Fight For Your World

Read:  Matthew 5:13-16

How do we proclaim the Gospel effectively to the world?  I believe we do so by living as people who are shaped by the Gospel. 

We do so by living – working, playing, raising kids, thinking, talking, acting, making decisions.  We do so by living as people – as personal, interactive beings who were created for community.  We do so by living as people who are shaped.  To shape is to form or mold something; to influence it fundamentally and pervasively. We do so by living as people who are shaped by the Gospel – the transformative message of God’s gracious redemption of human beings from sin and death through the work of Christ.

And so we proclaim the Gospel effectively to the world by operating in the world as those who belong to God in Christ, for the Gospel shapes people’s living. And people who are shaped by the Gospel live it out in the world.  Jesus said that His followers are to be His witnesses in the world. 

Now when we live as people who are shaped by the Gospel, it affects how we relate to the world and to our particular culture.  And if “the world” can be understood, as Os Guinness defines it, as a “human society within the created order, which is standing over against God and his rule,” then our relationship to the world is one of contrast, for we necessarily stand for God and His rule.  As Richard John Neuhaus says, “The Church is a contrast society, exemplifying what St. Paul … calls “a more excellent way.”  So the church is called to be different than the world by exhibiting a more excellent way – the way of Christ.  But the Church does not do this in an obnoxious oroppressive or arrogant manner.  Rather, as Neuhaus adds, “Even when the church is against the world, she is against the world for the world.”

I believe Neuhaus is right.  We are called to be against the world for the world.  But what does that mean? 

Well, think of parents who discipline their children.  We say, “No. You can’t run out in the street without looking,” not because we are mean but because we don’t want them to get hurt or worse.  We say, “No you can’t stay up all night,” because we know that they will be exhausted and crabby the next day.  We say, “No. You can’t watch that movie or listen to that song or play that video game,” because we want to help guard their minds.  Parents have to sometimes stand against their children for their children.

Now we are not in a parental role to the world, but we necessarily stand against the world when we live as people who are shaped by the Gospel, because the Gospel message runs contrary to the way of the fallen world.  And when we live as people who are shaped by the Gospel, we are also acting for the world, because the Gospel is the Good News for the world – the best news the world could ever hear.  Sin, however, dulls our senses and makes people resistant to the Good News.  Additionally, many Christians have done a poor job of sharing the Gospel and so it is a battle we are in.  We have to fight for the Gospel to win in our world.  But as we learned in the first message, this is not a battle against flesh and blood – not a physical, political or imaginary battle, but a spiritual, personal and pervasive battle

How do we fight?  We fight as Jesus taught us in our passage, as salt and light.  Now, when we think of fighting, salt and light are probably not the first images that come to mind.  However, in thinking about this, I noticed the combative nature of salt and light.  Salt fights against bacteria and other microorganisms that cause decay.  That is why salt is used as a preservative.  Light fights against darkness and lifelessness.  Without light, most forms of life cannot survive.

People who live as those who are shaped by the Gospel are like salt.  William Barclay points out that, at the time of Jesus, salt was connected with three particular qualities: purity, preservation and flavor.

Christians are to have a purifying effect.  Christians are to be examples and promoters of purity.  While our world is increasingly a place of corruption, perversion and decay, Christians are called not only to be pure, by themselves in a corner, but to be a purifying influence at work, at school, everywhere. 

Christians are to have a preservative effect.  Christians are people who by their very presence (as those who are in Christ) fight corruption and make it easier for others to do what is right. They are to bring healing to those who are hurting.  As Michael Wilkins writes, “disciples have experienced a transformation in their lives as they have come into contact with the Kingdom of heaven.  They are now different from the people of this earth, and their presence is necessary as God’s means of influencing the world for good.”

Christians have a flavoring effect on the world.  Even though Christians are often considered dull and boring and even though some Christians unfortunately do fit that description, those who are in Christ are those who are truly alive and therefore they should be people who have and who express hope and peace and confidence and joy.  Christians should bring out the good in the world as salt brings out flavors. 

People who live as those who are shaped by the Gospel are like light.  We are called to be light because our Master Jesus is the Light of the world.  Light is used in Scripture as a metaphor for true knowledge, moral purity, and manifestation of the very presence of God.  Jesus being the Light of the world means that He is the ultimate reality; He is the perfect revelation of God to the world.  We read in Hebrews 1:3, “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being…”

We are the light of the world because Jesus is the light of the world and therefore we are to reflect His light to everyone.  Jesus said, “let your light shine before men and women, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”  Christians are to be visible to the world.  We are to be in places where we distribute the most light.  Our lives are to be beautiful, so that others can see the beauty of Christ in us. People need to see our good deeds and we need to be doing them because they draw attention to God; they cause people glorify God. (And be warned: the opposite is true.)

Therefore, people who live as those who are shaped by the Gospel are distinctive. R.T. France has insightfully written, “Light, like salt, affects its environment by being distinctive.”  Light and salt affect change by being different.  When they fail to be distinctive, they become useless.  That is what Jesus said: “if…salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled.”  And of light: “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”

A lamp that is left under a bowl is useless.  Not only will it eventually be suffocated, but it cannot do what it is meant to do: dispel darkness.  Light is useful when it is set against darkness; when it is distinctive.

Salt also must be distinctive.  It is sometimes pointed out that salt can’t lose its saltiness.  However, it is possible that Jesus was using that very fact to emphasize the absurdity of salt not acting like what it is.  Additionally, we can understand that statement in terms of salt being mixed with another impure substance and thereby becoming defiled and useless.  Both are done by Christians.  Sometimes we resist our calling to be salt in the world.  We would rather stay in the shaker and keep to ourselves.  And sometimes we lose our saltiness because we get all mixed up with the stuff of the world and become defiled by it.  We lose our distinctiveness by either being absent or by becoming just like the world.  As Tullian Tchividjian has written, “Christians make a difference in this world by being different from this world; they don’t make a difference by being the same.”  We are called to be distinctive.

And finally, people who live as those who are shaped by the Gospel are involved.  They are against the world and thus distinctive, but they are against the world for the world and thus involved.  Salt only makes a difference when it is actually put on food or used to wash a wound.  Light only makes a difference when it shines in dark places.  If salt and light keep to themselves, they become useless.  As Craig Blomberg writes, “We must remain active preservative agents, indeed irritants, in calling the world to heed God’s standards.  We dare not form isolated Christian enclaves to which the world pays no attention” (103).   Are we the church of Jesus Christ called to go throughout the world as His witnesses or are we an isolated Christian enclave to which the world pays no attention?  Blomberg adds: “Believers who fail to arrest corruption become worthless as agents of change and redemption.  Christianity may make its peace with the world and avoid persecution, but it is thereby rendered impotent to fulfill its divinely ordained role It will thus ultimately be rejected even by those with whom it has sought compromise” (102). 

There are different ways of making peace.  One is capitulation, the other is avoidance.  We know this.  Some people deal with conflict by giving in and appeasing, others do so by avoiding conflict.  Likewise some churches avoid conflict with the world by giving in, others do so by avoiding the world. But if we are going to obey Jesus, we cannot avoid the world.  We must live in it as salt and light.

Why don’t we do that more than we do?  I believe it is because we are afraid.  We’re afraid of the world:  of being influenced by the way of the world; of rejection by the world; of dealing with the messiness of the world; of the imagined awkwardness of speaking to others about Christ; of losing our comfort or safety and security; of getting involved personally (by all means, we’ll send a check for missions, but don’t ask us to get our hands dirty – we’ll cheer on people halfway around the world, but don’t ask us to help the person who lives three houses down); and we’re afraid the Gospel won’t win

But the message of Scripture is that God wins.  God wins.  That must be our hope.  That must be at the core of our faith.  And if that is our hope and if it is at the core of our faith then we must and will act with courage for Christ in the world.

We read last week that the Lord is great and awesome.  Do you believe that?  God wins.  Do you believe that?  Do you really believe that?  Then act with courage for Christ in the world.

God has said (in Psalm 46) “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."  God will be exalted and He will be exalted through His people.  So fight for the Gospel to win in the world.  Fight as salt and light.  Fight by living as people who have been shaped by the Gospel.

Fight For Your Church

Nobody can deny that we face difficult times.  Financially, we have all felt the pinch of these days.  We have had many in our congregation who have lost jobs or have faced the threat of losing their job.  As we try to put together a budget for next year, the financial shortfall we are experiencing is all too clear. 

We also look around and we miss people.  We’ve lost a number of saints as they have gone to be with the Lord.  We’ve seen families move away.  We’ve seen others simply fade away.  We know the challenges of trying to make disciples in a society that seems ambivalent (at best) to the Gospel or has been seemingly inoculated to the Gospel.  We know the difficulty of trying to make an impact in our community and the struggle it is to help the church to grow. 

We see these things are we are tempted to despair.  We are tempted to give into gloom and doom.  We are tempted to give up.  Or if we don’t give up, we’re tempted to operate out of fear.  And then we’re afraid to do anything because we calculate the impossibilities. (Oh, we can’t do that - Oh we’ll never be able to make it – You know, things are bad and they probably won’t get any better.)  Listen to us!  We talk like we’ve got one foot in the grave when we serve a Savior who has conquered the grave!

Last week, I was reading a commentary by Raymond Brown and something he wrote struck me: “It has been said that in the history of the church, pessimism has always been a greater problem than atheism.”  Pessimism is in many ways ‘practical atheism’- living as if God doesn’t exist.  Atheists are at least somewhat honest – they don’t believe or don’t want to believe in God.  Christian pessimists, however, claim to believe in God but evidently don’t believe that He will do actually anything.  They are, in a sense, spiritual schizophrenics – believing all sorts of wonderful things about God, but not really believing that He will really do any of them.  Now I’m not saying we should be spiritual ‘Pollyannas’ – we are to be realistic about reality - but we, as believers, are called to believe and to trust that our God is the living God who speaks and acts and triumphs.

Nobody can deny that we face difficult times, but as Raymond Brown reminds us, “Blessings emerge in affliction which are rarely found in periods of ease. Sorrow is not purposeless if it drives us to God, increases our dependence on him, enhances our sensitivity to others and makes us more like Jesus.  Christ told his followers that they were unlikely to escape trouble and mature believers prefer rather to learn from adversity that to bemoan it.”

I believe that the story of God’s people during the time of Nehemiah has much to teach us in this. You see, the Israelites had returned to the Land after 70 years of exile in Babylon.  Zerubbabel led the first group and Ezra the second.  A third group returned with Nehemiah.  Nehemiah had heard the report while still in Persia that, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”  Nehemiah got permission to leave the Persian court, at which he served, and go to Jerusalem.  There he found the report to be true.  The walls of Jerusalem were still broken down and gates charred.  In the face of such destruction, it’s amazing that Nehemiah was able to say, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace."  And equally amazing that the people replied, "Let us start rebuilding" (2:17-18). That brings us to our text:  Nehemiah 4.

In his commentary on Nehemiah, Raymond Brown points out some principles that we find in this passage. The first is that conflict is inevitable. Following the Lord involves conflict from our own sinful nature, from other sinful people and from the devil who has been sinning from the beginning. In Nehemiah’s case, that conflict took the form of the local rulers who were furious that the walls of Jerusalem were being rebuilt and who mocked and ridiculed the Jews who were working on the wall.  These local rulers were planning to fight against Jerusalem and to stir up trouble against it.  They were bullies attempting to intimidate and discourage the people with their insults and to instill fear in them with their military presence so that they would give up on the work.  But Nehemiah and the people were willing to deal with the conflict and to face the opposition with courage and faith.

 

The second principle is that discouragement is understandable (10-12).  Discouragement was understandable because the work was extensive and the conditions were difficult. Discouragement was understandable because they were exhausted: “The strength of the laborers is giving out.”  There was so much work to do and such pressure to get it done that the workers were pushed to their limit.  Discouragement was understandable because the opposition was fierce and it surrounded them. 

But how did Nehemiah and the people respond to the conflict and the discouragement?  The next four principles show us. 

Prayer is crucial.  When Nehemiah heard the threats and the mockery of Sanballat and Tobiah, he didn’t run and hide, nor did he retaliate.  Instead, he prayed.  “Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Nehemiah cried out to the Lord – to “our God” – for help, revealing that prayer should not be our last resort but our first recourse.

Unity is essential.  We read that the officers posted themselves behind all the people who were building and everyone was to be ready, at any time, to rally to the point of need or defense.  Just as a breach in the wall was a danger, so any breach in the unity of the people was a danger.  The work was extensive and the threat was very real.  Without unity among the people, they would fail and their enemies would prevail.  The people literally had to stand by each other and look out for each other.

Sacrifice and hard work are vital.  In order to accomplish the work, everyone had to give up something.  Whether it was giving up personal freedom in order to work on the wall, or giving up ones home to stay in the city at night or Nehemiah and his men sleeping in their clothes so as to always be ready.  And the people worked hard.  We read in v. 6, “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.” That can also be translated as “the people had a heart for the work”.  The people had a heart for the work and so they worked with all their heart.  They didn’t sit around feeling sorry for themselves and dwelling on the past, rather they got to work, building for the future.  And all of the people gave of themselves – their time, their efforts and their resources to build up the walls and defend their community.

Because what they were defending was valuable.  They fought for their brothers, their children, their wives and husbands, their homes and for the city of their God.  Though broken down, it was still valuable and was worth their effort – worth the fight.

Though conflict was inevitable and discouragement was understandable, the people showed that prayer is crucial, unity essential, sacrifice and hard work vital and what they were defending valuable.  And they could show that in their lives because they believed that God is invincible! The ESV translates v. 10 this way: “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall.”  They recognized that the task was too great for them alone.  They needed outside help.  They needed the Lord. Therefore Nehemiah shouted to the people, “Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”  And again in v. 20, “Our God will fight for us.”  God fights for His people and God is invincible.  Nehemiah charged the people to remember that.  God is great and awesome.  So we need not be afraid when we are trusting in Him.  Rather, we can confidently fight for our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our spouses and our homes, knowing and believing that God wins!

So as you look out on the broken places in our lives and in our church, what will you do?  Despair?  Moans and groan?  Complain?  Assign blame to someone other than yourself?  Give up?  Conflict is inevitable.  Discouragement is understandable.

Will you respond with prayer?  For Nehemiah, prayer was his first recourse.  Is it yours?  Nehemiah fasted and prayed when he heard the news of Jerusalem, will you fast and pray for our church? 

Will you respond by striving for unity? “They” are at it again.  I’ve heard a lot about “them” recently.  “They are doing this, they are doing that.” “Can you believe they did that?”  “What do they think they are doing?”  “They” talk is a sign of disunity.  It is divisive because it separates the speaker from the subject and suggests that you (the speaker) are powerless, yet innocent and right and “they” are domineering and wrong.  Enough of “they” talk!  WE are the church.  WE are God’s people.  WE are commanded to love each other.

Will you respond by giving sacrificially and working hard?  Will you give of yourself; give of your own resources to bless others and build up the church?  If the walls of our lives and our families and our church are broken in places, will you offer your hands and your back to do the hard work of building them back up?  And will you work to build not a monument to the past, but build for the future – with a vision of what can be?

Will you respond because you see that what you are called to defend is valuable?  I started off talking about the problems we face as a church, but this is a good church and God is moving in our midst.  We have children and new families.  We have a loving community.  We have ministries that are reaching out into our community.  Family Night rocks.  Our LINC groups are growing strong.  People are growing in God’s Word and many have a Godly dissatisfaction and a desire to grow more.  Our church family is worth the effort and the sacrifice and the hard work that God calls us to.  It’s worth the fight!

And will you do the hardest thing?  Will you believe that God is invincible?  Will you believe it not simply with your head, but with your heart and your will and will you express it in your attitude and your words and conversations and your actions?

We are called to fight for our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our spouses and homes, knowing that it is worth it and knowing and believing that God fights for us and God wins!

Fight For Your Family

The word ‘submission’ is a “dirty word”, at least it is treated as one in our society.  It’s a word which conjures up all sorts of subservient, slavish images, but a word that, in the biblical sense, is misunderstood.

Question:  Who would deny that Jesus is victorious?  Who would deny that He conquered sin and death and evil?  No one who is a believer would.  We know He is King of kings and Lord of lords.  But how did Jesus do it?  How did He gain the victory over those things?  He did it in an unexpected way:  by submission and self-sacrifice.

Read Philippians 2:3-11.

Jesus is exalted in victory to the highest place because He made himself nothing  and humbled Himself even unto death.  That is totally counterintuitive to us, but it is the Gospel and it is the Truth.

But we might respond, “Well, perhaps that worked for Jesus, but not for us.”  Listen, however, to James 4:7: “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  How do we resist the devil?  By submitting ourselves to God.  Our resistance, our fighting is submission to God.

But we hate submission!  It’s a bad word in our cultural vocabulary.  We’re taught to be assertive and independent.  But what does the Bible mean when it calls us to submit?  It means seeking first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness before our own.  It means making God’s perfect will our priority and His way our delight.  It means loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  It is not passivity, rather it is, as Alec Motyer suggests, ‘active allegiance’.  To submit to God is to love God.  For if we love God, we will obey Him; we will desire to please Him; we will be devoted, in all things, to Him.

It’s ironic that we love the word ‘love’ and hate the word ‘submission’ because love involves submission.  We see this in human relationships.  People who only ever look to their own interests and never to the interests of others have no friends or loved ones.  They may have people who obey them or fear them, but they have no one who loves them.  They can’t because they can’t love or receive love.  Love involves submitting yourself to another person, for it is only by submitting yourself that you can love and be loved.  Selfishness is the biggest barrier to love.

And so, Ephesians 5:21-6:4, though one of the most misunderstood passages in the NT, teaches us how to fight for our families.

Verse 21 is crucial.  It says: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  ‘Submit’ is actually a participle and so literally says, “submitting to one another.”  As a participle, it is dependent upon the verb that come before it, namely the command to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph 5:18) – (addressing, singing, giving thanks, submitting). And so Paul is stating that, as we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we submit to one another.  Verse 22 goes on then and literally states, “wives to your own husbands as to the Lord”.  The NIV adds the verb ‘submit’ in that verse, but there is no verb in v.22.  It borrows it from verse 21: “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ - wives, to your own husbands.”  And notice that v. 21 assumes two parties, not just one.  So where is the second subject of the verb ‘submit’?  In v. 25: “Husbands, love your wives.”

So when you put it all together, the command is: be filled with the Holy Spirit … submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ – wives to your husbands (by respecting them –v.33) and husbands to your wives (by loving them).

Husbands submit themselves to their wives by loving them.  This point is emphasized by the statement, “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  How did Jesus do that?  We read it before: Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!  Jesus loved the Church by making Himself nothing, taking the nature of a servant, humbling Himself and dying for her.  Husbands, that is what you are called to do for your wives.  As a husband you are to humble yourself, be a servant and lay down your life (your agenda, your perceived rights, your desire to be right all the time, your stubbornness, your ambivalence; your indecisiveness, your self-centeredness).  Lay it down and love your wife as Christ loves His Church.  And notice the command is not husbands, if you feel love for your wife then show her.  No the command is to love.  And when you submit in love to your wife, it makes it easier for her to submit, in respect and love, to you.

People often take offence at this passage because they think that it tells wives to submit to their lousy husbands and just take it.  It doesn’t.  It tells wives to respect their husbands who are loving them, for submission is possible when you are loved with a Christ-like love.  For love is patient and kind; it does not envy or boast; it is not proud or rude or self-seeking or easily angered or resentful.  It always protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres.  We can give ourselves to that kind of love.  When husbands follow Christ’s example of submitting themselves in love, they make it easier for their wives to follow Christ’s example and submit themselves in respect.

Think of ballroom dancing.  When it is done well, it is a beautiful thing.  And the rules of ballroom dancing require the male partner to lead.  His foot needs to move first while the female partner follows that movement.  But never, in a well done dance, does a spectator say, “look at how dominating that man is – what a male chauvinist pig!”  Rather, their attention is given to the woman.  Because the man’s leading serves to emphasize, highlight and accentuate the woman’s part.  And a dance in which the man leads – not to dominate, but to accentuate the woman and the woman follows not to be a doormat but to be guided and carried and lifted and supported – it’s a truly beautiful thing.

And so, how does one fight for one’s marriage?  By following Jesus’ example.  By submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ and as you’re filled with the Holy Spirit.  Now, it gets complicated when only one chooses to follow Christ.  It makes it extremely difficult for the other person.  And so, I charge you all – every husband and every wife:  fight for your marriage!  Fight by fighting against selfishness.  Fight to submit yourself to God.  Love God more than anything or anyone else.  And then you will find that you can submit to others in love.  Fight by loving.  That is, I believe, the only thing that will hold a marriage together - mutual selfless love is the only thing that will hold it together.

But if you’re going to fight for your family, you have to fight for your children too (and not just with them).  How do we do that?  This part is shorter because we have already established the means.  We start to fight for our children by fighting against our own selfishness which makes us sometimes resent the children God has given us – why are they like that?  Why are they so difficult? Why don’t they ever listen?  I was never like that.  Why can’ they be like those kids?  And we have to fight against our selfishness that makes us give up:  It’s too hard and just I’m too tired.  We read in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers (we could say parents) do not exasperate your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”  We must give of ourselves to nurture our children.  We’ve all heard the nursery rhyme “Little Bo Peep” which ends with “leave them alone and they’ll come home wagging their tails behind them.”  Well, that isn’t true – not in shepherding nor in parenting.  We have to nurture our children and raise them up in the Lord.  And that requires submitting our wills to God and giving ourselves to do the difficult work of raising our children in the Lord. 

As in marriage, we fight this battle with love. If you think your kids are difficult, ask God about your own track record as His child.  And yet you are loved!  So love your children and strive hard to raise them to love the Lord.  And when you do that, you make it easier for them to obey God’s command to obey you.  If you submit yourself to the Lord and love them, they can submit to the Lord and obey and love you.  So fight for your children.  Don’t give up. 

And finally, if you are not married or you don’t have kids, this still applies to you.  Because we are a family as the church.  We are brothers and sisters in Christ and have even taken vows to support each other and the children among us.  We must all submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, for we are called to love each other and bear with one another.  We are called to look not only to our own interests, but to the interests of each other.

So Beloved of God, fight for your families and fight for our family.  Submit yourselves to God.  humble yourselves before the Lord and He will raise you up.  He will raise us up.  Fight against selfishness in your marriage; in your parenting; and in your relationships in the church.  Fight to love – to love God more than anything else; and to love your neighbor (your spouse, your children, your brother and sister in Christ) as you would be loved.

As John M. Perkins has stated, “Love is the final fight.”