Psalm 126 (ESV)1When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. 2Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." 3The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.

4Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! 5 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! 6He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.

One of the delightful discoveries along the way of Christian discipleship is how much enjoyment there is, how much laughter you hear, how much sheer fun you find. As Christians we should partake in joy as a daily ritual, exclaiming our enjoyment in living a life of obedience to God.

A Consequence, Not a Requirement: Joy is characteristic of the Christian pilgrimage. It is the second in Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22 - 23). It is the first of Jesus’ signs in the Gospel of John. Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence. It is not what we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience. We can decide to live in response to the abundance of God and not under the dictatorship of our own poor needs. One of the certain consequences of such a life is joy, the kind expressed in Psalm 126.

Joyful Expectation: Joy is nurtured by anticipation. If the joy-producing acts of God are characteristic of our past as God’s people, they will also be characteristic of our future as his people. Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow. Pain and hardship still come, but they are unable to drive out the happiness that the redeemed will experience. Joy is what God gives, not what we work up.

Christian joy happens in the midst of pain, suffering, loneliness, and misfortune. “3More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom 5:3-11).

The psalm does not give joy as a package or as a formula, but there are some things it does do. It shows up the tininess of the world’s joy and affirms the solidarity of God’s joy. God promises that whatever else is happening we can be a happy people. Why? Because “the LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.”

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Thom Rainer (the president of Lifeway Christian Resources) just posted seven characteristics of evangelistic Christians. His list is clear and helpful. He reminds us that evangelism is about people pursuing people for the Glory of God with the Gospel of Christ. Some of the characteristics might fit you, some may not, but by God's grace we can all grow in each. Here is his post in entirety:

For over twenty years I have been researching and studying churches, primarily those in North America. I had the joy of serving as senior pastor in four churches where God blessed with evangelistic growth. I have written over twenty books about the church in America.

I am not giving you my credentials to impress you, but simply to share that my life’s passion has been leading and learning about evangelistic churches. At this point in my life and ministry, however, I realize that I have not given sufficient attention to one of the primary characteristics of evangelistic churches. The Great Omission

It is so obvious. Indeed it is so clear that I am surprised at my neglect of this factor. Stated simply, the evangelistic churches that I have researched for the past twenty years have one or more highly evangelistic Christians.

I know. The previous statement is no great revelation. It is almost stating the obvious. But, if it is reality, why are we not hearing more about these Christians who seem to have a passion for evangelism? Why are we not doing a better job of telling their stories?

In this short article I hope to address this great omission.

Seven Characteristics

It is inevitable that, when we do research on evangelistic churches, we learn about one or more members in the church who, to use the book title by Charles H. Spurgeon, embody the traits of "The Soul Winner." Oftentimes one of those members is the pastor. But we have also seen many laypersons who are themselves soul winners.

In our interviews with these people, or with those who tell us about the soul winners, we began to discern some clear patterns. We called those patterns “the seven characteristics of highly evangelistic Christians.”

1. They are people of prayer. They realize that only God can convict and convert, and they are totally dependent upon Him in prayer. Most of the highly evangelistic Christians spend at least an hour in prayer each day.

2. They have a theology that compels them to evangelize. They believe in the urgency of the gospel message. They believe that Christ is the only way of salvation. They believe that anyone without Christ is doomed for a literal hell.

3. They are people who spend time in the Word. The more time they spend in the Bible, the more likely they are to see the lostness of humanity and the love of God in Christ to save those who are lost.

4. They are compassionate people. Their hearts break for those who don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They have learned to love the world by becoming more like Christ who has the greatest love for the world.

5. They love the communities where God has placed them. They are immersed in the culture because they desire for the light of Christ to shine through them in their communities.

6. They are intentional about evangelism. They pray for opportunities to share the gospel. They look for those opportunities. And they see many so-called casual encounters as appointments set by God.

7. They are accountable to someone for their evangelistic activities. They know that many good activities can replace Great Commission activities if they are not careful. Good can replace the best. So they make certain that someone holds them accountable each week, either formally or informally, for their evangelistic efforts.

The “Secret” of Evangelistic Churches

The secret is really no secret at all. Ultimately, evangelistic churches see more persons become Christians through the passionate efforts of highly evangelistic Christians. More than any programs. More than any church events. More than anything else, we are the instruments God has chosen to use.

Sometimes we ask the question "What is my church doing to become more evangelistic?" But the better question is "What am I doing to become more evangelistic?"

Charles H. Spurgeon was right. We need more soul winners.

We need more highly evangelistic Christians.

photo credit: Kerem Tapani via photopin cc

Psalm 125 (ESV)1Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. 2As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore. 3For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong. 4 Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts! 5But those who turn aside to their crooked ways the LORD will lead away with evildoers! Peace be upon Israel!

Backslider was a basic word in the religious vocabulary depicting people who had made a commitment of faith to our Lord, had been active in church, but had lost their footing on the ascents to Christ and backslid. This was a threat to all, at all times. You could at any moment fall victim to loosing your footing and slipping backwards. Another way to look at this action Christians are prone to is by examining scripture and seeking a different truth. In scripture there is a background of confidence, a leisured security, among people of faith.

Someone Else Built the Fortress: The emphasis of Psalm 125 is not the precariousness of the Christian life but on its solidity. Jerusalem was set in a saucer of hills. It was the safest of cities because of the protective fortress these hills provided. Just so, is the person of faith surrounded by the Lord.

People of faith have the same needs for protection and security as anyone else. What is different is that we don’t have to build our own. God provides our safe haven. He constructs the walls that secure us in his presence. At no time does a person of faith feel left out in the wilderness, but brought within the city gates to rest in the peace and shelter that God provides in Christ in the Gospel.

A Saw–Toothed History: The confident, robust faith that we desire and think is our destiny is qualified by recurrent insecurities. Singing psalm 125 is one way Christians have to develop confidence and banish insecurity. One threat to our security comes from feelings of depression and doubt. We can be moved by nearly anything: sadness, joy, success, failure.

Israel can be described as a having a saw–toothed–history. One day it’s up, and next it is down. But as we read about their history we realize something steady: they are always God’s people. We learn to live not by our feelings about God but by the facts of God. Our security should come from who God is, not from how we feel about him. Discipleship is a decision to live by what we know about God, not by what we feel. In other words, it’s not what we feel about God that makes us secure, its that God chooses to know us and Christ chooses to save us.

A Damoclean Sword: Another source of uncertainty is our pain and suffering. The daily conflicts that we face can be demoralizing. God tells us that danger and oppression are never too much for faith. That nothing counter to God’s justice has eternity to it. God will never let you down; he’ll never push you past your limits; he’ll always help you come through it.

A Nonnegotiable Contract: The third kind of threat to the confidence promised to the Christian is the fear of defection. However, once you are a Christian there is no getting out of it. We have our ups and downs, zealously believing one day and gloomily doubting the next, but God is faithful. You may choose the crooked way. You may choose to run from God. But if you are His, He will not lose you. If He has begun a good work He will bring it completion. Our confidence, our security, our perseverance is not due to our performance, our faithfulness, or our determination but to the LORD who surrounds His people, to the Spirit who seals His people, to the Shepherd who leads His people.

Mountain Climbers Roped Together: Psalm 125 says that being a Christian is like sitting in the middle of Jerusalem, fortified and secure. Neither our feelings nor the facts of suffering nor the fear of defection are evidence that God has abandoned us. Do not be anxious, our life with God is a sure thing, because He is sure and because He surrounds and because He saves and because He seeks.

Traveling the way of faith and climbing the ascent to Christ may be difficult, but it is not worrisome. The weather may be adverse, but it is never fatal. We may slip and stumble and fall, but the rope will hold us. God will always hold us.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 134 (ESV) 1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side- let Israel now say- 2if it had not been the LORD who was on our side when people rose up against us, 3then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5then over us would have gone the raging waters.

6Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! 7We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!

8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 124 is a song of hazard and of help. Among the Songs of Ascents, this is the one that better describes the hazardous work of all discipleship and declares the help that is always experienced at the hand of God.

A Clerk in the Complaints Department of Humanity: The first lines of the psalm twice describes God as “for us.” The last line is “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” God is for us. God is our help.

The proper work for a Christian is witness, not apology, and Psalm124 is an excellent model. It does not argue God’s help; it does not explain God’s help; it is a testimony of God’s help in the form of a song. The witness becomes vivid and contagious. God’s help is not a private experience; it is a corporate reality—not an exception that occurs among isolated strangers, but the norm among the people of God.

There is no other literature in all the world that is more true to life and more honest than the Psalms, for here we have warts-and-all religion. Psalm 124 is not a selected witness, inserted like a commercial into our lives to testify that life goes better with God. The people who know this psalm best and who have tested it out and used it often tell us that it is credible, that it fits into what we know of life lived in faith.

Hazardous Work: Christian discipleship is hazardous work. There are no easy tasks on the Christian way; there are only task that can be done faithfully or erratically, with joy or with resentment. Throughout your work you need to remember that God will accomplish his will, and you get to cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus.

The psalm, though, is not about hazards but about help. The hazardous work of discipleship is not the subject of the psalm but only its setting. The subject is help. During this time God wants us to not be fussy. To not become moralist who cluck their tongues over a world going to hell; Christians are people who praise the God who is on our side.

Enlarged Photographs of Ordinary Objects: The final sentence, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth,” links the God who created heaven and earth to the God who helps us personally.

Psalm 124 is a magnification of the items of life that are thought to be unpleasant, best kept under cover, best surrounded with silence lest they clutter our lives with unpleasantness. Psalm 124 is an instance of a person who digs deeply into the trouble and finds there the presence of the God who is on our side. Our faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence, not the easiest.

The assumption by outsiders that Christians are naïve or protected is the opposite of the truth: Christians know more about the deep struggles of life than others, more about the ugliness of sin. This psalm looks into the troubles of history, the anxiety of personal conflict and emotional trauma. And it sees there the God who is on our side, God is our help.

We speak our words of praise in a world that is hellish; we sing our songs of victory in a world where things get messy; we live our joy among people who neither understand nor encourage us. But the content of our lives is God, not humanity. We are not scavenging in the dark alleys of the world, poking in its garbage cans for a bare subsistence. We are traveling in the light, toward God who is rich in mercy and strong to save. It is Christ, not culture, who defines our lives. It is the help we experience, not the hazards we risk, that shape our days.

If the LORD was not on our side we would have been swallowed alive. But our help is in the name of The LORD, the one who made heaven and earth.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 123 (ESV)1To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! 2Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us.

3 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. 4Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.

As a person grows and matures in the Christian way, it is necessary to acquire certain skills. One is service. Psalm 123 is an instance of service. In this, as so often in the Psalms, we are not instructed in what to do, we are provided an instance of what is done. In Psalm 123 we observe that aspect of the life of discipleship that takes place under the form of servanthood.

If God Is God At All: Service begins with an upward look to God. We need to place him in the appropriate role. God is over us or above us not beside us or below us. God is not a servant to be called into action when we are too tired to do something ourselves, not an expert to be called on when we find we are ill equipped to handle a specialized problem in living. God did not become a servant so that we could order him around but so that we could join him in a redemptive life.

If God is God at all, he must know more about our need than we do; he must be more in touch with the reality of our thoughts, our emotions, our bodies than we are; he must have a more comprehensive grasp of the interrelations in our families and communities and nations than we do.

If we want to understand God, we must do it on his terms. If we want to see God the way he really is, we must look to the place of authority—to Scripture and to Jesus Christ. The moment we look up to God (and not over him, or down on him) we are in the posture of servitude.

Mercy, God, Mercy! A second element in service in has to do with our expectation. What we expect is mercy. Three times this expectation is voiced in Psalm 123.  The basic conviction of a Christian is that God intends good for us and that he will get his way in us. He is a potter working with the clay of our lives, forming and reforming until, he has shaped a redeemed life, a vessel fit for the kingdom.

The word mercy means that the upward look to God in the heavens does not expect God to stay in the heavens but to come down, to enter our condition, to accomplish the vast enterprise of redemption, to fashion in us his eternal salvation. Servitude is specific in its expectation, and what it expects is mercy.

Urgent Service: A third element in the servant life is urgency. The Psalms is part of a vast literature of outcry, a longing for deliverance from oppression. The Christian is a person who recognizes that our real problem is not in achieving freedom but in learning service under a better master. The Christian realizes that every relationship that excludes God becomes oppressive. For this reason all Christian service involves urgency. The urgency of trading a master that kills us for the Master that died for us.

Reasonable Service: The service we offer to God (in worship) is extended into specific acts that serve others. We learn a relationship—an attitude toward life, a stance of servitude before God, and then we are available to be of use to others in acts of service. The Psalm has nothing in it about serving others. It concentrates on being a servant to God. Its position is that if the attitude of servanthood is learned, by attending to God as Lord, then serving others will develop as a very natural way of life.

The Freest Person On Earth: For freedom is the freedom to live as persons in love for the sake of God and neighbor, not a license to grab and push. It is the opportunity to live at our best, not as unruly beasts. The work of liberation must therefore be accompanied by instruction in the use of liberty as children of God who “walk by the Spirit.”

As Psalm 123 prays the transition from oppression, to freedom, to a new servitude, it puts us in the way of learning how to use our freedom most appropriately, under the lordship of a merciful God. A servant Christian is the freest person on earth.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 122 (ESV)1I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!" 2Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!

3Jerusalem-built as a city that is bound firmly together, 4to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD. 5There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! 7Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” 8For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” 9For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.

Psalm 122 is the song of a person who decided to go to church and worship God. It is a psalm of worship and a demonstration of what people of faith everywhere, always do: gather to an assigned place and worship their God. As Christians we must decide to worship God, faithfully and devoutly. It is one of the important acts in a life of discipleship.

An Instance of the Average: A great deal of what we call Christian behavior has become part of our legal system and is embedded in our social expectations, both of which have strong and coercive powers. But worship is not forced. Everyone who worships does so because they want to. Worship is the single most popular act among Christians.

A Framework: The psalm singles out three items: worship gives us a workable structure for life; worship nurtures our need to be in relationship with God; worship centers our attention on the decisions of God.

Jerusalem was the Hebrew word for the place of worship. When you went to Jerusalem, you encountered the great foundational realities: God created you, God redeemed you, God provided for you. The city itself was a kind of architectural metaphor for what worship is: All the pieces of masonry fit compactly, all the building stones fit harmoniously. There were no loose stones, no leftover pieces, no awkward gaps in the walls or the towers.

In worship all the different people who went to Jerusalem functioned as a single people in harmonious relationships. With all of are different backgrounds, economic status, ethnic heritage, we are still one people and we worship gather together as one whole. When we go to worship we get a working definition for our life: the way God created us, the way he leads us. We know where we stand.

A Command: Worship is the place where we obey the command to praise God: “To give thanks to the name of the LORD—this is what it means to be Israel.” This command is a word telling us what we ought to do, and what we ought to do is praise. When we praise we are functioning at the center, we are in touch with the basic, core reality of our being.

Christians worship because they want to, not because they are forced to. But, they do not always worship because they feel like it. Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be very little worship. We live in an “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something then there can be no authenticity in doing it. But God says that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.

A Word of God: When we worship our attention is centered on the decisions of God. Every time we worship our minds are informed, our memories refreshed with the judgments of God, we are familiarized with what God says, what he has decided, the way he is working out our salvation. We want to hear what God says and what he says to us: worship is the place where our attention is centered on these personal and decisive words of God.

Peace and Security: Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God—it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship—it deepens. Our basic needs suddenly become worthy of the dignity of creatures made in the image of God: peace and security. Shalom, or peace, is one of the richest words in the Bible. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Shalvah, or prosperity, is the foundation of security. It is the feeling that everything is going to be all right. Worship initiates an extended, daily participation in peace and prosperity so that we share in our daily rounds what God initiates and continues in Jesus Christ.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)