At the Cross: Three Points of View
A short meditation for Good Friday:
For some, today looked like chaos. An angry, ugly mob finally turned on a man from Nazareth who had aspirations of something greater. Having brought Him to Pilate, this mob finally got their way. For those who were following this man, this was unthinkable. He had healed the sick, raised the dead Himself, and had been confirmed by so many signs that the idea of Him going to the cross was unthinkable. And He was crushed. And along with Him, their hopes.
God can take our chaos and crushed dreams and make something beautiful.
For one man, this day was the culmination of everything he deserved. He had spent his life stealing, swindling, and escaping the law. His life benefited no one, only took took from those who surrounded him. He deserved this day. He deserved to find himself on this cross. His sins brought him here. But next to him was a man he had never met before, gasping for the same air he was trying to swallow. Between the pain and not being able to breathe, somewhere he had a revelation that this man dying next to him was more than a man. He confronted the mocker on a third cross and called out to the One in the middle of them. He heard that One, that “more than a man” whisper to him “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
God can take the worst of us in horrible situations and change our lives.
Post the cross, first hundreds, then thousands, and then millions have accepted the reality of the cross and the man who rested on it. The meaning of this day, looked back on throughout history has become a point of both deep grief and deep relief. That Jesus lost his life on that cross was the beginning of God’s plan to liberate us from our sin and the enemy of our souls. But for the first believers and those that have followed in their steps, this day has not only become a day to celebrate but an example to follow. This became a day that not only defined our freedom from sin, but a freedom from the way this world would seek to control us.
God can take this day and not just forgive us, but define us.
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
-Paul, Philippians 2:5-11
Photo Credit: Jesus Cross by Claudio Ungari
On Discipleship: Divine Truth
Making disciples who make disciples is part of the commission Jesus gave us as believers (Matthew 28:18-20, 2 Timothy 2:2). Jesus Himself told us to teach them to obey everything He commanded, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to us that a large part of making disciples involves all of us getting into the Bible and studying it together.
As I mentioned yesterday, our corporate discipline involves 2 or 3 people gathering together and reading large amounts of Scripture, somewhere between 20 & 30 chapters a week. Why are we so determined to study the Bible? Jesus said that His very words are Spirit and life (John 6:63). The message of the Kingdom contained within the Bible is like a seed in our hearts (Mark 4:13-14, 26-27). The more we can get that message of the Kingdom into our hearts and spirits, the more of the Kingdom we see take root in our life.
So, every time our groups of 2&3 gather, we pick a section of Scripture, usually 20 or 30 chapters in a row. This section is what everyone is reading this week. This week my 2&3 is reading the book of Mark, last week was the book of Revelation. Sometimes it’s multiple books like 1st and 2nd Corinthians. The point isn’t to finish the section every single week. Many weeks someone in my 2&3 doesn’t finish. When this happens, we start over, and read it again the following week. When everyone finishes the 20 or 30 chapters in the same week, that’s when it’s time to pick a new section of Scripture.
Why do we read the Bible together like this? The main reason is it’s good to be in the Bible hearing Jesus for ourselves. As Christians we believe the Bible is the only inspired message from God and because of that, it is fuel for us to grow up into the likeness of Jesus. But in addition to that, reading large portions of the Bible together keeps us from heresy. Mutual discipleship means there’s no authorized leader of a 2&3. If we read significant portions of the Bible together in context, each believer is able to say “Can you show me where you found that in the reading?” whenever a controversial statement is expressed. One final thought about reading together like this: It eats away at our carnal independence. Many people are content to read what they want, when they want. This process asks us to be formed as disciples together.
We want to be careful of a few things. The intent of this time is not turn our 2&3’s into a Bible study. Bible studies are good and have their place. But our goal instead is to figure out how Jesus encountered us in the Scriptures and is asking us to obey Him. This isn’t the chance for those gifted as teachers to break down whole chapters of the Bible for everyone else.
Also, we need to be careful of dead religion. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for reading the Bible but resisting the very One that the Scriptures pointed to (John 5:39). The goal is not to become an expert, the goal is meet the One who Scripture points to! But reading and immersing ourselves in truths within the Bible is the surest way to do that.
I think in the West, because the Bible is so available to us, it can become easy to grow cold to its ability to transform us. The words sound familiar and if we fail to take the words back to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to encounter us around those words, our hearts can grow dull to the Word. I believe the word of God has the power to change human hearts. Have you ever seen Chinese believers receive a Bible for the first time? It should humble us. We need to hunger for God’s word like these fiery believers who are being transformed by the Gospel.
What I’ve described here is a corporate discipline that we embrace to make disciples. But friends, the heart here is that we are soft towards God’s word and being transformed by it. We need not only to read it ourselves, but join with others and help each other find the divine truth God has hidden in its pages.
On Consumerism
For the last few days I’ve written about how we invite existing believers into our house churches: we invite them into relationships, we invite them to lay their lives down, and we invite them into mutual discipleship. As I wrote, I found myself tip-toeing around the concept of consumerism in the church so I wanted to take a minute and explain the problem with consumerism.
Consumerism is a lifestyle built around the consumption of a product. It drives many economies, and in particular ours in the West. Car companies, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and countless other companies thrive, not because you need another car, phone, or computer, but because they’ve taught us to want the newest model. They’ve trained the masses to want the next best thing. Many people throughout the cultural West find their identity not in who they are, but based on what they have.
This is a problem by itself–We should find our identity in Jesus Christ and Him alone. With this shift in mindset, the church has increasingly adapted the methods of the world in order to “reach” society. I’ve known churches to offer iPads or similar electronic devices as a prize for the child who invites the most unchurched friends to Sunday School. All of this is in the name of the Gospel, but what it teaches us is to be motivated by stuff and not Jesus.
At a higher level, this infects churches and cripples ministry. The pursuit of many churches is growth. This means they have to continually move to the edges of a city where young families tend to live in order to attract new attenders with the money to sustain a ministry. Big buildings with crippling debt are the means to this end. And woe to the church or ministry who makes the wrong bet on a ministry direction and offends the wrong people. They are left with a building and debt that no one is around to pay for. This frequently hinders the proclamation of the gospel. I’ve literally seen churches (and by this I don’t just mean the building, I mean the ministry, the people, everything) sold to another minister. I refuse to listen to another church talk about their brand. I’ve watched viable churches closed because there wasn’t enough money. The list can go on and on.
Consumerism attempts to turn everything that we do into a transaction. It cheapens love. It never calls people sacrifice or to suffer. In everything, it encourages people to look for a reward in relationship to whatever they participate in, whether it’s physical reward or an ideological one (being part of the cool crowd/church/people). As you can probably see by this point, these attitudes are opposed to God’s Kingdom which is built on sacrificial love.
Don’t misunderstand me–there is a reward that we are offered in this age and the age to come for following Christ, but these are different than iPads or being part of the in-crowd. Our reward, first and foremost, is fellowship with the indwelling Christ. We get God! And then God gives us the reward of His Kingdom, spiritual family, and even possibly material gain for obedience. But these come from His hand and are attained through following Him in adverse circumstances (see Mark 10:29-30).
Friends, we serve Jesus. God the Father has poured His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. He was raised from the dead and promised to raise us with Him. We have access to the authority and power of God’s Kingship. We don’t need to be motivated by the things of this world: success, fame, power, money. But it’s not enough that we ourselves aren’t motivated by these things. As a church, we have to repent of building systems that motivate individuals by anything other than faithfulness to Jesus. At the end of the day, at the end of the age, those are the things that will keep us faithful, not our stuff.
So would you join me, church, regardless of what type of church you are part of, from building God’s Kingdom with the straw of this world? Can we say “no” to motivating people in the flesh to follow God? Can we together disciple a coming generation to follow Christ because He is good?
It may mean a decrease in your crowd, but the disciples you’ll have left will change the world.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 