Neighbor Guide Two

The last few weeks I have been writing up some guides to what it means to be a Biblical neighbor to go along with our "Won't you be My Neighbor" series. This past week with Governor Bobby Jindal coming (which was awesome) we did not give the guide any attention or point it out. I believe this guide is a good resource to just everyday neighborly living for the glory of Christ and the Gospel. I decided to blog it to maybe help a few more people actually read it. J

God set the times and places for you. (read Acts 17:26) God put you where you are when you are for his purposes and glory. This booklet is food for thought on being a neighbor in daily life. Are you willing to be the Good Samaritan right here...right now?

Thou shalt not annoy your neighbor in the name of Christ by…
1. Self-serving service. Do not serve others just to get them to do what you want.
2. Awkward appreciation. Do not make something up just to serve someone.

3. Meeting non-needs as real needs. Giving water to a person that is not thirsty does not meet their need for water, it meets your need to give.

How not to annoy thy neighbor while actually being one...
1. Be honest about your intentions. Be real that you are sharing your life change in serving.
Your intention should be to share Christ.
2. Appreciation is not awkward if it is heart-felt. So don't lie about it.
3. You can meet a non-need or a felt need, just don't make it into something it is not.

 Being a neighbor where you live…
1. Invite your neighbors over to eat.
2. Offer to mow their lawn if they go out of town…for free.
3. Be a safe place for neighborhood children to play
4. Volunteer to better the neighborhood or HOA.
5. Stop and offer to lend a hand when your neighbor is working on a project.

Being a neighbor where you work…
1. Make the coffee without complaining and fix others a cup.
2. Offer to help someone else with something that is not your responsibility, even if it means more time.
3. Ask your boss and subordinates what you can do to help them out.
4. Ask your coworkers how you can pray for them and then do it. Then simply come back later and ask how it is working out. No pressure…just prayer.

Being a neighbor in your school…
1. Help your teachers in their classrooms.
2. Behave in class and do your work. No one will ever see Jesus in a slacker.
3. Keep extra pens and pencils and share…even if you do not get them back.
4. Try to make sure others get noticed for what they do. Brag on the people no one sees.

 Being a neighbor in recreation…
1. Volunteer to organize, coach, or serve in recreational organizations…don't just receive.
2. Help the coach out if you are not the coach.
3. Offer to help with snacks, etc.
4. Be the team encourager.

Being a neighbor everywhere…
1. Get off the phone when going to a register to check out and treat the person as a person.
2. Say nice things to people.
3. Put someone's groceries in their car.
4. Help people you see that need a hand. You have the time, you just have to give it to someone else.
5. Budget to be a helper. Generous giving begins with generous living.

 
 

 

Does Grace Reign?

In Romans 5:21 says "so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Grace is amazing topic and an amazing truth. There is nothing easier to discuss and share with others than grace. By definition grace is to "receive that which you do not deserve." The Greek word for grace can be translated as gift in certain grammatical settings. Gifts are undeserved, by definition. (Having a birthday does not actually cause one to earn gifts. It is simply a celebration in which people choose to grace you with them.)

Much of what people in our world consider grace today is nothing more than a cheap substitute. Grace is also defined as "underserved favor." Grace is God giving to us what we do not deserve simply because he is loving and gracious. I believe that many people understand that part. They get the definition of grace, what they don't understand is what it looks like in life. People accept a cheap substitute in their own life and lower grace to a meaningless church word sung in songs that have lost their meaning to those that sing them.

Where too many people lose a right understanding of grace is found in Romans 5:21. Grace reigns through righteousness. Most of us believe that grace reigns through forgiveness. Grace is being forgiven. Grace does not simply cause the act of forgiveness…grace causes the state of forgiven. And there is a big difference.

When we cheapen grace we allow the path to become the product. We allow beginning to become the end. Too many people grab hold of God's grace hoping and praying and even wishing that they might simply be forgiven…while God's grace will most certainly forgive you…forgiveness is not the end result it is the beginning point.

Forgiveness is the path of grace…Righteousness is the product of grace. Grace does not produce forgiveness. Grace produces righteousness. The path to said righteousness is indeed forgiveness. Forgiveness is the stepping stone to obedience. God's grace does mold within us more disobedience so that we might experience more forgiveness…it forges within us righteousness so that we might be more obedient.

I have heard a cheap rendition of grace concerning the moral disobedience of a church leader, "well, you know grace works." The work of grace in the life of a leader is not simply forgiveness…it is obedience…it is righteousness. Sure, there will be times when each person – even spiritual leaders – will need to experience fresh grace and fresh forgiveness, but not at the cost of lowering the standard of grace. That forgiveness does not simply produce forgiveness for that leader to then sin again and grace "keep working" time and time again. Grace and forgiveness produces in that leader change…it produces in them righteousness.

If you are a person that has been saved by God's "Amazing Grace."….if you are a person that "once was lost but now is found"….if you are a person that "once was blind but now you see"…live as one who is found and one that sees.

Do not accept a cheap substitute for grace in your life that simply culminates in forgiveness. Accept only the real thing…the grace that changes the forgiven and produces righteousness. It is that righteousness that grace truly reigns.

What I have…

Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Acts 3:6

There is a powerful statement in the midst of this powerful act that we probably most often miss. Peter heals this man and leads to great opportunity for sharing of the Gospel and to many more salvations and even to persecution for speaking the name of Jesus Christ boldly.

Most often when I read through a verse like this I think, "God, I wish you would do things like that today. I wish you would use me that way."

This morning, though I read it and something different jumped out at me. This is a theme that God is speaking very consistently to me and through me right now. It is a real issue that we as Christians of today must face. Perhaps it jumped out because I went back through Chapter 8 of Crazy Love last night and considered what the life of a person obsessed with Jesus would look like and realized mine falls far short of it.

The statement that jumped out was "what I have I give you." WOW!

Are you a person that sees great need in another person's life and says, "What I have I give you"?

The problem for Americans is that we would have to say this, "Silver and gold I do have, and what I have I give you." And most of us are simply unwilling to say that.

Instead we say, "Silver and gold I don't have enough of, so what I have I do not give you. But in the name of Jesus, be…well be…"

Simple question…

Will God ever give all he has to give through you while you do not give all you have?

 

The Stare Dare

I had an online encounter with some folks from my hometown (the great city of Ruston, LA). The encounter was actually about Ruston and one of their recent experiences there. Out of this online exchange I was really challenged with a thought that I would like to share. To properly share it I will have to give a few details of the exchange so that I can help you see where this came from.

Basically, a person from Ruston grew up and moved away. They now live in Austin. A city in which you can be whomever you want to be in and no one notices. (per the blog written about this.) The person that grew up in Ruston has adopted internationally. They recently returned to Ruston with their racially blended family and felt stared and gawked at. This led to them writing a blog ranting on the subject and on Ruston a little. There is so much to be learned from this interaction that I don't really know where to start but there is really one key truth I hope we can all walk away with. So, I will touch my comment response to the blog quickly and get to the meat.

1^st – I have an internationally adopted nephew that lives in Ruston and he has been loved, accepted, and celebrated there.

2^nd – We often prejudge other people's prejudices. We have to be careful to not respond by making assumptions about people that we feel are making assumptions about us. This, however, is really difficult to do when the actions that cause your assumptions are hurtful.

3^rd – Ruston is a town where people still see people. Often in bigger cities the reason no one stares is because no one notices. We have too much in our culture traded truly accepting one another for being indifferent toward the existence of one another. I am not sure that the indifference of the majority of people in a big city is really a better approach to life than the prejudice of the minority of people in a small town. Especially if getting over one's prejudices only leads to indifference. It might be better to have someone hate your existence than to be totally unaware of it. Just a thought for our culture.

4^th – Think through what you write in a blog carefully before you post it. It might not communicate what you really want to communicate. Rants don't ever help change anything. (I have SO made that mistake in my blog before…I hope this is not such a moment.)

5^th – If you commit yourself to changing the world you cannot be angry at the world for having not yet changed. (The real issue that God has used this incident to teach me.) The rationale for this statement in this situation is based on my current view toward adoption. This issue is particularly sensitive to me right now as I have had a nephew adopted into our family in recent years and because my wife and I currently working toward adoption and/or foster parenting.

I believe adoption is the choice to change the world one life at a time. It is a choice that I think God is calling the church to. Our world is full of starving orphans while our homes are full of love and food. I want to change concerning this and I pray the world will change with me. I am planning on leading our church to step up and start an adoption fund this fall that will enable families of our church to afford adoption. I do, however, realize that not everyone is going to share this conviction with me.

So my thoughts concerning adoption bring me to my statement about being angry that the world has not yet changed. This whole line of thought brought me to something that Jesus told us about following him.

This is my command: Love each other. "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 1 John 5:17-19

The stare dare is to live a life that causes other people to stare. Let them gawk. Let them not know what to do with you or what to think about you. And pray that in those thoughts they might think about God. That the depth of who you are and the life you lead might lead someone else to examine their own life in the shadow of the life Christ gave for them.

Be different and be proud of it. I tried to encourage the people from Ruston that had this tough experience with this thought. "What will shape the lives of your children is not the stares of strangers. What will shape their lives is the incredible choice of their parents. The choice to love a child that was not their own as their own so much that child became their own."

That type of love is world changing. It changes the world one life and one stare at a time. So take the stare dare and live a life so sold out to the love of Christ that world stares you down…then step out of the way and let the world see Jesus.

 

Chicken or the Egg?

The old adage, "What comes first…the chicken or the egg?" is a real issue within most real issues.

What comes first in a desired goal or objective?

I have just wrapped up a sermon series titled "iamchurch." This series has focused on the reality of church life and our role in it by looking at the first 6 chapters of Acts. During this series we have discussed the real issue about how churches become what God desires them to become. The church becomes what God desires it to become when the individuals in it become what God desires them to become.

This past year I have really challenged Fellowship with this thought. You should never expect your church to be what you are not.

I believe we must come to the point individually where we do not ask of our church corporately what we are not willing to ask of ourselves indivudally. Why? Because the church will never be what we are not. The church is made up of its members. The Church corporately is simply the sum of the individuals in it.

So, with this challenge, I wrapped up the series with this truth from Acts. I gave this definition for church. The church is a radical community of radical people with one radical cause.

The reality, though, is that the majority of us as Christians and, therefore, our churches have instead become comfortable communities of comfortable people with comfortable causes.

So, this truth challenges me to ask, how do we move from comfortable to radical. This question is more difficult than it would seem. The answer would seem to be "do radical stuff."

The tough part about being the church though is not that we do radical things but that we become radical people who have experienced radical change.

So, what comes first…the chicken or the egg? What comes first doing radical things or being a radical person?

How do we experience this change individually? How do we seek after it corporately?

I came to these conclusions as I read through the amazing narrative of the beginning of the Church that is the Book of Acts…

Doing radical things does not make a person nor a church radical for Christ.
    New and radical sounds in music will not make your church radical for Christ.
    New and radical creative ways to teach will not make your church radical for Christ.

Being radical people for Christ will, however, cause your church to radical things for Christ.
    New and radical people will be open to experiencing new and radical things in Christ.
    New and radical people will be radical about sharing the Gospel with those around them.
    New and radical people will make up a new and radical church that does new and radical things.

But don't get the cart before the horse. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. (I am trying my hand at cliché using in honor of Pastor Joey.)

Just because you do cool stuff at your church every Sunday does not mean you will ever become a radical community of radical people with one radical cause.

We, as church leaders and as church members, must make it our goal to build one another up into radical people.

We do this by sharing in a unified cause for the Gospel...by encouraging and praying for and with one another…by holding up the Word of God and holding each other to its truths…by pushing each other to be witnesses of the Good news of Jesus Christ to the world around us.

A church that is doing these things will be made up of people doing these things. And these individuals will bring all kinds of new approaches and radical ideas together for the cause of Christ.

I hope this truth sinks in with those who think simply changing the way we "do" church will change the church?
I also hope it challenges those who think that changed people will never change the way we "do" church?

Both must happen for us stay radical for this radical cause.