Author: Jefferson Vann

Colossians 2:1-7 ESV
“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. 6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Christ saved Paul by grace on the Damascus road also called him to a life of continuous activity.

Paul became one of those early Christians whose constant effort led to overturning the known world.

When we turn to the epistles (letters written by Paul to the churches he planted and coworkers he sent) we find Paul constantly encouraging believers to work just as hard as he did.

The casual reader of an English translation of the New Testament can often miss when Paul is emphasizing this fact. This is due to the fact that English translations do not accurately translate a particular grammatical structure that is found throughout Paul’s writings. It is called a Present Active Imperative, and translates as a call to continuous action.

Walking is a metaphor for how we live your lives. Here Paul is saying that it is not enough just to accept Jesus as our Savior. We have to live our lives according to the reality that we are now saved by Him.
This command was important for the Colossians because false teaching was beginning to spread throughout the churches. That false teaching implied that getting saved was OK, but in order to really impress God with your spirituality, to get on God’s good side, and to open the door for supernatural power, believers needed to add something else besides faith in God’s grace.

Having grown up as a legalist, Paul recognized that these prohibitions were not from God. The gospel is supposed to set us free. Paul is telling them not to get sidetracked by legalism.

The first century Colossians are not the only ones who are tempted to replace the gospel of grace with a law code. Whenever we as Christians today define our Christianity by what we do not do, we are in danger of doing the same thing. I think that the reason much of the modern world has rejected Christianity is that we have fallen into the same trap.

Paul wanted the hearts of the Colossians to be encouraged. One of the first signs of depression is that you stop doing things that you are used to doing. Paul wanted to spur the Colossians on to keep on living the life of children of God. It is easy to give up when you fail to see regular signs that what you are doing is accomplishing something.

Now, here is a key to this whole idea of continuous activity. Keep obeying God, and he will eventually bless what you are doing. Stop obeying God and the power flow will eventually cease. When the power flow ceases, discouragement is the result.

That is where the Colossians were at. They were discouraged because they had rested on the fact that they were saved, and failed to keep on living that salvation.

I cannot help but believe that many in our churches today are in the same place. The solution is to live our lives by faith in the same grace that saved us. People who live those kinds of lives are obedient to Christ. This may sound like a contradiction but it is not. Grace and obedience are not opposites. A life lived by grace is one of continuous activity!

I keep hearing the same complaint from many churches: “we are not united.” Paul gave this command in order that the Colossians might be “drawn together in love” (2).

This tells me that we are not going to be unified if we only try to come together doctrinally. There are always going to be differences in how we understand God’s truth – even if we all agree that that truth comes from the Bible. Unity is going to happen when we all start obeying the same truth.

Notice how Jesus prayed to the Father for the Church’s unity:

John 17:23 “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

How are we going to demonstrate that God loves us in the same way as He loves Christ? We will do this when we live the life that Jesus lived. Our unity needs to be one of action, not just words.

How can we be sure that our activity is the right kind of activity?

First, everything we do must be something Christ would do. Our actions must be rooted and built up in him. A good way of insuring that we stay in him is intentionally learning his specific commands.

Second, must must not do anything that contradicts what we profess. Our actions need to be established in the faith. When the Bible talks about “the faith” it is referring to what we believe and teach. That’s why Paul adds the phrase “just as you were taught.”

Third, Paul adds that we should abound in thanksgiving. He didn’t say that we had to be successful in everything we try to do. He didn’t even say that it has to cost a lot of money. He just reminds us that it doesn’t hurt to be grateful, to thank the Lord while we keep on walking.

God has planned for Christ to live his life through us. When we do nothing, we fail to demonstrate Christ’s life.

As we keep on walking in Christ, what God has revealed about him is going to become more and more real to us. Paul likens it to a treasure storehouse. The more we walk through the storehouse, the more treasures we see.

I believe the way this process works is this: God has revealed what he wants us to do by his new covenant commands found in the New Testament. To the extent that we continuously obey those commands, God is going to keep giving us glimpses of his plan for our lives.

Obedience to the commands that we know can guard us against being deceived about those matters in which we do not know.

Satan has a number of weapons that he uses against believers, and one of them is deception. Paul said that he “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). If he showed up like in the cartoons, with the red pajamas and pitchfork, we would always know it was him. But he enters into our conversations around the dinner table. He inserts himself into a television news broadcast.

How can we keep ourselves from being deceived by Satan’s “false arguments?” First, stay in the word of God. Regular Bible reading can keep you from counterfeit doctrine just like being familiar with real money can keep you from accepting counterfeit cash.

But another way of avoiding deception is staying busy doing what you know for sure is God’s will. When the believer stays continuously active, living the life of Christ, he has no time for doctrines of demons.

What we need in this world today is Christians who dare to live like Christians, and keep on living like Christians until they change their communities, counties, states, and nations.
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LORD, help us to learn how to keep on walking in you, so that you can use us to transform the places where we walk. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Galatians 1:11-24 ESV

11 For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. 12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 14 And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. 18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. 19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. 20 (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!) 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they glorified God because of me.

Paul and his team of missionaries had made it their mission to spread the message of the Gospel to the region of Galatia.
We saw that Paul had defined that message as the fact that the Lord Jesus gave himself for our sins (1:4).
We also saw that some people (whom Paul called the troublers) had come into the Galatian churches and tried to substitute a different message. That message was a distorted one, and if the Galatians followed it, they would be deserting the true faith.
This week’s section explains why the true Gospel is “not man’s gospel” and why that is so important.

Paul had already said that his missionary calling was not “from men nor through man(1:1). He had also made it clear that no man was his master, because he was not serving man, nor trying to please man (1:10).
Now he is making it clear that his message (the gospel) is not an evolved Judaism. It is not “based on human reasoning” (1:11). He did not follow “a human example” (3:15).
Instead, the message came by direct revelation (1:12). The story of how Christ first revealed himself to Paul is found several times in the book of Acts.

We get a glimpse into the nature of that revelation by studying the theology that Paul presents in his letters to the churches.
Perhaps one of the most revealing texts that show us the content of the revelation that Paul received is Eph. 1:15-23. Here Paul is praying that the Ephesians would receive a revelation as well.
There are two things that Paul prayed for the Ephesians to receive: an awareness of their future destiny (their HOPE); and an awareness of their present possession (God’s POWER available to them).
The gospel message focuses on both of these realities.

Paul also argues in today’s text that the gospel is not man’s gospel because of what motivates people to share it. Paul used himself as an example. He said that when God first revealed Christ to him, he did not immediately consult with anyone (1:16).
Instead, Paul took a break. He went to Arabia, and meditated for a while. He wanted to make sure that his experience was real, so he gave God time to explain it to him.
By the end of that three year experience Paul was confident that he had been set apart to preach Christ to the Gentiles.

He uses language similar to that used by the prophets of old. They were convinced that God exists, and that he has something to say to his people, and that he brought them into existence specifically for the purpose of saying what God wanted to say.
There were plenty of false prophets around during their time who would say what man wanted to hear. But the true prophets had to be true to their calling.
Jesus commands us to “”Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” Mark 16:15. That is our calling.

Paul also argues in today’s text that the gospel is not man’s gospel because what it produces is different. It has a different fruit.
The false gospels of this world revolve around who you are, and how you can be different from everyone else. The true gospel says that God has accepted you just as you are.
Once Paul got over who he was and was willing to let Jesus shine through him, he was then allowed to visit the other apostles, and have true fellowship with them.

Gospel fellowship is defined well by this statement, found in Gal. 2:9.

Gospel Fellowship recognizes that God’s grace has apportioned gifts to every believer, and honors each believer’s distinctive calling.

Gospel Fellowship accepts every believer and encourages each to work together to make disciples for Christ.

The true Gospel is “not man’s gospel.” It didn’t originate with human tradition. It ignites within us a sense of separation and a holy calling. It results in a fellowship based on acceptance and encouragement.
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Heavenly Father,
Help us to escape human traditions long enough to get a clear focus on the gospel message. May our hearts beat to the tune of the good news of what Jesus did for us (that no man could do), the destiny that awaits us (that no man can imagine), and the power that is available to us (that no man can resist).

“This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any
group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ
himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.
2 All the brothers and sisters here join me in sending this letter to
the churches of Galatia 3 May God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. 4 Jesus gave his life
for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue
us from this evil world in which we live. 5 All glory to God
forever and ever! Amen. 6 I am shocked that you are turning
away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the
loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that
pretends to be the Good News 7 but is not the Good News at
all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth
concerning Christ. 8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us
or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of
Good News than the one we preached to you. 9 I say again what
we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News
than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed.
10 Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of
God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s
servant.” (NLT)

The book of Galatians presents one of the most profound expressions of the gospel message. Paul says that Jesus gave himself for our sins.

Paul had told the Corinthians that Christ died for our sins, and he wanted the Galatians to know that his death was his willing choice.

Jesus had said that he came to give his life as a ransom for many.

Paul told the Romans that Christ was delivered up because we had sinned and he was raised because his death accomplished our justification.

Galatians also points out that the death of Christ will deliver us not only from a future hell, but also from this present evil age.

He told the Ephesians that they had been delivered from “following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

John had warned that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” but the good news is that “we are from God” because of what Jesus did on the cross.

Galatians also reminds us that Paul was not alone in the mission that God called him to. He had a team of missionaries and supporters with him. This is why he introduced the book by saying “Paul… and all the brothers who are with me.”

Apparently, sometimes those brothers even assist Paul in writing his letters, like Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians, and Timothy in 2 Corinthians.

But usually the associates are listed without naming them specifically, like here and in Philippians 4, where Paul just says “the brother who are with me greet you.”
The list of men and women who were associates of Paul is quite extensive.

Their goal was to spread the kingdom of God by preaching the gospel and establishing churches throughout the lands of the Gentiles, which included the region of Galatia.
Paul was the leading apostle. This explains why his authority was accepted by the Galatian churches when he directed them to establish an offering to benefit the believers in Jerusalem.

Paul had to endure a great deal of suffering, mistreatment and hardships , but he said it was all worth it for the mission’s sake.

But Galatians reveals a major malfunction that threatened to undo all of the work of Paul and his mission team: some “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Paul called the troublers) had come into the Galatian churches, and were teaching a distorted gospel.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul had called them false apostles, and said that they disguise themselves as apostle of Christ. They taught that Christians needed to identify themselves the same way the Jews did: circumcision, diet, separation from the Gentiles.

The troublers had come from the Jerusalem Church, but not with the approval of the apostles or elders.

Jesus had warned that there would be false prophets, and he had said that we shall know them by their fruit. The fruit of the troublers was that many were deserting the church.

This is how it took place:

First, the troublers were trying to please men. That is, they were trying to accommodate the Jews. The Jews normally respected Gentiles who respected them, but NOT those who followed Christ. People who followed the teaching of the troublers would clash with the Jewish community.

Second, Paul pronounced a curse upon the troublers. Those who followed their teachings would be effected by the same curse.

Eventually, all those who had accepted the false gospel would desert the faith.

You have probably never thought to yourself, “man, I wish I could be circumcised.” So you might be wondering if the message of Galatians is as important today as it was when Paul and the brothers wrote it.

The problem with the troublers was not that they were trying to make the Christians more Jewish. They were trying to make the Christians non-Christians. They sought to accommodate the church to the world around them.

The message of Galatians is that believers should find our distinctiveness in Christ and the gospel of forgiveness through his sacrifice.

Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Revelation 7:9-10 “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Making Disciples
This message is part of a series of “how-to” messages built around the three most important commands of scripture: the commands that I call the foundations of life and ministry.

The first command is what Jesus called the greatest commandment: that we should love God with all of who we are: our heart and soul and might. This command is found in Deuteronomy 6:5, and is repeated by Jesus in Matthew 22:37-38. This command motivates our relationship with the LORD, and our ministry to Him, including personal and corporate Bible study, prayer, and worship.

The second command is what Jesus called the second greatest commandment, that we should love our neighbors in the same way as we love ourselves. This command motivates our relationship with our neighbors. Neighbors as the Bible defines them include everyone on the planet, especially those that need our love, and those whose path we cross so that we have opportunity to express God’s love to them. This command is found in Leviticus 19:18, and is repeated by Jesus in Matthew 22:39.

The third most important command is what we usually call the Great Commission. It is one of the texts that we read for today’s message:

Matthew 28:19 “… make disciples of all nations,…

The reasons this command is important enough to “make the top three” are as follows:

1.God has always desired to bring all the nations back to himself, and this is the means by which he has chosen to do it.

Bear in mind that the original Greek word for nations signifies an ethnic, cultural or linguistic people group, not simply a political entity. Our churches should look more like soccer teams, which are usually multi-ethnic.

2.Jesus showed us how to obey all three of the greatest commands: he showed us how to love God, how to love our neighbor, and he was the first to make disciples like this.

3.One of the reasons that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit for all believers is that he can empower us to fulfill this commandment.

Luke 24:47-49 “… repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The book of Acts records how the gospel spread throughout the known world during the first century A.D. The book is called the Acts of the Apostles. It has also been called the Acts of the Holy Spirit. I call it Obedience in Action because it is a record of the early Church’s obedience to this foundational command.

It’s not hard to explain why Jesus’ disciples – who had seen him ascend to heaven – would be so motivated to make disciples among all nations. After all, they didn’t know that the task would still be undone after two millenniums. They probably thought that if they worked as hard as they could to reach the world with the gospel – they would get to see Jesus again in their lifetime.
Nowadays we know better. We know that – chances are – we could spend our last dime, and our last breath on world missions, and still not be any closer to the second coming.

God’s timing is just that way. Peter says that a thousand years is like one day with God (2 Pet. 3:8). That means that if I’m really strong and live to be 100 years old, my entire lifetime is like less than the time we will spend in church today. So, even if we are “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12) it still will probably not come in our lifetime.

So, why should we bother reaching the world for Christ today? Why should we bother reaching our neighborhood or our nation? Why should we care about those strangers so far away?

Here are four reasons why 21st century believers should keep on making disciples for Christ.

First, Love Motivates us to Reach the Nations for Christ.

Anyone who sincerely seeks to love God, and to love his neighbor, will naturally proceed to put the two together. After all if I really love God, I will want to share him with those who do not know him. And if I really love my neighbor in the same way that I love myself, I will want that neighbor to enjoy all the good things I enjoy, especially my relationship with God which is the source of all those good things.

Also, it is ridiculous to say that we love someone, while we are ignoring their greatest need. Love seeks someone’s welfare. The Good Samaritan expressed love for a Jew, who was a foreigner to him. Jesus told that story because someone wanted to know who was their neighbor. The point of the story was that love does not limit itself geographically, politically, or racially. Love looks for a need and seeks to fill that need. The greatest need that the nations have today is not terrorism or global warming. The greatest need the world has is that billions are living without the hope of eternal life.

Now, just how much do we love the people with the greatest need? A study recently published in Mission Frontiers magazine divides the world’s population into people groups. It found that “Only an estimated 10,000 of the global foreign mission force are working within the 10,000 unreached groups, while 41 times that number of foreign missionaries continue to work within people groups already reached.”1 This tells me that even though we are sending and supporting missionaries, we are still not expressing our love to the neighbors who are so different from us. Like the Levite and the priest in the Good Samaritan story we have our own little communities that we choose to express love to.

But when we choose to only love those who are close at hand, we are not expressing God’s kind of love. Remember that God loved us when we were separated from Him by the curse!

Romans 5:7-8 “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God’s love is unconditional. If he had decided to only love those who deserve it – those who are like Him – we would all still be lost. True love is like that. It gets out of its comfort zone and invests itself in the beloved. When Jesus gave the Great Commission to his Church, he assumed that we would invest ourselves in the nations. That is messy, because it involves going to strange places, and learning to live in strange cultures, adapting to strange cultures, and loving strange people incarnationally, the way Jesus did.

One of the best complements that I received when I was leaving the Philippines came from one of my former students, who is now a pastor. He simply said, “thank you for your investment.” That meant a lot to me, because I know he is sincere in thanking me for caring enough to spend the last thirteen years preparing him and others like him to serve the Lord. He recognized that he was a different person because of the investment of the faculty of Oro Bible College.

True love dares to believe that time, efforts, and resources invested in the lives of others is worth it. World evangelism and discipleship are manifestations of God’s love for the nations. God gives us the opportunity to love the nations that he loves. He allows us to love the world in the same way that he did. He loved the world and sent his Son to prove it. In the same way, we can go, or send, or support missionaries through prayer and money to manifest his love to the nations.

Secondly, Obedience Demands that we Evangelize and Instruct the Nations.

There is only one command in the Great Commission: MAKE DISCIPLES. But there are two specific means by which we carry out that command. In other words, obeying the Great Commission requires that we accomplish two specific tasks. If we accomplish neither of those tasks, we will not make disciples. We will have not been obedient at all. If we only accomplish one of the tasks, we have not made disciples. We will have not yet been completely obedient.

Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”

Circle the words “make disciples.” That is the command, the imperative case in Greek. Now underline the word “baptizing” in verse 19. That is what is called an adverbial participle of means in Greek. In other words, that is one of the means by which the persons commanded (that’s us) can obey the command.

But what does it mean to baptize? There was only one person in the New Testament called the Baptizer. His name was John. He led the people of Israel into a new and authentic relationship with God. The sign of that new relationship was baptism. The Israelites repented and turned to God, and testified to that new relationship with God by being baptized in water.

John was doing the work of an evangelist. The role of baptizing in obedience to the Great Commission to MAKE DISCIPLES is winning people to Christ – making converts. Therefore obedience demands that we evangelize the lost in every nation. God accomplished that for the Israelites by sending John to lead his own people back to himself. Likewise, we can be obedient to the Great Commission by sending people – not just books, or money to specifically target the lost with the gospel of salvation.

But that is not all there is to obeying the Great Commission.

Matthew 28:20 “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Underline the word “teaching.” That is another adverbial participle of means. It is the second stage in the disciple-making process. If we do not teach people to obey the commands of Christ, we have not discipled them. It is not enough to make converts -people who want to do God’s will. We must teach them how, because being a disciple is doing God’s will.

A few years ago, I did a Bible study on all the commands of Christ. I found hundreds of commands, and all of them are just as relevant today as they were when Jesus first commanded them. I also found that many of those very things that Jesus commanded are seldom even mentioned in our pulpits today. I was challenged to focus my teaching on the things that Jesus focused on. You see, it is not just teaching in general that Jesus commanded. He did not say “teach them anything you want,” or “teach them whatever you think they need.” He commanded us to keep teaching the things that he had taught his disciples.

So, obeying the Great Commission is not over when we have planted churches and established church conferences in the nations of the world. We must ensure that those new converts and churches are firmly grounded in God’s word, and equipped to continue the disciple-making process themselves. That is where Bible colleges, like OBC, and other training programs come in. They can be tools by which we finish the task, and train the next generation to be obedient to the whole Great Commission.

Thirdly, Victory is Assured because Missions is God’s Will.

I draw your attention now to today’s second passage, from Revelation 7.

Revelation 7:9-10 “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

The apostle John sees a vision of the end result of the Great Commission. This great multitude which no one can number is all believers of all time. If you are a disciple of Christ, you are in the picture. But it is not just you, it’s your children and grandchildren, if they are in the Lord.

It is important to know why Jesus revealed this picture to John. It is like the answers in the back of the textbook. It’s good to know that there are answers in the back of the book, otherwise we might get overwhelmed with the problem. If we get stumped, we can always check the answer key in the back.

Here was the problem for John. Earlier in the vision he had seen 144,000 Jews. I believe these were the Jews who came to Christ at Pentecost and the generations that followed them in obeying the Great Commission up until the time when John received the vision. Many of them gave their lives for the gospel. That was the problem. John’s vision was encouragement for those still struggling to obey Christ’s Great Commission. It let them know that God’s plan was being, and was going to be fulfilled.

If you want to be on the winning team, get on the Great Commission team, because victory is certain. When we invest ourselves in doing God’s will, his victory is ours.

Finally, Every Christian should be Involved in the Task of World Missions.

Jesus gave the Great Commission to the eleven, who at that time represented every disciple he had. I believe he did it that way so we could not rely on the professional clergy to do the task of discipling for us. Don’t get me wrong: I believe in professional clergy. In fact, I am one. But a more biblical term for us would be equipping ministry.

Ephesians 4:11-12 “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry”

The reason for the professional clergy is to train all the saints for the work of ministry. Ministry is the work of all the saints. To put it in Great Commission terms, the equipping ministry trains the evangelists and the teachers. The church is the venue for that training. The goal is to make disciples of all nations.

We can divide the work of ministry into the three categories as well. There are ministries which are primarily ministries of love to the Lord: devotions, bible study, praise and thanksgiving prayer, meditation on the word, memorizing the bible, and personal and corporate worship. There are ministries which are primarily ministries to our neighbors: helping the needy, intercessory and supplication prayer, visiting and assisting the sick and shut-in, giving to various needs, emergency relief work, and some kinds of missions work, for example. There are ministries which are primarily discipling ministries: Bible studies, evangelistic events, outreaches to specific groups, and short and long term missions, to name a few.

Remember the three great commandments: love God, love your neighbor, and make disciples. God blesses those whose foundations are sure: who put the first things first.

I have had a little opportunity to “spy” on this country in the past few weeks. One of the things I have found out through the internet is that some New Zealanders are not happy with the flag. I think the chief complaint is that the flag is not distinctive enough, because it is similar to so many other flags. Some of the suggested alternatives feature the color black prominently, or a large while stripe to represent a cloud, or a kiwi bird, or a silver fern, or some maori design.

I’m not suggesting that you should change your flag, but I can understand the need to identify yourselves clearly among the nations of the world. The Bible says that the way Christians identify themselves is by obeying Christ’s commands:

NIV 1 John 2:3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.

This message is part of a series of “how-to” messages built around the three most important commands of scripture: the commands that I call the foundations of life and ministry.

The first command is what Jesus called the greatest commandment: that we should love God with all of who we are: our heart and soul and might. This command is found in Deuteronomy 6:5.

Deuteronomy 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

The command is repeated by Jesus in Matthew 22:37-38.

Matthew 22:37-38 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

This command motivates our relationship with the LORD, and our ministry to Him, including personal and corporate Bible study, prayer, and worship.

The second command is what Jesus called the second greatest commandment, that we should love our neighbors in the same way as we love ourselves. This command motivates our relationship with our neighbors. Neighbors as the Bible defines them include everyone on the planet, especially those that need our love, and those whose path we cross so that we have opportunity to express God’s love to them. This command is found in Leviticus 19:18.

Leviticus 19:18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

It is repeated by Jesus in Matthew 22:39.

Matthew 22:39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But the best place to study just what it means to love our neighbors is the story Jesus told to answer that question. It is the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Luke 10:30-37 ESV
30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Excuses That Keep us from Loving our Neighbors.

The first thing that came to my mind when I studied this passage is how unusual this story is. It seems that Jesus went out of his way to make this story as unbelievable as possible. The main character in the story is a Samaritan. In Jesus’ day, the Samaritans were not known for being loving. The Jews avoided the Samaritans, and the Samaritans probably avoided the Jews in return. If anybody in the story were expected to be compassionate to the hurting, it would have been the priest or the Levite. So one of the things that this story communicates is that there are a number of excuses that can prevent us from loving our neighbors.

First, there is the excuse of jurisdiction. Imagine being in a restaurant, ordering a nice bowl of soup, then the waiter leaves before you realize that you haven’t got a spoon. After several minutes of waiting for your waiter to reappear, you finally spot another waiter. You ask for a spoon, but the waiter just says, “Sorry, not my table.”

I call this the excuse of jurisdiction because, when it comes to acts of love and compassion, we often create artificial limits. We narrow down the places where and the people to whom we choose to manifest God’s love. I read a book many years ago called “The Pursuit of Loneliness” which claimed that most of us spend our lives separating ourselves from other people.

It would have been very easy for the Samaritan to use the “not my table” excuse. After all, he was literally a stranger. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is not in Samaria – not even close. Surely someone else would have an easier time giving the wounded man medical help.

The reason Jesus told this story in the first place is that somebody was trying to use the excuse of jurisdiction to get away with being unloving. Luke tells us that a lawyer, ‘desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ‘ (10:29). He probably thought that this question would put Jesus in his place. After all, we can’t be expected to extend a helping hand to everyone, can we? Jesus made it clear that true love finds a need and fills it… it looks outside the box.

The second excuse the Samaritan could have used is the excuse of ethnic priority. Jesus clearly implied that the man who had been robbed and beaten was not a Samaritan. The Samaritan could have looked at the victim, assessed that he was in need, but turned away because he was “not one of my people.” He might even have reasoned with himself that if he wasted his resources and time on this stranger, what if there’s a wounded Samaritan just a few minutes up the road?

But Jesus’ story is just that more significant because the Samaritan chose to love someone who was different. His love was based on something inside of him, not something he saw in the object of his compassion. In that respect, it mirrors God’s love, because he loved us and sent his Son to die for us while we did nothing to deserve that love.

That is the kind of love that Jesus commands us to give – an impartial love that seeks out those who need it the most, whoever they are. James said “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:8-9). If our love is limited to “people like us” it does not even qualify as love. It is sin!

The third excuse the Samaritan could have used is the excuse of busyness. He could have looked at the need before him, and then at his watch (ok, I know he didn’t have a watch, but you know what I mean), and then walked away.

It is very easy to let your own busyness trap you into a routine that effectively keeps you from loving your neighbors. The priest and Levite were both probably guilty of this. The impression we get in the story is that both of these guys had some important “ministries” that would have been delayed if they stopped to render aid to the mugging victim. Or, maybe they were coming home from a long hard day at the office in Jerusalem. Either way, each man assessed that the problem before him was “not worth my time.”

Committed Christians can really get caught up in this trap as well. We want to do all we can for the Lord, and so often can fill up our schedule to such an extent that when these opportunities present themselves, we cannot seem to make room for them. Churches struggle to keep a balance between all three foundational commandments, and sometimes lose sight of this one entirely. When that happens, the churches might have great worship, devotional, and evangelism programs, but fail to reach out to the needy all around them.

The only way to avoid the busyness excuse is to make sure acts of love and compassion are built into our daily business. I’ll talk more about how to do that in a few minutes.

A fourth excuse the Samaritan could have used is the excuse of selfishness. Loving that mugging victim cost the Samaritan not only time, but also money. He would have been tempted to say, “not my stuff.” I can hear him say to himself, “Look, I’m away from home; I do not have many provisions to begin with, and if I use them up on this stranger, what’s going to happen if I need them?

We Christians are also tempted to use this excuse, but we label it stewardship. We are more comfortable thinking that our money is being reserved for “the Lord’s work.” But often that is just an excuse for holding on to what’s in our wallets.

Principles that Enable us to Love our Neighbors.

Let me briefly share a few principles implied in this text. I’m pretty sure that keeping these principles in mind will enable us as individuals and as churches to love our neighbors like this Samaritan did.

First, the principle of providence. Of all the characters in the story, it was only the Samaritan who saw the mugging victim as an opportunity instead of a liability. He was not a bystander that day. He was an emergency medical technician, and his donkey was an ambulance.

We Christians operate under the principle of providence when they see life’s trajedies and unfortunate events as opportunities for us to manifest God’s love.

Secondly, the principle of preparation. Of all the characters in the story, it was only the Samaritan who was prepared to treat and transport the man who had the need for it.

We Christians need to look for ways to love those who are being overlooked. We need to think outside the box of our own needs and plans, and anticipate the needs of others.

Our churches need to develop programs that reach out to those people that our society has forgotten. To make sure that acts of love and compassion are built into our daily business, we need to plan for them. That means providing for means of loving our neighbors when we set our annual budgets, and when we hire our church workers.

Thirdly, the principle of partnership. Of all the characters in the story, it was only the Samaritan who worked together with someone else to make sure the hurting man had a chance to recover. The innkeeper became a partner in the Samaritan’s act of kindness.

Like him, we Christians should seek ways to network with those who can help us to manifest God’s love. Those potential partners are everywhere: the government, non-government organizations, charities, hospitals, rehab centers, … everywhere that somebody is doing something for someone else.