The Biblical Foundation for Unity Among Christians

The biblical foundation for unity among Christians is that we have One God and One Christian experience. Much of our conflicts in this world are based on differences such as racial, national, political, religious and personal differences.  When upper caste Hindus oppress and subjugate lower caste Hindus in India, they do it based on the caste differences. When some Americans look upon people from Iran with hatred, they do so because of political differences. When David Letterman mocks and puts down Jay Leno, he does so because of personal differences. Differences in our world cause conflict; differences cause hatred and disunity. The same is true of the Church. The Church is supposed to be not of the world. Yet the Church has allowed enough of the world to enter into its culture that now a church gets divided over differences that cause division in the world. We let the color of our skin, nationality, economic status and personal differences divide us. Pastor Tony Evans while attending Carver Bible Institute was refused membership at a church because of the color of his skin. He is black. Now as a pastor in Dallas, TX he serves a multi-racial congregation. He once mentioned in a sermon how he encountered reverse-racism in his Church when a black member of his church came up to him and complained about all the white flocks coming into the church. Pastor Tony Evans told that black man to go find another church where he could be more comfortable. Our denomination, Evangelical Covenant Church came out of a movement in Sweden that protested against the corrupt practices of the Swedish Lutheran Church. One of the corrupt practices that existed in the Swedish Lutheran Church was that they discriminated against those Christians who were poor. They sold church pews to the rich congregation members. As a result on a given Sunday morning while the rich sat the poor huddled together stood at the back of the church. These differences based on race, economic status and personality that divide the rest of the world at times have caused division and disunity in the Church also.
Yet Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:4-6 that there is a new kind of oneness that forms the basis of our unity other than the color of our skin or our nationality or our economic status, and this oneness is that we all have One God and have shared in One Christian experience. Therefore, Paul writes in Eph 4:4-6, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” Have you noticed how many times Paul uses the word "one." What Paul is underscoring here is that the foundation for our Christian unity is what we share in common, that is One triune God and one Christian experience. Talking about One God Paul gives it in reverse order. He says Christians have One Spirit referring to the Holy Spirit, One Lord, a popular way referring to Jesus, the Son in the NT, and One God, the Father. And Paul says furthermore that we as Christians share in the same Christian experience. And he gives four description of that experience. He says that there is One body. Here Paul is talking about the body of Christ, the Church of which we are a part. It is a fact that one cannot be a Christian without being a part of the Church. Paul in 1Cor.12:13 talks about being baptized into one body, the Church. What that means is that when we get baptized as a Christian we not only come to belong to Jesus but also to his Church. What that means is that being a part of the body of Christ, the Church is a common experience we as Christians share. We might have developed into various denominations, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, but from Paul’s perspective we are one body.  Next Paul says that we were called to One Hope of our calling; that is the hope that comes with the great salvation to which we have been called, the hope of the coming kingdom of God, the hope of resurrection and the eternal life with God. Now we may differ over when the end might come or how the end might come, but we do not differ in our hope. All Christians, according to Paul, have one hope to look forward to.  He then says that we have One faith, meaning the body of core beliefs known as the gospel such as that Jesus died for our sins. Lastly, Paul says we have One baptism, the water baptism as a symbol of the same faith commitment that all Christians share in common. What Paul is saying here is that these things that we share in common, One God and One Christian experience, are what form the foundation for our Christian unity.
Isn’t it interesting that what is of any significance in our lives, things that have eternal significance, Paul says, are things that we share in common as Christians, one God, one body, one hope, one faith and one baptism. Therefore, why do we let things such as race, economic status, political affiliations, personal preferences, things that don’t and never will get us into God's kingdom divide us?

 

True Love

Saw the movie "Frozen" with my wife and kids today. It is interesting that the movie is about true love expressed through a self-sacrificial gesture that brings life to Anna and to her town. As prince Hans lifts his sword to kill Elsa sister Anna runs over and puts herself between the sword and Elsa. She takes the blow for Elsa. As a result she does not die. But her true love brings life back to her frozen heart that would have ultimately killed her. As a result also life in terms of Summer returns also to the kingdom of Arendelle that lay in the frozen death grip of winter.   This is the story also of Easter. True sacrificial love bringing life and hope of restoration to a dying world. Jesus death on the cross for the sins of the world and his resurrection usher in a new life. Frozen hearts are now softened towards God,  and death now also melts away under the heat of an everlasting life.  It is so interesting that even though a secular world celebrates this love through this movie it mocks Christianity for its belief in such a love expressed through the cross of Christ! It is foolishness they say. Yet they crave it so much that they dream of it through a 150 million dollar movie.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25: For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
   and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
²⁰Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

The Importance of Understanding God's love

Paul writes Ephesians 3: 17b-19: in verses 17b-19: I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (NIV). But why does Paul say that Christians need to be rooted in God’s love and grasp it? He could just as well prayed for them to be rooted and established in God. The fact is nothing is more stabilizing, more securing and encouraging and life giving than the experience of love.  Child Psychologists have diagnosed many children with Attachment Disorder. Some of the things that cause Attachment Disorder are unwanted pregnancy, abuse and neglect. Nancy L. Thomas in her book When Love is Not Enough writes, “Babies do know what the mother is feeling and thinking during pregnancy.” As a result in the case of an unwanted pregnancy a baby can feel what the mom is feeling, that it is not wanted. On top of it if there is abuse and neglect later on the child end up suffering from Attachment Disorder. Children with Attachment Disorder grow up with the need to be in control, without the ability to trust, and lack of ability to care from their heart, because caring takes trusting among other things. As a result they become destructive towards themselves, towards other children and towards their pets. And it all originates from this experience of not being wanted, of being abused and neglected. In essence it all originates from their experience of not being loved.

Therefore, just as having a mom is not enough, but being rooted and established in a mom’s nourishing love is important for the child to grow up into a healthy human being, similarly it is not enough for Christians to have a God, they need to experience the love of God, they need to be rooted and established in God’s love in order to grow up healthy in their Christian life and faith. God’s love is as character forming for Christians as a mother’s love for a child.

Goodbye Habituation!

My New Year's goal is to fight "habituation." Psychologist  Lynn Johnson in his book "Enjoy Life"  says that habituation is the reason why we can't be happy forever with what we have (X). A person thinks if he gets $10,000 he will be happy. Then that person gets his $10,000. But in time he gets habituated to that amount, and then he wants more in order to be happy. In essence habituation contributes to our profound sense of unhappiness and also makes us thankless for what we already have. As Proverbs 27:20 reminds us, "Death and destruction are never satisfied and neither are human eyes."

I have become habituated to my ministry, my church, my wife, my children, my car, my house....., and sometimes I wish if only my church would grow in number, if only I had a bigger house, if only..... then only I would be happy. And as a result I begin to envy my more successful  pastor friends and begin to work more hours for that extra money to buy that bigger something..... Habituation not only undermines my happiness but also my sense of gratitude toward God for all that he has already given me.  I want habituation gone in 2014. Therefore I do not ask God for anything new this new year. I ask God to break my bondage to habituation and help me rejoice in what he has already given me beginning with the year I was born through 2013.

Christmas is about letting Go and letting God!

Christmas is the reversal of Genesis 3. While humanity in Genesis 3 sought power by wanting to be god (4-6). Christmas is about God letting go of that power and becoming human to show us that the solution to the human problem lies in letting go and letting God. Philippians 2:5-11, an ancient Christian hymn recorded by Apostle Paul describes well this Christmas theme of Jesus as God letting go. What this hymn is saying, first of all, is that before Jesus became this earthly man he was in the form of God (6). In essence what this hymn is saying is that Jesus was God before he became man. Next the hymn says that even though Jesus was God He did not regard His equality with God or being God as something to be exploited or taken advantage of (6). We live in a world where many CEOs and executives of big companies and banks exploit or take advantage of their positions by giving themselves big raises and bonuses while the workers on their factory floors are struggling or losing their jobs. But, this hymn says that Jesus did not regard his being God, the CEO of the universe as something to be exploited or taken advantage of by staying in the heavenly mansion and by not caring about the people on the factory floor of this earth. He did not regard His position as God to mean getting as much as He could for Himself but as giving everything He had. He did not regard His position as God to mean a way to avoid suffering but to embrace suffering for His people. Therefore He did something quite unimaginable. He as God came down. The hymn says that He emptied himself (7), meaning He poured Himself out for the service of his people by taking on the form of a slave. That is He became a person without advantages, rights and privileges. Slaves did not have rights and privileges in that society. That is what Jesus became when he gave up His rights and privileges as God and became a man. He became a slave. As the second person of the trinity he became a slave of God, the Father. As a result he served God all through out His life. And he became a slave of humanity because it was his God, the Father’s will that he die for the sins of the world. For that reason Jesus could say to His disciples in Matt.20:28, “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.” And that is also what the verse 8 of this hymn refers to. That He became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.  It is ironic that crucifixion as the most extreme state sponsored punishment was reserved for people such as the slaves. Jesus who took on the form of a slave also died a slave’s death on the cross. Even though Jesus as God did not have to die, his obedience to God, the Father knew know limit. He was obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross for the sins of the world. In the garden of Gethsemane just before he was taken Jesus prayed, “Father not my will, but your will be done.” What He was saying, that if it is your will that I die may your will be done. While in the Garden of Eden humanity wanted to be like God, replace God as a moral authority and decide what is best for themselves, in the Garden of Gethsemane God as a man giving up his privilege as God, the authority to decide what is best for Himself submitted completely to the will of God, the Father.

That is the essence of Christmas. While humanity in their attempt to be like God messed things up, on Christmas day God became man to fix things up by teaching the world the value of letting go and letting God. You see while Adam as the representative of humanity in his attempt to be like God ended up dying and ushering in a culture of sin, death and destruction into this world (Romans 5:12-21), Jesus Christ by letting go and letting God even though he died was resurrected back to life ushering in a culture of new life, eternal life and restoration for all who trust in him. Therefore while war, tragedy and destruction remind us of the futility of humanity trying to be God, the angel voice that still echoes “Peace on earth and goodwill to men” reminds us of the value of letting go and letting God. 

Prodigal God

Sometimes in disbelief I used read God's promises in the Bible to give, give and give... adoption as God's children (Ephesians 1:5), resurrection (1Corinthians 15), glorious inheritance (Ephesians 1:18), a new world without pain or death, or sickness or sorrow (Revelation 21:1-4)...the list goes on and on. But now as a dad I have a better understanding of God's heart for his children. Tomorrow is my beloved daughter's birthday. My wife has wrapped four sizable gifts, and here I am asking are these four gifts enough. It just does not seem enough, because I want to give her so much more. Therefore now I believe. Romans 8:32: "He who did not withhold his Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?"

Joseph, Mary and Jesus

Our families shape our characters and identities. I wonder if the same was true of Jesus. Where did he learn to have such compassion for people who were rejected by his society as sinners? Of course the theological answer is that Jesus being God had godlike compassion. And that is true. But I just wonder how God used Mary and Joseph to contribute to the character development of Jesus. Jesus surely grew up hearing the story of his virgin birth. I grew up hearing how I was with a blue skin color like the Indian god Krishna. Extraordinary events in a family are usually told and retold. Jesus' family I am assuming was no exception in that regard. Jesus also most likely grew up experiencing how his mom was shamed by his society, and accused of being an adulteress.  After all the society did not believe in Mary's story of being impregnated by God. Some Jews from as early as the second century accused Jesus of being the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. A veiled reference to that can be found in John 8:41. Here Jews might just be saying to Jesus, "We are not like you, illegitimate!" Beside the social shame that his family suffered, did Mary's taking on the shame for God and  Joseph's boldness in sharing in that shame shaped Jesus' character. After all it is quite possible that Joseph was accused of getting Mary pregnant before marriage or of condoning adultery. Roman law of that time treated a man who did not divorce his wife accused of adultery as a panderer, a pimp.  The society in which Joseph lived one's honor meant everything, and Joseph risked loosing his honor by marrying Mary. Therefore I wonder if Jesus got from his mom his commitment to suffer in service of God, and from Joseph the ability to share in the shame of others by identifying with them. The life and the cross of Christ certainly is marked by both .