10.28.09
Posted in Church Life, Discipleship, Lifestyle at 6:30 am by Anthony
In the first post in this series we looked at what it means to authentically say the 23rd Psalm and how, as Christians, we can say it with the Lord Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, in mind. In the second post we drew three points of application from John 10. To be able to say “The Lord Jesus is my shepherd,” means to be known by him, to listen to his voice, and to follow him. Today, close by looking at two otther implications of following Jesus as our shepherd.
To Be Protected By Him.
Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. (John 10:7-8)
It’s a dangerous world our there; there are lots of wolves, and some of them are in sheep’s clothing. There are thieves and robbers. Satan tries in so many ways to lure us out of the flock, and out of the care of the good shepherd. Think about what how he tries to do it in your own life – maybe you’re overwhelmed with busyness; maybe it’s discouragement that tempts you to wander away from Jesus. Maybe it’s a kind of spiritual loneliness where you feel don’t feel like you have a true friend to walk alongside of you. Maybe you’re listening to the voice of the thieves and robbers, of our society that tells you that something newer or faster or sexier is better than life with the Good Shepherd.
Jesus says that the only place of safety is to enter the sheepfold through him. And once you’re there, he won’t let anyone come and snatch you out.
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.(John 10:27-29)
A lot of Christians believe this verse teaches something called “the perserverance of t he saints,” or, as we usually hear it, “once saved always saved.” But you and I have all seen people who have chosen to walk out of the sheepfold . The good shepherd lets them go because his hand is place of safety, not a prison. Sometimes the good shepherd pursues them. Sometimes, like the Father in the parable of the lost son, he waits for their return. Some of them return and some of them don’t. But we should not confuse the possibility of leaving the hand of Jesus with the probability of leaving. Jesus says, “As long as you stick with me, I’ll watch out for you; I’ll protect you – ain’t nobody gonna grab you out of my hands; you can be assured of that.”
Finally, to have the Lord Jesus as your shepherd means
To Be In His Flock.
Now that may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many sheep try to survive away from the flock. That’s a dangerous place. In another passage, Jesus talked about a man who left his ninety-nine sheep who were safe to go after the one who had wandered away (Matt. 18:12-13; Luke 15:3-7). Why would he do that? He does that because to be in the flock, to be with other sheep in the presence of the shepherd, is the best place to be protected from the thieves and the robbers that are out there – and they are out there!
I think another reason that the good shepherd wants us with the flock is because the flock is place where he can gather new sheep.
I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. (John 10:16)
In this context, Jesus probably had in mind bringing the Gentiles into a flock that was, at that time, all Jewish. That’s not a big issue for us today, but I think there’s a message for us here. The flock, of course, is the church – we all need the church and we need to be in the church and we need to be with other Christians. But the good shepherd never intended to have a flock that just had the same sheep in it year after year after year. He wants wild sheep – sheep that have never been part of a flock – to come in. And he really doesn’t want a bunch of different flocks. He didn’t want a Jewish flock and a Gentile flock—he wanted to bring them together. And I’m convinced that he still longs for one flock, not a bunch of different flocks wearing different denominational banners. And he sure doesn’t want his sheep butting each other trying to push one another out of the flock!
Jesus really is the good shepherd – he is my shepherd, and I hope that he’s your shepherd. To be his sheep is to be known by him, it is to know him, it is to follow him, to be protected by him, and to be in his flock. All of this is possible because the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.
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04.03.08
Posted in Church Life at 2:55 pm by Anthony
A few days ago I was in Walmart and I ran into an older gentleman that I had known years ago at another church in the area. I had not seen him since the early 90s, so I gave him a rundown on my life since then – our years in Africa, my marriage, my children, and our work here in Albany. Then he asked, “So your wife’s a Christian?” I joked, “Yeah, she’s even a Church of Christ Christian.”
He didn’t think that was funny. He began to talk about his fear that we as the Church of Christ are losing our identity. I knew where he was coming from and listened respectfully. I agree we should know more about where we come from as Restoration Churches and value that heritage. I believe that we can learn from other groups, but I also believe that we have a lot to offer. I don’t want us to lose our identity as Restoration churches.
But I also see a danger – a danger in deriving our primary identity from the “Church of Christ” as a heritage, and being as sectarian and divisive as the churches that the early Restorationists left. Let’s make sure that we who are in the Church of Christ are really focusing on Jesus Christ himself.
When we were in Africa, young Christians would sometimes ask us, “How does the Church of Christ _____________?” You can fill in the blank with just about any practice a church might engage in. Pray, sing, take the Lord’s Supper, give, evangelize …. The question always drove me crazy.
If we are focusing on Jesus, then the question “What would Jesus do?” becomes a much more important question than “What does the Church of Christ do?” Because the Church of Jesus Christ should always do what Christ would do.
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03.13.08
Posted in Church Life, Mission, Reading at 1:04 pm by Anthony
I made my first trip to Africa in 1988. Shortly after arriving in Kenya, I met Stan Granberg, and spent four weeks as an intern with the mission team in Meru where Stan lived. I was impressed with him at that time, and continue to be. Stan is now leading Kairos, which encourages planting new Churches of Christ in North America. Stan is deeply commited to our heritage in Churches of Christ and wants to help us reclaim the best parts of our heritage.
Today, I received the following email from Stan. I thought it was worth sharing with you:
March 13, 2008
Dear Friends,
My wife and I have the opportunity to travel widely across the country, observing, listening to and engaging in conversation with the fellowship of the churches of Christ. As we do this I keep a travel log of what we are learning. Recently I was blessed to share with our local preachers what God has been doing through Kairos. Since many of these men are my “traveling companions in the kingdom” I wanted to share with them some of what I have been learning about our fellowship. The following is a condensed version of those thoughts. I pray these considerations will encourage and challenge you as you serve God in his great kingdom.
1. Our heritage is blessed by a powerful “believers church” theology that, in its strength, is not complacent with the world as it is. For church planting, it is this theological heritage that critiques pragmatism or personal preference as the foundations for decision making about what a church planter will do. Our believers’ church heritage should help us live out God’s desires in the midst of the fiercely opposing values of a world where the “prince of this world” rules hard. Leonard Allen in Things Unseen describes the essence of a believers’ church theology as an apocalyptic vision of the kingdom of God of which we are both recipients and outposts; this apocalyptic vision provides the dynamic that energizes us into service to the world.
2. Our fellowship is blessed by a deep desire to obey, rooted in a trust in God’s Word. When this desire to obey is based on relationship, knowing God—we do well; when this desire to obey is interpreted as being knowledgeable of the Word, disconnected from relationship with a personal God, we lapse into law-keeping which turns us brittle and harsh.
3. The Road Not Traveled – This is the title of the final chapter in John Mark Hick’s Kingdom Come, the story of James Harding, David Lipscomb and the Nashville Bible School. Our fellowship, and probably God’s people in general, tend to do better when we are traveling folk and not settlers. Our call is still the call of Abraham to leave Ur and of Moses to leave Egypt so that we can experience God as we travel with him. Working with John Mark’s theme, here are three areas that for me constitute the road our fellowship in our generation has yet to travel:
a. Reducing our pride and arrogance. Our spirit of debate and insistence on our correctness are signs. Our well-honed ability to critique, evaluate and look for fault is another. The most damaging evidence of this sin is our struggle with spiritual submission to those whom God brings with spiritual authority into our lives. I confess, I am truly a child of my heritage—I feel I can do better then “they can.” So I have the right to tweak, adjust, dissent. But honestly, I can’t do better. I’m doing the best I can. Lord enrich my willingness to be blessed by others.
b. Serving the world as part of the fellowship of the broken. Our strong “set apart” exclusivity has not only separated us from other believers’ traditions, it has often separated us from the world God intends for us to serve. If we are to be salt and light among God’s lost people we will gain the opportunity to be heard as we recognize that we too are members of the fellowship of the broken. It is this personal recognition that will raise our level of compassion out of the pew and into a life of transforming service in God’s world.
c. Developing a culture of generosity at the level of the congregation. My experience is that as individuals our fellowship can be generous—at times. This has seldom been my experience at the congregational level. A friend of mine recently made this observation of us, “When missionaries go to churches of my fellowship if they do not ask for big money, the churches are insulted. When missionaries go to churches of Christ your churches are insulted if they are asked for money.” Giving without expecting the benefit of the gift must truly be the definition of generous giving. My experiences suggest that generous giving is a road our churches have yet to travel.
I just wanted to share these thoughts with you as we learn together how to minister from our fellowship, calling one another to God’s mission among God’s lost people.
God bless you all for your contributions to the kingdom.
Stan Granberg
Kairos executive director
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05.17.07
Posted in Church Life, Ministry at 2:30 pm by Anthony
I’ve never been very comfortable with the title “pastor.” The biggest reason is that we just didn’t use it in my Church of Christ upbringing. Another reason was that in Africa it tended to be a title that could only be worn by those who had a certain level of theological education, and was often worn with a certain amount of pride and arrogance. And then there’s the idea that the biblical usage is interchangable with elders and overseers, whereas today it’s usually reserved for a credentialed and salaried church employee. The idea of a “Senior Pastor” or “Associate (junior?) Pastor” just doesn’t seem to fit the biblical usage.
I spent some time yesterday and today looking more closely at the biblical use and it occured to me that, with the exception of Ephesians 4:11, the noun pastor does not appear in the New Testament as a title for anyone. In the Ephesians passage, it’s part of what would be better rendered a hyphenated “pastor-teacher,” or “shepherd-teacher.” As Lynn Anderson says in They Smell Like Sheep, “These leaders ’shepherd by teaching’ or, conversely, ‘teach by shepherding’” (p. 83).
With the exception of this occurence, however, the word pastor, as applied to church leadership in the New Testament, is a verb. In both Acts 20:28 and in 1 Peter 5:2, ”Be shepherds,” as in the NIV, or “(to) shepherd” as in the NASB, is one word in the original text. The KJV translates it as the verb “feed,” and that is certainly involved, but to shepherd or to pastor involves more t han dumping food out. It implies tending, nurturing, treating wounds, rescuing, caring for, and leading, as well as feeding.
Pastor is something to do, and not primarily a title to be worn. Those who do it best will probably never wear the title. And to them, titles are more scorned than sought after. Last night in our class on shepherding I asked those in the class to write down the names of three people that they could go to in a spiritual crisis. I didn’t ask anyone to reveal names, but Sister Tincy, our very sweet octogenarian, wanted to honor those who shepherd her by naming them, and they were all sisters in the church who she could always count on. There wasn’t an “office holder” among them.
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04.10.07
Posted in Church Life at 10:38 am by Anthony
This weekend we watched with surprise and awe as the snow came down in Albany on the day before Easter. There were still patches on the ground Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. when several of us met with others from the community for our annual Sonrise Easter service, held in front of the gazebo on the courthouse lawn. The air was a little cool, but not too bad, and we had a great time of worship together.
Now that the excitement of Easter is over, we face the challenge of living the resurrected life with him! Paul tells the Colossians,
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col. 3:1-4)
Now that we have been raised with Christ, we live on a level above the “earthly things.” We’re not to be snooty and think we are better than those still caught up in earthly things. We’re not better than them, but we are better off! Unless, of course, we allow ourselves to get drug down into the muck. Keep your feet on the ground, but keep your mind in the heavenly realms with Christ!
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