Yesterday we talked about the need to bear one another’s burdens with the necessary traits of love and humility. Today I’d like to focus on the other side of that relationship and consider the number one trait required by the person bearing the burden. Having been a part of several different accountability relationships, both in a one on one format and in small groups, and having been actively involved on both sides of those relationships, I can tell you from experience that the number one requirement is honesty. It is absolutely essential. Without it, the entire relationship falls apart. This is especially the case when the burden is sin and temptation. This is so because sin likes to hide in the dark, it wants to remain hidden, and it will do everything it can to disguise itself. We are all familiar with John 3:16 but consider what is said just a few verses later in verses 19 through 21:

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Sin loves to stay in the dark, but as people committed to holiness and living a life guided by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-26), we must be willing to confront the darkness within us with light if we want to have any hope of expelling it. Consider also 1 John 1:5-10:

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we want to be in fellowship with the God, who is light, and the community of His people, we must be upfront about our sin. Further, this sort of transparency is essential if we want to be free from and find victory over sin and temptation.

²  Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. ³  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. ⁴  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah ⁵  I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Ps 32:2–5)

Now I’m not going to lie (see what I did there?) this sort of honesty and transparency is not easy. To lay oneself bare before another so that they see all your worts and wrinkles and the things you typically try to cover up requires great vulnerability. The risk we take is that we open ourselves up to judgment and rejection. But, ideally, we have chosen someone who is led by the Spirit and embodies gentleness, humility, and love to help bear our burden. They are someone whose first recourse is to listen and love, rather than reject and recoil. This quells much of our fear.

Two other essentials that spring from this one trait: immediacy and specificity.

Let me lay out a scenario that happens far too often in these relationships.

Bob struggles with alcoholism (forgive me if the following scene is imprecise or stereotyped. This is not one of my particular burdens). Bob is tempted and thinks, “I need to reach out to my accountability partner, John. But… John’s busy. He’s got a lot going on. It can wait. I’ll talk to him later.” Five minutes go by, ten minutes go by, Bob is doing okay, but around about minute 13, Bob is being tempted again, and this time Bob caves hard. Bob should have reached out immediately. Even if John was busy and in the most important meeting of his life and couldn’t check his phone until 2 hours later, Bob could have sent a text. “John, I’ve had a hard day at work. I went out to eat with the guys after quitting time, everybody is ordering drinks, and I’m really jonesing for one. Please check in with me later and ask me if I had anything to drink.” Consider what two things would have happened had Bob sent that text.

First, Bob would’ve reached out immediately. Even though John wouldn’t have been able to respond in the moment, Bob has set the scene for a proper accountability conversation to happen later. He was tempted at 5:48, and the text went out at 5:49. Because he knew that the conversation would be coming later and he immediately reached out, there was no time for the temptation to fester without Bob thinking, “I’m going to have to tell John how things went later.”

Second, Bob was specific with the temptation and what sort of accountability he wanted. This helps to ensure honesty and doesn’t give any wiggle room for murkiness. Suppose Bob had said, “Ask me how it went” rather than “ask me if I had a drink.” John calls Bob later and asks, “so how’d things go?” “Things went fine,” Bob replied. End of conversation. Of course, what Bob is leaving out was that he continued to be tempted for several more minutes, finally decided to order a drink, had about half of one, decided to quit, felt good about that decision after the fact, and assumed he was doing fine. All of that needs to be part of the conversation if they are going to have any effect. If I know I’m going to have to give a detailed account later; I’m less likely to toy with whatever line it is I’m being tempted to cross.

Honesty often requires immediacy and specificity. We can’t leave room for the details to become murky.

In the ideal scenario, Bob and John would have a conversation later following up on the immediate and specific text that Bob sent. Bob, because he had reached out, successfully overcame temptation and is able to look forward to the conversation. John patiently and lovingly listens to the details of the event and gently and humbly responds by praying for Bob, thanking him for reaching out, applauding his honesty, and offering some advice about what Bob could’ve done differently next time (if anything). Together they both celebrate the victory. This is vitally important. Too often, these relationships center around failure rather than victory. The conversations tend to only happen when there is a fall of some sort. While constructive, loving, humble, gentle critique may be necessary, at times, we must learn to celebrate the victories, not just criticize the failures. As Rom. 12:15 says,

¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

In addition to these sorts of conversations that occur as a particular temptation arises, fall occurs, or victory is won, accountability partners may also agree to talk on a routine basis, daily or weekly, about life, hopes, dreams, disappointments, delights, stresses, struggles, etc. This will help build trust and comradery and will strengthen the relationship so that when the difficult conversations need to occur, they can be approached by both parties with love instead of fear (1 John 4:18).

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

On the surface, 2 Corinthians is a letter navigating a conflict between a church planter and a church over personality disputes. But, as we watch it unfold, we realize that is something much more than that. Throughout it, Paul laces some of his deepest and richest theological insights, which hit at the very core of Christian motivation and identity. In a particularly dense section toward the center of this letter, Paul reveals the two forces that compel his ministry and ought to guide the Christian life.

Yesterday we looked  at love, the greater of the two. Specifically, the love of Christ poured out on the cross was the primary thing that gave meaningful movement to Paul’s life and being (2 Cor. 5:14-15). To put it in John’s language, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Not only should our motivation be derived from the love of God in Christ, but our inclinations also find their source and their shape in that love.

The second force is equally worth our consideration. It is hope. These are not competing forces; rather, they work in tandem. If love is the inertia that pushes us from behind, hope is the gravity pulling us forward. Paul describes this force as an eternal weight of glory, a heaviness of hope that made all other things seem light in comparison (2 Cor. 4:16-18). The substance of this hope is that we might have new bodies, lasting, glorious bodies. (This, of course, dovetails quite nicely with the ideas about the New Creation we considered last week). Notice the two metaphors Paul mixes to describe this hope - dwellings and clothing (2 Cor. 5:1-5). The tent, or body, in the body in which we dwell now is passing, fit for destruction, not because it is inherently bad or fated to be done away with but because it is looking forward to the transformation. We long for the day when our mortal bodies are swallowed up by life, and we dwell in our eternal dwelling (bodies), which have been built by God (2 Cor. 5:4). Put another way; our hope is not to be unclothed (out of our bodies), for that would bring shame and nakedness (2 Cor. 5:3). Rather, we long to be further clothed (given newly transformed bodies), which God is preparing for us (2 Cor. 5:2, 5). All the afflictions we face now in the body (2 Cor. 4:16-17) will give way to the glory that God has in store for us. Our longing for this, our hope, pulls us forward to meet that reality.

One last thing to consider in light of all of this. While we dwell in these temporary bodies awaiting our eternal ones, we must realize that what we do in these bodies will echo for eternity. How we live life in the here and now will determine how we will live, or perhaps better, IF we will live in the hereafter (2 Cor. 5:10). Thus, hope is a powerful kinetic force, pulling us forward to eternity, much like the moon’s gravitational pull beckons the waves. As the waves move toward their destination, the landscape of the shoreline behind them is demonstrably different. So too does what I hope for change my reality at present. What is your hope?

We are continuing to look at the distinctly Christian hope for eternity. We possess a hope that is rooted fully in the love, power, and wisdom of God to fix, not just workaround, all that has gone wrong with His good creation, a creation that sin and Satan have corrupted. We began by approaching this subject from a couple of different angles. First, if our ultimate hope is “merely” to be with God in heaven, in some disembodied state, attending an eternal worship service, why do the Biblical authors speak of something beyond this? Furthermore, why do those who are pictured in God’s presence before the throne still long for something more? If being with God in heaven is what it is all about, shouldn’t that be enough for them? (See yesterday’s article for a review of this discussion). We suggested that to work through this properly, we must go back to the beginning. If we begin with the prevalent but mistaken narrative that this earth and the things in it are inherently and irredeemably corrupted, we will long to escape from this world. This view is several millennia old going back at least to Plato, and has been prevalent in the western world ever since. Many of us, myself included, have held likely held on to some form of this whether we realize it or not. But the opening pages of the Bible remind us that when God created the world, it was good. Indeed, it was "very good" (Gen. 1:31). Corruption doesn’t enter the picture until Genesis chapter 3. Getting this order straight in our minds about what happened at the beginning of the story will have great implications on we expect the story to end.

Go back and read Genesis 1-2. God’s creation was beautiful, harmonious, and abundant. God delighted in all that He had made, especially humankind, the pinnacle of His creation. Humanity was made to reflect God, being made in or as His image, and as image-bearers, humanity was called to participate in God’s work of ruling over the created world all to the honor and glory of God. Endowed with this divine vocation and equipped with divinely given assistance, man and woman were to work in perfect harmony to grow both the garden through cultivation and humanity’s presence in it through procreation. Allow your mind to be captivated by the rich bounty of the garden. Imagine the teeming trees, the fruitful fields, the pleasant plains, and the gentle waters. Imagine work that brings only fulfillment and never disappointment. Projects that never go awry. Imagine, not so much the nakedness of the first man and woman, but what it represents.  Freedom, vulnerability, unashamedness, harmony. Be taken in by the description of the garden. And then if you can, and this is really where our imaginations begin to be pressed beyond their limits, imagine what it would be like for God to come down and walk with you, talk with you, teach you about life, work, relationships, the world, Himself! This is the picture of what creation was in the beginning. Don’t you long to go back there? Before selfishness and stagnation, suffering, and separation? Before the theological, relational, anthropological, ethical mortal, and ecological brokenness of Genesis 3? For the realist, some might say cynic,  the world we live in seems too far gone. There is nothing we can do to get back there. And I’d say they’re right to a large extent. Indeed, it seems like that door has been closed, never for us to open again (Gen. 3:24). But what about God? Could He bring us back there? Would He bring us back there?

As Christians, we are quick to affirm that God broke into this world in the person of Jesus to fix the theological brokenness and bridge the gap between Him and us. Indeed, our identity as the people of God is based on the fact that He has dealt with the sin that separated us from Him (Eph. 1:3-10; 2:1-6). Praise be to God for this! But God is not content just to deal with our past sins; He continues the work of sanctification to reverse the ethical brokenness of His people (1 Thess. 5:23-24). In doing so, God has also begun the work of remedying our anthropological brokenness or the brokenness of man by reshaping us into His image once again. We are endowed once more with a divine vocation of doing good works for His glory (Eph. 2:10, 4:24; Col. 3:10). But we must press further still because God has also set about to repair the relational brokenness that humanity experiences (Eph. 2:14-18; Col. 3:11). All of this is what we might describe as the new humanity, a new race of humanity recreated in the image of Christ (Col. 3:11; Gal. 3:28). This reality has begun to come to fruition in the life of the church and will be brought to completion on the last day. Now it is at this point that the perspective of the Christian hope ends for many. Or at the very least, anything beyond these is viewed as extraneous and therefore not an essential part of our hope (remember the “but wait there’s more” illustration from the infomercial which began this series of articles?). And yet, the early Christians were not content to speak only of God’s theological and anthropological victories or even His relational and ethical ones. Rather, they longed for and spoke at length about His physical/mortal and ecological victories. The full realization of their hope came in the “something more.” This is why Revelation 6 can picture souls who have gone to be in the presence of God in the heavenly throne room who are still unsatisfied and unfulfilled. The Christian hope is nothing short of God’s total and complete victory of sin and Satan. If God is genuine in His promise of victory and powerful enough to attain it (dare we question or doubt this?), then we should expect that everything that has been broken will be fixed, everything that is wrong will be made right. This includes, yes, our relationship with God, yes our proclivity to sin, yes our status and role as divine image-bearers, yes our relationships and ability to relate to others, and yes, even our bodies and the world itself. We are waiting for, longing for, hoping for cosmic redemption, that is, a redemption that is holistic and restorative. The story does not end with our spirits floating away to an eternal heavenly abode, escaping the horrors of this world and the brokenness of our bodies. No, the story ends with a new reality, a new creation, with newly transformed bodies, a reality which the Biblical writers refer to as the New Heavens and New Earth. (Isa. 11; 65-66; Ezek. 40-48; 1 Cor. 15; Rom. 8:18-23; 2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21-22). As we will see, this is nothing less than a return to the garden scene we marveled at earlier. Indeed, nothing less, but perhaps much, much more. This will be the subject of our next article.

To be continued...

“But wait, there’s more!” That seems to be the tag line of every infomercial ever, trying especially hard to sell us on their “fantastic product” that can “only” be ordered “right now” (at 3 in the morning) for the “low, low price of $19.95” in 5 monthly installments. But the “wait, there’s more!” often seems extraneous and unnecessary. You see, I don’t need, or really want for that matter, a dishrag that can walk the dog and help the kids with their homework. I just want a dishrag. I think this is a helpful analogy to the way most Christians tend to think about eternity. At least it is a pretty apt analogy for how I used to think about eternity. For most of us, when we think about eternity, we envision being with God, and that is really all that matters for us. Anything beyond that, including the where, the how, and even the what of eternity, is like the “but wait there’s more” line from the informercials to us. Extraneous and unnecessary and, therefore, not worth our attention or contemplation. But what if the Christian hope fully realized goes beyond just (and I don’t say “just” carelessly or callously) being with God for eternity? What if the Bible wants us to long for the "something more”?

One prevalent view of eternity is dwelling with God in heaven, in some disembodied state, attending an eternal worship service. Perhaps we envision spirits floating on the clouds, playing “spiritual” harps (whatever that means). This is all well and good, and I love singing praises to God as much as anyone, but it is not quite the picture painted in the Bible of our final hope. Actually, it is quite literally worlds apart from what the Bible envisions.

Believe it or not, the Bible never expresses the Christian hope for eternity as “going to heaven when we die.” Sure some passages talk about being with God/Jesus where they are after death, but these are not quite as frequent as we might imagine. More importantly, while this is something indeed to long for, these passages leave something more to be desired. The four passages that address this explicitly are Jesus conversation with the thief on the cross about being with Him in paradise (Lk. 23:42-43), Paul as he faces the possibility of death in prison who longs to “depart to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23), Paul who looks forward to a day when he no longer groans from the troubles of this world and longs to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8), and finally, the souls pictured before the altar of God in Revelation 6:9. These passages look forward to being with God/Jesus after death, yet there is something left incomplete and unfulfilled.

Notice in Philippians that while Paul’s immediate hope is to be with Christ, presumably as a spirit in some disembodied state (1:23), his ultimate hope is for Christ to come down from heaven and transform his lowly body to be like His glorious one (3:20-21). And even though Paul clearly recognizes that it would be better to be away from his “tent”/unclothed = out of the body and home with the Lord in light of the present brokenness of the body/world (2 Cor. 5:8), his ultimate longing is to be further clothed/given an eternal dwelling = newly transformed, God-given body (2 Cor. 5:1-5). And finally, we get a vision of disembodied souls pictured in heaven in Revelation 6. This comes on the heels of the great throne room scenes in Revelation 4-5, where the 24 elders and 4 living creatures (representing all creation) praise God and fall down before Him in worship. And yet the souls in Rev. 6 are not pictured joining in the chorus of praise, nor are there cries of joy for being the presence of God, but rather cries of despair, and vindication, and longing. Immediately, the red flags stand erect in our minds. If being with God in heaven, worshipping Him for eternity is all that really matters, what gives? Why is Paul not content to leave it at that? Why speak of something more? Why do the souls in Revelation still seem broken, less than complete, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled? To answer this question, we must go back to the beginning and get the story straight from the start.

Whether we realize or not, the place we often start from is from a perspective that is deeply rooted in our culture and has been since the days of Plato. It is a perspective that intrinsically sees this world is bad, our bodies are bad, physicality is bad, the material is bad, and so we long for a reality that has no affinity with this world, nothing to do with the body, non-physical and immaterial. “Spiritual” if you will (though Biblical defined this term intends much more than just the absence of physicality). Everything is shot to hell quite literally in this view, and so it is believed that we are to long for an escape from a material world that is inherently bad.

But if we begin at the beginning, we remember that when God created this world, it was good, and indeed very good (Gen. 1:31). So our starting point is not of brokenness but of beauty. Of course, sin came into the picture and made a mess of everything, but we must get this order straight. This world and everything in it is not inherently bad but is now corrupted by sin. The escapist view of eternity, floating away from this world, leaving it and our corrupted bodies behind and entering into some blissful disembodied, immaterial state is a line bought from the culture, not the Bible. In fact, it sends an implicit message that should be anathema to us as Christians. That message is this. God loses. Satan, sin, and suffering win. Death gets the final word. At the very least, it is gridlock where both parties decide to stop fighting an retreat. It is the divine version of “taking my toys and going home.” Or, as we spoke about yesterday, it’d be like sitting down for a rousing game of monopoly, getting frustrated, flipping the board, and then having the audacity to declare victory. You see, if God is going to truly win as Gen. 3:15 suggests, He can’t just concede to the brokenness of this world, pack up His toys and go home. The escapist view of eternity is unChristian and unBiblical. Let’s think about this further.

To be continued...

I’ve been going back and forth for quite some time now about how I wanted to address this subject. This has been on my mind since this series was first conceived around this time last year. I want us to think about the need to be a welcoming church. This is actually the other side of the coin of what we talked about yesterday. If yesterday we considered the idea that we need to be will to go out and see, minister to, and evangelize to people that are different than us, today we want to consider that those same people might venture into our assemblies. What will they find when they visit? What will be their impression and experience? We’ve gone out to welcome them. Will they feel welcome when they come in?

Every day you pass by the building on your way to work. You don’t know anything about this group, but you decide to visit this Sunday for whatever reason. As you walk somewhat timidly through the doors, you expect to be welcomed by the people standing around in the lobby. But they are all talking to each other. No one seems to notice you. “Strange…”, you think to yourself, “maybe things will get better.” Just then, a man wearing a lapel mic rushes straight past you like a chicken with his head cut off. “Is that the minister?” you wonder, “not even he noticed me.” At this point, you seriously consider turning around, walking right back out the doors, getting in your car, and going home. The sign says the church of Christ, but so far, neither Christ nor church seem like proper descriptions of this place. Still, you decide to give it one last chance. Shuffling down the aisle, you look around for a place to sit. As you do, you pass several pews that are empty of people but full of stuff. The pews don’t have names stamped on them, but it is clear enough that people have their own seats here. Your anxiety is now heightened by the possibility that you might sit in the wrong spot or take somebody else’s place. Finally, you find a place at the end of one of the rows and settle in. Still unnoticed. During the Bible class, you hear several comments about why your particular group is wrong. One man self-assuredly retorts, “I just don’t know how anyone could honestly see it that way. You’ve either got to be woefully ignorant or purposefully dishonest to come to any other conclusion.” Ouch, shots fired. You’ve read that text several times and never come to the conclusion that this man feels is so obvious. Others are not quite as brash, but they are using language hardly comprehensible. It’s in English. But the combination of words and phrases is quite strange. Somehow they all seem to know what each one is saying, “do they have some sort of insider code?” you think, “I think I might need a translator.” Having seen and heard enough, you scurry out after the class bell, still unnoticed and unwelcomed.

We could’ve said much more, but I think you get the point. Sadly, this story is far from fiction and is played out in churches worldwide every Sunday. Perhaps that has been your own experience when you have visited somewhere else. We cannot allow that experience to be played out here.

I want us to focus on three principles from three texts that will help us be a welcoming church. I think we do a great job in many areas and that there are other areas in which we (and by this I definitely mean me) can and should improve.

In 1 Cor. 14. Paul is dealing with conducting worship in such a way that is conducive to the goal of building up. In the midst of that discussion, Paul discusses the place of speaking in tongues. Tongues served a purpose to converse with those who spoke a different language. But if you were speaking in a language that no one understood, your tongue speaking had little value for the assembly. This is especially true of the outsider that came in. If they heard everyone speaking in a language she or he didn’t know, she or he a) wouldn’t understand, and b) would think that everyone was crazy (1 Cor. 14:1-25). While we don’t have miraculously inspired tongue-speaking in our assemblies, we can still engage in the sort of activity that violates this principle when we use insider language and “church speak” that we have all grown accustomed to. We think we are speaking plainly, but for many who visit, they can be left scratching their heads, confused rather than edified by our language. If our ultimate goal is that they leave praising God (1 Cor. 14:24-25), then all of us, and preachers are especially bad at this, need to consider the language we are using.

Colossians 4:5-6 is another text that urges us to consider our interactions with outsiders. If our goal is that outsiders become insiders, taking care to season our speech with grace must be a top priority. Even if we do not intend to be malicious or hurtful, our words can often come across that way. This is especially the case in Bible classes. Bible classes are not the place to call out group x, question the intelligence of person b, even if (and this is possibly a big “if”) we are doing so without a shred of judgment or sense of superiority on our part.

Finally, let us place ourselves in the visitor's shoes by applying the golden rule (Matthew 7:12). Would I want to feel neglected? Overlooked? Rejected? Have my honesty, integrity, or intelligence unfairly questioned? Would I want to struggle to find a place to sit or have to worry if I was taking someone’s seat? Or would I want to feel appreciated, welcomed, and seen?

I have been especially thankful to those of you who have practiced these principles and have lovingly and graciously pointed out to me when I have failed to do so.