Let This Mind Be in You

A confirmation message.

[1]

The Scripture that Dylan read a few minutes ago from Philippians, chapter two, what Paul wrote, to let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus[2].  I had a sermon, a WONDERFUL sermon prepared today.  On the way here God changed it; sometimes I hate it when He does that.  But God placed it upon my heart that everything about this confirmation was contained in that one sentence, let this mind be in YOU that was in Christ Jesus. 

The “mind of Christ” – that’s a strange sentence, isn’t it?  When Jesus was feeding the 5,000, what do you think the mind of Christ was doing at that moment?  What was he thinking about?  When he reached out and grabbed a leper by his diseased hand, what was His mind considering?  Jesus did some stuff that, I wonder, if we would ever do. 

Confirmation: the word itself means to make firm.  Have you ever ordered something online?  Yeah, I know; I should have said, during the first hymn, did you order anything online.  We do that all the time, right?  What do you get in an email 7 seconds later?  The Confirmation!  They’re telling you, YES…we got your order, and we are PLEASED to take your money…thank you very much!  That money would be out of your account before you even spoke.  Confirmation means something has happened.

In just a few moments we’re going to have this platform filled.  We are going to be confirming these young people.  We generally think of confirmation in the church as something the church does TO the young people; NO…this is what these young people are doing BEFORE God!  And so will we…we will be answering also (see the answers in the bulletin).  It says, do you, the congregation….  That’s you!  We are reaffirming our vows, but for these young people, for the first time, they’re making firm their vows publicly before God.  If you were here on March 27^th, we had a “wet experience” in the fellowship hall.  We baptized those young folks in the gigantic fish tank.  The early church identified as fish…it was kind of the secret handshake they drew in the sand to identify each other back when Christianity was illegal.  They were saying they were of one mind.  What mind?  The mind of Christ.  That’s what this is all about, they’re making firm their vow before God.

Look at those promises (vows) in the bulletin.  I want you to see that there are five of those promises that these young men will be saying “yes…we do…we will be supporting this church and its ministries by these five ways.  They’re saying what each of you members said when you became part of this church, that these five working parts of the Christian faith is the sermon challenge for each of us…those who took those vows in the past, those who are taking those vows today, and for those who will consider taking those vows in the future.

Let’s look at the first one

1.  We vow our Prayers

What we ask is, are you going to participate in the church’s ministries by your prayers?  We’re asking for that mind to be in Christ Jesus by doing what Jesus did, continually praying.  I had a friend who recently passed, who, years ago gave me an understanding of what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote pray without ceasing.  She told me, Russell, I have so much to pray about I can never say Amen.  I thought, Donna, what in the world are you talking about?  She said, when you say ‘Amen’ that’s the end of the prayer, right?  I never stop praying; I have this conversation that’s going on with God all the time.  That is the issue with the praying promise…are you going to be joining with your fellow believers in this mind of prayer, which is the mind of Christ, and have an ongoing conversation with God…24/7 (I know that will keep you awake at nights, but He will let you sleep when it’s time to sleep).  So, by your prayers you are known.  Then…
2.  We vow our Presence

Your presence is exactly what you’re doing this morning…you’re here!  You’re showing up.  Isn’t that 90% of life, just showing up?  Once you get past that you can see what else (the other 10%) needs doing.  I’m not just talking about showing up in church; I’m talking about all of life.  Are you engaged?

There are two ideas about that business of “presence.”

a.     When you’re in school the teacher takes attendance.  She calls your name, and you answer, present.  That’s presence

b.    But what happens when the lecture gets boring a little later?  You’re not so present anymore, are you?  You kind of check-out sometimes.

To be “present” in terms of this vow is to be engaged in what God’s saying.  The preacher may have a message, or think he does, but God is speaking through the preacher’s words.  The question becomes, are you engaged enough with God in that message that it will go with you when you leave?  If you invite God to be Lord over your life, and not just Savior from spiritual death, He will go with you everywhere. 

Prayers, Presence, and then…
3.  We vow our Gifts

Stewardship…your tithes and offerings are the gifts we vow.  But there’s another sense in which gifts come into play.  The idea of stewardship is to be found faithful[3] with what you have been given.  This is a favorite theme of mine.  Whatever we are doing, wherever we find ourselves, at school, at home, at work, in the garden, fishing, going on vacation, all diverse ways of spending our time,  are we faithful stewards of the gifts we have been given?  Maybe you’ve been given the gift of discernment – you need to be on guard to look and see what is being said, or what is going on, so you can make discerned decisions and act according to what the mind of Christ demands.  If you’ve been given the gift of preaching, you ought not stay silent.

So, Prayers, Presence, Gifts, and there’s also…
4.  We vow our Service

Service is making sure you are faithful over the resources you’ve been given.  As a faithful steward your presence involves service.  It’s not just “onlooking.”  We are not just “onlookers” observing what happens in the world, we are hands-on!  Your service means you are willing to help other people.

These five words – five things we do as Christians, are the way we exercise our commitment to God, our vow, worked-out in daily life.  These are the true measurement sticks by which we monitor our progress of growing into Christlikeness.  There’s a fifth word…

5.  We vow our Witness

My understanding of “witness” is simply retelling your story, that which has happened to you.  To witness to someone is to tell that person what Christ has done in your life. 

Now, listen, I get the feeling – I get the sense, that, if you get the first four words right, that tells you you’re meeting the criteria for the fifth word.  For instance, if your prayer life is what it ought to be.  You’re in an ongoing conversation with Christ, and He’s talking back to you, speaking to your heart, moving you into serving, you’re going to be the kind of witness for Christ He needs, because that conversation with Jesus is not going to stay silent…it will come out of you. 

What about gifts?  If you are a faithful steward with what God has placed in your hands, to help other people in service, financially, or however God directs, then that, is a witness…is it not?  Where you are on a Sunday morning (presence) is also a testimony (witness) to other people.

Years ago I read a story about an elderly lady who had spent all her life in church.  And it was still going on.  Every Sunday morning she’d get up early, study her Sunday School lesson, get ready and walk the three blocks to church.  And every walk was past the same houses.  One of those houses, there was a guy who never darkened the doorstep of a church.  Each time the lady passed there he’d mutter, there she goes, church lady, goin’ t’ church, every Sunday…church, church, church!  After years of this it was finally enough.  She got up one Sunday, studied her lesson, got dressed and walked to church.  When she got in front of that house, he was at it again, there she goes, that church lady, goin’ t’ church, every Sunday…church, church, church!  She stopped, turned to him, and kindly said, that’s ok, friend…I got my priorities and you have yours; I just want God and everybody else to know whose side I’m on.

And that’s the point about witness.

Truly, I think, the most graphic, the most vivid demonstration of whether you’re on His side is your service.  It’s when there’s no question that, if someone needs an arm around the shoulder, your arm is ready.  It’s when you’re ready to take that five-dollar bill out of your wallet when you’ve only got two of them, and place it in the hand of that one who has nothing.  Offering to bring someone to church.  Offering to help someone rake their yard, or whatever needs doing.

So how do you do all that?  How do you get your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness all in line?  It works something like the picture of that “double tree.”

“Christ likeness” is the goal.  If friends, or a family, church, or even a nation would be unified, enjoying genuine fellowship, then Christ like is what we seek.

A great Bible scholar named A. J. Gordon wrote: 

Two little saplings grew-up side-by-side.  Through the action of the wind they crossed each other.  By and by each became wounded by the friction.  The sap began to mingle until one calm day they became attached.  Then the stronger began to absorb the weaker.  It became larger and larger, while the other withered and declined till it finally dropped away and disappeared.  And now there are two trunks at the bottom and only one farther up.  Death has taken away the one; life has triumphed in the other.

To become Christ-like, is to grow so close to Him that people see Him, and precious little of you.  This is unity, where the spirit of Christ has taken over.

Our goal is to grow into Christ in maturity, to be so much absorbed in Him that when people get to know you, or even just observe the way you live your life, they will become curious enough to ask the question:

Are you a Christian?

And what they’ll mean is…I believe you are a Christian…you’re like a picture of Him.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen!  

---

[1] This sermon is transcribed from video, with minor edits for clarity

[2] Philippians 2:5

[3] Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.  1 Corinthians 4:2  

The Kingdom is Like...

 

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Then Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like?  How can I illustrate it?  It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches.”  He also asked, “What else is the Kingdom of God like?  It is like the yeast a woman used in making bread.  Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”                           Luke 13:18-21

Speaking in parables (metaphorical messages) Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to the way God created the tendency to grow in the natural world.  Mustard seeds are tiny; they quickly grow into a tree big enough for a bird to build its nest.  Yeast causes growth to a little pile of dough. 

But wherever God has created good, evil is certain to twist in the opposite direction.  When we moved to North Carolina 22 years ago our little ½ acre was mostly untamed, with large trees – mostly pines, cedars, and poplar.  Some of the trees were already dead; wild vines had wrapped the living trees when they were smaller and sucked the life out of them.  They looked impressive, tall, and stately but they were rotted, ready to fall.

This is Satan’s characteristic stock-in-trade; it is his unchanging nature to deceive and pervert.  Satan made his entrance on the stage of world drama by deceiving Eve in the garden; that serpent has never/will never change. 

Scripture tells us he will pay the ultimate penalty for his rebellion:

This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.  Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last—salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.  For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth—the one who accuses them before our God day and night.  Revelation 12:9-10

In other parables Jesus taught us about life, death, and learning to live a Godly life in His kingdom.  That living must continually be awake and aware, because every good thing God created has an evil counterfeit-lure stalking us in the shadows.  This is why, with all the wonderful teaching Jesus offered of the good things in God’s wonderful creation, He balanced the picture with reality-101 – the caution we must have about the pitfalls of temptation, sin, and the Devil’s way:

Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves.  So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.  Matthew 10:16

For You Today

There’s an old saying about how to be wise in dealing with others:

Trust, but Verify

As believers, we are to trust God, and test the spirits[1].  We must heed the lesson Adam and Eve were handed…Satan NEVER tells the truth!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Wikimedia Commons   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

---

[1] See 1 John 4:1

From INWARD Seeking to OUTWARD Serving

 

Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ?  Any comfort from his love?  Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate?  Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.  Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others.  Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.   Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.  You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.  Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.  Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.  When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.  Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you.  And now that I am away, it is even more important.  Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.  For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.  Philippians 2:1-13

Talk about extremes!  The very best place to be is in a church that is unified and handling well the threats to unity.  The very worst is a church that is splintered, full of cliques and getting worse each year.  The unified church is a healthy, risk-taking place, where people dare to love unconditionally.  In a splintered church factions center on personal preferences, rather than ministry. 

Paul wrote to the Philippian believers, specifically requesting they be unified in their relationships and purpose. 

Paul did not just put words on paper to fill a library shelf, he wrote to human beings.  And he wrote knowing there would be threats to unity.  Common sense tells us that, with humans, good and evil will eventually clash, because as it is with darkness and light, they are mortal enemies. 

Throughout the last two thousand years churches have really had only one main problem – disunity. 

God speaks to us today through the apostle's plea – he advises:

To remain in God's will you must be in unity.

Our question, of course is:

How in the world can we do that?

The answer to unity isn't easy, but it can be easily stated:

To Have Unity, Be Christ-like!

…and so, Paul spells-out that which constitutes Christ-likeness…5 ESSENTIALS:

1.   Communion with Christ

It is impossible to ACT LIKE Christ if you do not WALK WITH Christ! 

This (above all things) could solve the problems of churches around the world in any age.  Believers who get away from a close walk with the Master cannot reproduce Christ-likeness in the flesh. 

Paul said that the encouragement (or strength) he received from the Philippian church was because they were united, or in communion with Christ. 

Belonging to Christ will produce a natural sense of belonging to each other that transcends our sinful nature.  It’s like the old saying:  Everybody who belongs to Christ belongs to everybody who belongs to Christ.  In short, communion begets communion.  This spiritual principle holds that it is impossible to be in genuine fellowship with Christ when you are out of fellowship with anyone for whom Christ died.  It’s a syllogism you can state backwards or forwards; you can start with the negative or positive: 

Love your brother/love Christ;

Hate your brother/impossible to love Christ.

2.   Compassion for People

Tenderness and compassion are the same word in Greek.  They are from the root word which, in English, is spleen.  You have that little organ which helps purify your blood.  It’s located in the visceral area and the ancient Greeks thought of it as the center or seat of emotion.  After all, when you get upset, the first place you're liable to feel bad is the mid-section.

Christian compassion is a matter of being vulnerable enough with each other and the needs of the world's lost, so that we are moved viscerally and volitionally to do something about those needs. 

When Jesus stood looking out over Jerusalem, he wept over the people who'd disowned Him throughout the ages.  Compassion is a by-product of unconditional love for people.

3.   Cooperation in the Spirit

Cooperation is when you are one in spirit and purpose.  Our methods may conflict at times, but our goal will always keep us united.  Did you know that you can take 100 pianos and tune them to the same tuning fork, and each of those pianos will then be in tune with each other?  They’re in tune NOT because they decided to be just like one another – but because they were all set to the standard of one tuning fork.  A.W. Tozer shared this in his wonderful little book The Pursuit of God, and he likened the pianos to worshippers in a church body: 

…worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

This is fairly simple when you get your pre-conceived notions of church out of the way.  When you keep your eyes on Christ you will be in unity.  If unity at any cost becomes your God, you will fight like two cats with their tails tied together.

4.   Consideration of Other’s Needs

There are a few things that need to come to an end in any church that wishes to be Christ-like; one of those is SELFISHNESS! 

The end of selfishness comes with the beginning of humility. 

The word humility comes from two words, dust and midriff.  You get the drift?  You can't call yourself humble unless you're willing to crawl on your belly through the dust ...for the least of these my brethren.

Paul wrote:  Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.  That doesn't mean we ought to be nosy busybodies.  It means we ought to see to meeting the needs of others, particularly the outcasts and the lost of our community.  It is a call to press forward with actions that will be meaningful in meeting those needs.

In every church fellowship there are those who wish to be prominent, petted, or pacified.  Everything we do at Mt Zion and Pleasant Hill should not seek to please anyone but Christ.  All people here are treated the same – we are lost sinners, saved by grace; we are brothers and sisters.  There are no special considerations other than what will please Christ. 

This is Christ’s church, not a social club.  Consideration is a matter of putting your brother’s needs above your own preferences. 

And that leads us naturally into the next essential for Christ-likeness:

5.   Cross-Bearing for the Sake of Others

Paul reminds the church that the man who died on Calvary wasn't like any other man; HE was God!  Paul says Jesus made himself nothing.  The King James Version says he emptied himself; this is a picture of sacrifice. 

In the temple a sacrifice of an animal was made for sin.  The blood and water were poured on the altar - an emptying.  The animal’s life-blood was emptied-out, poured on the altar, satisfying the death-demand of sin.

Jesus, as the perfect Lamb was with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; existing as one God; we call that the Trinity.  Like a glass contains water and can be emptied, so God poured Himself into the form of a man and died for us. 

W. E. Orchard said:  It may take a crucified church to take a crucified Christ before the eyes of the world.  If a church is to be Christ-like (and therefore unified) it will be through cross-bearing. 

•    Our comfortable seats in our air-conditioned auditoriums are not cross-bearing. 

•  Paying our tithes is not cross-bearing. 

•  Serving on committees, workdays and kitchens aren't cross-bearing. 

Cross-bearing is dying for others.

•  Do you have Christ-likeness, ready to give yourself up for this community? 

•  How about people of different race, language, or any other barrier? 

•  What about the unchurched and uncaring? 

•  What about the dirty street people?

So…we have these 5 essentials:

Communion with Christ, Compassion for People, Cooperation in the Spirit,  Consideration of Other’s Needs, and Cross-Bearing for the Sake of Others. These are the essentials for Christ-like living in the Kingdom of God.  And they lead to:

6.   Crown-Wearing

Paul uses a play on the sound of words in today’s Scripture.  He wrote that Jesus …humbled himself and became obedient to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.  Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor.  Three of those words tell us something incredibly important in making sense of all this compassion, cooperation, consideration of other’s needs, even to the point of bearing another’s cross.  Two of the words, humbled and obedient come from the same basic word, while exalted sounds just like them.  Paul is telling us there is a definite and proportionate relationship to these.  The principle is as follows:

YOU WILL BE LIFTED BY CHRIST IN HEAVEN

TO THE SAME DEGREE YOU HAVE LIFTED HIM HERE ON EARTH.

Cross-bearing and crown-wearing always go hand in hand.  Jesus bore the cross before he wore the crown.  Don't forget that the spiritual issues of life far outweigh the material or natural, and in the spiritual realm things are always reversed from the way they were in the natural; the last being first, and so on. 

Christ likeness is the goal.  If friends, or a family, church, or even a nation would be unified, enjoying genuine fellowship, then Christ-likeness is what we seek.  This also means God will not honor anything we do if our hearts resist living a Christ-like life.  It is the reason marriages fall apart, churches die, and nations crumble. God rejects the pride of self.  He wants us to deny self, like Jesus did.

Paul gave a ringing, stinging piece of advice for any member of any church, anywhere, and at any time – work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 

Beloved, this isn’t a matter of how to GET saved,

it’s how you live when you ARE saved.

Working on genuinely living-out your salvation to the fullest is a matter of letting Christ have complete control of your heart…giving Him your life’s steering wheel so His impact on you totally transforms the way you live.

Back in the mid-90’s Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat stood on the White House lawn and shook hands on national TV.  The worldwide press corps went wild over the Jewish and Arab leaders making peace.  What they skipped over was “…the fact that the two leaders had been invited to have dinner together with the Clintons at the White House, and they refused.  What matters in the Middle East is eating together.  You cannot kill someone you have shared a meal with.”   The handshake was a formality…and the following decades have proven that deception and hatred were still in their hearts!

In the same way, the church can settle for having a show of unity, a handshake on the Whitehouse lawn – OR we can push on to the real thing.  Shows of unity are displays of handshakes and smiles and ceremonies.  Real unity is when there is Christ-likeness because we care more about pleasing God than man.

And if the church in America and around the world ever gets done with people demanding their own way, but rather looking to Christ for its marching orders, the Christ-like unity we discover will cause the kind of tears of joy none of us have ever experienced before!
Our Prayer

Father, it’s not the heroes we see on television and the stage we wish to follow; help us to reject that hollow form of life; let us have the power to live Christ-like lives, honoring to all You have planned for us.

For the glory, honor, and praise to which You alone are worthy, o Lord, we pray in the Name of the Son, cooperating with the Spirit, to honor and exalt the Majesty of the Father.  Let it be so in each of our lives…Amen!

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation   

Navigating the Christian Calling

[1]

Monday, October 30, 2017

For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people.  And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures.  We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.  He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.  Titus 2:11-14^(NLT)

Paul wrote instructions for Titus to share with the believers at Crete.  Crete was known as a barbaric culture that could make our modern day anything goes thinking look like a refined ladies’ tea party.  This was a tough place for Paul’s gentle companion[2], who had accompanied the apostle on his missionary journeys and been instrumental in helping the Corinthian churches through their squabbles and brushes with heresy. 

The apostle reminds Titus of the Gospel in a nutshell with just a few thoughts:

·       The grace of God came in Jesus Christ to reveal salvation

·       Our call is to reject godlessness and live with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion while we keep our hope fixed on Christ’s coming

·       Our commitment is to be total, unselfish, and result in good deeds to others.

Not an easy calling to live-out in a culture that teaches selfishness as a virtue.

I would not exactly be going out on a limb to say all of us have experienced at least a time or two when someone either tried, or tried and was successful in taking unfair advantage, or doing us harm.  It could be financial, reputation-slashing, or even physical harm.  It is beside the point whether we deserved it or not; harm is harm!  That stuff happens, and, in Crete it was a way of life. 

Paul told Titus to swim upstream, climb a steep rock, and do the unthinkable…be full of grace at all times, no matter how wicked the culture was in Crete.  This is the Christian calling; lighting candles wherever there is darkness, blooming where you’re planted. 

I recall one particular time when that task seemed harder than ever.  My career, reputation, and future were at risk because of a church power struggle.  Without recounting all the details, pointing fingers or defending who said what and why…I made a conscientious effort to remain calm.  It was a rough time, and I would like to say everything turned out just fine; it didn’t.  Ministry in that place was over for me, and I had to move-on.  But the larger picture is what God’s grace did in the lives of many, including me. 

In the years since that time I’ve had conversation with a number of the people who were part of that situation and heard much the same story; although the circumstances were unpleasant and challenged everything about their walk with Christ, the change that God brought about was something they couldn’t have imagined.

Navigating life as a Christian in a culture that overlooks and sometimes even mocks the cross is not easy; it’s a good thing we have a Navigator who has been through that water personally!

For You Today

It may be that you travelled some rough seas this past weekend, and maybe it’s still not calm out there; wherever you’re headed this week, make sure your compass is set on He who is the True North Star.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image: Courtesy Pixabay.com

[2] Holman Bible Dictionary description

Honorable Behavior

[i]

Thursday, May 4, 2017

“Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people.  Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.”  Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.  Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors.  Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.  1 Peter 2:10-12^(NLT)

As dramatic as apostle Paul’s conversion was, from persecutor of the church to defender of the faith, Peter’s conversion was just as wide a swing from impulsive, brash, volatile, and self-serving to humble servant who lived-into the mercy he received.  The difference in the two apostles was simply time.  Paul’s happened nearly in a heartbeat; it took Peter a lifetime.

Jesus had called Simon “Peter”.  He called him a rock; not a boulder, but Jesus said Peter, when he finally reached maturity, would be a little pebble.  A boulder is pretty much immovable, but Peter’s behavior was anything but steady.  He could vacillate from boldly declaring he would die for Jesus, raising a sword against the high priest’s soldier to cut off an ear, to wimping-out when a little girl asked him if he was a follower of Jesus outside Pilate’s house.  Peter had a hard time matching his bragging and his behavior.  Will the real Peter, made of stone, please stand up?

Paul had to call him out at least once.  When Paul had been discipling the young believers of the Galatian church, Peter came to see this miracle of Gentiles brought into the faith.  He ate and fellowshipped with them, but when the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem arrived, Peter drew back from the Gentiles like they had leprosy.   Paul got in Peter’s face and reminded him that hypocrisy is a pretty poor witness. ^{(Galatians 2:11)}

Fast forward years down the road to not long before both Peter and Paul are to be martyred and you find this letter Peter has written to the young believers everywhere, humbly encouraging them to be consistently honorable in their behavior.  Is this the pot asking the kettle to not be black?  Are you telling us, dear Simon Peter that we ought to do as you say, and not as you do? 

Well, of course; that’s the whole point!  Peter had lived a lifetime awakening to the fact that all his bragging, ready-to-fight, mouth running/brain on hold, aggression was not what Christ had lived before Peter and the world; nor was it what Christ prophesied that Peter would be…little stone…humble stone. 

Peter had learned that pushing your way through life like a boulder rolling through a china shop wasn’t strong leadership, it was demonic and so anti-Christian, it makes you twice the child of Hell in the eyes of those to whom you’re supposed to be Christ’s witness.   Peter’s former ways were all about Peter; now the old apostle understood living the Christ-life was all about giving glory to God.  It finally got through to the hard-charging man of action that when it comes to sheep, leading is better than driving!

For You Today

In the kingdom of God we are all leaders AND followers; we are following the One who was meek and lowly, and we are leading others with our behavior.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

---

 ^I Title image: Norman Rockwell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Restless

[i]

                                                                                                             Monday, August 29, 2016

We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle have no right to eat.  Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp.  So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood.  So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore.  For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.   Hebrews 13:10-14^(NLT)

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo ^{(November 13, 354 – August  28, 430}) was one of the early church fathers, whose writings give us great insight into the formation of Christian living.  He was very restless as a young man.  One of his most well-known sayings is:

Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.[ii]

This statement is echoed by Blaise Pascal in the 17^th century who offered the concept that we have a God-shaped hole in our hearts which can only be filled by the embrace of God with the human.[iii]

The Hebrew letter writer (who many believe to be Paul) encourages followers of Christ to go outside the mainstream of human wisdom and bear the same disgrace as Jesus; Paul got this from Jesus, who told his followers to take up the cross.  Paul echoed it also in his letter to the Corinthian church:  I die daily[iv]

Much of Christian doctrine and principles turns the world upside-down:

          ·       To live for Christ is to die to self

          ·       To give stuff away is to store up riches

          ·       To give your life away is to find it

          ·       The first will be last, and the last, first.

For those who see the threadbare inconsistency of the power structures and systems of this world’s ways, and long for a better way, something with substance and integrity, a life of purity and strength, following Jesus Christ is the choice exhibiting the epitome of wisdom. 

In what other way can you find the meaning that God-shaped hole craves than to do what Paul suggests happens to those who take a step towards God in Christ?

And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.  Galatians 3:27^(NLT)

For You Today

Got restless?

Put on Christ, give yourself away, die daily, be last to be first.  Better than drugs, booze, power-lunches or a new car!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

---

[i] Title Image:  See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[ii] GoodReads.com quote attributed to Augustine of Hippo in Confessions

[iii] Christianity Stakexchange

[iv] 1 Corinthians 15:31b