Keys to the Kingdom

When I was younger I saw everything as pure black and white with very little gray. As I’ve matured in my spiritual walk I have come to realize that yes there are doctrinal issues that we must take a firm and unshakable stand on, but there are other things that are more culturally driven or even spiritually unclear questions. These questions are what I want to address in this paper: things like contemporary or traditional music, liturgical or non-liturgical style services, the proper role of women in the church, gifts of the spirit and many more that I could mentioned.

How do we address these issues? How do we resolve them to the general satisfaction of the individual independent local church or denominational group?

I believe that before the Lord’s death he gave us the tools to deal with these issues. Further I believe that the book of Acts gives us a prime example of how to deal with these divisive issues. I call it the Keys of the Kingdom.

In Matthew 16 Simon Peter has declared that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God. The passage continues with Jesus blessing Peter and made reference to Peter being “a stone” but the truth that Peter has proclaimed is “a boulder” upon which Jesus will build his church. Then I believe Jesus said one of the most puzzling yet profound things he ever said to the twelve (and not just to Peter):

¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Matthew 16:19 (NIV)

To understand this verse we must remember a number of things. Matthew who records this saying is writing to Jewish believers. As such he is showing that Jesus is not only the greatest Rabbi to ever have lived but also Jesus is the promised Messiah and the very Son of God.

 Rabbis had a way of teaching and they often spoke in “Rabbiese” much like many Christians today speak “Christianese” If you lived in the culture of the time you will understand what Jesus is saying. But being almost 2000 years removed and living in a western culture vs. a Hebraic eastern culture we miss the significance of the message. 

When a student (disciple) was ready to graduate from his training under his teacher (rabbi or master) he would be granted permission to carry on his teacher’s work. If he encountered a situation that the teacher had not specifically covered he was given permission to make decisions based upon his understanding of training for the teacher and his followers. He was given the “keys to the kingdom.”

Now this played out in the early church with what is known as the first Jerusalem council in the 15^th chapter of the book of Acts (the history book of the early church). Paul and his fellow missionaries had shared the good news with Jews and gentiles alike. This influx of gentile believers of Jesus Christ into the church had caused concern for the more traditional Jewish believers. Did these non-Jewish believers need to convert to Judaism (with all of it’s rituals and rules) or not.

Both sides presented their concerns and positions to the leadership of the church that included not only the apostles that were in Jerusalem but also the church leaders (specifically James) of the mother church. Following the discussion and after seeking God’s direction through prayer James made his judgment. Gentile did not have to become Jews to be considered full followers of Christ. The leadership of the church had practiced Matthew 16:19 and the Lord blessed their decision with a great influx of gentile believers in the years to come.

So how does all of this apply to some of the more the cultural questions you have asked me to address? My answer is that some answers need to be made based on carefully seeking God’s will for our local church. Not every church will come to the same conclusion and that is fine in not essential doctrines. Each church (and leader for that matter) will stand before God to give an account for what they decided. There will be occasions when these decisions will be right for one group but not another. And that is okay. Paul and Barnabas agreed to disagree regarding taking John Mark on a missionary journey and they separated ways. The net result was that the gospel reached more people because they multiplied their efforts. Neither was right or wrong. Furthermore what might be right at one point in our journey might change with the passing of time. Later in life Paul commented on how helpful John Mark had become to him in the ministry after previously rejecting him for that second mission.

In conclusion while I have opinions and preferences on cultural issues I am more desirous to partner with the spiritual leadership of the church to seek God’s leading and do His will regarding these and other non-essential issues. Our concern should always be what does the Lord want and not what do we want. After all we have all been taught to say “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”

Now if I can just find those keys…

Pastor Val

I’m Willing

I just came back from attending the 2011 Global Leadership Summit. It was two days of nonstop learning this year. Often there is a session or two that are less than stellar but this year it seemed like I came away with handfuls from every session.

One specific session dealt with leading under difficult situations. We heard the stories of two modern leaders who lead under remarkably difficult conditions. Their unique stories were more reminiscent to the martyrs of bygone eras not experiences of the 21^st century.

The final message of this session was taken from Jeremiah, a book out of the Old Testament section of the Bible. It really was an overview of the ministry life of this ancient prophet who was chosen by God to speak to the nation of Judah of coming judgment if they failed to return to God.

On a scale of one to ten with one being the lowest possible results of a lifetime of ministry Jeremiah’s would have to be pegged at a minus 3 at the best. But through it all and even after a chapter or two of complaints Jeremiah comes to the conclusion that in spite of the difficulties and dangers serving God is better then any alternative.

During one point in the message a large piece of pottery was shattered on stage to remind us of the brokenness of all of us and yet God can still use us in our brokenness. At the beginning of the day each of us was given a broken piece of pottery. After the session we were asked to consider writing a message on it indicating our willingness to serve regardless of what our called to do and then to date it.

My message read “I’m willing! 8-12-11”

Now I have to say that I have said this to God for the past year to year and a half but God’s answer has been wait…not yet. Apparently I had (more likely still have) lessons to learn before I’m properly prepared for what God has next for me.

BTW waiting is not one of my strong suits but the thing about learning patience is that it takes time. It’s kind of like on the job training!

I have to be honest when I came home I put the piece of pottery on the counter and never bothered to tell my wife or anyone else about it. I had some errands to take care of this morning and didn’t get back home until mid afternoon when I finally checked my email prior to doing some finishing work on my message for tomorrow.

Sitting in my inbox was an email from a church I had sent my resume to eleven months ago. Five months ago I had received a communication from them inquiring if I was still available and interested in this church. A month ago I had sent them an email checking with them to see where they were in their process and had heard from them that I was still being considered.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of hunting for a job or ministry lately I have to tell you that you can usually tell by thickness of the letter or whether an email has an attachment if you are still being considered. Thin letters or emails without attachments usually mean that you are no longer being considered for the job/ministry. But thick letters or emails with attachments usually mean that you are still being considered and td you have a questionnaire to fill out.

I’m sure that you are wondering about the email I received this afternoon… It contained an attachment and I’ve been asked to fill out a questionnaire.

Now I’m not saying that my wait is over or the church that contacted me is the one that God has for me but it is kind of exciting to realize that God heard my prayer and wanted to encourage me during my patience experience.

Just clay in the Potter’s hand

Pastor Val

Knowing God’s Will ... for Others

Have you ever had someone other than God play Holy Spirit in your life?

If you have, you know the sense of frustration in dealing with these “well meaning people.” It has always amazed me how the Lord always seems to tell them what He wants me to do but fails to reveal His will to me. When Paul writes in his letter to Timothy he says  ^“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Timothy 2:5 (NIV). Too often these “well-meaning people” substitute their name in place of Jesus.

Now I’m not talking about the clear will of God, like God’s desire that no one should perish but all come to the saving knowledge of God. Nor am I referring to things like the 10 commandments. What I am referring to are areas in our lives where we need to determine God’s will for our lives.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Suppose you felt God’s call to the mission field, a field where you had originally been born into and spent the first 20 years of your life. After years of preparation and raising support you arrive on the field. You have spent four years of successful ministry there and have seen substantial fruit and now you travel back to the states for a furlough.

While you are back here in the USA you meet with the missions committee of your sending church and there are new people at the helm of the missions committee (or board). They review what your ministry and decide that they feel the Lord is calling you to another portion of the country where they speak the same language but the dialect and customs are different.

Let’s throw one more wrinkle into the mix. Let’s suppose that you are a native of the province where you have been serving and you understand the people who you are ministering to. The Lord hasn’t bothered to clue you into this change in His will but you are assured by this leader of your home church that this is God’s will for you and unless you change your ministry location they will cease funding you.

Or what if you are the pastor of a church and a person of prominence tells you that the direction that you believe God is leading the church is wrong?

Is this any different then the non-follower of Jesus who tells you that the decision or direction you believe God is leading you is wrong?

Do these people speak for God? Why has God chosen to speak to them but He has never bothered to clue you in?

What would you do? Where would you turn? Who would you believe? 

We rely on the one true mediator between God and man – Jesus. We spend time in dialog with Him. Notice I said dialog and not monologue! Way too often we are way to fearful of what man thinks and we’re too willing to obey man rather than God!

Are you willing to follow the revealed will of God for your life? The will that he promises to reveal to you and not another? Even if it means loss of position or funds or even prestige?

Follow God regardless of the outcome (at least form a human perspective). Do it for His glory so that his Kingdom is advanced!

²⁹ Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men!

⁴¹ The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.
Acts 5:29, 41 (NIV)

What great example for us! 

May we also be willing to follow God’s leading regardless if man agrees or not!

Pastor Val

Missions for the 21st Century

Missions are being done differently in the 21^st Century! With the glocalization of the world it is becoming easier for the average layperson to become more actively involved in missions. Many evangelical churches are changing their entire strategies to meet this brave new world.

What I mean by this is that each church or person can look at the gifts that they have and the talents that they have in the local bodies and seek ways of using these unique skill sets and gifts to meet local needs as well as globally. For example a teacher can help local at risk kids learn and perhaps help develop current teaching techniques for schools overseas. Another example would be for farmers to help farmers in drought stricken areas use better methods of irrigating crops to raise more food. Even a biologist could help engineer seeds that might be more drought resistant. All of these would be ways of seeking to fulfill Jesus charge in Matthew 25:34-40

Matthew 25:40 (NIV)
⁴⁰ "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Of course we must never loose sight of our calling in Matthew 28: 18-20.

Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)
¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

We are commanded to make disciples (which is a life-long process, by the way) and to do so in all the world.

So our goal should be to do this locally, regionally, by country and throughout the entire world. Act 1:8

We need to be intentional in our approach to missions. I believe that this starts with prayer on our part and listening to and following God’s voice and leading. It means realizing that in some instances we need to make use of our resources and give them to local people on the ground who can more effectively reach their local communities.

I have been helping a local ministry in India prepare and train pastors to go back to their local communities to plant churches. It support for a local pastor in a village is approximately $1000 a month and in a city the cost rises to approximately $2000-2500. Compare that to an American missionary in India where we would have to support them to the tune of $4000-7000 a month.

In other instances we need to continue to send people to the foreign field some in long term instances and other times in short term capacities. Sometimes as support for local leaders, other times to raise up local leaders to carry on the ministry. For example China is said to have had only a few believers prior to the expulsion of foreign missionaries but a generation later this number had grown to tens of million or even a hundred million believers because of faithful local leadership.

All of these examples and more have their place in our missions’ philosophy. We need to effectively use God’s resources to extend His Kingdom both here and abroad for the express purpose of bringing Glory to Him!

How’s your serve?

Pastor Val

Rest Area Ahead!

I have been thinking about waiting on the Lord and what it means to wait. So often I grow impatient for the fruition of the plan that God vision that God has given me and confirmed for me, especially over the last few years.

I remember Moses who was impatient to be about the task God laid on his heart to be an advocate for his people Israel. Many of you remember the story how he took matters into his own hands and in the process of trying to do the right thing ended up becoming a killer and had to flee the courts of Egypt to save his life. He spent forty years in the palace of the Pharaoh only to spend the next forty years of his life tending sheep in the wilderness. It was only after eighty years had passed that God deemed him ready to lead the nation of Israel out of captivity and begin their journey to the promise land. He led his people for the next forty years of his life. It is interesting to note that a full two thirds of his life was in preparation for the last third of his life.

Then I turned my attention to David and how he waited fifteen years after he was anointed to be the next king of Israel before he sat upon the throne of his tribal family Judah. It took another seven years before he would rule a united kingdom of all twelve of the tribes of Israel.

I have to admit that I feel a little anxious thinking that I might be taking longer then Moses or even David to learn my lessons for the next phase of my ministry. Do you ever feel that way? Anxious for the next thing? Perhaps we are wishing our lives away.

I would encourage you to learn to rest in the Lord while you wait. Yeah I know easier said then done. I’m still struggling with this. Perhaps the problem is that I’m struggling! But I am reminded that God offers everyone of his followers a Sabbath Rest. His rest comes with a heaping helping of His shalom. (We often translate this word into the English word – peace. But it is so much more than that it is a fullness and contentment of the soul that leads to the Sabbath rest that the writer of Hebrews speaks about.)

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God – Hebrew 4:9

I desperately want to enter into that rest today. To allow cares and worries to fall away and rest in the arms of God safe, secure and at rest being content at what He has for me and for all who seek to find rest unto their souls!

Heading to the next Rest Area

Pastor Val

Out of Left Field

Have you ever noticed how often God answers our prayers in the most unusual way?

Recently I’ve had a number of experiences where I cried out to God for someone in need, in need of help for myself, or even encouragement during an extremely difficult time. He has answered my requests just not the way I expected him to. For those of us who are Christ followers, if we were honest, we would have to admit that more times then not – no make that most of the time God never answers our prayers the way we think he should.

While musing on this fact I started calling it God’s left field answers!

Now the phrase "out of left field" is popular vernacular (first attested in 1961) meaning "wildly unrelated to the subject being discussed", and "out in left field" means "a little crazy". One theory involves the "Death Valley" in Yankee Stadium circa 1923–1988. During this time period, the shape of the outfield in Yankee Stadium roughly approximated an oval, with the "long" portion pointing to left-center. A left-fielder would thus typically be stationed further back from the action than the center or right fielders, as he would have a greater amount of ground to cover. Hence, "out in left field" meant one was furthest from the action taking place at home-plate, and the most likely to draw erroneous, fanciful conclusions about that action. Another, likely apocryphal, theory is that this refers to the popularity of seats in right field at Yankee Stadium while Babe Ruth was playing that position; buying a seat in left field would have been "stupid". Another theory is that this arose at Chicago's second West Side Park, home of the Chicago Cubs from 1893 to 1915. After the Cubs moved to what is now Wrigley Field, the West Side Park property eventually became the home of the University of Illinois College of Medicine. The U of I built its Neuropsychiatric Institute building in what had been left field. A fourth theory is derived directly from the experience of players. A runner attempting to score from third base will have ones's [sic] back to left field, thus a throw to the plate "out of left field" can arrive seemingly out of nowhere as a surprise to the runner. (My thanks to Wikipedia.org)

When I pray I often imagine how I think God should answer my prayers. In fact I find that I often try to plan out all of God’s actions for him. After all I think I’m a fairly intelligent guy and I can’t imagine why or how God could come up with a better solution to the problem then I’ve envisioned. Then God answer my prayer and it rarely happens how I planned it all out!

I’m once again reminded of God’s greatness and his complete otherness to me, and the rest of humanity. I need his gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) reminder of the lack of a vacancy in the Trinity. That his plan is better by far then ours could ever be.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

⁸ "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
⁹ "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So Lord please keep answering my prayers out of left field

Pastor Val

Reconnecting to Your Network

This past week I’ve had nothing but computer problems on not one but three different computers! One was a simple fix of renewing my antivirus software. But the website wouldn’t recognize me so I couldn’t login for a couple of days until I could get logged into my account and pay for the renewal.

The second computer caught a bug that stopped me from being able to connect to the internet except for a website that wanted to sell me a fix to my problem that they had caused by their Trojan virus. That took a couple of days to fix with the help of another computer and downloading a free fix that worked when the computer ran in the safe mode. Now in all fairness it could have been fixed sooner but I’m not an expert so it takes me a while to think through everything and come up with an action plan.

My last computer problem was the death of my backup battery for the cmos in the third computer. Now replacing a battery isn’t a big deal but upon reconnecting the computer to all the wires and cords I discovered that I was no longer able to find my intra-net at the office. So for the last few days I’ve been able to use the computer and surf the World Wide Web but I’ve been unable to get to any files on the server or use any printers other than the one directly connected to my computer.

First I tried to fix the problem myself being the great computer guru I am (see my comment above) and after failing miserably I eventually called my friend and computer expert. “Together” we discussed my dilemma over the phone and he tried to help me. There were a number of small but necessary changes that we made to the operating system hoping to get the computer reconnected to the intra net but to no avail. Finally he suggested that I try refreshing my modem and router to see if that might solve the problem.

It DID! I was ecstatic and my friend was able to get rid of my annoying phone call.

Sometimes we forget that we need to refresh our connection with God and with community in general. Have you been feeling disconnected lately, perhaps your battery needs to be replaced, or maybe you have been infected with a virus?

If your battery is low your operating system won’t work and life will not boot up. If you have caught a virus your life will be infected and your life won’t run smoothly and often things just won’t work right. You will need to run a Biblical scan of your life and scrub it clean. Finally if you have had a problem with your life and you are trying to access your heavenly server, don’t forget to reboot your entire system so that you will be able to reconnect with God.

Scanning my life with the Word

Pastor Val