Quote from Forum Archives on June 3, 2002, 9:32 am

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

RENEWAL AS A WAY OF LIFE #8/8
EXPANDING OUR FIELD OF VISION
(DYNAMICS OF CORPORATE RENEWAL)
June 2, 2002

TEXT: John 17:20-26

This morning, we’re going to pretend to be someone we are not. At least,
I don’t think that anyone in attendance here is involved in this
profession. For a little while, let’s pretend that we are eye doctors. We
are going to be doing some eye tests this morning. Ready? OK.

First, imagine two concentric circles; that is, a smaller circle inside a
larger circle. Now, the inner circle represents our pupil - that part of
the eye through which we actually see. The larger circle represents our
field of vision - the amount of area around the pupil that we can see.
Some of the tests that eye doctors give us let them know if our field of
vision is normal or growing worse. We want to have as big a field of
vision as possible.

Now then, doctors, we want to consider four conditions of our eyes this
morning. So the first test is this: are you saved? Are you a Christian
believer? If the answer is no, then the inner circle - the pupil - is
clouded over. It is blinded by sin. There is no sight, and there is
certainly no peripheral vision. This is the condition of the person whose
life is being ruled by those dynamics that resist and war against the
kingdom of God. I have discussed those in the past few weeks: the flesh,
the world, and the devil. A blacked-out pupil portrays the mind and heart
of those who reject Jesus Christ. By the way, it also serves to symbolize
the darkened condition of the mind in Christian believers who are not
walking in the light of Christ.

The second condition that we have, then, occurs with our initial belief
in Christ as savior. We come, and we say “I believe” in a worship
service, evangelism crusade, at home, at work, and so forth. We believe
in faith and are saved. Now the complete darkness is lifted. Our pupil is
no longer covered by the dark shroud of sin. But we still cannot see
clearly yet. There are still a lot of struggles in our spiritual lives as
the dynamics of spiritual death still battle in us. Sometimes they divert
our focus away from Christ and his love, so things get fuzzy and out of
focus. And that outer circle - our peripheral vision - is still clouded
over.

Now for the third condition. We believe in faith in Jesus Christ, and we
are making strides in our spiritual growth. We recognize the benefits
obtained for us by Jesus the Messiah. They are the dynamics of individual
spiritual renewal about which I spoke last week: justification,
sanctification, and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. Now our relationship
with Jesus, and our subsequent eyesight, has become much clearer. Our
pupil is completely clear. But in this stage of our spiritual growth and
daily renewal, our peripheral vision is still not developed. We still
have difficulty seeing clearly beyond our personal relationship with the
Lord. Our sight is clear, but our field of vision is still narrow, as if
we have blinders on.

Not surprisingly, the fourth condition of our eyesight is clear vision
with a wide field of vision. We see clearly not only straight ahead, but
also way out to the sides. Both our inner and outer circles are clear.
This is the goal that we eye doctors want for ourselves and for our
patients. In the past few sermons, I have dealt with the dynamics that
cause, and can keep us in, spiritual blindness. Then, I moved onto those
dynamics that can give us, and improve, our spiritual sight. Ultimately,
living lives of daily Christian renewal leads to clear sight and a wide,
clear peripheral vision. This last image of our eyesight - two concentric
circles that are clear - symbolizes the outworking of our deliverance
beyond the individual level. Maximum spiritual growth requires vigorous
involvement in four areas I will cover this morning: involvement in
mission; waiting on God in prayer; participation in community; and the
renewing of our minds to reflect the mind of Christ - the term for this
used by Richard Lovelace is “theological integration.” (from Richard
Lovelace, Renewal As a Way of Life, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 1985, pp. 195-198).

Christian mission can be defined simply as following Jesus into the
world, presenting his gospel. As we allow the Holy Spirit to perfect our
personal relationship with God through Jesus, we grow in the recognition
and realization that we are to become like him through sharing the way of
the cross. Paul testifies in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “But thanks be to God,
who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us
spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.” God has given
Christians the vocation of being catalysts for either conversion or for
the rejection of the gospel. In the next two verses, 2 Corinthians
2:15-16, Paul continues, “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among
those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are
the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.” That puts it
pretty plainly.

We are familiar with Jesus’ call for our involvement with missions. The
earliest Christian Church was a missionary church. Some of the members
became traveling missionaries; some through responding to their spiritual
gifts and some by the force of necessity brought on by persecution. Other
Christians in some places became supporters of missions and missionaries.
They may never have left their place of birth, but they were involved in
the worldwide mission endeavor through prayer and financial support.
Today, we respond similarly. Some respond by physically leaving to engage
in ministry. As a church, we are helping support Jon Locke through his
training period at Southeastern Baptist College and Seminary. Others
support mission through our giving. The current One Great Hour of Sharing
offering is just one example of our many mission support ministries. And
we must also always keep in mind that we are missionaries in our
families, our places of work, our communities, and in every area where we
have some influence. Regardless of how it is done, our involvement in
mission expands our field of vision.

The second area of involvement for maximum spiritual growth is prayer.
Since prayer is such a basic element of our personal growth relationship
with God, we may overlook the impact our prayer lives have upon the whole
world. Many Bible publishers divide John 17, which is a recorded prayer
of Jesus, into three parts. First, Jesus prays for himself. These are
verses 1-5. Second, Jesus prays for his disciples. These are identified
as verses 6-19. Third, Jesus prays for all believers. These, of course,
are verses 20-26. “My prayer is not for them alone, I pray also for those
who will believe in me through their message., that all of them may be
one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in
us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Although there are various forms of prayer, our prayers should follow the
kingdom-centered themes of Jesus. Through our saving faith in Jesus, our
prayers should lift up and request that which is pleasing to Jesus. In
John 17, we learn that Jesus is pleased with unity and love. We want to
be united together as believers. Our unity comes from the love of God,
our Father, and through His believers to others. “May they be brought to
complete unity to let the world know that you have sent me and have loved
them even as you have loved me.” Through such kingdom-centered prayer,
God will open to us opportunities to display His majesty and power and
saving grace. “God is not looking for perfect Christians, but for those
who are attentive to holy purposes.” (Richard Lovelace, Renewal As a Way
of Life, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985, p. 173). Isaiah was
not the only one who expressed God’s desire in such terms: “This is the
one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my
word.” (Is. 66:2) Kingdom-centered prayer expands our field of vision.

The third area of involvement for maximum spiritual growth is community.
For Christians, the purpose of community is for mutual encouragement and
accountability. Christian community is not just a social party; it is the
God-given way to “keep the faith” and maintain vital spiritual growth. On
this matter, Lovelace writes, “Among the most vital means of grace are
other Christians. Neither the Bible not the sacraments will leave the
shelf or the sanctuary to rescue a Christian who is too discouraged or
backslidden to pray or worship. But a concerned brother or sister will do
this again and again! For this reason, Acts indicates that living in
community is still another way to ‘abide in Christ’: ‘They devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to prayer… All the believers were together and had
everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to
anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the
temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad
and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the
people. And the Lord added to their number daily.’ (Acts 2:42-47)”
(Richard Lovelace, Renewal As a Way of Life, Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1985, p. 178). It is encouragement through this type
of community that expands our field of vision.

The fourth area of involvement for maximum spiritual growth is
theological integration. Many Christians ignore this area of their
spiritual development, I believe, because with so little time to devote
toward the basic spiritual disciplines - prayer, devotion, worship,
mission, stewardship - there is none left over to grow beyond these
basics. “Besides,” many of us point out, “the gospel message is meant to
be simple. It is a simple faith that is understandable to even the most
uneducated. In the days of the early Christian Church, even the slaves
who were exposed to the gospel were able to understand and respond in
saving faith. Why must we unnecessarily complicate our simple faith with
complex, even divisive, theology?”

Good points and good question. Yes, God made the whole basis of salvation
simple. No one needs to go through four years of college and three years
of graduate training in order to believe and be saved. In fact, God
confounds the wisest of humans with His simple-to-understand work of
grace completed by Jesus Christ. But, the sad fact is, that as Christians
have sat back and been satisfied with only the easily understandable
basics of Christian spirituality - the “milk,” as the Scripture writers
put it - and have surrendered the development of the academic mind to
secular forces, we have left both the Church and the world in a sadder
state of affairs. It is on this account, in poll after poll, that
American Christians who identify themselves as born-again do not believe
in the devil as a real person; do not give the Bible priority over other
works of literature; do not believe in such basic Christological
doctrines as the Virgin birth or the bodily resurrection of Jesus or the
deity of Jesus. Yet, polls show that evangelical, born-again Christians
across America do believe that religions other than Christianity can
point a way to heaven; that the decision for abortion should be the right
of every woman; and that any type of sexual behavior is all right with
God as long as the participants express “love” for each other. And in the
most recent days, we can throw in the controversial breakthroughs in
genetic research. Because Christians have as difficult time grappling
with such issues as anyone else, in spite of the insights God provides
through His Word, we satisfy ourselves in the belief that salvation is
the only thing we need to know and anything beyond that is superfluous.
In How Now Shall We Live?, Chuck Colson offers a different perspective.
“But this emphasis on a personal relationship can also be
evangelicalism’s greatest weakness because it may prevent us from seeing
God’s plan for us beyond personal salvation. Genuine Christianity is more
than a relationship with Jesus, as expressed in personal piety, church
attendance, Bible study, and works of charity. It is more than
discipleship, more than believing a system of doctrines about God.
Genuine Christianity is a way of seeing and comprehending all reality. It
is a worldview.” (Chuck Colson, How Now Shall We Live?, Wheaton: Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc., 1999, pp. 14-15) And Richard Lovelace writes, “I
am more and more convinced that Christianity has lost control of Western
culture because it has failed to spend time and money on the cultivation
of the mind. The result is a modernism that cannot transform culture
because it has capitulated to paganism, and a fundamentalism which has no
traction because it is out of touch. The only way we can avoid these
polar dangers of destructive and protective enculturation is to invest
time, money and prayer where the impact is greatest: in the formation of
Christian hearts and minds. Warm hearts alone will not conquer a culture
unless we wield the instruments that govern the central mindset of
society: ideas. But ideas alone will be powerless unless they are
controlled and directed by Spirit-filled hearts.” (Richard Lovelace,
Renewal As a Way of Life, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985, p.
192).

Like the Old Testament communities centuries before us, it is the
responsibility of the community of faith to know the Words of the Lord,
the culture in which we apply the commands and love of God, the
reflections and opinions of men and women of faith who have dedicated
themselves to the study of God’s Word, and even the controversies that
have developed as a result of honest study and misunderstanding. Paul
would certainly agree with any of us here that all that is necessary for
salvation is simple, saving faith in Jesus Christ. Yet, Paul also
recognized the danger to the Church when well-educated and well-prepared
men of other philosophies and ideologies came into a Church ill-prepared
to pro-actively support its faith. He called such men false teachers and,
in response to them, wrote significant, thoughtful, and complex letters
in defense of the theology and doctrines of the Church. I challenge
anyone to read through the book of Romans just one time and claim a
thorough understanding of Paul’s thoughts. And so it has gone through the
entire history of the Christian Church. There have always been false
teaching introduced into the Church, but there has also always been men
and women prepared to respond to such false teaching because they grasped
and understood the theological foundations of Christian belief.
Theological integration expands our field of vision.

I hope that everyone can see a little clearer as we grow in spiritual
renewal. Our victory comes from Jesus, the victorious Messiah. This must
always be our starting place, for both salvation and sustenance. As we
believe that God loves and saves us, we then grow in personal
relationship with Him. Our vision becomes clearer with each step of
growth we make. Finally, as our central vision becomes clearer, we also
come to understand that our field of vision will also expand when we take
our personal faith into the world and share with those we are able the
cure for spiritual blindness. Mission, prayer, community, and theological
integration are all tools that expand our field of vision.

Reflecting upon his childhood in New Mexico, Richard Lovelace recalls the
riverbeds that would dry up in the winter, but then return to overflowing
in the spring rains and thaws. He writes, “But with every spring, the
torrents flow in the arroyos, and the river and its canals are filled
again with the fluid of life. Every river grows larger as it approaches
the sea. As we move toward the end… of history, do not pray only for your
own spiritual renewal. Pray for a springtime of the Spirit which will
enrich the church and the world, an awakening for which all earlier
renewal movements have been only rehearsals.” (Richard Lovelace, Renewal
As a Way of Life, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985, p. 193).

Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN

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