Discipleship | Discipleship at Messiah

Abundant Life

Posted on 7/31/12 by On the road with Jesus.

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10 (NRSV)

          The bumper sticker said: “If you don’t think money can bring happiness, you don’t know where to shop.”
          I read about a church near San Francisco that recently advertised a “money-back guarantee”? “Donate to the church for 90 days, and, if you aren’t blessed, you can have your money returned.”
          As these two anecdotes illustrate, we live in a consumer oriented society. Someone has said, we chose “churches not so much to meet God and surrender to his revealed ways as to satisfy some personal need.”
            It is hard for a culture—materialistic, affluent, and self-indulgent like ours–to hear a Biblical text like the one this morning without distorting its meaning. “I am come that they might have life…abundantly.”
            On the other hand, in southern Mexico where believers are being persecuted, how does it apply to the widow and children of Presbyterian. lay preacher, Malecio Gomez, 32, killed in a hail of gunfire and whose body was hacked with a machete? In a world where a child dies of hunger every 5-6 seconds, 18,000 a day, what does it mean?
            It certainly does not mean security from illness, pain, death, or provision for everything we want. With almost monotonous repetition, John keeps telling us, not new things but confronting us with the choice to trust Jesus.
            For those who have trouble experiencing the reality of the abundant life or who confuse it with worldly goods and comfort, Jesus offers himself. It is about our relation to Him. We belong to Him and He is that life, the abundant life.

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Prayer: the Essential Tool (Part II)

Posted on 7/25/12 by On the road with Jesus.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Ephesians 6:18a
I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. John 16:23 (NIV)

There is much I don’t know about prayer, especially what you learn by experience. But I know a lot about it. The problem is that my beliefs and my knowledge don’t always translate into practice. There is a great disparity between our belief (stated) and our practices. We give lip-service to the importance of prayer. We talk about it a lot. We request prayer—for ourselves, others, for events, ministries. We do pray (most of us). We have our prayer list, prayer teams, even occasionally special times of prayer, gatherings for prayer.

But I believe prayer is the weakest link in my discipleship. It is the chink in my armor. And I suspect, no I know, I am not alone in this. I believe in prayer. I am convinced it is the bottom line of discipleship. And as Jim Cymballa says, “We are not New Testament Christians if we don’t have a prayer life.”¹

Christians have always known that prayer is the essential tool of the Christian life. Listen to what they say about it:

It changes the pray er. “To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.”² “Prayer is designed more to adjust you to God than to adjust God to you.”³

God’s work is done. “Most of the people we meet, inside and outside the church, think prayers are harmless but necessary starting pistols that shoot blanks and get “things going.”^{4 “}Anything creative, anything powerful, anything biblical, insofar as we are participants in it, originates in prayer.⁵

We become recepients of God’s greatest gifts. St. Augustine said, ” God does not ask us to tell him our needs that he may learn about them, but in order that we may be capable of receiving what he is preparing to give.”⁶Kierkegaard insists, “The true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God wills.”⁷

Prayer is for everyone. Everyone needs to pray. Everyone can pray. Steve Harper tells about visiting at Sunday dinner. His hostess called on the youngest child to pray. The little girl says, “God is great….” Then mother turns to Harper and asks, “And now preacher would you ask the blessing for us?” “All children pray, until we teach them not to.” (Jean Grasso Fitzpatrick)⁸

Nothing should be more convincing than Jesus’ model for us. The great example is what Jesus said to his disciples on that last night with them (less than 1/10 of 1% of his ministry). This is recorded in four chapters in John’s gospel. One of those four chapts. is the prayer that Jesus prayed. Can you believe that is not significant? One fourth of what Jesus said that night is prayer, almost 5% of whole book of John. Not teaching about prayer but praying.

Don’t let the tool get rusty. Pray!

__________________________________________________________

¹Cymballa, Fresh Wind Fresh Spirit, 50.
²Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline quoted by Maxwell, Partners In Prayer, 74
³Blackaby and King, Experiencing God, 174
⁴Eugene Peterson, Working The Angles, 32
⁵Eugene Peterson, Working The Angles, 28
⁶Bloesch, The Struggle Of Prayer, 29
⁷Bloesch, The Struggle Of Prayer, 63
⁸Betty Shannon Cloyd, CIRCUIT RIDER, Nov/Dec ’98, 12

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Prayer: The Essential Tool (part I)

Posted on 7/17/12 by On the road with Jesus.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Ephesians 6:18a
I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. John 16:23 (NIV)

On Sunday, as part of a Father’s Day/birthday present from my wife Alana, we attended a service at the Brooklyn Tabernacle in downtown Brooklyn, NY. What an amazing experience/place. Perhaps you know of the award winning Brooklyn Tabernacle choir. But there’s much more to the church than that. Four two hour high octane, spirit-filled services on Sunday to overflow crowds which total more than 8,000 fuel all sorts of ministries in Brooklyn and around the world. Pastor Jim Cymbala faithfully and powerfully delivers God’s word. As I witnessed the many ministries and life of the church highlighted I was awed by God’s powerful use of that congregation.

You might ask, “How does this all come about?” A lot of things certainly could be credited, but there is one thing that to me is the most crucial to all that church is. If you weren’t paying a lot of attention you might miss the announcement of a Tuesday night prayer meeting. You might not catch the fact that around 5pm when the doors open for the 7pm meeting people begin to gather. You might miss that literally hundreds of people show up each week for serious spirit-directed prayer. In his book, Fresh Wind Fresh Fire, Pastor Cymbala attributes this to be what, more than anything, triggered and sustains the growth and life of “BT” as they refer to it. This is consistent with the Biblical proclamation that prayer is the essential tool for God’s people.

More than 30 years ago as a graduate student in history at the UNC-Greensboro, I read a statement by historian Cain Brenton which I’ve never forgotten: “Once we we have put something into words, we think we have accomplished it.” He was writing about our substituting talk for action, discussion for accomplishment.

In no area is this more true than in the Christian life. We talk a great game, but never actually do it. Prayer is especially susceptible to this problem. We can read books on prayer, preach sermons on prayer, have studies on prayer, develop great theories and never do much praying. I am especially susceptible to doing that. We actually have “prayer meetings” where little praying is done. They are filled with Bible study, formal liturgies, music, teaching, etc. but not a lot of prayer. Someone said that the syndrome of Protestant churches is that we have become “artful dodgers of a disciplined prayer life.”

I am sure what we are as a Christian or a church rises no higher than our prayer life. To be continued.

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The Growth Goes On

Posted on 7/11/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Night and day, whether he [the sower] sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows. -Mark 4:27

Do you every feel overwhelmed when you look around at how much work there is for the church to do and how few there are to do it? We regularly are bombarded with calls for help in some ministry. We wonder how in the world God’s work can every get done with our limited resources and leaders and workers.
A mental health worker, Dr. Darold Treffert tells the following story:

“Amy, 15, had always gotten straight ‘A‘s’ in school, and her parents were extremely upset when she got a ‘B’ on her report card. ‘If I fail in what I do,’ Amy told her parents, ‘I fail in what I am.’ The message was part of Amy’s suicide note.”

This attitude, belief that performance, accomplishment, production is the measurement of life saturates our thinking, fuels our living, gives us ulcers and destroys some of us.
          Someone has said that much of the nervousness and the lack of time is because “we have taken over control of our world.” We can and must do everything.
          In the church it is expressed in what someone has called “the atheism of technique—the belief that we can hasten the kingdom by using the right methods, trying some new gimmicks, and working our heads off.”¹In Jesus’ parable comparing God’s kingdom to “growing seed” we read these words: “Night and day, whether he [the sower] sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows,…All by itself the soil produces grain.”   In midst of human activities—good, bad, indifferent and in midst of human problems and cares God’s growth goes on.
          This gives us perspective about what matters. We can slow down. We have to time to pray. Look at Jesus. Humanly we would have expected him to be frantic, with all that needed to be done but exact opposite is conveyed.
          The late preacher, Helmut Thielicke wrote:

“Woe to the nervous activity of those of little faith! Woe to the anxiousness and busyness of those who do not pray!…In most cases today we do not sin by being undutiful and doing too little work. On the contrary, we ought to ask ourselves whether we are still capable of being idle in God’s name.”

Martin Luther put it this way: “While I drink my little glass of Whittenberg beer [“Pepsi,” the Methodist version] the gospel runs its course.”
It is about power—a tiny tree can split a rock as it grows.
This is not a not a parable about doing nothing. The seed is sown. There will come a day when you can’t produce. To see God carry out a plan quite independent of what we do or don’t do is the ability to be at peace.

^{1 Robert M. Johnston}

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Christians Are Connected

Posted on 6/19/12 by On the road with Jesus.

John 15:1-17 I chose you …to go and bear fruit

          What does Jesus really want from you?
          One of the most important things Jesus had to tell his disciples in those last crisis packed hours was His purpose for them, what He expected from them and how it could happen.
            He does this by way of an analogy of the grape vine. As the purpose of a vine is to produce fruit—grapes so He says I have chosen you to bear fruit. It is this which will glorify my Father. For that to happen you must abide in me because without me you can do nothing. Just as the branches draw their life and ability to bear fruit from the main vain, so you get your life and productiveness from me I am the vine. “Abide in me”=keep my commandments(obedience), maintain your relationship to me, keep the connection. “Without me you can do nothing.”
            He pointedly told them He had chosen them to “bear fruit.” That fruit is a life characterized by love. He told them what was necessary and what would happen if they didn’t.
                      I don’t think this was exactly what Jesus had in mind, but Gerald Kennedy tells of an inquiry made of a Methodist bishop about a preacher in his area. “Why,” said the bishop, “He is dull. He is supernaturally dull…No man could be as dull as he is without divine aid.”
          So what are the results of being connected, of “abiding in Christ”?

EFFECTIVE PRAYER
            “ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”
            “so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
         We are inclined to read this in one of two ways:

If you can believe strong enough, God will give you whatever you ask for.
Little Johnnie was saying his bedtime prayers a week before his birthday. In a loud voice he listed all the things he wanted. “Don’t pray so loudly,” his mother instructed. “The Lord isn’t hard of hearing!” “Maybe he isn’t,” admitted Johnnie, “but grandma is.”
Or we ignore it, water it down, never take it seriously

The Bible and Christian history makes some incredible claims for the power of a believer’s prayer. Frontier Methodist preacher, Francis Asbury said, “Prayer is the sword of the preacher, the life of the Christian, the terror of hell, and the devil’s plague.”¹These statements need to be understood in the context. They are about believers being fruitful, that is producing more believers.

GOD GLORIFIED BY FRUIT
The measure of success is does it bring honor and glory to God. As my preaching professor, James Robertson, used to say, Christians “adorn the gospel.” Their lives are attractive and these lives attract people to Christ. The reason there is so little impact of some Christians is there lives don’t attract to Jesus. Richard Foster says, “People do not see anything to be converted to. They look around at these Christians telling them to agree to these little statements and say the enclosed prayer. They say, “But you aren’t any different from anybody else. So, what am I supposed to be converted to?” ²

JOY
       First Jesus’ joy is in us, in our fruitfulness. Then our joy will be full. We experience the joy spoken of so often in the Bible.
          I confess to you, I am troubled when I apply those three tests to my life. So I have to ask: How is my connection? Am I abiding in Jesus?
          How about you?

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“Helpless No More”

Posted on 6/5/12 by On the road with Jesus.

At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. –Romans 5:6

Did you hear about the plane that left Chicago bound for LA. As it leveled out at 40,000 ft., a voice came over the loudspeaker:

“This is a recording. You have the privilege of being the first to fly in a wholly electronic jet. This plane took off electronically. It is now flying a 40,000 feet electronically. It will land in LA electronically.
This plane has no pilot, no co-pilot, no flight engineer. But don’t worry. Nothing can go wrong…go wrong…go wrong…go wrong…go wrong.”

          There is perhaps no human predicament more frightening or unsettling than that of
                   helplessness,
                   to be out of control,
                   unable to do anything,
                   to alter a particular circumstance,
                   to be at the mercy of events or another person.
          John Bunyan begins Pilgrim’s Progress by describing the despair of helplessness.
          Therefore it is particularly important to remember:
          It was hard to be a Christian under Roman Empire.
          It was hard to be a Christian during the time of Martin Luther.
          It was hard to be a Christian during the time of John Wesley.
          It was hard to be a Christian early in our history.
Well, we’ve moved beyond a lot of the problems of those times but it is still hard to be a Christian.
          I remember an Annual Conference (yearly regional gathering of our denomination’s leadership) when we heard a wonderful sermon during the ordination service. It was on being servants of God, how that is our calling—to express God’s love.
           The sermon was delivered with great zeal and in an inspiring way. It      was true. You could hear and see the consensus, the affirmation of those who heard it. My good friend expressed it—“It needed to be said.” There, however   is a catch.
          The Bible says we are helpless. And there is nothing more frustrating or discouraging than to be told what we ought to do or how we ought to live and not to be able to do it. It is hard to be a Christian—i.e. to live like one!
          But the good news is not first about what we are to do. It is about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We were helpless/powerless but by now trusting in Jesus we have a new life that makes it possible to live as followers of Jesus. God’s love becomes the central driving force of our life. We are helpless no more.

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Squeezed by Life

Posted on 5/29/12 by On the road with Jesus.

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?…How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? … But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. -Psalm 13

Do You ever complain?
Do you ever complain to God?
Get angry with Him?
How do you feel about that?

Did you know there is a whole group of Psalms that are characterized by complaining to God—Psalms of Lament.
Furthermore, there are other Biblical examples of holy people, God’s own people saying things to God we would never expect—complaining, accusing, etc. Listen to the great prophet Jeremiah:

He tells God he is suffering for Him, he has fed on God’s words, they were his joy and heart’s delight.
            I never sat in the company of the revelers,
              never made merry with them;
            I sat alone because you hand was on me
              and you had filled me with indignation.
            Why is my pain unending
              and my wound grievous and incurable?
            Will you be to me like a deceptive brook [“liar”-King James trans.],
              like a spring   that fails?

What we have here is the real life of God’s honest believer living in a world where we get squeezed by life and the practical example of how they have reacted. These people are human, fallible, struggling, yet believing.
I was introduced to Brian Sternberg years ago in a book by Philip Yancey called Where Is God When It Hurts. As I was working on this I did some research and came across the following from a sermon by R.J. Tusky just last month:

            Once upon a time, Coach Grant Teaff wrote a book called “I Believe.” It’s about a young man who was once the world’s greatest pole-vaulter. His name is Brian Sternberg.
            In 1963, Brian was a sophomore at the University of Washington. He was not only the world’s best pole-vaulter, but also America’s trampoline champion. Teaff says:  “Word around track was that Brian Sternberg was the most self-centered, young athlete to come along …in a long time.”
            Teaff tells how he watched Brian perform the day he broke the world’s record. He says: “The thing that caught my eye was his poise, self-confidence, and that he never smiled.”
            The next day at breakfast, Teaff was stunned when he read the newspaper headline: “Brian Sternberg Injured.” Brian had been working out, alone, in the gym. He did a triple somersault and came down on the trampoline …off-center. His neck hit the edge of the frame, snapping it and leaving him totally paralyzed, able to move, only …his eyes and his mouth. Brian was left a helpless, hopeless cripple, and …a very …very …bitter …young man.
            Five years later, Coach Teaff saw Brian again. It was at a convention for coaches and athletes at Estes Park, Colorado.
            Once everyone was seated, the auditorium was totally darkened. Suddenly, a movie projector lit a large, panoramic screen. There was Brain Sternberg …racing down the runway, executing that record-breaking pole-vault. Every coach and athlete in the room “oohed” and “aahed.”
            Then the auditorium went totally dark again …except for a single, brilliant spotlight, illuminating a single chair, with arms, on the, otherwise …bare, stark stage. It looked like some tractor-beam from a spaceship, locked onto that chair.
            Then, out of the stage-shadows, came a huge, nationally-known, football player named, Wes Wilmer. In his arms was what looked like a large ragdoll. Its long arms and legs hung limp at its sides and flopped this way and that, as Wes Wilmer walked across the stage. The ragdoll was six-foot, three-inch Brian Sternberg, all 87 pounds of him.
            Wes placed him in the chair and carefully, propped him up with pillows, so he wouldn’t fall over. Then, in a raspy voice, Brian Sternberg began to talk:
            “My friends-Oh, I pray to God that what has happened to me, will never happen to one of you. I pray that you will never know the humiliation, the shame…of not being able to perform one …single …human …act. Oh, I pray to God you will never know the pain I live with everyday. It is my hope and my prayer that what has happened to me will never happen to one of you. Unless, my friends …that’s what it takes for you to put God …in the center of your life.”
            The impact of Brian’s words on that particular crowd was absolutely electrifying. No one there will ever forget them.

            I read somewhere that it was said the place to go if you wanted encouragement is Brian Sternberg’s house.
            Brian, Joni Eareckson Tada (paralyzed in a diving accident) and untold multitudes more, squeezed by life find in Jesus Christ meaning and purpose. And they become shining examples of how life with God overcomes all obstacles.
            Brian once closed a Look magazine article this way: “Having faith is a necessary step toward one of two things. Being healed is one of them. Peace of mind, if healing doesn’t come, is the other. Either will suffice.”¹

¹ “The Spirituality of Suffering,” http://www.theaword.org

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What Are You So Happy About?

Posted on 5/29/12 by On the road with Jesus.

“Rejoice because your names are written in Heaven.” -Luke 10:20

There are some great benefits to being a Christian.

There is purpose and meaning for life,
peace with God and with ourselves.
There is opportunity to see the remarkable power of God to affect individual lives, to bring healing, both spiritual and physical.
The power to change society–
- greed, hatred, corruption, indifference, self-centeredness all have been overcome when the gospel has been heeded.
Hospitals and churches have been built.
the poor and the sick have been helped.
And there is opportunity to be part of the family of God.

But Jesus had a way of getting to the real issue, and he reminded his disciples of a very important fact. Though the benefits of responding to God’s good news are many and varied, there is one central cause for the Christian’s joy—your names are written in heaven. The ultimate reward is heaven, with all that involves. The real benefit of knowing Jesus as Savior and Lord is life, eternal life, i.e. heaven.
How important those words, how important that is for us to remember in a world like this, when life isn’t going well for us. It was Malcom Muggeridge who said, “The only ultimate disaster that can befall us,”…is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.”¹ This is especially true when we are faced with our mortality, our death. Death for the believer is simply arrival at the final destination.
The Gospel, the good news gives us that hope. It is a simple (yet profound) story which we often make very complicated. The Bible teaches that each person has a fatal affliction called sin. The basic element in this affliction is failure to believe, to trust God, “un”faith.
However God, has provided the remedy—“God loved the world so much that he gave his only son [Jesus] so that whoever believes in him will not die but have life.”
In short, the gospel, the good news is that though each of us has been infected with sin, if we acknowledge it, confess it, place our trust in Jesus by surrendering our life to him, he will give us eternal life—ultimately heaven.
Every other benefit pales in comparison.

¹quoted in Christianity Today, 12/8/72, p.54

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I Want You

Posted on 5/22/12 by On the road with Jesus.

             After the dramatic impact of Jesus’ resurrection, it is easy to see all the rest of the story as anticlimactic.  That is a mistake! What takes place here has great significance in God’s scheme.
            What bought them together? Stories they had heard? Their state of mind and atmosphere? They were talking about Him! He was there! And with the word “peace,” He calmed their fears, as He showed His side and hands. When they SAW, (the word of spiritual perception) “they were glad.” What a wonderful understatement!
            Then Jesus speaks words that forever establish the primary motivation of His disciples—“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And there you have in black and white: JESUS’ CHOICE. And I can only shake my head in wonder.
            Do you remember children choosing sides for a baseball game? It gets down to that last little boy. Jesus’ choice is like choosing that smallest, least capable player first.
                             OR
            Like an expansion draft when the only players are those left over from other teams. These people are “proven failures”, and they (we) are Jesus’ choice.
            One of the great truths emphasized over and over in this gospel is that the Son is sent by the Father. Now He sends His followers—commissions them. In the way He had been sent by the Father, He in turn sends them. William Barclay was right when he called it “The commission which the Church must never forget.” JESUS IS DEPENDENT ON US, you and me! Unless we do it….” as the Father has sent me so I send you.” WITH
______  THE VERY SAME AUTHORITY. We go not on our own initiative. But we are sent, backed up by God almighty.
______  THE VERY SAME SPIRIT. This Spirit equips them with what is needed to carry on.
______ FOR THE VERY SAME PURPOSE. The Primary reason for gift of Spirit is to witness to Jesus!
            There are times we need to soften our sense of self importance but as William Temple says, “it is impossible to exaggerate the greatness of our calling.”
            What about you—sister, brother? Even if you count yourself as a proven failure, Jesus stands before you today and like the Uncle Sam poster points his finger and says,

__________I want you

You are his choice! Go with authority, Spirit, and His purpose, to rescue from sin and death to eternal life. And live as God intends.

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The Abundant Life

Posted on 4/18/12 by On the road with Jesus.

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. -John 10:10

The bumper sticker said: “If you don’t think money can bring happiness, you don’t know where to shop.” I read about the Lutheran church near San Francisco that recently advertised a “money-back guarantee”? “Donate to the church for 90 days, and, if you aren’t blessed, you can have your money returned.”

As these two anecdotes illustrate, we live in a consumer oriented society. Someone has said, we chose “churches not so much to meet God and surrender to his revealed ways as to satisfy some personal need.”

It is hard for a culture—materialistic, affluent, and self-indulgent like ours–to hear a Biblical text like the one this morning without distorting its meaning. “I am come that they might have life…abundantly.”

On the other hand, in southern Mexico where believers are being persecuted, how does it apply to the widow and children of Presbyterian. lay preacher, Malecio Gomez, 32, killed in a hail of gunfire and whose body was hacked with a machete? In a world where a child dies of hunger every 5-6 seconds, 18000 a day, what does it mean?

It certainly does not mean security from illness, pain, death, or provision for everything we want. With almost monotonous repetition, John keeps telling us, not new things but confronting us with the choice to trust Jesus.

For those who have trouble experiencing the reality of the abundant life or who confuse it with worldly goods and comfort Jesus offers himself. It is about our relation to Him. We belong to Him and He is that life, the abundant life.

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