Imagine a girl with no right to the throne marrying into a royal family and being coronated as the queen of a massive empire. Add to it a little twist for good measure! This is kind of how God works you know. This story is the one of Esther in the Old Testament. You can skim the book of Esther to get the whole story, but here’s the twist. Esther is a Jewish woman who ends up marrying a king of an empire that would very quickly turn against the Jews. Yikes!
But wait there’s another twist in the plot. Who says the Bible isn’t fun? Esther ends up finding out about the plot to harm all of her family and friends, and she shows up at just the right time to essentially save the day. This is actually our verse for today’s devotion. It comes from Esther 4:14 and it reads for such a time as this. You’re going to have to read the rest of this section to see the whole story. Trust me it’s worth it! Essentially this verse is a reminder that God put Esther in the role she was in for that particular day and purpose.
Now turn a couple hundred pages in your bibles to the gospel accounts. There you find another moment in time. This time it isn’t a young Jewish girl becoming queen. It’s actually a middle aged carpenter. He was ready to marry this girl from town. They had the details worked out. And then the news came. She was pregnant and it wasn’t his baby. How could this be! Why is this happening to me – he must have thought.
Why? For such a time as this. Joseph wasn’t going to save the world or even a massive people group. But he was going to save Mary and the child she was carrying. He decided, after a little angelic convincing, to let the engagement continue. They ended up getting married and Jesus was born.
Just like in the story of Esther, if this unexpecting Joseph wasn’t willing to follow God’s call the story would have ended much differently.
We’ll start this post by saying it’s ok if you disagree with me, and I know some of you will. So don’t get your undies in a bunch over it. If you don’t like what I’m about to say, then scroll on and walk away or reach out and we can chat.
Some people in my tradition think that the crux of discipleship is going to worship. Some feel that being in a worship service where the hymnal is used is the best way to make sure discipleship is happening correctly. I’ll be honest. I think this is a ridiculous concept! If someone believes that the best and most effective way to do discipleship is by going to a worship service, then by default you’re saying Jesus didn’t use the best way!
Jesus didn’t invite anyone to “go to worship,” at least I don’t remember seeing that invitation in any of the gospel accounts. Now before you take those words and form some arsenal against me, don’t mix up my words. I did not say worship isn’t good, essential, necessary, etc. I said it’s not the way Jesus did discipleship.
I think a person who is growing in their relationship with Jesus will go to worship and be a part of a larger group of people following Jesus. But I don’t believe going to worship means you’re a disciple of Jesus. I think it means you’re going to worship and that’s it.
Also, discipleship isn’t memorizing your confessional documents either. Sure they’re important to know and really beneficial to help you understand how you do certain things in ministry and church life, but they are not markers of discipleship.
If you remember from an earlier post, the definition I use for discipleship is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others. This definition has at its core transformation of the person through relationships.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the function of worship is transformation of the person worshiping. As a matter of fact the Bible says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. I don’t see the primary function of worship being to renew our minds. Worship is about receiving the gift of forgiveness in the fellowship of other believers and returning praise to God.
Worship is an expression of a life being transformed but it’s not the primary avenue this transformation happens. So how then does discipleship happen?
Well, I’m glad you asked! I don’t like to give a bunch of negatives without giving a little bit of best practice as I’ve seen it. In my mind, discipleship best happens in a setting with a smaller number of people who agree to journey through life together. It’s highly relational. It’s profoundly personal. It’s intentionally individual while at the same time being curiously corporate. Ok that’s enough alliteration.
If we want to see the best way for discipleship to happen, we need look no further than the life of Jesus. He was kind of the master at the whole discipleship gig. He didn’t sit them down in classrooms. Didn’t ask them to read a book. Actually I don’t even think he required bible memorization. From what I read, he invited them to walk with him so he could show them what it looked like.
He did two basic things which we’ll dive into over the next week. He taught them, or maybe better yet, he reminded them what God had said. Then he led them to a place where they could see it in action. And if we want to get really serious about it, we have to admit he made some pretty high expectations known for those who sought to follow him. It’s pretty much that simple.
Knowledge that led to actions which became a set of expectations for a transformed life.
The long and short of this post is that you don’t need some massive ministry plan to make disciples. You don’t technically need to have someone come to a worship service to be part of this journey either. It’s about walking relationally with someone in an adventurous lifestyle keeping Christ at the center. We don’t transform anyone. That’s God’s job. So start with the journey. Start with the relationship and let God handle the God part. It’s a way bigger job than many people think, but it’s way easier than we make it out to be!
As we continue through the Christmas story we come face to face with the shepherds. You know the crew that were surprised by the angels while they were out minding their own business. Unexpecting is putting it mildly! They were shocked!
There are actually two stores in the Bible where unexpecting shepherds are confronted with a message from God. The first one is in Exodus 3 where Moses is taking care of some sheep for his father-in-law. While he’s out making sure they have good pasture to feed and clean water to drink, he notices something that doesn’t look right. A bush is on fire but it’s not burning up. As he gets closer the bush talks to him “Moses, Moses”. (Exodus 3:4) That’s it. That’s all it took. Well there’s more to the story as you unpack Exodus 3 but all it took for Moses to realize what was happening was for the bush to call his name. It was God with a special message for an unexpecting shepherd.
That message was that God was going to save his people. He was going to bring his people out of slavery and into a new life of freedom like they couldn’t even imagine.
Fast forward to the shepherds tending their flocks in Luke 2, you know the Christmas story shepherds. Yeah they saw something strange as well! This time, however, it wasn’t a talking bush calling their name. It was an angel followed by a bunch of them! Totally got their attention. Their message was kind of similar to the one Moses heard.
There was a baby born who was going to free the people. Except this freedom isn’t from Egyptian dictators. It was a freedom from the power of sin. An unexpecting Moses and some unexpecting shepherds hear the same message. God is about saving his people, and we are the very people he came to save.
There was a woman who was advanced in years. Not to sound too disrespectful but she was actually old. I don’t mean how 40 is old when you’re 10 years old. This woman was well advanced in years. Being old isn’t an issue. The problem was that this woman was told she was going to be pregnant.
You’ve probably already guessed the story. It’s the story of Abraham and Sarah. They were old. Sarah couldn’t have children. It was just not going to happen. God approaches Abraham and tells him they’re going to have a son. This causes a bit of a chuckle kind of moment as you’d imagine. But in the end it happened. An unexpecting mom is expecting.
Christmas is a time for us to put aside all the expectations of that perfect holiday. We expect our children to behave a certain way and for family to just get along this one year that we’re hosting the family dinner. We move into a season of warmth and joy with so many expectations, but that first Christmas was all about unexpecting people.
Mary was told by an angel that she was going to have a baby. She didn’t expect this. Sure she was engaged but she wasn’t married. She knew that she could not be pregnant. It just wasn’t possible. Yet the angel told her something different. She was the second unexpecting mom in the story of Christmas. You see Sarah had to have a child because without Isaac there would be no Jesus. And Mary had to have a son because without Jesus there would be no salvation for the world.
It took two unexpecting moms to give birth to two sons for us to have an unexpected savior.
Take time to look over the story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 17-18. Then think of other unexpecting people you remember from the Bible.
There are some words that I call sticky. They’re the kinds of words that you hear and don’t really know how to categorize. You have them. We all do actually. And you might even have an idea what they mean but really don’t have a clear and concise way to explain them.
One of those sticky words that is super prevalent in the church world right now is the term discipleship. Ok so it’s not new by any stretch and it’s actually been one of those sticky words for quite some time. That probably has to do something with the final command of Jesus being for the people of God to focus on making disciples.
Throughout history we’ve done our best to draw pictures, make up definitions, write books, craft bible studies, and have cleverly worded mission statements that are all focused on discipleship. We want so badly to do this but just don’t know what it even really means…much less have a concise way to communicate it to anyone.
I really don’t think it’s quite as hard as we make it out to be. And even more I don’t think making disciples is something that happens in a book, bible study, worship service, or some kind of bible memorization tool. These are all really good things! And I completely advocate all of them as part of the overall life of a person who follows Jesus, but I don’t think it’s quite the whole picture Jesus intends.
Discipleship isn’t some assembly line process where we run a group of 60 people through a program and they all come out looking the same. That’s just not how it works. Put 60 people into a worship service or bible study group and you don’t get 60 exact replicas come out the other side on fire for Jesus.
I really believe that it all starts with a definition. You have to define the term. I’ve defined discipleship the same way for years. Discipleship is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others. Is this your definition? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But you need somewhere to start. So either use this one or come up with your own based on your study of the Jesus’ words.
After you have a definition you’ll have some picture of where you’re headed. And for me this definition gives some clarity to what discipleship does and does not look like. It’s not an event in time which is why we call it a process. It’s replicable to an extent which is also part of that process language. There is a change that is expected as you progress through this process, hence transformed. The output of the process is Jesus. If you’re simply trying to make members of a church or denominational clones, then you’re not really doing discipleship. Finally it’s about relationships, for the sake of others kind of talk. It’s about a journey not a jolt in time.
Unlike the assembly line imagery, discipleship is more of a life-to-life adventure. It’s about inviting someone into your life and letting them walk with you through the mundane. It’s not about adding another block to your already too full calendar either. Discipleship is about adding someone else to your calendar. Discipleship is not about tasks or to dos. It’s about people and relationships.
Look. I really hope discipleship stays one of those sticky words, not because we don’t know what it means either. I hope it stays sticky because we’ve finally arrived at some form of clarity on just how important it is to live around people for the sake of a greater mission.
Have you ever seen one of those surprise moments? You know one of those unexpected proposals. The kind where the bride has no idea it’s coming. The kind where the secret is kept so well and it is so meticulously planned out that shock and awe are plastered on everyone’s faces.
It’s kind of like that around Christmas time as well. We shop for gifts for our loved ones. Parents, children, nieces and nephews, siblings all of them get a little something. Each one gets that tiny gift of appreciation and love. This probably sounds a bit harsh but rarely do those people deserve a gift. They might expect something but the point of a gift is that it’s unearned.
An unexpecting person receives a gift they didn’t expect. They didn’t plan on receiving. The gift is more than they thought possible for a person like them. Often an unexpecting recipient is speechless and left in awe.
The second week of Advent is about those unexpecting kinds of people. For this part of our journey we jump all the way back to Genesis. You know the story. The flood covers the earth and one man and his family are welcomed into a boat that they were told to build for this very moment. But what did that family do? What caused them to be the ones who earned that amazing gift?
Ok so if you read around Genesis 6, you’ll likely read that Noah was a righteous man. Let’s remove Noah from the picture for a second. What about the rest of the family? They weren’t the righteous ones. They didn’t deserve to be on that ark. As a matter of fact, if it wasn’t for the amazing compassion of God to give them a way out, they would all have drowned. And even worse Noah would have had to watch as it happened.
Noah didn’t expect God to save him. The family didn’t expect God to save them. He just did it because that’s how God works. He does the unexpected things in unexpected ways. But it wasn’t just Noah and his family that are unexpecting people. We are included in that same group. We are unexpecitng people. We never met Jesus. We didn’t ask God to save us. Yet here we are just a few weeks until Christmas, ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth. It’s amazing to receive a gift! But even more amazing when you’re one of those unexpecting people
There are two kinds of people in the world. There are the ones who carry two bags of groceries in from the car, and then there’s me. I tend to load up the arms and carry as much in as I possibly can. Less trips and all. Plus it’s kind of a challenge sometimes.
But it’s not just with groceries. I do this pretty much every time I get out of the car to go into the office or when I get home. I load up with my backpack, gym bag, Yeti, water jug, and often a coat or something additional on the cold days. This doesn’t even account for finding a way to carry my lunch. And yeah you guessed it…I carry all of it at once.
Carrying these things isn’t really a huge issue. The problem arises when I try to open the door. If we had those cool automatically opening doors, this would be a breeze! But alas, I have to dig into my pocket to get my keys. Then turn the lock and open the door. All of this while my hands are loaded and everything is perfectly balance. My wife often jokes that I need a drink carrier to hold all of the beverages I carry around since there’s normally a protein shake and some pre workout somewhere in the mix as well.
When I get to the door I have two options. I can do the weird balancing act or I could put a few things down. Generally I do the funky balancing act, look like a fool and almost drop everything on the way in the door.
I think the church has done the same thing with people and how we teach salvation. For those that don’t know, salvation is that teaching in the Bible that our wrongs are covered and we’re set up for an eternal future with God in heaven. You see we load up all the extra stuff for people to carry before they truly understand salvation.
The Bible teaches that there’s only one way to heaven. His name is Jesus. Salvation comes through no one and nothing other than Jesus. That’s a very clear message we read on just about every page of the Bible. Yet I’m seeing so many churches talking about so many other things as if they are prerequisites for understanding Jesus.
It’s like we’re piling all the extra bags onto people’s backs making it hard to carry any of it. The Bible teaches that we shouldn’t make it hard for people to believe, but that’s exactly what we’re doing. We load up worship styles, version of the Bible, doctrines and teachings of our particular denomination, how we dress, how we talk, where we go and don’t go, should we make the sign of the cross or not. Man there’s a ton of baggage that we’ve attached to the whole Jesus is the only way to heaven truth.
I’m not saying that any of those conversations are bad. As a matter of fact many of those things are good in their own right. But we can’t treat them as if they are Jesus. We need to stop loading people up with all of this extra baggage before they even know Jesus.
I’m part of a church tradition that values its heritage and its position on many topics, what we call doctrines. And I’m seeing more and more pastors in my church body making people know all of these supporting truths with minimal focus on Jesus. Sure they teach that Jesus died and rose but there’s so much more to Jesus than that one piece of his life.
If you’re a follower of Jesus, perhaps it’s time to realize who Jesus really is. He was a person with some amazing characteristics. He was a man who really walked on the earth, who dealt with some pretty nasty stuff. There’s a lot we can learn from Jesus without heaping up all the extra baggage that we have come up with over time to differentiate us from the rest of the world.
When we load people up with all of these extra doctrines and focus on our churchy jargon it’s often at the expense of Jesus. It’s at the expense of people really learning to live like Jesus. Jesus teaches that his teaching is easy and his burden is light. He doesn’t load us up with all these theological terms and churchy ideas. The Bible gives us Jesus. That’s the one thing we need for heaven. If more followers of Jesus would worry as much about following Jesus as they do about their doctrines and confessional stance on everything, we just might realize that the world doesn’t have a problem with Jesus. They have a problem with how hard we make it to follow him.
Consider thinking through what bags you make people carry on their way into church. Rethink the loads you’re putting on the men and women who really want to know Jesus. If we’re not careful, they’re going to drop everything…including Jesus.
There’s something to be said about knowing your culture and context. Whether you’re in marketing, sales, public speaking, an author, a song writer, or even a pastor we need to know the culture and context into which we’re speaking.
For some these two words might seem the same but I see them as two sides of the same coin. Both are needed and both are important. Culture is who we are. It’s the systems and ideals with which we’ve been raised and that define our character and personhood. Context on the other hand is the lens through which everything we see is filtered. Our culture is more consistent than our context.
My family of origin and my current household structure are not likely to change a whole lot through the years (aside from the age of my children). But my context is all the other stuff like my neighborhood, financial status, job title, and all those things that can and often do change frequently.
If we don’t understand the culture and context of our audience, we’ll never speak in a way that they hear much less understand. I’m going to take this conversation to my context. I’m a pastor so this applies to me in a very specific way. I need to know how to contextualize the message I preach.
Now some out there will get all bent out of shape by hearing me say something about contextualizing the gospel. They likely think I’m talking about changing the gospel to meet the scenarios of the people around me. But they couldn’t be more wrong. As a matter of fact I don’t change the message, or in your case the product you sell. We do however need to change the way we communicate the value of that product or message.
Take my role again as an example. I need to be able to speak in a contextually applicable way. That is not making the gospel fit into the lives of my hearers by any means. The idea of contextualization of the gospel is about helping my hearers find the end of their current, and future, story in the gospel of Jesus. It’s about helping people see how their lives already are impacted by the message of the Bible.
If you’re in sales or marketing it’s the same thing. You’re not forcing your ideals, product or message onto someone else. Your goal is to help them see themselves and their problems being cared for by the message or product you provide. When I was in car sales I did this all the time. Someone would come with a problem. My car has a problem, doesn’t run, is old, needs replaced.
I didn’t have to convince them to buy the car. I just had to show them how the car I had on the lot actually was the answer to the problem they presented to me in the first place.
As pastors we tend to get stuck in a rut of Jesus loves me this I know, blah…blah…blah. Yes that message is really important and it’s very true! But it’s only part of the story. If we don’t contextualize the message in a culturally relevant way, then people aren’t going to be able to hear the message much less be impacted by it.
Take time to understand the culture around you and the context into which your message or product will be presented. You’ll be far more effective when you do.
This week in the church I serve we talked about something called the reformation. Now the reformation is celebrated by some as an event in time, a day that happened over 500 years ago. Some consider it a work of a team of men who sought to reform the church to a more biblical time frame.
I’m not one of those guys. I don’t necessarily see the reformation as a day or period in history. Well not exactly. Sure it was a time in history and several guys were part of this movement that we now call the reformation. Yes it was about bringing the church back from the cliff of bad theology. But it was so much more. To relegate it to a historical period I think does it injustice.
In my mind, the reformation had a pretty singular focus. The Gospel. It was about re-understanding the wholeness of the gospel. It was about finding the heart of the gospel and what it meant for our lives here, now, today. The reformation wasn’t just a period in history. It was about a new way of living as followers of Jesus. It was intended to be a believe that would redefine how we live and who we are.
As I said above, at its core the reformation was about the Gospel. But what is the Gospel? Some narrow the message of the Gospel to some future hope to which we look. One day we’ll die and go be with Jesus forever in heaven. That’s a pretty nice idea. But the Gospel isn’t just about some nicety that one day will be true. At least that’s not how I see it!
The Gospel is about here, now, today. It’s about my life in 2023. It’s about how we see parenting, marriage, work, finance, health, fitness, the war in the Middle East. It’s about all of it – not just a future destination.
The people known as the reformers (aka guys who led the charge in making the reformation happen) were so sold out on this reality that they were willing to stake their reputations and even their lives on this new way of living. They wanted to get back to the basics of what the Bible was all about. The Gospel!
Sure the Gospel is about Jesus. It’s about dying and rising. It’s about grace and forgiveness and salvation and all those cool churchy words. But at its core, the gospel is really deeper than that. It’s about a transformed life. It’s about a fire in our soul that can’t be quenched with anything other than more of Jesus.
Yeah, yeah I know – the gospel in a nutshell (John 3:16) is all about Jesus dying and rising. What do we do with that? Well that’s part of it but not all of it. He died and rose. Yep. Not denying that one at all. But He didn’t die and rise only so I would have some future hope. If so then what’s the point now? He died and rose so that I can have a future hope and a totally different way of living today!
The Gospel at its core is about the difference that Jesus makes in every aspect of my life. The Gospel is just as relevant to my parenting and budgeting and healthcare as it is to my someday after I die future hope.
In short celebrate the reformation but don’t make it about a guy, a day, a time period, or even just about heaven. It’s way bigger than that! Happy Reformation friends!
I spend a lot of time with many people talking about church stuff. From pastors discussing how they do worship and lead programs to church members about getting involved in serving or studying the Bible to people who want nothing to do with church, I see them all. And each of them come with their own set of benefits and challenges.
Recently I talked about a book of the Bible, 1 Thessalonians. Ok I know weird name but we have some doozies in states around the country as well!
Thessalonians is a letter that was written to a very young church in parts of Europe around the year 50 AD. The church was just getting started after a man named Paul came and started sharing what he believed about Jesus and the whole death and resurrection bit. He talked about how lives should look different if we actually believed this all to be true.
Well his stay in this bustling town didn’t last very long because some people were threatened by a message that wasn’t theirs. So they ran him off. Fleeing to a neighboring city he wrote a letter to those that remained as part of this fledgling church. His letter is packed with encouragement and thankfulness. But woven into the first few verses are three things Paul highlights that I believe are marks of a true, real, authentic and spirit filled church.
Work of Faith
The first thing Paul mentions is this idea of a work of faith. Now we have to make sure to get this right. This is not a work that leads to faith or earns some favor with God. This is a work done because of faith. You believe something so deeply that it changes who you are and how you live.
There’s another verse in the bible that says faith without works is dead. This means a person can’t say they believe and then have nothing in their lives change! If you really believe it then it has to shape who you are and how you live. This little church start known as Thessalonians had just that – a powerful faith in Jesus that led them to live a totally different kind of life. Turns out that these new Christians didn’t just say they believed in Jesus, but they actually let it change how they lived as husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. Just about every aspect of their lives was lived out in faithful obedience to God’s word. Pretty cool huh!
Labor of Love
The idea of something being a labor means it’s work, often hard work that’s not all that pleasant at the time. When you have to labor through something it often means pain, or at least discomfort. It means some bit of self sacrifice to make this happen.
Paul tells this little church that their love for people (people like them and not like them) was something to take note of! They loved their neighbors, even their enemies and it was obvious to just about everyone. The Bible tells us that the world will know that we are followers of Jesus, not by how we lead our worship services or what hymns we sing. Nope they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
This group of new followers of Jesus got the love part down cold. Not some roses and candy kind of love either. This was a love that was able to welcome the person no one wanted to be around. It was going out of their way to help widows and orphans. It was serving the poor at their own expense. This love was strong, powerful and super evident to the world around them.
Steadfastness of Hope
The idea of being steadfast is to endure or stand the test. The third mark of the true church that Paul here highlights is about hope that can withstand some pretty crappy stuff. This church was started under duress. Paul was there only for a few weeks preaching and teaching. Then he was run out of own by people who didn’t want anything to do with him.
It was under these conditions that this church came into existence. It was under these conditions that this little group of followers was forged in character of hope. If you can have hope in the power of Christ through these types of scenarios, then hope has become part of your DNA.
So there are probably more things that we could say about marks of the church. The whole preaching of the gospel and rightly administering the sacraments are hugely important. But here in 1 Thessalonians, Paul doesn’t use those as examples. He does however say he knows they are real followers of God because of their working faith, laboring love, and enduring hope.
This is what we should all attain to as Christians. Just imagine how different life would be if we had these three markers in all we do.
