Daily Meditations from John N. N. Ng'ang'a: week of 13-19th sept 2010 ..... Witnessing Includes Rejoicing in Suffering for the Gospel
Day 1
Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
We want to look at Christ commissioning. Paul is saying, once you describe who God is, who Christ is, then because Christ is that, he now asks that we his followers must be like Him. That means we shall be his representatives or his witnesses.
And I think that's a very important thing for us to understand. That there isn't any way you become a Christian and you don't become a witness. In Acts 1:8 Jesus asks his disciples to wait in Jerusalem, until they are filled with the Holy spirit.. How will you know the Holy Spirit has come? 'When He comes you shall become my witnesses.' Yet a lot of us are debating, who is Spirit-filled? Some say , tongues, And many other answers . But if you go to book of Acts, , as the promise was being made, they were told how to discover. The way to discover that now Christ has come in his Spirit is the fact that' you become his witness.'
He commissions you to become his witness by giving you his sprit . So obviously another way of knowing that you don't have the Spirit is the fact that you call yourself a Christian yet nobody knows about it…it is top secret. You are not sharing Jesus with other people. That's one key indication that your Christianity is other than biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity is saying, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, 'you shall become my witness'.
Day 2
Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.NIV
So witnessing is expected of all who have Jesus living in them in the power of the holy spirit.
If for you in your place of work people have to do a PhD research on you to discover you are a Christian, I think you need to ask yourself, how come? People were about to congratulate Paul for being such a great preacher . Do you know what he said''? I don't preach by choice. Woe unto me if I don't preach the gospel.' What do you think Paul was actually saying? That once he became a Christian, once he met Jesus on that road to Damascus, when the Spirit came upon him, he became a witness. A Christian I can't be but a witness. Woe unto me if I don't witness.
In other words, Christian life would be totally meaningless unless I become a witness, Paul is saying. Jeremiah puts it in more graphic language, he said, …your word is like a fire within me. I want to hold it I can't. in other words Jeremiah was saying, when you hear him talk (and Jeremiah got into a lot of trouble because of his message),do not commend him ,he cannot help but talk. if you have read the book of Lamentations, he is lamenting the troubles he went through. Because of becoming a prophet he was put in a waterless hole, he was put into a muddyl hole, he went into a lot of other trouble. But he says, actually I can't be but continue to prophesy. Why? Your word is like a fire within me. I can't hold it. It comes out.
Interesting. Because Jeremiah says he doesn't witness willingly, he has no alternative but to witness because the word is like fire. How come you and me are able not to witness. In other words you say you have the Spirit of God within you yet nobody around you knows about Christ. And you feel like you have the right not to share your faith with others? you have to realize that's not possible. There is something wrong about your relationship with God if you actually can help but witness.
Day 3
Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.NIV
You know sometimes I look for excuses. I remember one of the things I like is witnessing wherever I am in public transport and I remember like when I am going in Kenya airways, the stewardess says, which seat would you like, aisle or window? I say, ' you choice'. Why? Because I know whoever God will give me to sit next to in the aircraft must be somebody God wants me to talk to. Now, since I don't mind who I talk to, I say I will leave it to you(unless of course in company of someone else who is travelling with me).
And so she gives me somebody. One day I was coming from Mombasa and it is a very short flight. I had said, oh God I will leave who I talk to you. So I was given a seat and since I said any choice, she gave me a 'wrong seat'. She gave me in the middle of two people, only to sit and discover this side is an Asian, this other side is a yet another Asian. I said, okay God I wanted to witness but how do I witness to these Indians. Do I start telling them that cow is not God? And it is only forty five minutes flight , God. What am I supposed to do?
I felt like I have n excuse not to share my message with them.… although I feel I need to share, but surely in forty five minutes, somebody who is worshipping a cow, where do you begin. So I felt like picking my book to read. So I picked my book to read because I realized, this is too short a trip. So I was reading and as I am busy reading the book, the Indian looks over as I am reading, looks over the side and sees my book and says, 'ooh you are in construction?'. I was reading a book by Bothwell called BUILDING BLOCKS FOR MISSION, it is a very nice book about missions.. Building blocks to the Indian means I am in construction. So once he has seen what the title of the book is he said,'you are in construction?
Remember I had refused to talk to him. Now I had no alternative. God had now created an atmosphere where I have no alternative but to explain the kind of construction I am reading about. And so I now started saying,' I am in construction, but not the construction you think about'. So I started talking about Jesus Christ and started talking about the things He can do. Then he said, I know the Bible. He told me that he went to a Catholic school and Bible, CRE was compulsory. So he already knew a lot about the Bible, yet I had switched him off. You need to understand that when you become a Christian, one of the ways of knowing that Christ is living in you is that He puts in you a desire to share.
Something that is not a desire, an obligation to share so that you end up sharing with others, not because you actually want to, but because you belong to another who is in controlling you and wants you to.
Day 4
Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness- 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.NIV
So in Colossians 1:24, Paul turns to say, I have been commissioned to become a witness.
He says ' I have become its servant by the commissioning. God gave me the task to present the word of God in its fullness' That's Paul's testimony.
The Verse 26,…the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the gentiles, the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labour, struggling with all energy which so powerfully works in me.
Note verse 24,says ' now I rejoice in what was suffered for you'. imagine Paul is saying, because of this commissioning I actually suffer but I actually enjoy the suffering? It sounds great. Isn't it? And I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in regard to Christ's affliction for the sake of his body which is the church.
You see basically, the ministry God has given us is the ministry of reconciliation. Making the enmity between God and man disappear because when you become a Christian you become friends with God again. And that's the ministry He gives us as He makes us witnesses. He allows us to bring friendship between man and God, and man and man. That's what ministry is all about, creating friendship.
Whoever does not know the Lord, then they are in enmity with God. Now, when he gets to know the Lord, they have friendship. And isn't that really what you desire for yourself and others? I like what he says. Now, I rejoice in what was suffered for you. You know, he is rejoicing because of what he had suffered for the sake of the church. Meaning that to suffer is a critical requirement in commissioning process. When Christ commissions you, you have no alternative than to suffer. But the difference with this suffering is that you enjoy it, you don't endure it.
Day 5
26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. NIV
It is privilege to know God and to serve him.
Paul somewhere else says, we counted it a privilege to suffer for the gospel. In other words, only the privileged suffer for the gospel. If you are not really a serious Christian, chances you will not suffer for it. Remember somewhere elsewhere He says that He cannot bring a temptation that you are not capable of handling. So may be the reason why you don't get a lot of suffering in your ministry is because God knows your level. He cannot give you a university exam when you are in primary two. He will just bring a primary two exam.
A lot of us because of this misunderstanding about suffering think that if you become a Christian then you don't suffer. They argue that the way to know that you truly are a man or a woman of God is that no problems comes your way. So when Christians see somebody suffer, they say, please check, have you sinned. I don't know where they get this message because Paul is saying, I rejoice. This is against what we call the wealth, health gospel is a gospel about people not suffering. But the message of the New Testament is… as soon as you become a Christian you bring yourself trouble.
The difference is that, that trouble is enjoyable trouble. I rejoice in what I have to suffer. And you need to ask yourself is do you enjoy suffering for Christ? Do you know a lot of the bareness of the church of Christ today is because people don't want to suffer for the gospel.
Day 6
26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.NIV
I was in Northern Kenya some time back and one of the things that worried me is, how can 150 years after Dr Krapf came to Mombasa, how come there are tribes today where you mention Jesus they ask,'is that the chief? 'They have never heard of him. I mean, it is a strange thing. You know you can't believe it's in Kenya. And I was worried.
How can that happen? Now, you know why it can happen? Because after we got Christianity we don't want to suffer. And I want to tell you, when you go to the north, it is dry. Sometimes they tell you for three years it has not rained. There is hunger even if you have money. One of the missionaries told me that he left Marsabit to go to the tribe where they were working with 500 shillings. After one month he came back to Marsabit with the same shillings. There is nothing to buy. Whether you are poor or rich you are the same, it doesn't quite make a difference. That's kind of life the missionary has to live . So when you hear the place is like that and you are a university student, you are just about graduating, you say God call me to St. Francis church in Karen. You don't ever want to think that He is calling you among the Rendilles.
But that was not the Christianity of the New Testament. Christianity of the New Testament is you wanted to count it a privilege when you actually suffered. I repeat…. it is embarrassing that after for over 150 years of Christianity in Kenya , we can still have tribes that haven't heard the gospel.
If every church in Nairobi alone took one tribe to reach we would clear the unreached tribes within our generation .There are now sixteen tribes remaining, there were twenty two before, now they are sixteen remaining. There are more than sixteen churches that are capable of sending a couple of missionaries to those tribes. Those tribes are not very big in population. You see some are t 20,000… a whole tribe. So it is not that they are many, but they still haven't heard the gospel. So can you imagine if your church took one, All Saints another, Valley Road another, NPC Karen another, now surely, we will be having every tribe in Kenya being reached.
But if you dare go there, you may not eat bread for some time . Of course they will give you blood and other of their delicacies .. There are things that you will eat but not the things we eat in the city. But they are healthy. They are not dead. You will still be able to live there.
Paul is saying, the fact that he lives a life of challenges, makes him rejoice…despite what he has had to suffer. Easter is about Christ's suffering and He is saying we must follow his footsteps. How do you follow his footsteps if you don't want to suffer?
And you know I am making it look like going to the north is a very big issue. you don't have to go to the north to suffer. Even in your own neighborhood, if you start behaving a Christian, your neighbours feel there is something funny. Seeing you for example have a fellowship, start singing,they ask ' you mean that guy is like that? The way he drives, the way he looks, surely how can he be so backwards?'obviously now because they want you to hear, they talk as you are walking past them. And it is embarrassing for your neighbours to know think you are a Christian… when you want to have' a name'. So what happens? You want to tone down your Christianity because you don't want to be embarrassed.
There is no way you become a Christian and you don't suffer for it. There is no way you become a witness and you don't suffer for it.
Day 7
26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.NIV
I have worked for a multinational for almost thirty years.. I met may people professionally in my job most of whom are not Christians .And one of the things that is very interesting is, somebody will look at me and say, how is your wife? Then I reply by explaining how grateful I am to God for a very GOOD marriage .Their reaction is: 'So you think we are rotten? '.Now I say, I never talked about you, I was talking about my wife. But once you don't have a ndogondogo, they think you are telling them they are sinning because of having concubines beside their wives. But I haven't talked about it.
All you need is to have a wife and be faithful to her, and the message they get is they are evil. when I was entertaining my clients, you go to a hotel and I ask for fanta soda .You ever heard the nickname for fanta … Foolish Africans Never Take Alcohol?. Now, I ask for my fanta, and as I am taking my fanta and they are taking beer they say, so you think we are evil because we are taking tusker? I never talked about it. Each person ordered what they wanted. You realize that you don't have to do anything to start having difficulties with non-Christians. ….. just to be a Christian, that's enough provocation.
So you need to understand that a lot of us, the reason we cannot witness is because we don't want them to have any negative feelings about us. Now they are not killing us, they are not beating us, but just the discomfort of not being accepted in your neighborhood deprives you of your witness !!!