All My Fountains

So, I wanted to write a post, but didn't know what to write about. So I opened up my bible and picked the first verse I saw that was underlined, which was....

 

As they make music they will sing,

“All my fountains are in you.”

-Psalm 87:7, NIV

 

And thus, I'm reminded of how God is in charge. It "just so happens" that I spent last Friday night and most of Saturday as a leader on our annual fall retreat for the youth/student ministry. While on that retreat, we sang "All My Fountains" by Chris Tomlin on multiple occasions.

 

This song holds a very special place in my heart, as I was in attendance at Passion 2011 when Chris first introduced this song. As I belted the lyrics mindlessly along with 26,000 of my closest college-aged friends, I was in the moment. I just sang along and read the words off the screen.

 

Then, John Piper got up as the speaker for that session. He proceeded to ask all of us in the crowd if we had thought about what it would mean for all of our fountains to be in God. He asked if we had really meant those words, if we had really meant a devotion and love for the Lord our God that was so overflowing that it pours out of us like a fountain, or if we had merely read the words and sang them back, like some sort of parrot that repeats things with no cognitive element or reflection upon the meaning and implications of such a song.

 

I was floored. I had never thought about it. I had been trained to sing the words off of the screen, and yet I had never really thought about them as I sang them.

 

From that moment on, my approach in corporate worship has changed quite a bit. I have started to focus more and more on the meaning of the songs I sing, and I am getting more and more focused on worshipping God in those scenarios as I grow in my walk with Him.

 

God isn't looking for mindless lyric-reading; He wants you and all of your praise. He wants you to worship and sing, making a joyful noise unto Him. He wants all of your fountains to be in Him, and to overflow from your heart into the lives of others.

 

 

Discipleship, Part Four: Teaching

We have finally arrived at the fourth and final portion of discipleship: teaching. This is, interestingly, the aspect of discipleship that most people often think of first, and yet also feel the most incapable of done. Perhaps this is why there is a thorough lack of discipleship in the Church today. Today, we will briefly look at the teaching aspect of discipleship, and hopefully answer a few questions:

-How important is biblical training/truth?
-Can you be mature without knowledge?
-Can you be knowledgeable without maturity?


1. Knowledge is important, but not everything

The Bible is the Word of God. It is the most reliable and consistent way for us to know about Him and what He has to say. Thus, we absolutely must do everything we can to dive into His Word and learn, soaking up knowledge like a sponge. But...

"Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that 'We all possess knowledge.' But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know" -1 Corinthians 8:1-2, NIV

As we see here in 1 Corinthians, knowledge can only get you so far. If you know how to build an engine, that's great. But if you don't use this knowledge, what good does it do you? The same principle applies to biblical knowledge: you can be an authority on the life of Christ, but if you never live your live in a way that reflects that, then your knowledge is wasted.

We will look more into this next week in our Discipleship series conclusion, but I will just state a short preview: in discipleship, you must balance your teaching with the intangible, other three aspects.

2. Maturity comes through knowledge

"So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." -Ephesians 4:11-16, NIV

This passage begins by telling us that God gifts people with the ability to teach. This we know; some people are better teachers than others. Yet, did you catch why? Paul writes that the reasoning behind having teachers is so that the Church will become mature.

Think about it: if you don't know how to live like Christ, then how can you? It is through knowledge of God and His Word that we get to achieve a greater maturity in Him.


3. You can have knowledge that doesn't lead to maturity

"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both nowand to the day of eternity. Amen" -2 Peter 3:18, HCSB

Knowledge isn't the only goal in our discipleship. Look at the Pharisees in Jesus' life: they were experts on the laws of God. They knew them in and out. Yet, Jesus blasted them regularly. Maybe the best example of this is in Matthew 5, where Jesus outlines multiple laws, and then takes them to a new, more internal, heart-based meaning.

You see, if we simply fill our disciples with knowledge, we are only making Pharisees: people that know about God, but not how to conform to Him (Romans 8:29) and live live like Him. Our goal is to lead people to be like Christ, not just know what he said. As Peter so eloquently said in the passage above, we are to grow in both grace and knowledge. Knowledge is good and important, I cannot underscore that enough. But without growing in grace, without growing in the love and joy and peace of Christ, we are not being disciples of Christ. We are merely reference machines. We must approach the knowledge of God like this, and likewise, lead our disciples down the same path.  

You Are A Mist

When was the last time you enjoyed the little things? I mean, really enjoyed them? When was the last time you savored that morning cup of coffee, sipping it slowly and taking in its smell? When was the last time you took a new route to work, just to see a different view? When was the last time you picked up a fall leaf, feeling the different textures in your hand? These kind of things are only around for so long. And so are you.

"For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." -James 4:14, ESV

 As fall advances in on my home in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, there are more and more mornings that are chilly. Often, when I go outside in the morning, my warmer breath creates a fog in the cool, crisp air. When I was a child, I used to pretend I was a train (or smoker, take your pick). Now, this is a reminder. Just as this fog quickly disappears into the fall air, my life will disappear from this earth. I have no idea when my last day is, or when I will die. I have no idea whether I will be remembered by anyone, and I have no idea if my life will matter to a single person. And frankly, it doesn't matter.

"Just one thing: live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." -Philippians 1:27, HCSB

This is the verse that I try to preach to myself as often as possible. You see, our life on this earth is short. We are but a mist. Yet, we also know that the bible says to "live [our] life in a manner worthy of the gospel." So, no matter how uncertain our future is, we march on, living in the glory of the cross of Christ, living to glorify Him.

James goes on to talk about how we should remember that the Lord is sovereign, and that our lives should reflect that (James 4:15). I think that combines well with Philippians 1:27. God is in control of our vapor-like lives, and He wants us to live worthy of the gospel. Thus, it seems logical that we should live our lives, no matter how short they may end up being, all for the glory of Christ and His gospel. After all, "every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (James 1:17)."

There are lots of little perfect gifts in this short life we live: coffee, leaves, fishing on a cool morning, the smell of gasoline... I could go all day. Savor them. enjoy them. Take the time to take them in, because you don't know when they will be gone. But there is one huge, unbelievably massive gift that we have also received from the Father of lights, and we must keep our lives in a manner worthy of it.

Discipleship, Part Three: Personal Attention

So far in our discipleship mission, we have looked at the commitment and modeling to disciple. Today, we look at a third component: personal attention.

"So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears." -Acts 20:31, NIV

We are briefly going to look at two lessons from this verse, as applies to discipleship:

1. "Each of you": Paul was talking to the Ephesian elders in this verse, and he reminded them that for three years, he constantly warned every single one of them against people with false teaching. This idea of warning and caring for each one shows that he didn't see the Ephesian church as just a body of believers, but as individual lives. Each one of these elders had Paul's attention, and he explicitly warned them against these things that could damage their walk with Jesus. We do the same; we don't get to just lump our disciples together as a group, and only address them as a group. Our disciples require individual care from us. Everyone has different needs in their walk with Christ, and must be treated as individuals in that walk. Your disciples will not all be at the same place in their walk, with the same level of growth. Everyone takes an individual focus from their discipler. Give it to them.

2. "Night and day with tears": Paul didn't just warn each of them, but he warned them at all times of the day, and with plenty of emotion. He maintained this emotional, personal care at all times, no matter the time of day. Every person we disciple will need our compassion and care at different times, just as the Ephesian elders did. We must be willing to give anyone our personal attention at anytime, and earnestly mean it. If your disciple needs you, you must genuinely give them your attention, no matter when. This isn't about when discipleship is convenient for you; Paul didn't mention his office hours with the Ephesian elders here. He didn't say "I warned all of you every other Tuesday, from 5-6 and at an occasional lunch meeting." No, he warned them all the time, as he was always looking out for each of his people at all times, all the while holding a passion for them and their well-being. People don't cry unless they care at a deep level.

Everyone is different. They have different lives, different problems, different sin struggles, different walks with God and different needs. The biblical discipler gives each of them the individual, personal attention that reflects this variation in needs and people.

Hearing Doesn't Mean A Thing

"For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous." -Romans 2:13, New International Version

When you were a child, how often did your parents/guardians say "go clean your room?" Probably a lot, right? Every parent has to tell their kids to clean their room. I've yet to meet a kid that regularly just does his chores.

This is similar to how God's Word works at times. He tells us how to be holy in our lives, because we won't do it otherwise. Just like a kid with a messy room, we will walk around in our filth until our Father tells us not to.

There's a catch, though. How many times did your parents tell you to clean your room, only for you to ignore them? You see, it doesn't do a whole lot of good to just hear the direction from our Father; I can hear my boss at work give me things to do all day, but if the milk is never stocked, he may as well have never told me.

It's the same way with our righteousness. We can listen and hear God's righteousness all we want. We can attend Sunday morning, evening and Wednesday night church. We can attend conferences and simulcasts. We can bring a composition book to takes notes for all of those events in. Yet, if we never obey what God says, it doesn't matter; we're just wasting time and paper. We're killing off the rain forest, one wasted sermon note at a time. Simply hearing God doesn't mean a thing. He intends for us to obey.

Just like a good Father on Earth, there is punishment if we ignore His commands. At the end of this age, there will be a massive trial. Some people will be like OJ, getting away with murder. Literally. For eternity.

Some other people will have heard God's commands, including the one that says "follow me," and all they did was compose a clever tweet or Facebook status. A tweet with no action that acted as a smoke screen, blinding them to the impending doom.

So, let me ask: do you hear, or do you obey?

Discipleship, Part Two: Modeling

Commitment to your discipleship of someone is vastly important, as the last two posts in this series have shown. Commitment is only a pierce of the puzzle, though. Today we will look into a second part: modeling.

"For you can have 10,000 instructors in Christ, but you can’t have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me... Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ... Join in imitating me, brothers, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us... Do what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you... and you became imitators of us and of the Lord when, in spite of severe persecution, you welcomed the message with joy from the Holy Spirit. As a result, you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia... For you yourselves know how you must imitate us: We were not irresponsible among you; we did not eat anyone’s food free of charge; instead, we labored and struggled, working night and day, so that we would not be a burden to any of you. It is not that we don’t have the right to support, but we did it to make ourselves an example to you so that you would imitate us." -1 Corinthians 4:15, 11:1; Philippians 3:17, 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 (HCSB)

Noticing a theme here? Paul really wanted his disciples to imitate him as he imitated Christ. He wanted them to look at him and mirror how he walked with God. But just what about our lives should we model for our disciples? I'm glad you asked, because Paul has that answer, too.

"Let no one despise your youth; instead, you should be an example to the believers in speech, in conduct, in love,  in faith, in purity." -1 Timothy 4:12, HCSB

So, basically, everything. Your words? Yep. The way you act with people and tasks? Yep. The amount you love God and people? Yep. The depth of your faith in the Lord? Yep. Your purity in your day-to-day life? Yep. All of it. Their eyes are on you, and you are to live in a way that they can reflect those things as they see them in you in their own lives. No pressure.

To close, I want to remind you: you will screw up. At some point, you will fail to be a perfect model. When you do, admit it. The apostle John did as much in 1 John 1:8, when he said that we deceive ourselves if we pretend we are perfect.

Your disciples need you to be real with them. I don't mean that you sin to relate or "increase your ability to disciple." We never sin for any kind of "good" reason (see Romans 6:15). Instead, be honest. You aren't perfect. Confess and repent, so your disciples can mirror that, too.

The Gospel

[This is the script from my October 8, 2012 speech in Communications 287-003 at the University of Kentucky. The assignment was to give a 4-5 minute informational speech with no persuasive element.]

Do you fear death? How do you cope with that fear?

That's a loaded question, isn't it? According to Hanson's 2005 article entitled "Fear of death and muddled thinking- it is so much worse than you think," the average American spends 15% of their total life wealth on medicines to make them live longer. That's an awful lot of money, all in order to push the limits of one's life span.

Fear of death, at least to some degree, is fairly common. It is also common to find ways to cope with fears, including this one. Many people trust in different things to deal with the impending end of life.

Today, I want to describe how Christians deal with their future death. I do not aim to convince you or persuade you; I want a good grade, and this is an informative project. Honestly, I'll probably still get some bad peer reviews for this.

Regardless, I'm here today to inform you on what Christians call "the gospel," which is their belief on how to deal with death. Specifically, we will look at why people are going to die, and what God does about that.

I will stating the rest as if it were fact, simply to save time from having to say "Christians believe" before every sentence. You can be the judge of the view; I'm just telling you what Christians believe.

In the beginning of time, humans were in a good relationship with God. All was good. God was running everything, and people were OK with that. Then, these people felt the need to go against what God had said. This feeling that people know better than God is called sin. More specifically, Wayne Grudem, in his 1994 book Systematic Theology calls sin "any failure to conform to the law of God in act, attitude, or nature."

Christians believe that God is the great King of the universe, ruling over literally everything. Trip Lee, in his 2012 book The Good Life, states that "there is no small sin against a great God." You see, Christians believe that not only is God the King and Ruler of all, but to go against His rule is to directly rebel against Him, which is sin. Just like an earthly government has punishment for rebellion and law-breaking, the eternal God has eternal punishment for people's sin and rebellion.

That punishment is called Hell, and every person that has ever done anything wrong in their life, no matter how big or small we may think it is, is headed directly for an eternal punishment. We are all, thanks to our rebellion, destined to die and go to a literal Hell. Fortunately, God wasn't cool with that.

Jesus came to earth, as Trip Lee says, "on a death mission." The entire point of Jesus, God's Son, coming to earth was, as 1 Timothy 1:15 says, "to save sinners." The entire point of His 30 years of sinless, rebellion-lacking life on this planet was so that He would qualify before God as a substitute for sinners. He died and took the punishment that sinners deserve before the Judge of the universe.

If the Son of God stayed dead, though, this ain't good news, is it? Instead, 3 days later, Jesus overcame the clutches of death and rose to life. Not like a zombie; I'm talking full. Normal. Life. And with that defeat of death, Jesus gives the same defeat to everyone who trusts and believes in Him.

I personally am convinced that I was a hopelessly doomed rebel, hurtling toward Hell. Then Jesus, my Savior, gave me a new life in Him, and I no longer fear death. Instead, I look death in the face and rejoice in my God that saved me.

So, to close, I ask again: do you fear death?

Discipleship, Part One: Commitment, Pt. 2 [More Than A Teacher]

Last time I had a Discipleship series post, I wrote about Paul's heart with the Thessalonian believers, and how he approached the discipleship concept of commitment. We talked about how he truly loved and cared for them, and therefore had a massive commitment. There's more to the commitment of a discipler, though. Today, we'll wrap up this commitment idea with a few more parts of Paul's life that pointed toward a committed approach to discipleship.

1. Be Concerned
"And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?" -2 Corinthians 11:28-29, ESV

If there was ever a group of believers that I wouldn't want to commit to, it would be the Corinthian church. These people were, for lack of a better description, a hot mess. Both of Paul's letters to this church were loaded with Paul saying, "what the crap are you doing?!" Yet, even with their consistent tendency to act stupid, Paul was genuinely concerned for their well-being. He was "daily" anxious for their well-being. Every day, Paul was thinking of them and how they were doing. When he found that they were weak, he felt weak. When they were treated badly, he was ticked off about it. This man was legitimately in-tune with their issues, and really cared about how they were.

We have to do this, too. If you are discipling someone and don't care about their day-to-day life, then I'd argue that you don't really care about them. You may care about their spiritual knowledge, which is commendable, but that isn't all there is. People have daily lives and struggles that need someone to walk them through. Your disciple is walking their first steps; don't leave them to fall on the concrete alone. Walk with them, guide them, and help soften their inevitable fall. That takes commitment.

2. Work Hard
"I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?" -2 Corinthians 12:15, HCSB

Paul gave himself to his disciples. He spent, be it money, time or energy, on them. He was spent on them. There was no part of Paul that he wouldn't give to his disciples. That's how committed he was to their lives and spiritual walks.

We should mirror this. A person's spiritual and physical needs should be met however possible. Don't be stingy toward your disciples; give any of you and/or your possessions toward their discipleship. Their walk with our Lord is worth that kind of commitment.

3. Deal With The Hard Stuff
"This is why I endure all things for the elect: so that they also may obtain salvation, which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory." -2 Timothy 2:10, HCSB

Paul endured for his disciples. The fact is that discipleship ain't always rainbows and sea otters; every now and then, it's going to suck. Your pursuit of their spiritual growth will have its difficult moments; ask any parent of a child if they ever endured an unpleasant time while raising their children. I promise you, it will happen. They will disappoint you, ask you difficult questions and may even rebel against you. That will be hard, and to endure through these trials will require a high level of commitment. The reward for that commitment is clear, though: "so that they may also obtain salvation...with eternal glory."

The salvation and eternal glory is the goal for every disciple that you have. Your job is to lead them to Christ and in Christ, walking alongside them as they grow in Christ. This will take commitment, but is there any reward better than their eternity with Christ?