Pastor Rob recommends ... (January 25, 2022)

Pastor Rob recommends …

  

The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus

By Dallas Willard, edited by Becky Heatley (2015)

 

God bless Dallas Willard's daughter.  She brought together some of his last talks and edited them into book form.  It's a final word from one who was brilliant in teaching apologetics and evangelism by way of discipleship.

 

The Two G's: Gentleness and Grace

I owe thanks to Becky Heatley, the daughter of the Christian philosopher and apologist Dallas Willard.  She compiled the text of many of his speeches, and produced the book The Allure of Gentleness.  It was amazing to me to be able to read another Dallas Willard book after he had gone on to be with the Lord.  I read it while our family traveled throughout Russia and Ethiopia.  By the time we arrived in Egypt, I had finished the short book.

            Gentleness.  I think I actually achieve it, a bit, in some circumstances.  But, in the most familiar places of life, the times with my wife and children, I am too harsh, too quick to judge, and too sharp with my tongue.  It’s the last great spiritual horizon.  Can I learn to be gentle with the most important people in my life? I am praying I can.  I’d love it if I could learn to yield to the presence of the Holy Spirit and be gentle with my immediate family before my kids grow up.  What if my kids, when grown, could look back and remember that their dad was gentle with them?

            I think if this happened, that Christ-inspired posture of gentleness would bleed over into the other relationships in my life.  But it has to happen in that direction: from my home outward to the rest of the places of my life.  And for it to happen in my home, it has to begin in my own heart.  For me to become gentle in my own heart, I need to receive the forgiveness God has for me and see myself as a forgiven person, washed by grace, and clean.  I have to lean on God, live in total dependence on the Holy Spirit.

            If I lived as one who has been ‘graced,’ I will be filled with grace and love, and I will be prepared to share grace and love.  That’s the wonder with love.  The more we look to God, the more we are filled with love.  The more we share grace and love, the more we are filled with both. 

            I came into Sabbatical supposing there were grand mega-lessons to be learned, and upon learning them, I’d see with entirely new eyes.  Now, I realize, I do indeed need to see with new eyes, but that seeing won’t come through mega-lessons.  It comes through simple lessons, new vision through the two G’s, gentleness and grace.  I have to be gentle, and to be gentle, I need to give grace.  My first reaction to people, especially my wife, two sons, and daughter, needs to be grace.  I will be inclined to give grace if I can train myself to live gently.

            Dallas Willard has taught me such life redirection definitely requires spiritual training (a/k/a ‘spiritual discipline’).  Just as dieting requires behavior modification (eating less fatty foods, disciplined work-outs), changing one’s behavioral posture also requires discipline.  In the case of spiritual discipline, the exercises are done in alignment with prayer and spiritual and emotional dependence on the Holy Spirit.  God the Spirit actually works the change in the heart.  The spiritual discipline simply positions the disciple to be ready to be transformed by God.

            I will begin with daily prayer and daily attentiveness.  Tomorrow, I will ask God to heighten my awareness when those moments arise.  My wife says something that triggers a negative response from me.  My children don’t listen to a simple instruction – for the fifth time!  In those moments, I might, by habit, snap, or say something snarky or mean.  The moments will come.  It’s inevitable.  I will begin the day praying into those moments, asking God to prepare me to (1) lean on the Spirit, (2) speak and move gently, and (3) give grace.

            In addition to prayerful attentiveness, a second discipline will be to ask God to help me focus my gentle intentions at those times of day when I am most fatigued.  When I am tired, I am least likely to be gentle.  I will ask God for extra grace in those moments. 

            A third discipline (after prayerfully beginning and the prayer for grace in times of low-energy) is the active seeking of opportunities for gentleness.  In interactions with my family, I will look for times to do something more gently than I would have a week ago, or a month ago.  I am attempting to retrain my emotional response muscles.  I pray these disciplines of praying, receiving grace, and seeking new response will position me to be a gentle grace giver.  I am certain that as I grow in the two G’s, gentleness and grace, I will see more of God in the most normal places of my life.  

Treasure in Heaven

            In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “Store up your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy them, and thieves cannot break in and steal them.”

            What does he mean?  How do we do this, store up treasures in Heaven?  We attribute divine authority to Jesus; he is God in human flesh.  When he speaks, we are hearing God’s word.  Nothing could matter more than knowing what he means and understanding how to do what he says.  How in the world do we store up treasures in Heaven?   

            This is the finale of a series of talks about the Afterlife.  How do we prepare for Heaven?  I do not mean, how do we get to Heaven?  Jesus gets us there.  His death on the cross covers our sins.  His forgiveness makes us new.  When we give our lives to Him and acknowledge Jesus as Lord, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God.  God will take us to be with Himself.  Are we ready for eternity spent with God?

            This is a potentially odd thought.  Conventional wisdom is Heaven will be awesome, wonderful, fun, beautiful, joyous, unending bliss.  However, conventional wisdom, or popular theology, declares that all good people go to Heaven.  If someone is not guilty of genocide or child molestation, he qualifies as “good.”

            The Bible shatters this thinking.  In fact, in the words of the Apostle Paul, all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  Jesus makes the statement that there is “only one who is good” and we know he means God.  Only God is good!  The whole good people go to Heaven when they die idea is crushed.  In fact the New Testament says very little about going to Heaven when we die.

            The theme of the New Testament is that in the coming of Christ, the Kingdom of God has been established.  During his earthly ministry, Jesus announced the Kingdom.  After his resurrection, he charged his church to continue announcing the Kingdom and inviting the lost and hurting world to come to him for life, truly abundant life. 

            As we live and announce the Kingdom, in the course of devoting our lives to that Kingdom, we are told to store up treasure in Heaven where it cannot be destroyed.  It cannot be robbed.  Nothing will happen to the treasure we hold there.  It is always there for us, an eternal inheritance.  To live into it and really get what Heaven is and be ready for life in Heaven, life with God, we need to know what Jesus meant.  We need to know how to store up our treasures so we’ll be ready when it is time to go. 

            Quickly a couple of tangents: first, storing up treasure in Heaven should not be thought of as doing good works to accrue merits.  Our heavenly joy will not correspond to our effort as Christians.  This is different.  This is not a merit based type of idea.

Second, failure to store up treasure in Heaven is not the same as losing salvation or experience disappointment in the afterlife.  The criminal on the cross who acknowledged the authority of Jesus probably did not spend his life storing up treasure in Heaven.  He came to faith right before he died.  He will be with God eternally.  It will be as good as being with God is. 

It is not accruing merits; it does not negate conversions to Christ that come late in life.

            So what is it then?  What is it to become a Christ-follower and then spend 20, 50, 80 years of life storing up treasures in Heaven?

            I turn to the work of Christian philosopher and writer Dallas Willard and quote him at length.  He writes

Invest your life in what God is doing, which cannot be lost.  Of course this means we will invest in our relationship with Jesus himself and through him to God.   But beyond that, and in close union with it, we will devote ourselves to the good of other people – those around us within the range of our power to affect. … And we also care for this astonishingly rich and beautiful realm, the earth itself, of which both we and our neighbors are parts.

Thus to “lay up treasures in heaven” is to treasure all of [the] intimate and touching aspects of heaven’s life, all of which God is doing on earth.

The person who treasures what lies with the kingdom [of Heaven] sees everything in its true worth and relationship.  The person who treasures what is “on earth,” by contrast, sees everything from a perspective that distorts and systematically misleads in practice.  The relative importance of things is, in particular, misperceived.  The person who is addicted to drugs or to some activity is but an extreme case.  All else is seen only in its relation to the object of the addiction.[i]

            The first answer is relationship.  What is it to lay up treasures in Heaven?  It is to put a top priority in life on knowing Jesus.  That matters more for the Christ-follower than happiness marriage, than the success of our kids, than the responsibilities of our work.  If any of those things competes for our loyalty and our time and energy with knowing Jesus, we sacrifice those things to know Him, and to follow and worship Him.  I would contend the more we follow Jesus the better we are in our marriages, our parenting, and our work.  But if it helps to rank things, knowing Jesus is our top treasure.

            Immediately we see in Willard’s comment and in our reading of the New Testament, to know Jesus is to know God.  And to know Jesus is to love people; this is not just any kind of love.  Because we are committed to Jesus, our love for others is for their benefit, overflowing with grace and forgiveness, and given without restraint.  The way Jesus says it in Luke 10 and other places is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

            How do we store up treasures in Heaven?  We love God and love people.  This is a matter of the heart. 

Maybe in a talk about Heaven, we want to hear about walking on clouds.  Maybe we are interested in vivid accounts of the heavenly beings described in Ezekiel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New.  Maybe we would anticipate in a talk about Heaven the promise, the hope, that we will spend eternity with departed loved ones.  I know I hope to spend some time with my Grandmother.  I’d like to get to know the grandfather who died when I five.  There is nothing wrong with these questions.  I believe we will see people we loved if they walked with Jesus. 

If we walk with God today, now, that way of living, the God-oriented life, the Jesus-life, sets our hearts toward Heaven. 

How do we know our hearts are Heaven-bent?  What is the sign that we have treasure stored up there?  Consider the words of Jesus that surround the statement about storing up our treasures.  He mentions forgiveness.  If we refuse to extend grace and forgiveness to those who have wounded us, those wounds rule our hearts and the love of God does not.  I don’t say this because forgiveness is easy.  Deep wounds are just that – deep.  They cut to the core.  We need in the core of ourselves, where the deepest cuts leave scars to discover the forgiving love of Jesus.  Once discovered we extend that forgiving love.

Jesus speaks of the spiritual discipline of fasting – self-denial.  Some in his day made a show of fasting.  They wanted everyone to see how holy they were in going without eating.  Their extraordinary sacrifice was done to gain the admiration of the crowd.  The only time we should fast is if it draws us closer to God.  We practice this discipline for the sake of seeing God more clearly.

Fasting and forgiving are quite different, but in both cases we deal with something uncomfortable.  In one case it is our dependence upon nourishment but also our temptation toward gluttony.  In the other case it is our wounding and our self-identity as a victim, one wounded.  In fasting we declare that as dependent as we are upon food, we depend more upon God.  In forgiving we claim a new identity – not as a wounded victim but as a born-again child of God.  Both are about orienting our lives toward our Heavenly Father.  Both lead us to establish our sense of self in Him.

Jesus tells worry is a sign we are not seeing ourselves as God’s children.  God feeds the birds and drapes the flowers of the fields with beauty human invention will never match.  God loves us more than flowers or birds.  God is aware of our needs and responsive to us.  Trust in God’s care is another way we store up treasure in Heaven, but this trust means letting go of wealth as a source of security and a provider of happiness.  Believing that wealth will make us happy and safe, we end up setting money as the prime master of life.  No, says, Jesus, we cannot truly live that way.  It is either God or money – only one can be master.  It is either worry or trust in God. 

The laying up of treasure defines our lives.  We live as people of faith and people who are faithful.  We live as people who love.  We live with a sense that we are loved.  Clearly such living marks us off, separated from those around us caught in the rat race, the scramble for wealth and power.  It is not that we go anywhere.  We are here, announcing the kingdom.  It is simply that we are living a different story – God’s story.  We are announcing that all around us are invited to step out of a life that leads nowhere and into a life that leads to God.  We are in but not of the world. 

We are also preparing for the life beyond death.  Dallas Willard, alluding to Jesus’s parable of the talents, writes

The universe will continue to exist … and we will actively participate in the future governance of [it.]  … God’s plan is for us to develop, as apprentices to Jesus, to the point where we can take our place in the ongoing creativity of the universe. 

We will not sit around [in eternal heaven] looking at one another but we will join the eternal Logos, “reign with him,” in the endlessly ongoing creative work of God.

… The intention of God is that we should each become the kind of person whom he can set free in his universe, empowered to do what we want to do.

… We should expect that in due time we will be moved into our eternal destiny of creative activity with Jesus.[ii]

            Of course Dallas Willard cannot be more specific than this although he does hazard a few guesses.  We must acknowledge that this is speculative as is any of vision of Heaven. 

            I share Willard’s view because in my estimation, he communicates well the vision of Jesus when Jesus talks about and demonstrates the Kingdom of God. More than going to some Heaven in the sky, far, far away, the eternal Kingdom is God’s Heaven and God’s Earth joining together in perfect harmony, all pain removed, and all barriers to relationship with God destroyed. 

            The more we live in love here and now, the more familiar our entrance into Heaven will fell.  Jesus discussed spiritual discipline, forgiveness, and trust as specific ways orient our hearts.  We could comb through the Gospels for more Jesus’ words, and we could add worship, but only when worship is connected to mission.  We could add evangelism, but only when evangelism is done for the sake of love of people, as an act of compassion.  All these specific works or categories are extremely important and are indicators of our hearts.   When our hearts are set on Heaven, we enter Heaven prepared, with open eyes.  We see clearly.  All that we do here, things done and lives lived in Jesus’ name continue there.

            I close this morning and this series with the word of N.T. Wright.

Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of His creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and … ; and of course  every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrection power of God, into the new creation God will one day make.  This is the logic of the mission of God.  God’s re-creation of his wonderful world, which began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God’s people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted.  It will last all the way into God’s new world.  In fact, it will be enhanced there. [iii]

           

            Treasure Christ.  Live in love.  Set your heart in Heaven. 

AMEN

---

[i] Willard (1997).  The Divine Conspiracy, p.207-8.

[ii] Ibid, p.378-379, 398-399.

[iii] Wright (2008).  Surprised by Hope, p.208-209.

Now see in a mirror dimly ...

My eyes are getting worse.  I went to the prayer room in our church for my afternoon prayer.  I was going to do Lectio Divina, reading and praying Psalm 23.  I opened my small Bible and then my glasses case.  Whoops!  The case was empty.  I must have left the glasses down in the hall in my office, on the desk.  

I opened the Bible.  Holding it at a distance, I was fine.  But, just for fun, I brought the text closer.  I realized that up close (a distance I used to have no trouble with) I could not see it all.  I knew it was Psalm 23, New Revised Standard Version, but looking it at it, I could not make out anything.  My eyes have become that bad.  So, I held it at arms length and had my prayer time.

It made me wonder though, are my eyes really that bad?  I don't mean my eyeballs.  I mean the eyes of my heart.  Is God at work right around me, in the life I live every day?  Is God touching people and trying to touch me through people?  Am I missing it because I spiritually nearsighted?  

The brilliant love chapter closes with these lines:  
"8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly,[b] but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:8-13).

What did the Apostle mean 'we know only in part?'  What parts did he not know?  What parts do we not know?  Dallas Willard believes the Kingdom of Heaven is not far off, but simply on a different perceptual plane. Willard supposes the Kingdom is no farther away than the stretch of my arm, but I only see into when God reveals it.  And he wants to.  God wants to show me the Kingdom around me.  God calls me into right now, even as I live this life.  

Jesus goes to prepare a place for us (John 16:3).  In his magnificent book Divine Conspiracy Willard develops his thought of Heaven around us.  In A Fine-Tuned Universe Alister Mcgrath mentions string theory, the idea from physics that there are (or were) 10 or 11 dimension, far more than the three our senses can perceive (p.115).  Willard's implication is that this indeed true, and than God is the one who occupies and fills these dimensions.  There is no empty space.   All around us, there is spiritual activity.  Frank Peretti also imagines this idea in his novel This Present Darkness.  

But, can make ourselves more perceptive?  If God is going to reveal himself as Jesus did for James, John, and Peter at the transfiguration (Mark 9:2ff and parallels), can we do anything in developing our prayer sensitivity to increase the odds of us receiving such a revelation? My first short answer is "no."  God will reveal what God decides to reveal at God's initiative and no amount of spiritual dullness or dimness on our part will prevent us from seeing what God wants us to see.  Conversely, God will withhold what God desires to withhold, and no amount of work in the spiritual disciplines ('Spiritual training' Willard calls it) will enable us to see things God keeps hidden.  No, we cannot develop through spiritual disciplines and thus polish up the glass that is so dim.

However, we can sharpen our spiritual senses.  We can, through lectio divina, intense, focused worship, Bible reading, and other disciplines heighten our own spiritual sensitivity.  We cannot make God talk.  But we can be alert listeners when God chooses to talk.  I do believe we can miss it if our head is in a fog of earthly things, profane and sin-stained.  We need to "seek things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1).  When we do, we hear.  And we know.  And even God blesses us with wonderful Heavenly surprises, they will be of the type that come with being surprised by the familiar, like seeing an old friend after many years.  The surprising joy is soaked in something very recognizable.  Fred Craddock calls this the shock of recognition.  

My eyes will keep getting worse.  Father in Heaven, help me stick with prayer and Bible reading and worship and fellowshipping with strong believers so that day by day, my spirit sharpens.  


AMEN

The God Dependent Life

The Kingdom Walk (Luke 10:1-11, 16-20)

Sunday, July 14, 2o13

            “One thing is sure,” writes Dallas Willard, “You are somebody’s disciple.  You learned how to live from somebody else.  There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live” (Divine Conspiracy, p.271).

            Your mom or big brother, a teacher or a coach, a boss on your first job or a Sunday school teacher in the church where you grew up; someone has mentored you along the way and consciously or unconsciously, you do things the way you do because your life is patterned after those who have influenced you.  When I consider my own life, I don’t see myself as a disciple of my drill sergeants or of the pastors who mentored me.  But that is in essence what I was.

            In 2009, our church-wide emphasis was on discipleship.  When I became the pastor here in 2006, I was greeted with this mission statement: we make passionately devoted followers of Jesus.  Shortened, it means we are in the business of disciple-making.  Living as disciples of Jesus and the work of leading people outside the family of God to become His disciples, these comprise our primary work as Christ-followers and our reason for being.  Discipleship is always an important topic and now it is time to again emphasize this topic.  We will spend the couple of months in the middle portion of the Gospel of Luke. 

            Just as our series in Galatians was about grace and not just going through Galatians for the sake of Galatians, our series is about discipleship.  Jesus as we meet him Luke’s Gospel is our teacher.  And the first lesson comes in chapter 10.  Of course there is much to be said about Luke’s Gospel and there is much on discipleship we won’t get to in 8 messages.  Our focus is on living our lives as followers of Jesus and announcers of God’s kingdom in Chapel-Carrboro, Durham-Raleigh, Hillsboro-Pittsboro, and wherever we find ourselves. We learn from Him how to live in the Kingdom of God (Willard, 283).

            Right off the bat, there are problems.  Luke makes it clear there were many more than the 12 disciples normally associated with Jesus.  We think of the twelve, but at the beginning of Luke 8 he refers to female followers of Jesus.  And here at the beginning of chapter 10, there are 70 others whom Jesus gathers and sends out in pairs. 

            Jesus is the initiator.  He claims authority and he sends them out in his name.  This was long before the resurrection, before the community worshiped Jesus and recognized him as savior.  They knew he was special and they believed his coming signaled the end times coming of the Kingdom of God, but they did not know fully who Jesus was.  But they went because he sent them.  The 70 went ahead of Jesus to the towns he would visit.

            None of this is the problem.  The trouble starts with the instructions Jesus gave.  “I am sending you like lambs into the midst of wolves” (v.3).  It does not sound like he’s trying to make this attractive.  A popular book written by a pastor promises Your Best life Now.  Jesus promises if we follow Him we will save the wolves the normal work they have to do in finding food.  I am sending you as week, dumb creatures into the jaws of intelligent, bloodthirsty carnivores; lambs into the midst of wolves.

            How does Jesus prepare his disciples for such a mission?  “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”  Do wolves have a taste for those who are poor and rude with callouses on their feet?  Come on!            What in the world is Jesus telling us to do?  There is a strange statement about entering a house and extending peace to the house unless those in the house reject the offer and then the peace returns to you (v. 6).

            We should keep in mind that Jesus operated in a different economy and a different culture than us.  Some of what we find confusing can be attributed to cultural differences.  We will drive where we are going, not walk.  We will carry money, unless specifically instructed by God through the Holy Spirit to not carry money.  And that is part of the rub.  For an ancient to travel prepared, he would pack his sack, make sure his sandals were not going to fall apart, and carry any other necessary item he could carry.  Jesus sent the 70 others out and their only preparation was they had been following and listening to him.

            That period of time with Jesus made them ready to jump when he said “go.”  They went as he said.  The journey was not overly far, just to the towns south of Nazareth.  The journey was no overly long, and then they returned to report what had happened.  And the journey fell within a context of two important turns Luke points in chapter nine.

            First, in 9:51 it says, “He set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Jesus knew crucifixion was on the horizon.  His work as God in the flesh began by teaching and demonstrating works of God’s power through healing and the authority to command demons and nature.  Phase two would come when he was arrested, tried, and executed, dying for the sins of the world.  In Luke 9:51, Jesus turns and the story turns from his example to the movement toward the cross.

            Second, with this turn, Jesus intensifies the call on any who would be his disciples.  At this point, one has to be all in.  A would-be follower asks leave for his father’s funeral.  Jesus responds, “Let the dead bury their dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Another applicant wants to delay his entrance into the program.  “I will follow you Lord; but first let me say farewell to those at my home.”  Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

            These passages are misused if one reads them and abandons family claiming it is in the service of the Kingdom.  The point is not that we leave all we love behind or skip family funerals but rather that we commit to Jesus and His instruction 100%.  Willard writes, “It is not enough to ‘sorta’ believe in a ‘sorta’ God.  But with the great God of Jesus squarely in the picture, everything else takes on a different nature and appears in a different light” (Divine Conspiracy, p.383).  Our relationships are defined by our response to Jesus.  We constantly ask, if Jesus where in my shoes, how would he handle the situation I am in.  Following Jesus is not an activity in my life; doing things Jesus’ way is not a nice, helpful guideline.  Jesus and the Kingdom He brings is my life when I decide to be His disciple.

            Of course we go, but not in our own power.  We move in complete dependence upon God both for strength and for knowledge and guidance.  Jesus had more than just these 70 followers.  This specific group was who he sent out and thus these are the one who went.  Without a money bag or fresh clothes or sandals or provisions of any kind.  They were going into hostile environments because Jesus said to go.  They were going unprepared because he said take nothing with you.  And they went.

            One of the things Jesus anticipated was good hearted reception by people who were ready of the kingdom.  Remember, the fields are ready to be harvested.  “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide.”  He assumed it would be provided.  I remember Matthew Lawrence in Ethiopia throwing caution to the wind and eating the fresh vegetables offered to our team by our hosts at the Mesret Church even though there was legitimate concern that the vegetables had been washed in contaminated water.  I remember living in Arlington, Virginia and being invited as a guest to the home of refuges from Sudan.  The family of seven in a two-bedroom apartment barely had enough to pay the bills.  “Eat what they provide,” Jesus said. 

            In the God-dependent mission, we go when Jesus says to go.  We trust the provision he gives.  We go with the knowledge that he is also at work where we are headed.  If you go on mission trip, God is involved at your destination prior to your arrival.  Your act of discipleship, following Jesus, is to follow Him there.  Those who host you might also be his disciples, and there act of obedience to Him is to you love you when you come. 

            The willingness to go is not a case of the 70 others or you or me acting the part of super-disciples who far exceed our peers in the church in service and devotion to God.  Rather is it our focus on Jesus, being with him and carrying the message of his Kingdom and the salvation he brings.  Joel Green writes that this way of following Jesus and bearing the cross he gives, “must mean embracing and serving in a single-minded way the redemptive purpose of God” (New Testament Theology: The Theology of the Gospel of Luke, p. 109).

            How did things go?  Luke writes, “The seventy returned with joy, saying ‘Lord in your name, demons submit to us’ (10:17).  Jesus affirmed their spiritual victories and acknowledged that as they and we act in the power of God, it is a part of his battle with and victory over Satan.  However, as great as that might feel, Jesus said the greatest joy is that our names are written in Heaven (10:20).  These 70 disciples, without hesitation or complaint, charged into the fool hearted mission.  Filled with the power of God, they returned so happy they could not imagine anything could be better.  Jesus said, just wait.  Your names are written in Heaven.  You exorcised a few demons?  Great!  But you have not seen anything yet

            And it is with us.  The core message Jesus gave for his 70 to proclaim is this.  “The Kingdom of God has come near” (10:9).  That is our core message in our community.  In Jesus, the kingdom of God is so near, we can enter it today by receiving him into our lives and submitting to him as master.  We enter a live of servitude, commit to lives as disciples of Jesus, and we are in the Kingdom and we are charged to proclaim the Kingdom and proclaim the salvation of Jesus Christ.

            We do this in 1000 ways.  Maybe you have a friend you’ve wanted to help find Jesus and you’ve invested years in that friendship.  In our 21^st century context, Jesus is at the heart of every blog, tweet, and text.  Each communication we make on social media may not specifically be about the Kingdom of God, but we make none without being influenced by our master, Jesus.  Maybe you are in a situation in a work group where your personal ethics and your morals are the initial way people around you realize you will do nothing that is unpleasing to Jesus.  That is the launching pad of your witness.  Examples abound, but two things are evident.

            We are not the 70, but Jesus did not give everyone around him the assignment that he gave the 70.  What he expected was the willingness and readiness that the 70 showed.  Those things are only in us when we surrender to God and depend on the power of His Spirit.

            God dependence is evident.  Secondly, the on-mission life is evident for one who will be a disciple.  The mission is to proclaim that in Jesus, the Kingdom of God has come.  We are to make this proclamation where we are, where we work and play, in Chapel Hill and surrounding areas. 

            Do you want to follow Jesus?  Do you want to abandon all and submit your life to his mastery?  Do you want to be His disciple?

            If the answer is no, then I challenge you this week to figure out who or what it is that you follow.  We are all someone’s disciple.  Whose disciple are you?  Who are you following?  Where are you being led?  And how is that working for you?

            If your answer is yes, I want to be Jesus’ disciple, you can be.  You can pray right now, asking the Holy Spirit to enter you so that you are filled with willingness and readiness that only come when we empty ourselves and live in complete dependence on God.  As a part of that prayer of commitment to discipleship, ask God to reveal where, how, and to whom you are to proclaim the gospel of salvation and the Kingdom of God this week.

            The seventy returned filled with joy from what appeared to be an impossible mission.  We will be filled with joy as we submit ourselves to Jesus and the God dependent life.

AMEN

Leonard Sweet _ Outstanding Teaching on Discipleship

I love Leonard Sweet’s book ‘What Matters Most.’  I would rank it along with the works of Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Mark Buchanan, and Eugene Peterson as being among the top writing on what it means to follow Jesus that is available today.  Of the many works by Sweet I have read, this is among the best.

 

I think the real strength is in Sweet’s emphasis on relationship and his emphasis on the person of Jesus (as opposed to the religious concept, see p. 21).  This is seen in a simple but thoroughly true statement: “Faith in God is a relationship involving all of who you are and all that is around you” (p.14).  That obviously has far-reaching implications. 

 

One of those implications is the center of life for one who would be a disciple of Jesus.  Just as John Ortberg makes the point that Jesus is looking for followers not admirers in his book ‘The Life You’ve Always Wanted,’ here Sweet says, “Faith is the willing acceptance of Jesus’ invitation: follow me’” (p.24).  Sweet rejects faith as a proposition or as an asserted belief.  Faith is not something declared and the defended in a debate, formal or informal.  Faith is something lived in a dynamic relationship. 

 

As Sweet does in all his books, he illustrates faith as life following Jesus through a variety of helpful metaphors.  He also helps his presentation with several comparisons that are quite illustrative.  One being the faith as life verses faith as proposition that I mentioned previously. 

 

A final thought and one I find both challenging and convicting; he challenges the modern American’s church’s presentation of Jesus.  “Sadly, the church is too busy connecting people to the memory of Jesus, the Jesus who ‘once was’ or the promise of the returning Christ who ‘is to come.’  Meanwhile, the church is neglecting the Jesus who ‘is right now,’ the Jesus who lives all around us in the lives of the poor, the sick, the disabled, the persecuted, and the dying” (p. 137). 

 

Is he right?  Is the church guilty of neglecting the present Jesus?  Is the church failing to lead people to the Jesus who works in the world right now?  I don’t know.  I suppose it varies from church to church.  But as a pastor, I love that authors like Leonard Sweet hold this convicting question before me because it keeps me on the needed edge in how I prepare to work in ministry.

 

I recommend ‘What Matters Most’ as a must-read for who would follow Jesus in the United States in the 21^st century.

Love the Children of God

            “The love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”  Those commands are that we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, strength, and minds.  And also, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  They aren’t so hard.  This is easy stuff, the things God wants us to do.  It’s not difficult. 

Oh yes it is says blogger and Denver pastor Jodie-Renee Adams who writes for a blog called “the hardest question.”  In her reading of 1^st John 5, she calls “time-out.”  On this business of commands not being burdensome she says, “Not to quibble with the best friend of the Messiah, [John], but I’ve never found it easy to do either of those things [love the Lord with all my heart or love my neighbor as myself].[i]  Fpr her, the hardest question is how do I know a child of God?  How do I know if I am child of God and how do I recognize someone else as a child of God?  She goes on to wonder if the determining factor is love - ongoing relational love that costs in a big way.  Are we only truly living life as God’s children when we love sacrificially? 

The tension here is inescapable.  We want to read God’s word and believe it is completely true and trust that it speaks directly into our lives.  I think it does in 1^st John 5.  But as we talk about the connection of love and obedience and we realize that it is impossible to be obedient on our own – our obedience to God is directly tied to the way we interact with people around us – and we have to admit that this can get complicated and messy.

Love is seen in our obedience.  The primary commands Jesus gave were to love God and love neighbor.  Problem #1 - our sins keep us from loving God much of the time.  Problem #2 - Sin in general – our own and our neighbors’ make it horribly hard to love those neighbors.  Problem #3 – there are forces of spiritual darkness that will strive to lead us as far away from loving relationships as possible. 

Yet, First John not only says that love and obedience go together but also that Jesus’ commands are not burdensome.  Maybe another word is in order.  We’re talking about relational love here.  Is relational love costly?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was executed in a Nazi prison camp for plotting to assassinate Hitler, wrote many books.  His most famous is called The Cost of Discipleship.  Bonhoeffer reflects on the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus said the following.

“I say to you, do not resist an evil doer.  If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matthew 5:39).

“If anyone … [takes] your coat, give your cloak as well” (v.40).

“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile” (v.41).

“I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (v.44).

These commands – expressions of radical, sacrificial neighbor love – are burdensome, not easy.  Bonheoffer got it right when he said it costs to be Jesus’ disciple.  There is no room for a cheap grace.  Jesus’ kingdom is not a place where I say the right words or pray the right prayer and thus assure myself of heaven, but live in such a way that it is obvious that Jesus has no influence over me in this life.  We follow a Savior who commands that we love the unlovable and take up our crosses and die to self.  Whatever First John 5:3 means, we cannot accept that the commands of Jesus are not burdensome.

Yet, Christian Philosopher and popular author Dallas Willard says we most definitely can and must embrace these commands and when we do, things in life actually lighten up.  Willard grants that Bonheoffer wrote a masterful attack on cheap grace.[ii]  He agrees with much of what Bonhoeffer said.  However, Willard goes on to say that if discipleship is costly, the cost of non-discipleship is even greater.  “Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil.”[iii]  The one who chooses to not follow Jesus and obey his commands goes without all these good things and misses out on the abundant life Jesus promised. 

Where Dietrich Bonheoffer turns to Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount to show how much Jesus demands, Dallas Willard turns to Matthew 11 to show how light life is when we meet the demands of the master.  Jesus said, “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (11:28-30).

Back and forth it goes.  Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount– “be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect.”  First John, God’s commands are not burdensome.  Dietrich Bonheoffer – we must yield ourselves to costly, sacrificial discipleship.  Dallas Willard – when we obey God we discover an easy yoke and a light burden.  Contemporary blogger Jodie-Renee Adams – if the yoke is easy and the burden light, why is loving my neighbor so gosh-darned difficult?  First John – “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commands” (5:2).

How?  How do we live as children of God?  How do we love the children of God?  Who are they?  If we’re not sure who they are, should we love everybody just we won’t overlook the children of God?  The answer to that question is yes.  Love everyone and especially those we don’t to love. 

Last week, I finished up by challenging each of us to identify those who we find it most difficult to love.  I finished saying,

Who do you find it impossible to love?  Your next door neighbor?  Homosexuals?  Arch conservatives?  Who can you simply not love because the enmity and hate is too deep?  Muslims?  Terrorists?  Communists?  The father who abused you?  The one who broke up with you just before the wedding?  The child who did become the person you thought he should?  Democrats?  Republicans?  Drug addicts?  Convicted child molesters?

As we pray, in your mind, see in your mind the person you find it impossible to love.  Ask God to show you how you will actively love that person this week.

Consider the ways Jesus actively loved people.

            He was with his disciples, probably on a bit of a vacation up North, away from the crowd away from the predominantly Jewish areas, when a Syrophoenician woman came.  She was a gentile and Jesus told her he came for the Jews, but she persisted.  She expressed certainty that he could help her and seeing her faith, he healed her daughter of demon possession.  On this occasion did not want to be bothered.  But he let himself be bothered because he was full God’s compassion.  He healed the gentile woman’s daughter as if she were a daughter of God because that’s exactly what she was.  Jesus listened. The woman appealed to him in faith, and he listened. See Mark 7:24-30.

            A stop in another non-Jewish region, Samaria, brought him into contact with a woman who had been turned out by five husbands and was now living under the roof of a man who wouldn’t even grant her a marriage.  Jesus, a Jewish man, listened to the heart of this Samaritan woman.  He considered her.  She wasn’t just a rejected, lonely woman.  She had ideas about moral propriety.  She had ideas about ecclesiology and theology.  Jesus listened to her, and to her, Jesus revealed the gospel truth and it is in spirit and in truth that we worship God whether we are in Samaria, Judea or somewhere else.  To this broken, cast-out woman, Jesus stopped.  He considered worthy of his time.  See John 4.

            At the end of Mark chapter 10, Jesus is leading the disciples and the crowds in a determined march to Jerusalem.  All in the procession knew Passover was upon them and they would spend it in the city of David.  Only Jesus knew the festivities would include him hanging on a cross.  Yet, as they walked along, Jesus stopped to listen to the voice of Bartimaeus, a blind beggar.  “Son of David, have mercy on me.”  The crowd told the pathetic man in rags to shut up and get out of the way.  And there wasn’t a thing poor Bartimaeus could do about it.  Completely powerless, all he had was a voice, and when he was told to quiet down, he shouted louder.  Jesus called him.  Not only did he call him, but Jesus peered into Bartimaeus’ soul.  On his way to die for the sins of humanity, Jesus made time to stop and listen.  Jesus commended the blind man’s faith and restored his sight.  The one cast aside and treated as dirt was now a sighted man and a new disciple, and Mark tells us he joined the procession.  See Mark 10:46-52.

            In these and other accounts, Jesus shows us how to live out what is taught in 1^st John 5.  He noticed people – blind men, begging women.  He stopped.  Even when going somewhere important, he stopped to help others because people matter in God’s scheme of things.  He considered others.  Think about someone you might know who it appears doesn’t have much to offer the world.  Jesus disagrees.  He considers everyone.  He notices, stops, considers, and listens.  How do we love everybody?  We look around us, notice, stop, consider, and listen. 

I agree with Jodi-Renee Adams.  It is hard to love God and love neighbor.  Sin makes it hard.  But I also see Dallas Willard’s point that when we do what Jesus says, we discover that life is beautiful and good, and loving people with the love of Jesus feels wonderful and invigorating.  To obey his commands and love the children of God makes our lives better, and why shouldn’t it?  He promises that we will have an abundant life in which his joy is made complete. 

            To love, we do what Jesus did and do what he said.  Stop.  Notice.  Consider. Listen.  Spend time.  Go the extra mile.  Receive the pain of the wounded soul and return love for pain, beauty for ashes, grace for injury, and gladness for mourning and grief. 

            What does it cost?  Everything that is in us.  To truly love as Jesus loves costs us everything.

            What do we gain?  First John 5:4-5: “Whatever is born of God conquers the world.  And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.  Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

            May we embrace costly discipleship.  May we live under the easy yoke and the difficult but unburdensome commands of Jesus.  May we go out and conquer the world by loving the children of God.

AMEN

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[i] http://thehardestquestion.org/yearb/easter6epistle/

[ii] Willard (1988), The Spirit of the Disciplines, HarperSanFrancisco, p.262.

[iii] Ibid, p.263.