4 questions for Feb 28

What is the foundation of the church? Jesus is Lord. Anointed = Christ, Messiah. What is anointed? Marked as ruler.

What will not overcome the church? Gates of HADES. Hades=place of the dead. This is not 'gehenna/hell'. But people say it all the time. Wrong view is that Hell is Satan's home base. Not at all biblical, so why do we think that? (there are answers, but I'm just complaining). The very simple point is that separation from God is death, but death can't win because Jesus is forming a community that is greater than death, particularly because he defeats death and all that is associated with it (sin and the adversary included).

Mt 18 is instruction for the church to be disciplined in our trust/loyalty to Jesus as Lord. Rebellion in the community of those loyal to Jesus must be addressed. The progression is from AS DISCRETE AS POSSIBLE to AS PUBLIC AS NECESSARY. The point is to keep the church a community of people who are grateful that God is changing them to live out their loyalty, and disloyal people should not be allowed to set up camp among the loyal. It is not to punish our clumsiness, it is to keep us humble and honest with one another.

What does it look like when discipline works? The church is the gathering of sinners saved by grace trusting Jesus as Lord to forgive them and change them, individually and corporately. When we make sure that no one claims to be a Christian but is reckless in their attitude toward Christ's authority, the church is a safely imperfect place where honest growth occurs.

Jesus discusses The Church, foundation and focus

Hi Sojourners,

The point of last Sunday was primarily to focus on how Jesus brought together Old Testament truths of Justice & Mercy in very practical ways. This week follows that up with the idea of church looking at the only 2 places in the gospels where the term church is used:

Matthew 16:13-20

13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
14They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

15"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,[b] the Son of the living God."

17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter,[c] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[d] will not overcome it.[e] 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[f] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[g] loosed in heaven." 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Matthew 18:15-20

15"If your brother sins against you,[b] go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'[c] 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be[d]bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.

19"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

The questions will be:

What is the foundation of the church in MT 16?

What will not overcome the church?

What is the church taught to do in MT 18? Why?

What does it look like when this works?

BHUTAN, NEPAL: CHRISTIANS FACE HOSTILITIES

Intercessors.Network@Comhem.SE
Thrust from their homes in Bhutan after Buddhist rulers embarked on an ethnic and religious purge, Christian refugees in Nepal face hostilities from Hindus and others. In Sunsari district in southeastern Nepal, a country that is more than 80 percent Hindu, residents from the uneducated segments of society are especially apt to attack Christians, said Purna Kumal, district coordinator for Awana Clubs International, which runs 41 clubs in refugee camps to educate girls about the Bible.

“In Itahari, Christians face serious trouble during burials,” Kumal said. “Last month, a burial party was attacked by locals who dug up the grave and desecrated it.” Earlier this month, he added, a family in the area expelled one of its members from their home because he became a Christian.

Bhutan began expelling almost one-eighth of its citizens for being of Nepali origin or practicing faiths other than Buddhism in the 1980s. The purge lasted into the 1990s. “Christians, like Hindus and others, were told to leave either their faith or the country,” said Gopi Chandra Silwal, who pastors a tiny church for Bhutanese refugees in a refugee camp in Sanischare, a small village in eastern Nepal’s Morang district. “Many chose to leave their homeland.”

SEW applications: Getting IT done part 2

The word from Peter= if you believe Jesus is trustworthy, the make it your priority to learn to live the way he says. Don't be lazy, don't be fooled, don't be discouraged: grow!

Lazy = "I believe, but... I dunno... I guess I believe, maybe... I dunno.... "
(energy and resources go to other 'stuff').

Fooled = Hey, this teacher helps me find ways to believe and not change! Sweet...
(all talk no character; many polls show this is a huge problem in many Christians)

Discouraged = I thought I would see changes quicker and easier...
(lose hope and give up when things don't go like they wished)

instead -

be diligent (not lazy) = take the gift of your forgiveness and your relationship to your creator and work and learning how your heart is supposed to work. Work to understand how grace can and should transform you into the kind of person you are grateful to be. Eagerly want the freedom that comes from being trustworthy to do the wise and loving thing.

be wise (not fooled) = read the text! Just look how many times in the New Testament writer after writer urges us on to make decisions to put energy into character transformation. The point of God's grace is to empower us to live like he intends, not to be passive. Don't be fooled by teachers who explain away the theme of book after book in the New Testament. Learn what is taught by Jesus and his students and you will see that there is work for you to do, not to get saved/born again..., but because you have been saved from sin and now are empowered by grace to have your efforts at living well be effective!!!

be hopeful, (not discouraged) = change takes time. Christ has promised to set the world right. Ultimately it will be through a dramatic act of judgment against wrong and an establishment of right. We often hope it will come soon, so it will all be done. But if it hasn't come yet, then stay diligent as an agent of justice and mercy patiently press on!

OK, now what?

1. Make sure you understand that you cannot 'earn' your salvation. It is a gift of grace, received through trust/faith in who Jesus is and what he has done.

2. Make sure you understand that salvation means being part of God's family and God's purposes. That means you now have a bigger agenda. You need to apply God's grace to your character and be used by God as he sees fit.

3. Treasure God by realizing every good thing in you, in others, in the world, and worth hoping for is from him. ACTIVELY DEVELOP THE HABIT OF GRATITUDE. Learn to voice 'thanks' to God all the time. It doesn't have to be for others to hear, necessarily, but from your heart, in your head... intentionally say thank you to God more and more often for more and more types of things.

4. Treasure 'godliness'. The stuff you treasure should be for the way it helps you give and receive appropriate love. That is what being human, created in the image of God, is primarily about.

5. ideas?
treasure chest
- write out gratefulness and store it.
- read responsible biographies of people worth emulating
- notice and reflect on goodness
- start doing what you can do and step by step learn to do more (from being friendly to being sacrificial)

Getting IT done

What are we to be about, according to Peter? Growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How? Start with faith and then add the implication of faith by diligently applying the grace of God to your character.

IF you do = you will live a fruitful and effective life now and be at home as you enter the Kingdom.
IF you do not = you will not see the point of your salvation and will waste your life and be left wondering...

Then Peter goes into detail about why his version of faith is true = he saw it in personally miraculous ways, but ultimately it comes down to scriptural authority. He then warns his people to not be fooled by people who do not understand and teach such diligence. He says they are false teachers who find ways to use their preaching and teaching to justify their desires.

Finally, he says to be patient, that history doesn't always play out the way we expect, but that doesn't mean God isn't before us. There is coming a time of account, and we should therefore be diligent to be sure we have ordered our lives around God's grace and the habitual knowledge of Jesus as the teacher, guide, forgiver, comforter, exhorter and Lord of our lives.

2 Peter 3:13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Wednesday Preview: diligent effort to live out the Treasured life

Monday: Life is short, we need to decide what matters most. What do you treasure?

Tuesday: Good is what drives us to choose things. The issue is whether we treasure the Source of good. God is the treasure from whom all lasting treasures come. Treasure God.

Wednesday: Treasuring God starts with simple faith (confidence, trust). Trusting that in his goodness, revealed in the person and work of Christ, he has accepted us into his family, we now ought to diligently seek to grow up in understanding and applying his goodness.

2 Peter 1:5-15 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, (6) and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, (7) and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. (8) For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (9) For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

(10) Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. (11) For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (12) Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. (13) I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, (14) since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. (15) And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.

 

Notice that FAITH is first. Salvation is by grace through faith in who God is and what he has done for us.

Having been saved from trying to live for ourselves, how do we live for God? We do so diligently.

Faith is believing that God is our treasure, and that all lasting goodness comes from him. So, we build on that by acquiring a delight in goodness.

make every effort to add    = haste, top priority, seek ye first, etc. time and resources (energy, focus, money, status… whatever)

Virtue = what the soul was made for… goodness, wholesomeness… rightness (which is better than wrongness)

Knowledge = interactive relationship; doing good because God is good helps you to personally know God in real ways

Self-control= ability not to fall for what seems good but isn't

Steadfastness = patient endurance

Godliness = familiarity with God

Brotherly affection = real appreciation of people, seeing them from God's perspective (e.g. redeemable)

Love = empowered to do great acts of sacrifice without having to think about it

I'll explain more tomorrow ;-)

Tuesday SEW

Tuesday
Skit = take a risk at loosing good in order to do the good God calls you to do.
talk = TREASURE THE SOURCE OF GOODNESS is the wisest way to Treasure!

God is where goodness comes from.

Where does bad come from??? Seeking 'good' in wrong ways. Example? Dictators who want good food and other good pleasures. Step 1, gain power. Step 2, use power to gain wealth. Step 3. use wealth to indulge in pleasure.

So what's wrong with that? Answer: go to a refugee camp. "Goodness" taken the worldly way is at the expense of the goodness of others. Remember step 1? When we try to take what we want, without reference to God and his goodness, it is evil in that it destroys good from others (and in us). That is a dramatic example. A more immediate example is being cruel to someone in order to look good to others. We enjoy the 'good' of being liked by our friends, but that is because we abused power (mocking someone else). That's bad.

For Wednesday: 2 Peter 1:5-9
How can I treasure wisely????

Monday -SEW

Monday - Treasuring Wisely.
We don't know how many days we have. Life is short. Don't let it pass by. Choose what matters and live for that.
thelastletter.og is a site where the video is from. It is a project done, in large part, by a friend of mine. Great imagery and challenges. The point is this:

Peter's 'last letter' was to tell those he cared about to focus intentionally on God's goodness and the promise of God sharing that goodness with us. When we do that, we diligently work at living out the gift of salvation. This is not working for salvation, but is also not wasting the gift. WE HAVE WORK TO DO IN ORDER TO LIVE WISELY.

What do you treasure? Why? How are you adding to your treasures?