River Evangediscipleship II: An Example

19 September 2010

Note: this post continues the line of thought from People of the River and River Evangediscipleship

When life is what you’re offering, there’s lots of opportunity to give.  What, specifically, do you offer to Rick, the guy you’re talking with right this minute?  Depends.  What is the opportunity before you?  Is he terrified that he will go to hell?  Offer him assurance of eternal life in Christ, and calm his fears.

But suppose Rick hasn’t said a word about heaven and hell.  He came over to talk with you about his marriage, which is  falling apart right before his eyes.  How do you offer Rick life?  Well, you’ve unfortunately had evangelism training, so you tell him that he needs Jesus, and you set out to share the gospel in the conventional way: heaven, hell, Jesus on the cross, all that.

“Look, man,” Rick says to you, “I’m already in hell.  Heaven will be when Trina and I can spend a whole day together without getting into a screaming fight.”  What do you say to a guy like this?

Isn’t it obvious?  A starving man in agony from a scorpion sting doesn’t really care, right that minute, that the starvation will kill him in a week or so.  In the abstract, food is more important — he might survive the scorpion sting, but lack of food will get him, for sure.  But so what?  If you’re responsible for helping the man, you give him the antivenin now, and then later, the food.

So you ditch your canned-spam evangelism training and just talk to Rick about his marriage.  You ask what the problems are.  He says he walks in the door after work, and five minutes later they’re screaming at each other and he can’t even remember how the fight started.  So you show him Ephesians 5.  You tell him that Jesus is his model, and he should be willing to die for his wife (by inches, if necessary) as Jesus died for us.   You tell him that this means when he goes home today, he must not counterattack, no matter what she says or does.  You warn him that the first thing she’ll do when he doesn’t counterattack is move in for the kill.  “Rick, man, I’m not gonna lie to you,” you say.  “This will probably be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.  But you’ve got to sacrifice yourself for her, and you’ve got to keep sacrificing until she realizes you’re not fighting with her anymore.”

Tell him that if he does not do this, he will kill his marriage.  On the other hand, if he can pull this off, then he will see things happen in his marriage that he’s never dreamed possible.  But there is a catch, you say.  Tell him, with a wink, that God will probably let him have enough success that he can see what a benefit it would be, if only he could really do it — but there’s only one way to really do this, and he can’t do it on his own; he won’t be able to.

“Naw, I get it now.  I see how it’s supposed to work.”  Rick is smiling for the first time in the conversation.  “I can do this.”

“Okay,” you say.  “Give it a try.  But I’m telling you, man, the day is coming where you can see where it would work if you just did it, but you just can’t bring yourself to sacrifice one more time — and you won’t do it.  When that day comes, don’t you come back and tell me this doesn’t work — I told you, right up front, that you can’t do it alone.”

Rick just grins at you.  “You just watch me.”

When you talk with him next, Rick is dejected.  “I just couldn’t do it, man.  I love Trina, but you can’t believe how she gets.  I couldn’t take it.  I had to tell her to back off, and as soon as I did, we were back into the screaming fight, just like before.”

“Hey, Rick.  Remember how I told you you couldn’t do it alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, here’s the rest of the story.”  You tell him that there’s only one person who ever could live that kind of life — Jesus Himself.  Only Him.  “But Rick, if you let Him, He will give you the ability to do this.  In a way, it won’t be you, it’ll be Him living His life in you.  He wants to give you life — eternal life, in fact.  Rick, man, you’re dying here. If you take what Jesus offers, you don’t die while you’re still alive, and even when you die, you live forever with Him.  All the hell that you’ve been going through, Rick, and all the hell that you’ve got coming to you in the future — Jesus took it all into Himself, died for you, was buried, the whole thing, so you wouldn’t have to go through any of it. And He rose from the dead three days later to show that it’s over — He conquered it all, and He’s alive, and He offers you His life.  He’s been offering you life this whole time, and He’s still offering it now.  When you trust that offer, Rick, it’s yours, and it’s yours forever, absolutely free.  You couldn’t earn something like this, and there’s not enough money in the world to buy it, but it’s yours, just for the asking.”

“Man, I’m desperate here,” Rick says.  “I’ll do anything.  What do I gotta do?”

“Rick, man, haven’t you been listening?” you say.  “It’s a gift.  You trust Him for it, it’s yours.  That’s the beauty of it.”

His brow furrows in confusion.  “Just like that?”

“You got a better idea?”  You punch his shoulder.  “Of course, just like that.”  You pause to let that sink in.  “If it makes you feel better, you can say something to Him out loud, but you don’t have to — He sees your heart.  Does that make sense to you?”

Rick’s brows are still furrowed up.  “Yeah, I guess so…” He looks up at you.  “It’s really free?  Seriously?”

You laugh.  “Of course it is.  You think you could buy it?  What do you have that God could want?”  Your face grows serious.  “Just trust Him, Rick.  He’s got it taken care of.”

“Okay,” he says.  “Okay.”  He nods.  “I think I do want to say something.”

“Go ahead.”

“God, I, uh, I don’t know how to pray, but nothing I do is working out, and everything I touch in my life turns sour.  This thing you give, this life–I want it.  I want all of it.  Please give it to me.”

****

A year later, Rick is a growing young Christian.  Trina has seen changes in Rick that she never thought she’d see.  She’s not convinced Christianity is for her, but she’s certainly interested.  They still fight, and sometimes it’s still pretty bad — but it’s not as frequent as it was, and Rick is quick to forgive, and to confess when he’s been wrong.

Do you know for sure whether Rick was saved that day when he first asked God for help?  Maybe not.  Did he really understand enough about what he was asking for?  There’s no way to know for sure.  But who cares?  We’re making disciples here, and that’s what Jesus said to do.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

River Evangediscipleship

12 September 2010

River ecclesiology, which I sketched out in a previous post, also implies a particular take on Christian evangelism and discipleship.

First of all, they’re not all that separate.

You believe on Jesus, as the Scriptures have said, and therefore out of your belly flow rivers of living water.  First you drink, then the water multiplies, like loaves and fishes, and flows out from you.  Isn’t that the whole point of John 4?  You are a walking sanctuary, and your job is to be a conduit for the river that waters the world, everywhere you walk.  The river flows to the unbeliever and to the believer alike.  You offer abundant life to the dead, and the same abundant life to the living.  The living can’t live without it any more than the dead.

It’s all disciple-making; it’s all sanctification; and it’s all good.  Unbelievers simply have one step further to go.

Some of you Free Grace watchdogs out there are growling and muttering.  I can hear it now: “That sounds like Lordship Salvation.”

That’s exactly what it is.  In this life there is no salvation except in Christ, who is inescapably Lord.  In this life, there is no salvation apart from discipleship.  No deliverance from sin, no partaking in the divine nature, no experiential escape from the corruption that is in the world through lust, none of that, except through discipleship.  Apart from a life of discipleship, you have nothing to look forward to except hell on earth, walking around dead until your corpse rejoins the dust, the soul rotting long before the body.  You will submit to the Lordship of Christ, or you’re not living; you’re dying.  When your body gives out, of course, if you are God’s child, then you will incongruously enter His presence with shabby clothes, redolent with the stench of burning wood, hay, and stubble, saved (in that narrow sense) yet so as through fire, and called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus did not come and die to populate heaven with smoke-stinking paupers.  Some will be there, and glory to God for His mercy — but that is not the point.  Jesus came into the world to save sinners, really save.  You can experience hell on earth, dead while you live, a rotting tatterdemalion puppet jerking and twitching through the decades, the devil yanking the strings all the way — is that salvation?  Is that what Jesus came to offer you?  No.  Jesus is not selling insurance, fire or otherwise.  He came that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly.

As a disciple, you offer this abundant life to the world.  First thing, right off the bat?  As a practical matter, you can’t give what you don’t have. But what about the woman at the well?  What did she have?  A belly full of living water flowing out.

Nobody accepts a miracle cure for leprosy from a leper, and nobody accepts a promise of life from the devil’s rotting puppet.  Jesus will take you out of here-and-now slavery to sin and death, but you’ve got to let Him do it.  Once you do, people start listening.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Freely Give

8 August 2010

Evangelical fundamentalists are my people.  Some of them wish they could disown me, and some days I wish they could too, but our relationship is a fact of history–which is to say that it is God’s Providence.  It is among these people that God has called me to serve, and to serve not just as a sheep, but also as a shepherd.  Jesus is the Chief Shepherd, of course.  All the sheep are really His, and all His people are His sheep.  But some of us are also shepherds, under His direction.  The Church being what it presently is, there are a lot of different sub-flocks, divided both by geography (which is fine) and by doctrine/history (which is not).  There are Anglican shepherds, Methodist shepherds, Baptist shepherds, Eastern shepherds, and so on.  I am an evangelical shepherd.

I have friends in other traditions who urge me to convert to their tradition.  They argue that in my tradition, the sheep are  sick.  In their traditions, they say, there is medicine for this sickness.  (Of course their traditions have their own weaknesses, but let’s leave that aside for now.)  Granting the correctness of the diagnosis–and at some points it is correct–how could I leave for that reason?

What kind of a shepherd leaves a flock because it is sick?  A good shepherd heals the sick, and is willing to accept medicine from whoever has it to give.

“You have no right to this medicine,” says the stingy traditionalist, “unless you come serve in our corner of Christ’s great flock.  This medicine belongs only to us.”  But no.  What do they have, that they did not receive as a gift?  And if they received it as a gift, why do they boast as though they did not?  If the medicine heals, then it comes from Christ the Great Physician, and if it comes from Christ, it is for all His sheep: “Freely you have received; freely give.”

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Water in Unexpected Places

31 July 2010

In my various reading, I came upon the following prayer:

O my plenteously-merciful and all-merciful God, Lord Jesus Christ, through Thy great love Thou didst come down and become incarnate so that Thou mightest save all.  And again, O Saviour, save me by Thy grace, I pray Thee.  For if Thou shouldst save me for my works, this would not be grace or a gift, but rather a duty; yea, Thou Who art great in compassion and ineffable in mercy.  For he that believeth in Me, Thou hast said, O my Christ, shall live and never see death.  If, then, faith in Thee saveth the desperate, behold, I believe, save me, for Thou art my God and Creator.  Let faith instead of works be imputed to me, O my God, for Thou wilt find no works that could justify me.  But may my faith suffice instead of all works, may it answer for, may it acquit me, may it make me a partaker of Thine eternal glory.  And let Satan not seize me and boast, O Word, that he hath torn me from Thy hand and fold.  But whether I desire it or not, save me, O Christ my Savior, forestall me quickly, quickly, for I perish.  Thou art my God from my mother’s womb.  Vouchsafe me, O Lord, to love Thee now as fervently as I once loved sin itself, and also to work for Thee without idleness, diligently, as I worked before for deceptive Satan.  But supremely shall I work for Thee, my Lord and God, Jesus Christ, all the days of my life, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Now, what do you think?  Does a person who prays this way believe in salvation by works?

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Posted by Tim Nichols

People of the River

21 July 2010

In the beginning, in Eden, God planted a garden to the east.  In the west was a mountain sanctuary, where the unfallen Lucifer Himself walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones.  A river flowed out of the sanctuary to water the garden, and from the garden it divided into four rivers and watered the world.  After the fall, Adam and Eve are sent further east, away from the sanctuary and out of the garden.  The way back into the presence of God is upriver, westward, but it is blocked by an angel with a flaming sword.

In the end, the New Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth, and a river of the water of life flows from under the throne of God and of the Lamb.

The river that waters the world flows from the sanctuary; the life of the world flows from the focus of worship.   This is true in the beginning, and it is true in the end.  But what about in between?

In between, there is development.

In Abraham’s time, there is no river.  He travels a desolate land, digging wells, building altars and sitting under trees.  He worships God at the altars, and God hears him.  But there is only still water in his wells, and only temporarily.  After  time, he has to leave the well and move on to the next place.  The water does not flow.

In the Tabernacle, there is once again a sanctuary, and the laver provides a portable well.  It’s not a river; it’s just still water.  At least it travels with them, but the water does not flow.

In the Temple, the sanctuary stays in one place.  The bronze Sea provides water, and arrayed in front of the Sea, extending toward the east, is a double row of water chariots.  It’s a picture of a river, of flowing water.   But even so, the “river” doesn’t flow outside the temple—if you want to see it, you have to come in; the water doesn’t come to you.

And then on that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out, “He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”  John adds that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit.

Through the Holy Spirit, the life-giving river is restored to the world.  Every believer is the sanctuary, and from every sanctuary, the living water flows.  The Body of Christ on earth waters the world, and will do so until the day that our Head, the Lamb of God, sets His throne in Jerusalem, and the water pours from under His throne.

The river flows from the sanctuary, and wherever you find the river flowing from, there is the sanctuary.  Where the people of the river congregate to worship, there you find the church, and where you find the church, you will find an outpost of the Church.

The continuity of the Church is not a continuity of ordinations, as Rome would have it, nor even a continuity of baptisms, as some of the Reformed (e.g., Doug Wilson) would have it, nor yet a continuity of litmus-test scheme of spiritual stages, as though becoming Christlike were like becoming an Eagle Scout.  It is a continuity of experience, the experience of living water, an actual relationship with the living Christ.  It’s the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and we ought to guard it as Paul instructed us.

This is my ecclesiology.

****

The water appears in surprising places.

I have met a man who was desperately concerned that every last jot and tittle of his doctrine be in order, precise and technically correct to the last syllable.  Given what he knew, he ought to have been a fountain, and yet his every word was poison.  I have met a muddled, confused believer who hardly knew anything, and knew it, and yet the water gushed from her in torrents.

Watch these two for a year, or five.  The second one will be less confused, more knowledgeable, and still a spring of life-giving water.  The first one, unless God intervenes dramatically, will still be making converts twice as much a son of hell as himself, and his doctrine will grow steadily more perverse.

The water is the first thing.  With it, we grow.  Without it, we die, and too often, we take others with us.

The water flows from the saints of past ages, men and woman who walked with God.  Many of them were deeply confused, or just plain wrong, about things that seem quite obvious to us.

No doubt they would say the same of us — and they’d be right, just as we are.   “He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures have said” Jesus cried, “out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”  The criterion here is not perfection; if it were,we would qualify no better than anyone else.  Thank God, it’s much simpler than that: believe in Jesus.

Many do, in many traditions, and the water flows from them, as Jesus promised.

****

My friends in other traditions are certain that I will convert.  No one can think so highly of the Book of Common Prayer and not become Anglican, one friend will say.   “Five years,” another says, “and you’ll be Eastern Orthodox.”  (The first time someone told me that was ten years ago.)  A third friend says that because I believe in miracles and answered prayer, I’m a charismatic in my heart.  I ought to quit kicking against the goads and just come to his church, he tells me.

On the other hand, a number within my own (evangelical fundamentalist) tradition are equally certain that I am converting to something else — the Roman church, the emergent church, a generic postmodernism…

I am not.  I intend to stay right where I am.  So why do I drink deeply from so many sources outside my own tradition?  Am I discontent?  Well, yes; my tradition needs reform.  But I am not seeking to turn my tradition into some other tradition, nor am I trying to assemble some unholy pomo-pastiche of “the greatest hits of Christendom,”  as though I could get it right where all other traditions have failed.  I am doing something much simpler than that:  Christian fellowship.  Where the water flows, I drink — and the water flows in the most surprising places.  Wherever God graciously permits me to find it, I take it and share as much as I can with the people among whom God has called me to serve.  I can do no more, and in good conscience neither can I do any less.

5 Comments | Ecclesiology, Meditations, Parables | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

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