Revolution: The DNA of a Radical Church - S[c]ENT

I see five characteristics that ought to be in our lives if we are really going to be radical followers of Jesus who love the world like He does.

Let's look at the first three...

God’s revolutionaries who love the world are… Spirit-powered.

Does God’s Spirit empower you? God’s Spirit empowered Jesus.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me…
Isaiah 61:1a (ESV)

If we are going to love the world well, we need to be filled with – empowered by – God’s Spirit.

When we trust Jesus as our Savior and Lord, a kind of miracle happens. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God, comes to dwell in us. I Corinthians 6:19 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” The Holy Spirit lives within every believer. And in Ephesians 5:18, we are told to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And Galatians 5:22-23 says that when we are filled with Spirit, we bear the fruit of love, joy, and peace – fruit that makes our lives attractive to hurting world.

So, the all-important question for us is this: Does the Holy Spirit control us, fill us, empower us?

Someone said that when it comes to being filled with the Spirit, followers of Jesus are like helium-filled balloons. We leak. And if I’m not filled with the Spirit, I’m filled with self. And instead of bearing the fruit of love, joy, and peace, I bear the fruit of indifference, cynicism, and irritability. And I have nothing to offer the world when I’m like that.

But when we are empowered by the Spirit, we have a wisdom and a winsomeness and an energy that is necessary to love the world.

I do not want to be part of a church culture that creates methods for doing church that require little help from Holy Spirit. Are we dependent on ourselves or are we desperate for His Spirit?

God’s revolutionaries who love the world are Spirit-powered...

… gospel-bringing.

There are a lot of people in the world doing a lot of good deeds in our world. There are lots of people feeding the hungry, providing clean water, building medical clinics, adopting 3rd world kids. And a lot of people doing a lot of good are not followers of Jesus.

What makes us different? What do we have to offer that the world doesn’t have? Jesus says that He was sent…

… to bring good news to the poor… Isaiah 61:1b (ESV)

The phrase “good news” is often translated with the word “gospel” in the New Testament. God’s revolutionaries are gospel bringing people.

So, what’s the gospel? And who are the poor?

On Friday, a friend asked me to “Tweet” a definition of the gospel to him. That means you can only use 140 characters and spaces. Here’s what I sent:

Jesus is God in the flesh who died for our sins and rose from the dead so we could be justified. Repent of sin; believe in Him; be saved.

Now let me expand that definition just a little: We believe that there is a real heaven and a real hell and that real people like you and me are headed to one or the other. We believe that all men and women and boys and girls are sinners who deserve the wrath of God – that we’re all headed to hell without Christ. But we also believe that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son to suffer the wrath that we deserve – He died in our place and paid for our sins. We believe Jesus rose from the grave. We believe that the only way to be saved is to repent, to trust this risen Christ – to know Jesus, to enter into a relationship with Him. And when we do, we are set free. We are saved. We have a home in heaven. That’s good news. That’s the gospel.

Let me be very upfront and in-your-face with some straight-talk. If we provide safe water in Ghana for thousands of people, but they die in their sins and go to hell, we haven’t really loved them with revolutionary love. If we feed the homeless downtown week after week, but they never meet Jesus and they don’t make it to heaven, we didn’t really love them with revolutionary love.

We have to open our mouths and point people to Jesus, the Savior who loved them enough to die.

We do good deeds to create good will so we can share the good news. Now, that might sound like manipulation. It might sound disingenuous. It might sound like we are doing good deeds with an ulterior motive. But it’s not really an ulterior motive. It’s the ultimate motive.

If this book is true and there’s a real heaven and a real hell and only Jesus saves, then I don’t really love you very much if I do all kinds of good deeds for you, but I never tell you that you need Jesus to be your Savior and Lord.

See, we’ve been sent…

…to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God…
Isaiah 61:2a (ESV)

We must somehow tell people that they can receive the Lord’s favor and grace through Jesus. We must somehow tell them that, because of our rebellion against God, apart from Christ there’s a day of vengeance coming. We must somehow encourage people to connect to Jesus, the One who took the vengeance we deserved on Himself when He died on the cross.

So, do good deeds more and more. But add to that. In your own way and in your own words, you have to learn how to point people to the good news about Jesus.

God’s revolutionaries who love the world are Spirit-powered, gospel-bringing…

… God-sent.

Some of us have a tendency to tip-toe through life. Some of us do what we do and say what we say in an apologetic kind of way. Not Jesus. He had a sense of confidence about who He was and what He said. Why? He knew who sent Him.

…he has sent me…Isaiah 61:1c (ESV)

Jesus knew that he was God-sent. And that changes things. It made Him bold, confident, assured.

In Mark 9:37, we see the confidence Jesus had in Him life and ministry, “Whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me” (ESV). In John 5:30, we see the confidence of Jesus in what He did, “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (ESV). In John 7:16, we see the confidence of Jesus in what He said “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me” (ESV). In John 7:29, we see the confidence of Jesus in who He was, “I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me” (ESV).

Over and over and over – 34 times in the book of John – Jesus uses this little phrase “sent me” to indicate that He was living His life through the knowledge that God had sent Him.

Is that the way you live your life?

When it comes to having a revolutionary love for the world, we don’t have to wonder whether we are sent or not. In John 17:18, Jesus is praying to the Father about His followers, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (ESV).

It’s as though you could take a globe, spin it, stop it randomly with your finger on some spot, and say, “OK. I’ve been sent here.” You say, “No. That’s crazy, Rick. Surely God would be more specific than that!” Well, listen to Jesus…

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)

Pick a place and go on a mission knowing that you’ve been commissioned by God. Be confident. Wherever God enables you to go, you can say, “I am a missionary. I’m here serving, talking, helping, speaking because I’ve been sent by God.” You’re going under His authority, under His commission.

When you have the sense that He’s sent you and you have His divine authority backing you and that every conversation is a divine appointment, then watch God work in you and through you and for you and with you.

God’s revolutionaries who love the world are Spirit-powered, gospel-bringing, and God sent.