Daniel Darling's Blog, page 31

So you want to make disciples

What does it mean to be on mission for God? Evangelicals are asking this question more often in a culture that seems increasingly inhospitable to Christian witness. So words like missional and incarnational are all the rage, driving people to think holistically (another buzz word) about their presence in a particular local community.

These discussions are good because they help equip God’s people to fulfill the Great Commission in our time. And yet I wonder if we often complicate the task of making disciples. Sometimes our evangelism language is so stilted and academic that it paralyzes everyday Chris-tians from utilizing what may be their most important asset: their own God-given personalities. This is because we’ve often reduced evangelism to a single transaction: communicating some gospel-themed material to another person and asking for a decision. So we try something ungraceful, like shoving a tract into the hand of an unsuspecting train rider, abruptly injecting an invitation to trust Christ into a casual chat with a neighbor, or firing off a misguided email, with-out context, to a long-lost relative.

At times these methods work. I know folks who became Christians from this kind of fly-by evangelism. But conversions usually result from deliberate, genuine friendship building. This involves intentionally inserting ourselves in environments where unbelievers are present. It includes leveraging our natural human talents to find common ground and build friendships. It requires patience, not trying to “close the deal” but coming along-side, seeking a person’s good, and learning to grow in relationship.

I’ve seen this work well in my own neighborhood. Even though we live in the Bible Belt, our community is religiously diverse. We’ve recently struck up a good friendship with our Muslim neighbors. Our kids play together. We have invited them to our parties. And we’ve had deep, long, meaningful chats about Christianity and Islam. This happened not because I confronted them with a tract, but because we took time to build a relationship.

Proverbs 18:24 (KJV) reminds us that friendships are built because people are … friendly. Normal. Human. Earthy. Relationships aren’t built by a one-plus-one-equals-two formula.

The best ones are organic, with a sharing of interests and kindnesses, and a willingness to grow and learn from each other in mutually beneficial ways. This means we share meals, cry over losses, discuss hurts and pains. We walk through life side by side.

Evangelicals tend to overcomplicate this, as if “spiritual conversations” are on a different and mystical level. But when we present ourselves to others, we don’t simply bring the churchy part of who we are; we bring our whole selves, body and spirit. We bring our unique God-given personalities and emotions. We bring our experiences, backgrounds, and heritages as well as our biases, weaknesses, and preferences. Our mission is not simply to transmit a pre- scripted set of propositions but to live and share the grand story, contextualized for our own time and place.

To be a Christian on mission means we are distinct from the world; we represent a different kingdom, with its own counter-cultural values. But that doesn’t mean we’re somehow less than human. In reality, Christ-followers should be more fully so. We are new creations, who have experienced restoration and are showing the world what it really is to be human.

The church, then, isn’t made up of people who all look, sound, and act like each other. If it is, we’re doing something wrong. God is interested not in homogeneity but in creating a church that’s an outpost of His kingdom—a diverse hodgepodge of abilities, backgrounds, races, and tribes. To be conformed to Christ’s image is not to be conformists. God’s recreated image in us looks different from soul to soul.

When we intentionally build relationships with our neighbors and coworkers, we should worry less about acting out some kind of cookie-cutter Christian existence and more about being our imperfect, in-process selves. It’s incarnational, it’s missional—yes. But at the most basic level, disciple making is simply being human.

The Way Home: Ben Watson on caring about pro-life issues and justice issues

Can Christians care about pro-life issues and justice issues at the same time? Ben Watson thinks so and has used his platform as a professional football player for the Baltimore Ravens. A former first-round pick and finalist for the NFL’s Man of the Year award, Watson talks to me about his Christian faith, life in the public eye, and what life after football might look like.

Show Notes

Twitter: @BenjaminSWatson
Website: thebenjaminwatson.com
Book: Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race. Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us.

The Way Home: Sen. James Lankford on maintaining spiritual disciplines

He was trained for the ministry, but he serves in another kind of public role: United States Senator. What prompted Senator James Lankford to pursue a life of government service and how does he maintain his spiritual disciplines in a demanding, public life? Sen. Lankford discusses his unique calling, what issues drives him, and why he’s so concerned with civility in our politics?

Show Notes

Twitter: @SenatorLankford
Website: lankford.senate.gov
http://www.bpnews.net/49768

Called to the cubicle: Regardless of where we work, we’re all in full-time ministry.

“Brother John gave up a lucrative career in the business world to enter full-time Christian service,” the pastor announced. “He’s working for Jesus now.” The church erupted in applause, but my heart sank because I felt sorry for the man sitting next to me. My father, a skilled tradesman, wasn’t leaving his business to enter “full-time Christian service.” Was he somehow less of a believer or less spiritual than those who received a paycheck from a Christian 501(c)(3)?

These are questions that rattled around in my teenage brain. Fortunately, I later acquired a more robust theology of faith and work and came not only to appreciate so-called “laymen” like my father, but also to see all work, not just church work, as Christian service. But I suspect most believers, who labor every day in secular factories and offices, soldier on with a theologically deficient view of their calling. Mondays continue to be the most difficult day of the week for many because they can’t see God at work in their work.

We typically think of the utility of our jobs in three categories:

First, our jobs are opportunities to make money. This may sound rather crass, but working to make money is a biblical concept. Paul reminded the Thessalonians, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10 esv). Later in a letter to Timothy, Paul said a man who doesn’t provide for his family is “worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). Chris-tians shouldn’t love money, but they shouldn’t disregard its use-fulness, either. It’s necessary to live and function in the world.

Second, our jobs are opportunities to share. Most Christians would acknowledge that their presence in a mostly secular work environment is an opportunity, given by God, to be a gospel witness. Romans 10:14 reminds us that we are the preachers God sends into a lost world. Over time, a believer can be a faithful presence when work relationships provide the opportunity for gospel conversations. What’s more, the quality of our work can, in and of itself, be a silent witness to the gospel.

Third, our jobs allow us to support the church. Most Christians would acknowledge that a steady income gives more opportunity to help fund kingdom work. Giving is an act of joyful worship (2 Cor. 9:7); it is also how we demonstrate our spiritual priorities. A regular commitment to give to the local church is an ongoing witness to ourselves and to the world that we value Christ and the gathering of His people.

Most Christians might list one or all three of the above reasons as motivations for their work. But are provision, evangelism, and giving the only reasons for clocking in on Monday? Or could it be that the cubicle, the truck stop, or the hospital might also be full-time service in the way that Christian ministry is?

We tend to see work as a product of the fall, as an unnecessary yet now integral part of living in a cursed world. But work is not punishment—it’s a gift. Work is cursed only insomuch as it is harder because of sin. The ground now fights back with thorns and thistles. Sin infects our business dealings and motivations. And the cursedness of humanity often creates difficult working conditions.

But work, in and of itself, is not a curse. It is one way in which we reflect the image of God. Unlike the rest of creation, humans were given a mandate—to sub-due the earth and to leverage our creative gifts to glorify Him. When we labor with our hands and take pride in what we pro-duce, we are performing godlike functions. This is why the Bible urges, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Eccl. 9:10). So if good work produced by skillful hands glorifies God, His people should be motivated to give it their best.

Creator, we’ll never run short on inspiration. Even when we have enough money. Even when we’ve ascended the heights of corporate success. Even if everyone in our office is a believer.

By viewing our work as God’s gift, we no longer have to dread Mondays or view our cubicles, kitchens, classrooms, or construction sites as less than sacred. The workplace becomes a canvas on which to display God’s creative glory. This is why Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” There is no division between secular and sacred, because all the earth is the Lord’s, even the humble and seemingly inconsequential spaces where many Christians ply their trade.

Our work is not just a means to an end, an ATM to fund church work, or a place to grudgingly evangelize. No matter what we do for a living, we’re engaged in full-time Christian ministry from nine to five each day. The cubicle is not a prison but an altar, and knowing that should radically change how we think about the place where we spend a large part of our adult lives.

This was originally published by In Touch Magazine.

The Way Home: Erik Stanley on defending religious freedom

What compels a Christian to study law and defend religious liberty? Does working for religious liberty go against Jesus’ command for his disciples to down their lives? Erik Stanley, from Alliance Defending Freedom, joins the podcast to discuss his life’s calling and the importance of religious liberty.

Show Notes

Twitter: @ADFErik
Website: adflegal.org and adflegal.org/church-alliance

No, you can’t have it all now: How we preach a prosperity gospel without even knowing it

If you were to ask most Christians, you’d find many consider the prosperity gospel to be an unbiblical teaching offered by religious hucksters. But there’s a subtle way in which a similar message creeps into our theologically sound churches—a back-door heresy perhaps more damaging than the promise of a bigger house or fatter bank account.

It is the prosperity gospel of instant life change. I often heard a version of this during testimony time in the otherwise fundamentalist church where I grew up. Some former alcoholic would stand up and say something like, “I was hungover on Saturday, and by Monday I had taken my last drink.”

I have to admit testimonies like this still move me emotionally. I’m stirred because I really do believe in the power of the gospel to regenerate a person’s life. Christ is in the business of changing us, but we too often communicate a message that sanctification happens instantaneously for everyone who truly believes.

The problem is, this is not only untrue for most of the people in our churches, but it’s also not a promise Jesus made. Instead, Jesus said we’d have to take up our cross of suffering and yield to the Spirit’s work of sanctification on a daily basis. Paul, who was certainly no hedonist, admitted his own death struggle with sin (Rom. 7:7-25). And what about the writer of Hebrews, who compares the Christian life to a marathon, a daily putting off of the “sin which so easily entangles us” ( 12:1)?

The gospel is the power to radically alter lives. Some of this change may be apparent immediately after conversion. But more often, it occurs over time. The greatest life change is the result of a hard, slow slog of sanctification—the work of the Spirit through the Word and other means of grace, such as the church, sacraments, and prayer. We should celebrate change, but we should also prepare ourselves—and those we disciple—for a lifetime of struggle against sin. What’s more, we must embed in hearts the theology of an already-but-not-yet eschatological view. What this means is, even as we experience Christ’s renewing and sanctifying power in the present, we understand that most things won’t be made new until He returns to consummate His kingdom. John expressed the idea this way: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be . . . when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). Even our “best life now” as a Christian in a fallen world is light-years away from the perfected self we’ll see in glory.

At first glance, this seems hopeless because, in this life, we’ll never fully experience the change we want to see. And yet this expectation of future glory is powerfully hopeful because it releases us from an impossible standard and keeps us from offering the false promise of a flawless life. Instead, we can fix our gaze on Jesus, who is working to craft us into the people we will eventually be by His grace.

Imagine how this perspective might revolutionize discipleship. No longer would people be “projects” for us to reshape if only they’d follow our Bible-based growth plan. Instead, we’d see people as they are—entangled in the knotty effects of the fall, even as they cooperate with the Holy Spirit to grow into Christ’s likeness. Knowing that in due time this all will be reversed, we’d have greater patience for the process. We might encourage one another with this hope: Christ is renewing us daily, and a time is coming when the process will be complete. That is our ultimate deliverance.

So, for instance, the alcoholic won’t be offered a temptation-free life but, rather, a “way of escape” each day from the sin that so easily besets. The pornography-addicted teen won’t be told just to “get saved and your troubles will go away,” but will instead hear it’s possible to “repent and rest on Jesus, and you’ll find in Him the strength to fight for sanctification.” And rather than trying to have a new kid by Friday, parents will begin praying regularly for the Spirit to renew and regenerate their child.

We must reject the quick-fix gospel that makes promises in our fallen world which are possible only in a perfected one. What the Bible offers is not a five-step method or a plan for life change, but the good news of God’s salvation. For that reason, we can live in the present, trusting that God is forming us—slowly, methodically, permanently—into His new kingdom people.

This was originally published by In Touch Magazine.

The Way Home: Sara Hagerty on cultivating a quiet heart in a noisy world

How we cultivate a quiet heart in a noisy world? How do we balance our public platforms with a life of spiritual discipline? Author Sara Hagerty joins me. She’s the author of Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to Be Noticed[image error]. 

Show Notes

Twitter: @sarahagerty
Website: sarahagerty.net
Book: Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to Be Noticed [image error]

 

Loving Jesus means you’re commanded to love fellow believers–all of them

I’m not a big bumper sticker guy, but I couldn’t help noticing the one proudly displayed on my new neighbor’s car. When I first saw it, I was excited because it said, “JESUS LOVES YOU” in large capital letters. Great! I thought. A Christian has moved in next to me. I imagined early morning Bible studies, perhaps even attending church together, exchanging prayer lists, or swapping casserole recipes for church potlucks.

But the rest of the bumper sticker gave me pause. In fine print, under the “JESUS LOVES YOU,” was a cryptic second line: “But everyone else thinks you’re a jerk.” My neighbor is not a theologian. I’m not even sure he is a follower of Christ. But those simple lines gave me some good insight into a phenomenon that unfortunately plagues the evangelical. We think it’s acceptable to love Jesus and hate His followers. The last few years have seen an explosion of books that try to separate Jesus from the church.

Most of these are well-meaning efforts to distinguish genuine faith in Christ from hand-me-down, works-based religion. This is important in a culture still influenced by a nominal Christianity, where many think a ticket to heaven simply requires regular church attendance.

But I wonder if in some ways we’ve overreached and have, in emphasizing the personal relationship with Christ, lost the holistic nature of the gospel message.

America is a highly individualized nation— we pride ourselves on our independent spirit. Christianity, however, was never intended to be an individualistic faith.

Throughout Scripture, God is calling out a people for Himself. Sure, at times He chooses to work through individuals such as Adam, Abraham, Noah, and David. But in every covenant and every promise, God is looking for a people. In the age of the church, we may be saved by personal faith in Christ, but we’re also baptized into a body. We join the growing gathering of people from all ages and times.

This is why Jesus’ final words to Peter in John 21 are so poignant and powerful. For most of us, it’s a familiar scene:

Jesus on the beach, reappearing to the wounded and confused disciples, calling them back to their original mission, and pointing them toward their roles as leaders of this new movement—the church. That morning, Peter announced to his fellow disciples, “I am going fishing” (v. 3). These were the words of a burned-out and embarrassed follower of the Messiah. Sure, Jesus had risen from the dead, but Peter had not yet fully realized the significance of the resurrection and the power it would bestow on the apostles. He was thinking only of how he’d failed Jesus at the moment of greatest need.

Peter definitely wasn’t thinking about ministry. But that’s precisely what was on Jesus’ mind as He approached the beach and looked out at the ship of tired, fruitless disciples. It’s a scene reminiscent of Jesus’ first call to Peter, recorded in Matthew 4. I wonder if he, seeing the overflowing nets a second time, remembered Jesus’ words from three years earlier, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (v. 19). Could it be that Jesus is still calling me to love and serve Him, he must have wondered, even after I failed?

Jesus uses every moment to reinforce the original call. Even the smoldering coals on which they cook fish recall the fire where Peter warmed his hands and denied his Lord. Yes, they had all failed Him. Yes, they had misunderstood. But these are the very kinds of people Jesus is calling out—failures and deniers, the weak-willed. And fishing for men is exactly the kind of ministry Christ is calling them to.

Which brings us to perhaps the most famous exchange in all of John—the last words between Jesus and Peter.

For most of my life, I’ve heard it explained this way: Jesus was testing the type of love Peter had. Was it agape, a kind of supernatural love, or was it merely phileo, a kind of brotherly friendship? I’ve also heard it said that Jesus intentionally asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” three times to counter his three denials. But I’ve since reconsidered that interpretation for a few reasons.

First, the exegesis of the different words John uses for “love” is a bit stretched. Students of Greek will quickly realize that John often interchanges these words throughout his gospel, in his three letters, and in the book of Revelation. This is more of John using linguistic variety and creativity than making a point. Second, I have a hard time seeing Jesus here as guilting Peter for his level of love. The whole point of Peter’s life until this juncture seems to be that God takes people where they are and transforms them by His Spirit into what He wants them to be. Peter didn’t fail Jesus by his lack of effort in summoning up the right kind of love. Peter failed Jesus because he didn’t realize his own weakness and Jesus’ strength. So what is happening here?

I believe Jesus is making a statement, not simply in these final words, but throughout the encounter on the beach. It’s a powerful statement against individualized spirituality and for relational life in the body of Christ.

Peter had always been individualistic: The other disciples might fail Jesus, Peter assumed, but he would always be stronger. He’d be the first to defend the Lord and cut off the soldier’s ear. He’d be the first to fight for Jesus. And it was Peter who suggested that Jesus institutionalize the moment of transfiguration. Ministry in the new covenant would have a new paradigm. It would involve giving oneself in sacrifice to bring others into the kingdom by fishing for the souls of men. And it would involve loving Jesus by caring for His sheep. “Peter, do you love Me? Feed My sheep.” Jesus didn’t repeat this line to guilt His servant. He did it to drive home the central idea of what it means to follow Him. The best way to demonstrate love for the Lord was not by foolish vows, impulsive and reckless demonstrations of bravery, or even martyrdom. Peter would love Jesus by loving His people.

And so it is for us two millennia later. There’s no category in Christian discipleship that allows us to love the Lord and hate His people. Love is the distinguishing mark of a follower of Christ. This theology might not fit on a bumper sticker. But it does fit in the life of every faithful disciple.

This was originally published by In Touch Magazine.

The Way Home: Robby Gallaty on the importance of discipleship

He battled drug addiction and chronic pain. Cocaine and heroine brought him to his knees, even stealing money from his parents just to survive. It was at this low point that Robby Gallaty found Jesus. Today, Robby is the pastor of one of the largest churches in the Southern Baptist Convention and a leading advocate for personal discipleship. Robby joins to the podcast today to talk about his journey to Christ, about being discipled by David Platt, and why he’s so passionate about building churches that have a discipleship culture.

Show Notes

Twitter: @Rgallaty
Website: replicate.org and longhollow.com

What The Incarnation Means for Our Bodies

The angel was clear, to Mary, about the mission of Jesus. In his angelic announcement, he said that Jesus would come to “save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).” To be our Savior, God had to become human. He had to suffer as a human. He had to take on the full punishment of God’s wrath for human sin. This was God’s plan all along, an event that took place at “just the right time” (Galatians 4:4-7). The prophet said that it would “please the Lord to bruise him (Isaiah 53:10).”

Jesus accomplished what no man could accomplish. He, as the Second Adam, restores our humanity and reconciles us to Christ:

As Charles Wesley so beautifully writes:

Born that man no more may die.

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

And later:

Second Adam from above,

Reinstate us in Thy love.

Christmas is the celebration that Jesus came to this earth to offer salvation for our sins, reconciliation with our Creator. It is the dawn of God’s kingdom in Christ, saving not only the sins of his people but defeating sin, death and the grave and renewing and restoring creation.

But the Bible also tells us that in coming as a human, Jesus experienced the full range of humanity (Hebrews 4:15). This is not something we often consider when we think about Christmas. We (rightly) dwell on our individual salvation and on the cosmic salvation. We forget, though, that in coming as a baby–helpless and vulnerable–Jesus honors the dignity of what it means to be human.

Consider how often messy and gross it often is to be human. I think how messy our minivan is after a long trip with our kids. I think how often we have to clean our bathrooms at home. I think of the times our kids get violently sick. Jesus came and took on this kind of humanity.

Most of the time we see each other at our best. We clean up and dress up for work or church or social events. Only the closest of friends see each other at the most vulnerable moments and only family members see each other at our messiest. Jesus came to be human, not at our best, but at our worst.

Jesus coming, as a human, means Jesus cares for our bodies, not just our souls. It means we are not simply embodied spirits. We were crafted, body and soul, by a loving Creator. He calls humanity “good.”

Of course, in a fallen world, our bodies decay. We face aging and disease and deformity. But Jesus’ coming as a human and his death as a human and his resurrection as a human means the corruption that afflicts our bodies has been defeated and we will rise, one day, with new bodies in the resurrection (John 11:25; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10).

This reality, that Jesus loves us in all of our often gross and messy humanity, should both encourage us and also help us to love others. We are encouraged because it means God loves us, not only when we are at our shiny best, but also when we are at our messy worst. Most of us feel, at times, a bit ashamed of our bodies. We dress them up in all sorts of ways, but when we are alone with ourselves, there is often shame about being too fat or too skinny or too short or too small or a lack of athleticism or acne or whatever it might be that brings shame. The incarnation of Jesus Christ speaks to that shame with a God who came in human flesh and who says our bodies are good. Jesus’ very human birth also changes the way we love those around us. To fully appreciate their humanity, we should love all of them. True love is to love people as whole persons.

Jesus’ very human birth might also change the way we view marriage. To join yourself in love to another is to take all of your spouse, not just some of your spouse. We covenant in marriage to the whole person. It means we love our spouses when they are funny and contribute life to us and we love our spouses when they are cranky and make us miserable. It means we love them throughout the various seasons of life. And it means they love us when we are less than lovable.

Jesus’ humanity–his coming as a baby and his living as real, honest human with sweat and blood and body fluids and scars and fatigue–rescues us from the incomplete ways we often think about our salvation, as if the gospel story is simply about us parachuting out of our humanity into a ghost-like existence on clouds with angels. The gospel story is more than that. It is God visiting us in our humanity, rescuing us from the curse, and ultimately resurrecting us into more real, more perfect bodies and souls fit for that city to come.

Veil’d in flesh, the Godhead see;

Hail, the incarnate Deity:

Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,

Jesus, our Emmanuel!

image credit: optictopic