Three Recent and Hasty Conclusions - My stumbling way of encouraging other restless believers.

Last week, my friend Jamie and I talked about vision for our church, evangelism, and boldness. At one point, he said, "We should hang out more often. It only took ten minutes of talking with another believer for me to feel encouraged." I felt it too. Spending time with other passionate Christians does encourage me.

I've realized a few things since that conversation.

1. I'm restless and I think more Christians should also feel restlessness. Until Jesus actually comes back, we should always feel a tug in our insides like there's something for us to do. The commission Jesus gave in Matthew 28 to make disciples, baptize people, and teach is called the Great Commission because it's such a dang big job. The world lives in darkness. People walk calmly to their destruction. Doesn't that make you want to do something? It makes me want to do something.

2. I don't feel like I do very well when it comes to telling people about Jesus. I get hung up by telling myself it's not the right timing or that the direct approach would only make the gospel noisome to unbelievers. I felt especially lame after reading Hebrews 10:38. "But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." Yeah, I know the author was referring to a messianic prophecy given to Habakkuk, but that doesn't make me feel better. It says elsewhere in Hebrews that without faith it's impossible to please God. But isn't faith a gift from God? It has to be. I need encouragement to live out my faith. I need the Holy Spirit to give me boldness.

3. I sometimes allow people to intimidate me. But who intimidates me more? People or Jesus? Lame people like me or the risen and triumphant King of all creation? Where does my confidence lie? I asked myself these questions this morning while reading 1 John 2 when it said in verse 28, "Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming." John's tone is gentle, like he's talking to his kids. I think he knew these people loved God. I think he knew these believers may have already recognized their lameness. I think he knew people needed encouragement to live out their trust in Jesus. This is a comfort. God's aware of my shortcomings, so He offers encouragement instead of making me feel like a loser. He wants to help me do good with my restlessness.

You can expect me to think about how to spur you on to live our your faith and tell people about Jesus. And, you know, if any of you feel compelled to do that same for me, I'd totally appreciate it.

Have you ever come to any of these three conclusions?

Has anyone or anything encouraged you to live out your faith in a new way?

Our Team Will Change the World.

The cool kids at Hiawatha Elementary School each had a favorite basketball team. They’d show off their trading card collections and posters of gigantic men performing super-human feats on the court. Well, I didn’t have those trading cards or posters. I didn’t watch professional basketball. Ergo, I wasn’t one of the cool kids. But what I did have was an intense desperation to avoid their scorn. At some point in fourth grade, one of the coolest kids asked me, “Who do you think the best basketball team is?” Other kids were laughing, thinking that I wouldn’t have an answer. I said, “The Harlem Globetrotters”. They laughed so hard that one could have called it hollering.

Later that year, I met Curly Neal, arguably the most recognizable of the Globetrotters. He tried to spin a basketball on my hand, but I was so nervous that it kept falling off. I brought a photo of our meeting to show and tell, me with a stupid grin, him looking with polite dismay at the ball toppling off of my hand. I told the kids that Fred “Curly” Neal was involved in the Orlando Magic organization (which was true). The kids thought I was trying to tell them that I had met Shaquille O’Neal, who played for the Magic. Afterwards, I decided never to discuss basketball with any of those kids ever again.

I hadn’t thought about the Globetrotters for many years until last week. My friend Matt and I were praying for the people in our church and I began to thank God for allowing us to have fun while we did His work. I thanked God for the victory that Jesus assured us even though we find ourselves in the midst of a battle. “It’s like you made us the Harlem Globetrotters,” I laughed. It was just an offhand remark in prayer, but now I can’t shake this picture of God’s church.

The Globetrotters are a highly skilled team that exists outside of any recognized league. Even though they have the talent to compete with NBA teams, they serve a different purpose. The UN named them Goodwill Ambassadors. They have traveled to 119 countries to show the world just how fun and how excellent people can play the game of basketball.

Every analogy will break down if you look into it hard enough, but think about this for a moment. The world seems defined by competition. Who has the best job or car? Who’s got the blazing hot wife? Who’s famous, successful, beloved, cool, or revolutionary? The world chases after these things, but it ends in frustration apart from God. Sometimes, God’s the one who frustrates those plans. The people in Genesis 11 tried to come together in direct opposition to one of God’s commands. In Genesis 11:6-7, “The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.’”

Jesus trained His disciples for a new and different purpose. When He rose from the dead, He told them of this purpose in Acts 1:8. Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” This is typically referred to as The Great Commission. God Himself gave people purpose again, based and driven by the power of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of the Great Commission goes against the world’s attitude of competition. Instead of getting the biggest slice of pie, we’re meant to bring life and truth to the world.

Paul explained our new roles as Ambassadors for the Kingdom of God in 2 Corinthians 5:14-20. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

I recently joined a church for the first time. When I joined, I put aside my old ambitions for fame and success with writing and music. In its place, I took on a new ambition to spread the Gospel with those talents. Many of my friends in this church have that same ambition. We hope to travel in at least 119 countries, should God call us there, in order to show people the good and excellence of life in Jesus. My punk rock heart loves the idea of existing outside of the recognized leagues of the world and speaking a message that runs contrary to its norms. But I know I’m not quite ready to go out there yet. During this period of my life, God is training me for that purpose and sharpening my skills.

Like all the kids who dreamed of one day becoming a Harlem Globetrotter, my friends and I look forward to the next step in advancing God’s Kingdom. And it’s going to be fun, because like the Globetrotters, you can count on seeing a victory.

A Simple Guide to Overdoing the Great Commission.

Whenever pastors talk about missions, they will almost certainly talk about the Great Commission. Jesus gave this last command to His disciples before ascending into Heaven. In Acts 1:8, He says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” And in Matthew 28:19-20, He adds, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Growing up hearing this from pastors most of my life, I could tell early on how much they liked preaching this sermon. It was easy. They could recite Jesus’ command, tap their finger on the page, and then point that finger at the congregation. “You are all missionaries,” they’d say. I liked that. The phrase “a missionary in your own backyard” had a snappy ring to it. It lit a fire in me to raise money for faceless, starving children. Raising money from the neighbors up and down my street helped the children and let the block know that I loved Jesus. I truly was a missionary in my own backyard. Once, I even stood up with a Bible in my first grade class when my teacher had mentioned a certain crisis that existed in the world.

And then I got my ass kicked for five years. Although some of the kids in my school were pretty ruthless, I don’t think they were actively persecuting me for my beliefs. I get the feeling that I pissed something off in the spiritual realm.

The first part of Acts 1:8 should demand our attention. Jesus told His disciples not to spread the gospel until they had received power from the Holy Spirit. Some people have told me that Jesus said to because the signs and wonders brought by the Holy Spirit would make God’s power evident to people hearing the gospel. I suppose that’s true. Paul said in 1 Corinthians the signs were used to show the message through God’s power and not human wisdom. I think there’s something else to it, though. They needed His guidance.

In Acts 16, Paul and his companions are out on one of their missionary journeys. In verses 6 and 7, “They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.” If people stopped to think about this, they might find it outrageous. “What? Didn’t God want the gospel preached there as well?” I think so, but through others and at a different time. The people in Galatia formed a pretty significant church. Paul’s letter to them may be one of my favorite epistles.

But this wasn’t the kind of mission trip where kids all wear the same T-shirts and build schools for impoverished communities. A lot people wanted to kill Paul and his buddies. Even in the cities he did visit, he faced riots and imprisonment and attempts on his life. But God miraculously saved him every time. Why? Because Paul went exactly where the Holy Spirit led him to go. He went into large, influential cities (cities, I should mention, that had more local authority to keep villagers from skewering the apostles) and shared the gospel to as many people as possible. This allowed others to share the gospel in turn with a common language and mutual history. “Hey Pete. Did you hear about that riot in town? You’ll never guess what this guy was saying to the people.” Voila! Ministry time. God put Paul in specific places to set other people in motion. His job wasn’t to save the whole world. I’d imagine that job would be very exhausting. And it would not have allowed more leadership to rise in the church. But people think that is their job. Save the whole world one backyard at a time.

For any of us who want to spread the gospel through full-time ministry (I wonder what “part-time ministry” means), we should consider this pattern. As we seek to do God’s work, we should listen for His voice and follow the direction He gives us. Otherwise we might take on burdens that are not ours and in turn place those burdens on our families and loved ones. I’m not saying that ministry never involves pain or sacrifice or hard choices that affect others. I mean to say we would do better to have God show us who to reach and then help them reach others. That way we don’t end up in Bithynia wondering why nobody’s listening or why those people over there are picking up heavy rocks.