(Starting at ~25:35)
‘What
is the best way to teach a grace message to your team while at the same time
they need law/guidelines (HELP!)’
Your teams don’t need ‘The Law’, or
the Old Testament Law; they need to know the Gospel. The Law was not even given
to the Gentiles, but we need to know the message of the Gospel.
We DO need the guidelines. Paul tell
the Romans to pay taxes, and to be at peace with all men, and to respect your
authorities. What we see here is that there is no clash/contrast between grace
and functioning in society! The heart of Christ is that we obey those in
authority, to obey the rules that have been put in place for our protection.
It’s not for us to become legalistic
about these rules; there are still earthly circumstances and consequences for
our actions in this world. It’s one thing for us to suffer for believing in
Christ, but if we’re suffering because of something we did, we have to
understand that there is no partiality here, and the consequences that apply to
unbelievers certainly apply to us as well. These things happen without
partiality. The earth functions in another way.
Listening to our parents and
authorities is not legalism. Don’t be afraid to have boundaries, and to have
laws of the land, and rules in place. We don’t want to be unwise in the raising
of our children, our peers, and/or our teams. As all people, we are all getting
more and more acquainted in the Gospel with every day, but we ought to look out
for each other by establishing guidelines.
My take on this: Part of our respecting of authorities is
birthed out of the understanding that we are all, indeed, getting acquainted
with the Gospel of Christ, and the person and identity of Christ with each and
every day. There are consequences for even the smallest slip-ups we have, and
we have to understand that our roles as leaders is to impose (1) guidelines and
rules to keep our brethren from falling into these consequences, and (2) a
gracious response in the name of training and not punishing those who have fallen.
Andrew Farley concludes: ‘Don’t be focused on Old Testament law when
we do want to be proclaiming the excellencies of God’s Grace to our teams right
from the get-go and showing them this dependent life on Christ.’
Is
your teaching basically boiling down to, ‘Let go, let God’?
Yes, and no.
For some, when they think, ‘Let go,
let God’, they’re thinking ‘Jesus, I can’t but you can, but I’m going to let
you.’; and that’s the attitude. Just as we received Him (‘I can’t, but you can, and I’m going to let you’), so we walk in
Him, emphasizing ‘I can’t, but you can,
and I’m going to let you’…
On the other hand, we ought to watch
out for when ‘Let go, let God’
becomes, ‘All of You, and none of me’;
Again, we aren’t fire hoses here; we aren’t supposed to become little Jesuses
here. We must remember that WE became the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ
so we could be involved and we could participate, and we could be united with
Christ, so we could be ourselves…
… we could understand that Christ is
alive in us, but we should always remember that because of this, we could be
ourselves. God is crazy in love with us, and that He really likes us. He knows
everything about us that makes us who we are, and He doesn’t want to change any
of that – He did all that He did because He loves us.
Do you believe that you are an
OBSTACLE to God, or an INSTRUMENT of God? Do you believe that you are dirty and
ugly, or that because of Christ, you have been made compatible and acceptable
and beloved by God?
Is it ‘Let go, let God?’ – Yes and no.
He is the Power. He is God, and we are not. But at the same time, we are made
His children, holy and dearly loved; He could have done it all without us, but
He chose to create us, He chose to rescue us, and He chose to include us.
Learn who you are in Christ, and then
be yourself, and then repeat.
(Ends 33:01)
_________________________
jb.redeemed
email me at jibee@rocketmail.com.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift His countenance upon you and give you His Shalom. - Numbers 6:24-26