The New is the Old

Where have we been in this quest for understanding the cultural engagement by Christians? Well first we saw that humanity is created in the image of God, second we recognized our epic fail, then we saw how the Law was given to keep on the straight and narrow, and in the previous post we looked at King Jesus.

The question we must now face is what does this mean for the Christian? If we indeed have been transferred from death to life by King Jesus through his bloody revolution on a Cross, what does this new life look like?

2 Corinthians 5 gives us the answer, "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20 ESV)."

In the new life we are now ambassadors for Christ. Wait, isn't that what we were called back in the first post: "God gives humanity a very specific responsibility and that responsibility is fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominon.  We are to this as God’s ambassadors."

Yep.

You see we have been redeemed.  Redeemed means, "to obtain the release or restoration, as from captivity, by paying a ransom."

That's right, restored.

What are we restored to?  We are restored to our roles as ambassadors for Christ to the creation. If you say you are a creation you are not your own.  You are an ambassador.  You serve at the pleasure of King Jesus.  You serve a particular purpose.

This ambassadorship is not a "special" or "unique" calling to a privileged few.  It is for all Christians. This is our new identity, which is actually our original identity, only better.

How is it better?

The Holy Spirit.

Seriously.

Jesus said, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16:7-15 ESV)."

This is what makes everything so much better.  The Holy Spirit lives with us and is in us.  How can we engage the world? We do it with the Spirit's help.

The new is the old, only better.

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Easter, It's More Than a Bunny

As we continue to think about what it means to be culturally engaged Christians we must take a look at the turning point.  Where have we been so far? First, we are created in God's image.  Second, we failed and failed big. Third, the Law was given as an overseer to show us our need for the Son. Now, we come to this place, the turning point.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. (Colossians 1:15-23 ESV)"

Paul is at his best here.  He paints for us a compelling picture of a rupture in the entire world system.  There was a new emperor in town and this one conquered through a criminal's death.  He won the day through blood being shed but not someone else's, his own.  Dostoyevsky argues in Crime and Punishment that all great men are proven great by getting away with murder.  The King was so great that he orchestrated his own murder and then overcame through resurrection.

Then there is this phrase, "...through him to reconcile to himself all things..." It is this reconciliation that makes us human again.

Prior to the King overcoming death, we were in exile, not politically, but in our identity.  We were exiled from who we really are: ambassadors to the King's creation.  We lived in broken relationship from our federal head who.

We were not human.

In relationship with the King through his reconciling work we become human again.

With reconciled identity and being and purpose we can finally be who we ought to be.

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Book Review: Surviving Your Serengeti: 7 Skills to Conquering any Business Challenge

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=danielmroseco-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=0470947802
Surviving Your Serengeti: 7 Skills to Conquering any Business Challenge.  It was given to me by a friend who said, "You have to read this.  It's pretty great."

I was looking forward to reading it because I had already taken the leadership style inventory that goes with the book and found out that I was a "Wildebeest".

That didn't seem very inspiring.

You can read that last comment as "I was a bit skeptical".  I have read many books on leadership.  I could list them for you but, my fingers would stop working. Swanepoel, has however, brought a unique twist to the game.  He identifies seven key skills that a person needs to succeed in the Serengeti of leadership.

I am a pastor and so I read Swanepoel's parable of the Serengeti through a bit of a different lens. I am not very interested in making a lot of money.  What I am interested in is making an impact.

A big impact.

As I read I tried to imagine the Serengeti of church leadership and how the skills of the strategic lion, the enterprising crocodile, the enduring wildebeest (me!), the risk-taking mongoose, the communicating elephant, the efficient cheetah, and the graceful giraffe, would play out in our community.

The reality is that all of them, as Swanepoel states, are necessary.  The skills that he highlights are at the principle level and cross the chasms business, education, non-profit, and wherever else leadership is needed.

I deeply appreciated the fact that in the Serengeti you could not go it alone.  Each of the skills worked together for the survival of the whole.  This is true in the church context as well. We must have teams who lead together. These teams must recognize the giftedness of the players and embrace one another's special role.

I recommend you take a peak and think about what it would take to survive your Serengeti.

THE ENDURING WILDEBEEST

Like the wildebeest, endurance for us in its simplest form is the ability to exert ourselves for relatively long periods of time. More specifically, it’s all about the ability to withstand hardship and stress. We need to remain steadfast and persistent in the face of obstacles. It‘s often not the fastest nor the strongest one that wins the race, it’s the one that stays the course and goes the distance.

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Overlords, Overseers, and a Glimmer

Last week I wrote that we have experienced an epic fail regarding our roles as ambassadors for the Creator to the creation. We rebelled and separated ourselves. We lost our way and began a corrupting process that led to shame and guilt (the first sin was Adam's silence followed quickly by fratricide, that's one heck of a spiral).

The story though is just beginning.  Thankfully we are not the heroes or the centerpieces of this story.  A good story needs a hero who desires something and overcomes conflict to get it.

The story that I am talking about has a hero, God.  He wants something, relationship with people.  So, what is he doing to get it? That's the question I want look at.

It started in Genesis 3:

And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

(Genesis 3:21 ESV)

If you look a few verses earlier you see that Adam and Eve were experiencing shame from being naked.  So, God, kills a few animals and gives them clothes.

Shame is removed. A glimmer.

As time goes on humanity continues to go it's own way.  Through Abraham God calls out a people to be his own, the Hebrews.  To these folks he gives the Law.

Have you ever read it? It's remarkable.  It's merciful, gracious, and loving. Paul says it this way,

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

(Galatians 3:19-20 ESV)

It was an overseer.  The law watched over God's people leading them to him.  If they would just follow it they would see him and know him.

They didn't.

What will God do? He sends his son...

“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord's doing,

and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.  (Matthew 21:33-46 ESV)

It didn't go well for the son.

Thankfully that's not the end of the story. The death of the son changed everything. It opened a way for humanity to finally become, well, human.

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Epic Fail

In my previous post we looked at our identity as image bearers of the Creator King. We saw that humanity is called to follow its Creator in creation as representatives and ambassadors.

But, something is not right.

The original ambassadors for the King failed.  They failed and as a result they sent all future generations into despair and exile. The man, Adam our representative head, was silent as his wife was deceived and drawn into sin.

From this moment on humanity was in a state of brokenness.  We were lost and dead.  The consequences extended to how humanity related to one another and to the creation. We no longer functioned as the King's ambassadors but as traitors to the throne.

We corrupted it all.

We broke everything.

Separation was natural.

As a result we went to war to with our natural calling as human beings.  We set aside our freedom for law.  Enslaved by a self-centeredness that is tangible to every aspect of life.

We lost our way.  Over time (about one generation) we forgot how to be ambassadors.  We began creating things that did not bring glory to God.

We lost our calling.

Epic Fail.

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In the Beginning...

God created...

Did you catch that? God created.

God made. God did. God acted.

What did he create? Quite simply, everything. He created it all and he did it well.  You might even say perfectly.

One of the things he created was a human being, "male and female he created them."  We learn from Genesis:

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26–28 ESV)

The key word: tzelem - image.  God made humanity in his likeness.  Usually man made God in  his likeness.  In Genesis it's the opposite. HALOT (a Hebrew Lexicon) points out that tzelem in this context leads us to the idea that man is God's "viceroy, representative or witness among the creatures."

What did God do? He created.

What is man? God's representative in the world in his likeness.

What should man do? Create.

Look at the last paragraph of the passage quoted above.  God gives humanity a very specific responsibility and that responsibility is fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominon.  We are to this as God's ambassadors.

This requires humanity to create.

The primary responsibility of humanity is to represent God among the creatures and in so doing we are required to create.  This is what is necessitated by us being made in God's likeness.

Many people today believe that the primary identity of a person is that they are a 'sinner'.  It is not.  The primary identity of a person is that he is an image bearer of God. If we can begin to understand this we can begin to understand some things about how we are to interact with culture.

Now I am getting ahead of myself.  For today let's end it there.  To summarize: Humans are image bearers of the Creator that are to represent their Creator among the creation.

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Welcome to the Jungle

I am reading a great book by Dick Staub entitled, The Culturally Savvy Christian.  As I have been reading it, I keep hearing amens and alleluias rumble inside my head.  I think it's because this guy has written a book that I would have loved to write.

I can't write the book, he already did.

What I can do though is bring some focus to this little corner of the cybernet and discuss a bit what I think it means for the church to engage culture.

Welcome to the Jungle, it should be an interesting journey.

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When You're Here, You're Family

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Incarnation

[podcast]http://danielmrose.com/wp-content/uploads/Grace-101226-reduced.mp3[/podcast]

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Can You Feel It Coming…

It seems as though there is something huge waiting to break through.  I can't put my finger on it but there is something almost tangible enveloping my heart, mind, and soul. Have you ever felt this way?Naysayers don't seem to have any power. The vision, the mission, the dream are in front of me and yet it seems as though there is a fog that causes me to not quite be able to fully comprehend.

So I actively wait.

Faithful to the things that are clear and before me.

Hopeful for the things that wrapped in the mystery of the fog.

Thankful for the sovereignly good God within whose kingdom I serve.

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