There are so many aspects of Paul’s letters that give us a clear understanding of the gospel of grace and how we are to live out that gospel in our daily walk. But there are places in his writings where Paul wants to just lift up and reveal the glory of Christ’s person. We see this in Colossians 1:15-20. In the next few days, I would like us to allow these verses to warm our hearts toward Him.
“He is the image of the invisible God” (1:15). Through Jesus Christ we are able to see God. The Apostle John confirms this; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-2; 14). “The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us--” (1 John 1:2). Jesus also proclaims that He is the perfect image and representation of God the Father; “Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9). The writer of Hebrews concurs and says, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3), meaning, Christ’s representation of God could not be more perfect than it was and is. I leave you with one more verse to meditate on. “The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). These verses should ignite a passion for worship like never before. May the Church become more alive from gazing on HIS GLORY, and then go out to proclaim to the world that GLORY!
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As we have mentioned on this blog site before, we have published a new book, God’s Plan for His Disciples, GPHD. It is helping meet a worldwide need among those spreading the gospel and church planters. The intent of this book is to immediately establish and strengthen new believers and mature existing believers into faithful disciples who will be equipped to disciple others. GPHD covers many of the basic doctrines that every believer should be taught when they are saved. Here is a list of a few major topics and Bible principles that help accomplish this. 1. The Authority and Sufficiency of the Word of God 2. The Authority and Sufficiency of the Spirit 3. Water Baptism 4. Members of One Another 5. Lord’s Supper 6. Instructions and Practice on How to Study the Bible 7. Your Life in Christ 8. Your Life with Christ 9. Spending Quiet Time with the Lord Other studies focus on Paul’s letters, Mark and Luke’s gospel. These studies create in the believer a hunger and continual appetite for a life of feeding on God’s Word, making personal application and helping disciple others to become faithful to the Lord and make other disciples. A local pastor made this observation: “I do rejoice that there seems to be hunger among some of the men as we work our way through GPHD. They want to go through it a second time as soon as we complete it! According to this group, they have learned more in the last few weeks than the last 40 years.” We encourage you to download a copy from the “TRAINING RESOURCES” page or contact us so we can send you a hard copy; http://www.newfoundationsinternational.org/training-resources.html. You can also email us at: newfoundationsinternational@gmail.com. There are times in this ministry that I must divert from Scripture exposition and reports to give you a very personal perspective of this team. I (Sherman) joined Tim back in 2008. It is hard to believe that 10 years has passed already. About four years ago, Randy joined us, and more recently Jonathan. Each plays an important role in this ministry, not for personal gain but for God’s glory. This leads me to think about the “partners” Paul had in his ministry who played a vital role. The setting in 2 Corinthians 8 – 9 was about meeting a need in the Jerusalem church. Chapter 8:16-24 provides for us an insight into how much Paul valued men like Titus and others who are unnamed. He described them as being “earnest…a brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel…appointed by the churches…for the glory of the Lord Himself.” He goes on in verses 22-23 to describe Titus as “tested and found earnest in many matters, but who is now more earnest than ever because of his great confidence in you. As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker for your benefit.” In many respects, this is how I feel about these men I work with at New Foundations International. They are sold-out for making the gospel known to every unreached people group across the globe. It is not easy to be away from their wives and families for weeks at a time. Yet they will sacrifice anything to train indigenous leaders how to multiply the New Testament principles and Paul’s method of discipling and planting churches so we finish the task Jesus left for us to do. Have there been tests and trials along the path? Yes! Each of us have learned to let the Spirit teach and guide us at each step. God has been faithful and used our weakness to ignite spiritual fires around the world. I am so grateful to work alongside partners with the same passion and love for Jesus and His authority in the Scriptures. If you are interested in learning more about what God is doing, please contact us at newfoundationsinternational@gmail.com. Randy and Jonathan have just finished the training in Northern Shan State, Myanmar. It has been incredible to see the hunger that these young men and women have for God's Word. They finished GPHD in 2 days and introduced GPHC for our last day today. One brother during the GPHC overview was writing on the inside front cover of his manual just gobbling up every crumb he could. What a privilege to take part in this work! “I have been in Mark 8 and God revealed something to me. In verses 14-21 we see the disciples crossing over the sea and talking about how they have only one loaf of bread, and all the while Jesus is talking to them about the leaven of the Pharisees. Jesus then points to the leftovers, or the abundance from the feeding of the 4,000 and 5,000. The reason Jesus pointed to the leftovers was to make us look at the process of feeding or "serving" with His abundance. What He has taught me while looking back at the feeding of the 4,000 and 5,000, is that Jesus gave the disciples the bread to distribute! He placed the bread in their hands to give to the hungry people. And after all their serving was done, there was more left than when they started. Jesus has equipped us, by His grace, with all the bread we need to feed those around us. My prayer is that He would put us in places where there is a hunger. Would you join me in asking Him to multiply and increase His Word until all have heard? Thank you for your continued prayers for us. I am so thankful, that by His grace, He has put us on this journey together.” Jonathan “And as He (Jesus) came out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”” (Mark 13:1–2). What would we think if this event occurred today in front of one of our “wonderful buildings?” If we read a few verses later in the chapter, Jesus continue to warn His disciples, “See that no one leads you astray” (13:5). There is a great danger of becoming occupied with the wrong thing, and buildings is one of them. As Jesus goes on to explain what will happen after His departure from this scene, He prepares the disciple for persecution, not a building program; for spreading the gospel to “all nations (ethnē - 13:10),” not becoming consumed with worries of this life. It is the Holy Spirit who will speak through those submitted to His control and power. God is the General Contractor of the biggest building program this world has ever seen, but it does not include cement, wood, steel, carpet or paint. His construction material is taking place in souls of men and women with the gold and silver of His truth, the Word of God. They are bound together with the unifying work of the Spirit so that every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is “being joined together, growing into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21-22). Which building are you working on? One will be “thrown down” while the other is eternal for God’s praise and glory. A people group defined by language The likely alternative is to always present a list of language groups, with some sub-divisions of language groups (an ethno-linguistic list). The first cut is always on language using this alternative. Consequently, church planters and disciple-makers focus on ethno-linguistic groups, attempting to plant churches (oftentimes) among castes and tribes that mistrust or dislike each other. People may understand each other, but do they accept each other? A people group list with a church planting focusJoshua Project's first purpose is to support church planting and discipleship efforts, and we define "people group" with that goal in mind. We also wish to support language-based ministry efforts (such as literature / video / audio distributions and the like), as a more secondary purpose. Our data can be used for both purposes. We can format the data to support church planting, and to some extent we can re-format it to support language-based outreach. What a people group is not While people groups can be defined by various combinations of ethnicity, language, religion, caste and geography, they are not defined by occupation, social status, education level, economic status or political affiliation. While these do not define people groups, these distinctions are helpful for on-the-ground strategies. A people group is not the same as a group of people. Unreached is not the same as unsaved. "Unreached" in unreached people group is describing the group, not the individual members of it. So, an “unreached people group” is not the same thing as a “group of unsaved people”, despite the similarity of terms. Used by permission from Joshua Project - https://joshuaproject.net/resources/ An argument can be made for defining "people group" according to the highest of the two barriers (understandability and acceptance), in some circumstances. If understandability is the most important barrier, then a linguistic, or an ethno-linguistic, approach is used. With this approach, one people group doesn't speak more than one language (apart from occasional bi-lingual individuals), although more than one people group may speak a given language if cultural or dialect differences warrant. In most of the world, this is the approach Joshua Project uses. The Karakalpak in Uzbekistan are an example of a people group defined by understanding. If the cultural / relationship barrier is the greatest barrier (as it often is in South Asia), then we treat caste / tribe as the first criterion for separation. With this approach, one people group may speak more than one language. And as with the first approach, one language may be spoken by more than one people group. (Note that multi-lingualism is not so much in view as the situation where some individuals in the group speak language A and others speak language B. Some may be multi-lingual, but that's not the main issue.) The Sonar in India are an example of a people group defined by acceptance. Allowing one people group to speak more than one language is a compromise. It is a way to present a somewhat simplified picture of the church planting task, at the risk of over-simplifying the understandability barriers within people groups. Joshua Project's first purpose is to support church planting and discipleship efforts, and we define "people group" with that goal in mind. Used by permission from Joshua Project - https://joshuaproject.net/resources/ As we speak with many in the church, there is a general misunderstanding of Matthew 28:18-19; “And Jesus came and said to them…Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” The Greek word for “nations” is “ethnē” from which we get the English word “ethnic.” What distinguishes one people group from another? The traditional definition has been, "For evangelization purposes, a people group is the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance" Ideally, "people group" would always be defined to mean (a) all individuals in the group understand each other reasonably well and (b) cultural/relationship barriers are not so high that the transmission of the Gospel is seriously hindered. This is the goal, and this is what Joshua Project and NFI strives towards. However, there are situations where compromises are in order. Let's consider the most complicated case, India. If we strictly defined "people group" this way in India, all individuals in each people group would speak the same language and would be in the same caste or tribe. Easily done, but what would it lead to? We would immediately create over potentially over 20,000 people groups in India alone, using the excellent Omid data for India. (Some castes speak 50-60 languages.) This would be overwhelming, from a ministry perspective. Is this the best way to serve church planters and other workers on the field? Tomorrow we will look at some barriers to defining people groups and factors used in the process. Used by permission from Joshua Project - https://joshuaproject.net/resources/ There are many features about the conversion of Saul that we tend to think are unique to him and we never see the same character flaws in ourselves. His hatred of disciples of Jesus who belonged to “the Way” seemed ‘over-the-top’ and extreme. As Saul traveled the road toward Damascus, he carried papers that authorized him to find “any belonging to the Way, men and women, [and] bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:2). Would they be put in prison and eventually come to the same fate as Stephen – death?
Before we think that Saul was in a category of persecutors and murders, let us remember the words of Romans 5:10; “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” Read that again; “we were enemies” includes all of us. It began at birth with a sin nature inherited from Adam (5:14) that rebels against God. As we see this truth, it is impossible to put Saul in a separate category as a worse sinner than us. True, Paul calls himself the “worst or foremost” sinner (1 Timothy 1:15), but that was because of how he felt the seriousness of his previous life. There is another feature of Saul’s conversion that perhaps is not as common to us. As he pondered the Lord’s words to him on that road, and waited for Ananias to come, he prayed. What he prayed and how is not given us, but that is not the point. Saul began his new life in Christ by prayer. No wonder he begins many of his letters telling churches and individuals he is praying for them. Perhaps your conversion did not begin with prayer, but it must become an essential feature of your walk and life in Christ. Through this habit, we fellowship, receive understanding and learn to wait on the Lord for grace, spiritual strength and courage to walk faithful to Him. |
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