Francis Chan, Letters to the Church: Good Shepherds

Francis Chan, Letters to the Church
pp.110-112

Good Shepherds (chapter 5)

“For those who have never had to deal with floods of people strongly stating their opinions about you, be grateful. I have met very few people who have navigated that world and remained humble and loving yet courageous.

“Large crowds do something strange to all of us. We can subconsciously begin preaching to avoid criticism rather than teaching truth regardless of the response. We live in a time when people are so volatile.

“If we say one wrong word in public, it can wreak havoc. It is only going to get more difficult for pastors to speak in front of large crowds with boldness and humility.

“Maybe that’s why we are finding fewer pastors known for being humble and courageous. I was deeply affected by a pastor in China who said to me, “In America, pastors think they have to become famous to have a big impact.

“In China, the most influential Christian leaders had to be the most hidden.” My soul leaped when I heard that, imagining a chance to fight for impact and obscurity all at once.

“It feels as if our current way of doing things in America sets us up for failure. Those who pursue massive Kingdom impact seem to always be fighting a losing battle with pride.

“It is how the Enemy lures us away from the very character that makes us effective.”

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
-Hebrews 13:17 (ESV)

“Leaders, I want to challenge you to examine your lives and see whether you can truly tell people in good conscience to follow you as you follow Christ.

“For those not yet in positions of leadership, as we go through the qualities that are essential for good, biblical leadership, I urge you to examine your leaders in a spirit of grace and humility to discern whether their faith and way of life is something you want to imitate. For some of you, God may be calling you to step into leadership, and I implore you to devote yourself to growing in the following areas.

THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR

“That heading may sound ridiculous, but is it safe to assume all pastors are Christians? Just because we claim to believe in Him or went to school to study for ministry, it doesn’t ensure that our hearts are His.

“Having spent two years in Bible college and three years in seminary, I can tell you that a degree can be proof of intelligence or discipline but not spirituality. Those were easily the five worst years of my life.

“Remember that in Jesus’ day, some of the religious leaders were the most evil. Scripture is always warning us to be on guard against false teachers.

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

“And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
-2 Peter 2:1-3a (ESV)

“There will always be false teachers on this earth.

“Jesus taught that wolves will come in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15). What better camouflage than as a minister? Some will teach false doctrine because of their desire to be accepted. Others will preach truth while living a lie

“Whether it’s their message or lifestyle that is false, both are condemned. If you read the rest of 2 Peter 2, you will see that terrifying judgement is reserved for them.

“If you are reading this and living an immoral life, it is time to step down. The worst thing you can be is a false teacher. There is nothing more evil you can do during your few years on earth than to lead people away from their Creator.

The Hidden Pastor

Someone said that we need guides by our sides rather than sages on stages, and they were talking about pastors.

I read a review of Francis Chan’s new book, Letters To The Church, and this line jumped out to me:

“In China, the most influential Christian leaders had to be the most hidden.” 

I understand that the church in China is mostly underground.  It makes sense to keep a low profile there, to be an effective minister.  But, there is a lot more to it than that.  This is the context of that statement (emphasis mine):

“For those who have never had to deal with floods of people strongly stating their opinions about you, be grateful. I have met very few people who have navigated that world and remained humble and loving yet courageous. Large crowds do something strange to all of us. We can subconsciously begin preaching to avoid criticism rather than teaching truth regardless of the response. We live in a time when people are so volatile.  If we say one wrong word in public, it can wreak havoc. It is only going to get more difficult for pastors to speak in front of large crowds with boldness and humility.  Maybe that’s why we are finding fewer pastors known for being humble and courageous. I was deeply affected by a pastor in China who said to me, “In America, pastors think they have to become famous to have a big impact.  In China, the most influential Christian leaders had to be the most hidden.” My soul leaped when I heard that, imagining a chance to fight for impact and obscurity all at once.  It feels as if our current way of doing things in America sets us up for failure. Those who pursue massive Kingdom impact seem to always be fighting a losing battle with pride.  It is how the Enemy lures us away from the very character that makes us effective.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
-Hebrews 13:7 (ESV)

Leaders, I want to challenge you to examine your lives and see whether you can truly tell people in good conscience to follow you as you follow Christ.  For those not yet in positions of leadership, as we go through the qualities that are essential for good, biblical leadership, I urge you to examine your leaders in a spirit of grace and humility to discern whether their faith and way of life is something you want to imitate. For some of you, God may be calling you to step into leadership, and I implore you to devote yourself to growing in the following areas. 

THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR

That heading may sound ridiculous, but is it safe to assume all pastors are Christians? Just because we claim to believe in Him or went to school to study for ministry, it doesn’t ensure that our hearts are His.  Having spent two years in Bible college and three years in seminary, I can tell you that a degree can be proof of intelligence or discipline but not spirituality. Those were easily the five worst years of my life.  Remember that in Jesus’ day, some of the religious leaders were the most evil. Scripture is always warning us to be on guard against false teachers.  But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 

“And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
-2 Peter 2:1-3a (ESV)

Jesus taught that wolves will come in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15).  What better camouflage than as a minister? Some will teach false doctrine because of their desire to be accepted. Others will preach truth while living a lie.  Whether it’s their message or lifestyle that is false, both are condemned. If you read the rest of 2 Peter 2, you will see that terrifying judgement is reserved for them.  If you are reading this and living an immoral life, it is time to step down. The worst thing you can be is a false teacher. There is nothing more evil you can do during your few years on earth than to lead people away from their Creator.”
–Francis Chan, Letters to the Church, pp. 110-112

Your Enemy

You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

-Matthew 5:43-44

There are people who disagree with us, and with their words, make us their enemy.  The trap, is to let them be your enemy and to hate them.  But Jesus says not to do this and to instead love them.

What if the greatest sin was not mass murder, but self-righteousness?  Think about who Jesus’ enemy was.  King Herod wanted to kill baby Jesus, but the religious rulers were not very interested to investigate his birth, as the wise men were.  

That enemy with real destructive power, like Herod and the Romans is always out there, often doing injustice.  They were probably the first ones that most of Jesus’ hearers thought of.

But when our enemies become people from our our household, it is pernicious.

Listen to this hard saying of Jesus:

For I came to turn

a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and a man’s enemies will be
the members of his household.

The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; the one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

-Matthew 10:35-37 

I believe we are seeing this today, in the Christian household.  What is tricky is that Jesus says that his coming will do this.  In other words, his working in your life will give you enemies, even in your own home.  And here is the crazy part: these enemies will see themselves as being on God’s side and you as being evil.

Listen to another hard saying from Jesus about this very thing:

“I have told you these things to keep you from stumbling. They will ban you from the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God. They will do these things because they haven’t known the Father or me.

-John 16:1-3

Who do I have in mind?  Progressive Christians who hate Christians who are Trump supporters.  They are not only ‘blue pills’, who are asleep, but in their dream life reality, they are agents of death; enforcers who are out to kill people who are awake and on a quest to set others free.

This is the same spirit of murder that was after Jesus.  This is the same spirit of religion that is man centered.

All of the reasoning against Trump (Trumpism or MAGA) is human based, faulty logic, with bad filters, distorted lenses, and demonic (1 Tim. 4:1).  Haters do not think critically, because they are indoctrinated with doctrines of demons and need deliverance.

Deception is real, delusion is real.  This is how believers come to hate other believers.

All of Me

He brought me to the banquet hall, and he looked on me with love.
-Song of Songs 2:4

Have you given all of yourself to Jesus?

I was thinking about this song, “All of Me”.  I feel like the Holy Spirit is  encouraging us to give ourselves wholly to Jesus. 

I heard once that many people are ready to die for the Lord, but very few are willing to live for him, dying to themselves.

Bonhoeffer’s famous phrase is, “When Christ calls a man, he calls him to come and die”.

Is dying to self and giving up everything optional in the christian life?  It does not seem so, if you look at Jesus words.

Have you read The Song of Solomon?  An interpretation is that it is an allegory about God and his people.  There is a lot of romantic language in it. 

The idea is that we are designed to have a passionate love towards God.

We were designed to be loved by God and to love God, passionately.  We are to have no other gods before God and He calls those little gods our lovers we are committing adultery with.

Jesus looked at his followers, I mean the people who literally followed him from town to town and showed up where he was; and he said to them, that following him can not be casual, but a serious thing, where we give up everything and love him more than everyone. 

There was the time when he said, metaphorically, that to be his real follower, you have to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  And he turned the people off by saying that.

When I had a personal renewal or revival, after college; I kept hearing, in my heart, “surrender”.  I began in worship, putting my arms up. 

I thought about, “why does my body want to do that?”  I realized it is surrender. 

I think that intimacy with God, passionate love, and surrender are things that must be nurtured.  It is a relationship that has to be cultivated. 

Think about those critiques that Jesus levels at the churches in Revelation.  “You have left your first love.”  “Return to doing those things you did at the beginning.”

Yes, repentance is for Christians. 

Relationship with God, is ongoing and must be renewed and revived and even re-awakened from time to time. 

This is a song from us to God, to Jesus.  Read Song of Songs, if you think words like this are far fetched.  This is the devotion that the Holy Spirit is encouraging believers to have towards Christ.

All of me
Why not take all of me
Can’t you see
I’m no good without you

Take my lips
I want to loose them
Take my arms
I’ll never use them

Your goodbye
Left me with eyes that cry
How can I go on dear without you

You took the part
That once was my heart
So why not take all of me

All of me
Why not take all of me
Can’t you see
I’m no good without you

Take my lips
I want to loose them
Take my arms
I’ll never use them

Your goodbye
Left me with eyes that cry
How can I go on dear without you

You took the best
So why not take the rest
Baby, take all of me

Whitewash The Tombs

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity.  In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

-Matt 23:25-28

Perhaps the greatest sin is hypocrisy.  Check yourself for it.  Jesus called this one sin out. 

Public hypocrisy angered Jesus more that private sin.  Why?  Search for Jesus saying, “Woe to you”, to any other group.

Jesus took issue with the hypocrites for appearing righteous without being righteous.  Why is hypocrisy so bad, so insidious, and the one thing that Jesus castigated people for?

Religious hypocrisy is, in practice, God-mocking atheism.  Jesus is exposing people who are pretenders, fakes, frauds, and deceivers; who pretend to be real but are counterfeits.  

Hypocrites praise God, they feign worship and piety, while pretending that God does not know the truth of their life, in their hearts.  Hypocrisy is insidious because it keeps us out of touch with God’s grace.  Hypocrisy ruins a persons soul, because it blocks out righteousness from Christ and lives in the play-acting world.

The group that made Jesus angriest were the people that he resembled.  Jesus also obeyed the Mosaic Law and quoted the teachers of the law (Mark 9:11-12; 12:28-34), but he verbally attacked the Pharisees as hypocrites.

Why would Jesus be so mad at people who extolled family values, tithed, and devoted their lives to Bible study?  Legalism is not authentic spirituality.  Their expressions of love for God were only ways to impress others.

The proof of spiritual maturity is not how “pure” you are but your awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to God’s grace.

-Philip Yancey

The road to perdition is trying to look good rather than be good, caring more about how others see you than developing moral values that you live by.

To be a hypocrite is to give others the impression that we are holier than we actually are. It is the same as being false, or telling a lie. Jesus pronounced a curse on hypocrites seven times in Mt. 23:13-29. It is possible to tell a lie without even opening our mouths. Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit without saying a word – when he pretended to be a wholehearted disciple of Jesus (Acts 5:1-5).

Jesus told the Pharisees that their inner life was “”full of self indulgence”” (Mt. 23:25) – which meant that they lived only to please themselves. Yet they gave others the impression that because they knew the Scriptures well and fasted and prayed and tithed their income, they were very holy. They appeared very pious externally. They prayed lengthy prayers in public, but they did not pray at length in private – just like many today. It is hypocrisy if we praise God only on Sunday mornings, but do not have a spirit of praise in our hearts at all times. God looks at our hearts.

-Zac Poonen

It has been said that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. While Jesus makes it perfectly clear that hypocrisy is morally wrong, why is it? Why are hypocrites especially despised by others? Sometimes we hear people say, “I may have this shortcoming or that, but at least I’m not a hypocrite.” As we have seen, hypocrisy involves: dishonesty, deception, and self-deception. It is insincere and disrespectful of others. It is unjust because a hypocrite attempts to receive good by doing bad. It kills the moral spirit by undermining the incentive to live morally. It flouts God’s standards.

We could say that hypocrisy is hydra-headed; it is many sins in one. No wonder it justifies the extreme repugnance that it provokes or the strong resistance we have in being accused of hypocrisy.

-Steven C. Riser

We read Jesus calling people hypocrites and read that as saying that they said one thing, but did another.  That may be true and may be part of what Jesus is saying.  But the hypocrite charge, used in Matthew 23, by Jesus, is actually worse.

I learned and you may have also learned that the word that is written here means ‘play actor’ or one that wears a mask, a fake, a fraud.  In a word, Jesus was calling the Pharisees here, ‘frauds’.  Frauds say one thing and do another.  They are liars, two-faced.

A ‘play-actor’ plays a part which is assumed for the occasion, who is not their true self.  Jesus was not saying that all Pharisees for all time are hypocrites, but that these particular ones were.

Jesus’ hypocrisy charge was worse than that these ones were just fakes.   They were false teachers.

Jesus says, in a sense, “You frauds!”, and then lays out seven charges or indictments.  These people were worthy of the charge and we need to understand what Jesus meant, in order to identify what or who this sort of fraud is today.

This is a note I wrote, while listening the Scot McKnight: “Jesus’ hypocrisy charge against the Pharisees is not best understood as a contradiction between what a person teaches and what they do, BUT was that they were false teachers, leading people away from God’s will, God’s true will.“

Jesus called these Pharisees ‘whitewashed tombs’.  At that time, they would paint and repaint tombs, so that people would not touch them, and become unclean.  The whitewash did not attract you, but repulsed you.

Jesus was saying to these guys, that they beautified their outward appearance, but that this was actually a sign that on the inside, they were corrupt.  The way that they taught had a positive or attractive presentation, but was dead, below the surface.  In other words, their hearts and souls were bad.  In legal terms, they had bad faith.

The bad faith charge means that their way that they taught in not the way of God, not the way of Christ.  Their way is immoral, in that ultimately they are the law unto themselves.  They are making it up as they go.  They were, at best, majoring in the minors.

Alexander MacLaren wrote this:
So He would say, with terrible irony, that the apparent holiness of the rulers was really a sign of corruption, and a warning to keep away from them. What a blow at their self-complacency! And how profoundly true it is that the more punctiliously white the hypocrite’s outside, the more foul is he within, and the wider berth will all discerning people give him! The terrible force of the figure needs no dwelling on. In Christ’s estimate, such a soul was the very dwelling-place of death; and foul odours and worms and corruption filled its sickening recesses. Terrible words to come from His lips into which grace was poured, and bold words to be flashed at listeners who held the life of the Speaker in their hands! There are two sorts of hypocrites, the conscious and the unconscious; and there are ten of the latter for one of the former, and each ten times more dangerous. Established religion breeds them, and they are specially likely to be found among those whose business is to study the documents in which it is embodied. These woes are not like thunder-peals rolling above our heads, while the lightning strikes the earth miles away. A religion which is mostly whitewash is as common among us as ever it was in Jerusalem; and its foul accompaniments of corruption becoming more rotten every year, as the whitewash is laid on thicker, may be smelt among us, and its fatal end is as sure.

This is what NT Wright wrote about Matthew 23:
Jesus’ criticisms were primarily against those of his own time who, he could see, were leading Israel astray, causing Israel to look in the wrong direction, at the very moment when its hour, and indeed its Messiah, had come.  The main reason he is taking the trouble to denounce them in such detail is because they are distracting attention from the crucial moment  Their particular failings are simply extra evidence that they are not in fact the true guides that Israel needs at this fateful moment in its history.

Equally, some have supposed that Jesus, whom we think of as kindly and loving, could never have denounced anyone, least of all his fellow-Jews, in such sharp tones…  This present chapter consists, in fact, as a solemn, almost ritual, denunciation of them for their hollow piety and misguided teaching.

Anyone who supposes, however, that these failings were, or are, confined to one religion, culture, or group should look at their own society, and (alas) at their own church, and think again…

…There were saints in that tradition, all right.

But we have every reason to suppose that there were many, probably the majority, who went along for the ride, or more particularly the political agenda that the Pharisees adopted.  They like the idea about being rigorous about the Torah because it suited their nationalistic ambitions.  But when it came to the actual moral and religious struggle to make the inside of the house match the outside, they hadn’t even begun.

Once again, this whole attack on the Pharisees only makes sense within the larger picture which Matthew is drawing.  Jesus is on his way to accomplish the real covenant renewal (see 26:28) which all the Pharisees’ intensification of Torah could not achieve…  It would be a bad mistake to read a chapter like this as simply a moral denunciation.  It would be still worse to read it as a moral denunciation of somebody else.  That’s halfway to committing the very mistake that’s being attacked.

Having said that, we shouldn’t miss the note which emerges at the end, and points to what is to follow.  Jesus sees the present self-styled teachers of the law as fitting in exactly to the pattern of previous generations:  killing the prophets and truly righteous people of old.  

How do I sum this all up?  The Pharisees Jesus castigated were the Puritans of their day.  They were high minded in their brand of separatism, but at the core, they were corrupt murderers.

Just like the Puritans who executed other believers they branded as heretics, the Pharisees had that kind of corruption.  The irony is that such a religion is a true heresy against God.

Take a look at how Christians have persecuted other Christians throughout history and into today.  Disavow it and don’t be a part of it.

Perhaps the worst people are those who claim to represent God, but do not.  They do not fool God and they are some of the only recipients of excoriation by Jesus.

Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem, that ends Matthew 23, is one of the most poignant and revealing statements in the Bible.  He came to save a people who despised, rejected, and killed him.

Today, Jesus is still calling people out of the ‘Christian in name only’ religion, that rejects the living Christ.

Jesus calls us to a life that is being transformed on the inside and might look messy or not make sense on the outside.  We are transparent and don’t have all the answers, ask a lot of questions, are loved, and trust God no matter what.  We are little people with a big God.  We are inviters, includers, gracious, and hospitable.  And we know how to rest in Christ.  We are generous, forgivers, optimistic, and dreamers.  And we live with God and each other in the reality of the already and the not yet of the kingdom.

_____________________________________________

Bibliography:

Whitewashed Tombs, by Richard Phillips

Our Daily Bread, 9-21-09, Philip Yancey

Five Sins That Jesus Hated Most, Zac Poonen
The Great Pretender! (The Anatomy of Hypocrisy), Steven C. Riser
Pharisees Then and Now, Scot McKnight; Kingdom Roots podcast
MacLaren’s Commentary, (Expositions of Holy Scripture) 32 Books in 1 Volume

Matthew For Everyone, NT Wright, pp. 104-07

The New Testament Era, Bo Reicke, pp. 156-63

The painting above:

Brooklyn Museum – Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees (Malheur à vous, scribes et pharisiens) – James Tissot (1836-1902)

Notes on Suffering From Job, By Chambers & Peterson

Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will leave this life.
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.

-Job 1:20-22

This is a follow-up on why we can not and should not try to fix people.  (You Can’t Fix People)  There is a whole book on this in the Bible, called Job.  It is the story of a good guy who had bad things happen to him.

Here are notes and quotes, full of sage advice and Christ centered wisdom about how to approach suffering, from first Oswald Chambers, then Eugene Peterson.

These are some notes or quotes from Oswald Chambers book on Job called, Baffled To Fight Better.

• The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold.
• It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence.
• (A) man may utter apparently blasphemous things against God and we say, “How appalling”; but if we look further we find that the man is in pain, he is maddened and hurt by something. The mood he is talking in is a passing one and out of his suffering will come a totally different relationship to things. Remember, that in the end God said that the friends had not spoken the truth about Him, while Job had. 
• All we can know about God is that His character is what Jesus Christ has manifested; and all we know about our fellow men presents an enigma which precludes the possibility of the final judgment being with us.
• The pseudo-evangelical line is that you must be on the watch all the time and lose no opportunity of speaking to people, and this attitude is apt to produce the superior person. It may be a noble enough point of view, but it produces the wrong kind of character. It does not produce a disciple of Jesus, but too often it produces the kind of person who smells of gunpowder and people are afraid of meeting him. According to Jesus Christ, what we have to do is to watch the source and He will look after the outflow: “He that believeth on me,…out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).
• There are things in our heavenly Father’s dealings with us which have no immediate explanation.
• There are inexplicable providences which test us to the limit and prove that rationalism is a mere mental pose. 
•  The Bible and our common sense agree that the basis of human life is tragic, not rational, and the whole problem for us is focused on this (in the) book of Job. 
•  Job 13:15 is the utterance of a man who has lost his explicit hold on God, but not his implicit hold, “Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him.” That is the last reach of the faith of a man. 
•  Job’s creed is all gone; all he believed about God is disproved by his own experiences, and his friends when they come, say in effect, “You are a hypocrite, we can prove it from your own creed.”
• But Job sticks to it, “I am not a hypocrite, I do not know what accounts for all that has happened, but I will hold on to it that God is just and I shall see Him vindicated in it all.”
• God never makes His way clear to Job. Job struggles with problem after problem, and providence brings more problems all the time, and in the end Job says, “…now mine eye seeth thee” (Job 42:5): all he had hung onto in the darkness was true, and that God was all he believed Him to be, loving and just, and honorable…
• Will I trust the revelation given of God by Jesus Christ when everything in my personal experience flatly contradicts it?”

These are notes from Eugene Peterson’s book, The Message: Job: Led by Suffering to the Heart of God.

• Job was doing everything right when suddenly everything went wrong.
• He refuses to accept the role of defeated victim.
• Job does not curse God.
• Neither does Job explain suffering.
• He does not instruct us how to live so that we can avoid suffering.
• Suffering is a mystery, and Job comes to respect the mystery.
• Perhaps the greatest mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a state of worship, full of wonder, love, and praise.
• Even in his answer to his wife he speaks the language of uncharted irony, a dark and difficult kind of truth: “We take the good days from God- why not also take the bad days?”
• Sufferers attract fixers the way road-kills attract vultures.
• These people use the word of God frequently and loosely.  
• They are full of spiritual diagnosis and prescription.
• It all sounds so hopeful.
• But then we begin to wonder, “Why is it that for all their apparent compassion we feel worse instead of better after they have said their piece?”
• The book of Job is not only a witness to the dignity of suffering and God’s presence in our suffering but it is also our primary biblical protest against religion that is reduced to explanations or “answers”.
• Many of the answers that Job’s so-called friends give him are technically true.
• But it is the “technical” part that ruins them.  They are answers without personal relationship, intellect without intimacy.
• In every generation there are men and women who pretend to be able to instruct us in a way of life that guarantees that we will be “healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
• He (Job) rejects the kind of advice and teaching that has God all figured out, that provides glib explanations for every circumstance.
• Job’s honest defiance continues to be the best defense against the cliches of positive thinkers and the prattle of religious small talk.
• Real faith cannot be reduced to spiritual bromides and merchandized in success stories.  It is refined in the fires and storms of pain.
• We cannot have truth about God divorced from the mind and heart of God.
• When we rush in to fix suffering (people), we need to keep in mind several things:
• 1.  No matter how insightful we may be, we don’t really understand the full nature of our friends’ problems. 
• 2.  Our friends might not want our advice.
• 3.  The ironic fact of the matter is that more often than not, people do not suffer less when they are committed to following God, but more.
• When these people go through suffering, their lives are often transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness, in remarkable ways that could never have been anticipated before the suffering.
• Instead of continuing to focus on preventing suffering… we should begin entering the suffering.
• Entering the mystery and looking around for God.
• We need to quit feeling sorry for people who suffer and instead look up to them, learn from them, and if they will let us- join them in protest and prayer.
• Pity can be nearsighted and condescending.
• Shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing.

You Can’t Fix People

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

-John 15:1-9

You can’t fix people.  Have you discovered this?  It is futile to imagine that you can.

We get frustrated with others and want them to change.  We want them to get saved, become different, to move into Christlikeness and godliness.  We say and do things to try to get them to understand, to change.

We are trying to fix them.  We might even think that this is what discipleship or ministry is all about.  But we are wrong.

When we try to fix people, we are trying to save them, get them saved.  It sounds good and noble.  But we were never called to save people.

We are called to love people and let God save them.  This is what the vine and the branches analogy from Jesus is about.  He is the vine.  The vine is the source for the branches.

Branches have the vine on one side and fruit on the other.  And branches bear fruit because they are attached to the vine.  That fruit is offered to the world and the source of that fruit is the vine.

All that the branch does it produce fruit, by being attached to the vine.  The branch does not offer the power to make fruit.  The branch only offers the fruit.

When we try to fix people, we are acting like we are the vine.  And we further delude ourselves that we can somehow get our vine to influence that person to make good fruit.  But we are not the vine and that is not how it works.

We are called to love people and be fruitful.  God saves people.  Jesus saves.  The Spirit of God works to save people.

We share, we love, we forbear, and we stay in the vine.  When we leave the vine to try to be the vine, then we cease to bear fruit and become useless.

The fruit of Christ in our lives is mainly to love people.  We see every person as lovable and as a person God wants to and can save.

People might not be nice, they might be mean, annoying, or even doing evil.  We can most definitely say to them. “that’s not nice”, or, “that is wrong”, or “stop that”.  We can say, “what are you doing?” to someone who is doing something wrong.  We can stand up for someone being attacked, protect them, or shield them.

These are all good and fine.  But in all these, we need to know that we can not fix people.  We need to know this so that we do not try to force people to change (be fixed or saved) or we do not melt down internally into despair, because we do not see people change for the better.

We can forbear with rude people or ask them to not do the rudeness.  We can forbear with people who are rude with their cars on the road or push ahead and cut in line, in person.  Or, we can lovingly say something like, “excuse me”, when someone cuts or we see them steal.

How do you stay in the vine and keep bearing fruit, as you witness someone stealing at a store or cheating?  What if a secret sin that someone is doing becomes known to you?  How do you respond, or do you respond?

How do you not fix people, not be their savior, but always bear fruit from the one who is the savior?  How do you live out the great commission, as a minister, but not fix people?

We are connected to someone.  We reflect him.  We point to him.

We speak his words, his language.  We are filled with the Spirit, who is all about Jesus.

People in our lives, all around us, need Jesus.  They need salvation, need to get saved.  And we always say or need to say, “I can not save you, but I know who can”.

Meanwhile, here is what we can do.  We can give to people.  Give them sustenance, clothes, shelter, and help.  We might not have any of these, but we give what we have and what we can.

We give people attention.  We see them and listen to them.  We have to learn to see people and listen to them without trying to or needing to fix them.

Most of the time, we will not understand people.  We might think, “how will this person ever get saved?”  We’re thinking they are too far gone or too alienated from God or too far into unbelief, deception or rebellion.

Stay in the vine.  When we get into despair, at people, we have to hold on tight to Jesus, who can save anyone.

A person who is a ‘mystery’ to you, how they could, can, or will ever get saved; is a ‘my story’ to them, before Christ.

You can not fix people.  But He can.  We hold onto him, and let him bear his fruit in our lives.

We can and do call upon people to get saved and to come to be saved.  But we do it as we hold onto Jesus and bear fruit.  We are always showing him off and expressing the reality that he saves and that people can get saved, because they are loved.

Our Barnabas Disciple Maker

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus by birth, the one the apostles called Barnabas (which is translated Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

-Acts 4:36-37

Yesterday, we went to a retirement party, for Kenny.  He has been a Barnabas, a ‘Son of Encouragement’, just like that man, in the book of Acts.  The occasion was his retirement from 30 years at his job, but what we really celebrated was his 45 years or so of ministry, as a disciple who made disciples.

I was blessed to be one of the people whom he reached out to, to show the love of Jesus to, over 40 years ago.  That ‘Thank You’ song by Ray Boltz, came to my mind; as I listened to the four men, including my brother, who got up and paid tribute to Kenny:

Thank you for giving to the Lord.
I am a life that was changed.
Thank you for giving to the Lord.
I am so glad you gave.

Kenny was and is an encourager.  One of the guys who spoke yesterday, said that he has been like Barnabas.  They gave this man, in Acts, that nickname, that means ‘Son of Encouragement’; and that is also what our Kenny has been.  Barnabas was a constant positive influence on those around him.

Kenny made disciples.  Here are some of the ways his life showed how it is done.

Making disciples involves sharing life together.  We have our jobs and we need to get our rest.  But the remainder of our time is time we can spend together, with others.

Discipleship happens in the context of sharing life together.  It is usually not a class you go to or a learned degree that you earn.

How to live in Christ is learned by living life around others who have Christ in them.  We do need to encounter God alone and continue to have a one to one relationship with God.  But we learn how to live through life together with other Christians.

Sharing life means eating meals together.  Disciple makers are often party makers.  Discipleship is about connecting people to Christ’s life and to each other for Christ’s life.

Sharing life also means playing together.  People need play time.  There is a vast spectrum of play that God has for us.

When we share life, we learn about Jesus and about how to live in him.  

A disciple maker who is encouraging is simply available.  Many of us are too busy and tired to be available.  

Activities are for the purpose of connecting with people and connecting others to each other and to the Lord.  We can’t lose sight of this.

Disciplemakers sponsor people, just like in the 12-step programs.  A sponsor is simply someone who encourages another person and makes themselves available to them.  You sit with them and you converse with them.  You help them walk.

A disciple who makes disciples is willing to take risks of faith.  Along with making themselves available: having a life for the sake of others, they are willing to take a Christian risk.  They are willing to try something, not knowing if it will work, or if they might be rejected.

There is a positive outlook on life that a disciple who is a disciple maker has.  This is because they have roots in God and God’s love for them ‘no matter what’.  In other words, the answer to the question, “what if you fail?”, for them is, “I know God loves me, no matter what”.

Another way to put it, is that a disciple who is a disciple maker is not hung up on outcomes.  They know that stuff does not always work and things and people fail.  That is ok with them, because they get it that God is good no matter what and that God can turn anything around and bring good out of things.

Disciples who are disciple makers know that nothing happens unless we do something.  We might fail, but we can be assured that nothing good will happen if we do nothing.  They are doers, active: action takers.

Disciples are givers.  The first thing that Barnabas (Joe from Cypress) did was make a big gift to the church.  When he became a Christian, right out of the gate, he began to give in a big way.

Whether we give big or give small, the point, idea, practice or lifestyle is to give.  Just give!  Be generous!  

Disciples live their lives under the motto of ‘give and it shall be given’.  God multiplies what we give, and disciples get this and live in that paradigm.

Disciples take life as it comes.  They get it that God is in charge and there are many moving pieces.  Disciples do not do ‘my way or the highway’.  And they can embrace ‘plan b’, when ‘plan a’ does not work.  They are flexible!

Disciples are servants.  They get it that we are both sons or daughters and slaves.  We are God’s kids, but we are here to serve God, even as slaves.

Disciples live their lives at the service of God and others.

A disciple learns to be themselves.  Being a giver, a lover, and a servant are marks of a disciple.  But they also embrace who they uniquely are.

If you are a disciple, you learn to love yourself and be comfortable in your own skin, with who God make you to be.  Barnabas was a great friend to Paul and encouraged this man who would become perhaps the most famous Christian.  But these two great guys also had a blowout, a conflict where they parted ways.

They were not perfect.  And they had unique, God given, personalities and passionate ideas, while both being in-Christ; yet, they had their conflict and a separation.

And they did what Jesus taught us.  They reconciled.  But it was after a considerable period of time.

Don’t think you have irrevocably failed if you fail in a friendship or relationship.  It happened to Paul and Barnabas.

Disciples who make disciples celebrate with us and weep with us.  When someone calls them, who has just experienced a loss, they say, “I’m on my way”.  

The same person who loves to celebrate you and everything you do will also be by your side when anything negative happens to you.

A Barnabas type person is a friend to everybody, but they make you feel like you are their special friend.  I have had several friends like this.  As life unfolded and time went by, I saw that they had blessed others, many, many others with the same, special friendship they gave me.

We think addition, but God does multiplication.  We think of that one and this one and of joining together with one person.  But God takes these ‘adds’ and multiplies them into a woven tapestry, that is a work of art or an architectural wonder.

Disciples who make disciples are inviters and includers.  They live ‘the more the merrier’, have ‘an open door policy’, and ‘open invitations’.  They know about hospitality and gift giving.  And they treat the supposedly lowest person with love, dignity, and respect.

And encouragers also know about ‘in season and out of season’.  They do their thing that God has gifted them to do, throughout the seasons.  Not just when the sun is shining or the wind is right.

Barnabas people know they are on their way somewhere:  To Christ.  The life that Christ begins in them is lived in him, for him and to him.

The encourager who is a disciple who makes disciples, does not leave much behind in terms of money and real property assets.  But they leave a legacy of changed lives for Christ and they also get to take these with them into eternity.

This post has described a man that I was blessed and honored to be friends with, starting in my young Christian life.  Thank you Kenny and thank you Jesus for Kenny.

Preparing For the Harvest

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.

-Genesis 8:22

A whole bunch of people are going to get saved, become Christians, and will need to be made disciples of Jesus.  I believe a huge harvest is coming soon.  God has been preparing his people for this.  Are we ready?

These are some thoughts of mine, in no particular order, about being ready for and receiving the harvest of people who will flow into our lives.

A huge number of people are going to suddenly become pastors, who have previously been minding their own business and walking with God on the sidelines.  The pastors who have been pastors will step back and be equippers, coaches, consultants, and fathers & mothers to this whole new tier of pastoral ministers about to be released in the kingdom.

1. Be ready for and willing for God to inconvenience you, with people.
2. You can only plan to be open to what God does.
3. The people God sends or gives you to care for will take up your time and resources.
4. The people that God sends you will make your plans change.
5. You will be surprised and at first think of who you could give these people to or connect them with, rather than caring for them yourselves.
6. Become resigned to the fact that some of and even the majority of the people will be with you for years or a lifetime.
7. See each person God sends to you as a gift.
8. You will get less sleep and have to care after the people God sends you.
9. There will be messes and your stuff might get broken by the new people.
10. The first thing they will need is natural and spiritual food and shelter, then learning how to live.
11. Get ready to be needed by people who will need what you have, to make it.
12. You will have to learn and practice boundaries, in love.
13. Expect fits and starts, relapses, and even betrayals.  Don’t quit over these.
14. Also beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.  Especially watch over and tend to the weakest ones.
15. Also beware of inauthentic or false conversions: be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.
16. Each one that God sends to you, hold lightly.  Every person has in them, through God, the capability to become a leader (servant leader) themselves.  Leaving your home and starting their own is the goal from day one for the majority.
17. Many of us who have dutifully tithed and offered to others are going to shift to giving our whole lives to God.
18. We are all going to shift into all being missionaries and pastors, rather than paying or supporting others.
19. We are going to more live our lives for the sake of others, rather than for ourselves.
20. “Give and it shall be given”, will come alive in your life, like never before.

My pastor, I grew up with, had a vision of potatoes on a conveyor belt.  Someone would separate the potatoes that did not look as good.  The Lord told my pastor that those would be his church.

Church is messy.  Community is messy.  Love is the key.  Love and grace.  Don’t be a perfectionist or idealist.

The most profound thing I heard and then read lately, that hit me, was a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from “Life Together“, that is this:

‘Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.’ (p. 36)

And here is more, from that same section:

‘God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly.’ (p. 36)

‘Because God already has laid the only foundation of our community, because God has united us in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that life together with other Christians, not as those who make demands, but as those who thankfully receive…. We do not complain about what God does not give us; rather we are thankful for what God does give us daily.’ (p. 36)

‘Therefore, will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me because it so thoroughly teaches us that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting.’ (p. 37)

‘When pastors lose faith in a Christian community in which they have been placed and begin to make accusations against it, they had better examine themselves first to see whether the underlying problem is not their own idealized image, which should be shattered by God.’ (p. 38)

‘…the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be continually taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more assuredly and consistently will community increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.’ (38)

‘Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it.’ (p. 38)

‘Self-centred love loves the other for the sake of itself; spiritual love loves the other for the sake of Christ.’ (p. 42)

-I pulled these quotes from Tim Chester.  I first read Life Together 30 years ago.  It’s a great book.

My Vacation Taught Me About Community

Live in harmony with one another.

-Romans 12:16a

I just got back from a family vacation.  We all lived in a condominium together for a week.  We had two sets of people who don’t normally live together, so we had to learn to be together.

Every vacation time puts us into a different routine, in a different place sometimes with different people.  This one was just like that.  No one or no thing completely ruined it, but there were challenges and joys.

Even though it was completely predictable, I was was caught off guard once by the difficulty in choosing what to watch on television.  Four out of the five of us are first borns, who like to dictate what tv shows will be watched.

After the first disagreement, I realized that I don’t need to control what we watch.  And I was immediately set free.  The next time there was an issue, we discovered the second tv and split into two groups.

You don’t have to do everything together.  This is stating the obvious, but I think being able to not only have good times all together, but to also be alone or in two’s or three’s; is all about freedom and gracious diversity.

In fact, the best times I had during the week were alone times with each of the other individuals.  The special one to one times, that went deeper and where there was undivided attention, sharing and conversation were gifts that deepened each of these relationships.

The all together times were great too!  We played charades together and we prepared food in the kitchen together (two at a time).  Sounds silly, but I told my brother in law, who made me my toast one morning, that it was so good, and that it was a special moment of the week; because he’s a guy who doesn’t cook, and he’s never served me food before, in all the years I’ve known him.

One of us was delayed because of an emergency at work and we adjusted.  We had to rearrange our packing of the trunk plans, because we changed who was driving with whom.

We got lost finding the grocery store to get supplies the first night.  And taking ‘the scenic route’ for our day trip to the mountains, led to a couple of wrong turns and about an extra hour in the car.  

One of us got sick and had to go home early.  Three of us got back aches from the severely firm mattresses.  

But we had a great time.  We went through each small problem together.  We grew as people and we moved to a deeper place with each other, because we now know and respect each other more.

All these positive things are little.  But little things make for big things.  

A little bit of kindness.  A little change in loving others.  A little bit of bridling the tongue.

Little ‘I forgive you’s’, saying you’re sorry, putting others first, not taking offense, listening, having fun, being patient, serving others, talking to and meeting strangers at the pool, living in and being one who creates an atmosphere of unconditional love, and saying ‘good morning’ and meaning it.

It is all the little good things that make life better and it really reflects and connects back to God.  God is there with us, when we gather; and we can commune with and participate in God’s goodness, even though that goodness runs counter to the popular me-ness all around us.