Tag: Following Jesus

Working Properly

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This week we are in the fifth part of our teaching series, Authentic Church. So far we have talked about both the foundation and the context in which all of the different elements that make a church a church happen. These are Jesus and worship, respectively. We have also talked about two of the pillars that hold up this structure. These were sharing the Gospel and growing one another in Christ. This week we are tackling another one of the pillars of what makes the church the church. This one has everything to do with our actively being the body of Christ. Let’s talk about serving.

Working Properly

Let’s do a bit of imagining together this morning. First, I want you to imagine a company. Let’s say it’s a large company. It’s a large and successful company that has recently rolled out a new product that is promising to be a huge success in terms of sales and advancing the corporate brand in the minds of present and potential consumers. Managing to create a product like this is the goal of pretty much every company that has ever existed. This kind of product-launch that puts a company on the map can set a company up for success for many years into the future. But with this particular company, not all is well behind the scenes. The CEO is a tyrant who rules by threatening fiat and a demagogic personality. He’s brilliant, but mean. He rewards employees not for their character and competence, but for personal loyalty to him and their demonstration of a willingness to step over or even on top of their fellow employees in their attempts to advance their own careers in the company. This promising product was the CEO’s idea and he doesn’t let anyone forget that fact. Beyond this, though, innovation is stifled and new ideas are generally not welcome. Now, think on this for just a second: How successful do you think this company is going to be in the long-term? 

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Morning Musing: Exodus 23:13

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“Pay strict attention to everything I have said to you. You must not invoke the names of other gods; they must not be heard on your lips.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are few things that give rise to cynicism quite so effectively as religion. Not often religion that is true and genuine, but religion that is pursued for the sake of religion. When people who don’t really believe in a particular deity nonetheless speak and act like they do for the sake of image or power or something else along those lines, not only do they grow cynical about the whole thing, but so do the people who see their show. This is one possible reason behind this next command God gives the people of Israel. Let’s explore this a bit further, and talk about why it still matters today.

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 13:10-13

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“Then the disciples came up and asked him, ‘Why are you speaking to them in parables?’ He answered, ‘Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them. For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. That is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the arguments of the original postmodernists was that a literary text had no fixed meaning. Rather, the meaning of a certain text was whatever the reader wanted it to mean. In other words, everything was interpretation and no interpretation was incorrect. Everything was dependent on the perspective and experience of the individual. Of course, none of those guys seemed to have appreciated the irony of arguing that nothing could really be understood in one way while wanting to be understood a certain way, but we’ll leave that alone for now. Today, I want to look at something Jesus said about how and whether people were understanding Him. He acknowledged many folks might not, but His reasons were not postmodern. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 23:4-5

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“If you come across your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying helpless under its load, and you want to refrain from helping it, you must help with it.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I love watching America’s Funniest Videos. I can sit for hours and laugh myself silly watching video after video of people doing crazy things or reacting to things in hilarious ways. The best videos, though, are always the ones in which someone probably gets hurt. There’s just something about a little kid hitting a ball right back into dad’s midsection that you can’t help laughing at. The misfortune of others is an easy thing to laugh at. When the other is someone we consider an enemy, though, the mirth can turn into a bit (or a lot) of schadenfreude. Yet how we treat our enemies matters. God has thoughts about it. Let’s talk about one of those thoughts right here.

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Growing Up

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This week we are in the third part of our series, Authentic Church. We have been talking about how we can tell when a church is a real church and not just a club that does some religious things on the side. As we talked about last week, authentic churches are active in proclaiming the Gospel to those who haven’t heard it, in inviting people to get into a relationship with Christ. But once we see someone cross that line, our work isn’t done. We have to help them grow. Let’s talk this week about the next thing that makes a church an authentic church: Growing people in Christ.

Growing Up

When I was in seminary, one of the courses we had to take was about practical ministry. Technically, the course was called “pastoral counseling,” but that basically translated how to be a good pastor in the day-to-day of ministry work. The professor tried to touch on a few different areas that we were going to face in ministry and which all the theology and language study and apologetics courses in the world weren’t going to prepare us for. One of the topics we covered in class was some best practices for how to do a funeral. That sounds kind of morbid, I know, but it’s part of the work, and an important one at that. We learned a variety of things the teacher—who had been a pastor for decades at that point—identified as “do’s” and “don’ts” in class, and those were pretty helpful. I don’t remember any of them in particular now, but I remember thinking this was probably actually going to be useful stuff then. But do you know when I really learned how to do a funeral? When my pastor and mentor took me along and involved me in the funeral of a man in the community who died during that semester. I listened to him, watched him carefully, and when I found myself having to do a service on my own a couple of years later, I just did what he did. 

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