students of jesus

Grace grows in community—but not just any community.

This is a difficult message for many people these days because by community I mean the church. The same Father-God who adopted us into his family intends that we should live together as family. This is a difficult message because in modern times the church of Jesus is largely out of joint. We have created a Christendom where we can choose churches the way most people choose restaurants: according to our individual tastes. By most estimates there are more than 25,000 Christian denominations worldwide. Not individual churches, denominations. How can we grow in grace when we a free to wander from one family to another?

It’s an old story. Ask nearly any Christian: you’ll hear stories of church drama, church fights, and church splits. But it doesn't have to be like this. Listen carefully the Apostle Peter:

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:8-11)

It’s easy to miss the word grace in this passage, but you’ll find it right in the middle, which is where grace always belongs. Our words and actions are the practical expressions of God’s grace. God wants to show his grace through the love, hospitality, encouragement, and service in the community of faith. We extend grace to others precisely because we’ve received grace from God. Among our families at home—and among the family of God—we are called to be caretakers of grace. Too often we have become merely consumers of grace, and it has led to a church for every taste and preference the consumers can imagine.

One church in my hometown has an interesting way to determine “membership” in the congregation. “If you’ve hung out with us long enough to have your feelings hurt by someone in the church,” says the pastor, “and then decided to forgive and stay here anyway, welcome to the family!” This pastor isn’t trying to excuse bad behavior or ignore the flaws of his church, he’s trying to playfully indicate that living within a faith community is the perfect opportunity to extend grace to others. Grace grows among family (or at least it should).

Not only does grace grow in the community we call church, it grows in the most unlikely corners of the church: among our shortcomings, our hypocrisies, and failings. If everyone in the church had his or her act together, what need would there be to extend grace? Look closely at the passage above: the Apostle Peter calls us to use our gifts in service toward one another. We steward the grace we have received by the way we speak and act toward others in the church.

Have you thought about grace as a stewardship? If not, here’s a wonderful exercise: trying reading the parable of the talents (it’s in Matthew 25 and also Luke 19) as a teaching about grace. The Master leaves something of great worth with his servants (substitute grace for gold), and when he returns, he looks to see whether we have used his gift wisely.

Best of all of all is our reward. In Matthew’s version of the parable, the Master not only praises the good stewards, he extends an invitation: “Well done, good and faithful servant!” says the Master. “Come and share your master’s happiness!” When we distribute the grace of God we will receive his praise, and something more: an invitation to enter into his joy. Through grace, joy increases for everyone.

I once attended a meeting of pastors who were planning a “city-wide revival.” The pastor of a respected and growing church opened the meeting with these words: “God is only going to ask each of us two questions when we get to heaven: ’Do you know my Son?’ and ‘How many others did you bring with you?’” It was a memorable opening because it was short, dramatic, and wrong. The record of the first century church reveals a profound concern for a spiritual transformation that flows from a decision to follow Jesus.

The Apostle Paul prayed for the spiritual transformation of people who “already knew” Jesus. Perhaps we can discover God's transformational heart, as revealed in Paul’s prayer:

Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:9-14)

First, we need to be filled. Paul asked God to pour “the knowledge of his will” into the believers in Colossae. Apparently the next step after coming to Jesus as Lord is to be filled with the knowledge of his will. It requires something more than mere human intellect—it requires spiritual wisdom and understanding. We have a tendency to apply the old way of living life to our new life in Christ, but the problem is we were born again into a new kingdom. If we take the image of the new birth seriously we should realize there’s a new kind of life ahead, and we are mere babes. This new life ahead requires something beyond our old-life resources.

Second, we can live a life “worthy of God.” Each of us has heard the message of forgiveness so often we are tempted to think forgiveness is all there is to the gospel. Some live in a continuing cycle of sin-forgiveness-sin, and consider it normative for God’s children. Paul knew better. He understood there is a proper response to God’s initial grace. That response is a changed life—a life “worthy of the Lord.” A life in which it is possible to please God, bear fruit, and grow in new life. These first two aspects of Paul’s inspired prayer are beyond the grasp of many believers.

Finally the kingdom of God is at hand—especially for those who know him: Paul prays that we would each receive our inheritance: ”the kingdom of light.” Jesus died to pay the price for our sin, and like everyone who dies, he left an inheritance to his family: a new kind of life. This new life looks dramatically different from the old kind of life. He described this life as “righteousness, peace, and joy in he Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17) Here’s a bell-weather question for each follower of Jesus—does my life differ dramatically from my old kind of life? The inbreaking of God’s kingdom floods our lives with light, and light is necessary if we are going to move through this new kind of Kingdom-life.

Paul envisioned a church filled with individuals able to receive the Kingdom-life God offers to everyone born from above. His prayer was not for the Colossians alone: can you hear him praying over you now?

Christmas has come and gone. I am in debt so deeply I have no hope of paying back what I owe, but this debt brings me hope and joy. I am in debt to God’s great Incarnational act of love.

Hidden in the North American holiday habit of excess and over-spending is a parable. The bank of Heaven extended me a line of credit so vast it cannot be calculated, and I drew on every bit of the amount. Our great debt to God is love. And like all great debt, the only way to pay it back is a little at a time, each payment a reminder of the grand total.

To stretch this simple metaphor to its ultimate degree, the Bank of Heaven has many locations, currently approaching seven billion on the planet: since all humanity is made in his image, everyone becomes a location where I can present an installment on so happy a debt.

If you have been taught that the only meaning of grace is free-forgiveness you will certainly take issue with this line of thinking. “That’s what grace is all about,” you protest, “we cannot pay the debt of sin, nor should we imagine we could ever earn our way to heaven.” In our day this particular truth is too true, yet I am not talking about sin. I am talking about something as different from sin as water is from sand. I am talking about the Father’s love. If Christmas were only about divine rescue from sin, then the sin-debt—paid in full—would be the end of the issue. When we understand that Christmas is not about our sin but rather God’s great love, we will see what we received at Christmas was an advance upon the love of God.

The economics of the Incarnation turn every business model on its head: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” The prudent Apostle Paul warned against the worldly debt but encouraged the debt of love: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other.” The love of God is the currency of Heaven, the coin of our payment to one another.

His genius is not compounding interest, but compounding equity. We repay the love debt with the very substance of the original act of God’s great love. All across the world, the love of God is repaid in acts of kindness done in his name. The effect is ever-increasing love, the source—and the payment—of our joyous debt.

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her. (Luke 1: 26-38)

From this beloved passage we can find ten life-lessons from Mary of Nazareth:

In the sixth month . . . God’s clock was already ticking when the angel came to Mary. Just because God announces something to me doesn’t mean it began with me.

Pledged to be married . . . We have our plans. God has his.

You who are highly favored! The Lord is with you . . . Notice the connection between His favor and His presence. How could it be otherwise?
 . . .

Mary was greatly troubled at his words . . . When his favor is upon us it can be unsettling . . .

You will be with child . . . Sometimes we enlist in the purposes of God; sometimes we are drafted.

How will this be? . . . There is a world of difference between asking God “how” and asking him “why.”

The Holy Spirit will come upon you . . . When God answers the “how” question, this is the usual way He starts.

For nothing is impossible with God . . . You heard him. And this one is worth saying out loud, right now. All together: “For nothing is impossible with God”

I am the Lord’s servant . . . Even though Mary was drafted, she responds with a willing heart. It would make all the difference over the next 30 years.

Then the angel left her . . . There are times when we have angelic help, and there are times when we are on our own.

Merry Christmas, friends!

Some things hide in plain sight. Others hide behind fancy names. And still others hide among the over-decorated trappings of tradition dressed up as garish holiday cheer. Sometimes it’s all three.

The truth about Christmas is that God became a man. The transcendent Creator of the Universe, the One who sits outside his creation submerged himself in the work of his hands. The Playwright walked on stage in the middle of the show. The Coach became a player. The King became a commoner.

He wasn’t a Poser, pretending to be something other than what he was: he was born, and he grew; he came of age and took his place among us; he embraced his purpose and fulfilled it completely. He wasn’t slumming among us like some impostor: he laughed, he cried, he sweat. When we struck him, he bled. When we pierced him, he died.

Something as grand and wonderful as Christmas certainly has many sub-themes: peace on earth, goodwill toward men, hope for tomorrow, salvation for all, and the fulfillment of promise. We should listen to each line of the symphony and enjoy the beauty of each one. Put them all together than they point to the grand melody, that God became man.

When God became man, he demonstrated how to be human. His life, in the person of Jesus Christ, is the model of all lives, everywhere and in every time. Men from every age can look to Jesus has example. Women from every culture can discover fullness in him. God did not cheat the game by walking through life untouched by the trouble we face. He faced the same troubles we have faced, and indeed more, because to his trouble was added unique rejection of all mankind toward him. Humanity had never seen his type before, and this magnificent encounter between God and us resulted in our rejection of him, while he responded with un-rejectable love.

You can have your shepherds, wise men, angels, and mangers. For me, the grandeur of Christmas is captured in the gospel, which places its cards on the table right from the start:

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:9-14)

John tells us plainly, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1: 18)

What does God look like? He looks like Jesus. The Father spoke himself in Jesus. The countless words of every generation, arrayed in questions, arguments, songs and poems have been answered in the single Word, Jesus. The same Word that spoke creation into being speaks life into us today.

When God became man, it looked like Jesus, and he still does. If we aspire to the presence of God in our everyday, we are really aspiring to Jesus. Because he is human we have the hope of his likeness. Because he is God, we have the certainty of his promise. All other messages flow from the Word made flesh. He was announced as Emmanuel, and he continues to reveal himself as such: God is forever with us because he has forever pitched his tent in the person of Jesus, the true lesson of Christmas.