students of jesus

We have all met some really mean people in our lives. Take a moment and try to recall the meanest person you know. Perhaps it was your sixth-grade teacher. Or a neighbor who went beyond unfriendly all the way to downright nasty. The kind of mean person who still has the ability to raise your blood pressure even if you haven’t seen him or her in years.

Have you selected someone? Someone real? Good. Now imagine that person in Heaven. There they are, among the people of every tribe, tongue and nation, surrounded by the worshiping assembly drawn from all generations. Don’t try to clean them up, leave ‘em grumpy: critical, hard-hearted, stingy and sour--the same person in heaven as they are on earth. It doesn’t seem right, does it? How could an unhappy, miserable, mean person join the throng?

This exercise is not about God’s forgiveness. It’s about who we are after we turn to God. God forgives the deepest evil in our lives. Corrie TenBoom used to say, “there is no pit that God’s love is not deeper still.” I’m glad--aren’t you? But forgiveness is not the same thing as spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is about what happens to us after we receive the gracious gift of Jesus and his sacrifice. Spiritual formation is learning how to live in heaven right now.

What if we were forgiven by God but remained forever unable to change? What if our decision to accept Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross meant we were forever trapped in a cycle of sin and forgiveness, over and over again, unable to escape the kind of person we had become. How many of us want to come to God asking forgiveness for the same things year after year, decade after decade--always forgiven, never able to change?

The earliest followers of Jesus expected spiritual formation to follow hard after forgiveness. They took seriously the metaphor of the new birth. They expected that babies grow into children, and children grow into adults. They considered conversion the beginning, not the end.

Paul shared the gospel with people in Galatia, and later wrote to them because they began to embrace a grumpy spirituality:
“Now that you know God, how is it you are turning back to weak and miserable principles? . . . What has happened to all your joy? . . . I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” (Galatians 4: 9,15,19)
His concern was not only for correct doctrine but also for growth and health. He expected that Jesus could actually be formed in them. How many of us have the same expectation today?

He urged the believers in Rome to break free of the habits of the past and find not just eternal life, but the kind of life that could transform them into different people:
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” -And- “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 8:29 & 12:2)
Don’t get bent out of shape over the word “predestination. I have no idea what it means, but Paul clearly indicated that followers of Jesus have a destiny become like Jesus. Did he think we would magically become different people when we got heaven? Or did he expect spiritual transformation to begin here and now?

How many of us turned to Jesus for something more than forgiveness? How many of us heard all of the good news--that right relationships, peace, and joy are possible in this life as we learn to drink deep of God’s presence here and now? (Romans 14:17) What if we can be transformed from the mean guy into the Christlike guy day by day? Did anyone tell us that the joys of heaven need not wait until the end of the age?

When we are born from above the beginning has just begun. The joys of heaven are available to us as we learn how to walk in the Spirit. The prison of our own anger, resentment, and yes--our own meanness--can drop away as we position ourselves to receive more and more of the grace of God. The Biblical ideal of spiritual transformation holds the promise of heaven on earth because we can join the heavenly host now. Wouldn’t it be a shame to get to heaven and be unable to enjoy the party?

I hate bumper stickers, even when I agree with them. How can anything important be reduced to so few words? Our media soaked, marketing driven age has generated a sound-bite generation. We have been trained to reduce life and death thoughts into catch phrases and slogans.

It’s even true in the church, where for the last 60 years the most popular verse in the Bible has been John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It’s been the go-to verse for outreach because it speaks of God’s sacrificial love, our need for faith, and the promise of eternal life. I’m in favor of all those things--they are all true. Still, there is a danger in quoting John 3:16 apart from the gospel of the Kingdom of God. It reduces the good news to something Jesus never intended.

It’s time to stop using John 3:16 apart from the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

If Jesus commissioned us to announce the Kingdom and make disciples of the King, we should give people the full story. Anything less is dishonest. John 3:16 isn’t even the full story of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, why have we tried to shrink the Kingdom call into those 26 words?

Here are four drawbacks of shrinking the gospel into John 3:16:

Our use of John 3:16 means we have distorted God’s love, and his call for us to love in return. Make no mistake: God is love. Who could be against love--especially the perfect love of the Father? But the love of God goes beyond his sacrifice and empowers us to respond. His love teaches us to love. His love is modeled in the life of Jesus--not just his death. Most important, when we use John 3:16 for outreach we fail to communicate the first and greatest commandment, that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Our use of John 3:16 means we have distorted the life-changing responsibility of belief. Faith is vital to our entry into the Kingdom of God, but in our day “belief” has been reduced to “agreement.” True faith is a dangerous, life-changing force that causes us to die to ourselves and the old way of life. True faith causes us to count our lives as lost for the sake of gaining God’s Kingdom. The “faith” presented in the bumper-sticker application of John 3:16 asks simply for the nodding of our heads.

Our use of John 3:16 means we have traded the promise God’s vast Kingdom for simply living a long time. I’m so glad I will live forever. I’ve bet my eternal destiny on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Yet when we reduce the gospel to everlasting life, we have presented a false reward. Imagine someone who attained everlasting life apart from the love of God or transformation into Christlikeness--what would this do someone’s soul? What if we got to live forever but didn’t like the life we got to live? Jesus has a different definition of eternal life than simply beating death: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) Eternal life is relationship with our Creator, knowing him and being known by him. To be present with God is to leave this life behind.

Finally, our use of John 3:16 means we have failed to make disciples. The Great Commission has become the Great Omission. We have taken the methods of salesmanship and used them for an evangelism that misrepresents the gospel Jesus announced. It is a bait-and-switch, without the call to switch. We should ask ourselves what kind of disciples have we made. For the last 60 years in North America the answer is that we have fallen short of the Lord’s commission to us. What if we chose Matthew 11:28-30 for their outreach verse instead of John 3:16? What kind of disciples could we make? Or Luke 9:57-62? Or the entire Sermon on the Mount? He calls us to come and follow.

It's not a drive-by gospel. The Kingdom of God doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.

True Story: in college I read the twin passages in Isaiah and Peter, “By his wounds we are [were] healed.” I sat at my desk, wearing my glasses. I thought the fact I wore glasses meant I was flawed--that I was sick. I read the Bible verses and faced a crisis of faith: I wanted to stand in faith on these wonderful promises--which would I believe: God’s perfect word or my fuzzy vision? I prayed, “God, I have faith in this promise. By your wounds I am healed.” Without any fanfare I set my glasses on the desk, went to bed, woke up the next morning and announced to my friends that God had healed my eyesight!

“No way!”

“Absolutely,” I declared, choosing to believe God’s word more than my blurry vision. “I asked him to heal my eyes, and now I see perfectly.” I still couldn’t see very well.

I was the talk of the campus for a few days. Of course, my eyes were actually no different, but I was determined to believe God’s word rather than my lying symptoms. My glasses stayed on my desk for two years. When I graduated from college and moved away, I quietly put them back on. I was a faith failure.

Some Bible-words sit behind so much stained glass it’s hard to recognize their meanings anymore. For me, it was the word "faith."

Several years ago the word faith became so stale I was tempted to cut it out of my Bible. Every time I read "faith," the word seemed so heavy and trafficked with religion. Televangelists rave about faith. Athletes use it like human growth hormone. George Michael sings about it. For me, it had become a lifeless word, an albatross around my neck, a flat tire slowing me down, or a worthless metaphor like the bird and the tire.

It was a problem, because I’ve been told that without faith it’s impossible to please God. Everyone kept telling me faith was the currency of God’s Kingdom, which meant some days I was bankrupt and other days I was a rich as a sailor on payday. I was a pastor for 15 years--I was supposed to deal faith like Kanye deals beats. But when it came to faith, I needed five new letters like David needed five smooth stones--you get the idea, right? I needed a fresh metaphor.

Then Holy Spirit changed my life when he gave me a new meaning. The Spirit whispered the simple word, "trust," and new life filled my veins. I may not have had faith, but I knew how to trust. I had trusted my friends and been rewarded with deep and lasting relationships. I’ve had complete assurance that no matter what bone-headed thing I’d done they would not judge me or leave me. I met the woman who became my wife, and I’ve trusted her for decades. That trust has grown into a little outpost of God’s Kingdom on earth as together we model Jesus and his bride. Trust is the natural outcome of loving relationship.

Faith I do not understand. Trust I have lived day-by-day.

So many believers have been taught that faith exists as a proposition: you believe, then God fulfills his promise. The Bible is filled with promises, and many of us have been taught that faith means reading those words, even memorizing them, and (I have really heard this) “holding God to his promises.” If faith is only propositional, no relationship is necessary. Faith is a currency, God is selling promises, so pay the Man.

It never worked for me. Frequently I mis-understood the meaning of the words I read in the scripture. Even more frequently I presumed upon the Father’s good grace, and tried to tell him what to do. Most frequently of all, I talked myself into having faith in something I didn’t really believe. Like the little girl in Sunday School who answered honestly, “Faith is believing something you know isn’t true.”

But trust? I’ve learned to trust people even when they’ve hurt me. I’ve learned that trust transcends my puny brain; trust builds a bridge between my foolishness and his mercy. I don’t care one bit about “the problem of evil” portrayed in the Book of Job. In that wonderful book I met a man who trusted God beyond all reason, because God was his friend.

I suspect I’ll be a faith failure all my life, but I trust the One who will welcome me home in the end, and I trust him day by day.

I spent 10 years of my life living in Ft. Worth, Texas and working as a truly mediocre salesman. It’s a wonder I earned enough money to pay the bills. Sometimes I didn’t. I once attended a sales seminar where I learned that sales was a numbers game. The business-savvy masters of the seminar explained, “If you see enough people, you’ll make your quota every month.”

When I returned to work I bragged to my boss that I would spend the next day cold-calling for prospects. I headed out of the office into the Texas summer determined to make the numbers work for me. At the end of the day I returned a defeated man.

“I made 58 cold-calls today, but I didn’t get a single sale.”

“I suppose you could’ve made 59 calls,” he answered. “But someone probably slowed you down by asking a question about your product.”

His answer was a revelation. Although he was talking about business, I saw the difference between two kingdoms: worldly wisdom is obsessed with numbers, but God's kingdom depends upon eternal qualities like listening, trust, and relationship.

In the last 150 years much of the North American church has had an obsession with numbers. We count decisions for Christ. We keep track of average weekend attendance at our church. We certainly count the money in the offering. Like that mediocre salesman, God forbid anyone slow us down with a question. It’s not always been that way: as far as I know, the greatest evangelist in the New Testament didn’t keep track of numbers. He kept track growth. As he traveled from city to city, the Apostle Paul carried with him the memory of every church he planted. He was concerned for the health of each congregation. His heart for spiritual growth is the reason why we have his epistles preserved for us today in scripture. He wanted people to turn to Christ in order that Christ would be formed in them.

Here is a sampling of Paul’s concerns:

• When I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the temper had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain. (1 Thessalonians 3: 4-6)
• My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! (Galatians 4:19)
• Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Colossians 1: 28)
• . . . so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ . . .  (Philippians 2: 15-16)

Paul understood that scattering gospel seed is not enough. The seed must be nurtured, protected and tended or it will never undergo the transformation from seed to son. From its first contact with the soil to the fruitfulness God longs for, it is the joint responsibility between the one who receives it and the one who plants it as well.

We can begin the week in full confidence that the Sower has done his part. What is ours?

Like any writer, the narcissist in me believes you would enjoy a peek into the book I plan to release this fall, The Impossible Mentor. Advance praise for this book comes from my wife, my children, and the stray cat we keep feeding at the back door. They all agree: this will be the finest book on spiritual formation ever to come out of Campbellsville, Kentucky. Just because these witnesses are deeply biased doesn’t mean they are wrong, it just means they will buy the first thousand copies.

I've shared previews from the first three chapters. Today, the final preview, a bit from the opening of chapter four:

Chapter One: “I’m Not Jesus”
Chapter Two: “You’re Not, Either”

Chapter Three: "Paralyzed by Grace"

Chapter Four: “The Fellowship of Low Expectations”

Across the spectrum of Christian worship, our churches are filled with individuals who do not believe Christlikeness is possible. Individual believers have camped beside the river of God’s grace and drink daily of his forgiveness, unaware that this same grace can can provide spiritual transformation into Christlikeness. Discipleship, they suppose, is for those few super-saints called into the ministry.

Perhaps even more striking is the number of church leaders who have largely abandoned the task of making disciples. In the first years of my work as a pastor I attended a weekly breakfast “prayer meeting” of local pastors. I was looking for practical help in fulfilling my vision of equipping every believer to do the work of the ministry. Assembled were church leaders from a variety of faith traditions, both liturgical and Evangelical, representing a variety of the American denominational spectrum. In two years of regular meetings with these shepherds of the flock, the only subject which drew complete agreement was their low opinion of the people they were called to lead. Each pastor shared story after story of petty arguments and disagreements, all to the same point: the people were impossible to lead! Clearly, I had fallen in with the wrong crowd. It will come as no surprise that by the time I celebrated my fifth year in the pastorate, every single pastor who attended the prayer breakfast had moved on to other churches or left the ministry.

Our difficulties embracing discipleship occur not only at the individual level, but also at the level of Christian leadership. Pastors rarely describe their task in terms of reproducing the character and power of Jesus in the people of their congregations. Nor do the people of the church expect their pastors to be spiritual mentors. Sadly, many pastors do not think the image of Christ is reproducible in their charges. As a result, leadership in Christian churches looks less and less like the Biblical model and more and more like models drawn from the secular world.

Individual Christians struggle in their relationship with Jesus, the Impossible Mentor. So do pastors. When pastors do not have a realistic expectation that every Christian can live up to the example of Jesus, pastoral ministry becomes about something other than making disciples. If pastors are not convinced of the Christlike destiny of each person in their charge, the role of Christian leadership drifts away from the Biblical example toward any number of earth-bound substitutes. These earth-bound substitutes may each be a moral good in their own right, but they will miss the high calling of developing a royal priesthood capable of demonstrating the glory of God to a watching world.

How many pastors carry the vision Peter expressed for the people in his charge?
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (I Peter 2: 9 - 12)

These four verses express high expectations for the assembled people of God. Consider this partial list drawn exclusively from these four verses: the people are chosen by God to do ministry; God has a regal view of his people; the people are ordained to represent God; the people are the light-bearers for the world; the people have a new identity with one another; and the people have a reason to embrace life-change. Peter presents a vision that the everyday conduct of “average” Christians will elicit praise for God from those who are not yet believers. In my personal experience pastors rarely present such a high view of those they are called to shepherd.

If pastors do not have high expectations of those in their care, the door wings both ways: local churches place any number of responsibilities on their pastors: preaching, visiting the sick, counseling, and supervising the ministries of the church. These are all standard aspects of the job description, but reproducing the character and power of Jesus in the lives of individual members is rarely on the list. Since most Christians do not consider themselves capable of Christlikeness, they do not look to their pastor for assistance in spiritual formation. Indeed, any pastor bold enough to declare, “You are called to bear the image of Jesus; I am here to re-shape your lives,” will likely face opposition from his charges. They hired him to perform religious services, not change their lives!

When both the pastor and the congregation lack vision for the possibilities of life in Christ, the relationship between shepherd and sheep must necessarily find some area of common ground. Some churches choose to stake their identity upon the meeting itself: “our services are exciting!” Others look outward to the community: “our church exists to serve this city.” Still others agree on a bunker mentality: “we are the faithful few, worshipping God while the rest of the world travels the path of destruction.” Whatever persona the pastor and congregation select, it invariably falls below the vision of church presented in the New Testament. Both church leaders and the flock have become the Fellowship of Low Expectations.