Don’t get comfortable.
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 4 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Outreach Focus” (LISTEN HERE).
I don’t like to be uncomfortable, but sometimes it is good.
What do I mean?
A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to the season fund raiser for our younger daughter’s volleyball team at the local high school. We chose a table early in the evening as more people were arriving, but ended up sitting alone the whole evening. (Maybe this says something about us!?!) Part of the evening was billed “Meet the Eagles,” yet we didn’t get a chance to meet too many. They were interested if we put our hand up to bid on items being auctioned off.
As we mused afterwards, we thought what could have been done to incorporate new families into the ones who were on their fourth year of volleyball.
It was a bit uncomfortable. But it was good.
It’s good to remember what it’s like to be a new person in a group. It’s good to notice what makes you uncomfortable so you can be better aware to make a new person comfortable.
We can get comfortable in our churches. We know people. We have friendships. We know where things are and how they are done. We invest in programs that benefit us, serve our spiritual needs, and engage our kids.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, what about the new person? What about the visitor that walks in your door? Will they just leave thinking all they were interested in was “paying some money” toward the church offering/fund raiser? I hope not.
I am not faulting anyone before I fault myself. It is easy to get comfortable and lose concern for those who are new or not yet part of the family of believers.
The angel to the church in Ephesus praised the Christians there for their defense of the truth, yet condemned them for losing their “first love.”
Revelation 2:4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.
At first the Ephesians were good at loving God and loving others. They forgot to continue.
Loving others is truly part of having an outreach focus. When we love others, we are willing to be uncomfortable ourselves to make someone else feel comfortable. Jesus was more than willing to sit at a table with individuals no one else wanted to. In fact, when Matthew invited him over for dinner he ate with tax collectors and “sinners.” Yet, while the “church people” would have never sat at the same table, Jesus was willing to be uncomfortable to bring his love and grace to another group of spiritually sick people.
Matthew 9:10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The people outside the church are not in the church to represent themselves and tell you/us what would make them comfortable. So, compelled by the love of Jesus, carrying an outreach focus engages us to perhaps get uncomfortable so another soul might find comfort in the healing, saving, forgiving love and grace of God.
Apply: What person do you know is disconnected from Jesus? What setting might be comfortable for them but uncomfortable for you? Could you step into that setting to engage that person in conversation for the sake of the Gospel?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone in heaven to become uncomfortable on this earth so you might bring the comfort of the Gospel to us and many others. AMEN.
Did you notice?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 4 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Outreach Focus” (LISTEN HERE).
If you missed a devotion yesterday (Monday, August 22, 2022), I apologize. My mind, my time, and my heart were a bit distracted as after worship we took our oldest to move her into her dorm at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. We got home after midnight.
We are so proud of our daughter and the amazing young lady she has become and is becoming. I won’t bore you with the details, but as her dad I can remember seeing the first ultrasound pictures and immediately falling in love with her and perhaps a bit overwhelmed at the new and privileged responsibility of being a dad. Now over 18 years later, she begins to fly more on her own.
Entering college is a big step and big deal, not just academically, but also spiritually. Satan loves to work hard on the hearts and minds of youth to bring them away from Jesus and his Word to a secular, atheistic mindset. Constant bombardment of temptations and humanistic worldviews attack the heart and soul of God’s children. So I invite your prayers for our daughter and all other Christian youth entering the college classrooms around our country.
Yet, amidst that setting is tremendous opportunity…and our setting as well. In College Station over 60,000 students descend on the town from all over Texas, all over the country and all over the world. Assembled on the campus are thousands of people whom God loves and for whom Jesus died.
Starting with her roommate. I simply encouraged her to ask questions. Get to know her. Understand her perspective on faith and life. God will open a door of opportunity.
Of all the 60,000, God allowed one roommate and two other suitemates to enter our daughter’s life. I pray her love for Jesus shows in her love for them and God uses her to bring his love to their hearts…if it is not there already.
When we carry an outreach focus, we see God orchestrating life for us to interact and develop relationships with people. Whether it’s a new roommate living 3 feet away, a coworker working 10 feet away or a neighbor living 30 feet away. God has placed you in a situation in life for you to meet, interact, and engage the people around you.
Outreach starts with noticing and caring about people. Outreach doesn’t start with a confrontational discussion about “where we will spend eternity.” Outreach starts in today’s world by noticing people and showing you care. It realizes that God has you interact with people because he is setting you in a place where you can witness for him.
Life changes. Seasons shift. Journeys continue. But wherever we go there are people who matter to Jesus, and therefore matter to us.
It’s in those situations and those locations, Jesus invites us to be his witnesses.
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Apply: Notice the people around you today. Ask a question. Take an interest. Know that God has allowed your paths to intersect for a reason whether with just a smile or a significant conversation.
Prayer: Lord, open my heart to notice and love people as you notice and care for me. Open my schedule to allow me to show care and concern to someone today. AMEN.
Make God’s Church a Place of Grace!
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 3 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Visible Grace” (LISTEN HERE).
Wouldn’t you love to change the reputation of the church from being “so judgmental” to being one “so willing to show grace”?
I would.
However, in proposing this shift, the fear is the apparent tension between upholding the standard of God’s law, yet showing love and grace. To put it another way, sometimes in the absence of “judgment” there is “acceptance” of any and all behavior under the umbrella of “loving everyone.”
So how do we show grace without being judgmental, but still treasuring God’s way as the best way to live and honor God with our lives?
Jesus gives us a great example as he encounters a group of teachers and Pharisees who are ready to stone a woman caught in adultery.
John 8 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
If I asked, which of these individuals showed grace? You would answer, “Jesus, of course!” Did he do it at the expense of allowing sin to continue unaddressed? Nope.
So what is the difference between Jesus and the Pharisees. Did they not both want the law of God upheld?
Sure.
Yet the Pharisees and teachers of the law had no genuine concern for the soul of the woman. They were concerned a) with trapping Jesus and trying to get him to discredit the law of Moses, and b) they were concerned with putting themselves forward as better than the woman caught in adultery. The heart of the teachers and Pharisees had no care for the woman and were filled with pride in themselves and hatred toward Jesus.
The charge “the church is judgmental” has validity. Too often, we love to point out sin in others to make ourselves look better. We point out sin to mark it to avoid not just the sin, but also the people committing sin. Perhaps when they clean up their act, we can associate with them.
As we have already established, the church is full of sinful people. You and I are included. We all need and have received grace. So instead of allowing sinful, prideful judgment to permeate our perspective, let’s seek the heart that God gave the Apostle Paul:
Philippians 1:7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Romans 12:3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
Grace leads us to care for the soul of every individual and have a genuine concern for their salvation. The goal of addressing sin is to bring a person to repentance and assure them of forgiveness. Grace is willing to engage the sinner, not to bring swift condemnation, but to share grace-filled salvation.
Jesus did. He forgave her sin and told her to leave her life of sin.
Do you think the woman went away feeling judged? Nope.
Do you think the woman went away feeling the affects of grace? Yep.
May God use us to change the culture of his church from pride-filled judgment to grace-filled acceptance.
Apply: Want a simple way to remember what a culture of Grace looks like? Here’s the key points from the last three days:
G – Grow in Grace – be filled yourself!
R – Restore Relationships – Let grace restore what is broken
A – Apply Forgiveness – As you have been forgiven, freely forgive.
C – Care for Others – have a genuine concern for the salvation of each soul.
E – Exhibit Humility – Repent of pride. Let your heart be like that of Jesus…humble.
Prayer: Lord, use me to make your church, your place, a place of grace. AMEN.
Is grace your frequency bias?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 3 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Visible Grace” (LISTEN HERE).
When in doubt, apply forgiveness.
Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
There is a phenomenon we have all probably experienced. When you buy a red car, you perceive that now everyone is driving a red car (when the number of red cars hasn’t actually increased, you just notice them). If you are diagnosed with diabetes, suddenly you begin to meet many more people with diabetes. This phenomenon called “frequency illusion” was coined in 2005 by Arnold Zwicky, a professor of linguistics at Stanford University and Ohio State University. Arnold Zwicky considered this illusion a process involving two cognitive biases: selective attention bias (noticing things that are important to us and disregarding the rest) followed by confirmation bias (looking for things that support our hypotheses while disregarding potential counter-evidence). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion)
Can “frequency illusion” happen in the church? In a negative way?
Frequency illusion happens when we “notice things that are important to us and disregard the rest.” Then we “look for things that support our hypotheses and disregard potential counter-evidence.”
Do you find it easy to practice “frequency illusion” with sin or offense…in other people?
You see it ALL the time, right?
Someone gives feedback on what you do. You feel it is overly critical. Now every comment that person shares you label as “critical.” You even ask other people and share what happened and they are prone to quip, “Yeah, that person is being overly critical.” Confirmed! That person is a critical person and you don’t have to be around them any more…relationship over.
Someone doesn’t say “Hi” on a Sunday morning. They walk right past you. It happens a second week. “How rude.” You ask someone else, “Yep, that person is being rude.” Confirmed! That person is rude and even if they say “Hi” the next week, the perception is engrained. Done. Not going to hang out with rude people.
Someone is in charge of an event. They give you feedback on your effort that brings your work in line with the vision and objective of the event. You feel they were micromanaging. It happens again. You ask someone else. Yep, that person is a micromanager. Done. Forget it. Not working with that person.
Do you see what happens when we CHOOSE to focus on the negative and readily find the faults in someone else? You WILL see it all over! Why? Because YOU are choosing to focus on it and YOU are seeking things to confirm your bias.
This will destroy the culture of a church.
Let me offer a different “frequency bias” to focus on, that doesn’t have to just be an illusion, but a permeating reality in our relationships and churches.
Apply grace. Apply forgiveness.
Everyone has faults. EVERYONE! You can choose to fixate on those or you can forgive where forgiveness is needed and focus on a person’s strengths over their weaknesses.
Be kind. Kindness offers to help, rather than tear down. Kindness does good instead of perpetuating hurt.
Be compassionate. You don’t know the other person’s story. Maybe their mind was very distracted and they just had a big thing happen before church. They weren’t dissing you. They needed you! Maybe they weren’t micromanaging the project, but just juggling all the components to make sure the outcome was the excellence everyone wanted. Learn from them, don’t run from them.
Forgive. We’ve established there is no one in the church that does not sin. We all do. So, we will all need forgiveness from each other. As you have been freely given forgiveness, apply it to others. Lovingly work through the conflict and hurt, but always have the goal to restore and strengthen relationships rather than let Satan tear them apart.
Bottom line…show them grace.
Let grace be the “frequency bias” we carry that leads us to be kind, compassionate, AND forgiving.
Apply: What situations would kindness, compassion, or forgiveness help to navigate in your life today?
Prayer: Father, as you have applied forgiveness to me, help me to show the same grace and freely forgive others around me. AMEN.
How many relationships in your life could have been saved by grace?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 3 of “Compelled – Living the Value of Visible Grace” (LISTEN HERE).
How many relationships in your life could have been saved by grace?
I’m not talking about relationships of individuals with their Savior, Jesus, but individuals that you no longer have a relationship with because grace was absent?
Let me take it one step further. How many relationships with people in church have been severed or never established because of the lack of grace?
Have you ever had a visitor come into your church who wasn’t a “seasoned church goer” who never came back? Maybe you don’t know. I have. It doesn’t take long for a guest to walk in and feel the glare of judgment or the eyes of compassion. It doesn’t take long for an individual to feel the warmth of a group or the chill that says, “I don’t belong here.”
There may be many factors, but underneath is grace or the absence of grace. Do we believe every person in the church and who walks through the doors of our church needs grace? Yes. “All have sinned.” That includes you and me.
Do we believe that everyone who walks through the door will hear about grace? As a pastor, I hope so!
Do we believe that everyone who walks through the door will experience and feel grace? I want them to. I pray you do too. However, if we are honest, “showing grace” can sometimes be lacking.
In fact, just think about yourself for a minute. If someone asks, “How are you doing?” Will you simply reply “fine” and move on? Or is there someone that you would feel comfortable opening up and saying, “I’m really struggling in my marriage”? Or, “I just found out my adult son is gay.” Or…you fill in the blank. What I notice, is that there is a subtle fear in church of really opening up about the sin that is affecting our life because we feel like we would be judged or made to feel “less than” because we had sinned or are dealing with sin.
A common concern of those outside the church is the judgment of those inside the church. I had a young lady say, “I don’t think I’m good enough to come to your church.” To which I replied, “If you only knew the stories and sins of everyone sitting in the pew.” (For the record, I didn’t not relate all I knew!) But this interaction has affected me to want every person who walks into the church to not just hear about grace BUT ALSO experience grace…not matter what their spiritual journey has been or not been.
So how do we do that better? Perhaps the opening words of Paul’s letter to Titus and many of his other letters gives us a hint because it is not just a formula to open a letter, it is the reality of his heart and how he views people.
Titus 1:4 To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
I get that not everyone who walks through the door is maybe not yet a “true son in our common faith”…but prayerfully that will come. But we can view all people who walk through the door, and all those that have been there a long time, as individuals to whom God wants to bring his grace and peace.
For those who are true sons and daughters in the common faith, can we not first see them as saints of God, one’s who “share in God’s grace” with us? Even saints still struggle with sin. The Apostle Paul did.
Romans 7:17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So here’s what grace does for relationships. It removes judgment and condemnation and instills love and forgiveness (more on that tomorrow). It is not surprised when people need grace, because everyone does, but rather is ready to communicate and show grace to forgive and overcome sin. Grace restores and strengthens relationships because it removes conditions to remain in that relationship. It shows favor, even if the other person does not deserve it. When we see each other through the lens of grace, we realize grace must be at the heart of our relationships.
If it’s not, and we are always waiting for perfect people to be with, we will be lonely people.
Grace and peace to you, my friend.
Apply: Think of a relationship in your life that is strained. What guidance does God give you as you ask how to see the relationship through grace and apply grace in the relationship?
Prayer: Lord, help me see everyone as you do…one’s in need of grace (just like me), and one’s with whom you desire me to show grace. AMEN.