July 2020 — pg. 29
Secret handshakes, strange language, $100 words, a
vernacular from a previous generation, we haven’t made
it easy for the world to understand the gospel. This isn’t a
new struggle. Every generation has had to wrestle with the
tension of staying true to the gospel while contextualizing
it for the culture. While we have used words to proclaim
the gospel, unfortunately, we haven’t always reflected that
gospel with our lives. Too often, we’ve proclaimed grace,
but rejected the broken. At times, we’ve guised gossip under
a veil of a concerned prayer request. Because we despise
pain and suffering, we’ve glossed over grief and loss with
platitudes. Because we fear conflict, we’ve ignored the
Matthew 18 principle and, instead, have chosen to work
behind the scenes in order to build alliances against one
another. We’ve pursued selfish ambitions over the unity of
the community.
Living Life Differently
Perhaps the most difficult to understand, not to mention
the most difficult to personally experience, is how easily
we turn on each other. Factions, political maneuvering,
and disunity seem to be at an all-time high in many church
communities. And we wonder why we aren’t fully living
out our God-given mission, personally or corporately.
The challenge for us, and I put myself right in the middle
of this statement, is to make a 180-degree shift from this
destructive behavior. You know what the Bible calls that?
Repentance. Repentance is the type of strange behavior that
people are attracted to — living life differently. So will you
join me? No more placing our personal preference for how
things need to be done above the mission and unity of the
church.
Do you remember the description of the church in Acts
2? They lived in wonderful harmony, holding all things in
common (Acts 2:44). Is that just a fantasy? Can that really be
an expression of the church in our lifetime? If we are going
to be strangers, let’s be strange like the early church. The
love they had for each other was so attractive that people
literally flocked to become part of them. Jesus taught us that
true love is always expressed through sacrifice. Love will
cost you something. Ultimately, love cost Jesus His life. It
might cost you your pride, your money, or your way.
After all, following Jesus requires that we take up our
cross and live out His words. Let’s live out Jesus’ teaching
to love our enemy and pray for those who hurt us. One
of my spiritual mentors recently went home to be with
the Lord. Months before he passed, he journeyed with me
through a very dark road of betrayal and rejection. The
most spiritually transformative thing he taught me to do in
“Following Jesus
requires that we take
up our cross and live
out His words.”
that season was to audibly forgive each person who hurt me.
I wasn’t ready to do it. I felt like I was lying to God. What
I discovered through that habit is that God is really more
concerned with my desire to get to that point of forgiveness
than He is with me being fully there at the moment. I would
wake up in the middle of the night, slowly and painfully
force those words out of my mouth, “Jesus I forgive ______.”
Today, I can honestly, sometimes with a twinge, think about
and pray for the success and well-being of those individuals.
It’s not easy. Nothing in life that is truly transformative is
ever easy.
Strangers Who Attract
So let’s explore some of the ways we can be strangers in
this world who are also attractive to those still outside the
faith.
First, we can grow in our willingness to place the needs
of others above our own. The early church was described
as a group that held everything in common. Truly, this was
radical Christianity. People who had something, sold it and
shared with those in need. They gave not out of obligation,
but only as the Holy Spirit led them. The most significant
roadblock to this type of radical obedience is pettiness.
Just look at the church at Philippi; they had some issues.
They were tearing each other apart, and selfishness was
at the heart of the conflict. Everyone was looking out for
themselves.
What does pettiness have to do with selfishness? Well,
pettiness is just an outward symptom of selfishness. Pettiness
was the greatest sin of the church in Philippians, and it’s still
tripping us up today. You and I, we are petty. I am annoyed
with you and you with me. You know what we call that?
Marriage. Certainly, we do experience pettiness in marriage
relationships, which brings me to my next suggestion.
Let’s be different in how we love our spouses. Now, I know
that not everyone is married or even called to get married,
so you might simply think about how to make other
relationships a priority. For those of us who are married, how
about choosing to love our spouses as Christ loves us? What
if we were weird in that our marriages thrived for 50, 60 or
even 70 years? As I write this, my wife and I are just days
away from celebrating our 21st anniversary. It gets better