I’ll bet you are wondering what a disco ball has to do with a confernce recap? You think I’d tell you right off the bat? C’mon. What fun would that be? Read on, my friend.
Last weekend, I had the great joy of being with 180 other men deep in the Adirondack mountains – fellowshiping with them, worshipping with them, praying with them, listening to great teaching with them…and stuffing my face with them at Camp of the Woods.
The conference ran (“officially”) Fri PM to Sat PM…but once again, I stayed an extra night (thank you Ian and Susan!) in order to attend the Sunday AM service at Adirondack Bible Chapel. ABC actually hosted the whole conference and once again did an AMAZING job…they are some of the most humble, loving, hospitable, Christ-filled brothers anyone could hope to spend time with. It is a true joy to be with them.
I also was thoroughly blessed to play again with Mike Peck, Gary Mure, and Laura Peck with some great worship…to hear 180 men sing is pretty wild…kinda felt like I was in the Marines or something, but then realizing that they were all praising God made it sweeter!
Milton focused our attention on “Applying the Gospel to Life” in key areas such as the lost, those who wrong you, our wives, and our fellow Christians. Milton was also there last year, again saturating us with the Gospel and focusing us on the cross from his book The Gospel Primer. So, I kinda knew what to expect and was looking forward to another infusion of truth from this dear brother.
Milton defines “evangelize” as (1) to preach the gospel (2) to impart the gospel to others thru word and deed and -my fav – (3)to be a living embodiment of the gospel in relationship with others. Ouch. He hasn’t gotten past the first page of his overview…not even the first paragraph and already I’m convicted. Am I a “living embodiment” of the gospel to others? Ummm….sometimes?! His church has a saying “Always evangelizing, always being evangelized” – in other words we need to always be on mission, but we need to always, even (especially?) as Christians be reminded of the gospel and make it our center – always pointing to the gospel of Jesus and His work on the cross and applying it to every situation – it is the power of God!
Hopefully, I can do this well, but here are the high points from the outlines, with any relevant notes I made…
Session #1: Evangelizing the Lost
- Infuse the gospel into your life, and then give your life away to people…do we do this with our neighbors, co-workers, parents do we do this with our kids, husbands our wives?
- Be righteous, do good deeds, and suffer well.
- Do loving community with your fellow Christians….thru these examples of community, of hospitality you give others a view into your family — do we treat our family in a way that “embodies the gospel?” — so much so that if people saw it as you ‘did loving community’ they would be drawn more to Christ?
- Care enough to weep and pray for the lost…if you don’t feel the burden, ask God to give it to you. Here’s a thought ‘invite God to share in saving someone’. Yikes. How many times do we take that on our own?! Hello…NOT our work to save, kids- we only scatter the seed, not change hearts.
- When you share the gospel, begin with God…not sin, not the Law. The 10 Commandments start with “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the the land of Egypt” (Ex 20:2) — why would we start with anything else other than God? Also, this affects our perspective – We need to understand who we ALL have sinned against – ‘the greatness of our sin is the realization of how great is the one against whom we have sinned”
- Be willing to celebrate and make use of ways the God is already acting as their savior…this blew me away. God does show kindness and goodness to those who even reject him. First, by letting them breath his air (OK “sustaining them”), but why? Don’t panic, this isn’t ‘universalism’ this instead points out the purpose of God’s kindness – it’s not to stop and dwell on the blessings, but it should lead to repentance…Rom 2:4. God’s blessings are supposed to lead people back to GOD, not the blessings. Ask God to do “great kindness” that will lead someone to repentance.
- Speak of sin (and when you do, speak of it being against GOD)…they are not only sins, they are sins against God, that’s a much different perspective. We can’t get around speaking of sin if we are truly sharing the gospel. There are false prophets out there that will tell us that we can’t mention sin…they need ‘positive affirmation’ not ‘guilt’. Unfortunately, that’s a load of doo-doo. We are ALL sinners, and God’s grace is AMAZING to save us from it thru Christ.
- Speak much of the Savior and His Cross…AMEN! Fresh from #7, when we talk of the “bad news” of sin, be very quick to get to the good news of Christ – His mercy and grace that saves us and forgives us.
- Call upon people to repent and believe….at some point, we will need to get to that decision point, to obey the command of the Lord, the gospel isn’t just a set of facts, it is also a command — “Repent and believe” – (Mark 1:15)
- Leave the results to God…
Session #2: Evangelizing those who wrong you…
Forgive – (v) to release a person from the consequences he deserves from you as a result of his sin against you; to positively show him favor he does not deserve.
Milton outlined 4 steps to forgiveness:
- Go to the cross and do some gospel thinking…great quote from JC Ryle “A spiteful, quarrelsome Christian is a scandal…it is doubtful that such a one has sat at the foot of the cross.” Seriously…it’s pretty easy to forgive someone when we get the perspective that Christ died for my MANY sins. We all sent Christ to the cross by our sins, we all are “murderers of God”. A slightly more accurate way of interpreting Is 53:5 may be “he was pierced FROM our transgressions, crushed FROM our sin.” Before you start to simmer and boil over about how you’ve been wronged, think about how you have wronged God…
- Realize that I have committed greater evils against God…how do you see your own sin? It probably is in direct proportion to the measure of grace you feel from God. If you see your sin as a “2” then maybe you think of God’s grace as a “2” – in actuality all sin is a great offense to God. If we see our sin and thus our grace from God as a “10” — then aren’t you way more able to see evidences of God’s grace in someone else’s sin?
- Glory to God, Christ has purchased my forgiveness and justification
- Sometimes God purposes those whom he loves deeply to be painfully sinned against
- I am purchased and owned by God; and now I live to serve his purposes, not mine
- God the Father can be trusted completely on the receiving end of any wrongdoing
- Christ has suffered and I am suffering right now, which means I am never alone in any pain (Jesus also bore our “sorrows and griefs – Is 53:4)
- Forgiveness is suffering (that’s why people choose bitterness, it’s EASIER!)
- Chose to forgive the way you’ve been forgiven…and do this in prayer, before GOD, yeah…that’s right…forgive them in prayer before GOD himself, as if you need another reminder of YOUR own sin and how in light of that, you need to forgive others.
- Pray for the person who has wronged you…even pray that God blesses them….yikes.
- Make yourself an agent of blessing in that person’s life….dont’ stop at just praying for them, actively seek to be a blessing for them
Session #3 – Evangelizing your wife
I loved his comments in the intro here, how humble he was…still seeking to grow in his marriage…he said “I’m about a year away from being a good husband.” AMEN. Me too! By his grace!
Quick facts about marriage:
- Marriage was created by God, so it’s his intellectual property = we have no right to redefine it
- The first sins occurred in the context of marriage
- The institution of marriage got hammered as a result of the fall (remember what God said to Adam and Eve in Gen 3:16-19)
- God intends for Christian marriages to be molded and shaped by the Gospel…check out Eph 5:23-32 and how many times “as” and “just as” are used. Ex. 5:23: For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church.” The better we understand the gospel, the better we will understand marriage!
Milton also talked about being “good news” or being the “embodiment of the gospel” to your wife…amazing…he identified 6 ways to be the good news to your wife:
- Love your wife as Christ loveD the church. Notice that Eph 5:25 is PAST tense, Christ loveD the church by giving himself completely to her. In other words he loveD the church – look at the cross!
- sacrificially –How many husbands would take a bullet for their wives, yet not give up their pride and selfishness?! True love is finding our joy in our wives joy.
- purposefully — be intentional
- pre-emptively…don’t wait for her to start ‘doing what you want her to’ or ‘doing her part’ before you start loving her as Christ loved the church dude.
- Love your wife as your own body, just like Christ loveS the church…now this is present tense. How does he lovE the church now…look in Eph 5 again – v29: nourishes and cherishes…in other words — not lecturing your wife, not distancing yourself from your wife in silence…but actively nourishing it.
- Milton told a great story of a picture of a wilted plant he has in his office with a sign on the pot that says “Its the SOIL, stupid.” We are caretakers of the soil, don’t look for another flower to put in your bad soil – take care of the soil. You wonder why men go from wife to wife to wife? They aren’t taking care of the soil and keep looking for another “prettier” flower to put in bad soil!!
- Be a lavishing husband – love her as she wants to be loved, not how YOU want her to be loved. Men are different…we process differently communicate differently…be aware of this and make an effort to communicate well
- Love your wife as you do yourself, just as Christ does the church…Eph 5:32
- Dwell with your wife according to knowledge….knowledge of God’s word, of HER (be a student of your wife), knowledge of your and her weaknesses, model repentance- confess your sins to your wife!
- Honor her as a fellow heir of the grace of life…she will never be more beautiful than when you see her in the context of the gospel.
- Pray with your wife….DO this, amazing intimacy here dudes.
- Prayer is the pinnacle of marriage
- Prayer is the first miracle – the fact that we can even TALK to God is a miracle in and of itself, thank you Jesus for your work
- Prayer is hard…is makes us face our own helplessness…well it should if done right…
- Prayer provides an opportunity to celebrate evidences of His grace we see in our lives.
- Pray also for ways to be the good news to each other
Session #4 “Mopping Up”
Milton called this session “Mopping Up” and he used the time wisely to tie up some loose ends.
- The Gospel works…yes, it may seem obvious, but it really does. As a matter of fact, it’s the ONLY thing that does:
- 2 Cor 3:18 – 18And we all, with unveiled face,(A) beholding(B) the glory of the Lord,[a](C) are being transformed into the same image(D) from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
- He brought an actual human rib with him that he keeps on his desk (I hope it was from reputable establishment!) to remind himself that we are all “Not very pretty and not much to work with” – we are all created by God’s design and need the gospel daily.
- Marriage…the devil will often attack society by attacking families, and often the wife is the first target. As husbands we cannot be so entangled and distracted by sin that we then allow satan to attack our unguarded wives. (Luke 11:21) – that is NOT being good news to your wife.
- Ask yourself – “Do you really understand the gospel?” Embrace the opportunities to re-enact the gospel when you are wronged – model Christ. We are also called to be a conduit of his grace, we must pass it on if we understand the true gospel.
- Pray – for wisdom, for divinely crafted opportunities to show grace
- Be an agent of blessing – don’t even broadcast it, be willing to do a kind deed anonymously
- Crucifixion is required – again, modeling the gospel we are to take up our own crosses daily and die to our desires and live for Christ
- Forgiveness – if we are still angry…did it work? The answer: yes, for 5 full minutes. Now it’s time to forgive again! Remember, sin is multifaceted like a disco ball having many mirrors that all reflect the light in different directions, you will come to see different aspects of someones sin against you and you will need to forgive each one of them. As for when we mess up and need to be foregived…True humilty is confessing the wrong and owning the hurt, become a student of the hurt, be willing to look at the hurt…remember forgiveness is painful, but required.
- Does forgiveness = trust? No: we can’t give wholesale trust back immediately after it’s been violated. The answer is also ‘yes’ – there is an opportunity to re-earn their trust, but it takes diligence in pursuing forgiveness (see #7 above!)
- When I mess up – RUN to the cross and keep it cross-centered…AMEN!
- Remember there are 2 qualifications for salvation: (1) you must be a sinner! (2) must believe in Jesus.
Session #5 (At ABC Sunday AM) – Evangelizing Your Fellow Christians
I will link to the audio for this one, as I didn’t have my notebook with me for some stupid reason on Sunday AM!
Mike Ruel 
Mike,
I love disco ball forivness! I needed to hear that so badly! Thanks for all the reminders!