Benediction (the Launching, Not the Landing

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Now may the God of peace—who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—may he equip you with all you need for doing his will.  May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him.  All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.  

Hebrews 13:20-21

A benediction is like the familiar words of Jesus when he called himself both Alpha and Omega, not just the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, but the beginning and ending of everything good, holy, and worthwhile. 

This letter of Paul the Apostle[1] to the Hebrew Christians ends with a launch.  It’s like the shuttle lifting off the pads at Cape Canaveral – there have been thousands and thousands of work hours to get to this point, but the journey is now beginning.  

Paul wrote this long explanatory letter, proclaiming to first century Jews exactly how Jesus fulfilled every part of God’s law, and then Paul offers a benediction of grace to fill the launch thrusters that will propel them into a mission to all mankind, of being God’s lighthouse to the lost.

If you’re at all like me, the benediction used to be a pause with a yawn; the worship service is ending, let the nap begin.  Not so in the real world.  A genuine benediction is commissioning…the training and planning done…now the work!

At our church we call it Commissioning and Sending.  Sunday corporate worship lifts our praises, prayers, and open hearts to the Lord’s throne.  The sermon lays out the Word to fill open hearts, and the final act is commissioning.  It’s the act of believers committing to the Kingdom work of spreading the Good News. 

I have this mental rodeo image of benedition (our commissioning and sending); it’s that last nervous moment when the bull-riding cowboy is tightening his grip on that flank rope attached to the 2,000-pound bull under him.  He’s getting ready for the launch on the wildest of rides.  The bull-riding event has been called the most dangerous eight seconds in sports.  When the gates are opened, man and beast are at 180°-odds about staying together.  Eight seconds later the journey is over. 

Unlike the lightning-fast ride and judging of bull-riding, the results of God’s Kingdom work will only be revealed in eternity.  However, the similarities end when you start to talk about value.  In bull-riding a cowboy can get instant fame and fortune, a wisp of a high (assuming he lasts the 8 seconds), and then obscurity or a footnote in rodeo lore.  In Kingdom work a witness of Jesus Christ will receive an eternal crown of glory from the White Throne in Heaven.

For You Today 

Let’s hear again from the Apostle as we begin this day in laboring for the Master:

…may he equip you with all you need for doing his will.  May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him.  All glory to him forever and ever! Amen. 

So…be commissioned…be sent…!

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   White Flag of Surrender  and  May He Produce in You   

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] The author is not named, but most scholars place it in Paul’s hands.

Start Here

Friday, August 22, 2014

As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.”  So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia.  The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning.  Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.  The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”  Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah.  Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”  The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?”  And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.  The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:  “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.  And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.  He was humiliated and received no justice.  Who can speak of his descendants?  For his life was taken from the earth.”  The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?”  So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.     Acts 8:26-35 (NLT)

I cannot say how many times I’ve been asked how to go about sharing one’s faith.  And it’s a good question, a fair question. 

Pastors often preach on spreading the Gospel – how it is our responsibility to help proclaim the Kingdom of God; and the person in the pew shifts uncomfortably because he’s never been shown how to do that.

Well…Here’s how to do that:

Philip is a great model for sharing your faith.  He was prompted to move towards somebody who needed to know Jesus (first by an angel, then by the Spirit of God).  The key is Philip’s obedience; he was told to go and he went!

First objections:  I’ve never seen an angel, and how do you know it’s the Holy Spirit?  

Well, I’ve never seen an angel (that I know of) either, but the prompting of God’s Spirit is something you will begin to recognize if you live a life like Philip lived.

Philip spent three years hanging out with Jesus; in that time he was constantly observing and talking with Jesus, learning what moved the Lord and why.  This is requirement number one:  keep spending time with Jesus; prayer, reading His Word, serving people and fellowship with other believers is what develops sensitivity to the whispers of God’s Holy Breath.

Philip moved close to the Ethiopian’s chariot because he was accustomed to two things:

                      a.      He had grown accustomed to listening for the Spirit’s prompting

                      b.      He had committed himself to the mission of caring for his fellow man

When it comes to sharing your faith there are only those two requirements; God will prepare the other person’s heart to receive your witness, but He requires a humble servant who will love a neighbor and listen for the Holy Spirit’s prompting.

When God provided this opportunity Philip simply asked a “conversation-opening question”.  God had already moved in the Ethiopian’s heart…he was reading Scripture and interested.  Philip was an answer to the man’s longing to know God.

Sharing your faith isn’t complicated; it is simply telling your story of how Jesus came into your life.  With most folks who have never done that, the scary part is getting started. 

There are techniques you can learn to “break the ice” and get started.  But no technique will ever replace your heartfelt concern for your lost neighbor or a heart committed to serving God’s kingdom by sharing that heart.

For You, Today…

Do you hear the Spirit leading today? 

Are you quiet enough to listen?

Do you care enough to speak?