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Early this year I read an article written by Kevin DeYoung (the original post can be found here) that discussed the churches need for more “plodding visionaries” instead of “revolutionaries.” The reason for this article is “many Believers are starting a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church.” In other words many Christians are focused on doing radical (world-changing) things, without exhibiting self-discipline or faithfulness. After something bores them, they simply move on.

The true problem that Kevin DeYoung has with this mindset is most days discipleship or ministry within the Church is really ordinary.

maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

As a missionary I had to teach myself this…like many of you I had an idea in my mind of what missions was about. I envisioned myself cutting down vines in Africa with my machete and swinging from tree to tree on a vine rescuing fair damsels in distress every day. Of course 95% of the work involved in missions are ordinary day to day things that could never be included in a prayer letter

When the majority of the day is filled with ordinary work, I find myself sometimes focusing all of my attention on the 5%, or trying to complete more revolutionary work while overlooking the ordinary work. But DeYoung points out those who are faithful in the day to day ordinary work (plodding visionaries) are far more revolutionary than those who have dreams of changing the world, but haven’t proven faithful to anything yet.

“With all due respect, what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the choir every week, serves on the school board, and supports a Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?” Kevin DeYoung

Each of us have opportunities to daily choose between revolutionary acts, or the ordinary work of a plodding visionary, and in those moments we must remember God’s blessing of faithfulness. Every morning around 7:00 I have a choice between starting sermon work, or sweeping the house (this is necessary every day since I keep the doors open for an ocean breeze to come through). To be honest in those moments wrestling with the definition of Greek words seems a lot more important than dust on the floor, but I sweep first because faithfulness in the ordinary work brings greater glory to God.

“Paul was not a people-pleaser.  He was a people-lover, and because of that he did not change his message according to what others might think.  Only people-lovers are able to confront.  Only people-lovers are not controlled by other people.” Dr. Ed Welch

I was working on some notes for a sunday-school lesson on the fear of man when I came across the above quotation from “When People are Big and God is Small” by Ed Welch (Other than the Bible, this book has done more to affect my personal walk with God than any other) and was suddenly incredibly convicted.

As an introvert who struggled with self-esteem issues (secularized view of shame) as a child I’m really susceptible to people-pleasing (must be loved by others in order to feel successful).  With the Lords help I’m finding  my identity in Christ instead of others and experience victory over people pleasing, but during my study was reminded confrontation is an area where I’m still addicted to others approval.

Now for most of us even the word “confrontation” brings up uncomfortable emotions, awkwardness, and cold sweats so its very difficult to link that with the word “loving.”  But the truth is not confronting sinful behavior is the truly unloving act.

Here’s how Paul David Tripp describes this in “Instruments in the Redeemers Hands.”

A rebuke free of unrighteous anger a clear sign of Biblical love, but I am afraid we have replaced love in our relationship with being “nice.”  Being nice and acting out of love are not the same thing.  Our culture puts a high premium on being tolerant and polite.  We seek to avoid uncomfortable moments, so we see, but do not speak.  We go so far as to convince ourselves that we are not speaking because we love the other person, when in reality we fail to speak because we lack love. (emphasis added)

Dr. Tripp refers here to exchanging niceness for love, instead of doing the loving thing (confronting sin) we do the nice thing (allow it to continue).

Sadly this idea has grown till today the definition of “love” has moved far past just being nice.

“In the West today, we then lay our definition of love directly on top of this negative conception of freedom.  To love someone is to set them free-it’s to remove all constraints and judgments:  If you love me with conditions or judgments, you don’t love me because your not letting me be free.”  Jonathan Leeman

The above quote comes from “The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love” by Jonathan Leeman.  Chapter one (the idolatry of love) is the best description I’ve found of this redefined love and how we got there (worth the price of the book alone).

Back to this morning…because our culture has exchanged niceness for love it’s very easy for us as Christians (especially those who are people-pleasers) to choose being nice because “it’s the loving thing to do”

There’s just one problem with that

Refusing to confront sin isn’t very loving

In fact it’s the most unloving thing we can possibly do.

Amazon must love me…I mean seriously look at this picture my father took of the front porch Sunday afternoon with nine boxes of items for a Christmas barrel that will be sent next week.

As I look at this picture two very different thoughts run through my head

“Thank you Lord for your blessings”

And “I don’t deserve this”

The second thought isn’t low self-esteem but an understanding that those boxes some very cool stuff I bought online.

1. Two pounds of pumpkin spice coffee
2. Three large containers of Gatorade powder
3. Fifteen pounds of Jolly Ranchers (its for the kids…no seriously)
4. Fifteen pounds of starlight mints (No it seriously is for the kids!)
5. 2 1/2 pounds of Krispie Creme Coffee (sadly the donuts wont fit)
6. One bag of Starbucks coffee
7. A refurbished iPad
8. Three containers of protein powder
9. 2 pounds of Colombian coffee (are you noticing a theme?)
10. A charger for my macbook
11. Two Bibles
12. And of course a new coffee maker along with lots of other goodies

The picture my dad sent me this morning of the items that will be shipped in my barrel (and more are coming) is honestly pretty overwhelming.  Last night visions if coffee without the words “folgers” or “maxwell house” danced through my head (editors note:  You may notice some folgers coffee containers in the picture, these are for my missionary co-workers who aren’t coffee snobs like me).

The picture creates not only excitement but in a strange way creates guilt in my heart. Part of me says “I have to earn all of these precious treasures.”  In other words missionaries who are winning people to the Lord every week, spend four hours every afternoon discipling Believers, and are planning their third Church plant deserve pumpkin spice coffee.  Of course I know that success isn’t based on outer fruit, but this subconscious thought creates a sinful response to God’s blessings.

God takes great pleasure in showing us grace.  This usually isn’t something as massive as my Christmas barrel, but daily provision of strength or wisdom that we could never earn.  These gracious blessings are meant to be reminders of the Gospel that lead to confession (I cannot earn Holiness), belief (God must rescue me), and worship.  

The sad thing is we each have a longing to “earn things” so when God provides grace instead of remembering the cross (our greatest blessing) and submitting in worship we live out a testimony that says you have to earn Gods grace, which of course means it isn’t grace after all.  

This doesn’t mean of course that I should sit on the couch all day watching television and eating donuts because I’m  living “in grace”.  Instead I stop trying to earn God’s daily blessings (you can’t do that anyways) and allow the smallest blessings to remind me of the cross.  Eventually those daily moments of Grace will become a motivation as we serve God out of love instead of obligation.

Luke 5:1 ¶ And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,   Luke 5:2 And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.   Luke 5:3 And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.

Imagine with me for a moment that you are Simon Peter in this passage.  After a long night of fishing not only are you exhausted, but discouraged about not catching any fish.  The only thing your interested in is fixing the nets as soon as possible and going to sleep, but then you notice a large crowd of people coming towards you.  And as they get closer you recognize Jesus of Nazareth is with them!

You’ve heard about Jesus of course (everybody has) but you have never seen him face to face.  He’s the one who John the Baptist told everybody he was preparing the way for (Mark 1:1, 1:7-8) and after John was put in prison told everyone the Kingdom of God had begun (Mark 1:14-15).  Suddenly you don’t feel so tired anymore and sit down to hear Him teach, but it doesn’t take long for a massive crowd to gather on the beach, and soon people start pushing and shoving so they can get closer to Jesus.

As you stand up to get a better view you notice Jesus is looking for someone, slowly his eyes scan the crowd until they come to you….”excuse me” Jesus asks, “can I borrow your boat?”

Suddenly every eye turns towards you frozen in a state of shock.  “Of course!”  you finally find the strength to say and can’t help but feel very important as the crowd parts allowing you through.  Soon you’ve pushed into the shallow waters and Jesus is teaching the people gathered on the shore.

Luke 5:1-11 is a passage of Scripture that the Lord has used to teach me the motivations of obedience are more important than the obedience itself.  Peter in this story obeys Jesus three separate times, but it’s only the last time (Luke 5:8) that his obedience came from the right motivation.  

Peters obedience in Luke 5:1-3 (pushing the boat out so that Jesus can teach from it) doesn’t come a belief that He is God’s Son.  Instead Peter obeys because Jesus is a great teacher with huge crowds, and more importantly it gave him (Peter) the chance to look like a rock star…after all who wouldn’t want Jesus to use their boat?

The danger with this kind of obedience is the crowds wouldn’t always follow Jesus.  The same ones who loudly praised His triumphal entry called for His crucifixion once they realized Jesus wouldn’t free them from Roman rule (Matthew 21:9, Matthew 217:15-32).

More importantly though Jesus is interested in those who will be totally committed to Him instead of the crowds of half-hearted followers.  

Mark 1:32-38 is one of the clearest examples in Scripture of Christ’s desire for those who will truly follow Him.

Mark 1:32 And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils.
Mark 1:33 And all the city was gathered together at the door.
Mark 1:34 And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.
Mark 1:35 And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
Mark 1:36 And Simon and they that were with him followed after him.
Mark 1:37 And when they had found him, they said unto him, All men seek for thee.
Mark 1:38 And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth. (emphasis added)

Peter and the other disciples searched everwhere for Jesus and when they found him asked “why did you leave?” (paraphrase of 1:37).  The response of Jesus was “I didn’t come for them (paraphrase of 1:38).”  Contrast this with the response of Jesus to a leper who believes He is God’s son (1:40-41) and his strict command not to tell anybody (1:43-44) and it’s clear Jesus isn’t interested in large crowds of people who aren’t really committed.

There are moments when everyone will love Jesus and serving Him will bring us great Glory…but we must also be willing to obey when people hate Jesus, and it brings suffering.