Rich Lusk recently gave a series of talks at Saint Mark Reformed Church (CREC) at their “2011 Living as the Church Conference”: Mission: It’s Meaning and Manifestation.  He provides an excellent introduction to Christian mission that is solidly biblical and practical.

Rich Lusk is the Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, AL and has written numerous articles, chapters, and books

Rich Lusk has been a very useful servant of the Lord, both as a writer, speaker and pastor.  I have very much appreciated not only his careful scholarship, clear and useful writing style, but also his commitment to serving his church faithfully.

He has made available a good many of his writings on the Trinity Presbyterian Church Pastor’s Page, which I strongly endorse.

The four talks can be listened to individually at these links:

1)  Mission and the Home

2) Mission and the Marketplace

3) Mission and the Poor

4) Mission and the Gospel

Psalm 67

God be merciful to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us,

That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.

Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You.

Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously, And govern the nations on earth.

Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You.

Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, our own God, shall bless us.

God shall bless us, And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.

How is it that songs of joyful praise from all the nations to our God will come about?  This question presupposes that the nations will want to do such a thing. We are assured by the scriptures that indeed the command to disciples the nations will be brought to completion and that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. Thus, the gospel will indeed bring the nations to want to sing of the blessedness of our own God! Further, the question presupposes that the nations will be able to sing His praises.

I recently came across the work of Eric Whitacre and his virtual choir. The video below is his own explanation of what he has accomplished.

Toward the end of his clip he talked about two things that struck him as a result of this project:

1) Human beings will go to any lengths necessary to find and connect with each other…

2) People seem to be experiencing an actual connection…not just a virtual connection…

These two things don’t surprise me because indeed we are created as image-bearers of the Truine God – who has an infinite capacity and desire to connect socially. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have loved each other perfectly throughout eternity, and have made us to yearn for connection with Him and one another. This social connectivity in manifested in so many ways over the last six thousand years that we could not possibly imagine them all. Chief among the ways that the Bible tells us that we are to be connected to other people, by the Spirit of God, is to speak to one another in song (Eph. 5:18-21). In so doing we learn to lay down our lives for one another in mutual submission and love.

Fascinating to me is the phenomenon of social media and how people actually feel some connection with people, virtually, that they wouldn’t feel without it. While I neither understand it, nor do I think all of it is edifying, it is without doubt very important to our world today.

In some way, when seeing the work of Whitacre and his virtual choirs, it occurs to me that this is indeed an expression of the human race united together in song and beauty. It puts me in mind of what it is like for God, each Lord’s Day, when He hears the songs of His beloved children singing to Him in worship.  It puts into perspective precisely what is happening when we sing together each week, along with millions of other believers around the world. If only we could see and hear what God Himself experiences – it seems to me that we would have a much larger and more healthy view of the world – and the goal of the kingdom of God. It would cause us to long and labor all the more to see the nations be glad and sing for joy along with us!

Christ the Conqueror - Christ the Savior

As a follow up to my post on The Gospel In All Its Forms, I wanted to make all seven of my blog followers aware of a great post by Peter Leithart Good news in which he show how the Greek word for “gospel” is use in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament). The Gospel takes on new dimensions when the word is studied in its wider Jewish context, dimensions that are helpful to us as we consider what good news we are to announce in our modern world.  I quote it in full:

” The Septuagint uses the word-group euaggel- primarily in military and political contexts to describe the proclamation of victory.    This is not invariable (cf. Jeremiah 20:15).

The Philistines cut off Saul’s head and strip his gear so that they can carry the “good news” to idols and people (1 Samuel 31:9).  In his lament over Saul and Jonathan, David warns Israel not to evangelize Philistia with the news of the fall of Israel’s heroes (2 Samuel 1:20).  When David later describes what he did to the Amalekite who thought that the death of Saul would be “good news” to David, he uses the same term (2 Samuel 4:10).  2 Samuel 18, where David awaits news of the battle with Absalom, is studded with the word (vv. 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 31).

Adonijah expects Jonathan the son of Abiathar to bring him good news (1 Kings 1:42), but he doesn’t.  The lepers who find the Aramean camp abandoned realize after eating their fill that they shouldn’t keep the “good news” from the rest of the people in the city (2 Kings 7:9).

This meaning is in the background of the more “theological” uses elsewhere in the LXX.  The “new song” of Psalm 96 is the “good news” (v. 2) of Yahweh’s s salvation, which comes when He judges the world in righteousness (v. 13).  Good news comes because Yahweh the Divine Warrior gains His victory.  The same goes for the good news of Yahweh’s reign announced in Isaiah 40:9, 52:7.  The good news that the Spirit-anointed servant brings to the afflicted is good news of rescue and deliverance, liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners (Isaiah 61:1).  The good news is good news of peace (cf. Nahum 1:15; 2:1 in LXX), a peace gained by righteous victory.”

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 4:21 am  http://www.leithart.com/2011/03/29/good-news-2/

What most people conceive of as “the gospel” seldom contains an image of the Lord as Divine Warrior. And yet, the New Testament does (Rev. 19). To truncate the good news to ‘Jesus died to save sinners’ is to so compartmentalize and minimize what God has and will do in the world to make it almost no news at all to the hearts and minds of moderns.

How small has become our view of what Jesus came to do, what He accomplished, and what He has promised to do in our world. Do we have the faith to believe, let alone to announce, that our God, Jesus, is progressively judging the world in righteousness? Is our confidence in God’s word sufficient that we can take for granted as true, and declare openly, that the reign of King Jesus does in fact bring “rescue and deliverance, liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners?” Do we true believe that the only hope and good news for a world in turmoil (you name the turmoil: international finacial meltdown, terrorism, the impact of the collapse of middle-eastern governments, etc) is Jesus?  Or is that just a little too simplistic to say outloud? Isn’t it possible that all of these culamities are in fact part of the work of God to gain the victory on behalf of His people? Is that too much to believe? Is it a bit too religiously edgy to actually tell someone that the good news is that God is using all of these things to bring salvation to the world?

Anything short of this kind of conception of the gospel does an injustice to what God has done through our Lord Jesus.

From Canon Wired we have available to us this excellent video of Dr. Steve Jeffery giving an example of how to lead an evangelistic Bible study.

The word “evangelism” comes from the Greek word euangelion, which means “good news.” Evangelism has been defined as the conscious attempt, through word and deed, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others, so that they can become disciples of Christ. It is the proclamation of the good news that Jesus, the Son of God, has come not only to save us by His sacrificial death on the cross, but also that we are raised with Him to newness of life, and that by the power of the Holy Spirit we are assured that we will be fully transformed into the image of Christ in the world and throughout eternity. Christ is ruling all things so that the curse of sin will be rolled back through the course of history, and that He will bring all things into submission to the Father.

Too often evangelism is reduced to formulas and techniques that will bring the unbeliever to faith. It is thought of as something that we do to bring sinner to repentance. The reality is that sinners are only brought to faith by the grace of God and His enablement to believe. We, in our work of evangelism, are only the instruments by which God does His work of saving people. Salvation, first to last, is a work of God.

Some people are especially gifted at evangelism – the rest of us stumble about trying to communicate the good news. But what a blessing it is for us to see that, even with our imperfect and awkward presentations of the gospel, God uses us in ways that we could never imagine. People come to faith by the work of the Spirit in their lives – even when we stutter and bumble our way through our presentations of the gospel.

All praise to God for His marvelous grace!

Faith is the evidence that someone has come to salvation. Not the “sinners prayer” (not that there is anything wrong with that). Not necessarily seeing a tearful repentance (although that will sometimes be the way of it). Not walking the aisle or raising your hand in an evangelist service. Not saying just the right words. It is by grace, through faith, that anyone is saved – Grace and faith given by God.

When a person believes the gospel and turns from their former life to live for Jesus – that person has been brought to saving faith. When they are baptized Christ marks them as His special, chosen, holy-one; a child of God.

May God increase our faith to pray for the lost, to proclaim the gospel and to trust Him to use us in the lives of those whom we come into contact with.