God Cares About Shalom

Matthew 5:43-48; 1 Peter 2:11-17; Jeremiah 29:4-14

Coming to a head in the 1950’s, some would say sooner, resurgent mainline churches in America, at their denominational leadership and seminary teaching levels, tried to use their influence to advocate for scriptural values of peace and justice, of help for the poor and the discriminated against. But entering the political arena, they soon supported causes more closely linked to higher education and the Democratic Party than to scriptural values, especially in throwing their weight behind the revolution in sexual ethics in the past fifty years. They not only lost their influence, but also lost many of the people sitting in their pews. The downward trend has continued steadily ever since.

In the 1970’s and following, surging evangelical churches, through megachurch pastors, leaders of parachurch organizations, and media personalities tried to use their influence to advocate in line with scriptural values for the sanctity of life, marriage, and family. But entering the political arena, they soon supported causes more closely linked to big business and of the Republican Party than to scriptural values. Their churches have stalled and have begun to decline. Their own offspring view them as too political, too self-righteous, too hypocritical, too hostile, and not sufficiently Christ-like. The downward trend is not likely to reverse itself.

I was already convinced of all this when our daughter insistently and persistently told me that I had to read a book, To Change the World, by University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter. When our daughter was small, she did what I told her to do. Now I do what she tells me to do. I suppose that is fair. She earned her influence.

Hunter analyzes the problems of both Christian Left and Christian Right as idolatry of the power of the state. He is not anti-government and is not opposed to Christians voting their convictions and involving themselves in government, but he is opposed to idolatry of politics and of any attempts by Christians to use government to dominate the culture. It sends a false message about what we think is powerful. The false God of political influence has not been good for the church of Left or Right. Indeed, it has not been good for the church to be divided into Left and Right. Political combat does not meld well with Christian mission.

Although the majority of Americans have generally identified themselves as Christian, Hunter says that America has never in any spiritually serious way been Christian. The fact is that we do not live in a Christian culture and are not likely to do so any time in the near future. We live in an ever-shifting, pluralist culture, and it is likely that we will do so for the remainder of the lifetimes of everyone present this morning. The question is not, “How can we make this culture Christian?” but, “How can we rightly represent Christ while living in this constantly changing pluralist culture?” This is not a reason to despair. Indeed, our position is rather like that of the first century church representing the gospel to the Greek culture of the Roman Empire.

Let me mention three scriptural points that Hunter makes.

Scriptural Point 1: Our Great Commission is to make disciples, not just people who believe a certain doctrine and attend church, but people who are coming under the discipline of Jesus Christ, who are being conformed to the image of Christ. He says that Christians in our culture largely believe the doctrines of Christian faith, but that we have not, Left or Right, been formed to live distinctively, creatively, with Christ-like character, in our varied social environments. That is what we can do that will make a real and positive difference.

So our primary mission must be rooted in a strategy of forming Christians who can live faithfully in their cultural circumstances, in their various fields of endeavor. What counts is that we bring distinctive Christian contributions to the overall well-being of our various social environments, to home, to work, to school, to community activities, to the arts, to benevolent activities, and so forth—yes, in limited ways even in politics—not throwing our churches behind particular legislative, electoral, or partisan causes, but quietly expressing our Christian character and values in our varied ways.

Scriptural Point 2. Hunter suggests that the Hebrew word shalom covers the valid value concerns of Christians of all stripes and that we need to let this word govern our efforts to work for the common good.

Shalom means far more than its most frequent translation as peace. Combining what Hunter says with what my Bible reference materials say, I came up with this list of synonyms for shalom:

Peace

Order

Harmony

Fruitfulness

Abundance

Wholeness

Beauty

Joy

Well-Being

Completeness

Fulfillment

Rest

Blessing

Provision

Prosperity

Welfare

Health

Goodness

and more!

One word of caution: While God’s desire to see shalom embodied in our lives includes prosperity, we must understand that greed and selfishness are forms of idolatry that lead to devastating social consequences, undermining shalom itself. So, those who desire to pursue true shalom must be spiritually formed, spiritually discerning, and spiritually mature.

Shalom is rooted in the goodness of creation and in the endtimes hope of new creation. But the Old Testament prophets saw shalom as relevant to present day social patterns, of how we arrange our daily lives and business. Hunter correctly asserts that Jesus’ central proclamation that the kingdom of God is at hand points to the present realization of shalom in daily experience. Jesus demonstrated that God’s reigning power is available to enable his faithful disciples to experience and embody shalom in all dimensions of life even to the point of enabling us to love our enemies.

Scriptural Point 3. We must accept that we Christians operate in this culture as aliens, sojourners, and exiles, but that we must constantly be seeking the resources of our faith that can be exercised for the common good. He suggests that, if we learn to practice faithful presence in all areas of our culture, we will gain influence that does not depend on our dominating government or on our using government to dominate culture. Others will begin to look to spiritually formed Christians as people who know how to make life better.

Our path for doing that here at First Christian Church is, “The 9 Ways of Spiritual Growth”: In order to maintain a process of ongoing transformation into greater and greater degrees of likeness to Jesus Christ, we seek to: 1. Pray Daily; 2. Study the Bible Daily; 3. Worship Weekly; 4. Fellowship Regularly; 5. Serve Regularly; 6. Give Honorably; 7. Share Your Faith Intentionally; 8. Show Compassion Regularly; 9. Be Spiritually Honest

Hunter goes to two scripture passages for examples of living as exiles. The NIV rendering of Jeremiah 29:11 seems to be one of the most widely quoted verses in the Bible: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Certainly, this verse is the true and reliable promise of God, but we need to read it in context.

The extension of the Babylonian Empire’s power into the area of the Holy Land can be dated from 609 through 539 B.C., roughly 70 years. There were three exiles of citizens of Judah to Babylon during this period, a small one in 605 that included Daniel and his friends, a medium sized one in 597, and a massive one in 586, at which time Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. Jeremiah is writing from Jerusalem after the middle exile in 597 B. C. He is writing to the 597 B.C. exiles in Babylon where they were receiving encouragement from false prophets that they would soon be returned to Jerusalem. Jeremiah knew that the destruction of Jerusalem with its much worse exile was yet coming, and that no exiles would return until the seventy year period was over in 539 B.C.

Jeremiah is assuring the exiles that God does indeed have good plans for them, but that the good plans will be in Babylon, not in Jerusalem. Indeed, if the return will not happen until after 539 B.C., then Jeremiah and the vast majority of the people to whom he is writing will no longer be living at the time of the return. Jeremiah urges the refugees to devote themselves to the well-being of the Babylonian empire where they will be raising their children, grandchildren, and perhaps great grandchildren. Even though the return will not come soon, even though they will be living in an alien culture not friendly to the ways of faith, God has plans to prosper them in that situation.

The key phrase in Jeremiah 29:11 is plans to prosper you Other translations have, plans for welfare, plans for wholeness, plans for peace, plans for good, plans to take care of you. In the Hebrew original, the key word in the phrase is none other than shalom. Jeremiah was saying to the exiles that, as they live for shalom in this alien empire, they will themselves receive shalom.

Jeremiah is not counseling them to compromise their faith or their moral values, far from it! As Daniel and his friends who had been exiled in 605 had shown, there is a time to stand uncompromisingly for the requirements of one’s faith. But one may not impose those requirements on others. Jeremiah is simply urging these exiles to become known as people who work for the common good while observing the personal disciplines of their faith. As they show shalom to others, they will receive it from God.

Hunter invites us to hear this passage as guidance for how the church might live faithfully and winningly in our pluralist culture: 4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare(shalom) of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare (shalom) you will find your welfare (shalom). 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord. 10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare (shalom) and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

This is not just an Old Testament perspective. Hunter rightly sees its carry-over in 1 Peter. Peter’s audience are probably Christian Jews exiled by the Emperor Claudius from Rome to the remote and very pagan provinces of what is now Northern Turkey where the exiles receive a hostile response. Peter is urging them to live distinctively holy Christian lives, but to do so in ways that are not hostile. Rather, they are to devote themselves insofar as possible consistent with their faith to the good (the shalom) of all, thereby winning respect for their faith.

They need to accept that, “I will bring you back,” may well refer not to themselves individually, but to their great grandchildren; nevertheless, even in their own time, they will be blessed.

Hunter believes that we can win respect for Christian faith by living in our various places of influence, even as in exile, with the value of shalom, seeking the common good. He believes that Christ is our master teacher as we seek to do this. This is a call to discipleship, to the discipline of Jesus. Who will take a new step on the journey of following Jesus?

Discovering the Social Justice Tradition and the Compassionate Life: Making a Difference

Isaiah 1:15-17; Luke 4:16-21; Acts 4:32-37

Not long ago, a well-known media personality urged Christians to leave their churches if they found the term social justice on their church website. His reasoning: Communists and Nazis both used the term social justice. The flaw in his reasoning: We would have to give up all our good ideas if we ran from each idea that has been misused by some unwise group or some ungodly group. A valid kernel in his reasoning: Some churches, not only liberal, but also conservative, advocate for partisan social causes that they would better leave outside the church. A strong counter to his reasoning: Anyone who carefully reads the Bible should conclude that concern for social justice is essential to the faithful people of God.

The opening books of the Bible make clear that God created human beings to work together in community to care for creation, to sustain the good and varied richness that God has created for our sustenance and enjoyment, and to remember that we are indeed responsible for the well-being of our spouses, our children, our brothers and sisters, our parents, our neighbors, and even the strangers and aliens residing among us. Our basic assignment as God’s children is to represent God’s nature and heart and purposes, and that assignment has not changed in its essence through all the millennia of human history. Working for social justice is part of our reason-for-being as children of God.

The Old Testament is clear that social justice is to be embodied in the community life of the people of God. Their religious calendar included a Sabbath day every seventh day providing rest from human endeavors and labor (applying even to indentured servants and working beasts), a Sabbath year every seventh year providing rest for the land from cultivation and relief for debtors and indentured servants from their condition, and a Jubilee year every fiftieth year for returning citizens to ownership of their share of family property. The basic social justice point is that no one was to be left indebted or indentured forever, that no one was to be left without inheritance or without hope for a new beginning, that no one was to be prevented from drawing near God in faith and repentance, seeking healing, blessing, and empowerment. Although it seems likely that these laws were seldom if ever fully enforced, the Old Testament prophets repeatedly railed against those who schemed to defeat the purposes of such laws, who sold the righteous for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals, who trampled the head of the poor into the dust and turned aside from the afflicted. The words of Amos echo through the ages, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” Nothing in the New Testament eliminates that high valuing of social justice. The realities of human corruption, of urbanization and division of labor, and of invading foreign empires made the Jubilee laws impracticable, but did not invalidate their purpose.

Jesus announced a new way of implementing the purpose of the Jubilee laws, through caring communities of faith, in which each believer is given spiritual gifts to use for the well-being of the whole community and in which the community sees to it that its opportunities and resources are appropriately distributed. The church is Spirit-anointed to follow Jesus in proclaiming good news to the poor and liberty to the captives and the oppressed.

There were places in the first century A.D. in which Christians were, because of their faith, cut out of the economic life of the larger community, places in which their very survival depended on their developing a secondary local economy in which they supported the enterprises of one another so that they could continue to live and bear witness in the larger community to the goodness of their Lord Jesus. These Christians demonstrated extraordinary resourcefulness and generosity in keeping their fellow believers and their Christian mission afloat. Luke says that the early Christians in Jerusalem did not consider anything their own, but as belonging as needed to the fellowship and mission of their crucified Savior and risen Lord.

Acts 4:32-37: “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.”

Imagine how that attitude of viewing nothing as our own would revolutionize our churches today!

Pursuing social justice is not a matter of being politically liberal or conservative. We can hold any number of views on what the government ought to do about social problems, and still agree that the people of God must devote their energies and resources toward correcting real injustices that are contrary to the heart of our loving Creator and Redeemer. We may favor or oppose any variety of government remedies, and this still does not relieve us of the personal obligation to make a positive difference in the name of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

When I say that churches ought not be involved in politics, I am not saying that individual Christians ought not be involved in politics. My concern is that churches not divide themselves along political lines and that churches not hinder their outreach to unbelievers by making a politically biased presentation of the gospel. Wise government policies can be of some help, but high Christian ideals are never totally achieved through political means. Never has happened, never will. There is always work left for the church. Our job together as the church is to do the work of Jesus.

Although I like to see churches steer clear of political advocacy, churches must be involved in concerns of social justice. Christian hearts must indeed be sensitized to the plight of victims of injustice, or we are not representing the heart of our Creator and Redeemer, which is the purpose for which God created and redeemed us.

Today in Protestant circles, concern for social justice is sometimes associated with theological liberals, people who do not really believe in the Bible or in the biblical God. But, prior to the time that skeptical, liberal Bible scholarship came to the forefront in the mid-nineteenth century, most Americans who were strong Christians, whether Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, or members of our Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, swam in both the evangelical and the holiness streams of living water, and were encouraged to swim in the social justice stream as well. This made sense because the founding figures of the three streams—evangelical, holiness, and social justice--were the same people, people like Nicolas von Zinzendorf, John and Charles Wesley, John Newton, and a generation later, our own Barton Stone.

I will give two historical examples of the combined evangelical/holiness/social justice streams.

The first example comes from a little more than a forty year period in England, from about 1792 through 1833, the generation after von Zinzendorf, Wesley, and Newton. A group of activist Christians began to buy or build houses in Clapham, England, a village in a natural setting then still a few miles south of London. Most, though not all of them were Anglicans, but their theology was evangelical and their personal spirituality and morality was of the holiness type. Most, though not all of them, were wealthy. The wealthy supported the Christian labors of those who were not. Their motive in living together was to offer mutual encouragement in Christian living and in implementing certain Christian goals for social justice. Their Christian faith was so much part of their motivating energy that opponents derisively dubbed them “the Clapham sect,” or “the Clapham saints.” The best known member of this circle was William Wilberforce, but there were something like two dozen other members of the circle who made major contributions to their work on behalf of spiritual, moral, and social causes. In over four decades of labor, this little group supported the emergence of world missions, of Bible translation and Bible distribution organizations, of the Sunday school movement and the Sunday observance movement, of broader schooling and Christian social work among the poor. They campaigned against blood sports, dueling, gambling, and cruelty to animals. Politically, they sought to reform Britain’s governance of India and the related actions of the East India Tea Company, they sought to reform England’s prisons, they brought into being the African country of Sierra Leone, and most notably, they did more than any other group in history to bring down slavery not only in the British Empire, but also worldwide. Yes, their most publicized actions may have been political, but, while their political actions were taken with Christian motivations, they were not taken, so far as I know, in the name of the church. My point is that their social justice labors emerged from evangelical tradition faith and from holiness tradition spirituality. It was because of the richness of their faith and spirituality that the Clapham saints made such a difference for social justice.

Just before the time that work of the Clapham saints was winding down in England, the work in America of Charles G. Finney was beginning. Finney was the foremost revivalist and the leading evangelical and holiness spokesperson in America from the mid-1820’s for another forty to fifty years. My University of Chicago American history professor who listed Jonathan Edwards as one of the two most influential Americans in our entire history, listed Charles Finney as the other. My professor believed that Finney produced more lasting change in 19^th century American life than any other person. It has been estimated that over half a million converts to Christ were won at Finney’s revivals and that 80% remained strong Christians for the rest of their lives, and that does not begin to count those who came to Christ through the efforts of those Finney taught and influenced. Finney encouraged his converts to work for social reform in the areas such as health, temperance, sexual morality, Sunday observance, women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, and the humane treatment of prisoners, the insane, and the handicapped, a list very similar to the previous work of the Clapham saints back in England. Why was Finney’s work so successful? Beyond his obvious gifts for communication, it was his deep spiritual life that made the difference. And it was the spiritual life he conveyed to others that produced so many workers for social justice in the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century.

Then, in the latter half of the nineteenth century and opening decades of the twentieth century, liberal, skeptical Bible scholarship emerged and split the church. The theological liberals proclaimed what they called the social gospel, but lost the biblical gospel that could win souls to Christ. The theological conservatives kept the emphasis on personal evangelism and personal morality, but drew back from the social dimensions of their previous work which they now saw as tainted by theological liberalism. The conservatives tended to slip into judgmental self-righteousness, to which the liberals responded with a culturally elitist self-righteousness of their own. The chasm kept widening. That sad state of affairs endured for more than a century, and how much poorer we American Christians are because the spiritual streams were separated.

We are at last seeing the emergence of a new generation of evangelicals with a social justice agenda that includes, not only opposing abortion, but also alleviating poverty, advocating creation care, peacemaking, prison reform, and refugee relief. Many young evangelicals appear to be re-uniting the evangelical, holiness, and social justice streams. May their tribe increase!

Let me tell you what I believe about our times; I believe:

1. that the American people are discovering that many of the solutions to our problems will not come from government or from the other large institutions that fund our two major political parties, but will emerge from the grassroots.

2. that, as we choose simpler and healthier lifestyles, live closer to our neighbors, and live on a more human scale, our lives will be more meaningful and more fulfilling.

3. that our hope for better lives is closely tied to the teachings of Moses and the Prophets, of Jesus and the Apostles, and especially closely tied to the purpose of Jesus for his church, that we are to be bearers of new hope to the world.

4. that the mission statement of our church, “Building a Community of Hope through Jesus Christ,” is especially well-suited to our time and place and compels us to be about Jesus’ work of social justice.

5. that, if we truly choose to follow God’s leading right here and right now, we can make a profound impact for the better on Carroll County and beyond, both now and in the future.

6. that we will be most effective if we operate with the force of all six streams of living water in harmonious cooperation. My point for today has been that the evangelical, holiness, and social justice streams of Christian spirituality definitely belong together, not in opposing camps. Let’s get past our prejudices and take a holistic, biblical viewpoint that will make a real difference for the better right here, beginning right now.

A Battle Worthy of Real Men and Women

Experiencing the Contemplative Tradition and the Prayer-Filled Life
Psalm 46:1-11; Ephesians 6:10-20; Luke 4:1-13

In our culture and perhaps in most cultures, women are more oriented than men toward developing and practicing skills in relationships, intimate communication, and inward reflection on feelings. How many of you women have noticed that? (lots of women’s hands were raised). We need those skills in a community of faith, but…I don’t know about the rest of you men, but that is scary territory for me as a man. Being in a room where a group of women are talking about relationships and feelings gives me uncomfortable shivers. I may force myself to sit still, and I may know in my conscious mind that a little of this is good for me, but my subconscious mind is looking for all the exit doors. I know that there are exceptions among both men and women to my general observation, but I think that it is at least three-fourths true.

So, when we define contemplative prayer as deepening our relationship with God through prayer and meditation, lots of men say to themselves, “Oh, that’s women’s stuff,” and tune out. Practical men may tend to view contemplative prayer as being for people who are out of touch with the hard realities of the world, for people who are of no earthly use. But that association of contemplative prayer with irrelevance, other-worldliness, and exclusively with femininity is a great and tragic mistake.

Let me make the counter-suggestion—just to balance things out--that real contemplative prayer, rightly understood, is not for sissies, but only for tough-minded men and women who want to make a real and practical difference in the world. Indeed, Jesus shows that contemplative prayer is for those who wish to engage the world in hard, disciplined spiritual battle. We need strong men who will enter this battle, father figures who will pioneer and model such life for their children. Of course, we also need women and mother figures like this. But today, on Father’s Day, I am especially challenging the men.

Authentic contemplative prayer might be described as:
pursuing prayerful listening and practicing personal reflection
in order to purify our divine hopes, desires, and callings.

Real contemplative prayer is a deep inward journey that results in focused effectiveness in outward ministry and mission for the glory of God.

Our best model for contemplative prayer is what happened in the temptation of Jesus. Immediately after Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Under the Spirit’s direction, Jesus fasted, prayed, and dealt with Satan’s temptations for forty days. The Holy Spirit put Jesus in this position not so he would succumb to Satan’s temptations, but so that he would, in prayerfully resisting, be prepared to resist Satan’s temptations again and again when those temptations would inevitably rush upon him in the midst of his busy and high pressure ministry.

At his baptism, Jesus had received confirmation that he was to live in such a way that he would be, on the one hand, the Royal Son of God and agent of the reigning power of God, proving that God is more powerful than any forces evil can muster, and, on the other hand, the Suffering Servant of God, giving himself sacrificially for the redemption of the God’s wayward children and, indeed, for the restoration of all creation. This was an immense task. How can one be at once both victor and victim?

Jesus had to live out his calling as a real life story orchestrated by his heavenly Father. Jesus had to coordinate his actions like a symphony, with the twin contrasting themes of the triumphant King and the slain Lamb, and the great underlying and ultimately unifying theme of God’s redeeming love.

Satan would try to misdirect him so that the symphony of Jesus’ life and ministry would never accomplish its purpose. Satan’s basic tactic was to appeal to Jesus to make his symphony go straight to the triumphant theme and to play it with no contrasting theme and with no underlying unifying theme. Such a symphony about a powerful king might have excited some initial attention, but it would never have dealt with the depths of our sin, it would never have won our hearts, and it would never have saved the world. Every time Satan tempted Jesus to focus solely on his power as the Son of God, Jesus recognized the temptation as a lie contrary to the will of God and quoted Holy Scripture to defeat the lie.

The forty days contemplative prayer that Jesus spent in the wilderness were well spent indeed, for in approximately three years of ministry, he always remembered to get his signals straight with the Father, and to resist any tempting shortcuts that would have ruined his life’s symphony. He remained always the Royal Son of God, always the Suffering Servant of God, always our loving Kinsman Redeemer. Each theme might come to the fore in its own time, but none were ever forgotten. All three themes remained woven together in the symphony of Jesus’ life and ministry.

Sometimes Satan’s temptations of Jesus to forget some strand of his ministry came to Jesus through those he loved most dearly: his family, his disciples, even the one disciple he had picked to lead his church after his death. But Jesus engaged regularly in contemplative prayer and, whenever temptation reared its head from whatever source, he was able to say, “Get behind me, Satan!”

It would have been far easier for Jesus to take the path of least resistance, the path of common sense, the path of worldly wisdom, the path of comfortable compliance, the people-pleasing path. But he loved us too much to do that. He kept his mission always before him, and he stayed prayed up so that he would not go off course. He stayed strong and tough because he engaged in contemplative prayer. Because he did, we are here this morning. We would not be here without the focused purpose and toughness that Jesus maintained with his prayer life.

We too have a mission. We have done our best as a church to discern our mission as, “Building a Community of Hope through Jesus Christ: drawing people to Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and doing the work of Jesus.”

That mission statement is now the reason for our being. It contains the seeds of the answer to almost any question we can ask regarding what we should do about anything.

How should we worship God? By “Building a Community of Hope through Jesus Christ: drawing people to Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and doing the work of Jesus.”

How should we win disciples and gain church members: By “Building a Community of Hope through Jesus Christ: drawing people to Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and doing the work of Jesus.”

This may begin to sound a bit repetitive, but how should we serve our community? By “Building a Community of Hope through Jesus Christ: drawing people to Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and doing the work of Jesus.”

And, yes, even, how should we raise funds? By “Building a Community of Hope through Jesus Christ: drawing people to Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and doing the work of Jesus.”
Who are we as a church? We are a people who are—say it with me--“Building a Community of Hope through Jesus Christ: drawing people to Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and doing the work of Jesus.”

As we unpack those words, there are many ways that they can help us resist temptation. Sometimes those words will help us resist the temptation to do things the easy way, to take the worldly-wise shortcut that undermines the integrity of our mission.

But, if those words are not just to be an empty slogan, they must be grounded in contemplative prayer, sharpened through a deep and broad meditative interaction with the Scriptures, empowered by the Holy Spirit who moves in our lives in answer to our prayerful obedience to his calling and gifting of us.

The members of this church need to decide that we will spend the time in prayer to purify our hearts and minds so that we can live in total obedience to what God is putting into our hearts. We need to determine that we will resist Satan’s distracting temptations toward short cuts and comfortable paths. We need strong men and women who will sit down and reflectively determine that we will pay the cost to answer the call that God has put upon our lives.

But, you object, I am not a strong person. That does not count as an objection. None of us are strong by nature, but the miracle of the gospel is that God can make of us far more than we can ever even imagine making of ourselves. And he has provided the spiritual armor that can make us strong to stand against the lies of the enemy. That armor is put on with mediating on God’s word and praying in God’s Spirit. It is put on through contemplative prayer.

Contemplative prayer is not for sissies. A person who engages in contemplative prayer will have to get ruthlessly honest with himself or herself, answering questions such as, “What are my real motivations? What are my real commitments? What faith am I actually living out with the way I spend my time, energy, and resources? What lies, what false narratives, are shaping my daily life and decisions? If I am to become free to serve God more fully, what demons must be cast out and replaced by the gospel of Jesus Christ?

No army drill sergeant, no football coach, ever asked tougher things of those under him than Jesus asks of all of us, but the pay-off for Jesus’ toughness is even greater than that of either the drill sergeant or the football coach. (1) Jesus does not ask anything of us that he will not do himself. (2) Jesus goes with us as we do the tough things to give us strength, comfort, and renewal. (3) When we pick up our crosses to follow him, what looks on the front end like the toughest thing we ever did turns out to bring with it the easing of many other burdens, for, from the perspective of obedience, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. (4) When we follow Jesus, no matter how tough the road may seem for a time, we always, always, always, win in the end!
A true disciple of Jesus Christ has to be ready to do inner battle for the truth of the Christian message and mission on a daily basis. And inner battle is the very toughest kind of battle, but it brings the greatest victories.

Jesus’ enemies came at him with flattery, bribery, and offers of honor and influence. They came at him with hostility, threats, shame, and pain. Not once did they knock him off course. The most stunning thing about Jesus is the way he stayed free from the traps his enemies set for him. The great freedom with which Jesus operated in ministry can be traced to his regular practice of contemplative prayer.

It may seem that I am about to wander off topic, but I plan to bring everything quickly back together as we draw near the conclusion of this sermon. I wish to offer one warning in the area of contemplative prayer. Some people who claim to teach contemplative prayer are really teaching either Gnostic philosophy or Eastern religion. What these two schools of thought have in common is an attempt to rise above or to detach from material creation. They seek to get you into a meditative state that convinces you that nothing material matters, and they tell you that this is spiritual progress. Nothing could be more contrary to true, Bible-based faith.

The Bible begins with a good creation and ends with a restored and unified new heaven and new earth. At the heart of the Bible’s story of redemption is Jesus Christ’s bodily incarnation, his embodied ministry to embodied human needs, his bodily crucifixion, and his bodily resurrection. The writers of the New Testament are consistently clear that what we do with our bodies matters. It is no improvement to convince ourselves that we have risen above our bodies. Indeed, it is a denial of the central truths of Christian faith.

The contemplative prayer to which Jesus calls us is a call to real and authentic bodily life, first in the bodies with which we were born in this fallen creation and then in the bodies with which we are raised for life in the perfect and eternal new creation.

Contemplative prayer is not about how we escape bodily life, but about how we live our bodily existences in this fallen world in ways that point toward and glorify God’s perfect purposes for our bodily lives in the new creation. That is a tough battle, but it is a battle worth fighting, and, by God’s gracious work in our lives through Jesus Christ, it is a battle worth winning. It is a battle worthy of real men and real women.

When we commit ourselves to be disciples of Jesus Christ, when we are immersed in his life and ministry, his death and resurrection, his holiness and grace, his redeeming love, we are embarked on a great adventure from which there is no turning back, but a journey on which only those who are prayed up can stay on the path. It is a battle worthy of real men and real women.

John and Judy Turner Called

On Sunday, March 28, following morning worship, members of First Christian Church of Berryville, AR, voted to approve the recommendation of the Official Board that the Rev. John Turner and the Rev. Judy Turner be called as pastoral leaders of First Christian Church of Berryville. The church will sign an indefinite-term contract for their services with Christview Ministries, an organization which the Turners founded and continue to operate.

The Turners have previously served the congregation two and one-half years as interim Transformational Leaders. Their primary tasks were to lead the congregation in spiritual renewal and to develop a mission, vision, and plan for the congregation’s future. The mission that emerged is summarized as, “Building a community of hope through Jesus Christ.”

The Turners’ new focus will be to lead the congregation in developing ministries that bring Christ-based hope into the lives of people in Carroll County and beyond. The ministries should serve one or more of three goals: (1) drawing people to Jesus, (2) becoming more like Jesus, and (3) doing the work of Jesus.

John Turner said, “By adopting the mission, vision, and plan statements on March 7, the congregation officially declared that they are ready to move forward in creative ways. When they followed that up on March 28 by calling Judy and me to continue in leadership, they expressed tangible commitment to the forward momentum we are experiencing. We are proud to be part of what is coming into being through First Christian Church.”

John will focus on keeping the mission, vision, and plan moving forward. His passion is to use his Bible teaching skills to make sure that everything in the life of the church is on solid scriptural grounding.

Judy Turner will focus on developing spiritual leaders to carry out the mission. Her passion is to use her spiritual formation, spiritual guidance, and spiritual encouragement gifts to help people discover and live out their divine callings.

Judy said, "We already see God at work in our congregation as people discover their spiritual gifts and use them in reaching out to change lives and make life better in our community. We especially see God at work in children and youth ministries and the Community Garden. We believe these ministries will continue to grow, and other ministries will develop. We are excited about the future of this church."