Valerie Rae Hanneman
Matthew 16:18 (The Message) “You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.”
Recently I got into a rather lively discussion with three Christian friends. Two of us have fairly conservative views, one of us has fairly liberal views and the fourth is more middle of the road. We were discussing whether or not the police shooting of Joaquin Figueroa was justified. For those not in the Fresno area, Mr Figueroa was the main suspect in several home invasions, robberies, carjackings, shootings and a murder. In late July a police officer was shot during a routine traffic stop, and Mr Figueroa was the only suspect. A few days later, as the police were attempting to arrest him, Mr. Figueroa was killed. The discussion was back and forth with points made on all sides. Needless to say there were not any changes in position and the only new issue to be resolved was if the middle-of-the-road person was yawning because they were really that tired, or was it a clue that they thought we should all just go home and go to bed.
There was a statement made during our discussion “The only thing I regret about his death is that there is another soul in hell” Now I can not say for absolute certainty that this soul is in hell - that is between God and him. But I can say that Jesus says that by their fruit we shall know them - and Mr. Figueroa’s life had some pretty rotten fruit. So odds are that he is in hell. And there is no coming back from that - no second chance - no hope - it’s too late. Jesus loves Joaquin Figueroa, He died for Joaquin Figueroa and He had intended for Joaquin Figueroa to spend eternity with Him. But that is probably not what happened.
The discussion about the police shooting Mr. Figueroa was interesting but it wasn’t relevant. I think that the relevant discussion that we (all of us - my three friends, me, you, and all Christians) should be having is how we as the Church (Big “C” - meaning the worldwide eternal Church of Jesus) failed Mr. Figueroa and how we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“The Message” says that not even the gates of hell will keep the Church out. In other translations it says that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. I love that imagery - the picture of the gates of hell falling before an on-fire Church. There are plenty of examples throughout our history of us storming the gates of hell. The first church added daily those who would be saved - it spread like wildfire despite persecution. Or the Reformation when Martin Luther questioned the teachings and the rituals, or the Great Awakening, lead by Whitefield and the Wesley’s that swept England and America bringing multitudes to Christ.
But what have we done lately?
In thinking about this devotional I remembered a radio-preacher I heard awhile back who challenged us to draw a line in the sand and tell satan he could not cross it. In light of this verse - doesn’t that seem a little backwards? Shouldn’t satan be drawing the line in the sand and telling the Church not to cross it? Shouldn’t we, the Church, be kicking that sand back into his lying face - and then stomping him into it as we storm the gates of hell?
But it is hard to storm the gates of hell when your act of service to Jesus is that you sit down every Sonday in the same pew and struggle to stay awake during the sermon.
I did a bit of research on “sitting down” in the Bible. It was really interesting. Did you know that when the angels of the LORD came to warn Lot about the impending destruction of Sodom they found him sitting down at the gates of the city. He wasn’t in the city trying to point people to the Living God - he was sitting down. And when the fire of God’s wrath poured out on the city all of the people that Lot called friends, those he had built his life among, were gone and in hell. They are still there.
Jesus talked about sitting down. In Luke 17:7-10 Jesus says, (my paraphrase - go check it out for yourself) “Do you tell your servant to sit down to dinner before the work is done? No, he sits down after the work is done. Same thing for you.” Jesus does mention His people sitting down, though. He says that we will be sitting down at the feast in Heaven. So my personal take on sitting down is that we are Jesus’ servants, we don’t sit down until the work is done and our work is done when we sit down at the feast He is serving up in Heaven.
It is a common saying in business that 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. I think that that is true of the Church too. How many times have we seen the same faces popping up in multiple ministries?
We want to storm the gates of hell but how can we when the 10% minority of the Army of God is on the front lines and the rest are in the mess hall? But what if 100% of the Church was storming hell’s gates? We already know that answer - Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not keep us out. There are different levels of service at different stages of our life but at all stages of our lives we can do something to serve our God. He’s worth it.
There is a day coming when Jesus is going to judge His people according to what they did for Him on this earth. I don’t know about you, but on that day I don’t want my most significant service to Him to be that the pattern on the pews is permanently imbedded in my butt.
Let’s work together to serve Jesus. Let’s kick some sand in satan’s face and trample him in our dust as we tear down his gates.
LORD Jesus, Here I am - send me. Take me two steps outside of my comfort zone in serving You.
Contact Valerie or sign up for the e-ministry of Fresno First Baptist at valerie@fresnofirst.org.
Posted by Valerie at September 8, 2006 08:08 PM