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Following Jesus Together #10 -- In and Through

Just after 2:30 on another hot, muggy Sunday afternoon. It's supposed to be way more comfortable tomorrow. I certainly hope so!!

After lunch earlier, I was considering the idea of inviting my neighbor and ex-boyfriend, Rob, up to visit. I texted him, but he said he had company. I'll most likely have him up tomorrow since I've decided to do this now.

Pray for the people in the southern areas of the Philippines. I saw news of the major earthquake on FB the other day. That's the region Jeremy's fiancee lives in. I haven't heard from him since before it happened, so I don't know if she has been affected directly. All I know is that Davao City was on the list of high impact and that she lives about 4 hrs away by car.

Not much else going on right now other than the fact that Mike is still in severe pain. Please pray for healing and that he gets some real answers at his appointments on Tuesday. (Swallow test and Neurology)

Several months ago now, a life-long friend of mine had an interesting post on FB. She mentioned a challenge someone had extended to her. It involves noticing at least 3 new things, on purpose, during your daily walk(s). I commented that I do that all the time, just by accident!! But I also took her challenge seriously and started paying attention to specific things like how many of the houses in the area have those small, multi-pane windows where smaller panes surround a single larger one. They are usually stained glass, and found mostly in stairwells or entry ways. (See sample image below) At the same time, I've been trying to take pictures of things from different perspectives than usual. One of the primary ways I've been doing this is by taking pictures of trees reflected in puddles.

Today's message includes the fact that, as Believers in God, we can simultaneously participate in the chaos of this world while finding beauty in everyday things. In thinking about this just now, I'm reminded of a book I discovered and read about 10 yrs. ago. It's called, "Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life", by Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat. It has collections of snippets from various sources, arranged by subjects like people, places, service, etc... that take note of beauty in the moments of daily life.*

As both Pastor Matt and Joe presented the message this morning, there is little to indicate who said what. For our purposes here, it's enough that I mentioned it.

In opening their time this morning, however, it was Pastor Matt who began by reminding us of the core concept of this series, as it relates directly to what was presented. "Following Jesus together as Kingdom Family, and joining Him in unleashing God's love into a love-starved world." While it's true that we see evidence all around us of people searching for love, either in themselves or others, the point lies in the fact that all their efforts are for naught without the love of God first. Only with God's love can we truly escape from the "crazy circle", as Pastor Matt phrased it, and find the love we all so desperately need. To explain further, there was a graphic that I didn't get a picture of. But at the top, it read, "World Broken". At the bottom, "Make my life work". We get trapped in this cycle that gets absolutely nowhere. As we've seen before, it only makes things worse when we try to fix things on our own.

At the same time, as indicated above, we Believers are still capable of finding good, beauty, and even signs of flourishing, if we look for them.*

It was then that we turned to our Scripture for today --

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

New International Version

¹⁴For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[^a^] The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin^[^b^] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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After reading this, Pastor Joe gave us the context of what was going on here. People were using the Gospel of Jesus to leverage power for themselves. Paul was writing this to give them the proper perpsective and get them back on track. We find that he uses the word "reconciliation" numerous times in this passage. This was to emphasize the point that it's not about us. It's about God and His love for us, and for all mankind. Here we find the theme that is often used at CenterPoint. What God does IN us, He also does THROUGH us, and what He does THROUGH us, He is also doing IN us. In other words, it can either begin or end with us. This means that, as we saw last time, we are not allowed to just hold on to what God gives us. We are meant to share it.

In our passage above, it was also noted that other preachers APPEARED to have more influence than Paul. As Pastor Matt put it, the Corinthians were saying to Paul, "These other guys have 10,000 followers on Instagram; you only have 14, and one is your mother!!". 😆😜 Of course, as we realize, it was only Paul who was preaching the True Gospel, and that was the most important thing.

God works IN us and THROUGH us. As the message continued, Pastors Matt and Joe focused on one of these at a time --

What God does in us -- Beginning with verses 17-19, we have the word "reconciliation" no fewer than 4 times. What's important to this is that we recognize this as not simply a transactional thing; but a deeply relational one.* As we continue reading here, we see that Believers start at odds with God in a position of hostility, but when we accept Salvation, we become Family. Pastor Matt paused here to share a brief story that relates to how some people feel like we need to beg God to hear us by appeasing Him. When he was in India about 12 years ago, he and Heidi were visiting this couple in their small home. They were recently new Believers, and you could still see the difference in the walls where the stone and metal idols of their previous gods had been. The story was that, before they went down to the Ganges River for baptism, they packed all the idols into a burlap bag, tied it up, and tossed it into the river where it sank, never to be seen again. As a little time went by, this young couple were trying to start a family. There was tremendous pressure from both sides of their respective families to pray to their old gods and appease them so they could conceive. At this point, all Pastor Matt knows is that they stayed faithful to God. He's never heard whether or not there have been children added, but he's hopeful.
This shows that allegiance, in humility to God is more important than trying to appease Him.* When we look at the nation of Israel, we see them in exile, but we also see God restore them, time and time again. To this day, He has never given up His pursuit of them. (or us) Among all the gods of this world, Yahweh is the ONLY ONE to ever reach down first to reconcile our hearts to His. We find in verse 17 that the "New Creation" Paul talks about is US. One of the truths about this is that we are currently in that place of "already, but not yet". While the work of reconciliation has been accomplished in Jesus' death and resurrection, it will not be completed until our own. In looking at this further, Pastor Joe brought out the point that, like Adam and Eve after the Fall, we too, live outside Eden. This is a form of exile, just as it was for them. At the same time, as I mentioned above, God has never stopped pursuing humanity. God initiated the ENTIRE THING when He Created us. We can get an idea of what our resurrected bodies will be like in looking at Jesus' when He came back with holes, hunger, and the ability to pass through walls. Scripture tells us that He was the "firstborn of the resurrection". That inherently speaks to there being more. Meanwhile, our lives are meant to reflect "little Edens" as we live in line with the love God has extended to us.
What God does through us -- Verses 20-21 are Paul's closing appeal to the Corinthians. As ambassadors of God, they need to first be reconciled with Him. Now, I trust that we all know the basic job of an ambassador, right?? They are the ones sent to deliver messages from one nation or group of people to another on behalf of the respective leaders. The are emissaries of those in charge, ensuring that a peaceful exchange of ideas will follow.* Pastor Matt compared this to the scene at a typical Middle School dance. Even if you, like me, have not experienced this personally, it's likely that you've seen it on TV shows or movies featuring that age group.* There are girls on one side of the room, and boys on the other. A large gap lies between. It is an unwritten rule that no one is supposed to enter that space. It's scary!! LOL Eventually, however, one of the girls will not be able to resist sending word to one of the boys. Her friend is sent across the divide. Messages are exchanged, and hopefully, the two break the tension and begin to dance. Only then are the others brave enough to ask for partners. At the same time, it's important that the ambassador, whether of a country, a company, or a school dance, show both honesty and sincerity. Two examples used here were that of a Pepsi driver seen drinking a Diet Coke. The other was of someone with a Christian fish bumper sticker behaving badly to another driver. (Pastor Matt quipped that this was exactly why he doesn't put any bumper stickers on his car. Then he can, "do what needs to be done". I'm pretty sure he was kidding...) The point here is that people can tell whether you truly believe in what you're saying or not by whether your message is "off brand" or not. Paul, in this passage, is encouraging people to have a lifestyle of faith. Anything less will be seen as insincere, if not dishonest. So what is our impetus?? While some may be compelled by fear, Paul reminds us in verses 14-15 that it is God's love that should be our compelling influence. As Pastor Matt put it, we need to set aside the "crazy cycle" and embrace the "love cycle" of God. As mentioned before, what God does IN us, He will also do THROUGH us, and vice versa. This is how God's love is unleashed into the world.

In closing, Pastor Matt gave us two questions to sit with this week -- "What is God doing in your life these days??" And in this, he made sure to clarify that we shouldn't just think back to when we were Saved, unless that was within the past week or two. Rather, what is God doing NOW?? The second was, "What of this can be shared as we go about our days?? For example, if we have been receiving grace, we should either tell someone or at least give grace to others as we find opportunity. Or if we have received forgiveness, either encourage others or extend it as needed.

Finally, he mentioned that they are still doing the weekly podcast, "Dive in With Matt and Joe, every Wednesday. He encouraged us to send questions for them to cover this week. (I should really be watching these myself, but haven't made the effort.)

-- God Bless!!

Footnotes:

In talking about that book today, I realize that I've been getting the title wrong when I've mentioned it before. I just chose to look it up today to include the authors. I apologize for the error. (But at least now you know the right thing to look for, so that's something, right??)
The bit about taking time to look for beauty in our daily lives reminded me of a calendar page from the one I keep in my bathroom. The quote was, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau. The theme of the calendar is "Simplicity".
The question of the nature of our reconciliation is highly debated, at least in my experiences on Quora, so the essence of my inquiry for the podcast this week was whether we are like butterflies who have no memory of having been a caterpillar, or are we simply human beings whose slates have been washed clean?? (I used the example of a court record having been expunged) I might watch this week, just to get my answer!! LOL
Verses such as Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13 show that God prefers mercy towards others as opposed to sacrifices to Himself. This supports Jesus' repeated reprimands of the Sadducees and Pharisees in their hypocrisy of Legalism. As Paul's message above states, it's not about us, it's about God.
The part about how the purpose of an ambassador's job is to ensure peaceful conversation after is mine.
To this day, I have never attended a Middle School dance. Back in the 80's, dancing, according to the Baptist Church was not acceptable. (See "Footloose" for a rousing argument against that!!) LOL Meanwhile, I never attended the dances at my kids' school either.