Pioneers! O Pioneers!

It’s crazy to think that in all the things I’ve done, all the guilt and shame I’ve bore in the weight of my brokeness, God has intricately woven purpose, blessing, truth, and knowledge all into my life. It’s as if the rips in my life have been sown together through Christ’s sacrifice and all I hope to, pray for, and will do is glorify Him in anyway. 

My goal: to fearlessly proclaim the mysteries of the gospel; to humble myself daily; to not limit my Creator but embrace His creation as He has embraced us. 

Even though I know I will fall short of this many times, I find peace. Because in the end,

His grace is enough.

I’m setting my sails first for Wisconsin and Mississippi to be a teaching director for a mission organization called Next Step Ministries. Then it’s off to Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA to study our God in such an intimate way. I am so stoked. 

God uses the broken. 

Sin is inherently anti-God, inherently pro-self. Each time I sin I make a statement about myself and a statement about (and against) God. Each time I sin, I declare my own independence, my own desire to be rid of God; I declare that I can do better than God, that I can be a better god than God. Recently I took some time to think about how life changes when I am god. The results were not pretty.

(Source: challies.com)

So I read through all of 1 Corinthians yesterday night and was completely overwhelmed by so much awesomeness! 

I was moved by the Spirit through these words in more ways than I can describe and I absolutely needed to read what I read. So I thought I’d share with you one of the big principles that was revealed to me. 

As I poured over the text, the first place Paul addresses the sexual immorality of the Corinthian church is in Chapter 5. Within this context of addressing sexual sin (he actually starts with writing about hearing a report concerning incest), Paul goes into an incredible metaphor using yeast and it’s effects in bread to parallel sin. THEN, he ends the chapter addressing judgement in and outside of the the church… this is where I want to dive in with you:

I Corinthians 5:9-13 (MSG) 

I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn’t mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You’d have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when one of your Christian companions is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.

So here’s several things I picked up through this:

• Paul is not saying we should abandon or avoid those outside the church who we might define as immoral. Many times I find myself trying to avoid situations where I have to lean into a world of darkness where God may not be known, and it sickens me that I do this. Sure it’s easy to go on a mission trip to a foreign country organized by your church, but it’s so much harder to share the love of Christ with the smelly, drug addicted, alcohol induced hobo asking for money on your city street corner and back alley. Yet these are the ones outside the church. Which leads to my next point:
• God decides on the outsiders. In the NIV translation, this reads “God will judge those outside” in verse 13. Paul asks in verse 12 “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?” (NIV). This, paralleling the Message interpretation, speak volumes into our everyday lives. Who are we to judge those outside the church? It’s not in our job description. Though we are called to teach and share the Gospel with all nations (Matthew 28:16-20), according to Paul we are not asked to condemn or judge anyone outside of the church. That is God’s job.
• This one seems to be the hardest to take in:
  
  You shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when one of your Christian companions is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. 
  
  Paul is calling us to be accountable with our brothers and sisters in Christ. When reading the NIV, ESV, etc. be sure to note that when Paul talks about brothers and sisters, he’s not talking about your genetic family, he’s talking about the church, he’s talking about believers. 

And this is SO tough because you, just like me, know people who may call themselves Christians yet continually neglect to live as Christ intended us to. In the same way, WE are just as screwed up in our ways as well and will likely look hypocritical when we “judge” other Christians. Therefore, I developed a few criteria that I think are great to follow when approaching a fellow believer:

1. Don’t Judge. After all, Jesus commands us not to judge others, unless we want to be judged in the same manner (Matthew 7:1-5).
   Futhermore, Jesus states “I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.” (John 12:47 NIV) If we are to become like Christ, the very attribute that defines us as Christian, then we must not judge because He didn’t.
2. So since, we should not and cannot judge, then let’s be accountable to one another who are in Christ. Paul’s asking us to do more than just call people out, or assess them behind their backs (which is judging at its finest). But Paul asks (as interpreted in the Message) “don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?” This responsibility we should feel for one another is accountability. And accountability is not only for addressing sin, but also bolster each others faith!
   
   For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. - Jesus (Matthew 18:20 NIV).
3. Lastly, and what I think is most important, is be accountable to fellow Christians in LOVE.
   
   A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. - Jesus (John 13:34-35 NIV)
   
   Not only are we to love another like Christ has loved us, but those outside of the church will know us by how we love each other inside the church! This is crucial! How can we show the love of Christ to outsiders, to atheists, to agnostics, or to other world religions when we treat each other, in our own faith, like crap? So if you don’t love the person your about to be accountable to, then don’t even start the conversation (for a good definition of love, see 1 John 4:7-12). What I mean by this, is we really need to ask ourselves: Am I calling my Christian friend out because they’re making other Christians, including myself, look bad? Or am I doing this because I sincerely love them and want the absolute best for them in Christ? I hope we aways choose the latter.

——————————————————————————————————————

If I cannot uphold these three values, then I have no right to say who’s “out of line” or when to “clean house.” 

So in conclusion, through my own interpretation I state:

We should take responsibility for our fellow Christians shortcomings, just as Paul suggests. However, we must do this without judgement and with love, as Jesus commands, and accountability. 

(Source: revelation19)

When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:21-26 ESV)

Tonight, at the youth group I volunteer at, the youth pastor Mike spoke on Romans 8:31-39. Below is the verse with starting with 30 (to give you some context). 

Interpreted in The Message by Eugene Peterson, these words state:

30 After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. 

 31 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?32 If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?33 And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen?34 Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us-who was raised to life for us!-is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.35 Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:36 They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.37 None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us.38 I’m absolutely convinced that nothing-nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow,39 high or low, thinkable or unthinkable-absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. 

 If you read this in other translations, such as the ESV, verse 35-37 reads:

 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us

Let’s take a closer look at verse 37. See, my boy Eugene puts it in plain English and I love this because really, in context, verse 37 makes total sense as he interprets it. But in the ESV, in context with the other verses, it’s tough to understand for me.  What exactly does Paul mean by “conquerors”? Are we talking conquerors like the bad kind? Like burn, rape, pillage and persecute type of conqueror? Or the good kind? Or is there even a good type of conqueror? Honestly, I’d have to look at the exegeses (historical research of that time pertaining to the context of the verse) to really figure out what Paul meant… but it also sorta hit me as I poured back over it.

See verse 36 is actually a reference to Psalm 44:22, where the writer of the Psalm is pleading with God not to abandon them, the writer is pleading for redemption. So Paul, being the theological baller he is, takes this verse and says NO, in our affliction, our human condition… we are more than it because God sent Christ as our redemption! If we accept Christ and surrender to Him then we aren’t sheep headed to the slaughterhouse anymore but conquerors of that fate! To quote Eugene, this realization that we are perfectly imperfect does not “faze” us because God’s love has no boundaries. I mean, we try and put up walls to block Him out sometimes, but he knocks them down like my 80 pound black-lab running through a mini town made of lincoln logs. We just can’t keep Him out. 

Regardless of what Paul meant by “conquerors”, I think the meaning of the verse remains because of what verse 38 and 39 say (ESV):

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

…I don’t think anyone could’ve said it better there. Whether you’re reading NIV, ESV, MSG or NSB (no stinkin’ bible), the beautiful meaning of that verse is the same:

Nothing can separate us  from the Love of God.

Nothing.