By the way, it ended up being four minutes long. I’ll try to do better!

Someone asked, “What’s the difference between godly sorrow and condemnation?”

Simply, one leads to repentance and change (and life!) and the other leads to hopelessness.

It is godly to grieve over sin, whether your own or others.  God grieves over it because he loves people and He understands the destructive nature of sin.  To be like God is to grieve over sin, and unfortunately the influence of our American culture makes us resistant to this truth.  But whether sexual immorality or oppression of the poor, grieving over sin shows an understanding of its effect.

But ultimately, God’s heart is for people to turn and repent.  He is longsuffering in this area and I praise Him for it.  God brings conviction, which implies condemnation if there is no change, but conviction is not condemnation.  Conviction is being found guilty.  Condemnation is the final decision of punishment, irreversible.  God brings conviction so we will turn and He won’t have to condemn.

But here’s the trick from our spiritual enemy, the Devil and his angels.  Remember, while our spiritual enemy can afflict and bind in many ways, his primary weapon is lying, twisting what is true just enough to destroy you.

So while God is convicting through His Word and calling you to repent, the enemy is in your ear, turning the warning of future condemnation into present reality.  “God doesn’t love you.  You’ll never overcome.  You have failed and there’s no hope for you.  Just give up.”  Believing these lies leads to depression and hopelessness.

As angry as God ever was at the nation of Israel for their heinous deeds (idolatry, human sacrifice, extreme oppression of the poor, sexual perversion), He always promised to return and restore EVERYTHING back to them and more if they would repent and return to Him.  He communicates this in the prophets WITHOUT FAIL.

Hopelessness is not from God.  You can trace it back to condemnation and lies but not conviction or godly sorrow.  And you can trace condemnation and lies back to the enemy.

You are not hopeless.  There is hope for you.  Turn to Jesus and give Him everything you are and have and watch Him work His wonders of love and restoration.

Peace.

Well, that’s kind of a dumb question.  Obviously.  Gospel means “good news.”  But what makes it good news?

Generally speaking, the gospel as preached in America over the last few decades (at least) has focused on the following ideas:  You have sinned.  You will die.  Since you have sinned you will go to hell.  You don’t want to go to hell after you die.  It’s bad.  You want to go to heaven.  It’s awesome.  Believe that Jesus died for your sins and you can go to heaven.  Congratulations!  You’re going to heaven instead of hell when you die!

There is truth to these statements, don’t get me wrong, but it contains a fundamental flaw.  It isn’t the focus of the gospel as Jesus and the early church preached it.  Half truths can be dangerous.

It is definitely good news that you go to heaven instead of hell when you die.  But there is more to it than that, and it is vitally important.

Jesus and the apostles preached a gospel that changed the life that you lived right here and now, and that change (or lack of change) had eternal repercussions for judgment and the afterlife.  It focused on two aspects of this.

First, you now have the power from God (grace) to live a righteous life and develop the character of God that you did not have on your own.  Repentance was the central theme, and that meant a literal changing of your ways to God’s ways.  The power to live this way comes from the Spirit of God given to believers that transforms the whole life of the believer to partake in God’s divine nature and live it out.

Second, communities of this new humanity will be a testimony to the power and reign of God in the earth.  The sick will be healed.  The blind will see.  The lame will walk.  The poor will have their needs met.  The lonely will be put into families.  Those in prison get a visitor.  The wealthy will give away their possessions.  Racial, cultural and national differences will not divide them.  They will not solve differences by violence but by sacrifice and love.

To participate in this kingdom has eternal ramifications.  To reject this in any way is to reject God and also has eternal consequences.  The present and eternal are intimately connected and to separate them or dismiss any aspect of the gospel weakens it and the believers it supposedly produces.

The gospel has powerful and inspiring implications both now and in the future.  God works mightily in the present according to His eternal redemptive purposes.

That, my friends, is good news.  That, my friends, creates disciples that turn the world upside down.  That is a call to a kingdom that is worth dropping your nets, leaving everything you’ve ever known behind, and considering yourself dead to the world and alive to God.

I’m not ashamed of that gospel.  It is the power of god to save to the uttermost.  I’ll live like a missionary for that gospel.

Peace.

The problem becomes the modern connotations with the term “evangelism,” some of which are valid and others that are so disconnected from the biblical reality and confused with man-made traditions that it doesn’t properly express what it means to be like Christ.  To use the term, evangelism, as biblical as the word is, brings to mind a one-way communication of the gospel designed to bring another person to conversion.  Now, at some point, evangelism, even with this definition, should happen.  The gospel must be communicated.  Some point of commitment, repentance, is made.  This is good, but only one piece of the picture if that’s all we understand.

A missionary is a more complete picture of what I’m talking about and is what is needed to bring believers to understand what it means to be like Christ and what we are all called to.  A missionary is sent from one land and one people to another land and another people to spread the good news of the kingdom of God.  Doesn’t sound like a big difference, but if you look at it, it is.  We have been sent by God from His kingdom and His Church to the world and to its people to call them back to His Kingdom and His Church with us.

A missionary takes time to listen and learn, to discern the culture around him and his situation and context.  A missionary feels called to people, not just to a message or just to preach.  A missionary falls in love with these people and challenges them to leave their land and people for the kingdom and the church.  A missionary seeks to remove cultural barriers, not create them.  A missionary is willing to change his own stripes, as much as he can, to become all things to all men, to win them to Christ.  A missionary seeks to learn, humbly, about a people before he tries to teach them.

A true missionary will evangelize by nature, but his identity is more like Christ, an alien in the land, and therefore a better representation of Him.  The missionary will make disciples, not just converts, seek an indigenous expression of the church in a culture and place and time.

I’ve lived in another country, another culture; I know what it means to look and feel stupid, to be humbled, to not be able to communicate, to only eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because those were the only ingredients we could recognize at the store, to learn to love without feeling superior and appreciate other peoples not like me.  It is powerful.

The truth, however, is I am just as much a stranger in a strange land here in the US as I was in Korea.  And so are you.  Start thinking like a missionary.

I know I promised some thoughts on the gospel … those are coming up … one more on being a missionary and then we’ll get there .

Peace.

First, just because some guy out in California continues to make a fool out of himself in relation to things about the end times doesn’t mean that anyone who believes that Jesus is coming back is a fool.  Jesus is coming back, at a date no one will know and will be a surprise to everyone, and He will establish something that will be so phenomenal … I’m not sure we can fully comprehend it since it is even more awesome than what we have now.  Some end times details may be up for debate, but that is a clear teaching.  Many will mock that anyway, as has been promised also in Scripture, but those who know Christ are expectantly waiting for His return.

Second, we must be wary of anyone who speaks of the end times as escapism.  Nowhere does the Bible talk about the end times and then excuse half-way Christianity.  The Kingdom of God is here and now and working and active and powerful beyond imagining.  We have the Spirit of Christ within His people now.  Creation is groaning and waiting for the sons of God to be revealed … that means the saints of God!

Third, the way to be “ready” for His return is to live holy, righteous lives.  Knowing the earth will one day all be destroyed and recreated into a new heavens and new earth, Peter says, what kind of people ought we to be … “in holy conduct and godliness” and “diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless” (2 Peter 3).  Maxing out your credit cards for vacations or going into debt for billboards aren’t necessarily proof that you understand how to get ready.

Fourth, if anyone seriously gives you a day and time “from God,” you can safely assume they are wrong … and if it is the pastor of your church, don’t walk, run.

Last, and this is a little more personal, for every dude out in Cali or Westboro Baptist Church there are dozens, or more, of churches out there changing lives with the love and power of Jesus Christ.  They may be from all different backgrounds and paradigms, but they are out there.  The media won’t tell those stories, and those churches don’t advertise what they’re doing (real churches don’t have to), but they are out there.  It is essential in this hour and in this nation that you are a part of one.

Peace.

So far so good.  Some interesting material, but of course you have to wade through a lot of it to find the nuggets.  There is a lot of reading, and I found a gem.

There is a short list of books that I would recommend to Christians to read.  Most of the books out there might be good, but not necessarily in this category.  In fact, I wouldn’t even put my own book in this category yet.  Maybe I’ll write one of those one day.

For example, I would recommend any Christian read Mere Christianity (CS Lewis), Knowledge of the Holy (Tozer), Cost of Discipleship (Bonhoeffer), and then we get into Watchman Nee’s Glorious Church, Andrew Murray’s Humility, Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, etc.

It is rare that I read something and put it in those categories.  And I read.  A lot.  Roland Allen’s Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? is one of those books.

It is full of insight and applicable to any Christian on the subject of evangelism or church planting, or basic ecclesiology for that matter.  Ironically, this book wasn’t required reading for one of my courses, but God nudged me to buy it and I’ve underlined half of it.  It is mercilessly short, but like some of the books mentioned above, so deep and full of meaning that rambling would have ruined it.

Roland Allen, an Anglican, knows the scriptures and history.  His scholarship is sound without being about his scholarship.  He makes his point.  Well.  The book is beautifully simple and full of life.

Most Christian ministers will have a problem giving this book its due.  It tells them that if they want to do their job well, they have to work themselves out of a job.  Other church planting books call this one “revolutionary” but then dismiss it as unrealistic.  I couldn’t agree with Allen more.  Also, in light of the current shift away from any notion of a “mean” God, Allen’s description of Paul’s gospel would offend a modern conscience.  So there’s a little in here for everyone that will make you uncomfortable.  That just means it is full of truth.

I don’t say this often, and I make fun of people who do, but anyone serious about church planting, evangelism, or the nature of the church should read this book.  It affirms biblical principles in those areas, gives a sound and needed look at Paul’s ministry, and is flexible enough to be applicable to anyone seeking to really do church in a biblical way.

And guess what.  It’s free on the internet.  I bought it before I realized this, and I’m glad I did, but here’s the link to read it if you can handle reading stuff on a computer screen.  Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?

Peace.

One change I have been meditating on recently is the change from the front porch to the back deck.  As our American culture has grown, more people build and use a deck in the back of the house as a place to congregate than a front porch visible by the street.

I blame this in part on the suburbanization of our culture.  This is shifting again, which has its pros and cons, back to more urbanization, but for decades people moved from the city out to the suburbs.  In doing so, part of the shift has been a thinking that separated us from our neighbors.  We can see this visibly in the difference between a front porch and a deck.

The front porch is visible by the street and other houses on the street.  The house we recently lived while in Lawrenceville had a front porch.  These were older houses so they still had them.  I loved the front deck.  You could sit on the deck and talk and simultaneously observe the neighborhood and they could observe you.  It communicates more a more welcome attitude and people use the front door to enter the house way more often.

The back deck is different.  The activities on a back deck are hidden from public view.  Some people even build high fences or plant trees to further obstruct visibility.  The front door in many of these homes is not the main entry point of the house.  Day to day, people go in through the garage or another entrance.  The front door becomes more decorative than functional.

When we moved into that neighborhood in Lawrenceville, we went around to meet our neighbors.  We probably knocked on the doors of fifty or sixty houses.  We spoke to, total, maybe eight or ten.  Many times people would be home and would not answer the door.  A couple people that I spoke with would only open the door enough to speak in cautious tones … then one person said, essentially slamming the door in my face, “Let us know if you need anything.”  Hard to believe him.

At the same time, we have a growing number of people that truly feel connected … over email and Facebook.  On the one had I thank God for the connectivity we can have over the internet.  This makes some level of communication with close brothers and sisters of mine in Selmer, Teneesese; Sante Fe, New Mexico; Ohio, or Key West that I wouldn’t normally have.  But if you live five minutes away from me and think that an occasional email with me is a satisfying or intimate relationship, something is broken in our thinking.

What is the point of all my rambling?  I can’t do that much to change culture, and the church has to be careful in its criticism therein, but it is difficult to learn how to love your neighbor when you continue to erect barriers to even come into contact with them.  The culture can do what it wants, but the church is called to something higher.

The Kingdom of God is an invasive thing.  We are invaders on enemy territory, to a degree, so believers need to rethink and re-engage ways to do something very basic in the teachings of Christ, love our neighbor.  We have to find ways to remove those barriers in our own lives, as examples first, and then compassionately use the “all power in heaven and earth given to Me” authority to navigate and even break through those barriers that our neighbors have erected before us.  They may not be New Creations, but they are still His creation and we should learn to love them as our neighbor.

Have a “front porch” mentality, even if you don’t physically have one.  Invite people into your lives.  Don’t hide from the world.  Be vulnerable.  For believers, this begins with other believers and should entail the most intimate relationships we have, but we must also do the same with our neighbors, the humanity all around us worthy of acceptance and basic kindness.

More on this to say later, but that is a start.

Peace.

The bibilical model of discipleship is very different.  No one learned what it meant to be a Christian in a classroom.  They were given real world, powerful and evident examples of what it meant to be a Christian … first in the person of Jesus Himself, of  course, then on to the apostles and so on.  Then Christianity was explained to them, and it made perfect sense because there was a real live model staring them in the face.  This is the biblical model.

Somewhere along the way the Western church adopted the Western culture and missed biblical truth.  Not surprising that we have the problems in the church that we do.  We’re the best at exegesis but some of the worst at believing and doing what the Bible actually says.  However, it is the latter that truly changes lives and teaches anything.

We were reading through the Sermon on the Mount as men last week, and one statement really stuck with me.  Jesus warns those that teach people to sin, to not follow the commandments or to ignore them, that they will be least in the kingdom … but those that DO the commandments and TEACH others to observe them will be great in the Kingdom.

This is of course connected with the Great Commission as written down by Matthew in chapter 28, to make disciples by “teaching them to observe ALL that I have commanded you.”

Of course our modern theology has made us so gun shy of anything that even suggests “works” that our great biblical scholars just find a way to explain all this away.  Here’s a warning: any doctrine that causes you to explain away things clearly stated and taught in scripture is probably dangerous.

Ultimately, we should be “doers” and not “hearers” only.  I think that is written somewhere, too …  And it is the doers that become the greatest teachers because there is integrity in the whole message of testimony and spoken truth.

Peace.