Love, Live, Move

A Few Names of Jesus

Today’s devotion will be a little different. I just want you to meditate on these Scriptures and explore Jesus through a few of the names God reveals through his Word:

How do these verses affect and intersect with your life today?

This post is adapted from Pastor Bill’s book, Disciple. Want more? Come to the Ballard church this Saturday morning for Pastor Bill’s Discipleship class.

Not the Doing, But the Resting In

Should Christians be earnest about building into their lives the disciplines of prayer, giving, Bible meditation, church involvement, regular confession of sin, etc? Does such earnestness jeopardize one's grasp of the gospel?

I am increasingly convinced that healthy spiritual disciplines and healthy gospel-centeredness rise and fall together.

In Edward Fisher's The Marrow of Modern Divinity, the character Evangelista (= mature Christian) is explaining to Nomista (= legalist) that upholding the full and free gospel of grace does not undercut violent-if-need-be development of habitual spiritual exercise: 
Mistake me not, I pray, in imagining that I speak against the doing of these things [religious exercises], for I do them all myself, but against resting in the doing of them, the which I desire not to do. (p. 257)Now there's a sentence for all of us who have given the current gospel-mega-surge any thought at all, whether of cynicism or of exultation.

Evangelista goes on to explain why this distinction is important:
Man's poor soul is not only kept from rest in God by means of sensuality, but also by means of formality. If Satan cannot keep us from rest in God by feeding our senses with our mother Eve's apple, then he attempts to do it by blinding our eyes, and so hindering us from seeing the paths of the gospel. If he cannot keep us in Egypt by the flesh-pots of sensuality, then  will he make us wander in the wilderness of religious and rational formality. (ibid)

Pray the Scriptures

Here's an excerpt from Pray the Scriptures, Scotty Smith's contribution to the May issue of Tabletalk.

I am a recovering self-centered pragmatic pray-er — a believer who spent many of my first years in Christ thinking of God more as a sugar daddy than the sovereign Father. Prayer, for me, had more in common with programming a heavenly computer than surrendering to a loving Master. I worked harder at claiming God's promises for my ease than being claimed by God's purposes for His kingdom. Instead of being still and knowing that God is God, my prayer life was that of an antsy man, trying to help God be God.

Alas, this was a manifestation of the man-centered gospel that distorted my view of God and, therefore, enfeebled my practice of prayer. Thankfully, continued growth in grace has led me to a better understanding of the gospel, which, in turn, has radically reoriented my prayer life. It's not cliché; it's wondrously true: the gospel changes everything.

Nothing has been of greater importance to my growth in grace than learning to pray the Scriptures while wearing the lens of the gospel, and nothing has proven to be more fruitful.

Continue reading Pray the Scriptures.

Community on Mission with Depth of Intimacy

Small groups have become a staple in the American church as a way of cultivating friendships, developing community, and encouraging spiritual formation. Pastors and other small group leaders often cite Acts 2:42-47 as the model for such community devoted to God and devoted to one another through shared time, resources, and space. But there is growing sentiment for small groups to fulfill the rest of that passage---God adding to their numbers daily---by extending the gospel of Jesus Christ to unbelievers.

We love to study the Scriptures and discuss the glorious truth of the gospel with one another, and we enjoy spending time with fellow believers. Yet we're often fearful and uneasy about what will happen if we invite people who do not believe as we do into these environments. What will happen to our intimacy? What will happen to our deep community?

I worried about the same things when church leaders first asked me to transition my community group toward an outreach focus. Now, as a pastor seeking to foster community, I'm encouraging others to transition their groups, and they're reacting with the same skepticism. One particularly apprehensive community group pushed back hard during a couple tense lunches. They feared the destruction of their friendships and community developed over the last three years as a closed group. This community group was the reason they stayed at our church---even stayed in our city.

We all desire to be known in community, to have friendships with people we trust and enjoy. We long for a community like the one described in Romans 12:15 that rejoices when we rejoice and grieves when we grieve. But what if intimacy and community isn't the end goal of small groups?

When Jesus Blew Up the Small Group Model

While most small groups aim to develop and maintain Christian community, Christ himself built a community around him that reflected a different goal. The group aimed to exalt God among believers and non-believers alike. They sought to spread worship and enjoyment of God above all things.

As I read the Scriptures alongside books like Total Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester, The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch, and others, I began to discover what the community groups I led were missing. Our community wasn't a failure, but it was incomplete. Community had become an end to our mission rather than the context for it. We had embraced the blessings and transformation of the gospel as a community, but we did not seek to extend these benefits to others. I came to realize we needed to radically redefine our purpose for small groups.

We often seek to develop intimacy through conversation, confession, and prayer within a small group that grows together with time and trust. Burt actually, we tend to form our lasting friendships through shared experiences, shared time, and shared mission. This insight reflects what we see in Scripture with Jesus and his disciples along with the early church. Luke 10 show us Jesus opening up and sharing his compassionate mission with his disciples. They celebrate together when the disciples return from mission. The relationship between mission and community extends throughout the book of Acts.

In my own life, as my community has taken a concern for the people in my life who I desire to know Christ and follow him with their lives, our relationships have gone deeper. Our conversations no longer center on the surface level of catching up on activities since we've last seen one another. When they ask about the things I love the most (God and people), I feel more cared for and connected, because these friends reveal that they know my heart and share my compassion and mission for others.

The same thing happened in our church's community groups that initially resisted change. Over the first year of the transition, they began opening their community and inviting co-workers, neighbors, and even their doorman. Their community began to grow to beyond capacity. Six months later, during a training meeting, another community group leader expressed the same concern about destroying community by expanding the group. I asked one of the other leaders to answer. "We were expecting it to hurt our friendships," he said, "but it was the exact opposite."

This moment felt almost scripted, but it was joyful to see the truths of Scripture and the promises of God lived out in our midst. It was a powerful celebration of God's work as we fought through the fears and apprehensions to value the gospel of Jesus Christ more than our conception of community.

How Does This Work Out?

Practically, this shift does not require the community to sacrifice their conversation, confession, or prayer together, but it may realign the context and focus. Often we seek to cram Bible study, discussion, confession, and prayer into a two-hour block on a weeknight, which usually means one of them gets sacrificed (often prayer because we this time will lead to drawn-out requests).

Instead, we may develop gender-specific, Christ-centered accountability groups outside our regularly scheduled small group meeting. This may seem like an additional burden, but it's part of approaching your regular life with more intentionality. I've often heard it said that you don't have to do different things, but do things differently. Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma Communities describes this as living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.

Many small groups have only a façade of intimacy because they do not help members reach friends and neighbors they want to know Christ. A small group that reflects the focus of the Acts community to love God, one another, and others becomes a community on mission with depth of intimacy.

The Gospel Is Big Enough to Fight for Itself

Russell Moore:

Sometimes believers will throw up their hands in frustration with non-Christian people they know. “I have said everything I know to say to her about the gospel,” one might say. “She already knows it all and doesn’t believe.”

Often what we seek is another argument, a hidden angle that our interlocutor hasn’t thought through before. But that’s rarely how the gospel is heard and received. Think about it in your own case. Did you believe the gospel the first time you ever heard it? Perhaps you did, but if so, you’re quite unusual. Most of us heard the gospel over and over and over again until one day it hit us in a very different way.

And what was different about it? Was it a new argument? Did you say to yourself, “Wait, you mean there’s archaeological evidence proving the historical existence of the Hittites?” or “Hold on, there were five hundred witnesses to the resurrection? Well, what must I do to be saved?”

No, in most cases what we heard was the same old gospel — Christ crucified for us, buried, raised from the dead — and suddenly there was light (2 Corinthians 4:6). Suddenly what had seemed boring or irrelevant to us now seemed quite personal. We heard a man’s voice in that gospel, and we wanted to follow that voice (John 10:3, 16). We saw a light of glory that overwhelmed us (2 Corinthians 4:6). The same is true with the as-of-yet unbelieving world around us or the as-of-yet unbelieving relatives we have waiting for us at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

You need not be intimidated by unbelievers, as though what you need is a more nuanced “worldview” to protect the kingdom of God from their threats. Yes, we engage in apologetic arguments, but those aren’t at the hub of our mission. By talking with unbelievers about arguments against the existence of God or scientific evidence for blind natural selection or whatever, all we’re doing is listening to the defense mechanisms of those who are, as we were, scared of the sound of God’s presence in the garden. We should talk about those things lovingly, but not so we can defend the faith. We engage others only so we can get to the only announcement that assaults the blinding power of the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The gospel is big enough to fight for itself.

Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ, 110–111, paragraphing added.

Jesus Is Enough

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” Galatians 1:6

Paul here is shocked, amazed, blown away by the reality that anyone who has tasted of the glory of God in the gospel would turn away from it. The Galatians had succumbed to false teaching that said they needed Jesus plus secret knowledge to grow in Christ. What we need is Jesus and Jesus alone. We don’t need to add anything to the grace that has been given to us. Yet we do this every day, multiple times a day. Our hearts are constantly distracted away from the power, vitality, and reality of the gospel. We are always trying to add something to the gospel.

Jesus Is the Gospel

To believe the gospel is to have a relationship with the God-man Jesus Christ. When we are connected to and in a relationship with Jesus we don’t need to add things to him to make him more lovely or glorious. If Jesus is just a philosopher, good teacher, or good example, it makes sense to need something more. If he really is our savior, lord, master, and friend, all we need is him. Growing in our relationship with Christ means that we need to spend time with Jesus, abiding in his love and mercy.

No Additions

It’s not enough to know the facts of the gospel. The good news that Jesus has died on the cross in our place for our sins and has risen again defeating Satan, sin, and death requires a specific response. It requires a conversation with a person: Jesus Christ. When the good news is disconnected from the person, it becomes easy to add things to make the news better. When the gospel is believed in the heart and a relationship with Jesus is restored, there is no need to change the good news.

Run to the Savior

The Galatians had turned the gospel into a set of facts to be believed instead of a relationship to be experienced. Paul is saying to us and the Galatians to return to our first love. He is exhorting us to run back to Christ, the author and perfector of our faith. Run to the Savior today, abide in his love, and know that he is enough to heal you, save you, and redeem you. Jesus is enough.

Steven Mulkey is the lead pastor at Mars Hill Olympia.

Let's Talk about Money

“Men will talk about their struggle with pornography, but don’t ask about their money.”

A veteran of many men’s groups made that observation, and it made sense. As a counselor, I talk about sex with people, but I cannot remember the last time I talked about money.

In other words, I am missing something. Jesus often targeted the love of money and its deleterious effects, but in my everyday conversations this is rarely in play. Since counselors have an opportunity to focus on what is most important, we should expect to discuss money. If we are not talking about it, we have to ask the question: Are we blinded by the double whammy of a capitalistic culture and a heart that instinctively puts its trust in money?

A Strange Passage

As a way to keep these matters in view, here is a strange passage.

Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.  So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg—I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

“ ‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’

 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ “‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’ 

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.   (Luke 16:1-9)

The interpretive challenge is “the master commended the dishonest manager.” And, of course, that last sentence is a doozy: use worldly wealth to gain friends. . . .

Consider this perspective. The dishonesty of this manager is not so much what he did after he found out he was going to be fired, but wasting his master’s possessions beforehand. In going to his master’s debtors now, the manager reduced interest and other fees, which is shrewd but not exactly dishonest. And since the numbers here are huge, the reduction was generous and appreciated by the debtors. It will bear fruit for the manager in his uncertain future. It’s a smart move, and he is commended for it.

Eternal Investing

The goal is to think and act on our money. Start with a paraphrase.

People spend a lot of time trying to be shrewd with their money. What they get for all their work is a place to stay, food to eat, a few toys, and maybe a few folks who are in their debt. None of it has eternal significance.

Christians should use that same worldly shrewdness with their money to do eternal investing. Eternal investing has a few different components. First, the money is the Lord’s. Second, think in terms of masters. Money can quickly become our god. Assume repentance is going to be a recurring feature of your financial strategy. Third, we are always aiming for faith that expresses itself in generosity.

And the part about gaining friends? My guess is that it means you are helping the poor, and, in helping them, they become friends, even if you gave anonymously. These friends, if they enter heaven before you, will welcome you to something grand. What a fine thought.

Now get on it. Talk to friends about money. Pray together about money. Give to the poor. Get shrewd, with eternity in view.

Each week I drive by the old Widener mansion, which once belonged to the incredibly wealthy George Widener. He died on the Titanic. The estate is that perfect combination of something exquisite and something in utter ruin. The immense shell looks down, passive and helpless, on ivy and weeds that have consumed the once proud fountains and are now aiming for the main house. A shrewd man built it, yet it did not last. May it be a reminder of this parable and an occasion to pray about financial wisdom.

The Scope of Redemption Is as Big as the Scope of Creation

Mike Williams, Professor of Systematic Theology at Covenant Seminary and author of the wonderful and needed book Far as the Curse Is Found:
Many of our students come to us having been carefully nurtured and discipled in the biblical story and have already begun to lay hold of the breadth of it. Many others, however, come only with the story of the larger culture or that of popular Christian culture or with stories that invite them to see the Christian faith as being about and relevant to only their private lives—a spiritual existence that is always to be distinguished from the life of the body, the material world, and the work-a-day world of human social existence. Students are often more than a bit surprised to hear an understanding of the gospel and the Christian life that embraces the entirety of their lives, indeed, the whole of God’s creation.

Putting the issue in the most explicit terms, the scope of God’s redemption in Christ is as big as the scope of God’s creative work. The God who sent his Son to die for me is the God who created all things in the first place, and His redemptive goal is nothing less than to push sin out of every inch and aspect of His creation. I have been redeemed in Christ for a purpose: to be a redemptive agent in the reclamation of “all things.” We should not miss what is at stake here. God is jealous for his works. He surrenders nothing to the forces of sin and death. If the Kingdom of God stands for the realization of God’s good will in the world (an affirmation and living out of the way things ought to be) then the loving grace of God lays claim to all things, destroying the Devil’s work and returning every bit of God’s world—every aspect, place, and thought—to its rightful Lord.Amen.

This Intelligent Carelessness

Jack Miller:
Christ is for us in the gospel and freely justifies and adopts us as sons and gives us the Spirit of adoption. But we must not stop here. We must be for others with the same intensity that Christ was for us. We must get back our joy by having a holy disregard for personal safety. We reject the status of civilians and the mindset of the civilian. We are soldiers/sons of God.

Therefore we gladly renounce me-firstism, and then bend our ears to hear the voice of the ascended Commander-in-Chief.

The Son of God tells us that the kingdom always comes with overturning force, and requires a forceful response from us. He has declared war on the world and the devil. He aims to 'set the world on fire' and bring peace to the heart but war to the evil in ourselves and the world. For us this means that we must throw away our lives for Jesus as we take the gospel to the lost. This intelligent carelessness is our true security. Anything less is dangerous compromise. We who once were enemies have been justified by faith. We must not fall asleep in self-preoccupation and comfort zones. Instead, justification is meant to release us for the battle.

What is the battle?

To risk unpopularity by preaching the cross as a real cross on which a real Savior shed real blood for real sinners headed for a real hell. The battle is giving up the pretence that we are all nice people. The battle is to own nothing in order to own Christ.--Jack Miller, 'Recovering the Grand Cause,' included as an appendix in The Heart of a Servant-Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 311

Jesus Is What the Old Testament Promised Him to Be

Last Sunday evening, Ben Falconer, our excellent associate pastor, preached a sermon called “Immanuel” on Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and promise. He concluded the sermon with a worshipful list of all that Jesus is.

He is the promised seed of Adam who would crush Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15).

He is the descendent of Abraham through whom every nation on earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3).

He is the son of Judah, who reigns eternally as king, whose garments are washed in the blood of grapes, and whose hand is on the neck of his enemies (Gen. 49:8-12).

He is the Passover Lamb who was slain to protect God’s people from the Angel of Death (Exod. 12).

He is the greater son of Israel who came out of Egypt, and He is the great redeemer who brings his people out of a bondage and slavery that is far worse than anything the Israelites experienced there (Exod. 12-14).

He is the true bread from heaven that actually nourishes and feeds his people (Exod. 16).

He is the Rock from whom the only life-giving water flows (Exod. 17).

He is the fulfillment of the Law, perfectly obeying not only the 10 Commandments, but all 613 from the day of his birth (Exod. 20).

He is the One through whom we enter into our lasting Sabbath rest, not just for one day out of seven, but for every day from now through all eternity (Exod. 23:10-12).

He is our great High Priest who offers his very body as an atonement for the sins of his people (Exod. 28-29).

He is the radiance of God, the exact representation of his being, and is the very presence and glory of God among his people, even more than the ark or the pillars of cloud and fire (Exod. 40:34-38).

He is the once for all sacrifice that God offered on the altar on the Day of Atonement on Calvary, and at the same time he is the scape goat that was sent out of God’s presence into the wilderness on account of the sin that he bore (Lev. 16).

He is like the bronze serpent that was lifted up and when people look to him in faith, they find forgiveness and healing (Num. 21).

He is the star that shall come out of Jacob, and the scepter that comes out of Israel (Num. 24:17).

He is a city of refuge for guilty sinners to run into and find shelter (Num. 34).

He gives us every blessing for his obedience to God’s perfect commands, and he paid the price for the curse we deserved for our every disobedience (Deut. 28).

He leads his redeemed people into the Promised Land where they will dwell with him forever (Joshua 3).

He is our conquering warrior, victorious over the powers of sin and death (Joshua 5).

He is the righteous judge and savior who never fails to defend and protect his people when they repent and turn back to him (Judges 2).

He is the offspring of David whose kingdom has been established forever (2 Sam. 7).

He is the very temple of God, which though destroyed was raised again in 3 days (1 Kings 8; 2 Chron. 3).

He is our chief prophet and teacher who restores true religion by calling us away from our idols to return to the One True God (1 Kings 18).

He is leading a remnant out of Babylon back to the Holy Land (Ezra 7).

He is Job’s hope and ours because we know that our Redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth (Job 19:25).

He is the eternally begotten Son of the Lord Most High, whom kings fear in his anger, and who blesses those who take refuge in him (Psalm 2).

He was for a time forsaken by God on the cross, so that those who are found in him might never be rejected (Psalm 22). And yet, his body did not see corruption, because, as David sang, God did not abandon him to Sheol, but raised him physically with an incorruptible body (Psalm 16).

He is the shepherd of his sheep, who restores the soul of his fold and leads us in paths of righteousness (Psalm 23).

He purges us with a cleanser much stronger than anything the hyssop branch can spatter on us—he washes us clean in his very blood so that we might be whiter than snow (Psalm 51).

At his command the angels would bear him up lest his foot strike a stone, yet he did not call on their aid, but welcomed the cup the Lord had for him to drink (Psalm 91).

He is the greater Son of David who will sit at Yahweh’s right hand until all his enemies are as footstools, and is the priest forever in the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110).

He is the Word of God incarnate, and the only lamp for our path (Psalm 119).

He is the very wisdom of God made manifest in the flesh (Proverbs).

He is the only purpose in life that matters (Ecclesiastes).

Jesus is the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley, and he is the husband who brings his beloved to the banqueting table and who satisfies her fully in his love (Song of Songs 2).

He is the sign to Ahaz, one named Immanuel and born to a virgin (Isaiah 7).

He is the great light shining to a people walking in darkness, coming out of Galilee of the nations; He is the child born who is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end, and on the throne of David and over his kingdom, he will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore (Isaiah 9).

He is the shoot coming from the stump of Jesse, and righteousness will be the belt of his waist. During his reign, the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11).

In his coming, the glory of the Lord is revealed and all flesh shall see it together (Isaiah 40).

He is the Lord’s servant, in whom his soul delights, and with whom he is very well pleased (Isaiah 42).

He is Israel’s only savior and besides him there is no other (Isaiah 43).

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He is the one who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we were healed (Isaiah 53).

He is anointed by the Lord to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prisons to those who are bound. He proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; and he comforts all who mourn (Isaiah 61).

He creates the new heavens and the new earth and he will dwell with his people there forever (Isaiah 65).

He is the balm in Gilead that heals the sin-sick soul; he is the great physician who restores the health of his people (Jer. 8).

He is the Righteous Branch from David who will deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness in the land (Jeremiah 23).

He drinks the cup of the wine of the wrath of God so that his people will be spared (Jer. 25).

He ushers in the new covenant in his blood, a covenant written on the hearts of his people, and marked by his forgiveness of our sin (Jer. 31).

He is the very manifestation of the never-ceasing steadfast love of God. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; for great is his faithfulness (Lam. 3).

He brings life to dead men’s bones; by his Spirit he causes breath to come where death had reigned (Ezek. 37).

He is the Son of Man whom the Ancient of Days gives all dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, and that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion (Dan. 7).

He is the merciful husband who takes back his unfaithful wife, and allows us to once again call him “My husband” rather than “My Baal” (Hosea 1-3).

He brings the Day of the Lord, which will be a day of great terror and judgment for all who do not know him, but everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2).

He is the ruler from Bethlehem Ephrathah, whose origin is of old, from ancient days (Micah 5).

He arrived as king in Jerusalem righteous and having salvation, yet he was humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zech. 9).

He is the refiner’s fire and the fuller’s soap, refining us like gold and silver (Mal. 3).

He is the sun of righteousness, who will rise with healing in his wings, and as a result of what he has done, we, like calves, will go out leaping from our stalls (Mal. 4).

Jesus Christ is the only remedy for the infinite gap between our Holy God and sinful humanity. He is the only bridge from one side to the other. He is the only hope for every downcast soul. He is the only comfort for our sorrow. He is the only healing for our diseased hearts. He is our only true joy in a world full of fleeting pleasures. He is the reason for our existence and we exist to give him praise. So set your heart and your mind and your soul and your strength on him and give him worship.

Praise God. Let us worship and bow down.