Yesterday Mike Gunn, a good friend and pastor of Harambee came in to town. We got together for lunch and spoke about the Kingdom of God, evangelism and such. First we talked about evangelism not so much as a ‘convert to my thinking’ but more of a community of God bearing witness that non-believers could experience. How can we as a community be a people of redemption? What is the gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke about that is here now. So often we Westerners see salvation about ‘saving our souls from hell’. We are saved and will reap our reward (heaven) when we die. We often don’t desire to live out this Kingdom (already) now in eager anticipation of Jesus return and establishing the not yet part.
We spoke further about this verse:
1 Cor. 6 9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
It is so easy for Pastors to go to a place of moralism from this place. Don’t do X or Y. These sins are the really bad ones. If I have lust in my heart, aren’t I an adulterer? Further, compare Christians with Buddhists, Mormons, even athiests and we lose the moral argument. It’s funny our pastor (David Fairchild) says his time preaching is a confessional. He’s been confessing his sin/struggle with the verses he preaches. I imagine a lot of people are uncomfortable with this. He said a book on preaching said that pastors should not confess sins in front of their people that the people need to respect the pastor. This doesn’t seem real.
These are some random thoughts put together…we’ll see where it goes.
