Everts Go and Do

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8308-6690-8
Verlag: InterVarsity Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 199 Seiten

We are not meant to live safe, happy, successful Christian lives. Jesus calls us to something more. Don't settle for a life that will soon be forgotten. Mission is not just something for 'them,' somewhere over 'there.' Mission is for us, here and now.Don Everts invites you to get caught up in God's mission in this world. He shows what it means to be a missional Christian, to have eyes that see, hands that serve and feet that go. Bringing together personal evangelism, urban witness and global crosscultural mission, Everts shows how you can live your life on mission-whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you go.Get a glimpse of the vision. See what Jesus is doing. And go and do likewise.

Don Everts is the senior pastor at First and Calvary Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Missouri, and has been serving in ministry for over thirty years-on campus with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and in the local church with the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. He is also an award-winning author who has published over twenty books including Jesus with Dirty Feet, I Once Was Lost, and The Spiritually Vibrant Home. An avid reader, frequenter of rocking chairs, and amateur chicken farmer, Don and his wife, Wendy, have three adult children and live in a home solidly built in 1887.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Everts, Don

Leseproben

1

Sober Eyes

Blessed are those who mourn.

Matthew 5:4

All Christians perceive the world around them in some way. In that sense we all have “eyes.” But that doesn’t mean every Christian sees the world in exactly the same way.

The Safe Christian, I happen to know from experience, looks at the world with Fearful Eyes. Through these Fearful Eyes they look around at the world and see threats, risks and potentially dangerous variables. The Successful Christian, by contrast, tends to look at the world through Eager Eyes, seeing everything in a hierarchy and knowing precisely how they themselves stack up against others. Their Eager Eyes are always looking for a boost up, an advantage, collateral, a way to climb. And Happy Christians? They tend to glance around through slightly glazed Recreational Eyes. They see the world around them as if through rose-colored glasses, and what they see is mostly benign and often a potential way of enjoying themselves.

But what about Missional Christians? What kind of eyes do they have? It turns out that as Christians get caught up in God’s work in this world, they begin to see this world quite differently. They begin to see the world as Jesus sees it, with Sober Eyes.

Jesus gave his disciples a clear idea of how he sees this world while sitting with them atop a hill one day, when he said,

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16)

Jesus’ words here are clear, brief and unambiguous. They teach us a lot about how Jesus saw the world, and how he saw his followers; namely, he saw this world as desperately needy, and his followers as uniquely designed to go with God into that world.

Salt of the Earth

“You are the salt of the earth,” he said. Now, I personally use salt (sodium chloride) all the time to flavor my food. But I know a handful of sodium chloride felt different back when Jesus first spoke these words. In his day, salt was used primarily as a powerful preservative. In a world without refrigerators, freezers or crispers, meat quickly spoiled, becoming unhealthy and terribly odorous. Every single ounce of savory, protein-rich meat, once slaughtered, began to decay, to break down, to spoil. So holding a handful of blessed salt was like holding a fridge in your hand.

Salt was powerful because it did something to meat. Rub salt on decaying meat and you slowed down the decay. You arrested its inexorable downhill slide. In Jesus’ day, they preserved meat with salt.

In Jesus’ world, salt had a purpose. And standing with both feet in that world, he looked around at his followers and said, “You are the salt of the earth.” His words echo across the centuries and whisper into every Christian’s ears. They settle into the soul with weight: You are the salt of the earth. You have a purpose here on earth.

This is how Jesus saw this world, and his followers’ place in this world. And Missional Christians begin to see this world and themselves in the same way. They see themselves as having a part in God’s mission here on this decaying earth. They understand how odd it would be for them to never ever make contact with the decaying world around them. They take to heart Jesus’ warning that salt that has lost its saltiness is good for nothing, that a Christian who isn’t slowing the decay around him makes very little sense.

Light of the World

The Christian is also in this world as a light in the darkness. As Jesus put it simply, “You are the light of the world.” In a world without streetlights, in a Capernaum that had never seen a light bulb, Jesus knew about darkness—deep, disorienting, confusing darkness. He knew the hopelessness that accompanied a broken lamp, the helplessness that accompanied running out of fuel for your lamp.

Darkness meant disorientation, missteps, mistakes. Darkness could mean cracked shins and wrong turns and misplaced treasures. Darkness could mean running your face into unseen (but very hard) walls. It could mean confusion. Jesus knew about darkness, which meant he knew about the true value of a lamp.

So it meant something quite specific and meaningful when Jesus claimed that he was “the light of the world.” Jesus claimed to bring noonday clarity into this world. That which was hidden, obscured or confused in the darkness of the world became clarified by Jesus and his gospel. The light of Jesus brought clarity into the world. We see exactly which walls we’ve been running our faces into.

This same Jesus who came to enlighten the world then looked his followers in the eyes and said, “You are the light of the world.” He saw his followers like lamps: little agents of Jesus’ clarity, honesty and truth, helping blow the misleading mists of this world away, showing people what is true and clear.

Missional Christians understand themselves in this same way—as lamps intended to illuminate, to be used and displayed in dark places. The Missional Christian knows that no one in his right mind would ever put a lamp under a basket, as Jesus put it. Lamps are meant for stands. They are meant to be brought right into the darkest of places to bring clarity.

In short, the Missional Christian sees herself as having a purpose in this world. She sees herself as the salt of the earth, as the light of the world. In this way, Missional Christians have a hopeful, purposeful understanding of their lives. Their outlook on the world is imbued with hope: that which is decaying can be preserved, and the darkness can be displaced by clarifying light. And hope, it turns out, is a fabulous thing.

But there’s a reason I have titled this chapter “Sober Eyes.” If we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, this means implicitly that the earth is decaying and that the world is darkened. Jesus was unambiguous on this point. He had Sober Eyes that saw the true need all around him, no matter where he was standing.

For example, when Jesus stood looking out over Jerusalem, he didn’t marvel at the large city spread out before him. Instead he sighed a deep lament. When the leaders of the day engaged Jesus in conversation, he didn’t eagerly seize the opportunity to climb social ladders. Instead he soberly used the moment to say, “Woe to you!” When a Pharisee invited him for dinner, Jesus didn’t make endearing comments about the wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen. Instead he lamented the rancid smells of jealousy, pride and prejudice coming from the hearts of guests and host alike.

Jesus had Sober Eyes. He saw around him a world in need, a place of darkness and decay.

Living with Two Sober Eyes

No wonder, then, that Jesus would also say, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4). I used to think he was kindly declaring a blessing over those unfortunate ones who were mourning. I now wonder if instead he was honestly declaring blessing over those who are not deceived into believing all is well in this world. Blessed are those who don’t buy the smiley-face cover story. Blessed are those who don’t ignore what is going on all around them. Blessed are those who see what’s really going on, whose eyes are open. Blessed are those with Sober Eyes.

Not every Christian is so blessed. Safe Christians, after all, look around at this world with Fearful Eyes and see only threats to their safety. Successful Christians look around with Eager Eyes and see mostly opportunities for advancement, potential pedestals for their feet. Happy Christians see simply a benign world full of titillating options with their Recreational Eyes. The Missional Christian, in contrast, sees need.

Whatever room the Missional Christian walks into, she sees need—not potential danger to avoid, not a potential audience for her to perform for, not even potential amusements for her to get in line for, but a precious world that is dark and decaying. She sees a world that could use a little salt and light. In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus tells us explicitly that the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan all “saw” the man left for dead on the side of the road. But where the priest and Levite’s Fearful Eyes saw only potential danger, the Samaritan’s Sober Eyes saw a man in need.

After becoming a Christian, I slowly began to see the halls of my high school through Sober Eyes. I began to see need around me. In particular, I began to see need in two students, Christina and Dean. When I first met Christina and Dean, I didn’t give either of them a second thought. They didn’t represent a threat to me, and so in my posture as a Safe Christian, I turned my Fearful Eyes elsewhere in the halls of my high school. But the more I followed Jesus and the longer the Holy Spirit worked within me, the more I began to notice these two other students. I began to see them with Sober Eyes.

Christina was on the speech team with me, and I had always thought of her as a nice enough girl. But after becoming a Christian, I began noticing how heavy her spirit seemed. I felt a burden of sorts when I was around her, and I began mentioning...