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Anytime you feel disappointed in yourself, you’ve had an identity crisis.  Perhaps you showed up late, let a friend down, lost your temper with your spouse and left saying, “Why did I do that?  That’s not the person I am, that’s not the person I want to be, that’s not the standard I have set for myself.”  You’ve had an identity crisis because who you are and who you want to be did not match up with your actions.  Sometimes if left unchecked this will lead us to a new and disappointing identity, “I’m not good at anything, I’ll never be the person I want.”

I think one of the names that come to mind when we talk about an identity crisis is Michael Phelps.  Yet, in his recent interviews it seems that he is surrendered to the fallout of this choice and is determined to stay the course.  Peter has a series of identity crises in the scripture and yet there is one characteristic that keeps him on top and that characteristic is surrender.  Peter led a life of surrender and it’s what kept his identity intact and grew him through these challenges.

1.       Worship

• Peter’s confidences in traditions get in the Way in Acts 10:9-16.  He is worshiping a God he has made in his own image – a God more concerned about rule than relationship.
• The greatest challenge to worship is our understanding of God.  We think we have God figured out and worship the God we know.  Worship is a process of discovery, it is where we empty ourselves of everything and allow God to lift us up to his perspective showing us new things about who he is.
• Throughout history this is the greatest challenge to worship – a false assumption that we have God figured out.
  • Cain & Abel, in Genesis 4, we see Abel worshiped God with sacrifices pleasing to God.  Cain however thought he knew better and thought he could get away with it.  Cain was worshiping a God in his own image.
  • Aaron’s sons worship a god they thought was indifferent and it cost them their lives (Leviticus 10:1).
  • the Pharisees worshiped a god they thought they knew and crucified Jesus.
  • Jesus’ tells a parable (Luke 18) of a Pharisee and a Tax Collector, the Pharisee thought he knew what God wanted and left the same.  The Tax Collector came – seeking to be known and left changed.
• Peter in this passage lacked worship that lifted him out of this and into a new perspective, God’s perspective.
  • When we don’t get worship right it affects every other relationship in our life.  Here it almost prevented Peter from evangelizing to the Gentiles.
  • Romans 1:21-25 tells us what happens to people who worship God in their own image.
  • We need to let God be God and surrender to God’s Spirit moving us in new and exciting ways.

2.       Fellowship

• Peter’s own agenda gets in the way in Galatians 2:11-14.  He had been the first to welcome the gentiles into the fold, but gets stuck.  Paul’s correction that restores him.
• The greatest challenge to fellowship is “me centeredness” “selfishness” maybe the second challenge is “you centeredness.”  Truth be told in fellowship we value us, not me – not you – us.  Because we are the body, I need you and you need me in order to be we – to be the body.
• We get too caught up in what I am getting from church and what they think.  We need to be concerned that together as a body we are growing.  Sometimes music on Sunday doesn’t suit me, or the sermon doesn’t connect.  That doesn’t mean we give up – we pray that the music is blessing our neighbor and that the sermon is touching someone’s life.
• Paul challenged him, called him out and we know he heard Paul.  In 2 Peter 3:15-16 we see that Peter puts Paul’s letters on the same plain as scripture.  This makes it clear that Peter has a positive and restored view of Paul.
• If we would live among each other with true repentance we could weather the storms that will surely come our way.  The challenge is to surrender to each other.  Be open to correction, both in receiving and giving.

3.       Evangelism

• I think the greatest present day challenge to evangelism is fear.  We are afraid to share the gospel, for fear that it will adversely affect our relationships.  Peter’s fear get in the way in Matthews 26:69-75.  In Matthew 26:33 Peter was all too eager to die for Christ, what happened?  His old identity and fear snuck back.
• Jesus love restores him, John 21.15-19.  And it’s God’s love that moves us beyond the fear of evangelism.
• 1 John 4:18, “Perfect love casts out fear.”  When we have our hearts filled with God’s love we will charge into any opportunity to share the gospel.  Be surrendered to love, let God’s love so fill you and move you that you have no time or room for fear.

4.       Compassion

• The greatest challenge to true compassion is our self ambition.  Peter’s ambition and desire for greatness get in the way in Matthew 16:22.
• He gets it right in Matthew 16:13-20 – what happens?  He’s been told he’ll be the foundation for the church and envisions greatness and power – yet Jesus is talking sacrifice.
• Compassion is when we look the most like Christ. Look to Jesus’ example.  It’s not giving a quarter it’s inviting the broken in and waiting with them for kingdom of God.  Drawing the broken to us does not advance our goals, but we must take up the cross for it’s in compassionate sacrifice that we most closely resemble Christ.
• The key to compassion is surrender – surrender to God, to Christ’s example and surrender to the Jesus we meet in the broken.

Surrender is the key to surviving an identity challenge.  Whether it’s surrender to God or each other.  Surrender is how we have a church filled with grace!  Surrender is what moves me beyond “ME” and into relationships.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”                                 – Matthew 16:24-26

Jude Gann who wrote several of our devotionals in the workbook shares in her entry this week,

“Oh, God, we have met the broken and they are us!  To presume that “the broken” are only those who are homeless, hungry, addicted, abused, or in prison is self-righteous pride demonstrated by the prayer of the Pharisee. (Luke 18:11)  We are all “broken.”  If we were not, there would be no need for redemption or healing.  We each live with our own personal version of “broken.”  You (they) are just broken in a different place than I am.”

Christ’s inaugural address reveals his heart for the broken.  We can’t dismiss it or spiritualize it – we must accept – this is our mission.

We see in Isaiah a moving verse that tells us by his stripes we are healed. Through Christ’s brokenness we are made whole, through the emptying of Christ we are filled.  We minister to the broken from our own brokenness. This is the meaning of compassion, it’s not pity that we would regard others as less.  Or charity that we would give to them out of some philosophical motive, it’s compassion – meeting a person with love expressed in practical means.

1. Ensure that the broken are given justice (Exodus 23:3,6; James 2:6)

• Exodus 23:2-3, “You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing; when you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice; 3 nor shall you be partial to the poor in a lawsuit.”
• Exodus commands the Israelites to not side with the majority nor oppress the poor in a lawsuit.  I’m afraid that mob rule and mob justice still exist today – I’m particularly afraid that we call those mobs political parties.
• If you flip over to James he reminds us that it is frequently those who have that take advantage of those who have not.  I’ll tell you if you drove here today in a car – you’re loaded when it comes to the world.  We need to be aware as a church and as a nation that there is a broken world in need of help.
• We must tread lightly on this, as neither money nor the possession of it is evil.  It is the desire and the lust for money that drives us to evil.  It is the power money brings that corrupts us.

2. Ensure that the broken are provided for physically.

• Exodus 23:10-12, “10 For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. 12 Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.”
• This verse teaches us that we cannot let the wheels of commerce or progress or industry run over people.  I think in this climate of recent job loss and unemployment rates rising nationally we can see to some extent people being ground up in commerce.  I’m afraid as we look at the downturn in numbers we lose sight of the human cost associated with this.
• James goes a step further saying not only, “Don’t grind people up in your pursuit of more, but also help those who have been run over by commerce.”  James 2:15-16, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”
• It’s hard to do this well – the cycle of poverty is extremely difficult to break.  A pastor friend of mine and his church recently adopted a family.  They came across this family of a husband, wife and three kids after the husband had been in an accident and lost his job.  They were about to lose their home when the church bought them a place to live in.  He couldn’t get to work because his car had been totaled so they bought him a car.  They helped him find a job.  All of these things were essential links in the cycle of poverty.  No car no job, no job no car.  How do you break that?  They could have offered a ride, could have provided alternative living arrangements .  But they didn’t stop and say – “We’ve done enough.”  When they could and needed to do more.

3. Ensure that the broken are treated fairly.

• Deuteronomy 24:15, “You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt.”
• You take this verse and hold it in tension with 2 Thessalonians 3:8-10, “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, 8 and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. 9 This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”
• This is how we attempt to maintain this hard balance.  We in church leadership struggle with this every time someone comes to us for assistance.  How do you help the needy, but not enable dependency?  Sometimes we have to be creative in this.  I’ve even fielded calls for assistance many times I can weed out the dependent by offering to “pay” them for a few hours of work.
• euteronomy makes it clear that when the poor cry out, God listens.  This is why the broken and God on the same plain?  James 5:4, “Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.”
• We know from this verse that when we treat the poor harshly, God deals with us harshly.  We know from Matthew 25 that whatever we do to bless the broken we do to God!
• Jesus healed and fed – expecting nothing in return.  He healed people because they were sick, not because they were good.  He fed the hungry, because they were hungry.  We feed and care because people are broken and hungry.  We pray that we could help fill their spiritual hunger, but if not we will work to care for their physical hunger.  We do this simply because it glorifies God.
• Proverbs 14:31, “Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him.”

4. Ensure that this starts in our “home.”

• 1 Timothy 5:8, “And whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
• All of this is great until you try to start and you realize you can’t save the world at least alone.  So today I’m announcing that we will be starting a food drive to keep us thinking about this in the months to come.
• It’s not just money, remember my last call to cut limbs.  Let us know what you can help with and should the need arise we’ll contact you.  Let’s put it on file and act when you’re needed.
• Ralize that the place we start is here – we must care for each other.  When we start to practice this among our own, we truly begin to see who is “ours” and who we must care for, we learn as Jesus taught, “Who is my neighbor?”  It’s anyone we meet in need.

The term “puritanical” today means overly zealous, legalistic, prudish.  But, the puritan understanding of evangelism was beautiful.  They wanted above all else a devout community that shined it’s light.  John Winthrop was the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and outlines their understanding or their mission statement in a work titled, “A Model of Christian Charity,” likely preached in part aboard the ship Arbella that took them to the new world.

“Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.”

Nothing about evangelism yet, but we see that their understanding of evangelism started with a church practicing Christian love.  Last week we talked about the church and our relationship with the church.  We talked about the defining characteristics of the church and defining characteristics of it.  When the church is the church the world takes notice.

1. My life is obvious. (5:14)

• We try to disguise this, but as soon as someone knows you’re a Christian they start making assumptions – about your values, preferences, conduct, etc.
• Transformed lives are different from the world.
  • 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
  • Jesus says it best in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world, a city on a hill cannot be hid.”  If you’ve ever gone driving at night you know this is true, cities can not be hid, the light shines and is shone all over.  We are those lights, together we make up a city on a hill shining light to the world.  We call this our witness.
  • John Winthrop understood this and sought to be different by being separate, forming a new witnessing fellowship by forming a pure church.  He continues in his thesis, “We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.”
• Transformed lives by nature bring hope or despair to others.
  • When you fly into LA during the day you are overwhelmed by the smog, the brown cloud this serves as a lens for viewing the entire city.  When you fly into LA at night its completely different, lights everywhere and they all shine beautifully.  Regardless, it’s the same city.  As Christians we are the same on the inside, the question is how are we revealing Christ to the world?
  • Philippians 1:27, “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.”
  • John Winthrop understood this and wanted to bring hope when he said, “May the Lord make it like in New England.”  May that be our heartfelt prayer, that we would be a model community that churches pray, “May the Lord make it like at BGCC.”
  • Yet the puritans in their heavy handedness and lack of grace drove many including Roger Williams away, to form their own community in Rhode Island. You see a believer’s life will bring either hope or despair.  For 2,000 years Christianity has claimed to have the best answers to life’s toughest questions, but when Christians go out and live lives with stupid choices the world stops, looks, shakes it’s head and says, “Apparently this is it, there is nothing better.”  What hope do our lives’ bring when they look no different?

2. My witness is necessary (5:15-16)

• The world has no hope outside of Christ.
  • John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
  • I think that we have lost our sense of urgency in our sensitive and tolerant culture.  We have thought that Christianity is a way of life instead of the way to life.
  • William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, “‘Not called!’ did you say?  ’Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
• God’s witness outside of “me” is ineffective to save! (Romans 1:19-20)
  • Creation shows God’s presence, not his plan.  Creation serves to start a conversation, not end it.  Creation is there proclaiming God’s existence, but not the way to God.
  • God must use “Me” to reach his people!
    • Romans 10:14, “But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?”
    • We believe, I believe in lifestyle evangelism, but there comes a time for words.  So few people live so intentionally that others will ask questions, it’s not apparent by the way you pour coffee or make copies that you’re a Christian.
    • We keep the world at arm’s length and think to ourselves that if I live a good enough life then those who come in contact with me will catch salvation.  Salvation is not a cold!
    • How can we live a lifestyle of evangelism if we have not invited others into relationship with us?  So much of what causes questions are the internal struggles.  How do you have hope after loss?  How do you treat people?
  • People must go through “Me” to reach God!
    • This is the flip side of the priestly equation we live in, if God must use me to get to the world, then the world must use me to get to God.  While God can certainly meet someone in any way he would like, there is no occurrence of someone entering into a saving relationship with Jesus outside of another Christian.
    • Even Paul who is knocked off his horse by Jesus himself is told to go to Ananias to receive the full truth about God. (Acts 9)

As we progress through exploring our mission we’ll be looking at evangelism this Sunday. We started by exploring our responsibilities of fellowship in the church and this Sunday we’ll be looking at the church’s responsibility of evangelism to the world.  There is a purpose to our order because if the church acts like the church, then the world takes notice. John Winthrop was a great thinker in the puritanical movement and while the puritans can hardly be held up as a model of practice their thought at its inception was beautiful.  Wintrhop’s essay below is thought to have been preached at least in part aboard the Arbella the ship which brought the puritans to America.  Before they stepped foot in the new world they understood their grand experiment in being the church and a witness in the world.  While the whole essay is worth reading I’ve included an excerpt below (a sneak peek from Sunday).

Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.”

- From “A Model Of Christian Charity,” by John Winthrop (1630)  (Full text available here)