Educational Ministry of the Church - Lesson 4

Educational Ministry of the Church 
Dr. Gary Parrett 
em502-04 
Christian Formation 
Lesson Transcript

 

As we think about making disciples. And we put a little bit of emphasis on this idea of making disciples, what's a disciple again? When Jesus says, Make disciples of all nations, what is that again? What does it mean to be a disciple? One who obeys the commands of Jesus? Literally, disciple means learner follower, someone who's going to go after Christ and it's going to be manifested through a life of obedience. One of the ways that I like to think about this is to think of other biblical terms that get at God's ultimate goal for our lives. And we'll look at some passages together. This would be another good one. I think it's on our memory list as well, isn't it? Romans eight 2330. I bet many of us already have verse 28 memorized. Four We know that in all things God works together for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. But how do we know that? And what is good mean? If you this is one of those cases where if you memorize only a verse and stop, you cut the legs off yourself. You need to keep going here. How do we know that God works for good? And what is good mean? But what good means, according to verse 29, is God has predestined that every one of His should be conform to the image of his son. So we know then all of these God works together for good to those who love him and are called according to His purpose. Verse 29. For those whom he for knew he also predestined that they should be conformed to the image of his son.

 

So what does good mean? That's what good means. Good means will be like, Jesus. How do I know that whatever comes into my life is going to work to my good because God is predestined, that I'm going to be like Jesus so that He Jesus might be the firstborn among many brethren. The Father desires that Jesus will be the first born of a family, a huge family of people who all look just like Jesus, the firstborn among many brethren, and those whom he predestined. He also call those he called. They also justified. Those justified. He also glorified. It's a marvelous statement. I want to look at verse 29. What's the word there? God's ultimate purpose for me as a believer, for you as a believer, for us as a believer, What is it? Because ultimate purpose, his intention make us like Jesus, that we will be conformed to the image of his son, conform to the image of his son? And to my mind, this idea of conformity to Christ, just another way of saying a disciple of Christ, someone who's like the master. That's God's ultimate purpose for us. Clearly, according to Romans 829. Paul says the same kind of thing elsewhere. That's. Romans 829. Romans 12 two because we're not presently conformed to the image of the sun. What has to happen? We have to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Transformed there. There's the word metamorphosis. The same word shows up in Second Corinthians chapter three, four, 17 and 18. We all who have unveiled faces reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed with ever increasing glory into His likeness by the Spirit. And then also in Galatians 419, Paul uses the word a little bit differently. He says about the Galatians, for whom he's very concerned.

 

He says, I am once again, I find myself in birth pangs over you until Christ should be formed in you. Well, in all of these references, of course, there's one route that is common and it's the root form, the Greek morphing. And from this we get the word formation. Because of this New Testament emphasis and the biblical use of this language sometimes rather than you see, I like to use the term C.F. Christian formation for a couple of reasons. I'm not ready to do away with Christian education as a term, but in fact, some people, when they think Christian education, they think education and they put some Christian context around it. Education is from a Latin root educator, which means to read out it's a nice word, it's a rich word, elite, somebody in the process, but it's definitely a process oriented term. Formation has the process in mind, but it also keeps very clearly the goal in mind. And that's why I like this word so much. A It's biblical, it's Pauline, and B, it keeps the goal clearly before my eyes. So now as I'm teaching and I'm involved in Christian education, it's not just about a process of getting some information out there. The goal is clear before me. I'm doing this because I want to see this person become like Jesus. That's what we're aiming at. Why am I preaching? Why am I teaching? To see people become like Jesus. No longer live for themselves, but live for the one who died for them and was raised again. I like Christian formation rather than spiritual formation personally, because in some ways spiritual formations too vague. Everybody uses spiritual formation today. Oprah uses spiritual formation. You could be in any kind of religious movement to be concerned about that.

 

But on the other hand, spiritual formation is too specific for me because it puts the emphasis only on the spirit, when instead we ought to be looking at the whole person being formed. So I like Christian formation. I use Christian education, especially when I'm focusing in on the process of teaching and instruction. But I use Christian formation to keep the goal very clearly before my eyes. So we'll probably use those terms interchangeably throughout the class. And again, to me, Paul has made it very clear that this is the goal of his ministry. Another way that Paul does this is in another scripture verse that I've asked you to memorize, and I'd like us all to turn there for just a minute now. Colossians chapter one, verse 28, Colossians chapter one, and verse 28. Him, of course, is a reference to Christ. You can see that by backing up to 27 Christ in you the hope of glory Him, we proclaim. Look at Colossians 128 for just a minute, and that's asked together some of our seven questions here. Several of them show up in this passage. First of all, whom? Is Paul ministering to whom is he aiming at? According to his own words here, and cautions. 128 everyone. This is significant, especially in a letter to the clients who are battling some form of a Gnostic heresy with the idea that only a certain select few could ever apprehend to the truth. But policies know we're aiming at everyone. And in my ministry, I aim at every believer, every person who comes into my doors. I dream for them. Even if they're an unbeliever. I dream for them what they could be in Christ. And we want to present them every single one of them.

 

Perfect in Christ. So whom question everyone. What does Paul teach? What's the content of Paul's teaching ministry here? Him? Yeah. So the answer to the WHO question whom question is every one. The answer to the wet question is him. I love that. What's the what's the bottom line content that we're called to teach? It's Jesus. Jesus himself, Him. We proclaim. Him, we proclaim. Paul said that elsewhere, of course, to the Corinthians I purpose to know nothing among you except Christ Christ crucified. How about the how question? How does Paul do this? Questions 128 Several words that apply here teaching and admonishing two different Greek words that we'll look at under the how question later. But also maybe we could put an emphasis on the he does it with wisdom that God supplies. And if you look at the surrounding verses, we find also that he does it with great diligence, struggling with all the energy that God puts in me. But now let's let's take our final notice here on the why question. Why is Paul doing this? What is his aim? What is his purpose? What's he aiming at here? His presenting everyone, There's the home again. What Perfect, Perfect in Christ. Paul's language here, simply in my mind, just another way of saying that I know what the goal of God is for each of his people. That is, they be conformed fully to the image of his son. That's what I'm aiming at. That's what I'm aiming at. Perfect. Sometimes some of your versions probably have the word complete. Telos is the Greek word here. People who look like Jesus look like Jesus, think like Jesus, talk like Jesus, smell like Jesus. I want people like Jesus. That's the idea. So the goal of Christian education, the why question, where does it come from comes from biblical mandate to make disciples of Jesus.

 

What does that mean? People who look like Jesus Christ likeness. Let's play with this idea just a little bit. What does it mean to look like Christ? If that's our goal and I think it's inescapably our biblical goal, what does that mean? We need to flesh it out a little bit because otherwise we could be speaking. Christian is really quickly here. I want to be just like Christ. Amen. Me too. But what does that mean? Tell me what Christ looks like. Give me some words or phrases that you would use to describe what it is to be like. Christ. Compassion. Servant, mate. Humble. Sacrificial, obedient, loving, dying to self intolerant of evil. And from that idea, a number of other terms would probably flow. Anger, righteous anger that is pure is a heart of evangelism. Evangelistic for the lost, holy, righteous patient of the word. To be like Jesus is to be of the word dependent upon the Father. And on and on and on. Right. We get the idea. I put these in to list, although every once in a while I stumble across one that I'm not sure immediately where to put it. But usually if you ask someone the question, what does it mean to be like Jesus? And you just wait for some response phrases and line, it will usually fall sort of automatically into two groups. And let me give you some. What do you think I would label these two groups here? And by the way, it's probably too hard to see right now, but this is what I see as broad categories to be like Jesus, things which demonstrate love for God, humility, obedience, submission, meekness, a man of the word, dependance upon the Father, holy, righteous, pure, and things which demonstrate love of neighbor, evangelistic, compassionate, sacrificial, giving, patient servant to it, all of those kind of things to be like Jesus, in other words, to me means to help people become lovers of God, lovers of neighbor.

 

And it's not surprising that from the mouth of Jesus himself, we find it. That's it. That's. That's the big. Those are the biggies. That's what God has commanded above all else. And this is a big idea that's going to relate to us. A little bit later. We'll come back to this under the what question and we'll see it showing up for us again there, what we teach, what we have for goals. Where else might we look in Scripture to find what it looks like to be like Jesus? Well, some people would turn to the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter five. Some would turn to the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians Chapter five. Lots of places we could turn to. These, I think, would be two excellent spots. And in fact, Galatians Chapter 522 and 23, the fruit of the Spirit. How many fruits are there? One, as far as I can tell. Trick question. But I think isn't it true that the text says but the fruit of the spirit is just happens to have a very long name? Lovejoy Peace, patients, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Nine words which are, to me a synonym for Christ, like the fruit of the Spirit, is Christ's likeness. Matthew five The Beatitudes. I see. The Beatitudes is all a wonderful description of what it means to be like Christ, although not everybody agrees. Dallas Willard, for example, in his book The Divine Conspiracy. I like Dallas Willard, and I often agree with his big picture concerns. We'll talk about some of them, in fact, in a little bit. But in the Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard spends a whole chapter arguing that the church has been wrong for 2000 years in interpreting the Beatitudes as admirable description of what it means to be Christlike.

 

I think he's wrong, and I'm sorry he wasted 50 pages to build this argument, but otherwise I appreciate his writing. The poor in spirit. Some people would say, Well, that can't be a description of Jesus. Poor in spirit cannot be. How could that be a description of Jesus de Jesus model for us in his humanity? Absolute dependance upon the Father. The Son can do nothing apart from the father. He's a perfect mom. So all of those Beatitudes I turn to is looking for idea about what it means to be perfect in Jesus. I think this is important because as I do my ministry, it's not only important for me to say I want you to be like Jesus. I need to have in mind a little bit about what that looks like, what that means. How are we going to evaluate if the church is engaged properly in its ministry and doing its work? Well, when people are beginning to love God and beginning to love neighbor more and we'll see those things, of course, again. And no hard and fast lines drawn between here. There's a lot of overlap in this part of this. Let's add to these ideas thus far, something something baseball ish, because most of the riddles of life can be solved by appeal to baseball. That's what I've discovered. So I wanted to use a baseball analogy here for just a minute. Let's think about Christian formation. In terms of running the basepaths in a baseball game. Ultimately, in baseball, we aim at home plate. That's where people aim and there is an ultimate aim and Christian formation as well theologically. The word that we would use is glorification. We just saw it in Romans 830. Those whom he justified, he glorified.

 

And so our ultimate goal is that we will be like Christ and be with Christ forever and forever. That's God's ultimate will for you and for me. But in order for me to take steps in that direction, I have to begin somewhere. First base in experience in God's will for my life means being born again. Theological term that I could use here would be justification to receive the gift of God by faith in Jesus and be justified. So now I. I belong to Christ, and I'm His property being born again. And then from first base, once I've experienced justification, I go on my Christian life to experience ongoing discipleship. And we call that sanctification. Sanctification in the process of becoming more set apart from sin, more set apart to God, living more completely and holistically like him, like kids. And then I'm going to add a third base to the traditional triad of doctor of salvation is justification, sanctification, glorification. But let's add this other word to our discussion. That's the word vocation. Vocation. What I have in mind as is bearing fruit for Jesus being fruitful, reproducing. Maybe here we could talk about love received. That's first base. We simply receive the love of God. Second base, perhaps we could call love reciprocated or love that's not so competent. How about love returned? And then on third base, what I'm talking about is love reproduced. So not only do I focus on loving back the God who is love me, loving him, that's sort of the second base sanctification idea. But I also want that love reproduce through my life to touch other people. And then home base. Home plate. I'll add the word realized to your love fully, completely realized when I see him face to face if I use these terms.

 

It also is is helpful for me to think about this for basis as a discussion of God's will for my life. I've had occasion as a pastor to do some teaching about God's will. Always. Of course, what people want you to talk about is what I'm calling third base kind of issues over here. What do you want me to be when I grow up? God, tell me what to do and I'll do it. But in fact, for some people, God's will for them is simply that they accept Jesus as their Savior. That's the will of God for you. Right now you have to get to first base before we can talk about anything else. And then always the Christian needs to understand when he asks the question, God, what is you will from my life? Well, this is God's will for your life that you become just like Jesus. Don't lose sight of that. That's the big thing. That's the main thing. But a lot of people have been born again. They've been standing on first base for a long time and they're looking longingly over to third base and they say, I want to be in, I want to do something for God, but the will of God is sanctification. First Thessalonians Chapter four This is God's will. You be sanctified. All of these represent the will of God. Even baseball, as an illustration breaks down, and I'll show you how this one breaks down. You may have caught this already. Yeah, I think justification is the starting point and glorification is the ending point. But you don't stop on sanctification and leave it. Sanctification is a big process term. In fact, sanctification especially touches all for here. I would say that we were set apart from eternity.

 

Past sanctification began somewhere an eternity pass will be completed somewhere in eternity future. It's a process that we experience in life. But in terms of a priority, in my understanding of God's will for my life, I think this makes sense. God's will for my life. It's more important that I be in Him and that I become like him than it is that I find, you know, some big idea of doing something for him. But the other thing that comes out here, if we think about sanctification, vocation, the emphases of these two ideas, sanctification for me has an emphasis on loving God, whereas vocations emphasis is on loving my neighbor in Christian education. I would want to pay attention to all four of these areas, but much of our work will focus on second base and third base kind of issues, helping people become more alive to God and more loving and faithful in their response to their neighbor. Let me look at the same thing in a little bit different way with you. I call this God's will, but there's another thing that I could use, another word that I could use to describe this whole process. And I want you to least think about it with me today. You don't have to agree with me, but I want you to think about it with me. And that is, I really think that helpful to the Christian, to the task of Christian education is deepening our understanding, being more faithful in our use of the word salvation. Salvation is a word which evangelicals, of course, bandy about freely. And we think we understand it. But I think it's a word that we abuse and misuse a lot. For evangelicals, often when we're speaking of salvation, really what we're talking about is justification.

 

And we stop there. There's historical reasons for this. There's theological reasons for this. We know that Lutherans emphasis on justification by faith alone, but as appropriate and biblical and accurate is that emphasis is one of the net results has been that today most evangelicals only speak of salvation as. Justification. So in other words, we speak of it as a past tense experience and we say, Oh, yeah, I was saved. We talked to somebody. You say, Oh, yeah, I would say I'm saved. I got saved three years ago at such and such a retreat and such and such a conference. And again, we think that's the end of the story. But back to the baseball analogy, that means, well, great, you're on first base, guys. Work is underway, but it needs to continue. It needs to continue. I have been saved. Some of you have seen this idea before, I'm sure. But just walk through it quickly with me. Save from what? From the penalty of sin. Once I am saved, I experience justification. I'm saved from the penalty of sin. What is the penalty of sin? Death. The wages of sin is death. Romans 623 What kind of death? Well, just death, the whole ball of wax, probably, but especially spiritual death, separation from the life of God. But at some point in time, though, I had been spiritually dead. I was instantaneously made alive. I'm going to put the word spirit here and I'll tell you why. I'm not going to argue for a tripartite understanding of man necessarily at this point, body, soul and spirit. But I want you to think about Ephesians two kind of realities. Ephesians two says as it begins. As for you, you were dead in your trespasses and sin in which you used to walk sin.

 

And it's an interesting image, isn't it? You were dead. You were, you were the walking dead. You used to walk in your sins and trespass is below. Even as you were walking, you were dead. But verse four and five says, By God, who is rich and mercy made us alive together. There was a point in time when I was born again, when I went from death to life, and that was instantaneous. I don't know necessarily when that moment took place. It may have seemed like a process to me, but according to Ephesians two, I had been dead. I was made alive with Christ back to the second Corinthians 517 sort of idea. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation, the old is gone, the newest come. Is it necessary that I know the moment that I received justification that I experienced maybe is a better term, that I experienced justification. Is it necessary that I know the moment that I was born again? Some people say yes. Some people say no. It's been helpful to me to think about my mother in law. My mother in law is Korean, my wife is Korean-American, my mother in law born and raised in Korea. Like a lot of Korean women, a lot of Korean people in Korea had two birthdays growing up. There was the Western calendar and the lunar calendar, and somehow she was growing up. The whole thing got messed up in a massive confusion. And so now nobody knows for sure. When my mother in law's birthday is, they finally just picked a date in July and said, We'll celebrate your birthday every July. So nobody knows when when my mother in law was born, but nobody ever questions that she was born.

 

There's plenty of evidence to support the fact that she was born. I say that's more important here, too, in the spiritual realm. Don't necessarily have to tell me when you were born again, but can you show me that you were? Is the life of God work in you? Well, this is critical. It's vital, as the doctor of justification is a huge and appropriate use of the word salvation as is as we see, for example, in Ephesians two eight and nine four is by grace. You have been saved through faith, not of yourself is the gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast salvation, a properly describes justification. But in biblical terms, salvation is not only a past tense experience, is it? It's also something yet to come. So the Christian is invited to say, If I can say that I know I have been saved. I can also say with confidence that I know I will be saved. I will be saved in the future, even from the very presence of sin one day. It's not only that the penalty of sin will be put away, but the whole idea of sin will be put away. Read Revelation 21 and 22. Nothing unclean, impure will ever enter into that place. Well, that's good news. I don't know about you, but that's great news for me. Will enter his presence in a way from the presence of sin. So that's the day that the Bible describes with this word glorification. Glorification is the theological term here, I think, because there's no other word that can possibly do justice to what's happening here. Glory, I preached on this actually down in New York this last weekend. I always get goose pimply when I preach on this because there are just all kinds of biblical passages that we don't spend enough time attending to that just take your breath away if you think about them a little bit.

 

Romans eight, for example. Romans 818. Paul, in the midst of his suffering, says, But I am persuaded that our present suffering is not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. And then he says in verse 19, All of creation is waiting an eager expectation for the unveiling of the Sons of God. First, John three two Dear friends, we are now the children of God. What we will be has not yet been made known already. Not yet. But we know that when he appears it will be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Or since three verse For you died. Your life is hidden with God and Christ. But when Christ, who is your life appears then to you shall up here in glory. And I just love this idea from Romans eight that all of creation is waiting for the unveiling of the Sons of God. What is that? Well, it's glorification, but I want you to understand also the Bible calls this salvation. Let me show you some references. ROMANS Chapter 13. ROMANS Chapter 13. Down to verse 11. Paul has just been instructing the Romans Christians to love one another in fulfillment of the law. And then it says in verse 11, Do this. Understanding the time, understanding the hour for the now is the moment for us to wake up from our sleep, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. I remember as a young Christian stumbling over that, What are you talking about? I thought I got the whole package already. No, salvation is near now than when we first breathe. First Peter, Chapter one, The same idea in verse four and five. He says, God as preserved in heaven for you, a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last days.

 

So I'm. I have been saved, yes, but I'm ultimately waiting for the fullness of my salvation. This is interesting. David, just go through this quickly. This this salvation, in its completeness, ultimately will extend even to my body, which I think is wonderful. Young guys, you don't know about this, Shepherd. Some of us know that's a wonderful promise here in the moment and a twinkling of an eye. First Corinthians 15 will be changed. What kind of body? Paul knew you were going to ask that kind of question. So he says spiritual bodies or just the bodies. But he also says he uses an analogy. If you plant a seed, what comes forth is not the seed, but what comes forth is a full blown plant, he said. Maybe that's what it's about. What we see now, this is just the seed form, what's coming, who boggles the mind? So there's glorification that's coming one day and the Christian can be able to say, I have been saved. Also can say I will be saved. Fact is interesting. If you find somebody who's having a problem saying, oh, I know I have confidence that I'll be with Jesus forever. Usually they have a problem over here. They're not positive that they've really been forgiven. They've been justified. That's why they have hesitation over here, because the third area, present tense Christian should say, in the present, even now, right before your very eyes. I'm being say from glory to glory from the power of sin. Sin is no longer pushing me around. That power was broken and I'm winning the battle increasingly by the power of God. I'm going to use the word soul over here. Not again for a spiritual distinction necessarily, but Ephesians two said I was dead, I was made alive instantaneously.

 

But I know and you know that even after New Birth, I didn't go to the mirror right away and find somebody completely transformed. Looking back at me, my thinking, my emotions, my will were not automatically 100% obedient to Christ. And so here I'm just using soul to speak about those areas of my life that are progressively becoming like Christ mind will emotions. They're being trained instantaneously, set apart from God, set apart to God, and I'm going to put sanctification down here, but I'm also going to add the word vocation, sanctification and vocation. Talking about the idea of being increasingly set apart to God and increasingly living for Him, living for God. And that includes not just loving God, but loving my neighbor. Some some might hesitate to include the idea of vocation in any discussion of salvation, and I would understand. But that's part of our Protestant reflex. That's part of Protestant correction, of misunderstanding about justification. Clearly justification is by faith alone. It's the gift of God. But look what happens again if we memorize Ephesians two eight and nine to get that down and we stop our memory work there without going on to verse ten, we cheat ourselves again by grace. You have to save through faith, not by yourself is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. But what's verse ten say for you are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do what good works, which God prepared in advance for you to do. So we're created to do good works. Titus says, Why did Christ come and redeem a people? He redeemed himself. A people eager to do good works. Second, Timothy three 1617. Why do you need to eat the Word of God so that you will be thoroughly equipped for every good work we are created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

 

We are saved to do good works. And in fact, from a passage like Philippians chapter two versus 12 and 13, which I think relates to sanctification especially, we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. So work is a part of the process. Work for what? For justification? No, that's heresy. But working out what God has put in us in sanctification and vocation. The reason I think it's important to use salvation in all three tenses, not just past, but present and future is because otherwise we have churches. Well, first of all, it's biblical. We saw it from Romans 13. We saw from First Peter, Chapter one, also later and first Peter. Chapter one, verse nine. Present tense. Peter says You are receiving even now in your suffering, you are receiving the salvation of your songs and we work out our salvation present tense with fear and trembling. Part of the reason I want to use salvation across all three and not just justification is because it's biblical to do so. But part of the reason is because for Christian education purposes, we have a lot of people who think that the only thing that really counts is being saved. And I already got that. And the rest of this, they look at this as sort of discipleship stuff and they say, Well, that sounds like an interesting option. Sanctification. Okay, that's a nice idea. Maybe I'll try that sometime. But when we say, Now, wait a second, this is part of God's design for salvation, It's not optional. This is the will of God. It's an important emphasis recapture.