What’s the Absolute Best Way to Reign?

Posted on November 7, 2012 by tdillmuth

What’s the absolute best way to scripturally reign this month? The honest, candid “no punches-pulled” answer lies just a few lines below. It’s not flashy and it most likely won’t produce immediate results, but it’s possibly the most important thing that we can do as it relates to reigning with Christ!

Now, before we reign with Christ in our neighborhoods or even at our jobs, we must first reign in our homes. And by reign, I don’t mean ruling our homes with an iron fist!  As we learned in Rev. Foley’s last blog post, reigning has more to do with serving than it does with acting superior over those with whom we are in a position of authority.

The first step in reigning then, is to lead your family in the practice of a daily family worship time.  Simply put . . . are you making a consistent effort to study Scripture, to pray and to sing spiritual songs with your family?

The statistics, at least those found by George Barna, are startling. In his book, Revolutionary Parenting, he found that only one in ten regular church attending families read the Bible together in a typical month. Fewer than one in twenty of these church families pray together, except before meals. And less than one in twenty families do any kind of worship activity outside the church building.

Take a moment to think about those statistics, but rather than thinking about how terrible other Christians are, think about the state of your own family worship time.  Ask God how he is going to use you to restore, renew and strengthen this practice of a daily family worship time in your own home.  And this is perhaps the best place to start when thinking about the Scriptural practice of reigning.

The most basic way to understand “reigning” is to exercise influence or control with those in your own sphere of influence. Our families are undoubtedly in our spheres of influence and what better way to exercise this influence than to lead them in a greater devotion to Jesus Christ!

Here are some resources to help you get started in meaningful family worship, but remember that to succeed in this area not only are resources needed, but even more so a faithful commitment to follow through!

  1. Donald S. Whitney’s book, Family Worship: In the Bible, in History & in Your Home. Pastor Foley recommended this in a previous blog post as possibly the best book on family worship available.
  2. Joel R. Beeke’s book that’s simply titled, Family Worship. This has a reformed angle, and what I like about this book is that it gives you specific suggestions on how to implement family worship and what content to include such as specific songs, prayers and creeds.
  3. One of the principles of starting a lay church is Establish that Sunday is not the Main Service.  Rev. Foley’s post gives some good food for thought concerning what items should make up the meat of the family worship time.

I’d love to hear about any resources that have encouraged you and your family to be committed to worshipping God together.

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Being The Servant Of All Is A Permanent Status, Not A Limited Duration Boot Camp

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Pastor Foley

There is a regrettable and incorrect implied understanding in evangelicalism that much of what was displayed by Christ of his character during his earthly sojourn was temporary–God operating with one hand tied behind his divine back, so to speak.

For example, some preach that Christ was meek and mild in Earthly Sojurn #1, bearing the  Cross, turning the other cheek, forgiving his enemies, but that he will be nowhere near so nice in Earthly Sojurn #2, when he comes back to mop the floor with the baddies, break the Cross in half over his leg, and ram both ends down his enemy’s throats.

Such poor preaching overlooks the Apostle Paul’s insistence in Colossians 2:15 that in the Crucifixion Christ disarmed his enemies, shamed them, made a public display of them, and triumphed over them. The Cross is plenty powerful enough to bring the present creation to the conclusion God intends, thank you very much. In his return Christ does not bring a better tool to finish off the job; instead, he judges according to our reaction to his first–and only–tool.

You can see that Christ is a Man Of One Method in Revelation 5:6, when, acclaimed as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, he appears before all of heaven as a lamb newly slain. In his return he will make war with the same sword–the sword of his mouth–that he used in his first visitation. In other words, the incarnation is a not a teaser–or a warning, or a scaled back, watered down–of the character of God. It is the full revelation of God. The second coming points back to the first, adding nothing new.

We stand to make this same “two act” mistake in our understanding of leadership and the Work of Mercy of reigning. If we are not careful we will assume (wrongly) that whoever would be great among us must first be the servant of all–until, for example, we learn to be humble and to pick up after ourselves and to be nice to all the little people we meet on the way up. Then, we assume (wrongly), we will be given the leadership mantle, wherein it will be necessary from time to time for us to lord it over people like the Gentiles do, since our subjects/staff/family members/fellow believers need someone to keep them in line, you know, or else the whole thing will get out of control and (heaven forbid) people will begin taking advantage of us.

But a careful reading of the Scripture shows that Christ’s service is not a limited time engagement. He does not take on the form of a servant and then give it up when his father exalts him as the name that is above every name. Instead, he reigns eternally as a servant. His character–and his relationship to us–is unchanged. He is still the servant-in-chief. And he always will be.

Too little attention has been given to noting that the risen Christ is as much of a servant as the earthly Christ. Recall that it is the risen Christ who serves breakfast, dries every tear, prepares an eternal home for his subjects (he is a carpenter, you know), and bears their persecution in his own body.

The sure sign of a counterfeit Christian leader is one who, having been a Christian leader for a long time and having built a good size organization or congregation, reclines (however graciously) into the privileges of leadership and the practices of lording it over his followers like the Gentiles do.

The servant king, by contrast, wraps the towel around his waist for all eternity, calling us to do the same if we intend to be his co-regents.

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Video – Christ’s Radically Different Route to Ruling and Reigning

Posted on November 2, 2012 by tdillmuth

(Meet my new associate, Rev. Tim Dillmuth! After a year of praying and searching, we brought him on board earlier this fall. You can read more about him below, but whatever you do, definitely read more of him. I’ve asked Pastor Tim to join me in posting up each week on the Work of Mercy we’re studying, with a particular focus on the doing the word aspect of that Work. He’s also going to posting some of the video and audio content from our DOTW.TV and DOTW.FM sites, that is, our YouTube and podcast channels where our sermon content, Q & As, and public presentations are recorded. I hope you enjoy this new voice and augmentation of content. I know Pastor Tim is already ironing sharpening this old garden shovel, and I believe you’ll find his reflections challenging and yet graciously presented as well. Enough–on to Pastor Tim, with this month’s first post on the Work of Mercy of Reigning!)

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself! I’m Pastor Tim Dillmuth and I joined the team at Seoul USA/DOTW Church in September of 2012. I feel so privileged to work alongside Pastor Foley and to be a part of such an important work!  I will begin to contribute regularly on this site (in addition to Pastor Foley’s postings), which will include a weekly video and a post concerning the “doing of the word” as it relates to each Work of Mercy. If you would like to learn more about me, feel free to visit our about page!

This first video explores Christ’s radically different route to ruling and reigning.  Each month we begin by asking, “How did Christ first do this Work of Mercy to me?”  So . . . how does Christ rule?  By becoming a subject and not holding onto his basic nature or character!

For all of the latests podcasts on Reigning and on past Work’s of Mercy visit our Seoul USA Podcast Page!

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