Sharing your Faith - A perpetual motion of invitation

Welcome to our newest post about Sharing Your Faith! In his regular posts, Ryan Bentley will be stirring us to share our faith with others, by looking at passages of scripture and giving practical tips. We hope you enjoy the blog below!

---

Oh! Hello, didn’t see you there. It’s been a while, let’s catch up. 

Last time we got together I told you about Matthew 25, where Jesus is talking about how to treat those we serve. I had a lot of fun, you can find it here if you wanna catch up,

This time I want to bring you to where God’s heart brings me every summer. We’re still in Matthew just a few chapters behind in Matthew 18:15-20, but we’re going to look at it a little bit differently…

Matthew 18:15-20

“If your brother or sister sins,
go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.

If they listen to you, you have won them over. 

But if they will not listen,
take one or two others along,
so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’

If they still refuse to listen,
tell it to the church; 

and if they refuse to listen even to the church,
treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

We don’t have the time in this platform to go over the last portion of this scripture, but it’s worth a gander, I left it in there because I like context.

I’m more interested in verses 15-17. This is typically the pattern churches follow to “gain a brother back”. It’s used for accountability and reconciliation when someone sins or stumbles in the church. It’s a great model, when followed well. For me, this verse is MASSIVE for the HEART behind the approach. 

The Heart Behind The Approach

Real quick, let’s walk through it. 

1. If you have a brother who is in sin, you go to them solo. Honestly, sometimes all we need is someone to listen and care for us to come back to the fold. 

2. If that doesn’t work we bring 2-3 people. Now these aren’t 2-3 randoms, but people who love and care about the person in sin. 

3. Then comes the uncomfortable portion, you bring the whole church into it. Now I take this to mean church leadership and a wider community. Church here is Oikos which means community, so essentially you’d be bringing in people who are like family to the person in sin.

4. If that doesn’t work then you treat them like a Pagan or a Tax Collector.

Many have taken this to mean to excommunicate the person and cut them out of your life. Now I like to approach this differently, using a saying that is taught in Sunday School, What would Jesus do?

What Would Jesus Do?

Now isn’t it funny, Jesus wants us to treat people like Tax Collectors. Do you know of any Tax Collectors Jesus knew?

I know one!

He wrote the book of the Bible we just read from!

Ain’t that a thing, Jesus explicitly says to treat someone who is in sin and won’t repent like one of his disciples…

Not interested? Well Jesus also says to treat them like a Pagan.
Again we ask, How does Jesus treat Pagans?

Well;
He ate with them.
Healed them.
Healed their families.
Fed them.
Cast Demons out of them.
and continually invited them into his kingdom.

When it comes to sharing our faith, we need to get away from this idea of those who are in and those who are out. We need to create a perpetual motion of invitation. Constantly inviting those who don’t know Jesus to come to know him, and those who do to know him deeper. Esther-Maria wrote a marvellous blog about eternal life starting now, and it’s true! Eternal life does start now. But that isn’t just for those who know Jesus, it’s for those who don’t know him as well.

So when I sit on a park bench, and God brings this to mind, It brings me to a place surrender and peace. Knowing that I am to walk in the ways of Jesus, constantly inviting people to come to know him deeper. And a place of Peace, seeing that while I was once far off, now I am brought near, and if I ever were to fall, if I ever were to wander, Jesus would always, ALWAYS invite me back. 

Ryan Bentley
Ryan moved from Birmingham in 2020 to be part of Redeemer along with his wife Sarah (our families worker) and his two kids, Rhys and Torah! He serves the church full time and his aim is to equip each of us to share the gospel with those around us on a daily basis. You can join his Faith Sharing meetup HERE or find more of his wisdom on Instagram.

Sharing your Faith - A new blog from Redeemer!

Welcome to 2021 on the Redeemer blog! To start off this year we’ve got a few new themed blogs for you, which we’ll be publishing once a month. Today sees the start of our first new blog - Sharing Your Faith! In his monthly posts, Ryan Bentley will be stirring us to share our faith with others, by looking at passages of scripture and giving practical tips. We hope you enjoy his first blog below!

---

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew 25:31-46

So, are you a sheep, or are you a goat?

When we come to dichotomous scriptures like this one we like to think of ourselves as the sheep. Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd and his sheep hear his voice. Often times we try and figure out how we can meet the standard of sheep. 

What do I need to do? How do I need to do it? How often do I need to do it? Who do I need to do it to or with?

The more I look at this section of scripture the more fascinated I am by it, but this week I want to leave you with this. The sheep didn’t know they were sheep, and the goats didn’t know they were goats until they were parted by the Shepherd. 

Just sit in that. I’m serious, put your phone down, push yourself away from the keyboard and sit in that.

They had NO clue.

How does this make you feel?

Anxious? Sad? Maybe it makes you feel excited?

However we feel, and whatever category we might put ourselves in, I believe we can learn from this passage! The way I want us to learn from it today is by looking at the responses of the sheep and the goats to their categorisation!

Do you see a difference? 

It took me a while and I’ve been reading the bible for 17 years. I never noticed it until someone pointed it out to me.

The sheep (the righteous ones) didn’t know when they took care of the king, and they listed all of their deeds out one by one. Recounting all of them. The goats? They lumped it all together. They branded everything as “helping” or “ministry”. I think there is a heart posture here that goes all the way back to Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. Abel’s sacrifice was from the heart. Whereas Cain’s sacrifice was based on performance. I think the same can be extrapolated here from the sheep and the goats. One is looking at the intimate details whereas the other is defining their performance with broad strokes looking for the common denominator.

Next month we’ll talk about this passage again and focus on another piece of the puzzle but for this week I want you to meditate and think on these things…

• The sheep and goat didn’t know what they were until they were separated by the Shepherd

• When they were separated, they reflected on the Shepherd’s words on two separate levels

I believe God is calling you and me to look at our service to others with a heart posture of love, over a posture of performance. We need not be concerned about which camp we’re in, or who we belong to. We simply know, listen, obey and move. 

Let’s uncomplicate love and service together. Let’s simply focus on the one in front of us.

Ryan Bentley
Ryan moved from Birmingham in 2020 to be part of Redeemer along with his wife Sarah (our families worker) and his two kids, Rhys and Torah! He serves the church full time and his aim is to equip each of us to share the gospel with those around us on a daily basis. You can join his Faith Sharing meetup HERE or find more of his wisdom on Instagram.