THE PULPIT: sharing salvation from the cross of the son
Last week we began a four-week look at the great why question. Last week we saw that the purpose of the Church is to worship God. Worship is the defining characteristic that makes us more than a ministry group. We are the church because we gather together to worship God. In finding the purpose of the church’s existence we also found the meaning of human existence.
Whether understood corporately in the church or personally in the person, we discovered that worship can be summed for us in one brief phrase. Do you all remember what that phrase was? Let’s say it together.
We also found that worship, whether corporate or personal, has God alone as the content, follows the structure of revelation and response, and is done in a willing posture of submission, bowing our lives at the feet of the Father.
If worship answers the why question, then we are left to discover the implications of being a worshipping community. We will again be taking our cue from the early church as it is described in the 2nd chapter of Acts. Hear the Word of the Lord.
READ ACTS 2:41-47
There once was a woman. This woman had no name. This woman had no face. She was just another woman living a seemingly average life. But this woman had a secret. For quite some time, she had been living a double life. At home, she was a great wife and mother, but fairly regularly she rendezvoused with her lover. The weight of her double life was really getting her down. She wasn’t sure how she could get out of this life that ensnared her.
One night she was with her lover at the local hotel. She finally got up the nerve to tell him it was over and he became enraged. When they began yelling, the neighbors heard and called the police. When the police arrived, the couple was caught completely by surprise and there was no way out of this crime of adultery. They were hauled to jail where they would wait to be brought before the judge.
The woman’s day finally came. The prosecution brought her before the judge. They told of her double life and of how she’d been caught in the act. They said she must be put to death immediately, according to the law. The judge thought for a moment and broke his silence with a question. He looked around the courtroom and asked, “which of you is without sin?” No one volunteered. When no one spoke up, claiming to be sinless, the gracious judge forgave the woman and sent her on her way to live in freedom from the weight of living in sin.
If the purpose of the church is to worship God, then the mission of the church is to help others bring their lives into a worshipping relationship with God. This is accomplished by sharing salvation from the Cross of the Son. Say that with me three times: sharing salvation from the cross of the Son; sharing salvation from the cross of the Son; sharing salvation from the cross of the Son.
This morning’s text is from the fourth chapter of Luke’s gospel: Luke 4:14-21. Stand with me for the reading of God’s Word.
Many have pointed to this passage as Luke’s summary of Jesus’ life and ministry. While it serves as a summary of Jesus’ ministry, it becomes for us a pattern of our outreach. The first thing we see about Jesus’ ministry is that it is rooted in his worship. It was Jesus’ custom to worship in the synagogue. He didn’t just attend, but he was an active participant. It was the reading of Scripture, empowered by the Spirit, that called Jesus into a life of ministry.
Worship and outreach are vitally linked. Last week we look at the two aspects of revelation and response in worship. But historical worship has two further components: the gathering of the community and the sending out of the community. The beginning of worship calls us out of the world, and sets us apart for the purpose of worship. At the conclusion of worship, the people of God are sent into the world with the mission of bringing others into the worshipping body.
We see this connection in Jesus’ life and we see it in the early church. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” It is no coincidence that the passage begins with a summary of worship and then moves to a description of life. Worship always calls us into ministry. While worship is always directed at God, God always directs us toward others. Outreach must always be deeply rooted in our corporate worship.
In the worship setting, Jesus reveals his heart. It is a heart for outreach. From the prophet Isaiah, He proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor!
Eugene Peterson translated this in The Message as “to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act.’” I like that translation: This is God’s year to act! This message of Christ certainly draws our mind to one very specific act: The cross of the Son. If we understand this as a reference to the cross of the Son, we must ask what that action accomplished. Isaiah’s words speak of release, and healing. It is this theme of freedom that characterizes Jesus’ ministry. Paul writes, “Christ has set us free to live a free life.” The message of the cross is freedom from whatever binds us.
Luke reminds us that freedom in Christ is from many snares. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” Who are the poor? Who are the needy? What are they in need of? “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives.” Who are the captives? What are they captive to? “…and recovery of sight to the blind? Who are the blind? What do they fail to see? “…to let the oppressed go free.” Who is oppressed? What oppresses them?
From our seats in the church, these questions seem easy to answer. We know freedom is only truly found in the cross of the Son. We know the poor are those who do not have the lavish wealth of God’s love in their life. We know the poor are those who are outside of our walls of fellowship. We know the only remedy for their poverty is the riches of Christ. We know the captives are those who live in sin. We know they are captive to sin. We know the blind are those who cannot see Christ working so fervently on their behalf. We know the oppressed are those who have the weight of the world keeping them from the worshipping relationship with God.
Our mission, as the holy people of God is to proclaim to those around us that this is God’s year to act in their life: to set them free and to heal their life. Our mission is sharing salvation from the cross of the Son. But Luke also shows us that Christ NEVER separates the spiritual person from the physical. A person is a person is a person. To suggest that Jesus words here refer only to the spiritual realm is terribly irresponsible. As spiritual as this passage is in nature, so too is it physical in nature. We cannot love our neighbors’ spirit – we cannot seek their spiritual freedom – if we do not love them enough to work for their freedom from the things of this world.
The gospels are full of stories of Jesus caring about the physical needs of people. He healed them, he fed them, he restored them. Jesus cared about the physical needs of life. In Acts, we see the disciples in the early church committed to providing care for any who had need. As a result, we see God adding to their number those who were saved.
Outreach is sharing salvation from the cross of the Son. But how do we do that? We cannot ignore the tangible needs of people. If people are going to experience the love of God, then they must experience the love of the church! If people are going to find spiritual freedom in the cross of the Son, then they must find tangible freedom in the compassion of the body of the Son.
Our outreach must address the real needs of the people around us. As is so often the case in faith, we only come to understand the spiritual by means of the ordinary. We’ve talked about the sacraments as ordinary things that connect us with the extraordinary love of God. The ordinary helps us to understand the spiritual. If we ignore the ordinary needs of people and never show them the love of God in their ordinary, every day needs, then how can we expect them to see the love of God in their extraordinary spiritual needs? The good news we must proclaim is that the Spirit changes people’s lives, their situations, their environments, and their needs. In meeting their needs, their hearts are turned to God. Outreach is all about meeting the needs of people. Often it is because they feel loved by the meeting of physical needs that people are open to having their spiritual needs met. In meeting their needs they too can be set free, by salvation from the cross of the Son, to live a free life.
The use of Isaiah is so interesting the final verse of this passage often gets overlooked. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Today the scripture has been fulfilled! Today the Spirit of the Lord is upon me! Today I bring good news to the poor! Today I proclaim release to the captives! Today I grant sight to the blind! Today I set the oppressed free! TODAY IS THE DAY!
So many times I’ve heard things like: my church isn’t ready to reach out yet. We don’t have a strong enough discipleship structure and they will just fall away again. My church isn’t healthy enough yet. We need to get ourselves healthy before we start thinking about getting others healthy. This is just not a scriptural position. This is not a Christian option! TODAY IS THE DAY!
We don’t have to be experts in evangelism. We don’t have to be theologians. We don’t have to have fancy things. All we need is love. In fact, I’ve seen supposed “experts in evangelism” that lack love and their best intentions fall fruitless because their efforts were loveless and did not meet needs! Love for God – worship of God – compels us to love our neighbors. Love for our neighbors compels us to see their needs and meet their needs. We feel their hurt and heal their hurt. Christ became human, lived, died, and was raised from death so that we might have life – that we might live a free life. This message of freedom – release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed – is the central message of the church.
Go therefore (not next year, not next month, not next week, or not even tomorrow, but Go TODAY) and make disciples (meeting their needs) baptizing them (making them a part of the worshipping body ) to the glory of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.
Whether understood corporately in the church or personally in the person, we discovered that worship can be summed for us in one brief phrase. Do you all remember what that phrase was? Let’s say it together.
We also found that worship, whether corporate or personal, has God alone as the content, follows the structure of revelation and response, and is done in a willing posture of submission, bowing our lives at the feet of the Father.
If worship answers the why question, then we are left to discover the implications of being a worshipping community. We will again be taking our cue from the early church as it is described in the 2nd chapter of Acts. Hear the Word of the Lord.
READ ACTS 2:41-47
There once was a woman. This woman had no name. This woman had no face. She was just another woman living a seemingly average life. But this woman had a secret. For quite some time, she had been living a double life. At home, she was a great wife and mother, but fairly regularly she rendezvoused with her lover. The weight of her double life was really getting her down. She wasn’t sure how she could get out of this life that ensnared her.
One night she was with her lover at the local hotel. She finally got up the nerve to tell him it was over and he became enraged. When they began yelling, the neighbors heard and called the police. When the police arrived, the couple was caught completely by surprise and there was no way out of this crime of adultery. They were hauled to jail where they would wait to be brought before the judge.
The woman’s day finally came. The prosecution brought her before the judge. They told of her double life and of how she’d been caught in the act. They said she must be put to death immediately, according to the law. The judge thought for a moment and broke his silence with a question. He looked around the courtroom and asked, “which of you is without sin?” No one volunteered. When no one spoke up, claiming to be sinless, the gracious judge forgave the woman and sent her on her way to live in freedom from the weight of living in sin.
If the purpose of the church is to worship God, then the mission of the church is to help others bring their lives into a worshipping relationship with God. This is accomplished by sharing salvation from the Cross of the Son. Say that with me three times: sharing salvation from the cross of the Son; sharing salvation from the cross of the Son; sharing salvation from the cross of the Son.
This morning’s text is from the fourth chapter of Luke’s gospel: Luke 4:14-21. Stand with me for the reading of God’s Word.
Many have pointed to this passage as Luke’s summary of Jesus’ life and ministry. While it serves as a summary of Jesus’ ministry, it becomes for us a pattern of our outreach. The first thing we see about Jesus’ ministry is that it is rooted in his worship. It was Jesus’ custom to worship in the synagogue. He didn’t just attend, but he was an active participant. It was the reading of Scripture, empowered by the Spirit, that called Jesus into a life of ministry.
Worship and outreach are vitally linked. Last week we look at the two aspects of revelation and response in worship. But historical worship has two further components: the gathering of the community and the sending out of the community. The beginning of worship calls us out of the world, and sets us apart for the purpose of worship. At the conclusion of worship, the people of God are sent into the world with the mission of bringing others into the worshipping body.
We see this connection in Jesus’ life and we see it in the early church. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” It is no coincidence that the passage begins with a summary of worship and then moves to a description of life. Worship always calls us into ministry. While worship is always directed at God, God always directs us toward others. Outreach must always be deeply rooted in our corporate worship.
In the worship setting, Jesus reveals his heart. It is a heart for outreach. From the prophet Isaiah, He proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor!
Eugene Peterson translated this in The Message as “to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act.’” I like that translation: This is God’s year to act! This message of Christ certainly draws our mind to one very specific act: The cross of the Son. If we understand this as a reference to the cross of the Son, we must ask what that action accomplished. Isaiah’s words speak of release, and healing. It is this theme of freedom that characterizes Jesus’ ministry. Paul writes, “Christ has set us free to live a free life.” The message of the cross is freedom from whatever binds us.
Luke reminds us that freedom in Christ is from many snares. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” Who are the poor? Who are the needy? What are they in need of? “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives.” Who are the captives? What are they captive to? “…and recovery of sight to the blind? Who are the blind? What do they fail to see? “…to let the oppressed go free.” Who is oppressed? What oppresses them?
From our seats in the church, these questions seem easy to answer. We know freedom is only truly found in the cross of the Son. We know the poor are those who do not have the lavish wealth of God’s love in their life. We know the poor are those who are outside of our walls of fellowship. We know the only remedy for their poverty is the riches of Christ. We know the captives are those who live in sin. We know they are captive to sin. We know the blind are those who cannot see Christ working so fervently on their behalf. We know the oppressed are those who have the weight of the world keeping them from the worshipping relationship with God.
Our mission, as the holy people of God is to proclaim to those around us that this is God’s year to act in their life: to set them free and to heal their life. Our mission is sharing salvation from the cross of the Son. But Luke also shows us that Christ NEVER separates the spiritual person from the physical. A person is a person is a person. To suggest that Jesus words here refer only to the spiritual realm is terribly irresponsible. As spiritual as this passage is in nature, so too is it physical in nature. We cannot love our neighbors’ spirit – we cannot seek their spiritual freedom – if we do not love them enough to work for their freedom from the things of this world.
The gospels are full of stories of Jesus caring about the physical needs of people. He healed them, he fed them, he restored them. Jesus cared about the physical needs of life. In Acts, we see the disciples in the early church committed to providing care for any who had need. As a result, we see God adding to their number those who were saved.
Outreach is sharing salvation from the cross of the Son. But how do we do that? We cannot ignore the tangible needs of people. If people are going to experience the love of God, then they must experience the love of the church! If people are going to find spiritual freedom in the cross of the Son, then they must find tangible freedom in the compassion of the body of the Son.
Our outreach must address the real needs of the people around us. As is so often the case in faith, we only come to understand the spiritual by means of the ordinary. We’ve talked about the sacraments as ordinary things that connect us with the extraordinary love of God. The ordinary helps us to understand the spiritual. If we ignore the ordinary needs of people and never show them the love of God in their ordinary, every day needs, then how can we expect them to see the love of God in their extraordinary spiritual needs? The good news we must proclaim is that the Spirit changes people’s lives, their situations, their environments, and their needs. In meeting their needs, their hearts are turned to God. Outreach is all about meeting the needs of people. Often it is because they feel loved by the meeting of physical needs that people are open to having their spiritual needs met. In meeting their needs they too can be set free, by salvation from the cross of the Son, to live a free life.
The use of Isaiah is so interesting the final verse of this passage often gets overlooked. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Today the scripture has been fulfilled! Today the Spirit of the Lord is upon me! Today I bring good news to the poor! Today I proclaim release to the captives! Today I grant sight to the blind! Today I set the oppressed free! TODAY IS THE DAY!
So many times I’ve heard things like: my church isn’t ready to reach out yet. We don’t have a strong enough discipleship structure and they will just fall away again. My church isn’t healthy enough yet. We need to get ourselves healthy before we start thinking about getting others healthy. This is just not a scriptural position. This is not a Christian option! TODAY IS THE DAY!
We don’t have to be experts in evangelism. We don’t have to be theologians. We don’t have to have fancy things. All we need is love. In fact, I’ve seen supposed “experts in evangelism” that lack love and their best intentions fall fruitless because their efforts were loveless and did not meet needs! Love for God – worship of God – compels us to love our neighbors. Love for our neighbors compels us to see their needs and meet their needs. We feel their hurt and heal their hurt. Christ became human, lived, died, and was raised from death so that we might have life – that we might live a free life. This message of freedom – release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed – is the central message of the church.
Go therefore (not next year, not next month, not next week, or not even tomorrow, but Go TODAY) and make disciples (meeting their needs) baptizing them (making them a part of the worshipping body ) to the glory of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.
posted by EF + at 10:20 AM
3 Comments:
Good message. How do you like OSU's chances this weekend. You would have to be crazy to guarantee anything. I, unfortunetly, will be unable to see it. I have to go to St. Louis for a debatre tournament. I came in fourth in my last tournament. And my record for the year is 11-4, so Mr. Good elected me to go. I'm betting that OSU wins it by 4. It's either that or on team blows the other out. It's possible w/ all this hype. Who needs a playoff system? This is the semmifinal to see who gets in the NC. Did you see Freeman torch the Texas D. All mu needs is a Neb. loss, and I think we can take Texas in the B12 since we killed K- State at their house. We'll see. All I know is that I
m liking college much more than the boring pros this year. See KU lose to Oral Roberts? See Ya
Good pick! OSU by three...two words...re-match! I don't really want it, but they are hands down the best two teams in the country. We'll just have to see what Arkansas, Fla, ND, and USC do. I don't see them jumping Mich though. Another reason why we need a play off.
Why get a playoff? Mich beat ND, ND's out, unless they beat USC, then the BCS is going to malfunction. USC vs. OSU. OSU beat Mich., and USC lost to Oregon narrowly and DESERVE another shot. The playoff system in season is like this:
OSU : 42 OSU
Mich.39
USC: ? 34
ND: ? 27 ND/USC
Whoever wins ND USC is in the NC. You may say ND doesn't, but while they did lose to MICH., they had BY far the hardest early season schedule, and was only scatehed once. If they beat USC, which is unlikely, they deserve the shot. Unless Flordia pulls out the hardest Conference championship ever; SEC, then Flordia's in.
Guess what? At the ST. Louis tourney, which is extremely prestigious I placed 4th in L/D.
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