God's Mission and Our Talent

Something occurred to me as I was preparing my sermon this week. God's mission is accomplished (saving people from their sins) largely through our time, talents, and treasure. God uses us as His instruments with the time, talent, (skills, abilities, and gifts) and treasure that He has given us. We do not have the ability to do any of this apart from Christ. He is the one who gives us all this according to our abilities and expects us to multiple them accordingly.

These gifts that He gives us are bigger than we can imagine or think. In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus uses the talent (a unit of money in those days worth about $400,000) to make a point that He is far more generous than we can think or imagine. He gives one fellow 5 talents ($2M), another 2 talents ($800k) and the last one, one talent ($400K). Metaphorically, He is communicating that He give us an amazing amount of stuff (desires, intelligence, gifts, abilities, skills, critical thinking, etc.) far more than what we think we have to do His work.

He expects us to increase what He has given to us through effort, perseverance, and passion for what we are doing, anything less doesn't cut the mustard. For there will come a day when He will ask each of us what we did with all the stuff He that has given us. How will you answer Him?

God the Multi-Tasker

As we go through life, we often get sucked into it so deeply through our circumstances, that we lose sight of the overall picture of what God is trying to do. Many times we don't even see how God's overall mission (to redeem His people from their sins) is applicable to our lives. In times like these Psalm 91 is a great reminder of how God comforts us in our time need even while He is accomplishing His mission. God is the ultimate multi-tasker. Nothing is too great for Him to do, nor is anything too insignificant for Him to do either...including assuring you that you are going to be O.K. despite the circumstance that you find yourself in.

The Psalmist writes in Psalm 91 if we trust God, he will deliver us from destruction. Notice that he doesn't write that God will deliver from your trials, but He will deliver you from the catastrophic effects of those trials. He will shield you and protect you and not allow them to consume you.

God will use your life's stories as inspiration for others who are going through similar trials to encourage and inspire them....and possibly save them. How cool is that! God will use your trials to redeem His people from their sins. God will use catastrophic events in your life to advance His mission while comforting and encouraging you.

Working Together for the Common Good

It seems to us that if you want to get anything done on a large scale, it requires a bunch of people coming together for a common cause. We have a real heart to support the local high school in ways that would be meaningful to them. The Principal is a committed follower of Christ and welcomes us with open arms to help the students at his high school.

One of the projects that we are currently working on is with the Athletic department. Many of their student athletes are sidelined because of academic eligibility issues. We are reaching out to other churches in the area as well as Young Life to form a tutoring program to help these kids stay eligible and to start a Young Life club on campus.

Today I had lunch with three local student ministries pastors to discuss our idea and to gauge interest on their part. All of them had buy in and were excited that we were working on this.

Who knows where this is headed, but it is tremendously encouraging that there are folks out there wiling to partner with us to impact the lives of kids today...with an eye of impacting them eternally.

God's Mission Quietly Playing Out

After worship service this morning I was stopped by one of the elderly women who attend our church. She told me that see visits with a neighbor a couple hours of week and this last week the discussion turned toward the spiritual realm.

Her neighbor began to challenge the Christian faith and labeled us "narrow minded". She didn't know quite how to respond to the charge so she asked me this morning. I suggested a way or two for her to gently challenge her neighbor to see just how open minded he really is.

She said she would try the approaches that I suggested. I imagine that this happens countless times everyday in every city and town. This is one of the quiet ways that God advances His mission...one person at a time, whether young or old, standing firm in the faith and offering a better way to those who are willing to have a discussion.

After our discussion my heart just lept for joy, knowing that an 80 year old woman was dialoging with a person 25 to 30 years her junior about our Lord. May we have the same zeal when we are in our 80's.

Meditating on Mission

One of the things that endears me to the Psalms is the deep meditation and reflection of who God is what He has done by the Psalmists. It's remembering and reinforcing God's mission. Not only do many of them look back on the history of what God has done, but often times asks direct and very powerful rhetorical questions like in Psalm 77 that describe the anguish that all of us feel in our hearts at one time or another.

Questions like will the Lord reject forever? (v. 7) or has God forgotten to be merciful? (v. 9) There are seasons in our lives when many of us emotional feel as if the Lord has abandon us though Scripture and our head knowledge knows otherwise. The Psalms, and Psalm 77 is just one example, are a wonderful place to wrestle with God and then ultimately to receive mercy in our time of need during those seasons of life when we feel a bit lost and uncertain. Not only do they comfort us, but they help us regain much needed perspective that God is on a mission and nothing, not even our doubts, will stop Him.

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

We can learn a great deal from the latter stages of Solomon's life. Solomon was David's son who was one of the richest and wisest men in the world. He built God's temple and ruled Israel during a time of unprecedented peace and wealth creation. It was common during that period of time that when nations traded goods and services, they also offered their women as part of the deal. Solomon received hundreds of foreign women and loved about 1000 of them.

Knowing the softness of a man's heart for a woman, God specifically instructed the Israelites not to marry or be with foreign women because they will "surely" turn the Israelite men's hearts after their gods. As many of us know, men have a difficult time not being unduly influenced by women. Soon Solomon began building temples in honor of these "gods" to please his women despite God commanding him to discontinue these relationships.

God finally had enough and ripped Solomon's kingdom away from him by raising up adversaries. God eventually divided the kingdom into two...10 tribes to the north and 2 tribes to the south after Solomon's death.

As we look at this in the context of God's mission, we see that God expects us to finish as we started. If we don't because we moved away from him, he will simply let us go our own way and he will raise someone else to do his will. God's plan will not be held captive by any human being. If we become obstinate to His will for our lives, He will find someone else to carry out His plan and we lose out on the blessing that He freely gives to those who obey Him.

Power Over Fear

Can even the most unfortunate situations serve to advance the mission of God? Philippians 1 gives us evidence that it can. Paul was writing from a Roman jail to the church in Philippi when he writes this: "I want you to know brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has been known throughout the entire imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment are much more bold to speak the word without fear." (1:12-14)

Paul didn't let his circumstances stop him from proclaiming the gospel and being a cog in God's wheel as God fulfills his mission. In fact, he saw his circumstances as a way to advance God's mission to groups of people that would otherwise may not hear the gospel...the prison guards.

Not only that, but his boldness in difficult circumstances gives others courage to be bold as well. Prison is used as a deterrent to modify behavior. If Paul was thrown into prison for preaching, he was demonstrating that the threat of prison is no match for God and His gospel. The gospel would advance regardless even to those administrating his sentence.

The power of the gospel remains the same today as in Paul's time...so the question becomes what deters us from advancing God's mission? Examine yourself, give your fears to God and let God work through you to advance His mission. There is nothing powerful enough on earth to deter God, even your fears and anxieties.

Opportunities Unfolding Beneath our Eyes

As we seek to transform the city of Phoenix through Christ, we are discovering lots of "little ways" that God is giving us to serve others (though it makes a huge impact on others lives).

For instance, we have committed to bring food for three months and other support on an as needed basis to a family in dire need whose daughter attends a local school. The father is a self-employed electrician who was diagnosed with cancer and is unable to work, so we are standing in the gap as best we can to assist this family in their time of need.

Another teacher from that local school needs assistance with one of her students from another country.

We are getting involved with the group of refugee students from Somolia who lack the basic life skills to survive in America.

We are beginning to put together a tutoring group for the student athletes at Camelback High in in conjunction with Young Life and hope that will turn into a Young Life group for that campus.

All of these things are happening because we have taken a vested interest in the community. We have let it be known to everyone who will listen that we are here to work with the community on things that we share in common. (i.e. we want improved literacy among high school students as does the community, we want to care for those who are in a difficult spot in life as does the community, etc.) and God is bringing these type of opportunities to us.

We imagine the same is true in your community...let it be known how you want to serve and then watch as God opens the doors of the community to serve.

The Big Timeout

Boy, it has been a good long while since we posted anything. This is due partly to a personal move and partly due to a vacation. It never ceases to amaze me how disruptive a move is to a family. Our stuff fit perfectly into our old house, but our new one which is bigger is drastically configured differently and has presented us with unique and interesting challenges. Can anyone relate?

Well, we are on the tale end of it and life is returning to normalcy. So here we are.

Through the ebbing and flowing of life each one of us reaches a point of despair. It's a place of agony and blues because we sense that God is not working in our lives. Even as God marches on to fulfill His mission, we feel somehow that we have missed the bus and that we are on our own. This is why the book of Lamentations is so important. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, chronicles through beautiful poetry the anguish of his heart and it reflects the anguish of ours too.

Many of us spend much time, at least in our own eyes, waiting on the Lord and Jeremiah expresses this so well in chapter 3..."the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quitely for the salvation of the Lord...the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love."

So there will be times in each of our lives that as we are marching down the road being used as God's instrument that He will put us in "timeout" for a season so that we may draw nearer to Him. When you find yourself in this season may Lamentations 3 comfort you in your time of need.

Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands

So is the title of Paul David Tripp's book on helping others through difficult times in life. It is also used in Acts 9 - albeit in a different way. God tells Ananias that Paul is His chosen instrument "to carry my name before the Gentiles" (v. 15)

God continues to march on to accomplish His mission of bringing salvation to the ends of the earth. At the time Paul was just the latest human that He was going to use to to accomplish His mission. As we will see in the the coming days, God used Paul in the a variety of contexts crossing national boundaries and cultures to redeem His people.

God uses us in a similar way today. We are all ambassadors of Him who have relationships with others across many different segments of society. This is most readily seen for those of us who work in large offices or institutions like hospitals. In work places like this we see the economic and ethnic diversity from the support staff to the executives and everyone in between.

God puts us in places with our co-workers, neighbors, friends, and family so that He can accomplish His mission through us...for we are instruments in the Redeemer's hands.

Our Lunch with the School

Okay...we hosted a luncheon for 37 of the faculty and staff of Squaw Peak School on Thursday. There were six ladies who knocked themselves out making sandwiches and cutting fruit and veggies for the lunch. The teachers were so appreciative and we all had a wonderful time.

The principal was gracious to allow me a few minutes to introduce ourselves and tell them why we were there. I gave each person who attended the luncheon an index card to write down their prayer requests and six out 37 did...with more to come. I also gave each one of them my business card and told them that if they know a family in crisis or has just experienced a tragedy and they don't know were to turn to call me.

Well, I walked into the school Friday morning to pick up some stuff and got pulled aside with our first request. There is a family in great need as the dad was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia that kids normally get three weeks ago. He own his own small business and to keep expenses at a minimum they have forgone health insurance. Their only son is trying to keep the business afloat during this time. Their youngest daughter, a nine year old fourth grader, is having the most difficult time because she is daddy's little girl.

The mommy came to the teacher with all of this Thursday afternoon after our luncheon and the teacher got in touch with us Friday morning. (God's timing maybe?) I will be visiting with the mom along with someone from the school early this week to see how we can come along her side to help them in their time of need.

Even if it is meals and cleaning the house, we will come along the side of the family and help them as we can. We have a pediatric oncology nurse who has offered to talk to the family and bring along a child life specialist to help them during this time.

God often uses a crisis like this to draw people to Him. Being instruments in His hands, we are his eyes, ears, and hands as He marches on to accomplish His mission. Who knows how all of this will turn out, but it is a privilege to have the opportunity to help a family in their time of need.

Meeting the Local School

Today is another first for us as we are hosting a lunch for 37 faculty and staff of our local elementary school. Since we are renting their facility on Sundays, one of our attendees suggested that we host a lunch and introduce ourselves to them. So we are.

We threw out the idea to our congregation on Sunday and they responded wonderfully. One person is making all the sandwiches, one is doing the fruit, another one the vegetables, and one is doing the drinks!

We will be sharing with them our heart to work together on the the things that we can work together on; thank them for letting us use their facility; give them a little pep talk; invite them to keep our contact information handy in case they find out if one of their kid's families is in crisis; and invite them to write down their name and grade level so that we may pray for them through out the school year.

Our hope is that this will open up a door and that we will be able to pour our lives into the the people who educate our children.

Please pray for us today.

God is Faithful in Fulfilling His Mission

We get a glimpse of God being faithful in Joshua 26. The Lord has given the Jews rest after they followed through with what God had told them what to do...namely take the land of the Canaanites as the land that He promised them and defeat the peoples who occupied that land. This could not have been done without the Lord going before them as the Jews didn't have the advanced weapons that their opponents had, nor did they have the fortifications, or the strength to defeat them.

In order for the Israelites to dwell in the promised land, the Lord had to make it happen and He did. This should give us great encouragement for us to complete our mission....namely to make disciples. Jesus commanded us that this is what we ought be doing in Matthew 28 and Acts 1. He also tells us that He will be with us till the end of the age.

Jesus is with us today as God was with the Israelites back in Joshua's day. This does not be mean that life will be easy for us or that making disciples will be easy either. It just means that Jesus will strengthen us to keep on keeping on in spite of the obstacles, conflicts, and tensions of life (Phil. 4:13) until He completes His mission or until He calls us home.

So take heart my friends, Jesus is paving the way for us to complete His mission that He has given to us; he is active in our lives nudging us along (sometimes more forcefully than others) to become more like Him and less like ourselves; to tell others about His love; and to make disciples. We are not doing this by ourselves, but with the power of the one who made the heavens and the earth!

Working with the Schools

Well we are off to a wonderful start with Squaw Peak School. The staff has welcomed us with open arms and are excited that we are using their cafeteria as a worship space on Sundays. Our relationship with the principal is second to none and we are beginning to plan to do some joint events this school year.

This Thursday will be a big day for us as we will provide lunch for 22 teachers at the school. This will give us an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the faculty, share our vision for the community, and get to know them. We hope that we will be able to build a bridge to them and show them that we are 100% behind their efforts to educate our kiddos.

Who knows where all of this will end up, but we are very excited that God has opened the door to begin to work with our local school.

Another Aspect of What God Does

As God marches through time accomplishing His mission, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:2) This is a way that God shows up in people's lives to demonstrate that He is a living God and continues to build on His testimony of who He is and what He can do.

That is to say, many folks from every generation can testify to God's love, grace, mercy, provision, and comfort because of the work that He has done in their lives. He is the true and living God who is abundant in power and infinite in understanding...one whose compassions are new every morning. This is life transformational stuff that encourages our hearts when we hear how God has entered into a someone's life and transformed it.

This could also be used as part of our testimony as we describe to others how God has worked in our lives and what He means to us.

Let's praise God today for how He has healed us and ask Him to strengthen us to tell others about the marvelous works of our Lord and Savior.

Our Vision, God's Mission

Our vision at Morningside is to "pass the message of Christ to the next generation." David writes in Psalm 145 that "one generation shall commend your (the Lord's) works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts." (v. 4) He continues exhorting the one generation to declare His "fame of abundant goodness"; "sing aloud your righteousness"; "speak of the glory of your (His) kingdom"; "tell of your (His) power" and to make known to the children "your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your (His) kingdom."

Notice all the action that we are responsible for: declaring, singing, speaking, telling, and making known. Each of us are to communicate who God is, what He has done, and the hope that we have in Him as we go throughout life. This stuff is to be a part of our DNA...to be a part of the very essence of who we are.

This is one of the ways that God accomplishes His mission - through us telling the next generation. Let's be of good cheer and unashamed to continually tell the next generation (your kids, grandkids, and others in those age groups) the wonder and hope of our Lord.

The Darker Side of God's Mission

It's clear that God uses His people who He has redeemed as instruments in His hands to accomplish His mission. Whew! That was a mouthful...but what happens when His people turn from Him and replace Him with "other gods" like money, fame, astrology, materialism, or fusing Christianity with other religions or philosophies? God disciplines them.

We see this time and again throughout the Old Testament as the Israelites turn from God then return to Him over and over again. We have to always keep in mind that God's plans will never be thwarted. He will not be denied regardless of the way His people act. He simply makes life incredibly hard on them as Jeremiah proclaims in Jeremiah 5 as He marches on to accomplish His mission.

The Jews at the time were callused toward God. They forsook Him and worshiped other gods; they were unjust and did not care for the poor, widows, or orphans; nor did they seek truth and refused to take correction; their priests followed their own direction not God's and the prophets falsely prophesied. They had stubborn and rebellious hearts.

Yet God in His infinite love and mercy did not kill them, rather He sent them away into captivity until they repented.

So what does this have to do with God's mission and us?

We may ask ourselves from time to time, why isn't God doing more in my city? It seems as if He isn't present. Well God is present, but His people may have fallen out of love with Him and gone their own way much like the Jews during Jeremiah's time. From false teachings to not caring about what God cares about and everything in between, God will not work through those who rebel against Him, regardless if they have confessed in Him.

So God may be working on those rebellious hearts and turning their hardness into softness and this takes time. Then He can do remarkable things through them. May we pray that our hearts would never turn hard toward Him, but remain sensitive to His calling on our lives. May we also pray for those who know Him yet have rebelled against Him that they too would return to Him so that He can do incredible things through them.

How God Advances His Mission Part 2

It's interesting that God uses people like us to accomplish His mission. He promised that the Israelites would have their own land and then He used them to fulfill His promise. In Joshua 10 and 11, the Israelites are taking the promised land one tribe at a time by utterly destroying each of them. What's interesting is that the Israelites are not defeating these tribes under their own power, but by God's power who has gone before them. (10:8) Couple this fact with the commands that God had given the Israelites in the last part of Deuteronomy and the first of Joshua that they take the promised land and you have God telling the Israelites what to do and then going before them to clear the path so that they may be successful.

We find the same pattern in the New Testament. Jesus commands believers to go and make disciples (Matt. 28) and then we observe that all the way through the book of Acts that He went before them to clear the path so that they could make disciples.

The same holds true today. God has given us a clear mandate to make disciples and He goes before us to clear a path so that we can. He is divinely turning hard hearts into soft ones ready to receive the Gospel and trust Christ in each of our cities on a daily basis.

Joshua was Moses' right hand man for many years and when he took over for Moses after Moses' death God told him on different occasions to "be strong and courageous" and "do not fear" but do as I told you and live according to the way that I have told your forefathers and I will give you success.

It's helpful to be reminded that God is with us as He was with Joshua and that we have nothing to fear because God has gone before us to transform our cities through Christ. So be of good cheer and make a difference in someone life today...it may be an eternal difference. God is with you!!!

Our Hearts and God's Mission

Ahhh, the heart of a missional lifestyle. Jesus taught His disciples that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." (Matt. 12:34) If we really desire to transform our communities to the point where Christ is high and lifted up and to be used as instruments that God can use to make this happen, then our hearts must be changed. Not only in the salvation sense, but also in the ways we think, we speak, and live. It is walking the walk, just not talking the talk.

Only then will the world know that we are different and that difference is worth pursuing. May the Lord continually lean upon our hearts...purifying and refining them, so that the good treasure found in them may be used by God to draw our cities to Him.

A Missional Imperative

There is a consistent pattern throughout Scripture regarding God fulfilling His mission. He always goes before His people in order to secure His victory. In Joshua 3, God tells Joshua that the ark of the covenant must go into the Jordan river first before the people can cross the swollen river. (At the time the ark was the dwelling place of God on earth.) Joshua tells the Israelites that this act will let them know that the Lord is with them and that He will deliver on His promise. As the priests who are carrying the ark enter into the water the overflowing waters recede, the river bed dries, and about 600,000 Israelites walk through the Jordan River...dry.

The point we should consider in the context of our cities is that in order for us to see God at work, the Lord must go before us. We can not go before Him. We must seek His will, purpose, and timing, not ours. We must wait on Him and not rush off before Him. We must remember that His timing is perfect, ours is not. This is the only way that we will see God fulfilling His mission. Let's all seek the Lord first as we seek to transform our cities for Christ.