Author Archives: Carolyn Moore

It began with Jesus, who invited twelve guys to quit their day jobs and enroll in a three-year intensive, seminary-level program. By following Jesus, these guys learned Hebrew Bible, pastoral care, prayer and healing, theology, missions and evangelism, preaching and economics. At the end of three years, Jesus declared them ready (in fact, he called them his peers) and commissioned them with these words, found in Matthew 28:18:20:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Authority has been given to Jesus, the King of an in-breaking Kingdom, and his intention is to conquer the earth not by force but through the proclamation of his gospel to every people, nation and language. According to the Great Commission, his vision for reaching the world is to mobilize those who now follow Jesus, sharing his authority with all followers so we can go, make disciples, baptize people into this community and teach them how to live this Spirit-led life.

If you’re looking for one theme to unify the whole Bible, this is it: God is building a kingdom on earth, so he can redeem a broken world. And he is using people to accomplish his purposes. The Great Commission belongs to all of us.

Forty-three days after this pronouncement, this first class of disciples was given not a diploma or a title but the authority of the Holy Spirit. According to Acts 1:8, Jesus told them that, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Sure enough, a few days later when they were filled with the Holy Spirit they were immediately compelled to begin sharing the story with people from many tribes and languages. The first day they went out, three thousand people joined up and began to follow Jesus as the Chosen One who came to rescue us from slavery to sin and death.

From there, the disciples began to fan out into Jerusalem, Judea and beyond, sharing this truth about how God is at work in the world. Having conquered the biggest learning curve of this course on the Kingdom of God — that being the embrace of Jesus as Messiah — the disciples were now challenged with breaking down their own cultural and religious biases. Could they imagine a God who is interested in people who are not like them? After all, for two thousand years they’d considered themselves God’s chosen people. His favorites. Everyone else was, well … not chosen.

Then Peter had a vision. We know it is a big deal because the story is told three times in the book of Acts. First, the writer describes how Peter is alone on a rooftop when he has a vision. Something like a sheet comes down from the sky and in the sheet are all kinds of animals Jews would never have touched — animals considered ritually unclean. A voice from the sky instructs, “Peter, you can have anything on the menu. Anything I’ve made, I will bless.”

The immediate and literal meaning of this vision is that Peter is welcome to eat anything he wants to eat. The rules are not the relationship under this new covenant. But deeper, much deeper, is the revelation that all people matter to God. When Peter recounts the story to friends, he shares this stunning insight (Acts 10:34): “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts those from every nation who fear him and do what is right.

For people who assumed they were God’s favorites, this changes everything. Peter’s vision changed the value of people (like finding out your maintenance man is a millionaire). Now the pond is an ocean; God is drawing from the ends of the earth to fill his kingdom. His vision also changed the value of Jesus’ own teachings. When he said, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son,” he was actually saying that the grace of God covers all people, not just one race of them. And when Jesus called himself the way, the truth and the life, he actually meant that it was no longer lineage or law that qualifies us, but Jesus himself who connects us to the heart of God.

What a way to smash a world view!

Getting from Jerusalem to Samaria and then to the rest of the world was first about understanding God’s love for all people, and second about separating the laws and customs of the Jewish people from the gift of salvation. Here’s how that happened. Paul and Barnabas were with a group of believers in Antioch when they heard that some were still teaching circumcision as a rite of passage into the kingdom (see Acts 15:1-3). Having the wisdom to do so, these two leaders took the question back to the apostles. They wanted clarity on just what this gospel means, so they’d be representing not just their own opinions but the collective wisdom of those who followed Jesus faithfully.

Let’s consider Acts 15:6-11.

The apostles and elders met to consider this question [of whether a person has to abide by any rituals in order to be saved]. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: ‘Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.

At that meeting, the key leaders in this Jesus movement discerned the will of God and decided that if any action other than faith is required to bring salvation into a life, then Jesus alone is not enough. And since Jesus himself never asked anything other than a willingness to follow him, then how could they? Paul had been set free from all that legalism and he wasn’t about to enslave anyone else in it. So he took this gospel of freedom to the Romans and the Corinthians and the Ephesians and the Philippians and even to the jailers who held him prisoner for preaching it, that we are saved by grace through faith. Salvation is a free gift of the one, true God, secured for us by the sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth.

Which doesn’t sound dangerous but it is. By the middle of the first century, Christians were being killed for teaching salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. Stephen, the first martyr, was killed for nothing more than claiming this. He was the first of a faithful brand of follower that has been part of our journey ever since. In our time, more than 170,000 Christians are killed annually for the cause of Christ. In fact, more Christians were martyred in the 20th century than all the other centuries combined.

Our faith is characterized by a willingness to die. In fact, the church of Jesus Christ grows best when it is oppressed. The more Christians have been persecuted over the centuries, the more the movement has spread. Christianity is growing fastest today in countries like China, Cuba, and in African countries where war, disease and poverty are driving people to the only true source of hope. Even while Nero used Christians as garden torches, people from all over the known world were traveling to Rome, getting infected with the good news and taking it back to their own countries. Philip converted an Ethiopian, who went home and spread the good news. Thomas spoke the name of Jesus into the soil of India.

Can a person be a Christian without telling anyone? I don’t think so. It is in our DNA to spread the word.

Do you remember the dramatic rescue of 33 men who were trapped in a mine in Chile a few years ago? For 17 days, it was believed that all 33 were dead, until somehow they got word to the surface that they were all alive. Not just some, but all. For the next 52 days, that little group of men became an international fixation as the world watched their survival and rescue. They were coached in the art of survival, taught how to discipline their days so they could maintain sanity while they waited for those on the surface to figure out a rescue plan.

Eventually, a plan was devised and the rescues commenced. Do you remember how it was for us on the watching end? Every miner pulled up from beneath was celebrated. Every one of them. All 33. Many of them dropped to their knees upon reaching the surface to thank God for their life.

Mario was number nine. I can’t imagine Mario coming up out of that shaft feeling so good about his own rescue that he forgets to care about the 24 still down in the mine. I cannot imagine the people of Chile losing interest after the first few rescues, shrugging their shoulders and leaving the scene for the boredom of it. That’s not how great rescue stories work.

And in the same way, I cannot imagine a follower of Jesus coming up out of the darkness and shrugging his or her shoulders over those who are still down there, who will die down there if no one goes in after them. I cannot imagine a person with the spirit of Christ saying that the others don’t matter.

That is why we go to the ends of the earth. We go because it’s our commission but really, we go because they haven’t all been rescued yet, and because no follower of Jesus should feel complacent or comfortable as long as there are people still down there in the pit waiting to get out.

This part of the story isn’t really new, and wouldn’t have been for those first-century Jews who followed Jesus. The most famous passage of scripture for a Jewish person is Deuteronomy 6:4–9, which distills into precious few words the truth and what we are to do with it.

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength … commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

It has always been God’s plan for the story to spread through the simple act of one person talking about God with another — at home with our children, in our communities, out on the road, even to the ends of the earth. The truth, we’re told, should be such an obvious part of our lives that it hangs between our eyes and emanates from our doors.

But if I begin to live like this, won’t I sound weird? Won’t I lose something of myself? No! To the contrary, it is our own stories God most wants to use. And in the ways we are most able to uniquely share. Oswald Chambers says the Christian life is characterized by spontaneous creativity. I think that applies especially in the art of telling your story. Helping someone know what you have found in Jesus isn’t about a set of principles or verses. It is an opportunity to tell your story in the context of the moment. Who were you before you found Jesus? What happened to make you change your mind about him? How has that changed you? Who are you now? What have you learned by following Jesus? Can you put into words the difference between the moment you came to believe in Jesus, and the life you’ve lived by following him?

The story after the Nativity is your story. This is the one God intends to use to build his Kingdom on earth. Nothing less, more or different than the story of how Jesus rescued you from the pit and gave you another chance at life.

“I told you this so that my joy might be in you, so that your joy might be full.” — John 15:11

I love the image of a smiling Jesus. It always inspires me to wonder about the things Jesus might have smiled at. Children, certainly. I have a sense that no child in a marketplace ever escaped his smile. People in the wake of a healing, with their exclamations of wonder and thanksgiving. I bet he smiled at some of the things his disciples said, much like we smile at them today. And I’m guessing he laughed large whenever someone came to a realization of God’s truth. The day Zacchaeus got it, surely Jesus laughed for the sheer joy of the moment.

Now, compare that image with a scene I want you to paint in your mind. Imagine you’re in it. You are a citizen of a closed country. All your life, you’ve been told that the president of that country is a god, and that your country is a paradise. You’re told that a lot, maybe to help you believe it. Because you eat corn gruel. Every meal is corn gruel, and “every meal” is maybe two meals a day. Maybe. Just getting those two meals on the table (if you have a table) takes a lot of work. Your overwhelming thought all the time is food, and how to get it. You are always hungry.

And this is paradise.

You get no news from the outside and very few people from the outside know about you. This isn’t the primitive culture of a forgotten tribe in Africa. Your country has been industrialized. There are electrical wires and tall buildings in cities. But there is no electricity running through those wires. And there are no cars. No lights, no cars, no entertainment. From the sky at night, your country looks like a black hole. People who are old enough talk about the days when most homes had electricity. Lights and even radios. But those days are long gone. For the most part, the purchase of a car is against the law.

Except for a few jobs in mills, there is nothing else to do but farm poor soil or scrounge for food. And this is paradise.

You’d leave, except that leaving is also against the law, and punishable by death. And besides, as far as you know, this is as good as it gets. Sure, life is hard and no one talks badly about the president (your god) or the country without being punished for it. But other countries are hopeless. They don’t have your god, and the people are evil and they live far worse than you do. At least, that’s what you’ve been told.

You have heard of people who left. They snuck out. But for the most part, that has never been a thought to cross your mind. For the most part. You wouldn’t dare tell anyone, not even your mother (because spies are everywhere), but sometimes you wonder if this really is paradise. Sometimes you wonder if the president really is a god. After all, there have been famines in your land and you’re not sure there are famines in paradise.

So yes, you’ve wondered about things. And yes, you’ve wondered about leaving. And the more you wonder about leaving, the less sure you become of staying. You decide to learn more, and you discover that there is a way out. With enough money, you can sneak out of paradise. So late one night, you pay a border guard and cross a river, and on the other side, you find people who do something you have almost never seen. They smile. They are happy to see you, and they have set up a place just for people like you. They give you clothes (when is the last time you got a new set of clothes?), and food that is not corn gruel. It is simple but good. They have a place for you to sleep and the next day, when you’re thinking you’ll go out and find some more food, they bring another meal to you. And then another meal. And then another. Maybe for the first time in your life, you feel like a human. For the first time in your life, you’re beginning to feel like…not an animal or a puppet.

The people who run these shelters for people like you are something. They believe in freedom, and in taking care of people. And they believe in a god, too…who they call Jesus. They tell you all about him. It turns out he is not the god of one country, they say, but the God of the whole world. Even of the people who live in your country, even though they don’t know about him. They tell you about this God and his love and that he wants to set everyone free. Even people who live in prisons. There is a freedom, they say, that happens inside when you believe in this God. And this freedom creates the love these people show, and the joy and the peace.

In your own country people steal from each other. And lying is not unusual, but who can really blame them? That’s how it is when folks are just trying to survive. But these people who follow Jesus talk a lot about truth and about giving up their own rights for the sake of this truth. That’s a really different thought for you. You know what it means to have no rights or privileges. You’ve lived a lifetime like that. But to give up your rights freely for the sake of something bigger than yourself or your survival? That’s a radical thought.

They tell you that this is what it means to follow their God. This Jesus. While it doesn’t make sense, the more you look at these people, the more you want it. They laugh. They hold their heads high (in your country, people who follow a foreign god are often forced to hold their heads down). They serve, and it’s a blessing. You’re learning to smile.

And then, you get caught. You are taken back across the river to your old country where they toss you into a filthy, crowded prison and a return to daily starvation. You are interrogated regularly (with force) for the purpose of getting you to renounce all you’ve been taught. But here in the midst of this suffering, you discover perhaps the most amazing thing of all: what they taught you across the border is even more true here than it was there. In this prison, you discover that this God of theirs doesn’t have borders. He really is God in any country. You know this to be true, because when you think about him while you’re sitting in this prison, you feel hope. You feel loved. You feel options.

This prison isn’t your truth; he is. This certainly isn’t joy, but he is. This isn’t freedom, but he is. Sitting in that prison, you discover what those people who took care of you possess. You discover a hunger for others to know this Jesus. Why should anyone be denied the right to his hope, this freedom that comes not from crossing borders, but from knowing the truth.

The story you’ve just imagined is being lived out right now, every day, among people living in North Korea. North Korea has the largest population in the world of what are called political prisoners, which is a broad category encompassing any offense against the state, including disrespect of the president. Citizens are imprisoned in their own country by a system ruled by a man who lives under the delusion that he is a god. They say North Koreans don’t smile much.

The story you’ve just imagined is also being lived out spiritually in many places, among people oppressed by a system of beliefs based on tyranny, force and legalism. Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, lived most of his life under such a system. In fact, the very literal story we’ve just imagined could well have been his spiritual story. The Bible tells a story of a people who lost their connection with God. They were like a country that used to have electricity running through its wires. The Law that was supposed to build their character, teach them holiness and define boundaries in their relationship with God, became nothing more than one more oppression in an oppressive society. Rather than a goal of being perfect in love, they’d become sticklers for perfection. And any misstep was cause for punishment. That pursuit made them angry and bitter people. They were starving, spiritually. Imprisoned by a system of obedience that stole their smiles. Paul was raised in that culture.

Live like that long enough and either your heart grows hard or you start longing for life beyond the borders. Paul didn’t exactly long for that life, but when he encountered it on a road between cities he found it irresistible. Jesus himself walked Paul across the border into freedom, where Paul discovered those things — like love, joy and peace — that make life worth living. When they came for him and threw him into prison, it only intensified his passion for truth.

Paul’s letter to the Philippian church is written four years into his imprisonment in a dank, dark first-century jail. He would surely have gone without meals there, but it only made him hungry for souls. He may well have been chained to a prison guard, but it only made him obsessed with spiritual freedom. Not just for himself but for everyone. In a circumstance seemingly without hope, Paul writes an ode to joy. In each chapter, Paul explains his source of joy.

Chapter 1: My mood is rooted in something bigger than myself.

“Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance. It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” – Philippians 1:15-21

By the time Paul writes this letter, he has been in prison for at least four years, yet the overwhelming emotion in his communication with the church in Philippi is joy. He rejoices in Christ, rejoices in a community that has supported him, rejoices in the good news. His response defines the nature of spiritual joy:

• Joy is a spiritually generated response to God’s goodness.

• Joy is a deep down assurance that the quality of life is not rooted in feelings or circumstances, but in the love, cover and hope of a good and faithful God.

• Joy is a natural fruit of the Spirit-filled life.

Paul proves by his own testimony that the quality of life is not rooted in circumstances but in the care and cover of our Heavenly Father.

Chapter 2: My relationships are centered in partnership, not competition.

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” – Philippians 2:1-4.

Christians have overused the word fellowship (and have massacred it grammatically by trying to turn it into a verb!), but it is a rich word for us. It means “mutual support” or “living in unity.” Given those definitions, fellowship describes the spirit of the relationship between Paul and the Philippians. This is what held them together across the miles. The Philippians look to Paul for spiritual leadership and Paul finds delight in their faithfulness. His mood doesn’t depend on their acting or thinking the “right” way, but he can still delight in their faithfulness.

Chapter 3: My journey is focused on progress, not perfection.

“Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.  Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.” – Philippians 3:1, 12-16.

Paul says, “forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” As those pressing on toward the goal of holiness, we require the child within to step back so the adult can lead, because we understand that maturity is a source of joy.

Chapter 4: I practice joy by pursuing intimacy with God.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:4-7

Intimacy is hard! It requires vulnerability, and vulnerability means letting my guard down and being fully present. That is hard work. More and more, I’m convinced that discipline and the pursuit of the Holy Spirit are keys. The disciplines of prayer, personal devotion, and searching the Word for my own life are remarkably important. Pursuing the Holy Spirit and seeking his gifts and presence in my life, I discover closeness to the Father that bears the fruit of devotion.

Paul’s journey from the country of legalism into freedom in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit bore the fruit of the Spirit — love when before he’d only known hatred, joy in place of duty, peace in place of striving, patience in place of anger, kindness in place of “breathing threats and murder” (Acts 9:1), goodness in place of spiritual pride, faithfulness in place of self-righteousness, gentleness in place of legalism and self-control in place of self-imprisonment. He teaches us that there is another country where we, too, can be free, and where we, too, can find joy.

Will you pray?

Lord, I want to live in that world where my relationship with you is defined by love, joy and peace in any circumstance. I want to give more of myself to you so I can discover more of your heart. I want freedom. I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, like electricity running through a wire. I want to know you intimately, and I ask now that you help me let go of pride so I can confess any sins that stand between me and a growing relationship with you. I want to be able to say with David, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever” (Psalm 16:11). Speak to these deep longings, Father, and hear my prayer, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore. ~Psalm 133

When I was five years old, my family changed churches. We were a family of eight, but my mother, sister and I were the only ones who went to church with any regularity. To be honest, I don’t know what was behind the decision to move. But for whatever reason, we went to the big church on the hill.

I remember the car ride on that first Sunday we went to the new church. My mother called to me in the back seat and said, “Carolyn, now this is a big, fancy church, and we have to be very quiet during the service. You cannot talk during church.” I didn’t remember talking during church before, but I can tell you, I was very quiet at the new, fancy church.

We must have liked it there because we stayed, and you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Just like at the other church, we were still among the last to leave every Sunday because my mother would not go home until she had spoken to everyone. Maybe that’s why I liked communion Sundays so much. It gave me something to do while I waited for my mom. After church on communion Sundays, while my mother talked, I’d go up to the altar and play with all the little cups that were left there.

You know how there is always a little bit of grape juice left in the bottom of those little cups? Well, I could take the leavings from two or three little cups and just about fill up another one. And I could usually down three or four shots before my mother caught sight of me. “You can not play with the little cups!” she’d say, as she dragged me off by my arm.

So I find it ironic, all these years later, that I make my living talking during church and playing with those little cups. It is a good thing, too, because I didn’t have a lot of other options. I am not particularly musical, not athletic at all, not brilliant, artistic or technical. I know a little bit about a few things, but not a lot about anything.

But I do have one passion. I love the church. I love it! I love the Lord. He is the reason I live. But I am a pastor because I love the church. It fascinates me that Almighty God, in all his wisdom, chose this organism as his medium for sharing his revelation of Jesus Christ. And my passion is for seeing that organism, the Church, work in the way God intended when he passed the Body of Christ from the person of Jesus to the people of God. I don’t claim to know God’s whole vision for that kind of church, but I do believe he is looking for more than just somebody to talk on Sundays who occasionally plays with those little cups. In fact, I believe he is crying out for the people of God to be the body of Christ…the Church being the Church. But I’m not sure most of us have had good examples of that.

What Is “The Church”?

I’m guessing we’d all agree that it is more than just talking on Sundays and playing with little cups…but what is the church?

• Do you hear the word “church” as a positive or negative thing?

• What do you think the church is supposed to be doing?

• Is it a place or people?

• Is it an organization or an organism?

• Who is in charge of the church?

Deitrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Christianity means community in Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ…we belong to each other only through and in Jesus Christ.” Jesus is head of the church. He is the founding pastor. He gave the vision after his resurrection, and then set it in motion at his ascension.

Paul is the one who helped us interpret the vision. That’s what a lot of the New Testament does. It is Paul, working out his understanding of the Church while he’s dealing with the first churches ever to exist. In his letters, he’s helping these brand new churches understand who they are. They are…in some mysterious but real way…the body of Christ on earth.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit;” and then he continues, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (I Corinthians 12:12-13, 26-27)

Let this sink in. Hear what Paul is really saying. He is not talking about organizational structure or a membership covenant. He isn’t talking about a civic organization or a well-run non-profit. He is talking about a cosmic reality: those who become part of the Body of Christ…become part of the Body of Christ!

This is what our Bible teaches us: The Church is the Body of Christ on earth. When we talking about sharing life, we’re really talking about sharing the life of Christ. Allowing Christ’s life to flow through us, living out the resurrected Body of Christ.

Where did Paul get this from? Go back to Acts chapter nine, where Saul, who was Paul before he got saved, was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. Picture this: he is on his way to Damascus where he plans to root out other followers of Jesus and kill them or throw them in jail. But then Jesus Christ himself shows up.

“Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.'”(Acts 9:3-5)

I seem to be coming back to this scene a lot lately. I’m beginning to see just how radical it is. Paul was a first-century terrorist. If there had been newspapers he would have been in the news. People knew about this guy. And this is who God chooses. A vision comes to him and tells him he is persecuting not people but Jesus. And then Paul is struck blind for three days so he can think about that.

In his book Give Them Christ, Steve Seamands says that when Paul walked out of that darkness, he walked out with a whole new appreciation for the spiritual connection between believers: “When you persecute the Church, Saul is told, you are directly – not indirectly – persecuting Christ himself. That’s how close the connection is between the risen Lord and his followers. So when we come to faith in Christ through the Holy Spirit, we actually become part of his resurrected body, it is his very life, his resurrected life, in which we share and participate. This is what makes the church essentially a living organism, not an organization. In an organism – plant, animal or human – all the cells share a common life. Likewise the body of Christ, all the parts, regardless how distinct and diverse they are, share a common life – the life of our risen Lord.”

Jesus holds us together. Jesus makes us who we are.

How Does it Work?

Think of it this way: I have five siblings. Four brothers and a sister. What makes us brothers and sisters is my parents, Stewart and Angel Capers. Without them, we wouldn’t be related. But because of them, we can’t not be related. Whether we get together once a year because we feel obligated to, or we text each other every day, we belong to each other, not because of how we act but because we share the same head of the family. We carry their DNA.

That’s the way Paul talks about the church. It is Christ, living on earth as community. Because Jesus was raised from the dead and gave his Spirit to us, we now carry his life into the world. Steve Seamands says,

“That’s why we must preach about this crucial connection between resurrection and church. When we fail to understand it, the church is reduced to a human religious institution and inevitably become more about us than it is about Christ. We, the members and parts of the body, end up taking control of its leadership and setting its goals. Human initiative and energy fuel its life. It becomes ‘our church,’ ‘the pastor’s church,’ ‘that family’s church’ or ‘my church’ more than Christ’s.”

What makes a church Christ’s church? Jesus.

So do you get it? That putting Jesus at the center of everything we do becomes really important? Otherwise, how will they know we’re related? Then Paul tells us that in Christ’s church, all people matter.

Unity in Diversity

We read in 1 Corinthians 12:14-20, 27,

“Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body.”

I am left-handed, and I’ve just returned from three weeks in India, where being left-handed can be a bit of a challenge. In many middle-eastern countries, the left hand is used for hygiene, so the custom is that you don’t use your left hand for anything else. Don’t eat with it. Don’t touch people with it. But I’m really left-handed, so that’s a challenge for me.

For a couple of days, we visited in a home for the poorest of the poor. We took nail polish with us. We were going to give the women a treat by painting their nails. I’m not a nail-painter in my own world. I’m really not a nail-painter in a right-handed world. This was way outside my comfort level. But I am a team player, so if nail painting is the task, then I’ll do my best.

The first day, I noticed that some of the other team members pretty quickly gathered crowds. Women were all around them, waiting to get their nails painted. But I had hardly anyone asking me to paint their nails. It took most of that day for me to get it that it was because I’m left-handed. I can’t paint nails with my right hand. That second day, the first person whose nails I painted wanted to know why I was using my left hand. She wasn’t speaking English, but I was really clear on what she was asking. At first, I was a little defensive. I’ll be honest. This person who had lice in her hair, who smelled of urine, who was in an indigent care home, and she found my left hand unsettling. When I told her I couldn’t use my right hand, she wanted someone else to do her nails. That little exchange got me thinking: how often do I decide someone is “less than” or “not as good as,” simply because they aren’t like me?

After that, I gave up painting nails. Instead, I began circulating through the women, praying for them. And now that I was inside my comfort zone, I began to see Jesus. I saw him and heard him. I would pray, “Lord, be present to this person today,” and I would hear, “I am present. You are there.” I would pray, “Lord, surround this person with your angels,” and I would hear, “I have. I sent you.”

I sang with some women and taught them songs. That was fun. (And you’re thinking, “Well, Carolyn, singing isn’t exactly your gift, either. But it is in India!) I danced with a woman who loved to dance. I sat with one woman for quite a while, and she took my hand and rubbed it while she talked. And I listened. I couldn’t understand her, but I could be present to her. After a while, another woman came over and sat with us. She was very old. She balled up part of her sari and leaned it against my leg like a pillow. Then she put her head there, and the other woman put her head in my lap. And the Lord said, “This is what intimacy looks like.” And I thanked God that I am left-handed, so I could have that moment.

There is a story just like this in Acts chapter six. This was a time when the church was experiencing some growing pains. A lot of people were coming to know Jesus and many of them were needy. The church began a food pantry. They wanted to meet all the needs, but it was sapping the energy of the apostles. (This is when they discovered that the need is not the call. The call is the call.)

They all got together and someone said, “If we spend all our time giving out food, there is nothing left for preaching the Word. What we need is a system, where those who are gifted for it can devote themselves to food distribution and others can focus on prayer and the ministry of the Word.” So they appointed Stephen and a team to the mercy ministries of the church, so that everyone was moving in their gifts.

That’s the Body of Christ. That’s the Church being the Church – not just talking on Sundays and playing with the little cups – but all of us together bearing the good news of Jesus Christ. Each of us using our gifts so that the mission can be accomplished. “Prayer and the ministry of the word,” they said, “are the center of what we do. Nothing should stand in the way of that mission. And the ministries of compassion belong to the congregation.”

Unity in diversity. Everyone matters. In this world, community is essential.

No Weak Links

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” (I Corinthians 12:21-25)

My third grade teacher hated left-handed people. But my mom always made me feel special for being left-handed. When our family sat down to dinner every night — remember, there were eight of us at one table — my brothers would complain loudly about me eating with the wrong hand. Pretty quickly, my mother assigned me the place next to her. That was the best place at the table, because passing the food always started with my parents. My mom would make sure I got enough on my plate, and she took care of me.

So there I was, the lone left-hander – with the best seat in the house.

And there was an old woman with her sari balled up and leaned against my leg. Best seat in the house. No weak links in the Kingdom of God. Paul tells the Galatians in 5:13-14, “for you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”

The law was fulfilled in Jesus and now Jesus lives out the Law through us. Ray Stedman says,“that is what the church is. It is not just a group of religious people gathered together to enjoy certain mutually desired functions. It is a group of people who share the same life, who belong to the same Lord, who are filled with the same Spirit, who are given gifts by that same Spirit, and who are intended to function together to change the world by the life of God. That is the work of the church.”

Church, when we say that we share life, we are saying something profound, cosmic. We are proclaiming that we share the life of Christ. That the resurrected Christ flows through us. The resurrected Christ, who is the hope of the world! We believe and proclaim that the resurrected Christ lives in us and flows through us. That ought to make us excited!

We are the tabernacle of Jesus Christ! Christ in us, the hope of glory!

Some time ago, I was called to an assisted living home. The staff wanted me to talk with a guy who was really giving them a hard time and they were at their wit’s end. This 92-year old guy who claimed to be an atheist was struggling because he felt like he might die any day and he didn’t know what would happen after that. So I went to visit him and he immediately began to argue with me …told me all about what he believes. He took me through the whole universe and back to the beginning of time and talked about all these scientific theories. He was very sharp and knew exactly what he was talking about. Eventually, he got to the Bible. And he picked out some obscure detail from the Old Testament and asked me a question about it. He was looking for a loophole and I guess he thought he’d found it. But I’d been there for an hour and frankly, I was kind of “done.” So I said, “You know, you don’t really care about that detail, and I don’t really care about that detail, and I could give you my best answer on it but it wouldn’t change a thing for you. What I want to know is this: What’s your real question? You are ninety-two years old. What do you really want to know?”And this 92-year old guy sat back in his chair, let out a little emotion and said, “What do I really want to know? I want to know how to get Jesus into my heart.”

I believe that’s all any of us really wants to know. I think we are very much the same in that way. Whether we admit or know it or not, most folks want to know this one thing: “How do I get Jesus into my heart?”Because nothing else is working for us. Nothing else is taking away the anger or the pain, fixing our relationships or curing our loneliness. Nothing else seems to be working for us. “So how can I get Jesus into my heart?”

One day on the road he was traveling, God gave Saul the answer to that question. Saul is the guy who would later become Paul —sold out for Jesus, writer of most of the New Testament, first century church-planter.

But when we meet him in Acts, chapter 9, he’s still Saul —angry, self-righteous perfectionist. Breathing threats and murder against the disciples. Somehow he feels morally justified in this behavior. He is so completely blinded by the Spirit-choking letter of the Law that he has completely missed the Messiah, so from his perspective this is just insanity that needs to be squashed. These people who claim to follow this Jesus infuriate him.

And the whole time Saul is breathing out threats and murder, God is preparing a salvation feast for him.

Think about that, the next time you decide you’ve sinned too much for God to forgive you. Think about that, the next time you choose to feel shame over your sinful past. Unless you’ve done something much, much worse than breathing threats and murder against innocent people who follow Jesus, chances are God still has a place and a plan for you.

God came after Saul like a father running out to meet a lost son, out on the road to Damascus, when Saul was on his way to kill people in the name of God. Jesus showed up right in front of him as a vision and said, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?”And in that moment, Saul was sent to his knees. He was confronted but not crushed. John Stott says the cause of Saul’s conversion was pure grace —a testament to the wideness of God’s grace. Someone as angry, as rigid, as prideful, as self-centered as Saul …even that guy is not beyond the reach of God’s mercy.

C.S. Lewis was one of the best theologians of the 20th century. He came to Christ out of atheism, and here’s what he wrote about his salvation:

“I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armor, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armor or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corset meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desires or fear. In a sense I was not moved by anything. I chose to open, to unbuckle, to loosen the rein. I say ‘I chose,’yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite. On the other hand, I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most I have ever done. Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, ‘I am what I do.’”

And that is what defined Saul. He was what he did. He went from breathing threats and murder against followers of Jesus to claiming the good news of Jesus as the salvation of the world. “I am what I do.”

Which is why Paul could write later to the Colossians, “Christ in you, the hope of glory”(Colossians 1:27).

This is my only hope: I just want to get Jesus into my heart.

The resurrection of Jesus came after three days in the tomb. The resurrection of Paul —from spiritual death to spiritual life —happened this way. He was thrown to the ground by this vision, but Jesus called to him and said (Acts 9:6 …mark this word in your Bible), “Rise and enter the city.”For three days, Paul was blind, much like the three days Jesus spent in a tomb. And then scales feel from his eyes and he could see, and he rose and was baptized.

And that’s the first resurrection story in Acts, chapter nine.

Then the story then shifts to Peter, who is moving among the people with this incredible authority he has found in Christ. This is not the same guy who denied knowing Jesus or who went back to fishing after the crucifixion. This guy is filled with the Holy Spirit and with power.   And somehow, on his way to another town, he finds this man named Aeneas, who is paralyzed. And Peter creates a healing miracle by saying, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Rise and make your bed.”

If you have your Bible, underline the word “rise”here in verse 34. We’ve seen that word twice now, so we’re going to remember that and come back to it.

So after Aeneas is healed, somebody in Joppa hears Peter is a town or two away so they call for him. Evidently, there is a woman in Joppa named Tabitha, and she has died.

Look with me at her story in Acts, chapter 9, verse 36. “In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor.”

The first thing I notice is that Tabitha is called a disciple of Jesus. This is the only time in the whole New Testament anyone is called a disciple. Evidently, Tabitha is pretty special, by “follower of Jesus” standards.

The second thing I notice is that the writer refers to her by both her Jewish name and her Roman name. That’s significant. It means the good news about Jesus is now more than just a quirky offshoot of the Jewish faith. Now it has its fingers in Roman culture. Disciples of Jesus are now not just Jews with a Messiah. They are world citizens with a savior.

In this woman who is a disciple with a Roman name, God is doing a new thing. The good news is spreading, and in Tabitha we see a new strategy. She sews and she has been making things for widows, doing practical things to connect with people beyond her circle. It is her sewing that opens doors, so in Tabitha we see it maybe for the first time in the Bible, that a person can use something they enjoy doing to earn respect not just for themselves but for the good news of Jesus Christ.

This raising of Tabitha is an evangelism story! In her, God is doing a new thing!

Ray Jackson, our friend and partner with Christian Flights International (a mission to take the good news to Ranquitte, Haiti), has said in their latest newsletter: “I have often thought that the miracles of Jesus were to validate his Sonship or divinity. But now, I also believe they have been preserved for all time to validate his unlimited power to make all things new. And perhaps the obstacles are there to accentuate the power of the miracles.”

This is the power of resurrection. Isaiah says (Isaiah 43:19-21): “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” This is the heart of God for his people. Jesus wants to make a river run through the wasteland of your life, because when the Spirit flows people get raised and get filled and get healed and get sober and get straight and their wastelands get soaked. A new thing!

We’ve seen a physical resurrection in Paul and a “fresh-start”resurrection in Aeneas and now we’re about to see the full power of God come to rest over death.

In Acts 9:37-38 we read, “about that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, ‘Please come at once!’”

This scene is as much about Peter as it is about Tabitha. This moment gives Peter the chance to claim the power of resurrection that he couldn’t claim when Jesus died. Peter is about to prove that his is more than passing faith. It is resurrection faith! I mean, what kind of person stands in a room, asks a dead person to stand up and actually expects it to happen? And doesn’t faint when it does? That’s a man with serious faith.

And his example makes me hungry for that kind of faith. It makes me pray for more faith. It ought to make us all pray for greater faith. Do you pray for your faith as if it is a pearl of great price? Do you pray as if nothing you possess —nothing you wield —has more power or value than your faith?

“Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, arise.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive,” we learn in verses 39-41.

Here it is again —the word “arise.”This is the same Greek word we find in the story of Paul, when he encounters Jesus on the road and falls to his knees. Jesus himself tells Paul to arise. And when Peter finds Aeneas, the paralyzed guy and is moved to heal him, this is the word on which the guy is healed: Arise. The word used in both stories is a form of the Greek word anistemi.

And here, in the raising of Tabitha, the same word is used —arise. This is the same word Paul uses later to describe the resurrection of Jesus. The Bible says it is the word God used! And it is especially common —this word —when the Bible talks about the preparation for a journey.

Which is to say that personal revival—getting up and starting your journey again — can mean anything from getting yourself out of your chair, to going after your own healing, to having your faith or even your life resurrected. All of it is resurrection, and the invitation to this journey requires only faith enough to get up and go after it.

The message of Acts, chapter 9, is possibly the most powerfully relevant message of the Bible: Rise up! Rise up! Rise up! And Tabitha’s story teaches us that the call is to rise up, not just for your own sake, but for the cause of the Kingdom of God.

In verses 42-43 we hear the conclusion: “this became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.”

All three resurrection stories in Acts, chapter 9, end just this way. At the end of Paul’s conversion story, verse 31 says, “The church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”

At the end of the story of Aeneas’healing, it says (vv. 34b-35), “And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.”

When Tabitha is raised up, her story gets told all over town and many believed in the Lord.

And that ends up being the real power of resurrection faith. When God’s people get serious about their faith and begin acting on it, not only do we get raised up, but other people get raised up, too. People get saved. People get healed. People get called out by God to do great things. People finally figure out how to get Jesus into their heart.

Christ in you, the hope of glory! Just a few lines after Paul writes that beautiful line to the Colossians, he writes (Col. 2:13-15, The Message):“Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.”

He goes on (Colossians 3:1-4): “So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you.”

The old word for innovation is the word novate. It means the substitution of a new thing for an old one. That’s the root meaning of the word innovation. The substitution of a new thing for an old one. That’s what resurrection faith does in a life. It is innovative faith. It calls us out of the old and into the new. It can mean anything from getting yourself out of your chair, exchanging a passive faith for an active one …to going after your own healing, exchanging bondage to the world for freedom and health. It can mean having your faith resurrected —the exchange of fear and anxiety for faith and power.   All of it is resurrection, and the invitation to this journey requires only faith enough to get up and go.

The call this morning is to resurrection faith —innovative faith. The kind of faith that says whatever the issue, our God is bigger. Whatever needs to be put to death in us, we can handle, because Christ in us is our hope of glory.

The Son of Man came not to be served by to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

– Matthew 20:28

My mom was a great southern cook. At least six nights a week, she cooked a full meal for everybody who showed up at the table. There were eight of us and most nights, at least one or two of us had a friend who wanted to stay for supper. We had a neighbor, in fact, a big ol’ guy, who would show up completely by coincidence most evenings right around 6:00. It would never have occurred to my mother to turn him or anyone else away. There was always a way to stretch the meal so that everyone had enough. My mother had what Warren Lathem calls a theology of abundance. She always believed there was enough. I, on the other hand, had in those days what Warren would call a theology of scarcity, because I had four brothers, and I was just sure that if I didn’t protect my plate, I’d go hungry.

Like my mother would let me go hungry.

In a theology of scarcity, we believe there is only so much so we get very protective of our plate. But in a theology of abundance, we get that God is in control.

Jesus taught that in the last days, we’d become confused about that. We’d become very concerned about protecting our own lives and lifestyles, worried that if it isn’t up to us it won’t happen. So the question this morning is simply this: Is God enough?

Will you take a moment to prepare the soil of your heart to receive this word? Close your eyes for a moment, and listen to this: Just after Jesus says, “I came to serve, not to be served,” he comes up on two blind men on the roadside, who hear Jesus is passing by. And they cry out two things: “Lord, have mercy on us,”and, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.”

Both great prayers. Can you imagine Jesus passing by right now, passing right in front of you? And as he passes by you, he asks, as he asked those two blind guys, “What do you want me to do for you?” And you answer: Lord, have mercy on me. Let my eyes be opened. Can you imagine that as your cry to Jesus this morning? If so, make that your prayer. Lord, have mercy on me. Let my eyes be opened. Amen.

“Enough”is frustrating.

There is a verse in a song by Switchfoot (“Meant To Live”) that goes like this:

We want more than this world’s got to offer

We want more than the wars of our fathers

And everything inside screams for second life.

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

I think they’ve hit the nail on the head with these thoughts. We do want more than this world’s got to offer. We were meant for more. Everything inside us screams out for an option. And that’s why enough is frustrating. It is frustrating precisely because hard-wired into us is a desire for more, for a second life. And in pursuit of that something more, we go after the things we know how to do. We try earning more, working harder. We watch more Oprah, read more self-help books. We become fighters. We fight for what we think we deserve. We invent our idea of perfect and then go after it with a vengeance. We become very preoccupied with making sure we get ours. After all, if we don’t protect our own interests, who will?

But nothing we try quite scratches the itch. And that’s what frustrates us.

None of this is new. Jesus met a guy once who was in the middle of this frustrating personal crisis, and he used the guy to show his disciples just how hard it is to make your own stairway to heaven. And the disciples see this and are sort of stunned by the revelation of it. And they ask, “Who then can be saved? If we can’t earn it or work for it or somehow deserve it, how do we find the peace and joy and fulfillment we so desperately hunger after?”

Let’s look at this section of Matthew 19 and 20, that help us think through these questions.

Someone came to Jesus with this question: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”“Why ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. But to answer your question—if you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments.”

“Which ones?” the man asked.

And Jesus replied: “‘You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else must I do?”

Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”

The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

Then Peter said to him, “We’ve given up everything to follow you. What will we get?”

Jesus replied, “I assure you that when the world is made new and the Son of Man sits upon his glorious throne, you who have been my followers will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life. But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.

Matthew 19:16-30

Do you know the story of Mark Zuckerberg and the Newark, New Jersey school system? The guy who owns Facebook decided he would give $100 million dollars to one of the countries worst school systems, so they could develop something state of the art that would totally transform the way public schools work.

$100 million dollars to save Newark’s educational system. Three years ago, the graduation rate in the Newark school system was 54%. In three years, they’ve hired 50 new principals, built four new schools, replaced the school superintendent. They’ve done a ton of other things, too, trying to save New Jersey’s educational system with $100 million dollars. And so far, what they’ve mostly gotten is parental outrage and very little real progress. A New Yorker article (“Schooled”) detailing how the organizers of this massive reform movement have gotten a huge education themselves. Turns out, all the money in the world isn’t always the answer.

Jim Carrey said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it’s not the answer.” Jim Carrey made $25 million for his part in Bruce Almighty and was rated in 2003 as Hollywood’s top-paid actor. And he says, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it’s not the answer.”

We can’t earn enough to make life meaningful.

For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work.

At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing.

At five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’

They replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’

The landowner told them, ‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’

That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’

He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’

So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.

Matthew 20:1-16

I go to the gym early in the day. Most days, I am struck by all the body types around me, quietly doing their thing on machines and with weights. These are not young, buff types, not at that time of day. These are normal-looking, working folk, like you see in Wal-Mart or at Kroger. There are as many shapes as there are people — all interesting, none air-brushed.

On our respective machines, we move at different paces. Some are obviously just beginning this fitness journey, probably because a doc told them they should invest either in a gym membership or a cemetery plot. Those folks are lucky to make it a few minutes on a machine before they quietly head over to the coffee pot. Others have been at it a while and seem hardly to break a sweat after an hour of flailing around on whatever their contraption of choice is.

If you were looking critically at the collective group of us, you’d wonder why we bother. Most of us are normal, middle-aged people; we don’t look “fit,” not on the face of it. But we’re there. And more and more, I believe that’s what counts. Being there.

I’ve decided this much — if you’re inside the gym walls you deserve not to be judged, no matter what your shape or pace. I want this mind to be in me, that I am able to look at anyone in that room and default to this: “At least you’re here. And because you’re here, you’ll get only mental high-fives from me. No judgment, just grace and prayer.”

What I’m learning at the gym informs my view of those inside my church. They also are normal people who come in every spiritual shape, who go at every spiritual pace. They move at different speeds and make progress in varying degrees. Some are more comfortable near the coffee machine; others have more spiritual stamina. On the face of it they may not look like much, but those who make it in, whether they come sprinting or fall across the threshold, deserve not to be judged. At least they are there.

This was the gospel preached to me from the vantage point of my elliptical this morning so today – on the strength of that good word – I make this fresh promise to the people who will show up in my church on Sunday: “No matter what shape you’re in or what pace you’ve set for yourself, because you’re here, you’ll get only mental high-fives from me. No judgment. Just grace and prayer.”

Warren Berkley says, “God dispenses gifts, not wages. None of us gets paid according to merit, for none of us comes close to satisfying God’s requirements for a perfect life. If paid on the basis of fairness, we would all end up in hell” (Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace, pp. 61-62). And then Berkley says this: “It is not merely the time that we put in. It is the heart that we put into the time we have.”

This whole question of what “enough”means comes down to motive. Where is my heart? What am I really after? Because enough —when it is all about me —can be so frustrating.

Then the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with her sons. She knelt respectfully to ask a favor. “What is your request?” he asked.

She replied, “In your Kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.”

But Jesus answered by saying to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?”

“Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!”

Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup. But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. My Father has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.”

When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Matthew 20:21-28

The problem with what this mama is asking for her boys is that she somehow thinks there is only so much grace, only so much authority, only so much power, and she wants to make sure her sons get it. Only so many people are deserving, and what if her sons somehow miss out? After all, they’ve done the work. They’ve followed. Don’t they deserve?

Like Jesus says to her, “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

Step back a few chapters to Matthew 15 and you’ll run across another mom who came to Jesus on behalf of her child. This one was looking for healing for her daughter, and Jesus’ response seemed cold. “I’m not here for the Gentiles. I’m here for the lost sheep of Israel.” He even calls her a dog. He says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and feed it to the dogs.” I don’t know about you but that would have devastated me. All my rejection demons and inadequacy demons and pride demons would have rallied and I would have walked away from that moment feeling angry and wrong. I would never have let that guy touch my kid.

But this wise mama understood that what Jesus was saying had nothing to do with whether or not she deserved his time and mercy and grace. In fact, he was saying quite the opposite. Beneath his words was something profound about God’s love for people who didn’t deserve more of his time. In that exchange, Jesus revealed how devoted he was even to those who reject him. And this mama heard the underlying message and agreed with it. “Even the dogs get the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Jesus was so impressed with her discernment that he healed her daughter on the spot. When this same healing story is told in Mark, it is sandwiched between two miracle feeding stories. Just before it is the story of the feeding of 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves. And just after it is the story of when Jesus feeds 4,000 people with seven loaves and a few small fish. In both cases, the disciples (who must’ve fallen out of their cribs at birth) ask, “Where are we going to get enough to feed all these people?” Both times! They don’t just ask Jesus the first time they see thousands of people get fed. They ask again a few days later when Jesus does it a second time! Because they are still bound by this theology of scarcity that says that if we feed all these people, we won’t be able to feed our own. Meanwhile, Jesus is operating out of an abundance we cannot even begin to fathom.

And between those two feeding stories is this woman and her daughter and her insistence on the crumbs. No wonder Jesus is so moved by her. In her, he sees the same love as his Father has for the whole world. He sees a kind of faith that isn’t about to walk away empty-handed when she knows there’s more. He sees a spirit of abundance in a woman who knows there is always enough grace, always enough power, always enough food to feed whoever shows up at the table. So your sin and my sin and your feeling like an outsider and your guilt and your shame is never enough to keep you from being at the table if you want to be at the table.

The moral of this story is that Jesus doesn’t intend to invite you into the Kingdom without changing your life. That was never part of the deal. It doesn’t matter which side of the equation you’re on. Whether you are part of the family being called out into the world or a strange, pushy Gentile woman begging for healing, Jesus plans to wreck your life.

What is enough?

So how do we get enough? The answer is in the approach of these two moms toward the circumstances of their lives. One mom has the sense that her sons have served Jesus enough to deserve a place at the table. The other gets it that there is no such thing as “enough” in the Kingdom. What we get is only because of the love, mercy and grace of Jesus. John Piper says, “The radical call to Christian discipleship is NOT a call to serve Jesus, but to be served by Jesus as we serve others, and to be ransomed by him from death.”

So when Jesus says he came to serve, not to be served, that’s not a formula for how to live this so we can feel good about ourselves. That’s a Kingdom reality. This isn’t Jesus saying, “You need to serve in the same selfless way I serve.” He’s saying, “The only way you can do this life, the only way you’ll be at peace, the only way you’ll find joy in this world is if you let me serve you. “Enough” happens when we let Jesus serve us.

Piper says we can’t be rich enough, work hard enough, deserve enough UNLESS we are served by Jesus.

(This is) what turns Christianity into gospel. If Christianity were only a great and radical teacher calling for the sacrificial obedience of radical disciples, it would not be good news. It would be just another ideology. Another philosophy. Another moral improvement program. If Christmas only meant that a man appeared on the scene of history to call others to be servants, it would not be good news…We don’t need a Messiah to tell us that. What we need is salvation from guilt and death and hell. And we need power to drink the cup of suffering in the path of service. We don’t need another religious leader to say, “Follow me.” We don’t need another prophet, like Mohammed. We don’t need another philosophical Buddha or Confucius, or another political organizer like Karl Marx or Mao Zedong. We don’t need any more New Age mysticisms or psychological self-help strategies. What we need is Someone who can forgive our sins and ransom us from guilt and death and the wrath of God, and who can give us a new life with the power to die for each other in the service of love” (from a sermon entitled “The Son of Man Came to Serve”at www.desiringgod.org. December 17, 1995)

This is what Jesus means when he says —-

Matthew 19:30 – Many who are first will be last, and the last first.

Matthew 20:16 – So the last will be first, and the first last.

Matthew 20:26-28 – Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

He is saying that those who get it will be the ones who realize we’re nothing by ourselves…that what we want most from life won’t happen if we think we have to do it ourselves. It will happen when we let the One Who Is Enough serve us as Lord, and Messiah, and Friend.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Father is enough. All by himself, he is enough.

When is it time for ______?

I googled that question and my search engine finished the question in these ways: When is it time for a divorce? When is it time for a nursing home? When is it time for hospice care? To buy a new car? To break up? To let go? To move on? When is it time for the first kiss? (Side note: If you have to google that question, it probably isn’t time yet …) When is it time to move on from a guy? When is it time to move on from a girl? When is it time …?

The fourth chapter of Matthew inspires that question. This is the place in the story of Jesus where he decides the time is right to step into his public ministry. The Kingdom of Heaven has now come near, in earnest. A new movement is about to make itself known. And here, we learn how Jesus began the movement that changed the world.

The End of an Era

When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee.

Matthew 4:12

A true prophet was called and equipped by God, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak God’s message. Prophets get people ready. Prophets have a way of explaining reality so that it changes the way we see things. They show us truths about God and about ourselves that we may not have seen on our own. God has always used prophets, and still does. Every age has its own prophets. But in our family history, there is a season of prophetic ministry leading up to Jesus that we call the Prophetic era.

The first prophet recorded in the Old Testament is Samuel, who lived and prophesied around 1020 BC. Then came Nathan. Then, a season when the Kingdom was divided – Israel to the north and Judah to the south. The prophets of Israel were Elijah, Elisha, Amos, and Hosea. The prophets of Judah were Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, Malachi, and Jonah.

Then there was four hundred years of silence. Four hundred years of waiting and wondering and watching. Then … fire!

John the Baptist came into his prophetic ministry preaching fiery sermons. He had a thing for holiness. He called people to repentance. He called them to prepare for the coming Messiah. John’s arch nemesis was Herod, a politician who obviously had a personal war raging inside – a war between the two sides of himself. Herod was opposed to John precisely because of this inner battle. He had a thirst for spiritual things and for knowledge, and he also had a thing for his brother’s wife. John, opposed – on holiness grounds – Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife. That got John thrown into prison.

Before we judge Herod too harshly, we have to confess that we’ve all got a little of the spirit of Herod living inside us. It’s that thing that rationalizes our bad decisions, that makes us try too hard to make sense of things that make no sense for us. So we date things and marry things that aren’t good for us, that pull us away from God’s best. We lose sight of God’s timing. We neglect to let go, to move on, to grow up, when the Spirit calls us forward.

With John’s arrest the era of the prophets comes to an end. This is a huge moment, and we reach it in Matthew 4:12. Unless you know better, you could easily pass by this verse, assuming it merely marks a transition from one scene to another. But this one line is so much more than a place holder. This line signifies the end of an era. This signifies the end of the prophetic era and the beginning of the messianic era. Yes, Jesus has been on the scene for thirty years already, but that moment when John steps back and Jesus steps forward … well, that moment represents an atmospheric shift. A spiritual climate change.

From this one verse, we learn something about how movements are birthed. It begins with a shift from one season to the next.  The “trick” is learning how to recognize the time for that shift. God’s time. “When is it time for _____?”

The great theologian, Tupac Shakur, says, “You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move on.”

Tori Amos says, “Girls, you’ve gotta know when it’s time to turn the page.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes says (Ecclesiastes 3:1), “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

Matthew 4:12 inspires a hunger for divine timing. Is there a stirring in your spirit? Or even a sense that you’re pounding the brakes, trying to keep something from happening? Is there a nudge within, confirming what you may know or what you may be trying to ignore? The first step in any Kingdom movement is that step that moves us out of one season and into another. Divine timing requires a connection with the Holy Spirit.

The Way of the Sea

Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people living in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.”

Matthew 4:13-16

Jesus marks his move from the prophetic era into the messianic era by physically moving into a new place. Matthew marks the move by quoting from Isaiah, who mentions the Way of the Sea. The ancient name for The Way of the Sea is Via Maris. This was a trade route that ran along the Mediterranean, connecting Egypt to Syria. It ran right alongside the territory of people who weren’t exactly enemies, nor were they friends. Zebulun and Naphtali were bad influences. These were like the hoodlum friends who lived up the street, the ones your mother didn’t want you to hang out with because every time you did, you paid for it.

On one side, the sea. On the other side, temptation. This is the road Jesus walked, right after he spent forty days being tempted by Satan out in the wilderness. This was the road he took out of the wilderness. Do you find an assurance in that thought, as I do? A comfort? This teaches me that long before you took that wrong turn, long before you ended up in enemy territory, long before you lost your battle with temptation, long before you called on God to heal your diseases and cast out your demons, long before you limped out of the wilderness and experienced your own treacherous journey toward Kingdom purposes, Jesus walked this very way. He walked out of his wilderness and traveled the Way of the Sea. He felt your pain and conquered your enemies and cut a path out of that darkness.

Be encouraged! There is a way forward, and it leads into the purposes of God.

The Call to Repent

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Matthew 4:17

N.T. Wright says that in the first century, Kingdom talk meant revolution. Israel had experienced more than one political revolution and at the time Jesus showed up, they were living under the oppressive rule of yet another one. By entering into his public ministry, by claiming a new Kingdom was near, it sounds as if he is calling for a revolution. And in fact, he was. Not a political revolution, but a personal one. Jesus was calling for people to overthrow the oppressive and self-seeking kings who ruled over hearts, usurping the place of God at the center. And he called people to begin this revolution with the subversive act of repentance. Which means that repentance is not about shame. It is about freedom. It is the gift of another chance. Repentance is ultimately about hope.

Carl Medearis is a follower of Jesus who is considered an expert in the field of Arab-American and Muslim-Christian relations. He lived as a missionary in Lebanon for twelve years. In his book, Muslims, Christians and Jesus, Medearis talks about going to a meeting of some top-level Lebanese political leaders. He says he was there “to discuss how these men could work with us in bridging the Arab East with the American West.” At that gathering, he met a man named Mohsen, a Sunni Muslim parliament member. In the course of conversation Mohsen asked Medearis what he did for a living. Now, Medearis is something like a missionary to the Muslim world, but he’s pretty careful about saying it that way. So when this guy asked him who he was, Medearis said he’d never used this term before or since, but in that moment he was inspired to call himself a “hope broker.” Mohsen asked what a hope broker was, and Medearis said, “Well … I deal hope.” Mohsen had just been talking about how desperate the situation in Lebanon was at the time, so he was really interested in this hope broker. He asked Medearis, “Where do you get it? The hope. Where do you get your hope?”

Medearis said, “Well, it is so simple it’s almost silly. Here’s the idea: we gather a few people together about once a week. We do a few basic things. First, we try to pray for the country. We are a mix of Muslims, Christians and Druze [Druze are a sect of Islam]. We all say we believe in a God who can save people, so we thought we’d start where we agree–with prayer. But lately, we’ve realized we need more than prayer. We need something to bind us together. Something to focus on. To study. So we decided to study the life of a great person who we could all agree on.”

Medearis asked if Mohsen could think of someone they could study that they could all agree on and Mohsen mentioned a few names like Gandhi and Mother Teresa. Then, suddenly he pounded his fist on the table (Medearis said it scared him to death) and he said, “I’ve got it! It’s Jesus! Muslims like Jesus. Druze like Jesus. Even Christians like Jesus!” That’s exactly the way he said it! “Even Christians …!” Then Mohsen asked Medearis if he would start a group with members of the Lebanese parliament and so they did. They started a study in the Lebanese parliament and they studied through the gospel of Luke. That little group of Lebanese leaders studying Jesus together hasn’t changed the world – at least not yet. But do you see how it could quite possibly start a revolution?

This is the way of Jesus. He creates revolutions. He infiltrates cultures and souls and he calls on us to change direction, and he does it not to shame us but to give us a future with hope. To give us direction. Forward movement.

The Gathering of Leaders

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.

Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Matthew 4:18-22

Talk about revolutions. These first men who laid down their lives to follow Jesus had their worlds rocked by his very presence. And Jesus conquered their hearts by taking their natural gifts – the things they are already good at – and spiritualizing them. Good fishermen began to fish for people. Think of it as a conversion of purpose – a moment when a person realizes they are made for more than a paycheck. A great God makes people for greatness! We discover from the example of the disciples that when our lives are aligned with the values of the Kingdom, we become part of a movement of God. If not, we can actually stifle forward movement. N.T. Wright phrases this same idea as a question: “Are we working to extend God’s Kingdom in the world? Or are we standing in its way?”

The Coming of the Kingdom

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.

Matthew 4:23-25

In this passage, we’ve moved from the prophetic era into the messianic era. We’ve witnessed Jesus as he negotiated the tests that come with change. We’ve heard him vocalize what is most important to a Kingdom movement. And we’ve seen him call a team together.

Now, he goes out to practice the Kingdom of God. He begins to live this, painting a radical picture of the Kingdom: lame walking, blind seeing, lepers being cleansing, dead being raised and poor people soaking in good news. What a work! What a revolution! This is not the staid and stuffy display of religious scholars one-upping each other on the ability to follow rules. This is a messy, joyful, radical display of healing power!

When is it time for you to get involved with that kind of work?