Bringing the Presence of Christ to the World

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

“It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him healed him.  And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured.  They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.” – Acts 28:8-10 ESV

Paul is on his way to Rome.  He’s appealed to Caesar to escape his murderous accusers in Jerusalem and to get a free passage to Rome (“I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome” – Romans 1:15).  After arriving in the capital of the empire, he will make his defense before Emperor Nero himself, the Beast.  Church tradition tells us that Paul was released from custody this particular time, allowing him to follow his heart’s desire and bring the gospel to Spain.  Eventually, however, Paul was arrested again.  Nero would not be so disinterested in the sect of the Nazarenes this time, and Paul would lose his head for the sake of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

On his way to Rome the first time, though, Paul’s ship suffers shipwreck on the island of Malta.  All of the crew and passengers are spared miraculously.  Once on the shore, the people of the island welcome them generously.  However, Paul is bitten by a viper.  The natives take this as a sign that Paul deserves to die.  But protected by God, Paul is unharmed.  After this, Paul heals the chief’s father.  When word gets out that there is a man on the island who can perform miraculous healings, all the sick of the island come to see Paul and be healed.  In joy, the people of the island send them on their way fully stocked with the needed provisions.

When I read this story this morning, I was struck by how similar Paul’s story is here to many stories of Jesus in the gospels.  And, of course, that was Luke’s point.  You see, when Jesus walked on this earth he performed miracles, healed the sick, raised the dead, and pointed people to the kingdom of God.  When word got out that Jesus was in town, a crowd always came out to him to be healed of their diseases.  And here on Malta, Paul is having the same effect on the native islanders.  Paul brought the presence of Christ to Malta.

Today, in our own lives, God might work through us to heal.  He might work through us to speak prophetically.  He might work through us in any number of miraculous ways.  Jesus worked miracles, healed the sick, and spoke with divine, prophetic insight.  He also loved people, told the truth, prayed to his Father, believed the scriptures, and taught others to do the same.  As Jesus’ church, the Holy Spirit works in each one of us to give us whatever gifts he chooses for us to have (see 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4).  And by these gifts, Jesus becomes present to those we lovingly serve.

Unfortunately, not everyone whom Jesus healed, loved, and taught followed him into everlasting life.  That is the hard reality of it.  Some sought him for the miracles but wanted nothing to do with his message.  Perhaps that is why God does not always work the miraculous among us – he knows that either we or our neighbors would focus on the sign and become disinterested in the message.  Not everyone became a smiling, happy-clappy Christian in Paul’s life either.  This is a good reminder that people’s response to our message, for or against, is not proof of our faithfulness or unfaithfulness.  Our actual love and obedience, or its lack, is its own proof.

So you and I have a mission.  We have a mission to bring the Presence of Jesus Christ to the world.  If your gifts are faith and healing, use them.  If your gifts are service and mercy, exercise them.  If your gifts are teaching and encouragement, open your mouth.

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” - 1 Peter 4:10-11 ESV

 

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When Fasting in Secret, Be Sure to Tell People About It.

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” – Matthew 6:16-18 ESV

(***Our congregation, along with the rest of the Assemblies of God across the country, will spend this next week fasting and praying for God’s will to be revealed and done in the upcoming year.  The fast is encouraged but voluntary, and any of the pastors can be approached for advice on how to fast or what constitutes a true fast.  On that note, I wanted to share a few thoughts.***)

I remember doing a group study with some guys through the book Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.  The book is written by an evangelical, charismatic Quaker and is both a “how to” and a “why” book on the classic Christian spiritual disciplines, such as study, meditation (not the creepy kind, though some have recently demonized Foster for this chapter), prayer, and fasting.  The chapter on fasting is very practical, giving a lot of good advice on how to fast and on what to expect during a fast physically, mentally and spiritually.

Well, I decided to fast on the day we were going to discuss fasting.  I am a legalist by nature (that’s why I preach so many sermons about grace – I’m speaking to myself!) and so attempted not to bring up the fact that I was fasting.  We always had donuts and coffee at the study.  I decided coffee was okay, and that the flavored creamer was okay.  The donuts I tried to avoid.  Eventually it came up (I don’t know how) that I was not eating any donuts.  I tried very hard not to tell them I was fasting, because really “spiritual” people who don’t want to lose their rewards don’t tell people when they are fasting…or so I thought.

Eventually I had to tell them I was fasting.  They were giving me a hard time, as guys are prone to do with each other, so I had to tell them something.  After breaking the news, I tried to remain very stoic about the fact that I was fasting.  It was just pride, but I thought I was being “spiritual” again.  They continued hassling me.  I think they could tell I was full of myself and just wanted to pay me back for all the times I had hassled one of them about something (I do that sometimes!).  Eventually, like the mature “spiritual” guy that I was, I got mad at them.  They laughed a little more, enjoying their victory, and got back into the study.  My super spiritual, Holy-Ghost-filled day of fasting had pretty much ended in a flop from my perspective.  The fast didn’t make it past lunch.

Jesus tells his disciples not to make a show of their fasting.  Often I have had a strange twang of guilt when I have had to “confess” to someone that I was fasting.  On more than one occasion I have actually wondered whether I would no longer get the thing I was fasting and praying over since I had squealed on myself.  In my earlier days especially, I was part of a very charismatic Pentecostal congregation which was prone both to legalism and to extreme acts of spiritual self-abuse, all in the name of being “Spirit led” and “staying saved.”  We were often called upon to fast.  I was never taught how to fast, and the fasts were always pretty extreme.  I think they assumed the beginners would go easy on themselves and so never described fasting as anything but eating no food at all for an entire week.  I always failed to complete the fasts.  I also always had to tell someone I was fasting before too many days had passed.  Whenever you are fasting, two or three people will always invite you to dinner or offer you some food.  Just expect that.  And whenever I would tell someone I was fasting, a sudden flood of shame and pride would flow through my veins.  I was working out my salvation, after all, and always felt pretty spiritual compared to most other people.  But I was also afraid of losing my salvation, and so anything that felt like a sin caused me hours or days of terror.

You and I are naturally sinful people.  As Paul points out to us, particularly in the book of Romans, sinful people can never perfectly obey God’s commands.  In fact, that is one of the reasons God gives us commands – so we can realize how little we actually want to live God’s way.  When Jesus calls us to not make a show of our fasting, he knows how prone to pride we are.  But over and over I have seen the flash of guilt go across someone’s face who is fasting because they have to tell me they are to avoid an awkward situation without lying or making an excuse.  I also know that the look of guilt probably includes feelings of pride about the act of fasting, or fear of “losing the reward.”  So here is my advice…

When fasting, be totally up front with people about it.  If they tease you playfully or make a big deal about it, just roll with the punches.  If you feel a flash of pride fill your veins, confess it to God.  Talk about it to him and realize the forgiveness that is yours through Jesus’ death on the cross.  But keep at the fast, and realize that if left to us we would lose every reward.  Let the weakness that the fast exposes make you more grateful for the cross of Christ.  Meditate on the reality that it is Christ’ sacrifice, not yours, that wins the reward and receives that which is asked for.  That, after all, is the whole reason why we pray in Jesus’ name.

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Rhythm and Repetition in Spiritual Growth

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

“…And there was evening and there was morning, the first day…” – Genesis 1:5

Nichole and I have begun to have a little devotional time together in the mornings before we do anything else.  Practicing a corporate devotion has always been difficult for us.  I think that primarily I had been trying to make too much of our devotional time.  I would want to cover a huge portion of scripture, pray through a long list of loved ones and acquaintances, and maybe talk about what stuck out to us in the Bible passage.  It was always hard to work this into our crazy mornings (we both worked retail at the time), so we would do these devotions at night.  They became burdensome.  Neither of us looked forward to the process, and I would often cause Nichole to feel guilty if she was too tired to go through the routine.  I was making God a burden.

In our own Pentecostal tradition, we have an almost genetic aversion to “ritual” and “tradition,” even though much of what we do in church is very predictable – even the charismatic things we do tend to follow a rather set pattern of waiting-building-climax-descending-afterglow.  Other Christian traditions, which at times we too cavalierly assume are “dead” or “liberal,” deliberately make use of repetition and pattern in worship.  They call it the liturgy.  They gather, hear from God and speak back to him in Psalms, corporately confess their sin, receive assurance of forgiveness through Jesus, worship physically through offering or communion, and are commissioned and sent out as ambassadors for Jesus.  The pattern itself is intended to have a formative role in the life of the believer.  The introduction of liberal theology into many of the older denominations, and the sacramental mysticism of some traditions, should not cause us to disqualify the entire liturgical project as spiritually bankrupt or “not for us.”  There is food for the soul in all of this, just as there absolutely must be room for the freedom and power of God in the worship service to heal and surprise – which is the critical reminder Pentecostals give to the Christian Church.

Nichole’s and my devotion has become simple.  It is new to us as a couple and has come out of a devotional practice I had developed for myself.  I read one page out of a devotional by John Stott designed to overview the biblical narrative over the course of a year.  Then Nichole or I read some Psalms.  We have a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, and the Psalms in it are divided evenly into daily readings (Psalm 119 takes a few days to get through his way).  Then I close in prayer, thanking God for what the Scripture portions spoke about and asking God’s blessing on the day.  It all takes about ten minutes.  The formative value of it has a cumulative effect – like eating a salad every day or exercising three times a week.  In time, you are healthier than you were.  Eating one giant salad once or running a marathon on impulse doesn’t have the same effect.  It is the same with Sunday worship.  Going to church once might not make a big difference.  The sermon might not excite me and the worship might not make me cry.  But if my week is defined by the weekly act of worshiping God  and hearing his Word preached corporately together with his people, the cumulative effect will be health and growth – together with the challenges and privileges of being a part of God’s church.

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The Childhood of Jesus

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

The Christmas holiday is a time for Christians to focus on certain details of Jesus’ life and message that are often overlooked the rest of the year.  We do not often consider, for example, how vulnerable our Savior allowed himself to become by being born a little baby.  The incarnation could have happened in such a way that Jesus came as an adult, or even a wise old man.  If his public ministry did not begin until he was thirty, what were all of those earlier years about?

The Bible tells us that Jesus knows what it is like to be tempted, because he has faced all of the same temptations that we face (see Hebrews 4:15).  So for Jesus, all of the challenges of life are familiar because of his incarnation.  We tend to think of this in the context of his adult life, especially his temptations in the wilderness after his baptism.  But if Jesus knows what the struggles of our lives are like, can that apply less to a child or teenager than to an adult?  Is Jesus unaware of the personal confusion of adolescence?  Does Jesus not know what it is like to be disciplined imperfectly by imperfect parents?

The childhood and adolescence of Jesus means that he DOES know what these things are like – and not simply by analogy.  Where an adult might laugh at a teenager or child, that their problems are not “real” problems, Jesus knows otherwise.  If childhood sin is still sin, then childhood challenges are still challenges.  And Jesus knows what that is like.  This is one of the many dimensions of the incarnation of the Son of God, which we celebrate at Christmas time.

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Life Together

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

I have begun to reread, I think for the third time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic book on Christian Fellowship, Life Together. For anyone wanting to read a book by Bonhoeffer, this is perhaps his easiest read – it is short, clear, and profoundly practical.

For anyone unfamiliar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was a young German Lutheran pastor who lived during the time of Hitler’s Third Reich.  Having left Germany to reside safely in England and America, he chose to return to his homeland so he could run an underground seminary for the Confessing Church.  The Nazi party had made Protestant churches in Germany adopt pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish documents into their confessions and polity, and appointed Nazi party bishops to oversee them.  When some pastors and theologians resisted this corruption, they called themselves the Confessing Church and signed a document called the Theological Declaration of Barmen, in which Jesus Christ was held up as the only head of the church – directly opposing the Nazis’ desire to be both head of church and state in Germany.

Eventually Bonhoeffer became convinced that it was more evil not to forcefully resist Hitler than it would be to do so.  He distanced himself from the Confessing Church so they would not share in the blame and took part in an assassination attempt on Hitler’s life.  The attempt failed, and Bonhoeffer was arrested along with the other conspirators.  He was eventually hanged – a few days before the concentration camp he was in was liberated by the Allies.  Prior to his arrest, while he was still overseeing the underground seminary, Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together as a sort of “community rule” for the seminary.  It is simple and profound.

I have just finished the first chapter.  I picked up Life Together because I was wanting some sort of guidance on the challenges of living the Christian life in community.  Chapter one is the most theological, and in it the author has some profound points to make.  (The rest of the book is quite good too.  It takes only a day or two to read)

In chapter one, Bonhoeffer shows us what a privilege it is to be in community.  Prisoners, overseas missionaries, the ill and the elderly, among many others, often do not have the opportunity for regular Christian fellowship.  At times, for them, a visit or a letter provides the only real fellowship they experience.  For those of us fortunate enough for daily Christian interaction it is usually taken for granted and often treated as a burden.

Bonhoeffer also shows that Christian fellowship is a FACT, not a goal.  Christians are brothers and sisters because of Jesus Christ and his work on the Cross, not because of anything we have done (including choosing to go to church with each other).  This both frees us and obligates us.  It frees us from trying to create an idealized community.  Indeed, any effort to do so amounts to manipulation and usually ends in disaster and disillusionment.  It frees us from “immediate” relationships, where the strong personalities dominate the weak personalities.  And it gives us the privilege and responsibility of “mediated” relationships.

Between each of us stands Jesus Christ.  I am not saved by my sister in Christ, nor is she saved by me.  Your needs are not ultimately met by me and mine are not ultimately met by you.  Our efforts to love each other often become avenues to manipulation and control, but if we allow Jesus Christ to stand between each of us, our tendency will be to pray for one another, to love one another out of love for Jesus and according to Jesus’ definition of love instead of our own.  If we practice “mediated” relationships, we will give and love and serve – but we will allow ourselves and others the freedom given us all in Christ.  Fleshly, human love is eros and it is characterized by desire and one person’s “absorption” of another.  Godly love is agape and it serves the other in freedom and joy.  We can serve one another with this freedom and joy because our relationship with each other has not been created by us, is not up to us, and is not designed to meet our expectations.

The entire first chapter of Life Together is quotable, but I will limit myself to this:

“The Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification.  It is a gift of God which we cannot claim.  Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification.  What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God.  Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.…Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” (p.30, emphasis added)

And one final note of wisdom from our friend Dietrich: we can’t just have a bunch of purely “spiritual” relationships.  If we try, we will not be able to tell what is “natural” from what is “spiritual” and will again fall prey to unrealistic ideals.  Friendships, marriages, and families exist within the Christian community – but not all members of the community are friends with everyone else, and we are a family through and because of Jesus, not because we choose to live without personal boundaries with each other.  Christ has set us free – free to love him and each other.  ”We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for eternity” (p.26).

Lets live in the costly freedom of Christ.

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Waiting on the Lord: The Season of Advent

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

This year at VICC we are going to be celebrating the season of Advent leading up to Christmas day.  ”Advent” means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season of Advent in the Christian church has a twofold significance.  First, it is a time for believers to enter into the life of Israel as they awaited the coming of their Messiah, Jesus.  Because Christmas is such a commercialized holiday in America, we tend to think of the Christmas Season as already having begun.  But in the church calendar, the Christmas season BEGINS on Christmas day.  The season prior to Christmas is Advent, and it is all about waiting and anticipation.

Traditionally, the Advent season is also a time for the Christian church to spend contemplating the return of Jesus to establish his kingdom – Christ’s Second Advent.  This year, the texts for the first Sunday of Advent in the Revised Common Lectionary (which many churches use to guide their Scripture reading and preaching throughout the year, thus allowing most of the Bible to be covered in the course of three years) focus upon the return of Jesus Christ – for example, the Gospel text is from Mark 13.  So during the Advent season not only do we enter into the anticipation that ancient Israel felt as they awaited their Savior, we also take the time to focus on the Savior’s return in power and glory to judge and to save.

So take time this Advent season to contemplate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Spend some time reading the messianic promises of Isaiah and the Psalms.  What would it be like to not know Christ with the fullness we have begun to know him?  What will it be like to know him face to face on that glorious Day?  As you shop for Christmas gifts for your loved ones, think about the gift God gave us through the birth of his eternal Son.  If you forgo giving gifts this year and choose instead to simply spend time with the ones you love, remember that on that first Christmas day, the Second Person of the Trinity also decided that the best gift he could give was to come among those he loved so that this love could be manifest to the world.

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Jesus and Caesar

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…” Luke 2:1 (ESV)

I was going to call this post, “Who’s Bigger, God or Your Problems?,” but I decided against it.  In a society, especially an evangelical Christian society, that talks about God primarily in terms of how he meets our needs, I felt like a title like that would only perpetuate the problem.  The fact of the matter is, God is always bigger than our challenges.  But that doesn’t mean that he always plans on removing or changing them, or that his will is somehow being thwarted because we don’t have much money in our savings account.  When it comes down to it, God probably does not define our problems the way we define them, and many of our prayers might go unanswered simply because we are asking God to take something away that he has put in our paths on purpose.

In our small group last night, the issue of the end times came up.  The context was the growing threat from radical Muslims, the changes in American society, and generally just the growing lack of security for Christian people in the West.  Today online, I noticed that a former co-worker who shares some radically different views than me put up a post about how marriage as an institution should be done away with because it exists to oppress women and enforce patriarchal male-dominated gender roles.  While I was reading this, my (un-oppressed) wife and I started to have a worried conversation about finances.  Between radical Muslims who apparently want to kill me, a culture that seems to be dismantling itself for fun, and an empty bank account a week before payday, it can certainly be tempting to give up.  Time to recluse, complain, and wait for the Rapture.

When Jesus Christ was born into this world, there was a man on the throne in Rome whose claims were not all that different from those Jesus would make.  Caesar Augustus was the son of Julius Caesar, Rome’s first emperor.  Augustus had his father worshiped as a god.  Coins in Rome called Augustus “the Son of God” and the subjugated people of the Roman empire called him “soter,” or “savior.”  Caesar Augustus had restored peace and order to the empire.  In loyalty and gratitude, the people of the empire confessed, “Caesar is Lord.”  He had given them security and hope.

During Augustus’ reign, in the little town of Bethlehem, the miraculous son of a poor, blue-collar couple was born.  The Son of God, born of the virgin Mary and raised by her and her husband Joseph (a construction worker), had come into the world.  He had nothing to say about Caesar, but much to say about the kingdom of his own Heavenly Father.  He had no interest in raising an army and almost never admitted to being the long awaited Messiah.  Historians of the day, both Roman and Jewish, have almost nothing to say about this child who became a man, who went to the cross and who rose from the dead.  His precursor, John the Baptist, gets mention by the Jewish historian Josephus.  The political parties and violent would-be Messiah’s get a lot of attention in Josephus and Tacitus and other historians of the time.  But not Jesus.  His movement would meet criticism, fear, and misunderstanding in the writings of the Roman historians and government leaders as they faced execution for refusing to confess that “Caesar is Lord.”  The Christians were killed not for their religion but for their politics.  Their refusal to worship Caesar meant disloyalty to the empire.  But the Christians disobeyed Rome not because of their politics, but because of their faith in the One who had died for their sins.  They knew the culture wasn’t theirs, and just wanted to obey Jesus.

As you and I look at the world in astonishment and confusion, lets not act like there was a time in the past when faith in the gospel was popular or being a Christian was easier.  An honest look at history, even “Christian” history or “American” history, will prove us wrong.  As you and I read and hear things that astound us or tempt us to become angry and offended, lets remember that Jesus told us to pray for those we might consider enemies.  As you and I become fearful because we can’t pay our bills, because we aren’t being healed, or because our loved ones seem not to love us or God in return, lets realize that our crises are not too big for God.  But instead of developing an attitude of escapism or frustration, lets remember that Jesus told us to pray for the kingdom to come on earth as in heaven, and to seek this kingdom more than food, clothing, and “security.”  If we do that, then all our needs will be met, even if our “felt needs” like political security and a large savings account don’t always materialize.

 

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Why Membership?

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

**We recently had a new member class.  The material we’re using for the class is new and created in house.  I thought I would take this time to share the introductory page to the class: “Why Membership?”  It’s a good reminder to us all that, in our culture, practicing congregational membership is one way that VICC is attempting to walk out New Testament Christianity.**

Why do we practice membership here at Vashon Island Community Church?  Isn’t every Christian a member of the one true church?  If so, why join a specific church as a “member”?

These are valid questions.  Every true Christian, the moment he or she is born again, becomes a member of the worldwide, history-wide Christian church (1 Corinthians 12:13). We all, as believers, are members of the body of Christ.  But here at VICC, we believe it is extremely important for a Christian believer to commit oneself to a specific group of fellow believers.  Why?

First, the Bible says that we are not to neglect meeting together with other Christians (Hebrews 10:24-25). Many believers take this to mean merely that it’s important to have Christian friends, or to make sure to go to church somewhere as often as it’s convenient.  However, hanging out with Christian friends means that we are the one’s choosing which believers we will spend time with.  Church hopping means that we are around a lot of other Christians but usually don’t have a real relationship with almost any of them.  Choosing to become a member of a specific congregation means choosing to be in Christian fellowship with a diverse group of fellow believers.  The people gathered together into one congregation often have very different backgrounds, different life experiences, different political opinions, and different income levels.  Often the only thing that brought these people together is their faith in Jesus.  This presents both benefits and challenges in relating to one another and learning from one another.  It is, however, vitally important to personal and spiritual maturity to get along with and learn from people different than oneself.  Jesus has saved a lot of different kinds of people, so who are we to choose which ones we are going to be around?

Second, our culture at large tends not to promote commitment to others.  Marriages are breaking up more and more.  Popular culture promotes the individual.  Common forms of recreation and entertainment such as video games, the internet, and iPods, while not bad in themselves, can become a means of social isolation for many.  Even in Christian culture there are so many popular preachers and authors that it can be easy to pick a favorite, follow his or her ministry, and decide that there aren’t any local preachers who “measure up.”  Combine that with how difficult it can be at times to get along with folks at church and staying at home on a Sunday morning starts looking pretty good.  Committing to a church through membership is one way of saying that you don’t view your relationship to this congregation as having a revolving door: “Easy in, easy out.”  The leadership and longtime members of VICC are committed to the Lord and to health of this church.  We are asking that you commit to these as well.

Third, membership is our means of having a formal structure that allows us to take votes on important decisions that affect the entire congregation.  Without membership, there would be no easy way to isolate the opinions of those who are committed and care about this church from those who just happened to be around on a particular Sunday.

 

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Illness, Suffering, and the Gospel

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us…And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8:18, 23 ESV

Our church confesses that we believe in “the healing of the human body in answer to believing prayer.”  Looking at the New Testament, it is abundantly clear that signs and wonders, particularly signs of healing, accompanied gospel preaching as a witness to the power of the risen Jesus (cf. Acts 3:12-16, 4:29-30, 5:14-16, etc.).  Miracles such as healing were probably part of the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” that Paul exercised in Corinth (1 Corinthians 2:3-5) as a validation of his “weak” and “foolish” gospel preaching.  And even in the absence of an apostle, miracles were a verifiable and perhaps even regular occurrence in the lives of the Galatian Christians – so much so that Paul could use this fact in his polemic against works-righteousness in his letter to them (see Galatians 3:5).

All of this leads us to an obvious conclusion: God heals!  And he does so even in the absence of an apostle.  Unless it can be shown from Scripture (and it can’t) that healing and other signs ceased with the completion of the New Testament canon, then it is not unreasonable to expect God to work the miraculous at times in our lives today.  But does this mean that he ALWAYS will?  If he doesn’t heal us, is that always OUR fault?

I am the first to admit that I struggle to believe God for the miraculous.  In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul tells us that some are given the gift of faith (by which he means extraordinary faith), some are given the ability to work miracles, and some are given gifts of healings (notice the plural!) while others in the church body are not.  And while Paul here has in mind the body as it is functioning in corporate worship, the principle applies across the board.  God has answered my prayers amazingly at times.  Sometimes he has answered them through quite ordinary means.  But he has never, to my knowledge, miraculously healed someone through me.  I hope someday he will, but he has not yet.  On the other hand, I know people who have been healed and people who have been used to heal others.  God is sovereign in the distribution of his gifts.  He works through one of us one way and others of us in another way.

God has worked miracles most often in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel.  Not only in the New Testament but throughout church history, when the gospel has reached a new or particularly difficult people group, the Holy Spirit has worked miracles to validate the message.  An honest reading of the Scriptures will show that this is the primary reason for the sign gifts in the church.  One reason God does not heal many of us in the Western church is our long heritage of gospel knowledge.  While the good news might be “news” to our neighbors, it shouldn’t be to us.  God should already have our hearts.  He should not need to “win” us.

Healing is primarily a gift given to validate the gospel, but suffering is a gift given to believers to mature us and cause us to long for Christ’s return.  In our text at the beginning, Paul tells us that we “groan” and long for “the redemption of our bodies.”  Our suffering causes us to desire resurrection.  We want to be restored.  And physical healing, if it comes at all, is only temporary restoration.  Unless Christ returns in our lifetime, our healed bodies will only have to get sick again or die some other way.  God may remove one pain, but he never promised to remove ALL pain in this life.  Pain and suffering are facts of life in a fallen world.  Who are we to think sickness should never touch us? Especially since our own sins have contributed to the problem! God may heal, but he does not have to – even when we really, really believe he will.

So as we suffer our day to day aches and pains, and even as we face devastating illness, lets first and foremost hold onto the hope that God gives us through the gospel message: Jesus Christ has died for our sins.  We are forgiven and accepted by God.  God will care for us, be with us, and provide for us.  And our future lies with him.  Today we experience pain and illness, but one day we will know what it really means to live.  Hallelujah!

 

 

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Doing “the Faith” Together

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska, Associate Pastor

Americans are, by nature, fiercely individualistic.  American Christians are no different.  We tend to do our Christianity solo, or in small pockets of like-minded compatriots.  Sometimes, to cover this up, we attend really big churches.  But for anyone who has ever experienced both city life and small town life, you know that large crowds actually breed anonymity rather than community.  Small towns (or small churches) are of course not any better than big cities (or big churches).  It is simply a fact that smaller communities (and by this I don’t mean the small, “mutual admiration societies” we sometimes create for ourselves) tend to speed up the uncomfortable closeness required for actual community to happen.  In big cities and big churches, often the entire struggle is simply to find any kind of real community.  Those who find it should consider themselves blessed.

Last night we had the third week of our Tuesday night Supper and Study.  The Scripture text was Isaiah 60-61, much of which is about what God will do for Israel when he establishes his kingdom.  For most of my Christian life, I have always read the prophetic books of the Old Testament in a rather “spiritualized” way.  Reading Isaiah, for me, was never all that different from reading the Psalms.  The text of course had to do with what was happening in the author’s own life, and was also about the future.  But usually I read the text in a way that allowed me to meditate on how the promises and warnings in some way touched on my own life.  Others in our group last night were enraptured by God’s faithfulness to Israel and how the text spoke to that.  In times past I would have been uncomfortable with the “confidence” they expressed over “when” these Scriptures would find their fulfillment.  I still expect that God will surprise us more than we think he will.  But the more I spend time with other saints whose passion is Israel and the Jewish people, and who read the prophets in as straightforward and literal manner as possible, the more I find myself thinking like them, reading Scripture like them, and believing like them.

Our faith is not supposed to develop in lonely isolation.  Of course, we hear a lot about needing to serve each other and love each other, and if someone is new to the faith we remember to teach each other.  But all of us, if we are attentive to the Spirit and immersed in the Word of God, or if we are simply living our lives by faith in Jesus, imperfect though we are,  ALL of us have something to teach each other.  We all need to learn.  We are human and, like Jesus’ disciples in the gospels, we often do not really understand what our Lord is saying.  However, we are also born again, and the Spirit of God is our teacher (see 1 John 2:27).  Of course, what the Spirit teaches us is faith in Jesus, as he illuminates our hearts to understand the Word of God and the gospel message.  But one of the often overlooked ways the Spirit teaches us is through each another.  Are we listening to him?

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