Equipped not indoctrinated

Equipped, Not Indoctrinated – sermon by Caleb Campbell, August 22, 2021 (4)S

We are in the middle of a series called” Groundwork,” in which we’re looking at some of the foundational truths of what makes a Desert Springs kind of unique. These are some of our core values and today we’re going to talk about everybody’s favorite topic – namely, your relationship to the Bible.
Yeah, huh? I think you guys are gonna be jazzed about that. On your way in you should have received a handout with today’s text. If you did not get a handout, please raise your hand and some of our amazing hosts will get that handout to you. We would love for you to have that so you can follow along and also make notes.
If you’re joining us online, you can visit our website, d-s-b-c dot church, and right on the front page you’ll see a big link for “Groundwork” and a link to download our study guides I thought what we could do — because everyone again is just so excited to talk about their relationship with the Bible — I thought what we would do today is kick the sermon off with a little game show I like to call “That’s not in the Bible.”
You guys thought this wasn’t gonna be a fun day? Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages — welcome to everybody’s favorite game show “That’s not in the Bible.” Now I have to my right team number one, and I have to my left team number two. The way that the game is played is that these contestants will square off against against one each other. I will read a phrase. We have surveyed 72 theologians commentators — we didn’t do that actually,, but it makes the game go better. We surveyed them on whether or not this phrase in the Bible.
All right, hands on the table please. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
“That is not in the Bible.”
Correct, that is not in the Bible. Next contestant, hands on the table, please.
“Only the good die young,”
“Ah, that is not in the Bible.”
That is correct. Next contestant, please hands on the table. After surveying 72 theologians, commentators and preachers, we have found that this phrase is either in the Bible or not in the Bible. The phrase is “Money is the root of all evil.”
“That is definitely in the Bible.”
I’m sorry that is, in fact, not in the Bible.
All right hands on the table, please, for the next phrase. “15 minutes could save you 15% on car insurance.”
“That’s not in the Bible
That is correct.”
Bible next contestants, please, hands on the table. “The ends justify the means.”
“I don’t think that’s in the Bible.”
Correct, that is not in the Bible. Next contestant, please. “God will never give you more than you can handle.”
“In the Bible.”
Sorry, that is not in the Bible. Next contestant, hands on the table, please.
Government is a necessary evil
“I don’t think that’s in the Bible.
That is correct. Next contestant, please, hands on the table. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”
“Ah, not in the Bible.”
That is correct. It is not in the Bible. We’re coming down to the last few questions here. Ladies and gentlemen, hands on the table, please. “Capitalism is the best economic theory.”
“If Billy Graham has taught me anything, that is definitely in the Bible.”
Sorry, that’s not in fact in the Bible, I’ll show you something that’s in the Bible. Last couple of questions here. Hands on the table. “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”
“I’m gonna say that’s not in the Bible.”
That is correct. That’s not in the Bible. Last two questions, here we go. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
“I don’t think that’s in the Bible though.”
Correct, that is not in the Bible. Last question, hands on the table, please. “If you are good enough, you get to go to heaven when you die.”
“Yes, that is in the Bible.”
Sorry, that’s definitely not in the Bible. Ladies and gentlemen, team two takes the cake. Thanks for playing our game, “That’s not in the Bible.” Our production team has really outdone themselves today. That is amazing. Thank you all so much for doing that.
So, I want to encourage you to think critically about your relationship with the Bible. There are so many different ways to think about the Bible. Oftentimes there’s just the temptation not to really think about the Bible. So what we’re going to do today is look at how we as a church family understand what the Scriptures are telling us and how we should be engaging with the text as a church family and also a little bit of work around the role of leadership in that regard.
If you received your handout on the way in, you’ll notice and on the front it says we work to equip people to discover their own convictions by the power of the Spirit. And if you open that up and you’ll have second Timothy 3 verses 10 through 17. If you have your Bibles I encourage you to follow along. Also, as I said, we have it printed out for you so you can underline, make notes and things like that.
I think this is one of the most crucial texts in the Bible about how it is that we’re to approach the Bible. So my question to you is: How would you describe your relationship with the Bible? Or to put it in another way, how would you describe the Bible’s relationship to you?
My hope for today is that you will have a joyous, curious, sometimes fun, profound and shaping relationship with the Bible. That’s kind of what we’re about at Desert Springs, so we’re going to look at second Timothy 3 verses 10 through 17. I’m going to read through the whole thing and then we’ll go through and make some notes — just comment and make some notes on some things for our time together today. So this is Second Timothy 3, verses 10 through 17.
“Now you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love and endurance, along with the persecutions and suffering such as happened at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and yet the Lord rescued me from them all! In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in what you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. From infancy you have known the Sacred Scriptures which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, for training, and righteousness so that the person of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.” This is the word of the Lord.
So let’s just notice some things, shall we? Number one, notice how the author starts off the text. He says” Now you have followed my teaching, conduct purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance … Let’s just press pause for a minute … What are we reading? We’re reading a letter, probably. Notice there’s a writer, and then a recipient. And you’re going to notice that what we’re reading in Second Timothy, one — of the reasons why it’s called Second Timothy is because we understand it to be written from old pastors coming near the end of his life named Paul to a younger pastor named Timothy and Paul is kind of writing to his protege, Timothy, giving us some encouragement — and giving him encouragement because Timothy is facing discouragement. He’s facing conflict. He’s facing a turmoil. He is facing pressure from others.
So Paul is writing Timothy, “You have followed my teaching What’s the next word? Conduct, purpose or mission. faith, patience, love and endurance, along with the persecutions and suffering that came in these different places. Notice what he says first of all. He’s talking about the relationship that he has with Timothy, and I want to just ask you this question: Is conduct, love, patience and faith something you look for in those that you let teach you?
We live in the digital age. We let so many different voices speak into our lives. And many times one of the things that we do is we, we only filter through the question “Is this good content?” Is the content of the teaching good? Is it riveting? Is a good presentation? Is it solid? Is it good content?
But I want you to notice that throughout Scripture, you’ll notice that content is rarely, if ever separated from conduct as it relates to the integrity of the teacher. Notice in the text … “You have followed my what? My conduct, my teaching and my what? I want you to notice that throughout Scripture, you’ll notice that content is rarely, if ever separated from conduct as it relates to the integrity of the teacher. Notice in the text … “You have followed my what? My conduct, my teaching and my what?
Now I’m going to say something that I think is going to sound self-serving, but I think I got to do it anyways. I know that I’m not everybody’s pastor, but for now I’m yall’s pastor. We’ll see how the next week goes, right? I love serving most of the time. I love serving as your pastor. And I love you, I really do. I have many of your names like in a book, I pray for y’all as much as I can, specifically if not in general. Again, this sounds self-serving, but it’s to a greater point: There’s this part in Scripture that talks about bearing people in their body. I, especially over the last year and a half, I have felt more physically carrying you with me as your pastor. I love you guys. What I’m about to say is important: The person on the screen that you’ve never met is not your pastor. I am my most polished self when I’m up here. Now some of us wish that we would see a little bit of that polish once in a while. I get it. I’m trying, alright. I’m taking classes.
But if what I say here isn’t lived out when you see me with my wife and kids, … when you see me with the staff, … when you see me with at the volunteer coordination… When you see me in those ways, if what I say here doesn’t line up with here, then there’s little integrity to the teaching, right? In fact, one of the things that happens — and I’m still trying to process this through — but in my career as a pastor, I’ve been on staff here for like 15 years, I have watched numerous people who I learned from, that their life and conduct did not line up with their teaching, and it became public. And of course, the news outlets pick it up and here’s why. I think news outlets pick it up is because they think that Christians should practice what they preach. And I’m not trying to slam anybody. I mean my heart breaks. You guys gotta hear me on this. Let me be real clear. I am not above any of it. It could be me tomorrow, right?
But I think one of the reasons why it makes headlines so much is number one, everybody is hungry for gossip. I get that too, but there is a connection between one’s teaching and one’s lifestyle. Because the teaching is meant to shape your life. So my question for you is: Who are you letting teach you? And does their conduct line up? Their patience — does it line up? Does it? Does it? Does it smell like Jesus? Do their lives look like Jesus to the best of their ability? I’m going to ask you all to do something, and I’ve been trying to do this over the last year, especially. I’m going to encourage you to do a voices audit.
So have you guys ever tried to diet? Growing up, I would just take anything that tasted good and put it in my mouth. And there was a certain point in my life where my body started reacting negatively to what I was feeding it. Does this happen to you? You’ll eat something and your body will tell you, “No, stop that. And you’re like, “Listen, it’s just a small Papa John’s pizza. Come on, body, you could knock it off.” Because we know we recognize as we mature, we recognize that what we put in us shapes us.
So what are you putting in here? What are the voices that you are allowing to teach you, to feed you? What voices are you eating? What voices are you consuming? Are these voices — especially ones that speak of Jesus — are they marked by godly conduct? Godly purpose? A Jesus-centered faith? Godly patience talk radio? Godly love and godly endurance?
You see, we will be unhealthy if we only look at the content of those who teach us, and not the conduct. By the way, haven’t you noticed? Most of the time we learn by watching others put their teaching into practice. Again, I’m not saying don’t learn from other people. But especially for those in the pastoral function — those who are teaching the ways of Jesus – conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance it’s all, it’s all interwoven. The character of the teacher is important, which is why Paul says to Timothy, remember those from whom you learn the faith, which means that he was taught the faith by people that he trusts, by people whose integrity he believes in.
Let’s keep going. “What persecutions I’ve endured, and yet the Lord rescued me from them …” *** OK, TV time out. This is so good. You know, in some churches when people hear something that they agree with or that they affirm, you know what? There’s a four-letter word they say out loud. Amen. OK so you guys have been a charismatic church so you’ll say OK. But we don’t have something that we say when we don’t like what the text says. I’d like to just give you a tool. I don’t know if this ever happened to you. You’re reading the Bible and it’s like God loves everybody and you’re like hey man and it’s like you need to change your behavior. Yeah, OK, watch this. “What persecutions I endured yet the Lord rescued me from them… “ In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted. This is great, right? So I think what Paul saying here is don’t view pressure, pushback or persecution as if you are doing something wrong. For if you try to live the Jesus way — let me talk about your political affiliation, everybody’s, favorite topic — and you’re hanging out with others that are of like mind of your political affiliation. But there’s times, aren’t there, where living the Jesus way means going contrary to the way that the partisan path has taken you. And then you get viewed with suspicion. You’re an outsider now. I think what Paul saying is don’t view that as something as if you’re doing something wrong. Following the Jesus way, it’s normal to get that push back. ***
By the way, I think Pastor Paul is saying this to his protege Timothy because every leader has a similar experience. Haven’t you been in this position before? Where you’re leading something and you’re getting so much pushback. And you start to ask yourself, am I doing the right thing? Is this even the right way? And yet Paul is saying, hey, listen, that’s always going to happen.
This is Paul to Timothy: “Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.” Notice the language. Of evil people and impostors … He’s saying there will be others, Timothy, who come in and pretend to proclaim the Jesus way, and yet they’re evil people or they’re impostors, which is why he tethers the teaching to the conduct. Yes, there these impostors. Are these evil people who are coming in trying to proclaim? I’m going to use the language of a bastardized gospel. He says, “If you look at their conduct, it doesn’t line up with the teachings of Jesus. And so this pushback you’re getting, Timothy, it’s normal. And this is what’s normal: Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived. So he’s trying to encourage. Is this sounding encouraging to you? If you’re Timothy and Paul is saying that this is always going to be happening and it’s just going to get worse, wouldn’t you think, “I should have Gone into a different line of work. Right? Well, what he’s trying to do is normalize contention, frustration, arguments. I mean, just it’s a normal part of pursuing Jesus.
OK, let’s do this. For starters, I really want to encourage you not to borrow other people’s convictions. One of the reasons why we’ve said our statement the way that we do — that we’re here to help equip people to discern by the power of the Spirit — to discern their own convictions, because borrowed convictions are lazy and dangerous. Here’s what I mean. One of my tendencies is that when I’m confronted with a decision or an understanding of Scripture, one of my tendencies is to go to Google and type in. What does insert favorite author think about this? And then just think, “Oh, I like them, so I’ll think that way, too.
And I’ve done it. Maybe some of you guys have done it. I don’t think it’s wrong to discern and discover what other people believe. What I think is lazy and dangerous is just to borrow their convictions and make it my own simply because they’re my favorite preachers. Borrowed convictions … there’s no foundation to them. There’s also no joy in them. And here’s what ends up happening that I’ve been watching, especially over the last couple few years. We end up borrowing our favorite theologian, or a favorite pastor or favorite celebrities’ convictions, and then we just fight with people who don’t share the same conviction. Because they’re not on our team. It’s more about are you on the right team than do you share this belief? And how can we help each other explore Jesus together? We’ve made the conversation around our convictions into warfare, where there’s a good guy and a bad guy and I need to destroy you and your argument in order to move forward. I just want to encourage you it’s not warfare, it’s journeying towards Jesus together.
All right, let’s keep going. Let’s do this. Have you guys ever heard the phrase? Maybe you’ve said it yourself. “The Bible says. I believe it that settles it.” I just want to encourage you: If you’ve ever said that before I’ve said it before, don’t don’t do that anymore. And here’s why. I get what I think the statement is coming from. “I don’t let cultural preferences or mass media discern what’s true. The Bible is true, and so I believe it, and I’m not going to give in to any anything.”
But, but functionally, here’s how this can actually play out. There’s a gap in the statement. “The Bible says. I believe it; that settles it. “ There’s a big gap between “the Bible says it” and the middle part “I believe” because it is filtered through your lens and your interpretation of what the text says. And when you say the Bible says it, you’re assuming my understanding of what the Bible says is the thing that I believe, and that settles it. And I’m not opening to renewing my mind around how I may be misunderstanding the Bible.
In the Book of Romans, it says in verse 12 “do not be conformed any longer to this world’s systems but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Have you ever believed something — maybe about the Bible or about faith or about Jesus – when it turned out later you found out that you were wrong about? That’s a gift. It’s the renewing of your mind. Let us be of people who celebrate the renewing of our minds.
When I was 18, I knew all I needed to know about the Bible, and that settled it. I’m a man of firm convictions now. The convictions are a firmness not in my firmness, but in the firm foundation of who Jesus is. My faith is not based on my “what I believe. “ It’s on the solid nature of who Jesus is, right? The solid nature of my faith is found in Jesus, because I am weak. And I am wrong so many times. I need to be constantly having my mind renewed by the power of the Spirit as I try to walk the Jesus way. So how dare I look down on someone else who hasn’t yet arrived to where I have arrived? Let us be a people who — when we recognize that we have different convictions between us — let us be a people who leave room for the Spirit to do His job. Because it’s the Spirit’s job to bring the conviction.
Let me tell you a story about Nicholas Mangi, who’s one of our elders and will lead us in communion today. We ordained him a while back. Ordination is a way that the church family can recognize God’s call to ministry, and in some traditions it’s kind of required to serve as a pastor. So we did an ordination council. An ordination council is like a theological colonoscopy. It’s unpleasant for the person on whom it is being performed. There are a lot of questions. Nicholas, you remember there were some seminary professors. I was there. I didn’t ask any hard questions ’cause I’m nice.
One of the bishops from Kenya asked Nicholas a question. So you get asked doctrinal questions, theological questions, Biblical interpretation questions, ethical questions, and pastoral questions. And one of the questions was, “Nicholas, how would you counsel a polygamist man with multiple wives who’s recently started following Jesus and now is asking, ‘What do you think about my multiple marriages?’”
I’ve never thought about that, ’cause I’ve never been confronted with that, but Nicholas has. He was so good. He kind of sat back a little bit. He asked like a dozen really great insightful questions. And he said, “Well, I don’t think that the Bible gives a clear direction. So I would just commit to spending a long time reading the Bible together with this man and praying with him and praying that the Spirit of God would convict him of what he needs to do. Because I don’t know.”
And I remember thinking “That’s it. So many so many of us are asking questions. What about this situation? What about that situation? What about this situation? We say, “What does the Bible have to say about this situation?” And here’s what’s so frustrating. It’s not a copy-and-paste solution. The Bible doesn’t work that way.
Let’s keep going. The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it. Which Bible? This is the Thomas Jefferson Bible — I don’t know if you can see it on the screen. Thomas Jefferson took the parts of the Bible that he liked, cut them out, pasted them in and made his own Bible. Now we laugh — and I think it’s OK to laugh — but we’re doing the same thing. How much time have y’all spent on Leviticus lately?
I’m not trying to slam anybody. I’m just trying to say listen, it is our nature to just go to what we like. I’m going to zoom in here for a second. OK, there’s a ton of stuff in the Bible that’s so confusing and frustrating. And that is a feature, not a bug. When you read your Bible — especially in the context of community, a diverse community like Desert Springs — and it makes you feel uncomfortable, it’s working. It’s doing something to you. I’d like to prove it to you.
Let’s keep going. OK, copying and pasting, like Thomas Jefferson. This is a slave Bible from the early 1800s. This picture is from a copy of it in the Bible Museum in D.C. This was an approved version of the Bible where all of the stuff around oppression, oppressors, and oppressed — and about liberation, like the Exodus – was removed. And then it was certified to give to slaves in the British and American British Empire in the American colonies. Which Bible? In the 1930s there was an edited version of the Bible that removed the Jewishness of Jesus. It was certified and read and approved for use under the Nazi regime in Germany.
Which Bible? Which texts? See, my encouragement to you is that it is within all of our capacity to pick and choose things out of the Bible and use them, not as foundations to build our lives upon, but as rocks to throw at others. And we say things like, “The Bible says you’re dumb.” That’s not a foundation on which I build my life; it’s a stone that I throw at others. So which Bible? What’s the Bible designed to do?
OK, “All Scripture is inspired by God…” Oh, this is so cool. You guys want to do Bible nerd stuff real quick? OK, I’m going to go fast. I’m going to go fast ’cause not everyone said yes to the Bible. Nerd question: If you want to write these down, look at Genesis. You just write these down. I’m going to go through Genesis 2 verse 7 and the Gospel of John, Chapter 20, verses 21 through 22.
In Genesis, I’ll give you the summary in Genesis. It’s this moment in the in the Creation account where God has taken mud, the mud clay of the earth, formed a human and then breathed life into the human. You get this idea of How did the mud become human? What happened, what was God’s action?
OK, then there’s this really weird enigmatic moment after the Resurrection. Jesus is with his disciples and he’s talking about how the spirit of God, — which, by the way, is oftentimes imagined or portrayed as the wind or Breath of God. In fact, there are multiple times where the spirit is described as moving as if in the wind. And there’s this weird moment where Jesus is with his disciples, and he’s telling them that the Spirit is coming on them. And then it says he breathed on them. Isn’t that weird? It’s like “Can’t we do hugs or handshakes?” No.
Well, what was Jesus doing? What was the action that God did to breathe life into humanity? And what was the way that Jesus acted? He was sending of His spirit to be the embodiment of the Spirit in his followers. Now, I think that Paul, who’s writing to Timothy, picks up on this and we translate it as inspired. If anyone has a Bible, you might have a little footnote that says literally breathed out by God. I’m not trying to fault the translators. They’re doing a great job here. But inspiration doesn’t quite get the connection to the rest of Scripture. All Scripture is what? Why did God breathe into the human to give them what life, and why did Jesus breathe and say receive in the spirit to give his disciples a Jesus-centered life? Why does God breathe out the Scriptures? To give you what?
… “Profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, and righteousness so that the human of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Content is never disconnected from character. What is the use? What is the profitability of the text? What is its goodness? Did you notice win at Bible trivia? No, all scripture is what? Breathed out by God and is profitable for what? Teaching, yeah. And then what? Correcting, training and what now?
That sounds weird, but maybe if we put it another way, a corollary to the word righteousness is just or justice. Right- ness.
Have you ever been in a scenario where you do not know what the right answer is? And then we go to the Bible. We read the Bible. The American tendency is to treat the Bonduel Bible as a manual for life. Have you guys ever looked at your car manual? What compelled you to look at the car manual? Were you just bored? Something broke, a light came on the dash and you said oh I have a problem and I need to know how to fix it. And so you go only to the section in your car manual that’s relevant to the light, isn’t that right? Unless you’re weird, no one reads the whole car manual, only the section that we need. And so we treat the Bible like this. “ I’m faced with an ethical dilemma at my work. My boss says that he wants to steal. And I know if I say something, I’m going to get fired. But I also know if I say something I’ll get everyone else fired and then they’ll be hungry. The whole business is going to shut down. What do I do? Tell me what to do, Bible”.
“Slay the Amalekites.” It doesn’t work like that, does it? And most of us were so frustrated because we wished the Bible would work that way. But there’s so much, there’s more of a gift. There’s more life for us when we engage with the Scriptures the way they are meant to be engaged with.
Second, it’s a book of magic words. If I just say the magic incantation, if I just read the thing at my wedding, then everything will be awesome. I’ll put it on my little coffee mug. I’ll say it to myself every day. God works out good for something something for me. I’m gonna get promoted today.
Some of us view the Bible as a code of laws. We copy, we import the Western Post-Enlightenment idea of English law. We read the Scripture through that lens as if it is a code of laws. By the way, if you’ve ever read the United States Code of Laws, it’s a stack of books. Enormous. I I haven’t read it, but in my previous job we engaged with it. What the Code of Laws does is that it tries to get a specific answer to specific circumstances. And anytime there’s a new circumstance, they amend the law to add that new circumstance. How high should the disposal be for the bio-hazardous material in the doctor’s office is explicitly spelled out in our legal system.
Does your Bible work that way? No, it doesn’t. For a copy-and-paste guide to godly living, there’s a command given to Israel, and there’s a command given to Timothy. I’m in a similar circumstance. I’m going to copy it and paste it. I’m not going to think about it. I’m not going to pray through it. I’m not going to approach it with humility. Copy, paste.
“I read God’s command to slay the Amalekites, and what am I supposed to do? Google, where do the Amalekites live?” Now, if you’re an Amalekite here today, I want to tell you that is not how we approach the Bible. Rest easy.
Notice what the text says that all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, and righteousness, so that the person of God may be complete equipped for every good work. We don’t need a copy-and-paste Scripture. We need a Scripture that works on us and makes us more and more into the likeness of Jesus.
And there are myriad opportunities for us to put the Jesus way into practice in difficult circumstances. The reason that we engage with the Bible is to be made wise. I want you to read from the text. So how does the Bible work? Look at verse 15 if you would, please. You know verse 15. You know that from infancy you have known the Sacred Scriptures. What are they good for? What are they able to do? Which are able to give you what? Wisdom. What we don’t need is a bunch of copy and paste. What we need is godly wisdom. I’d like to prove it to you.
This is a real scenario for many of us in our church family: When do you take the loved-one off life support? What’s the right answer? “According to the Bible …” How do you end the toxic relationship? What’s the right answer according to Bible? Do you take this job or not? How do you help your kids? How do you apply discipline to your kids, right? Depending on the kid. We need a biblical wisdom to be made wise in a way that leads to the salvation that Jesus brings through faith in Christ Jesus. So the Bible is not those other options.
I love the Bible Project. They say that that the Bible is a unified story that leads you to Jesus. And as we engage with the Scriptures as a community, as a bunch of misfits, we’re going to learn that our minds will be renewed and reformed. So hopefully for the rest of our lives, as we take those steps, walking the Jesus way — where not only our understanding, but also our character is in alignment with who Jesus is and what He’s called us to.
So, as a church family I got a question. A friend of mine asked me this question earlier this year. As a church family, we are committed to stepping into all the hardest conversations. I need you to hear me on this. People have asked me, “Caleb, why do we talk so much about controversial issues? If there’s ever a place where we need to know what the Jesus way is, isn’t it all that controversial stuff? Like the hot issues, the controversial issues — the issues that when we bring them up, people wince. That, in my opinion, is the space where we need the wisdom of Christ most. One of my friends asked me this question of a few months ago. We were doing a zoom call talking about the church and we just said, hey, we’re committed to having these hard conversations, right? Sexual assault and abuse racism, nationalism, the election, face masks.
We’re just going to try to figure out the Jesus way. And the question was raised: Is that going to really make a lot of people upset? Yes. What happens if everybody leaves and stops donating? Will we back away then? And for me, that’s a gut check. And I’ll tell you what I told him that our leadership, our eldership, and our board are all in unanimous agreement. We’re not called to the mission of budgets. We’re called to disciple whoever it is going to follow walking the Jesus way and empowering people to discern their own convictions by the power of the Spirit.
And we’re going to give each other space and grace to let the Spirit do work in those hard-to-reach places, in those hard- to-understand places. Welcome to church. I want to invite you into this journey. There is so much of a gift available to us as a church family as we step into these spaces, giving each other the space needed and the grace needed for the Spirit to do the work — recognizing that our conduct is tethered to the content that we deliver and that we receive, finding that Jesus way in the midst of the chaos.
So I’d encourage you read your Bible with people who are not like you all the time until you’re dead. And then maybe we’ll be wise. Jesus has this great journey for us as we step into these spaces. He loves you more than you can ever imagine. I love you all, church, family, I do. And my hope and prayer is that you and I will walk this together.
And by the way, there’s something I’m gonna say and then I’m gonna pray. I am not the final authority, like the person on stage with the Bible who told me what to think. That is not at all what we’re doing here.
And one of the reasons why we don’t do this from a screen — I mean, I know for those of us online, we’re having to be a screen right now — but we’re not built around just broadcasting Caleb’s awesome teaching. One of the reasons that we’re in proximity to each other, I believe — and I’ve seen this happen to me for the last 15 years — is because sometimes God is going to use you to correct my bad thinking. And right now everyone in this room is thinking, “Good. Let’s get the emails started because there’s 18 things that Caleb is still wrong on.”
Church family I do love you so much. I love serving as your pastor, and my hope is that you would discern, by the power of the Spirit, what it is that Jesus is convicting you of — and that together will help each other see Jesus in a more beautiful way and live the light of Jesus in a beautiful way, as well.
Let me pray for us. Lord, we love you. Oh my goodness, I know that, at least for me, Lord, reading the Bible has been a huge journey in transformation. I’ve found it to be boring and frustrating and crazy and weird. And yet You have been faithful to lead many of us in our church family to spaces of being shaped by Your Word. For those of us who are newer in this journey with you, Jesus, I pray that You would give them curiosity and the endurance to engage in this text as a church family for the long haul, as we remain committed to one another, in union with one another and in union with You. Use our different understandings and our different perspectives and even our differing convictions to minister to and shape one another. For our joy and for Your glory, Amen. ###