Spirit of God works through us.  Today is Pentecost, the birth of the church when the Holy Spirit filled the original Christ followers seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus.  When the Holy Spirit came, they were able miraculously speak each other’s languages.  They were able to understand as Peter preached in Aramaic.  And 3000 became Christians in one day.

          Today, the Holy Spirit continues filling the hearts of Jesus’ followers and speaking through the church, which is the body of Christ.  What is the Spirit saying and doing that leads us to answer and help other people answer the call to New Creation?

          We cannot cure all cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and other ailments that attack the body, not with a snap of the fingers or a simple prayer.  So what can the church do?  We pray fervently and unceasingly.  We support doctors and researchers and recognize that the work that they do is God’s ordained work and in answering God’s call, some Christ-followers go into medicine or research or nursing or pharmacy or public service as their life’s calling.  Those of us who do not go into these fields support and celebrate our brothers and sisters who do.  In this we way, we live into the New Creation.

Moreover, as the church, we come around our brothers and sisters who are troubled with sickness and disability.  As a community, we recognize that every member struggles with something, either emotional, physical, mental, financial, or some other struggle.  We wrap the arms of the body of Christ around every member in love so that while we won’t approximate the heavenly bodies described in 1 Corinthians 15, we will create space for all people to have joy, love, acceptance, and family.  We work for all to thrive.

How else do we answer the call to New Creation?  We won’t solve all the problems of evil and injustice, not with the snap of a finger or a simple prayer.  So, we pray fervently and unceasingly.  We see inequality and name it.  We insist that Black lives matter, we understand why, and we renounce systemic injustice as we create spaces for all people to thrive and have a voice.  We see tragedy, we open our doors and our hearts, and we creates spaces for immigrants, refugees, and homeless people to belong and be loved.  We see people Jesus loves before we declare nationality.  We recognize we are all children of God for whom Jesus died on the cross.  We, God’s evangelical church, proclaimers of the Gospel, are the loudest, most powerful voices that call for justice and brotherhood among people of different races.

How else do we answer the call to New Creation?  We won’t answer all the questions of identity and disagreement, not with the snap of a finger or a simple prayer.  So, we pray fervently and unceasingly and we go out of our way to pray for people whose perspective is different than our own.  This is how Paul’s vision in the two passages from Corinthians is lived out in our lives.  We welcome people – even people who disagree with us about what’s acceptable in terms of marriage and sexual orientation.  In the world’s fallen state, people of genuine good will have opposing opinions.  Opposing opinions does not mean we draw battle lines. As it is with disease and sickness and as it is with matters of justice and equality, we approach the question of identity and gender and orientation in love as we create a safe space where disagreements can be hashed out while maintaining the dignity of all in the conversation.  Creating safe space and living compassionately is how we answer the call to renewed humanity . 

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer played the different roles of his life – youth minister, theologian, German Sunday school teacher of black youth in Harlem, conspirator against Hitler – in every role, he was Spirit-driven.  However well I do in my roles – pastor, husband, dad, friend – I am Spirit-driven.  I mess up badly sometimes, but the Spirit has led me to these roles and when I perform in them, I am answer God’s call.  In the roles in your life, including getting out of bed to come to worship this morning, you have the opportunity to answer God’s call. 

When we all do that – answer the call, and cooperate with one another to create a space in our church community that empowers all present to explore God’s call on their lives and to answer that call, then we as a body are living into the resurrection reality.  Together, in worship, in faith, determined to maintain compassion, extend welcome, and share God’s grace-filled love, we lean in to God’s New Creation.

[i] Desiring the Kingdom, p.162-163.

Seek Wisdom and Revelation

Seek Wisdom and Revelation (Ephesians 1:15-23)

Sunday, October 11, 2015

        Are all churches the same?

        Or …

        Is each church unique?

        I believe the latter.  Each church has an identity. The church building factors in this identity, but it is the people who comprise the congregation that set a particular church’s culture and define an individual faith community’s character. Today we begin a 7-week project.  We will seek the specific call of God for HillSong.

        Our core identity is built on three principles.  We believe church is to be a safe place where people meet Jesus and are made new, and upon being made new are then sent into the world in Jesus’ name.  Remember those three words – Safe, New, Sent.

        We constantly strive for spiritual and emotional safety because Jesus was safe for the most vulnerable of people.  Those with diseases and disabilities were viewed as people under God’s curse.  They were called unclean.  They were pushed to the far margins of society, denied participation in the community.  Tax collectors, prostitutes, shepherds, and leather workers – these were all outsiders.  Shepherds and tanners were unclean because of the nature of their professions, even though both werere needed by society.

        Others were unclean and unacceptable because of their sins.  Everyone - the sick, the sinners and the outcasts – all were welcomed and loved by Jesus. 

If he was safe for people, then his body, his church should be a safe place.  We are to be a community where it is safe to explore Christianity.  It should be OK if someone doesn’t know the words to “Amazing Grace.”  This is a safe place to not know.  This is a safe place to cry. Emotional pain, can break a person.  This is a safe place to be broken.  This is a safe place to ask questions and acknowledge doubts.  Or to propose new ideas. 

        We are far from perfect in this.  Maybe you have had an experience where you felt this church was not safe for you.  Maybe you have felt I was not a safe person to approach or to speak with openly.  We have to constantly strive to be a safe place.

        The second word, New, is about meeting Jesus.  This is the part of our construct that is out of our control.  We cannot make anyone new.  We can set conditions so that people may meet the Holy Spirit in this place.  But actually being made new is something the Holy Spirit does in us.  This is God acting at God’s initiative, on God’s timetable.  Our worship, our groups, and the entire atmosphere is intended to help people meet God.  God will take care of the new birth, the transformation.  We try to foster the setting in which this can happen.

        Third, having found welcome and refuge in the family of God, and having met Jesus and become new creations as a result of the encounter, we are sent into the world to announce that Jesus is Lord and that all people can have life in His name.  We are sent each week to be witnesses in the communities of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, Raleigh, and Hillsboro.  Some are sent from here on trips to faraway places.  Some receive the commissioning prayer as they move out of our town.  In those cases, we say goodbye with our arms open in love, not knowing when we’ll see them again. 

We all need a safe place because sin dictates that there is brokenness in the lives of every one of us.  We all need to become new creations in Christ.  And everyone who is His is then sent to give testimony to His salvation.

The third portion of this vision for church – “Sent” – is a joy, but our enemies, Satan, sin, and death can use the greatest gifts of God against us.  Read Luke chapter 4.  The devil tried to tempt Jesus by quoting something beautiful, passages of scripture.  Look at Mark chapter 10.  Two of the inner of circle of disciples, James and John, let sin – their own lust for power – take their eyes off of Jesus and His mission.  Read the Gospel accounts of Peter’s denial of Jesus.  His fear of death led him down a path in which he not only abandoned the Lord.  He denied Jesus, his rabbi.  Satan, sin, and death; these enemies of God conspire to attack the Almighty by hurting us. 

Midway through 2014 up through this past summer, we did the “sending prayer,” a lot.  Well over a dozen people who were core HillSong members, people who made our ministries run, moved on.  Each time, we laid on hands and joyfully expressed our love and tearfully said our goodbyes.  And we held tightly to our vision of Safe-New-Sent.  However, by Easter of this year, a spiritual enemy was speaking loudly to my spirit.

“Hey Pastor Rob!  You’ve lost a lot of people.”

My response.  This is part of our vision.  We know will say goodbye.  We are in a place where people come, stay for a few years, get a degree and then move one.  We as a congregation embrace that.  We thank God we can walk with people for a few years, love them and be a home for them while they are here and then send them on with our blessing.  That is who we are.

My enemy’s response.  “Keep telling yourself that, Pastor Rob.  You can’t sustain a vision like that.  It won’t hold up.”

I said back, listen, this church has maintained this reality long before I came.  I just put words together to describe God’s work here.

My enemy: “Sure.  But now you’re here and you’re a hindrance.  Take a look around.  You’re not getting new people to fill in the void left by those who’ve moved away.  And, in case you haven’t been paying attention, not everyone who is leaving is a recent graduate.  You’re losing people hand over fist.  Churches all over America are in decline and you are no different.”

This tortured conversation kept arising no matter how many times I drove it down to the depths.  I share all my struggles with my wife.  She heard me and almost in passing dropped a wisdom bomb on me.  She said, “Well, I have been in a Bible study that prays the words of Ephesians 1.  Why don’t you have our elders pray that scripture.”  So, I did.  Imagine that.  A Christ-follower has anxieties, comes to understand those anxieties are possibly a form of spiritual attack, and so that Christ-follower prays and asks others to pray.

If you think I am overspiritualizing concerns that can be explained along sociological lines and if I am guilty of seeing devils behind every problem, it makes no difference.  We are a praying community.  No matter what the source of the threat is one of our responses is to pray with great expectation.  Praying demands that we wait, listen (in the spirit), and live expectantly.  We wait on God, listen to God, and expect God to respond. 

The Apostle Paul did this.  In Ephesians 1, he says, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.” God wants HillSong to come together and ask for wisdom and revelation in our lives as individuals and collectively as the body of Christ.  God is calling us to pray for these things. 

Paul had a profound sense that God would give these things.  In verse 18 he speaks of our hearts being enlightened so that we know the hope of the resurrected Lord and the inheritance he gives us and his power at work in us.  He believed God would give the wisdom and revelation he sought.

To close out chapter 1 he says,

²⁰ God^[f] put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. ²² And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church,²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

That is us, the body of Christ.  When Paul writes the “fullness of him,” he means the Holy Spirit fills us – the church. 

So, our elders, and Heather, Nathan and I, prayed, listened, and expected in preparation for this season we now enter.  For the next 7 weeks, as a church family we will together pray for wisdom and revelation.

I conclude this morning by sharing a bit of wisdom God has given me and some specific things God has shown me.  Revelation is what God unveils, knowledge, truth, and reality that we cannot discover no matter how hard we try.  Divine wisdom and revelation are things God gives not things we earn.

I already mentioned one bit of wisdom.  When I was struggling spiritually, God, by way of my wife, led me to pray.  A second wisdom God has given is something that has helped me throughout my life at HillSong – the act of listening.  In more ways than I can count, God spoke to me when I chose to listen to people.  I pass that wisdom along.  If someone is talking with you or at you, take a moment to fully listen.  Listen and in your spirit, pray.  No matter type of interaction it is, I think God speaks in it, but most of the time we only hear what he has to say if we are listening.

So the wisdom is pray and listen.  What is the revelation?

What has God shown me?  Recall the national recession of 2008-2012.  In that time frame our church added an associate pastor and a youth pastor.  We also added a partnership with the Care Point for at risk kids in Kombolcha, Ethiopia.  Recall that from 2014 to 2015 nearly 30 people followed God’s call to other places.  HillSong lost that many people but we really didn’t lose anyone. 

We said goodbye knowing this is part of who we are as a church.  We had the privilege of loving each family and sending them with God’s blessing.  Moreover in that time, our church maintained the Ethiopia partnership, grew our Saturday tutoring ministry here in Chapel Hill, had one of our biggest Vacation Bible Schools yet, and explored partnerships in the Dominican Republic and in Quebec. 

The devil would love for us to focus on the losses – loss of money from 2008-2012; loss of people from 2014-2015.  When I heeded the wisdom to pray and when I listened, God showed me that God has been at work in our church family the entire time.  God has involved our church in God’s work around the world.  God does not depend on how much money we have or how many people are here. 

God expects us to know Him through the crucified and risen Christ.  God expects us to be responsive to the Holy Spirit.  And as we respond to the Spirit, God shows us Himself and leads us in the life God wants us to live.  And that life is where we experience the greatest happiness, deepest meaning, and lasting joy. 

We’re going to end with prayer.

As music plays, listen to the Holy Spirit.  After we’ve listened then pray for revelation.  Ask God to show you what God wants you to see and ask God to help you see it.  This can be revelation for your life or for our church.  First listen, then ask for revelation and wisdom. 

If you want to you can come and pray at the steps.  We will have people at the front and back ready to pray with you.  We enter into a time of prayer knowing that this is a season of seeking.  Over the next several weeks we will explore different scriptures constantly seeking God’s wisdom and revelation.

AMEN

Called to Divine Life (2 Peter 1:3-11)

Sunday, July 26, 2015

       Did you catch the end of verse 4 in 2^nd Peter chapter 1? 

       By grace, God gives all that we need for life.  This grace comes through knowledge of God which is itself grace given by the Holy Spirit.  That grace continues as we grow in through Bible study, prayer, and participation in church life.

       Then we come to verse 4 where we learn that in Christ we escape the corruption of the world around us.  Sin degrades this good world God created.  We lack the power the stop the destruction humanity’s sin brings.  But God promises that in Christ we escape the death and destruction, says 2 Peter 1:4.  The good news is we are freed from death’s clutches. 

       But what is that statement in the last part of that verse?  We escape death so that we may become participants of the divine nature.  What does that mean?

       Do we become gods?  That is what I think is Mormons believe.  It doesn’t mean that.  Our friends in Orthodox Christianity have a concept called theosis whereby they believe we become so materially united with God it is as if we become gods.  I don’t understand orthodox theology enough to try to discuss theosis.

       I can’t say we become God, but, I have 2^nd Peter 1:4 before me.  Through knowledge of God, which is given freely by God and not something we earn – through that knowledge we have all need to participate in the life of God.  We are called to the divine life.

       The Christian life does not strive for moral improvement.  That’s not our goal.  I had lunch with the campus rabbi at Duke University and I asked him, a 21^st Reformed Jew, what is the mission of Judaism?  He said it is to “be a good person.”  That was his answer to the question, what is your mission?

       That is not our answer.  The destination for Christ-followers is not to become good persons.  Neither is our goal to get to heaven when we die.  If you became a Christian because you wanted to be assured of an eternity in Heaven, I am happy to disappoint you.  That’s not our goal.

       As followers of Jesus we do things that contemporary culture would attribute to “good persons,” and when we are in Christ, our eternal destiny is secured.  But neither moral purity nor eternity in Heaven are goals for us.  Those things are byproducts of following Jesus in everything.  Those things come with giving our lives to Him and living with Him as our absolute Lord.  Our aim is life in Christ.  As Peter says it, “we become participants of the divine nature.”

       Every person is called to this.  In a moment I’ll talk a more about the special call to elder ministry, but it is important for the entire church to hear the call to life with God.  The phrase in 2 Peter 1:4, “participants of the divine nature,” shows this involves major change for us.

       Recall John chapter 3 where Jesus explains to Nicodemus that one must be born again.  The change from life without God to life in Christ is as radical as moving from the womb to the open air. 

It is seen in baptism; one dies in sin and is raised to new life, eternal life, free from the corruption of sin.   We step toward this life in our baptism and fully realize at the second coming of Christ when we join him in resurrection.  Between baptism and second coming, we live the divine life as we are still in the fallen world.    

       This life is lived out as the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in us.  God enters our hearts and live there.   

       We live this life our relationships.  The list of virtues beginning in 2 Peter 1:5 gives shape to life in Christ.  It starts with faith, which is supported by goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and it continues on, each virtue expanding the previous one; self-control, endurance, godliness, and mutual affection (or brotherly love). 

The ultimate expression life in Christ as we see it in our relationships is love; self-giving, altruistic, agape love.  When it says we participate in God, it means we live in this kind of love.  God fills us with it.  We share it with all around us, friend and enemy alike. 

       We are all called to the divine life.  Throughout that life individual discovers new ways to answer the call.  Today, Emily, Tiffany, and Heather answer by accepting the invitation into ordained ministry within the church.

       They are set apart as those who will have spiritual insight in terms of prayer, pastoral care, spiritual vision, and worship in the life of the church.  In simple terms, elders pray for the church, visit the sick, oversee the care for those entrusted to them, and, come alongside the pastors as the pastors set the vision for the church.  Elders also help the pastors lead the church to the throne of grace by serving communion and assisting when we have baptisms.  In all these ways, elders answer the call to fellowship with God and live the divine life. 

In a few moments, we as a congregation will gather round and lay hands on Emily, Tiffany, and Heather to affirm that we believe God has called them to this ministry.  As we do that we are, in one small way, ourselves answering the call because we are participating in the life of the church.

What other ways do we live this glorious fellowship, this divine life?  Worship, prayer, missions, fellowship in the church family; these are obvious.  At a deeper level, when you and I seek out our vocation and our identity in Christ, we are doing what is described in 2 Peter 1.  The power to do this is in us – God has given it.  When we choose to live the new life we’ve been given and leave the old life, the one bound for death, behind, we are living into eternity and divinity. 

For sure, such a life is all-consuming.  Christianity is an intense thing, an extreme life.  We are determined to show the world agape love.  We insist that God, not the world around us, is who defines us.  We are his.  We live – every facet of our lives – in Christ.

Upon leaving church today and re-entering the world, think deeply upon your identity in Christ and your vocation in Christ.  Let that pondering be something that overwhelms you this week.  Be consumed with the longing to grow into who you are in Christ. 

This obsession to answer the call to divine life leads us to all we could hope for and infinitely more.  As Second Peter 1:10-11 says,

¹⁰ Therefore, brothers and sisters,^[g] be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. ¹¹ For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

AMEN

What Lights Your Fire?

            Right now our church has a member on a trip to South Africa and two others in the Dominican Republic.  We go on a lot of overseas trips and trips in the U.S.  The people who participate in and support these trips (usually to care for at-risk kids) are passionate about the call of God to love the ‘least of these’ (Mt. 25:40).  Preparing for trips and going on trips ignites something in their hearts.

            Many others in the church do not go on these trips.  It is entirely possible that a few people might not want to hear about another mission trip.  Enough already!  Are these who are not as fired up about this type of ministry bad Christians?  Not necessarily.  Maybe God has created them in a way that other expressions of faith energize them.

            Some get pumped up by worship.  Some find their faith fueled by silent meditation.  Some are easily excited by an open Bible, stacks of academic commentaries, and hours free for study.  Others are ready to express Jesus’ love to senior adults and those who are disabled.  Others still really want to do ministry to children – the children who are in the church. 

            The point is there are many forms of expression for the Christ-follower.  I do not say this in terms of a ‘menu,’ as in, ‘find what you like best and do that.’  Calling is God’s initiative in our lives and every calling includes difficulties.  Every calling will run up against walls of discouragement.  Not a one is easy. 

            When you discover your calling (and you will have more than just one in your lifetime) you find yourself enthused by the notion of it.  And when you are in the calling God has for you, the challenges, daunting though they may be, are no match for the passionate that burns within you.  Depending on God, you’ll see the challenges as things to overcome as you live in the rhythm and joy God has prepared for you, doing whatever it is God has called you to do. 

            As a high school senior, I felt called to spread the news that following Jesus is more fun, adventurous and rewarding than alcohol and drug-induced partying.  Under the influence of writers like Tony Campolo and Luke (as in The Gospel According to St. Luke), I wanted to scream from the top of my lungs, “The Kingdom of God is a Party.”  For me it was not just a slogan.  It was a calling that drove me to do a lot of things (some regrettable, but mostly good things). 

            As a young pastor, I was called to tell a small, urban, aging church that she mattered and that God had new work and new life for her.  I at that point had never poured my life into anything like I did trying to revive and inspire that church.  I admit as I write this that hubris made me think I could inspire a church.  That is God’s job.  But beneath my youthful and sometime foolish exuberance was genuine love for the people in that church.  God put that love in me and God has put love in you too.

            It may be tempting to say, “Well, Rob, you’re a pastor.  Of course you’re supposed to love the church.”  First, I’d respond with “Baloney!  I have seen dedicated lay people as called to deep passion for the church as any clergy.”  Second, the first call I mentioned – fun and happiness and excitement that comes in a life of following Jesus – is a call that came long before I ever thought about being a pastor.  And since then, I have been called to parenthood (not a clergy-specific call).  I have been called to orphan care (not a clergy-specific call).  I have been called to study the synthesis of Christian faith and rational thought (while this may be ‘academic,’ it is certainly not clergy-specific).

            All who want to follow Jesus are called; every one of us.  You are called and unless you know what sets your heart on fire and live in ways that you burn for the gospel and for the Kingdom of God, your discipleship is asleep.  Christians who mark time and live a sleepy, uninspired faith make Jesus puke (Rev. 3:16).  Don’t make Jesus puke. 

Through prayer, worship, Bible reading and conversations with other Christians, people who know and whom you trust, discover your passions and discover how to live them out.  Find out what kingdom of God activity lights your fire and do it.  Let your faith be a faith of action (or study or contemplation etc.).  Being a Christ follower should be the most thrilling aspect of our lives.  And it is when we live in our passions.  Find your passion and live in it.