5-fold Ministry in Ecclesia (2)

Life Begins in Death

In John’s record of the story of Jesus, he notes that Jesus makes the profound point that “...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Leave a seed on the kitchen bench and it will basically do nothing until someone removes it; plant it in a growing medium, and its life will expire as it gives way to a new form of life that will eventually lead to a whole new plant which will then produce many more like itself – whether that be grains of rice or wheat or hundreds of seeds within the fruit.

And in a way, it’s also a bit like human reproduction.  A woman’s life changes irrevocably when she has her first child.  One thing I remember about my mother is that once you become a mother, you never stop being a mother.  In one sence, the pre-mother life dies in order to give way to the new life of mother to children with the potential to produce offspring themselves.  The ‘price paid’ by a mother goes on to deliver an entire family tree.

For what it’s worth, my estimation is that Jesus’ sacrifice demands nothing less than my life.  His death produced a following generation like him – with his DNA – and so on, up to me.  This is where real life begins — in this death: death to self and death to sin.  For too long we have lived with a standard well below Jesus’ standard, yet had the audacity to claim His promises of blessing.  It seems to me this was ‘spiritual life 101’ to that first generation of Jesus-followers, but we seem to have lost it along the way.

It was people who fitted this description who were the people called ‘disciples’; who were the first to be called ‘Christians’ in ancient Antioch (Acts 11:26).

Has God changed?  Has Jesus lowered His standard?  Is Jesus the Head of the Ecclesia?  Is it what He says that matters?  “Let your ‘yes’ mean yes! and your ‘no’ mean no!”

Then, ‘the Church’ is these same ones today.  It is not a matter of preference or style: such things are irrelevant at best, arrogant at worst.  It is not even a matter of talent or gift or ministry: that comes later.

First, God has a plan!  Good news!  This is His world; we are His creation.  God has a heart and passion for what He created, like a potter has for his masterpiece and like parents have for their children.  We call it His “will”.  We go through life either for Him or against Him; either in harmony with His will or up against it; either in co-operation with Him or in antagonism to Him.  But because of how He made us, the choice is ours.

Second, God’s will — His plan, His heart (which is the heart of a father and of a mother, if the old scriptures are true) — is to have for Himself a people.  He wants a family — a BIG family!  The scriptures call this family “the people of God”.  Membership among God’s people is not based on a set of variables — it never has been.  Rather, it is based on a covenant.  The essence of all God’s covenants has been the same: if you want to be right with God, you can only do so on the basis of substitution: exchanging one life for another.  And the only way to actually join in the substitution is by faith.

Third, this “people of God” has always been, in the mind of God, a chosen people with a very clear commisssion and mandate: “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Fourth, God’s intention in having a “family” is to recapture this run-away world for Himself.  In short, it is to “...unite all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:10).

Fifth, God has charged this “chosen people” with responsibility to co-operate with Him in achieveing His aim: to disciple the nations through their witness and worship and to baptise these disciples, teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:18-20).

This is the second foundational piece to the building of five-fold ministry in ecclesia; the next is this very concept of ‘the people of God’.

Cheers – Kevin.