Urban Reformation

This week has been full of spiritually challenging experiences. I had a newer friend come over for bible study on Thursday. I could sense his despair for the bride of Christ, his longing to see a different bride, one that is actively living out the gospel. The  conversation and specifically one question he asked intensified the night and put some meat on the bones of understanding about living out our faith in a real and authentic way. This at the least thus far has helped me continue to examine myself in the area of doing the word and not loving it only for how it resonates with my soul. Then he asked a simple question that keeps ringing.

He asked us “What are we saved to?”

Are we…. saved to new life? or saved to escape hell? or saved for God? all of these answers have some truth in them. I don’t think any of these things were what he was trying to convey however.

I believe he was attempting to help us discover is the fact that we sell God’s word so short after salvation, often times we don’t get to the end of the passage that the reformers speak of so often when the speak of our soteriology from death to new life, we forget the part about we are saved to good works. Some how we’ve equated “works” with “works righteousness” and any formal teaching on practical things we equeate to possibly being some legalistic practice that is earning our salvation when in fact its intension is simply stirring us up to that which we have been called “in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2 says….

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Most of the time we stop here… but it continues.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

One friend of mine being completely honest in situations like an “evangelism” effort, is the fact that his heart is not in it. God has to grant a burden or even a desire to share Christ with lost people. All of the pleading with people doesn’t change their heart’s desires unless and until quite often God has shown them its value, and His purpose.

There is one thing though, and let me tell you a little bit about our evening out last night, I equate this lack of desire, this or this inability to overcome fear, to something that John asked us last night.

John is the guy in the picture above in the hat with Bobby. He had many questions as well and he asked this question, “Why am I here?” in other words “What is my purpose in life?”

Our first and primary answer is, “To bring Glory to God.”

One of the primary differences between someone who understands spiritual things and who is born again, and someone who is not is that they have a new grasp of this understanding. They begin to understand that all of the selfish ambition & vanity that their the flesh and the devil and the pride of life put before them is for not. That this life is temporary and God is eternal, and so is their life here.  Those who are born again have gained this understanding through the word and the Holy Spirit and are empowered by the Holy Spirit in this understanding and overcoming of those aforementioned fears.

This man named John didn’t understand these things. We spoke with him about many topics, and he had many assertions and more questions.

John asked us or asserted things such as -

… as stated above, ” What is my purpose here in this life”

“Jesus was not really God”

“Why does God allow me to have such a rough life?”

“Is God real or is he a lie”

“I’ve faked my way through such a rough life, why would God call me I has no value.”

So in answering these questions I could see easily how “apologetics” are good to have a grasp of when speaking to the intelectual questions of the world has, at the same time I could see that John wasn’t going to be convinced by an argument alone, but he truly needed God to open his eyes and regenerate his heart.

But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect - 1 Peter 3:14-15

Where am I going with all of this? We as believers have a universal call and that is a call to make disciples, we have a calling and many of us decide that as long as I share Christ once in my life I have fulfilled the Great commission. We compartmentalize the fact and have given the Great commission to “The evangelist” and we have taken a passivist role in this….  I won’t go into the self-deception and games so many play, including the many I have played myself to justify my own “fleshly fears” in feeding excuses to my mind on why I shouldn’t not share the gospel with lost people.

We do not realize that telling other people about Christ was not relegated to the evangelist alone but that these scriptures are meant for all believers in Christ. This doesn’t just happen with “evangelism” this is one example of many things that we do by our sin nature as we get to know the bible and conveniently remove that which is too difficult finding a justification to ease our conscience.

I know this too well as it has been brought to my attention in areas of my own life where my flesh attempts to justify its fears and insecurities, all the while I have to acknowledge the truth, repent, and resolve to change these things which keep me away from the truth to spite my fleshly desires. 

So the thing is we say, “I can’t do it, it’s going to have to be God that changes my heart. There is truth in this statement as well as deception at times. It can be true that we must wait for God to work and change our hearts, but if our flesh’s desire is opposite or contradictory to God’s word, and we know that our heart and flesh are wicked in the sense they will always desire not to do the will of God, we must pro actively fight against this, because we are in fact waring against it.

We fail to recognize that God by his Holy Spirit has empowered and enabled us for these things. That it is not out of doing works for the sake of doing works but it is out of the overflow of who Christ is and what He did on the cross that should compel and give us courage to face the many false fears our flesh puts before us… . from the lies of this compartmentalized Christianity and as it said in peter ” have no fear,” … but “honor Christ….”

Now back to Ephesians for a moment.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

It is true that Evangelism is simply one work, one Good work that we have been created for. One could argue that it is one of the greatest works God has prepared for us to walk in because it is in the sharing of the Gospel that brings the souls of men eternal life. It is one way that if John were to come to Christ, that he could bring Glory to God. So when he asked what His purpose in life was and we say to Glorify God we have to go from the theoretical or theological to the practical or theopractical, as it does here in Ephesians.

We can answer John and say John our purpose is to bring honor and Glory to Jesus Christ. But so often we leave it at that and we never put meat on it the bones. It would do no good for me to tell John the practical if he’s not regenerate because then in fact he would misconstrue these as attempts to earn favor, however a more mature believer we can approach them at the practical level and we should.

For now perhaps this is all John needed to hear last night because he knew in his heart of hearts he was not honoring anyone. In fact when we prayed with John he sobbed with tears over flowing continuing to ask God these questions even though we had given him the answers verbally, it was going to have to be something God revealed to him. But the fact was that John at least last night was crying out for the truth, and he seemed to at some level understand there was a problem, but could not decide if he was contented in it or not.

When we think there is no problem then we see no need to search for a remedy, we are content, we become complacent, we become satisfied with the distractions of this life. When we recognize aloud that there is a problem, even in the sense that we have put Christ on the shelf and we have our own personal salvation often, we must call out to God to reveal it to our hearts.

I have come to the conclusion that  if God does not reveal it to the hearts of men there will be no change. We can spend lots of time justifying why it shouldn’t be me and we can always come up with some great reasons. Although when we really put our flesh and our desires up next to God’s word, we take an honest look at those whom we admire in the faith, and we say that is for them and I am not called we give our flesh more power than Christ. We say to Christ, the cost of salvation is to great, my time, my life, my dignity, my pride is more valuable than those works for which you prepared me to walk in, let someone else do them, I will simply “practice being a good person” in Christ.

Who’s working for works righteousness? in the comfort of their own home? often we are…. I am guilty

John was an amazing encounter, we had several others, a guy named Chris, and a guy named Blue, yes that’s right Blue.

We met up with Ivan again, and prayerfully he may be going to detox. Please continue to pray for all of these people if God brings them to your remembrance.

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