I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to getting back together with you guys on Sunday morning! The summer institute classes have been good, but I’m ready to dive into some deep studyin’ and some good fellowshippin’.
So, how can you be prepared for this Sunday? We’ll be looking at John 15:18-16:4 and Romans 7:7-25, so I would start by reading those. We’re going to be talking about what it costs to be a follower of Christ, and I’m warning you, you’re going to be getting it from both barrels of the ole’ spiritual shotgun. Believe it or not (we didn’t plan this), the Sunday sermon will be dealing with the cost of discipleship as well. And since we didn’t plan it, I have to believe that God wanted it this way, and has something for us to learn.
That last statement – that God has something for us to learn – leads us to the biggest thing you can do to prepare yourself for Sunday. Talk to God before you show up. Acknowledge to Him that you don’t know everything, and that, quite honestly, you’ve got a lot to learn. Then ask Him to teach you something. This’ll do more to revolutionize your Sunday morning experience than anything else!
Has anyone else read “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Ben, have you or your dad read it)? It’s been a long time for me, but I remember his remark that when Christ calls a man “he bids him come and die.” Does anyone have any thoughts about practical ways we can die to our selves in our daily lives?
By: Tyler Johnson on August 10, 2007
at 6:47 pm
One thing that I try and do is pray before I leave the house in the morning. It could be in bed as soon as I wake up (although I find that I tend to fall back asleep before the prayer is done), knees on the floor, in the shower, whenever – but sometime before I get into the swirl of events that make up that day. This prayer is usually quite simple, and its a prayer of clarification: “God, help me to see today simply – I either live for You, or I live for myself. Help me to see everything that happens today in light of those two options, and help me to die to myself over and over again, and live for You over and over again.” I’ve found that I have a tendency to make this more of a “magic potion” prayer by thinking that the value is in saying it. But I think the value is in the clarification. Without it, I’m reacting to events as they come, and more often than not I find myself living and responding in a way that looks out for me. With the prayer, I can still live for myself, but I do it with the knowledge that I’m not living for God.
By: Ben Whipple on August 12, 2007
at 10:45 am
Tyler, that’s a great question. And, I think, an essential one for the Christian to ask. Jesus does demand our death. The passage of which I’m most reminded (and one that we’ll spend some good time in this Sunday) is
Romans 6-8. 6:2-3 says: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
We see here that the point of us being put to death was to be raised, as Christ was, and to walk in the newness of life. The rest of chapters 6-8 really unpacks what it means to walk in this manner. The central theme of these glorious chapters is that by Christ’s blood, our minds are no longer enslaved to the flesh; rather they are enslaved to righteous obedience. I see in these chapters a radical call to fight sin. Paul is very open about his fight with sin in chapter 7. I really think that daily battling our sin by the power of the Spirit, not giving in or giving up, and setting our minds on the things of the Spirit (c.f. Romans 8:5-6) is a very practical manner in which we can and should die daily. We must crucify the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal. 5:24).
By: Matt Borg on August 16, 2007
at 11:32 am