The Insider: Bringing the Kingdom of God into Your Everyday World

PREFACE

Over the past thirty to forty years, both of us, Mike and Jim, have worked alongside men and women of many cultures. Many of them share the common desire to see the good news of the kingdom of God advance among their families, friends, coworkers, fellow students—in short, among the people closest to them. They long for this, but they don’t know how to proceed.

These are ordinary people with an extraordinary desire. They are strategically positioned as insiders—all over the world—each within a unique network of relationships, each with a key part to play in God’s purposes. But what they have been taught about sharing their faith usually doesn’t fit life as it really is. They often feel frustrated.

This book is an effort to serve these people. They need and deserve help in turning their vision into reality. Because both of us have enjoyed the privilege of giving our undivided attention to the growth of the gospel for many years, we have a sense of debt to these men and women. You may be one of them. If so, we feel we owe it to you to share the things we are learning along the way. What you will see on these pages is an attempt to communicate, in practical form, some of the lessons we have learned from the Scriptures and our experience. We will consider this effort a success if, when you put the book down, you think to yourself, Is that all there is to it? I can do that! We will consider our efforts wildly successful when you then act upon what you’ve read!

A word about the way we have written this book. Although we have both contributed to the content, we decided that the book would be more readable if we wrote it with one voice, so Jim has done the actual writing.

Finally, we want to acknowledge some people who have significantly contributed to what’s on these pages. Don Simpson, of NavPress, has coached us along from the beginning. Glenn McMahan, Jim’s son-in-law and the real writer in his family, reviewed and critiqued our work.

Over the years we have learned together with many partners in mission. John, Aldo, Ken, Rinus, Neil, Alan, Vijayan, Lynton, and Logan have helped shape our understanding in ways too numerous to mention.

Without our wives, Audrey and Marge, neither of us would have a message to share!

PART ONE:

THE INSIDER

Part One:

INTRODUCTION

I got onto the ski lift and found myself riding up the mountain with two twenty-something men from Denver. They had moved to Denver from New Jersey two years before in pursuit of employment in the tech industry. They were very fortunate, they said, to have managed to hang on to their jobs when the Nasdaq collapsed soon after they arrived.

The two had volunteered this information about themselves within the first two minutes of the ten-minute ride to the top of the mountain. It was typical ski-lift talk. Cold today, huh? Where’re you from? According to custom, it was now my turn to talk.

I’m from Colorado Springs—came up for the day. I’m working on a book and needed to take a break.

Really? What’s the book about?

The working title is, ‘The Insider.’ It’s about making sense of life—about finding one’s calling in it. I find most people don’t have a clue. They put in eighty-hour weeks, going hard all the time, sometimes catching naps in their cubicles; but when you ask them where they’re going in such a hurry, they give you a blank look.

I paused to read their responses. Their signal: keep talking. Because I’m old enough to ski on a senior discount ticket, I figured I could be a bit paternalistic. I kidded them, When you came out to Denver, you probably thought you could make your bundle and retire at thirty-five. You hadn’t lived long enough to know what a downturn in the market could look like. You had only seen things go up.

Actually, we were shooting for retiring at thirty-three, but we’ve had to revise that, one of them joked.

Well, whatever, I replied. The problem of meaning really sets in the day you stop running. Are you going to be okay with spending the remaining forty years entertaining yourselves? I doubt it.

We swapped stories about people we know who have tried to do that, and agreed it doesn’t work very well.

"So, where do guys like you go to get answers to questions like these? Here we are with bigotry on both sides of us: the religious fundamentalist on the right and the liberal relativist on the left. One side wants us to believe too much—while the other forbids us to believe anything at all. Where does one go?"

Is that what your book is about?

Yeah.

What did you say the name of it was?

The search for meaning, in our society, is taking on a desperate edge. But, just because some of us already follow Christ doesn’t mean we have it sorted out and are living purposeful lives. We can belong to Christ—and still muddle along in existential confusion. We believe eternal life awaits, but we’re unable to connect the dots between that promised life and the one we’re in the middle of right now. Our life can be so mundane, with such predictable daily routines—all of which roar along at frantic speed—that we find it hard to imagine anything of larger, eternal purpose actually going on.

We have observed this dilemma among people of many cultures around the world. They believe in Christ but continue to hunger for meaningful participation in God’s purposes. Such participation is within reach—but many of us have yet to take hold of it. Our purpose in writing this book is to help you be successful in your search.

There are four parts to this book. In this first part, we explore the biblical foundations of our subject. We address the theology that supports insidership; consequently, you will find this section to be more philosophical than the other three.

Because most of our readers are practitioners and not theologians, we have worked at keeping this section readable. Our style is succinct, so you’ll want to read it with care. We will be addressing some very big ideas with very few words, and they can slip past you, unobserved.

If you are a confirmed pragmatist who loves to go directly to the bottom line and are not particularly concerned about how we get there, you may want to skip this section and begin with part two. Part two addresses the obstacles that stand in the way of our fruitfulness as an insider, obstacles such as our fears and our personal limitations—things we all struggle with every day.

In part three we look at seven life patterns of a fruitful insider. Our goal is to leave the reader with a clear, doable picture of how to live as an insider.

Part four examines costs. What will it cost us individually, and as a church, to do what we’ve been talking about?

CHAPTER 1

GOD’S ETERNAL PURPOSES AND THE INSIDER

We were just shooting the breeze, talking about whatever was on our minds, when Jack said something I will never forget. He said, These past twenty years of my life have played out like a bad movie. As I watched them go by I kept thinking to myself, ‘This wasn’t the script I had in mind. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’ He paused and added, … and I don’t know what I can do to make the next twenty any different.

Professionally, Jack is one of the most successful people I know. He has a good marriage and children who love him. He grew up in the church as a Christian. So what was his problem?

Jack was struggling with some unfulfilled expectations. He had expected more from God than he was getting. He had expected to see God use him in his workings in the world. But here he was at the peak of his career and he could see little or nothing to indicate that God had ever done anything through him!

I know a lot of people like Jack. Many of my friends who became Christians in their college days are saying similar things. They had believed in Christ along with the news that he has a wonderful plan for their lives—and they could hardly wait for life to begin! But now the years have gone by—and they’re still waiting!

What has gone wrong? The easiest response is to put the blame back on the person. (What can people expect when they don’t make space for God in their daily lives?) Or, we could find fault with the way the gospel had been presented to them. (They believed in a hyped-up gospel that overpromised.) Or we could lay the blame on God. (He doesn’t really involve himself in people’s lives all that much.)

However we interpret this, Jack’s problems are real. We all need to live for something. It’s contrary to our nature to be content if we feel our lives are not counting for something that is bigger than life! God made us this way. Whatever the earthly value of our achievements, if we do not feel that what we’re working on somehow transcends the here and now, we find ourselves struggling with feelings of futility. This is a universal phenomenon that runs through all of human history.

IN PURSUIT OF MEANING

THE EGYPTIAN KINGS who spent their lives—and the lives of thousands of others—building their tombs were driven by the vision of a busy, enterprising afterlife. Many of Europe’s great cathedrals were substantially funded by wealthy people who exchanged their properties for promises of perpetual prayers being offered for them from the cathedrals after their deaths. They were preoccupied with their eternal status. But one does not have to be religious to have concerns of this nature. The current popularity of the idea of leaving a legacy tells us this need is common to all sorts of people. We want to give ourselves to something that will outlive us.

This was the message of Solomon, the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes. He had both the opportunity and the means to experiment with just about every option life can offer. After doing it all he observed:

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;

I refused my heart no pleasure.

My heart took delight in all my work….

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done

and what I had toiled to achieve,

everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;

nothing was gained under the sun.¹

Solomon tried out everything under the sun and did not find meaning in any of it. That was his problem. His sights were too low! Our experience must extend beyond the sun to include the eternal, if we are to be satisfied. Is this need we feel not a part of our being made in God’s image?

The times we spend in private devotions won’t completely resolve these frustrations, either. In fact, the more we meditate on the Scriptures the stronger our desires become to know God and to participate with him in what he is doing. The Scriptures remind us again and again that following God does mean more than what Jack and my other friends are experiencing. So our question persists: What should we expect to happen in the normal course of our relationship with God?

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

NOW WE ARE asking life’s biggest question. What’s this life all about? What’s going on? And there is only one place to go for the answer. It is to ask, What is God about? What is he doing? If we don’t have it right about what he’s up to, we can be sure we won’t get it right in our own life.

A futile life is one lived on an agenda that has no connection with God’s purposes. It doesn’t matter how fast we’re going, or how high we’re flying, or where we’re headed—if we’re not living according to God’s purposes, our life is futile!

What is God doing today? It’s hard to tell just by looking at things. The news from around the world is consistently grim. Endemic corruption impoverishes millions of people in country after country. Tribal wars turn millions more into refugees. Diseases of epidemic proportions are killing millions a year in Africa alone. As I write this, the news from India reports a massive earthquake with a death toll of over fifteen thousand people. The same newscast informs us of a famine in central Asia where thousands are dying of starvation.

But we aren’t going to hear much more on these horror stories. There isn’t room on the news hour for such incidentals. The newscasters need the time to cover The War on Terror and the other major conflicts going on around the world!

To suggest that in the midst of this agonizing chaos God has purposes and that he is actively pursuing them is quite a stretch! It is easier to believe that things are falling apart and that he is absent from the scene. The Scriptures, however, tell us the opposite! They tell us God is at work, bringing all things together.

THE ETERNAL PURPOSES OF GOD

IT WAS ABOUT A.D. 60 when the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the emerging community of believers in Ephesus. Ephesus was also famous as the center of the worship of Cybele/Artemis, a goddess of fertility. Her temple was regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Sorcery, occult practices, and prostitution were a part of the worship practices of the temple. The new believers Paul was writing to were picking their way out of all of this. Life in the church was still pretty ragged.

Yet look at how Paul opens his letter. He addresses it to the saints inEphesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.² He is reminding them of who they are! They have a dual citizenship. They are in Ephesus but they are also in Christ. Yes, they belong to Christ, but they are to live out this new life within the realities of the city of Ephesus.

Paul wants the Ephesian believers to understand that despite all that is going on around them, they are a part of and are significant to God’s eternal purposes. With a few words he paints the cosmic landscape. He writes:

He chose us in him before the creation of the world … to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.… In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.… He made known to us the mystery of his will … which he purposed in Christ … to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.³

This paragraph is filled with vital information. God has purposes. He has a plan and right now he is in the midst of working it out. This is not an emergency rescue operation that God is performing, a sort of plan B after things went wrong. This plan was in place before God created anything at all! We also learn that at the center of this plan is the creation of a people, and that the cost of getting them would be the blood of his Son. In summary, this passage tells us that life has to do with a people and a cross!

This same idea is addressed in Psalm 2. It opens describing a revolution in progress—the human powers revolting against God. The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. Down with God! Up with us! We don’t need him! they chant. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters.’ We’re taking over!

The demonstration is interrupted by laughter. Someone is laughing! It’s God! The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. This rebellion is so ludicrous it makes God laugh! He addresses the rebels: Look over there. Look at the throne you intended to occupy. It’s already filled. My Son is on it! I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill. Then God turns to his Son and says, You are my Son.… Ask of me. What can I give you for your inheritance? The Father offers, I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.

Here again, we come away with the same message. Attempting to live apart from God is foolish, even if you’re a king. What is God doing? He is creating an inheritance for his Son. It consists of people of all nations.

THE DAY OF THE REFUGEE

BUT, NOW, WHAT is this next statement God makes to his Son? He says, You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery. What is he talking about? Who is going to be dashed to pieces? It’s the rebel kings, those who were revolting against God! He tells them, You kings … be warned, you rulers of the earth … Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed.⁴

Throughout history, ever since these words were written, God has repeatedly acted on this promise to his Son. A society builds a system that, in time, shuts God out. As the rebellion of its leaders hardens, the people in that society are deprived of any direct news about God. At some point, God intervenes. Suddenly, the repressive system is no more!

This is, indeed, what is happening all around the world today. God is breaking to pieces the powers that rule people’s lives, the things they believe in, the things they have traditionally looked to for security. Governments, economies, cultures, markets, and religious systems occupying people’s minds and souls for centuries are breaking apart. The isms are falling and the people these systems held captive are being freed to become part of Christ’s inheritance. The refugee is a good example.

I have a friend, Isma’il, who is living as a refugee in a Middle Eastern country. His home country is Iraq, but he and hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis have migrated to this particular country in search of a more secure place to live. Isma’il is a contagious follower of Christ, living in the midst of a solidly Muslim society. Over the past two years he, with the help of a few friends, has planted the gospel in five different communities of refugees, where it is now taking root and growing. The uncertainties of life for the refugee combined with the newfound space to think and seek truth are breaking up the hold of the Muslim religion and creating fertile ground for the good news of Christ. This is happening in many places around the world.

IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER

GOD IS BRINGING all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.⁵ This phrase, bring … together, is the verb anakephalaioo. It expresses the idea of gathering things together to present them as a whole. In rhetoric, the word is used to describe summing up the argument and to show how each part of it fits together to substantiate the thesis. In math, the verb refers to the process of adding up columns of figures and then putting the sum at the top. All of the pieces that make up this chaotic world will be put in their places, and the picture will become clear!

So