The Enlightened Fellowship

”…God is light and in him there is no darkness at all…if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:5, 7)

A mother calling to her son shouted, "Johnny, tell your sister to get in the house out of the rain." "I can't mom," came the reply. "And just why can't you?" demanded his mother. "Because we are playing Noah's Ark mom, and she's one of the sinners."(1)

Church folk often like to make the distinction between the sinners on the outside and the saints on the inside. But this covers up the reality that the saints inside are still sinners. Sinners saved by grace, yet still sinners.

What Jesus’ disciples ultimately recognized in themselves was their sinfulness. Whenever they were tempted to conclude that they had it all together, they remembered their shortcomings. They didn’t drag them around like a huge anchor—weighed down with guilt and misery. But it became a reality check for them whenever conflict and sin arose among them.

If we truly understand ourselves and our fellowship, we need to come to grips with this reality. You and I, as sincerely as we want to live a good life, fall short of doing so. God has a way for us to live, the writer of 1 John calls it “walking in the light,” and we humans have a distinct tendency to stray from it.

The living presence of Christ enlightens our fellowship. His love makes our loving possible. His grace enables us to live in grace with one another. Knowing of God’s grace enables us to live with an enlightened understanding of who we are. We are sinners, saved by grace. We can be honest about this!

Recognizing our shared sinfulness and also our sharing of God’s grace makes our fellowship truly enlightened. Seeing each other for who we are, frees us up to practice love and grace with one another. We acknowledge our shortcomings with one another and find the merciful love of Christ emanating from our brothers and sisters in Christ. We embody the light of Christ’s love and grace in our own lives.

A little boy attended Church with his Grandfather one Sunday. Grandpa's church had beautiful stained-glass windows. Grandpa told his grandson that the windows contained pictures of Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, Saint John, Saint Paul, and whole lot of other saints.

When he got home, the boy told Mom and Dad all about it. Dad, wanting to be funny and curious about what his son had learned, asked, "What is a saint?" The boy thought for a minute and then replied, "A saint is a somebody the light shines through." (2)

May the light of Christ’s love and grace enlighten our fellowship and shine through to the world.

(1) Changing Your Mind, Glenn Pease
(2) RSVP: Stewardship through Service, Billy D. Strayhorn, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc.

Leading people to a fuller life

9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
--John 10:9-10

Imagine for a moment that you have been put in a town carrying a valuable message that will give anyone who knows it a peaceful and satisfying life. Along with this valuable message you have been given a special sense that reveals to you the people who need it. As you walk through the town, the people seem to have pretty normal lives. Most of them have decent jobs. The children in the town enjoy good schools and like to play when their time is free. On the weekends people have friends over or watch football on TV. It seems to be a nice, quiet town. You are shocked, then, to discover that over half the people you encounter trigger your special sense that they are enjoying neither peace nor satisfaction in their lives. They desperately need the message you have.

One problem. People in this town don’t learn very well when you simply try to tell the message to them. They have settled for life as it is now. They don’t have a vision for what life could be. Their best hope for embracing your valuable message is to see you experiencing the peace and satisfaction they could also have.

As a believer in Jesus YOU are the person carrying the valuable lesson! People enter into the abundant life of peace and satisfaction as they become Jesus’ disciples. According to statistics, 60% of your neighbors, co-workers, and friends don’t have a meaningful relationship with Christ. They may know who he is, but they haven’t “entered the gate.” They have a life, just not the abundant, transformed life that Jesus promises through a relationship with him.

I am reading the diary of an American missionary named Frank Laubach right now. Laubach was a missionary to an illiterate Muslim tribe in the Philippines during the 1930s. In his diary, Letters by a Modern Mystic, I have been challenged by his perspective that he had no right to convert Muslims to Christianity unless it led them to a fuller life in God than they had before. Here’s an excerpt from his diary dated 9 March 1930:

“Clearly, clearly, my job is not to go to the town plaza and make proselytes, it is to live wrapped in God, trembling to His thoughts, burning with His passion. And, my loved one, that is the best gift you can give your own town.”

Ultimately what will lead people to a satisfying, life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ is speaking the message with your life. I invite you to take some time this month to reflect on your life as it is right now. Ask Jesus to refresh your spirit, give you His thoughts, and energize you with His passion. Perhaps you might read through one of the gospels this month and connect more deeply with Jesus and his life. The best gifts we can give our town are lives wrapped in God…lives full of God.

To be great lovers...

“May the Lord cause you to increase and enrich your love for each other and for everyone in the same way as we also love you.”

‐‐1 Thessalonians 3:12 (NIV 1984)

To be great lovers, we need to be great pray‐ers.

If you’ve ever grumbled that people in the church ought to be more loving, the apostle Paul invites you to take your concern to the Lord in prayer. It was his habit to pray for the enrichment and love of the people in the churches he worked with. As the Lord caused an increase in love within the church and for those outside the church, their love strengthened their hearts. In other words, their growing love influenced their behavior, influenced their attitudes, led them to Christ‐honoring decisions, and inspired them to deeper faith (1 Thess 3:13).

Notice that it is the Lord who causes our love to increase and be enriched. If you want people in the church to be more loving, pray for it! If you catch yourself in unloving moments toward others, then pray that the Lord will increase your love. The love that Christ modeled and calls us to has at its source the Lord himself. Praying for the strong and growing love of our church is not solely a job for the pastor or our church leaders. It’s a holy habit we all need to have.

Prayer has been on my mind a lot lately. During the month of June I am preaching a series of sermons on prayer entitled “Whenever You Pray…” based on the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:7‐13. Jesus' Followers saw his habit of praying and begged him "Teach us to pray!" (Luke 11.1). Jesus showed us that prayer was an essential practice for experiencing God's presence and living in God's power. Like those first disciples, there is always more we can learn about prayer.

In that spirit, I also want to invite you to a summer learning experience on prayer. Beginning on Sunday, July 14 I am going to lead a Sunday morning discussion on prayer using the book Space for God by Don Postema. It’s a great resource that will stimulate your prayer life. It’s not a book in a real conventional way…it contains art, poetry, stories for reflection, and each of the nine chapters provides you with some prayer practices to try. I will have a sign‐up sheet and a copy of the book at the back of the sanctuary for you to take a look at. Don’t be concerned if you might miss a week or two because of summer plans. You can use the resources in the book independently of the Sunday
morning discussion with ease.

May we grow in love and prayer this summer!

Celebrate God's love

"But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us . . . For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."
--Romans 5:8, 10-11

How are we to respond to God’s love and grace? In the translation of Romans above, the apostle Paul directs Christians to “boast” in God through Jesus Christ. Other translations say “rejoice,” or that “we are happy.” No matter how it’s said, Paul is encouraging Christians to celebrate God’s love.

Celebration, according to Dallas Willard, is one of the most important activities we can do to deepen our relationship with God:

"[Celebration] is the completion of worship, for it dwells on the greatness of God as shown in his goodness to us. We engage in celebration when we enjoy ourselves, our life our world, in conjunction with our faith and confidence in God’s greatness, beauty, and goodness. We concentrate on our life and world as God’s work and as God’s gift to us."

We are invited to celebrate God’s greatness, beauty, goodness, and love. Celebration, however, often eludes us. We live in cynical times. Our relationship to God, because of our sinful nature, is twisted out of shape. The social, psychological, spiritual, and even physical life of humankind is out of order. The consequences are a loss of joy and an absence of celebration.

A conference was held at a Presbyterian church in Omaha. People were given helium-filled balloons and told to release them at some point in the service when they felt like expressing the joy in their hearts. Like many Protestants, these folks didn’t feel free to worship very expressively. All through the service balloons ascended, but when it was over, 1/3 of the balloons were unreleased.

We’ve got to learn to let our balloons go! Get focused on our great God with a love for all times. Unabashedly and enthusiastically celebrate God’s love in worship. Celebrate God’s love for all times in our fellowship with one another by practicing the love and reconciliation that was shown to us.

God’s love for us is a love for all times. Joyfully celebrating God’s love is an antidote to despair and becomes a wellspring for genuine gratitude. God poured his love into our hearts . . . let us pour our hearts out to God . . . celebrating a love for all times.