On the stage of human history

Here's more from last weekend's Soldiers' Training conference in Chicago:

Philemon is really sort of a little vignette at the end of Paul’s epistles that shows what it’s like in a local church to have the life of Christ, the mind of Christ, functioning.

We’re not simply advocating for the truth; we’re designed to be the embodiment of that truth for it to live, putting it on display.

People are always talking about how “you need works.” Listen, you’re not going to commend yourself to God by your works. It’s not of works. We’re HIS workmanship.

It’s not going to be YOU; it’s going to be HIM working THROUGH you. That takes you out from under that, “I got to perform; I got to do, or my life is worthless.” The value is in what Christ is doing and who He is.

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The Catholics say the Protestant church is “just a glorified Bible study; they don’t have God in their midst because they don’t have the Eucharist.” We’ve got folks in our church who will tell you, “Yeah, that’s what they taught us.”

It’s, “We got God up here in the box, we get Him out, move Him around, we consecrate Him and there’s the living presence of Jesus Christ in our midst.”

When they say we’re just a glorified Bible study, I say, “Yeah, that’s right except we’ve got God in our midst IN US.” They’ve got a false god in a box that they bring out.

We’re the manifestation of the life of God on the stage of human history—if you’re going to have an influence on the culture, you’ve got to have that and that’s how you have it; through that influence in the spiritual battle that’s out there.

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You ever hear that song “He Lives”? It goes, “He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.”

Talk to someone about their Bahai faith and they say, “I know it’s true because I can feel it in my heart.”

That’s just a totally subjective opinion that says it’s up to you. We changed that song lyric to, “He lives because the Bible tells me so.”

You know how I know He lives? That Book tells me so. That Book tells me there were eyewitnesses. One time there were 500 who saw Him. You don’t fool a bunch like that. You’ve got historically documented evidence because the Bible tells you.

It’s got nothing to do with my heart. There’s some days in my heart I don’t feel like He lives. You say, “Oh, Brother Rick.” I say, “Phooey, the same’s on you,” and you know that. But you know what. He lives. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it.

You have to take the objective truth of what God’s Word says and say, “That’s what’s true no matter how I feel.”

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Paul makes the point in Acts 17 that God’s "made of one blood all nations of men"; there’s one humanity. That’s a strike at the heart of the basis of Athenian philosophy, which says, “We’re special.” He’s digging them.

[24] God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
[25] Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
[26] And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

Then Paul says, “Even some of your guys understand that what I’m saying is true and what I’m saying is different from what you’re saying.”

[28] For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Go to verses 30-31: [30] And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
[31] Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Paul doesn’t get away from the resurrection. Some mocked him and some said, “Go away, go away; don’t bother us”: [32] And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.

My point is, at the heart of what Paul’s doing he’s trying to engage them about the truth and you can’t shy away from that. Paul never shied away from the clarity of the gospel.

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When Paul goes out on that first journey, he sets a pattern for his ministry and what he’s going to do, and the pattern he sets is one that he follows all the way through.

You’ll see it repeated over and over throughout the Book of Acts in various contexts. He had a goal: Establishing those local churches that can then be reproduced.

The whole strategy is very simply that he’s going to establish a multiplicity of local assemblies capable of reproducing themselves and preaching the gospel all through the regions where they are and then around the world. Here, there and everywhere.

Acts 14: [19] And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.

If people want to stone you and they think you’re dead, chances are you’re probably dead. But whether he was or he wasn’t, the next verse says: [20] Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.

When you get beat up, you don’t just jump up. So, there’s a miracle that takes place and Paul came into the city.

Wait a minute! He went right back to where they just tried to bump him off! That’s playing the man.

[21] And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch,
[22] Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

We call that evangelism. Evangelism is a campaign that Paul has in his ministry that’s at the heart of what he does.

Now, he doesn’t go to the hinterlands; he goes to strategic population centers. In missionary efforts in the 1800s, when missions got going, the strategy was, “Go to the countryside, win some people and eventually penetrate the cities.” That’s the opposite of the way Paul did it.