Lord of Glory, Make Us Worthy

Mission of God

On the waters outside of Fightin’ Poseidon, we have been discussing the work of missions. There’s a lot to be discussed, way more than one post here will be able to cover, but there’s a few things rolling around in my head that I haven’t been able to find the space to work out. Several months of thought and reflection has finally brought me to a place where I may understand my own dissonance. It just so happens that realization overlaps with what I’m trying to do with Fightin’ Poseidon.

Not that I have shied away from any Christian topics prior, but this post will be about a distinctively Christian topic: missions. The general way I reference this newsletter is being about faith and family. For anyone reading this who is not a Christian themselves, you could look at this as the lens through which faith works itself out and interacts with the world. Maybe it’ll be uneventful. It could be choppy waters.

We have these things within the church called secondary matters. Often those topics and doctrines include baptism, communion, the end of the world, the order of salvation, alcohol, the types of songs we sing, the clothes we wear to church, children’s ministry, etc. There’s a lot of differences that Christians can have and still be in fellowship with one another. The main thing has to be Jesus was the Son of God who was born to a virgin, lived the perfect life we couldn’t live, died on the cross for our sins, and rose from the dead for our hope that death will not have the last word on any who believe. How one lives their life is the evidence that one believes that, you know kinda like the evidence that you love your wife is you don’t spread that love to some woman who is not your wife. How that faith and practice is lived out in the local church made of people whose lives have been changed is where many differences lie. There are 59 “one another” commands in the New Testament that instruct Christians how to live together. Loving each other despite those differences is at the heart of the church and why it’s important to be part of one. It’s pretty hard to love one another, especially the ones who chap your cheeks, when you’re watching a live stream or recorded service from home. Face it, some people are EGR’s: Extra Grace Required. Honestly, I’m one of them.

In the gospels, Jesus closes His earthly ministry with the Great Commission. “Go and make disciples of all nations.” 

Family of Origin

People want things of God without God. In his book The Voyage of the Beagle, even Charles Darwin expressed hope that missionaries had been to the South American shores they were about to land on. Earlier in 2024, famous atheist Richard Dawkins stated in an interview that he was a cultural Christian, and that while he rejected the tenants of faith, he would much prefer to live in a Christian culture than an Islamic one.

Family is where I see this starting. There is a large multi-front movement to dismantle the family. Pornography and apathy are destroying men. Feminism and zeal are destroying women. That’s just picking on a couple topics. There are certainly more and the categories are not so neat. We are the self turned in on the self, aggressively pursuing the abolition of man. We’re separated from our homes. Grandparents and parents and children and brothers and sisters are separated by distance and offense.

We haven’t even gotten into family of origin, yet. One of the dearest brothers in Christ to me recently talked to me about this. He is dear because he’s seen me at my worst. He’s experienced me being an extreme EGR, and still calls me brother and friend. In a podcast he shared with me, the host and guest asked a zinger of a question: “why do I relate to my family the way I do?” A follow up one they gave to ask your family, and this is only for the ones brave and serious enough about their relationships to deal with hard things, is “What’s it like being in a relationship with me?”

We bring all kinds of baggage with us wherever we go. At least some of us do. We get mad at our closest family members because they innocently say or do something that so closely resembles some past negative family interaction. It’s hard to keep your cool in those instances because often times you’re not even aware of why you’re so upset about something you know isn’t that huge of a deal.

Further complicating our own lives and family lives is many Christian leaders have shown themselves as poor shepherds post-2020. Some have outright apostatized where others have just gotten squishy to the point of welcoming foxes into the henhouse instead of caring for the hens. There are brother wars online in heated arguments, which get amped up on podcasts and video content. Combined with the onslaught of news and political lies we’re inundated with on a weekly if not daily basis, and it’s enough to give one person a Lovecraftian level of existential dread. If you are overwhelmed and feel like there’s nothing you can do but wait for the wave to roll over you, then you know what it’s like.

But… we’re here to fight Poseidon. The waves may come, but as Charles Spurgeon said, “I’ve learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”

May it be true of us.

But what about missions?

Inheritance of Discipleship

In my recent writings for Fightin’ Poseidon, I’ve been listening to the album Portraits by For Today. In the closing song, Mattie Montgomery and company sing the following lines:

Lord of glory, make us worthy to possess Your Name.

We do have a lot of great resources but truly the One who will never let us down is the Lord. If the blood of His Son was shed to make the payment for our sins and make us right with Him, and if the grace couldn’t hold His Son, can the wave truly harm us? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31.

There is a lot about us that is twisted and jacked up. It’s not even entirely our fault nor is it an excuse even if it is an explanation.

I’m learning to let go of some of the things I’ve been so rigid about. There is one thing I can’t get past, though.

If we aren’t well, we can’t give others what we don’t have. If we aren’t digging deep into our sin and working it out with God (we are in a relationship with Him, after all), how are we going to deal with the problems and conflicts closest to us? How can we love our neighbors, knowing them and being known by them, if we aren’t making ourselves known and working out our salvation with our Creator?

If we aren’t well, how will we live well for our families? If our families aren’t well, how will we live well for our neighbors and churches and friends and extended family? If our own house isn’t in order, how can we begin to fulfill the Great Commission outside the walls of where we spend our weeks? I believe, if our households are not in order, we go far and wide with the Gospel to the peril of our own households.

Now, we are still on this side of eternity. The work Christ began in us has not been brought to full completion yet. However, we do have the charge to care for our families lest we be worse than an unbeliever in 1 Timothy 5:8. I’m hesitant to define that because I don’t want to fall into the formulaic prescriptions all the poor shepherds I’ve encountered have used.

So, what to do? Honestly, I’m challenged in my faith. If I’m to trust in Christ’s work and not my own, yet I still have a responsibility to act, what am I to do? The Bible is clear enough, but we don’t get all the day by day instructions.

I have to lean fully on the righteousness of Christ making me right with God and not any practice or method. There may be more or less wisdom in certain ways, but I can’t place my faith in those things. It’s the Lord who holds yesterday, today and tomorrow in His hands. Not me. As a pastor friend of mine used to say, “I don’t know what tomorrow holds but I know who holds tomorrow.”

Lord give me the faith to trust You.

In the meantime, I can take on the words Mattie Montgomery sang as my own prayer. With the song of my heart, I can sing “Lord of glory, make us worthy to possess Your name.”

In Christ, I’m made worthy. In Christ, I feel the sting of being under this fallen self. I feel the sting of words and actions I can’t take back. Sinful words and actions that, in a myopic moment of insanity, I thought would be the best way. How stupid.

“Lord of glory. Make me worthy to possess Your name.”

Help me to trust that You’ve completed the work, my debt is paid, and as Christ said, “It is finished.”

Give me faith for the days in between, the not yet.

There’s more to be developed here, but I’m already running long. Christmas is right around the corner. May we all see how God sent His Son into the world to rescue it. May our hearts be soft, and the soil of our hearts good and fertile, so we can receive the good seed with gladness. May we be fruitful. May we relate with God and take all our worries and anxieties and frustrations to Him, and not take them out on those closest to us. May we forgive each other as Christ has forgiven us. May we hope for the day of our future redemption. May we be healed.

And then, may we take that good news of Jesus Christ to the world around us. It’s not supposed to be the way it is. It’s not supposed to be this broken. Jesus Christ is remaking people, healing them, and remaking the world.

If we start with ourselves, then our homes, then out into the world, I believe we’ll be faithful to provide for our families and create an inheritance of discipleship in faith for many generations to come.

There is hope, and it has come, and He is named Jesus Christ.

If you want to talk more about this, hit the reply or chat with me on X. 

Have a Merry Christmas. Have a happy new year.

Talk to y’all in two weeks.

~ J.P. Simons