Romans 1:1 – 7, A Meditation (2)

 

Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles in behalf of His name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

How do we see ourselves in this passage? In the previous post we considered that if we are in Jesus Christ that we are bondslaves, we belong to Another, we do not belong to ourselves – this is an element of the Gospel message, for the very fact that we are redeemed means that we belong to the One who redeemed us – we preach only a fragment of the Gospel if we speak of being redeemed without closing the loop on what being redeemed means – perhaps this is one reason we have so many stillbirths in the Kingdom, we preach fragments of the Gospel.

 

Now let’s consider that Paul writes that he was “called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” Recalling from the last post that “apostle” means “one who is sent,” do you see yourself as a man or woman whom God has sent? May I gently say that every follower of Jesus Christ has been sent by Jesus Christ – in this sense we are all apostles. Are we living as a people who have been sent?

 

Now of course we are not all called to be vocational apostles, such as Peter and Paul and Matthew, but let us not excuse ourselves from obeying Jesus Christ to “go into all the world” (Matthew 28:18-20) and let us not close our ears when Jesus says, “…as the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). Furthermore, let us not make excuses about not knowing enough to talk to other people, after all, if we know Jesus then we are called to speak of Jesus, we all have a testimony; though to be sure as we “study to show ourselves approved unto God” (2 Timothy 2:15), and as we live lives presenting ourselves as living and holy sacrifices (Romans 12:1 – 2), our testimonies and wisdom in sharing the Gospel will grow and mature and will more and more manifest the Nature of Jesus Christ. Even children can setup a lemonade stand – we don’t need five-star restaurants to share Living Water.

 

One challenge is that we are captives to the clergy - laity dichotomy of death, one of two dichotomies of death in the professing church, the other being the sacred – secular dichotomy (vocational ministry is sacred, all other vocations are secular). In other words, we ignore the fact that vocational ministry is called to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12) and we insist that pastors and priests and missionaries and evangelists do our work for us – after all, isn’t that why we pay them?

 

Sadly, during the past few decades we’ve also been taken captive by marketing and sociology and seduced by what Francis Schaffer called “personal peace and affluence.” So now, even our pastors and evangelists and elders often tend to follow sociology rather than the Cross, they know the tricks (yes, they are tricks) of marketing and playing to the general society rather than the self-denial, suffering, and obedience that the Cross of Christ invariably leads us to. We are pretty much all culpable in this, and I include myself. O dear friends, I don’t write these things to condemn, but to call us to our senses, to remind us that we are the sons and daughters of the living God, that we are saints – which not only speaks to our justification, but also to our sanctification – to both elements of sanctification – holiness and being separated and devoted and consecrated to Jesus Christ. (Back to Ephesians 4:12, we can equip saints for the work of ministry, we cannot equip sinners).

 

Witnessing flows from relationship with Jesus Christ, and relationship means that we know who Jesus Christ is – including who He is within us, and that we know who we are in Him. If we don’t know this organic reality grounded in the Bible we can take course after course on witnessing, engage in program after program, but nothing will be sustainable – O it may work on artificial life – support, but it will not have the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

 

We are sent to our marriages, our families, our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers, our fellow church members (for there are congregations in which not everyone knows Jesus Christ, indeed, there are congregations in which knowing Jesus may be the exception).

 

Am I living as “one who is sent” today? Are our congregations? Is this the Way we live?

 

What about you?

 

Romans 1:1 – 7, A Meditation (1)

 

 

Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles in behalf of His name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

I’ve been pondering this passage for a few days, what do you think of it? What do you see? Is this something we skip over so we can move along with our reading? Can you see the holy Trinity in this passage? If so, what do you see regarding the Trinity?

 

This morning I looked at a blank page, or rather a blank screen, and I knew I wanted to write something, but what to write? How to write? For the writer, there is nothing quite like a blank page; it can represent opportunity, or fear, or foolishness, or risk. It can send some of us running for cover, it can nurture procrastination, it can offer joy, or agony, or exposure – all at the same time!

 

One thing I am learning is that when I need to write and have so many images and thoughts swirling around in me and am pulled in various directions and don’t know where to begin, that I am always safe in the Scriptures. This, my friends, is true of life, and it is critical for the person who calls himself or herself a Christian to know this, to practice this, to model this – for a man or woman whose life is not grounded, anchored, and tethered to the Bible cannot be said to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

 

I suppose that last statement raises a few questions, but I’ll simply say this, it is better for you to know Jesus Christ in one book of the Bible that you are actually spending time in, rather than attempting to read a book about the Bible without actually reading and meditating in the Bible. You can’t eat an elephant all at one time. You can’t eat all the offerings on a dinner buffet at one sitting. This is one reason many folks recommend beginning with the Gospel of John – get to know it, spend time in it, ponder it, see yourself in it, and let it become a part of you. Also, begin with Psalm 1 and read one Psalm a day and continue to do so for the rest of your life.

 

There are too many professing Christians who don’t know Jesus Christ, I don’t want you to be one of them. They speak of Jesus as they speak of someone they don’t know but know about. Their knowledge is pretty much secondhand, they know what they’ve been told, not what they have experienced. While God reveals Himself to us in many ways, the center of gravity of His self-revelation, His self-disclosure, is the Bible as it is illuminated by the Holy Spirit; and the central revelation of the Bible is Jesus Christ – the Bible is held together in the Person of Jesus Christ.

 

Professing Christians can also be like sports fans who speak as if they know certain sports stars, but in reality they’ve never met them. When we used to attend NASCAR races, fans would speak of “Dale” or “Mark” or “Rusty” as if they had coffee with them every morning, and yet they had never met them, and in the few cases where they met them in passing, they didn’t really know them, they didn’t have a relationship with them. How might you characterize your relationship with Jesus Christ?

 

What do you see in Romans 1:1? What do you see about God? What do you see about Paul? What do you see about yourself?

 

Here are some elements I see:

 

Jesus Christ has bondservants. Some translations may have “servant,” others may have “slave.” I think either “bond-servant” or “slave” give us the best sense of the Greek word – Paul belonged to Jesus Christ, Paul was not his own – and neither are we. Jesus Christ purchased us with His blood, with His life (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 6:19 – 20, 7:23; Titus 2:14; Heb. 9:11 – 14; 1 Peter 1:18 – 19; Rev. 5:9 – 10).

 

Within the Kingdom of God, within the Church, the Bride, the Temple, there are only those who have been bought with a Price and who are, therefore, the property of Jesus Christ; there are not some who are slaves (bondservants) and some who are not, for all men and women and young people who are in the Church are there because they have been redeemed (purchased) by Jesus Christ – this means that Jesus owns us. To be sure there are other dimensions of our relationship with the Trinity: we are saints, we are the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, we are the sons and daughters of the Father, we are holy vessels of the Holy Spirit, and we have various gifts and graces imparted to us so that we may be a blessing to others in Jesus Christ (what other aspects of our relationship with the Trinity can you think of?).

 

Do you think of yourself as a bondservant of Jesus Christ? Does your congregation think of itself as a bondservant of the Messiah, Christ Jesus?

 

Someone once asked in a small group I was in, “Aren’t we independent contractors for Jesus?” Of course we aren’t! Jesus doesn’t have the equivalent of independent contractors, He has bondservants who are called to abide in Him, to live by His Life (John 15:1ff; Galatians 2:20). If Jesus wasn’t an “independent contractor” in His relationship with the Father (see passages such as John 5:19), we can hardly be independent contractors in our relationship with Christ Jesus.

 

What would the witness of the Church of Jesus Christ be like in the United States of America if its people saw themselves as slaves of Jesus Christ? If we lived in obedience to the truth that Jesus Christ has purchased us with His blood and that we now belong to Him and not to ourselves? As Paul writes in Romans 1:5, and as Jesus commissions us in Matthew 28:19 – 20, Biblical faith is obedient faith, and we are to teach others to obey what Jesus Christ has commanded. (How can we teach others to obey Jesus Christ if we are not obeying Jesus Christ?)

 

The order of the words “bond-servant” and “apostle” in Romans 1:1 direct our attention to the fact that Paul was first a slave and then an apostle. Paul was a bondservant who was sent (the word “apostle” means “one who is sent”). Friends, I don’t care what “ministry” God has given us, as individuals or as congregations, I don’t care what glorious insights we’ve glimpsed, I don’t care how inspiring our music and lyrics are – if we aren’t living as bondmen and bondwomen of Jesus Christ we need to come back to our Master, for we are sheep gone astray from the Shepherd.

 

Behold the anarchy in the professing church today! See how we pick and choose which elements of the Bible we will obey and teach. See how we align ourselves with political agendas and make politics the litmus test for fellowship. See how we ignore the righteousness and holiness of Scripture. See how we justify our lack of Christian unity. See how impotent we are in our preaching and living and witnessing. See how there is no accountability in the professing church. See how we look like the world, talk like the world, walk like the world (are we not ducks of the world?). See how we make decisions based on return on investment, on the pragmatic – rather than fasting and praying and beseeching God for guidance and direction.

 

If we are pastors, are we preaching and teaching and shepherding as slaves of Jesus Christ? If we are listening to pastors and teachers, are we listening and responding as slaves of Jesus Christ? When people watch our lives; our family, friends, coworkers, neighbors – do they see that we are not our own, but that we  belong, and are accountable to, Another? (See Matthew 8:9 – this is what the centurion saw in Jesus Christ).

 

Are we living in the anarchy of society, or are we living as the bondservants of Jesus Christ?

 

 

 

A Little Meditation on Jude

 

 

“Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:1).

 

A few days ago I read the above verse and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind, and as I write these words I ask, “And why should I?” I intended to read all of Jude that morning, but I couldn’t get beyond this first verse.

 

O the blessedness to know that we are “called,” “beloved,” and “kept.” But do we know this? Do we really know this?

 

Vickie loves to bake and cook, and I’ll often notice that there are pages on the printer that need to go to Vickie; they are recipes she’s seen online which she has printed out, waiting for the best time to use them; she has a number of binders on a bookshelf in which she organizes recipes (I haven’t been able to convince her that she can do this electronically, but then, while I do read books electronically, most of my books need to be held in my hands).

 

I suppose the first verse of Jude has been like one of Vickie’s recipes, I’ve kept it in my heart, meditating on it, rejoicing in it, but not serving it to others…not yet…not until now.

 

It seems to me that we have two dangerous propensities, and both are forms of denying Jesus Christ; one is to forget who He is in us and who we are in Him – buying into messages of condemnation which beat us down; the other is legalism and works – righteousness, the idea that our own efforts and works are critical for our Christian life…the idea that “we can do it,” that we can live this thing called “the Christian life.” Yes, yes, I’ll acknowledge the other dangerous propensity to buy into a gospel (which is not the Gospel) that we need not repent, that we need not live in obedience to Jesus Christ, that God is our servant to give us all the American Dream. Yes, I’ll acknowledge that we have other destructive and Gospel – smothering propensities, but allow me to continue with this little gem of a verse in Jude.

 

In Christ, we are called, we are beloved, and we are kept. This means that in Christ you are called, you are beloved, and you are kept. May I please ask you to pause and consider what God’s Word tells you about us, what God tells you about you in Christ. You are called, you are beloved, and dear dear friend, you are kept (See Psalm 121 for a wonderful portrayal of being kept by God, and please note that the world “keep” is used in verses 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8; many English translations insist on synonyms for the purpose of English style (in this case not repeating a word), but I am of a mind that God’s style should take precedence over our style.)

 

When you awoke this morning, did you do so in the consciousness that you are called, you are beloved, you are kept?

 

Note the sequencing of these words; called, beloved, and kept.

 

In Hebrews 12:2 the author pictures Jesus as, “the Author and Finisher of our faith,” this is why we should be “fixing our eyes on Jesus” for He is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and Omega – He begins a New Creation in us and He completes a New Creation in us, in me and in you and in us (for we are not new creations in and of ourselves, we not islands, we are not a dismembered body – we are the very Body of Jesus Christ).

 

Jesus calls us and Jesus keeps us, and He does this because the Father and Jesus love us. Here is how I will write your biography:

 

“Bill was called by God, beloved by God, and kept by God.”

 

“Susan was called, Susan was beloved by the Father, Susan was kept for Jesus Christ.”

 

Now since there are more of you than there are of me, rather than wait for me to write your biography, why don’t you write your autobiography? Here is how it might go:

 

“I am called, I am beloved in God the Father, I am kept for Jesus Christ.”

 

Have you noticed that you have been acted upon by God and that you have done nothing yourself? You have not acted upon God but God has acted upon you; you have not initiated a relationship with God but God has initiated a relationship with you. There is nothing here about you loving God (though that is the Great Commandment!), but we do see God loving you. There is nothing here about keeping yourself, but we do see God keeping you. (Yes, yes, we see varying facets of our relationship with the Trinity in the Bible from different perspectives, but I think that Jude captures bedrock, just as Psalm 121, we are utterly dependent upon the Person of God and the Work of God and the Word of God – everything and anything that is fruitful between the Beginning and the End comes from God in Christ (John 15:4 – 5).

 

May I ask you to please consider living today in the awareness that you have been called, that you are beloved in God the Father, and that you are kept for Jesus Christ?

 

Do you know someone who would be encouraged by what God says through Jude?

Incarnational Witness

 

 

“One of the two who heard John [the Baptist] speak and followed Him [Jesus] was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He found first his own brother Simon and said, ‘We have found the Messiah (which translated means Christ).’” John 1:40 – 41.

 

“The next day He [Jesus] purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’”

 

Andrew hears John the Baptist say, “Behold the Lamb,” and Andrew follows Jesus. Andrew finds his brother Peter and says, “We have found the Messiah.” Jesus finds Philip and Philip finds Nathanael and Philip says, “We have found Him…come and see.”

 Sometimes Jesus calls us directly to know Him, but most of the time He calls us to follow Him through others; through John the Baptist, through a family member such as Andrew, or through a friend such as Philip. John the Baptist was certain when he cried “Behold the Lamb of God.” Andrew and Philip were seminally certain, that is, they had a certainty about Jesus, but it was a certainty that would go through a process of being more and more certain - is it not true that most of us, if not all of us, are in this process?

 

However, even when Jesus calls us directly, as with Paul on the road to Damascus, we soon find that He continues the call through others – Paul immediately needed Ananias, and then later he needed Barnabas, and still later he needed the affirmation of the prophets and teaches of Antioch (Acts 9:10; 11:25 – 26; 13:1 – 2). The original Apostles needed one another, and others, as they grew in Christ – as they grew individually and as a foundational group (Ephesians 2:20; Rev. 21:14).

 

May I say that witnessing is less a matter of what we do, than of who we are in Jesus Christ…and of who Jesus Christ is to us. When we reduce witnessing to techniques we profane Christ’s command to go into all the world, to all peoples, and make disciples, teaching others to obey all that Jesus Christ has commanded us. Witnessing is more than proclaiming, though proclaiming is certainly an element of witnessing, the Great Commission is more than the dissemination of information, it is the command to “make disciples.” How can we make disciples if we are not living as disciples? If we ourselves are not disciples of Jesus Christ – and this goes far beyond what we consider normal Christian living – how can we make disciples? If we don’t know who Christ is in us and who we are in Christ how can we live sacramentally so that we are broken Bread and poured out Wine for our generation?

 

Andrew and Philip said, “We have found…” While naturally from their perspective they found the Messiah, we can also say that the Messiah found them, as they would come to understand. Jesus would say in the Upper Room, “You did not choose Me but I chose you…(John 15:16). Earlier Jesus would say, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…(John 6:44). We have the freedom to speak either way, “I found Him,” or “He found me,” are both accurate; just as we have the freedom to say, “I saw the sun rise this morning,” without going into an explanation of the relationship of the sun and earth and orbits and the earth’s axis.  We have the freedom to speak from varying perspectives.

 

Andrew “brought him [Peter] to Jesus.” Philip brought Nathanael to see Jesus. In John 4:29 the woman at the well told the men of her village, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” (Consider that this woman, with an unstable and questionable social background, was saying to the men of her village, “Come, see a man.” She was telling them what to do!)

 

O dear friends, our level of knowledge and understanding is not the point in all of this, for Andrew and Philip and the woman of the well had all just met Jesus, but they were finding their friends, family, and neighbors and were saying, “Come and see.” They were bringing others to meet Jesus. Philip appealed to Moses and the Prophets when he spoke with Nathanael, while the woman at the well appealed to her experience with Jesus – what matters is that we tell others, bring others, and follow Jesus ourselves. We are called to be faithful, Jesus is responsible for the results (John 15:1ff).

 

John Chapter One is a chapter of witnessing, God has witnessed to the world through His Creation in and through the Word, the Son; God has also witnessed particularly through the Incarnation, an Incarnation that is ongoing – that began in a Grain of Wheat and now continues through a Harvest – a Harvest on a trajectory of culmination. Since this chapter is a chapter of Incarnational Witness, as indeed the Gospel of John is the Gospel of Incarnation Witness (what we see in John 1:14 is expanded in chapters 13 – 17 and beyond), when it comes to our witness, who we are is critical – when we realize who Christ is in us and who we are in Christ, our witness flows from our organic koinonia in the Trinity…hence witnessing is less a matter of what we do, than living in the reality of who we are.

 

Are our lives perpetually saying, “Come and see”? Are we saying, “Behold the Lamb!”

 

Are we sacramentally living as broken Bread and poured out Wine?

 

Who Did Andrew and Philip Find?

 

“The two disciples heard him [John the Baptist] speak, and they followed Jesus.”

 

Let’s state two things that ought to be before us at all times:

 

The first is that our desire ought to always be to speak in such a way that others follow Jesus Christ, and that they follow in such a way that they bring others to know Jesus, for to follow Jesus Christ entails witnessing to Jesus Christ and bringing others to Jesus Christ. How did we come to a place in the West, and in our congregations, where lesser forms of Christianity are the norm? A faithful Church is a witnessing Church. A faithful Bride is a Bride not ashamed of her Husband.

 

The second thing is that we need to be willing to leave the things we know, the things that are familiar to us, so that we might follow Jesus Christ and increasingly come to know Jesus Christ. Abraham, our Father in the Faith, left what he knew (Ur of the Chaldees) in order to obey the call of Yahweh; our fathers and mothers of Hebrews Chapter 11 were perpetually “going out” in order to follow the True and Living God, and Andrew and Philip would both leave the familiar in order to follow Jesus. Jesus was constantly calling men and women to leave what they knew, and often what they were secure within, to follow Him.

 

How different is the Biblical call of Jesus Christ from what we preach and teach and write about today? We often say, “Keep what you have. Keep your pleasures, keep your affluence, keep your egotism, keep your pursuit of temporal position and glory; come to Jesus and He will help you gain all of these things and enjoy them even more – Jesus will help you get what you want!”

 

Sadly, we even give sin new names, therapeutic names – so that we don’t think there is really anything wrong with us that can’t be fixed with some counseling and hugs or the acquisition of things – whether it is the sin nature with which we are all born, or specific sins of our hearts, minds, and bodies – we substitute therapeutic language for Biblical language, therapeutic concepts for Biblical concepts, the wisdom of man for the wisdom of God.

 

But make no mistake, we are not only called to leave sin, to leave the bad things, we are called to leave even some pretty good teaching, such as the teaching of John the Baptist, so that we can follow Jesus. In fact, for those of us raised in the de facto Law of Moses and traditions of men, which at times may have been helpful to us and others, we are called to leave even those things so that we may give Jesus Christ our all in all and find in Him our everything.

 

The Law of Moses was our tutor (Galatians 3:15 – 4:11; note 3:24), but to remain in the Law is to die, and to teach the Law as Law is to place others under condemnation (2 Cor. Chapter 3). There was a time when Andrew needed to leave John the Baptist, just as we are called to leave the Law, through the death of Jesus Christ, and be married to Another (Romans 7:1 – 6).

 

To truly understand the Law and the Prophets and the Writings is to see Jesus Christ in them (Luke 24:27, 44 – 45). Just as John the Baptist proclaims, “Behold the Lamb!”, the Old Testament shouts, “Behold the Lamb!”

 

I suppose I should make this point, we are not called to seek new things, new understandings, new revelations; we are called to seek and follow Jesus Christ. I am afraid that I must confess that I used to be a member of the “Revelation of the Month Club.” I was always seeking something newer and higher and more novel, rather than seeking a deeper and more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I was more focused on sharing “truth” with others, understandings with others, than I was in sharing Jesus Christ with others. Let us not deceive ourselves, we can make some attractive religious idols – the most powerful idols are the attractive idols, not the ugly scary idols – just look at the winners of the show American Idols. We create talented religious idols, not dumb idols.

 

Usually it doesn’t cost us much, if anything, to share our spiritual and religious knowledge with others – after all, it is really just a social game. But to share Jesus Christ means that we must live in Jesus Christ as He lives in us and through us – and my dear friends, that means that the Cross is our nexus, that we live in Galatians 2:20 – and that will simply cost us our lives, for we must die with Christ so that others may live in Christ (John 12:24; Philippians 3:8 – 16; Acts 20:24; 2 Tim. 2:8 – 10).

 

May I please make another confession? There have been times (O I wish I had those times back to live them again!), in which I preached and taught about witnessing for Jesus Christ without speaking of suffering for Him, of bearing His reproach, of laying down our lives for Jesus and others. I look on those times with shame. Any book, any video series, any preaching or teaching that purports to speak of witnessing for Jesus without suffering for Jesus and others is an airplane with one wing – and what happens to such an airplane?

 

We ought not to read John 3:16 without 1 John 3:16.

 

What do you think about that statement?

 

We’ll pick Andrew and Philip up again in the next post in this series.