Category: Exploring Church Ministry Blog

Lost People Matter to God

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Hanging-out with “sinners” has always been a scandalous activity for Christians who do it.  The Pharisees had a big problem with how Jesus was spending his time (Luke 15:1-3).  From their perspective, Christ was guilty by association.  The people Jesus hung-out with were actual real unsavory characters; there was really no doubt about their bad character. 
 
But Jesus did not come to earth to make already righteous people feel good about being around him; he came to rescue sinners and restore them to God. 
 
And Jesus never wavered from this fundamental mission.  With everything he said and did, Jesus communicated that lost people matter to God – and that practice eventually got him killed.
 
            Earlier in my Christian life I adopted a practice that most Friday nights I would go to a certain bar known for its less than virtuous clientele, order a bowl of chili gumbo and sit and talk with people.  I learned a lot about speaking with people about Jesus.  I learned even more about God.  I saw the terrible brokenness of many people’s hearts, and saw that the heart of God was pained and that he longed to restore such persons.
 
            One night, in the middle of winter, as I was walking back to my place with a friend at about midnight, we encountered a guy so drunk that he could not walk straight.  He was not wearing a coat, and he had no pants – he was in twenty degree weather with only a shirt and underwear.  All the people who passed by him laughed and kept walking.  It took several minutes to get some semblance of a story out of him about what happened and where he came from and where he lived.  He could not remember losing his pants which had his wallet and keys.  He had come from a bar that was blocks away, so he had been outside for a while.  He lived far enough away that there was absolutely no way he would have ever made it home.  It is likely that without someone helping him he would have passed out somewhere and died.  We got him home, found a way to get in his place, and tucked him in his bed.
 
            The next day I went and checked on him and had a good conversation about what happened and why we helped.  We ended up meeting several times together and talked a great deal about God, sin, Jesus, and salvation.  But, meanwhile, not everyone was happy about it.  Some of the people in my church were not pleased with me spending time in a bar with sinners.  “Bad company corrupts good character” and “it looks bad” they would tell me.  I just looked at each person who had a problem with it and said with as much D.L. Moody flavor as I could:  “I like the way I am reaching out to lost people better than the way you are not.”
 
We are in danger of becoming encrusted with so much insulation from lost people and their real hurts that we do not know God’s heart for them. 
 
Jesus, better than any of us could ever imagine, knows how awful and horrific sin really is because he suffered by taking on the sinful baggage of every person who has ever lived.  It is a staggering thought.  So, because Jesus understands how incredibly terrible sin is, it is God who becomes completely uncorked with joy and celebration when just one lost sinner is restored to his heart.
 
            Grace lies at the heart of the Father – a scandalous grace that defies all earthly sense.  God’s deepest desire, God’s greatest yearning, and God’s most passionate dream is this: that lost people would return home (Luke 15:11-32).  We were meant to be in harmonious relationship with God.  When that is not true of people, it pains the heart of God and He longs for restoration. 
 
In light of the reality that God’s heart burns for lost people, churches really need to:  put away all their petty concerns and realize there are lost people dying apart from Jesus every day; put their worries about the future in biblical perspective because there are people with no hope and no God in our neighborhoods and workplaces; chuck their pre-occupations with attendance and money, and instead have a holy obsession with people coming to know Jesus Christ as Savior. 
 
We are to make it our aim in this life to pray for, long for, look for, run after, and pursue lost people for Jesus Christ. 
 

 

For what does it profit a person to gain the world but lose his/her life because he/she was too pre-occupied with everything but reaching lost people for Jesus?  And what does it profit a church to have buildings, budgets, and butts in the pew but to never see a lost soul come to Jesus?

The Skinny on Sin

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            If there is one constant thing that every church and each Christian will have to deal with until Jesus returns it is the ever-present reality of sin.  Sin is everywhere – in our hearts, in our world, in our institutions, and in our families.  It is on television, the internet, social media, and moves in and out of smartphones.  Sin, apparently, is even in our desserts (oh, the decadence of chocolate!).  If it takes one to know one, we are all experts on being sinners.
 
            From the Bible’s vantage, sin is serious business.  It is both the things we do (1 John 3:4), as well as the things we leave undone (James 4:17).  Sin is both the breaking of God’s commands, and the lack of conforming to the teachings of Jesus.  Christians throughout the ages have generally understood that the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and Christ’s law of love (Luke 10:27) constitute a brief summary of God’s holy and moral instruction for humanity.  This is all based in the character of God, as he is both holy and loving.  Sin, then, may be defined as anything in a person which does not express, or is contrary to, the basic character of God.
 
            All sin, whether in actions or inactions, has as its root an attitude and activity of self-centeredness.  It is the bent of thinking more about ourselves than of God.  And, oh my, the consequences that such an attitude results!  Sinful attitudes bring about an obsession with lust (1 John 8:34; Galatians 5:16); a broken relationship with God (Romans 3:23; Galatians 5:17); bondage to Satan (1 Timothy 3:6-7; 2 Timothy 2:26); death (Romans 6:23; 8:6); hardening of the heart (Hebrews 3:13); and deception (1 Corinthians 3:18; James 1:22, 26) just to a name a few.
 
            What all this means is that we are guilty of transgressing basic morality as well as failing to live up being ethically virtuous people on any on-going consistent basis.  Well, that sounds like a total Debbie-Downer.  Actually, it’s total depravity.  Being depraved people does not mean we are never capable of doing good; it just means that sin has profoundly touched everything in our lives, without exception.
 
            The ironic paradox of all this is that experiencing true joy and comfort comes through knowing how great our sin is.  We can only live above sin if we are set free from it by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  If a person is to be redeemed from sin, then a provision must be made.  Sin has been dealt with once for all through the person and work of Jesus.  He is our representative, taking our place with the punishment we deserved (Galatians 4:4-5; Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:9-15; Hebrews 2:17-18; 1 John 2:1).
 
            Jesus Christ is our ultimate substitute (Romans 5:8); which resulted in our redemption (Galatians 5:13); which resulted in his sacrifice for sin satisfying all justice (Romans 3:25); which resulted in our reconciliation to God (Romans 5:10).  Therefore the person who believes in Jesus is forgiven of sin because Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient to deal with all the effects of sin.  The Christian is complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).
 
            The sin issue has been dealt with decisively and definitively in Christ.  So, then, gratitude is in order for the church.  Christians ought to be the last people on earth that walk around looking like they were baptized in pickle juice.  Instead, Christians ought to be the most thankful and gracious people around because they are forgiven people.  A lack of joy and celebration betrays a lack of Christianity (Luke 15:25-32).
 

 

            Sin certainly is awful.  It destroys everything it touches and can leave terrible consequences in its wake.  But sin does not have the last word.  Thus, effective church ministry has at its core a solid teaching of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection which is the decisive blow to sin’s power.  Anything less isn’t a church, but a country club of people hob-nobbing over donuts and gossip.  The skinny on sin is that it is bad, really bad; but Jesus is good, and overcomes the worst that sin can throw at him.  Thank you, Jesus.

Repentance and Spiritual Fruit

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            One of the issues that every pastor and church leader faces is how to measure the success of the ministry, or the lack thereof.  It is tempting to merely assume that attendance, state of the budget, and how many programs are up and running evidences success.  Lots of people, money, and ministries do not by themselves constitute a healthy church any more than eating lots of food and spending lots of money on eating-out constitutes physical health.  In fact, it is just the opposite.  So, where are we to focus our energies?
 
The two big ideas that Jesus hammered home to the crowds who followed him are:  1) you need to repent; and, 2) you need to bear spiritual fruit (Luke 13:1-9).  The two go together:  a fruitless life points to the need for repentance; and, to truly repent results in bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.
 
            Jesus, in exhortation after exhortation, and parable after parable, relentlessly went after the fruitless dead religion of his day.  Our Lord believed that such religion needed to be cut out and thrown away.  So, he went after the assumptions that people have about sin, faith, and judgment.  Jesus challenged the presuppositions that people often hold onto which are false.  In dealing with them, Jesus wanted to foster repentance and fruit-bearing.
 
False Assumption:  Other people’s sin is more serious than mine.
 
            It is a common human tendency, apart from Christ, to focus on the bad things in the world and the things that other people do, rather than focus on our own heart and life.              It is so much easier to be a simpleton and believe that _____ so and so needs to be “fixed.”  When there are problems and circumstances which are less than ideal, it is sinful human nature that goes after a scapegoat.  But Jesus will have none of it.  You and I cannot control, change, or fix anyone else; but we can practice self-control, change our personal habits, and be the solution to our own problems.
 
            Christ cuts through all the crud of scapegoating and blame-shifting by saying that every single one of us needs to repent, without exception.  What is more, Jesus’ parables challenge us with a very probing thought:  Are we bearing fruit, or just taking up space?  When we howl for judgment on others, but insist on grace for ourselves then we are the ones with the biggest need for repentance.
 
False Assumption:  My sin isn’t that serious.
 
            When things go awry, many people assume they got a bum rap and were the victims of circumstances.  But Jesus will have none of it.  Here are some personal questions that place the focus on repentance and fruit-bearing: 
Do I continually locate sin outside of my life, or do I see the sinfulness of my own heart? 
Do I believe people in hard circumstances are more sinful than me? 
Do I think that doing things the way they have always been done is what is most important? 
Can I envision that growth and change is necessary for life and for the church? 
Can my life be described as fruitful, or fruitless? 
How can I become fruitful? 
What must I repent of? 
What will happen if I don’t repent?
 

 

            Yes, other people’s sin is serious; but so is mine!  And I must deal with my own sin.  If anybody wants to eat a hot dog, they probably should never see how they are made.  And if anybody wants to continue in a life of being angry, bitter, complaining, and blaming others then they probably should not look at their own hearts and see where all those attitudes are made.  Penitent hearts are what Jesus is looking for in us.

The Example of Christ

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
John 13:15 – “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
 
            When I am thinking about a particular Scripture passage and reflecting upon it, one of the things I often do is write out my own translation of the verses with some explanatory comments.  I also often place them in a more contemporary context.  I do this because I want to feel the original force and even scandal of the message.  As we think about the ministry of the church, we are to follow the example of our Lord Jesus.  So, here is the Gospel of John 13:1-17….
 
It was just before the biggest and most important feast of the year, Passover.  Jesus knew that it was finally the time for him to face the cross and die for the world’s sins.  Having spent the past three years loving his followers, he now wanted to leave them with a clear demonstration of his love that they would never forget.
 
The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already gotten a hold of Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus to those who wanted him dead and gone.  But it was all according to plan.  Jesus knew that his heavenly Father had given him all authority because he was his Son, and he was ready to do what needed to be done to secure salvation and return to his rightful place at his Father’s right hand.  So, Jesus got up from the meal, rolled up his sleeves, put an apron on, and ran a sink full of hot water.  Jesus told the servants to take the night off, and He began taking the dishes from the dinner table and started washing them, taking care to do all that waiters and dishwashers would do.
 
When Jesus came to take care of Simon Peter’s dishes and serve him dessert and coffee, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to serve me?”  Jesus replied, “I know you do not understand why I am doing this since it seems like something that is beneath me to do, but later you will look back on this night and understand completely what I am doing.”
 
“No,” said Peter, “this is not right – you are the Master and this is not what well-respected Rabbis do – you are only disrespecting yourself and making us all look foolish. You are not going to take my dishes and wash them.”
 
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash these dishes and serve you, you are not going to be able to follow me anymore and you will have no part of what I am doing in this world.”
 
“Well, then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “if that is the way it really is, then don’t just wash the dishes – come on over to my place and clean out the fridge and scrub the kitchen floor!”
 
Jesus answered, “A person who has had a decent meal needs only to wash the dishes so that he can enjoy the freedom of hospitable relationships with me and those around him.  And all of you here have had a decent meal, though not every one of you.”  For Jesus knew that Judas was only picking at his food in anticipation of betraying him.
 

 

When Jesus was all done washing the dishes and serving his disciples, he took his apron off, rolled his sleeves back down, and returned to the table.  He looked them all squarely in the eye and said, “Do you understand what I just did for you?  You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so, for that is exactly what I am.  So, now that I, your Master and your Teacher have washed your dishes, you also should wash one another’s dishes.  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.  I am telling you the plain truth that no follower is greater than the one he follows, nor is a preacher greater than the one he preaches about.  Now that you know that it is your task in this life to provide humble loving service, you will have God’s stamp of approval on your life if you quit thinking about how to have and use power for your own purposes, and start thinking about how to use the power and authority I am giving you to love other people into the kingdom of God.