Where is your Cross? Luke 14:25-27

When Church Fails You

Being in the pastoral ministry for sometimes now, I and my wife have known and seen many potentially wonderful people walk out of the church, shutting the door behind them forever. Memories of these individuals, though as old as a quarter of a century, still remain fresh in our minds and at times wonder and wish that there was something we could have done better to avoid their departure from the church. Yes, in hindsight, we could have done something different. But then, we were young and inexperienced pioneering pastors struggling to raise a new church to stand on its feet. Like Paul to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, we never wanted to be a burden to the church and thus worked hard on many odd jobs, not only to provide for our family but also for the needs of the church such as paying rent and other utilities so that we could also present them the example of sacrificial service in God's kingdom. As indigenous church planters in a heathen society without any missions or supporters behind; it was a staggering task. But by choice, we took up the challenge of becoming bi-vocational pastors. Because of the bi-vocational nature of our ministry, we could not give as much time as we wished to the needs of many of the believers; yet the call of God for the pastoral ministry was so clear and we could not convince ourselves to abandon the church when we faced many difficult situations. The difficulties arising from the lack of finances, ill health and persecution were not as challenging as arising from a disgruntled church member. Whenever a church member demonstrated the traits of disgruntle, as inexperienced as we were, we would spend more time with such members, try to pray more, try to reason with and always hoped for a miracle that someday he/she would understand the grace of God in Christ Jesus. More often than not, we failed to convince such members to appreciate the grace of God; concepts like forgiveness, consideration, understanding, love and sacrifice failed to make sense. In our failures to minister to them, often we questioned our own intelligence thinking whether we are delusional in attempting to Pastor a people that does not contribute anything toward our welfare. Instead of the church taking care of our material needs, we had to work hard to meet the needs of the church and yet these members would manage to find reasons to complain and murmur about one thing or the other in the church. By serving the church freely, we thought the church members would see the kind of sacrifices we were making, the kind of unconditional love we demonstrated toward them by bringing them to Christ, being there with them in times of happiness and sorrow, and teaching them to become the kind of people God wants them to be. The Bible says that the one who labors for the gospel must eat from the gospel and the pastors and teachers of God's word are to be paid better. But we were doing it all freely and yet these church members always managed to find something wrong either with the church or with the leadership and decided to walk away from it. We hardly forget these members who have walked out of the church; a great sense of loss from all sides remains in our psyche. By God's grace, a few years ago, we were able to handover the leadership of this church to our fellow pastor, knowing that the church is now self-reliant, able to feed its shepherd and is birthing many new churches. 

Nearly four years ago, after we moved to Korea, we took over the leadership of our current International Church, and of course the church is not able to pay us the required pastoral salary and thus our bi-vocational nature of ministry continues. Just like in the past, it is our desire that some of our members would see the kind of commitment it requires to be a follower of Christ from our example. If we are followers of Christ, then, we are called to serve and not to be served; we are called to give than to receive. Our contract with the church is limited to our Sunday preaching and we can say "Why bother for Bible studies, counseling, visitation and so forth; just go for Sunday sermon because that is all the church requires of us". But no, we are called by God to minister regardless of whether we are paid for it or not. We are to lay down our lives for the cause of the kingdom of God and his people. When we see a fellow believer encouraged, a backslidden returned, a sinner saved as a result of our ministry; this becomes our greatest reward in this world. And, in fact, we are grateful to the Lord for the growth of our International Church and the commitment of many volunteers. We are grateful for our worship team, serving team, ushers and Sunday school teachers. All of them are doing what they do freely and for the cause of the kingdom of God. Many of them invest their own money, time and talents into what they do. Some of them have been doing it cheerfully for many many years. It is wonderful to see that from a handful of members, today we are numbering into many scores who join us every Sunday for worship and fellowship.

But along with the growth comes the challenge of practicing our Christianity. We have people from many nations, cultures and languages. There is going to be confusion, miscommunication and misunderstanding. With such diversity, an international church can have the greatest potential for either healing or hurting one another. Our spirituality is going to be tested severely. If we don't take our personal discipleship very seriously, we are going to find so many reasons to complain and murmur about our church, about our leaders, and about any and everything. If we allow our feelings to dictate our decision making process, its going to steal our joy and peace that God has freely given to us. It's going to rob us of the love of God that he poured in our hearts. And if we don't take preventative actions, we may eventually either walk away from the church or make others to leave the church altogether. 

Therefore, brothers and sisters, as a fellow believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I urge you to fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Listen to his words and consider the price of discipleship he has laid out for us to pay. Let us pick up our cross daily and let us ask God to pour out divine love in our hearts, let us ask God to give us the joy of the Holy Spirit, let us ask God to give us the peace that surpasses all our understanding. Let us ask God to give us patience, kindness, and goodness so that we can tolerate members who are difficult to deal with; love the unlovable. Let us ask God to give us faithfulness, meekness and self-control so that we continue to grow in the knowledge of God in bearing the fruit of the Spirit. 

We live in a broken world among the broken people and the church is also comprised of broken members. Although we hope for the church to behave better, let us not walk way from it just because some members demonstrate their brokenness. The church is still the body of Christ and as members of his body; let us do our part in healing and restoring even when people keep hurting us.

Apart from me you can do nothing - John 15:5

Cheerful or Painful Sermon?

Last Sunday after the sermon, a member of our church made a remark about my preaching that is still stuck to my mind; I wish to forget it but it does not go.  It has made me to be more fearful in how I preach.  Don't get me wrong, I am a human being and I like to hear something good rather than bad.  But at times an honest response is better than a good and pleasing one; the remark that is stuck to my mind was an honest one.

Being in the pastoral ministry from the teenage years, with a few improvements in some areas, preaching a sermon on every Sunday is still a fearful challenge.  This fearful challenge arises from the twofold realization of having the word from the Lord and then faithfully delivering it to his people; a timely word of the Lord to the hungry people of God, with all its ramifications and relevance, is a delicious delicacy in any given age and culture.  How I wish that the Lord would speak through me to each and every member who sits under my voice; he/she would return from that place edified, revived and filled with strength to live in this fallen world with faith and courage!  Such desire as a preacher always weighs heavily upon me, at times to a breaking point.  Even as I climb the steps towards the Pulpit, I keep breathing a silent prayer even though, for reasons unknown to me as of yet, I feel not so comfortable to pray publicly before I begin my sermon.    

But there is one thing I have overcome as a preacher; a visit to restroom before climbing up to the Pulpit.  For about until five years into the full time preaching ministry, the fear of public speaking would grip me so tight that I wished to be raptured just before the presider would call me to the Pulpit.  Since the wish to be raptured never came true, my stomach would give up!  The situation would be more compounded when invited to speak in a new place.  In such a scenario, my first priority used to be to locate the restroom and then calculate the timing for me to take the Pulpit.  Considering the living conditions in rural Nepal and India, finding a restroom in close proximity of the church itself used to be a lifesaver!  Once the location of the restroom is secured and you are seated inside the worship hall, the struggle proceeded to the next level.  Worship services in these places don't have the printed bulletins and the program sheets with the calculated precision of the allocated time; if they had, it would have given my stomach the luxury of telling me when to plan my trip to the restroom.  But you could never tell as how many songs, hymns and testimonies would be incorporated in the worship before your name is called.  The worship leader would have full freedom to do or say anything or even preach a whole sermon based upon the hymns just sung or about to be sung; all depended on how he/she felt led by the Holy Spirit.  And you add to that the supernatural manifestations; someone would either be filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in tongues and prophesy or be filled with demonic spirits and roll on the floor, scream and cry.  In either case, the service would go one until the calm is restored or the demonic spirits have been exorcised.   The day I would not have to preach, I would be perfectly at home in a service like that; in fact, I would add to what seems to be a chaotic style of worship to a naturalist.  But the day I am supposed to preach, everything would change for me; I would be focusing on the worship leader and interpreting his/her moves and planning my trip to the restroom before my name is called.  Failing to visit the restroom would ruin the first 5 to 10 minutes of my sermon and I would make a fool of myself.

But it has now been over 15 years without the regular panic attacks of the fear of public speaking (there are occasions it returns).  The Lord has been gracious to take away that fear from me, but the fear that I have now is even greater than that.  It is the fear of failing to minister each and everyone who comes to the church seeking the word of the Lord.  I have heard/read great preachers say "you do your best and leave the rest to God".  It is a comforting thought.  But as a minister who is called upon to speak God's word to God's people, I wish that every single individual who comes to Church would return home knowing that one has heard God speak to.

Having such a prayer in my heart, the remark on Sunday compelled me to hear God before I speak and speak before people without fear.  The zest of the remark went like this "I used to attend an X church but the reason I came to this church is because the pastor in X church always preaches 'Cheerful' sermons but you preach 'Painful' sermons.  Even though I like cheerful sermons and your sermons hurt me, but life in this world is painful and your sermons provide me the inspiration to face the painful world with faith and courage".  The idea that sermons can be painful and yet provide the needed inspiration to face the painful world; I take it to be a great compliment for me!

 

The world is indeed painful.  There is evil in every side; suffering and life have become twin pillars of our existence in this fallen world.  That is why Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world".  Life giving message to a hurting world needs to be communicated through the channels that have the experience of what it is to suffer and overcome the suffering in this world.  It is possible that the "cheerful" sermons are born out of the comfortable life-style of the preachers; lack of experience of suffering in life makes us either a merry-go-round preachers or stiff-naked legalist devoid of love; attributing the lack of suffering in life as a reward for their religiosity; "if everyone would do what we did, there will be no suffering in life".  But the person who has travelled the road of suffering and experienced the shepherding hand of God through the valley of shadow of death will know the both spectrums of life; there is trouble in the world but the one who shepherds us has overcome this world and therefore we can overcome with him.  On the other hand, unless the preacher experienced the victorious hand of God in the suffering, there is also the danger of remaining in the painful state of mind and think that this world is not a place to hope for anything good.  Indeed, the good shepherd wants us to have life abundance in this world, and with Paul we ought to be able to say "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"!

So, I prefer a 'painful' sermon that gives me the inspiration to overcome the painful world than hear a "cheerful" sermon that sets me up for disappointments and discouragements in the real world. 

This world is so broken that self-help and 'cheerful' sermons can only take us to some extent, but to make life worth living in this world, we will need the power of God revealed in the gospel.  "The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe"!  Jesus said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life".  If I have Christ, I have the power of resurrection and life even in this painful world and because he lives, I shall also live and live victoriously!   Therefore, whether the sermon is cheerful or painful, the most important thing is to have Christ in it!  

Easter Sunday - Hope Beyond the Grave

Bread Providing Nature of God

Deceitfulness of Riches

Do you want to be great in God's kingdom?

Living for God's Pleasure

Lessons from the Pursuit of PhD

Picture with the President

A desire for learning was installed in me when my elementary school promoted me to 3^rd grade from the 1^st without attending the 2^nd.  But life was not always a smooth sailing like that; through many ups and downs, I have finally come to the end of my formal schooling.  As the reality of my final graduation sinks in, I have begun to see how this journey for PhD has finally taught me lessons that should have been learnt many many years ago.  Three things stand out in my pursuit of PhD; they are 1) Theological Clarity, 2) Academic Affection, and 3) Character Refinement.

1.  Theological Clarity: My Christian beginning was complicated.  Before meeting any Christians and reading the Bible myself, a small gospel booklet had convinced me to follow Christ.  Eventually I came in contact with a Christian group that was strongly influenced by the Baptist cessationism.  My water baptism took place in India, in a church associated with Church of North India, an Episcopalian body.  While fellowshipping with the Baptistic church after my baptism in India, God rocked my Christian world.  In one fateful day, I attended a worship service in a different church in Dhangadi; the speaker that day was from Sri Lanka, Dr. David Balasingh.  He talked about being baptized in the Holy Spirit, the subject that I had been constantly struggling ever since I took water baptism.  I had asked my Baptistic friends as when one should be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  They had no clear answers.  But this preacher was so convinced that unless you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you cannot be effective witness of the Lord.  After the service, I tried to ask him more about this subject through his interpreter Basant Prakash Bhaikaji (Shrestha).  But there was not much said, all Dr. Balasingh said was, "if you want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, go and read book of Acts chapters 2, 4, 8, 10, and 19."  I wrote those references at the back of my Bible and went back.  Throughout the week I had forgotten about what he told me, but on Friday night, as I began to prepare for the Saturday service, I remembered what he had said on the preceding Saturday in that little church by the river, across from the Muslim cemetery, through his interpreter.  At about 10:30 PM, I picked up my Bible, read until chapter 8 and didn't find anything special.  By the time I began chapter 10, I was feeling sleepy; closing the Bible, I started to pray in my rented room.  I remember saying to God "God, I don't know anything about this thing called baptism in the Holy Spirit, but if there is anything that you have for me and I haven't received it, please give me.  I want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit."  No sooner I had finished such a prayer, something amazing happened, my hands went up, my voice rose and I continued to pray the same thing but in a bolder and louder voice.  Unaware of the time I spent in prayer, I found myself fallen on bed, lying on my back, hands lifted up and speaking in a kind of language I had never heard.  At times I would feel as if my body was being lifted, at times I would feel as if my vocal cord was so enlarged that I could not close it any more to stop me from speaking.  A great sense of joy flooded my heart and I disturbed the whole neighborhood; dogs barking and people knocking on my door and windows.  To make the matter worse, the pastor of the Baptist church that I was belonging to was there (I had no idea that it had been hours since I disturbed the neighbors).  Following that experience, the Baptist church gave me two options; either to recant my experience and stop speaking in tongues or be excommunicated.  They asked one of their most senior ministers to counsel me.  I remember this brother willing to hold my feet in urging me to stop speaking in tongues.  He convinced me that it was from the devil and I was being deceived.  Knowing his theological and ministerial credential, I was worried if I had been truly deceived or was being possessed by an evil spirit.  So to appease these brothers, I decided to stop speaking in tongues in front of them.  I remember biting my tongues while worshiping God with them.  I knew I was not possessed by an evil Spirit, I knew the experience I had was so amazing; it was a life-transforming experience.  But I didn’t want to be excommunicated; I needed to belong to this Christian group.  Unfortunately, I could not hide my experience and eventually I was expelled from that church.  Once out of the Baptist church, I decided to attend the church where I heard Dr. Balasingh speak first.  This fellowship belonged to Assemblies of God denomination; one of the prominent Pentecostal denominations.  Through this fellowship, I was recommended to attend Southern Asia Bible College from where I completed my four years Bachelor of Theology.  Returning to Nepal, I decided not to join the Assemblies of God but to remain as an indigenous minister of the gospel without any former affiliation.  Later, got the opportunity to study in a Presbyterian seminary for my M.Div.  Experience in this seminary convinced me for the need to be ordained as a minister and decided to receive the ordination under the Presbyterian Church.  In this seminary, I understood the value of theological reflection instead of depending on my theological sentiment.  Up until that time, my theological worldview was shaped by my experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit.  I found reading the book of Acts so comforting and inspiring.  But when I read the other portion of the New Testament, I did not feel the same kind of affinity with my experience of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  To make the matters worse, Cessationist interpretation of the book of Acts became a formidable hurdle for me to overcome.  Even the Pentecostal sympathizers like James Dunn and others have left no stone unturned to debunk the Pentecostal interpretation of the book of Acts and their doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  As I turned to my Pentecostal cousins to see if they could help me stand up against this onslaught of Evangelical opposition to my experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I chose Gordon Fee, who is by bar the most prolific Pentecostal theologian of our time.  To my dismay, I found Fee to have accepted James Dunn's position when it comes to receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit after conversion.  Even those Pentecostals who claim to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit have concluded that the doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion cannot be sustained from any other New Testament books apart from the book of Acts.  So, it appeared to me that Pentecostals are willing to divide the New Testament understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in two parts; Luke standing for the baptism in the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion while Paul and the rest opposing Luke's view by claiming that one receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit in conversion.  Such a division I cannot comprehend; Holy Spirit cannot be saying two contradictory things at the same time.  Either Luke is right or Paul is right; or we have not understood both of their understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit.  With such a dilemma at hand, I have to make up my mind as where I stand in this debate.  Should I stand with Luke or Paul?  I decided that I should not choose between one and the other; I want to see what Paul had to say about my experience.  With Luke I had no quarrels, but it was Paul who appeared to be contradicting what I experienced.  But when I looked at Paul's experience I have found my peace of mind; I have found my theological conviction and that is; there is no disagreement between Paul and Luke.  But to come to this conclusion is not an easy task.  The traditional understanding of justification and regeneration had to be looked at from a new angle; an angle that is prone to come under severe attack.  In the protestant and catholic traditions, salvation is attributed to the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is believed to be the one who brings a person to faith in Christ.  In these traditions it is believed that the Holy Spirit comes in the hearts of the sinners before Christ comes in.  But by looking at Pauline letters, we found that salvation takes place when one hears the gospel.  The gospel proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit has the power to create faith in the hearts of the listeners.  Just as in the beginning God created everything by his word, now the new life is also created by the word of the gospel.  When a sinner hears the gospel with the intention of receiving it; the gospel recreates faith in the human heart and a new human spirit created.  At the point of regeneration, a human spirit is created; it is not the Holy Spirit coming and living in the sinner as it is thought in the evangelical theology.  The Holy Spirit comes to the sinner only after the sinner has been recreated by the power of the gospel.  In all of Pauline discussion of salvation it is faith in the gospel that saves a sinner and not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the agent of creation; God in Christ through the gospel creates new life in human heart and then imparts the Holy Spirit as his presence.  Even John and Peter agree with Paul that the new birth is the result of God's word.  Once the new creation comes into existence by the power of the gospel, then God comes to dwell in that creation through the coming of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the life creating agent, but the life-sustaining agent.  If this is the case, then I can fully rest assure my struggle of reconciling my experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit with Paul.  Paul was a man who himself went through this experience.  Writing a PhD thesis from Pauline writing has given me a theological clarity which I had struggled for so many years.  But this is not the end of my struggle of course, it is just the beginning.  I will have to work hard to see how Pauline understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit provides me the basis for my understanding of the baptism in the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion.  I no longer have to be afraid of Paul, rather, in Paul, I see my own experience.   In the next posts, I will list the other two lesions; 

1. Academic Affection
2. Character Refinement