I believe Dallas Willard used to say, “a good practice was to doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs”; doubt your doubts, believe your beliefs. And when we stay immersed in Christian community, even in the midst of our doubts, that's a good way to do that. Because of course, by staying in community, right, the next time Jesus shows up, Thomas was there, and he was able to encounter the risen Christ. And when he did, he was willing to be wrong. When he sees Jesus, he bows at his feet and declares him "My Lord and my God." No doubt about it, I think if we're honest, we'd have to admit that sometimes we get stuck in our doubts because we don't want the humiliation of having to say, "I was wrong." Sometimes it's just safer to say, "I don't believe."
You see God's plan, His vision, is and always has been, to prepare a people for himself in the midst of whom he can dwell. Every aspect of our character, our spiritual formation if you will, contributes to that ultimate goal, that ultimate vision. Jesus is planning on riding through the gates of your life. So ,your renovation matters. Not just be cause it makes your life better. Not just because it benefits the people around you. It matters because you are a part of God's city, God's temple, God's people God's kingdom, that He is building for all eternity.
So, when you work to develop a deeper prayer life it matters for God's Eternal Kingdom. When you work on getting deeper into community or being reshaped by the word, it matters for God's Eternal Kingdom. When you seek to make every aspect of your life an act of worship doing everything in the name of Jesus for the glory of God, it matters for God's Eternal Kingdom. When you care for the vulnerable, put others first, learn to see the world through the eyes of a child, make space in your life for others, be meek, and humble in spirit, celebrate with joy, interact with goodness, and kindness, and gentleness. Whatever renovation that you feel God calling you into, you can be sure it's not just for your benefit. It's a part of God's grand vision for his Eternal Kingdom, that he might dwell with his people, for all eternity. That's what the renovation is all about.
In Luke chapter 10, Jesus sends out his disciples on a short-term mission trip. As they go out and experience God working through them, and they come back. They come back Luke says, “full of joy”, because of what they had experienced. God working through them. And so, then they tell Jesus about their trip. And you know what their story about their trip generated in Jesus? If filled Jesus with joy. Jesus already knew what was going to happen and still just hearing about what God was doing, fills Jesus full of joy. This is why the celebrations of the church are all about telling the story of what God has done, what He is doing, and what He will do. Our gatherings on Sunday, our weekly celebrations, are about telling God's story.
This is America, where we are free to actually arrange our own gatherings, our own dinners. It’s a constitutional right. You can do it. There’s opportunity for you to connect with folks during the week, on your own. But whatever form it takes there’s just no way to effectively love one another or any of the other one another’s, in theory, or in general, you know from a distance. So maybe for you renewal or renovation or tearing out the carpet in this area of one another for you might mean that you need to show up. That you need to make yourself known. Contact Ashley and let her know you’re interested in a small group. You need to commit to coming to church on Sunday, not just anonymously ducking in and out but expectantly. Praying to the Holy Spirit that he might direct you to someone who needs “one anothering” today. Maybe you need to commit to serving with our children or our youth or our impact or hospitality teams. A place where you can be on mission with others. Maybe you need to pick up the phone and grab dinner with someone you haven’t connected with in a while. Or maybe even with someone that you just met last week. You see it’s really easy to look at our interactions and say, “aaah, we’re just to shallow, it’s just too shallow. They need to go deeper," and you’re right, they do. Here’s the thing, the only way to get to the deep end is through the shallow end. Standing outside the pool only ensures you’ll never get wet.
“Our life together as the community of followers of Jesus is the most powerful proclamation of Jesus we can make” ~ Mike Lueken
For people to hear that proclamation they have to be invited in. And so, Jesus sends us out to be hosts, to practice hospitality. The practice of hospitality has been one of the most foundational practices of the church since the beginning, two thousand years ago. All throughout the New Testament, over and over, we are told we are commanded to offer hospitality. In addition to that, we know from the history of the first centuries of the church that hospitality was a mark of the early Christians where they welcomed people into their homes, they cared for them regardless of who they were or whether or not they could pay them back. And while hospitality and practice can take many forms and shapes at its core, hospitality is a spiritual posture. It is an attitude. Hospitality is the posture of making room for the outsider whether this is in our homes, in our work places, in our social circles, in our church community. To practice hospitality is to assume responsibility for the care of the guest. To make sure they feel at home and have what they need. Really it is the spiritual act of adoption. Even if only for a short time so that the guest feels like part of the family. And when we open up space in our Christian community for those who do not know Jesus, they are able to experience the reality of Jesus and not just hear about it. And for a world that is reluctant to talk about Jesus, creating spaces where they can experience it, is essential.
What better way to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, who changes lives, than to have people in our life actually see Jesus transform us. Actually, see Jesus transform our character. I mean imagine when the people to whom I have been sent notice that where I used to be consumed by worry there actually now is peace. When the people who could see my addiction to work, my addiction to performance, and success, all of a sudden experience me being free from that. Imagine the power of the people in our lives, who have known us to gossip, or be judgmental of others, finding us being, I don't know, encouraging, thinking the best of others. You get the picture right? I mean this is how awesome the redeeming power of Jesus is. That when we continue in an ongoing process of transformation. When we allow him to do his transforming work in us. Even the rough edges, even the blatant cracks in our character, can be used to declare the praises of him who brought us out of darkness and into his glorious light. So, what comes to mind for you? What has the Holy Spirit been stirring in you during this message?
Is there an area in your life that is getting in the way of you proclaiming Jesus?
Paul writes, "and so it was with me brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power." - 1 Corinthinas 2:1-5
Paul, here in this passage, is writing to his friends in Corinth at the church that he started there. And he's reminding them about the very clear, focused purpose that he had when he went there. I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Which when you think about it, realistically, is an astounding statement. Corinth, we know from history, was a pretty spiritually derelict city. Paul would have had any number of Shalom-destroying issues to talk about when he goes there. Anything from slavery to temple prostitution, to pagan witchcraft and worship, to economic injustice, to ethnic discrimination. There was a lot of Ten Commandment breaking going on in Corinth in those days.
Along with that, of course, we could imagine there was the humanitarian crisis that was typical to any City in the Roman Empire; the poor, the sick, the widows, the orphans. And yet, Paul characterizes his focus, his mission, in the city, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Of all the things he could have been talking about, of all the problems he could have been addressing, Paul, was laser-focused on this singular message, Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. Why?
It's the picture my friend sent me of the flames at the end of his street, that keep me up at night. And again, this is not just the case for the people that I know in Southern California. It is the case for people everywhere, all around the world, all the time. Every major catastrophe, every downward trend, every systemic issue in the world from human trafficking to racism, to road rage, to sickness, and economic uncertainty. All of them are made up of individual people, with individual lives, individual experiences, individual circumstances, and they are in in trouble. And it's not just the people in the crises that are being covered in the news either.
Turn off the radio close your laptop and simply scroll through the images in your mind of the people you know, the real people. The person in the house next to you. The person you sit with on the sidelines of your kids’ games. The people in your class in the cubicle next to you, or on the other side of the zoom call. Even those in your own house. An honest look at their lives would reveal trouble and devastation that though unseen on the outside, if we could see inside, we'd see it burning at the same rate and heat as the center of the hottest wildfire. An honest look at the people that we interact with every day, would find them harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. To borrow Matthew's words, and the question in all our minds at this point, is does God even care? He sees the destruction. He sees the pain. He sees the fear. He knows the stress. The anxiety pulsing through the psyche of our friends, of our family, but does he care?
All the time, Jesus the Messiah, the one born King of the Jews and of the entire universe for that matter, lay helpless as a baby born to a poor unimportant family, lying in obscurity, literally just a few miles away from Jerusalem. And however tempting it might be to look at Herod, and the Magi, and Snicker, and comment, like the emperor that wasn't wearing any clothes. Probably better, is to see ourselves in this meeting. This meeting between these fake kings. You see, our whole society is like that. People trying to impress each other, with their money, with their degrees, with their accomplishments, their sports team affiliations, how well their portfolio is doing, how attractive their boyfriend or girlfriend is, how smart their children are. And us religious people, we're probably worse of all. Constantly trying to pretend that we are better than we actually are. That we know more than we know. That we are certain, more than we are actually certain. We are half breeds and frauds pretending to be kings. The good news of course is that we don't have to live that way.
God speaks to whomever he wants to speak, about whatever he wants to speak, whenever he wants to speak to them. The message isn't about how to make God speak to us more. What we're talking about here is how to put ourselves in a posture to listen. To hear when he speaks. And I don't know about you, but if I am predisposed to not want to do what God says, and yes sometimes I'm not. Did you hear that, he's a pastor? The pastor doesn't want to do what God asks him to do sometimes, shocking! But when I am predisposed to not want to do what he says, I'm more inclined to avoid him. Like take literal steps to avoid him. To make myself unavailable when his number pops up on my phone. I'm much more likely to let it go to voicemail, and then conveniently forget to check it.
But I've also experienced the opposite. I've also experienced those times and seasons where I've practiced saying yes. Stepping out in faith when I think I hear God asking me to do something, even when it's scary. Even when it feels, at first, like I'm actually losing something. And every time I do, I relearn the lesson, that truly His yoke is easy, His burden is light, He does not lay anything too heavy or unfitting on me. And every step of obedience I've taken, always ends up leading me in the right direction. Sure, God comes and asks these people to do some pretty crazy things in these stories, but man, when they said yes to Him, what a ride! What an adventure! And I believe that those adventures, those experiences, those encounters with God, are available. Available to us, right now, right here, where we are, if only we would listen.