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?
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