THE POWER & MEANING OF THE LORD'S SUPPER

Original date: February 3, 2008 Photo: Sea of Galilee near Tiberias

Luke 22:17-20

One of the seven basic commands of Jesus is the command He gave us to observe the Lord's Supper. Look in Luke 22:17-20:

17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."
19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

It’s a command to take the Lord’s Supper. Notice in vs. 17 that command, “Take this and divide it.” Then another command in vs. 29: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” It’s clear that Jesus intended His disciples to continue to observe this meal as a way of remembering Him and celebrating what He did for us on the cross.

Here Jesus makes it clear that the Lord's Supper is something that His followers have to do, need to do and get to do.

Let's explore what the Lord's Supper is and why Jesus made it one of His basic commands. Let’s approach this through a series of questions.

1. Where does the Lord’s Supper come from?

The Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke all report the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples the night before he died. Each describes Jesus giving thanks or blessing the bread and the cup, and giving them to his disciples saying that the bread is his body and the cup is the blood of the covenant, or the new covenant in his blood. In Luke 22:19, Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The Gospel of John doesn’t report the eating and drinking, but rather the teachings and actions that filled the evening.

As far as we can tell from the earliest records, the church did what Jesus said: They reenacted that supper in remembrance of Jesus and his death. Paul’s letters are the earliest testimony that we have (even earlier than the gospels), and in 1 Corinthians 11:20, he refers to an event in the life of the church called “the Lord’s Supper.” It’s called “the Lord’s Supper” probably because it was instituted or ordained by the Lord Jesus, and because its very meaning celebrates the memory of the Lord’s death. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:23-24, “I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

So the Lord’s Supper is that final supper that Jesus ate with his disciples the night before he was crucified. The actions and meaning of it are all rooted in what Jesus said and did on that last night. Jesus Himself is the origin of the Lord’s Supper. He commanded that it be continued. And he is the focus and content of it. Although that first Lord’s Supper was a Passover meal, Jesus takes it and focuses it in a new direction that carries over the Passover idea of being delivered from bondage.

2. Who Should Take the Lord’s Supper?

The Lord’s Supper is an act of the gathered family of those who believe in Jesus, the church. It is not an act for unbelievers. Unbelievers may be present—indeed, we welcome them to be present—there is nothing secretive about the Lord’s Supper. It is done in public. It has a public meaning. It is not a secretive, cultic ritual with magical powers. It is a public act of worship by the gathered church. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11:26, Paul says, “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” So there is a proclamation aspect to the supper. Proclamation, not privacy, is the note to strike.

We do not forbid taking the Lord’s Supper to someone in a nursing home or a hospital, but that kind of individual celebration is exceptional, not the Biblical norm. If you count it up, five times in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul speaks of the church “coming together” when the Lord’s Supper is eaten. That’s the normal setting for the Lord’s Supper—when we come together.

In 1 Corinthians 11:18 Paul says the Lord’s Supper is for when we come together as a church: “when you come together as a church.” This is the body of Christ, the assembly of the followers of Jesus. They are the ones who have turned from idols and trusted Jesus alone for the forgiveness of their sins, and for the hope of eternal life, and for the deepest happiness we can ever have. These are Christians. So the participants in the Lord’s Supper are the gathered believers in Jesus.

3. What happens in the Lord’s Supper?

The physical action of the Lord’s Supper is not the consumption of a seven-course meal. It is very simple. It is eating bread and drinking the cup. 1 Corinthians 11:23b-25, “He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

Nothing is specified about the kind of bread or the way it is broken. The only statement about what was in the cup is given in one verse each in Matthew, Mark, and Luke: “I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom” (Matthew 26:29; cf. Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18). So it is called “the fruit of the vine.” I don’t think we should make a big deal over whether simple grape juice or wine is used. There is nothing in the text that commands or forbids the one or the other.

What we should be concerned about is playful substitutes—say, cheetos and coke! The Lord’s Supper is not a plaything. We should celebrate it with a sense of weightiness—which we will talk about in just a moment.

I might mention in passing also that there is nothing in the New Testament about the frequency of the Lord’s Supper. Some believe it would be good to do it weekly; others practice it quarterly. We are in the middle and generally celebrate it on the first Sunday of each month. I think we are free in this matter and the question becomes one of 1) What frequency and infrequency corresponds to its proper importance in relation to the ministry of the Word of God? and 2) What frequency or infrequency helps us feel its value rather than becoming callous to it? Those are not easy judgments to make, and different churches make them in different ways. This is a matter followers of Jesus can graciously disagree on.

4. What should the Lord’s Supper Make Us Think of?

The focus of the participants of the Lord’s Supper should be on Jesus and especially his historical work in dying for our sins. Luke 22:19: “Do this in remembrance of me.” As we do the physical act of eating and drinking, we are to remember. That is, we are to consciously call to mind the person of Jesus as he once lived and the work of Jesus as he once died and rose again, and what his work means for the forgiveness for our sins.

The Lord’s Supper is a stark reminder, time after time, that Christianity is not new-age spirituality. It is not getting in touch with your inner being. It is not mysticism. It is rooted in historical facts. Jesus lived. He had a body and a heart that pumped blood and skin that bled. He died publicly on a Roman cross in the place of sinners so that anyone who believes on him might be rescued from the wrath of God. These things really happened.

So, the Lord’s Supper is basically about remembering. Not imagining. Not dreaming. Not channeling. Not listening. Not going into neutral. It is a conscious directing of the mind back into history to Jesus and what we know about him from the Bible. There's and old Jewish saying, “To believe is to remember.” The Lord’s Supper roots us, time after time, in the nitty-gritty of history. Bread and Cup. Body and blood. Execution and death.

5. What happens spiritually in the Lord’s Supper?

This is all important. The reason is that unbelievers could do everything I have described so far. Indeed, if the devil could put on flesh, he could do it. Eat, drink, and remember. There is nothing inherently spiritual about that. So for the Lord’s Supper to be what Jesus means for it to be, something more must be happening than only eating, drinking, and remembering. Something that unbelievers and the devil cannot do.

In 1 Corinthians 10:16-18, Paul takes about the Lord's Supper as a “participation” in Christ.
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?

Here is something much deeper than remembering. Here are believers—those who trust and treasure Jesus Christ—and Paul says that they are participating in the body and blood of Christ. Literally, they are experiencing a sharing (a koinōnia) in his body and blood. They are experiencing a partnership in his death.

And what does this participation/sharing/partnership mean? I think verse 18 gives us the clue because it uses a similar word, but compares it to what happens in the Jewish sacrifices: “Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants [a form of the same word, koinonia] in the altar?” What does sharer/participant/partner in the altar mean? It means that they are sharing in or benefiting from what happened on the altar. They are enjoying, for example, forgiveness and restored fellowship with God.

So it means that when believers eat the bread and drink the cup physically we do another kind of eating and drinking spiritually. We eat and drink—that is, we take into our lives—what happened on the cross. By faith—by trusting in all that God is for us in Jesus—we nourish ourselves with the benefits that Jesus obtained for us when he bled and died on the cross.
This is why we lead you in various focuses at the Lord’s table from month to month (peace with God, joy in Christ, hope for the future, freedom from fear, security in adversity, guidance in perplexity, healing from sickness, victory in temptation, etc.). Because when Jesus died, his shed blood and broken body, offered up in his death on our behalf, purchased all the promises of God. Paul says, “All the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Every gift of God, and all our joyful fellowship with God, was obtained by the blood of Jesus. When Paul says, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” he means: Do we not at the Lord’s Table feast spiritually by faith on every spiritual blessing bought by the body and blood of Christ? No unbeliever can do that. The devil can’t do it. It is a gift for the family of God. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we feast spiritually by faith on all the promises of God bought by the blood of Jesus.

How is the Lord’s Supper Sacred?

I close the way Paul does in 1 Corinthians 11. He warns that if you come to the Lord’s Supper in a cavalier, callous, careless way that does not discern the seriousness of what happened on the cross, you may even, if you are a believer, lose your life, not because of God’s wrath, but as an act of God’s fatherly discipline. Let me simply read slowly 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 as we move joyfully and seriously to the Lord’s Table.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner [that is, not trusting and treasuring the precious gift of Christ] will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, [not to see if you are good enough, but to see if you are willing to turn away from yourself trust Jesus for what you need] and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body [that is, without being aware that this bread is not to be treated like a common meal, the way some were doing in Corinth] eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 [And here is what he means:] That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died [not to be sent to hell; the next verse explains]. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined [that is, some are weak, and ill, and dying] so that we may not be condemned [that is, go to hell] along with the world.

Don’t take the Lord’s Supper lightly. It is one of the most precious gifts Christ has given to his church. Let’s eat it together.

[To the Lord's Supper...]

FAITH IN ACTION is Coming

PRESS RELEASE

Members of the First Baptist Church of Temple City will leave the building on Sunday, April 27 to engage in service projects in Temple City and surrounding areas.

Needy families will be assisted, a musical will be performed at a local nursing home, firefighters will be served lunch, AIDS caregiver kits for Africa will be assembled and hospice patients will receive care baskets.

Members will assemble at 9:30 AM for a send-off and come together again at 4:00 PM for a worship celebration.

Lead Pastor Glenn Layne added, "This event is called Faith in Action, which is a nationwide program developed by World Vision and Zondervan Publishers. Hundreds of church across the nation will be closed to serve on April 27. Our slogan is, 'Don't just go to church--be the church.' The church is never more the church than when it acts like Jesus, who went about bringing healing and hope to the wounded."

For more information, call (626) 286-3125 or email Glenn Layne at glenn@templecitybaptist.org.

Loving God, Serving People

As promised, I'm getting back to posting the messages from the series "The Seven Basic Commands of Jesus." This was the message from January 27 of this year. By the way, that's supposed to be Moses up there, not Charleton Heston, God rest his soul.

Loving God, Serving People—In Practical Ways

Matthew 22:37-40

The Bible is a BIG BOOK. Have you noticed what a BIG BOOK it is? Most copies are about a thousand pages long. That’s longer than a “Harry Potter” book…and frankly, it’s much harder reading.

In Jesus’ day, they didn’t have the New Testament yet, so the Bible was just the Old Testament—all 39 books, still a long book, written over more than 1000 years.

In the time of Jesus, Jewish scholars had carefully gone through the Old Testament looking for all the commands that God had given. They found a total of 613 laws. 365 were negative (“thou shalt not”) and 248 positive laws (“thou shalt”).

There were laws for everything, from how to make your clothes to how to prosecute people for murder to how to offer sacrifices to God. There’s even a law that says you’re not supposed to eat fruit from a tree during its first three seasons.

Imagine living in that society at that time, and imagine also that you really want to please God. Would having 613 laws to keep track of sound hard? A little confusing? You bet.

Along comes Jesus. The Bible says that when He taught, He taught like someone with real authority. The greatest compilation of His teaching is the Sermon on the Mount. He taught from hillsides to villages to the courtyards of the Temple in Jerusalem.

It’s not surprising that someone would ask Jesus about all those 613 laws. Both Matthew and Mark record the time; here is the way the story is told in Matthew 22:34-40:

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Jesus had sifted through all 613 laws and boiled it down to two laws to live by: Love God completely and love people as much as you love yourself.

His command is the third of seven basic commands of Jesus:

1. Repent and believe: Mark 1:15
2. Be baptized (and continue in the new life it initiates): Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:1-11
3. Love God and neighbor in a practical way: Matthew 22:37-40
4. Celebrate the Lord’s Supper: Luke 22:17-20
5. Pray: Matthew 6:5-15
6. Give: Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 6:38
7. Disciple others: Matthew 28:18-20

This is the list of seven developed by George Patterson, a missionary in Central America. And that’s the outline we’re following as we focus on obeying Jesus’ commands. The first one is
Repent and believe—Mark 1:15

The second is

Be baptized—and continue in the new life—Matthew 28:18-20

And now we’re at the third:

Love God and neighbor in a practical way--Matthew 22:37-40

We’re trying to memorize this list, one at a time each week. So let’s repeat that word for word:

Number One: Repent and believe—Mark 1:15
Number Two: Be Baptized, and Continue in the New Life—Matthew 28:18-20
Number Three: Love God and neighbor in practical ways—Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus says this is the real highpoint of the commands of God, whether we’re talking Old Testament or New Testament. It’s an interesting study (which I’m not going into) to see just how the Great Commandment is used and referred to by Paul and John, and especially James in their letters. I’ll just say that it’s clear that early Christians understood this as the heart of the kind of life Jesus calls us to.

Now there’s two parts of the command: love God, love people. This is the basis of the church motto we adopted in 2006: “Loving God, serving people.” You have to ask yourself, how do people know that they’re being loved, and the answer is, by serving them in practical ways.
Jesus says, there’s an answer to that question, what does the Lord want, and there’s a part A and a part B to the answer. Part A is this total love of God. Part B is this selfless love of people. It’s always in that order. Love of God has to come first.

Here’s how Jesus puts it:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Jesus wants us to be clear that we aren’t to love God with just part of who we are. He gives four aspects: heart, soul, mind, and in Mark 12, He adds, love God with all your strength.

The heart is the center of our will and our emotions.

The soul is the totality of our lives, life as a whole.

The mind is our thinking capacity.

And our strength refers to our ability to apply ourselves, to make efforts of both the body and the mind.

Obviously, these four overlap, they don’t mean the same thing, and at the same time, they’re still distinct.

To love God this way is to treasure God above all else and to apply that love in our service of Him. God wants people who will love Him with a passion and will serve Him with devotion.
Now Jesus is quoting word for word from Deuteronomy 6:5. And there are echoes of this command all over the Bible. One of the most obvious in the Old Testament is from the beginning of the Ten Commandments, where God says (this is Exodus 20:2), “You shall have no gods before Me.” And then He goes on to say, “And remember, no idols either.” Jesus could have quoted that, but, just like Jesus, he quoted a similar command that says the same thing in a positive way, and in a way designed to remind us that God doesn’t just want a superficial allegiance, but He wants our full devotion (heart, soul, mind and strength).

You see, God wants a relational connection to us. He doesn’t just want us to say, “Oh, yes, you are my God” when we come into a temple or into a church building. That’s the so-called relationship that 2/3 of all so-called Christians worldwide have with God. He wants more; God wants a love connection with us where we respond to God with a purposeful passion.

And God really does want it. In John 4:23, Jesus says that the Father seeks true worshippers:
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

The Father dearly seeks out people to be part of His family. He actually commands us to love Him. You often hear it said that you can’t command love, but Jesus does, not once but many times.

Let me pause here and direct your attention to the message outline. Let’s do a little self-check. You have to be honest here. If I ask you to immediately respond to the question, “Do you love God the way Jesus describes here?” how would you answer? You choices are:

____ Yes, I love God with a passion
____ Yes, I guess so
____ It depends on when you ask me
____ Most of the time it seems that God doesn’t love me, so why should I love Him?

Can I remind you that Jesus’ commands are always for our good? God doesn’t command us to love Him because He’s got a low self-esteem problem and He needs us around to make Him feel better. God commands us to love Him with this kind of total passionate abandon because it’s right (He’s worthy) and because loving Him brings order, joy and balance into our lives. Loving anyone or anything more than Him is wrong (it’s idolatry) and it’s a barrier to the kind of joy that He promises.

That’s Part A of the Great Commandment, and it’s first for a reason. But there’s also Part B (Matthew 22:39):

And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Jesus says it’s like it in the sense that it’s just as foundational. He says that when you add parts A and B together, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:40).

Again, Jesus is quoting the Old Testament, this time from Leviticus 19:18. There’s one more place in the Gospels where Jesus gives the Great Commandment, in Luke 10:27. But this time the guy Jesus gives the answer to picks an argument with Jesus over the meaning of the word “neighbor.” “Just who is my neighbor?” he asks.

Remember that Jesus’ vision is always global—it’s always a vision that doesn’t settle for a small circle of people for God to love, or to be loved by people who love God. So He replied to this guy by telling the story that we call the Good Samaritan story. Let me retell that story in short form: a poor traveler gets mugged on the dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho and is left for dead. A priest and a Levite, religious leaders in Israel, come across the poor guy and just pass by. They don’t want to get involved, and they may be afraid of becoming ritually impure by touching a dead body, whatever. It was a Samaritan that went to the victim and took care of his needs. Jews didn’t like Samaritans. They had the wrong religion, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong history. But Jesus makes him the hero of the story, and turns the “neighbor” issues around this way.

He finishes by asking the question, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The issue for Jesus isn’t carefully figuring out who is and who isn’t your neighbor, but being the best neighbor you can be.

By saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, He’s saying, “Just as you naturally seek what’s best for you, I’m calling you to seek what’s best for anyone and everyone that you come in contact with.” Just as you naturally want food, shelter and clothing, want that for other people. Just as you naturally want to be consoled when times are hard, seek to console others. Just as you naturally want to have joy in your relationships, want that for others. Just as you naturally want refreshing times of leisure, want that for others. Just as you, as children of God, have come to enjoy and love God, as you’ve come to know the forgiveness that comes from the cross of Jesus, want that for others—that they would know God’s love and forgiveness and the fresh start He gives.

But don’t just want it out there in the ozone layer—do something about it! If there are hungry people, feed them. If there are hurt people, console them. If there are lonely people, be their friend. If there are broken people, help fix them up. If there are people wandering outside of the family of God, by all means, help them find their way in.

We’re going to devote the whole month of April to giving you an opportunity to love people in very practical ways by serving them. You’ve heard me use the term, “Don’t go to church—be the church.” That’s the tagline of a special month called Faith in Action Month. This is a plan developed by World Vision, a great Christian relief organization. We want to encourage you to be the church in deeds of loving service. Don’t just come to church; be the church
Faith in Action is a 4-week, church-wide campaign that’s designed to enable us to look outward focus with a heart to serve. FIA culminates on a Sunday where regular services will be cancelled (that’s April 30) and the entire congregation will engage in service projects in, and with, the community.

That day will be a day of community service-–all wrapped up with an evening celebration. We’ll close the doors of the church on Sunday morning and open our hearts to your community through a day of service projects involving our entire congregation.

You see, these commands of Jesus just may take us from where we’ve been—focusing inward—to where God wants us to be: loving God with passion, and loving people, our neighbors, in tangible, practical ways. And that will bring joy to the heart of God and will bless and transform our world!

And I Hope They Win!

Can you believe it? Remember this is the same Google that cooperates with repressive regimes such as the People's Republic of China and Syria...from the UK Daily Mail:

Christian group sues Google after search engine refuses to take its abortion adverts

By SIMON CALDWELL

Google: Its policy is not to take adverts from websites which mix abortion with religion

A Christian group is suing Google over the internet giant's refusal to take its anti-abortion adverts.

The Christian Institute, a "non-denominational Christian charity", wanted to pay Google so that whenever the word "abortion" was typed into the popular search engine, its link would appear on the side of the screen.

The link would have read: "UK abortion law - news and views on abortion from the Christian Institute. www.christian.org.uk."

But Google refused the advert because it said it had a policy of declining sites which mixed the issue of abortion with religious views.

Its Dublin-based advertising team replied: "At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'abortion and religion-related content'."

Google does, however, accept adverts for abortion clinics, secular pro-abortion sites and secularist sites which attack religion.

The Christian Institute has now started legal proceedings against Google on the grounds that it is infringing the Equality Act 2006 by discriminating against Christian groups.

It is seeking damages, costs and the permission to publish its advertisement.

Mike Judge, Christian Institute spokesman, said: "For many people, Google is the doorway to the internet.

"If there is to be a free exchange of ideas then Google cannot give special free speech rights to secular groups whilst censoring religious views.

"To say that religious sites with material on abortion are 'unacceptable content' (while) advertising pornography is ridiculous."

The group was supported by the Christian former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe, who said: "It does seem to me to be the most appalling and blatant case of religious discrimination and also to be a very silly attempt to stifle due debate."

The institute sought to promote its online articles on abortion ahead of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill arriving in the House of Commons next month.

The Bill will provide the first opportunities in 18 years for MPs to vote on the upper time limit
for abortions: currently 24 weeks.

My comment: notice how Ann Widdecombe was identified as "Christian former Tory minister"--you can almost hear the sneer in "Christian"?

I urge you to visit the Christian Institute's website and register your support. And maybe use Altavista for your websearchs.

The Power and Meaning of Baptism

Today I resume posting from the series, "The Seven Basic Commands of Jesus." This is the third installment, on baptism.

Original date: January 20, 2008
Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:3-4

I turned 14 that year. I put my trust in Jesus in May of that year, and was baptized that August. But I think the church there didn’t know just what to do with me. They were used to kids around 10 or so getting baptized as a kind of growing up rite of passage, but when you got to be a teen, that was a little rarer. I guess they were used to more of a Baptist Bar-Mitzvah—church kids that grow up and get baptized just because they were the age to get baptized.

So they put me in a class, me 14 and the rest of them, six or seven, all about 10 or 11 years old. Now when you’re 14, you don’t think of ten-year-olds as being four years younger than you. You think of them as being babies, and you think of yourself as being practically an adult. But there I was with the babies going to a baptism class. You know what’s ironic? The class was taught by my future father-in-law. I think he felt for my unease but didn’t know quite what to do about it. So we both kind of endured it.

The weeks went by and the evening came for baptisms. Yes, they always did baptisms in an evening service. I was a giant among ants, those little kids getting baptized.

But I wasn’t thinking about those kids. I knew I was crossing a divide. Although I’d believed since spring, baptism was a marker. It was a sign that said, “No turning back here.” I remember a combination of joy as well as a little fear as I went up to be baptized. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I always try to talk to people about their fears when they come to get baptized, always try to be light and affirming just before baptism.

Pastor Hayden was his name; he asked me if I believed and I said that I did; he asked me if I pledged to follow Christ my whole life and again I said I would. I can still remember the feeling of permanence and determination I had as I was getting baptized. It was a great feeling. This was the final step in entering into a new life. Down I went, a moment of immersion, and then up again—death, burial, resurrection.

That’s my story. The Bible tells many stories about baptism. It says that John came baptizing, and Jesus picked that right up and made it a part of the life of obeying Him. He explicitly told us to baptize new disciples, and we see commands to be baptized in the New Testament, and we see many examples of people being baptized in the Book of Acts, the story of the beginning of the church.

His command is the second of seven basic commands of Jesus:

1. Repent and believe: Mark 1:15
2. Be baptized (and continue in the new life it initiates): Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:1-11
3. Love God and neighbor in a practical way: Matthew 22:37-40
4. Celebrate the Lord’s Supper: Luke 22:17-20
5. Pray: Matthew 6:5-15
6. Give: Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 6:38
7. Disciple others: Matthew 28:18-20

That’s the outline we’re following as we focus on obeying Jesus’ commands. The first one is
Repent and believe—Mark 1:15

The second is
Be baptized—and continue in the new life—Matthew 28:18-20

We’re trying to memorize this list, one at a time each week. So let’s repeat that word for word:

Number One: Repent and believe—Mark 1:15
Number Two: Be Baptized, and Continue in the New Life—Matthew 28:18-20

Baptism is all about newness—God’s fresh start in Jesus. Let’s go back to the story of the Bible and see how baptism fits in, and then work it from there.

Long ago, God judged the world with water. A few passed through, in the great Ark built by Noah and his family, and were saved.

Then the time came when God brought His people Israel out of slavery in Egypt, and again, the passed through the parted waters of the Red Sea to safety.

Once again God parted the water for Israel, this time the Jordan River, so they could cross over into their land of promise.

Now, 1,300 years later a man appears preaching that the people should once again pass through water to get ready for the new thing God was doing. He was John the Baptist—that title could be translated as “John the Baptizer.” And he picked a strategic location for his baptisms. It was a place called Bethany beyond Jordan—not the Bethany near Jerusalem, but near Jericho, on the far side, the eastern side of the river. It was the same place that the people of Israel cross the Jordan on dry ground: it was the door to their promised land.

By picking this place, John is saying, “We’re coming into a whole new era of God’s dealings, just like when our ancestors came into this land. Messiah is coming, and we need to get ready. We need to reboot spiritually, and this is the place to do it.”

John was also building on the fact that passing through water as a symbol of cleansing was very much a part of Jewish culture, and had been for hundreds of years.

They called it passing through the mikvah. Immersion in water for ritual purification was part of being restored to "ritual purity." (For example, you passed through the mikvah before offering a sacrifice.) It was also used for new converts to Judaism. Immersion represented purification and restoration, and qualification for full participation in the life of the community. There’s one big difference between the Jewish mikvah and baptism: you pass through the mikvah repeatedly, unlike baptism, which is a one-time experience.

So John’s out there on the Jordan River doing the Messiah mikvah when his distant relative Jesus of Nazareth comes along. He tells John that He wants to be baptized, to which John replies, “Of all the people on earth, you’re the only one who doesn’t need to get baptized.” But Jesus insisted because He was identifying with this new phase of what God was doing—the age of the Messiah had come, and Jesus is that Messiah.

At the end of the His mission on earth, after the cross and after the resurrection, Jesus tells His disciples to keep on baptizing. We’ve already seen the command in the Great Commission in Matthew 28, but Jesus repeats or implies it in several other passages.

On the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after the Passover on which Jesus died as God’s lamb, God sent the Holy Spirit, the church was born, and Peter preached the first Christian sermon. When he tells them that the Jesus which they, the people of Jerusalem had a part in the murder of the Messiah, they were very upset. Look at Acts 2:37-38:

37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" 38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

When you encounter Jesus, there’s an inner action to take—repent. And as we saw last week, repenting and believing always walk hand in hand. But there’s some out actions to take as well: “be baptized.”

That’s a big clue as to what baptism is all about: it’s the outer mark, the outer sign that you have identified with Jesus. Our faith is always located on public property. So many people say, “Well my faith is a very private thing to me.” Well, that’s not the New Testament way. When you follow Jesus, you go public.

That’s one of the reasons Jesus commands us to be baptized. Whether you get baptized at one of the busiest spots in Jerusalem (like the pool of Siloam, where the crowds on the day of Pentecost were probably baptized) in the middle of the day, or like the Ethiopian eunuch, out in the middle of nowhere, or like the Philippian jailor, in the middle of the night, the thing that moved you from an enquirer to a convert was how you answered this question: “Have you been baptized?”

Baptism points forward as well. Again, think of Noah’s Ark, crossing the Red Sea, and crossing the Jordan. All those passed through water with the intent of bringing you to a place of New Life. You are getting out of Nowhere and going to Somewhere. You are getting out of destruction and bondage and danger to a new beginning, to freedom and to a new life. That’s the way it is with baptism too. It marks leaving the realm of darkness and entering into the realm of God’s light.

That’s why it was so closely tied to when a person believed. We really don’t want there to be a long time between when a person puts their trust in Jesus and when they are baptized.

If you think back to where we started, with the list of the seven basic commands of Jesus, I think George Patterson, the missionary who came up with this list was right on when he phrased it this way:

Be baptized (and continue in the new life it initiates)

Baptism is supposed to be the beginning of something, not the end. If baptism is about the coming of the Messiah, a new life, passing from danger to safety, cleansing, from Satan’s kingdom to the Kingdom of God, then it means that I’m going from one way of living to another.

God intends for us to live Jesus-filled, Spirit infused, lives. Paul says as much in Romans 6:3-4:

3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

So there’s a straight line from the meaning of baptism to the lives we live and the deeds we do for the name of Jesus. We get baptized because we heard the message of Jesus, and after baptism, we follow the mission of Jesus.

Galatians 2:20 is one of my favorite passages…there’s hardly day when I don’t recite this verse:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Christ has come to live within me. My life is no longer all about me. In a sense, it’s not my life at all anymore. “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

You see, in baptism, I drowned. I died. I was buried. Then I came up with a new life, a resurrection life. Just as Jesus came out of that tomb on that first Easter, baptism symbolizes that new life I’ve come into.

That new life is filled with a transformed character and transformed deeds. A baptized Jesus-follower says by his baptism, “I’ve turned my back on the past, I’ve turned my back on ways that don’t please God, and now I’m following Jesus. I won’t be perfect (like Jesus) but my intention is to rely on God’s Spirit to allow Jesus to live His life through me and to touch all of my life and to bring His loving presence to the world I live in.”

Do remember last week when we said that the single biggest marker of life outside of Jesus is a lack of love? It’s no surprise then that when the apostle Paul described the character of a mature follower of Jesus that love goes first. This is also from Galatians, 5:22-23:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

This is continuing in the new life that baptism celebrates. When a husband treats his wife and kids with care and compassion, that’s continuing in the new life. When a student won’t join in the clique that teases and makes life miserable for another kid, that’s continuing in the new life. When you say no to gossip and yes to prayer, when you volunteer with youth or to teach English or to take an older adult to the doctor, that’s continuing in the new life. That’s saying that you meant that business about believing in and following Him the day you were baptized.

A word to the unbaptized

I want to finish this message by offering a word of encouragement to the unbaptized among us. For one reason or another, you’re here today and you haven’t been baptized.

First, let’s be clear about what I didn’t say. I didn’t say that you can’t know God or go to heaven unless you’ve been baptized. Baptism doesn’t save anybody. Only Jesus can do that.

Second, let me encourage you to follow Jesus’ example and be baptized. Jesus did it, He commanded it, and obedience to His commands always leads to God’s blessings.

Take action today. Either speak to me, a parent, a friend here, or one of the other pastors. Or you can mark it down on your communication card and we’ll be in touch with you this week. Do it soon. And continue living in the new life it celebrates—as a genuine follower of Jesus.

Come Alive: The Difference Easter Makes Every Day

I'm interrupting my posting of messages from The Seven Basic Commands of Jesus to share yesterday's Resurrection Day message.

Romans 4:25, 6:8; Philippians 3:20-21
March 23, 2008

When I was a kid growing up in Ohio, Easter meant that we’d eat eggs on Sunday morning—all the eggs we wanted! My brother and I got Easter baskets with candy and little toys like toy trucks, and that was about it. Maybe we’d have a backyard Easter egg hunt. That’s what Easter meant to me.

Then I became a believer in Jesus Christ during the last month of Junior High. The following year, my Easter changed completely. I attended a sunrise Easter service (which was held at the football field at the local High School), then back to church for breakfast and then Sunday school and then the packed Easter morning worship time. The choir wore their full regalia and the pastor preached his best, home run style sermon. Baskets and bunnies went off my Easter radar. A story of an empty cross and an empty tomb replaced the eggs and the toy cars.

That was many years ago. Now I scarcely think of this day each year as “Easter.” To me it’s become Resurrection Day. The most stunning event in human history occurred on this day in 30 AD. This event has had the most stunning impact of any event in history. And it has the most stunning effect on people’s lives. That’s what I want to explore with you this morning—the “Come Alive!” message of Easter than doesn’t just create a spring holiday, but that changes every single day of our lives.

The Most Stunning Event

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol starts with these famous words, “Marley was dead; to begin with. There was no doubt about that.” The Easter story as well has to start with “Jesus was dead; to begin with. There was no doubt about that.”

Crucifixion is a horrible way to die, and the Romans made that even worse by flogging victims half to death beforehand. A lot of you have seen the movie “The Passion of the Christ.” People have asked me if Jesus’ sufferings in the movie were accurate. As terrible as they are depicted in the movie, the way He was tortured before His death could have been even worse, according to the ancient records.

So Jesus was dead. The disciples were in hiding. The whole Jesus movement was crushed. Who can follow a dead Messiah? How can you trust the words of a man who said He’d come to seek and save the lost when He couldn’t even save Himself?

So now on a Sunday morning the word comes trickling back to the disciples that the tomb had been disturbed; the body was gone. They ran to check it out; it wasn’t that far; maybe as far as from here to Temple City Boulevard.

The gospel reports on “Jesus sightings” that day have the chaotic feel of real events, not a carefully crafted tale. One woman sees Him; more than one women see angels; two men on a road west of Jerusalem; His brother James sees Him. Finally, ten disciples all together on that Sunday night see Him, and He spends time with them. Jesus, who had been dead, was now alive.

Barrels of ink have been wasted by people churning up theories to explain away the resurrection. But the fact remains that a real resurrection is the best explanation of the historical evidence, the best explanation of the behavior of the early disciples and the best explanation of the explosive growth of the early church. It was the most stunning, amazing event in history.

The Most Stunning Effect on People’s Lives

Nothing has changed people’s lives more than the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I read some time ago that Larry King of CNN was asked if he could interview anybody from anytime in history, who would he chose? He answered in a second: “Jesus Christ.” Then he was asked, if you could only ask one question, what would it be? “I’d ask, were you really born of a virgin? If the answer’s yes, that answers a lot of questions.”

Another question Larry could ask Jesus would be, “Did you really rise from the dead?” That answers a lot of questions too. If Jesus did rise from the dead, it’s the best evidence that all He said was true—that He is God in the flesh and that His death on the cross really does set people free.

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead has done more to change people’s lives than anything else. When He came alive on that first Easter, He paved the road for people in the centuries that have followed to come alive as well.

Less than thirty years after His resurrection, the Apostle Paul wrote a letter that we now call the Book of Romans. It’s probably the most detailed book of the Bible about the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. There are a couple of very short statements Paul makes about the meaning of the cross and the empty tomb that tell us about the stunning effect Jesus has can have on your life every day.

In Romans 4:25, he writes,

He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. (New Living Translation)

This means that as a result of Jesus’ death, those who put their faith in Him have all their sins and misdeeds wiped away. But the job wasn’t done until He rose up from the dead. “He was raised to life to make us right with God.” By the cross, we were forgiven; by the resurrection, we were made right with God—reunited with the God who loves us so much. In Jesus’ resurrection, we come alive—to life, to love, and to God as our Father.

The Easter message doesn’t make sense unless you see the part where we (all human beings) are broken and need to be fixed. We were cut off from the life God meant us to have. We choose our way instead of God’s way. When we did that, we unleashed a world of hurt on ourselves, our relationships and our future.

Jesus Christ came into the world to take all that brokenness and hurt on Himself. That’s way He suffered the way He did. He broke the power of sin by being broken. He broke the power of suffering by His agony. He broke the power of sin by laying down His perfect life. He broke the power of death by dying in our place.

It would not have been right for God to let the body of the Son to rot in a tomb after this sacrifice. The world had to know that He’d won. The world had to know what that death was all about. The world had to know about the hope that is stronger than death. And the world had to know that in Jesus there is life.

We owed a debt we could not pay; He paid a debt He did not owe. That was the cross. But by His resurrection, He secured something more than “debt paid” for us. He rose up from the dead, marched into the throne room of the Eternal Father, and said, “Look, Father, here are the ones I died for. They shall be the people of God for all eternity. And they shall know joy.”

We naturally associate Easter and joy. It’s the joy of “all things new.” In our lives, this joy often takes years to unfold. Let me tell you a story—a real person’s story about how Jesus changes lives. It’s written by a young woman named Aimee Colbert, and it was posted on a website called testimonyshare.com last December.

My life was never expected or wanted. I grew up in the worst part of the ghetto, raised by grandma with more siblings that hope. I had always been a very depressed child being abused sexually by multiple family members and very poor.

As a teen I was suicidal. I was very rebellious, smoking, drinking, being promiscuous and

running away. Until, I had decided to give my life to Christ at seventeen years old. I had always been raised in church but never really understood or cared. But when I was at my lowest and knew that I was in trouble. I realized that there was only one name to call on, [the name of] Jesus.

I found out that I was pregnant with my first child the next day and my life began a downward spiral in the natural. But in the spirit I was getting stronger and wiser. I had two children by the age of nineteen, with no education and an abusive husband. Everything was going wrong but on the inside of me God was doing a good work.

To make a long story short I am now re-married to a wonderful man of God. I got my education and I am a youth minister studying Biblical counseling. My husband and I are dedicated evangelists. I just want to say that it took me so long to see the results of my faith and I had to sow many seeds of tears.

But when you give your life to God and make him the Lord of your life, do not be deceived, your life will be turned upside down. Things did not get better in my life when I did. It seemed to get worst! But be encouraged, after a long suffering, if you truly love God and endure, you will reap a mighty harvest. Praise the Lord! God is faithful. Amen. When I felt most alone and weary God lifted me up out of the gutter of homelessness, addiction and abuse.

Thanks to the love, wisdom, and faithfulness of God, I am not just a statistic of society. My life is a shining testimony of strength and not death. I am achieving my dreams with God intended favor. The Lord has blessed me to never face a day alone.[1]

Aimee knows what it means to be broken, and she knows what it means to receive a new life from Jesus Christ. She knows what the cross and the empty tomb means. Coming to Christ isn’t easy and it doesn’t make life easy, but He sets you on a path where life opens up to us. When you’re right with God, you’re in a place where you can begin to make the other relationships of life right as well.

In Romans 6:8, Paul writes,

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

In the context of Romans 6, Paul makes clear that he’s not talking about the future resurrection of the body. He’s talking about a resurrection, a renewal of life that happens right here, right now, when we trust the risen Jesus with our lives. On the cross, we died with Him. That means that everything broken and wrong and disgusting about us went to the cross to die there as well. On Easter morning, we came alive with Him. We’re new people, free people, liberated people. We’re God’s people now; we’re all temples that God lives in now—if we’ve placed our faith in the risen Jesus.

What is to Come

Now, one last thought this resurrection day. God’s word speaks of the present impact of Jesus’ resurrection a lot. The fact that He’s risen validates all His claims. His resurrection is the most important event in history. His resurrection means that our lives can change right now. His resurrection power has been unleashed in the world, and day by day He is transforming people like Aimee Colbert. But His resurrection also means that we can face the biggest challenge in life with hope. We can face death with hope.

In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul writes,

20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.

When Jesus left that tomb, He had a glorious resurrection body. He wasn’t just a resuscitated corpse, some kind of “Jesus zombie.” He was, in Paul’s words, “glorious.”

And God promises us that that’s our eventual fate as well: to have our “lowly” bodies raised from the dead and to be made “glorious” as well! C.S. Lewis said that if we could see what we are to become, we’d be tempted to fall down and worship that!

This isn’t just some theological idea. I can’t count the number of people I’ve spent time with in the weeks and days and even hours before their death. I also can’t count the time I’ve spent with those who’ve lost someone to death. The resurrection of Jesus becomes to them both power and promise. The resurrection is the spring of confidence and hope and even joy. According to the Bible, the Resurrection of Jesus is the like the bow of an icebreaker. His resurrection breaks the cold of sin and death and opens up a new world. And even death can’t prevail against Him or against His people.

Jesus said, in John 5:28-29,

28 Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.

Another Easter is coming—another day of Resurrection! Jesus will return and call out, “Live!” and all who have died will live.

But—and this is important—some will rise to live, but others will rise to be condemned. All will rise, but it won’t be good news for all. The difference lies in what you do with message right now.

On this Easter Sunday, Jesus is offering you real life. He’s calling for you to come in from the cold and to know the reason you were created. You were created to know God and to enjoy God forever. You were created for the adventure of knowing and serving Him.

How do I come to know Him? First, I need to agree with God that I’m spiritually broken. My sin separates me from God. I have to be clear on that.

Second, I need to recognize that Jesus is the only way I can be made right with God. He’s the only Savior. His Good Friday death was for me, to pay the price of my sins and to set me free.
Third, I need to choose to follow Him. This isn’t a matter of praying a prayer and then doing what I want with my life. It’s a life sentence of joyfully following Jesus Christ as the Lord, Master and Leader of my life.

Come alive! This resurrection day can be a new day for you as well. Trust this risen Jesus with your life. That’s the best thing you can do this Easter: come alive with Him!

[1] http://www.testimonyshare.com/not-just-another-statistic/

WHAT IT MEANS TO TRULY BELIEVE

This is the second message in the series, "Living by the Commands of Jesus." Original date: January 13, 2008

Mark 1:15

Last week we began a series of messages asking the question, “What does Jesus call us as His people to do?” Remember that whatever He commands is for our joy, not a new rule or law to live by, something to make life harder. No—what He commands is always for our joy, and it makes life better and richer and fuller. Well, we saw that He gave us a very clear blueprint for life in the Great Commission passage, Matthew 28:18-20:

18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Especially these words:

…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…

I love doctrine, good sound teaching. We call sound teaching “orthodoxy” which means “straight teaching.” “Ortho” is the Greek word for “straight”, so an orthodontist works to give us straight teeth.

But there’s another “ortho” word: orthopraxis. It means “straight practice” or “straight living. Jesus wants us to have “straight teaching”, but even more so He wants us to enter into “straight living.” He wants us to obey everything He commanded us.

I told you last week the story of missionary George Patterson working in Honduras in the 1960s and 70s, and how they taught church leaders to focus on the seven basic commands of Jesus. They asked converts to memorize a list of seven of Christ’s basic commands:

1. Repent and believe: Mark 1:15
2. Be baptized (and continue in the new life it initiates): Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:1-11
3. Love God and neighbor in a practical way: Matthew 22:37-40
4. Celebrate the Lord’s Supper: Luke 22:17-20
5. Pray: Matthew 6:5-15
6. Give: Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 6:38
7. Disciple others: Matthew 28:18-20

That’s the outline we’re going to follow as we focus on obeying Jesus’ commands. The first one is
Repent and believe—Mark 1:15

Now let’s also try to memorize this list, one at a time each week. So let’s repeat that word for word:

Number One: Repent and believe—Mark 1:15

Very good! Let’s look at that passage, in context, starting in Mark 1:14-20:

14After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
16As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 18At once they left their nets and followed him.
19When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

The first basic command of Jesus is “repent and believe.” This is the same as His command to Nicodemus in John 3:7: “You must be born again.” Conversion, salvation, new birth, “repent and believe”—they all refer to the same thing. It refers to when we realize that we are spiritually broken and we put our trust in Jesus and only Jesus as the one who can fix us.

When I was in college, I met my friend Jeff Taylor. Within a day or two of the beginning of school we’d met and discovered how much we had in common. We were both believers. We’d been raised less than thirty miles from other. We had the same taste in music, movies and books. We joked about having one brain between the two of us, the kind of connection where one of us could start a sentence and the other would finish it. We went through student teaching together, went to Europe together and he ended up being our best man at our wedding. In college, wherever Glenn was, Jeff was bound to show up as well.

Well, we have a pair that always seem to keep company in the Bible as well. It’s interesting how these terms “repent” and “believe” appear together. Where one is, the other is bound to show up. And even when the word isn’t there, the idea is.

That’s how “repent” and believe” is in the Bible: two inseparable friends. Let’s look at what “repent” and “believe” mean.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for repent is nacham, which means to feel deeply sorry for wrong deeds. In the New Testament, the word is metanoia. We get that word by putting together two words—the one for change (meta) and the one for thinking (noeo). So “repent” means to “change your thinking” about your life and the direction your life is going. In the Bible, the call to repent is the calling to change the way you look at life as well as to change what you’re doing with your life. It’s a call to change from NOT having God and His ways at the center to turn to Him and to make Him your chief joy and the center of your life.

That leads us right to “believe.” If I turn from something (that is, me living my life as I please) to something, what is it that I turn to? I turn to God, I put my trust in Him, and I live in such a way that He takes up the central, controlling place in my life.

Let’s look at it this way. You can compare the whole business of “repent and believe” to a heart transplant. I looked up some facts on heart transplants. The very first heart transplant was done by Dr. Christian Barnard in 1967 in South Africa. Today over 2,000 heart transplants are done in the US every heart, and about 3,000 elsewhere around the world. Over 80% of transplant recipients live longer than a year, and there are thousands of people who have lived for many years with a transplanted heart.

Every transplant starts with the realization that the old heart isn’t working the way it should. Irregular heartbeat, poor valve performance, shortness of breath, weakness and chronic fatigue are evidence that the heart isn’t working right.

There’s also evidence that there’s problems with our spiritual heart. The number one evidence that there’s something wrong with our spiritual problem is lack of love. How do we know that? Well, Jesus commanded us (it’s number three on our list) to love God with our whole selves and to love people as we love ourselves. If it’s His #1 command as far as living goes, it must be our #1 problem when we don’t know Him.

The old heart doesn’t love God and has an awfully hard time loving people. Dr. Jesus puts His holy stethoscope on our chest and says, “It’s too sick—it has to go! Living on this heart isn’t living at all. We need to replace it.”

The problem with our spiritual heart is huge, and it’s won’t change through minor treatments. Sometimes when we’re sick, we can try this medication or that treatment, but our spiritual heart is not just a little sick—it’s “desperately sick.”

Jeremiah 17:9 says

The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? (NASB)

So this is Jesus’ strong medicine: “You must be born again… you must repent and believe…you need a new heart.”

Jesus never said, “You must join my church. You must adopt my customs. You must learn my traditions. You need a new religion.” He knows that that’s like giving an aspirin to someone with a dying heart. It’s just not enough. And it’s dangerous to think that that’s enough.

He says instead, “Repent and believe.” When a new heart has been transplanted, it takes over doing what the old heart should have been doing. Oxygen goes out through the blood vessels to bring strength to the whole body. Carbon dioxide is scrubbed from the blood. The power of that new heart changes everything.

That’s the promise found in Ezekiel 36:26, where God says:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

The “repent” part is when the heart of stone is taken out; the “believe” part is when God puts in a new living heart.

Let’s think more about the second half of this command: believe. It should be really clear by now that Jesus isn’t just calling on people to just believe that certain things are true. Remember that He first said these words to a Jewish audience who believed in God, who believed that God has spoken through the Scriptures, and who believed that God had a plan for Israel: the coming of the Messiah.

When Jesus uses the word “believe” here, it’s clear that He has in mind, “Trust with all of your being.” The Greek word for believe is pisteuo which means to be convinced, to put confidence in, to trust. It means both that we believe that certain things are true, and that we are convinced that we can trust the One who made the promises.

Go back to Mark 1:15. There He says,

"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

What’s the good news? That the Kingdom of God is near! That the time has come!
So—what’s the Kingdom of God—and what time has come?

In the New Testament, the Kingdom of God is God’s present and future rule through His Son, Jesus the Messiah. Jesus says, “The time has come” because Jesus was bringing God’s rule into the world in a new way in His life and mission.

The kingdom of God isn’t an earthly kingdom. Remember when Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king? It’s in John 18:36 Jesus says that He is a king, but He also says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His kingdom is wherever He is loved and obeyed. So His kingdom is right here, right now.

And at the same time, His kingdom isn’t all here yet. Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done…” (Matthew 6:10). So in another sense, the Kingdom isn’t here yet, and won’t all be here until Jesus returns to this world.

This is the Good News that Jesus commands us to believe: God’s presence and kingly reign was breaking into our world through the presence of Jesus. He is our King. He’s so wonderful, so powerful and so compelling that we drop everything and follow Him, just like those first disciples there on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We believe what He says and more important, we believe Him. And when we do, He gives us a new heart—the kind that loves God and loves people. Our sins are forgiven. He paid the price for our sins when He died on the cross.
Maybe you remember the story from last fall about a woman who went missing and the relentless faith her husband had that she hadn’t just run off.

Tanya Rider, 33 of Maple Valley, Washington, was found September 27, eight days after she went missing. Her car had gone off the road into a ravine, covered by brush. Her husband Tom reported her missing, but was told by police that they thought she’d run away. Tom wouldn’t take that for an answer. He pressed police to start a search.

Tanya's car had tumbled about 20 feet down the ravine and lay buried below heavy brush and blackberry bushes. Rescuers had to slice the roof off to get her out.

Tom Rider said he had been just sitting down to take a polygraph test at the King County sheriff's office so officers could exclude him as a suspect in his wife's disappearance, when officers told him the car had been found. They used her cell phone signal to track her to the ravine.

Tom Rider should get some kind of reward as the man who wouldn’t give up. He explained that he knew that Tanya wouldn’t just run away, and he was convinced that she was in some kind of trouble.

You might say, he had faith in her. He knew what she was like, and running away just wasn’t her. But maybe more important was the faith that she had faith in him. Tanya was certain that Tom wouldn’t give up.

In the same way, Jesus saw us in the ravine, and He wouldn’t give up on us. At great cost and misunderstanding, and at personal risk, He came for us. And now he says to us, “I know you’re broken, banged up and near dead. Just put your trust in Me and I’ll get you out of here.” That’s the simplicity of faith: He is our rescuer. That’s what Savior means: He rescues us.

And now He says to us, “Repent, and believe the Good News. I’ve come for you. It’s going to be all right. Let's get you ought of here.”God is good! That's Jesus alright--the one who goes into the ravine to find us. The one who will not give up.

A Holy Week Miracle: Say Hello to Brother Mikhail

Mikhail Gorbachev admits he is a Christian

By Malcolm Moore in Rome

Last Updated: 3:04am GMT 19/03/2008

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.

Accompanied by his daughter Irina, Mr Gorbachev spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer at the tomb.

His arrival in Assisi was described as "spiritual perestroika" by La Stampa, the Italian
newspaper.

"St Francis is, for me, the alter Christus, the other Christ," said Mr Gorbachev. "His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life," he added.

Mr Gorbachev's surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light. Mr Gorbachev, 77, was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church and his parents were Christians. In addition, the parents of his wife Raisa were deeply religious and were killed during the Second World War for having religious icons in their home.
advertisement

Ronald Reagan, the former United States president, allegedly told his close aides on a number of occasions that he felt his opponent during the Cold War was a "closet believer".

Mr Reagan held deep religious convictions himself. However, until now Mr Gorbachev has allowed himself to express only pantheistic views, saying in one interview "nature is my god".
After his prayers, Mr Gorbachev toured the Basilica of St Francis and asked in particular to be shown an icon of St Francis portraying his "dream at Spoleto".

St Francis, who lived in the 12th century, was a troubadour and a poet before the spiritual vision caused him to return to Assisi and contemplate a religious life.

Even in his early days, St Francis helped the poor, once giving all of his money to a beggar. As well as spending time in the wilderness, he also nursed lepers and eventually became a priest.
"It was through St Francis that I arrived at the Church, so it was important that I came to visit his tomb," said Mr Gorbachev.

"I feel very emotional to be here at such an important place not only for the Catholic faith, but for all humanity."

He also asked the monks for theological books to help him understand St Francis's life.

Father Miroslavo Anuskevic, who accompanied the former Soviet leader, said: "He was not recognised by any of the worshippers in the church, and silently meditated at the tomb for a while. He seemed a man deeply inspired by charity, and told me that he was involved in a project to help children with cancer.

"He talked a lot about Russia and said that even though the transition to democracy had been very important for the world, it was very painful for Russia. He said it was a country which has a great history, and also a great spirituality."

Immanuelization

This is my monthly column for Temple City Life, to be published in early April.

In his book, Missing in America, Tom Clegg tells of a transforming experience he had while a youth pastor in suburban Chicago. Each summer some suburban churches put on an evangelistic outreach to the inner city. They’d blitz the streets with tracts. It was a hot day, over 100. Tom went out with a teen from his church named Ryan. A man on the street said something about the heat and Tom shot back, “It will be hotter unless you repent!” Another guy was panhandling, so Tom gave him a tract and said, “You need this more than money!”

They turned a corner and about five tall, tough-looking black kids were sitting in the shade by a basketball court. Tom and the kid with them suddenly felt very small and very, very white. Tom began to hand out tracts when one guy said, “It’s too (blank) hot to listen to some honky preacher!” Then he pulled a knife, and Tom and the kid ran for their lives.

When they got back to their van, Tom confessed to the teen from his church that not only was he scared, but as he ran away, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the way they were trying to “spread the gospel” seemed shallow, fake and manipulative. Then he did something that will probably make you think he was crazy. He talked Ryan into going back to the playground where the guy with the knife was.

They drove the church van, stocked with cold sodas and ice. The tough-looking guys were still there and so was the guy with the knife.

Tom got out of the van and said to them, “Hey everything is cool, OK? Look, I just want to apologize for being a jerk. How about a soda instead of a sermon?” They dove for the cans and began to playfully throw the ice around. One of them challenged Ryan to some one-on-one b-ball. The guy with the knife talked with Tom. Tom ended up hiring the kid--his name was Franklin--to give him a tour of the neighborhood and to introduce him to people.

This was a huge turning point for Tom and for that outreach. It’s a long story, but here’s the bottom line—they resolved never to tell the gospel without actually demonstrating the gospel. Before, they’d been content to drive-by the Jesus message; now they began to live it. Tom calls it switching from sermon-based outreach to service-based outreach.

And guess what? It took a year, but Franklin, the kid with the knife, gave his life to Jesus. Today he’s a printer, married with kids and active in an urban church in Chicago.

You have to immanuelize before you can evangelize. Jesus came into this world as our Immanuel, “God with us.” He got in our neighborhood and lived among us. He didn’t do a drive-by. Only after he’d lived among us for 30 years did He even start to preach. He proved the love of God by His way of life, then and only then did He tell the story and then go to the cross. He “immanuelized” before He evangelized!

That’s why we at First Baptist do service evangelism things like wrapping Christmas presents rather than handing out tracts on a street corner. That’s why we’re there at the Camellia Festival. That’s why we host things like the Chamber of Commerce and the Blue Banner dinners. That’s also why we’re going to shut down morning worship on April 27 to do a Day of Service to the community—to immanuelize before we evangelize.

We want to invite anyone interested in the well-being of our community to join with us on April 27. Although at this time all of our projects have not yet been determined, they will include several ministries to the poor, needy and isolated of the area. They will include assembling AIDS caregiver kits to be shipped to Africa. If you want to be involved, if you want more information about a project, or if you have a great idea for a project, give me at call at (626) 286-3125 x 11.

This Rare Early Easter

The dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that the Hebrews used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. Here's some things you might be interested in.

Easter can actually be one day earlier than this year (March 22) but that is pretty rare. This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of ourlives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or willever, see it a day earlier!

Here are the facts: the next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913. The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So no one alive today has, or ever will see Easter any earlier than this year!

For more, see here.

LIVING BY THE COMMANDS OF JESUS

As promised, the first installment of messages just finished on The Seven Basic Commands of Jesus.

Original date: January 6, 2008

Matthew 28:18-20

As we enter into a new year, I want to start a new series of messages that are designed to enable to clearly answer the question, “What does God want from us? How does he want us to live? What are the priorities of Jesus for His people?” The reality is that there’s an amazingly clear answer given to us by Jesus.

But first, let’s realize that there is a gap, a huge gap, between what the average church asks of its people and what Jesus asks—a better word would be requires—of His people.

For many churches, what they ask really is, “Come, give money, help out, and don’t cause trouble.” Others set the bar even lower: “Be baptized and send a check from time to time.”
This can’t be right! This is not the community of transformed that Jesus lived and died for. He saw His church as a mighty force of ordinary people in love with and following Himself as its Lord. Ordinary people following the extraordinary Jesus and doing extraordinary things—that’s always been the plan of Jesus.

Jesus saw His church as a body of believers who would not simple assert faith in certain doctrines, but who would be so gripped by what Jesus did and taught and commanded that even in their ordinariness and even in their weakness they, in their lives, deeds and character would be a dazzling display of the greatness and glory of God.

Sometimes we get kind of confused about this. We begin to think that Jesus is all about us. That He came so we could go to heaven and so we can have somewhere to turn when we have a hard time in the meanwhile. Nothing could be further from the New Testament truth. Jesus came to overturn the whole world, not by some kind of political revolution but by an inner revolution of the human heart, paid for by His blood. He’s come to set the world right, and we’ve been caught up in His work. We’re not bystanders; we’re part of His ongoing mission.

Now what does He want from His people? Is it possible that Jesus wants a people who just get baptized? Is it possible that He died on a cross for a people who live their lives on their own agenda but then have a place in heaven? Could it be possible that He died to create a people who are only called upon to make out a check on payday?

No way. He has a very clear blueprint, and it’s found in Matthew 28:18-20:

18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Now you probably think I’m going to talk about missions or evangelism. You’ve heard, and I’ve given, many messages about missions and evangelism based on this passage. That’s valid. There’s a lot about missions and evangelism here. But that’s not that part I want to focus on. What I want to focus on is what He tells us to do here. A lot of people read this passage and say, “Well, Jesus tells us to tell everybody about the Good News.” That’s right, but there’s more. “Well, Jesus tells us to tell all nations.” That’s right too, but there’s still more.

So what does He tell us here? Someone might go further and say, “Jesus tells us to make disciples.” Right, great! We’re moving in the right direction. “Jesus tells us to tell them everything that He taught.” Yes, but look again. He’s very specific. On the screen is the command of Jesus isolated so you can see it:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…

We know about “go”; we know about “make disciples”; we know about “baptizing.” But did you catch the last part?

…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…

Jesus didn’t just tell us to teach them what He taught us. He says, “…teach them to obey/live by/observe everything I have taught you.”

In other words, what He is calling for us to do is to teach people to enter into a lifestyle based on the teachings of Jesus—a Jesus-soaked, Jesus-exalting way of living.

I noticed this several years ago and said, “Sometime I need to go through the gospels and see all the commands of Jesus so I know what it is He wants to do.” Well, somebody a lot smarter than me did that. He’s one of my favorite authors, John Piper. He wrote a book called What Jesus Demands of the World and he found 50 commands of Jesus. That’s kind of overwhelming! But let me tell you a story about somebody way back in the 1960s who took what Jesus said here seriously and the impact that had.

George Patterson was a missionary in Honduras. He went there to teach in a seminary, but traditional seminary education of pastors was failing miserably. What would happen is these young pastors would get a diploma and then didn’t want to go back to their village. They wanted to stay in the city or even get a nice paying job with the Dole Fruit Company.

So the mission George was with had to come up with a completely different way of training pastors. They pioneered what’s known as TEE: Theological Education by Extension. That’s a fancy way of saying that George got on the back of a mule and went from village to village to teach pastors and church elders what the Bible teaches and how to live the Jesus-following life. Instead of them leaving the village to get an education, the education came to them. They had to come up a way of teaching the faith, church life and sound Biblical teaching that would be simple, practical, memorable and impactful.

George had to figure how to do that. A whole new way of teaching had to be found. Do you where he found it? Right here in Matthew 28:18-20. Let me read his words.

Jesus, after affirming His deity and total authority on earth, commissioned His Church to make disciples who obey all His commands. So His commands take priority over all other institutional rules (even the hallowed Church Constitution and Bylaws). This obedience is always in love. If we obey God for any other reason, it becomes sheer legalism; God hates that.

…We asked our converts to memorize the following list of
Christ’s basic commands:

1. Repent and believe: Mark 1:15
2. Be baptized (and continue in the new life it initiates): Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:1-11
3. Love God and neighbor in a practical way: Matthew 22:37-40
4. Celebrate the Lord’s Supper: Luke 22:17-20
5. Pray: Matthew 6:5-15
6. Give: Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 6:38
7. Disciple others: Matthew 28:18-20

George had all the pastors then all the elders and then every member in these village churches memorize these seven basic commands. Everything that George and the others involved in this ministry related to those seven basic commands of Jesus. So what happened?

The results were nothing less than amazing. In just four years, the four little churches he started out with grew to 21 churches as they kept the training close, local and practical.

I was so taken by this I found myself saying, “If it’s good enough for Honduras, it’s good enough for the US!”

Now let’s be clear about some things. This is not a new Ten Commandments. This is not some legalistic thing. This is a simple way to sum up what Jesus taught us, especially what Jesus taught us to do. But if we give ourselves over to these things, if we really do, won’t we be living the way Jesus said we should live? Isn’t that the point of what He says in Matthew 28?

…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…

Let me explain it this way. Over the last few years I have almost ceased using the term “Christian.” I talk constantly about following Jesus. The New Testament uses the term “Christian” only three times;[1] at the same time the idea of the disciple as a follower of Jesus is all over the New Testament. Jesus repeatedly tells people, “You come and follow Me!” There are about eighty places in the New Testament where either Jesus tells people to follow Him, or His people are described as following Him. Three vs. eighty.

Jesus-followers! That’s what we are. Sometimes “Christian” has come to mean “not Jewish, not Catholic, and not secular.” “Christian” sometimes has come to mean “People like us, who like the things we like.” As in “contemporary Christian music.” “Christian experience.” “Christian life.” “Christian Bed and Breakfast.” “Christian counselor.” It’s come to stand for a subculture that is only partly about following Jesus.

I’m going to show you a video that’s a kind of parody of those PC and Mac commercials, but let me warn you: while it may make you laugh, it may also bug you. Here’s the clip:

VIDEO: Christ-Follower 1

I told you it might irritate you. It kind of irritates me. I mean, I’m kind of like that guy on the left (all except for the King James part—I’m an NIV kind of guy). But in the last few years I have to tell you—I’ve been on a journey, and this really sums it up for me. I want to be a Jesus follower. I want to live like Him, obey Him, and let His name be known. In these next nine weeks, we’re going to go on a journey back to the roots of the faith we believe and just as important, that we pledged to live by when we put our trust in Jesus. The process will sometimes make you squirm (it made we squirm when I was planning it). You might have some of your assumptions challenged. You’ll probably find yourself questioning your faith—especially what it means to live your faith. And you’ll come face to face with Jesus Himself and you’ll be asking yourself, “Is what I’m doing what You want, or just I’ve always assumed you wanted?” So strap in tight, get prayed up, bring your Bible and let’s get ready: --to live by the commands of Jesus --and to not just come to church, but to BE the church that Jesus died for.

NPC Wrap-Up

OK, so I didn't jump right in and finish my posts from the National Pastors' Convention. When I got back to my office Friday afternoon, our office manager asked me, "So how was the conference?" And I had to admit some ambivalence.

First, NPC was not well themed. There seemed to be a haphazardness in the scheduling. It's not like there was much of a theme, either daily or for the conference in toto.

Second, it seemed that the main reason that speakers were there was that they'd just published a book. I suppose the fact that IVP and Zondervan sponsored the thing may have something to do with that.

Third, I was disturbed by some of the things I observed there. By that I don't mean politics (Colson balanced Jim Wallis), so much as the rise of the "soft" evangelicals I mentioned in the last post. I would guess that about a third of the presenters would fall into this mushy category. For example, in a session on theological trends there were zero Calvinists--zero!--and one "openness of God" theologian (Greg Boyd). A John Piper on that panel would have been a great addition.

I have to finish with two atta-boys. One was for the insights of J.P. Moreland, who was a delight everytime. I intend to read him more and will happily attend his sessions at other opportunities. The other is that while I am aware that Wright has some problems (see here) on the doctrine of justification, Tom Wright is an engaging exegete. I attended his morning Bible study on Acts and I was amazed to see what he could pull out of familiar texts.

By the way, I'm just finishing a series called The Seven Basic Commands of Jesus. I'll be posting the texts of these messages over the next few weeks as we lead up to Easter.

J.P. Moreland's Shot Across the Bow

Another post from the National Pastor's Convention in San Diego:

Morning Bible study was an insightful overview of the book of Acts by British scholar N.T. Wright. While I (and John Piper) think Wright is flakey on justification, this guy gets the Biblical message right in the macro arena.

J.P. Moreland, professor of philosophy at Biola/Talbot, did a great seminar this morning on sex and secularism. It's largely drawn from his book Kingdom Triangle. I love a guy who says things I'm thinking but can say it so much better than I can. He also issued a none to subtle shot across the bow of the infatuation large segments of the church have with post-modernism.

Just came from hearing John Ortburg speak about vision, drawing largely from Caleb.

I'll try to develop some thoughts on the divide I see here between the "hard" evangelicals (those who came of age in the 70s and 80s) and the newer "soft" evangelicals, who've come of age in the 90s and in the 00s (I pronounce that the oh-ies).

Stay tuned.

Chuck Colson and a Surprise from Ben Stein

As mentioned in the last post, Chuck Colson spoke at the National Pastor's Convention here in San Diego today about the call to doctrinal solidity in reforming the church and in transforming America. "Creeds before deeds," he quipped. "If I had not come to believe what I did, there would never have been a prison fellowship.

After afternoon seminars with Gordon Fee (on Bible translation) and with Scot McKnight (see his blog at http://www.jesuscreed.org/), I attended an advance showing of "Expelled", a new movie with of all people, Ben Stein. It's smart, funny, and moving at times, and a surprise: a smart enquiry into the banning of Intelligent Design from academia and from the public square via blackballing any scientist or journalist who dares to even mention ID without condemning it. I urge you to go see "Expelled" when it premieres in theaters in April.

Monring Update from NPC

Last night, Rwandan Anglican Bishop Rucyahana (left) spoke movingly about God's call and his experiences in Rwanda during the genocide there.

This morning I attended a Bible study (1 Thess. 5) with Gordon Fee, who was one of my NT profs at Gordon-Conwell. (He's currently writing a commentary on 1& 2 Thess.) As always, he was precise and insightful.

In a few minutes, a new general session will begin with speaker Chuck Colson.

More to come.

Erwin McManus Open National Pastor's Convention

I'm reporting from the National Pastor's Convention in San Diego the next few days...

The conference opened today with Erwin McManus of Mosaic Church of Los Angeles. I've met Erwin before, several years ago, and it's amazing how much he's starting to look like a 45 year old Robert DeNiro. But I digress.

First, a few observations on the NPC as compared to the National Outreach Convention which I attended in the same place (the Town and Country Conference Center) last November.

1. NOC was bigger than NPC--by a factor of about 1/3. NOC topped out at almost 3000; there are about 2000 here.

2. NOC was more theologically conservative than NPC. Not that NPC is a hotbed of liberalism. More controversial speakers (such as NT Wright) and writers (such as Brian McClaren) as on display here.

3. NOC was younger than NPC. The average age is probably about ten years older here.

4. Both NOC and NPC devotes a lot of programmatic space to The Emerging Church. I should add that NOC focused more on the missional church, which in my mind is a much more useful concept (i.e., when a church thinks and acts like a missionary in its community).

(By the way, I'd need an hour to give you my whole take on the emergent phenon. There are both positives and negatives. Personally, think the category will pass as it merges with missional and organic church concepts.)

Erwin explicated some of the concepts of his newest book (Soul Cravings), namely that all humans have the same cracving and questions, and that questions should be the heart of our apologetic, not answers first. BTW, I know from people inside Mosaic that the church rejects the moniker "emerging."

I'll try to update the PM session later or Wednesday AM.

A Good Sum-Up of the (Dysfunctional) Summit

I pretty much ignored the coverage of the New Baptist Covenant fiasco in Atlanta last month. I thought it was pretty much a peacock show devoid of substance, and I still do. This article from Associated Baptist Press sums up the attacks on the meeting quite well, so I thought I'd pass it on:

Post-Covenant criticism comes from left, right

By Hannah Elliott

Published: February 19, 2008

NEW YORK (ABP) -- Although organizers hailed a recent pan-Baptist gathering as a success, a handful of critics have leveled a wide array of charges against the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant.

The critics of the event, held in Atlanta in late January and early February, include conservatives who continue to accuse it of having a thinly veiled liberal political agenda. But they also include moderates and liberals who say the gathering was not inclusive enough of ethnic and sexual minorities.

The Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant drew an estimated 15,000 Baptists to discuss working together despite denominational, ethnic, political and economic differences. Its headline organizers were the two living Baptists who have held the presidency: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Many observers praised the event as a momentous occasion that generated new unity, energy and focus for Baptists across North America. It earned rave reviews from secular and religious media outlets alike as a crucial first step in the walk toward racial reconciliation in the Baptist faith.

Covenant leaders like Leo Thorne, associate general secretary of American Baptist Churches USA, even said the diversity of political opinion actually adds quality to the discussion.

“It doesn’t make any difference what decision you make or action you take, there are always
people who use their freedoms to express disagreement,” Thorne said. “That’s rich. That’s energizing. That’s wonderful that we can have a diversity of opinions of issues.... If there are those who disagree, that is okay with me.”

But Carter and Clinton’s involvement in the event and the lack of official participation by the Southern Baptist Convention on a denominational level led many conservatives to criticize the celebration soon after it was announced in 2007. Although organizers made an effort to include prominent Baptist Republicans in the program, some conservatives have continued to criticize it.

Paul Proctor, in a Feb. 11 column for the Nashville Tennessean, said the celebration achieved only an “image of unity,” which validated conservatives’ critique that liberals tend to promote “symbolism over substance.”

“As far as I'm concerned, outgoing SBC president Frank Page, who incidentally declined the invitation to attend, was right on calling the meeting a ‘smoke-screen left-wing liberal agenda,’” Proctor wrote. “Carter can preach Christian unity all he wants, but he was the one who spurned the Southern Baptist Convention back in 2000. If anyone is guilty of promoting division among Baptists, it is the presidential peanut farmer from Georgia.”

More progressive Baptists also criticized the event for insufficiently displaying unity amid diversity.

Laura Cadena, a graduate of George W. Truett Theological Seminary and a member of Peachtree Baptist Church in Atlanta, said the meeting’s rhetoric of Baptist unity appealed to her, and she attended to observe it as well as see friends from her Texas seminary days. But, she added in a Feb. 7 opinion column for EthicsDaily.com, the meeting proved to be a letdown when it came to representing all Baptist groups.

“I think that we could have done better, but it’s a beginning,” Cadena, 33, said. “I think that if the planning committee could have been more diverse -- and by that I mean including more women, more young people, more Asian Baptists, maybe more Ghanaian Baptists -- that would have been good.”

On the other hand, in a Feb. 8 Wall Street Journal column, Naomi Schaefer Riley described the event as a “liberal answer to the Southern Baptist Convention.” She said it showed how difficult it is for progressive evangelicals “to unite, let alone get under the same tent with secular liberals and become a political force….

“The New Baptist Covenant is supposed to be more ‘inclusive’ than the SBC. It's OK to rail against abortion, as long as you mention the problem of uninsured children in the same breath,” she said. “The group also wanted to distinguish itself from the SBC on the issue of homosexuality. But to get all of these church groups to sign on, the language of the agreement had to be chosen very carefully.”

Todd Thomason, pastor of Baptist Temple Church in Alexandria, Va., wrote in a column to be published by Associated Baptist Press that he’s not convinced there is much new about the covenant celebrated at the meeting, especially when it comes to the issue of homosexuality.

Organizers decided not to allow the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists or the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America -- two pro-gay groups -- to participate in the event in an official manner. That decision, Thomason said, smacks of the “top-down exclusionary action” used by Southern Baptist leaders during the narrowing of the group’s policies in the last 20 years.

Champions of the New Baptist Covenant “cried foul when the leaders of the so-called ‘conservative resurgence’ seized the reins of power within the SBC and then circled the wagons, forcing out all who wouldn’t accept their narrow ideology or who dared to ask questions,” he wrote. “For these same Baptists to turn around now and disenfranchise other Baptists in much the same way (if not on the same scale) is the height of biblical hypocrisy.”

Covenant leaders “didn't think they could hold together the large coalition of Baptists needed to create a new Baptist voice in North America while addressing the issue of sexual orientation at the same time,” wrote Ken Pennings, director of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Event organizers have said homosexuality is to be “tolerated,” though not necessarily “affirmed.” While the pro-gay groups were not involved on an official level, many of their members attended, and they used exhibit-booth space provided by the Alliance of Baptists -- another pro-gay group -- to display materials at the meeting.

Cadena -- a fifth-generation Texan of Hispanic background – also wondered why participants from her ethnic group were not better represented at the meeting. She asked whether there is “room in the family photo for Latino Baptists?”

“Where do we fit? Here in the South, Latinos are relatively new … there are not enough people that speak Spanish, there are not enough doctors that speak Spanish, there are not enough teachers that speak Spanish,” she said. “So what does a Hispanic church look like? I don’t know.”

Cadena said the meeting should have included specified time for networking between people from the same region or affinity group. That way, Latinos could have seen more clearly whether they should wait to be included in leadership of the larger Baptist family or create their own group.

Schaefer Riley, for her part, pointed out that one thing attendees did have in common was their age, which skewed to the older end of the spectrum. And that doesn’t bode well for the movement, she said.

“The reason for the overrepresentation of seniors may be that young people have increasingly been moving to non-denominational churches or because they are often more conservative than their parents on issues like abortion,” she wrote. “Either way, it doesn't bode well for the Covenant. Or for the left.”

Thorne said Covenant leaders will continue to address such concerns, especially through the efforts of the North American Baptist Fellowship, which played a large role in organizing the meeting. The body is the umbrella group for all North American Baptist bodies that belong to the Baptist World Alliance.

Leaders at NABF “are serous about continuing to strengthen relationships and efforts in networking for missions,” Thorne said. “They are committed to that. So this event … is not going to be a program that is a be-all and end-all.”