Two words that can transform any lesson

Two words can transform the ho-hum atmosphere of a sleepy
classroom:

I disagree.

I have seen it happen many times. The conversation is rocking
along. The teacher is talking. People are nodding. Someone
discreetly looks at their watch. It is not bad; it is just not the
kind of thing anyone is going to talk about once they leave. Then,
suddenly someone says the magic two words:

"I disagree."

"Respectfully, I disagree, teacher, I think. . ."

Heads turn. People set down the bulletin that they had been
looking through, skimming over announcements to see if they could
find anything interesting. Attention is galvanized.

What are they going to say? Disagree with what? I hadn't noticed
anything I disagreed with. Is a fight going to break out? How do I
feel about this?

Effective teachers not only allow members to say, "I disagree."
They encourage it. They elicit disagreement. They design the
discussion in such a way that people are almost certain to disagree.

Too many times we are guilty of giving Sunday School answers in
Sunday School. Sunday School answers are oversimplification of
complex truth. The real truth is nearly always a careful balance
between two extremes. Let's look at a couple of examples.

Is Christian living active or passive?

Is Christian living, as some have said it, "Letting go and
letting God"? or is it working hard, striving, pushing, straining,
running?

Well, it is all according to what verse you read. If you assign
these verses to be read, you might come up with the answer that is
passive, it is letting go and letting God. It is getting out of the
way and letting God in the driver's seat and letting Him do the
driving.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer
live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 (NIV)



for it is God who works in you to will and to act
according to his good purpose. Philippians 2:13 (NIV)

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more
than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work
within us, Ephes. 3:20 [NIV]

being confident of this, that he who began a good
work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ
Jesus. Philip. 1:6 [NIV]

You could preach on this for a while. "Christian living is not
about us working hard, it is about God working through us. It is
about us getting out of the way. It is about us reckoning ourselves
to be crucified each day. Crucified people don't work hard. God
lives His life through us."

Then, if you want to get someone to say, "I disagree" push it a
little harder. Say, "Christian living is completely passive, don't
you agree?" Hopefully somebody won't. Hopefully a healthy debate
will ensue. If you do it really well, people will come up to you at
church the next Wednesday night and say, "I have been thinking about
what we talked about Sunday, and I think. . ."

Alternatively, you could start on the other side. Start with
these verses:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or
have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that
for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
⁽¹³⁾ Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have
taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and
straining toward what is ahead, ⁽¹⁴⁾
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which
God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14
(NIV)



Think highly of them and give them your wholehearted love because
they are straining to help you. 1 Thessalonians 5:13a (TLB)

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always
obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my
absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and
trembling, Philip. 2:12 [NIV]



Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the
Lord, not for men, Col. 3:23 [NIV]

It is a little more difficult to get people to disagree on this
side because people naturally think that Christian living is about
striving and working hard. Sometimes it is useful to put both sets
of verses out there and let people feel the tension. Alternatively,
you can assign sides of a debate and assign people to take one side
or the other.

Here is a nice verse to wrap up. It brings both sides together.

To this end I labor, struggling with all his
energy, which so powerfully works in me. Colossians 1:29 (NIV)

I labor and God labors through me. Unless I understand both
sides, I don't understand the truth.

One more.

Let your little light shine

Let's start with the question: Are we to do our acts of
righteousness in a public way so people can see them? In my
experience, people will normally answer "No" to this question. To
which I respond, "Why then does the Bible say:

In the same way, let your light shine before men,
that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:16 [NIV]

We are instructed by Jesus to let our light shine, to do our good
works in such a way that people will see them and give praise to
God. If they don't see them, they won't give praise to God. We must
do our works publically, right? Now, everyone agrees. Somewhat
hesitatingly, they all agree. Then I read this verse (in this case,
I am disagreeing with myself):

"Be careful not to do your 'acts of
righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will
have no reward from your Father in heaven. Matthew 6:1 [NIV]

Now, which is it? Are we to do our acts of righteousness before
men, so they can see them, or not?

We are about to have a conversation. No one is going to look at
their watches. No one is going to thumb through the bulletin. No one
is bored. If you do it well, someone will say next week, "Hey, I
have been thinking about what we talked about last week and I think.
. ."

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The Starfish and the Spider:

If you lop off the head of a spider, it dies. It is a very
centralized organization.

If you cut off the leg of a starfish, it will grow a new leg, and
the leg will grow a new starfish. It is a very decentralized
organization.

Question: what kind of organization is the church? What kind of
organization should it be?

Starfish style organizations are multiplying . . .

AA is a starfish organization. No president. No leader. Or, more
precisely, everyone is a leader. No one owns AA. No one has any idea
how many members they have. Suffice it to say, a lot!

Wikipedia Arguably the
largest depository of information on the planet and it is all user
created. You can edit the content yourself. Users decide what is
included and what is not. Very decentralized.

Napster--the old Napster
before the feds got a hold of it--very decentralized. And, in
various incarnations, the idea continues to thrive because of its
decentralization.

OpenOffice. A Microsoft
office look-alike. All user created. All free. Very decentralized.

The House Church Movement in America is another example of a
starfish movement. From all accounts, it is growing and growing
rapidly. Consider these facts for the North American Mission Board's
Center for Missional Research
http://www.namb.net/cmr (This is gathering information from
several sources. There is some discrepancy between the findings.)

• House churches have shown remarkable growth in the past
  decade—shooting up from just 1% to near double-digit
  involvement.


• Zogby poll: We asked, "Do you meet weekly with a group of 20
  people or less to pray and study scriptures as your primary form
  of spiritual or religious gathering?" Remarkably, 26.3% of the
  3600 sampled Americans who were asked that question indicated that they
  did—as their primary form of spiritual or religious gathering.


• One out of five adults attends a house church at least once
  a month.  


• It's estimated that more than 70 million adults have at
  least experimented with house church participation.     
  


• In a typical week, roughly 20 million adults attend a house
  church gathering. Over the course of a typical month, that
  number doubles to about 43 million adults.      
  


• Millions of Americans are intermittently engaged in a house
  church, alternating back and forth between house church and
  conventional church. (For clarity, the survey distinguished
  between involvement in a house church and participation in a
  small group that is associated with a conventional church.)     
  The Barna survey revealed that of those who attend a house
  church, 27% attend on a weekly basis, 30% attend one to three
  times per month, and 43% attend less than once a month.

There is an explosive house church movement in our land. It is a
decentralized, leaderless, starfish movement. How should we respond? As I see it,
we could take one of three approaches.

Ignore it

This was my approach at first. It seems too big a movement to
ignore.

Bring a bucket of water

As I have had the opportunity to talk to church leaders about the
house church movement, this is the most common response. The
conversation usually includes this sentence: "Well, those house
churches are all well and good, but I just think there should be
some accountability."

I am thinking, "Accountability to whom?" and I think I know the
answer. I think he is sitting across the table from me.

But, if this house church is a real church, I thought we believed
in the autonomy of the local church. I thought we believed local
churches were not accountable to anyone except each other and God.

The Catholic Church is very spider-like. It is very centralized.
Very command and control. The protestant movement was much more
decentralized. Baptists in particular are extremely decentralized. I
have always thought the name Independent Baptist was a bit
redundant. What other kind of Baptist is there?

The House Church movement begs the question: how far do you press
that?

Bring a bucket of gasoline

Well, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out I
think this is the best approach.

What would you call a ten fold increase in house churches in ten
years approaching 25% of the  population. They have done that
with no budget, no money, no visible leaders, no literature, no
program, no nothing. I would call it a movement of God. If it is a
movement of God, I think we do well to fan it into flames lest we
find ourselves opposing what God is doing.

Local churches can do at least three things to partner with and
encourage house churches:

• Identify them. See if you can identify
  people in your church that are participating in an independent
  home Bible Study. Get their names, phone numbers and email
  addresses.


• Encourage them. Validate what they are
  doing. They are studying the Bible and fellowshipping. It is a
  good thing. Don't make them feel like rebels. They are not
  rebels. Some of them are good members of your church. Just as
  some of your church members attend other activities at other
  churches, some of your church members may be a part of a House
  Church. (Approximately 20% of those who go to church routinely
  attend more than one church.) Validate them publically from the
  pulpit. Encourage them privately.


• Train them without trying to control them.
  Provide training and resources if they want it. Don't try to
  control them. These are independent churches. You wouldn't want
  your Association trying to control you; don't try to control
  them.


• Create networking opportunities. People
  like to fellowship with like-minded individuals. There are many
  house church networks in major cities across America. Identify
  any that exist in your area. Allow them to use your building if
  they want to have occasional large-group networking meetings.
  


• Pray for them; pray with them. It is my
  prayer that America will come to Christ. My vision is that they
  can do this through doubling groups. It seems that God is doing
  a new thing in a multiplying movement of doubling house groups.
  I think it will happen through all kinds of churches--mega
  churches, house churches, new churches, old churches. Pray for
  this movement.

To respond to this, go to
www.sundayschool.ning.com

To read more on this, pick up a copy of

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless
Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom

Then will I teach transgressors your way

How powerful one word can be.

I was writing a lesson recently on Psalm 51. My attention was
drawn to one word at the beginning of verse 13: Then.

The question it raised in my mind was, "When?"

When is "then"?

It is obvious from the context that David did not consider it
appropriate to teach transgressors Gods ways until then–until
something else happened. He could not teach transgressors God’s ways
now; he could only do it then.

When is "then"?

Verse 12: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a
willing spirit, to sustain me."

When is "then"? When the joy of his salvation is restored. When
he found the grace to be obedient to the command of God to rejoice
in the Lord always. David recognized that it would be premature and
ineffective to teach transgressors God’s ways if he had not found
the grace to find joy in God. Only people who are happy in God
effectively witness for God. Only people who are happy in God
effectively serve God. The problem with most evangelism programs is
they try to teach people to witness who are not happy in God.

The great problem with the church today is not that we need
better methods or programs or strategies. We need to find great joy
in God.

Before I get too much further, let me clarify one fine point,
quoting from the authority on joy in God, John Piper:

I wanted to be happy. Joy, satisfaction, contentment,
call it what you will. If you have your own little category
of JOY is what Christians have and HAPPINESS is what the
world has, you can scrap that when you come to the Bible.
The Bible is indiscriminate in its use of pleasure language.
It is lavish in all of them, and none of them is chosen
above the other." -John Piper

I have seen too many Christians hide in their grumpiness behind
the excuse that they are joyful deep, deep, deep inside. So deep,
apparently, that it is invisible to the watching world.

That was not the happiness of the early church. The early church
was so happy that as people looked in they said, "There is just one
explanation for this." The world saw so much happiness and so much
laughter and so much back slapping, and so many hugs that they
concluded that these people must be drunk. There is a goal for you:
seek to be a church that is so happy that people think you are
drunk.

Then you will teach transgressors God’s ways.

I am not saying this is easy. It is not each. It is difficult;
very difficult. It is difficult because life is difficult. Life is
full of death and divorce and disease and financial difficulties and
relational conflict and there is plenty is this world to be grumpy
about. It is not easy.

I have been meditating on these truths for years and have found
six guiding principles that have helped me to be obedient to the
command of God to rejoice in the Lord always.

Learn
to live the well-lived life. It is easier to enjoy God in the
context of a well lived life. We strive to do two things in
Christian living. We strive to count in all joy when we face trials
of many kinds. That is the pinnacle of spiritual maturity. Until
then, we also seek to get out lives together.

Express
your joy in God in worship. There is a great controversy today about
style of worship. Should we use contemporary worship, traditional
worship, or a blend? I say yes, but
the key word is not contemporary. The key question is not, "Is it
contemporary?" They key question is, "Is it worshipful?"

Attack
the enemy. It is often said that Christianity is all about a
relationship. This is only half true. It is about a relationship,
but it is not all about a relationship. It is also about a cause, a
task, a race, a fight. The weapons of our warfare are all offensive weapons.
The work as we attack the enemy. One of the best ways to do this is
through microcosms of the church doubling every two years or less.

Do the
things God has called you to do. We all have a part in this cause.
We are to attack the enemy together. We are to do life together and
advance the kingdom together. There is great joy in being part of a
team and doing our part on that team.

Express
your joy in God to others. "Then will I teach transgressors your
ways." Then. When God restores in us the joy of our salvation. When
we find the grace to be obedient to the command of God to rejoice in
the Lord always we will teach transgressors his ways.

Relate
to others in healthy relationships. How good it is when brothers
dwell together in unity. Among other things, when brothers dwell
together in unity, it is easier to enjoy God. conflict is the great
destroyer of joy.

I work full time at teaching groups to double every two years or
less. The more I do it, the more I am convinced we are talking to a
restaurant about advertising when we ought to be talking about the
menu. Show me a people who are deeply happy in God and will show you
a people who are turning their world upside down for Him.

I’d love to explore these truths with your people and take a step
toward great joy in God.

In the mean time, I recommend you take a peek at John Piper's web
page,
http://www.desiringgod.org  Click on the resources tab and
the essential Piper link.

Or, go to this link

http://www.desiringgod.org/Store/MP3CDs/625_Light_and_Heat/ and
click on the individual messages. These are MP3 CDs but notices you
can get them really cheap to give away to your church. Not a bad
idea.

Enjoy. Really. Enjoy.　

The Real Problem

I work full-time encouraging churches to grow in a world where
there is a huge industry encouraging churches to grow and, generally
speaking, the Church is not growing

I could never have made a living in the first century. There was
no church growth industry in the first century. There were no Sunday
School growth conferences and no church growth consultants. And the church was
growing and growing rapidly.

This is not to disparage the industry of encouraging churches to
grow. It is my opinion that the church would be doing even worse if
it were not for those who serve in encouraging churches to grow.

But, it is my conviction that the great need of the hour is not
better methods or means or Sunday Schools or visitation programs or
Seeker Services. The problem does not fundamentally lie in methods
and means. The problem is the way we perceive God and the message of
the gospel. It is a cleverly disguised lie that I could say in any
Sunday School class in America and get everyone there nodding their
heads in agreement. I could stand in any pulpit in America and state
this lie and a house full of people would say Amen! It is a lie that
just sounds that good.

I heard it again last week in my own Sunday School class. And, as
always, a room full of people nodded in agreement. I didn't have the
strength to argue the point again. But, it has been haunting me all
week. I offer my response here. This is what was said.

"Well, I think there is doing what is right, and then there is
doing what feels good. I think we ought to do what is right."

A room full of people nodded in agreement. Yes, we should do what
is right; not what feels good. Everyone nodded their "amen." Did you? It just
sounds so good. It sounds so good to say we ought to choose what is
good for God over what is good for me.

Here is the problem with that statement. That statement has an
assumption behind it. The assumption is that we have a choice. We
can do what is right, or we can do what feels good. We can do what
is right, or we can do what leads to happiness. We can do what is
good for God, or we can do what is good for us, but we can't do
both. We should do what is good for God because, it is not all about
us. We don't matter. Our happiness doesn't matter. We should
sacrifice our happiness for obedience. We should choose obedience
over happiness.

Here is one I have heard a few times: God is more interested in
your holiness than your happiness. There is a problem here. Do you
see it?

So the choice comes down to choosing between two columns:

Column #1 Our way Unholiness Leads to our happiness Disappoints God

Column #2 God's way Holiness Leads to God's happiness We are not happy, but God is

This is not the gospel. This is the problem.

It is the problem for three reasons:

• We will never get all that excited about living it. We will
  always struggle with, as one old hymn has it, "plunge in today
  and be made complete." We will never plunge in because we don't
  believe it is good for us. We might stick our toe in the water.
  We might dabble at it. But we won't plunge in.


• We will never get that excited about telling about it.
  We
  won't really care whether our class doubles every two years or
  less. It won't bother us that the church does not grow because,
  well, it is kind of good news/ bad news anyway. Sure there are
  good points--we get to got to heaven when we die. But there are
  tough parts too--all that stuff of obedience and dedication and
  so on. We accept the message. We take the good with the bad. But
  we are not that excited about the spread of this message because
  we could certainly see why some would not accept it.


• It is not true. The gospel is not a gospel of good news and
  bad news. It is a gospel of good news, good news and more good
  news.

We will never get that excited about living it, and it will never
be that important that our class grows and our church grows until we
believe it is good news, good news and more good news. His commands
are not burdensome (1 John 5.3). God is a rewarder (Hebrews 11.6)

John Piper talks about this in a message called, "Let your
passion be single." He talks about the inner struggle of
growing up in a home where he knew that a passion for the glory of
God must be central. This was the only right way to think,
biblically. But, he had another passion. He wanted to be happy. The
pivotal day was when he realized these two joys come together. The
greatest pleasure is found in God, and there is no way to please God
except to delight in Him. He quotes Pascal:

"All men seek happiness," says Blaise
Pascal. "This is without exception. Whatever different means they
employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war,
and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with
different views. The will never takes the least step but to this
object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of
those who hang themselves." We believe Pascal is right. And, with
Pascal, we believe God purposefully designed us to pursue happiness.

Piper was the one who set my thinking straight on this matter, so
allow me to excerpt an additional quotes from him, found at
www.desiringgod.org

Christian Hedonism teaches that the
desire to be happy is God-given and should not be denied or resisted
but directed to God for satisfaction. Christian Hedonism does
not say that whatever you enjoy is good. It says that God
has shown you what is good and doing it ought to bring you joy
(Micah 6:8). And since doing the will of God ought to bring you joy,
the pursuit of joy is an essential part of all moral effort. If you
abandon the pursuit of joy (and thus refuse to be a Hedonist, as I
use the term), you cannot fulfill the will of God. Christian
Hedonism affirms that the godliest saints of every age have
discovered no contradiction in saying, on the one hand, "We are
being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be
slaughtered" (Romans 8:36), and on the other hand, "Rejoice in the
Lord always, and again I will say, Rejoice" (Philippians 4:4).
Christian Hedonism does not join the culture of self-gratification
that makes you a slave of your sinful impulses. Christian Hedonism
commands that we not be conformed to this age but that we be
transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) so we can
delight to do the will of our Father in heaven. According to
Christian Hedonism joy in God is not optional icing on the cake of
Christianity. When you think it through, joy in God is an essential
part of saving faith.

So then, Christian living is not a choice between what is good
for me and what is good for God. It is a choice between what is bad
for me and God and what is good for me and God. God's ways are always good for me in
the long run. God is a rewarder. We must believe that He is a
rewarder or we will never come near to Him. We must come to love the
Christian life, or we will never come to live the Christian life.
You cannot be holy and grumpy. Our holy, boss, Lord God commanded us
to delight in Him. He commanded us to rejoice in Him. There is no
obedience to God except there is obedience to the command of God to
rejoice.

Hebrews 11.6 spells this out. "And without faith it is
impossible to please God." The question is, faith in what? Faith
that God exists? No. The demons do that, and tremble. What is it
that the demons don't believe about God? They don't believe He is a
rewarder. Here is the rest of the verse, "because anyone who comes
to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who
earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11:6 [NIV]

The disciples were corrected by Jesus at the point.

And if anyone gives even a cup of cold
water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell
you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward." Matthew 10:42
[NIV]


"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or
brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me
and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this
present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and
fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal
life. Mark 10:29-30 [NIV]

Some would argue that the reward is incidental and that if we
were really spiritual we would not do things for the reward. I agree
with Piper, (again), that this not a the Christian position:

Christian hedonism aims to replace a
Kantian morality with a biblical one. Immanuel Kant, the German
philosopher who died in 1804, was the most powerful exponent of the
notion that the moral value of an act decreases as we aim to derive
any benefit from it. Acts are good if the doer is "disinterested."
We should do the good because it is good. Any motivation to seek joy
or reward corrupts the act. Cynically, perhaps, but not without
warrant, the novelist Ayn Rand captured the spirit of Kant's ethic:

An action is moral, said Kant, only
if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a
sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort,
neither material nor spiritual. A benefit destroys the moral
value of an action. (Thus if one has no desire to be evil, one
cannot be good; if one has, one can.)

Against this Kantian morality (which
has passed as Christian for too long!), we must herald the
unabashedly hedonistic biblical morality. Jonathan Edwards, who died
when Kant was 34, expressed it like this in one of his early
resolutions: "Resolved, To endeavor to obtain for myself as much
happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power,
might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can
bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of."

C. S. Lewis put it like this in a
letter to Sheldon Vanauken: "It is a Christian
duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can."

Well, I could go on an on, but this article is getting a bit
long. Here is the summary: it is always in our best interest to live
the Christian life. Following God is always good for me in the long
run. I pray because it is good for me. I serve because it is good
for me. I forgive because it is good for me. I seek to dedicate
myself completely to God because it is good for me. Yes, it is good
for God as well. Let your passion be single. It is one single
passion to please God and create a life that is good for me.

With good news like that, it drives me batty that churches can be
indifferent about spreading that message. A properly understood
gospel compels us to spread it. Paul said, "I am compelled to
preach." 1 Cor 9.16. Good news compels us to tell. When you feel
like, "This is such great news! It is good news, good news and more
good news. It is the best way to live and the only way to die!" you
want the message to spread and spread rapidly.

I close with one more quote from Piper:

God is most glorified in us when we
are most satisfied in him.

We all make a god out of what we take
the most pleasure in. Christian Hedonists want to make God their God
by seeking after the greatest pleasure—pleasure in him.

By Christian Hedonism, we do not mean
that our happiness is the highest good. We mean that pursuing the
highest good will always result in our greatest happiness in the
end. We should pursue this happiness, and pursue it with all our
might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good
deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy you cannot
love man or please God.

All John Piper quotes from
www.desiringgod.org I suggest you click on the link that says
"essential Piper." Start with the sermon on "Let your passion be
single." Enjoy. Really. Enjoy.

By the way, this is a central part of the message of the
Disciplemaking Teachers Conference. I'd love to come to your church
and present it.