THE COST OF FOLLOWING JESUS

Devotional for September 3, 2017 based upon Matthew 16: 21-28

There is a price for following Jesus. There is a cost to discipleship. There is much more involved in being a Christ-follower than simply coming to church on Sunday mornings.

Jesus does not invite us just to be His casual acquaintances. Rather He invites us to be His disciples. His fully devoted followers. Jesus is fully devoted to you. Are you fully devoted to Jesus? In Matthew 16 Jesus tells us what being a disciple – a fully devoted follower of Jesus – looks like.

First, FULLY DEVOTED FOLLOWERS OF JESUS ARE COMMITTED TO FOLLOWING GOD’S PLAN RATHER THAN THEIR OWN PLAN.

Peter in his enthusiasm objects to Jesus’ prediction of His own death. Matthew tells us that Peter rebukes Jesus – which is a strong word. To rebuke means that Peter is trying to set Jesus straight. In the excitement of hearing Jesus say, “Upon this rock I will build my church,” Peter must have had the misconception that now he and Jesus are business partners. They are co-equals. So with a show of great audacity, he tries to correct Jesus. Jesus has to put Peter back into his place. He says, “Get behind me, Satan! You are stumbling block to me. You are putting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Jesus tells His disciples that He was now going to die, but He will be raised. Peter likes his own idea better, so he tries to set Jesus straight. Jesus has to make it very clear to Peter, “I do not need you to tell Me what to do. I do not need to change My way of thinking to yours. Rather you need to change your way of thinking to Mine. You need to be committed to God’s plan rather than to your own plan.”

And it works the same way for us. If we want to be fully devoted followers of Jesus, then we must be committed to His plan rather to our own plan for our lives. But here’s the good news. His plan is always better. It is often harder, but it is always better. Like Peter, we need to set our minds on divine things rather than on human things.

Second, FULLY DEVOTED FOLLOWERS OF JESUS ARE PREPARED TO PAY THE PRICE. And what is the price? Jesus said, “If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me.” Jesus mentions three things – deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Me.

“Deny yourself.” The Christian life is a life of saying “no” to me and “yes” to God. Jesus does not say that I am to deny myself of some thing – like chocolate during Lent. Rather I am to deny myself.

“God, I really want to get even with that guy. I want to teach him a lesson.” But it does not matter that I want. It only matters what God wants. So I need to treat him in the way that God wants me to treat him. Denying myself means that I must repay his unkindness with kindness. And denying myself is not a one-time event, but a lifestyle. Saying “no” to me and “yes” to God in every area of my life.

“Take up your cross.” Have you ever heard people use the phrase, “That is the cross I bear.” Like, “My husband is a pain, but that is the cross I bear.” “My children are out of control, but that is the cross I bear.” “My arthritis is acting up, but that is cross I bear.” But a cross is not a burden or a pain, but a place of death. The cross represents the ways in which I need to die. Die to my selfishness, sinfulness, self-centeredness. Die to my value system and to every thought, desire, and action that does not honor Christ and does not advance the cause of Christ.

Luke adds the word “daily.” In Luke 9 Jesus tells us that we are to take up our cross daily. Taking up the cross is an ongoing mindset – a continual attitude – a daily lifestyle.

“Follow Me.” Which is the real objective of the Christian life – to follow Jesus. To do things the way that Jesus would do them.

Third, FULLY DEVOTED FOLLOWERS OF JESUS GIVE UP WHAT THEY CANNOT KEEP TO GAIN WHAT THEY CANNOT LOSE.

Being a Christian does not mean just coming to church and putting a little something in the offering plate. Rather it means giving your life – all of your life – to Jesus. It means giving all of your hopes, desires, dreams, and plans – everything that is of value to you – to Jesus. Being a Christian makes a difference in the way you approach your career, marriage, and family. It makes a difference in the way you approach your use of your time and your finances. It makes a difference in the way you relate to friends and to strangers. It encompasses every aspect of your life every moment of your life.

Jesus said that if you hold on to your life and live completely for yourself – for your own personal desires, goals, and dreams – you will end up with nothing. If you give all those things and surrender your life to Jesus, you will end up with everything.

Fully devoted followers of Jesus are committed to following God’s plan rather than their own plan, are prepared to pay the price, and give up what they cannot keep to gain what they cannot lose. According to those three criteria, are you a fully devoted follower of Jesus?

Dennis D. Nelson

President of the Board and Director of Lutheran CORE

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR – JUNE 2017

Dear Friends of Lutheran CORE –

The June 2017 letter from the director will be in two parts. This first part is coming to you as we anticipate the summit on pastoral formation, which is only a week away. You will receive the second part after the summit, as we share with you ways in which God blessed our time together.

A week from today, June 21, the board of Lutheran CORE will be gathering at Grand View University in Des Moines with ten invited participants from four different Lutheran church bodies to wrestle with the question –

How can we best raise up, nurture, and support a whole new generation of Lutheran pastors who will be Biblical and confessional in their theology and evangelistic/outreach-oriented in their perspective and practice?

We are very grateful to all the friends of Lutheran CORE who are praying for the gathering. We also wish to thank all those who have given a gift in support of this event.

On the day of the summit we will be distributing information about the summit through posts on the blog on the home page of our website, www.lutherancore.org. Each blog post will then go out on Facebook and Twitter, so that you will be able to follow the progress of the discussions. Also, a member of our board will be recording the audio and posting it as a podcast on his blog. A blog post on our website will then be created, which will have a link to the audio post on his website. Please join us through electronic media and follow along with the discussions as they take place on the day of the summit.

Recent events have convinced me even more of the importance of this gathering. Every orthodox Lutheran should be alarmed over the movement that has risen out of the student body at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. Taking the name “We Are Naked and Unashamed,” this group rejects marriage by any definition as normative for sexual relationships. There are some who would dismiss our concerns by saying, “It is only a group of seminarians who are promoting this.” We would respond, “But the list of signers also includes many pastors and other ELCA leaders.” And even if it were only a group of seminarians, just the fact that so many seminarians are advocating for ELCA approval of sexual intimacy and cohabitation outside of marriage should cause great concern for the future of the church. And the fact that we are not aware of any statement from the administration of the seminary, the Council of Bishops, and/or Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton rejecting this movement should also cause great concern. A link to the website of the movement can be found here (LINK), while a link to Lutheran CORE’s response can be found here (LINK).

If that were not enough, a recent letter from the president-elect of United Lutheran Seminary, formed by the merger of the ELCA seminaries in Philadelphia and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, should also raise concerns.

A link to that letter can be found here (LINK to pastoral-letter-from-president-elect-latini). Dr. Latini’s May 5 letter does contain some Biblical and theological language, such as “On the cross, Jesus cried out, ‘It is finished;’ ” “Through Christ, we have been reconciled to God and one another by the power of the Spirit;” “In baptism, we participate in Christ’s death and resurrection;” and “In Christ, all things hold together.” But beyond that it sounds like a compilation of all the typical ELCA phrases, priorities, and agenda items. There is no sense that under her leadership it will be a priority of the seminary to raise up pastors who will know and love the Bible, know the Lutheran confessions, and are prepared to lead and care for local congregations. Instead the priorities are to train people who will value diversity, work towards genuine equity, and include marginalized groups. Prior to being elected as president of United Theological Seminary, Dr. Latini has been associate dean of diversity and cultural competency at another seminary. It sounds like she will be pursuing the same priorities as she writes, “Cultural competency is the intentional commitment and active engagement in unlearning racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and other forms of bias institutionally and individually.” She does make it sound religious – and even Lutheran – when she says, “Peacemaking, nonviolence, and cultural competency can be understood and practiced in light of the theology of the cross.” But she also reveals her priorities when she writes, “When we hear God’s YES, we stand in solidarity with those who suffer most under oppressive systems and structures.”

Now I for one am all in favor of peacemaking, nonviolence, and standing in solidarity with those who suffer under oppressive systems and structures. I totally agree that what we believe must impact what we do and how we live for our witness to have any credibility. But I know that when I personally entered seminary, I did not know the Bible and the Lutheran confessions well enough so that I did not need a seminary that would teach me the Scriptures and how the great Lutheran theological writings help me to understand the Scriptures. Also, during the forty years that I served as pastor of a congregation, I needed a whole range of skills beyond peacemaking, nonviolence, and cultural competency.

I think of the apostle Paul and his letters to churches. Even more so as Paul was reaching out to the Greco-Roman world, he was encountering people who did not have any idea at all of the story of God’s accomplishing His great work of salvation through the history of the nation of Israel and the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. So in his preaching and letter writing he first had to teach the people the basic essentials of the Christian faith. Typically in his letters he spends the first half or so talking about what is true, what we should believe, and what God has done, and then the second half talking about what is right, how we should live, and what we should do.

If we lived in a day when everybody – all members of churches, all people whom our congregations are seeking to reach, all seminary students, and even everyone anticipating attending seminary – already knew the Bible and the Lutheran confessions, it would make sense to focus seminary education on peacemaking, nonviolence, and cultural competency. But in a day when most people do not know the basics of our faith, and members of our churches and even many people preparing for seminary, have only a limited knowledge of the Bible and the Lutheran confessions, then seminary education needs a different focus.

We certainly pray for Dr. Latini as she begins her work as president of United Lutheran Seminary. And we also pray for the leadership, faculty, and student body of every one of the Lutheran seminaries. But we also pray that God will use the upcoming summit on pastoral formation to begin a new movement of raising up pastors who know, love, value, believe, and obey the Bible and who are committed to helping people come into a faith relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

Blessings in Christ,

Dennis D. Nelson

President of the Board and Director of Lutheran CORE

909-274-8591

dennisdnelsonaz@yahoo.com

This is Lutheran CORE’s response, dated April 2017, to the “Naked and Unashamed” movement, which has come out of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.  CORE is doubly concerned because it is unaware of any response from the administration and faculty of the seminary, the ELCA Council of Bishops, and Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton rejecting or distancing the ELCA from this movement.

RESPONSE TO “NAKED AND UNASHAMED”

ELCA PASTORS AND SEMINARIANS NOT ASHAMED

TO REVEAL BLATANT AGENDA

In 2009 the ELCA Churchwide Assembly rejected as normative the traditional, Biblical definition of marriage as it approved changes to policy and practice which allowed for the endorsing of and ordaining persons in publicly accountable, “lifelong, monogamous, same gender relationships.”  There is now a movement within the ELCA which would reject any definition of marriage as normative for sexual relationships.

Known as “Naked and Unashamed,” this movement was started by seminarians at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and since then has been reaching out to other pastors, leaders, and seminary students in the ELCA who share their beliefs and values.  Their purpose and agenda are clearly revealed on their website, www.wearenakedandunashamed.org, which contains such statements as the following in regard to current ELCA policy and practice –

• “The limited and hierarchical focus on marriage and family life over alternative forms of relationality is oppressive, preferential, manipulative, and culturally irrelevant to the variety of healthy sexual, emotional, contractual, and/or romantic expressions that could be part of an appropriate Christian lifestyle.”
• “Life and liberty are being oppressed in the pressure for church leaders to be in marital relationships, or otherwise abstain from all sexual intimacy.”
• “Marriage is not the only healthy relationship model within which sexuality can be safely enjoyed.”

As seminarians and pastors who have recently been ordained, they are objecting to “overt policies and direct questioning during the ELCA candidacy process that disallow sexual intimacy, cohabitation, and committed relationality outside of civil marriage.”

What can those who hold to the traditional, Biblical view of marriage as a life-long, committed relationship between one man and one woman, and even those who hold to what was approved in August 2009, which allowed for the ordaining of persons in publicly accountable, “lifelong, monogamous, same gender relationships,” now expect?  Based upon experience of what happened before, we can only expect that those who wish to reject marriage altogether are going to pursue their agenda relentlessly until they achieve their goals, and once they do so, then all conversation is to stop and anyone who still advocates for the traditional view, and even the approved-in-2009 view, will be criticized for being disruptive, divisive, schismatic, and trouble-making.  That is what happened during the time leading up to and since the August 2009 decisions.  Why should we expect it to be any different this time?

Never is there any Biblical basis given for this group’s thinking.  And why would we expect that there would be?  Just as the documents that were approved by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in 2009 were based not upon the Bible, but upon psychology, sociology, and the dynamics that build trust between and among people, so this group is arguing for their desired changes on the basis of such vague reasons as “the common good,” the fact that they are “healthy” and “life giving,” “the plethora of stories we hear,” and “our values and lived experience.”  

Even in their use of the phrase, “Naked and Unashamed,” this group is turning its back on the Bible’s description of God’s judgment and mercy.  Adam and Eve were described as “naked and unashamed” before their distrust of God’s word and their disobedience.  Their transgression caused them to be ashamed, to hide, to clothe themselves in fig leaves.  Their self-justification was their primary clothing.  When God sent them out of Eden, He gave them something better.  He did not send them into the world “naked and unashamed” to make a “fresh start” of things.  Rather He clothed them even more fully – with the skins of animals who died in their place, as a forerunner of Jesus who would die in our place and whose blood would be shed to cover our sins.

According to the Lutheran understanding of the Bible, God gives us a “fresh start” in baptism.  Spiritually we go into the water naked.  Our old, sinful, deathly self is drowned in Jesus’ own death for our sake.  And when we rise in the power of His resurrection, we are immediately clothed in white robes that signify that we are more fully clothed in the righteousness, purity, and holiness of Jesus Himself.  As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: 4, in our redemption in Christ we are not unclothed.  We are more fully clothed!

This group’s website claims that the ELCA’s teaching, expectations, and documents surrounding sexuality are “heteronormative, white-centric, economically oppressive, and non-Lutheran.”  Standards of monogamy, commitment, and chastity are deemed oppressive and demeaning.  Ideals of faithfulness and purity are rejected.  Biblical norms of “life together” are dismissed as the invention of elite, wealthy, and white Europeans.  This group asserts that other cultures have different understandings of sexual good.  In so doing, they are not only ignoring the very staunch standards for sexuality of our African fellow Lutherans, they are also ignoring the stringent sexual ethics of the Old and New Testaments, which certainly are neither elite, wealthy, white, nor European.  

Those who thought and hoped that the decisions of August 2009 to accept same gender relationships if they are publicly accountable, lifelong, and monogamous would be enough, would satisfy those who were pressing for changes, and would be as far as this issue would go, should be alarmed to read on this group’s website that they reject those decisions because of the way in which those standards define what is a “decent and acceptable marriage in the ELCA.”  They reject the 2009 decisions because they say that “acceptable same-gender relationships must look the same as acceptable heterosexual relationships.”  

The documents of this group even give a place for advocating for polyamory (multiple partners), as evidenced in these statements.  

• “This is what we are pushing back on:  the idea that one person in your life must be the one whom you trust the most, and with whom you simultaneously work together financially, domestically, sexually, emotionally, and parentally.”
• “There exists in the ELCA multiple positions on (several different relational patterns are listed, including polyamory).  We lift this multiplicity up and demand that its full diversity be recognized within the Christian lifestyle in our church.”

There is no sense of marriage as based upon our creation as male and female, and as given its most perfect expression in the model of God’s faithful and permanent love for His people and Jesus the bridegroom’s love for the Church, His bride.  Rather this group says that “understanding and practices of marriage, relationality, and sexuality also change over time, and must be understood as contextual.”  There are “many possible forms of ‘Christian’ relationality, just as we see diverse forms of Christian worship.”  To see different expressions of sexuality as no more significant than the difference between traditional and contemporary worship would be absurd if it were not so alarming.

This group makes absolutely no mention of the long-standing and profound Biblical linkage between sexual sin and idolatry.  At the risk of being gross and offensive, I would refer you to an article entitled, “My clitoris keeps my faith alive,” posted on the “Stories” page of the “Naked and Unashamed” website.  A seminary Ph. D. student writes, “My clitoris became a gateway to the mystery of God’s presence. . . . My clitoris became more than an organ of pleasure, but a piece of heaven within me.”

How is this different from the pagan sexuality and fertility cults of the Canaanites, which the Bible clearly condemns?  This is idolatry, making a god out of part of my own body.  This is what the apostle Paul described in Romans 1: 25 as he talked about those who “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”

Any faithful member of the ELCA should be absolutely alarmed to see this kind of thinking coming out of one of the ELCA seminaries.  Our concern for the future should be in overdrive, as we realize that our future pastors are being exposed to this kind of thinking during their seminary training.  Since this group is focusing especially on sexual ethics for pastoral candidates, are they saying that if a pastor or pastoral candidate has sex with a prostitute, it is okay, as long as s/he is respected as a sex worker?  Are they implying that if a congregation is not able to pay within guidelines, then a pastor or pastoral candidate is free to sell sexual favors to supplement income – again, as long as it is done in a healthy, life-giving, respectful, and mutually beneficial fashion?

This past February we were all reading and hearing with great alarm about the Oroville Dam in northern California.  Because of unusually heavy rains, the dam’s main and emergency spillways were significantly damaged, prompting the evacuation of more than 180, 000 people living downstream.  Those who oversee the Oroville Dam would be grossly irresponsible if they were to not take any and all necessary measures to repair the damage and ensure the future integrity of the dam.  Will the leadership of the ELCA – the Presiding Bishop, the Church Council, the Council of Bishops, those who oversee the ELCA’s seminaries – say, “Enough is enough; this has gone too far; this is not what was voted on and approved at the Churchwide Assembly in 2009”?  Or will they allow the damage and the erosion of Biblical values to continue – at probably an ever increasing rate?

Dennis D. Nelson

President of the Board and Director of Lutheran CORE