Category — Healthy Church?

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Ephesians 2:8-10.

I love it because it clearly identifies the relationship between grace and good works.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Verses 8 and 9 emphatically tell us that we have been delivered from sin—its penalty and power—by the grace of God by faith, or trust in the Lord Jesus. We have especially not been saved through our own works, so that we can never boast.

Verse 10 explains that when we believed in Jesus, we became God’s masterpiece—His absolutely unique creation in Christ Jesus for the purpose of accomplishing the good works He prepared in eternity past.

The last phrase is where our part comes in—that we should walk in these good works.

What a wonderful picture of the church age. Believers from every corner of the world, with tremendously different backgrounds, coming together to contribute their individual palette of good works to this magnum opus of God’s great and mighty work of grace—the bride of Christ.

Like snowflakes blanketing a mountain meadow, no two Christian’s assignment of the great and glorious landscape of the works of the church in the name of the Savior are the same.

I don’t have to compare or compete with you and your good works; you don’t have to compete with mine.

And none of these works earn or even keep our salvation by grace through faith. But all of them are in response to the grace and mercy of the One who washed us from our sins in His own blood.

Yet there’s one good work we all have in common. A good work Christ specifically assigns to every believer and commands His church to facilitate.

Baptism.

Won’t it be something, when we’re in heaven, to tell our stories of how God used us? The works He empowered us to do, the opportunities He graced us to embrace? Every story will be different, but all will intersect at the same good work: Baptism.

My memory banks are full of scenes of either baptizing or watching the baptisms of hundreds of dear friends over the years.

I’ve baptized people in a cold mountain river in the Cascades of Oregon, in a hot tub in Dallas, and in the pool and baptismal here at Church of the Open Door. I’ve watched fathers baptize daughter and mothers baptize sons. I’ve rejoiced as whole families entered the baptism waters together.

One of my favorites occurred just last Sunday at Church of the Open Door. A tattooed former addict named Lester baptized a young man he had led to Christ in northern California. And they did it all in sunglasses!

I can hear Lester telling his story in heaven someday. “Yeah, it was cool. He kept his sunglasses on as I dipped him under and back up again!”

Someone will wonder, “You baptized people with their sunglasses on?!”

Lester will laugh, “Yeah, but I’m from California.”

And everyone will nod their glorified heads.

It’s one of the most powerful motivations to be baptized in His name. It’s the one good work that every Christian is called to, a good work prepared for every Christian. Baptism is universally one of the first steps toward walking in the forever exciting and fulfilling good works our Father prepared for us.

Is it part of your story? Have you responded to the grace of God by trusting Him enough to embrace the good work of baptism? Not to receive grace, but in response to His grace. Is baptism part of your story you will be telling in heaven?

If not, maybe you should talk with the Lord about His deep desire that you would identify with Him and His people through baptism.

I promise you it will be one of the most moving parts of your following Jesus story.

One of the reasons I believe the Jesus Movement stopped moving is that we didn’t love one another well.

We divided over theology, spiritual gifts, politics, and the just plain “I don’t like him or her” sins most believers are all too familiar with.

Sometimes our excuse for divisiveness is, “I just can’t get along with that kind of Christian!”

Really?

Peter would disagree. In his first letter he says that when we obeyed the truth of the Gospel by believing in Jesus our hearts were purified (1 Peter 1:22). He uses the perfect tense when he speaks of this purification of our souls. The perfect tense means that the work was completed the moment we believed.

His application?

Our souls were purified so that we could “love one another fervently with a pure heart.”

The next time you begin to think you can’t love that “extra grace required” Christian in your world, picture Peter standing next to you and saying, “Yes you can! God made it possible the moment you believed in His Son!”

Get in Step!

Every soldier remembers that command. It looked so easy in the movies you saw as a kid. Files of soldiers marching along side by side, stride for stride.

Left, right.

Left, right.

Really it takes weeks of practice to learn how to walk in step with a lot of other human beings.

Unless…

But for the serious Christian, the man or woman who wants to follow Christ as His devoted disciple, being in step with the Lord Jesus means being out of step with just about everyone else.

If you’re following Jesus, you’re out of step with this pagan world.

If you’re following Jesus, you’re also out of step with most other Christians.

Pagans are all about the things you know aren’t important.

But so are most Christians.

Stay in Step

If your devotion to Jesus means that you’re feeling out of step with just about everyone else in your world, that’s a good thing.

When you’re staying in step with Jesus, you’re out of step with this wicked world and the irrelevant religiosity that most Christians settle for.

We’re studying a book right now at Church of the Open Door written specifically to those sold-out Christians who know they don’t fit in with just about everyone else, those who feel their status as aliens in a hostile world most acutely.

First Peter—you should read it. Or join our study online through our podcasts.

It will assure you that not fitting in with everyone who is out of step with the Lord Jesus is a good thing.

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those scattered as aliens…may grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure” (1 Peter 1:1-2).

Are  you a victim of “Bargain Theology”?

Bargain theology is that heretical teaching that God is waiting to fix your life if you just get it right.

You know, serve a little in church, do your quiet time, memorize Scripture some, pray a little, or give some of your money to Christian work.

The problem with bargain theology is that God isn’t bargaining.

He doesn’t want to fix your life; He wants to give you a new life–eternal life.

He doesn’t want the stuff you do for Him; He wants you.

He wants to change you on the inside and launch you into a messed up and hurtful world.

It’s called grace, and it’s not a bargain.

It’s free.

But it’s not to make you a little better, a little happier, a little more Republican.

It’s to give you what you need to overcome the evil and broken places in your heart and to stand against the evil broken places in this world.

I can’t understand why more Christians in churches don’t get it.

I got it from the very beginning.

Oh yeah, maybe that’s because I didn’t meet Jesus in the stained glass confines of safe religious platitudes.

I met Jesus on the street during a revival.

We called it the Jesus Movement.

Do your remember it?

Two Guys

There’s this guy I’ve known for decades. He started his Christian life the same way I did. Like me, he was an angry 60s rebel who met Jesus on the streets during the Jesus Movement revival. Like me, some great men and women of the faith took an interest in his life and taught him how to walk with Jesus. Like me, he felt God’s call to serve Christ in vocational ministry. Like me, he is sold out to the Lord Jesus as a devoted disciple.

Unlike me, he went straight into ministry after his studies at a university. Unlike me, he did not go to seminary and never studied the Bible under esteemed theologians and professors of Bible. Unlike me, his work for Christ has never centered in a local church, but has been more regional, nationwide, and even global.

Though we are both convinced that we are walking the path the Lord Jesus is leading us on, our convictions about how to actually reach the world for Him could not be more different!

• He’s into the big splash, the hottest trends, and the latest evango-hero personality. I hate that stuff.

• He devotes a lot of his life doing “think tank” stuff around a table with other “think-tank guys,” strategizing and planning. I think that’s a waste of time.

• He’s really interested in politics and current trends in America, and how the church can do something big to turn our culture around. I think that politics too often distracts Christians from the only real hope for America—authentic churches that make disciples that transform their families, neighborhoods, and communities.

• He’s a top-down authoritarian leader; I’m a team processing communal leader.

• He’s the boss; I’m the player-coach.

• He thinks I’m too vulnerable to my team; I think he lives in a dangerous place.

We disagree on a lot of theological issues too!

• He actually practices some gifts of the Holy Spirit I’m not sure are still around.

• He’s not sure Christians can’t lose their salvation; I’m absolutely convinced that eternal life is a free gift that can never be lost.

Oh yeah, he makes a lot more money than I do, doesn’t suffer from a chronic disease, flies away to exotic getaways with his wife several times a year, and his ministry receives huge gifts from extremely wealthy people.

Not that I’m comparing, competing, or envious.

Yes I am.

And so are you, aren’t you?

Two Gardens

There’s a person like this in your life right now. You can’t understand why God gives them opportunities when they disagree with you about so many things. You can’t understand why God doesn’t straighten out their theology when it’s so obvious to you that they are so wrong. And you really have a problem with God giving them such an easy life when you have to struggle like you do.

Here’s what I’ve decided about this guy. You may want to decide the same about the Christian in your life you’re either competing with, comparing yourself to, or envious of.

He has his garden to tend for God, and that is between him and Jesus.

My garden is Church of the Open Door. Jesus wants me to be the best under-gardener I can be in the garden He gave me to tend.

When Peter looked up from the garden of his life and challenged the Lord Jesus about the “easy garden” He gave to John, the Lord told him what we all need to hear, “If I will that he remain (in a life that doesn’t involve as much suffering as yours) till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.” –John 21:22