CHAPTER SIX

THE GOD WHO
EXALTS GOD

After the release of Radical, people from different churches began e-mailing me to share how Christ was calling them to radical obedience.

Jacob and Stephanie were storing up money for a bigger house when they began considering the claims of Christ upon their lives. In their words, “We realized we were working toward worldly goals, so we began praying that God would open our eyes to his plan, even if it meant letting go of our dreams.” As they prayed, the Lord drew their attention to children with Down syndrome in need of adoption. Said Stephanie, “As I looked at hundreds of faces of children in need [on a Web site], tears poured down, and I knew that we were not supposed to build a bigger home but to give a home to one of these children.”

Together, they have begun the process of adopting a child with Down syndrome. As for the larger home, they actually went in the opposite direction, selling the home they had to move into a smaller one. That will free up more of their resources for God’s purposes. Stephanie wrote, “I can’t believe how God is transforming our lives. Instead of Christianity being a chore or a legalistic to-do list, it’s a relationship. I wake up every day eager to hear more from God. I’m reading the Bible as if it’s the first time I’ve ever picked it up. I regret that I have wasted so much of my life living for myself, but I’m not wasting it anymore. I cannot wait to see where God takes us from here!”

Jacob and Stephanie are joined by many other church members I have talked to who are rearranging their lifestyles, reorganizing their families, and reallocating their resources to make their lives count for the global purpose of God. Some of them are staying in the United States. Others are moving overseas.

Melissa described her feelings when her husband, Mark, approached her about downsizing their home. “When Mark initially suggested that we should move out of our posh loft and look into living somewhere that costs significantly less, I balked. ‘Um, Mark,’ I said, ‘we use this loft for Jesus.’ Apparently that wasn’t good enough, and he continued to gently ‘suggest’ in the days ahead. God began changing my heart as I began to discover all the other things I was holding on to ‘for Jesus.’ Funny, Jesus didn’t hold on to anything that was rightfully his but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” Compelled by the gospel, Mark and Melissa have moved into a low-income community where they are sharing and showing the gospel while “furthering God’s kingdom with the money, resources, and time that he has given us.”

Tom and Amy took a different step. Amy wrote, “I grew up in a little town in Texas and have never lived more than two hours from my family. But the gospel is compelling us to forsake our comforts, our family, and our home in order to follow God into the unknown. Along with our two daughters, we will follow wherever he leads.” God is now leading Tom, Amy, and their family to move to Prague. Amy reports that they are learning to “depend on him to accomplish his goal—the spreading of the gospel in one of the most openly atheistic countries in Europe.”

Obviously, moving from one place to another is not the only possible application of Christ’s commands in our lives. His words are playing out in different ways in people from different places.

Jorge is a postal service retiree from a church in Arizona, and God has led him to begin gospel ministry with fellow Hispanics in his community.

Christine is a stay-at-home mom from a church in Washington State, and she has started a ministry to Christian teachers working in third-world countries.

Lauren is a college senior from a church in London, and she’s planning to use her studies and skills to work among people who have never heard of Christ.

DeShawn is a high school junior from a church in Florida, and he has organized outreach opportunities for his peers to participate in sharing the gospel around his community every Sunday.

Stan is the pastor of a church in North Carolina, and he recently went before his congregation to (in his words) “publicly repent for just doing church and for being unconcerned about the nations.” He is now leading them “to share the gospel, serve the poor, and shake the nations.”

Why?

Why are local churches beginning to reshape their priorities and reassess their spending in light of urgent spiritual and physical needs around the world? And why are their members changing their lifestyles, packing their bags, selling their homes, moving to low-income areas, or taking their families to dangerous places? It is certainly not because they read an orange book entitled Radical. Rather, it is because they are gripped by an overwhelming God. They know they belong to a God who desires, deserves, and demands absolute devotion in their lives and in their churches, and they want to give him nothing less. He is worthy of their all—their lives, their budgets, their ambitions, their programs, their relationships, their possessions, their careers, and their trust.

As Christians joined together with one another in the church, we are selfless followers of a self-centered God. We are selfless in that we have died to ourselves. We have lost the right to determine the direction of our lives. Our God is our Lord, our Master, and our King. He holds our times in his hands, and he is free to spend our lives however he pleases. And he is self-centered. In his Word, God declares his own glory, and in the world, God displays his own glory. God exalts God. If this rubs us wrong in any way, we should ask, “Who else would we have him exalt?” For at the very moment God exalts anyone or anything else, he is no longer the God who is worthy of all exaltation. Everything God does, even the salvation of his people, ultimately centers around God, for he is worthy of all praise from all peoples.¹

So it’s really true that, individually and together, we are to be selfless followers of a self-centered God. But the problem is that we often reverse this in the church. We become self-centered followers of a selfless God. We organize our churches as if God exists to meet our needs, cater to our comforts, and appeal to our preferences. Discussions in the church more often revolve around what we want than what he wills. Almost unknowingly, the church becomes a means of self-entertainment and a monument to self-sufficiency. But something wonderful happens when we apply radical obedience to Christ in the regular practice of the church. All of a sudden, we find ourselves engulfed in a community that finds deep and abiding pleasure in denial of self and dependence on God.

LOSING OUR LIVES OR SIPPING OUR LATTES?

I spent my first few months as a pastor in a steep learning curve. Because I had never pastored before, I devoured books on how to determine and communicate a vision for where a church is going. In order to lead your church anywhere, these books told me, you need a preferred future, a visual destination, for which you are working. Pastors I respect declared, “Decide how big you want your church to be, and go for it, whether that’s five, ten, or twenty thousand members. Envision what your church campus (or multiple campuses) will look like five, ten, or twenty years from now, and start working toward it. Dream about how your worship services can become more innovative. All of this is important, so consider hiring a creative consultant to help you craft your vision. After all, Proverbs 29:18 says that where there is no vision, the people will perish.”²

At first it seemed to make sense. But over time I found myself getting nauseated by all the vision talk. Setting and reaching goals is important, of course. But were my sights really supposed to be set on bringing a large crowd together in a cool environment where they could hear terrific music, see killer graphics, and then listen to me talk live or via video or maybe even via hologram (if only I had really innovative vision)? If this was to be the vision of my life and ministry, I decided, then I should perish.

So I sat down with members in our church, and together we asked, “What is our vision? What do we want to see? Where do we want to fasten our attention in the days to come? What do we want to work toward with all our hearts?”

As we prayed together, the answer became obvious. The only possible vision for the church of Jesus Christ is to make known the glory of God in all nations. This preferred future or visual destination must drive us because this is what drives God. Far more than we want stuff for the church, crowds at the church, or activities in the church, we want to know, love, honor, and praise God. And we want all people to do the same. We want to see God glorified by people everywhere because God wants to see himself glorified by people everywhere.

Vision affects everything. That’s what visions do. If the focus of the church is on having a large crowd in a big place where people can come and feel warm and welcomed, then you and I will plan accordingly. We will prioritize a nice church campus for people to drive to and where they can find a convenient parking space. We’ll give them a latte when they walk in the door, and then we’ll provide state-of-the-art entertainment for their children while treating them to a great show that leaves them feeling good when they drive away in a timely fashion. Variations of this vision engineered for the savvy Christian consumer are multiplied across the landscape of our country today, and they work well. The crowds come, and the vision is realized.

But what happens when our vision changes? What happens when our primary aim is not to make the crowds feel comfortable but to exalt God in all his glory? Suddenly our priorities begin to change. More than you and I want people to be impressed by the stuff we can manufacture, we want them to be amazed by the God they cannot fathom. More than we want to dazzle them with our production, we want to direct them to his praise. And the last thing we want to do is raise up people who are casual in the worship of God as they sit back and enjoy their lattes. Instead, we want to raise up people who are so awed, so captivated, so mesmerized by the glory of God that they will gladly lose their lattes—and their lives—to make his greatness known in the world.

RADICALLY SEEKER SENSITIVE

“But what’s so wrong with the lattes?” someone might ask. “Isn’t it good to cater creatively to people who don’t know God? Don’t we want to be sensitive to those who are seeking God?”

Great questions. As you and I think about all the people who are without Christ in our communities, we long to see as many of them as possible come to Christ. Without question, we want to do everything we can to see people saved.

But let me remind you of a startling reality that the Bible makes clear: “There is … no one who seeks God.”³ So if the church is sensitive to seekers, and if no one is seeking God, then that means the church is sensitive to no one. That’s radical, but probably not the kind of radical we’re looking for.

Instead, Jesus tells us that the Father is pursuing worshipers for his praise.⁴ He is the one doing the seeking! He has been seeking sinners for thousands of years, and he is pretty good at it—far better than all the attractions and allurements we can assemble. So since you and I want to see people come to Christ in the church, let’s do everything we can to put the wonders of God’s glory, holiness, wrath, justice, kindness, jealousy, grace, and character on display in his church. Let’s show people the most biblical, holistic, clear, and captivating vision of God that we possibly can and then trust him to take care of the seeking.

I think about Eric, who came to our church one Sunday at the request of his parents. He was addicted to drugs and had almost lost his life as a result. At the end of himself, he walked into our worship gathering, where we sang songs about God’s greatness and studied Scripture about God’s glory. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul tells what will happen when an unbeliever comes into a worship gathering of the church: “He will be convinced by all [he is hearing] that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’ ”⁵ Well, Eric had a 1 Corinthians 14 moment that day. As he was captivated by the greatness of God in the church, he began to cry out for the grace of God in his life. Eric was saved from his sins that Sunday, not because he came seeking after God, but because God came seeking after him.

So let’s be radically seeker sensitive in our churches. But let’s make sure we are being sensitive to the right Seeker.

WHAT ADVANCES THE GOSPEL

I know of no greater motivational tool for the church than a glimpse of the sovereign, holy, majestic God who is worthy of all worship, who is high and lifted up. This vision alone will compel a church to radical, risk-taking, death-defying obedience to the purpose of God in the world. For when our faith communities actually believe that God deserves the praise of all peoples, then our humble worship in the church will lead to an urgent witness in the world.

When we see three thousand animistic tribes across Africa worshiping all kinds of suspicious spirits and false gods, we will be compelled to go to Africa and declare the glory of the one true God.

When we see countries like Japan, Laos, and Vietnam filled with 350 million people following Buddha’s beliefs and practices, we will be compelled to go to those countries and proclaim the greatness of Christ above Buddha and everyone else.

When we see people in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka worshiping literally millions of gods in the name of Hinduism, then we will go to those countries and tell people that there is one God over all gods.

When we see over a billion people in communist environments around the world who possess an atheistic view of God, we will be compelled to go to China, Cuba, and North Korea to tell people that God does exist and that he deserves their praise.

When we see more than a billion Muslims in some of the toughest places in the world for a Christian to live, we will sacrifice our lives, if necessary, to go to them because we want the glory of God in all nations more than we want our own safety in this world.

I think of Moravian churches in early eighteenth-century Germany. Before William Carey ever sailed to India or Hudson Taylor ever landed in China, these brothers and sisters were pioneering Western involvement in the global purpose of God. And it was costly. Two Moravian believers decided to sell themselves into slavery in order to reach slaves in the Caribbean with the gospel. As their ship set sail for St. Thomas, these brothers were heard crying out, “Worthy is the Lamb to receive the reward of his suffering!” The worth of Christ compelled these men to lose their lives for witness in the world.

Then I think of Adoniram Judson, who believed God was leading him to spend his life spreading the gospel among people who had never heard it. He met Ann and fell in love with her, but he needed to ask Ann’s father for permission to marry her. So Judson wrote him this letter:

The driving ambition behind Judson’s appeal to his potential father-in-law was the prospect of God being glorified in other nations. His father-in-law approved, and in the end it did cost his daughter her life.

During thirty-eight years overseas, Adoniram Judson lost two wives and seven children to premature death. Yet today there are nearly four thousand Baptist churches with over half a million followers of Christ in the heart of Buddhist Burma (Myanmar). Adoniram and Ann Judson believed the worship of God was worth their lives, and churches who sow this kind of passion in worship will inevitably send this kind of people into the world.

I think of the men and women I presently pastor.

I think of the single women we have sent to West Africa and the Middle East to work in some of the toughest contexts in the world. One of them, Jana, recently shared with the church, “God is not willing that any should perish, and neither am I. He wants all people to know him, and that’s why I am going.”

I think of entire families who have moved to a foreign country. Joseph is a doctor who took his wife and three children to work in the midst of spiritual and physical poverty overseas. He wrote me recently:

He went on to say, “What these people need is an advocate who shares their burdens and knows their fear, and we cannot show the love of Jesus Christ to them without descending into the valley of the shadow of death with them. Indeed, that is what Jesus has done for us. And so that is what I endeavor to do, all the while trusting that God will be true to his promise and not task me with more than I am able to bear.”

I think of Brandon and Lydia, a young couple whom our pastors recently interviewed as we prepare to send them into one of the most dangerous areas in the world. One of the pastors asked this precious wife, “Are you sure that you are ready for what lies ahead?”

The room fell silent as she softly responded, “I believe God’s Word is true. His Word says that the gospel will advance through persecution and suffering. And I am good with that.”

Nothing can stop a people who are trusting in the Word of God and living for the worship of God.

A CONSTANT DEPENDENCE

Unleashing God’s people to accomplish God’s purpose in the world requires that we devote ourselves to relentless prayer in the church. Why? Because prayer is one of the primary demonstrations of our selflessness and God’s self-centeredness. In our selflessness, you and I realize that it is impossible for us to accomplish his purpose in our own strength. So we express our dependence upon God in prayer, and he delights in showing his glory by giving us everything we need for the accomplishment of his purpose. Through prayer, God gives grace to us in such a way that he receives glory for himself.

Prayer is a nonnegotiable priority for selfless followers of a self-centered God.

When you read the story of the early church in the book of Acts, you see people for whom prayer was fundamental, not supplemental. Three times Luke tells us that the church was devoted to prayer.⁷ They were utterly dependent on God’s power. Every major breakthrough for the church in the book of Acts came about as a direct result of prayer.⁸ God performed mighty works for the propagation of the gospel and the declaration of his glory in direct proportion to the prayers of his people.

As the early church prayed, Luke tells us, “much grace was upon them all.”⁹ In the pages of Acts, we see the grace of God working powerfully through his people at every turn.¹⁰ Every advance of the gospel message came, not by human innovation, but by divine visitation.

These believers knew that prayer was necessary for the accomplishment of God’s purpose in the world. The point of prayer is not to carry on business as usual in the church. The reality is, we can conduct monotonous, human-centered religion on our own. But if we want to make disciples in all the nations, then we will need to pray. For when we sacrifice everything we are and stake everything we have on the front lines of a battle for the souls of millions of people around us and billions of people around the world who have little to no knowledge of Jesus, we are forced to pray.

I remember traveling to Sudan for the first time. Persecution and war were still prevalent in the region of southern Sudan where we were going, making it the most dangerous trip I had ever gone on. Even praying about the possibility of going was a challenge for my wife and me, but we were convinced it was God’s will.

The team I went with arrived in Kenya and spent a couple of days there before going into Sudan. The night before we were to fly to Sudan, my friend who had organized the trip brought us all together and said, “There’s a potential risk that we have not yet discussed, and we need to discuss it before we leave tomorrow morning.”

Everybody got quiet.

“We know there are threats of bombings and raids in these villages,” he explained. “But we also need to talk about the threat of snakes.”

For the record, I’m not a big fan of snakes.

“You need to know,” my friend continued, “that a majority of the deadliest snakes in the world live in Sudan.” He began to name them—the green mamba, the black mamba, and so on. He described how lethal their bites are. Then he said, almost in jest, “If you get bit by one of these snakes, we have a snake kit, but it really won’t do anything for these kinds of snakes. So if you get bit, we’ll just pray and see what happens.”

I was now considering the possibility that God, even though I had thought he wanted me to go to Sudan, really wanted me to stay in Kenya.

This possibility grew more appealing as my friend continued. “Last year,” he said, “a Sudanese villager was walking his cattle down a path in the jungle, and a green mamba was hiding up in a tree. Suddenly it plunged down and bit a couple of his cows. The cows fell over dead within minutes.”

I was frozen as I listened. A few minutes later he concluded our meeting and told us to get a good night’s sleep so we’d be ready for the morning.

Yeah, right.

I tried to sleep that night, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw mambas. So instead of sleeping, I stayed up and memorized Psalm 91. Verse 13 says,

I figured that if I didn’t have anything else in the snake-ridden Sudanese jungle, I was at least going to have the Word with me.

The next day we rode a small plane for a few hours until we landed on a makeshift airstrip in the middle of Sudan. We got our bags and made our way to a river. It turned out that this was a crocodile-infested river, and we were crossing it in a canoe that some Sudanese had affectionately labeled on its side The Mayfloat.

Very funny.

So we crossed the crocodile-infested river in The Mayfloat, and we came to a Jeep on the other side. There was enough room for most of the guys to get inside the Jeep, but not all of us. Someone would need to ride on top. My friend asked if I’d be willing to go up there. I told him I would be glad to, and I climbed on top.

We began to move forward, I looked up, and all I saw were trees everywhere. Immediately I thought of the green mamba story from the night before, and I panicked. What if a mamba like the one that bit the cows dropped on me?

I didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do. So I did all that I knew to do. I started speaking to the trees and any snakes therein: “You will trample upon the lion and the serpent! You will trample on the cobra!”

This set the stage for the whole trip. Everywhere we went, I was on the lookout. I would go to bed at night praying that God would wake me up in the morning, and then I would wake up thanking him for bringing me through the night. I would walk around every corner, in every field, at every moment looking for snakes and praying for protection. Everywhere and at all times I was aware of my need for him, and I lived in constant dependence upon him and in desperation for him.

I am convinced this is the way the Christian life is intended to be lived and our churches are intended to be led. Let’s be honest. As long as church consists of normal routines and Christianity consists of nominal devotion with little risk, little sacrifice, and little abandonment, then we can do this on our own. But what happens when we give ourselves to something that is far greater than what we can accomplish on our own? What happens when we dare to believe that God desires to use every one of our lives and every one of our churches to bring about kingdom advancement to the ends of the earth? We will find ourselves around every corner and at every moment dependent on his power and desperate for his grace as we devote ourselves to his purpose.

GIVE GOD NO REST

Over the last couple of years, I have been convicted that prayer has been supplemental, not fundamental, in my life and in the church I lead. I began to ask myself, If someone were looking from the outside at the Church at Brook Hills, would they see a people desperate for the Spirit of God? Unfortunately, the clear answer to that question was no. So I began calling our faith family to pray and fast together, and now we take a Sunday during every quarter of the year to spend concentrated time in corporate prayer and fasting.

I realize that many churches here and around the world fast more intentionally and more frequently than this. One Sunday we were hosting some brothers and sisters from Kenya, and it happened to be a day we were fasting. I had lunch with them the next day as we broke our fast, and they asked if we fasted regularly as a church.

I said, “We are just beginning to do this, and many of our people are fasting for the first time in their lives, but we are learning, and we have a lot more to learn in the days ahead.”

Then I asked, “What about you? Do you fast regularly in your church?”

A long pause ensued. They looked at one another, each waiting for the other to respond, and then one brother, Samuel, finally spoke up.

“In our church,” he said, “we begin every year with a month-long fast.”

Whether fasting for a day or for a month, it’s healthy for the church to corporately express our hunger for God. Isaiah’s words to the people of Israel have constructed the frame of our fasting at Brook Hills.

I love a phrase in the second verse: “Give him no rest till.” I want to be part of a people who are giving God no rest from our praying and seeking after him. I want to be part of a people who are calling on the Lord day and night, refusing to leave God alone because we hunger for God’s Word in our lives and God’s power in his church and God’s glory in all nations.

I want to give God no rest until we experience the power and the presence of God that we see in the church in Acts. One man preaches, and more than three thousand people are cut to the heart and saved. The Lord is adding daily to their number those being saved. The lame are walking, and the blind are seeing. Thousands are coming to Christ at great cost, yet they can’t be kept from proclaiming the gospel. God is picking up people and putting them in remote deserts to talk to people who are wondering about Jesus, the number of disciples is growing rapidly, and the gospel is spreading with power. I want to be part of a move of God like that. Do you?

Do you and I want to see the power of God raining down on his church in inexplicable ways? Do you and I want to see the justice of God restored in his church so that we stop ignoring the poverty, disease, starvation, and sickness that are rampant around us? Do you and I want to see the love of God rescuing sinners from all walks of life and redeeming his children from every nation, tribe, tongue, and people? Then let us give God no rest from our praising, confessing, and interceding, and let us watch him unleash his people in his church for his purpose in the world.

“GOD DOES NOT NEED ME”

We are selfless followers of a self-centered God. We exist for the glory of God, and God exists for the glory of God. The ultimate key to joining together in radical obedience to Christ is found in fostering a humble view of ourselves and a high view of God in the church. For when we see ourselves as completely dependent, utterly desperate children of God who live exclusively for him, then we will give ourselves in total abandonment to him for his great purpose in the world: the declaration of his gospel and the demonstration of his glory to all the peoples of the earth.

Let me close this chapter by sharing a personal story that I am not proud of.

Years ago I was hiking and covertly distributing gospel literature in an area of East Asia where many unreached people groups live. During the hike I discovered why these people have been unreached for generations: they are physically difficult to reach. My party would hike for hours to get to a small village that was tucked into the crevice of a mountain. It was a long, grueling, and dangerous trip.

One night we stopped to set up camp while we still had a bit of daylight. So I wandered off on my own to the top of a hill where I could overlook the terrain we were traversing. As I sat there looking over the landscape and thinking about all we were doing to try to get the gospel to these people groups, a thought came to mind: God must be really glad to have me on his team.

It just so happened that I was holding a book by A. W. Tozer entitled The Knowledge of the Holy. I opened it to the chapter on the self-sufficiency of God, and these were the first words I read:

The only way my prideful heart could have more clearly heard a message from God was if he had audibly spoken to me.

Humbled by the reality of a self-existent, self-sustaining, self-sufficient God, I realized:

God does not need me.

God does not need my church.

God does not need you.

God does not need your church.

God does not need our conferences, conventions, plans, programs, budgets, buildings, or mission agencies.

The reality is that you and I, your church and my church, all the structures we have constructed and all the stuff we have created could turn to dust, and God could still make a great name for himself among the nations.

God does not involve us in his grand, global purpose because he needs us. He involves us in his grand, global purpose because he loves us.

So here we sit, with the gospel of God in our hearts, with the gift of God known as the church, and with a grand and gracious invitation from God to lock arms with one another in the passionate spread of his glory to the ends of the earth. Let’s rise up together as selfless followers of a self-centered God, and let’s live—and die—as though we believe our highest prize is his global praise.