Discipleship, How’s That Workin’ for ‘Ya?

Sunday we started a four week segment focusing on the means that have been given us to grow in our faith and knowledge (both intellectual and experiential) of Christ. We had a great discussion this week about our preconceived notions concerning discipleship. Discipleship is so often seen as a list of things we need to do in order to please God. Whether that is Bible study, having a quiet time, praying, sharing Christ with others, memorizing scripture … and the list goes on … they all tend to be things to do, things to feel guilty about when they don’t get done. The result is that we focus on our discipline to be ‘good Christians’ rather than on the purpose for which these ‘spiritual disciplines’ exist, and we become tired, guilty and disillusioned as to what it means to walk with Christ. Don’t get me wrong. None of these are bad things. All are good. All can be helpful, but not when we are focused on performance.

To bring this into focus we considered a whitewater rafting analogy. For those not there last Sunday let me briefly recap. (For those who were there, good luck with the new book on Whitewater Christianity – hope somebody is writing it) Anyway, for anyone who has experienced whitewater rafting, the object of the trip is to stay in the boat while oscillating from relaxed floating and the sheer terror of rapids trying to toss you out of the boat. If the river represents life, the rapids represent the transitions of life (both good and bad, by the way, such as marriage, taking classes, illness, tragedy, buying a house, new job, …) and the boat represents a growing intimacy of relationship with Christ and productivity laboring in His service, the scenario goes something like this. Life’s transitions threaten to throw us out of the boat. When they do, life tends to overwhelm and consume us as we drift further and further from the boat. Our faith and involvement in the things we were created for wanes. What keep us in the boat and helps us get back in are the elements of discipleship. They are not for God pleasing or to makes us look more like the ‘good Christian’, but for our preservation (some might call it survival) in life and effectiveness in the Kingdom..

God has given us a place of grace (the church, the body of Christ) and means of grace (Word, prayer, sacraments, and we added fellowship or community). We were never meant to be ‘Lone Rangers’ (anyone even remember that ancient TV analogy?), nor was church meant to be something to attend (either on the one day a week or several).

The questions then arise, how are we doing in utilizing what God has given us to keep us ‘in the boat’? And just how do we do that? Here are just a few thoughts to get you thinking. I hope we can talk about this more in the following weeks.

The means of grace overlap in our experience. We take in the Word of God both from the book and from people (pastors, fellowship/community, personal exhortation, even from prayer as we listen). We pray to talk with God, but also to hear Him, and we pray with others (fellowship) as well as by ourselves.

Means #1 – We Need to Listen to God

That’s mostly the Word of God infusing our lives in so many varied forms. The first thought to ponder is this. How many forms do we really use? Do we tend to gravitate to the easy ones (sermon listening, middle hour classes) over those that might take more time or be a bit harder (personal Bible study preparation or scripture memory)?

After being a believer for years, does it take more to keep us interested in the Word? I mean how much do we need to find something new in order to stay motivated to read and study it? Consider 2 Timothy 3:16-17 along with Hebrews 4:12. How do we consistently hear God in scripture?

What is Real?

Yesterday we began a conversation about the truth that the world simply is not what it was created to be. We saw how the Scripture teaches that, while God created a sinless and perfect world, man rebelled and introduced sin. Romans 5:12-14 says that sin came into the world through Adam. Romans 8:20-23 tells us that the result of sin's entry was that the creation, and everything in it, was warped and corrupted. Creation is not longer perfect.

We have to live in our broken world. We feel the effects of the fall everywhere. We are tempted to respond to these effects by fixing them. We want to make things better. We have a number of reasons to do this, ranging from our comfort to God's glory. We simply do not have the power to fix them. We cannot restore this fallen world. Praise God! He does not expect us to fix this world.

We are no longer citizens of this fallen world. Because we are redeemed we are citizens of heaven. Philippians 3:20 tells us we are no longer at home in this world. However, this does not free us to stop caring about the brokenness around us. We are not free to become so heavenly minded that we are no longer good for this world. We are agents of God's redemption here and now. We must care about what happens in this world. God cares.

In our class we talked about the urge to fix or flee. We wrestled with the calling we have instead to engage. While we can not fix the world, God is at work in this world and is accomplishing His redemptive purposes. He calls us to partner with Him in that redemptive work. His work is so much more than simply restoring this fallen world to its pre-fall state. He is accomplishing more than that. He is actually preparing for the manifestation of the new heavens and the new earth. Our future is more glorious than what Adam and Eve experienced prior to the fall. We are going to be the bride of the Lamb--the bride of Christ. We will experience an intimacy and union with Christ that Adam and Eve could not prior to the fall. God is doing more than restoring.

Part of the work God is doing now, is to build His kingdom through us. That requires us to know Him well and to come to Him for both the tasking and the empowerment to fulfill our tasking. We ended the class looking at the importance of listening to God. He has His plan for what He is doing. We cannot simply look at what is going on and know what He wants us to pray and do. We begin by studying the world around us and continue by asking Him what He is doing and what He wants us to do with Him in this fallen world.

This coming week we will look more at how God uses this world to shape us and then to use us as kingdom builders. One thing you can do in preparation is to think through Psalm 32:8-11. In these verses God calls us to be partners with Him. We are so much more than servants who wait for direction. We are family. We are His bride. We have been given the opportunity for intimacy with God that allows us to love and serve Him. Wow.

What Do I Value?

Yesterday in class we were discussing the question of change. The three topics we addressed were: How Do We Change? We Have To Know Ourselves Truly By Listening, and We Have All We Need, We Have To Use It.

In the first topic we thought about the Gospel Gap. We typically know what we are save from. We have a good sense of what we are saved to. What sometimes eludes us is what difference does the gospel make in my life today. We find ourselves grateful that we are freed from the guilt and power of sin. It is wonderful to learn that Jesus fulfilled the demands of the law on our behalf and God no longer requires us to meet the law's demands for perfection. We have some idea of what heaven is and what we can expect for our future. We are often at a loss as to how the gospel shapes us today. How are we to live in this life?

As we went over this we asked the question "Why do you want to change?" We aren't really the people we want to be. We struggle in many ways. We want to be different, but why? If I am really honest, as one class member said, I want to change so I have more peace and comfort. I want to like myself more. I want others, including God, to like me more. The problem is, I have to wrestle with whether or not the person I want to become is really the person God wants me to become.

The second topic we looked at has to do with who we are. We are created. The Bible is clear that it is the creator who defines us. We are dependent. If God is not changing us, we simply do not have the ability to change. We are revelation receivers. God created us to hear Him and what He has to teach and tell us. Part of what He tells us is who we really are. To know who we are and who we are to become means listening carefully to God in Scripture, as Scripture is explained (sermons, teaching times, etc.) God has created us to listen. We are to listen to Him and to those He brings into our lives. We are communal. We need each other. Ecclesiastes 4:9-11 makes very clear how much we need others in our lives. The story of the Good Samaritan also tells us how much we need others, and also how God intends us to be involved in the lives of those around us. We have too many blind spots if we are alone. We can not know ourselves fully and honestly if we live in isolation.

Lastly, we have the things we need to be the people God is preparing and calling us to become. We have the righteousness He has earned for us. We cannot add anything to it. We do not need to. If we accept the reality of this passive righteousness we are liberated to honestly look and learn who we are. In my own life doing a spiritual and moral inventory was life changing and freed me to look at who I am over the course of my life and what God is making clear He wants to do in and through me. I do not have to be afraid of what I will see in the mirror. I do not have to look away as others hold the mirror up for me to see. Jesus has done the hard work of redeeming me. Now I can do the work of living through His gift of grace and forgiveness. I can see Jesus' love in the midst of His hard and painful work of showing me who I am so that I can become the man He intends for me to be. This is a life of honest self examination, repentance, and also of change.

I am learning who Jesus wants me to be. I am seeing more of who I really am. I am amazed that through this all He loves me enough to stay with me and to give me the faith to stay on the journey.

Who Do I Love?

Yesterday we spent time looking at the question "What does my future hold?" We discussed how that question isn't really the proper question.

As we look at what our future holds as believers, we quickly recognized that we have a default position of thinking of ourselves as central to existence. We are in some ways central to our own existence. Honestly, we can't see life without us as part of it. We see life and the universe from our eyes. However, we really need to step beyond our perceptions and see the universe more honestly. The universe is God centered. Heaven is God centered.

In Revelation 21 and 22 we read of John's vision of heaven and see that God is present, so that there isn't a temple in heaven. There are no luminous bodies, such as the sun, moon and stars. We don't need a temple because the purpose of the temple is to be a place where God meets with men. Heaven is God's home and He has brought us to be with Him there. A temple is pointless. God is light. In Him is no darkness. We no longer have need for additional sources of light.

In John 14 we listen as Jesus prepares His disciples for life after He leaves. He talks a bit about where He is going, and how He is preparing for us to follow. Then He spends a significant portion of this conversation talking about how He loves the Father and how we are to love the Father and Him. If our focus for life now and in heaven is loving God, everything else falls into place. If, for some reason, we are obeying God's commands with fear of failure, we have the wrong focus. Perfect love casts out fear, and we are told that it is those who love that obey the commands. We are completely safe in Christ. Our debt is paid, and we are free to focus our energy on loving God and obeying with gratitude.

When I have that focus for my future, all my energies can go into loving the Father, Son, and Spirit. That is the picture of how to relate to God that Jesus gives us in John 14. That is also the focus I believe we are called to have as we think of our future in heaven.

We will be spending more time in the upcoming classes thinking through how this love shapes our daily lives now. This coming week we will be looking at what we value. We value what we love. In particular this week we will be looking at whether or not we properly value the redemption Jesus has provided us. The following week we will look at whether we value the work God is doing in us to grow us in grace.

As you think about this study this week, I encourage you to think about how God wants you to use your life. What does He want you to spend your life upon? What will please Him and cause you to know that your life was well spent and successful? How can you move into that kind of living now so that you love God by how you live?

Who Am I?

Thank you for attending the new class with us yesterday. I sent out an e-mail that talks about how to prepare for the next lesson. Please read the passages I mention and think about how you view heaven.

I do want to touch on who we are again. We really are created. Someone else designed us and knows what He intends for us. He defines us. We don't. He has the right to use us for His purposes. As I think about my response to being used, I frequently don't like it. I don't know if I would have gotten into the landing craft on D-Day. I would have been angry and fearful of what awaited me when the craft landed. At times, when my life is difficult, I find the same resistance to God using me. Sometimes I have to step in to try to bring peace between family members, when what I want is for those family members to take care of me. God knows that my best requires what He has planned for me. Sometimes I see that after the fact. Sometimes I recognize that if I had my way I would always be rested and ready. I also would not have the faith and dependence upon God that He has developed in me through the trials. I would not be confident in His care because I would not need it. When I realize this I am grateful for the trials and struggles that He uses to teach me He is with me.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me...
God, please keep pounding into me that the most important reality of my life is your loving and powerful presence.
I will never leave you nor forsake you...
Thank you that in spite of my resistance, you will not let me go.

Steve