Alzheimer's and Kingdom Service

I was ministered to today by Joyce Spiaggi, a member of First Baptist Fisherville (where I pastor). She is taking care of her mother who has Alzheimer's disease. I went to visit Joyce to encourage her but I was the one encouraged as I saw her love, patience, care, and service to her mother.

One of the things I've admired about Joyce is that even though she has this burden she carries at all times, she rarely misses Sunday worship (or Sunday School). But she told me today that she wished that she could be more involved.

I told her that the most godly thing she could be doing right now is what she is currently doing: serving her elderly mother. See, sometimes its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that kingdom work/ministry only takes place between the walls of the church building. Now, to be sure, I believe that if you aren't actively involved in the life of the local church (unless providentially hindered), you are out of the will of God as a Christian. Study the epistles and see how the gospel imperatives can only be obeyed in the context of the gospel community (the church).

Having said that, our kingdom roles extend outside the context of the church into our spheres of influence. In Joyce's case, in this season of life, it's her mother.

Consider these words I recently read from pastor/scholar Philip Ryken.

Kingdom work can include any good thing that is done for Christ as King—anything that advances his kingdom, or opposes his proud enemies, or speaks in defense of his kingship. We can do kingdom work in the marketplace. Whenever we make a fair sale, build a solid house, or shine a good shoe—if we do it for Jesus—we are advancing the cause of our King by bearing witness to the values of his kingdom. We can also do kingdom work in the home. Whenever we put beautiful flowers on the table, or pick up our shoes off the floor, or decide to be the first to say, “I’m sorry,” we are bearing witness to the kingdom of God. Then we can do kingdom work in society. Whenever we oppose the evil of abortion, or work for the end of child abandonment, or take an active role in what is happening in the lives of people in our neighborhood, this too is kingdom work. We also do kingdom work through the ministry of the church: inviting friends to worship, passing out Bibles, welcoming people with disabilities, supporting workers overseas, laboring in prayer for people doing all kinds of ministry that we ourselves are not called or gifted to do. This is all the more true when we tell people the gospel in words they can hear and understand, which is the most direct way to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ (P. G. Ryken, 1 Kings, 28-29).

God's Unwavering Agenda: Our Holiness

Making us holy is God's unwavering agenda until we are taken home to be with him. He will do whatever he needs to produce holiness in us. He wants us to be a community of joy, but he is willing to compromise our temporal happiness in order to increase our Christlikeness (Lane and Tripp, How People Change, 6).

The Gospel Offers Life Before Death

We find it much easier to embrace the gospel's promise of life after death than we do its promise of life before death! (Timothy Lane, Paul Tripp, How People Change, 5).

Influence and the Kingdom of Christ

Whatever power, interest, or influence, men have--they ought to improve it to the utmost for the preserving and advancing of the kingdom of the Messiah (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible,vol. 2, Judges to Job).

Only Two Kinds of People: Which One Are You?

There are only two kinds of people—those who say “Thy will be done” to God or those to whom God in the end says, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell choose it (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 116; The Great Divorce, 69).

Saving Faith is Coming to King Jesus on His Terms

If your agenda is the end, then Jesus is just the means; you’re using him. But if Jesus is the King, you cannot make him a means to your end. You can’t come to a king negotiating. You lay your sword at a king’s feet and say, “Command me" (Tim Keller, King's Cross, 106-07).

The Centrality of God and Worship

The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful…God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our own personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God’s kingdom, nor our own empires, popularity or success (The Cambridge Declaration: A Statement by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals,1996).

Our Present Existence: A Preface to Eternity

As we go in to our new week, consider these words from Scottish theologian Thomas Boston who once wrote, our present life is only a short preface to a long eternity (Thomas Boston, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State, in The Complete Words of the Late Rev. Thomas Boston of Ettrick, 8:244).

Sobering if you think it about, isn't it? This should remind us all that to be consumed with the temporal at the expense of the eternal is foolish, vain, and eternally shortsighted.

So, as you go into the week, set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Col 3:2-4).

Irony of Ironies: Saving Grace Costs You Your Life

Today, we discussed John the Baptist's forceful call to repentance. It seems today that repentance is all too often neglected in many pulpits/churches. It got me to thinking of a well known, but oft neglected statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Consider these penetrating words:

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine...no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin....Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance....Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has....Such grace is costly...because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life....Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him....The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship).

The Law's Just Sentence Has Been Satisfied in Christ for Believers

Over the last couple of weeks I have been leading a discussion with our VBS workers on the nature of the Gospel. The Gospel is outside of us. It is accomplished by the Triune God. We must respond in repentance and faith to experience its fruit; however, the Gospel is performed by God himself. Hear these perceptive words:

God has provided for your perfect deliverance from sin in Christ. Everything needed for this purpose was finished by him on the cross. He was your surety. He suffered for you. Your sins were crucified with him and nailed to his cross. They were put to death when he died, for he was your covenant-head, and you, as a member of his body, were legally represented by him and are indeed dead to sin by his dying to sin once.
The law has now no more right to condemn you, a believer, than it has to condemn him. Justice is bound to deal with you as it has with your risen and ascended Savior. William Romaine (The Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith, 280).