Weekly Thoughts

12/08/06 – Change Values You Change Action

Hi all,

I mentioned last week that I've been doing some end-of-the-year introspection about where I am spiritually speaking and trying to direct my attention to Christ, to be more like Him. So I'd like to share a little more along these lines.

I've been thinking alot about what I value, and who I value. It occurred to me that the process of discipleship is all about changing a person's values. If you change their values then you will change their actions. It is a profound principle.

John the Baptist sought first to change the values of the people he minister to. When people had rearranged their values they were baptized in response, and purposed to live differently as a result.

In about 1980 I led a man to the Lord. His pattern on payday Friday was to go drinking with the guys, leaving his wife and baby on their own that night. But when he came to the Lord and I began sharing with him a little, his values changed. He gave up payday Friday drinking and instead spent Friday nights with his wife and baby. I did not try to tell him what to do as by external rules and regulations; rather I appealed to his sense of what was now important to him, and when he changed his values his actions changed.

The Old Testament Law was all about external rules and regulations that enforced God's values on a people. Moses' Law consisted of 613 rules divided into 3 groups: Moral Law, Worship Law, and Sanitary Law. Usually in the New Testament when they refer to the Law they mean the Moral Law. These were summed up by the 10 Commandments which were further summarized by two: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

The people of the OT were not born again- so external rules had the effect of forcing them to value, at least in appearance, what God valued. But, under this system their hearts could be far from God even though their actions appeared to be in line with Him. In His ministry, Jesus addressed lining up the values with the actions.

The New Testament, in which God and His value system have moved inside us, allows us now to respond from the inside out, meaning our hearts are in line with God's value system.

For instance, we love, forgive and pray for our neighbors not because it is externally required of us, but we genuinely have that love in our hearts to do so.

I've come to the conclusion that many arguments between a husband and wife; parents and children; and often bosses and employees; is about a clash of values and not always what it appears on the outside.

A dad may tell his teenage son "Because I told you so that's why!", applying external pressure like an OT priest/Law rather than addressing what is the value to the son and what is the value to the dad. The son wants the car for social reasons and the dad wants a curfew and to know where his son is going for safety reasons. Both have values, but it takes talking about values to have peace.

I know a church that split over the color of the new sanctuary carpet - one group liked the mauve color of the original and the other group liked the Hunter green of the new - so the first group split. It was a matter of values.

I once worked for a church that held a 3 day winter meeting every year. This particular year I had to work my regular job for the church, attend the meetings and Wednesday night service, and represent the pastor at a couple functions in the community. In short, I was gone 7 of 8 nights away from my family.

My last obligation that week was the Sunday evening service. But that Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday and our beloved Denver Broncos were playing in what may have been John Elway's last Super Bowl appearance (fortunately it wasn't). I was very tired, but because of my position in the church it was expected that I be there every time the door was opened.

Barb urged me to stay home. She was at her wit's end with the kids, and with our oldest being handicapped, it meant that when I was away he was in an adult diaper as he could not get on the toilet without my help. All week long she had cared for Chris that way.

Barb paid a huge price to have me work at that church in general, for though saying they valued family, in practice they did not, and being an executive, I was very busy. Chris too paid a price, as he hated going to the bathroom in those diapers - though mentally a 4 year old, he was 19 years old, potty trained, and hated wearing those things (how many 19 year olds like wearing diapers?)

Because I'd been gone so much that week I did stay home and let Barb have a rest while the boys and I played and watched the game. The next day I got an angry call from the pastor wondering where I was Sunday night. I told him the basics of what I just relayed to you, but he was angry nonetheless. I reminded him what I told him when I was hired, that I had a handicapped son and that my wife and children would always be more important than my ministry duties.

He was very angry and stated, "Maybe I made the wrong decision in hiring you." I was tempted to be like Adam and say, "The woman which thou gavest me, she caused me to eat of the tree..." but I didn't.

I responded: "Maybe you did, but my family will always come first. It's your decision." And he hung up the phone. I went to work the next day expecting to see my things in a box in the hall, but I didn't get fired.

My value was my wife and children, his was work. To him, work/church was everything. It was a difference in values.

Not that I'm immune to a clash of internal values. Just last week for example:

While filling up the car I noticed an old lady trying to figure out how to put gas in the car. She couldn't even find the latch for the cover over the cap. Then she couldn't unscrew the cap. Then she didn't know how to work the machine to turn the gas on. ("My husband usually does this", she said with embarrassment, "but he's home sick today and I just had to get groceries.") 

I was very gracious and tender with her, I was happy to help. Later Barb needed help putting Christmas decorations up that were too high for her 5' 3" frame (I'm 6'6" or about 2 meters tall)  to reach and I grumbled and complained because she was interrupting something I was doing.

Shouldn't I value my wife, whom I've known since we were kids and been married to over 28 years more than a stranger at a gas pump? Couldn't I have shown her the same graciousness I showed a complete stranger? Where were my values? So I've been working on getting my values in line with God's values.

I've been re-reading the New Testament with an eye towards spotting values.

When Paul preached in Ephesus the gospel so changed the values of those who became Christians that men who earned their living from making idols had their livelihood threatened. They caused a huge riot, filling the 24,000+/- seat city amphitheater.

When Paul preached on Mars Hill, recorded in Acts 17, he was laughed out of town when he got to the part about the resurrection of the dead, except for a few who believed. Overall however, being Greek, they placed value on new ideas and concepts but had no inclination to follow them.

The Eastern/Oriental mindset of values is all about not separating the truth from the action, preferring to learn the 'how to' in a multi-generational family and community group.

Into this clash of cultures was birthed the church at Corinth. It was a city whose motto was: "Liberty and knowledge", and anything anyone wanted to do was OK. Sounds like modern America or Europe doesn't it?

In I Corinthians 9 Paul addresses how they value him, what he's sown into their lives, and what their response to him should be. Considering the setting, Paul makes an amazing statement in verse 11:

"We have planted good spiritual seed in your souls. Is it too much to ask, in return, for mere food and clothing?" (Living Bible)

The amazingly new and controversial truth presented to the Corinthians was that Paul was saying they should place a value on what he has taught them and poured into them as being equal with food and clothing.

To value intangible truths that touch the heart as important as eating and clothing was unheard of! And then to expect them to give him part of their hard earned money in response to valuing these things as equal was really over the top!

I think the West has this kind of Corinthian value system. We love ideas, but our idea is that ministers are called of God and He will take care of them. How else can you explain statistics  that say something like (in all the church world) 3% of people are regular givers in a church, with another 20% or so give from time to time? The old cliche that "20% of the people do 80% of the work and giving" is true for a reason.

You probably receive lots of mail from various ministries like we do. Very few of them rank high enough for us to send money to though. Some come from former students or other ministry friends who use their newsletter to stay in touch which is nice, but they haven't crossed that threshold where we're interested in giving money.

But there is one newsletter that the Lord had been dealing with me on. In the past these people were close to us and helped us early on. We respect their missionary work and their continued contact with us. But it's been years since we sent them money. Things have been tight and we just never seemed to be able to write that check.

How often have I thought nothing of spending $20 or more at a restaurant and then moan to myself that things are just too tight to send them an offering? Being on that ministry side of the coin I should know better, for we know many people we've sown time, money and our hearts into, yet they too freely talk about this movie or that dinner, yet never give a dime to help us in the ministry. Like Pogo's famous quote, I have seen the enemy and it's me.

The Lord is asking me to rearrange where I value our missionary friends and discipline ourselves to give to them each month.

When Paul was making arrangements for an offering to go to the 'saints in Jerusalem', he told the Corinthians in I Cor 16:2:

"Every Sunday each of you should put aside something from what you have earned during the week, and use if for this offering. The amount depends on how much the Lord has helped you earn."

I've been thinking how, because my values have been off base a bit, I haven't had the discipline to set aside something for our friends, rationalizing a tight budget as the reason. Paul urged the Corinthians to just set something aside - anything in proportion to how they were blessed that week by the Lord. It's a matter of valuation and discipline.

I've been thinking about how Jesus said in Mark 4:24 that the value you place is how it is measured back to you again. (the subject was the Word and things of God) That valuation involves many things, including zeal, integrity, and discipline.

I remember teaching a class at the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs, where a lady bought a couple of teaching series, one for $12 and another for $24. She came up to me and asked if it would be OK for her to rip the contents onto her computer and then burn a few copies for her friends.

I was so taken aback that I answered honestly before I had a chance to be diplomatic: "If you don't mind stealing from me because that's how I earn my living." The shocked look on her face told me she had never considered it stealing - yet she was the same one who wanted me to pray that she might see Jesus or angels like I do. I did make the suggestion she make an offering to my ministry if she was going to steal from me, to cover the costs.

As I look back, it was a matter of values and integrity. She had hers massively rearranged that day.

Some things we've done right: I am thankful that Barb and I have always made our lives revolve around our children as along as they lived in our house. We've taken vacations of which the money could have gone elsewhere, paid for their education through college, and poured our lives into them in general, and all three are fine young men today - better than we were at their age, which was our goal. Even Chris in his group home stands out among his peers.

As I've opened my soul into my year-end-thoughts about values, I wonder if the Lord is leading you in the same way? Perhaps it is how you invest your time, what groups, what activities. Perhaps it is church attendance. Perhaps something more mundane like the Lord asking you to discipline yourself to spend time with Him. Perhaps a rearrangement in how you spend money in the 'secular' realm and where to plant some in the ministry realm.

Value: "The quality or worth of something that makes it valuable." (Webster's)

The whole of the New Testament is built around 'Christ in you, the hope of glory', and as such Paul did not revert to Old Testament style coercion to get people to support his ministry or value him as they should.

He trusted Christ in them to move them to do what was right IF he could cause them to understand a different value system. For that reason he didn't require tithing or giving to support his ministry, he left it up to the people to do what was right - he urged them to do right, but he didn't force things.

He told them they as a body should have handled the man sleeping with his step-mom in I Corinthians 5. He told them to settle the law suit between 2 brothers in the same (house) church. We taught them a different set of values and then urged them to rise to the occasion.

This is the season where we as a nation often take time to make resolutions. It's really a rearrangement of values isn't it? Change your values and you change your life!

I hope these "Thoughts" are of value to you, that you may be enriched in Christ!

More next week on a different subject...

 

Blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org