A Theology of Suffering

I want to take every chance I can to teach on suffering because it is one thing that we canʼt escape and it is one thing that will “add to” or “rob from” us the most, depending on our worldview. Suffering is also one of the biggest hang ups Christians & non-Christians alike have with the idea of God and His goodness

The prosperity gospel says: “If you believe in Jesus, He will prosper you and you will suffer less and less the more you mature in Him. You will be wealthy. Those who bring this message over to 3rd world nations are saying: “If you believe in Jesus your crops wonʼt die if rain doesnʼt come. Your wife wonʼt have miscarriages. Your kids wonʼt get aids. Your cattle will multiply. Youʼll get rich if you give more to the Lord....because He wants you flying a leer jet and driving a mercedes like me :-)!!!”

This should anger you. The “Iʼll give everything to this Jesus if Heʼll do that for me” kind of Jesus doesn’t exist. Bad things happen to everybody...saints and sinners alike. As Christians, we must have a “theology” of suffering or else we will not be able to minster to those who do suffer or make it through our own suffering. So what we need to do is to understand the reality that suffering will always be among us, then build a proper understanding of what God’s role for it is. 

After the tsunami hit Indonesia in Dec. 2004 and over 250,000 people were killed, all over the media people were asking or stating: “Where was God?” One reported from the NY Observer wrote: “If God is God, he’s not good. If God is good, he’s not God. You can’t have it both ways, especially after the Indian Ocean catastrophe.” 

A philosopher, J.L. Mackie, writes in his book The Miracle of Theism (Oxford 1982) states: “If a good and powerful God exists, he would not allow pointless evil, but because there is much unjustifiable, pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exist. Some other god or no god may exist, but not the traditional God.”

This idea that “if evil and suffering seem pointless to me, then it must be pointless” is       # 1: a very arrogant thing to say or think....”it’s all a matter of what my brilliant mind can conceive, and if I can’t conceive it or see the point in it, then heck, there must be no point in it since I am the end of all wisdom and knowledge.” # 2: fallacious, just because you can’t see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn’t mean there can’t be one. 

Paul Brand, the missionary surgeon to India wrote in his book Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants: “I have come to see that pain and pleasure come to us not as opposites but as Siamese twins, strangely joined and intertwined. Nearly all my memories of acute happiness, in fact, involve some element of pain or struggle.” (Christianity Today, Jan. 10, 1994, p. 21)

John Piper says this: “I have never heard anyone say, ‘The deepest and rarest and most satisfying joys of my life have come in times of extended ease and earthly comfort.’ Nobody says that. It isn't true.” 

What's true is what Charles Spurgeon said: "They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn says, in his speech to Harvard students, A World Split Apart, in 1978: “Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety and well-being are not advantageous for a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask.” 

We in America live in such a posh, comfy, socially acceptable kind of world that looks at suffering as only evil with no purpose. We raise our kids that way, we think we deserve all things good, and have a “do not withhold from me something that might bring me comfort” kind of mentality. 

So the question that comes to my mind is this: How can one endure suffering without a proper understanding of the sovereignty of God or have a purpose greater than the pursuit of their own happiness? 

Our greatest pursuit in life is often to gain more happiness and comfort. It is not to gain more of God (as if we need more than God to be happy). What we need is eyes to see that God is God and we are not, and our vision and understanding is limited and we are mainly focused on our happiness and comfort in life, and not for the greater good of everyone else around us for eternity. We want comfort right here, right now, and if it means someone else suffering for my comfort, then so be it. The problem is, God is much more just and loving and wise than we will ever be.

Most of what we really need for success in life comes through our most difficult and painful experiences.

Let’s take a look at Jesus. Grace reaches it’s apex/climax, at the cross. Christ suffering in our place. Suffering exists ultimately (but not only) so that Christ might suffer for the sinner and display the magnificence of the glory of His grace! Suffering makes God’s grace and love visible here on earth!

The greatest suffering there ever was, will be the center of our worship for all eternity:

Rev. 5:11-12: 11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Our purpose in life is to glorify God (display His beauty). If that is our main goal in life, we will have comfort and peace. If itʼs not, we will seek to find this comfort and peace elsewhere and will never find it; always questioning God and His purposes and wondering what in the world is the purpose of all this CRAP in life for.

Suffering exists ultimately so that Christ might suffer for the sinner and display the magnificence of the glory of His grace!

Application: Suffering can do many things in your life that are “good” if youʼll let it. But Iʼm gonna give you 3 things that I see suffering doing in my life and those around me:

1) Suffering clarifies what the heart worships. This is the fire, that when it begins to burn off the dross (something regarded as worthless; rubbish, foreign matter, or mineral waste, in particular: scum formed on the surface of molten metal) it exposes all the things we love more than God Himself by stripping us of these things in love and giving us clarity in the midst of suffering. This will either bring great clarity and intimacy with God, or you will love the idea of deliverance more than having the Deliverer with you and doing it His way and you will turn from God and resent Him because of your pride, thinking you know whatʼs best for your life.

1 Peter 1:6-7: 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

2) Suffering purifies the heart. When the dross is all burned off of the metal, you have a very strong and pure piece of metal, the kind in which great swords are made of that are used in battle and do not break when the testing time comes. (Personal trainer taking you to the point of body failure as you are training for an ironman competition.) 

When your heart is purified through suffering, you begin to see the world in a different light and you do not love it as much as you did before. This gives you a growing discontentment with sin and evil in this world and it increases your hopefulness for heaven and the day when all tears will be wiped away, and the pain will be no more.

1 John 2:15-17: 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

3) Suffering moves the heart to action. If we see a child cry, we offer tenderness. If we see the wounds of a victim, we offer solace. Human suffering arouses anger, it moves us to take action, and as a result, we begin to push back some of the

darkness that the fall of man created in this world. Suffering humanizes the heart and increases a hunger for God and for righteous living. (Jon Foreman in his song Instead of a Show says this: “Instead, let there be a flood of justice, an endless procession of righteous living.”)

2 Corinthians 1:3-7: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christʼs sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

Religion vs. The Gospel

The great reformer Martin Luther rightly said: “As humans, we are prone to pursue a relationship with God in one of two ways. The first is religion or spirituality and the second is the gospel.” The two are contradictory to each other in every way. 

Here’s the problem with religion, it can put you in bondage just as much as being in jail or addicted to some chemical that takes you out of your life as you know it. Because of this problem (not to mention, the religious gospel is a false gospel), we need to extensively unpack what the Gospel is and isn’t. I am going to give a series of sayings that explains what religion says vs. what the Gospel says followed by Scripture references and some explanation. Here we go:

1) Religion says that if I obey God He will love me. The gospel says that it is because God has loved me through Jesus that I can obey.

Galatians 2:16: ¹⁶ yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 

1 John 4:16: So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love...

Notice how he puts the two words together: We know and believe (trust) the love of God. To know the love God has for you is to trust it. For John it is unthinkable that a person could know the love of God and not trust the love of God. Not to trust it must mean that you don't think it is really love. All John can say to someone who will not entrust himself to omnipotent love is: You don't know it. You can't know it or you would trust it. (story of a son obey his father while not knowing there is a snake behind him about to bite him)

1 John 5:3: This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. If we know and believe the love that God has for us, his commandments will not be burdensome. They will be like a map that leads us safely through an unknown jungle to the beach where God waits with his 60 foot yacht to take us on an eternal cruise of the islands. How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?

2) Religion says that I am good by continuing in my good works and therefore God I am closer to God. The gospel says I am more sinful, evil and wicked than I ever dared believed, but if I trust in Jesus, I am more valued, accepted and loved than I ever dared hoped, both at the same time because God judges me based on Jesus’ righteousness, not my own.

Hebrews 2:8b;11a: Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him....11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.

3) Religion says unless I have something to bring to the table, I can’t get in. The Gospel says that those who think they are good, are out, and those who know they aren’t, are in. The gospel says that the way up is down. The way to real power is to give up power and serve others. The way to become rich (not in the worldly sense) is to become poor. The way to be great is to be the slave of all!

Matthew 21:31: “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.

Mark 2:17: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

Mark 8:35: ³⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Mark 9:35b: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

Mark 10: 43-45: But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

4) The goal of religion is to get from God such things as health, wealth, insight, power, and control, thus creating a self-centered belief system. The goal of the gospel is not the gifts God gives, but rather God as the ultimate gift given to us by grace, producing a God-centered belief system (true joy and happiness).

Our natural tendency is to serve God and do good things so that we will get the pay off. This is what the prosperity Gospel preaches. Love God and give your money to Him and He will make you rich. Or your wife won’t have miscarriages, or He will give you all that you want in this life, etc... This is crap!

We often search for joy, fulfillment, happiness and peace by gaining more of what we think we need. And when it doesn’t work, we try to get even more and we wonder why we are miserable. When we live this way, then we have created a system of belief in which we feel that God owes us...But the Gospel tells us that Christ is it! Only Jesus and Him resurrected!

1 Corinthians 2:1-4: And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (or provisions of this world) but in the power of God (God as the ultimate gift).

Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation...

5) Religion is about what I have to do. The gospel is about what I get to do. Because Jesus Christ lived the life I couldn’t live and died the death I couldn’t die, as a substitute in my place, so that God can receive me not for my record and for my sake, but for Jesus’ record and for Jesus’ sake; because of this, I do good because my heart is melted in gratitude of what Christ has done for me.

The Gospel affects the heart? Jonathan Edwards: The Nature of True Virtue

Common Virtue: We are honest out of fear or pride. We do good: we help at the food bank because we will feel better for doing it...or we do something good because we will get in trouble if we don’t do it. (We all inherently have common virtue. If we didn’t have this, this would be a terrifying world to live in.) The same is true with lies. Fear and pride.

This makes you more self-centered. You are nurturing your self-centeredness. It’s what you can get out of something or how your good works will benefit you. This is all driven by fear and pride. (This doesn’t do anything to root out the fundamental cause of evil in the heart...which is radical self centeredness of the human heart...the need to be loved, the need to have power, to need to be significant, the need to be worshipped...)

True Virtue: We are honest out of a changed heart that only seeks to please God, not man or ourselves. True virtue takes place when we are strongly attracted to the beauty of God. If you understand the Gospel, it destroys pride and fear. What Jesus does for me is radically transforms the pride that gets all that I can (even righteously) and takes away my fear because of what God has done for me. I am now honest for God’s sake, not for my sake, etc...

Religion only lives up to doing good out or fear or pride. A lot of people come to church for their sake, not for God’s sake. That’s common virtue, not true virtue.

“To glorify something or someone is to praise, enjoy, and delight in them. When something is useful you are attracted to it for what it can bring you or do for you. But if it is beautiful, then you enjoy it simply for what it is. just being in its presence is its own reward. To glorify someone is also to serve or defer to him or her. Instead of sacrificing their interests to make yourself happy, you sacrifice your interests to make them happy. Why? Your ultimate joy is to see them in joy.” (Tim Keller, The Reason For God, 214)

Psalm 63:1-3: 1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

6) Religion leads to an uncertainty about my standing before God because I never know if I have done enough to please Him. The gospel leads me to a certainty about my standing before God because of the finished work of Jesus on my behalf on the cross.

Romans 8:14-17: ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 

John 6:37-40: ³⁷ All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰ For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

7) Religion ends in either pride (because I think I am better than other people) or despair (because I continually fall short of God’s commands). The gospel ends in humility and confident joy because of the power of Jesus at work for me, in me, through me, and sometimes in spite of me.

Relativistic/Permissive Person - They follow their heart, not the rules or god. If they believe in God, they believe if you follow your heart, you will find God. They  Feel they deserve only good from god. 

The permissive person says: “This is a great arrangement. God enjoys forgiving sin and I enjoy committing it.” / They don’t repent because they don’t see the need to. (They are usually the “free-spirted” & “open-minded” ones they oppose the “judgmental”, the “bigoted”, and “narrow minded fools”)

Moralistic/Legalist Person - They find God by obeying His law. God owes them because they have obeyed all the rules. They better perform or God is going to get em’.

The moralistic person says: “I know I’m in God’s will because I’m miserable and have no joy in this world.” / They repent out of fear and/or pride. (They are the “moral” ones, “good people” we call them. They are repulsed by the “immoral”, “bad people”, “sinners”) 

Both grids divide the world in 2 groups. One we despise, one we favor. We find our identity in one of these, and then we oppress the other, the not you! 

But the Gospel:

Humbles us by telling us we’re so bad, Jesus had to die for us and at the same time it

gives us boldness by telling us we’re so valuable that Jesus was glad to die for us.

8) Religious people go to worship God in particular buildings with particular external idols. Gospel people worship God with their whole lives, at any place, with no particular external idols, because their bodies are the temple of the Lord Jesus.

John 4:21-24: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

CLOSING: The Gospel not only saves you once from the wrath of God, but it daily saves you from your flesh and sanctifies you. If the gospel was just a means for you to be saved and now you gotta do the rest, then you are living your life to a different gospel than the one that I read here in Scriptures. Repent today for your self-righteousness and turn to Jesus. Then repent daily for your sin and trust Christ alone for your sanctification. Repentance shows maturity and understanding of the gospel, thus it produces joy. Be joyful in the Gospel today as you live a life of confession, repentance and freedom to be who you were created to be in Christ Jesus.

Why Church Membership? (adapted from a Desiring God article)

Why be a church member? Why not just be able to go and participate?                 

What I mean by "member" is somebody who, whether by a signature or a word of commitment or promise, says, "I'm committed to a people, a people who hear the word of God preached, a people who perform the ordinances that Jesus gave to his church (baptism and the Lord's Supper), and a people who commit to the 'one another' commandments (love one another, exhort one another, admonish one another, hold one another accountable)." 

These commitments are what membership is. And I think something is wrong if you resist putting your name on the line for that.

If you want to say, "OK, I believe the New Testament says, 'Be a part of a community, give yourself to ministering there and receiving ministry there, and advancing the cause of the gospel there, and upholding the name of Jesus there, and doing mission there,' and I'm a part of that," then to resist putting your name on the line for that is probably not a biblical conviction. It's probably an American, independent, give-me-elbow-room, don't-get-in-my-face-too-often conviction, which I don't think is biblical.

The reason for even using the word "member" is because of 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4,  , where Paul uses the word "member" in a body analogy. So the body analogy has one global meaning, and it has one local meaning. There's global membership in the body universal (Eph. 1), and there's local membership in the body where I'm a finger or an eye or an ear or a foot (1 Cor. 12). And everybody is a member.

So the word "member" in 1 Corinthians 12 means you're part of a local organism, and the finger belongs, the leg belongs, the eye belongs, the toe belongs...sometimes :-)... Every part of the body should care about what happens to the eye, etc... And it should function in a way that has some organic coherence; the body works together and is committed to the same mission & labors over it in the ways that each member is gifted.

It's very hard to do what the Bible calls a church to do unless it knows who are the members and who aren't. Who are the people that want to be treated as members here? Who want to obey Scriptures and build one another up for the advancement of God’s kingdom and for His glory?

A very simple example of this is the biblical concept of church discipline. In 1 Corinthians 5, for example, Paul says that the man who is sleeping with his mother-in-law (or stepmother) should be put out of the church because he is so proud and arrogant about his sin, and unrepentant and resistant to any kind of exhortation. 

But how can you put him out if there are no members? He could just say, "I just go here! They can't put me out of anything. I'm not in anything!"

And I think a lot of people don't want to be “in” anything because they don't even like the idea of being able to be put out of something or think it’s mean or judgmental to put someone out like that. 

We all want to lock up those who are breaking laws on the earth, but when we break God’s laws in the church, we get relaxed and mad at people holding other people accountable, but in all actuality, church discipline done right is LOVE!

So for all those reasons, even though there's no sentence in the Bible that says, "There is such a thing as church membership, and thou shalt be a church member," I think it's implied in the nature of the church and of Christian discipleship that everybody should, by a covenant commitment of some kind, put their name on the line saying, "I'm here. While I'm in this place, and until God leads me otherwise, these are my people and I'm committed here in the same way I’d encourage a couple to get married before they started living together.”

"We Will Never Forget" by Med and Jeff Skeens

Nine years ago life as we knew it in the US was changed. The radical Muslim attack on US soil against innocent bystanders proved to us that we are vulnerable to attacks in ways that have changed war as we know it. No one can rehash what happened that day without intense emotions that affect you on some deep level. The whole nation gathered together in the restoration of New York City and in the lives of people around the world. The anthem that arose out of this terrible tragedy was “We Will Never Forget”; and we haven’t. 

In light of the anniversary of 9/11 and the mosque being built near ground zero this year, the country has been bombarded with news about a pastor in Florida wanting to burn a Qur’an as a protest against the Muslims building their victory Mosque. This is not how we are going to advance the gospel of Jesus and it is not how we should “never forget” 9/11 or stand against a Mosque being built in an inappropriate spot. (Note: Our intent is not to condemn this pastor, although we believe his actions have been foolish and reckless, and it’s not to say we have no issue with the mosque being built at ground zero, because we do). We want to point Christians back to what we were created for; to display the beauty and worth of Jesus to a lost and dying world. This should be our anthem as Christians. This should be the source of our standing against the status quo. This should be at the root of all of our actions; an insatiable desire to find joy in Christ alone as we display His beauty and His worth to a world that slanders His beauty and mocks His worth. 

Maybe we should adopt the saying that goes like this: “We will never forget what Jesus said to Peter”. Do you remember those words that Jesus spoke with an emphatic tone? “Peter, put away your sword! Put it away! No more of this!” (See Matthew 26:52 & Luke 22:31) Or maybe we should adopt this phrase for what Paul says in Ephesians 6:12: “We will never forget who our enemy is.” “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Now don’t take this the wrong way; we are not advocating complete pacifism. What we are saying is that we should remember who the real enemy is. The radical Muslim terrorists have nothing on “the cosmic powers over this present darkness”. We should be blowing the horn on the great deceiver more than we are on the weak terrorist who can only take a life. 

We are not big fans of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do” (WWJD), but it is important to see how Jesus responded to his present day enemies who sought world domination and despised His people group. The most sacred place for a Jew is the Temple on the Temple Mount; it has been for over 3,000 years. That is where they worship the one true God over all other gods and they have and will give their lives to preserve and protect the Temple.

During Jesus’ time, the Romans were the world power and controlled the entire region of the Jews, even the Temple. The Romans built a structure connected to the north wall of the Temple called the Fortress of Antonia; a super imposing battle station with four towers that was over one hundred feet tall so that Roman guards had a clear view of anything that went on in the sacred Temple area. The Romans also built their fortress there for a reminder that screamed, “WE WON”!

We can use this as a historical parallel to the so called “Victory Mosque” near ground zero that’s flooding the media and causing the world to ask, “Is it right or wrong?” and “What should we do?”. The media has asked almost everyone all over the world what they would do, and yet, it’s not been reported or asked once, “What would Jesus do?” So, let’s leave aside all debates to the media and seek the answer to the crucial question, “What did Jesus do?” (WDJD) and how did He act toward the Romans and their battle station.

We must add that the Jews were looking for a Messiah to overtake the Romans so they could declare “WE WON”! We all remember their disappointment when Jesus had another plan. Jesus never mentions the Fortress of Antonia. But He does say some nice and noble things about Roman soldiers and He healed his servants too. One thing for sure, He never shakes his mighty rhetorical fist at the Romans “VICTORY TOWER”. Instead, he saved His attacks for those who were operating businesses in the Jewish Temple, His Father’s house. He called them robbers and turned over their tables and then said, “this place is on it’s way down and I’m gonna rebuild it in three days.” It’s as if Jesus shrugs his shoulders at the Roman’s fortress and said “let’s be concerned about more important things; such as being about the Father’s business loving people, meeting their needs and loving those who hate you, persecute you, abuse you and want to kill you.” Then, to top it all off and to the surprise of the 12 disciples, He gave away His battle plan. He said, “I’m going to let the enemy kill me, then I will rise again to life, then we can see, GOD WON!”, and when he was dying He said “Father, forgive them because they have no clue to what they are really doing”. So, WDJD?…He showed them love and gave His life for them, that’s WJD.

So for this year’s anniversary of 9/11 and in light of the mosque debate, the anthem that should flood our hearts is this: “We will never forget what we were created for and who our enemy is.” We battle against the evil spiritual forces of the heavenly realms and they love the fact that Christians get more passionate about standing for or against a pastor with bad judgment or terrorists who want to kill Americans more than they do about displaying the beauty and worth of Jesus in word and deed. So, we will never forget what Jesus taught and how He lived among those who were foolish and those who wanted to kill him. May we all never forget. Lastly, if you want to raise hell, then raise it over the fact that “Christian” denominations are abandoning the truth of Scripture to cater their beliefs over what they feel is true, right and just...that’s worth the fight! God bless you and may God continue to bless America!

The Remedy of Prayer

Joseph M. Scriven, in 1855, wrote the old hymn What a Friend We have in Jesus, and in the first stanza of this hymn, he writes:

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear;

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

This has proved true for many followers of Jesus. In the busy, hustle and bustle of the Western world, we often find answers to our pain and burdens before we ever carry anything to Jesus. With an abundance of food for us to run in need of comfort; to prescription drugs that we can get just as easy as over the counter drugs to escape the pain; to being able to buy anything we want to make us feel better for the day; to doctors, shrinks and affairs...we have countless options for us to chose before we even think of running to Jesus. Often times we run to God in prayer after we’ve exhausted all of our resources. How foolish we can be sometimes.

This reminds me of “a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:25-26) Twelve years of pain, suffering, embarrassment, and social rejection she had endured. It says she spent all she had and exhausted all of her resources and is now destitute. Twelve years of any and everything but running to God in prayer. What might her life had been like if she had ran to God in faith, knowing that He alone has the remedy for her, and that if it was His will then she could be well without suffering needless pain, worry and anxiety.

I do have to say before I carry on with the thought that I want to continue in, that God often uses our suffering to produce in us things that we could never have experienced had we not walked through the pain and suffering. This is not the point I am after, just a clarification of the character of God. What I am after is the needless pain and burdens that we carry because of our “practical atheism” as Christians. 

“Practical atheism” is this: You live in recognition that there is a God, yet see no connection between that belief and how you go about your daily affairs. You never consider or factor God into your key decisions, you don’t run to Him in prayer because you have developed a fatalistic mentality in the midst of your suffering, therefore you do not pattern your life after His values. Consequently, you believe in God but you behave as if He doesn’t exist. This is Practical Atheism. It’s a dichotomy, a split between what we say and what we do. Practical Atheism explains the chasm between what many people say they believe and how they live out their lives. Thus, we often bear needless pain and forfeit divine peace.

Yet in all this neglect of God, He is still faithful when we run to Him in prayer. When this woman heard that Jesus was in town, she ran up behind him, still feeling shameful and insecure and thought, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” (Mark 5:28) Well she did, and you know the end of this great story. God made her well. To be more exact, Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”  Daughter? Faith? Peace? Healed? Wait a minute. This woman neglected to run to God for twelve years and the minute she turned to Him she is made well because of her faith? Yes! And Jesus called her a daughter! If God in the flesh calls you daughter, that means you are radically accepted by the mighty, holy, glorious and beautiful God we read of in the Old Testament, and you share in all that He owns...which is EVERYTHING!

This is a radical new way of living life and approaching Jesus. Maybe you have been running from God and you are a Christian and you are not sure how HE feels about you or how He’ll receive you if you run to Him and grab a hold of His garments in faith. Well, Scriptures are God’s perfect revelation to us to teach us of Him and His goodness. This passage, among many others, shows us the character of God and the radically accepted we are by God, through His son Jesus. Run to Him, you can trust Him and He may heal you by physical or spiritual healing, or He may heal you through walking with you through suffering that He has laid before you. Either way, He is a good God who you can trust with every aspect of life. Stop living as if you are an atheist in practice and run to God in prayer.

On the other hand, maybe you have never trusted in Jesus, ever. Maybe you have a view of Him that is not the way that He actually is. Jesus came to save sinners. He has paid the price that you and I should’ve paid because of our rebellion and sin. Jesus lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we should’ve died so that we can be radically accepted by God based on His record and because of His sake, not ours. You too can run to Jesus in prayer and trust in Him as the only hope you have to be right with God. You can trust God and be sure that you’ll be accepted by Him because it is not your record that He takes into account when you submit yourself to Him. He accepts you because Jesus is your advocate and has given to you His righteousness. 

Run to God in prayer as your remedy today. Whether you have walked with Jesus for years, or have never known HIm at all, run to Him in faith and touch His garments and know that He alone is the remedy for your life and soul. He alone can satisfy you and He alone should be our comfort. When your satisfaction and comfort are God Himself, then we can be sure we won’t forfeit divine peace and carry needless burdens anymore. 

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear;

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

Discover, Develop, Deploy

These are my sermon notes from a weekend retreat that I spoke at for the Grand Canyon University leaders of spiritual life. This is a long post, but it is broken up in to 3 different sermons and I did not write them in a way that they flow as a typical blog does, but instead just put my notes on here.

1) Discover from my Mac dictionary

• find (something or someone) unexpectedly or in the course of a search 
• become aware of (a fact or situation) 

• perceive the attractions of (an activity or subject) for the first time

DISCOVER YOUR PURPOSE: (Or as Canyon advertises, “Find Your Purpose”) 

Today, I want to help you discover your purpose...actually, I’m gonna make it crystal clear, I’m gonna make it dumby proof for you, as to what your purpose is! 

Let me start with the answer and then work backwards from there. I want this to sink in to your heart and mind and soul in such a way that it is etched in you and never to be lost or forgotten:

Our purpose in this life, God created us for this very reason, to: 

DISPLAY THE BEAUTY & WORTH OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD

An individual Christian will be a success or a failure depending upon what he or she thinks of God. It is critically important that we have a knowledge of the Holy One, that we know what God is like. (A.W. Tozer, The Attributes of God, 41,42.)

Read Isaiah 61:1-3: (v. 3) that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. (literally in Hebrew: “that He may display His 

beauty) We are trophies made by God, for God...”Look at what God did, look how magnificent God is, look at the beauty of Christ through that trophy...WOW!”

God created us, He is in control whether we live or die, right now, and He can do what He wants with us. To not DISPLAY THE BEAUTY AND WORTH OF CHRIST to the world would be a wasted life. God wants us to display His beauty because He is in it for His name sake! Let me give you some examples from Scripture:

Psalm 23:1-3: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 

Psalm 31:3: For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me; 

Ezek. 36:22: “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name

Matt. 5:9: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

1 John 2:12: I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake. 

God is totally into God. Why is God in it for His name?

Ps. 40:5 - You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! 

Ps. 89:6-9,11: 6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord, 7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him? 8 O Lord God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O Lord, with your faithfulness all around you? 9 You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them...11 The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them. 

Isaiah 40:12-15, 18, 28-29: ¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? ¹³ Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? ¹⁴ Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? ¹⁵ Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust....¹⁸To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?....²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. ²⁹ He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Ps. 73:25 - Whom have I in heaven but you?

C.S. Lewis says this in his book Till We Have Faces: “I ended my first book with the words ‘no answer’. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are Yourself the answer. Before your face, questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

When God makes much of Himself, we receive great enjoyment from Him...What do you think heaven is!! Heaven is a place where God makes much of Himself for our pleasure, joy. If we were to make much of ourselves, we would ruin everybody. 

If I said today, my goal is to make sure that when you leave this place today, I want all of you guys worship me. That would destroy all of you!! 

ADAM and EVE and the serpent telling them to make much of themselves...what happened? Oh, only the fall of all mankind. It doesn’t work well for man to make much of himself. But God...He can’t not make much of Himself!

The Apostle Paul say at the end of his life before He goes to Rome to die:

Acts 20:24: But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 

In other words, Paul says: “I do not consider myself to truly be living or worth anything if I am not displaying the beauty and worth of Jesus to the world.” To testify to the gospel of the grace of God is to display the infinite beauty and worth of Jesus... 

Paul could only say these words because he treasured Jesus. Do you treasure Jesus? Can you say today that you treasure Jesus and your life proves it? Are other people looking at you saying, “that girl treasures Jesus. That dude is no joke, He loves Jesus more than anything.” If not, our life will be wasted, because to treasure Jesus is to display His beauty and worth to the world...our entire purpose in life. 

Overview:

1. God’s in it for Himself and for His name sake and to make Himself look beautiful and infinitely valuable.

1. Jesus is the image and glory of God; so Paul’s life was all about making the image and glory of God (Jesus) look magnificent. Hebrews 1:3a: ³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. 
2. What does your life’s purpose consist of? It’s time we discover that God’s purpose for our lives is to make Christ look magnificent, to show off His beauty! If your life’s purpose isn’t to display the beauty and worth of Christ, don’t go to bed tonight and don’t stop praying until God has caused you to see Christ as infinitely valuable...

He will do it, this is why the Holy Spirit is given. To sanctify us, to reveal to us the beauty of Christ, to open our eyes and give us new perspective, new faith, new life, new purpose. God is the one who fashions your heart and He will work this purpose into the lives of those who are His. 

A life lived in this fashion will undo any amount of wasted years. Do not live another day for yourself. It doesn’t work well for people who live for themselves. It doesn’t work well for anybody who seeks to find joy, fulfillment, satisfaction, purpose, meaning, identity outside of Christ. 

Let’s learn from A.W. Tozer as we close: Indeed it may be truthfully said that everything of lasting value in the Christian life is unseen and eternal. Things seen are of little real significance in the light of God's presence. He pays small attention to the beauty of a woman or the strength of a man. With Him the heart is all that matters. The rest of the life comes into notice only because it represents the dwelling place of the eternal being. The solution to life's problems is spiritual because the essence of life is spiritual. It is astonishing how many difficulties clear up without any effort when the inner life gets straightened out... (The Next Chapter After the Last, 82-83)

1. Develop from my Mac dictionary (if you can’t tell, I’m advocating Mac use!)

• grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate 
• convert (land) to a new purpose by constructing buildings or making other use of its resources.
• start to exist, experience, or possess 

DEVELOP YOUR PURPOSE:

If our purpose is to DISPLAY THE BEAUTY & WORTH OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD, and the means that Paul went about displaying the beauty and worth of Christ was to testify to the gospel of the grace of God, then we would do well to develop a love and a better understanding of this Gospel.

The Gospel is not just how you get in to the Kingdom, it’s how you change and handle every problem you have in your life. It’s not the ABC’s of life, it’s the A-Z of life. (EXAMPLE of 2 worldviews and how each side is supposed to disdain the other.

Relativistic/Permissive - If there is a God, you have to follow your heart, not the rules, then you will find God. They say “God is all good and will forgive me regardless of what I do.”

Moralistic/Legalist - Find God by obeying His law. God owes you. You better perform or God is going to get you. They say “I’m accepted by God because I have worked my butt off keeping all His commandments.”  

The Gospel affects the heart: Jonathan Edwards - The Nature of True Virtue

Common Virtue: We are honest out of fear or pride (expound). We do good: we help the old lady across the street because we will feel better for doing it...or we do something good because we will get in trouble if we don’t do it. (We all inherently have common virtue. If we didn’t have this, this would be a terrifying world to live in.) The same is true with lies. Fear and pride drives common virtue. This virtue nurtures your self-centeredness. 

People blow it in life and say: “How could I have ever done this wicked or evil thing, I wasn’t raised that way?”...yes you were...you nurtured common virtue your whole life.

True Virtue: We are honest out of a changed heart that only seeks to please God, not man or ourselves. True virtue takes place when we are strongly attracted to the beauty of God. If you understand the Gospel, it destroys pride...it says you’re a sinner...you are self-centered...don’t try to fool anyone. It destroys fear...it says you are so valued and accepted because of what Jesus did, not based on your doing/goodness.

What Jesus does for me is radically transforms the pride that gets all that I can (even righteously) and takes away my fear because of what God has done for me. I am now honest for God’s sake, not for my sake. 

Moralism only lives up to one of those areas: Doing good because of our pride and desire to have a good self mage to others or fear of failing or not living up to expectations. The Gospel deals with this kind of self-centeredness...

A lot of people come to church for their sake, not for God’s sake. That’s common virtue, not true virtue. (Elizabeth Elliott: Story of the disciples carrying rocks...)

How does the Gospel root out our self-centeredness? How does it change the heart? 

It roots out self-centeredness which allows the Lord to rid our hearts of idols which we’ll speak about in the last session. Let’s get into the text for today:

1) GOOD NEWS (past tense) - Mark 1:1-3:

Mark writes about Isaiah prophecying about the Lord who is coming to bring salvation. In v. 3, the word Lord in Hebrew that Isaiah uses is Yahweh, the covenant name of God. Who is John preparing the way for? JESUS! 

Mark is saying that JESUS IS YAHWEH (GOD) breaking into history. So here we see the historical, Good News part of the Gospel, this is news about what Jesus has done...NOT ADVICE ON HOW TO LIVE....

Good news salvation, not good advice salvation. With this Good News salvation, history, what Jesus has done is vitally important.

2 Corinthians 5:21: ²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus gets what I deserve so that I get what Jesus deserves....Whoa!!!

GOOD NEWS: Jesus Christ lived the life you couldn’t lived and died the death you should’ve died, as your substitute in your place, so that God can receive you not for your record and for your sake, but for Jesus’ record and for Jesus’ sake.

2) IDENTITY (sons and daughters) - Mark 1:9-11: 

What’s happening here? Did Jesus need to be affirmed that He was God’s son and that He was well pleased? I don’t believe that’s why this happens. Jesus was experiencing His sonship; and we are witnesses of it...and we are witnessing what it’s like for us too!

Thomas Goodwin: Story of a dad and a son walking through a park. 

The Holy Spirit does this for us. He bears witness that we are God’s children. He gives us our identity:

Romans 8:15-16: ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 

When we realize this, we are uprooted out of the moralistic older brother syndrome and serve God because of Him, not for ourselves, we really want to be with Him, closer to Him, loved by Him alone, etc....

IDENTITY: The Gospel is a status you receive now, not just a reward you receive later. We can be sure now. We don’t have to doubt our position, ever. But we are saved by grace, therefore our position as son or daughter is secure because of Jesus!

3) THE KINGDOM (be weak to be strong) - (Mark 1:16-20) - Look who Jesus calls: fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, no religious leaders, hmm) THE REVERSAL OF VALUES. The word Kingdom means SYSTEM. When a new ruler comes in he brings a whole new system. 

A new coach brings a different system in which the whole team must play or you don’t play (Phil Jackson and the Lakers) Jesus brings a new system. The world says you can’t get in unless you have something of value or something to offer. The kingdom of God says.... 

The new Kingdom values say: “Unless you have nothing to give or offer, you can’t get in. Only those who know they’re weak and incapable get in.” The world is completely different than this...We must get this!!

Mark 2:17: Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. 

Mark 8:35: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Mark 9:35b: If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.

Mark 10: 43-45: But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

KINGDOM: The way up is down. The way to real power is to give up power and serve others. The way to become rich is to become poor. The way to be great is to be the slave of all!

These are not 3 parts of the Gospel, each one is a way of seeing the whole Gospel, but they all need to be held together.

OVERVIEW: 1) Jesus’ life saves us (good news, already happened); 2) therefore we are secure of our sonship/position before God (identity); because it all hinges on Jesus, 3)then there is less of me, and we experience more of Him because we are not getting in His way (the kingdom) This is why Paul could say: Acts 20:24: But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 

3) Deploy from my Mac dictionary

• move (troops) into position for military action 
• move into position for such action 
• bring into effective action; utilize 

DEPLOY YOUR PURPOSE: (LIVE OUT THE GOSPEL IN YOUR COMMUNITY)

One of the best pictures of a man being deployed by God is Gideon (we want God to deploy us, we don’t want to deploy ourselves) 

Here’s what’s going on in this passage: 

- Israel is doing what’s evil in the sight of the Lord.  

- So God gave them into the hands of Midian for 7 years. 

- Midian oppressed Israel so severely, that Israel made for themselves dens that 

  are in the mountains and caves and strongholds. 

- Whenever Israel planted crops, the Midianites and Amalekites and the people from the East would come against  

  them. 

- They devoured all they could with a vast multitude of livestock and camels (beyond counting) and lay waste the 

   land and brought Israel very low. 

- So here is Gideon beating out wheat in the winepress (down low at the bottom of a hill where grape juice would flow  

  down into to gather to make wine...he’s hiding out to survive)

God reveals Himself: Judges 6:14, 16 / God calls to destroy idols: Judges 6:25 / God calls Gideon to treasure and worship Him: Judges 6:26 / God destroys Gideons plan: Judges 7:1-8 / Now God deploys: Judges 7:9

This is our lot as believers: God has revealed Himself to us. He has empowered us and called us to destroy our idols. He calls us to treasure and worship Him alone, He wrecks our plans and then sends us out to do His will. 

Malachi 1:11: For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

So here is my MAIN FOCUS: That when we go back down this mountain, we care more deeply for lost people than we did when we came. We understand that God will accomplish His plans. That God wants you to be a part of His plan. May our hearts break for the sheep without a shepherd. With this promise from God we still don’t testify to the Gospel of the grace of God nearly like we should.

20 years ago 20% of believers were said to have had the gift of evangelism, 5 years ago, there were only 4%. Today, only 1%. (Barna 2009) 

We are talking ourselves out of sharing the Gospel.  It’s not a gift, it’s a call. It’s an ambition (Rom. 15) Nobody wants the gift of evangelism, but God has called us all to the work of an evangelist.

Some would say: “Well...evangelism has a bad reputation!” “ Guess what!! Jesus has a bad reputation!” “The cross has a bad reputation.” If you love the Gospel, you love evangelism. 

C.H. Spurgeon: Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter. Our churches and society have produced more imposters than missionaries.

Luke 24:45-48: 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

Jesus ties the proclamation of the Gospel to the nature of the Gospel. If you love the Gospel, you have to love evangelism.

Do you want to be known as a campus where people meet Jesus, because they meet people who know Jesus? When you lead with Jesus, and you plant the Gospel in word and deed, it shapes a Gospel-centered, cross-focused, spirit-empowered community, that leads a whole body of people on mission for Jesus, not your ministry! We want people to die for Jesus, not our agenda.

Application: What does this mean to us, today, here in Lost Canyon August 18th, 2010; GCU leaders? It means we must be an Acts 2:42 kind of people!

1) We must devote ourselves to the Word of God. “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching...” We need to understand the truth of the Gospel and what it means and does to us and in us. We can talk about the need to proclaim the Gospel all we want, but if don’t understand why, how or believe the power of the Gospel for that matter, then all of our words are in vain. 

This will take effort on your part. We study for tests, learn all the tricks to a video game, search the web, study the financial market, learn the ins and outs of a new job, but we want this Christian thing to just “HAPPEN” and all this understanding and knowledge is instantly downloaded supernaturally. The supernatural download begins as you give yourself to the Word. To those who love the Word, they receive supernatural insight. Love the Word, believe the Word, read the Word, pray over the Word. 

The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. (Psalm 12:6)

For the word of the Lord is upright... (Psalm 33:4) 

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105)

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

(Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4; 2 Sam. 22:31; Prov. 30:5; Eph. 25-26; Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12; I John 2:14)

Devote yourself to the Word.

2) We must devote ourselves to prayer. “...and the prayers…” At Kineo, we believe that the most essential way we connect to God and have access to His power is through prayer (Mark 9:28-29). We must devote ourselves to be a people who are committed to prayer for the sake of building up the body of Christ and for the sake of saving, healing, restoring and delivering lost souls for the glory of God. Prayer unlocks the power of the cross. Our depths of our belief in God and His power over our lives can be seen by your discipline to pray to Him. Much prayer=much power...Little prayer=little power. 

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.... (John 15:5)

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:13-16)

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. (Hebrews 5:7)

Pray without ceasing... (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

(2 Chronicles 7:14; Rom. 8:26; Phil. 4:6)

Devote yourself to prayer.  

3) We must devote ourselves to community. “...and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread...”  The fellowship in the larger sense (Solomon’s Colonade) and breaking bread in the smaller sense (In each other’s homes). Communion was a part of it, but was not what was meant when Luke wrote “to the breaking of bread...”

The Bible teaches a great deal about the nature and extent of Christian community (family). Community is a gift from God and it is essential for our growth as individuals and our growth as a church. As we see in the book of Acts, the early church devoted themselves to living life together as a family, and through that, evangelism happened. 

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:18)

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:9)

As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. (John 17:18)

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (James 1:22)

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing....8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.... 12 This is my commandment (or “This is what is means to bear fruit”), that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:5,8,12) (2 Cor. 13:14; 1 John 1:1-4; Matt. 18:20; Romans 15:1-7; Romans 15:14 & 21)

In the New Testament alone there are 58 statements of how Christians should interact with one another in community. We are to “love one another”, “encourage one another”, “bear one another’s burdens”, “admonish one another”, and “not forsake meeting together”. 

Devote yourself to community.

The results of devoting themselves to the Word of God, community, and prayer:

“...and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” 

(Acts 2:47b) 

What or who are you devoting yourself to? What or who do you want to be devoted to? 

Devote yourself to the Word of God. Devote yourself to prayer. Devote yourself to community. These things will lead you to a life devoted to God. 

DEVOTE YOURSELF TO JESUS AND YOU WILL LEAD WITH JESUS. (you always lead with what you are devoted to)