A City on a Hill not a Person on a Hill

John Winthrop, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, gave a sermon to his congregation of settlers aboard the ship Arbella in AD 1630 from the shores of England. His “City on a Hill” sermon has been quoted by Presidential candidates and called the greatest sermon of the past 1,000 years. In that sermon Winthrop spoke a great deal about the need for a fervent application of brotherly love. He said things like this:

“That which most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with a pure heart fervently. We must bear one another burdens. We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren”.

He spoke of avoiding shipwreck by following the council of Micah “to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God…to be knit together as one man…to delight in each other”.

On and on Winthrop went with the call to brotherly love, self-denial, making other’s conditions our own conditions. This was perhaps the most needed message for these settlers because they were about to spend 3 months together on a ship in terribly claustrophobic conditions. No showers. No private suites. No cry rooms. Probably only a personal bucket for a bathroom which they would then toss overboard and store away for later. If they made it through this claustrophobic journey alive they would live together 24/7- helping one another build homes, clear the land, hunt for game, plant crops, fight off Indians, birth babies, bury dead and in every way worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

It goes without saying that if the church in this context would not put their faith fully into practice by loving their neighbors completely as they love themselves, their community would have dissolved into discord. And many such communities did.

Brotherly love for this Massachusetts Bay Colony, and many others like it, was not just a nice thing to have…it was an essential ingredient to survival. Without it the whole experiment would have been shipwrecked. Brotherly love would also be the very element necessary to make their colony a “city on a hill” to the rest of the world and certainly the reason Winthrop emphasized it so.

When we read Matthew 5:14-16 today I fear we read it differently than Jesus intended it. When I have read it in the past I imagined Jesus saying, "Shaun you are a light to the world." "Shaun you are a city on a hill." "Shaun you are a candle on a stick that people put up high to give light to others." Although there is a sense in which Jesus' words apply to me individually, the fact is Jesus' words are best understood communally.

The church is supposed to be a "city on a hill" not a person on a hill. A city on a hill is made up of individuals for sure, but if I am on that hill alone by myself I am no light to the world. If we are all up there together fervently applying brotherly love, however, then we shall shine!

I extend my appreciation again to the Brunswick Church of Christ for being the best "city on a hill" I have ever been a part of. Praise God. I will continue to challenge us to become so more and more.

What I Hear Christians Saying

My wife had two friends over tonight for some genuine conversation and crafting. I carted the kids around with me to karate and then to meet briefly with another brother in Christ. The kids and I arrived home around 7:30pm and I had them pretty well settled in bed by 8:30. While upstairs I heard bits and pieces of the conversation happening downstairs amongst the ladies. The conversation, I must say, sounded all too familiar: "I don't feel connected there". "I just want some genuine friends for myself and my kids". "We go there but we do not really know anybody". They were speaking of their individual churches.

So many Christians, I have found, are involved in churches but have no genuine friends within them. So many people go to church, appear to leave filled, but do not experience any semblance of genuine Christian community in their lives. Our churches preach the "correct doctrine"; we give people positive next-steps for individual spiritual growth; we even offer a plethora of support groups and Bible study groups for seekers, new believers and the aged. But the utopian ideals of the old Puritan, New England small-town, the ideals so prominent in the first churches of Christ we see in the NT, are so far removed from our experience.

I am hearing Christians say they want to live within a genuine Christian community. They want to know people and to be known. They want their children to grow up with life-long friends. They want to live in the times when everyone harvested their crops and brought them to the center of town where the elders of the church divided up the food to each as had need. But the reality is that the way we currently live will never accomplish what we say we want to experience. We must make changes in the very pattern of our lives if genuine Christian community will ever surface for us.

Christians today are facing the same challenges Christians in America have faced for centuries. They are trying to live between two opposing worlds. Page Smith, an author and professor of  Emeritus at the University of California, wrote,

"Here again we have tried to trace what was to be, in many ways, the most profound and enduring split in the collective American psyche: equality (the single-minded pursuit of happiness-money), which also called itself by other names such as individualism, free enterprise, and so on; and community, which denigrated materialism and struggled valiantly to establish or reestablish true communities. In a sense, there could be no genuine reconciliation between those two American dreams" (Smith, 1980, p.48).

Smith said that Americans have tried, vainly, to reconcile individualism (equality, free-enterprise, etc.) with true community. American history has shown that as our wealth increases our experience of community decreases. The less we have the more we need each other and the more we have the less need we have of each other. The same can be said of our faith; The more we have the less we think we need Jesus and the less we have the more aware we are of our need for Jesus.

I want to know...is there a way to live in prosperity but not grow spiritually and relationally impoverished? I am hearing Christians say they want to. They say they want both. But history has proved it unachievable. The solution then? According to Smith (1980) the solution has been to "give money away". "Americans", said Smith, "were almost as ingenious in discovering new ways of giving money away as they were in making it...In time Americans became better at doing that than any other people in the world" (p.46).

I want to propose today that if we really want to experience genuine Christian community and not just 'go to church' we have got to become expert philanthropists. We have got to let go of the money the Lord has given us so that others in the church can live thereby. We have got to choose to live communally such that what the Lord has given me I loose for the sake of others. We must live by this truth: The Lord gave to me so that I can give to others. This was how the earliest church lived. They lived communally. "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had" (Acts 4:32).

To the praise of God I am happy to say that over the past 8 years at BCC I have seen members of our congregation live communally. I have been blessed to be able to walk beside people who made a decision to build their lives around Jesus Christ. These people decided that what the Lord had given them was equally mine if I needed it. I am hearing Christians say they want to live in genuine Christian community- to do this, however, requires us to stop chasing the other, bankrupt, American dream- properity, wealth, money. We cannot have both.

Fred Baptized! Now he begins to build his life around Jesus.

Hey all,

This was an exciting evening on Wednesday. I just met Fred last week through another brother in Christ who met him on the bus. Fred, myself and my friend talked for a while on Tuesday night. I got to know him. Asked a lot of questions. Shared the scriptures together. Slept on it, and then he decided he was truly serious about the decision to marry Jesus.

God had been working in Fred's life far before myself or my friend met him. Fred was ready to surrender. I didn't have to do much convincing. He just needed some direction on how to turn around and come home the to Father.

Now that he has been baptized the really exciting part begins: watching the Holy Spirit build Fred's life around Jesus.

Rejoicing over one soul who repented,

Shaun

Lauren Met Jesus This Week At...

On any given day it is possible to find a number of news stories making known the vices of people of faith, particularly Christians. We hear more bad stories than good but that is not because there is more bad happening in Christendom than good; it’s just because bad news is more popular. Today I would like to give voice to how our congregation, just this week, made Jesus known to a woman named Lauren (name changed for anonymity).

Lauren in my opinion is on her way to becoming a Christian. She does not know about Jesus. She does not know that He died for her. She does not know that He loves her. She has not read much of the Bible. What she has read of the Bible she does not understand. So you ask, “then how is she on her way to becoming a Christian?” Well although she does now know Him intellectually, she met Him this week and it impacted her.

I met Lauren in a small bible discussion group at a Welfare motel 3 months ago. She only attended the group once. A friend of hers informed me about some of the things she was going through and since Lauren would not join the group again I began visiting with her once a week outside of her motel room. I showed up the first time just to listen and lend my support. I really wanted to get to know her. I wanted to discover what was shackling her. I wanted to find out the root of her deep shyness and the events which led to her extended-stay at this motel.

Lauren is noticeably fragile and as she talked more I began to discover why. Let’s just say the past has been dark for Lauren; darker than most. She can hardly get through 5 minutes of conversation without breaking down. Fear overwhelms her many days. When this happens she stays indoors and avoids human contact. I have invited her on a few occasions to church functions which were initially exciting opportunities for her. She wants to meet and be around uplifting people; she has not had much of that in her life. But as time passes between our conversations she is overcome again with fear and feels safer staying in her room. Through her fear and anxiety the Devil keeps her just where he wants her; alone with her own thoughts. Hence she has not attended one of our church functions yet. But she’s close!

Little by little Lauren is drawing nearer to Jesus. She now welcomes my prayers where before she seemed almost angry at organized religion. She now answers my phone calls and even returns them. She is open for a Bible study and such is our next step. But the one thing that really yanked on her heart this week; the one act of love that tops all the others at the moment; the one way she has most visibly seen Jesus and not even known it was when I delivered to her a Christmas Box from our congregation this week. She smiled. She got excited. She said a few different times, “This is wonderful”. She opened the card signed by various members of the church and said again, “This is so wonderful”. She gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek; that was a first! She still cried within 5 minutes of my arrival, but there was joy there as well. Lauren is not handicapped. She is not drugged up with meds. She’s not weird and she’s not, in my opinion, working the governmental system. Lauren is simply alone and shackled with fear. Lauren needs Jesus.

Well folks, Lauren met Jesus this week at the motel and she loves what she sees. Whatever she thought of “church” before has now been changed. Whatever she thought about Jesus before is now being refined. And now, soon, very soon I believe, she will discover Him in all His fullness and never be the same again! What the Christmas Box from our congregation said to Lauren this week was this: “someone loves you”. It said, “If no one else has ever loved you, we will love because Jesus loves you!”

Love is not enough we know. Truth and love make up Jesus. But love does come first! And now that Lauren has experienced Christ’s love both in our many conversations and, perhaps most visibly, in the Christmas Box this week, the truth of Jesus will be music to her ears. I believe it!

Folks Jesus is alive. He is risen from the dead. He is walking the sidewalks of the world today and visiting the down and out along the way. Lauren met Jesus this week at the motel; where will people meet Jesus next? The answer to that question largely depends on where you are going and whether or not you decide to take Him with you.

On behalf of the leadership of BCC I want to say Merry Christmas to all of you who, through the Spirit, are daily “incarnate deity” just like the Babe lying in a manger many years ago. Thank you Brunswick Church of Christ for representing Jesus so clearly this week.

Where are you and Jesus going now?

“And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph.2:22).

How Have You Missed The Messiah?

The following excerpt was taken from our "Acts of the Holy Spirit" series, November 2012.

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” ³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”  (Acts 2:37)

Dennis the Menace the movie tells the story of a good-hearted boy named Dennis who just can’t keep himself out of trouble particularly with his elderly neighbor Mr. Wilson. All of Dennis’ mischief seems to fall on the head of poor Mr. Wilson. In this movie Mr. Wilson has a flower garden that he has put years and years of work into. In his garden he has one of the world’s rarest plants that he planted 40 years prior. Believe it or not this plant blooms only once in 40 years. Once. It blooms when the moon is full; it blooms at night, and it blooms quickly. And just as quickly as it blooms it withers. So if you had this plant growing in your garden for 40 years; you tilled it and care for it for 40 years of your life,  you could very easily completely miss its blooming if you were not prepared. You could know that it bloomed only once in 40 years and if you were one day off on its blooming calendar you could completely miss its bloom and never again get to see it.

Imagine the disappointment and frustration you would feel if the plant you had waited 40 years to see bloom you missed altogether. Well watch Mr. Wilson as he prepares for his plant’s special minute. Pay particular attention to 3:11-5:50 as this video cannot be shortened by me;

Can you imagine Mr. Wilson’s frustration? I can’t imagine it.

In this same way I don’t think we can fully imagine the disappointment, frustration and pain of the question that is asked in Acts 2:37 some 2,000 years ago: “Brothers, what shall we do?”

These people had looked for their Messiah all of their lives. Every prayer, every synagogue service, every feast day expressed the national longing for the Messiah’s coming

The Messiah was going to be their salvation. He was their hope. The Messiah was the one their ancestors had been waiting for for centuries. He was the One the prophets spoke of.

He was the One Who would restore the kingdom to Israel. He was the One Who would end all of their pain and suffering. Jewish people dreamed about the day their Messiah would come, especially in times of hardship. They talked about that day. They wondered what He might look like. They pondered what they might do if they got to meet Him.

Peter tells us that the Prophets who spoke of the coming of the Messiah “searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow…Even angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1:10-12).

If there was one question every Jewish man and woman wanted to know it was, “When is our Messiah coming?” And now the Apostles, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in this first Gospel sermon of Acts 2, announce in a most undeniable way that they missed the One they had prepared their lives to see. Worse than that…they even killed Him. Can you imagine the pain of that realization!!!?

I believe the greatest challenge the Holy Spirit faced in building the church in Jerusalem was getting these deeply spiritual people to accept the fact that they missed their Messiah. It is not easy to deal with that much pain.

Indeed many in Jerusalem would say, as to Dennis, “Get out of my face, I don’t want to know you.” Others, however, will desperately ask, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (2:37).

And here’s the Good News! Even as we cannot imagine the frustration and pain of murdering our Messiah, neither can we fully imagine the feelings of relief that must have flooded their souls when Peter answered: “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (2:38).

There was hope! Praise God that the terms of forgiveness were not beyond the reach of any of them; all of them could repent and be baptized!

Let me ask you today, how have you missed the Messiah in your life?

Getting Back Our Prerogative

In government and law there is a word that is not spoken of much today called "prerogative". Prerogative is basically "the power to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it" (John Locke). Citizens give their rulers the power of prerogative in the judicial process because it is impossible to foresee all accidents that concern the public. There cannot be a law for everything and so judges are given freedom to make decisions for the public good where there is no stated law.

Prerogative is a good and necessary thing in the hands of good and selfless authorities. Place prerogative in the hands of a fool, however, and it becomes a weapon for submission. It becomes a king's tool for controling the population: "I will decide this..." (for my own benefit that is).

An evil steward of prerogative will be given less prerogative over time. Afterall, no one wants to give a selfish, power-gorged ruler the freedom to do just anything he wants to do. A good steward of prerogative, however, will be given more and more of it. The more the people's trust of their rulers increases, the more freedom they are willing to give them in the enforcement of the laws. Think about it; a boss gives his best employees the most freedom because he trusts them. They have proven, through character, diligence and honesty, they are worthy of more and more freedom. He gives them prerogative to make decisions for the welfare of the company without having to run it by him first. He trusts them.

Our Heavenly Father has all the prerogative one can ever have. He needs no one to sign off on His decisions. He needs no counsel from mortals, no help in deciding mercy or law. If the Lord needs something (He obviously needs nothing) He does not come to us. Psalms 50:12 says, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness." The Father gave the Son, Jesus Christ, all power of prerogative. Jesus was well-pleasing to the Father and therefore the Father put all authority in His hands (see Philippians 2).

Our Heavenly Father has all the prerogative in the world and we are happy for it to be that way. Why? Because we trust Him. We want Him to have all the authority. We want Him to make the decisions. We want Him to do exactly what He pleases when He pleases to do it because we know Him to be good with a capital "G". Whatever our Lord wants to do we will follow because we know He knows best. He is the "Good Shepherd" (see John 10).

My wife and I give each other an incredible amount of freedom in our relationship. If I fail to call to inform my wife of my tardiness she does not gripe at me because she knows, deep down, that I have the Lord Jesus in my heart. And because I have the Lord Jesus in my heart she knows that I have her well-being, and the well-being of our children, always in my heart also. Over the years she has given me increasing amounts of freedom, and me to her. She has given me prerogative to make decisions without her even though we nearly always make decisions together.

I want to venture to say that in America we have lost the power of prerogative in almost all our relationships. Nobody trusts anyone anymore. Handshakes used to be enough; now we need attorneys, notary's and eyewitnesses. We used to give each other the freedom to mess up because we knew deep down that we had each other's best interest at heart. If you scratched my car I did not need an insurance company because I trusted that you had my best interest in mind and would resolve it just as soon as you could. I did not need to demand my rights because I knew you were thinking about my rights already. I was willing to give you the freedom to make things right, without 3rd party pressures, because I trusted you as a person. Now we are so individual that we are lucky if we know 3 people's persons.

Politics is such a heated subject today because no one trusts a politician. Politicians used to be the best of the best among us. They were the ones crawling up on the altar of service to be slain living sacrifices to God and for people (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc.). Now we call them crooks. Politicians are supposed to be the people the nation gives prerogative to. They have a long road to recover our trust...and, sadly, so do our church-leaders.

Over time it has become clear to me that in many instances our flocks have wandered away from us. I attended a home-group bible study recently (not with BCC) where a heavy portion of the conversation between members was about keeping Pastors accountable. It sounded to me like Pastors had led them astray in the past and hurt them. Church leaders (myself included), I am finding that in many instances our people have ceased giving us prerogative to make decisions for their welfare. Perhaps they have doubted that we had their welfare in mind at all.

Men. Fathers. Elders. Deacons. Preachers. Let me challenge us to begin again to live up to the authority given us. Let us examine our hearts and ensure that every act in every day is motivated by the welfare of the people we serve. Let us not ask what is best for us; let us ask what is best for the people God has given us. Let us make decisions carefully, considering all of the people our decisions will impact. Let us pray religiously. Let us build our lives so completely around Jesus that everyone on the perifery of our lives is well taken care of. Let's lead our families, our churches, our communities and our nation forward by being imitators of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we do this our people will again give us the prerogative to lead on their behalf and they will follow without constant questioning. Let us lead the way and pray that our politicians will follow.

"You Harvested Little But Planted Much...Why?"

Recently I have been challenged to think about how the church can speak to the economic situation in America. How do we understand our situation? How did we get here? How do we get out?

For years and years and years our parents and our schools have told us that we need to do well in school so that we can get into a good college, get a good job and make money. The money we make will then allow us to have a nice home and hopefully retire early. This ideology has been drilled into our brains since grade school. I remember hearing this when I was a kid.

This way of visualizing work is so prevalent today that if you were to ask the average high schooler why he wants to go to college he will likely say something like, “So that I can get a good job and make money”. This sounds innocent. It sounds like a decent School of Business motto at your local university.

However for the Christian today- for the one who desires to build all of life around Jesus Christ- we must ask ourselves the question; ‘Where in the Bible are we ever commanded to do anything in order to “make money”? When is the making of money ever to be a motivation for the Christian?’ Aren't we supposed to do everything for the purpose of glorifying God? (see 1 Corinthians 10:31).

Might I suggest that part of the reason this country is in such a downfall is because for the past 50 years we have been about the making of money in our vocations instead of the glory of God?

The fact of the matter is that some of the jobs we have created do not serve anyone; they manipulate people. They do not glorify God: they help people run after silly luxuries they don’t need. We cannot expect the Lord to bless such work. They do not glorify Him. We are finding ourselves working harder, working longer and gaining less from all our toil because our toil is void of the Lord's blessing.

Haggai warned his people in this regard saying, "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it...Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house” (Hag.1:5-6, 9). Applied to us today Haggai says, "Why? Because you have run after money instead of the glory of God".

My concern is that over the past 50 years we in the church have come to believe that the only important work is missionary work. And the reason we believe this is because we have made our vocations about something that’s not important: MAKING MONEY!

Folks if we desire to build life around Jesus at every intersection of our city then the church cannot be the only place where we are doing something important. It cannot be the only place where Christ is crowned King.

It is the task of the church today to speak into our vocations such that we are challenged make our vocations about something important- again. If we cannot make our vocations about what is most important, if what we do for a living cannot please God, then we should put in our two weeks, even in this depressed economy, because such foolish pursuits are partly what put us here in the first place! We need to be spending our working hours (all hours really) glorifying God, and this includes not just what you do for work, but how you do it.

How have you made your vocation about making money? Have you justified that motive? How can you begin to make your vocation about glorifying God again? How can you challenge your employees to glorify God with their vocations and not just get a paycheck?