Sunday we’ll continue our Mission Emphasis Month by considering the diversity of the body of Christ and the confidence diversity gives us in the gospel. Dr Bruce Lowe will be bringing the message on our sending missionaries. The text will be from 2 Corinthians 2:12-3:6 where Paul says the believers are his letter of recommendation. Letters of recommendation would add weight to Paul’s ministry. Instead of providing those letters, he argues that the universal work of the gospel, evidenced by the diverse population brought to salvation, gives more weight than any letter could ever provide. The Corinthians believers, a diverse group to be sure, were Paul’s letters of recommendation and the source of his confidence in Christ.
For generations the prophets foretold the New Covenant which God would enact that would fulfill the Abrahamic covenant of “blessing the nations.” Jesus, Abraham’s greatest descendant, blesses the nations through the grace of the gospel. So, come Sunday as we continue our series.
One of those remarkable yet ordinary places where Jesus is on mission engaging folks is the common table where people young and old are gathered together to eat, drink, laugh, talk, and learn. Throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, we find Him breaking bread with sinners, tax collectors, the marginalized, the lost - ALL. THE. TIME.
Where and how Jesus chose to spend his time should inform us that the rhythms of our day to be hungry and be satisfied create opportunities for us to engage missionally as the church sent and scattered. In Mark’s account of the feeding of the five-thousand, how does Jesus show up? What is God up to? How does this popular Gospel story frame our own stories around need, dependence, finances, and provisions, and furthermore, how does God call us to be on mission with Him? As we read this story, our hope is that we become more aware that missions has less to do with elaborate programs or traveling to distant places, but more about inhabiting more fully and readily the places to which Jesus calls us and is found.
Sunday we begin our Mission Emphasis Month series, “That The Earth May Hear His Voice.” For the next four weeks we will highlight our missionaries in weekly videos or live presentations from those we support on the field. This week Rev. Chuck Emerson will be ministering to us from Psalm 67.
Notice the petition of the psalm, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.” Next the psalmist gives the purpose of receiving God’s blessing, saying, “that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.” The purpose of receiving from God is that the world will know the grace of God. We don’t hoard God’s blessings: we function as channels for others to receive and know the Lord.
In his book, Free of Charge, Miroslav Volf says, “God gives so that we can help others exist and flourish as well as flourish ourselves. God gives to make us generous givers.” What happens when the flow of God’s love reaches us? Does it pool or does it flow out into the lives of others?
Join us Sunday was we consider our participation in God’s mission to bless the world.
Sunday we will conclude our series, Whiter Than Snow, as we ask how to move out of exclusion (purity culture) and into embrace (grace culture). I’ve divided this into two sections: grace and sacrifice. Focusing on grace means considering that who we are is defined not by our performance but on the overflow of God’s goodness. In addition, it means imagining grace for others.
The humility of being recipients of grace leads us to sacrifices that make room for others within our lives - sacrifices like hospitality. This Sunday we’ll consider two final points of sacrifice: rethinking our pursuit of justice and practicing forgiveness.
As you prepare for Sunday, consider what James says, “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13) In addition consider Jesus’ statement, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)
See you Sunday.
Sunday, our founding pastor, Randy Pope, will be ministering to us. Each year, many of us set New Year’s resolutions, resolving to make important changes in our lives for the future. These resolutions express our desire to be different, to grow, to develop into what we desire to be. The challenge we all face is the power, the ability to become what we desire to be is not innate within us. Part of our humanity as image-bearers is our dependence upon God. As his creation, we were created to do life with him, not independent from him.
Randy writes, “Have you ever tried to change something about yourself by sheer willpower? Thinking if you just try harder, you will succeed. And you do for a while but then can’t sustain the change? We, as believers, have a power source available to help us every moment of the day. As we dig into Romans 6:1-13, we’ll discover three simple words that will help us appropriate the power of the God's Holy Spirit.”
So come Sunday to consider your need for God as you become what he desires you to be for his glory.
Sunday we considered how to begin living in the grace of God. The Lord’s Table (communion) is a picture of the unity we share as recipients of grace, regardless of our economic status, education level, experiences, gender, race, sins committed, ability/disability, etc. Grace humbles us, reveals our neediness, removes comparison, and opens us to others.
This week we’ll consider the sacrifice that God calls us to, specifically sacrifices of mercy. As we live in the grace of God, we open ourselves to others and resist cultural individualism and boundaries of self, purposing to live in community (even introverts). As we live in community, we practice hospitality as we pursue the welfare of others. Even our pursuit of justice in this world of oppression is pursued with grace for the oppressed and the oppressor.
Mercy is sacrifice. Come Sunday and let’s consider the what it means to “take up our cross and follow Jesus.” (Matthew 16:24)
Last week we ended by considering the testimony of Jesus, whose identity was rooted in Triune community and defined by the welfare of others. Paul explains the mind of Christ as “doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than ourselves.” (Philippians 2:3) For us, Paul calls us to look to the interests of others following Christ’s selfless example of sacrifice.
Jesus presents the path out of individualism and exclusion. We’re going to divide Jesus’ teaching into two categories: grace and sacrifice. His teaching on grace addresses our identity and concepts of self in relation to God and one another. His teaching on sacrifice addresses our stubborn boundaries of identity.
This Sunday we’ll consider his teaching on God’s purifying grace and how he addresses the grace-less Pharisees. The Pharisees are locked in their self-righteousness and boundaries of purity, believing they are serving God in their sacrifices. If they could build a perspective of self, centered on the grace of God, the pride fueling their exclusion would change to humility, and their disgust would change to embrace.
So join us Sunday to consider Jesus’ teaching on God’s purifying grace for mankind.
Christ came to cleanse us from sin, so that we could experience the loving embrace of God as adopted sons and daughters. The end game of cleansing is not purity, but purity for the sake of embrace. He doesn’t demand purity before he embraces us, he provides purity so that we can be embraced.
The message of grace is that God makes room for us within himself. He makes personal sacrifices motivated by compassion (mercy) so that we can be included in his family and experience the love of the Triune God. This is what Jesus draws attention to when he says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’” (Matthew 9:13)
The Pharisees had closed themselves off from tax collectors and sinners. There was no room within themselves for those who didn’t conform to their view of “self.” They saw people, sinners, as the contagion and they were wiling to sacrifice those people to maintain a “pure” self.
Modern Christians are often more like the Pharisees than Jesus because our strong sense of individualism shapes our concept of “self.” Instead of developing our identity within community, we see ourselves as self-defined individuals. We create boundaries of self that limit who we let into our world. Anyone we deem “unclean” (whether for behavior, ideology, background, race, etc.) is kept at a distance lest our sense of self is contaminated. We do this with specific groups of people or individually on a case by case basis (you might just exclude people you don’t like).
Sunday, we’ll consider how mercy is the sacrifice Jesus is calling you to make
Sunday we considered God’s work of grace to “purify a people for his own possession.” (Titus 2:14) He purified us so that he could embrace us as his own. As children of God, adopted into his family, we rejoice and worship the Son of God born to reconcile us to God.
The church, cleansed by grace, faces two challenges. The first is what Richard Beck calls the “liberal move” that “collapses the vertical pursuit of holiness into the immanent pursuit of mercy, equity, and justice.” (Unclean, p. 187) In essence, this group shapes its identity around matters of love and human care, disregarding God’s call to purity.
The second, falls on the opposite side of the spectrum, disregarding God’s call to care for others and pursue justice, focusing exclusively on purity and authority. This is best exemplified by the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. The problem wasn’t in their desire for holiness but in how they framed purity in “traditions of men.” (Matthew 15:1-9) In this case, washing their hands before eating.
As believers, committed to “bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God,” we often face the second of the two. We create socio-cultural barriers based on our own ideas of purity (traditions) and build our identity (personally and corporately) around that purity. Those outside those barriers are dehumanized, or “othered.”
Sunday, we’ll begin addressing this and how Jesus’ grace speaks to it.
Sunday we begin a new series entitled “Whiter Than Snow.” The theme comes from Isaiah 1:18, where speaking for God, Isaiah says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become white as wool.”
The thrust of the passage is God’s faithfulness to his people, providing for their cleansing through the Servant that he would send (Isaiah 42) to establish righteousness on the earth. God’s people thought they knew what that righteous kingdom would look like, but then Jesus showed up and violated their notions of righteousness and purity by embracing sinners, the very people who contaminated their purity.
Like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, the church can often create a culture of purity that excludes the very people Jesus came to purify. How does the incarnation of Christ reshape our notions of God’s righteous kingdom? How does his ministry reshape the mission of the church as we pursue “holiness in the fear of God”? (2 Cor. 7:1)
Advent Readings For This Week
MONDAY, DECEMBER 2 - Isaiah 1:16-20, What does God want from his people? What is God going to provide for his people?
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3 - Revelation 19:6-8, What does the bride wear? What are those garments? Where do we get those pure garments?
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4 - Titus 2:11-14, What did Jesus give himself to redeem? What would he do for those he redeemed?
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5 - 1 John 1:8-10, How are we made pure? Who makes us pure?
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6 - Psalm 51:7-12, What does David pray for God to do with his sin? Who is it that David believed could cleanse him?
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7 - Romans 3:23-25a, Who needs to be cleansed by God? Who did God offer as a sacrifice for our sins?