1 Peter 2
Reformed/Charismatic/Missional Conference - Session 3 - Jeff Vanderstelt
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Session 3
Who You Are and What You Do
Jeff Vanderstelt
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About the Speaker: Jeff is a Church Planter who leads Soma Communities, a body of church planting churches in the South Puget Sound. He also serves as Vice President (West) of Acts 29 as well as the Church Planters Advisory Council for the Conservative Baptist NW Association. Jeff spends most of his time equipping church planters and church leaders in gospel-centered leadership and missionally focused methodology. He has been planting churches for seven years. Prior to that he was a youth pastor in four different churches over the span of 14 years, the most recent being Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, IL. Jeff has been married for 18 years to Jayne and together they love and shepherd three beautiful children in the gospel and mission of Jesus Christ.
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The greatest challenge for the church is doing the hard work of helping people learn their identity in Christ, instead of the easier work of telling them what to do in hopes that they'll figure out their identity. The harder work is the best work. The easier work is the worst work. The question put to us as leaders this morning is this: Have we led our people to understand their identity as God's children? When this question is answered, the next one is: What must we DO as children of God? Buiding our people's confidence in their relationship to God and with God, builds their confidence to DO what God calls them to do. In short, God has called you to BE the following type of people...
1 Peter 2:9 - "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (ESV).
Notice first the present tense, "you ARE..." This is a real, present-day reality about our identity. Notice second the names he calls them: "chosen race...royal priesthood...holy nation...a people for his own possession..." Sometimes we need to read our Bibles more slowly, and this is just such a place where we need to do this. When we miss the present tense reality of our identity, as well as the names God has given to us, we will miss the depth and effectiveness of our ability to "proclaim the excellences of him who called" us out of darkness.
Subsequently, we will also miss any effectiveness we would have had otherwise in our suffering, which is where Peter takes his people next in the following verses. Suffering for God in a godly way that is effective can only happen when we live in a present tense reality of every part of the identity to which God has called us and given to us. It all starts with knowing WHO you are.
1. You are a Chosen People...Not Person..
Our identity as children of God starts with God as our Father. He calls us His children. Getting a hold of that in a deep and effectual way enables us to love one another like He loves us. When they become "victims" of our love, they will be drawn to us to inquire why we live like this? This is what Jesus talked about to His disciples when He said that the world would know our identity by our love for one another. But that life-altering kind of love for one another can only come by a life-altering love of God which we firmly grasp in our hearts and minds with zero doubts of any kind.
Jesus prays in John 17 that the unity of His children would exist to the same depth and degree as the Father and the Son. When THAT happens, the world will know that God has sent Jesus on a mission to love them, too. God's intent is for His people to love one another in order to win others. But again, this happens only when there is a oneness between us and God grounded and founded in His love for us as His children.
Missional communities begin with this question: What would it look like for a group of people to live like they love one another, just like God loves them? It starts with knowing this fact: God loved me anyway when I didn't love Him. Knowing this changes how we live life. We no longer live our lives in the radical individualism our culture demands of us. But the Scriptures say we are a chosen nation, which is a plural word...a GROUP of people. This means God saves me from ME. And He installs me into a COMMUNITY.
This community is based on unconditional love, the kind reflected by Jesus on the cross, when He prayed, "Father forgive them, because they don't know what they are doing." What if Jesus said instead, "Father let 'em have it, because they don't know what they are doing." That's how too many of us live. And we live like that...absent of love...because we have forgotten (or else we never knew at all) that we are children of God who have been unconditionally loved by God...when we were unlovable.
This is essentially what Peter is telling his people in the second chapter of his letter. He wants his people to live their lives in such a way that other people are led to worship God. This means people are being led to make much of Jesus, even if we look like an idiot doing that! He gets glory from the WAY we live, and we are leading them to a Father who loves them when we do that.
2. You are a Royal Preisthood.
The church is a people of ambassadorship. We are royal representatives of King Jesus. That's what a missionary is...an ambassador of Christ preaching reconciliation (2 Cor. 5). This means the entire people of God are a missionary people of God, always sending and being sent out to live extraordinarily different from the world to get the world's attention and lead them to the King. We appeal to the community around us to look and see what reconciliation is like.
This is a call to radically reorient our lives in such a way that we can live among those who are unlovable in order to lead them to the One who loves them. How do we change the way we spend our money? How do we alter the way we go out to eat, or buy groceries? If we were to have to move to another country, what would we have to do to reorder and reorient our lives to minister? Now apply the answer to that question to right now, where you currently live, in what you're currently doing. This turns the church from something you add to your life, to becoming YOUR LIFE! This makes us a people who have the same mission as Jesus.
Too many pastors believe their people are not capable of much. Yet when believers get this, they can and will do extraordinary things for the kingdom.
3. You are a Holy Nation.
Jesus is not just our Savior...He is our LORD. This is good news, because as LORD He has conquered sin, Satan, and death. The kingdom is a kingdom because it has a King...a Lord. His kingdom is THE place to be, because the King is THE person to be with and be loved by. That kingdom is here and now...right now.
Yet it isn't here in fullness yet. So this causes us to live in tension because there are various aspects and parts of the kingdom which are NOT here yet, but which we WANT to be here...and which we are TAUGHT to pray for in the Disciples Prayer: "Let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth like it is in heaven." The way we live should make people want that future kingdom to come to earth here and now...today...right now.
As King, Jesus was a servant. He was a servant-king. And if He is our master, then the servant isn't greater than the master. That means we are servants, too. So what would it look like to live in a missional community as a servant-people...a family of missionary servants? The lost are the people we serve, just like Jesus...who came to seek and save the lost...who came to serve and not to BE served.
To ratchet it up a bit, when Jesus' people serve we are to serve others like we are serving Jesus. Too often we end up serving people like we are serving people, instead of serving Jesus. What we do to the least of these is what we are doing to Jesus Himself. Matthew 25 is blatantly clear about this lifestyle, which ends up looking like second-nature responses on the part of Jesus-followers. This lifestyle produces the demand for an answer and explanation from outsiders. Too often, however we end up living a lifestyle that doesn't demand an explanation. Until our lives are radically different, demanding an explanation, we will go unheard by outsiders, by the lost.
One of the most significant ways we live like this is through hospitality. This is NOT Christian fellowship. This is taking total strangers into our houses in order to allow them to belong...then believe...and then behave, in that order...resting, rejoicing, and repenting, in that order.
Any other lifestyle that we live is a lifestyle of unbelief. Jesus says that believing in Him means doing what He said...obeying His commands. Living like this means believing that He has purchased us, our lives, including our stuff, so that EVERYTHING we are and have belongs now to Him and is to be used for His purposes.
Conclusion
Lead your people to know who they are in Jesus Christ. This will necessarily lead them behave in such a way that it implicates their lives. What they do implies who they are...and who they belong to.
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Location:N Starr St,Tacoma,United States
Acts 29
Reformed/Charismatic/Missional Conference - Session 1 - Jeff Vanderstelt
Friday, March 04, 2011
Session 1
What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Jeff Vanderstelt
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About the Speaker: Jeff is a Church Planter who leads Soma Communities, a body of church planting churches in the South Puget Sound. He also serves as Vice President (West) of Acts 29 as well as the Church Planters Advisory Council for the Conservative Baptist NW Association. Jeff spends most of his time equipping church planters and church leaders in gospel-centered leadership and missionally focused methodology. He has been planting churches for seven years. Prior to that he was a youth pastor in four different churches over the span of 14 years, the most recent being Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, IL. Jeff has been married for 18 years to Jayne and together they love and shepherd three beautiful children in the gospel and mission of Jesus Christ.
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What is the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Romans 1:16-17 - "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith" (ESV).
Are your people gospel-fluent? Does it live and breathe in everything they do? Do they hear the gospel and translate it into behavior that is in keeping with the gospel? One who is fluent in a foreign language dreams in that language. One who is fluent in the gospel sets their hearts and minds on the things above so that they set their hearts and minds on things above and think Jesus. They have an entirely different way of seeing things and doing things. And conversely when they hear something that is not gospel, they are alerted to it and avoid it. This is largely the task of leadership as the apostle Paul presented it in various parts of his teaching.
If you were to summarize the people of God it is found in the last phrase of Romans 1:17: they "live by faith." That faith is in the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to those who believe. That's the whole point Paul spends the rest of Romans unpacking. The gospel is all about God's saving work all the time. Believers live in that truth. They live by that truth. They have been saved FROM something, INTO something, and FOR something. That's God's rescue plan. In the grammar of this text there are three tenses here that require attention.
1. Past Tense: God HAS saved us from the penalty of sin FOR the purpose of being HIs beloved children.
In Romans 1:18 and following the righteousness of God is said to have been already revealed from heaven against those who swap the glory of God for their own. This is sin its most basic form. Consequently this inherently makes people "children of wrath," according to Ephesians 2. This wrath is a necessary component of the gospel because God's holiness and glory have been offended and affronted. Sin is treason and it must be punished as such. The punishment is God's wrath. Jesus suffered and absorbed and satisfied that wrath on the cross so that we might be loved and accepted as dearly loved children, and no longer children of wrath anymore.
According to 2 Corinthians 5 Jesus became sin FOR us so that we might become the righteousness of God. When God looks at us it is as though He is looking at His Son, Jesus. That's the good news. So the question is begged, "Do we believe this?" How do we know that we believe it? How do we know our people believe it?
2. Present Tense: God IS saving us from the penalty of sin FOR the purpose of being His beloved children.
Primarily, we/they no longer live in shame. We/they are no longer motivated by guilt. We don't serve God out of guilt of what will happen to us if we don't do something. Rather, we serve God motivated by the love He has put within us for Him and His purposes. We love because He has first loved us. If He hasn't first loved us, then we won't love Him...or His purposes. This love is the foundation for grace which is THE greatest motivator. We choose not to sin NOT because we will be ashamed of it when found out. Rather, we choose not to sin BECAUSE we simply love God!
Shame-motivated Christianity results in nothing more than self-worship, because we live by beating ourselves up for our sin. Grace-motivated Christianity results in Jesus-worship, because we live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2:20). It is living by faith in what Jesus has already done about my sin. It is living by faith in a mindset that is absorbed entirely with the love of God in Christ for us.
Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 15:1 and following that the gospel is the thing "in which we stand." It holds us firm. And in that place it continues to demonstrate its power to save...continually. This power is granted by virtue of the resurrection. The power demonstrated there was the most miraculous power ever demonstrated by God. THAT power is the power that saves...the power that gives the theology of the cross its authentic meaning.
In Romans 8 Paul also teaches that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead also gives life to our mortal bodies. The power of the gospel rooted in the resurrection is the power that continues to save me and enable me to overcome sin...day by day...continually...all the time. This happens by the presence of the Holy Spirit within. He was installed there by God Himself inside of us. And He works in us the very same power He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.
In John 20:21 the presence of the Spirit is inseparable from the purpose of the mission. This Spirit-power in the gospel is absolutely necessary for the mission Jesus has called us to. This brings our minds back to Luke 3 and 4 where Jesus begins His ministry with the power of the Spirit.
Luke 3:21-22 - "Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."
Luke 4:18 - "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor" (ESV).
Jesus was filled with the Spirit. He needed this filling for His ministry. He needed it to experience victory over temptation. He needed it to preach the good news to the poor. He was raised by the Spirit from the dead. Then He gave that same Spirit to us for the mission. That same Spirit does for us what He did for Jesus: filling us, empowering us for ministry, enabling us to conquer sin, empowering us to preach the good news, equipping us to raise up and send out more Spirit-filled people to repeat the same thing over and over again.
This theology is necessary to dispel the common myth that once we are saved by the Spirit it is up to us to carry on in the Christian life all by ourselves. Paul asks in Galatians 3, "Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (ESV). Salvation is accomplished by GOD...not by me. If the salvation for me that happened in the past was accomplished by God, then the salvation for me that happens each and every day is also accomplished in the very same way. NOTHING CHANGES! It's the same salvation and the same power of God...from start to finish.
The identity of a Christian is inseparably linked to this doctrine. Philippians 2:12-13 teaches us two truths. On the one hand we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. On the other hand, we work hard knowing that God Himself is actually within us working to influence our motivation and our wills to do what is pleasing to Him. He does this by the Holy Spirit. This is how the Holy Spirit continues to demonstrate His present-tense salvation in our lives. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to anyone who believes. Believing that GOD is the One who changes...not me...is the golden key to this whole deal.
3. Future Tense: God WILL save us from the penalty and presence of sin for the purpose of living in His presence eternally.
God will finish what He has started in us. The past-tense work of salvation accomplished by His power is a work that continues in the present...and therefore will and MUST be fulfilled and finished in the end. This promise is given to us in 1 Peter 1:3-5
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, toan inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith-more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire-may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Nothing is going to stop this promise from being fulfilled. We will suffer through this life with the guarantee of the hope that is laid before us in heaven. Nothing can stand in the way of this hope: no suffering, no sin, no demon, no nothing. Right now our perception of this is so dim. But when we see Him, it will be more awesome than we could ever imagine...in absolute awe of Him. And it will take eternity to fully comprehend how glorious He really is.
This future hope of what we have motivates us to mission...not to self-security and comfort. The hope of what we have becomes our mission, our life-calling. It enables us to endure whatever life throws at us with a joy and hope that attracts others to come along with us. Does this future hope drive you into a passive apathy and comfort? Or does it capture your heart so that you feel so captured by His love, that you would want everyone to taste heaven now in the way we live?
I am not ashamed of this gospel. It is the power of God to save.
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