Introduction & ice breaker
What are your favorite things about New York City in springtime?
Themes to Consider
In these letters we see:
Revelation of Jesus - a righteous judge
An affirmation - increased fruit of love amidst opposition
A Correction- being seduced by little things.
A Path of Change - Repent
Consequence of Not changing - Judgement and hardship
Reward for the Victorious - Satisfaction, Intimacy, Restored purpose and dominion
Two extremes:
We proclaim the king without evidence of Kingdom fruit being produced in our lives;
Or, we want the fruit of the kingdom without submitting our lives to the King.
God’s permitted flexibility had made its way all the way to cultural assimilation.
Unloving orthodoxy and loving compromise are both despised by God.
Believers today also face the temptation to achieve personal advancement by ungodly compromise.
God’s kindness that leads us to repentance, not repentance that leads to his kindness.
Practices
Inhale: repentance - awareness of our compromise and lament / mourning for the resulted harm cause
Exhale: changing the harmful behaviors and asking for forgiveness from those who have been harmed.
Discussion Questions
How do we live in such a city?
What practices should we adopt or reject?
What does compromise look like?
What cultural assimilations go unquestioned in my practice and thinking?
Guided Prayer
A prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where this is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Supplemental Content
A Hindu scholar of world religions once said to Newbigin, “I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion—and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.
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Newbigin himself puts it like this: “The way we understand human life depends on what conception we have of the human story. Answering the question: What is the real story of which my life story is part?”
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as Sally Lloyed Jones says: a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.
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Married love is a signpost of the love between creator and creation.
Prophetic Charge
To the church at Brooklyn:
From your earliest days, you have been a community marked by hospitality. You have offered a generous welcome to many, inviting them to be known and to belong. You have sought to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. I have seen you walk with those who have been wounded or were disenchanted with faith. I know you can celebrate well and you have given thanks. This is all reflective of my heart and the life of Jesus.
However, too often your eyes have drifted back to your surroundings. Too often your difficulty becomes entitlement and your celebration becomes indulgence. Do not forget, I am the One who satisfies your soul. Do not be sold a seat at a false table. I have called you apart, as salt and light. Do not accept the false gods of craving or lust, and the misguided directions they offer. I am your satisfaction and your rest. Do you not know that the distinctiveness with which you live is crucial to your witness? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life come not from the Father but are of the world.
Consecrate yourselves to me. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Spiritual authority is rooted in personal holiness. Remember that I am a good Father and I know what my children need. Trust my provision day by day and see if I will not satisfy you with good things!
(Authored by deacons and leaders of Trinity Grace Church)
