It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace. Hebrews 13:9
Have you ever thought of grace as strengthening you heart? I haven’t until I asked my wife about this and she said, “Oh yes! It’s my only hope.”
As often happens, I need to find out what she’s talking about. Marti’s secular understanding of God is often truer to the truth than my evangelical one.
Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore. Hebrews 13:13
Disgrace – noun – a person or thing regarded as shameful or unacceptable
Are you willing to be regarded as shameful or unacceptable by anyone — even everyone — but God?
So, let’s go. It’s time to leave the soft, protective environment that Christians have spent 50 years and billions of dollars creating and go out into the world, “outside the camp,” where Christ has been all along. Time for us to join Him.
Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. Hebrews 13:13
Here’s why it is so important for us to go outside the camp and bear the disgrace Jesus bore. Without that, people will get the wrong idea about us and about what a Christian is.
Our lives are the canvas on which the gospel is painted. Will our picture tell the truth about ourselves, or will it lie? Will people see us as people like them who struggle, fail, do bad things, make mistakes and need forgiveness, or do they see us as a group that is too good to be part of? If you share in His disgrace, then grace makes sense. If you have no disgrace, then who needs grace? Christians who are doing just fine don’t have a message. Grace only makes sense to the disgraceful.
Thanks to Sandy, Toni, Gail, Nick, John, Liz, Lyn, Phillip, Merlyn, Bob, Lisa and Jill for their comments on yesterday’s Catch. As Phillip pointed out, we are all very busy and don’t always get to all our emails so that some people don’t respond just because they never saw it. I realize that, and that is why, when I think I have something very important for everyone to see, I will repeat it or mention it in subsequent emails. This is one of those times so if you haven’t read yesterday’s Catch, please do so, and please include your comments on line or to me privately by replying to any Catch sent to you by email. Continue reading
Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore. Hebrews 13:13
Here is just a part of the disgrace Jesus bore outside the camp:
He was crucified as a common criminal.
He was mocked, flogged and spit upon by the Roman soldiers.
He had no place to be buried until His body was claimed
The soldiers cast lots for His only possession: his robe.
He was ridiculed by the people.
He was powerless in His death.
He carried His own cross through the city before a jeering crowd. “Save yourself, Jesus! Where are your angels now, Jesus?”
(This part you couldn’t see except that it killed Him:) He became sin.
He was forsaken by His friends and followers.
He was forsaken by His Father.
He had all the look of a total loser.
Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore. Hebrews 13:13
Jesus died “outside the camp” — outside the city walls — and the writer of Hebrews compels us to go out there and join Him. What could that possibly mean?
We are focusing our attention on “out” this week. When we say “out,” what do we mean? Actually we mean a lot of things; more than we can talk about in one day, but here’s a good start.
By “out,” we mean out in the marketplace, the secular world, the culture at large. Out beyond labels. Out where there is nothing to point to that is Christian except you. Out to where “Christian” and “evangelical” are understood mostly in political terms, and we are not even going to try to save either one of those terms, because as followers of Jesus, we don’t need either one of them to explain who we are or what we do.
So I started this Catch listing all the things about the pandemic that have kept us isolated and turned us inward so I could contrast that with our current call to go out. But when I shared my opening paragraphs with Marti, she just laughed. I hate it when she does that; it means I missed it by a wide margin.
“What?” I asked incredulously.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. The pandemic didn’t change your life hardly at all. You’re already isolated. You’ve been sheltering in place for years. You’ve been in your little office for so long, you couldn’t catch a cold if you tried. The only change for you was wearing a mask to the supermarket, and even then, you got to wear the Angels logo mask Patti made for you, so no big sacrifice.”
Today we put a new spin on “down and out.” We’re not talking about being knocked out. We’re saying “down and out” is the way to go — the way we want you to focus, especially if you’re a boomer. Catch boomers need to go down and out.
This brilliant insight came from one of the millennial respondents to our recent “Your Participation Matters” questionnaire. The insight was directed towards boomers. In his observation, he said,
Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
This is the plan. This is how the word will continue to get out — how the gospel will go forth, and how the church will be built. It will happen by disciples making disciples. And it continues to be the same call to all of us today.
John Fischer The Catch 