A Work of Mercy Properly Done Never Ends. It Only Deepens.

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Part X of our series on Ransoming the Captive

As we bring to a close our series on Ransoming the Captive, I want to challenge you now to go and do the word that you’ve heard over the course of these last few weeks.

To do that, I want you to think about all the people for whom you performed a Work of Mercy in Jesus’ name in this last year.  Think of someone to whom you’ve done good, shared your bread with, opened your home to, visited and remembered, healed and comforted, proclaimed the Gospel to, forgiven and been reconciled with, or made a disciple of.  As you do, prayerfully consider what we shared this entire month about the lifelong, whole life love that is called for in ransoming captives in Jesus’ name.

Pray for God to transform your heart to “go the distance” in loving that person with God’s own love for the rest of yours and their days, should Christ permit.

Share with someone in your church or small group about the person whom God has put on your heart. And then work together with other believers to lay out a wise plan for moving forward. Remember: Scripture commends mission work to be done in twos. It was Peter and John who healed the man at the Temple gate; Peter and John who went to prison; Peter and John who got beaten for it; Peter and John who rejoiced with the church over being counted worthy to suffer in his name.

What should be your next step with this person? What should you do now?

Then, go back and begin to “finish the job,” (to use the image of Jesus the Businessman in Revelation 5:8–10): regularly update the group on your progress and how God is developing the relationship. Share what you’re learning about what it means to lay down your life in Jesus’ name to ransom captives with him.

As always, I commend to you an “After Action Review” so that your doing of this word might serve as a continual learning process.  Here are the questions to process through as you do the word of ransoming captives in Jesus’ name:

  • Step 1: What was the intent?
  • Step 2: What happened? Why? What are the implications?
  • Step 3: What lessons did we learn?
  • Step 4: Now what?


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Is the Distinction Between Living for Christ and Dying for Him So Great?

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Part IX of our series on Ransoming the Captive

Joseph J. Gross is someone has spent a lot of time studying the ransoming activity of the Trinitarian order. The interesting thing is, ransoming Christians out of prison was for them just one small step in the overall process of ransoming captives. Check out what he says:

“The aftercare of released captives returning to Christendom was an essential part of Trinitarian ransom activity. Trinitarians provided spiritual, moral and physical support to the repatriated. Many of those ransomed were too sick or weak to continue their journey home directly. Some had no one waiting to welcome them back. The obligatory quarantine was always imposed in times of pestilence.

In all these instances, the ransomed captives needed to be sheltered and fed and cared for, perhaps for several days or perhaps for several weeks. And so, it was necessary for the Trinitarian Order to have houses with a hospitale as part of the complex, especially in coastal cities and along the routes most traveled by the returning captives.”

When you ransom a captive, in other words, money is necessary. But it’s typically the smallest part of what’s needed. What’s needed? Love. The love of Christ, poured through you over the course of the former captive’s lifetime. Love in the form of all eight of the Works of Mercy that we’ve studied, performed not only once as a random act of kindness, but offered freely again and again in a comprehensive pattern of care, coordinated with the church as a whole, until the captive is free not only spiritually but in all three dimensions of human life: spirit, soul, and body.

David Platt wrote the book, Radical. In there he has a great quote from Elisabeth Elliot, whose husband, Jim Elliot, was killed on the mission field by the people he came to serve. Elisabeth went on to take his place. She devoted her life to serving in Jesus’ name the people who killed her husband. And she wrote this:

“Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him after all, so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first? Furthermore, to live for God is to die, ‘daily,’ as the apostle Paul put it. It is to lose everything that we may gain Christ. It is in thus laying down our lives that we find them.”

Elisabeth points out that Scripture does not classify dying a martyr’s death as extraordinary obedience. It’s ordinary obedience when you are following a Savior who died in a cross—a Savior who said that, once ransomed, you should take up your own cross and follow him in his history-length quest to free others—a quest so determined that it makes Oscar Schindler’s amazing generosity pale in comparison.

Of course we spend our fortunes to ransom others. That’s what ordinary Christians have always done.

Of course we use our time and energy to fall in love with captives and learn how to cooperate with Christ as he undertakes the very complex work of setting them free.

God uses Peter and John to heal the handicapped man at the Temple gate in Jesus’ name, and their own freedom of movement is immediately constrained, just as Jesus had warned them it would be. Jesus—and all those who ransom in his name—almost always bear the burdens they ransom as belonging to them and Jesus.

It is in carrying these burdens willingly, not in spiritualizing them into moral oblivion, that they mirror the friendship-love and reliable divine care of Christ to the world.

You want to be used by God to heal a lame man? Are you willing—ready and willing—to go to jail for that? Be beaten? Lay down your life?

Think carefully on that. Your answer will profoundly impact the way you love others, and how fully God can use you for his purposes for the remainder of your days.

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Random Acts of Kindness Don’t Release Captives

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Part VIII of our series on Ransoming the Captive

Look back at the Works of Mercy you’ve undertaken in Jesus’ name this year and ask about those to whom you have given yourself: Have your gifts, given in Christ’s name, been used by God to set them free?

    • To those with whom you shared bread, are they still in bondage?
    • And those to whom you opened your homes, are they yet captives?
    • What about those you visited? Free or captive?
    • Those you healed and comforted in Jesus’ name: Are they free or captive today?
    • Those to whom you proclaimed the gospel, those you forgave, those you are discipling: Free or captive in Jesus’ name?

The Work of Mercy of ransoming the captive reminds us that we are called to something more than doing nice things for other people when the occasion arises.

We are called to love people for a lifetime by laying down our own lives for them. By drawing on the love of God to do more than cheer them up or walk alongside them for a day. Ransoming captives means staying with people long enough and getting to know them well enough and giving as much of ourselves as is necessary often enough so that we can see them set free in Jesus’ name. In spirit, soul, and body.

Maybe you don’t know anyone who is being held captive for their faith. But let me ask you this: What kinds of captivity did you see as you performed the Works of Mercy on others in Jesus’ name throughout this year? And did you stay with those people long enough, and were you willing to allow Christ to use you enough, that you could be his instrument in seeing them truly set free, in spirit, soul, and body?

Think back to The Ransom Church in Sioux Falls that I’ve been picking on all month long (God bless ‘em!). When you pay 50 cents per gallon of gas for all the motorists who stop by the gas station that day, you’ve done a nice thing. But when those motorists drive away, how many of them are still in bondage? And to what are they in bondage? Do we even know? And do we really want to know? Do we even ask?Are we prepared to find out, and to give more than 50 cents a gallon to see them delivered in Christ’s name?

Now it’s possible to say, “Yes, the 50 cents a gallon gift is just a way to get to know them. That’s not intended to be the only thing we do to help set them free.” Good! So what comes next, then? What is the plan? Invite them to church? Teach them financial management? Give them an encouraging message every week? Set up a support group to help them stop drinking?

None of these are bad things. But Christ did more than teach us and encourage us and set up a support group for us. He laid down his life for us. He made an eternal commitment to us. As you’ve carried out your Works of Mercy this year, have you begun to love anyone else so deeply that you’re willing to make the kind of commitment to them in Jesus’ name that he made to you?

Remember, Christ didn’t make a commitment to support your sinful lifestyle. So don’t go getting the idea that ransoming the captive means giving them money and letting them sleep on your couch when they get drunk or bailing them out of trouble every time their sinfulness and stupidity plunges them deeper into it. That’s not how Christ ransomed you, and it’s not how you should mirror his ransoming to others.

Do you know how much divine thought went into ransoming you effectively? Scripture calls this plan of ransom the wisdom of God. It’s not something he came up with while driving to work one day!

So how much thought and time are you putting into the question of how God can use you in his work of really, genuinely ransoming people from all the captivity they are facing? Are the Works of Mercy you are doing leading you deeper into lifetime love for others…or are they just random acts of kindness for you?

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