discipleship

How Greed Works

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19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Matthew 6:19-24

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus lays out a vision for how His Kingdom can transform the lives of His disciples. He keeps our relationship with the stuff of earth connected to knowing the Heavenly Father. Jesus knows greed for more and anxiety because of scarcity hinder our experience of His love and our involvement in His mission.

Greed can take over our lives. He shows us three kinds of power at work in greed. I’m going to call them principles.

The treasure principle: “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” If you treasure money, then the affections of your heart and your best energy for life will go there.

The eye-health principle: “If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” The perspectives through which your see the world will affect your whole life. So, if you are seeing the world through the faulty lens of greed, you are going to damage your life and those around you.

The master principle: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” We thought we could be the master of our money or our wealth. But here’s what Jesus knows: money / wealth / the stuff of earth competes for the allegiance we only to the Giver of all good things. (Rich Mullins wrote this truth into a song) Jesus’ conclusion: You cannot serve both God and money. And money makes a terrible master.

So what are we to do?

We must establish God as master of our lives and our stuff. That will lead us to explore with Him, what the purpose of such stuff and our work is in His Kingdom. And we will begin to ask daily, “Jesus, what would you have me do with the stuff of earth entrusted me?

Going Through the Motions

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3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

4 Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in him, and he will act.

6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,

and your justice as the noonday.

7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;

fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,

over the man who carries out evil devices!

Psalm 37:3-7

Tai-Chi is martial arts in slow motion. I’m always intrigued when I watch lines of people at Queen Elizabeth park going through the motions. Apparently if sped up these very motions can guard your life against an enemy. These people are training their mind and  body. They are rehearsing the motions and postures of defence and some even suggest of good health.

In matters of the soul what we rehearse can save our life and shape our character. In Psalm 37 David is concerned with fortifying the soul against the faith-killing infections of envy and anxiety. When confronted with a world that is not fair and appears to be inhabited by people who prevail through wickedness, David directs his soul into the motions of faith in God.

Trust in Lord.

Delight yourself in the Lord.

Be still before the Lord.

Wait patently for the Lord.

These motions of prayer become the motions of life that shape our character with Jesus Christ. Instead of the brittle product of self entitlement and violence you can have the flexible and responsive product David latter identifies in Psalm 37 as meekness.

Let’s go through the motions of faith daily.

Live like an exile: Live Engaged!

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4“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.  Jeremiah 29:4-6

God addresses the Israelite captives in Babylon as people who are to live under Him and in His covenant no matter where they live. He has sent them. And now He commands them to engage in life there. Their temptation may have been to “keep their moving boxes” rather than unpack and settle down.

Build houses. Live in them.

Plant gardens. Eat the produce.

Take wives. Have a family.

Expand the family.

Multiply.

We are tempted to turn Christian discipleship into a perpetual retreat from life. Instead we are to engage in the activities of a good life as people under the graceful rule of Jesus the King. Our life together as the church includes engagement in the productive aspects of city and community life. Building, planting, forming relationships and creating family.

Are you living well?

Living well for a Christian is to somehow engage in the economy of Great Commission disciple-making. I really can’t read Jeremiah’s letter to exiles  through the lens of Jesus’ commands without taking hold of His call for the church to multiply disciples. Following a Mark 4 view of the Kingdom, we are to be a people who plant our lives in community, plant the Gospel in the lives of people, make disciples of those whom Jesus calls, and gather them into the church He is building. Exiles have longings. We are longing for Him to be fully revealed and in doing so we are becoming the people who reveal His Kingship… no matter where we live.

Praying for Our Extended Family

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12So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.16Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Hebrews 13:12-15
Religious persecution increases when those in government with power and those in society with social influence seek to control and dictate these matters of conscience. The rejection of religious freedom is a signal of greater dysfunction to come.
I have been praying for our Christian “extended family” in Iraq as ISIS advances. As many flee for their lives, others have not escaped. They bear the reproach of Jesus’ name. May the Lord Jesus comfort and strengthen them with grace. May the Kingdom of our Lord come. May those who bear His name offer praise and the confession of grace freely and be constrained to love in our broken world.

The end of fate

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The Christian world view is vitally optimistic.  Our Sovereign God has purposes that prevail and glory that will be manifest in all Creation.  He has granted the human experience a capacity that was not meant to be ruled by fatalism.

1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying,2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.  Jonah 3:1-4

Our active participation in life with Him means we become authors in His story.  The story of Jonah is not just about a city that repents (Jonah 3) but it is also of a man who has trouble with the character and will of God.

Culture, nationalism, prejudice, and love of self, conspire to create resistance.  When violence and oppression is normalized we yield to fatalism.  The “good” act like “those evil people” will never change.  The “evil” act like they have run out of choices.  Until God interrupts our lie, we will not know the end of fate.

God gave grace to the king of Nineveh.  The king recognized a God who was rightly angry.  We would say there is a God who cares that all is not right in the world.  The king said, “Who knows?  God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

Fate would require no opportunity.  But we have a God who creates opportunity.  For three days His prophet traversed that great city with a warning.  The city repented  This is the end of fate.  People can change.  They can be changed through an experience of the grace of God.

Ultimately we have Jesus who traversed heaven and earth to conquer the greatest liar and prince of death, Satan.  Jesus is the end of fate.  He invites us into His Kingdom of life.

Thank you Lord for the grace to hear and know you.