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Category: 2 Corinthians (Page 7 of 13)

Living the Righteousness of God

May 15, 2013 / / 1 Comment

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” ~2 Corinthians 5:21

If 2 Corinthians 5 is about Christian ministry and if the focus of Christian ministry is on the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus, then our message and our ministry are both aimed at reconciliation. Paul claims that God initiates this reconciliation. He is the author of reconciliation. He has made us righteous and brought us into holy relationship with him through his risen Son. And — here’s the really exciting part — he has given us both the message and the ministry of reconciliation. We are his ambassadors, Paul says. We are commissioned by this God of reconciliation to represent him and his Kingdom in reconciling the world back to himself.

It’s not just a message that we’re supposed to preach and teach; it’s not just a truth we’re supposed to believe and affirm; it’s not just an inspiring email we forward to all our church friends; it’s not just a fish or a cross on the back of our truck. “That in him we might become the righteousness of God” means we must embody this reconciliation. We’ve experienced it. By God’s grace we’re experiencing it every hour. And our Savior is calling us to live it, to actually become the “righteousness of God.”

That’s a whole lot different from merely accepting the righteousness as a gift.

My main problem here is that for so long I assumed that head knowledge, mere doctrinal assent, was what was required. Understanding the reason and logic behind the atonement is not the same as actually receiving the gospel and having your life radically transformed by it.

Robert W. Yarbrough calls for Christians to have a clear and active sense of what it means to be a “new creation,” living under and in the power of the righteousness of God:

“They have contented themselves with a weak doctrine of faith, a pale facsimile of Paul’s robust ‘righteousness of God’ unleashed in believers’ lives. If the word that proclaims righteousness is believed, that which arises is love and action. Where that action is lacking, there is good reason to suppose the heart still languishes in unbelief. There may be assent, there may be emotional affirmation, there may be selective obedience to gospel imperatives. There may even be impressive displays of religious activity. But when Jesus called for taking up the cross and following him, he probably had something more radical in mind than motoring to an air-conditioned sanctuary, amen-ing the show, and returning to the real life of Sunday TV and family fun after sumptuous repast at the crowded new restaurant that everyone is dying to try.”

The righteousness of God is comprehensive, all-embracing, and life-transforming. We are called to embody it. Yes, as his ambassadors, we are commissioned by God to proclaim his peace to his enemies through the death and resurrection of the Christ. But, as his ambassadors, we are called to represent our risen King and his everlasting Kingdom in our very lives. We make the first moves in reconciling with others. We take the initiative in bringing about reconciliation in our churches, in our families, and in our neighborhoods. We announce the peace, the righteousness, and then we partner with God in the difficult work of living it for the sake of others.

Peace,

Allan

A Powerful Weapon Against Satan

March 8, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“You ought to forgive and comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him… in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” ~2 Corinthians 2:7-11

The situation in the Corinthian church was critical: a sorrowful, repentant brother and a congregation reluctant to forgive and restore. The apostle Paul knows that Satan will attempt to use this circumstance against the Kingdom of God. The devil is hell-bent on destroying the mutual forgiveness and acceptance that is supposed to characterize the people of God. We, the Church, are the evidence — we’re the banner, the big flashing billboard, the huge neon sign — we’re the proof, the testimony of God’s redeeming work in Christ and the unity created by the Holy Spirit. Forgiving and restoring this brother, reaffirming their love for this brother, would prove to the whole world that Jesus really is who he says he is and he really is changing people.

Well, Satan can’t let that happen. So the devil does what he does best. He tempts the congregation to bear a grudge. To judge. He tempts us to pride. And arrogance.

“That guy can’t just say ‘I’m sorry’ and expect you to roll over and act like nothing happened. You’ve got to stand up here. You need to teach this guy a lesson. This guy needs to prove himself first. He’s not equal to you. Yeah, you’ve got some sin in your life; but you’ve never done what this guy did!”

Do you hear Satan?

“I suppose maybe you can forgive him; but that doesn’t mean you have to talk to him. OK, go ahead and forgive him; but that doesn’t mean he might not need to find another church.”

You ever heard that in your ear before? Or in your heart? That’s the devil talking, it’s not God’s Holy Spirit.

More than anything, in this situation, Satan wants the sorrowful brother or sister to be overwhelmed. The devil wants the outcast to feel empty and useless and all alone. So the devil does what he does best. He accuses. And he lies.

“These people will never understand you. They can’t relate to you. Nobody in that church has ever done what you’ve done. Everybody’s got friends here except for you. You’ll never be accepted. You’ll never get connected. You’re always going to be alone.”

Do you hear Satan?

“They say they forgive you, they say they love you. But you’re the only one who knows the truth: You can’t even forgive yourself. You can’t even really love yourself. These things you’ve done, those things that have happened to you, that deal you’re going through right now, nobody in the Church can help you with that.”

You ever heard that in your ear before? In your heart? That’s not God’s Spirit talking, it’s the devil.

God’s Spirit says forgive. Comfort. Reaffirm your love.

Satan cannot outwit us, the devil has no power over us as long as we’re ministering in these ways with one another and in the world. Forgive. Comfort. Reaffirm your love.

Naming and exposing sin is not at the core of what it means to live for the glory of God. Finger-pointing is not the Gospel. Witch-hunting is not the Gospel. Shaming the outcast or ostracizing the wrongdoer is not ministry. Those are all Satan’s tools and methods.

Forgiving sin! That’s Gospel! Forgiving sin! That’s Christian ministry done in the name and the manner of Jesus! Forgiving!

Scripture doesn’t tell us to grab a mop and a bucket and work harder to scrub the sin away from our lives and the lives of our neighbors and friends. And God doesn’t automatically remove all sin from our lives at baptism like exterminating roaches or amputating a diseased limb. Sin is not dealt with by more laws and rules. It’s not handled by isolation and shame. The Holy Creator deals with our sin by forgiving us!

And that’s how we deal with it, too.

Forgiveness isn’t going soft. It’s not wimpy or sissy to forgive. It’s not an apathetic or ineffective shrug of the shoulders. Forgiveness is hard-edged, hard-core, bad-to-the-bone Gospel! Forgiveness is the white-hot flame of resurrection love forged in the fiery furnace of the cross! Forgiveness doesn’t ignore the sin. And forgiveness doesn’t avoid the pain. Forgiveness deals with the problem head on. And it opens the door to healing. It clears the path for Holy Spirit transformation. Forgiveness is powerful. It’s a mighty and miraculous wonder that comes straight from heaven. And it’s a nuclear arsenal of unstoppable might against the devil and his schemes.

Peace,

Allan

New Creation Reality

February 7, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, new creation! The old has gone, the new has come!” ~2 Corinthians 5:16-17

We’ve absolutely got to change the way we look at things. It’s so much bigger than we think.

Christianity is not the statement that God exists and sent Jesus to the earth to save us and, because of that, now makes demands of us. The New Testament is not a systematic approach to ethics or a rational outline of morality. Scripture is not a book of rules that inform us of how we should act in this circumstance or in that situation. Jesus did not come to this earth to bring a new ethic or a new set of morals. Jesus came here to bring us a brand new reality!

If anyone is in Christ… new creation! (The two words “he is” don’t appear in the original Greek text.) In Christ, it’s just “new creation!” Period. Or exclamation point, I suppose. New creation! Everything’s new. All of creation is brand new. Everything looks new. Everything is reinterpreted. Jesus is not an add-on to the story; he IS the story! Jesus is not the missing piece to the puzzle; he is the puzzle! And the box it came in! And the card table and the chairs and the fire in the fireplace! That’s the reality. God through Christ is redeeming this planet, he’s restoring all of creation, and so he rightfully claims every part of us. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you think. From the moment you wake up until the minute you go to sleep, God claims all of it in Jesus. His perfect will is that every bit of it is holy. So we don’t belong to ourselves. Every second of our time and every square inch of our bodies belong to the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

It’s bigger than we think.

When you put on Christ in baptism, when you accept God’s will for your life to be holy and sanctified and exactly like him, everything’s new. It’s panoramic. It’s all inclusive. It’s rich and deep, it gets in to every crack and crevice of your existence. It all belongs to God and he’s claiming it. There’s no room for other gods, there’s no place for selfish behavior, there’s no time to waste in worldly pursuits. There’s no need for anything else.

Christianity is not a verse for this and a passage for that. It’s not. What am I supposed to do in this business situation? What should I say about this family crisis? When I’m confronted with this, how do I act? What are my obligations in this circumstance? Well, let’s go look in the Bible…

I’m sorry, there’s not a verse for everything. You can’t go book, chapter, verse on a whole lot of things. But I don’t want a verse to determine my conduct situation by situation. I want the reality of the new creation. I want the reality of God’s claim on my life in Jesus Christ to be pushed into the room and dominate everything I do and everything I say and everything I think about. It has to. It has to be at the very center of my being and the very reason for my life.

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.” ~1 Thessalonians 4:3

I want to be completely wrapped up in God’s claim on my life. I want to be totally dependent on Jesus for my salvation. I want to be thoroughly led by the Spirit inside me to sanctification and holiness. It’s bigger than we think. And I want it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, our children’s minister here at Central, Mary McNeill, finally had her baby, fifteen days past her due date and and fourteen days past the last date chosen in our office pool. (Congratulations, Connie!) Mary and Todd had decided not to find out beforehand if this fourth child was a boy or a girl, which only added to the considerable interest and anticipation surrounding the whole thing. When we learned that the baby was born yesterday afternoon at just before 4:00, the curiosity became almost unbearable. When 5:30 rolled around and I still didn’t know the gender of this latest little McNeill, I decided to text Mary. After all, I’d been receiving calls and texts all day asking me about the baby. Plus, I’d have to announce the news to our Sneed Hall Bible Class at 7:00. I needed to know. Here’s the whole conversation:

“I’m going to start sending tons of people straight to your hospital room if I don’t get some baby information. STAT!!!”

“Baby born at 3:49, 7lbs. 6oz., 19 inches long. Will tell you the name after my kids get here.”

“Congratulations. Boy or girl? You’re killing me.”

“I can’t tell you until my kids get here and see. They didn’t want us to tell them over the phone, they wanted to find out for themselves.”

“Again, congratulations. I’m not sure what your kids have to do with me. Or why you won’t tell the one person on this earth you know has no facebook, no facetime, no twitter, no skype, no instagram, and no possible other way to communicate with anybody other than a really slow text. Girl, right?”

“Because the man with the least amount of technology also has the biggest mouth.”

“Will I find out before church?”

“Yes, probably in the next 15-25 minutes.”

“Never mind. I’ve lost interest.”

The news we wanted came a few minutes later. Ava Grace (I knew it was a girl!) came into the world, into the McNeill family, and in to the hearts of her Central church family as a perfect little gift from our Father above. She’s beautiful. And she’s a tremendous blessing. Congratulations to Todd and Mary, Kathryn and Ethan and Lauryl. We join you in thanking God for the gift of this precious child. And we can’t wait to see what our faithful Lord does with her and in her to his eternal glory and praise.

Peace,

Allan

Beyond the Laws

November 8, 2012 / / 0 Comments

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” ~Romans 12:2

Renewing the mind is, by definition, an internal process. Those of us who are baptized followers of Christ understand that God’s Holy Spirit lives inside us, shaping us into the image of our Creator. And that includes the changing of our very minds, the transformation of the very ways we think.

In God’s great wisdom, he has determined that this is a much better way to go about things than following laws. We know that laws cannot conceivably cover all the issues and circumstances we face in life. No matter how detailed the laws are — God’s laid down a few and we’ve come up with plenty ourselves! — they will always fail to cover some situation.

Living like Christ is not about conforming to commands. That kind of theology leads to duplicitous living. Some disciples are “Christian” in their behavior regarding laws they’ve been taught but thoroughly worldly when it comes to those things not specifically covered in Scripture. A Christian may not abort her baby because she’s been taught not to do that. But she may harbor racist attitudes or fudge on her taxes without batting an eye.

If renewing the mind is as important as Paul says, then the goal of the Church should be forming Christian minds in our people. We should be teaching and preaching beyond what is right and wrong and work as much — if not more — on shaping a worldview that puts Christ and our Christian transformations at the center.

“Inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” ~2 Corinthians 4:16

Peace,

Allan

Renewed Day by Day

October 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I keep giving Terry Rush the credit when I quote his wonderful insights from 2 Corinthians 4:16:

“Inwardly, we are being renewed day by day.”

God’s Holy Spirit is making us new every day. Our Lord is re-inventing us, re-energizing us, re-charging us every day. Terry looks at this verse and says, “We’re all in the youth group!” We’re being made younger every day. We have no excuses for acting old and worn out. We’re being renewed every day!

Terry is going to die long before I do. And when he does, I’m going to go all the way and steal his “We’re all in the youth group!” line and make it my own.

The annual Fall Festival here at Central is the one night when most of us really do act like we’re all a bunch of little kids. Sneed Hall was jam packed Wednesday evening with more than 500-people — some in costume, some not in costume, some I couldn’t tell — at least half of whom I don’t think are members of our congregation. We judged pumpkin carvings, sang Karaoke, ate hot dogs and nachos and cotton candy, and donned huge blowup suits to battle one another in an inflated boxing ring. The littlest kids threw bean bags and skipped through the cakewalk while the older ones changed tires with an air wrench and twirled hula hoops.

What I love most about the Fall Festival is the way our older members at Central jump right into the fray. Our older members are dressing up and running the booths. Chasing runaway footballs and applying stick-on tattoos, passing out candy and fudging the masking tape line on the floor just a tiny bit so the little girl in the princess suit can win a prize. Fall Festival is always for the kids; the food and the booths and the music and all the activities are designed for the children. But I get such a kick out of the way our older members seem to be having just as much fun as our kids. Our older people are down on the floor with the kids, high-fiving the kids, complimenting and encouraging the kids. And they’re grinning from ear to ear. I didn’t know some of these people were capable of smiling, much less these great big gut laughs! But we get them in a room full of children, and it just happens.

What a joy it is when our older people embrace our younger kids with the love and grace of Jesus. And what a blessing to see that love and grace returned ten-fold to those who give it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Terry Rush, the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Tulsa has announced the lineup of keynote speakers for the upcoming Tulsa Workshop in March that includes author Francis Chan. Internationally influential pastor and preacher, New York Times best selling author, keynote speaker at the Tulsa Workshop. Now Chan’s life’s work is complete.

Peace,

Allan

We’re Not Alone

September 13, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Since our sins first separated us from our God, he has longed to live with us again. His covenant with us communicates our Father’s desire for intimate relationship with his people. From the Law (“I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.” Leviticus 26:12) and the Prophets (“My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God and they will be my people.” Ezekiel 37:27) to the New Testament (“I will live with them and walk among them.” 2 Corinthians 6:16) through the end of time (“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.” Revelation 21:3),  the promise is that God will live with us.

The gift of God’s Holy Spirit is the ultimate fulfillment of those great covenant promises. God not only lives with his children, he actually dwells inside us! It doesn’t get any more intimate than that!

It’s Christ’s greatest gift to us as we wait for his triumphant return: the power of his actual presence inside us. God’s Holy Spirit is alive and powerful and real. He’s very real. And he lives inside all of us who confess Jesus as Lord and put our faith for salvation in God through Christ. The Holy Spirit lives within and moves about and works through the Church. And that actually scares some of us. That makes some of us nervous. Some of us might think we talk too much about the Holy Spirit or we rely too much on the Holy Spirit. Some of us are leery of that.

But those worries are unfounded. There is no need to be concerned. This is our heavenly Father we’re talking about. The One who is motivated solely by his great love for us. The One who acts only in our best interests.

Jesus promises around the dinner table on that last night to send the Spirit of Truth. And that is a wonderful blessing! Christ gives us the actual presence of God. He gives us unbridled access to the Father. For us, the presence of God is not an elusive thing way off in the clouds somewhere. It’s not to be sought at the top of a shaking and smoking mountain. It’s not hiding away in a faraway chapel or ancient church building on the other side of the world. God’s Spirit is not above us or beside us. He’s within us. He lives inside us. It doesn’t get any more relational or personal than that.

Peace,

Allan

 

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