Sheep, Goats, and Snakes

Is it possible to have salvation and not be on mission with God?

Careful how you answer that!

Here are two contrasting (and shocking) parables from Jesus that help me understand the relationship between mission, belief, and salvation.

Sheep and Goats

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a story about the coming kingdom of heaven. He says that when He is on his throne, He will be like a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and welcome them into His kingdom. He will put the goats on his left and send them into eternal fire.

When the sheep ask "why am I a sheep?", and the goats ask "why am I a goat?", Jesus tells them it is because of what they had done to the 'least of these'. HE JUDGES THEM BY WHAT THEY DID. (Gulp!) If they had joined his mission of loving the 'least of these' (the poor, lost, and oppressed), they were in. If not, they were out.

You must join God's mission to enter into His kingdom! This is truth number one. (Notice, this does not at all negate the idea of grace - grace is still necessary. Just because you joined His mission doesn't mean you deserve to enter his kingdom; it just means you get to enter. You enter by grace.)

Snakes

In John 3:14-15, right before the famous John 3:16 verse, Jesus references an event from the time of Moses. In that time, the people of Israel had a snake problem. They were being bitten by poisonous snakes and dying. Eventually, the Israelites confessed their sin and Moses prayed for them. In response, God directed Moses to create a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. From that point on, if anyone was bitten by a snake, they could look at the pole, and live.

In verse 15, Jesus says that in the same way the bronze snake was lifted up, he must be lifted up so that all who believe in him will have eternal life. HE JUDGES THEM BY WHAT THEY BELIEVE. If people believe in him for salvation, they are in. If they don't, they are not.

You must believe in Jesus to enter His Kingdom. This is truth number two. (Notice, this also does not at all negate the idea of grace. Just because you believe in Him doesn't mean you deserve to enter his kingdom; it just means you get to enter. You enter by grace.)

Putting the sheep, goats, and snakes together

Truth #1 - You must join the mission of Jesus to enter His Kingdom.
Truth #2 - You must believe in Jesus to enter His Kingdom.

So which one is it? It is both! They are not opposed. True belief coincides with mission. True mission coincides with belief. They go together.

Jesus puts the truths together for us

For those of you who don't agree with Truth #1 (mission is required for salvation), look at Jesus words in Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

For those of you who don't think you need Truth #2 (belief is required for salvation), look at Jesus words in Matthew 7:22, "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons, and perform miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me you evil doers!' "

If you didn't notice, the two verses above are in sequence (Matthew 7:21-22). Jesus ties it together for us! We need both mission and belief to obtain salvation by grace.

Do you agree?

Multiplication vs. Addition

Multiplication is a natural tendency in the world. Whether it is population growth, the spread of a cold, or the spread of weeds in my yard, multiplication is the norm.

Jesus knew this. That is why he knew that if the Kingdom of God was ever going to make an impact it had to multiply. He told stories about yeast spreading through dough, about a mustard seed, about a seed in good soil that multiplies 30, 60 or 100 times, and about how a seed falls to the ground before another tree can grow. It is why he started with 12 disciples instead of 12,000. Jesus understood the power of multiplication.

This is a concept that business world and church world are rediscovering. If you ever want to grow at a rate faster than population growth, you must multiply. The church in China and India has experienced this seeing millions of believers were there had previously been thousands. Business has seen it happen with Facebook and Twitter - words we wouldn't have recognized a few short years ago which are now a part of our everyday life. The idea that each individual person can invite others into the process who then in turn invite others is a powerful one.

However, I fear as we try to implement the concept, we are too easily tricked. Whether we are talking about multiplying leaders, customers, churches, or trees, we often miss the key point. Namely, that for multiplication to be multiplication it has to continue past the second generation. The second generation must reproduce.

I think we too often see that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4, and we say 'we multiplied four times'. But this is inaccurate. We only added. Multiplication looks like this 1 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 8. We can be easily confused because the early stages look similar, but look what happens if you keep going.

4 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 7
8 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64

Now we see the difference emerging. So what's my point? If you want to change the world, do something that multiplies. The way to tell if you are multiplying is to look at the 3rd generation and beyond. Don't be fooled by looking only at the generation you started. If that generation doesn't reproduce, you are only adding.

Making Disciples vs Building Church

I've been spending some time reading the Gospels ... and had an interesting thought this morning.

Jesus gives us a clear command to 'go and make disciples' (Matthew 28:19). But, who did He say would build His church? He said 'I will build my church'. (Matthew 16:18)

Maybe we should spend less time worrying about how to do church, and more time worrying about how to make disciples. Seems like Jesus has said 'I'll take care of the church part.'

Just a thought.

Global Neighbors

For the first time in history the entire world is our neighbor. Isn't that amazing?

I'm reading a book called 'The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Stearns, the President of Worldvision. At one point in the book, Stearns reflects on the well known parable of the Good Samaritan. Realizing, that the Good Samaritan story is Jesus' response to the question "Who is my neighbor?", Stearns emphasizes that Jesus is telling us 'neighbor' has nothing to do with race, social status, or economic status. Instead, neighbor is simply defined as any person we see in need.

If I can see the need, I am a neighbor - and therefore should use whatever resources I have to help.

This challenged me as I watched the horrific destruction in Haiti. My initial response, and unfortunately my most common one to these type of disasters, was to try and ignore the situation. I did not want to stop and see what was going on there because I didn't want to feel bad. After all, why should I ruin a good week of feel-good K-State basketball?

Then I slowly began to realize that according to Jesus, these Haitians are my neighbors, and there is no excuse for ignoring them. God has blessed me with resources and if I don't help out, I am no different than the Priest who walked by the injured man on the other side of the road.

For the first time in history the entire world is our neighbor. TV and the internet allow us to see their need. So the question becomes, will we be good neighbors?

Merry Christmas!!

It is amazing to me the impact that a baby boy who was born about 2000 years ago had on the earth.

No matter, what you believe about Jesus, it is undeniable that he has changed the world.

This year people in China will exchange gifts and sing songs. People in India will attend Christmas events around the nation. People throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and even here in the States will all celebrate. Many may not even know they are celebrating the Savior's birth - yet they still celebrate. The impact of Jesus is amazing.

Who could have imagined this when He was killed on a cross? At that time he had a handful of close followers, and a mixed reputation. Who could have even comprehended the impact he would have on billions of people?

Jesus is amazing.

Merry Christmas.

I Hate All Your Show and Pretense --God

There is a song called 'Instead of a Show' written by Jon Foreman. It is direct, convicting, and I imagine to a lot of people, controversial ... just the kind of thing I like. The theme is that God hates all your shows, pretense, and noisy hymns. Instead, he desires justice and righteous living.

I have often wondered about it. It sounds right, but I wasn't quite sure about the 'hate' word. Does God really hate all the things he commanded us to do like gather together, celebrate, sing, and have festivals? Then I found it in the Bible.

Amos 5

21 “I hate all your show and pretense— the hypocrisy of
your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. 22 I will not accept your
burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your
choice peace offerings. 23 Away with your noisy hymns of
praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous
living.

So there it is ... When we make following God all about attending a worship service, we have completely missed the point, and He hates it.

The tragic thing is that our first response to this passage is to think we need to fix our shows. We think we need to make them more flat, boring, and uninspiring, or do away with them completely. (Everyone knows that boring is more authentic, right?)

I guess in some ways this is accurate. If we're not following God, cancelling the show is probably the best thing we could do. However, if we want to address the core issue, we need to look at what God tells Amos in verse 24 - following God should be about justice and righteous living. The 'show' is intended to flow out of that.

Festivals and assemblies were commanded by God - we should not do away with them, but they must become a celebration of our justice and righteousness rather than take the place of it.

I confess, that too many times I make following God all about participating in the shows rather than doing justice and living righteously. I don't think I'm alone in this regard. Americans as a whole are on a dangerous path. Think about it. When we hear the word 'church', we automatically think 'a meeting on Sunday'. We measure our spirituality based on attendance. We feel good about ourselves for just showing up (particularly if we sing something heart-felt while we're there). This is exactly what God hates.

Church, Death, and Multiplication

What would happen if local church institutions were willing to add dying and multiplying to their mission?

I stumbled on this article today. It details some of the recent events in China between large unregistered churches and the government.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091210/ap_on_re_as/as_china_mega_church

Here is the crazy thing. Although it sounds like this is bad for the church, I believe that government actions like this are precisely the reason the church is thriving in China.

Think about it. The government just broke up a 50,000 person church. So what will be the likely result? It will result in an energized and supremely dedicated group of tens of thousands that will now likely form hundreds or thousands of new individual churches.

In 5 years, many of these new churches if not most will likely have doubled or tripled in size. If the large church were left alone, it is highly doubtful that it would experience this type of growth.

Jesus knew this and explained over and over again that the kingdom would grow through multiplication. We in the church tend to forget this when left to our own decisions.

I have often heard it said that a church is 'organic' and that organic things grow so a church should be focused on growth. However, this is a very incomplete and somewhat dangerous thought, particularly when applied to a single local church institution. In addition to growing, organic things also multiply and on an individual level, they die. While everything in our world is busy living, dying, and multiplying, the local church is busy trying to exist and grow - and losing ground in the process.

So think about it ... What would happen if local church institutions were willing to add dying and multiplying to their mission?