Jesus Loved Them...Shouldn't We? (Part 2)

So what do we do?

Most of us who have been given new life by faith in Christ know too well how easy it is to retreat into a "holy huddle" and lose total contact with those outside the faith. Picture in your mind a huddle of football players getting the next play from their quarterback. They're all faced inward.

But they don't stay that way for long. In fact, if they stay in the huddle too long the ref blows a whistle and they're penalized by losing ground. The huddle is an important time, but its purpose is to get everyone on the same page as they turn to face the other team. It's a comfortable place. Everyone in the huddle wears the same uniform. We know each other. We're a team and are comfortable together. And in the huddle we get a bit of a breather. Not a perfect illustration, but I think it makes some valid points for the church.

We need that time together when we're getting the Coach's instructions for our next steps. He's got a game plan for us individually and collectively. In a nutshell it is found at the end of Matthew's gospel. We often call it the "Great Commission", and it tells us that as we're going into the world we're to make disciples. Guess what? That requires leaving the huddle and getting into the game by engaging those who don't yet know Christ.

When I played football we all knew when it was time to leave the huddle. The quarterback, who had been given the next play from the coach, called out the play to us and the snap count that would start it. Then he repeated it just to make sure we all heard it and heard it clearly. With that accomplished he said, "Ready" and simultaneously all eleven of us clapped our hands once and said, "Break!" The huddle was broken and we assumed our positions on the line of scrimmage.

If we're going to have balance in our lives, engaging in both edification - building one another up in the church - and evangelism - taking the Good News to the world, somebody has to call "break". I guess that's one of the duties of pastors and leaders: Saying to the team, "Let's go. We know the strategy; we've had the coaching; our assignments are handed out. Let's take the Gospel to those who don't know."

Jesus didn't just hang with His disciples. Sure, He invested a lot of time and energy with them, getting them ready to carry on. But He also broke from them to spend time with a woman who was rejected by others at a well outside of town. There He told her how to drink the water that gave life everlasting. He was willing to be criticized by those in His day who never left the huddle to eat and drink with the spiritually starving. And it wasn't long before He sent them out two by two as "lambs before wolves". He knew their purpose as lambs was to leave the safety of the fold and tell others how to be in the fold.

If you're not taking His instructions and then going into the world, making disciples, you'll never gain ground. In fact, you and your huddle, your group, your church, if they're doing the same and looking inward, you're losing ground. You're being penalized. We have to be actively involved in both the inward and the outward. That means I may have to put my insecurities in God's hands. I may need to find ways to spend time with those outside of my church. If you realize all your friends are just like you, something's wrong.

And here's what will happen if you stay in the huddle too long. Paul warned that in the last days women (and this can happen to men as well) will be "always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." (2 Tim. 3:7) We can be guilty of being learners but never practicing what we've learned. In my experience, those church members who tell me they just can't get enough "Bible study" also never (that's right, never) bring another person to Christ. Somehow their hunger for God became all about knowledge and never about making disciples.

In his letter to the Corinthian church Paul told them they had plenty of knowledge. Yet, they were at the same time filled with division and selfishness. "Knowledge makes people arrogant, but love builds them up." (1 Cor. 8:1) If we fill our heads with spiritual truth but never allow that truth to transform our lives into loving witnesses it only serves to fill us with spiritual pride. (Now there's an oxymoron.)

Ask yourself these questions. Then decide what you need to do.

When was the last time I shared my faith with a non-believing friend?
When was the last time I brought an unchurched friend to church with me?
Have I allowed my Christianity to distance me from those who need Christ?
Are all of my friends at church?
Who will be in heaven because I took the knowledge I learned and gave it away?
Do I jump at the chance to attend a church related conference or Bible study but don't invite my neighbors to an outreach event?

Ready? Break.

Jesus Loved Them...Shouldn't We?

• The Samaritan woman at the well.
• Nicodemus, the Jewish civil and religious leader
• Andrew, a fisherman.
• Magi who traveled from the East with gifts for a new King.
• A Roman centurion with a deathly ill servant
• A tax collector who went to extremes just to see Him and climbed into a tree.
• A rabbi with a dying daughter.
• A handicapped man whose friends had a "whatever it takes" attitude.
• An anonymous woman with an incurable hemorrhage.
• A rich, young ruler.
• Many more we know about from the biographies of Jesus called "Gospels". Many, many more we don't.

What they had in common was a need, be it spiritual or physical, and they sought out Jesus. Some were actually looking for Him, with curiosity or even an inkling that He might be the promised Messiah. Most, not all, embraced Him as Savior.

Back in the 90's (or so) a term was coined to represent men and women who are like the list above: needy and wanting an answer or healing or solution. If he didn't use the term first, he at least became most famous for its use at his Willow Creek church outside of Chicago, but whether or not you or I agree with him on every point, Bill Hybels' ministry became symbolic of the term "seeker".

"Seeker" became a buzz word in some evangelical circles, and typical of evangelicals and fundamentals, whenever someone introduces something new, be it terminology or ministry strategy (which I find are never new, but usually something forgotten retrieved) we (I'm an evangelical) take sides. At our heart, it seems, we truly enjoy divisiveness ala the Corinthian church by drawing lines in the sand - and sand constantly shifts - by declaring, "I'm fer it" or "I'm agin it". Often in our quest to guard our perceived "orthodoxy" we over-analyze and miss the forest for the trees. Semantics should never divide. You say "tomaughto", I say "tomayto". It's still a tomato. "Seeker" simply means someone outside of faith in Christ who needs Him and is searching.

So here are two paradoxical axioms that I ponder. Actually the second can't truly be called an "axiom" because while it is typical, it is an aberration of what is true. But because it is so overwhelmingly the "norm" I'll treat it as such.

1. None of us who know Christ as Savior have always been believers. No one comes into this world trusting Jesus and on the road to eternal life. The Bible is clear that we are all born with a sinful nature that separates us from God and the life He possesses. Whenever I hear someone say, "I've always believed" I have to ask them, "Really?". Because that contradicts Scripture.

Since I was very little I understood there was God and His Son Jesus. I didn't doubt that as a child because people I trusted (parents, Sunday school teachers) told me so. As I heard of His love and my own inability to achieve everlasting life and His provision of grace I became a "seeker". I distinctly remember asking my mother, who at the time was very religious, but was herself an unbeliever, "How do you get to heaven?". Her answer, by the way, was typical of mainline religion - "Do your best" - and was wrong. But it wasn't until I was nearly eleven years old that I understood my personal need for faith in Him that I experienced new birth.

Every child of God was first a "seeker" in some fashion. But there is also a most confounding pattern I've noticed in my 40 plus years as a believer.

2. We tend to forget who we were and lose our passion for those who are seeking. Here's how it works. We don't plan it this way and never really see it coming. But in the vast majority of Christians this is how life plays out unless we allow God to help us see the world through His eyes. Here's the scenario.

Our seeking results in finding. Whether you see it as you found Him or He found you isn't the issue here. From your perspective, you found Him and received His gift of eternal life. From His perspective He "found" you. Jesus is the ultimate "seeker". And the changes begin in your life. You connect with a local church and God brings a whole new family and group of friends into your life. You hunger to know Him and love it whenever you discover new treasure in His word. You find a place of ministry in the church, serving His family. Life is better than ever...and it's supposed to be.

Your excitement over your new life is uncontainable and you want all of your family and friends to discover what you've found. So you invite them to church. You talk to them about your faith. Some go with you. Some even believe. And those who do become part of your inner circle of friends now that they, too, share this faith.

But as time goes by - maybe a year or two - you gradually begin to lose contact with those old non-believing friends. You don't hang out with them as much, if at all because your Christian friends and family not only get your priority, they get your everything. It's been a long time since you talked with a non-believer about Jesus. You can't remember the last time you invited someone who is unchurched to church with you. Even when the church has bridging events for the community, you don't invite anyone to come. Rather than talk to someone who needs Him, you retreat into a "holy huddle" of other believers and talk to them about Him, whether that be a Sunday school class, a Bible study or a small group. And within the safety of that family you convince yourself you are content.

Suddenly you look around your life and you've lost contact with the world Jesus came to save. As you've grown older in the faith you've also grown distant from the "seekers" and from being a "seeker" like Jesus.

What's happened? In my next post I'll talk about the need in our lives for balance. Real Christian maturity, like Jesus, must be balanced with a passion for growing in the faith and going out to reach the yet faithless.

The effects of corrosion

I'm in the process of selling a rental property. Last week a couple gave us a contract on it, which is great news to us. As expected they hired an inspector to look the place over with a fine tooth comb for any issues that need attention.

He found a few things - most were minor and easily repaired without having to hire a pro. But one could have been troublesome. Actually it was two - both exterior GFI outlets weren't working.

I wondered if the outlets had ever been used. Probably not. And I wondered if somehow they had never been properly wired. Were they even connected to the panel box? There wasn't anything labeled in there saying "exterior GFI". But surely these outlets were working when the condo was built 5 years ago or it shouldn't have passed inspection. Now there's an assumption.

I'm no electrician. Electricity scares me. And honestly, I know enough to be dangerous (to myself)! But before I hired one to check it out I'd do the obvious. Hopefully it was something simple.

The test/reset buttons weren't working on either outlet. So I pulled one outlet out and saw what could be the problem. Rust. The scourge of the Outer Banks. The screws that connect the wiring to the outlets were rusted on one of the outlets. Five years of salt had rendered the outlets powerless.

These are outdoor outlets. And although they have a cover and a seal, our proximity to the ocean (about a half mile away) meant exposure to salt. It's a given here. Salt spray from the ocean and electrical connections aren't a good mix. In fact, it's a major cause of fires along the ocean front. So off I went to Home Depot to pick up a couple new outlets.

One of the old ones had noticable rust so I clipped off the ends of the wires and trimmed them back to connect with clean copper. And once I got the new outlets in, guess what? Everything works fine. The problem wasn't the source of the power. The wiring from the panel box to the outlets was even through a GFI circuit breaker. The problem was the corrosion preventing the power from connecting with the outlets.

In spiritual terms corrosion is the result of sin in our lives. It doesn't have to be a deliberate separation from God. Usually it's the accumulation of trudging through life. The "salt" finds its way into our lives. And when that happens we lose "contact".

David the psalmist wrote that if we regard sin (corrosion) in our hearts we lose contact with God. It blocks our communication with Him. It's not that He's shut off the power. It just can't do its work in our lives because of the sin. And sin separates us from God.

Fortunately for us, it's an easy fix. Faith in Christ gives us the privilege of confession to God, and based on Jesus' shed blood on the cross, that confession renews the contact, removing the corrosion. It is an amazing thing. All it costs me is the admission to God that I've been wrong. Of course it's not just saying words, "I'm sorry". God can see through words. He's looking at heart change. Am I ready to throw the old, corroded life away and allow Him to replace it with something new and clean?

But the wind keeps blowing the salt. Five years is too long between renewal. For me 5 days is way too long. How about you?