Survivors Rescuing Survivors

From The Missional Challenge

In The Externally Focused Church, you can read about Colorado Community Church in Aurora, CO. "They are defined by going after those who are still in the water." They've taken on the mission of Lifeboat 14.

On April 14, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and began taking on water. By the time the lifeboats were deployed, it was clear that the ship was sinking. Passengers were loaded into lifeboats, and the lifeboats were lowered in the icy waters. Of the twenty lifeboats lowered into the water, most had room for more people. Despite the cries for help, those in the lifeboats were afraid to return to the drowning people lest the boats be swamped. Resisting the cries for help, the people in the boats rowed away from hundreds of people floating in the water.

In Lifeboat 14, Fifth Officer Harold Lowe thought differently and acted differently. He transferred many of his passengers to other lifeboats and returned to the sinking ship to pick up more survivors. Though he could not save them all, he could save a precious few from death in the icy sea. Survivors rescued survivors. (p 71)

As I read that story, I thought about how I am so glad that Jesus has rescued me! And having been rescued, I am now in a position to help rescue others by leading them to Jesus. Yet sometimes, I act like those in the lifeboats who resisted the cries for help.

Isn't it easier (sometimes) to row away from people who need Jesus? We get so busy with our own lives and enjoying the fact that we've been rescued. We think that certainly somebody else will help in the rescue effort.

I want to catch the vision of "Lifeboat 14." I want to be involved in rescuing people. I want to go after those still in the water. Don't you?

The faith of the people of CCC is lived out in the community. They get involved in the dreams and hurts of their community. They don't condemn. They love and serve. They don't retreat; they go after those still in the water. The Titanic remains at the bottom of the Atlantic, but Lifeboat 14 is still involved in pulling people out of the water in Aurora, Colorado. (p 72)

Wrestling with God

"Sometimes in the dark of our night seasons, we don't know with whom we are struggling until the light begins to dawn."

"When God allows or even invites us to wrestle with Him, His constant goal is to make us overcomers. Even when God appears to be against us, He is for us."

"Few things define us more than how we struggle. Through the crisis with God all the way to the blessing, we are gloriously redefined."

~ Beth Moore on Jacob's story.

The Highs & the Lows

Heather passed this along to me....

"Nothing serves us better in places of high position than our lessons in low position."
~ Beth Moore

Piper on For Whom Did Christ Taste Death?

Piper on For Whom Did Christ Taste Death?

"I am not the least bit interested in withholding the infinite value of the death of Jesus from anyone. Let it be known and heard very clearly: God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believes on him—I say it again: whoever believes in him—should not perish but have eternal life. Christ died so that whoever (in this room this morning) believes might not perish but live.

"And when you believe as you ought to believe, you will discover that your belief—like all other spiritual blessings—was purchased by the death of Christ. The sin of unbelief was covered by the blood in your case, and therefore the power of God's mercy was released through the cross to subdue your rebellion and bring you to the Son. You did not make the cross effective in your life by faith. The cross became effective in your life by purchasing your faith."

Dawkin's Moral Outrage

Parchment & Pen has an interesting blog entry about the moral indignation of atheist Richard Dawkins.

"...the atheist is still left without a proper metaphysical context for affirming such moral dignity and responsibility. As it turns out, despite all of Dawkins’ moral indignation toward theism, naturalism seems to be morally pretentious in claiming the moral high ground, though without any metaphysical basis for doing so."

America: One of the Worlds 10 Largest Mission Fields

Phil Ryken recently gave this report at Reformation 21:

The church planting committee at Philadelphia's Tenth Presbyterian Church was recently given some statistics that clarify the need for gospel work in our own United States.

With almost 200 million unchurched people, America is one of the world's ten largest mission fields.

In 2000, the US sent out more than 100,000 missionaries, but also received 33,000 missionaries, making us both the world's largest missionary-sending and the world's largest missionary-receiving country.

It is estimated that more than 100 million Americans have no substantial Christian memory, which is a reminder that a large part of the task of evangelism in our times is simply explaining to people what Christianity is.

Apostolic Succession

It is by Fr. John Behr, dean and professor of patristics at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. :

As an example, Irenaeus pointed to the Christian communities in Rome (at that time there were many house churches, each with its own leaders, not one church with a single bishop), and in particular the community led by Eleutherius. He listed 12 successive leaders, from the apostles down to Eleutherius, to show that the apostolic teaching had been passed on continuously. He especially noted Clement, one of the first leaders, who had known the apostles and recorded their teaching in a letter that was earlier than any of the Gnostics’ texts. “By this succession,” Irenaeus wrote, “the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is the most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.”

In later centuries, some churches began trying to construct similar lists of succession to defend their own authenticity or authttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifhority, but this was not Irenaeus’s main concern. He was not defending the authority of particular people; he was trying to defend the true faith against heresy by showing that the apostles’ message about Jesus had been faithfully preserved in the churches, and therefore could be trusted. Succession for him did not primarily mean handing down an office; it was the public expression of the continuity of the true faith.

The article can be found here.

HT: Reformed Catholicism

Keller on the Gospel

The ‘gospel’ is the good news that through Christ the power of God’s kingdom has entered history to renew the whole world. When we believe and rely on Jesus’ work and record (rather than ours) for our relationship to God, that kingdom power comes upon us and begins to work through us.”

- Tim Keller

Berkouwer on the New Earth

“The message of the gospel is not simply a ‘spiritual’ thing, but good tidings applied to man’s entire existence. . . . The true New Testament expectation includes the new earth, and the present life is founded on and proceeds from this expectation. Only with an eye to God’s future can one understand the richness of life in the present.”

G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ

Spurgeon on Preaching Christ

"I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People have often asked me, "What is the secret of your success?" I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel,—not about the gospel, but the gospel,—the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news. Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in the sermon. You remember the story of the old minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and when he was asked by the preacher what he thought of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said, "If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was no Christ in your sermon." "No," answered the young man, "because I did not see that Christ was in the text." "Oh!" said the old minister, "but do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, 'There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His track till I get to Him.'" "Well," said the young man, "but suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?" "Then I will go over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him." So must we do, brethren; we must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to save a soul. Take care that it is so when you are called to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you have to preach to charwomen or chairmen, still always take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon."

-CH Spurgeon, The Soul Winner.

HT: Between Two Worlds

Keller on Defining Sin

When Keller, author of The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, speaks about "sin" to his audiences, which are 70% single and younger than 40, "I use it with lots and lots of explanation, because the word is essentially obsolete.

"They do get the idea of branding, of taking a word or term and filling it with your own content, so I have to rebrand the word 'sin,' " Keller says.

"Around here it means self-centeredness, the acorn from which it all grows. Individually, that means 'I live for myself, for my own glory and happiness, and I'll work for your happiness if it helps me.' Communally, self-centeredness is destroying peace and justice in the world, tearing the net of interwovenness, the fabric of humanity."

USA Today

Is Sin Dead?

USA Today asks, "Is sin dead?"

And answers, "Not by a long shot."

What Americans call sin:

• Adultery: 81%

• Racism: 74%

• Using "hard" drugs, such as cocaine, LSD: 65%

• Not saying anything if a cashier gives you too much change: 63%

• Having an abortion: 56%

• Homosexual activity or sex: 52%

• Not reporting some income on your tax returns: 52%

• Reading or watching pornography: 50%

• Gossip: 47%

• Swearing: 46%

• Sex before marriage: 45%

• Homosexual thoughts: 44%

• Sexual thoughts about someone you are not married to: 43%

• Doing things as a consumer that harm the environment: 41%

• Smoking marijuana: 41%

• Getting drunk: 41%

• Gambling: 30%

• Not attending church or religious services regularly: 18%

• Drinking any alcohol: 14%

Source: Ellison Research, August 2007, based on 1,007 adults through a representative online panel ad adjusted to be demographically representative of the USA Margin of error: ±3.1 percentage points.

AMA Article on the Crucifixion of Jesus

Journal of the American Medical Association article on the crucifixion of Jesus.