Citizens of the Kingdom

Did you know that there are three great commissions?  One in each of the synoptic gospels we have great commission.  We are always hearing of the first one, from Matthew, and it has taken us years to get back to the true meaning of Christ's words in Matthew.  When I was growing up I heard it as “preach the gospel to all nations.”  But once you get into it, you see that it reads,”Go and make disciples of all nations.”  There is something deeper going on: discipleship.  We nod to each other in seminary, and say to each other, “okay, NOW we got it!”

But wait.  How do we disciple the nations?  We can't just teach them anything.  What does Jesus say about that?  Jesus continues: “teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”  According to Matthew, discipleship involves teaching God's commandments.

What about the great commission in Mark?  How is it different?  Well, here Jesus tells his disciples, “Go into the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.  The one who BELIEVES and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.”  According to Mark, discipleship involves getting the hearer to believe.

Finally, our reading today is Luke's great commission, and here Jesus says, “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”  According to Luke, discipleship involves getting the hearer to repentance.

So, we have discipleship involving getting the one receiving the gospel to obey, believe, and repent, according to the three synoptic gospel writers.  Which of these is the most important.  Belief!  Which is faith in God.  Because if someone does not believe, he is not going to repent, and if he does not repent, he will not obey.

Look at government.  If you have no faith in a government, you are not going to be willing to become a citizen of that country.  That's essentially what repentance is: leaving your old country and becoming a citizen of a new country.  In this case it is the kingdom of God.  If you are not willing to become a citizen of the new country, you will not be willing to obey its laws.

If you are not willing to obey its laws, you are not going receive the benefits of being a citizen.  What are the benefits of being a citizen of the kingdom of God?  Going back to Mark, the benefits are many, including physical protection, but most importantly, “they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

This is a healing Sunday, as you come forward to receive a blessing or healing prayer, think of the faith that you have.  Everyone here has faith, or they wouldn't be here.  Each of you is willing to become a member of God's kingdom.  You have repented of your old lives and have embraced the new life.  As citizens of the kingdom of God, you are willing to obey its laws.  Belief in the Lord and ruler of life gives us the power to obey the laws.

As you come forward, know that as you obey the laws of the kingdom, you are reaping the benefits of the kingdom.  Healing of mind, soul, and body.  Spiritual, physical, psychological, and emotional healing.  Protection from evil.  The evil one cannot harm you.  The snake that tempted Adam and Eve in the garden will not bite you.  The poison of the world's culture will not harm you, will not even affect you. You will be healed and you will be able to pass on that healing to other citizens of the kingdom.

Healing in the Gospels is accompanied by a statement of faith from the one receiving the healing.  Jesus tells them, “your faith has made you well.”  The person is essentially raising his right hand and pledging allegiance to the kingdom of God.  What about unbelieving witnesses to these miracles?  As Jesus told his disciples.  Healing happens so that the glory of God can be revealed.  When we witness God's glory, we believe.  From the depths of unbelief, people rise to the top of belief, and from belief comes repentance, and from repentance, obeisance, and from obeisance, citizenship in the kingdom.  Amen.

The A, B, C’s of Moving to Mexico: A Prayer Guide for the Tolers

An old Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”  Before that first step can be taken, however, there is a lot of prayer, planning and partnership that is needed.  2012 has arrived and the time for us to take that first physical step on our journey of a thousand miles is quickly approaching.  Many prayers are going up for our family, planning is well underway, and God is bringing together our partnership team.  Thank you for praying for us.  We are constantly praying for you.  In order to give you a glimpse of the planning process and to help guide your pray for our family, here are some A, B, C’s of moving to Mexico:

A is for apostille.      

• An apostille is a document which makes our documents such as birth certificates, marriage license and transcripts official according to international standards.  Pray that all these documents will arrive before we leave Texas. 

B is for Bins and Boxes

• Pray that we can pack everything we need to take to Mexico in the limited number of bins and boxes that we can take on the airplane. 

C is for choices.

•  Please pray as we continue to make choices about where to live in Puebla, Mexico, and that we’ll be sensitive to God’s leading to the perfect rental in His time. 

D is for downtime.

• Pray that we will have downtime to relax and spend time with our family in the midst of classes, homework, and travel.

E is for Elyse.

• Pray for Elyse as she says goodbye to friends at preschool and ballet and pray that she will stay safe and healthy through these many transitions.

F is for finances.

• Please pray that God will continue to meet our expected and unexpected financial needs through our partners and good stewardship.

G is for grades. 

• Pray that we will not only survive our classes, but that we will finish well with good grades.

H is for homework. 

• Pray for us as we finish our last session of classes.  We are taking a full load of graduate level classes which includes lots of homework.  Pray for time management and focus during these final weeks.

I is for involvement. 

• Pray that we may stay involved and connected with the friends we’ve made here in Dallas as well as our longtime friends “back home”. 

J is for junk. 

• Pray as we continue to sort through our “junk” and decide, once again, what we need to get rid of and what we need to keep. 

K is for Kieran. 

• Pray for Kieran as he finishes his first year of homeschool.  Also, pray for his transition during this time of travel. 

L is for language. 

• Pray as we analyze a difficult African language in one of our classes this session.  Also pray that Susan will be able to learn Spanish quickly once we move to Mexico so that we can both start learning the indigenous language that God will lead us to. 

M is for missions-focused. 

• Pray that in the midst of studies, packing, and moving we will stay focused on the mission to which God has called our family.  Also pray that we can effectively communicate the need for Bible translation to friends, family and churches that we visit before we leave. 

N is for new relationships. 

• Pray that we will be able to nurture the new relationships we have made in Texas at school and church. 

O is for Oaxaca. 

• Join us in praying for the people of Oaxaca who still await the Word of God in their language. 

P is for packing. 

• Pray for our packing and that we will be able to purchase everything we need before we leave.  Also pray for the kids as they say more good-byes to toys.

Q is for quiet time with God. 

• Pray that we will all keep this as a focus for our day.  Unfortunately, this is often the first thing to go when we get busy, but it is the first thing that needs to be done.

R is for relationship. 

• Pray that Kris and Susan will continue to grow in their relationship with each other and with God.  Satan uses stressful times to weaken marriages. 

S is for safe travels. 

• Pray as we travel back to the east coast in June and then to Mexico in July.

T is for “To-Do” lists. 

• Pray that we will be able to keep up with all the “to-do” lists that we continue to make every day!

U is for understanding. 

• Pray that we can lead our children through these transitions with understanding and grace. 

V is for vaccines. 

• Thankfully, we only have a couple of shots to get taken care of, but pray that the kids (and parents) will do well with these.

W is for wisdom.

• Please pray that God will give us wisdom during classes. 

X is for X-haustion. 

• Pray for strength that we will not get too exhausted during this process of moving.

Y is for yearning. 

• Pray that God will continue to deepen the yearning in our hearts to serve Him in Mexico and that he will guard that yearning from Satan’s attacks. 

Z is for  Zzzzz. 

• Pray for rest for our family and that we will be able to get sleep during this time. 

Greek Bible Study on the Outer Banks

You don't have to know Greek, or even be interested in learning Greek to participate in the Greek Bible Study each Thursday morning at 9:30am at Front Porch Cafe in Nags Head.  Pastor Fred Barrett and a couple of parishioners from Church of the Good Shepherd have been going through the Gospel of John, one verse at a time, reading the verse aloud in Greek, translating the verse to English, and then having a lively discussion--IN ENGLISH--about the verse.  The hour-long session usually results in the translation of only two verses!  That's how little Greek is used and how invigorating the discussion is!  All are invited to participate in this discipleship opportunity, and feel free to bring your ENGLISH Bible!

Church of the Good Shepherd is an Anglican, liturgical, and traditional Church that has been on the Outer Banks since 2009, preaching the full gospel of Christ.  We have just become part of the community at His Dream Center, and now meet each Sunday Morning there at 11am for traditional, Anglican worship and Holy Communion.

Discipleship Series on Stott Book Continues

Every Sunday before 11am worship, we gather at 10am for discipleship with a book study of John Stott's Basic Christianity. The discussion each week is quite invigorating. This past week we discussed the first chapter in the part on Man's Need.  That's right: we discussed sin.

This coming Sunday we will discuss chapter 6: "The Consequences of Sin." By taking small bits of the book at a time, we can be more thorough, have livelier discussion, and allow people to come and go through the sessions. All are invited, even if you can only make one of the sessions. Please contact me to get a free book to use.  We also have experienced discussion with one or more people having not read the chapter of the week at all.  This makes no difference.  The question and answer oriented format of the discussion allows anyone to bring their thoughts to the table, and the discussion is always lively.

We gather in the chapel area, behind the glass doors on the left as you enter His Dream Center, and we will meet for 40 minutes, so that we can have 20 minutes to prepare our hearts for worship in the main sanctuary. At the same time, Sunday school for the older children (over 5) has resumed, and childcare is available for children under 5, so feel free to join in the discussion, even if you have kids.

The format of the sessions will be as follows: we will each read part of the book on our own, and then come to the session on Sunday morning with questions. I will have questions, too, so that we can get the discussion started. This way we can all take the conversation to the places where we each most need Christ's discipleship. Hope you can participate in this first discipleship series in our new location!  I am looking at books for the second series, and will make a decision soon on what comes after Basic Christianity.

Abiding in Love

Last week we talked about true evangelism being something God does, and our only job is to bend our wills to him, to submit our wills to his will—get out of the way, so to speak—so that we aren't creating obstacles to God's evangelizing work. It's not that we are more powerful that God, it's that if we do not submit to God, we are not allowing him to use us for his work. It's not that cannot use us, it is that he is not willing to use a vessel that is going to send mixed signals to a potential child of God.

If I'm preaching the gospel to you, and then I launch into an expose on how great a secular TV show is, where I'm describing whole scenes for you, and they aren't emulating God, I'm sending mixed signals to you. I need to focus wholly on God, to accept his Spirit working in my life, to submit to his will, and then I can give you the pure Gospel, without distractions, or heresies thrown in.

Complete submission is possible. God helps us achieve it. There is not hard work required on our end. It says in Romans 6: “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for unrighteousness.” What is the key verb in that passage? “Present”: we offer ourselves as an insufficient sacrifice to God. He does the work, but what we are doing is presenting ourselves. It does not require hard work. It just requires us to submit, like slaves, to God's will. It's getting all our garbage off the table: clearing the desktop and only allowing God's jobs to be on our desktop.

Jesus said this last week to us, when he said, I am the vine and you are the branches. Abide in me and I in you, and you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing. We are presenting ourselves to the vine. Jesus is grafting us onto himself. He blood flows through our veins. We bear more and more fruit, due to Christ's blood in us. These fruits bear seeds and the seeds are planted in others' lives, combining to bring that lost souls back to the Good Shepherd.

This is what Christ means when he tells us to “Abide.” Abide isn't an active verb, it's an accepting verb. It's all about accepting God's will in our lives. It's about “presenting” ourselves to God as slaves. It's about submission. Now, in this week's passage, which appears right after last week's, we get another command to abide, but this time it is abiding in God's love.

What does it mean to abide in God's love. If we look at what we've just been talking about, it means to accept God's love. It's about presenting our love to God. It's about submitting to God's love. God's love is a love of submission, and that's what makes it so unpredictable.

The Greeks have four different words for love. We have one. They have four. The first is storge, and it means affection. It is the love that you might have for a pet. The second is philios or friendship. Philadelphia is brotherly love. We're getting closer to true love. Then we have eros, which means romance. It's the love between husbands and wives, when the two of you just NEED to be together. It's an achy love.

Now, agape is the last love, and it used to be thought of as the lowest love. It means charity, and ancient Greeks thought of it as giving alms to the poor. It was not thought of too highly. But God showed us what agape can be. As we read in today's passage: “There is no greater love than this: that one lays down one's life for one's friends.” Agape suddenly moves from the lowest love to the highest love. Whenever we watch a movie or read a story in which someone lays down their life for a friend, we are moved, because we are seeing true agape love in action. We are watching the love of God played out before our eyes. In the movies this happens all the time, but in real life, we flee, because of our sin, because of our unwillingness to submit, to abide, to present. We fail at this kind of love.

Jesus commands us to love one another—to agape one another—to lay down our lives for each other. Yet we fail. Back to Romans, chapter 5, we read, one of us would scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps foe a good person one would dare even to die. Sin keeps us from being able to die for a good person or a righteous person.

But here God demonstrates agape love: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We cannot bring ourselves to die for a good person. Jesus died for us while we were still enemies. His is perfect agape love, perfect self-sacrifice. The only way we can do likewise is to completely submit ourselves to God, become his slave, present ourselves as an offering to God, for him to do with us as he wishes, without us kicking against him, wanting to be our own person. The only way we can show true agape love to each other is to completely abide in his love.

Paul writes in Philippians that Jesus was in the form of God, and could have chosen to stay where he was, living as God, but instead he made himself nothing, he took the form of a servant, a slave, a submissive one, an abiding one, born in the likeness of a man. And then it goes downhill from there. After that complete submission to humanity, he completely submits to love. Jesus humbled himself by being obedient to the point of death—something we are unable to do, but the perfect man can—and he died on the cross for us. He showed true agape love.

And what follows is exaltation: as a result of this agape submission, God highly exalted Jesus and bestowed on him the name above all names. We refuse to submit, because we would rather exalt ourselves. Now, who would you rather exalt you? Yourself or God almighty? Exalt yourself and God will humble you. Humble yourself—submit, abide, present—and God will exalt you. Only through abiding in agape, can we be made more life Christ in this world.

Seeds of Evangelism

We've been talking about witness as a part of the gospel, and over the last few weeks, we've been talking about what it means to be a false witness, and also what it means to be a false leader. Let's go positive, and talk about what it means to be a good witness. Let's talk about successful evangelism.

So, how many people have YOU led to Christ? Does anyone have a number? Has anyone led one person to Christ? I was asked that on a survey once. How many people have I led to Christ? And the answers were “between 1 and 10, 10-30, 30-100, over 100”? Really? Is that what makes an evangelist? Let's see, I led that person to Christ, but I'm not with him. I guess I should call that person up and see if they are still with Christ, because if not, then that wouldn't be a successful “lead.” Do you see how ridiculous this is? We cannot put a quantity on evangelism.

If we look at John 4:36-38: “The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.” There is no single person leading someone to Christ. This is not notch-on-the-belt stuff. This is a team of people working on bringing people to Christ. Well, we may say, let's assemble a team of evangelists, and one can be the sower, and another can water, and another reap, and another can store in barns, and another can package, and another can set prices, and another can take to the grocery store, and another can buy, and another can eat.

This isn't team evangelism, either. This is “God is doing the evangelism” evangelism. Jesus is trying to dispel the myth that we are the ones who do this. We are tools in God's utility belt, nothing more. We don't know who sowed seed, or which seeds were the ones that took, or which seeds were the one that fully grew up. God doesn't want us to say, “I led someone to Christ,” or even, “Jim and I led someone to Christ.” God wants to fall on our knees and say “Wow! Lord, look what you DID! I never could have done that!”

Our Acts passage dramatizes this point clearly. Did Philip know where to go? No. God sent an angel to tell him where to go. Why was the eunuch reading Isaiah? Did Philip put the scroll in his hands? No. Where did he get the scroll from? Someone else. Do we know that person was? No. How did that other person get the scroll in the eunuch's hands? Did he just say, “read this?” No. A third person must have planted a seed somehow motivating the eunuch to get the scroll. There's probably eight-sixteen people in the line of evangelists between that unbelieving eunuch and Philip. Do they know each other? No. This was an Ethiopian. He had no reason to be reading Isaiah, and he wasn't a Jew. He may have converted in Ethiopia, but that would have been done by yet another person in his home country. Isaiah hadn't been written at the time of Solomon, so the Queen of Sheba certainly didn't have a copy.

How did Philip know to go over to the chariot? The spirit told him. Did Philip take the eunuch through the book of Isaiah line by line? No. He only interpreted the one line the eunuch was already reading. And then he was able to preach the whole gospel from there. Philip didn't need to manipulate anything. He didn't need to say, “Isaiah is a good book, but you really need to be reading Deuteronomy. Go find Deuteronomy and then let's set up a coffee date. I'll meet you at Front Porch Cafe at 9:30am sharp!”

All Philip had to do was know that the scriptures are about Jesus. He knew this, because that's how God works in us. We are able to see Jesus throughout scripture. We look at the world—at life—through Jesus tinted lenses. God got the scripture into the eunuch's hands through many people. God got the right interpretation into Philip's mind through the Holy Spirit. Then all God had to do was get the eunuch and Philip together. Everything just happened. As the phrase goes, “it just worked itself out.” What happens after the eunuch is baptized? Philip is whisked away. No time to get the eunuch in an Alpha program or find the right home church for him. Nope, God doesn't want Philip to screw anything up. Your job is over! On your way, now!

God does everything. We are his resources. The best metaphor for this is in our gospel reading. “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” We are members of Christ's body, and we can do nothing of or by ourselves. We allow ourselves to be used by the vine. We are grafted onto the vine. The lifeblood of the vine flows into the branch. Christ's lifeblood is in us. We bear fruit, not because we are trying very hard, but because we have the fruit-bearing lifeblood in us. I bear fruit and the fruit falls to the ground and bursts open and the seeds inside help God's kingdom grow. You bear fruit and your fruit falls to the ground and bursts open and the seeds inside help God's kingdom grow. Together the seeds from our fruit interact in a way that God wants. The Father is the vinegrower. He is the only one who sees how the seeds of the fruit are going to interact to grow his kingdom. But if we aren't bearing fruit, we get pruned. We have to willingly submit to the vine so that Christ's lifeblood is running in our veins. Otherwise we are useless, and we get cut off.

When Paul lists all those witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15, it's not just to say, “look at all these witnesses!” It's also to say, “look at the different kinds of witnesses!” Someone might read about the risen Christ appearing to James and think, “Wow! That's the brother of Jesus, who didn't believe during Christ's entire earthly ministry, and then, when he witnesses the risen Christ, he believes! That's enough for me, I'm a believer!” And the seed gets planted. But another person may say, “James doesn't do it for me. I'm a believer because of the 500 witnesses! That is the power of mass witness!” Each of us will get a different seed out of different things in scripture, history and relationship, and as these seeds build up, as the witness becomes overwhelming, we all reach the same goal—a relationship with the risen Christ. He is the one constant in evangelism. He is the destination. He is the goal. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, and today, and forever. No matter what seeds of evangelism get us there, he is waiting at the end of the line.

Donate a Bicycle to His Dream Center

If you have a bicycle, even a damaged one, that you would like to donate to His Dream Center, we will accept it.  Rev. David Daniels and his team will fix the bike and lend it to an international student to get around the OBX over the summer.  Call me or just bring a bike by His Dream Center (205 E Baltic, Nags Head) if you have one to donate.