Church Planters Identify With The People

 

Hello my brother, hello my sister, my name is Dean Davis and this is Multiply, a podcast that provides a word of encouragement for village church planters.

Most people think that God is far away and unconcerned about the problems they are going through. Animists spend a lot of time trying to protect themselves from evil spirits. Some try to cause evil spirits to harm others.  They use charms and curses to try to influence the spirit world because they believe that God the creator is very far away and won’t protect them.

Muslims believe that God is transcendent and unknowable. Even many people who take the name Christian think that God is far away.

But when God sent his only Son, Jesus, to live among us, Jesus identified with the people.  He let the people know him and trust him. Though he was holy and without sin, Jesus spent his days with people who had experienced all sorts of brokenness.  Jesus made friends with corrupt tax collectors, and with rebel soldiers who were fighting the rule of Rome. Jesus even made friends with prostitutes.  One of the strongest ways Jesus showed that he identified with the people around him was by being baptized.  Many, many people went out to see John, to hear him preach, and to be baptized as a sign of repentance from sin.

So it’s interesting to note that Jesus too was baptized.  Why did he do that? Why did Jesus go see John and ask to be baptized?  We know that Jesus committed no sin.  He didn’t need to repent.  So why did he get baptized?  I think one reason Jesus got baptized was because he wanted to identify with the people.

As a church planter, some of the most important steps you can take are the steps you take to identify with the people you know outside your church and inside your church.  When you spend time with them, listen to their stories, eat meals together, work together, and play sports together, you identify with them.  You say without words, “I know you, I like you, I respect you, I want what is best for you.”

So let me encourage you to spend time with the people of the villages where you are planting churches.  This time is not wasted time.  It is valuable time.  As people get to know you, they will also get to know the God whom you serve.  By knowing you, people will come to understand that God is not far away, He is with us and he is good.

Another way you can identify with the people, especially with sinful people is to remember that it was not only the sin of your neighbors that sent Jesus to the cross, it was your sin and my sin as well.  The Apostle Paul says in Colossians 1:13, 14,  “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Did you hear what that great church planter said?  He said God rescued us from the dominion of darkness so we have redemption.  Paul, in spite of his religious upbringing, recognizes that he, like all of his neighbors, lived in the dominion of darkness.  He glorifies God that he together with the Colossian believers were rescued from that dark, sinful way of living.  When he says this, Paul is saying ever so clearly, “I am one of you.  I was a sinner, just as you were.  You needed to be rescued from sin and so did I.”  Paul identified with the people of the churches he planted.  He saw himself as an object of the love of God.  He saw the Colossian believers the same way.  Paul did not emphasize the difference between himself and the people. No! Instead Paul did all that he could to identify with the people.

Paul was a great church planter.  The good news is, you can follow his great example by identifying strongly with the people you serve and by clearly pointing them to the Savior just as Paul did.  You can do it. I know you can!

This has been Multiply, a podcast that offers a word of encouragement for village church planters.

Be encouraged, God is with us!              EC-12

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