Category: Practical

Missional Contextualization for Gospel Transformation

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Evangelism, Practical, Quotes1 Comment

Paul’s determination to adapt himself to the different cultures and contexts in which he would work established a basic mission strategy reflective of an important understanding of the relationship between the gospel and culture that has been essential to effective mission work throughout history.

What Could Have Been the Strategy

The Christian church could have simply decided that the gospel was a Jewish message sent throughout the world and that a proper response to the gospel should result in adopting the same cultural incarnation in all places. In that way Christians would all look and act the same, all have the same culture, wherever (or whenever) they lived.

What is the Strategy

Paul understands that the gospel does not belong to any particular culture.

As the gospel takes root among different peoples and cultures, its essence will remain the same but its “look and feel” may be somewhat different.

Why Contextualization is Important

Paul’s ability to adapt his life and culture according to the context in which he worked would have been strategic not only for the initial communication of the gospel but also for the ability of his converts to understand what it would look like for them to become members of Christ’s body. Gentile converts would not have to adopt Jewish culture to be members of Christ’s community, and Jewish converts to Christ would not need to become Gentiles or reject their Jewish heritage and lifestyle as part of their recognition of Christ’s lordship.

Question for Reflection

  1. Do you expect the lost to adapt to your culture? If so, why could that be an unnecessary hindrance to salvation?

Resources

Image

Text from Ciampa and Rosner, 1 Corinthians (PNTC), 425-26. Headings are my own.

11 Things to Pray for a Deeper Prayer Life

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, PracticalLeave a comment

11 Thing to Pray for a Deeper Prayer Life

We all know we should pray regularly, but we often don’t. There are numerous reasons for why we don’t pray on a regular basis.

Why We Don’t Pray

  • Life gets busy — We haven’t set aside the time, and a prayerless morning turns into a prayerless week.
  • We think God doesn’t have the time — Our needs seem minor next to the atrocities we read about in the paper — famine, ebola, and genocide.
  • We believe we must pull our own bootstraps up — Our problem is ours, not God’s.

Maybe you find yourself in the list above. If you do, I can assure you, God does have time for you, so you should make time for Him. Your needs, however small, are important to God. As well as trying to handle everything on your own is not wise, nor what God wants.

Maybe you don’t find yourself in the above list. Maybe the reason you don’t pray is because you don’t know what to pray. If that’s you, let me point you to the Psalms. There you will find a wealth of content to guide you in prayer.

The Psalms

Lately, I have been meditating on the Psalms, even praying them at times. Doing so has added a lot of depth to my prayer life. As I was meditating on Psalm 25, I wrote down 11 things to pray for a deeper prayer life that I want to share with you.

11 Things to Pray

  1. Pray God would help you trust Him more (1-3)
  2. Pray for greater knowledge of God (4-5)
  3. Pray a prayer of repentance (6-7)
  4. Pray God would instruct and lead you (8-10)
  5. Praise God for saving you (11)
  6. Pray God’s name would be magnified (11)
  7. Pray you would fear the Lord (12-15)
  8. Pray your emotions and ask God to help you in your time of need (16-18)
  9. Pray you would respond to your enemies in a gospel-centered way (19-20)
  10. Pray for integrity and uprightness in your dealings with others (21)
  11. Pray for God’s final and complete redemption (22)

Question for Reflection

  1. Do you use a guide to help you when you pray? If so, would you share it?

Resource

Image

Trust God Will Use You

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Evangelism, Practical1 Comment

Work Construction

I just finished preaching a series over the Genesis 1-12. In the last chapter — Genesis 12 — we encountered Abram (Abraham). He is a great example of someone who had to trust that God would use him.

Abraham’s Hindrance

Remember the promise God made Abraham — to make him into a great nation. That is a great promise to hear and believe if you already have a large family of 10 kids.

However, consider Abraham, he is 75 years old and doesn’t have any children. In Genesis 11:30, the text tells us:

“… Sarai was barren; she had no child.” (Gen. 11:30).

Sarai’s barrenness wasn’t for lack of trying. Abraham and Sarai weren’t late bloomers who married later in life, nor did they use birth control. In fact, according to Jewish custom, they probably had been married since they were 13 or 14, which means they had been trying to have kids for 60 years without any success.

So when God told Abraham that a great nation would come from Him, he had to really trust that the Lord would use he and his wife, because so far they hadn’t produce one child, let alone an entire nation.

Our Hindrances

In the same way we have to trust that the Lord will use us to advance His Kingdom. Trusting the Lord to use us sounds a lot easier than it really is. There are a lot things that have the potential to hinder us from believing God will use us to bring another to faith in Jesus.

(1) For some that might be your knowledge of God’s Word. Maybe you don’t believe you know enough to talk with someone else about the gospel, or you are concerned you won’t be able to answer their objections.

(2) For others that might be your past. Maybe your past was hard and difficult. You were known as a trouble maker. Maybe you even spent some time in jail. Now you can’t imagine that anyone would listen to you.

(3) Still for others it might be your ability to connect with others. Maybe you are different than those you live around and you can’t imagine how God could use you to speak into their lives.

These are the end-all-be-all of hindrances. There are many other things that may hinder us from believing God will use us to expand His kingdom.

Believing You Can’t Be Used is a Lie

However, believing you can’t be used by God to further His kingdom is a lie. Starting in 1 Corinthians 1:27 Paul writes,

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor. 1:27-29)

You see, if God saves us, He will use us. No matter what abilities we possess, or what we have done. God will use us. So don’t doubt. Instead, trust that God will use you to further His kingdom.

Question for Reflection

  1. Do you trust that God will use you to further His kingdom?

Resources

Post adapted from the sermon: God’s Reclamation Project

Image

Leave Everything and Go Wherever

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Practical3 Comments

Traveling Bone

Abraham is a prime example of someone whom God asked to leave everything and go wherever. In Genesis 12:1, we read,

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Gen. 12:1b)

Leave Everything

God asks Abraham to leave behind all he has ever known – his idol worship, his family, his inheritance, his safety, and his culture. We may not see this as a big deal because we live in a transient society. A lot of us leave home and strike out on our own. But as one commentator says,

“To leave home and to break ancestral bonds was to expect of ancient men almost the impossible.” [1]

Go Wherever

On top of asking Abraham to leave everything behind, God also asks him to follow Him wherever He leads. It is one thing to leave behind what you have knowing something better awaits. Think about all those immigrating to the United States. Many of them leave behind everything they have ever known for what they believe to be a better life in the States.

Put yourself in Abraham’s shoes for a moment. Imagine God asking you to leave your home for a place you know nothing about. You don’t know what kind of life you will lead there, if it will be safe, or if you will have an opportunity to provide for your family. Thinking about it like that, we see just how tough of a decision Abraham had to make.

Jesus’ Disciples Should Leave Everything and Go Wherever

Abraham, however, isn’t the only one God asks to leave everything and go wherever. He also asks us – Jesus’ disciples – to do the same.

A couple of years ago my friend John (not his real name) and his wife left family, friends, and all that is familiar to them to move halfway across the world to live in Africa as missionaries. While they were willing to answer God’s call, they didn’t have a complete picture of what was in store for them. They didn’t know they would move several times, suffer several illnesses, or be robbed and extorted for money on multiple occasions, nor did they know the extent of the heartache they would experience. Even though they were in the dark about these things, they went anyways. As far as I know, they don’t regret answering God’s call, and they aren’t planning to come home.

While God certainly asks missionaries to pick up their life, leave everything, and go wherever, His call on His disciple’s lives doesn’t end there. In other words,

God doesn’t just ask missionaries to leave everything and go wherever, He asks us all to give up everything and go wherever He leads.

Sure, God may not ask most of us to move halfway around the world, but He does ask us to give up our life – our will, our desires, our wants, our safety, our family, all that is comfortable to us – and go wherever He leads.

Question for Reflection

  1. Are you ready to answer God’s call to give up everything and go wherever He leads?

Resources

Post developed from the sermon: God’s Reclamation Project

[1] Von Rad, Genesis, 161 via Greidanus, Preaching Christ from Genesis, 151.

Image

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 4

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Evangelism, Practical2 Comments

Stumbling Block

In my last post, I explored our idea of the evangelistic process and how we can naturally talk to others about Christ.

Today we continue exploring what keeps us from modeling Paul’s activity in Athens — reach out, build relationships with folks, and then engage them with the gospel where they are on a daily basis.

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism and How to Remove Them

(4) Our Idea of Bringing People to Christ 

Often times we believe winning someone to Christ is something we have to do on our own in a one-off-full-on gospel presentation on foreign soil like someone’s front yard, the mall, or the movies. Thinking that way will often keep us from sharing the gospel because after all we don’t want to mess it up. We don’t want to lose the sale, or be the reason why someone didn’t come to Jesus.

But here is the thing:

Saving others is not our responsibility. It is God’s.

God is the One who changes people’s hearts, so that they desire a relationship with Jesus, not us. Our responsibility is only to share the message to the best of our ability.

Conclusion

So those are a few stumbling blocks to everyday evangelism and how we might remove them so that we can engage people everyday with the gospel.

All of them take a little effort and intentionality, but the effort is worth it, not only because it will change people’s lives, but it is something we are called to do. We are called to be disciples who are make disciples.

So let’s be that. Let’s be disciples who make disciples. Let’s all see it as our responsibility to daily reach out to those in the community with the purpose of building relationships and spreading the gospel. If we do that, then everyday evangelism will happen, and we will make an impact in our communities and cities for Christ.

Question for Reflection

  1. How does knowing that God is the One who saves free you up to share the gospel more often?

Resources

Post adapted from the sermon: Spread the Gospel – Growth Through Discipleship – Week 5

Image

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 3

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Evangelism, Practical1 Comment

Stumbling Block

In my last post, I explored our idea of Christian growth and how to free up our schedule to meet non-Christians.

Today we continue exploring what keeps us from modeling Paul’s activity in Athens — reach out, build relationships with folks, and then engage them with the gospel where they are on a daily basis.

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism and How to Remove Them

(3) Our Idea of the Evangelistic Process 

At one extreme we may believe evangelism only happens during the Sunday Service. Those who believe that often think: If I can just get my non-believing friends to church, they will hear the gospel.

Thinking that way, however, severely hinders everyday evangelism because it leads us to believe that evangelism can only happen once a week by someone we believe to be a professional. As well as it is not true.

Jesus commissioned all of us to make disciples, not just the Pastor.

Or at another extreme we might believe evangelism only happens when we lead someone through a full on gospel presentation — something like The Romans Road or Two Ways to Live. None of which are bad. I actually think they can be helpful.

While helpful, these presentations can be hindrance if we believe they are the only way to share the gospel, or feel we have not shared the gospel unless we have walked someone through the entire presentation.

When we start thinking like that, we get into what I like to refer to as “checklist evangelism” — talking to someone about the gospel becomes more about us getting through the checklist than actually having a conversation.

When we are focused on our checklist rather than the person, our conversation becomes insensitive and awkward. Talking about the gospel, however, shouldn’t be insensitive, it shouldn’t be awkward.

It should be just as natural for us to talk about the gospel or what Jesus is doing in our life as it is for us to talk about the weather or our favorite sports team.

So instead of working off a checklist, we have to find ways to include Jesus in our conversation. If you are wondering how to naturally include Jesus in your conversation, let me recommend a good book for you. It is entitled Questioning Evangelism by Michael Newman

Question for Reflection

  1. What hindrances do you see regarding the evangelistic process you have used or even been taught in the past?

Resources

Post adapted from the sermon: Spread the Gospel – Growth Through Discipleship – Week 5

Image