We just celebrated Resurrection Sunday. What an amazing time in History. The moment when we knew for sure that Jesus was who he said he was and did what he said he would do. In many churches around the world and around the block there were people in church who wouldn’t normally be there. That’s awesome, I love to see new faces, don’t you? Oftentimes people will go only on Christmas or Easter, or they were dragged to church by a parent or grandparent. Or closer to what I hope, they were invited by someone in the Congregation to hear the story, the only story that matters. That God loved the world so much that he sent his only son to die for its sin. To reconcile mankind to Himself, to restore broken relationship. Many would have heard how Jesus took our place, how he paid the price we owed, how he conquered death and the grave. That’s awesome and inspiring and it was terrific to see some new people here as well.
After Jesus was resurrected, he came to earth again and according to Luke 24, met with two travellers who were leaving Jerusalem for the town of Emmaus. They didn’t recognize him as he explained all that had happened over the last couple of days. But as they sat to break bread together, their eyes were opened and they recognized him as Jesus. What an incredible picture, it’s the way many people come to faith in Christ.
Often we live, walking down the road of life, existing under the prevenient grace that goes with us before we recognize Jesus for who he is and we accept him. Prevenient grace is basically Jesus walking with us, extending his hand, knocking at the door of our hearts before we have let him in. This is where the two men on the road to Emmaus were at, and it’s where some people were at Saturday night before they met with Jesus on Sunday morning. The thing is, as we carry forward, being Salt & Light in our community, there are plenty of people we know and love who have heard of Jesus but don’t know Jesus, and right now He’s working prevenient in their lives. As He leads them toward forgiveness, towards reconciliation, towards an eternity in heaven, HE has given us the job of caring for and guiding them along their journey with Him.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a famous radio host in the States. Her program dealt with relationship issues and requests of personal advice. She’s sold millions of books that have helped many people. I enjoyed her show when I was on the road. One of her best-selling books is “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”. In it she outlines some do’s and don’ts for wives to help to insure a successful marriage. I often have thought there should be a book called “The Proper Care and Feeding of New Christians” If I were writing it, it would kind of look like this.
A step by step, easy to read and understand picture book (Used "Safe Baby Handling Tips" by David & Kelly Sopp)
Show First Picture (pg. 4 'Feeding Baby')
The first section in our book, the proper care and feeding would be on Feeding itself
1. Giving right food at the right time. (BABY FEEDING)
There was a movie in the 80’s called Gremlins. A teen boy bought a Mogwai from a reluctant seller. The rules, oh so important, were don’t expose it to light that is too bright, don’t let it get wet, and most importantly do not feed it after midnight. Feeding the Mogwai after midnight would cause him to turn into something he wasn’t meant to be, a Gremlin.
Just like you wouldn’t give a baby a giant turkey leg at 3 in the morning, it isn’t the right food or the right time to eat; we don’t want to burden people with too much too soon. Sometimes people need time to fully grasp and understand that they are saved by grace. People need time to develop spiritual teeth to be able to bite off bigger chunks of what God has to offer.
We can be very zealous when a person is freshly saved. We can try to download the entirety of scripture, and all the commentaries and all the Christian books and everything else there is into a new believer’s life well before they’re ready, before we have earned the right to speak in to their lives. It’s like bringing someone who is dying of thirst a drink. A sip of water from a tap or cup will do much more good than giving them the end of a firehose and turning it on completely soaking them in water.
It’s easy to want to do this though, to pour all we can into a new believers life. There’s something about that new life that reminds us of what it was like when we first found Christ . . . or He found us. Everything was new and fresh, the air was crisper, the birds sang louder, we had a feeling of excitement and joy that pushed us in to wanting more, into needing more of what God had to offer. It’s referred to as the first love in Revelation 2. The Ephesians had lost it, and often we lose it too, but the new Christian is right in the middle of it. And that can and should excite us.
It’s easy to see this when you have kids right? We kind of relive our glory days through their accomplishments and victories, but just as hockey parents can get a little out of hand with their fervour, so can we with new Christians who remind us of our heyday at the highest points of our faith. Also, and I’m guilty of this with my own children, we can tend to overwhelm them with stories of our mistakes and losses. In an effort to help them to avoid the penalty box so to speak, we actually prevent them from playing the game and learning from their own experience.
When we first came to Christ, if we were fortunate, we had someone discipling us. Bringing us up and along, growing us slowly in the faith. At a pace that was not overly daunting. A pace that was not overwhelming us, but feeding us in bite size morsels that we could easily digest and integrate into our lives.
More importantly, we need to make sure the spiritual food we are giving is the right kind of food, and that we are living lives that give us the right to feed others in a non-hypocritical way. The simple truth of the gospel, man’s sinfulness and God’s mercy, repentance, forgiveness and faith in Jesus Christ. Stated in the plainest possible language suit people far better than delving into spiritual mysteries (Henry)
Jesus modeled this with His disciples, Paul then emulated Jesus and it’s an example to us as we try to nurture and develop the new believer. 1 Corinthians 3:2 says I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. Paul was talking to the church at Corinth who were dealing with each other in an unspiritual manner. They had not fully matured, and were definitely not acting very mature. Some followed Apollos, Some Paul, they were majoring on the minors and forgetting the main point of the gospel. God’s love and the redemption of man kind. Those periphery things are fine, they entail a deeper study, deeper walk and deeper relation with God, but the “deeper mysteries” take time to understand.
What is really needed is authenticity and transparency in our lives. People around us are watching us, new, old and non-Christians. If we claim to be followers, we draw the scrutiny of others. What the world is looking for, is not an unattainable standard of perfection, but a real, relational way to live out their faith in a way that is relevant and makes a difference in their lives.
Paul was basically saying, “you are trying to put the roof and shingles on the house, but the concrete foundation still isn’t fully laid”. If the foundation isn’t solid, the house will collapse. We need to help people to develop and integrate the foundations of the faith before we try to move them forward. The Holy Spirit needs to be our guide here.
As well as giving the right food at the right time, we need to give the right perspective.
SHOW 2nd PICTURE (pg. 7 Baby in Cage vs. playpen)
2. Giving relationship not rules. (BABY CRIB VS CAGE)
The second thing we need to do with newer Christians is to help them develop relationship rather than rules.
We’re really good at rules, at traditions, at doing things because that’s the way they’ve always been done. The problem with that is sometimes people go around thinking that a man made rule is a statute or principle Biblically. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re not. To go with our first step in the proper care and feeding, if we are feeding on the word of God, we are in a better place to know the difference between rules and relationship.
You see it comes down to a relationship versus rules, or even relationship vs. religion. We love rules, we need boundaries, God gave 613 laws to His people through Deuteronomy and Leviticus. 613! I have a hard time following 5 to make sure my dinner comes out right can you imagine 613 rules to have your eternity come out right? Fortunately Jesus pared that down a bit. You see in Jesus’ day there were these guys called Pharisees. They really contrast what I’m talking about here. They knew all 613 laws, and they followed them to a T. They kind of remind me of some lawyers who do things that are shady by finding loopholes in the law. The law must be obeyed by everyone else, but it the Pharisees found a loophole, they’d exploit it. They looked good on the outside, but on the inside many of their hearts were not sanctified or holy. Jesus went as far to call them “whitewashed sepulchres.” A sepulchre is a tomb, he was saying they were looking great on the outside, but on the inside there was death. That’s what legalistic rules or religion does to us, makes us look good on the outside, but it doesn’t deal with our heart. We follow rules instead of following the ruler and make it about us and not God.
Matthew 22:36-40 says this 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
If we worry more about rules than relationship, we run the risk of caging people. We put them into the box of religion that says “if I work more, if I try harder, If I sin less if I give more, If I, If I, if I . . . If I follow the rules, maybe that God I gave my heart to will let me out to come up and see him, maybe. . . but that’s not how it’s supposed to be.
We do need boundaries. Love God, and love others. That love surrounds us, but the thing is, when we have relationship we are not caged, God can and does reach down to us, he does pick us up, we can reach out to him. We are his and he is ours. Romans 8 tells us that we are children, heirs of God, Galatians tells us that we are co-heirs with Christ, there is a relationship there that is to be nurtured, developed. A community of believers with the sole purpose of loving God and loving others is a community of believers that can change that community, that can be salt to that community and that can be light in that community.
If the church is known as the place where you can’t do this and you can’t do that, then we are caging people. We’re chaining their souls to a set of manmade expectations that God never meant for them to have. We are placing barriers between them and God, this was never God’s plan for us. The body of Christ needs to be known as the place where you can. You can find God, you can find love, you can find forgiveness.
Love should penetrate all that we do in the church and out of it. Love is kind, patient, slow to anger, keeps no record of wrongs, love is inclusive. This is what we are to model.
My final entry in today’s book proper care and feeding is . . .
SHOW 3rd PICTURE (pg. 15 Baby working out)
3. Giving Reasonable Responsibility
I think this is maybe more of a smaller church thing, but I think there’s universal application here.
When I came to the faith it was in a small church plant in Courtice,ON. I was actually drumming in the worship band before I became a Christian, I don’t have a problem with that, it’s a background type of ministry, but when I did accept Christ as my saviour, things moved very very fast.
Even as we began, there was a youth group of about 7 teens, I was asked to come out and start leading them in worship in song, then as the leader, I was then leading for the congregation. All within a span of a couple months. The weight of it was enormous but by the grace of God I managed to get through that time. Being on the road as a truck driver I listened to the Bible on tape 3 times, I tuned from Christian radio to Christian radio listening to as many sermons as I could. I had been given a tremendous amount of responsibility in a very short time and the weight at times was overwhelming. I didn’t have the spiritual maturity to deal with the pressure and after a year and a half, I left the church feeling bitter.
This time in my life was when I discovered Matthew 11:28 and I love how the Message translation puts it. 28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
People, especially new Christians often want to get involved. Getting people involved and volunteering is a big part of keeping new members of a congregation. We sometimes couch this in terms like exercising their faith, or Christian service. Handled properly, it can build a sense of belonging. Being involved often helps to develop relationships. It’s a way to feel like you are serving and giving back. It’s an act of worship. All these things are great, but we need to be careful because in helping people to exercise their faith, we sometimes, often, over load them.
I’ve seen it many times. A ministry leader or church is praying for someone to come that is great with this or that or even praying for a warm body that can fill a spot. In walks our new believer and boom. Boom alright, that person is now the guy, or gal. Every week or multiple times a week they’re volunteering, which is great, but it’s like we’re handing them a giant dumbbell and telling them to run. We weigh them down with responsibility and it becomes a burden.
Have you ever been in a situation where you volunteered once to do something, and now 5, 10 or more years later, you’re still the guy or girl? This can be unhealthy from another standpoint as well. Sometimes we end up placing people into places or positions based on our needs and not necessarily on their gifts, needs or abilities. It can be hard to say no can’t it? Especially when we are looking to fit in, to establish relationships and serve. We need to remember to not let people base their faith on their works and always remind them that the works come from faith, not the other way around.
Quite frankly often we see people get overwhelmed, they find the weight too heavy so they become bitter, they walk away, and we never know why. In 1 Corinthians, we are referred to as the Body of Christ. Each of us has a part in it. But to say that an arm can only lift a weight, over and over and over again, and is the only thing that can lift, is going to tire out that arm, especially if the weight would be better carried by the leg.
We see this as well when we put new or not yet matured Christians into ministries that they are not yet ready for. We haven’t eased them into it, haven’t trained them, haven’t helped them through enough workouts and exercises, we just hand them the bar and say have at it. That’s dangerous for the lifter and for the people around. Better practice would be just that, practice, help to provide opportunities to build up spiritual muscles that have not yet developed or that they may not even know they have yet.
So we’ve looked at 3 ways to properly care and feed new Christians, but as we reflect, perhaps this isn’t an exclusive book. Perhaps we should look at this with just a slightly different lens.
As believers, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are our brothers’ keepers. We are responsible for each other and we are called to be salt and light to our community. I think as we look back it’s pretty safe to say that we can apply these three things to how we treat everybody no matter where they are in their walk with God.
When we are doing life with each other, we need to make sure we’re getting and giving the right food at the right time. What are we watching, reading, listening to?
We need to understand and live our lives in relationship, relationship with God and with others. Not enforce or cage others with rules and religion. How do we deal with others? How do we see ourselves when it comes to God?
Finally, we need to be reasonable in our responsibility, we need to make sure we are serving in a way that is joyful and not burdensome. At the same time not expecting that “someone else will do it” or “that’s their job? Are you overwhelmed with ministry? Are you helping others to find their potential?
Love is really what it comes down to. Love of God and love of one another. The best book and really the only authority on the subject of the proper care and feeding of Christians, old or new has to be the inerrant word of God found in the Holy Bible. John 13:34-35 says this, “a new command I give you; love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
