2 Kings 6:15-17, Matthew 28:16-20
Let’s end where we started. This is the promo video for Fruitfulness on the Frontline (1:40).
As we come to the end of our series, Fruitfulness on the Frontline, how have those what-ifs panned out? Have you discovered your frontline? Can you see what God has been doing, is doing and wants you doing? And where do we go from here?
We all have a life on the frontline, in the world, that’s significant to God. But can we see how God has been working in and through us? Can we imagine what work God might do in and through us on our daily frontlines today and each day?
I’m not sure we’ve all entirely got to grips with this. Let’s take one more look at the series overall.
Fruitfulness on the Frontline was created by Mark Greene for disciples who want to make a difference where they are day by day. And to bring these disciples together to support one another in their service for Jesus.
Let’s hear it from the man who wrote the course.
Video: Mark Greene on why he wrote FOFL (4:24).
Mark’s points include:
-God is already at work.
-We can imagine how God might work
-and get from Him what we’re to do.
-Be fruitful and support one another.
We have, over the last 6 weeks considered 6 ways we can glorify God.
Modeling godly character,
Making good work,
Ministering grace and truth,
Moulding culture,
being a Mouthpiece for truth and justice and
being a Messenger of the Gospel.
This list is not comprehensive – there are others. But this list gives us a good range of ways we can serve God well and points up the fact that everything we do contributes to God’s work (or not).
When we look at our lives, look at our world, look at our frontlines, what do we see?
A story
We read from 2 Kings 6 an amazing story that is surrounded by a number of amazing stories. In fact this whole section of the Bible is, you could say, weird! It’s a strange world where boys are returned to life, where miracles of provision take place, where military leaders get healed in acts of strange obedience, where nature stops acting like nature acts and gravity forgets what should happen to axe-heads. It feels a long way from our world.
But when you think about it, it’s not a long way from the accounts of Jesus in the gospels. The accounts where Jesus heals people, raises the dead, defies natural laws by walking on water, calms storms with a word, feeds thousands from a handful of food.
In both parts of the Bible, the Old and the New Testaments, God speaks to the powers of the day and reminds them that they are not in sole control – that there are areas of this life that are beyond their control. That God is God.
It is a challenge to us because most of us only see the world through the ‘normal’ lenses – the lenses that decide what can happen and what can’t happen.
So, in relation to our story, we find ourselves to be more like the servant of the man of God (6:15) than the man of God, the prophet (6:16). The servant believes his eyes; the prophet sees beyond his eyes.
The story behind the reading is that the King of Aram wants to kill the King of Israel – but is thwarted at every turn by the prophet who acts as a saboteur due to his ‘inside knowledge’. So when the King of Aram gets serious, locates the prophet and surrounds the city he is in, the servant is the reasonable voice whose only reasonable option is to lose hope. The prophet prays that he will be able to see the truth of the situation (6:16) and that those who are attacking would be unable to see (6:18). Read the rest of the story yourself, it is quite amusing.
When we read this text alongside Matthew 28:16-20 we are reminded that we are still called to live in this alternative world – the world of faith. Matthew 28:16-20 is not a text that is simply the rallying call to the church to put its ideas into action. It’s a promise that the risen Lord will be with us – wherever we go: beyond the boundaries of our known worlds; beyond our comfortable relationships; beyond the expectations of culture – to invite people to be reconciled with the God who created all this for his glory.
Our familiarity with this world is minimal when we begin following Jesus but we get to know it as we trust him by faith and experience life together. Many people find that following Jesus is unsettling. He doesn’t adapt his call to our expectations – he asks us to adapt to his. And he is working on us to this end.
Video ‘Emerge Anew’ (1:29) – be crafted into something new. God is doing this with us.
Where do we go from here?
Ask God to let you see with the eyes of faith; to see as he sees; to see the full reality, though it be unsettling, and live life accordingly.
I think of a device used on stage where a gauze screen is hung across the midstage. Actors act in front of the gauze screen and they are all the audience can see. Then the stage behind the gauze is lit and action there is clearly seen whereas without light it was invisible. It is like that with life. We see what is visible until God shines his light on something that was hitherto invisible.
Finally, to develop further and to support one another let me introduce the Fruitfulness On The Frontline 40-Day Prayer Journey. You’ll find it here:
http://www.licc.org.uk/prayerworks/prayer-journeys/fruitfulness-on-the-frontline/
This is a fancy prayer method and I don’t know much about it, but I have registered and I start tomorrow. You can of course do it yourself. Pray..the old-fashioned way.. As you pray, let me encourage you to copy the Prayer Journey in praying for one other person on their frontline.
The Lord be with you on your frontline and to God be the glory for the things he has done, is doing and will do.