And when these things begin to come to pass,
then look up, and lift up your heads;
for your redemption draweth nigh.
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March 20, 2008:Traditions | Just a few more weary days and then... I'll fly away... And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. |
| December 29, 2007:New Year's 2008 | ||
| November 3, 2007:How To Be Successful in Christian Ministry | ||
| October 23, 2007:Salmon |
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| Unity and Humility in Christ William H. Haller |
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This lesson is from the second chapter of Philippians. Let's take a moment and read the first 11 verses of the chapter. There are two main themes that the quarterly writer wishes to bring out in this lesson. One deals with unity and the second deals with Christian humility. Neither are in much evidence in the church today.
The first four verses of Philippians 2 go to the heart of unity. This is a subject that I have touched on many times before. The problems of the Philippian church that may have caused Paul to write this message are not identified. Dake titles this section as an appeal for Christian living, which is apt. There are a few very basic points that can be brought out.
The quarterly writer points out that being likeminded and of one accord doesn't mean everyone will be doing the same thing. They point out that each person will have their own ideas about how to accomplish even similar goals.
While this is true, there is a danger in this philosophy. God does have a plan that He wants His global church to carry out. Within that global plan, He has different jobs and different desires for particular parts of the church body. I fully believe that He even has plans for each single individual cell in that huge organism called the church.
For the church to be successful, we need to seek to know His plan for each of us first, then for our immediate group of fellow believers, then for the Christian churches in our community, and finally for the church at a higher level. It starts low and moves up. It is the one-on-one work of individual believers that keeps the church functioning and growing. The upper levels of the church are completely useless in this regard, unless they do something incredibly stupid. Now, that has been happening a bit too frequently lately in my opinion, but if you want to hear my thoughts on that, read some other lessons I've written.
Each person needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit and find out from God just what He wants him or her to be doing. Hearing that you should do something from your Sunday School Teacher, some committee, or the Pastor himself, just isn't good enough. All too often, people get thrust into positions they either aren't qualified to do or that they have no calling for just to fill an organizational hole. They may do OK, but often they don't do well at all. The person God had picked out for the job would have done the job well but perhaps they didn't listen to what God was telling them to do or heard and just refused. In either case God's work suffers.
What God wants for you may be just sitting tight and absorbing and being trained in God's word. You need to be well based in Scripture before attempting many jobs in the church organization (but there are also many openings that require little or no scriptural background). Maybe what God wants you to do is praying. Now, everyone needs to pray, but there are those who are called to be prayer warriors for Christ. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Maybe it is praising God (in your mind or vocally). Maybe it is teaching or being a teaching assitant. Maybe it is leading a youth group. Maybe it is reaching out to nursing homes and older shut-ins. Maybe it is working in local or far off missions, helping those less fortunate. Maybe it is talking about God to your co-worker, the person across the street, or the check-out clerk at the local store. Everyone can witness - it just takes listening for God's right time in each situation to be successful. Maybe it is singing or playing an instrument. Maybe it is going into the ministry full time as an associate pastor or pastor. Maybe it is administration - secretary, treasurer, sunday school superintendent, et cetera. Maybe it is some combination of those. Maybe it is something entirely different. The thing is, being in tune with the Holy Spirit and figuring out just exactly what it is He wants you to do is the very first thing that must happen. Unity with God's purpose is primary.
Once that is clear, then you can figure out how to go about accomplishing that task. Perhaps you can join other people in your local congregation who are doing the same thing. Perhaps you will find support from your own church and denomination to start a new work that isn't already being locally addressed. Perhaps you must go to a different church or denomination because you can't fulfill that task where you are at for whatever reason. But until you know what it is God wants you to do, unity is out of your grasp.
Churches seem to get stuck forever discussing ways to accomplish particular goals and purposes that God has laid on one of their members hearts. Sometimes, some of our ideas may have merit, and sometimes they may not. There are two problems that churches face in this regard. First, people who are uninterested in particular issues are required to have input into the process for whatever good reason - oversight, presenting a united front, whatever or perhaps are the deciding authority for what gets done. Having uninvolved individual give input or listen in on discussions is only useful if the person is filled with the Holy Spirit and in tune with God's wishes. Too often, they are just a drag on the process.
Secondly, we spend too much time listening to each other, to what has worked here and there, what hasn't worked here or there, and too little time listening to what God wants done here and now. God may not get down to the nitty-gritty details in laying out His plan for a church. That is up to Him. When He told Jonah to go to Ninevah, I don't think He said to hop on the ship departing at 4:32 today from pier 9, take the middle bunk in the aft cabin, and don't come out till you get there. He just said go to Ninevah - now. But a lot of the time, I think He does have a plan if we would just listen for it and wait for Him to make it clear. Often churches get so wrapped up in the petty details that nothing ever gets done or the people who would be willing to just do the work lose interest. The old army idea of getting over there 80% ready but on time versus 100% ready and late applies here as well. Let God uncover the gaps and the holes and show how to fill them as you move forward, but get moving!
That isn't to say that there is absolutely no merit to discussing things (hopefully not to infinity and beyond). There is a minute amount of worth to be gained by studying what has failed in the past and what has worked in the past both in our church and in other churches. But if the Holy Spirit is strongly impressing on someone how something should be done, then how it has or has not worked elsewhere is of no relevance. That is how God has prepared for the plan to work here and now and that is what is important. Unity with the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of discernment, wisdom, and knowledge at work in any particular endeavor are the keys to success in God's work. Churches forget that and lean on their own understanding at their peril.
Ultimately, if any church member wants to be successful in working for God, that member needs to be united with the mind of Christ first, with its own members second, with other nearby churches of whatever Christian denomination third, and with its own denomination last. This also applies to the work of churches in general. Clear direction from God is paramount. Help from like minded individuals in the congregation is of second importance. Reaching out to other local Christian churches for local unity is third. What the denomination thinks is a distant fourth. The order here is absolutely critical if God's work is to be accomplished at any location these days.
This could be read that I don't think denominations are of any use. That is not correct, so don't go there. Denominations should provide oversight through Spirit filled leaders to ensure that nothing untoward is going on in the churches they oversee. But such oversight is not nearly as effective as the oversight of Spirit filled individuals in the local churches themselves. Organizationally, they can provide a convenient means to help out churches that are struggling financially and can provide a better directed world-wide missions giving outreach than any single church can. They also are good at seeing where there isn't a presence for Christ in the world and starting a new church there. Sometimes they are pretty blind in feeling that just because they aren't there, the other Christian churches in town couldn't possibly be doing anything right, but that is just denominational pride talking. They definitely have a good place, and the world is much better off that all churches aren't independent today. But a denomination, by itself, can do little to improve a particular branch of the work of Christ's church in a particular city at any particular time. That is up to us folks and the church leadership of the Christian churches in that town.
All moves of God that are successful are person to person and church to church in a community. God's objective isn't to make a denomination strong. It is to make His church strong. We can do more reaching out locally to other Christian churches and presenting a united front to the people in our community than going alone. Unity is far further reaching that just unity in a body of believers to show that Christianity is different. Look at the way we view the squabbles between the Sunni's and the Shite's. Do you honestly thing that the squabbles between the Presbyterians, Episcopals, Methodists, Assembly of God's, Church of Christ's, etc. to say nothing of the whole Protestant vs. Catholic thing looks any different to the world out there? Let's put our differences aside for a change and let God work through all of us.
Let us strive for unity in our body, a clear direction from God, and unity among the Christian churches in our cities this next year to see God's work move forward at a more rapid pace.
The second major topic is humility. For Christ's work to be effective, we must be humble servants. We are nothing, but sinners saved by the grace and mercy of God, through the blood of Jesus, the Christ, who died on the cross for us. That goes for Billy Graham, Pope Benedict, John Osteen, all the way down to the newest sinner saved by Christ. We are all the same. The sooner we really grasp that concept, the better off we will all be.
None of these individuals do anything of their own power that has any lasting significance at all. It is only by the grace of God, His gifts working in them, that anything good is accomplished at all. They may do the planting, but it is God that provides the increase. If it wasn't for the preparatory work of the Holy Spirit nobody would come to church to hear those fabulous messages. If it weren't for the continuing working of Him as our conscience, our comforter, our parakletos, we might find ourselves backslidden to a state where we couldn't see any light at all when Satan launched his attacks at us.
This chapter of Philippians gives us the best example of all. Jesus, the God who was responsible for the creation of all we know today, chose to empty Himself of His divinity and be born as a human. God came down to man. This was brought out in the last lesson, but of all of the major world religions, Christianity is unique in this respect. God came down, lived as man putting His divinity aside, and died to save His people. Some religions have one or two aspects of this, but none that I know of have all three.
I would like to include some of Dake's notes on the kenosis of Christ and what He gave up.
The "kenosis" of Christ (2:7)
Gr. kenoo, to empty out, drain. It is trans. make void (Rom. 4:14; 1 Cor. 9:15); make of none effect (1 Cor. 1:17); be in vain (2 Cor. 9:3); and make of no reputation or emptied Himself (Phil. 2:7).
Of what did Christ empty Himself?
It could not have been His divine nature, for He was God not only from all eternity (Mic. 5:1-2; Jn 1:1-2; Heb. 1:8; Rev. 1:8-11), but God manifest in flesh during His life on earth (Isa. 7:14; 9;6-7; Mt. 1:18-25; Jn. 1:1-2, 14; 1 Tim. 3:16)
Christ emptied Himself of:
Through His humble walk on earth, 2,000 some years ago, He founded a religion that has stood the test of time. Humility coupled with the power of God, is a very effective tool for evangelism. We could use more of it in all of our churches today. There are a world of hurting people. Let's reach out to them with solutions from the Father, along with our own material helps and words, and create a growing and stronger more vibrant church in the year to come.
Everyone can point out the problems in the church (that's us, you know). Although the problems are frequently pointed out by those outside the church (and those of us on the inside prefer not to dwell on them), we do know they are there. Without a manifest working of the Holy Spirit, they won't get better. Let us first pray for that for the coming year.
We can't change the past. We often wish we could. But once we do those things that are not in our best interest we can't take them back. We can and must ask God to forgive us when we fail if it was a sin or trespass issue. We can and must ask anyone that we have wronged to forgive us. But just asking for forgiveness doesn't make the wrong right again. All we can do is try to express a true sorrow with humility, try to make any amends we can, ask forgiveness as needed, and move on in the proper direction, united with God's will once again. The church could use a healthy dose of this to start the new year.
Likewise, once opportunities that we are presented with pass us by, it is almost always too late to go back and try to do them at a later time. A broken person's heart or a situation is in an exact state only once. It may reach a similar state again under different circumstances, but there is a time to touch someone for Christ that the Holy Spirit will impress upon you and if you ignore it, you may leave a hurting soul in peril. All I can say in words of encouragement is that God's work is unending and widespread. Don't dwell on the problems of the past or the mistakes and failures of the past. Look to what He wants to accomplish today and in the future and move forwards toward that mark! In His grace and mercy, He may open up avenues that you thought you had missed out on again in another way. When they open up again, be brave and do His bidding without hesitation.
In this day when resolutions are made, hoping that the next year will be a better one than the year past, I pray that we will all make a sincere effort to get in tune with what God wants our particular group of the worldwide body of believers to be doing. Let each of us find a constructive way to join in that effort. The work that He has laid out for His church to do has a tremendous number of facets, each reflecting His light in a slightly different way. Let us make our particular beam shine brighter in this year of our Lord 2007, than it did in the year gone by. Let this be the year that Christians are known for their unity with God's purposes and will and with each other taking on the humility of Christ.
