Live Like a Missionary (2)

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In my first post by this title, I shared a list of things Tim Keller suggests in his book Center Church for engaging our neighbors with a missionary mindset.

In this followup post, I want to bring the list he suggests for engaging colleagues, coworkers, and friends.

  1. Do recreational activities with them – watch sports (live or on TV at home or in a nightspot); go to a theater show, museum exhibit, art gallery exhibit, etc.
  2. Invite them to join a sports league with you.
  3. Invite them to work out with you at a gym.
  4. Put together a movie night.
  5. Go out of your way to eat with them as often as possible. Invite people over for a meal in your apartment or home or just invite them out to try a new restaurant.
  6. Plan trips or outings – a trip to the beach, a historical site, etc.
  7. If the person has a skill or interest, ask them (sincerely!) to educate you.
  8. Organize a discussion group on something – politics, books, etc., inviting mainly non-Christians.

Last week I got to have lunch with one of my neighbors. We had a terrific conversation about his atheist beliefs. It was another important step in my life-on-life relationship with him toward an opportunity to share the gospel. I have invited him next week to catch a movie with me while Nancy visits with her Mom for her birthday.

Are you embracing your identity as an on-mission Christian by engaging the folks where you live, work, and pray? May Paul’s rally cry in 1 Cor. 6:19 be that of our own – woe unto me if I do not preach the gospel.

By the way, I learned today that about one quarter of all the volunteers signed up to serve at the Chinese Student Welcome Party this Saturday night are from OGC. Way to go, church!

Live Like a Missionary

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Yesterday morning our church planter in Salerno, Italy, Jutty Valiquette gave a moving message from Daniel 7 entitled Missionary God, Missionary People. You can listen to the audio here.

Last night, in our monthly concert of prayer, I led off with a devotional from 1 Peter 2:9-10.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

The connection between the two texts lies with the word proclaim. As missionaries of sorts in the places where we live, work, and play, God has made us His own for the purpose of humbly proclaiming the excellencies of Jesus to those who don’t know Him. A person with a gospel-shaped identity gets this and lives it out by God’s grace on an ongoing basis.

Tim Keller, in his book Center Church, comments:

Christians should  be engaged with others. Mission for a contextualized believer is a matter of everyday life–of developing nonsuperficial relationships with their neighbors, colleagues, and others in the city.

Then he goes on to offer practical, simple ways to do this with neighbors in particular:

  1. Take regular walks in your neighborhood to meet others who are out and about. Keep a regular schedule. Go to the same places at the same time for groceries, haircuts, coffee, shopping. This is one of the main ways you get to know those who live geographically near.
  2. Find ways to get to know others in your building or neighborhood–through a common laundry area, at resident meetings, and in numerous other ways [like neighborhood book clubs!]
  3. Find an avocation or hobby you can do with others in the city. For example, don’t form a Christian backpacking club, join an existing one.
  4. Volunteer alongside other neighborhood residents at nonprofits and with other programs.
  5. If you have children, be involved at the school and get to know other parents.
  6. Participate in city events–fund-raisers, festivals, cleanups, summer shows, concerts, etc.
  7. Serve in your neighborhood. Visit the community board meeting. Pick up litter regularly. Get involved in neighborhood associations. Find individual neighbors (especially elderly ones) and find ways of serving then.
  8. Be hospitable to neighbors–when and where appropriate, invite them over for a meal or a movie, etc.

Why not prayerfully pick one or two of these suggestions to implement in your own “live-like-a-missionary” life and see what God will do?

Keller also has some suggestions for ways to engage with colleagues, coworkers, and friends. Lord willing, I will include those in my next post.

Why This Cancer Survivor Loves Jesus

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Every August since 2005 the same thing happens. I get nostalgic. For good reason.  The eight month of each year marks the anniversary of my finishing treatment for head and neck cancer. I tend to gravitate back to my journal from that year.

Here is a portion of my entry from August 7, 2005:

Felt nauseous much of the day, yesterday, but for the first time in a long while did not throw up [I learned to celebrate the slightest of victories]. I slept better last night too. Thanks be to God. [See what I mean?] I don’t think I was awake for more than an hour at any one stretch. I didn’t get up up yesterday until noon. Read the paper and then watched baseball. I was feeling pretty punk. Wondered if the anemia was affecting me. Nancy read me my Bible chapters [By God’s grace I managed to keep up with my through the Bible in a year reading]. I just didn’t feel up to it. Took a nap. Did some emails. We watched the celebration of Operation Mobilization honoring forty-five years of George and Drena Verwer’s ministry. It was exuberant, funny, touching, and inspiring all at the same time. The man has had a consistent, faithful run. I would really like to finish like that, however much time remains. Would you be gracious to me, Father, and allow that? Thank you for whatever is to come. Help me to be faithful. God is He who tests minds and hearts (Psalm 7:9) and He is righteous in all His ways.

God has answered that prayer, at least for the last eight years. I am exceedingly grateful. That’s one reason this cancer survivor loves Jesus. He answers prayer. Even if He had said no to my request for healing, I want to believe I still would love Him.

Yesterday I ran into a pastor friend of mine who suffered a bout with tongue cancer as well. It has been twenty years clean for him. He still runs the race well. I want to follow in his footsteps as well, Lord willing.

Lord, thank you for these eight years. I love you with all my heart. May I always do just that.

Eternal Truths to Remember Each Day

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In this summer’s issue of Randy Alcorn’s Eternal Perspectives magazine, he lists six biblical principles for living every day in light of eternity.

  1. There are only two eternal destinations—heaven or hell—and I and every person I know will go to one or the other (Matthew 7:13-14).
  2. This world (as it is now) is not my home and everything in it will burn, leaving behind only what’s eternal (2 Pet. 3:10-12).
  3. My choices and actions in this life have a direct influence on the world and the life to come (Rev. 22:12).
  4. My life is being examined by God, the Audience of One, and the only appraisal of my life that will ultimately matter is His (Rom. 14:12).
  5. God is sovereign, and I can trust that He is working all things—including the most difficult things—in my life together for good (Rom. 8:28).
  6. My ultimate home will be the New Earth, where I will see and enjoy God and serve Him as a resurrected being in a resurrected human society (2 Pet. 3:13)

Are you living each day in light of your eternal destiny? Truths like these mediated upon first thing in your day will certainly help.

Toughest School Ever (5)

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Perhaps the most obvious reason why Christ’s school of contentment ranks as the toughest curriculum on the planet is the fact that it is a mysterious school.

Consider these words by Paul in Philippians 4:12 – I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need (emphasis mine).

The Greek verb translated I have learned the secret appears only here in the New Testament. That means we have to go outside the Bible into the literature of the first century to make some sense of what Paul means when he says this. The word is a cultic term that was used for describing the process of being initiated into various spiritual mysteries. Paul may have used it with irony in that frankly he discovered the secret of contentment within the mundane experiences of daily life, as opposed to some super-secret realities, whether plenty or hunger, abundance or need.

So what exactly makes Jesus’ school of contentment mysterious or secretive? I think we can point to at least two factors.

First, true Christian contentment consists of a paradoxical blend of rejoicing and sorrow. Contented believers have learned how to make a mixture of the gracious sweet and gracious sour of life together. This is indeed a mystery. The world doesn’t get it. Paul said it well elsewhere in 2 Corinthians 6:10 – as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

I learned something about this paradox/mystery in 2005 with my head-and-neck cancer experience. Surgery, radiation, chemo, nausea, vomiting, hospitals, tests, doctors, shots, pain, for the better part of the year, plundered me over and over again with a sorrow unlike anything I ever experienced before. However, beneath the river of sorrow ran a current of joy that I can only chalk up to a consideration of things spiritually that made rejoicing in my blessings in Christ as superior to any physical suffering I endured. And that kind of thinking, if anything, is mysterious indeed.

I like how my Puritan friend put it (big surprise by now):

It may be said of one who is contented in a Christian way that he is the most contented man in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world; these two together must needs be mysterious. I say, a contented man, just as he is the most contented, so he is the most unsatisfied man in the world. You never learned the mystery of contentment unless it may be said of you that, just as you are the most contented man, so you are also the most unsatisfied man in the world. You will say, ‘How is that?’ A man who has learned the art of contentment is the most contented with any low condition that he has in the world, and yet he cannot be satisfied with the enjoyment of all the world. He is contented if he has but a crust, but bread and water, that is, if God disposes of him, for the things of the world, to have but bread and water for his present condition, he can be satisfied with God’s disposal in that; yet if God should give unto him Kingdoms and Empires, all the world to rule, if he should give it him for his portion, he would not be satisfied with that. Here is the mystery of it: though his heart is so enlarged that the enjoyment of all the world and ten thousand worlds cannot satisfy him for his portion; yet he has a heart quieted under God’s disposal, if he gives him but bread and water. To join these two together must needs be a great art and mystery.

No kidding. I’m not exactly sure what would be the plenty standing opposite to my want of cancer. But either way, abundance or need, I want to learn the secret – to be the most contented person is to be the most unsatisfied.

More on this mysterious school in my next post, Lord willing. And with that I will try to be content.

Overlooking Offenses

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Last Sunday I hammered away at peacemaking in the body of Christ as an application of Jesus’ prayers about our oneness in John 17. You can listen to that message here.

An essential strategy in the peacemaking process is the glory of overlooking offenses. I say glory because of a text like Proverbs 91:11.

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.

It makes bad sense to blow your top. One way to stay on the good sense side of things is to regularly overlook offenses. But why call that disposition glory and when must we not overlook an offense?

Ken Sande explains:

Since God does not deal harshly with us when we sin, we should be willing to treat others in a similar fashion. This does not mean that we must overlook all sins, but it does require that we ask God to help us discern and overlook minor wrongs. Overlooking offenses is appropriate under two conditions. First, the offense should not have created a wall between you and the other person or caused you to feel differently toward him or her for more than a short period of time. Second, the offense should not be causing serious harm to God’s reputation, to others, or to the offender.

It is to God’s glory that He passes over our offenses because of the blood of Christ. We share in that glory and put it on display when we choose to be not easily offended and overlook the offenses of others.

Toughest School Ever (4)

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Imagine my shock upon receiving my first grade on any paper in undergraduate school. I got an “F.” That’s right. I flunked my first college assignment. I wrote an English essay that the prof deemed utterly unworthy of the language. Talk about a reality check. Here I thought I could write. She begged to disagree. Guess who won? She did. I set about remedial composition instruction without delay.

Imagine my dismay upon discovering a certain course had little to do with its name, or at least so it seemed to me. When I signed up for Astronomy 101, I possessed a delusion of a cool curriculum of star-studying and universe-exploring. The joke was on me. The whole deal was a math class masquerading as science. I can’t recall how many early Saturday mornings I spent with the prof in extra help sessions just to survive that monster.

Yes, those were demanding curricula. However, neither compared to the requirements inherent in my toughest school ever – Christ’s school of contentment. In previous posts I have talked about the compulsory nature of the curriculum and its excellence. This post takes me to its degree of difficulty. I don’t know that it could ask more of me and those who enroll than it does.

For instance, Philippians 2:14 commands: Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Grumbling or murmuring is the opposite of contentment. The Bible leaves absolutely no room for fudging at all on this matter. There are no exceptions. We are to do all things without a discontented spirit. Good grief! Who is adequate for such a standard.

Then we have Jude 14-16.

It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.

Notice the first vice in the list for which the Lord comes with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment: grumbling. About this, my Puritan friend remarks:

These ungodly ones are murmurers; murmurers in Scripture are put in the forefront of all. You had need to look to your spirits; you may see that this murmuring, which is the vice contrary to this contentment, is not as small a matter as you think. You think you are not as ungodly as others, because you do not swear and drink as others do, but you may be ungodly in murmuring. It is true there is no sin but some seeds and remainders of it are in those who are godly; but when men are under the power of this sin of murmuring, it convicts them as ungodly, as well as if they were under the power of drunkenness, or whoredom, or any other sin. God will look upon you as ungodly for this sin as well as for any sin whatever. This one Scripture should make the heart shake at the thought of the sin of murmuring.

If that won’t do it, then consider Numbers 14:26-27. And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me (emphasis mine). In actuality, the congregation in the wilderness spoke against Moses and Aaron. However, God took it personally. He considered it an affront against Himself that the people griped the way they did. To oppose the Lord’s anointed was to oppose Him.

If I kept in my mind every time I felt tempted to complain, that ultimately my grumbling piqued God’s irritation quotient, I think I might think twice before giving way to murmuring.

There’s no escaping it. The bar is set immeasurably high. There simply is no room in this particular school for a grumbling spirit. Demanding indeed.

But the news with this reality is not necessarily all bad. Again I turn to Jeremiah Burroughs for help:

There is no way to set about any duty that you should perform, you might labor to perform it, but first you must be humbled for the lack of it. Therefore I shall endeavor to get your hearts to be humbled for lack of this grace. ‘Oh, had I had this grace of contentment, what a happy life I might have lived! What abundance of honor I might have brought to the name of God! How might I have honored my profession! What a great deal of comfort I might have enjoyed! But the Lord knows it has been far otherwise. Oh, how far I have been from this grace of contentment which has been expounded to me! I have had a murmuring, a vexing, and a fretting heart within me. Every little cross has put me out of temper and out of frame. Oh, the boisterousness of my spirit! What evil God sees in the vexing and fretting of my heart, and murmuring and repining of my spirit!’ Oh that God would make you see it!

Without seeing it, without feeling the sting of conviction that comes from the law, how will we ever cling to the cross and the hope of the gospel that we might experience the secret of contentment that rids us of the vice of murmuring and discontent?

Are you thus convicted?

Toughest School Ever (3)

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In Philippians 4:11, the Apostle Paul makes an amazing statement: I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. He doesn’t say, I am learning or I hope to learn. He speaks as if to suggest some degree of mastery of the contentment curriculum. He is adamant. He adds in v. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.

Honestly, I can’t yet speak so confidently. But this gives me hope. Such a lofty goal is attainable. Contentment, though often it seems the opposite, does not lie outside our spiritual reach in this world.

No doubt, as I explained in my previous post in this series, Christ’s school of contentment is a compulsory school. As followers of Jesus, shaped by the gospel, we must strive for the same gracious frame of spirit to which Paul attained. However, we should indeed think positively about our prospects for growth in light of the excellency of the Instructor.

I say this first, because of the nature of God Himself who teaches in this school. My Puritan friend explains:

‘Content’, signifies a self-sufficiency, as I told you in opening the words. A contented man is a self-sufficient man, and what is the great glory of God, but to be happy and self-sufficient in himself? Indeed, he is said to be all-sufficient, but that is only a further addition of the word ‘all’, rather than of any matter, for to be sufficient is all-sufficient. Now this is the glory of God, to be sufficient, to have sufficiency in himself. El-Shaddai means to be God having sufficiency in himself. And you come near to this. As you partake of the Divine nature by grace in general, so you do it in a more peculiar manner by this grace of Christian contentment, for what is the excellence and glory of God but this? Suppose there were no creatures in the world, and that all the creatures in the world were annihilated: God would remain the same blessed God that he is now, he would not be in a worse condition if all creatures were gone; neither would a contented heart, if God should take away all creatures from him. A contented heart has enough in the lack of all creatures, and would not be more miserable than he is now. Suppose that God should keep you here, and all the creatures that are in the world were taken away, yet you still, having God to be your portion, would be as happy as you are now.

So our first encouragement about the prospect of growth in contentment comes from the excellencies of His nature as the all-sufficient God, unshakably happy in Himself. In Him through Christ that character takes hold and transforms us over time from murmuring malcontents to rejoicing sons and daughters.

But there is one more word of encouragement about the seemingly impossible mission of attaining contentment related to the excellence of the Teacher. That has to do with the content from which He teaches. For example, consider again Hebrews 13:5-6.

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

From where does the writer draw in backing the exhortation to avoid covetousness in favor of being content with what one possesses? God’s word from the Old Testament in Psalm 118:6.

Another wise saint from the past, J. C. Ryle wrote about the significance of this:

The main point I want to impress on men’s minds is this: we ought to make the texts and promises of the Bible our refuge in time of trouble and the fountain of our soul’s comfort. When St. Paul wanted to enforce a grace and recommend a duty, he quoted a text. When you and I would give a reason for our hope, or when we feel that we need strength and consolation, we must go to our Bibles and try to find out suitable texts. The lawyer uses old cases and decisions when he pleads his cause. “Such a judge has said such a thing; and therefore,” he argues, “it is a settled point.” The soldier on the battlefield takes up certain positions and does certain things; if you ask him why, he will say, “I have such and such orders from my general, and I obey them.” The true Christian must always use his Bible in like manner. The Bible must be his book of reference and precedents. The Bible must be to him his captain’s orders. If anyone asks him why he thinks as he does, lives as he does, feels as he does, all he has need to reply is, “God has spoken to such an effect: I have my orders, and that is enough.”

Does the Christian virtue of contentment seem far beyond your reach in the flesh. Take heart.  Though enrolled in the toughest of schools we have the best of instructors teaching the most superior content.

O happy day when we will say with Paul, I have learned and I know.