Flatland/Pics: Paradox and Paradigm

If we want to be a trans­for­ma­tion bring­ing church we must under­stand the para­dox and the par­a­digm of min­istry. The para­dox con­fuses us so we end up with the wrong par­a­digm of min­istry. This is the mes­sage that Pastor Bart brought us Sunday. It is a mes­sage that we often don’t lis­ten to either because we don’t want to or because we really don’t under­stand. I encour­age you to lis­ten to the pod­cast at flatlandchurch.com.

Acts 19:19–20 [show]Acts 19:19–20 [19]And a num­ber of those who had prac­ticed magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thou­sand pieces of sil­ver. [20]So the word of the Lord con­tin­ued to increase and pre­vail might­ily. (ESV)
shows the church at Ephasus was a life trans­form­ing church.

The para­dox

Salvation is a mat­ter of faith, trans­for­ma­tion a mat­ter of actions. We can not get the two mixed up. James 2 [show]James 2 My broth­ers, show no par­tial­ity as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. [2]For if a man wear­ing a gold ring and fine cloth­ing comes into your assem­bly, and a poor man in shabby cloth­ing also comes in, [3]and if you pay atten­tion to the one who wears the fine cloth­ing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” [4]have you not then made dis­tinc­tions among your­selves and become judges with evil thoughts? [5]Listen, my beloved broth­ers, has not God cho­sen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the king­dom, which he has promised to those who love him? [6]But you have dis­hon­ored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? [7]Are they not the ones who blas­pheme the hon­or­able name by which you were called? [8]If you really ful­fill the royal law accord­ing to the Scripture, “You shall love your neigh­bor as your­self,” you are doing well. [9]But if you show par­tial­ity, you are com­mit­ting sin and are con­victed by the law as trans­gres­sors. [10]For who­ever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become account­able for all of it. [11]For he who said, “Do not com­mit adul­tery,” also said, “Do not mur­der.” If you do not com­mit adul­tery but do mur­der, you have become a trans­gres­sor of the law. [12]So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of lib­erty. [13]For judg­ment is with­out mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy tri­umphs over judg­ment. [14]What good is it, my broth­ers, if some­one says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? [15]If a brother or sis­ter is poorly clothed and lack­ing in daily food, [16]and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” with­out giv­ing them the things needed for the body, what good is that? [17]So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. [18]But some­one will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. [19]You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe–and shud­der! [20]Do you want to be shown, you fool­ish per­son, that faith apart from works is use­less? [21]Was not Abraham our father jus­ti­fied by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? [22]You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was com­pleted by his works; [23]and the Scripture was ful­filled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”–and he was called a friend of God. [24]You see that a per­son is jus­ti­fied by works and not by faith alone. [25]And in the same way was not also Rahab the pros­ti­tute jus­ti­fied by works when she received the mes­sen­gers and sent them out by another way? [26]For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (ESV)
:17

The para­dox is that peo­ple think that they can be saved by doing good works but that we are trans­formed sim­ply by faith.

We can not con­dem the world and try to force them to fol­low our “rules” on them think­ing that will trans­form them when it is sal­va­tion then transformation.

We also must live trans­formed lives that the lost are attracted to Christianity. We must not stink it up.

The par­a­digm

1 Cor 5:12–13 [show]1 Corinthians 5:12–13 [12]For what have I to do with judg­ing out­siders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? [13]God judges those out­side. “Purge the evil per­son from among you.” (ESV)
. Don’t judge the world but judge Christians who claim to be right­eous but by their actions live like the world. They say “save me but don’t trans­form me.”

Those that are far­thest from God must be shown the most grace. Those clos­est to God must be the most chal­lenged to live the God focused life. Christians must chal­lange each othe to live right.

Christians and non-Christians are not oppo­nents. We are on the same team opposed to Satan.

Who are God’s cus­tomers? The unsaved. He doesn’t get mad at his cus­tomers when they act ungodly, he gets mad at his team, his work­ers, i.e. us when we fail to do what he has called us to do.

We should not judge a person’s sal­va­tion by their trans­for­ma­tion. There are non-Christians who live good and Christians that don’t live as they should.

This mes­sage is one that we all need to hear and live. As Christians we all too often try to force non-Christians to live as if they are fol­low­ing Christ yet we live our­selves accord­ing to the world’s stan­dards and lifestyles and not God’s.

We need to love those in the world that they may see Christ. We can­not con­dem them for what they do nor can we live like them. We need to take on the atti­tude of Christ (phillip­i­ans 2).

We need to be strict with those who call them­selves Christians, hold­ing them to the stan­dard that is Christ.

We must hold each other to that higher stan­dard that the world will see that we are dif­fer­ent, that we rep­re­sent some­thing more than what the world offers.

Let us live the Christ like lives that we may be the rain on the parched land.

Quick note: I have been hav­ing a lot of small prob­lems with my iPhone app for WordPress, where I keep loos­ing text, think it is posted when it is not, etc. This post and the next were both really messed up. I am look­ing for a good replacement.