Take Me To Your Leader

1 Corinthians 1:10-17, CEB - Now I encourage you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Agree with each other and don’t be divided into rival groups. Instead, be restored with the same mind and the same purpose.  My brothers and sisters, Chloe’s people gave me some information about you, that you’re fighting with each other.  What I mean is this: that each one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” “I belong to Apollos,” “I belong to Cephas,” “I belong to Christ.”  Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in Paul’s name?  Thank God that I didn’t baptize any of you, except Crispus and Gaius, so that nobody can say that you were baptized in my name!  Oh, I baptized the house of Stephanas too. Otherwise, I don’t know if I baptized anyone else. Christ didn’t send me to baptize but to preach the good news. And Christ didn’t send me to preach the good news with clever words so that Christ’s cross won’t be emptied of its meaning.

In today’s passage, we see one of the primary reasons Paul wrote this first letter to the church in Corinth.  He hears a report that people have divided themselves up into factions, each faction following a different leader.  Of course, Paul calls this out as nonsense and calls them to unity.  We read it and we wholeheartedly agree with Paul.  Division is counter-productive.  All the leaders that people are following have one leader – Christ Himself.  We agree this is true.

Problem is, eons later, we still do the same thing.  There are tens of thousands of Christian denominations now.  My current denomination is, as I write this, dividing up into at least two more.  Three of the five churches I have been appointed to in my time as pastor have a congregational split in their history.   Our human tendency is tribalism, gathering ourselves in little communities that set themselves apart, and many times against, other communities.  The word “human” in that last sentence is the key here.  The more human our leadership is, the more prone we are to this toxic tribalism. 

Paul spends the first four chapters of this letter explaining how it is supposed to work.  If you have time today, I encourage you to read them, but I’m going to summarize them here.  The best and wisest leaders that humanity has to offer are only able to scratch the surface of the amazing depth and genius of God’s wisdom.  Human leaders called by God are called to play specific roles for a specific time.  No one leader can convey, teach, and or empower a community to live out the full gospel revealed to us in Christ.  As soon as we begin to place all our trust in one such leader, we have put Christ into an infinitesimally small box.   

                Listen to Paul in chapter 4:1-5 (CEB):

So a person should think about us this way—as servants of Christ and managers of God’s secrets.  In this kind of situation, what is expected of a manager is that they prove to be faithful.  I couldn’t care less if I’m judged by you or by any human court; I don’t even judge myself.  I’m not aware of anything against me, but that doesn’t make me innocent, because the Lord is the one who judges me.  So don’t judge anything before the right time—wait until the Lord comes. He will bring things that are hidden in the dark to light, and he will make people’s motivations public. Then there will be recognition for each person from God.

Leaders are, at best, simply stewards of the wisdom of God.  The Lord Jesus is the One who reveals the wisdom, not the leader.  So we all, including all who lead, are followers of Jesus.  The constant is Jesus; the human leaders will always change.

                I’m reminding myself of that as I begin to prepare to move to another church.  My prayer is that Holy Spirit has used me reveal a little bit of the wisdom of God.   I pray that I’ve watered some seeds that my predecessors had planted and planted a few seeds that others will water after I’ve moved on.  I trust that I leaders have done the same in the new place where I’m going.  But in the end, I love the way Paul says it in 3:6-7:

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow.  Because of this, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the only one who is anything is God who makes it grow.”

Don’t participate in division of any kind among God’s people.  It is foolishness.  There’s nothing wrong with having leaders of which you’re particularly fond (I have those too).  However, if you so identify with those leaders that you are no longer able to submit to others, you have departed from God’s wisdom.  Don’t do it. 

 

Question:  Spend some time reflecting on gems of wisdom that you’ve received from leaders throughout your life and looking forward to that continuing to happen for the rest of your life.

 

Prayer:  God, thank You for faithful leaders.  Help us to be faithful to those we would lead and help us to always be followers of You first.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for unity in the church today.

 

Song: Take Me to Your Leader – Newsboys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RClBXAUPwOE  

Onward to Corinth. . .

1 Corinthians 1:1-9 - From Paul, called by God’s will to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and from Sosthenes our brother.

To God’s church that is in Corinth:

To those who have been made holy to God in Christ Jesus, who are called to be God’s people.

Together with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place—he’s their Lord and ours!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God always for you, because of God’s grace that was given to you in Christ Jesus.  That is, you were made rich through him in everything: in all your communication and every kind of knowledge,  in the same way that the testimony about Christ was confirmed with you.  The result is that you aren’t missing any spiritual gift while you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.  He will also confirm your testimony about Christ until the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is faithful, and you were called by him to partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

                We move now to 1 Corinthians which, according to most scholars is the next letter Paul wrote (54-55 AD) after Galatians.  The letters to the Corinthians were among the longest letters in the letters we have from Paul.  This may be because Paul knew this church well, for he spent over a year and a half in Corinth getting this church up and running.  After he had moved on to start other churches, Paul heard about a handful of problems the Corinthian church was having.  He wrote to them in hopes that he could offer them some help in addressing those specific problems. 

                Before we get to the problems Paul addresses, let’s notice a seemingly unimportant detail in the introduction to the letter:

“From Paul, called by God’s will to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and from Sosthenes our brother.”

Paul mentions a man named Sosthenes, who Paul calls a “brother.”  This means that Sosthenes was a fellow Christian now.  Sosthenes was not a stranger to Corinth, but at one time, he was an enemy of the church in Corinth.  We read in Acts 18 about a Sosthenes that was an appointed leader of the Jewish synagogue in Corinth.  When Paul shows up and starts converting some of the Jews in Corinth into Christians, Sosthenes has him brought up on charges in order stop the conversions.  The plan backfires, and through a stream of ambiguous details, Sosthenes ends up being beaten up. 

So it is rather significant that Paul writes to the church in Corinth and lists Sosthenes as a co-author and brother.  Through the transformative power of the gospel, a former opponent and persecutor has now become a present partner in ministry.  Sosthenes, like Paul himself, was once a enemy of Christ and now has become an ambassador for Christ with Paul, the very man Sosthenes intended to bring down. 

                This is an important detail to share as we begin our journey through this first letter to the people of Corinth, for it gives even greater power to Paul’s advice on how to address the problems in the Corinthian church. 

                But for today, we should note that possibility that people we have seen as an enemy should never be completely written off.  Today’s adversary, through the power of Christ, can become tomorrow’s partner. 

 

Question: Is there someone you have seen as an enemy in the past that, through the lens of the transforming power of Christ, might become an ally?

 

Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to see people as you do.  Help us let go of our own biases of the past so that we may see what you are doing now.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for some people today that you would ordinarily not choose to pray for.

 

Song:  That’s What Faith Can Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JBSQMkQEo

This is Toxic to Your Faith and Relationships

Galatians 6:11-18, The Message - Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible!

For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them!

Quite frankly, I don’t want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do—the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus.

May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes!

 

Today, we finish Galatians with Paul’s final words to these churches.  He re-emphasizes that there is no need to require non-Jews to comply with Torah law concerning circumcision.  Where Jews used circumcision and other laws to separate themselves from others as God’s chosen people, there is now no more need for that.  Christ has made us all God’s chosen people.

 

In support of this central point of Paul’s letter, he leaves us another gem:

 

For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. (vs. 14-15)

 

Instead of finding ways to play the one upmanship game that seems to come naturally to us humans, Paul encourages us to focus on what Christ has done.  The more we do that, the less tendency we will have to puff ourselves up.  We are set free from all that crap.  It reminds me of one of the great hymns of the church by Isaac Watts:

 

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died

My richest gain I count but loss

And pour contempt on all my pride

 

Comparing ourselves, finding reasons to look down on others, or putting others on a pedestal above us are all toxic to our relationships.  Paul bids us to let all that be crucified with Christ and be free to be who God made you to be – no more and no less.  When we all do that together, we become something truly divine – the Body of Christ.  This is what Paul meant earlier in the letter when he says, “I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”  He longs for this.  I have to say that I long for it too – for you, for me. . . for us!

 

Questions:  Are there people you look down on?  What forms the basis of that “looking down?”  When you hold that justification up to the Cross, what happens?  What about the other way around – are there people you consider to be “better than” you.  How does the basis for that judgement hold up to the Cross?

 

Prayer:  God, purge toxic comparisons from our heart and mind.  We want the life you designed for us to live together – no more and no less.  Make us the true Body of Christ! Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are struggling to find employment right now. 

 

Song:  The Wonderful Cross – Matt Redman & Chris Tomlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylihJUH0gP4  

Next-Level Living

 

Galatians 6:1-10 - Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Forgiveness and restoration, sharing burdens, taking care of the weak, resisting arrogance and comparison, focus on making a contribution, give back, In short do all the good you can and don’t worry about the rest. It will pay off

At the end of his letter, just before he makes drives home the point about the division of over Torah law (which will talk about tomorrow), Paul gives a healthy dose of what might seem to be unrelated bits of advice.  Work at forgiving and restoring those who have made mistakes.  Take care of each other, especially the weak.  Resist arrogance and comparison; they are both toxic.  Focus instead on doing what only you can do for the community.  Whatever skills and wisdom you have gained from others, be sure to pass it on to others.  Do good and trust that it will pay off.  This collection of prescriptions reminds me of John Wesley’s famous saying about doing good; “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

The thread that runs through all of these seemingly disjointed instructions is life is community.  You can hear Paul’s heart for the life of the little communities he’s writing to be healthy and vibrant.  To hear about the toxic divisions that have emerged among these people he loves is breaking his heart.  He’s trying to convince them that it doesn’t have to be this way.  The answer to resolving this is to raise their level of consciousness. 

                The default level of consciousness is to think about life as my life. Do I have what I need and/or want?  Am I happy?  Am I being treated fairly?  What is my opinion on a certain matter?  How can I solve the problems I am experiencing?  I could go on and on, but I’m thinking you get the idea.  My default consciousness is self-referencing.  Paul is calling the Galatians to adopt the next level of consciousness – a communal consciousness.  The questions we ask at this level of consciousness change.  What does the community need?  Are there people that are struggling that need our help?  What is the role that I can play in this community that is really needed right now?  Do we have unity?  What’s most important for us right now?  It is a shift from “I” thinking to “we” thinking.  It’s seems very subtle but the effect is revolutionary.  It’s also how Jesus lived and calls us to live. 

The majority of people in Jesus-centered communities that thrive have made this shift.  They think of individual resources as community resources.  They think of their time as belonging to something bigger than themselves.  Their fulfillment and happiness are found in life together.   Furthermore, they find that this is a more joy-producing and fulfilling life than was possible when they were living for themselves.   This next-level consciousness unlocks the beautiful combination of freedom and love for God and others.   

 

Questions:  Try to observe your thought life today.  What do you notice about the reference-point for the majority of what you think about?  What is the interplay between “I” and “We” consciousness?

 

Prayer:  Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer God, you have called us to life together with you and others.  Help us see how we may live into this way of being in the world.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the helpers today.  You can decide who those people are and pray for them.

 

Song:  Life Together – Geoff Moore & the Distance

The Most Famous Galatians Passage

Galatians 5:16-25 - So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;  idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions  and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

 

So how did it go?  Last time, I encouraged you to make an effort to act lovingly towards all for one whole day.  I gave it a go as well.  I must say that I think I did better than I would have if I hadn’t adopted the conscious intention to love all day long.  I edited some of my smart-ass remarks before they came out of my mouth.  I made an effort to speak some kindness to others that I all too often withhold.  I tried to be thoughtful and do some favors for others that I could have easily gotten away with not doing.  The consciously-held intention to love did make a difference.

Before you applaud my efforts, I also have to say that I failed miserably.  I mentioned that I edited only SOME of my smart-ass comments.  I was only half-listening when someone I claim to love was talking to me.  I failed to follow-up with someone that was expecting to me do so.  I could go on and on, but the point is that although I made a bold effort to love all at all times for just one day, I couldn’t do it. Furthermore, it was exhausting.  Holding that intention all day literally made my brain hurt.  You might have had  similar experience.  We can’t will our way into loving perfectly. 

Willing our way into living right is a good way to describe what Paul says are the “acts of the flesh” above.  Left to our own devices, we invariably check off some of boxes on the list Paul makes of those acts of the flesh.  Even with good intentions, we can’t seem to avoid the pitfalls all the time.  Admitting that is Step 1; our lives have become unmanageable.  The surprise is that admitting our inability is actually the beginning of getting better.  It is this confession that helps us know that we need help and the help we need is God. 

Fortunately, God is willing.  God has given the Holy Spirit to all who have asked and the Holy Spirit is how Love begins to live through us.  When that happens, the fruit of the Spirit begins to bloom in us.  It’s not magic and instantaneous (I wish it were!).  Most often, it’s a gradual transformation of our character.  Theologians call this the process of sanctification, the gracious work of the Spirit living in us.  Hundreds of books have been written about it, but the process has yet to be demystified.  That’s because knowledge about such things is “too wonderful” (Ps. 139:6) for us.  The good news is we don’t have to be able to explain it fully to have it work in us.  We just have to believe and expect that it will work in us.

As I recall some “video clip” memories in my mind of who I was when I was a teen, I sometimes struggle to recognize that young man.  It makes me realize how much work God has done on my soul.  The crazy thing is that, at the very same time, I am so much more acutely aware than that young man was of how much more work God has yet to do on me yet.   The work will continue; I expect that it will.  I will try to cooperate.   I invite you to do the same.

 

Question:  Can you identify at least one bona fide difference in the “fruit” being displayed in your life now compared to the time before you knew God?

 

Prayer:  God of Sanctifying Grace, we know we are not who we are destined to be yet, but we thank you that we are not what we used to be.  We expect that you will continue to produce the fruit of your Spirit in and through us.  We can’t wait to see what you will do next. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time asking God to show you what the Spirit is doing in you during this season of your life. 

 

Song:  Breathe on Me - Hillsong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnomHnH51A

It Keeps Coming Back to One Thing . . .

 

Galatians 5:1 - It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

 

We begin today by summarizing what Paul has said to the Galatian churches so far.  He confronts their obsession over circumcision and the Torah laws as being antithetical to the Gospel.  Following the law can’t save anyone; only Jesus can.  Our invitation is to believe in that truth and trust Christ to save us and bring us into a right relationship with God.  As we all do that, we become adopted sons and daughters of God;  our standing with God is the same as Jesus’s standing.  Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free people are all now part of the same family.  This was God’s intention all along implicit in his promise to Abraham to make Abraham a Father to all the nations.  We have been freed from the law and sin and we are freed from the divisions that plague us. 

In today’s passage, Paul adds a caution concerning this newfound freedom in Christ.  If we don’t use our freedom in the right way, we run the risk of falling back into the entrapments of sin.  This isn’t all that hard to grasp as we see this happening every day.  Christians fall into addictions of every kind.  They enter into destructive relationships.  They get caught up in the frenzies of conspiracy theories that lead to division and sometimes even violence.  They are exercising freedom, but these expressions of freedom are leading them right back into bondage.  Paul says that there is an alternative and that alternative is love:

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” (Galatians 5:13-15)

As you work through vast sections of scripture in both the Old and New Testaments, it keeps coming back to one thing – love.  It’s almost as if that is what all of our lives with God and each other boil down to – love.  It’s almost like all those songs about love being all that you need are right.  It’s almost like it really is as simple as “love God and love People.”  Go figure.

The kicker is that we know from experience that “simple” seldom equates to easy and that is the painful truth here.  For the love that scripture keeps reverting back to is not sentimentality but loving action towards God and each other forever and ever, amen.  We know that definition of love may be simple to understand, but seem impossible to actually live out.  Have you ever intentionally tried to act lovingly toward EVERYONE for even one day?  If you haven’t, try it for the next 24 hours.  Even if you have tried to do it before, do it again until after your next sleep. 

 

Challenge: (instead of a question today)  Act with love for everyone without exception.  All day.  Every minute.  Everyone. Seriously. I mean it.  We’ll talk more about this love experiment next time.

 

Prayer:  God, everything action you take is done in love.  Help us, your adopted children, learn how to do the same.  Amen,

 

Prayer Focus:  Pick 5 people you haven’t thought about in a long time and pray for God’s love to be made real to them today.

 

Song:  This is one of those sentimental old love songs, but maybe we can hear something deeper in it today.

Forever And Ever, Amen - Randy Travis (Cover by Endless Summer ft Summer Overstreet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iifj0yGVQkI

The “Long Game” God’s Playing

Galatians 3:26-29 - So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

 

Today, we skip to the end of chapter three of Galatians.  Throughout chapter 3, Paul makes a complicated legal argument that he actually explains more fully in Romans 7-8 (which, remember has not been written yet).  The gist of the argument is summarized in the passage above.  Our faith is Christ marks our membership in Christ’s family, not our observance of any law.  There is no basis for a hierarchy of any kind in this family, for we have all received the same status as Christ before God.  No Jew above Gentile, no free man above slave, and no men above women – we all have the same “righteous” status with God.  Paul simply used three common divisions in the Galatian churches to make his point, but it’s important to realize, he really means that there is no possible issue on which we can establish a “pecking order.”  If he were writing to churches in America today, he might use different examples.  He might say, “in Christ there is no clergy or laypersons, no male or female (we still haven’t gotten that right), no gay or straight, no white, black, or Hispanic” – one upmanship has NO PLACE in God’s family.

It’s impossible to overestimate how revolutionary this argument is in 55 AD.  In first-century Judaism, it was simply understood that Jews were better than Gentiles, men were better than women, and free men (I do emphasize “men” here) were better than slaves. Let push pause right there for a moment – what are our current assumptions about the kinds of people that are better than other kinds?  Imagine that Paul used those examples and you and I would be feeling the discomfort that the Galatians did when they read this.

 That’s why Paul makes the complicated legal argument because he needs some rock-solid evidence that what he is saying is in fact what God had in mind going all the way back to Abraham.  While there is evidence that at least some of Paul’s audience took this idea and began to put it in practice, it’s also safe to say that those who practiced this radical vision of God’s community were in the minority.  Sadly, that’s still true not quite two-thousand years later. 

But if God can wait from the time of Abraham to the time of Paul to see such a small advancement of this radical vision. It is obvious that our patient God is “playing the long game.”  God’s expectation, nevertheless, is that we would continue to live into this radically egalitarian arrangement of the Christian global family.  It is the expectation of God that every kind of “ism” will disappear in the Church.  It should be our expectation too.   As we affirmed yesterday, this improvement program is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit of God.  We can’t make God’s vision a reality by our own effort; only God can do that.  But if we truly expect that God is moving in that direction, why wouldn’t we move in that direction as well?

 

I see signs of hope that we are.  The majority of Methodist seminary students now are women.  Even some leaders in the Southern Baptist Church are beginning to question its ban on women clergy.  Churches who are led by laypeople are on the rise.  Systemic racism in church structures is beginning to be dismantled.  Christian nationalism is being exposed for ugly perversion of true Christianity that it is.  Xenophobia is being called out in churches where it never was before.  Every day, there seems to be another clergyman that falls off a pedestal where he never belonged in the first place.  These are just some examples.  It’s a messy process to be sure, but God is using it all to forge the community that Paul is trying to describe here in Galatians.  The invitation for us is to get on board.

 

Questions: Being brutally honest with yourself, are there people you would rather not have as equal members of your family in Christ?  

 

Prayer:  God, we make the painful confession that we still have prejudices in the crevices of our hearts that we can’t seem to remove on our own.  We admit this and we look forward to the day when you will remove them.  Make us and mold us as you wish.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for leaders in positions uniquely positioned to facilitate needed reforms of the Church (Bishops, denominational executives, etc).

 

Song:  Help Us Accept Each Other - Doug Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF6z5dizEdA