You probably know my answer, but you may not know my reasons.
According to Catholic doctrine, the Church is absolutely necessary. The church father Cyprian declared Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus— “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” After eighteen centuries, that is still official Catholics doctrine. Pope John Paul II affirmed it. Pope Benedict XVI literally wrote the book on it. (Well, it was not a book exactly; it was a 36-page official church declaration.)
Though I would not use Cyprian’s words to stress the importance of the church, I agree that the church is important. A rich and life-transforming knowledge of Christ requires the church. I am not saying that a person needs to attend church services every week, or even attend at all. Christ can transform lives even in circumstances where church attendance is impossible, such as illness, confinement, forced isolation, etc. Nevertheless, the wise God has designed the church to be the medium in which the rich, life-transforming knowledge of Christ is imparted.
In Colossians chapter two, Paul tells believers in Colosse that he has been in a great struggle for them and their neighboring Christians in Laodicea. He struggles so that their hearts may be encouraged as they are “being knit together in love” (KJV). This, Paul knows, will lead to (εἰς in Greek) the “full riches of complete understanding” or, as other versions translate, “the full assurance of understanding,” which will in turn lead to (εἰς again) the “knowledge of the mystery of God—Christ.”
Paul’s ultimate goal is for people to have the knowledge of the mystery of God, which he sums up in one word: “Christ.” If we work backwards from Paul’s ultimate goal, we can see how he expected people to arrive there. Paul understood that the life-transforming knowledge of Christ rests upon “the full riches of complete understanding.” If Christians are to have assurance, it is crucial for them to understand their situation and their story.
I have found that few Christians have a robust understanding of their situation and their story. Without that understanding, it is hard for them to see how the Bible (or a worship service, or a sermon) relates to their lives. They lack the assurance that comes from understanding. They wonder if this is all there is to the Christian life. Other than attending church occasionally (the current norm among self-identifying Evangelicals is 1.3 times a month), their lives are nearly indistinguishable from those of their non-Christian friends.
They need “the full assurance of understanding,” but shouldn’t they already have it if they are reading the Bible and sitting under good teaching? The answer to that question is apparent in Colossians 2:2. The kind of understanding we need comes to people with encouraged hearts. People with discouraged hearts misunderstand what is going on around them. They lack awareness of God and his goodness. If people are ever going to understand the blessing they have in Christ, they need to have encouraged hearts.
As a pastor, I know how important it is for my church family to be encouraged in heart, but that seems like too big a job for me. Will my preaching, teaching, and visiting be enough to encourage our church family’s hearts? Years of preaching, teaching, and visiting suggest that the answer is no. However many sermons I may preach, or podcasts, newsletters, or magazine columns I may produce, I cannot provide the kind of encouragement that leads to understanding, assurance, and the life-transforming knowledge of Christ.
A congregation with encouraged hearts is too big a job for me or for any one of us, but not for all of us—and that is the way God designed it. Together, under the direction of God’s Spirit, we can live and thrive in an encouraged community. This is behind Paul’s goal for the churches to “be encouraged in heart and united in love.” The NIV’s addition of the conjunction “and” in this sentence is misleading, suggesting that being encouraged in heart and united in love are two separate goals. In Greek, there is a participial phrase that (translated literally) runs: “that they may be encouraged in heart, being united in love.”
In other words, peoples’ hearts are encouraged when they are united to each other in love. Being alone discourages our hearts, while being united in love encourages them. And since an encouraged heart leads to the full assurance of understanding, it is critical that our church families are united in love.
There is another thing here. The word translated “united,” like nearly all words, has a range of meanings. This word was sometimes used of marshalling (uniting) disparate facts in order to prove a point. Luke uses it in this way when he says that Saul “baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.” I am not suggesting that Paul intended the word to have that particular sense in Colossians 2. I am saying that when the hearts of a church family are united, the outside world sees powerful “proof” of the reality of God.
In today’s world (as well as yesterday’s), there are many influences working to disunite us. This is not an accident. A church that is united in love will dislodge the devil, conduct itself with assurance, convince doubters, know Christ by experience, and change the world. One of the principal goals of any church must be to unite the hearts of all her people in love. That is certainly God’s goal.
Reaching that goal will require intention and effort from the pastor, the ministry staff, the board, every Sunday School teacher, deacon, treasurer, trustee, worship leader, sound/video tech, and member. Unity is a goal that benefits all of us and requires effort from each of us. But the effort is worth it, for it leads to “the full riches of complete understanding,” which makes possible it possible for us to know “the mystery of God,” which is “Christ” himself.
Erika Kirk delivers remarks during the Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Sunday, September 21, 2025.(Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
The actor Tim Allen says that Erika Kirk inspired him to forgive the drunk driver who killed his father when he was only 11. Jimmy Kimmel says that Mrs. Kirk’s act of forgiveness deeply moved him and he wants to follow her example. Maybe we want to follow her example and forgive the people who have hurt us, but how are we supposed to do that?
We make a choice to do it. I suspect that Erika Kirk did not feel like forgiving Tyler Robinson, but she chose to do so. Forgiveness never happens by accident. It is always a choice—usually a choice that goes against the grain of our feelings. If we put off forgiveness until we feel like it, we will never forgive. We must make a choice to forgive, and we must act on it.
But what does that even mean? What are we doing when we forgive someone? Are we saying that what the other person offense didn’t really matter? Not at all. We overlook what does not matter. We forgive what does. We bear with people’s quirks and irritating ways. We forgive their sins (Colossians 3:13). Forgiveness always implies that something has taken place that really matters.
Does the offer of forgiveness indicate that we are no longer hurt or angry? It does not. I suspect the Erika Kirk will have to battle many emotional hours of anger and bitterness. Forgiveness is not a magic wand. You cannot swipe it over your anger or sorrow and make it go away. Forgiveness is more like a door. By forgiving, you open the door so that those negative emotions can leave. You cannot force them through the door, but in time they will often leave of their own accord (so to speak).
Does forgiveness require me to act like the offense never happened? Do I need to remain in functioning relationship with the offender? Do I need to trust the person, possibly exposing myself or my children to further injury?
No. Forgiving someone is not the same thing as trusting them. Once trust has been damaged, it may never be rebuilt, and even if it is, it will take time, sometimes many years.
Does forgiveness mean that I must forget what happened? Forgive and forget – isn’t that what people say? And isn’t that what God does? In the Book of Jeremiah, he promises to “remember their sins no more.” So, if I cannot forget, isn’t that proof that I have not forgiven?
God’s promise to “remember their sins no more” does not mean that he cannot remember their sin, but that he chooses not to remember. God does not have dementia. He will never put a finger to pursed lips and say, “Now, what was it that Shayne Looper did?” That is not what forgiveness means. He knows everything, including every sin I have ever committed, but he chooses not to recall them to my harm.
When we forgive, we are doing the same thing. We are choosing not to use a person’s sin against them to harm them. Does that mean, for example, that we choose not to report a crime against us, like Bishop Myriel did when he forgave Jean Valjean in Les Misérables? Not necessarily. It means that we do not recall the person’s crime because we want to harm them. But allowing someone to evade the punishment they deserve (and may need) could cause them (and others) even greater harm. In situations like this, we must do to others what we would have them do to us, were we in their position; and that requires wisdom born of much prayer.
When Erika Kirk forgave her husband’s killer, she was choosing not to harm him because of what he did to her. That includes harming him in her own mind: rehearsing the evil he has done, fantasizing his suffering, maliciously wanting his ruin, attempting to get other people to hate him, etc. Mrs. Kirk will need to stand upon the choice she has already made, for such thoughts will come. She will need our prayers.
There is another aspect to forgiveness, a potential pitfall about which we must be aware. When we forgive a person, we are not only forgiving what they did but also what they caused. The harm caused to Mrs. Kirk is myriad and lasting. Tyler Robinson took away the father of her children. She no longer has a husband to get up with the 3-year-old when she wakes from a bad dream. The one-year-old lacks a father to rock him and sing to him. When their daughter is 13, Charlie will not be there to go with her to the daddy-daughter dance. When she is 24, Charlie will not be there to walk her down the aisle.
These losses will come to Mrs. Kirk day after day, week after week, year after year. They are not going away. She must be able to forgive her husband’s killer for these things too, or a bitterness will grow in her that will eventually take over her life. The hurt the man caused was only beginning when the report of the assassin’s rifle faded. It will go on, a life-long reminder of what he took from her. And her forgiveness must also go on too, encompassing not only what her husband’s killer did but what he caused.
If this is what forgiveness entails, how can Erika Kirk – or anyone else – ever truly forgive? It would require something like superhuman strength and resolve.
That is exactly what it requires, and we are not superhuman. So, how can we forgive? To do what God calls us to do – whether in forgiveness or in other things he has commanded – we need a connection to God through which his superhuman strength can reach us. That connection is the Spirit—the Spirit that is given to everyone who believes on Jesus and confesses him Lord. In her own strength, Erika Kirk is incapable of living out the forgiveness she has offered. It is a good thing that she isn’t forced to rely on her own strength.
God’s strength, originating from outside us but flowing through us, is necessary to live out the forgiveness that Jesus commanded and modeled—forgiveness which we saw memorably expressed by a grieving widow on Sunday. To those who have been united to God through faith in Jesus Christ, he imparts his strength, enabling them to do what they could never do on their own.
I recently read through Romans again, and it was clear to me that the letter owes much of its shape and content to the difficulties that existed in the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It is possible to fix on almost any point in the letter and find some kind of reference to the Jew-Gentile relationship.
For example, in the first chapter, in the opening verses, we find reference to the Jewish Messiah, the descendent of David, giving Paul grace to call Gentiles to the obedience of faith. The very Jewish Paul longs for a harvest among the Gentiles. After acknowledging his debt both to Greeks and Barbarians, he shares his hope of making payments on this debt by preaching to the Gentiles in Rome.
Even the famous, theologically rich 16th and 17th verses, which speak of the power of the gospel, do so in the context of Jew and Gentile relations. It is a gospel that brings salvation to everyone who believes: to Jews first and now to Gentiles as well.
Chapter 2 specifically addresses the Jew/Gentile relationship and makes it clear that Gentiles are accepted into the people of God. In chapter 3, both at the beginning and at the end of the New Testament’s most famous passage on atonement theology, Paul brings up Jews and Gentiles. Both are sinners and both are “justified by faith apart from works.”
In chapter 4, Abraham is the example both to the circumcised (the Jew) and to the uncircumcised (the Gentile). Paul makes a point of stressing the fact that Abraham was justified before being circumcised, making the argument that Abraham was declared right with God when he was (effectively) still a Gentile!
In chapter 5, Paul traces sin’s roots back to Adam, from whom both Jews and Gentiles have inherited a sinful nature. (This is a summary statement of a more nuanced argument.) In chapters 6-8, Paul examines the role the Jewish law plays in God’s larger story. While there is no specific mention of Gentiles in these chapters, Paul does address the value of the Jewish law while stressing the limits of its power. We learn that what the Jewish law was incapable of doing, God has done by sending the Messiah.
Chapters 9-11 closely examine the question of God’s relation to the Jews in light of his acceptance of Gentiles. Paul raises the question of whether God’s promises to the Jews have failed. In this section, Paul goes to the Jewish Scriptures (see 9:23-33, 10:18-21, and 11:25-32) to address biblically and poetically the place of Gentiles and Jews in God’s salvation plans.
Chapters 12-14 focus more narrowly on how individuals and churches can live out the message of the gospel, but the relationship between Jew and Gentile has not been forgotten. Paul’s insistence that we who are many form one body in Christ may have originated in the Jew-Gentile issue, which was never far from his mind. In chapter 12, he seems to have Jews in mind when he states that “love is the fulfillment of the law,” and Gentiles in mind when he calls for an end to carousing, drunkenness, and sexual immorality.
In chapter 16, where Paul includes both Jews and Gentiles in his greetings, he lists more than a dozen people with Greek-sounding names, and celebrates their friendship, character, and hard work in the Lord. But before doing so, he relates how Jews who risked their lives (Prisca and Aquila) have served the Gentile churches.
Returning to chapter 15, we learn of Paul’s ministry-long effort to heal the rift between Jews and Gentiles. He has gone throughout Asia and Europe collecting money from Gentile believers to aid Jewish believers going through hardship in Israel. This offering was one of Paul’s greatest efforts. He spent time, thought, and energy to make it possible. He envisioned great results coming out of it: Jews and Gentiles who accept one another to the glory of God (15:7).
It seems to me that in every generation, Satan’s strategy is to divide God’s people. In Paul’s day, the division was most clearly seen between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus. In 1054, the Western and Eastern church effectively divorced, creating a millennium-long split. When Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenburg Church door in 1517, that nail cracked the Western Church wide open, leaving a centuries-long rupture between Catholics and Protestants. One can find good, and perhaps even necessary, reasons for these divisions, yet in all of them, evil was at work.
Today, we see micro and macro fractures between white and black, young and old, male and female, political left and political right, not to mention denominational rifts. (There are something like 1200 distinct Christian groups in the U.S. alone.) But, as Paul himself earlier wrote the Corinthians, we must take steps so “that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes”—schemes to divide and disable the people of Jesus.
The step Paul counseled in 2 Corinthians was forgiveness. We certainly are in need of that. Hate for hate, contempt for contempt, disregard for disregard has only advanced the enemy’s plan. Is there any action we can take in our day that might correspond with Paul’s attempt to heal division—the offering he collected from Gentile churches all over the eastern Mediterranean to relieve the suffering of Jewish believers?
In the New Testament, division in the church is always seen as a terrible thing and is unequivocally condemned. Do we feel about the divisions in today’s church (between black and white, old and young, female and male, left and right) the way Paul would, or do we regard division as something we’ll just have to live with?
Our enemy continues to stay busy, working to divide Christ’s beloved church. Are we doing anything to nullify his efforts, keep the unity of the Spirit, and thereby bring glory to God?
In this sermon, we learn that God is always working and that we are invited to join him in the family business. Watch the video or read the text below.
Karen and I were living near Youngstown, Ohio when our kids were born. After they came into the picture, we started making more frequent trips home to the Cleveland area to visit my parents. Once, while we were home, they told me that the people in the upstairs apartment across the street were selling drugs. Cars would stop, someone would run up the steps, spend (maybe) a minute at the door, and leave. Sometimes this happened during the day but mostly at night.
I don’t remember if my parents told the police what was going on but, if they did, I can imagine them watching to see if the police would raid the drug house that day, or the next, but it didn’t happen. Why didn’t the police do something? That’s what my parents wondered. Days, and weeks, and then months went by without anything happening.
Then, late one night, police surrounded the house, burst in, and caught the drug dealers red-handed. Apparently, they had informants buying drugs from those people all along. They had been building an air-tight case for many months against the dealers and their suppliers. My parents didn’t know it, but something was happening; it just wasn’t in their field of vision. The authorities were at work the entire time.
When bad things happen in our lives, we might think about God the way my parents thought about the police: Why isn’t he doing something? Someday, we’ll discover that he was. But, unlike the police, he wanted us to join him in his work.
We can’t understand why God isn’t doing something about what is important to us. It doesn’t occur to us that he might want us to do something that is important to him. Jesus understood that God is doing something right now. He’s already working in our church, in our neighborhood, in our city, and our world. He is meticulously setting the stage, step by step. He is not just preparing to act (though he is doing that); he is acting right now. There is always some God-thing going on around us. Instead of sitting around, waiting for the Creator of the Universe to make himself useful by working on our thing, we need to work on his. That’s how we seek his kingdom first.
What is most important is not what we are doing, but what he is doing. If you want to get caught up in something big, something important and life-altering, and in the process, get to know God, look for what God is doing and join him in it. I’m not talking about being a lone ranger who does something for God, but about being God’s child, who works with the Father.
Our text is John 5. Let’s read verses 17- 20. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”
Now, hold on. In the creation account in Genesis 2, we read: “… the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Genesis 2:1-3).
Genesis tells us God finished what he was doing and “rested from all his work.” So, how can Jesus say that his “Father is always at his work to this very day”? Is he resting or is he working? Isn’t the claim that he rested from his work repeated in Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy? Isn’t it restated in the New Testament as well? Did God retire after the sixth day or didn’t he?
The idea that God created the world and then went on some kind of extended holiday has had enormous influence on religion, philosophy and everyday life, but it is based on a misunderstanding of the biblical text. The author of Genesis was not saying that God finished his big project and then went into hibernation. It is more like: he finished the house, moved in, and now he works from home.
Jesus is very clear: His Father has not retired. He still goes to work every day. The work of creation did not wear God out. He does not need a break after making the septillionth star. He doesn’t want a break. He loves to work. No one has a better work ethic than our Father in heaven.
What if God is already at work in our church? He is. We need to find out what he is doing and join him. The same is true in our workplace, our golf league, our favorite coffee shop, and the store where we buy our groceries. Find out what God is doing and do it with him.
If we don’t find out what he’s doing, we may work and fret for nothing. Years ago, Loyston, Tennessee was slated to go out of existence. When the river was dammed to produce electricity, the valley the town occupied would become a 34,000-acre lake. The little town would disappear under the water, so its residents were moved to homes on higher ground.
Now imagine one of those residents stayed away from the town meetings, threw away the flyers, and ignored all the talk about a dam – this electricity nonsense made him mad – and instead began remodeling his house. He painted the exterior and even added on a room. And just about the time he got done, the dam was completed, the waters covered the house, and all his work meant nothing.
It’s as if Noah had decided to build God a temple rather than an ark. He would have done a magnificent job, and his temple would have been one of the wonders of the world. But we would know nothing about because the waters would have washed it – not to mention him and his family – all away. That’s the kind of thing happens when we ignore what God is doing around us and do our own thing instead.
Sometimes, we not only ignore what God is doing but actually get in his way. Parents, for example, fearing that God is not doing anything, step in to save their son from the negative consequences of his choices. But God was using those consequences to bring real, lasting change in his life. Or take the parents who constantly criticize and condemn their daughter to get her to change, but only succeed in closing her heart to them and to God.
Jesus knew that the Father is working. “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). Jesus was in the family business. He did not do his own thing; he did the Father’s work. Elsewhere he says that his “food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). Getting involved in God’s work was his food: it energized him, satisfied him, and fortified him – and he knew it would do the same for us. When we are working with, rather than apart from, or in opposition to, the Father, things happen around us and in us.
Now you might be thinking, “The Father works. The Son works. We work. Sounds like ‘works salvation’ to me. But we are saved by faith, not by works! St. Paul says so.”
True. But we are saved by faith into works. Paul says that too. It is important that we understand salvation is into a vocation, not a vacation—a vocation in which we join the Father and the Son in the family business. And while we’re doing that, we not only advance their work in the world, their work in us also advances. That’s how God designed it, and it is absolutely brilliant. One of the best ways to get to know God is to start working with him.
But how do we do that? Do we all need to become pastors and evangelists? No. God’s work is not stuck in the sanctuary. Our Father is at work right now at Thor and at Forest River, in the school administration building, and the courthouse. He is at work in art studios, surgical suites, and construction sites. He is working in classrooms and on football fields, and we can join him in his work.
I ask again: how? How do we do that? Jesus can show us how. Our text grows out of a larger narrative in which Jesus had come to Jerusalem for a religious festival and, while there, had spotted a man in a difficult situation. Jesus inquired about him and learned that he had been in a bad way for a long time. So, he talked to the man. After seeing the man, asking about him, and talking to him, Jesus realized he was invited to work with the Father in the man’s life.
How did he realize that? Did he, like Sherlock Holmes, see hidden clues that we mere mortals miss? And what happens to us if we miss those clues? Or what if we think something is a clue and it isn’t? Will we waste our time and money on something that has nothing to do with God?
We can relax. We don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to join in the Father’s work. His work is not a puzzle to be solved. It’s the Family Business, and our Father takes it on himself to send us our assignments. We don’t need to worry about that.
Look at what Jesus says in verse 19: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Let’s break that down.
First, the Son – and remember who we are talking about: this is the heir of all things, through whom the universe was made, the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, who sustains all things by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:2b-3b), the Son of God himself – says that he can do nothing by (or better, “originating from”) himself. Even the Eternal Son did not say, “What can I think of to do?” Rather, he looked to see what his Father was doing. We must learn to think this way: my Father is already working here. What is my part in the Family Business?
Jesus says he only does what he sees the Father doing and whatever he sees the Father doing he does. There lies the key, but there also lies the problem. Jesus saw the Father doing things and he joined with him in doing them. But he had extraordinary spiritual vision, and we don’t; so, how can we join in?
We’ll get to that in a moment but first notice that this wasn’t dependent upon the Son’s extraordinary spiritual vision. No, the initiative lay with the Father, not the Son. Look at verse 20: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” Jesus does not see what the Father is doing because he has extraordinary spiritual vision (though he does); he sees it because the Father shows himwhat he is doing. In the same way, we won’t see what God is doing because we are smart or spiritual; we’ll see it because he will show us.
Jesus’s relation to the Father is the model for our relationship to him. He said, for example, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). Jesus is our example. Like him, we are sent into the world to join in God’s work, and we can be confident that God will show us what he’s doing. And notice why the Father shows the Son his work: it’s not because he needs someone to do things for him. It’s not because there are not enough volunteers. He shows him what he is doing because heloveshim. Whenever God shows us what he is doing, it is because he loves us.
Perhaps you are afraid that you will not see what God is doing even if he shows you. And that is possible. So, is there a recipe we can follow or some kind of formula we can use for seeing what the Father is doing? Is there some kind of sign we need to be looking for?
Some people are always seeing – or think they are seeing – signs. These are puzzle-builder Christians, the mystery-solver types who are susceptible to taking any coincidence as a sign. “Right after the boss told me I was being laid off, I got a call from a California area code; that never happens! Earlier this week, there were cars with California plates parked on either side of mine at the coffee shop. I didn’t realize it at first, but those were signs that God wants us to move to California.”
Don’t look for signs, and don’t go to the Bible as if it were a coded message to tell you what you are supposed to do. Two old friends met at their 30th high school reunion. The one guy had gone to college, became a veterinarian, worked hard, earned lots of money but had recently made some bad investments and was in a serious financial bind. The other guy didn’t go to college, never held a job more than a few years, and yet he was quite prosperous. The first guy asked him how he did it.
He answered, “It’s simple, really. After my mom died, I opened my Bible, dropped my finger on a page, and the word under my finger was oil. So, I invested my inheritance in Exxon Mobil, and I made a bundle. So, I tried the same thing again. My finger stopped on the word Covenant. I had to search around for that one, but I found a company called Covenant Logistics and I invested all the money I made from oil. Over the next two years, their stock more than doubled. So, I decided to try it one more time. The Bible fell open to First Samuel, and my finger touched the word, “Eli.” The only Eli in the stock exchange is Eli Lilly. I invested everything – that was right before the Pandemic – and their stock when from $145 a share to $950. Long story short: I got rich.”
When the friend in financial trouble got back to his hotel that night, he pulled out the Gideon Bible, shut his eyes, let it fall open, and stabbed his finger onto the page. When he opened his eyes, he panicked. His finger rested on the words, “Chapter 11” (as in bankruptcy).
That’s not how God shows us what he is doing—and how he shows us isn’t the important thing anyway. He has a million ways to do that – through thoughts that come during prayer or Bible reading, through chance conversations, through circumstances, through desires, and through Christian friends. How is not important – God has a million how’s. The important thing is Who. God uses his million how’s with select who’s.
Well then, are we back to people with superior spiritual vision? No. the people who see what God is doing are not exceptionally spiritual. They see what God shows them because they, like Jesus, love God and do what he says. This is John 14:21: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
It is not a formula that is needed. It is a commitment. But more than that, it is a commitment of love. The people who are able to see what God is doing are people who have seen what God is like: the God who is light all the way through; the God who is Father, Rewarder, Giver, and Forgiver; and they love him for it. And they trust him.
If you have not seen what God is like, ask him to reveal himself to you. Read the Bible not for clues or puzzle pieces but to get to know your Father and his ways. If you have not seen this God, look at the Lord Jesus Christ and believe on him. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).
One last thing: If you are always in a hurry, you are bound to miss what God is doing. Hurry is the enemy of relationship, including the relationship with God. As much as possible, eliminate hurry from your life.
God is at work all around us right now. Find out what he is working on and join him.
We once lived in a city with a furniture store that was always going out of business. Its windows were plastered with signs that said things like, “Everything Must Go,” “Drastic Markdowns,” “Liquidation Sale!” and of course, “Going Out of Business.” The odd thing was that the store didn’t go out of business. It kept selling furniture and (I suppose) buying new furniture for years.
I took a class on The Epistle to the Romans when I was in college. I remember our professor, who translated Romans for the NIV back in the seventies, telling us that this word was sometimes used to describe first century stores that had gone out of business. It might be helpful to translate Romans 6:6 that way: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might go out of business, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…”
I thought of that store a couple of days ago while reading Romans 6. In the NIV, verse 6 reads: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…” The word translated, “Might be done away with” appears 27 times in the New Testament and is translated in a dizzying number of ways. The NIV alone renders it as “nullify,” “use up,” “is worthless,” “released,” “come to nothing,” “destroy,” “cease,” “pass away” (the latter two in the same verse!), “disappears,” “put behind,” “fading,” “taken away,” “set aside,” and “abolish.” Other versions use still more words to translate it.
“The body ruled by sin might go out of business.” What could that mean? St. Paul seems to think that the body can be used by sin as a center of production or operation. He calls it (literally) “the body of sin,” as if it belongs to sin, is under its management. This is not a necessary state of affairs; it was brought about by Adam’s rebellion (see Romans 5:11-17). Paul sees it as reversible or, better, as already being reversed.
The idea that the body can be used as a production center for sin is elaborated on in chapter 7, especially in verses 8-19. Sin, as anthropomorphized throughout chapters 6 and 7, has over eight billion production centers currently in operation—that’s even more than Dollar General! But God has a plan for shutting them all down, including the tall, aging one that goes by the name Shayne Looper.
That plan involves the creation of a transtemporal link between us and the Messiah in his death. In that way, “our old self” could be “co-crucified with him” (verse 6). Apparently, the only way to shut down the business is to do away with the local franchise operator (for example, me). That transtemporal link, which is accessed by faith, takes us into Christ’s death and makes it possible to shut down the body of sin permanently. It also takes us into Christ’s resurrection, making it possible to reopen under new management, with a different product line (righteousness instead of sin), and a happy workforce.
All of this is made possible by Jesus’s death and resurrection and is made real by our trust in him. But if it that is so, why have we not yet fully experienced the “closure” of the “body ruled by sin?” Why has the “Going Out of Business” sign been in the window so long?
The new owner has given each of us the responsibility of closing down the business of sin that has been operating in our bodies. We do this as we consider ourselves (that is, act as if we truly are) dead to sin. But this, by itself, is not enough. We must also stop presenting the parts of our body to sin, which happens when sin has become a habit. No wonder it takes so long to go out of business.
There is yet another step. We need to launch the new business even before the old has vacated the premises, or it will never leave. So, Paul tells the Romans to “offer the parts of your body to [God] as instruments of righteousness.” Think of a vast building which the previous owner sublet to hundreds of sleazy businesses—all pushing junk at exorbitant prices. But under the new owner, we are authorized to expel all these trash peddlers and replace them with makers of quality, helpful goods.
Like the furniture store in our former city, the “Going Out of Business” sign has been up for a long time in my life. But unlike the furniture store, “the body ruled by sin” really is going out of business. It has been purchased by Christ and is increasingly coming under his control. I know the day is near when the sign will come down for good.
At present, a soft launch under the leadership of the new owner is underway, and it is going well. Just think what the hard launch, the Grand Reopening, will be like, when the Lord Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20-21)!
Recently, when I read 2 Corinthians 6 and 7, Rod Dreher’s book, The Benedict Option came to mind. In 7:1, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
Paul’s exhortation to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit” points back to the mashup of Scripture quotations near the end of chapter 6. (7:1 belongs to the preceding section and rounds it off.) Among the Scriptures cited, we read: “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord…” That was the line that brought Dreher to mind.
Long before the publication of The Benedict Option, the Amish were “going out from their midst and be[ing] separate from” even their fellow Anabaptists. But nearly 1400 years before the Amish, the desert fathers were separating themselves from the larger church, doing their utmost to cleanse themselves from every defilement of body and spirit. The Benedict to whom Dreher’s title refers pulled away from the larger church culture in the sixth century. In the 11th century, the Cistercians felt the need to cleanse themselves from the defilement of their Benedictine Abbey.
Following the Cistercians came the reform movement led by Bernard of Clairvaux. Later still, the Trappists attempted to purify the Cistercian movement, just as it had tried to purify the Benedictine movement. In the 19th and 20th centuries came the Restoration and fundamentalist movements. The separationist impulse continues to this day.
The promises that Paul spoke of in 2 Corinthians 7, which provide the reason for cleansing oneself from defilement, are great and precious promises. Paul listed six of these promises a few verses earlier: God promised to make his dwelling among (or to indwell) us; to walk among us (as in the Garden of Eden); to be our God, and to take us for his people. (These last two are part of the new covenant, spelled out in Jeremiah 31.) Additionally, God promises to welcome us and be a father to us, and to take us as his children.
The urge to pull back from the world (and even from the larger Christian community) in order to experience the fulfillment of these promises is understandable. Yet, time after time, the separation movements lose their initial passion and wane. Though many retain their outward form, too often the heart that once beat underneath has flatlined.
Knowing this, what are we supposed to do with the apostolic and biblical commands of 2 Corinthians 6 and 7? How are we to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit”? What does it look like to “come out from them and be separate”? Should we follow the Amish in their rejection of fashionable dress, technological advances, and the majority culture’s entertainments? But that has not separated the Amish from greed, envy, and strife—at least that is what my formerly Amish friend once told me.
Even though it must be admitted that the Amish did not succeed in purifying themselves “from everything that contaminates,” they have approached this issue more seriously than many other Christians. Their problem, it seems to me, is not that they went too far, but that they went on a tangent. That is, of course, a problem for almost all of us.
The use of the verb translated, “be separate,” might help us wrap our minds around what is involved in coming “out from them” and being “separate.” It is used elsewhere of God’s action in setting the Apostle Paul apart for his service. Though he was set apart, Paul did not stop living among worldly people. He continued to eat their food, wear their dress, and read their books (like those of Epimenides and Menander), yet he was a separated man for he was Christ’s man. He did not serve himself, but Jesus. Perhaps our separation is not about how we dress or whether we use smartphones, but about whether we see ourselves as boss (like pretty much everyone else in the world) or see Jesus that way. Or, to use biblical language, we “confess Jesus Christ Lord.”
Wearing unfashionable clothing (without a smartphone in any pocket) might readily distinguish us in other people’s eyes, but maybe the point is not to distinguish ourselves in others people’s eyes. It is what God sees that matters, and he does not judge by outward appearance but by the heart.
Yesterday, I officiated a funeral for a beloved woman from our church. I felt, as I stood to share the eulogy, that the problem with summing up a person’s life in a funeral service or an obituary is that so little of it as of yet has taken place. It’s like writing the biography of a newborn, or even an unborn, baby.
We, from our perspective, saw our friend’s life as having come to an end. We buried her body and began to tell her story in the past tense. But that does not reflect the way things really are.
Imagine three quadruplets who remain in their mother’s womb after the doctor has delivered their sister. If the fetal mind could think like us, and if they could communicate with each other, what might they be saying? “This is terrible! It is so unfair! Our sister’s life has come to an end. We’ll never see her again.”
How wrong they would be! Their sister’s life had only just begun. So, with us. When seventy or eighty years of life here are up – or even eighty-five, as was the case with our friend – we have only reached full-term, and the life that is life indeed is ready to begin.
What we must understand is that human beings have a two-stage gestation period. The first stage is in their mother’s womb. They have about nine months there in which to receive the kind of life that can continue outside the womb on earth, the life of heartbeats and brainwaves. The Greeks had a word for that: bios. (Biology is the study of that kind of life.)
Then begins the second stage, which lasts something like 70 or 80 years. That is when we receive the kind of life that can continue outside the earth in heaven, the life of the spirit. The Greeks had a word for that too: zoé. We receive bios from our mother and zoé from God’s Spirit. In the first stage of gestation, we have not developed enough to have a choice, but in the second, we are ready (and required) to choose. Biological life comes through an umbilical cord; spiritual life comes through faith. If we don’t receive the life of the spirit before the end of the second stage of our gestation, we will be spiritually stillborn.
We say that our friend has died and, from our perspective, we are right. But that kind of language belongs on this side of death, not the other. The other side, I suspect, sounds more like a maternity ward: “She’s here!” or “She has arrived!” And while on this side there is mourning (and rightly so), on that side there is rejoicing.
If we are standing on the dock as a great ship carries our son or daughter out to sea, we can rightly speak of their departure. But someone standing on a dock at that ship’s port of call would speak differently. Perspective is everything. And our perspective is severely limited.
But God’s is not. He is with us when we enter this world and he is with us when we leave it. He sends us from our point of departure only to receive us at our port of call. The universe (or multiverse, or whatever this marvelous place is where we dwell) is a ball in the hands of a skillful juggler. Its journey began with him and it will end with him. The same is true of us, though God is not playing games with us. As St. Paul so beautifully put it: “For from him and through him and to him are all things.” (Romans 11:36)
There is one more thing to be said—well, there are probably a hundred more things to say, but since I am not wise enough to say them, I will limit myself to one. The fetus is already in this world since that is where his mother’s womb is. Likewise, we are already in heaven even while we are on earth. So, St. Paul could write that “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms…”
How important is Christian baptism? Well, on the founding day of the Christian Church – the day of Pentecost – St. Peter’s hearers asked him what they must do. He answered: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
When Samaritans first came to faith in Christ, Luke tells us that Philip the evangelist preached “the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ…[and] baptized, both men and women.” When the Gospel reached the first Gentile converts, in Acts 10, Peter commanded that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Upon St. Paul’s conversion in Acts chapter 9, “He got up and was baptized.” In chapter 16 of Acts, we have the record of the first European convert, a woman named Lydia, who came to faith at a Bible study. We read, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message…she and the members of her house were baptized…” In Philippi, a jailer asked Paul and Silas what he should do. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved,” they told him, and we read that, “he and all his family were baptized” that very same night.
How important is Christian baptism? One last Scripture quote (it’s the last thing Jesus said to his disciples before leaving them to return to heaven): “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Baptism is part of the commission our Lord gave to the church. In other words, baptism is not optional for anyone who is serious about following Jesus Christ.
But what difference does it make? Does baptism magically or mechanically change my position before God? Does it guarantee heaven? If it is only an outward demonstration of inward faith, why do it at all? Isn’t faith alone enough? Just what is baptism?
There are three things to know about baptism. (Well, there are probably four thousand things to know, but here are three of them.) Baptism is a Decisive Act of Faith, it is a Dramatic Act of Faith, and it is a Declarative Act of Faith.
In the early days of the church, baptism was adult, as opposed to infant, baptism. Being baptized held something of the same place that “going to the altar” held in evangelical churches for more than a century. When people were ready to make a decision to follow Christ, they were baptized. They may already have believed Jesus’ claims (and the church’s claims about him). But at baptism, they embraced Christ himself. They committed themselves to follow Jesus. Going under the water didn’t make them Christians. Faith in Jesus Christ did that; without faith, baptism would only have made them wet.
So, if baptism does not make us right with God or guarantee us heaven, what does it do? Why be baptized at all if salvation is by faith? First, baptism is a decisive act of faith. It is a decisive step away from a life centered around self and toward a Christ-centered life.
Some words just go together. Peanut butter goes with jelly. Ham goes with cheese. Rod goes with reel. Baptism goes with repentance, and repentance is a decisive word. On the day of Pentecost, Peter told his hearers to “Repent and be baptized.” To repent is to change from the inside; to change one’s mind and, as a result, one’s actions. Baptism is the announcement that we have repented.
Baptism is the demonstration that we have made the once-for-all choice to follow Christ. In the early days of the church, if a man became a Christian, he might be excommunicated from the synagogue, refused entry into the temple, and ostracized by his family. It was a costly decision to make. But when he made it, he sealed his decision by being baptized.
Paul alludes to this kind of decisiveness in Romans 6:1. “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? May it never be!” Shall we remain in sin? Shall we stay where we are, satisfied with a life we know is sinful? Or shall we go on? Those who are baptized have made their choice. They will not stay where they are. They will move forward with Christ.
The Australian coat of arms pictures two animals: the kangaroo – nature’s pogo stick with a pouch – and the graceless, flightless emu. Not a lion or a tiger. Not an eagle or a falcon. Why did Australia choose such animals? They are, of course, Australian animals, but there is more to it than that. Australians identify with these two animals because they share a common characteristic: Both the emu and the kangaroo can only move forward, not back. The emu’s three-toed foot causes it to fall if it tries to go backwards, and the kangaroo is prevented from moving backwards by its large tail.
People who are baptized have chosen the emu and the kangaroo for their coat of arms. They are going forward with Christ. They have made their decision, and by the grace of God there will be no turning back.
A young couple was married at the church of Sts. Peter and Paul in San Francisco. When the bride was asked, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband,” she replied, “I don’t know.” People who are baptized do know. They are like the widow who had been seeing a widower regularly before he returned to his own city. (This was many decades ago.) After he left, he sent her a letter, requesting her hand in marriage, and asking her to communicate her answer by telegram. She went to the telegraph office and asked how much a telegram would cost. She was told so many spaces for so much money. She used every space she could afford. Here is what she sent. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
That is what the person being baptized has said to God. “A dozen times, yes.” And a dozen times “no” to a life without Christ. The word the church has used to describe baptism is “sacrament,” which comes from the Latin, “sacramentum,” the pledge a Roman soldier took to be obedient to death. Baptism is a decisive act.
Baptism is also a dramatic act. By that I mean that baptism dramatizes outwardly and visibly what God has done for us inwardly and invisibly. This is one reason for baptizing by immersion. (There are other ways to baptize – sprinkling and pouring – and I have no argument with those who practice them.) The Greek word “baptizo” was used of people being drowned and of ships sinking; it meant to plunge, sink, drench, or overwhelm. Immersing people in baptism dramatically portrays what God has done for them through Christ.
Faith unites a person to Jesus Christ. This is clear in Romans 6, where the “with him” phrases (in English) are emphasized. We were “buried with him” (v. 4); “united with him” (twice in v. 5); “crucified with him” (v. 6); and we “died with him” (v. 8)
But Romans 6 is hardly the only place where we see our union with Christ stressed. There is Galatians 2:20, where Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). And so: “We died with him” (2 Tim. 2:11); were “buried with him” (Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12); “made alive with him” (Colossians 2:13 and Ephesians 2:5); and “raised with him” (Ephesians 2:6). When we believe in Jesus Christ, we are united to Christ. And though we are never said to share in his birth or baptism, we do take part in his suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and some day, his reign.
This is how the picture works: when the baptismal candidate goes under the water, it is a picture of their death. The man or woman they were has died and was buried. In bringing them up out of the water, we dramatically represent their resurrection. They have been raised to new life—a life united to Jesus Christ, now and forever.
Etched into the black granite of the Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, visitors see the names of 58,156 American military personnel killed in the war. For many people, the sight is overwhelming. Some walk slowly and reverently down its length without pause. Others stop before certain names, remember their buddies or sweethearts, dads or sons, and wipe away the tears.
But for three vets – Robert Bedker, Willard Craig, and Darrall Lausch –visiting the memorial must be surrealistic, for their names are carved into the stone. Because of data-coding errors, each of them was incorrectly listed as killed in action. They are listed among the dead, yet they are alive. In baptism, the believer is listed as dead, and yet is alive to God through Jesus Christ.
Baptism is also declarative. The Ethiopian eunuch was baptized without many witnesses, but that was because there were not many people around; he was not trying to keep his commitment to Jesus secret. Those who choose to be baptized are doing just the opposite: they are taking their stand with Jesus. They are declaring to anyone and everyone, “I am on his side.”
Because baptism is declarative, whenever I baptize people, I encourage them to invite their friends and family to witness their baptism. These people are planting their flag, not in the sand, but in the water. They are telling their friends that Jesus is worthy of their time, their energy, and their lives. And, just maybe, they are awakening in their friends’ hearts the desire that has awakened in theirs: the desire to be with, and be like, Jesus.
The idea of calling receives considerable attention in the Bible and has had significant influence on Christian thinking. Pastors will sometimes talk about when they were “called” into the ministry, but the word “calling” is broadened to include other vocations as well. Just yesterday, I saw an advertisement from a Christian university that referred to teaching as a “sacred calling.” Missionaries have a calling. Motherhood is sometimes represented as a calling. Even athletes pursue their calling.
I was at a denominational conference last month where the subject of the role of women in ministry was addressed. In our denomination, women can be ordained and given the title “Pastor,” but women do not ordinarily serve in the role of lead pastor. I say, “ordinarily” because 26 of our churches in the U.S. and its territories are led by women pastors, and this has created dissonance. So, at the bi-annual national conference, a panel of pastors and educators spoke to the issue from a biblical perspective. Some claimed the Bible limits the lead pastor role to men, while others insisted that the lead pastor role is open to both men and women.
The arguments for and against were based on familiar passages—nothing surprising there. What caught my attention was the woman who, speaking in support of opening the role of lead pastor to women, made a heartfelt plea to allow women to fulfill their calling. One can debate how Galatians 3:28 fits into Paul’s larger argument about Gentiles and law-observance, but how can anyone argue against fulfilling a God-given calling?
Because the idea of calling impacts our thinking as Jesus’s disciples, it is important that we understand what the biblical writers meant by it. That would require a lengthy monograph devoted to the subject, for the subject is broad. Most of the time the verb “to call” (when used of God’s call to individuals) is found in the aorist tense. That is, it looks to a point in time when God called a person.
The verb is also used in the present tense, each time in a participial form, which means that God is still calling. This ongoing call, like the call of a child playing Marco Polo in the swimming pool, leads somewhere. God is calling us to himself, to “his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12).
The “call” word group is also used adjectively on ten occasions in the New Testament, though contemporary versions frequently obscure this by translating it as if it were a verb. As an adjective, it describes a group of people as “the called.” The word is used in this way in Romans 8:28, where the King James translated the end of the verse quite literally: “to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
One could profitably explore each aspect of God’s call, how it comes to individuals, and where it leads (for example, “to peace,” “to hope,” “to freedom,” to a kingdom, and to glory). It would also be good to think through the implications of being part of the group known as “The Called.” These folks “belong to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6, NIV), which is a phrase charged with meaning. They are “saints” or “holy ones,” which implies that they are different from others. They are people of purpose—particularly, God’s purpose (Romans 8:28).
Lately, it has been the use of the present tense that has stirred my thinking. We were called at some point in the past, but we are also being called in the present. St. Paul uses the present tense three times to represent God as the one who is currently calling his people. Like the shepherd who goes before his sheep and leads them with his voice (John 10:4), God is calling us.
The Voice that called us in the past has not stopped calling; it calls us still. And if we follow it, we will come … to him.
The biblical emphasis is not, it seems to me, on calling someone to be in ministry (despite the way the NIV translates many of Paul’s epistolary introductions). Though we are “called to” something, the stress is not on the call to a career, but the call that leads to God, his kingdom, and his glory.
Does that mean God does not call people to become pastors, or teachers, or missionaries? Does he not call some people to become computer programmers, TikTok evangelists, husbands, wives, CEOs, biologists, basketball players, and most other occupations that can be imagined?
I tend to think the answer is not exactly. He does not call us to such things but through such things. He calls us to himself in such a way that our path frequently leads through some kind of vocation. Following God’s ongoing call to himself led me into (and will someday lead me out of) pastoral ministry. But I don’t think my calling was to be a pastor. It was to pursue God, his kingdom, and glory. But, of course, my heavenly Father knew that following that call would lead me through the pastorate. He calls other people to himself, his kingdom, and his glory, knowing that following that call will lead them to be railroad engineers, or commercial fishermen, or graphic designers, or nurses, doctors, animal trainers—you get the idea.
God never tires of calling us. The Divine game of Marco Polo goes on. If we are not hearing his voice, it is not because he has stopped calling but because we have gone in the wrong direction. In that case, it is best for us to call to him and then become silent, waiting for his answering call. We will hear it if we listen, no matter how far we have wandered. He is still calling, and his voice carries through all of space and time.
He looks, and ten thousand of angels rejoice, And myriads wait for His word; He speaks, and eternity, filled with His voice, Re-echoes the praise of the Lord.
Dear Shepherd, I hear, and will follow Thy call, I know the sweet sound of Thy voice; Protect and defend me, for Thou art my all, And in Thee I will ever rejoice. (Joseph Swain)
The Way Home 
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