Fred Sanders work, The Deep Things of God punched me in the gut, with a good hurt. Its not so much Dr. Sanders who punched me, as the doctrine of the Trinity. You see, my world tends to be small. My imagination is limited. I am really good at staring at my toes and a foot or two ahead of me.
This book grabbed my attention, raised my eyes to the heavens, and carried me back to the world of the Godhead, before there were any worlds made. I have turned my meditations there again and again since.
Just recently, seeking to hear God's Word and its call to look outward, I wrestled with how to engage our people with that word. Another message on the Great Commission?
I started by asking a different question -- if we were to turn outward in Gospel proclamation, and Gospel service, and Church planting, what would that look like? How would God work?
That is when I started to reflect on the ways of God. God sent his Son who became a grain of wheat that fell into the ground to die so that it would bear much fruit. Death was his path to life and fruitfulness. And, as I meditated further, I saw that death (in the form of suffering) is the path he takes us on to bear fruit as well.
Suffering and loss are the means of living Christ and provide the context for proclaiming Christ. We shall not be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while the Son of God poured out his blood for us.
Well, that was a jarring note to us all, including me. And it drove me further into considering how evangelism and church planting is not just a command, it is a pattern.
Then there was a coalescence of ideas from Sanders and Scripture. If the great news behind the good news is that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the gladness of the Trinity have opened up their life to bring adopted sons and daughters to their table, then the root of evangelism is in the depths of the Godhead. Evangelism is not something Christians do on Thursday nights, it is a reflection of something God is in eternity past. It is not peripheral or optional. It is essential.
Out of the depths of the Triune God, God in his goodness and love chooses to redeem and welcome sinners into the circle of his glory. He seats us, not at the guest tables, but at the head table, co-heirs with the Son. We are made one flesh with Christ, our heavenly husband.
When we welcome the stranger, meet the new neighbor, make room in our schedules for the unbeliever, disrupt our fellowship to send people out to do church planting and missions -- we are reflecting the deep things of God. That is is costly should not surprise us. God in Trinity ruptured their everlasting fellowship of love to open the circle to the likes of us. The Father send the Son and the Father made the Son a curse for us. The Son did it gladly.
This is stunning.
If you want to consider this more, listen in HERE.
Wow.
I'm looking forward to reading this book; thank you for a bit of a preview in this article.
Evangelism/community/fellowship- - and all out of the depths of the Triune God! Awesome!
Posted by: Reuben Huffman | March 24, 2011 at 11:17 AM