A classic post-modern, emerging, generation x, ‘whatever you want to call it’ church problem is…knowing what church ‘isn’t’, but not knowing what church ‘is’. We know we aren’t rigid traditional. We know we aren’t ultra-charismatic. We know a lot of what we aren’t or don’t want to be…but what are we? What do we really stand for? Why do we really exist?
So…what does the Exodus stand for? Who are we? What do we want? What are we looking for? While we didn’t have a Good Friday Service, or an Easter Sunday Service…we did celebrate Lent. We started off the Lent season asking God to search us, to try us, to look deep and see if there are any offensive ways in us…to prepare us for His work and purposes. We spent a great deal of time encouraging each other to spend time with God this season and allow Him to get our hearts in order.
It seems God has taken these individual requests, and has responded in a corporate manner…as many of these searching questions have come up regarding our church. Some of our Exodusians went to the World Christian Conference in San Jose this last month. Others went to the “non-Conference” in Costa Mesa a few weeks ago. Rubbing shoulders with other churches and ministries, other visions and missions has forced some of us to ask ourselves again…God, what is the Exodus all about? What are we doing? Where are we going? WCC and world mission…awesome! Non-Conference and ministry to the poor and social justice…awesome! The Exodus…who are we?
When we planted this church in 2001, we were full of vision. Post-modernity. Cultural relevance. A new expression of Christianity. A journey with God. God gave us a wonderful name, and some really significant core values. But what about now? If you’ve been coming to the Exodus recently…you know what I’m talking about! No Sunday Service…not even a worship time with the guitar! The Exodus can sometimes look so…haphazard!
But it’s times like this…that God has often used to show the Exodus new and amazing things. So often, when we seem to completely run out of our own steam or seemingly lose our way…God often ‘turns’ on the lights and we see that He is sovereign, and has been leading us, in spite of our lameness. This is one of those times, a special time, that God is giving us a little glimpse into who we are, and who He wants us to be. God is allowing us to do a little Ecclesiology, a little re-visioning and a little envisioning of our church, of THE Church…and it’s crazy!
In March of 2001, our very first Exodus Lent, we were right smack in the middle of a series about, “The Presence of God with us.” Here we are, all these years later, feeling like God is once again underlining the paramount importance of His Presence, and its centrality to the Exodus. The Primacy of Loving God. Loving Him, knowing Him, hearing Him, and obeying Him…first and foremost.
So what is the Exodus all about? Besides the ‘obvious’ reference to the Old Testament Exodus…the journey of God’s chosen people out of Egypt, through the desert, and into the Promised Land, led and cared for by the very Glory of God…let’s add John Chapter 10 to our identity and understanding of what is church.
John 10 - The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
The King James Version of the Bible makes the mistake of translating the phrase “one flock” as “one fold”…suggesting an image of an enclosed space where the sheep are kept…separated, but ‘safe’. Sadly, much of today’s evangelistic efforts take on this misguided tone of, “Come on, let’s get those unbelievers to come into our fold so that they can be saved.” The correct translation of “one flock” gives us the true heart of Jesus’ meaning for His people. A flock is defined by the sheep’s proximity to the shepherd, coupled with the sheep’s ability to recognize the shepherd’s voice…not a set of four walls or an enclosed space. God sends us, leads us into the world. He cares for us, provides for us, defends us, and gives us rest…all in the world. We, as Christians, are DEFINED by our proximity to Jesus and our ability to recognize His voice…this is where we find our identity! Not defined by four walls, a building, or an enclosed space, but by the person, presence, and voice of Jesus. Do we love Him? know Him? hear his voice?
The Primacy Of Loving God
Matthew 22 gives us the Greatest Commandment.
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
The second commandment, of loving our neighbor, gives us a little insight into the Great Commission, which is fully flushed out in Matthew 28.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The Primacy Of Loving God
Philippians 3. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of KNOWING Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to KNOW CHRIST and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Mark 14. While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
Luke 10. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only ONE THING is needed. MARY HAS CHOSEN WHAT IS BETTER, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Matthew 7. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I NEVER KNEW YOU. Away from me, you evildoers!’
The Primacy Of Loving God is weaved in and throughout passages like this. The most important aspect of our lives, the key ingredient that defines us as His People is this…Do we love Him? know Him? hear His voice? NOTHING else takes precedence over this. NOTHING else comes even CLOSE to taking precedence over this. Not even ministry, healing the sick, feeding the poor…NOTHING. While those things are all good (who can argue with that!) and from God (God’s heart for the hurt, poor, and oppressed, throughout the scriptures) these things are all a far and very, very distant second to the Primacy Of Loving God.
It’s kind of like Luke 14. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brother and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. God doesn’t want us to hate our relatives! But He wants our hearts, our love, our commitment to Him to be so EXTREME, that it makes everything else seem like ‘hate’. The Primacy Of Loving God paints this same picture of distance…we love God FIRST. Second is second, and will never be first.
The Primacy of Loving God…loving Him, knowing Him, recognizing His voice, first…that’s what defines us. That is the Exodus in a nutshell. At the Exodus we like to talk a lot about ‘calling, purpose, significance, destiny’…and honestly, most of the time when we hear and think of such words, we immediately begin thinking about what God is going to use us to ‘do’. What great feats are we going to accomplish? What we don’t often realize is that by loving God first, in that instant, we already fulfill an incredible portion of our calling, destiny, and purpose. We were created to love Him. A HUGE part of fulfilling our destiny in God has nothing to do with what we are going to ‘do’ or ‘produce’; but rather has much to do with loving Him and learning to recognize His voice.
I can’t help but to underline this point again…that the Primacy of Loving God DEFINES us. This is who we are; this is who God wants us to be. And it is not a ‘first’ of ‘sequence’. A pervasive Christian teaching says, “We have to love God first, and then our neighbor…because if we don’t love God first, we’ll have no real love to give our neighbor. We receive God’s love for ourselves, and then we are able to give it to others” It is a teaching of ‘sequence’…first this, and then that. I think there are problems with this application of the Greatest Commandment and the Great Commission. There are a TON of non-Christian (even anti-Christian) philanthropist that do a lot of ‘loving thy neighbor’. They didn’t have to ‘receive’ God’s love first to enable them to love others. The ‘first’ in loving God first is not a ‘first’ in sequence, but a ‘first’ in priority. Loving God first doesn’t enable us to love our neighbor. It enables us to be Christians! Loving God first DEFINES who we are.
Exodus 33 How will they know we are any different. They won’t!…because we won’t be any different! The ‘first’ in loving God first is a ‘first’ in regards to priority, primacy, identity. We don’t even get to participate in the Great Commission unless we are fulfilling the Greatest Commandment. It doesn’t even count unless the Primacy of Loving God is a reality in our hearts. Martha wasn’t doing anything ‘wrong’…but when it supplanted her Primacy of Loving God…she needed a rebuke.
I also can’t help but think that much of today’s Christians and Christian endeavors have somehow got the priority of the great commission and the greatest commandment reversed! So much of the vocabulary used to talk about the current state of church growth are expressed in great commission terms: What’s the mission budget? How many people got baptized this year? Has attendance increased? What social justice programs have we been involved in? How did we help the poor?
In many ways, the church itself has become an organization designed to carry out the Great Commission. I wonder though…if the church should in fact be God’s greatest instrument for enabling His people to first fulfill the Greatest Commandment…to love him more, to know him better, to commune with him more deeply. I wonder if the more pertinent and accurate question for church growth should be: What has God been teaching/talking to you about? Have you fallen more in love with God? Do you recognize his voice better? Have you read, memorized, hidden more of his word in your heart?
The Great Commission is great. The Greatest Commandment is greater…it is the greatest!
We want this to be at the very core, the very foundation of what defines us and our church…The Primacy of Loving God.