Uneducated and Untrained, But with Jesus
Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.
Peter and John were uneducated and untrained men. In this way they are almost the exact opposite of the kind of people we would prefer to serve our churches or share the Gospel. We like people to be educated and trained–we believe they are better to lead and to guide others. Instead, Peter and John were the construction worker, the pizza delivery guy, or the car salesman of their day.
The difference was that these two men had been with Jesus. They had both trained underneath of Him as followers while He was here on Earth and by the presence of the Holy Spirit, they had been with Jesus in an ongoing way since Pentecost. It was the fact that they had been with Jesus that made these guys different from the other unlearned and untrained men that the rulers and Elders were used to.
Often in Christianity, we do this backwards. We select workers who are trained and educated but haven’t been with Jesus. We’re content with well-trained men who know theology and how to teach, but don’t bear the marks of having been with Christ.
On the other hand, we cannot just look to people who are untrained and uneducated to serve and proclaim the good news apart from Jesus. We have to teach people, trained or untrained, to be with Christ. They have to understand the vitality of a life lived close to the resurrected Jesus.
The sweet spot…the place where Christianity becomes alive and infectious and reproducible…is where we can equip normal, everyday people who many would look at and call untrained and uneducated to be with Jesus. If we can put the Gospel and the truth of Christianity in the hands of a common man who knows how to be with Christ, we are that much closer to turning the world upside down.
Wisdom, Foundations, and the Sermon on the Mount
I woke up this morning stirred to write about the importance of foundations. So often many of the people I know have been sidetracked in their lives because their lives were built on the wrong foundations. Those with any kind of construction experience know that if a foundation is slightly off, the whole building built on top of it will suffer. The problem is so often we want a building so badly that we neglect building foundations in our lives the right way.
Several weeks ago I was talking to a co-worker about a house her family owned at a beach. It was built on firm ground and had weathered several storms well. There were other people who had wanted a house so close to the beach that they had built their houses on sand. These houses had significant storm damage that had totally ruined these houses. I looked at her and said, “Have none of these people read Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builder?” Apparently, they had not.
Jesus told this story:
Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.
One of the things that has been revolutionary in my life and the lives of others I know is really applying this simple story to our lives. We in the West spend a ton of time teaching people what to believe about God, Jesus, and Christianity. But according to that story, none of that is building our lives on the solid rock. Instead, building our lives on a solid foundation means listening to Jesus’ teaching and doing what it says. The foolish man isn’t someone who resisted the teachings of Jesus, but he is someone who heard and didn’t put into practice what Jesus said.
And while obeying all of Jesus’ teaching is important, this teaching ends a famous set of teachings by Jesus that we call the Sermon on the Mount. This parable is meant to emphasize the importance of practicing the teachings Jesus gives in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. So often we will spend time in our house churches and discipleship groups reading the Sermon on the Mount and talking about how we can build our lives obeying these truths. The disciples that have done so are the ones who have stood the test of time.
The promise of Jesus is that there will be storms that come. Some of them are the general storms of life, testing and trials that are common to every era of history. Some storms are the storms of persecution, which Peter promises that everyone who lives a godly life will endure. There will also be eschatological, end-time storms that come and test the foundations of individuals and the church. Regardless of which storms we encounter, it is by obeying the truths found in the Sermon on the Mount by relying on the power of the Holy Spirit that we stand strong in the hour of testing.
But the time to build the foundation is not in the storm. The time to build a strong foundation is now. It will be too late to begin to obey Jesus’ teaching in the midst of the storm. Are you reading AND obeying Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5, 6, & 7? If not, it’s not too late to go back and begin to put into practice the things Jesus taught there. If you are living out those truths, start thinking about how to train others that you are bringing to Christ and raising up to obey these truths.
The future you and those you disciple will thank you.
Mission Creates Community
There are churches all over the Earth looking for a way to build community. It seems everywhere I go, people want to be a part of a community, build community, or stay in community, but how to do it escapes us. A big part of the reason for that is we seek community for our own sake, and not the sake of others. This taints the community building process.
In reality, one of the most important but often neglected secrets to building community is to find it in pursuit of God’s mission. Jesus said, “I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property—along with persecution,” (Mark 10:29-30). When we leave what is valuable to us for the sake of Jesus and the Good News, he gives us in return many spiritual brothers, sisters, mothers, and children. Community is the result of mission.
If you’ve ever gone on a short or long term mission trip, you’ll understand this. There is something about leaving everything you have, laying down your regular life, and pursuing something of the Lord together with a group of people that forms community like nothing else. Often those who do will come back longing for the same type of fellowship they had among that group of people, only to be frustrated in not being able to find it.
The secret lies not in going overseas, but finding a group of people who will lay down their lives both for Christ and His mission. I’ve watched house churches engage in mission together here in the United States in specific neighborhoods or people groups, and the same phenomenon happens. What Jesus does when we lay down our earthly lives is He begins to form family among those who have pursued it together.
So you don’t have to leave the country to find community. You find spiritual family as you lay down your life for Christ and the Gospel. As you follow Jesus in the mission He has for you, He will bring alongside you others who are pursuing Him and His mission in a similar way. And in this place, God will confront weaknesses in your life and the lives of others He will reveal places of sin or unbelief. The people with you on mission will help you bring those areas back to God for healing. You will get to do the same with them. This is where spiritual family is built–in the spiritual press of mission.
This is why I always tell prospective church planters that the order is Jesus, Mission, Church. Jesus must become the center of our lives, our source, and our leader. His leadership will eventually spill over into mission with Him and others. This mission creates a church, both in those that pursue it and ultimately as the result of sharing the Gospel. If we keep those priorities in the proper order, we will experience spiritual family.
Do you long for community? Submit yourself to Christ. Find the mission He has for you. As you do, you will find the community you’ve been looking for.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 