Engaging Scripture

How Should Christians Live in the World (Introducing Acts) – Acts 1, Part 1

*Photo by Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash*

How should Christians live in the world? Do the Republicans have it right? Should we follow the Democrats? Is American life the way to go? What about some other country, like England, that has a Christian heritage? What about Spain or France or Italy which are predominantly Catholic nations. Should we follow the Catholic way? Here in Lancaster, of course, we have the Amish. They are living out their unique form of Christianity in the world. Do they have it right? How should Christians live in the world? Do you and I have it figured out? And wouldn’t want to know if we didn’t?

Remember that we have a certain identity. Our recent Identity series had four parts to it. Put together, those four parts summarize our Christian identity. What were the four parts? The first three parts relate to the three persons of the Trinitarian expression of God. We are children of God, adopted into his family. We are given new life in Christ. Third, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. And then, fourth, we said that we live out this identity in the world as citizens of the Kingdom of God. This is partly why I wanted to start a current events series, the first of which was last week, so that we can try to think Christianly about issues occurring in our world.

It is also why we are beginning a study of the book of Acts. In this book we get to observe how the earliest followers of Jesus began to apply his teachings to their lives as they lived in their world. As we watch how the first Christians lived in their world, maybe we, too, can learn how to live in ours!

Let’s get started! If you’d like to follow along, please open a Bible to Acts 1:1 and read verses 1-3. There are some important introductory points we need to discuss.

First, ancient historians report that Acts was written by Luke, who was a traveling companion of the apostle Paul, as we will read about later in the book. Based on the info in verse 1 we also read that this was Luke’s second book. To see for yourselves, turn to Luke 1:1, and there you’ll see the writer talking about investigating and writing an orderly account of the life of Jesus. So the Gospel of Luke, we believe, was part 1 of a two-volume series. Part 1 was all about Jesus, and the book of Acts was book 2, all about the first Christians. Flip back to Acts 1, and notice that he says in verse 1 that in his former book he was writing about all that Jesus began to do. I like that detail of the word, “began.” Book 2 is all about what Jesus will continue to do! Why is that important? Because as we’ll see right here in this first chapter, Luke reviews the story of Jesus’ Ascension, when he returned to his father in heaven. How can Jesus continue to do anything if he is gone? We’re about to find out, but we’ll save that for next week, though Jesus will give his disciples a major hint in the passage today, which we’ll discuss in a later post this week.

Second, when was Luke writing this? It seems that Luke was writing 35 or so years after Jesus ascended, so likely soon before 70 AD.

Third, who was the book for? In the introduction to both books, did you notice that he mentioned a name, Theophilus? We don’t know for certain who Theophilus was, but it is possible that he was a wealthy Christian who was a patron, providing the finances for Luke to research, write and publish the book. Was the book just for Theophilus? No. The audience was much wider as the book would be copied and distributed, and it seems that Luke was writing to a potentially higher level audience because of the more educated Greek he uses.

Now let’s take a look at this introduction a bit further. In verses 1-3 Luke gives a really brief summary of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and the 40 days since. I want to expand on that a bit, because I think it is very important that we remember who Jesus is and what he did. You could read all of book 1, the entire Gospel of Luke, if you want to really remember who Jesus was and what he did, and I highly recommend that. But for now, let me summarize.

It is impossible for us to fully understand what it must have been like to be there in the final days of Jesus’ life on earth. Think about what his followers might have been feeling. I’m talking about the 12 disciples, for sure, but there were many other men and women who remained faithful to him. As the book of Acts begins, those followers have just experienced a wild month and a half. But really we need to go back further than that, because those followers had actually experienced an amazing three-year-long ride with Jesus. So let’s go back to when they first met.

To do that we need to travel back in time three years. Three years prior to Acts 1, in the nation of Israel, people across the land began hearing about a prophetic teacher who spoke with great authority and who was baptizing people in the Jordan River, calling the people to repentance. So they went to see the prophet, a guy named John the Baptist, and some became John’s followers. One day John had a powerful reaction when a particular man came to be baptized. John said this man was special, and that he was the lamb of God who was going to take away the sins of the world. That man was Jesus, and some of John’s disciples began following Jesus.

Jesus began preaching, calling more disciples to follow him. He also did something that John didn’t do. He demonstrated power. Miracles, healings, exorcisms, control over the weather, multiplication of food, and even bringing dead people to life. John had been a national sensation; Jesus was even more so. The crowds clamoring to get near him ballooned into the tens of thousands as the months went by. He taught that the Kingdom of God was near, often illustrating this through parables. He railed against the hypocrisy of the religious elite. His message of God’s Kingdom was to believe in him, which people could demonstrate by full commitment to his way. What was his way? It was a way of a transformed heart, one that beats for justice and righteousness and mercy and love for all, and especially for the most vulnerable. It was a message of radical selflessness, trusting that God would provide. He taught that Kingdom way led not just to eternal life but equally importantly to abundant life for those who were his true disciples. The months went by, and Jesus gradually trained up his 12 disciples, sending them out on a mission trip, and then he gathered 70 around him, sending them out on a second round of mission work. He was preparing them for ministry, at the same as his ministry was growing. More and more people felt that he was the promised Messiah, the savior who was going to free the nation of Israel from its Roman occupiers and restore the Kingdom to Israel like it had been in the days of Israel’s history when great kings like David and Solomon ruled a powerful nation. But not everyone was thrilled about Jesus. Jesus increasingly made the religious elite nervous and jealous, and they often tried to confront and trap him, to no avail.

In year three of his ministry, he and his followers walked to Jerusalem in the days before the Jewish holiday of Passover, and as Jesus entered the city riding on a donkey, the crowds called out for him to become king. The leaders were seething, angry that Jesus wasn’t following their pathway. So they plotted to kill him, enlisting one of his followers, Judas, to spring a trap. In the city Jesus preached to the crowds, until Thursday night when he had one final meal with his disciples. Jesus’ tone was ominous and mysterious. He talked about being arrested, beaten and killed, but that he would rise again. He talked about leaving them, and giving them the Spirit to empower them, but they didn’t understand. In the cool of the night, they walked out to a nearby garden to pray, when suddenly Judas showed up, bringing with him a company of soldiers. Jesus, rather than fighting, gave himself up, and his disciples scattered in fear.

The next morning, Jesus was beaten, falsely tried by both the Jews and Romans, who sentenced him to carry a wooden cross outside the city, where the Romans nailed him to the wood, and hanged him on the cross. One of his disciples and a few of the women were his only followers who came to the cross to hear his last words. When he breathed his last, the hope of the previous three years seemed dead. Some followers collected and prepared his body, burying him a grave, and sealed it.

Try to put yourself in the place of those followers of Jesus. Imagine the profound confusion, loss, and disappointment you’d be feeling at this moment. Imagine feeling like you had just wasted three years of your life for what now seemed to be a lie. Imagine wracking your brain about this because you saw the miracles. There was no way they were just illusions or sleight of hand. He had actually given you power too on those mission trips, when you had the authority to cast our demons. What you saw was real. What you heard him teach was true. There was no one like him. He truly had a vision for the kingdom of God that was the epitome of love and kindness and joy and goodness.

There was no other conclusion than that he was actually the Messiah. He even said he was. And yet, now he was dead? How could this be? Perhaps some of his followers remembered his words. He had predicted this would happen. He talked about rising again. He talked about sending his Spirit. What should his followers do now? It was Saturday, the Sabbath, so there was nothing to do. Maybe they talked about returning to Galilee, their home area, and get away from the Jewish and Romans leaders who might want to kill them too. Maybe they talked about hiding in Jerusalem, because he said after three days he would rise. But could he have been serious? Was he being literal? He was absolutely dead. They saw his body. They buried him. Sealed the body in a tomb. What should they do? That Saturday must have been long and awful.

Early Sunday morning, some of the women walked to the grave hoping to get in and place spices on the body, an ancient burial tradition. I wonder if any of them were curious, even if in the smallest degree, about this idea of him rising on the third day.

Their curiosity was answered, because the tomb was empty. Jesus was alive! Throughout the rest of the day, their deepest fears were turned to joy and elation as Jesus appeared to many of his followers, confirming that he was alive. What he had told them was true. All of it. He was God, the Messiah, and he was victorious!

Over the next 40 days, Luke tells us in Acts 1, verse 3, Jesus spent time showing himself to his followers, convincing them he was alive and speaking to them about the Kingdom of God. We have precious little information about those 40 days. Wouldn’t you love to know more about their time together after his resurrection? Luke does give us one brief story, and we read about that next in verses 4-5, which we’ll look at in tomorrow’s post.

How to bring justice and mercy to those in your community struggling with affordable housing – Current Events 2020 Q1: Affordable Housing, Part 5

How should we Christians think about affordable housing? What started this discussion of affordable housing was a situation in my community in which a boardinghouse providing affordable housing for 14 people might be shut down due to zoning law. You can review the story here. What could it look like to apply Amos 5:11-12 to that story, and the many others like it, such that people are not deprived of justice in the courts. One way to apply justice and mercy would be that our local zoning board could have given a variance to the boardinghouse, thus helping 14 low-income people maintain stable housing. Another way is that during the appeals process, our courts could have over-ruled the zoning board. I certainly understand the idea of upholding precedents and trying to avoid exceptions to the rule. If you start granting exceptions, then everyone wants an exception, but society must have standards and consistency. There is no doubt that the issues around affordable housing are complex.

But when we think of justice and mercy, and especially when we think of developing God’s heart for justice and mercy, what have we seen in Micah and Amos? We have seen that God has a heart to bring justice and mercy to the poor and oppressed.

This is perhaps why we need people who have a heart for mercy and justice for the poor and oppressed to serve on these kinds of local government boards. Does your school board have openings? How about the local zoning board, sewer authority or other local governance boards? Will you consider being a part of a local board, seeking to bring God’s mercy and justice to the many decisions those kinds of boards face?

Another practical application is to support local orgs who strive to bring justice and mercy to your community. This is why my congregation supports our local Homes of Hope. Perhaps there is a similar ministry near you. Homes of Hope is a transitional housing ministry that brings justice and mercy to those facing homelessness. Evicted people who have an income source can stay in the Home of Hope for a very affordable program fee. While staying in the home for 3-6 months, they are required to meet with mentors and budget coaches, helping them break the cycle of poor financial decisions, pay off debt, boost credit, and make new habits, thus laying the groundwork for them to not only enter stable housing, but also thrive in it.

Of course some people don’t want to submit to that kind of accountability or make changes. I recently heard of a local resident living in nearby Section 8 housing. As ten years went by they allowed the home and property to deteriorate. Kind, loving neighbors reached out to them, but they didn’t want to change their ways. Sadly, rather than receive help, they committed welfare fraud, were caught and forced to move. They were capable of change, but they wouldn’t do the hard work to amend their ways. We certainly can’t force people to change. But there are many who long for a combination of mercy and justice, many who would do the hard work to change their lives.

So how can we support families in crisis? Our school district could use many more homes of hope, as well as people like us willing to love people through the sometimes messy, nitty-gritty of their lives.

Consider a single mom who needs people to give 30 minutes each morning to sit with her kids until they get on bus, thus freeing up the mom to get to work on time. One person in my congregation said that a former employer allowed her to bring her girls to work, and then her boss’ daughter babysat her kids for free! She said she would not have been able to maintain her housing otherwise. Can you support people like this, helping them avoid the risk of eviction and homelessness?

Communities need more affordable housing. I’ve dreamed of building a tiny house community on our church’s back lot, like this church did. Or what if our local townships created ordinances whereby developers are required to allot a certain percentage of new homes as low-income? New condos went in last year across the street from our church starting at $1395/month, a rent that has become the norm in our area. Some of you might think that is exceptionally low. Others might think it high. In Lancaster County, that rent is simply not considered affordable housing. What could help many people is for laws to change, requiring affordable housing. How can we see that kind of change take place? We could advocate on behalf of low-income people. We could bring these concerns to our local townships.

Our local school district, every year, has about 100 kids that are considered homeless. And while it is wonderful that we have mercy ministries like our local food and clothing ministry, we also need to have hearts that beat for justice. What would it look like for you and I to bring justice to our locales, in the need for affordable housing?

I don’t know why the zoning board decided to make an issue of the boardinghouse. Perhaps they had good reason. They were certainly within their legal rights. But I wonder what God thinks about that. There are 14 people who might be homeless. Reading Amos and Micah, it sure seems his heart is concerned about the poor and oppressed.

Do Americans need to repent? – Current Events 2020 Q1 – Affordable Housing, Part 4

Are Americans like the Israelites in Amos’ day? Are we wealthy? Are we a religious people? And yet are we oppressing others?

First, let’s consider our wealth. The Israelites in Amos day were riding a wave of wealth. When you compare Americans with so many places around the world, we are wealthy. For the most part we are better off than many.

Wealth in and of itself is not wrong, but wealth can quickly take us to a place of arrogant thinking, “I worked hard, I earned it, and it’s mine to spend.” In effect we don’t have to trust in the Lord, because most of us have so much money to care for us. And though we wouldn’t say this, that self-reliance can become our outlook, and worse we can view the poor as below us.

So we need to ask, in our wealth, do we oppress the poor? America is consistently ranked as one of the most generous countries in the world. But let this passage be a warning to us. Wealth has a strong tendency to cloud our vision, and thus we should remember what Micah said, and walk humbly with our God. In particular we Americans need to grapple with our history of racism, slavery and how that continues to this day.

Americans, we are wealthy, we are also religious. Consider all the churches in our country. Where I live in Lancaster County, we are one of the so-called Bible belts in the USA because there are not only tons of churches but loads of other religious organizations here.

But we need to examine our religiosity just like Amos was examining Israel. Is ours a religion of the heart, or is it just ritualistic? God told Israel he hated their worship services because though they looked good going to worship, deep down inside their hearts were filled with hypocrisy. It was as if all they thought God cared about was that the people practiced the rituals. For Israel this was Sabbath-keeping, primarily on Saturdays, going to temple or synagogue and attending a worship service, giving sacrifices. Is that what God really wants? No. Especially when you consider that the rest of the days of their lives were filled with selfishness, focusing on wealth, treating people with injustice.

For us Americans, it would be a pattern of living Monday through Saturday as angry, greedy, oppressive people. If that sounds extreme, or nothing like you, then it could be a pattern such that throughout Monday to Saturday we give little attention to our relationship with God. We could watch a lot of television, but spend little time in prayer. We might give a lot of time and money to hobbies and eating food, but little studying Scripture to know God better. We might have a lot of conversation about sports with the neighbors, but no mention of our relationship with God. Then we come to church on Sunday, maybe place money in the offering, and sing with a smile. Perhaps we even stay for Sunday School, maybe even mentioning a prayer request. We look like Christians on Sunday, but the rest of week we’re totally different.

God says he hates worship services like that. He would rather us live lives of mercy and justice the rest of the week, as we walk humbly with him.

Israel looked at their wealth and concluded that God had blessed them, that they were his chosen people, and all they needed to do was keep doing the religious rituals, and they would be wealthy, and could just keep living life, including oppressing the poor, and not have a heart for the Lord.

How do we avoid arrogance that comes from wealth? How do we avoid just religious ritual? How can we have a heart that is on fire for the Lord?

The Lord answers these vital questions in the central passage of the prophecy, Amos 5:1-17. He says that if we want a heart on fire for the Lord, we should start by repenting. Notice in verse 1 that this section is a lament. So often in Scripture, it is the people, especially in the psalms, who lament, asking God to rescue them. Here in Amos 5, however, it is God who laments about his people. A lament is a crying out, deeply emotional, expressing pain and longing for the situation to change. That’s what God is doing in this section. In this lament, God longs for his people to repent. How?

First of all notice the repetition of the phrase “seek the Lord and live” in verses 4, 6, and 14. When something is repeated three times, you know that is important. What does “seek” mean? “Looking deeply. To seek with care, to inquire about, to investigate.” This is not an apathetic seeking. My mom used to say that at times, “I looked with my eyes closed.” She would ask me to get something out of a closet, and I would open the closet, not quickly or easily see the item, and say, “I can’t find it.” My eyes were open, but she was right, I wasn’t seeking intently. What she wanted to find was there in the closet, of course, but it would take some effort to look for it. I might have to move some things around to uncover it. That’s what God is talking about, an intent seeking.

Second, this repentance is a seeking for what? The Lord. Think about what it means to seek the Lord. Do you come to worship on Sunday hoping to make up for being distant from God the rest of the week? Worship him with all your heart! Seek him and live. We need to be a people who seek God, and that means pursuing justice and righteousness, not religious ritual. Seek him together as a church family, and seek him individually. In the previous series on identity. We are children of God, made alive in Christ, and God’s Spirit lives in us. Seek the one in whose image you are made, who loves you and wants to be close to you. That means learning what God’s heart beats for.

What does God’s heart beat for? Amos tells us: true worshipers who lives are marked by mercy and justice. In Amos 5:1-17, for example, the prophet says in verse 7 that the people turned justice in bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground. Likewise in verse 10 he says that they hate the one who reproves in court and despise the one who tells the truth. That word “reproves” is the idea of an arbitrator, or one who upholds justice in a court. God says they hate that.

As he continues in verses 11 and 12, we read a phrase that brings us back to our current events topic this week’s series of posts seeks to address: “You deprive the poor of justice in the courts.” Does that apply to the issue of affordable housing? Is certainly does. In our next post, we’ll attempt to apply what we have learned about mercy and justice to the concern about affordable housing.

Does God hate your church’s worship (and how to find out) – Current Events Q1 2020 – Affordable Housing, Part 3

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Has your church ever evaluated your worship services? How do you know what is good worship and what is not? What metrics do you use? Quality? Excellence? Professionalism? Attendance? Growth? Better yet, what metrics would God want you to use? As we continue our study this week on affordable housing, surprisingly perhaps, one Old Testament prophet says we need to talk about worship services. Why? Well it relates to a story I learned years ago in Chicago.

In 2010 my church spent a week with our sister church in Chicago, and there we heard about babies in the water. Yup, you read that right. Babies in the water. It is a profound story that helps us understand the difference between justice and mercy. I have told the story before, but it is worth hearing again. You can read it here.

The story shows how our lives need to be characterized by a passionate pursuit of justice and mercy. We heard this from the Old Testament prophet Micah in the previous post, and now in today’s post we’ll read how another Old Testament prophet spoke against injustice.

If you’d like to follow along, open a Bible to Amos 5. While this chapter includes a famous verse that Martin Luther King Jr. used when combating the injustice of racism in his day, it also says something you’d never think you’d hear coming from God. MLK quoted verse 24, “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” I want us to back up, however, and start at verses 21-23, the prelude to the verse MLK mentioned. You might be shocked at what you’re about to read.

God hates worship services? Really? What do you think about that? I have to admit, as I’ve studied this passage I found myself wondering, “Lord, how do you feel about our worship services here at Faith Church?” What you do think God would say about your church’s worship services? Churches arguably spend most of their time and energy on this thing that happens for an hour or so on Sunday mornings. Think about it. All the staff salaries, all the planning, the cleaning, the building cost. All the volunteers. All the meetings. How often have we asked God how he feels about our worship?

Clearly he wasn’t too happy about worship services in the nation of Israel when Amos was alive. Perhaps if we can learn about what was going on then, we might find some transferable principles to apply to our situation. What made God so upset about their worship?

First of all, we need to understand the context into which Amos is writing. At the time Amos prophesied, the nation of Israel was not practicing justice. For example in verse 2:6 and also 8:6 the Lord says that they “buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.” Today we would call this bonded slavery. In 2:7, the Lord says that “they trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.” God says that judgment was coming because the people were not practicing justice.

Next, look at chapter 4:1. The women, arrogant in their wealth, were mistreating the poor and needy. But look at verses 4-5 where the prophet points out that these Israelite women were gravely mistaken thinking they could practice religious ritual and everything was okay. In verse 12 he concludes, “prepare to meet your maker.” Whew. Ominous, right?

It wasn’t just the women. There is a matching section that starts in Amos 5:18. Now the Lord turns his gaze on the men. Once again, YHWH’s rebuke is strong. Where they have been thinking that religious rituals (ie. worship services) are good, read what God says to them in verses 5:21-24. God wants justice and righteousness, not ritualistic worship. This section has some “woes” (see 5:18; 6:1). A woe is an oracle of judgment, proclaiming disaster on people. Imagine that! God declaring impending doom on his people, and why? Not because he is mean-spirited, but because they were being oppressive and unjust, and his heart beats for the oppressed!

As we saw above in Amos chapter 4 about the women, YHWH finishes with strong words for the men. For these people who have, as he says in Amos 6:12, “turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness,” he promises he will turn the tables (see verse 14), and allow another nation to oppress them. The oppressors will be oppressed.

What we learn from this passage is that the people in Amos’ day thought that God was only concerned about the small part of their lives the occurred during worship services. In other words, if they attended worship, went through the motions of sacrificing, singing, praying, and the like, that was all that mattered to God. Then the rest of the week, they could live like they wanted. As they looked around their world, it sure seemed like God was blessing them because of the wealth and prosperity they enjoyed.

Amos comes to them and upends their thinking. When the rest of our lives are not in line with God’s will, then our participation in worship services is detestable to God.

A nude prophet teaches mercy and justice – Current Events Q1 2020 – Affordable Housing, Part 2

In the previous post, I told you the story of a boardinghouse in my local area, the tenants of which might be evicted because of a zoning law. I’ve started a series about how Christians can think biblically about current events. What is God’s heart for a boardinghouse that might get shut down because of a zoning law?

To answer that, let’s start by looking at the words of the prophet Micah. Micah speaks a famous prophetic word. You maybe can quote it: “seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) It’s a beautiful verse.

Micah is famous in prophetic history for other reasons too. I encourage you to follow along in your Bible, starting at Micah 1. In verse 2, he begins his prophecy against Israel saying that God is bearing witness against them. In verses 3-7 the Lord is coming to them for judgement. Then in verses 8-11 Micah says something really bizarre. Because of this message from God, Micah is going to walk naked, weeping and wailing.

As Micah walked in the nude, he himself becomes a deeply symbolic, albeit unusual, act of prophecy. The shame that Micah brought on himself was actually a message to the people that they are truly the naked ones, spiritually, having brought shame on themselves for turning from the Lord. People seeing him walk around naked could have easily said, “Something is not right with that guy!” But through his very public display of indecency, Micah was communicating to them: “Something is not right with Israel”.

Then the prophecy will take a turn for the worst. If you’re feeling unsettled that the Lord is okay with one of his prophets walking around naked, now we move to a horror movie category. The Slasher. Turn to chapter 3:1-3. There the leaders of Israel are described in scary terms. They have committed atrocities. Just read those verses and you’ll see what I mean. Hint: eating of flesh is involved.

This might sound gross and disgusting, and even if it was metaphorical, it is the heart of the reason for Micah’s prophecy. The leaders of Israel have been totally corrupted. The Lord is saying through Micah that things are bad in the land. Very bad.

What is so sad about this, is that God had shown them from the beginning a different, better way.

Turn to chapter 6, verse 3. Micah prophesies, “Remember his ways.” You can hear the sorrow in his voice. Thinking back over the ways he showed them what is good. And what is good? What had God showed them, and what were they now neglecting.

In 6:8 he tells us: “Seek justice, Love mercy, Walk humbly with your God.”

Here is God saying I have showed you what is good. He didn’t say, “Do what I say, not what I do.” He said, “I have already shown you what is good. I have shown you my heart.” For each of those statements, Israel had seen God demonstrate justice, mercy and humility to them and others many times in their nation’s history.

So let’s review those first two terms, justice and mercy, to help us have a clear picture of who God is, what he has shown Israel, and what he expects of them.

To act justly: the word “justice” is used in reference to laws, judgments, and the like. It has a bit of a word picture associated with it, a measuring stick. This is the idea of a correct measure. Honest scales. So the word is often associated with the quality of being right. As a result this word is often translated “righteousness.”

Next, is to love mercy: Mercy could be translated “steadfast love,” or “faithfulness.” Loving-kindness is another way to understand it.

What God desires is that we become like him: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with him. This is a far cry from the way Israel is acting currently in Micah’s day.

To put it simply, God commands this kind of behavior both because he himself behaves that, and because it is in his people’s best interest. They can be released from their corruption and coming judgment if they will but humbly walk with God, act justly and love mercy. Unfortunately, Israel would go one to refuse to heed Micah’s words, and instead they would choose selfishness. What will we choose?

What we need is a vision of the way life should be. Micah gives us that. The ending of his prophecy is a great reversal, for the nation who repents and turns back to the Lord. Turn to chapter 7:16-20, read that, and we see that God tells Israel that there is Good News! There is hope, even when we’ve acted very poorly. When we choose justice and mercy, Micah says, we have a framework for a renewed way of living. But what does that life look like now? Sometimes it is hard to conceive of justice and mercy. What does justice and mercy look like in Conestoga Valley, where I live, and where you live? In tomorrow’s post we’ll see if we can apply that to our real world.

How a zoning law could make people homeless – Current Events Q1 2020 – Affordable Housing, Part 1

Last month Penn Live reported on a PA Commonwealth Court appeal ruling that took place January 10^th, saying that the ruling said, “Should spell doom for a long-running, but apparently never officially permitted boarding house,” which is located in the far southeastern corner of East Lampeter Township. Perhaps even more importantly, Penn Live said, the closure, “could also set the tenants scrambling for new accommodations.” What the article was referring to was the potential eviction of 14 tenants, because of a zoning law. What happened?

Let me tell you the story. In so doing, I’m going to weave together stories reported by Penn Live and Lancaster Newspapers. Here goes:

The owner of the boardinghouse, Granny N Pops LLC, bought the property in June 2015. It had been operating as a boarding house for 25 years prior to that. The problem was that the new owners never checked with the township as to whether a boarding house was permitted in the Village Commercial Zoning District where the property sits.

Instead, they relied on the seller’s assurances that township officials knew about the use of the 1.3-acre site, which was advertised for sale as a “multi-family property with 13 units.”

Nearly a year later, in May 2016, the East Lampeter Township zoning board issued a violation notice, because the boarding house should not have been permitted in that kind of commercial zone. Current and prior owners insisted the township knew the boarding house was there for decades. Granny N Pops, which is owned by an adjacent property owner, argued, therefore, that the previous long-term use of the site as a boarding house should require the township to issue a variance allowing that use to continue.

So they petitioned for a variance with the East Lampeter Township Zoning Board. The owners, who bought the property for $460,000 and made over $130,000 in improvements, testified at the 2017 zoning hearing that they did not research the property’s zoning because it had been operating as a boarding house for years and a real estate broker represented the property as a boarding house.

The zoning board voted 2-1 to deny the owners’ request for a variance. The board’s majority said anyone “who purchases property based on the representations of the seller, rather than making an independent investigation of the true status of the property, proceeds at his or her own risk.”

Thus, that year, the township voted to shut down the facility. The owners appealed in Lancaster County court, and the County Court upheld the township zoning decision. So the owners appealed to PA Commonwealth Court, and last month the court ruled that “A landowner is duty-bound to check the zoning status of a property prior to purchase.” The judge providing the ruling wrote that, “This court is sensitive to the impact this decision will have on the property’s vulnerable tenants who shall be forced to find other housing. Despite such concerns, the court is bound to adhere to well-established case law and precedent.”

The owners of Granny N Pops Boardinghouse have said that they might appeal to the State Supreme Court. The East Lampeter Township manager said last month that if the owners don’t appeal further, the township will notify the owner that they have to stop using the property as a boarding house.

I am telling you this story because with this blog post I am starting a new series about Current Events. It won’t be a consecutive week-by-week series, but instead one week per quarter, and I won’t pick the topic until that week, striving for something from the headlines. It could be local, national or international. The goal will be to apply biblical principles to what is going on in our world. This first topic is local, as the property and building of my congregation, Faith Church, is located in East Lampeter Township.

The purpose of every current events post will be to examine how Christians can think about a that particular event. In this case, the issues are complex. Clearly the owners did not follow the zoning law. It seems that theirs was not a willful, intentional breaking of the law, but it was a violation nonetheless. And the zoning board as well as the various courts are justified in upholding the law. So is that the end of the story? Is that all Christians should care about? That the law was upheld?

What if the law is not just? And what about mercy? Should there be exceptions to the rule?

Think about the most vulnerable people in this story, the tenants. Even the state judge called them vulnerable, aware of the reality that, if appeals fail, those tenants will likely have to find other housing, and may not have the means to do so. Affordable housing is hard to come by in our area, and Granny N Pops’ boardinghouse was providing an affordable option for tenants like Charles Adams who Lancaster Newspapers quotes as saying, “If I have to move, I don’t know where I’m going to go.” Adams, who has lived at the boarding home for 17 years, remarked, “I don’t really have money to find another place.”

The owners of the boardinghouse said “We give (our tenants) an opportunity to get restarted. Some of them have had legal issues. They come out (of jail.) They don’t have much. We give everybody a chance.”

Another tenant, Lonny Pacana, a smorgasbord dishwasher who receives Social Security disability, said he has no Plan B if evicted. “I have nowhere to go,” he said.

Ron, a two-year resident of the boardinghouse who did not provide his last name because of a criminal record, said he had no idea where he would live if evicted. “Probably my car again,” he said. “I have a hard time finding a place because of my credit and background.”

This reminds me of House of Ruth, which is owned Potter’s House in Leola. Potter’s House is a discipleship ministry, helping men transition from incarceration. Knowing that there was a need for women coming out of jail, too, Potter’s House purchased a home in the Forest Hills neighborhood to the west of Leola, hoping to minister to women there. Neighbors caught wind of the plan and began to oppose it strongly. They didn’t want formerly incarcerated women living near them.

There are many people struggling with housing in our area. Rents and home costs have consistently gone up over the years. We’ve learned about people living out of their cars, and Wal-Mart graciously allows them to park there overnight. You may have heard that a number of people live in hotels to the point where one had been a school bus stop. In the past year one of those hotels along Route 30 was razed, displacing people. Where did they go? And an even better question, what is God’s heart for this?

Check back in to the next post as we seek to learn God’s heart for affordable housing in our area.

How to rip off labels stuck to you – Our Identity: Citizens of God’s Kingdom, Part 5

Have you ever been a part of a sports team that wears jerseys with labels on them? Usually a jersey has a team name, logo, and your player number. Some also include your last name and maybe a sponsor name and logo. NASCAR driver uniforms have, perhaps, the most labels of all. We, too, can wear lots of labels, and I’m not talking about clothing company logos. These labels give us identity, but they are not our identity.

What are our labels? Dad, Mom, Grandparent, student, sports player, sports team supporter. Those are positive labels. Sadly there are negative ones too. Failure. Divorced. Sinner. Victim. Criminal. What labels do you wear?

But those labels are not our identity. Instead as we have seen, we are children of God, adopted into his family, made alive to new life in Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit, citizens of the Kingdom of God. Let’s allow those identities to inform us and motivate us.

Let me conclude with this reminder from Ephesians 5:1: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Throughout this Identity series I have been asking you to reflect on who you are, who you REALLY are, who you are in Christ and what that means. It should change how you carry yourself. It should change how you walk into situations. It should change how you relate to co-workers, to family members, to neighbors. We are heirs of the King. We are adopted children of the living God. We have access to all of who he is. He wants to be in relationship with us. We have the Holy Spirit living in us, and we should be desiring to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be walking in step with him. We should desire to be guided in thought and deed by our identity with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, and this past week we were reminded in what Kingdom we have our true citizenship. We have been reminded of where our heart should be turning to for guidance and direction about how we view the world, how we view people, and how we make choices in life.

Commit to stepping into your real identity, to remembering whose you are in a more significant way, to saying “Yes, I carry the Holy Spirit with me, I am an adopted child of God and I want it to change how to make decisions.”

How fantasy football helps us identify as Citizens of God’s Kingdom – Our Identity: Citizens of God’s Kingdom, Part 4

Did you know that Citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven is like fantasy football? When you play fantasy football, you normally draft onto your fantasy team players that are from teams that you don’t root for. All of a sudden, now that they are on your fantasy team, you start being interested in that player. You want them to do well, because when they do well, they are getting you points for your fantasy team. Previously you didn’t care a lick for that player, and maybe you didn’t like them, but now your viewpoint has changed! The same works for just about anything we spend time on. You start watching a TV show, for example, and before you know it, you’re talking about it to everyone.

So how do we live out our identity as citizens of the Kingdom? We focus on the Kingdom!

There are so many places that we could turn to in the Bible to reflect on this, but I want to read one that I haven’t blogged about before, as I think it summarizes Kingdom-living very well. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 4, and read verses 1-12. Here Paul is writing ancient Christians living in the Roman Empire. Even if they were Roman citizens, like Paul himself was, how should they live so that their identity as citizens of the Kingdom is primary?

Do you see how that passage is loaded with wonderful teaching about how to live as citizens of the Kingdom? As I said before, Paul is teaching those early Christian what it looks like to live like Jesus. I would encourage you to read it every day this week, asking God’s Spirit to speak to you about it.

Another way to live as citizens of the Kingdom is to focus on that Kingdom. Jesus talked about this. Read Matthew 6:19-34. Jesus’ point is that when our focus is on the Kingdom, it will affect our thinking.

Jesus said a great way to apply this principle is through how you use your money. When you start to pay for stuff on your own, you tend to become more interested in it. Yesterday my daughter and I went to the cell phone store so she could get a new cell phone. Not a hand-me-down this time, and a first for her: a data plan. Why? Because she recently started her first job, is earning money regularly, and can pay for her plan, which are requirements we’ve given to our kids in order for them to have a cell phone with a data plan. She also bought a screen protector and a case for the phone, because she wants to care for the investment she is making. That goes for nearly everything we care about. We steward it because we care about it. How, then, are you stewarding the God’s money? One way some churches are leading the way stewarding God’s money is by paying off medical bills for people in need. RIP Medical Debt negotiates with health companies so that every dollar donated by the churches will pay off 100 dollars in debt. What a great way to focus on the Kingdom. There are so many similar ways to do, such as giving to your church, giving to local social services agencies, and helping people in need.

How Christian dual citizenship matters to politics – Our Identity: Citizens of God’s Kingdom, Part 3

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Christians, did you know you have dual citizenship? I, for example am a citizen of the United States of America because I was born in the city of Alexandria, which is the state of Virginia. I have a birth certificate with raised seal to prove it. Which is the land of your birth? Where is your citizenship? For those of us who are Christian, we are also citizens of the Kingdom of Jesus. How do these two citizenships work together or differ?

In a country with a strong Christian heritage like the USA, it can sometime be very hard to know how to distinguish these two citizenships. In many countries, however, it is very easy to see the difference. Think, for example, of the earliest Christians. Many of them lived as citizens of Rome, and yet Rome did not accept their Christian faith and sometimes even persecuted them. Some early Christians didn’t have Roman citizenship. They were literal strangers and aliens in the Roman Empire.

It might be like Christians in a persecuted country today. Take China where the church is often underground, secret, hidden. People in China know that their citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven leads them to hold a far different set of values and beliefs than their Chinese citizenship. Their two citizenships are drastically at odds with one another, and to follow their citizenship in the Kingdom of God, they sometimes have to disobey the terms of their citizenship of China. Many earthly nations actually say that it is illegal to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God. We saw an example of this in the story of Daniel and his friends a month ago in our Characters series, when in order to follow God’s ways, they had to defy the way of the earthly king.

For us in a free nation like America, it can be much more difficult to distinguish between our two citizenships. Historically there have been many ways which our two citizenships have aligned. Being a good Christian and a good American, for some people, seem to be identical. But are they?

First, citizenship in heaven does not equate to an earthly nation or political party. That’s where it gets confusing. Some Christians will tell you that in order to be a faithful Christian, you must be in a certain political party. That is false. It is impossible to identify whether or not you are a citizen of the kingdom of God simply based on which political party you are registered with.

Therefore is to be expected that your church likely has members from both major American political parties, and maybe some of you support third parties too. That diversity is okay. Our true citizenship is in heaven and it transcends political parties. Therefore we should never allow political differences to get in the way of our family bond in Christ.

Second, our citizenship in heaven means that our affinity and brotherhood with Christians is our top priority. We can say that we are supportive of Christians around the world, like our sister churches in Liberia or Mexico, and that we pray for the persecuted church. But because of our common citizenship in heaven, we have more connection with those Christians around the world, wherever they are found, then we do with our next door neighbor who, though an American citizen, is not a Christian. That next door neighbor might be a really good person, flying the American flag, and they might look, talk and even think like us in many ways. All the while that international Christian might be halfway around the world, speak a different language, and think very differently than we do. Because of our citizenship in heaven, though, it is the international Christian with whom we share the bonds of Christ.

That does not mean we don’t love and interact and get to know all of our neighbors. It means that we must recognize that our citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven is a deeper connecting bond – no matter the political party, no matter the country we live in, no matter the language we speak, no matter the color of our skin. We will all be serving the same God, learning to walk with Jesus the same way, desiring to understand and be more and more filled with the same Holy Spirit.

Think about what that means for your views on foreign policy. Citizens of the Kingdom, in other words, think, talk and act in line with Jesus, above all else, above their political party, above their earthly citizenship.

I’m writing this in 2020 and there is an election in our earthly country coming up soon. Yes, we are citizens of Heaven, and yes, we should vote. Depending on your views of how biblical teaching relates to politics, it is more likely that you will vote for one political party or the other. Our citizenship in heaven should influence how we vote here on earth. How, then, should our citizenship in heaven inform our vote?

First of all, we need to be people who can have healthy discussion about the issues. So often what happens within a group of Christians is that political discussion begins and the walls go up, making it impossible to have a healthy discussion. When that happens, it is almost certainly a signal that those people have allowed their citizenship in an earthly nation to supersede their citizenship in heaven. When our citizenship in heaven is our priority, though, we are able to worship with and love people from all other nations and political parties, even if we strongly disagree with the way they view politics. Thus we can be willing to hear and learn from people, especially including those who say they are citizens of the Kingdom, and yet believe differently than we do. We do not want to fall victim to echo chambers. What is an echo chamber, and how does it matter to Christians and politics? I wrote about that in a series starting here.

Second, we should examine whether we have allowed one political or social issue to dominate our thinking to the detriment of all others. Let me illustrate. A person, in keeping with their view of citizenship in the Kingdom of God might believe that abortion is wrong, and thus they should turn a blind eye to everything else about a candidate and vote for them anyway because they are pro-life. Likewise a person might believe that that their citizenship in the Kingdom leads them to vote for the candidate who wants to help people in poverty, despite the fact that the candidate might have a multitude of other policy issues the voter disagrees with.

Many times Christians have directly opposing political views, but those on either side believe they are aligned with the Kingdom of God. My encouragement to you as you consider candidates and their politics and how they do or do not align with the Kingdom of God, is to avoid letting a single issue dominate your opinion. Try to step back and see the broader view. Admittedly, this is complex, but it can be done, if we start from a position of humility and seek to learn from Jesus.

And that goes for me too. You might not agree with my political views. That’s okay. We Christians have a higher authority, as Jesus is our King! That’s where we find common ground, far above any national leader or politics. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God.

The Already, but Not Yet Kingdom – Our Identity: Citizens of God’s Kingdom, Part 2

Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God now. What does that mean? How does our citizenship in God’s Kingdom matter now?

The answer to that question is something called, “the already, but not yet”. We are a part of the Kingdom of God already, but that Kingdom has not yet come in its fullness. One day it will be complete. But not yet. Now, however, in our day, the kingdom has already come in part, and we are truly Citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven now. When Paul said that our citizenship is in heaven in Philippians 3:20, he did not say it will only be in the future. Instead he was speaking in the present tense. Our citizenship in God’s Kingdom started the moment that God the Spirit indwelled us, as we talked about last week.

So how do we live as citizens of God’s Kingdom now? To answer that, we first need to answer another question. What is the Kingdom?

A Kingdom is a realm ruled by a king. Simple, right? A realm and a ruler.

In the Kingdom of Heaven, we must first clearly declare who the King is. As we have seen in the Identity series, our King is God, who is a Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. He is our sovereign, our monarch, our leader, our Lord, and we follow him. There is no other king that we follow. God, as expressed in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the ruler, the King.

So what is the realm where our King rules?

Typically we think of the Kingdom of Heaven as a place that we go to after we die. Heaven is that. But Jesus talked about his Kingdom in more ways than a spiritual realm where we go when we die. Actually, Jesus talked about the kingdom quite a lot. The first mention is possibly Mark 1:14-15. There we read the following:

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Hear that. The Kingdom of God is near. It is not far away. So it cannot be only a place, a heaven, that people can enter after they die. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is near.

Another time he went even further than that:

“Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
Luke 17:20-21

Jesus was saying that we can experience the Kingdom of God now. In what might be his most famous teaching on the Kingdom of God, the Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew 6:10, he said, and many of you can probably recite it: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

God wants his will to be done on earth, as his will is done perfectly in heaven. And when his will is done on earth, that is evidence that his Kingdom has come on earth.

So the Kingdom is any place where God’s rule and reign enters, where his ways and his heart are being lived and acted upon. Like when we worship by serving the community on Church Has Left The Building Sundays, including digging out tree stumps for neighbors.

Jesus told parables to illustrate this. Turn to Mark 4:26-32 where Jesus tells two parables in a row. In both, Jesus is talking about the mysteriously powerful nature of the Kingdom that is at work even when we don’t see it. It flows, it is on the move, it is at work.

Go back to Mark 1:14-15. When Jesus said the Kingdom was near, he himself was ushering it into the world in a new way. No longer was the Kingdom of God contained to the physical borders of the nation of Israel. The Kingdom of God is not defined by borders.

Consider earthly kingdoms where we pass through entry and exits points of a country’s borders. Earthly kingdoms or nations have defined boundaries (for the most part), and those boundaries almost never move. With our passports in hand, and sometimes visas, we the people of the world move in and out earthly countries. But God’s Kingdom is totally different. God’s Kingdom has no boundaries. Instead it his kingdom that is on the move. So while we enter and exit earthly kingdoms, God’s kingdom enters and exits us.

This has great implications for us as citizens. Citizens of an earthly country are expected to live and act a certain way. So how should citizens of God’s Kingdom live out their identity? We will be different. Just as people from different cultures act, speak and think differently, Christians should be known for acting, thinking and speaking differently, flowing from our core identity. Remember our core identity: we are adopted as children into God’s family, we have new life in Christ and we are temples of the Holy Spirit. That is our identity, and because of that identity, we will live a certain way.

That way of life will look distinctly Christian. To look Christian is to behave and live like Christ. A Christian is one who is of Christ. If you want to learn more about that, check out the posts on our Identity in Christ. Our citizenship should be Christ-shaped, or shaped by Christ. This is why it is so vital for us to study the life of Jesus as written in the Bible. He was showing us how to live as citizens of the Kingdom. Therefore, we should do what he did, having the same heart as he did. What breaks his heart should break ours. What excites him should excite us. We should pattern our actions after his and our heart and mind will be transformed.