Jesus Fame

This morning I was thinking about Acts 9:31 and how it relates to pastoring and church planting.

“So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”

There are a host of books written and seminars hosted on the subject of church health and multiplication, two things mentioned here.

How was this early church in Jerusalem being “built up” and “multiplied”? Continue reading

Simply put, a disciple of Jesus is a follower of Jesus. Jesus told his 12 disciples, “if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matt. 16:24)

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

1. Live as a Worshiper – as image bearers of God, we are created as worshipers. The question is not “will” we worship, but “what” will we worship? Our worship is like a fire hose that can’t be turned off, so the question is where will we point our worship proclivity? A follower of Jesus worships their Creator and repents of any false worship, including good things like family, work, or recreation.

2. Gospel Identity – a follower of Jesus recognizes the sinful tendency to find their identity in their money, intelligence, career, education, children, human relationships, or any number of created things. Therefore a disciple turns from finding ultimate identity in these empty idols (1 Thess. 1:9), to King Jesus and His kingdom of perfect hope, peace, joy, and love.

3. Committed to Community – a disciple of Jesus has a Spirit inspired desire to live life with other Jesus followers, the church. They recognize their membership in the body of Christ and understand the weight of that responsibility by giving of their gifts, time, and money to serve others.

4. Sent on Mission – Jesus said he was sending his church in the same way in which he was sent (John 20:21). A follower of Jesus sees themselves as a missionary sent on Jesus’ mission, in their everyday lives, to restore a broken world through gospel living and proclamation.

Be quick to listen and slow to speak. This is James exhortation to us in James 1:19.

The God of the universe asks questions…“Adam where are you.” (Genesis 3:9)

Not because He needs to learn but because He understands something that we often fail to grasp. Questions are the most effective way to draw someone out. You don’t need a PhD. or be Dale Carnegie to understand that talking about yourself incessantly is not an effective way to win friends and influence people.  Continue reading

In this season of Advent I think it’s extremely important that we understand the doctrine of the Incarnation…the truth that God in all His fullness became a man. The article below says it much better than I ever could so I will let Matt Perman explain this pivotal truth – Continue reading

We’re saved by grace, not by works. (Ephesians 2:8-9).

This is not only a scripture nearly every Christian knows and loves it’s a doctrine that the evangelical church holds extremely tightly to, and for good reason .

However it’s one that we often don’t take far enough.

It seems most of us have an intellectual belief in “by grace alone” salvation but a works driven practical theology that leads us to believe that while I “enter” the door of Christianity through the gospel, in order to make myself at home I must perform up to a certain level. In other words my position as a Christian is a work of God’s unconditional grace, but my progress or growth as a Christian is a work conditioned upon my effort.

This works driven “sanctification” (the progress of being made more like Jesus) appeals to our fallen proclivity toward rules and pragmatism.

We really love rules, as Justin Holcomb wrote recently,

“rules make sense because they give us conditions. In essence, you could say we are natural-born legalists. It goes like this: if you do a, b, and c, you will get a reward. But if you break the rules, a bad result will follow. Rules give us a sense of control because if we can make good on those rules, then we can stay in control and master our destiny. But God’s economy is different. God, in the gospel, says you get exactly what you don’t deserve. Grace.”

Christianity isn’t about rules, it’s about the gospel. The good news that while you are more sinful than you could ever possibly conceive you are more loved and accepted than you ever dared hope.

Most of us were raised with the understanding that if we obeyed we would be accepted, and if we didn’t play by the rules we would be rejected. Therefore we take this paradigm into our relationship with Jesus, thinking that if I can just obey and follow the rules I will be accepted. But Jesus’ gospel (good news) declares just the opposite; it doesn’t tell us to obey so that we will be accepted, it compels us to obey because we’ve already been accepted.

So then how do we grow? How do I take the truths of the gospel and practically work them out in everyday life. Too often this question misses the point because we’re looking for somebody to give me 3 steps to Christian growth,  a “get holy quick scheme.”

So what is the point?

Simply put the point is Jesus. If our growth as Christians involves more consistent victory over sin and a lifestyle of bringing God glory with our thoughts, actions, and attitudes then it’s critical that we recognize that this can never be achieved by working hard or following the rules, because what we’re talking about here is worship, it’s about the worship of a Person not a system or a program. If I want to live like Jesus (the goal of Christianity) then I need know Him, and it starts with recognizing that as a Christian I already know Him, as Paul would say, “I’m in Christ”. It’s this relationship that then shapes my growth and progress as a Christian. Herein is the key to Christian growth, transformed affections. Once I’ve tasted of Jesus and His overwhelming love and acceptance I can then properly eschew sin not as a legalist looking for moral acceptance, but as a Christian who realizes that whatever that sin is offering me at the moment pales in comparison to what I already have in Jesus.

Here is where growth is found and cultivated. It’s about worship, we worship into sin (the lie that a person, idea, or thing will bring me ultimate satisfaction) and we worship out of sin (the truth that only Jesus can bring me ultimate satisfaction). When I grasp this reality it helps me to see the why behind the what of my sin, giving me the freedom to run after Jesus instead of any number of counterfeits.

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” (2 Peter 3:18)

For further reading on this I highly recommend Jared Wilson’s new book Gospel Wakefulness

You can read chapter 7 of this book, where Jared talks about Gospel-Driven Sanctification here for free!

*Thank you Dr. Tim Keller for helping me to understand many of the truths contained here.