Being a Unifier ('I Am a Church Member,' Part 2)

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Philippians 2:1-11

We have good friends who are members of a Lutheran congregation which, while being one of the strongest and most faithful churches I’ve seen, has had a succession of seemingly bad pastors. One was paranoid. Another, a thief. Another, lazy. 

For years when we saw our friends, they would, without malice, tell us about what was happening at their church. We would listen and pray. 

Then another pastor came along. He wasn’t paranoid, a thief, or lazy. He was just there. A low energy presence. A diligent if less than inspiring preacher and teacher. A little awkward in social situations. Our friends told us about him and we couldn’t help thinking, “That poor church.” 

But a few months later, we saw our friends and while they reported that their pastor was still less than a fireball, they appreciated him. “Pastor’s faithful,” one of them said. “And he’s our pastor.” They said that they prayed for him and opened themselves up to loving him and serving alongside him. Under that pastor, seemingly un-dynamic and unpromising, the congregation has done well.

This experience is a lesson on how church unity happens. It happens when we look past the faults and idiosyncrasies each of us has, forgive one another for sins, repent for our own, and seek what is best for the faithful witness for Christ by the congregation. 

We don’t sit around waiting for the pastor or other members to become perfect. 

We seek to forgive our fellow church members as the Savior forgives us. 

We seek to accept one another, imperfections and all, just as Christ accepts us. 

It’s this mutual forgiveness, acceptance, and love that allows us to be used by Christ to fulfill our only mission as His people: to be and to make disciples.

The apostle Paul routinely advertised his flaws and imperfections. This is one of the things I love about him. For example, he wrote to young Timothy: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:15-16) 

The unity of the Church is enhanced when we can confess that we are all in bondage to sin, incapable of freeing ourselves and that while we may at times be called to point out an abiding sin to our sister or brother in Christ, we will never do it because we think we’ve got it all together. We will do this only because of the love of Christ and because we don’t want them to lose their grip on grace. 

That’s why the homepage of Living Water shows a group of us praying together during worship with the caption, “Far from perfect: We are a church of imperfect people seeking God’s grace, love, forgiveness, and guidance.” Speaking for me, I totally own that!

In his book, I Am a Church Member, Thom Rainer talks about how, if we are to be faithful members of Christ’s Church, we must seek to live in unity with our fellow church members. 

He points to the words of Jesus which we cited last week: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) 

And, Rainer points out, before He was arrested and murdered, Jesus pleaded with God the Father for His Church, “...that all of them [His disciples] may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you...” (John 17:21)

Jesus is not here pleading for organizational unity; He’s asking that His Church would always be united in Him, a people drawn to each other as they gather around His cross and His gospel. It was to be united to Christ that many of us left the organization of our former denominational body to be part of the North American Lutheran Church. 

In chapter 2 of his book, Rainer also says that there are two things we must avoid in the Church in order to live out our unity in Christ: gossip and unforgiveness.

But I want to move away from talking about things that can destroy church unity and move to talking about what builds church unity. 

Philippians 2:1-11 is a good place to learn how church unity is built. Paul’s letter to the Christians in first-century Philippi was written in about 60 AD. One group of scholars has described it as a “missionary thank you letter.” Unlike the apostle’s letters to the Corinthians, for example, there’s no problem in the Philippian church. Paul just wants to thank them and, as that same group of scholars puts, describe what makes for a life worthy of the gospel. By that, Paul didn't mean to describe what a person needed to do to be worthy of God's salvation and love. Rather, he meant to describe what kind of life people who have already been saved from sin and death by God's grace through faith in Jesus should seek to live. For Paul, a life worthy of the gospel is one built on gratitude for God's undeserved, unmerited grace that comes to us from the crucified and risen Jesus!

That, in fact, is the whole purpose of this I Am a Church Member series: to help each of us live a life worthy of the gospel, a life that can only be lived out in the often wonderful, sometimes infuriating fellowship of the Church.

So, please open your Bibles to Philippians 2:5-11 and pull out a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. Paul writes: “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:1-2) 

In other words, if Christ and His gospel, if being saved by Christ from sin and everlasting separation from God mean anything to you, then be committed to living in unity with Christ and with each other. 

When you disagree with the church, do it in love. 

When decisions are made that you don’t like, stick together anyway. 

When your elected leaders work hard, pray hard, and do their best (and we are blessed with elected lay leaders like that here at Living Water), stand with them, pray for them. 

Have “the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.” 

When our aim is to look out for others because Christ has already looked out for us, we will be on the road to living as unifying church members.

Please read on: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing  by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:3-7) 

Selfish ambition and vain conceit have no place in Christ’s Church! If a church, church member, pastor, or anyone in the Church ever acts from selfish ambition or conceit, what they do will never glorify God. Never. 

Our translation says that we are to have “the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” But in the original Greek, Paul is much more radical than that. He’s not saying we should try to be like Jesus. None of us will ever be like Jesus if we try to be. We can never be like Jesus in our own power. Jesus is God incarnate. We are fleshy people, sinners by our very nature. 

What Paul is really saying here is, literally, “Let the mind of Christ be in you.” 

In other words, let the mind of Jesus Christ invade and take control of your brain. 

When the holy onslaught of God’s Word comes to you in Word and Sacrament, in sermons or in Bible reading, in conversation with other Christians or in prayer or in the singing of hymns or praise songs, don’t resist. 

Let the Word of God engulf you, conquer you, overcome you, transform you! 

Stop resisting God and let Him replace your will, your power, your thoughts, your desires with the will, power, thoughts, and desires of Jesus Christ. 

When God calls you to confess, confess. 

When God calls you to trust that through faith in Jesus, You are His child for all eternity, trust it. 

When God calls you to witness, serve or pray or study His Word, witness, serve, pray, study. Let Jesus in and you will be changed. Christ will live in you! 

This past week, I got a text from a Living Water disciple. A repairperson had been at her house and he noticed her copy of a Christian book. A whole conversation about Jesus ensued. Our member wrote to me: “You have the Kroger deli and I have Renewal by Andersen!” 

As Christ transforms us with His grace, humility will become our MO. Not because we’ve decided to be Christ-like but because, through our submission, Christ makes us over in His image. We will be Christ’s witnesses without planning it out.

We read on: “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:8-11) 

Why has God the Father given Jesus the name that is above all names, the name by which we are able to speak to God in prayer, the name that is respected even by those who claim to hate God, the Bible, and Christian faith? 

The answer is simple: Jesus, though God, was also man, a human being, and was the only human being ever able to resist the temptation to strive “to be like God.” 

Jesus sought the glory of the Father, not His own, and, because of it, was able to save all who trust in Him for all eternity. When our common aim is to glorify God and not ourselves, the Church is united, and others come to faith. 

Whose glory are you seeking? 

Whose way are you rooting for, yours or God’s?

Whose thoughts are you reflecting, God's or your own?

Jesus says that in His kingdom, the first will be last and the last will be first. The way of life with God is the way of a servant in Christ’s Church!

So, how is unity built in Christ’s Church? It boils down to this: 

• When Christ calls us to be His own, we submit to Him and to each other; 
• we never count ourselves better than others; and 
• we seek to glorify the God Who has given us life and life made us new in Christ. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him, ‘Come and die.’” When each of us heed that call, dying to ourselves so that our new selves can rise with Christ, we have unity with Christ and with His body, the Church. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

May people see Christ in this lump of clay

[From my morning quiet time with God today.]

I so identify with these words from the apostle Paul to the young preacher, Timothy: 

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:15-17)

I am a sinner saved only by the grace of God given through Christ to those who trust in Christ. 

And while I will remain a sinner through my entire life, the good news is that God's grace in Christ is bigger than my sin. So big that, in this life, Christ makes saints of those who, this side of the resurrection, remain also as sinners in daily need of God's grace.

As I take refuge in Christ and my baptism in His name each day, turning from my sin and turning instead to Christ, I am covered by grace, forgiveness, and new life. 

Years ago, after I had returned to Christ following years of atheism, a friend told me, "You're different. Something's changed." It was true. Christ had changed me.

But He's not done changing me. 

He is changing me still. 

Thank God for that, because I am still so imperfect, still so inclined to follow the human default mode of selfishness, self-will, and sin.

Every day, the God revealed to all the world in Christ sends the Holy Spirit to fight on my behalf, so that I can hear God's Word of love and life and counsel and wisdom when I am tempted by sin or when I have already caved into its enticements. 

There are times, I confess, when I have turned and still turn a deaf ear to the Word and will of God.

But I have found that God always leaves the porch light on for returning prodigals, for children who know His grace and long to return. 

In fact, all we need do is respond to His call and turn and He comes running to, paraphrasing an eminent theologian, embrace us before the words of confession and repentance come from our mouths or are spoken silently in our minds. (Luke 15:11-32: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/…)

If people can see that Christ has saved and is still saving a wretch like me, has made me God's own dear child, has changed the ways I view God and others--through the eyes of divine love, and has both humbled and emboldened me with the promise that as He rose, I will rise, as He rules, so I, a sinner made a saint by grace, with Him...if people can see what Christ can do in the life of this imperfect lump of clay, then maybe they can see all that He can do for them. 

Although that's what I live for. 

To the God revealed in Christ alone be all the glory, honor, and praise.

Our Call, Our Privilege, Our Life (AUDIO)

Here.

Our Call, Our Privilege, Our Life ('I Am a Church Member,' Part 1)

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, yesterday morning.]

1 Corinthians 12:12-28

She was the wealthiest person in the small community where I served as pastor. She was also on the rolls of our church, although I’d been there several months already and hadn’t met her: She was in and out of town a lot. 

Then, one day, she met Ann at a local social gathering. She told Ann that she’d like to meet me and asked if I’d be available that afternoon. It turned out that I would be and, at the appointed time, she showed up. 

She quickly told me that she was an artist (an assertion that I came to doubt that...a lot), that she really couldn’t be bothered with the Bible, that she had a bevy of former husbands, each succeeding one more wealthy than the last, and that she intended to live her life as she wished whether God liked it or not. And, she made it clear, she wasn’t sure about the whole God thing anyway.

The purpose of her visit was plain enough. She was there to get a fix on what I was like, whether this worm in a clerical collar who sat before her was going to “play ball” with her view of the church as her own private country club, whether I was willing to compromise on Biblical truth in order to ensure that she wrote big checks for the general fund. Our conversation was pleasant enough. But I’m fairly certain that I disappointed her. Now, I’m not a perfect pastor or a perfect Christian or a perfect person, but one thing was absolutely clear to me: This woman had no idea what it meant to be a member of Christ’s Church, the body of Christ.

Over the next several weeks, with Thom Rainer’s book, I Am a Church Member, as a starting point, we’ll be considering what God, in His Word, the Bible, tells us about what it means to be a church member. I need to underscore that. While we can value Rainer’s book, it’s God’s Word that we most value. The Bible is, as we Lutherans say, the authoritative source and norm of our life, faith, and practice. 

And, in some instances, we Lutherans have different views of what God’s Word teaches than Rainer. But we will surface those issues in coming weeks.

So, where to start in talking about being a Church member? 

The first thing to be said is that while we who make up the Church may organize ourselves in ways that can look like other organizations in the world (we may even use Robert's Rules of Order), the Church is from God, it’s God’s idea and God’s creation. The Church was instituted by Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, and the members who make up the Church are the only creatures or things that will survive the end of this dying old creation. 

The Church is built not on human will, human power, or human wisdom. The Church is built on the confession that Peter made when Jesus asked His apostles Who they said that He was. Peter confessed that Jesus is Lord, the Messiah, God-come-to-earth. Jesus commended Peter’s confession and told him that on the rock of this confession of Jesus’ Lordship, “...I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:18) 

The Augsburg Confession, one of the basic confessional statements of Lutheran Christians, picks up on Jesus’ words to say: “The Church is the congregation of saints [that is, believers in Jesus] in which the Gospel is purely taught and the Sacraments [Holy Baptism and Holy Communion] are correctly administered...It is not necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies instituted by men, should be the same everywhere…” (The Augsburg Confession, Article VII). 

The Church is made up of people who receive the gospel Word about Jesus and the Sacraments with faith.

But faith is more than intellectual assent. 

To receive the Word of new and everlasting life from the crucified and risen Jesus with faith is to live with Him, however imperfectly, however often we may need to repent and be made new. (For me, this happens at least twenty times a day!) 

Faith means more than to say, “I believe that Jesus died and rose and I occupy a spot on the membership rolls.” 

That’s the second thing to be said about the Church. It’s composed of disciples, people who daily follow Jesus and seek to honor Him.

So, what are disciples? I'm glad that you asked that question! 

Disciples are people saved by grace through faith in Christ. Their life with God in Christ is a free gift. Even their faith is a free gift. These gifts come to us when we receive the Word about Jesus and when, in the words of The Small Catechism, we “hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it” (The Small Catechism: The Third Commandment). 

Disciples are those who turn to Jesus as the only One Who can make them right with God, right with themselves, the only One Who can give them forgiveness and life eternity; like Peter, they say to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) 

Disciples are those who, like the man who came to seek help for his child told Jesus after Jesus had told him to believe, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) Anyone who says they're a disciple and that they never wrestle with doubts or challenges to their belief is a liar.

Disciples are those who have heard Jesus’ call, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 16:24). Discipleship is about dying to our old selves so that our new selves, our God-given selves, can rise to live with God now and for all eternity.

Disciples are those so grateful for God’s amazing grace saving them from death and hell through faith in Jesus that they seek to live that lifestyle we talked about last Sunday: they follow Jesus, go to the world into which He sends them, and they “fish” for people, telling others the good news--the gospel--of new life for all who repent and believe in Jesus.

True church members then are disciples of Jesus. I seriously doubt whether people who don’t participate in a local church or who, like the woman who came to see me in my office that day long ago, really are church members. 

The Bible teaches that you and I need the church and not just when we agree with every decision made by the congregation. 

To be a Christian is to be part of Christ’s community of faith, the Church. Why is that so? 

One reason is that we need to be in fellowship with people who rub us the wrong way. We can get off on our own hobby horses and end up far from God if we aren’t part of a Christian congregation where there are people to set us straight. “As iron sharpens iron,” Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “so one person sharpens another.” 

Another reason is that the Church is the only fellowship in the world built around the Word of God. The preacher in Hebrews told the Church: “...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Nobody conveys the necessity of fellowship with the Church more graphically than the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12-28. These verses undergird Rainer’s first chapter. Church members realize that the Church isn’t about them, their preferences, their fears, their desires; it’s about Jesus and about our neighbors and our fellow members. 

The Church is about: 

• reaching up to God in worship and praise every day,
• reaching in to love, support, and provide accountability to our fellow members, and
• reaching out with the good news of Jesus to a dying world

Church membership then isn’t a spectator sport. Church membership is about giving of ourselves abundantly and serving in Jesus’ name without hesitation.

We don’t have time to look at 1 Corinthians 12:12-28 in depth this morning. Please read it before our Tuesday learning group, which will happen over at Christ the King at 6:30. But I want to hold up what I believe Rainer rightly points to as the four elements of being functional members of Christ’s Church given to us by Paul. 

First: “Membership means we are all necessary parts of the whole.” In describing the Church as Christ’s body, Paul drew an analogy between our physical bodies and the parts that make them up. Each part is essential for the functioning of the whole body. We need our hearts, brains, lungs, and other parts to function properly. As Bishop John and others pointed out last week in Denver, when any member of the church decides to sink down to spectator mode, we are all hurt by it; it’s like trying to function without eyes or ears, fingers or toes. 

Second: “Membership means we are different but we still work together.” Rainer cites 1 Corinthians 12:26: “...if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice.” 

Third: “Membership means that everything we say and do is based on a Biblical foundation of love.” I love what Rainer says here, “We are not to love fellow church members just because they are lovable. We are to love the unlovable as well.” I would add this. Jesus says that we are to love others as He has loved us. To see how He loves us, all we have to do is look at the cross. When I realize that Jesus went to the cross for me despite my sins, it makes it easier for me to love others. Besides, Jesus say, when we do love one another, we make the gospel real to each other and to the world around us. “By this,” Jesus tells us,  “everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) 

Fourth: “Church membership is functioning membership.” Rainer observes, “The concept of an inactive church member is an oxymoron.” Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:28: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

Folks, according to God’s Word, the Church is indispensable for the salvation of the world. 

Without the Church, billions of people will be separated from God in hell for eternity. 

According to that same Word, the Church is indispensable for our own salvation and lives. Without the Church, the devil, the world, and our sinful selves would certainly take us far away from God. 

The bottom line is this: In the Church, we need each other. 

And unless a congregation has fallen into unrepentant sin or false teaching about God, heresy, our call as church members is clear: 

We’re each to be functioning church members, grateful for the grace that has saved us, devoted to the Lord and open to His Word, devoted to each other, and excited to prompt, encourage, and challenge one another every time we gather to go into the world and make disciples for Jesus Christ. 

That’s our call. 

That's our privilege. 

And that's our life. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

My protection

[This is the journal entry for my quiet time with God today. I hope that you'll find it helpful and encourage you to spend your own quiet time with God each day. Here, I explain how I approach this time with God.]

Look: “I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, ‘The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.’” (Ezra 8:22)

Ezra was part of the Jewish diaspora who had been deported to Babylon when it conquered God’s people. It was Persian policy to allow peoples they’d conquered to worship their own “gods” and to return to their homelands. A group had gone back to Judah during the reign of the Persian king Cyrus. But they had neglected the worship of God and the observance of their faith. When Ezra, still in exile, learned of this, he was aggrieved. Ultimately, he received authorization from King Darius (who reigned from 522 to 486 BC) to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

Ezra’s concern in this verse is the authenticity of his faith and his witness to the Persians. He had assured King Darius that he and his group would need none of the king’s offered protection of armies on their return to the promised land; God would protect His people. Ezra had prayerfully asked for God’s protection, yet must have still been daunted by the dangerous journey ahead. (It’s comforting to know how human this man of God was!) Because of his confession of faith in God, Ezra says that he was ashamed to ask for protection.

So, in the next verse Ezra tells us, “...we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.” (Ezra 8:23)

Instead of petitioning the king for protection, Ezra and the Jewish believers who were taking a dangerous trip to go back to their homelands, “fasted and petitioned our God about this.” They chose wisely.

Listen: This is no “name-it-and-claim-it” text. For Ezra, the decision not to accept the offered help of an army was a matter of faith. Nations and armies can’t protect believers. Neither can money or possessions, reputation or human affection, having the “right” argument or being “strong” and intimidating in numbers. Only God can protect us.

And that would have been so even if Ezra and his contingent had been slaughtered on the way to their homeland.

Today, believers in Jesus join the ancient Israelites in knowing that “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” (Romans 14:8)

The God revealed first to ancient Israel and now to all the world in Jesus, will protect all who trust in Christ from humanity’s greatest enemies--sin, eternal death, futility, and darkness--whether we have long, short, easy, or hard, poor or wealthy lives on this earth. That’s because the “gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him.”   

Ezra wanted to live in faithfulness to that confession. It would have been a defection from God to seek protection from a foreign army when he confessed that his “help is the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 24:8). He also would have been ashamed to give a “splintered witness” by taking help from Darius when he’d already declared his certainty of God’s help.

Respond: Today, Lord, I seek to be more “all in” with You. I need to spend more time praying to You in Jesus’ name and less time consorting with and listening to my fears. Forgive me all my sins for Jesus’ sake and I ask You to protect me, my family, and my congregation from everything that would endanger us, especially temptations and sins that could do eternal damage to us. And grant that today, I will not give a “splintered witness,” relying completely on You. Forgive me, I pray, for all of the ways I have failed to completely rely on You, for relying too often on my own “cleverness” (I know You’re laughing at that, Lord), shrewdness, or perception. Forgive me for replacing You with my own thoughts or my own feelings or my own desires. Today, protect me, above all, Lord, from myself and help me to listen to You, follow You, honor You, and share You. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen  

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Lutheran Week Reflections

[Two staff members and I participated in the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) Lutheran Week from August 13 to 18. During the sermon time, the three of us each presented our reflections on the week to the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is my portion of the reflections. By the way, it was good seeing so many first-time visitors with us for worship today!]

Matthew 4:19
Early Monday morning, Mark Brennan, our director of worship; Sue Buck, our coordinator of children’s and family ministries; and I flew from Columbus to Denver for Lutheran Week. 

This annual event incorporates theological lectures, a mission festival, and the North American Lutheran Church convocation. Nancy O. joined us later in the week as your lay representative. 

Much of our week devoted to considering the Person of the Holy Spirit. This was our focus because, as Bishop John and others at the event pointed out, the Church and individual disciples can get involved with a lot of things. But if the Church doesn’t tap into the power of the Holy Spirit and pursue its one and only mission, it won’t get done. Not the government. Not social service agencies. Not fraternal organizations. Only the Church. 

We see everything that the Church and that you and I as individual believers are to be about in Matthew 4:19. Jesus is at the sea of Galilee. There, He encounters some fishermen. “‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus [says], ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’” 

As one of our speakers pointed out, Christians often think that the only thing Jesus calls us to do is follow Him. As a consequence, we turn following Jesus to some vague attitude of mind and heart. 

But at a presentation of the NALC’s Life to Life Discipleship team, one of our speakers said that the words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel show us that there’s more to being a disciple of the Lord Who saves us by grace through faith in Jesus. 

Jesus gives them in this verse: Follow me, go where I send you, seek to bring other people to know and follow Jesus too. 

Follow. 

Go. 

Seek. 

It’s exhilarating being part of a denomination that is focused on being and doing what Jesus calls us to be and do! 

And it was so affirming to know that I’m blessed to be the pastor of a congregation whose mission of reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out is in sync with the Word and the will of our Lord and with the leadership and the most faithful and forward-looking congregations of the NALC.

We were also given a succinct triple play of discipleship. It happens when, individually and in small groups, we believers not only read God’s Word, but ponder it, letting it soak into our lives and wills. 

The triple play? 

Application, when I ask God to show me how to apply the truth of God’s Word I’ve read that day. 

Accountability, when I gather in groups of two or three others or when one couple gathers with two other couples, and ask one another things like, “What’s God been telling you the past few days?” and we hold ourselves accountable to each other. 

Positive affirmation, when we do things like pray together, encourage one another, care for one another. 

In faithful and growing churches, those “one anothers” encompass not only fellow congregants, but also people outside the church to whom we reach out with friendship, love, and a testimony of how Jesus is the burning center of our lives. (That includes the millennial generation the Church is largely ignoring or denigrating.) 

None of this requires perfection, only faith and authenticity, the willingness to own our imperfections, and point to Jesus as God in the flesh Who died and rose for imperfect people like us and Who gives us our hope.

The disciple’s lifestyle of faith is all made possible by God’s Holy Spirit, Who you and I received the moment at which we were baptized. 

He’s the One Who makes it possible for us to believe in Jesus (1 Corinthians 12:3). 

He’s the One Who fills us with the power of God (Acts 6:3). 

And He’s the One Who makes it possible to share Jesus with others, even if, like the apostle Peter, we’ve always been tongue-tied about sharing Jesus (Acts 4:8).

Neither does any of this require our congregation to add another program or do a flashy ad campaign or get involved with things like politics. These are the things that churches do when they’re no longer following Jesus or relying on the Holy Spirit. 

All we need to do is follow, go, and seek while living a lifestyle of application, accountability, and affirmation, not in our power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The last thing I’ll say is this. Repeatedly this week, pastors and denominational leaders stopped me in conference hallways to say in one way or another, “I just talked with Sue. I just talked with Mark. Wow!” And I often told them, “This is just half of our staff. We also have Trish and Olivia. And they’re wows!” 

Thank you for allowing them to go with me to Denver this week. 

And if you think they’re wows too, please thank God and them for their faithfulness to Christ by banging your hands together right now. 

By the way, I think this congregation--all of you--are wows too!

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]