I have really been struggling this
month with trying to stay focused and with trying to encourage teammates when
they get into a rut. I find myself retreating back to my defense mechanism,
introverting and avoiding conflict and confrontation. But
my Spirit tells me to do otherwise. And so I remind
myself of Paul and read some of the many encouraging words he has for me. I
then boldly step into situations in which God has called me to speak His truth
in a gentle, yet bold way – to call
things out in love in my teammates and in my team. It is not fun, but when I
truly fear the Lord above man, a great sense of peace overcomes me. Nothing
else matters but being obedient and caring more about the spiritual-wellness in
my teammates than my earthly friendship with them. This is hard on my flesh.
Yet my spirit stands firm.
I have been reading this book, “Radical Reformission” by Mark Driscoll
and as I find myself reverting into my shell and acting a coward, I turn to
this chapter about loving our neighbors and how reformission applies in
cultures that seem unchanging. It gives me hope.
It is the Spirit nudging me and urging me on once again to rise up, speak
boldly and stand firm.
I would like to share some of what I
read with you:
Some
Christians refuse to be about reformission simply because they avoid people
they find unpleasant.
Story of Jonah:
During
the time of Jonah, the nation of Israel was much like our own nation –
financially prosperous but spiritually impoverished. The bitter enemy of Israel
was Assyria, whose resume included witchcraft, murder, prostitution,
drunkenness, cruelty, and pride (Nahum 3). One of the principal Assyrian cities
was Nineveh, which was fortified by hundred-foot walls surrounding the city.
The walls were wide enough for three chariots to run atop side by side, and
made these sinners feel invincible.
God commanded Jonah to go east to
preach to Nineveh, but instead Jonah fled south to Tarshish. Before long, he
was swallowed by an enormous fish. Usually, when a man eats bad fish, he
vomits, but in this case, the fish ate a bad man and vomited him up, near
Nineveh of course.
Realizing that he would not win his
fight with God, Jonah entered Nineveh and simply said, “Forty more days and
Nineveh will be overturned.” Those words exploded through the great city,
dropping half a million people to their knees in brokenness, repentance, and
fear of the Lord.
In the concluding chapter of the
book, Jonah’s heart is exposed, and the reasons for his running are revealed in
his frank and irreverent argument with God. Following the greatest revival in
the history of the world, Jonah was happy to receive God’s grace but furious to
see it extended to people he did not like.
God rebuked Jonah for loving a plant
that shaded his head more than he loved the Ninevites. And the book brings us
all, like Jonah, under the conviction that we love the things God has given us
– homes, cars, hobbies, health, friends – more than our great cities and the
spiritually blind people who annoy us. We pass these people every day and
ignore them because our minds are consumed w/ourselves rather than with our God and our neighbors.
Throughout the book, Jonah simply
looks wicked – at least as wicked as the pagans he was sent to preach to. But I
believe that God continued to pursue Jonah long after the events concluded in
Nineveh and that eventually the prophet was brought to repentance. This would explain
why the book was written. If Jonah had remained unrepentant, we would expect
the book to vindicate him as the victim of a mean God who nearly drowned him,
later gave him third-degree burns, and spanked his inner child. Or we would
expect the book to simply record the greatest revival in history, with Jonah
taking all the credit for being such a phenomenal preacher. Or perhaps the book
never would have been written at all. But instead, we get an honest glimpse of exactly how sinful Jonah was, how
gracious God is, and what kind of self-righteous, racist prig Jonah would be
without God.
We
are Jonah when, because we do not like them, we run from God’s call on our
lives to bring the gospel to lost people, whom he loves. We are Jonah because
we too have been sent to proclaim repentance to great but wicked cities filled
with people like the Ninevites – people whom God loves but we don’t like.
And
Jonah leaves us to ponder who we would be if God had stopped running after us
and simply left us to ourselves. In what ways are we running from God’s call to
bring the gospel to others? What will repentance look like for us? What could
happen if God captured the hearts of people in your town because you pointed
them to him? What if the heart God’s people had for their cities was like
Jesus’ heart for Jerusalem instead of like Jonah’s heart for Ninevah?
Jesus
wept over the condition of Jerusalem. Once we have repented of our sin of indifference, we too will weep over our towns
and long for their transformation. The question persists, How can such change
occur?
The
problem with every culture is not ultimately “out there” in the culture but is
within the people of the culture.
First,
to change a culture, we must change the people in that culture. The question
that arises is whether people do what they are, or if they are what they do.
The answer to this is imperative b/c if we are what we do, then all we need to
do is train people to act differently, and they will change themselves. But if
we do what we are, then we do bad b/c we are bad, and we cannot do good until
we become good, the very thing which bad people cannot do, no matter how many
dollars are spent and organizations are founded to help them.
The Bible clearly teaches that we do
what we are. It also repeatedly teaches (particularly in Proverbs and in the
teachings of Jesus) that our sin comes from our hearts, the center of who we are.
Our heart is a rock band, and culture is a loudspeaker, and if we don’t like
the music, spending lots of money to fund organizations to “fix” the speakers
won’t change the tune. To rightly diagnose any human conduct, we must overcome
our propensity to deal merely with cultural effects (lying, adultery, theft)
and instead focus on the cause (the sin in our hearts). The sinful nature of
our hearts is the root of all cultural problems and sins. The unredeemed heart
is a glutton for sin and death. Only God can give a person a new heart, one
with new desires for a redeemed life that contributes to a transformed culture.
I have found myself to be very much
like Jonah (especially this past week or so). It’s not a great place to be.
Instead of rejoicing, I have been sulking and I have been selfish. Praise God
that He allowed me to see this and brought me to a place of repentance.
It’s hard to see people receive good
things when they’ve caused you (or someone you love) pain. So the question
becomes: How do we get past our own feelings and wish our enemies well? We
grace them with the same kind of mercy that God graced us…w/o expecting
anything in return (Luke 6:35-36). We need to focus on God and on the good
things He has given us and done for us.
The key to offset the envy of another’s
fortune is to be grateful for our own. And when we do that, we let go of our
control. It is too hard and pointless to do our own work and God’s too. Since we don’t have his insight into the hearts and
minds of those people we’d like to judge and condemn, it’s better for us to
push aside our limited understanding of justice and just trust
him instead.
