On February 25-27, 2008 Resurgence hosted our National Conference titled Text & Context at Mars Hill Church's Ballard Campus. In this second session from the Conference, listen as CJ Mahaney encourages us to look for small graces in those around us.
TO SEE YOU FILLS ME WITH JOY. My heart was encouraged Wednesday night by the freedom and earnestness and affection for God with which you prayed. I think it is the mark of a growing people—a people growing toward God in their hearts—that they often move beyond delight in God's gifts to delight in God. They not only say, "Thank you for the rising sun," but also, "I praise you for the brightness of your glory." They not only say, "Thank you for my children," but also, "How amazing is your power, O God, that you can speak everlasting persons into being!" They not only say, "We love your Kingdom, Lord," but also, "Jesus, we love you. Father, Holy Spirit, we love you; we adore you." When the Holy Spirit stirs and quickens this people and grants to us the power to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of the glory of the love of God in Christ, and fills us with all the fullness of God, we become lovers of God himself; and all his gifts and creatures become secondary reflections of the Lord himself, and our affections are not satisfied until they ascend along the beam of God's generosity into the very flame of his heart. And I feel a tremendous joy when I hear this people pray, as if you've been there and know what I mean.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; 24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, 25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?
When you get up in the morning and you face a day, what do you say to yourself about your hopes for the day? When you look from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, what do you want to happen because you have lived? What difference do you want your life to make?
If you say, I don't even think like that, I just get up and do what I've got to do, then you are cutting yourself off from a basic means of grace and a source of guidance and strength and fruitfulness and joy. It is crystal clear in the Bible, including this text, that God means for us to aim consciously at something significant in our days. God's revealed will for you is that when you get up in the morning, you don't drift aimlessly through the day letting mere circumstances alone dictate what you do, but that you aim at something - that you focus on a certain kind of purpose. I'm talking about children here, and teenagers, and adults - single, married, widowed, moms, and every trade.
Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; 15 while it is said, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS, AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME." 16 For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 And we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.
TWO BIG IFs
Last week we focused on the two big ifs in verse 6 and verse 14. Let's put them before us again and then focus on how our life together at Bethlehem can help us fulfill the big ifs.
Verse 6b: "We are his (Christ's) house (his household, his people) if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end." Notice carefully: It does not say: we will become Christ's house if we hold fast to our hope. It does say: we are his house if we hold fast to our hope. In other words the holding fast to our hope is the demonstration and evidence that we are now his house.
There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." (Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Typical American Christians' Church Experience: Organically Flawed?
My aim this morning is to persuade you and plead with you to get into a small group relationship with other Christians to experience the fullness of supernatural church life as the New Testament pictures it.
Sometimes I wonder if the frequency and seriousness of many problems that Christians face is not owing to the fact that most Christians in America do not experience relational, interpersonal, supernatural church life the way the New Testaments describes it. Psychological problems, marriage problems, parenting problems, self-identity problems, financial problems, career problems, loneliness, addictions, phobias, weaknesses—I wonder if the epidemic of emotional and psychological woes is not the symptom of an organic flaw in the way most Christians experience corporate church life.
The ancient church had a communion prayer that drops hard on us today. As the American evangelical church struggles with sincere desire to be relevant to the people who are passing by our friendly signs and non-threatening services, our fathers and mothers in the faith were praying just before receiving the Bread and the Cup, "I will not speak of thy Mystery to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas." Instead of opening wide the doors for all to come, the pastor would instruct the deacon to shut the door after having sent out all the unbaptized attenders. So much for being "seeker sensitive!" In spite of such poor marketing strategy, the church grew tremendously during this period that lacked ecclesiastical graces.
The cruciality of community
On the night before his death (John 13ff), Jesus said that the purpose of his death was to form a new community. His disciples were to become a new humanity which was to be a 'demonstration plot' of the kingdom of God. In their relationships to one another, and in the way they related together to the rest of the world, they were to be a sign that Jesus is the Lord who is going to redeem all of creation. Christian community is a comprehensive and distinct way to be human in deep relationship with others who have been transformed by the gospel.
Why is group Bible study often boring and irrelevant? What questions, when answered move us to obey God when we did not obey him before? What thoughts move us from potential to action? What is the difference between knowledge that sets us free and knowledge that puffs us up into proud inactivity? What questions lead us to the end of our rope? How can we move out of self-help knowledge that fosters self-sufficiency to knowledge that leads to self-insufficiency-that leads us to grace?
A CALL TO SMALL TOGETHERNESS I have a deep confidence that God's hand is upon us for good here at Bethlehem in the calling of our ministers. Let me describe briefly what I think the Lord is doing and what he aims to do. About 14 months ago the church called me to be pastor with the expectation that I would devote myself primarily to the ministry of the Word and to prayerful oversight of our total ministry. During those first months together we prayed and we pondered what priorities of ministry should guide our call of an associate pastor. The decision was that he should be a person gifted to develop both a ministry of outreach and a ministry of nurture through the building of support groups throughout the congregation. We saw a vital link between the rich group life and sustained, joyful outreach. Last February Glenn Ogren was called to help equip us for these ministries. In addition the church is committed to providing the best possible spiritual leadership for our youth, and to that end Tom Steller, Cory Dahl and Gregg Heinsch were called to work with our college, senior high and junior high young people. At the other end of the age spectrum we have numerous elderly people who can't get out to services and the church sought the help of David Carlson to provide a steady link between these people and the gathered assembly. And finally as of this month, Bruce Leafblad has joined us to lead in worship and music.
