Blog Archives
How To Deal with the Stress of God’s Mission!
How to Deal with the Stress… Of His Mission! 
Matthew 10:5a, 21-33
† In Jesus Name †
As you go out, bringing the news of God’s loving us enough to take responsibility for our lives, may you endure, knowing the grace of Christ!
The Mission
There were some words I read this week by a priest that resonated deeply with me.
I am going to paraphrase them here, putting the thoughts in words that would make sense to us…
In our visits to the sick, in our administration of the sacraments, in our teaching of the catechism, and in all the rest of our priestly (pastoral) activity, we are collaborating (serving) with Christ in establishing Christian hearts. At the same time and by that same means, that is, by the work we do, the Lord is establishing and rooting our hearts in his own. (1)
What he is describing is what we are sent to do, to bring Christ to people. We all do it differently. Dane does it while going and checking on a good friend, Joanie does serves in such a way, at the Korean grocery Store, where she invited Jenny to Bible Study. It is what Rainbow does at Hope International University, and what Wanda and Kay do as they interact in the office with all who come into see them.
This is our mission, the same one that started among us when Jesus sent the twelve out to a certain group – but now sends us to the entire world.
It is the same mission, to bring the gospel, the news of the Kingdom of God coming among them, or as the pastor said, seeing “the Lord establishing and rooting our hearts in His own!”
This incredible mission is ours, but, you need to be warned, as the apostles were, it might not be the easiest…
The Challenge…..
One might read these verses in our gospel reading and wonder what you’ve gotten yourself involved in, following Jesus, hearing and trusting Him and sharing your faith with others.
I mean what is this about, breaking up families, even to the point of one handing over another to be executed. Why would people hate us? And real persecution, the kind of persecution where people zealously hunt us down and enslave or oppress us?
There are a number of temptations to dealing with such opposition.
The first is simply to be okay with their sin, to not see their sin, or ours as something we have to worry about. Christ died for all those sins, right? For jealousy and envy, for gossip and sexual immorality, for wanting to kill people, well at least with our thoughts and words, for not honoring those God placed in authority, or those who dismiss the times of rest with which God desires to bless them. Or maybe we become comfortable with people using God’s name wrongly, or even worse, with their not using it at all.
The reading of Paul’s epistle should straighten us out on that….
Don’t be slaves to sins, and don’t let others continue to dwell in spiritual death as their reward,
Don’t weaken the message of God’s mercy, by pretending we don’t need it. That will not free you from persecution. Don’t be cowed by those who would dismiss you from doing God’s work, by saying it isn’t necessary to treasure the life God has given us.
But that doesn’t give us the right to just stand up and act as jerks condemning people as sinners left and right. We can’t combat the opposition to God’s word, by getting ready to wield the rock with which to stone them. We can’t use the idea that using the Bible offensively is the best defense of the gospel.
We are called to love, and yes, sometimes to suffer, for the sake of those who need to hear of God’s love and mercy. As I heard yesterday, a basic summer of the gospel, that they know God matters, and that people matter to Him.
So how do we do this, in the face of opposition from friends and family and those that would rather not hear of their need for God, and His desire to show them all His love?
How do we deal with the stresses of the Mission that God has given us, to take His message to the world, that they would be saved?
The Key – the Relationship We Have with Jesus
If you could see the verse that precedes the bulk of our passage, you would hear how we deal with it.
19 … don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. 20 For it is not you who will be speaking—it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Matthew 10:19b-20 (NLT)
How can this be? That as we focus on God, the words we speak are not ours, but those of the Holy Spirit? Who are we to speak for God, to utter not our words, but His?
We aren’t apostles, are we?
Hear verse 24 of the gospel again:
24 “Students are not greater than their teacher, and slaves are not greater than their master. 25 Students are to be like their teacher, and slaves are to be like their master. And since I, the master of the household, have been called the prince of demons, the members of my household will be called by even worse names! Matthew 10:24-25 (NLT)
We are His students, His disciples, His slaves, He is our Teacher, our Master, the One into whose image the Holy Spirit is transforming us. It should be natural, the more we think about His love, the more we contemplate the cross, and realize the link their to our unity with Him in baptism, and how we testify to that death for us, as we eat His body, as we drink His precious blood in communion, that we take on His nature, That we understand His desire is that not one of the people around us would perish in Hell, but that all would come to know His love and mercy.
The very unity we have with God in Christ, will see us through any discomfort, ever persecution, even as it did Jesus as He started this mission.
We are so His, that nothing can separate us from Him, and so we should go, and do that which He has sent us to do, to preach the gospel to all creation, to do so with each of our talents, with each of our gifts, abilities, to see this as the reason we are here, even as He came to us.
For that is the greatest miracle of this, that we dwell, we find our life, as St Paul said, in Jesus.
Or as the pastor I quoted at the beginning of this wrote,
In our visits to the sick, in our administration of the sacraments, in our teaching of the catechism, and in all the rest of our priestly (pastoral) activity, we are collaborating (serving) with Christ in establishing Christian hearts. At the same time and by that same means, that is, by the work we do (in Christ), the Lord is establishing and rooting our hearts in his own. (1)
hear the last line one more time… as you go into the world to share Christ in such a way that people’s hearts are established in Christ…. Then know
At the same time and by that same means, that is, by the work we do (in Christ), the Lord is establishing and rooting our hearts in his own. (1)
Established there, we know the incredible, indescribable peace of God our Father, the peace we know in Christ… in which He guards our hearts and minds. AMEN?
(1) Pope Francis; Jorge M Bergoglio (2013-11-18). Open Mind, Faithful Heart (pp. 39-40). The Crossroad Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.
Church “Militant” I don’t think that word means what you think it means….
Devotional/Discussion thought of the day:
12 For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the principalities and the ruling forces who are masters of the darkness in this world, the spirits of evil in the heavens. Ephesians 6:12 (NJB)
18 So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my community. And the gates of the underworld can never overpower it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ Matthew 16:18-19 (NJB)
1 For is not everything dark as night for a country in distress? As the past humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, so the future will glorify the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, the territory of the nations. 2The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; on the inhabitants of a country in shadow dark as death light has blazed forth. Isaiah 9:1-2 (NJB)
Onward Christian Soldiers, marching off to war…. with the cross of Jesus, going on before…
This morning, there are people crying for the church to wake up, to take up the challenges thrown before it this weekend, to reclaim lost territory as the forces posed against the church have attacked Christianity by once again trying to distort one of it mosts sacred symbols, marriage. I’ve read concepts that this is the worst attack yet, that the evil people need to be stopped that we have to draw the line here, and reclaim what is ours by right, or else all will be lost. They urge the church to become the church militant… I can hear pipe organs warming up to lead the great anthems that will lead us into this great crusade to come..
And the words of that great philosopher Inigo Montoya come to mind. “Church ;’Militant’ You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
When I see people talking about the church with military like speech, it is not a church locked in a life or death struggle with the Satan and his minions in the world. It is not a struggle to keep what is ours, our culture, our rights, our dominant place in society, defining the norms and behaviors in our society. That’s never been the proper battle arena in the church. And those who “fight us”, aren’t fighting us, anymore than a blind man with two teaspoons could fight a Navy Seal unit. They can’t – they are locked in darkness, and they have absolutely no clue about who God is.
Luther says it well,
For all outside of Christianity, whether heathen, Turks, Jews, or false Christians and hypocrites, although they believe in, and worship, only one true God, yet know not what His mind towards them is, and cannot expect any love or blessing from Him; therefore they abide in eternal wrath and damnation. For they have not the Lord Christ, and, besides, are not illumined and favored by any gifts of the Holy Ghost. The Large Catechism of Martin Luther.
We are talking about people we believe cannot know about God’s love yet, so why do we take offense at their attacking a god they perceive as un-loving? Worse – why do we defend that God, rather than giving them an explanation for the God we know – the God that invaded our darkness, that showed us love? When we fall into this battle they want, we end up doing exactly what we aren’t supposed to be doing. We are making them believe that it is a code of behaviors that matters, that we don’t care about their eternal soul as much as we care that they meet our behavorial standards.
And so the church militant is confused with a type of group that wages war on sinners, rather than does what its supposed to do – delivering them from oppression. Bringing them healing and restoration from the damage caused by sin – their sin, the sin of the world, and yes our sin as well. Delivering them into the presence of God, where that healing begins. Delivering them their, by living alongside them, for God dwells with us.
That’s the mission of the Church Militant, even as it was the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, who John tells us – came and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. May as we live in the midst of this oppressed, broken, sinful world, reflect that glory, a reflection that continues to invade darkness, and see God set at liberty all that are oppressed.
AMEN.
Becoming Like Christ…. How it Happens:
Devotion/Discussion Thought of the Day:
17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NLT)
There is an old adage that says, “birds of a feather, flock together…”
It’s true, and its trite in many ways. Who we spend our lives with, the time we invest with them, changes us dramatically.
Negatively, we call it succumbing to peer pressure. Positively it is the encouragement that we call communion, fellowship, koinonia.
It’s true spiritually as well. We don’t become more like Christ through our actions, through our thoughts, even through our discipline. We are not made holy by our actions.
But we do become more holy, more sanctified, more set apart as Christ is, because we are gathered into His flock, we become like Him. We learn to love as He does, to sacrifice as He does.
Not because of our work, but because of God’s work in us, as He called nad baptised and cleansed us – the very promises that have been there since the beginning.
This is what Paul is talking about – we Christ is revealed to us, we are transformed – His work in us begins, we are given His heart.
Such is the blessing of His being our God.
You want to become holier? Be like Mary, not Martha – don’t try and make yourself perfect for God – sit there, adore Him, be still and know HIm…. and then… reflecting His glory where you are…where He has placed you.. you will find yourself thinking as He does… and more importantly – loving as He does.
