Progressing in Godliness

I couple times a month I get together with some young, emerging leaders at Delta to do some leadership development training. One of our meetings is a late night one at a local pub where we just open the scriptures and read and work through the pastoral epistles (1 & 2 Timothy & Titus). Last night we were in 1 Timothy 4 and we began talking about godliness and how you can "track" your progress in godliness (see 1 Timothy 4:15). It was good discussion and discovery and though it would be good to share here.

First, we need to define "godliness." What does that mean? In keeping with the theme of 1 Timothy 4, I think one good simple definition of godliness is "making our doctrine visible by living like Jesus." Paul talks much about the need for Jesus-centered doctrine. To Paul, there are two types of teachers: false ones and gospel-centered ones. False ones teach lies based on their own preferences, need for control & power, and fear of man. Gospel-centered ones talk about Jesus...all the time. So when we talk about godliness, we must remember that the "goal" is Jesus Himself. We are to be holy as he is holy and as God's children, we are to become like Him. So godliness must mean that as we live our lives as Christ-followers, we must begin to respond to life (thoughts, words, actions, & attitudes) just like Jesus did.

But, how do we measure our progress in that? Just how do we watch ourselves? It can't be through the spiritual disciplines or ministry involvement. If we use those good things as "benchmarks" we've just become religion-centered and ceased to be gospel-centered. Those things need to be kept in the proper perspective as "tools" to become more like Jesus.

Here's how I think we watch & measure our progression in godliness: we think of ourselves less. I think it's all about humility. This is what the Lord requires of us in Micah 6:8. This should be our response to the work of Jesus in our lives according to Romans 11:20. This is what we are called to in becoming like Jesus in Philippians 2:3-8. Isn't this what faith requires in the first place? To put our "faith, hope, & love" in Jesus and Jesus alone, we must admit that we're not God, that our pride is not good, and we must humbly admit that we have a need for Savior to rescue us from ourselves and our sin. Sin, by definition, is pride. For when we sin, we are telling God that we can do things on our own and don't need Him or His rules or design.

So here are some practical questions to ask yourself to track your growth in godliness:

• Do I think more about Jesus today than I did a six months or a year ago?
• Am I trying to filter everything through the lens of the gospel?
• Do I enjoy serving other people more today?
• Do I cheerfully give?
• Am I more willing to be flexible with my time so I can serve others?
• Am I quicker to repent when I sin?
• Am I quicker to forgive when I'm sinned against?

Progressing in godliness is not "microwave" - you can't track it by minutes or days or weeks. Progressing in godliness is more like a "crock pot" - you need months, seasons, and years to see growth (or lack of growth). It takes time, training, intentionality, hard work, honesty, transparency, accountability, and encouragement. It's also a community project. You can't grow on your own. People must speak into your life.

Praying for you progress (and mine)...

Ryan

Delta's Upcoming Men's Retreat

On October 23-24, the Delta men are heading out of town to study the life of David and learn about being men of passion. Our men's ministry leader, John, put together a hilarious promo video to motivate guys to show up.

Cleaning Up a Jacked Up Church Preview

When we think of the early church in the first century, we usually get these warm fuzzy feelings about community, love, how they shared their stuff, how God pulled off crazy miracles, and how people came to know Jesus by the thousands.

Not Corinth. Corinth was a jacked up church.

The church in Corinth was small, maybe 50ish people. And this small community was marked by division, by being more influenced by culture than influencing culture, by being proud of their sexual sin, by chaotic worship gatherings, by drunkenness at communion, by greed, and by bringing lawsuits against each other. So, God speaks through Paul, who planted the church, to speak the gospel into the church to clean up the mess the church was in.

No matter where you’re at spiritually: a skeptic, an investigator, a new believer, or a seasoned Christ-follower, 1^st Corinthians is a book that will speak deeply into your life. Because the truth is, we’re all jacked up and need Jesus to clean us up.

Movement Recap

Yesterday we finished up our series called "Movement" which outlined the framework for the life of Delta. Here are the highlights:

• "We are the church." This was the umbrella statement for the whole series. Like 1 Peter 2:9 and Acts 2:42-47 reveal to us, "church" is an identity, not a destination.

• The "Upward" Movement. "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." This is the famous first confession of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and describes Delta's first movement: Glorifying God. John 17:1-5 shows us that glorifying God is God's main concern about Himself, and was Jesus' main concern while on earth. Everything about our lives personally and corporately must be filtered with God getting glory, and not us. This is most publically seen in our weekly Worship Gatherings.

• The "Amongst" Movement. "True community is created, defined and driven by the Gospel." This is the key phrase for Delta's second movement: gospel communities. We unpacked how Delta is in fact a "community of communities." The Community Groups of Delta are practically people's "immediate church", for in those environments is where everyday care, encouragement, connection, growth, learning, discipline, and mission happen. John 17:6-19 show us Jesus' plan for the community that He created.

• The "Outward" Movement. "Ordinary life lived with gospel intentionality." When we talk about the third movement - engaging culture - we talking about living missionally. And this mean not trying hard to be "cool" or "hip" but simply going about your regular everyday activities with purpose - to bring those outside of your gospel community inside your gospel community. Jesus clearly laid out his desire for this to happen in John 17:18-26. And this is not to be done solo, but in community - Jesus never once in his prayer in John 17 prayed for an individual, but always for community; for it is in community that mission is most strong.

To listen to the sermons from the "Movement" series, subscribe to Delta's podcast on iTunes.

Verses for the World to Read

I realize that I am probably one of only 5 people who read the Faith & Religion section of the Sunday paper. Most of the time the articles aren't worth my energy to turn the page because they are so bland, and by necessity (being the newspaper) universalistic. But the feature this last week seemed very interesting to me, but I was left extremely sad.

The feature was about local religious leaders' favorite passages of scripture. It wasn't focused on Christian leaders, for the local Muslim and Christian Science leaders were included also...and that's OK. But what I was hoping to read from the Christian ones was a brief synopsis of the gospel. I mean, come on, the newspaper is calling you and asking you for a verse that could be read by potentially thousands of people (well, at least 5)! Make it count! They were even given a couple sentences to follow up their choice. But do you know what the vast majority of the verses were about? They were the "feel good" verses about God, you know, the ones about Him never leaving us, giving us strength, love people and be unified. Now hear me, all scripture is God's Word and inspired and worth more than any human wisdom could ever muster. But my point is, when you have the opportunity, share a passage that talks about God's plan in saving us through Jesus, you know - the gospel. It made me smile that the one who hit it most on the head with the opportunity was my favorite public access pastor who plays the ukulele. He shared Acts 2:38 - that we need to Jesus to save us and we need to believe in Him - and briefly said how that verse changed his life. Well, done Pastor Hart!

In a day and age where universalism and relativism grow in strength, when we as Christ-followers get a chance to go very public with Jesus, we need to take full opportunity and do so. Much like when my friend Pastor Mark Driscoll got invited to preach at the Crystal Cathedral. You probably can't find two churches that are more different regarding certain theology, philosophy, and ecclesiology, but Mark saw it as an opportunity to preach to MILLIONS about the gospel. So he did. You can watch that here.

Paul encourages us to "make the most of our time" in Ephesians 5:16, and Peter tells us to "always be prepared to give an answer" about Jesus when asked in 1 Peter 3:15. And remember that Jesus Himself called those who follow Him a "city on a hill" in Matthew 5:14. We need to stand up and stand out, gently lighting the way for people to Jesus specifically, not just some different "religious" alternative.

You may be wondering what my favorite verse is that I'd like to share with the world, at least my wife did when I was talking with her about this. Mine would be John 19:30, which record Jesus' last words before he died on the cross: "It is finished." I want people to know that it's not their efforts or morality that make them right with God, it is only the work that Jesus has done and we just need to trust Him.

The full SJ-R feature can be found here.

Imitating Demons

First off, I am NOT advocating any type of demon of Satan worship...just so we're clear on that!

When I was on my Sabbath, I read the Gospel of Mark a number of times. One thing that jumped out to me was how most people didn't listen and obey Jesus. People that he healed and he told to not say anything went off and ran their mouths. And the disciples themselves were the thickest-headed group of guys that I've ever seen.

But guess who ALWAYS respected and immediately obeyed Jesus 100% of the time? Yup, demons.

Here are the accounts in Mark of Jesus casting out demons from people: Mark 1:21-28; 1:39; 3:11-12; 5:1-20; and 9:14-29. We commonly see demons recognizing Jesus for who he is (for remember, Jesus created them as angels before they fell from heaven) and falling down before him and begging for mercy (interesting that they know he is merciful!) because they understand that Jesus is God and has complete authority. And when Jesus commands them, they obey. Without question.

So, what can we learn from demons? We can learn that we need to honor and respect the authority of Jesus. We can learn that when Jesus gives us a command (to love, to be his witnesses, to serve the poor, etc) we need to obey it, that there's really no option not to.

May we all honor Jesus more and obey him fully!

You need to stop talking so much

I've just returned from a week-long sabbath. I left "really important" things like my laptop and iPhone at home, and headed west toward the mountains armed with not much more than my bible and a journal. One of the biggest things that God showed me through the silence that I dove into was that I use too many words in general and too many words that promote me rather than promote him.

Jesus said in John 14 that the words he spoke came from the Father. Psalm 19 humbly asks that the words of our mouths be acceptable in the sight of God. After being silent for a week, I realized that too often that I use my words to promote myself in some way (sounding smart, wise, funny, etc.) and not often enough do I use my words to encourage people to God.

I think that the only way to allow God's words to fill our hearts so that when we speak, we speak words that he wants us to, is to certainly fill up on his word, but also intentionally refrain from using words as flippantly as we do. This includes speaking for sure, but also includes things like Facebook, Twitter, and basic idle chatter. Not that there's anything wrong with a conversation about sports or a movie, or updating your status or sending out a tweet. But we need to ask ourselves what the purpose of our words are. Are we promoting ourselves or promoting God?

We all need to stop talking so much and start listening to God and others more.