Well, I don't know about everyone else but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that we are already in the month of April. Our USFSP students will be going on spring break in two weeks then the remainder of the semester will be completed online. This means that some of the students won’t be returning to campus until fall but our hope is to stay connected with them as best as possible so they don’t lose the integration they’ve established in our community. That being said, I think this introduction is a good segue into this week’s topic, the official first part of looking into the imperative features of a healthy and thriving church community. The first trait that a church community needs to thrive is a solid network of individuals and even other churches. Now, this purpose of networking is not for the sake of building up one’s own power or influence, which is how this resource can oftentimes be used. On the contrary, C. Kavin Rowe and L. Gregory Jones mention in their book, Thriving Communities, how “The early churches maintained a remarkable level of interconnection, something that helped them form a common identity and purpose, even across ethnic and geographical borders.” Meaningful and intentional relationships that are established between churches are meant to encourage and build each other up in the body of Christ. Acts 9:31 gives an example of what the authors of Thriving Communities refer to. “Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.” Next, the second feature that is needed for a church community to thrive is visibility, meaning we need to live out our faith for everyone to see and know about. We are not called to keep our faith to ourselves as some might think. In fact, the early Christians believed that “to be “Christian” was by its nature a public confession and identity, so much so that the term “Christian” was applied first by outsiders to individuals belonging to a group that had a distinct, public identity….To the early Christians, being the church meant being a witness in the presence of and for the good of those around them.” (Rowe & Jones) Where is that kind of zeal now in the 21st century? It undoubtedly still exists among the unashamed faithful few, but how many people do we know claim to be Christians yet their actions contradict? Then again, there are even some Christians who even tend to be “overzealous” so to speak, and forget that it’s not their place to do the judging when someone commits an immoral sin. But that’s all for a later (and potentially more in-depth) discussion. The point of this matter is that we as the body of Christ are called to put our faith on public display so others can come to a saving knowledge of Him through the way we represent Him in our everyday lives. A prime example of publicly living out one’s faith for others to see, and even hear, is the story of Paul and Silas when they were in prison. “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them….immediately, all the doors were opened and and everyone’s chains were loosed.” (Acts 16:25-26) Even in the midst of trial, these two men openly expressed their faith in God and their actions resulted in the salvation of the jailer. As providence would have it, I believe I’ve maxed out my time and space on this week’s discussion. While my writing space is technically unlimited (as far as I’m aware), I understand that not everyone has enough time to read long, in-depth posts so I’ll wrap this up momentarily. Trust me, I’m doing my best to keep these blogs as short, simple and succinct as possible. Next week, I’ll pick back up with the third and fourth features and we’ll see what happens from there. In the meantime, my prayer for all of us going into the next week (as Easter Sunday is in a few days), that God will give us the power of His Spirit to openly express the hope and joy we have in His Son who conquered sin and death for all eternity. Have a blessed weekend!
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According to the famous words from Walt Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, “Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.” If there is one thing that I have learned over the last four and a half years while being involved with CoMission, it’s the importance of family and not just the biological kind. As a matter of fact, the particular kind of family I’m referring to in this context is specifically the church body.
Another term that is also widely used, in various forms of neighborhoods or groups of people, is the word, “community.” The Miriam Webster Dictionary defines community as “a unified body of individuals: such as….a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.” In this case, a community of Christians---or better yet, a church family---is a group of people that shares one main characteristic: belief in the Lord Jesus Christ who loves us so much that He was born of a virgin, lived a human (albeit perfect) life on earth, died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins, resurrected three days later, and ascended into heaven with God our heavenly Father, leaving the gift of His Spirit to dwell with us and in us. Over the next several weeks, I will go into detail about what a healthy and thriving church community looks like according to the scriptures in the book of Acts. I will also be drawing from six points that were mentioned in the first chapter of a book titled Thriving Communities: The Pattern of Church Life Then and Now by C. Kavin Rowe and L. Gregory Jones. This week, for the sake of time, I will just briefly introduce the six main points that will be covered over the next two weeks. These points that the authors address are as follows: 1. Networks and networking; 2. Visibility; 3. Provision for the weak; 4. Articulacy of belief; 5. Processing conflict; 6. Suffering. As we look more in-depth on how these features are necessary for a church family/community to thrive, my hope is that we will all be able to take away something we can apply to our everyday lives as we strive to be more like Christ’s body, the church. I think Rowe and Jones said it best in the concluding paragraph of this chapter. “To learn about thriving communities from Acts requires us to nurture an imagination that thinks about a complete pattern for life. It’s not that these six features guarantee that we’ll have a thriving community. These are six strands of a unified community life, and when they are woven together, they help Christian communities to serve their purpose in the world. Taken together, these features are what it means for us to live as communities that are a foretaste of God’s kingdom.” To close out this week's post, I leave you with a biblical definition of the church community. "Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." Acts 2: 44-47. As luck would have it, yesterday was Wednesday and also St. Patrick’s Day. No, I didn’t wear green. Sorry to disappoint. As a matter of fact, I never understood why so many people in the United States observed an Irish holiday which just seemed to commemorate a legendary leprechaun. Now granted, I’ve known for some time that Saint Patrick was indeed a real person but the worldwide holiday (which supposedly brings good luck to those who wear green on that day) evidently does not honor him for who he really was. With that being said, I’m going to spend a little time today giving a short history lesson. Note, the following information I’ll be providing comes from a book I’ve been reading titled, Faith of Our Fathers: Scenes from Church History. The book is a compilation of short works on various historical topics, written by various authors, regarding the Christian church and I’ll specifically be referencing a chapter about Saint Patrick, written by Christa G. Habbeger. There are limited resources about the life of Saint Patrick, but I think we can learn a good deal about the “Apostle of Ireland,” through his two writings, Confession and Letter to Coroticus. It is from Confession where we learn that Patrick was born in a town called Banavem of Tabernia, most likely in England which was at the time being gradually released from Roman rule. When Patrick was 16, he recorded an instance when he was taken captive by Irish raiders and enslaved for six years as a tender of sheep. During his enslavement, Patrick records his testimony of conversion to Christianity, becoming a man of fervent prayer. He wrote that God later called him to take the gospel back to his former captors in Ireland, a country that was almost wholly unevangelized in the middle of the fifth century (Habbeger 77). While there are little to no details about Patrick’s ministry and how long it lasted, we can be encouraged by his recordings about the trials he went through during that time. Like many missionaries, he faced opposition, both from family and friends, and from those he ministered to. “Once, he recorded, ‘I give thanks unto him, who has comforted me on all occasions, so that nothing has hindered me from the accomplishment of that which I had laid down to do, and also of my work, which I had learned from Christ. But rather on account of it, I have felt myself strengthened not a little, and my faith has been proved before God and man.’”(Habbeger 78-9) He even wrote of a situation where “‘minor kings….even desired to kill me, but the time had not come; everything which they found with us they seized at once, and bound myself with fetter; but on the fourteenth day the Lord delivered me out of their power….’” (Habbeger 80) Patrick also endured homesickness and wrote about his longing to visit loved ones in his homeland but refused to succumb to this desire for the sake of the fruits of his labor, the thousands of souls he baptized during his ministry. In fact, “he had long ago decided that ‘if I went [to Ireland], I should wish to be with them the residue of my life.’” (Habbeger 79) And, like many of Jesus’s disciples, he even lacked education but “Confession and Letter reveal that the source of his learning was the Word of God.” (Habbeger 78) What inspires me personally about Saint Patrick’s life and ministry was his strong devotion to the work God called him to do, so much so that he was a prime example of literally leaving behind loved ones, as referred to in the scripture, Matthew 10:37-38. His love for the Lord and for spreading the gospel far surmounted the love he had for his biological family, something that I fall so short of every day. My hope and prayer is that we the staff in CoMission would strive to be more like Patrick and other missionaries across the globe today, who love Christ so much more than our friends and family that we would be willing to leave them behind to take the gospel to places where it hasn’t been heard. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 10:37-39 If there is one thing I have learned in the almost 27 years of my life, it's simply this. Time flies whether we're having fun or not. It's already near the middle of the semester at USFSP and spring break will be here before we know it. Just over the course of the last month, I have seen lots of fruition come out out of new relationships between students and the CoMission staff. John, one of my coworkers has been leading a Bible study every week with a few guys, including one of our student leaders, Lucas, a junior at USFSP. For a while, the study consisted of just the two of them and another student, Sam, who got baptized last fall. Now, there are six guys in the Bible study! Austin and Caleb, both sophomores at USFSP and in the ROTC program, have been in the study now for at least a month and just within the last week, another guy named Ryan started joining in. Another area where we are starting to see a little bit of fruit is at our weekly campus prayer group on Monday mornings from 10:02 to 11:00. We had two new students join us this week as we interceded for the USFSP campus, the city of St. Petersburg, and a couple of different countries across the globe. So, why do we meet at 10:02 specifically? Well, I have an easy answer to that easy (and very good) question. We base it off of the scripture, Luke 10:2. "Then He said to them, 'The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'" (NKJV) Last night, two of our three community groups joined together at the home of a family from our local church, who was graciously willing to host last minute when members from the initial host families fell sick. Now, being a major introvert, large crowds in confined spaces tend to make me anxious (even if I know everyone) and last night was no exception. But despite that, it was still a huge blessing being able to commune with my family as we learned how to pray through the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. Also, since there are no new students in my specific community group, there were at least three new faces I had not met before, plus another four whom I have met and gotten to know over the last several weeks. My heart has been so full seeing all of these new students get brought in and connected to our family of missionary servants and prayer for them, whether they're Christian or not, is that they will be able to grow spiritually and see what it's like to live a life totally surrendered to following Christ. We’ve all heard the popular saying, “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t consider myself a tree hugger and I’m definitely not going to corner you on the sidewalk with a petition like the Green Peace activists. But I’m sure many of y’all can agree with my preference for clean (and safe) beaches, both for us “smart” humans---who claim our trash just missed the waste basket---and dumb seagulls that don’t know the difference between fish and plastic.
However, there is another type of “recycling” which happens to be strongly discouraged for the sake of a healthy environment, and that’s the environment of disciple-making. About a week or two ago, I read some articles Paul Worcester wrote about the essentials for healthy discipleship and one of the essentials that stood out to me was reproducibility. As followers of Christ, Worcester cautions us against the complacency of what he calls “dead-end discipleship.” This kind of discipleship is where Christians meet with other Christians to help each other improve their own faith but they don’t break out of their comfort cliques to evangelize and reach non-Christians. Worcester shared a quote from one of his friends who says, “Discipleship without evangelism is not discipleship. It’s actually recycle-ship.” Recycling and reusing the same old Christian relationships can reduce the growth and spread of the gospel, therefore preventing any more people from becoming part of God’s family. If we as followers of Christ are to maintain a healthy disciple-making environment, we have to go beyond our circle of Christian friends, reach out to non-believers with the gospel and then bring them into the circle for equipping so they can in turn leave the circle to do the same thing. A healthy disciple-making environment is supposed to be reproducible, not recyclable. To conclude this week’s post, I am going to share some tips that Worcester provided to ensure that our discipleship is reproducing more disciples and not recycling old ones. These are some practices that our CoMission staff apply on a regular basis throughout each semester on the USFSP campus and I think they can be easily applied by anyone anywhere, whether on the college campus or in the workplace.
These are only five of eight pointers that Worcester provided so if you’d like to know what the others are and/or you would like to read more in-depth about the vitality of reproducible discipleship, click here for the full article. "And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." - 2 Timothy 2:2 *This story uses initials and blurred images for the safety of those overseas*
Welcome to another week of CoMission's blog everyone! This week, I figured it would be appropriate to wrap up my series from the 2020 CROSS CON sessions with a story from one of our alumni who's life was impacted, not only by CoMission but by the CROSS conference so many years ago. Now, over five years later, K and her husband R are preparing to be sent out to build churches through college ministry. Here's her story. When I think back on my time in CoMission, I reflect on what a kind, faithful, patient, and compassionate God we serve. He taught me so much about myself and how immeasurable a blessing it is to have a community of believers to run this race with. Mostly, he taught me about Himself, the limitless of His goodness, the perfection of His instruction, and the profound sweetness of the news that there is now no condemnation for me in Christ Jesus. The community of CoMission planted a seed in me and discipled me until I could disciple others. They patiently taught me the gospel through their words, deeds, and sacrifices. They inspired, encouraged, and convicted me with how they obey Christ with reckless abandon. They cried with me and fought sin with me when the enemy’s temptation was so evident in one of the darkest times of my life. They celebrated with me when my husband and I got married and when my parents and sister became Christians and got baptized. We’ve prayed together for health and God’s mercy, provision and discernment, and He’s given us grace to see countless answers to these prayers. This community glorified God in how they served me over the years and I tried to do the same for them. CoMission taught me about mission and to see USFSP as my mission field. Along the way. I also learned how important peoples of all nations are to God. I was able to go to conferences and be exposed to remarkable teachers and leaders that taught us of the devastating reality of unreached people groups. Countries and cities and tribes of people who do not know Jesus. I was able to serve with CoMission in Costa Rica and East Asia, which altered my and my husband’s life plans. We are now serving locally until we can serve overseas for His glory. I didn’t know what Christ’s death on the cross meant before joining CoMission my freshman year. I knew I wasn’t perfect but I didn’t understand my necessity for God. He was gracious in revealing to me how much we needed Jesus to live the life we couldn’t live and to die the death we deserved to pay for our sin and create a way for us to have a relationship with Him. My identity is hidden in Him and now I am a co-heir to eternal life with Christ. He has given me His Spirit and He is always at my right hand. I will not be controlled by the power of sin because He has defeated it by defeating death! “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” Psalm 16:6 What a magnificent God we serve. Well everyone, we have made it to the final week of the CROSS CON series and naturally, the best was saved for last. The second to last line in the Lord’s Prayer was used as the title for David Platt’s lesson, “And Lead Us Not Into Temptation.” Platt opens his sermon by asking why Jesus would close out this prayer with these words and his answer could not be closer to the truth. “Because there is an adversary who does not want [God’s] name to be hallowed….he wants people to burn in hell and he wants to distract us from sharing the Good News.” Proceeding this answer are six different points that Platt makes, each of them addressing a different spiritual aspect. For this blog post, I am going to briefly present just the second and fifth points from this final CROSS CON sermon, as I am convinced that these points hit home the most in terms of what we in CoMission face on a regular basis. The first subject---or in this case, the second point---from Platt’s lesson I want to highlight is that we are involved in a spiritual war. This specific type of spiritual war, based on the text, is that of temptation constantly presented to us on a daily basis by the devil, also known as the adversary. I think we can all agree that the devil lurks around every corner of our everyday lives on this earth, plotting our demise. More so, our failure to complete the work Christ has called us to do in sharing the good news with those around us. But we can rest assured that we don’t have to go through this battle of temptation alone, nor do we have reason to think we’re the only ones that have dealt with it. Jesus, the one and only perfect being on this earth, even faced temptation from the devil as seen in Matthew 4:1-11, so he knows what it feels like. What’s more, we can take a lesson from Him on how to combat this spiritual war against the adversary by using scripture, which He does so well in verses 4, 7 and 10. James 4:7 is also a great reminder and encouragement. “Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Platt warns, “Satan will try to deceive us from going to the nations….he will destroy your life, mind and soul….he wants you to waste your life.” I’ve fallen victim to lies about my ability (or lack thereof) to simply meet people and build new relationships let alone share the gospel. Every time I walk campus with one of my coworkers, I’m plagued with fears, doubts and even downright indifference at the possibility of randomly approaching people. So many times, I find myself blinded to the reality that there are hundreds of people around me who are facing eternal damnation and misery because I don’t even bother to think twice about whether they’ve accepted Christ as their Savior. These heart issues, friends, I believe don’t come from me. They come from the devil, the spiritual adversary who will stop at nothing to prevent me from sharing the love of Christ and that’s a war that I will have to fight for the rest of my life. But with the power of the Holy Spirit, He can and will reign victorious if I choose to let Him take the lead. Finally, the fifth point of Platt’s lesson addresses an even more serious and permanent issue. The stakes in this spiritual war are eternal. Whether or not we even make an attempt to share the gospel with a person can determine their eternal destination and for those who don’t receive it, those “casualties in this war lose everything,” as Platt stated, referencing Revelation 20:10. But of course, that’s not what God wants. On the contrary, His desire is for everyone to be saved. However, that requires those of us who are already in His army to “put on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11) and fight for those lives whose souls are at stake. May the Lord give us all power through His Holy Spirit to overcome the lies, deceit and any other obstacles the devil tries to attack us with. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:12-13) To watch David Platt's sermon from CROSS CON, click here. We’ve all heard the popular saying, “actions speak louder than words” and while it can be true in some aspects of life, we will be proven very wrong when hearing what Wayne Chen had to say during CROSS Con 2020. After reviewing my notes from this lesson, I realized that last week’s post more or less set the scene for this week because a good chunk of the content presented is similar. That being said, I will try to keep this post short and hopefully avoid boring you with redundancy.
This week, one of the things Wayne Chen emphasizes in his lesson is that “showing God’s love through our actions is not enough….we have to proclaim His love and what He did on the cross.” Sound familiar? This subject is imperative and worth repeating to ensure the point is made though, so let me share just one more quote that Chen presented regarding the urgency of this matter. “The most compassionate and Christlike thing to do is to prize the peoples’ spiritual needs over their physical needs. The most hateful thing we could do is to provide for their physical needs without providing the gospel.” What can we say to that? I don’t know about you, but the blunt honesty of that statement left me completely speechless. If that doesn’t convict us of this world’s desperate need for the gospel, what will? The title of Chen’s lesson is yet another line from the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6: “ Forgive Us Our Debts." However, he did not fail to leave out the preceding line, "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread," which is, after all, the basis for the next half of this week's blog content. So how is this line relevant to what was just discussed? Here is a conclusion I came up with based on the first part of this petition. Our daily bread is both physical and spiritual. Chen noted that when we bring the petition, “give us this day our daily bread” (v. 11) before the Lord, we’re asking for more than just our physical needs to be met. We’re also asking Him to give us the grace to trust in His provision for the next day. I would even take this a step further by referencing one of my new favorite scriptures. “So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” (emphasis mine) Our daily bread is not just physical food. It’s the very word of God given to us in the scriptures which feeds our souls. There are thousands of unreached peoples across the globe who are spiritually starving and if we only attempt to meet their physical needs, we are doing more harm than good because they will end up starving for eternity. To conclude this blog post, here are two things that we as Christ’s followers must put at the top of our priority list. 1. We must trust in His provision for us each day, both for our physical needs and for the grace we so desperately need in order to fulfill the Great Commission as effectively as possible. 2. We must see to it that the spiritual needs of those we minister to are met first and foremost. Yes, the physical needs are important in life on earth, but an eternal life free of suffering requires the fulfillment of one’s spiritual needs through the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus, the Bread of Life (see John 6:35). For your pleasure, click here to watch the entirety of Chen’s sermon. Welcome to the last blog of the first month of 2021 everybody!
The third lesson from the 2020 CROSS Conference has set the stage for this week’s post, the third line from the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. “Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done.” Presenting this lesson at the conference was American Reformed Evangelical theologian, author and pastor, Kevin DeYoung. “Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done” is yet another powerful petition, or request, made of God by the Psalmist and we will do well to make that same request today, more often than we probably do currently. But what exactly are we asking for when we make this petition to the Lord? First of all, and most obviously, we’re asking for His will to be done in our lives and on earth. Secondly, we’re asking that Christ’s rule and reign would be experienced here on earth, for His Spirit to change people’s hearts. And finally, the most earnest yet dangerous request that we’re making of all is for Him to come back to earth, to bring judgment on the wicked and to get us, His people out of this broken world. And we’re asking Him to do it quickly. After all, the sooner the better right? That’s probably going to have to be another topic for another day so for now, I’ll leave that for you to decide. Meanwhile, one major question that DeYoung presents us with is this. How should we live in light of these requests? He gives three answers, to live obediently, outwardly and expectantly. While all three are extremely vital, I’m just going to focus on the second and third parts, which literally coincide with the first because I don’t think it’s possible to do these and not be obedient. If anything, they’re done out of obedience. To live outwardly is to live in such a way that advances the Gospel. Helping other people with their physical needs is all fine and well but such services only provide temporary relief on earth; it won’t provide eternal relief. Sharing the good news of the Gospel of Christ with them however, can do just that, depending on how they receive it. Jesus was a prime example of this during his ministry on earth. “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom….” (Matthew 4:23a) His miraculous works of healing and feeding were just a bonus. Lastly, we are to live expectantly, to “keep moving forward” (not to get confused with the famous motto in Disney’s Meet The Robinsons) and expecting God to act in some form or fashion. And best of all is that we are tasked with the privilege of being His messengers to ensure that each and every person receives an invitation. Our CoMission staff make it a point every semester to be on campus and jump at any opportunity to deliver this invitation to as many college students at USFSP as possible. By acting in obedience to this call of duty, we can always expect God to work, one way or another, regardless of whether the recipient accepts or declines the invitation. By living in this way, in light of those huge requests, God’s heavenly kingdom is presented here on earth through us to those around us. DeYoung said it best, “the Kingdom is not a society to be built but a gift to be received,” when referencing Luke 12:32. “....For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” If you would like to watch/listen to the whole lesson, click here. Happy Friday friends! This week, I am going to share with y’all some pieces of the second lesson from CROSS 2020. John Piper presented the second part of the Lord’s Prayer, beginning with the second line which is probably one of the more convicting and powerful lines, at least for me personally. “Hallowed Be Your Name.”
So, what does the word, “hallow” even mean? According to the Miriam Webster Dictionary, it means to make holy, or set apart for holy use. It also means to give great respect. Some synonyms for “hallow” are “bless,” “consecrate,” and “sanctify.” God’s name is to be esteemed as holy. It’s to be sanctified, blessed, highly respected, and even treasured. When we think about it, how often, or how well, do we truly bless the name of God? How sincere are we when we say we respect Him or when we sing, “holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty”? I’ll be honest, there are times when I can truly worship and hallow God’s name with everything I am but then there are many times when I’m just saying a bunch of empty, meaningless words. That makes me no better than the Pharisees Jesus addresses in Matthew 15:8-9 when referring to one of Isaiah's prophecies (Is. 20:13). "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me...." What is extremely powerful about the Lord’s Prayer is something I had never realized until Piper spoke at the conference and that is the fact that the prayer is not just mere statements. It’s also a list of requests. Genuine requests that we should take to the Lord on behalf of ourselves and others for the sake of transforming our hearts and minds. Even for the sake of transforming our very lives. Piper emphasized how the phrase, “Hallowed be your name,” the first request in the prayer, “is an explicit request for a response of the heart to take place.” In other words, we need to pray and ask God to move in our hearts so that we may be able to hallow His name the way it’s meant to be hallowed. Because unless we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts, I don’t believe we will ever be fully capable of honoring God’s name the way He created us to. Another thought that I want to briefly present is how we are to hallow God’s name not just with our words but our actions as well. One specific example is how God commands us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) as a way of hallowing His name; something the CoMission staff put into practice regularly on the USFSP campus. When we look at global missionaries, or even stateside missionaries on the college campuses, who have crossed borders and cultures to make His name known among unreached people groups, they are literally hallowing His name in the utmost way possible. As Piper so appropriately said, “Missions exists because the hallowing of God’s name doesn’t.” After all, how can a group of animistic people in Mongolia hallow the name of their Creator when they have never even heard of Him? Or, how can a group of college athletes or Greek members hallow His name correctly if they have never been taught? As Romans 10:14 explicitly says, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?” May God’s name be hallowed high above every other name in every nation in the years to come. For your enjoyment, click here to view the entirety of John Piper's sermon from CROSS 2020. |
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