Image-Bearers Make Peace

/ davidsschrock

Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Matthew 5:9) 

The Bible says that those trusting in Jesus Christ are being conformed into his image on daily basis.  Consider:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29)

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. (2 Cor 3:18)

Seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Col 3:9-10)

Biblically speaking, Christians are those who have been born again (John 3:1-8) and are now being conformed, transformed, and renewed as image-bearers of our Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ.  But make no mistake, this is not a passive work.  While God forms us, He simultaneously fills us with His Spirit, so that we might have power and desire to live as his children.

And one of the ways we do that is to be peace-makers (Matt 5:9).  In our marriages, schools, workplaces, friendships, and especially in the church, God’s children do not break peace, fake peace, or take peace.  They make peace!  This month, may we together ask God to fill us with us his Spirit so that we might be peace-makers. According to his Word, lets fight to make peace.  In so doing, we show ourselves to be the children of God, children who are day-by-day growing in Christ-likeness.

For His Renown, dss

Worshiping in, through, and by the Word

/ davidsschrock

Kevin DeYoung  gives twenty-five compelling ‘words’ on why the Word of God is central in Christian worship.  Against emotionalism, subjectivism, mysticism, and other forms of individualistic worship that is easily misguided, God’s Word leads us to worship our Christ in Spirit and in Truth.  Consider DeYoung’s culminating word:

The Scriptures cannot be broken (John 10:35). There is much flexibility when it comes to corporate worship, but since we know that the Scriptures are inviolable, and that we are sanctified by the truth, and that the word is truth (John 17:17), we would be foolish if we did not make a priority that which we know has the power to save, transform, and endure.

If you are considering the subject of genuine worship–what worship is, and what worship isn’t–let me encourage you to meditate on DeYoung’s twenty-five Scripture-filled reasons for worshiping God in, through, and by God’s word.  While there is freedom to express our love and devotion to God in worship, that liberty is directed and indeed enhanced by the Spirit’s penmanship in the word of God.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Living Church

/ davidsschrock

The Living Church by John Stott is an excellent book for pastors and would be a helpful read for many congregations.  It is an accessible book on the life of the church, where John Stott shows again why he has influenced evangelicalism for decades.  His writing is clear, biblical, and urges strategic risk-taking for Christ’s mission of making disciples.

His introduction begins with a survey of ’emerging churches.’  Like Jim Belcher he urges cooperation between emerging churches and tradiationalists without condoning the movement carte blanche (15).  Tongue-in-cheek, Stott calls for more “R.C.” churches, that is “radically conservative” churches which “conserve what Scripture plainly requires, but [are] ‘radical’ in relation to the combination of tradition and convention which we call ‘culture'” (15).  In this way, Stott purposes, “to bring together a number of characteristics of what [he] call[s] an authentic or living church” (15).  I appreciate Stott’s willingness to listen and be radical, while maintaining a solid grasp of Biblical truth that undergirds his book and shapes his analysis.  To that we turn.

Chapter 1 lists a number of church ‘essentials.’  Drawn out of Acts 2, Stott suggests that the church must be a learning, caring, worshiping, evangelizing body of believers.  The ebb and flow of church life is going out with the message of the gospel and then coming together to teach, love, share, and worship collectively.  Chapters 2-8 unpack these living essentials. 

In chapter 2, Stott explains that genuine worship is fourfold.  It must be biblical, congregational, Spiritual, and moral (think: pure and holy).  This is a powerful chapter and one that undoes the idea that contemporary worship revolves around competing styles and certain kinds of music.  True worship is something far more substantial (see David Peterson’s Engaging With God for more on this).  Honing in on music, Stott writes, “what is essential…is the biblical content of hymns and songs” (43).  I couldn’t agree more.

Chapter 3 follows with an every member ministry approach to evangelism that challenges the entire church to be on mission with/for Jesus.   Recognizing personal evangelism and mass evangelism as viable and biblical means of sharing the good news, Stott points to a better way, the church itself, as the venue for the most effective evangelism (49).  In theory, Stott asserts that every church must understand itself theologically, organize itself structurally, express itself verbally, and be itself morally and spiritually. (Stott unfolds these with greater precision in the chapter).  In very practical terms, Stott lists a number of evaluative questions to help assess the local mission field of any church as well as discerning the kind of resources a church has for evangelistic outreach.

Chapter 4 continues Stott’s emphasis on ‘every member ministry,’ though he turns to consider further the pastoral responsibilities in the church.  He reminds pastors that their primary focus is teaching and that pastoral leadership is a shared assignment–the church benefits from multiple pastor/elders.  (As a point of disagreement in this chapter, Stott gives permission for women to teach men (83), when the Bible explicitly teaches in 1 Timothy 2 that God has called men to be leaders and teachers in the local church.   This is not culturally conditioned; it is established in creation (1 Tim 2:11-15)  See Wayne Grudem and John Piper (eds.),  Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)

In Chapter 5, Stott unpacks his understanding of fellowship in general and small groups in particular.  Biblically, he argues that it is not good for man to be alone and it is good for the people of God to gather together in one another’s homes.  Historically, there has been tremendous fruit that has grown out of prayer groups, Sunday Schools, and other small groups.  And practically, smaller groups facilitate relationships, sharing, and caring for one another that larger settings disallow.  Simple, yes; but still this kind of ministry lacks effective application in so many churches.

Chapter 6, which is on preaching, surely draws from Stott’s larger work on the subject, Between Two Worlds.  Stott likens preaching to bridge-building, as he does in BTW and lists five paradoxes.  The preacher must Biblical and Contemporary, Authoritative and Tentative, Prophetic and Pastoral, Gifted and Studied, Thoughtful and Passionate.  These polarities are challenging for even experienced preachers, and surely motivating for preachers who want to engage the people of God with the Word of God.  One instance worth nothing, that struck me as useful, has been Stott’s participation in a reading group since 1972.  These men read non-Christian books that help them better understand the culture.  Surely Stott’s ability to apply the Bible to the world is in part a fruit of this discipline.  He suggests that all preachers should do something similar, while not letting go of God’s Word.

Chapter 7 gives 10 priniciples about giving from the book of 2 Corinthians.  This is Stott at his finest, engaging the text in order to draw out practical examples and principles for Christian living.  This would be a great meditation for anyone considering how to think biblically about finances.  (Cf. Randy Alcorn’s The Treasure Principle).

Finally, Chapter 8 challenges the gospel-telling church to simultaneously be salt and light in the world (Matt 5:13-16).  Stott makes it a point to show how salubrious salt and light are and how the impact of local churches benefit the communities in which they reside.  Practically speaking, he gives 6 weapons for cultural engagement: (1) prayer, (2) evangelism, (3) example, (4) [apologetic] argument, (5) action, and (6) suffering.  This is one of the areas that the neo-evangelical movement and now the emerging church is right to challenge the church.  We must be better at loving and serving our communities, and yet we cannot hide the gospel or muffle its message of salvation and judgment.

Overall, Stott’s book is a fine treatment on the local church.  Engaging, missions-minded, biblical, and wise are just a few of the adjectives I would use to describe it.  However, in the American, baptist (SBC) context in which I live and minister, I was a little disappointed; not because I devalue Stott’s Anglican heritage, in fact, I am thankful for it, but because the numerous parochial examples relating to commission reports and decisions within the Anglican church would be confusing to many in my church.  Again, I commend the book to pastors without reservation, but I would be slower to recommend it for use in every congregation.  You simply have to know your flock, and judge accordingly. 

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Baptismal Waters are Against You :: Jesus is For You

/ davidsschrock

In baptism, water is NOT for you, it is against you! 

In the serenity of a quiet chapel, the baptismal pool looks like a cleansing pond for the religious seeker.  However, such a sanguine sentiment is deceiving, because as the Bible paints the scenery, baptismal waters run blood red.  Unsure?  Compare the historical account of the Red Sea (esp. Exod 14:30-31) with Paul’s description, the baptism of Moses (1 Cor 10:2). 

In other words, the imagery of baptism is not simply a cleansing ablution for sins, it is a violent picture of death and resurrection.  Thus, in baptism, water is not the instrument of salvation and cleansing, it is the instrument of judgment.  Water is not what saves us.  Instead, Jesus saves us from water.  Baptism is the testimony to God for what he has already effected in our lives.  As 1 Peter 3: 20 says, it is ‘an appeal to God for a good conscience.’ 

Now, with that said, it must be admitted that baptism has been portrayed in divergent ways and is explained alternatively by many different traditions, but it seems that to understand baptism rightly, we must start with the first baptism—Noah’s ‘baptism’ (Gen 6-9), for our baptism ‘corresponds’ to his (1 Pet 3:20).  Moving from Genesis 6 onward, there is a common stream.  From Noah until now, God’s people have been brought safely through water. 

Noah and his family are the prototypical example, where Noah is a type of the greater savior, Jesus Christ, and his family picture all those who find safe passage through the judgment waters.  Likewise, Moses was put into an ark, sent adrift in the bloody waters of the Nile which devoured many of his kinsman, and yet rescued from the waters when an Egyptian princess took pity on him (Exod 2).  Later Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, waters that destroyed Pharaoh’s army and yet saved the people of YHWH.  

The story of God parting the waters of judgment for his people is reduplicated as Joshua leads Israel into the promised land (Josh 3-4), while the Psalms recount the way God hears his people in the flood. Psalm 69:1-3 begins:

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. 
I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

Psalm 93:3-4 echoes:

The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice;
the floods lift up their roaring.
Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea,
the Lord on high is mighty!

 Against the backdrop of the ancient Near East where water was perceived as chaotic, unsettled, and evil, the home of the Leviathan and the sea monsters, God’s word shows that YHWH sits above the floods and promises to bring his people through the pernicious waves.  In fact, as the Bible moves from Exodus to Exile, Isaiah recounts the way in which YHWH leads his people through the waters:

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. (43:1-3)

Still in the OT, Jonah is saved from the suffocating waters through his personal demise and resurrection, namely by being swallowed by a great fish and being spit out on dry ground again (1:17-2:10).  Though it is easy to make Jonah’s demise dependent on the fish, it is really the waters that threaten his life (2:1-9).  The fish is God’s means of protection for Jonah and the people of Nineveh.  From the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord of salvation (2:9) to save him from the waters of destruction (2:3, 5). 

And finally, in the NT, Jesus’ death and resurrection are explained by Jonah’s watery ordeal (Matt 12:38-41).  Jesus himself undergoes a baptism in the wilderness to identify himself with his people (Matt 3:13-17), and describes his own death as a baptism he must undergo (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50).  Finally, the command to make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is a command for disciples to identify themselves with Jesus as the one who can make safe passage for them through the waters of baptism.

So, in looking across the pages of the Bible, we learn that the waters of baptism do not save us, rather God the Father through his Son Jesus Christ save us from the waters that threaten to suffocate us.  In this way, Peter can write, “Eight persons, were brought safely through water.  Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 3:20-21). 

Therefore, baptism is defined not by postapostolic practices, liturgical traditions, or misgivings about the meaning of baptism—though I do think it means, immerse—baptism is instead the singular experience of all people saved by God.  It is our ‘one baptism’ (Eph 4:5).  And it shows us that in baptism, the waters of God’s judgment rage against us, just like they did in the Flood, but that like Noah, we have a captain of our salvation who through blood, not water, made a way for us to find safe passage through judgment (cf Heb 10:19-25).

In the end, God’s word tells us that at the end of the age, the sea will give up there dead and that the sea will be no more, meaning that the chaotic, life-taking waters of this age will be no more.  Only the waters of life will flow.  This is our future hope, one that we anticipate with eagerness.  

Today, however, the waters still churn and swallow up all those who clutch there own sinking boats.   Life jackets and insurance packages won’t stand against the the tide of God’s coming judgment.  Material things cannot keep us afloat; and faulty works-based religion won’t keep us safe.   But there is a way.  Jesus Christ, like Noah, has made an ark–not out of wood, but out of his one flesh– to save all those who look to him.  And all those who look to him and make appeal to him for a good conscience will find salvation and safe passage through the water and the fire of God’s judgment. The water of baptism is not for us, but that’s okay, the Living Water is, if you will come to him.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Holy Worldliness

/ davidsschrock

John Stott, in his immensely helpful (read: biblical and practical) book, The Living Church, considers the two-fold identity of Christ’s church.  That is, he balances the need for the church (1) to be called out of the world and yet (2) to go into the world.  This kind of Christ-directed oscillation is seen in passages like John 10:1-10 where the sheep are brought into the fold but then sent out again and in Matthew 28:16-20 where the disciples are told to meet Jesus in a secluded place, but immediately commanded to go into the world.  So, this pattern should be normative in the lives of Christians and their churches.  Stott calls this ‘holy worldliness.’  The church is to worship and witness, to meet and to go on mission, and rightly he points to our Lord as the supreme example.  He writes:

Nobody has ever exhibited the meaning of ‘holy worldliness’ better than our Lord Jesus Christ himself.  His incarnation is the perfect embodiment of it.  On the one hand he came to us inou world, and ssumed the full reality of our humanness.  He made himself one with us in our frailty, and exposed himself to our tempations.  He fraternized with the common people, and they flocked around him eagerly.  He welcomed everybody and shunned nobody.  He identified himself with our sorrows, our sins and our death.  On the other hand, in mixing freely with people like us, he never sacrificed, or even for a moment compromised, his own unique identity.  His was the perfection of ‘holy worldliness’ (The Living Church: Convictions of a Lifelong Pastor [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2007], 53).

May we the body of Christ look to Jesus, our head and the author and perfector of our faith, and GO and do likewise.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Jesus Has Absolute Authority

/ davidsschrock

In John Piper’s 1998 sermon on the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20),  Piper gives a representative list of all the things that Jesus has “authority over.”  Its a powerful reminder that today Jesus upholds the universe with the power of his word (Heb. 1:3; cf. Col. 1:16-17) and that one day every knee will bow and tongue confess that He is Lord (Phil. 2:9-11).

So consider: Jesus has…

AUTHORITY OVER  Satan and all demons, over all angels -good and evil – over the natural universe, natural objects and laws and forces: stars, galaxies, planets, meteorites;

AUTHORITY OVER  all weather systems: winds, rains, lightning, thunder, hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, typhoons, cyclones;

AUTHORITY OVER all their effects: tidal waves, floods, fires;

AUTHORITY OVER all molecular and atomic reality: atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, undiscovered subatomic particles, quantum physics, genetic structures, DNA, chromosomes;

AUTHORITY OVER all plants and animals great and small: whales and redwoods, giant squid and giant oaks, all fish, all wild beasts, all invisible animals and plants: bacteria, viruses, parasites, germs;

AUTHORITY OVER all the parts and functions of the human body: every beat of the heart, every breath of the diaphragm, every electrical jump across a million synapses in our brains;

AUTHORITY OVER all nations and governments: congresses and legislatures and presidents and kings and premiers and courts;

AUTHORITY OVER all armies and weapons and bombs and terrorists; authority over all industry and business and finance and currency;

AUTHORITY OVER all entertainment and amusement and leisure and media; over all education and research and science and discovery;

AUTHORITY OVER all crime and violence; over all families and neighborhoods; and over the church, and over every soul and every moment of every life that has been or ever will be lived.

When we face cancer or consequences for sharing the gospel, Jesus’ absolute authority marshalls confidence and assuages fear.  When we consider missions, it beckons us to move forward past armed guards, because there is no such thing as a ‘closed’ country to the Christian commissioned by the King with absolute authority.  LORD Jesus, may we be so bold.

Listen to the whole sermon: The Lofty Claim, The Last Command, The Loving Comfort.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Tapestry of Scripture

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Tomorrow night, our church, Calvary Baptist in Seymour, Indiana, will begin its Wednesday night journey through the Bible.  We will begin by looking at the Bible as a whole.  While preparing for our time, I came across this statement about the unity of the Bible from the ESV Study Bible.  It is a succinct and compelling word about the wisdom of God in Scripture, telling one harmonious story with a plethora of divergent voices. 

Scripture is no ragbag of religious bits and pieces, unrelated to each other; rather, it is a tapestry in which all the complexities of the weave display a single pattern of judgment and mercy, promise and fulfillment. The Bible consists of two separate collections: the OT, written over a period of about 1,000 years, and the NT, written within a generation several centuries after the OT was completed. Within such a composite array one would expect to find some crossed wires or incoherence, but none are found here. While there are parallel narratives, repetitions, and some borrowings from book to book, the Bible as a whole tells a single, straightforward story. God the Creator is at the center throughout; his people, his covenant, his kingdom, and its coming king are the themes unfolded by the historical narratives, while the realities of redemption from sin and of godly living (faith, repentance, obedience, prayer, adoration, hope, joy, and love) become steadily clearer. Jesus Christ, as fulfiller of OT prophecies, hopes, promises, and dreams, links the two Testaments together in an unbreakable bond. Aware that at the deepest level the whole Bible is the product of a single mind, the mind of God, believers reading it theologically always look for the inner links that bind the books together. And they are there to be found.

As you read your Bible, ask God to show you the unity and diversity of this rich tapestry of his redemptive history and revelation.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

By Evidence or By Faith?

/ davidsschrock

If you are looking to prove the validity and authority of the Bible based on extra-biblical evidence, consider this:

For those who make their doctrine of Scripture dependent on historical research into its origination and structure have already begun to reject Scripture’s self-testimony and therefore no longer believe that Scripture.  They think it is better to build up the doctrine of Scripture on the foundation of their own research than by believingly deriving it from Scripture itself.  In this way, they substitute their own thoughts for, or elevate them above, those of Scripture (Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 424).

Spirit of Christ, let those who seek the Truth, do so “believingly.”  Open eyes to see the wonders of your law (Ps 119:18).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Bavinck on the “Word of God”

/ davidsschrock

During the month of December, I am preaching on the “Word of God Made Fresh,” looking at how God’s Word in the Old Testament prepares for the Word of God Made Flesh in the New Testament.  In preparation for tomorrow’s sermon, I ran across this captivating quote by Herman Bavinck:

Finally the designation ‘word of God’ is used for Christ himself.  He is the Logos in an utterly unique sense: Revealer and revelation at the same time.  All the revelations and words of God, in nature and history, in creation and re-creation, both in the Old and the New Testament, have their ground, unity, and center in him.  He is the sun; the individual words of God are his rays.  The word fo God in nature, in Israel, in the NT, in Scripture may never even for a moment be separated and abstracted from him.  God’s revelation exists only because he is the Logos.  he is the first principle of cognition, in a general sense of all knowledge, in a special sense, as the Logos incarnate [i.e. ‘the word made flesh’], of all knowledge of God, of religion, and theology (Matt. 11:27) (Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 402)

Amen!  Let us worship the Word of God made flesh in Spirit and Truth, and consider all things in the light of God’s perfect revelation (cf. John 1:1-18; Heb. 1:1-2:4).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

A Growing Disciple: The Eighth Mark of a Healthy Church Member

/ davidsschrock

The essence of being a Christian is to be a disciple. 

“Disciple” and “discipleship” are not words that get much “air time” today, and when they are used in secular parlance, it often conjures up thoughts of cults or sects.  However, in the pages of the New Testament, God’s Word speaks of discipleship with great frequency (over 260 times).  So what does it mean to be a disciple? 

The best way to answer that is to simply look at the lives of Peter, Andrew, James, John and the other apostles–because these men exemplify discipleship.  They were those who left their fishing nets, tax collecting booths, and families to follow Christ; they worshipped Jesus, learned from Jesus, proclaimed the gospel of Jesus’ kingdom, and went to their own bloody deaths for his sake.  As disciples, however, they did not simply imitate Jesus, they also trusted in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for eternal life and justification on the last day.  In short, as disciples, the followers of Christ found every area of their life transformed by the one whose name and cross they now identified.  And so do Christ’s disciples today.

In What is a Healthy Church Member?, Thabiti Anyabwile marks growing discipleship” as the eighth characteristic of a healthy church member.  From our study at Calvary Baptist Church in Seymour, Indiana, here are five points of application for growing as a disciple:

1. Baptism & Church Membership.  The first thing Jesus said after giving his Great Commission to “Make Disciples” was to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Therefore, if you have made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior–that is that he has made you a new creation in Christ.  The first thing you should do is to be baptized by a local church who believes the gospel and teaches the Word of God.  Concurrent with this baptism should be your request for church membership.  Hopefully, your church has an informative/instructive process where new members are instructed in the history, doctrine, and practices of the church.  This would be a first step as a growing disciple.  For an excellent and brief treatment of this subject, with a funny cover, see Bill James revision of  Erroll Hulse’s Baptist and Church Membership.

2. Abide in the Word of God.  Next, as a growing disciple, it is imperative that you grow.  The second thing Jesus said to his would-be disciple(maker)s is to “teach them to obey all that I have instructed you.”  In other words, in the Christian life, knowing the Bible matters.  In fact, Spiritual growth DOES NOT HAPPEN WITHOUT IT.  Consider John 15:7-8, “If you abide in me, and my word abides in you, ask for whatever you want, and it will be given unto you.  By this is my Father glorified, and so you prove to be my disciples.”  The core of discipleship is an abiding relationship with Jesus founded on and mediated by the Word of God.  Moreover, discipleship is proven by this.  So the second step in growing as a strong disciple is to abide in the Word of God.

3. Pursue Older Discipleship.  Since discipleship is not an individual effort, it is important to learn from older, wiser, more mature believers in Christ.  Titus 2 frames this well.  It begins, “Teach what accords with sound doctrine…” and then instead of moving into a systematic theology, a lecture on doctrine, it focuses on relationships.  It says for older men to train younger men and older women to instruct younger women.  This is not an accident or a backup plan.  This is the very wisdom of God.  As Paul tells the Corinthians, “Follow me as I follow Christ” (11:1).  This is not an optional component of the Christian life.  Too many believers remain immature because they have never had anyone model for them a godly example.  If you don’t have anyone like this in your life, pray that God would bring someone into your life.  At the same time, ask God to shape you to be faithful, available, and teachable, so that such a disciplers’ example might not be lost on you.

4. Pursue Younger Discipleship.  Whether you have had a mentor/discipler in your life or not, if you have walked with Christ in obedience to his Word for any amount of time, you should begin looking for ways to share that with others.  Again let me challenge you– “The Christian life is not an isolated/individualized/introverted event.”  It is a lifetime of abiding in God’s word and being sharpened by others who are seeking Christ with you–ahead of you and behind you.  If you have the opportunity to share your life with a younger believer and to help show them how to walk more closely with our Savior, why wouldn’t you do it?  Honestly, is there anything better?  Doing life together should be the motto of the Christian life and is required for growth as a healthy disciple.  For an excellent resource on discipleship, see Robert Coleman’s The Master Plan of Evangelism and Michael Card’s The Walk.

5. Make Disciples.  Finally, the Great Commission impels us to go outside the church and to call others to Christ, to literally take the Word of God seriously and to make disciples.  God calls us to do something that in truth, we cannot do.  He is asking us to see to it that converts/new creations/kingdom citizens are made.  We cannot do that!  But his Word and His Spirit can, and as we carry forth the message of the gospel, he promises to bear fruit and draw many into the kingdom.  Thus if we are to truly know Christ, to walk with him, and to grow up in him, sharing the gospel and living to make-disciples must be a regular part of our lives.

None of these things are novel, but all of them are easily overlooked and undercooked.  May we strive to pick up our respective crosses and to press on towards Christ-like conformity as Baptized, Word-saturated, Maturing Disciples of Christ who love to share the gospel with others.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss