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When Comfort Undermines the Mission · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm your host and I am really
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  glad you're with us today. It's good to be here.
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  So today we are walking into what feels like a collision of
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  worlds. We've got a heavy stack of
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  documents here and I have to be honest, when I first saw the
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  list I thought someone in research had made a filing
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  error. It does look like a mistake at
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  first glance, doesn't it? You kind of look at it and
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  wonder how these things even fit in the same folder.
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  Exactly. We have an Old Testament story
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  about a servant's just catastrophic moral failure in 2
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  Kings. Then we have a really dense
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  theological letter written to exiles in the 1st century from
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  the Apostle Peter. Right.
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  And then just to make it even more jarring, we have a war zone
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  report from a pastor in Kiev, Ukraine, written in the very
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  first days of the 2022 invasion. It's it's quite a spread.
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  It is a pretty disjointed list until you find the thread that
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  connects them all and that the thread is comfort.
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  Comfort, yeah. Specifically, the idolatry of
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  comfort versus, well, the theology of the cross.
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  OK, before we dive into that, I want to pose a scenario to you
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  and to you listening right now. I want you to just visualize
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  this. Imagine you are standing in the
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  dusty heat of the ancient Near East.
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  You are witnessing A genuine, undeniable miracle.
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  A man whose skin was literally rotting away with leprosy, which
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  was a death sentence in that culture, is suddenly, instantly
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  made clean. It's the kind of thing that just
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  completely shifts your worldview.
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  You're seeing the impossible happen right in front of your
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  eyes. Exactly.
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  It's a display of Yahweh's glory that should make you fall on
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  your face in, you know, terror and worship.
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  But imagine that in that very moment, the very first thought
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  that pops into your head isn't glory to God, but how can I
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  monetize this? Wow, that's a grotesque thought.
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  It's almost sociopathic. It is, but as we're going to see
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  in our first source, it's a very real temptation.
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  So today, our mission is to synthesize these three different
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  perspectives. We're looking at an analysis of
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  what Luz Contreras calls the deadly enemy of missionaries.
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  Then a study by Rick Kress on the theological antidote to
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  burnout, based on first Peter. And finally, that really
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  gripping report from Pastor Oleg Cullen in Kiev and.
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  The goal here isn't just to learn some Bible stories or read
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  a diary from a war zone. It's to understand how the
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  doctrines of grace, specifically a high view of God's
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  sovereignty, how that actually sustains A believer when the
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  world is either offering you a bribe to sell out or dropping a
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  bomb on your house. The bribe and the bomb.
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  And that's a great way to put it.
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  Let's start with the bribe. We're going to 2 Kings Chapter
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  5. This is the story of Gehazi.
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  Now most people know the story of Norman the Syrian, but can
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  you set the stage for us? Who are the main players here?
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  Sure. It's really a triad of
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  characters. First you have Elisha, the
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  prophet of God. He's a mouthpiece of Yahweh in
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  Israel. Then you have Norman, and this
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  is vital to understand. He's a commander of the Syrian
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  Army, he's an enemy of Israel. He's a gentile, he's powerful,
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  he's famous, but he's dying of leprosy.
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  And the third, the third is Gehazi, Elisha's servant.
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  He's the assistant, the the gatekeeper, the guy in the
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  background making sure the ministry runs smoothly.
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  So Neiman comes to Israel desperate for a cure.
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  He's desperate and the healing happens.
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  It's incredibly dramatic. Elisha tells him to go dip in
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  the Jordan River 7 times he does it and that tech says his flesh
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  was restored like the flesh of a little child.
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  It's a total reset. Naman is just he's overwhelmed.
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  He returns to Elisha and he wants to pay.
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  He's brought talents of silver, gold, expensive clothes.
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  He's basically opening his wallet.
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  And Elisha refuses. He refuses.
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  Flat out, Elisha says, as the Lord lives before whom I stand,
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  I will receive nothing. Why though?
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  I mean ministry costs money. Elisha could have funded the
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  School of the Prophets for a decade with that kind of cash.
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  That's the pragmatic argument, isn't it?
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  And it makes sense on one level. But Elisha understood something
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  much deeper was at stake. Which was?
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  He refused because he had to protect the reputation of God.
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  You have to remember Naman was a Pagan.
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  He was used to paying for favors from his idols.
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  Right, a transactional religion. Exactly.
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  If Elisha took the money, it would look like just another
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  transaction. It would look like you can buy
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  Yahweh's favor. Elisha wanted to establish from
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  the very beginning that grace is free.
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  You cannot buy God. So the scene ends, Naaman leaves
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  his theology corrected, Elisha's content, but then the camera, so
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  to speak, it pans over to Ghazi, and this is where the source
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  material highlights what it calls the pivot point of the
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  entire narrative. And it's a terrifying pivot.
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  Ghazi has this internal monologue.
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  He's watching this small fortune just walk away, and he says to
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  himself, Behold, my master has spared this name in the Aramean
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  by not receiving from his hands what he brought.
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  He's already framing Elisha's godliness as a mistake.
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  He is, and then, and this is the part that should make us all
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  shiver, he says as Yahweh lives, I will run after him and take
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  something. As Yahweh lives, he uses the
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  covenant name of God to plan a sin.
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  That's the dark irony that Contreras points out in the
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  analysis. Elisha used that exact phrase as
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  Yahweh lives to refuse the money and to glorify God.
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  Gehazi uses the exact same holy oath to justify his greed.
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  He swears by the living God that he is going to go disobey that
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  God. That is just chilling.
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  It's like he's spiritualizing his own greed.
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  He's wrapping his sin in religious language to make it
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  feel OK. That's precisely what he's
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  doing. You have to consider his
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  background. This isn't some ignorant novice.
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  Ghazi had arguably the best seminary education in history.
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  Right, he's Elisha's protege. He's mentored daily by Elisha.
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  He saw the Shunamite sun raised from the dead.
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  He saw the poison Stew purified. He saw the waters of the Jordan
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  part with a cloak. He had all the theological data,
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  the evidence, and yet when he saw that silver walking away,
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  all that data, just, it didn't matter.
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  He couldn't handle the loss of the Prophet.
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  The source makes a really fascinating comparison here
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  between Gehazi and Naman. It kind of flips the script on
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  who the real believer is in that moment.
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  It really does. You have Naman, A Gentile, a
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  brand new convert maybe he's been a believer for 5 minutes
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  who shows incredible honor to God.
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  He wants to give. He wants to worship.
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  He wants to take dirt back to Sirius.
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  We can worship Yahweh. And then you have Gehazi.
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  The Insider, The pastor's kid, so to speak, and he's the one
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  who acts like a Pagan. Naaman offered the money out of
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  gratitude. Ghazi chased it out of greed.
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  So let's define the enemy here. The source material calls it the
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  deadly enemy. Is the enemy money itself?
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  Is it wrong for a pastor or a missionary to have a salary?
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  No, and we need to be very precise here.
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  Scripture is clear on this. First Timothy 6 says God gives
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  us all things richly to enjoy. Paul talked about knowing how to
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  abound. The enemy is not currency, it's
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  the. Love of it.
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  It's the love of money. It's discontentment.
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  It's the core belief that God's provision isn't quite enough and
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  that I need to step in and secure my own comfort.
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  The source mentions this specifically in the context of
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  missionaries, and I think this applies to anyone in ministry or
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  even, you know, charity work. It's rarely as blatant as I want
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  to be a billionaire. Right.
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  It's much subtler. Contreras calls it the
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  missionary context. The temptation is in making
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  ministry decisions based on financial gain or location
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  comfort. OK, what does that look like?
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  It's the internal calculus that asks where can I go where the
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  salary is good, the schools are nice for my kids, and the coffee
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  is familiar. Instead of asking where is the
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  need greatest? Where's God calling me to go?
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  It turns the calling into a career ladder.
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  That's it exactly. It is the hired hand mentality
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  that Jesus warns about in John chapter 10.
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  The hired hand views the ministry as a job.
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  The church becomes a vehicle for self advancement.
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  And when trouble comes? If Wolf comes or the paycheck
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  stop, the hired hand is gone. He's out.
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  Ghazi was the ultimate hired hand.
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  He was close to the power. He saw the miracles, but his
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  heart was always transactional. That brings us to the Wisdom of
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  Solomon. The source material spends a lot
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  of time in Proverbs to explain why this mindset is so, well, so
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  stupid. I mean not just sinful, but
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  intellectually bankrupt. It's completely irrational.
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  Contreras breaks down Proverbs 1, verses 17 to 19.
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  Solomon uses this analogy of a bird and a net.
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  He says it is no use that a net is spread in the sight of any
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  bird. OK, let's unpack this because
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  usually we think of birds as, you know, not the sharpest tools
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  in the shed. What is Solomon saying?
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  He's saying that birds possess a basic God-given survival
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  instinct. If you set up a trap right in
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  front of a bird, the bird sees the mechanism, it sees the
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  danger, and it flies away. He has an instinct for self
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  preservation. But Solomon says the greedy man
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  is Dumber than the bird. Because the greedy man sees the
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  trap, he has the law of God. He sees the warnings.
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  He sees that sin leads to destruction.
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  He sees the net spread out right in front of him and he runs into
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  it. Verse 18 says they lie in wait
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  for their own blood. They ambush their own lives.
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  Ambush their own lives. That is a powerful, powerful
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  image. It's like they are meticulously
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  planning their own assassination and they don't even realize it.
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  It's the insanity of sin. We think we're securing our
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  future by grabbing the cash or the comfortable post, but we're
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  actually setting the trap that will snap our own necks.
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  Dahazi thought he was securing a nice retirement fund.
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  He was actually securing a lifetime of leprosy from self
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  and his children. There are also these better than
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  proverbs that the source highlights, and I love these
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  because they're so practical, but they are so hard to swallow
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  in our consumer culture. Proverbs 15, verses 16 and 17.
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  Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure
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  and turmoil with it, and better is a dish of vegetables where
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  there is love than a fattened oxen hatred in it.
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  I think about that every time I eat a salad instead of a steak.
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  But he's not really talking about diet, is he?
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  No, not at all. It's a stark choice.
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  On one side you have the fattened ox.
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  That's the filet mignon. That's the luxury car, the fully
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  funded retirement account, the comfort, the prestige.
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  Right. But Solomon says it often comes
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  with hatred, with turmoil, with the anxiety maintaining it, with
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  the guilt of how you got it, with a broken relationships.
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  And on the other side. A bowl of vegetables.
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  A simple, meager existence, but with the fear of the Lord and
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  with love. The source is really asking us
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  to weigh these two things honestly.
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  Would you genuinely prefer to be poor and holy, or rich and
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  miserable? We all say poor and holy in a
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  deep dive like this, but when the bill comes due.
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  That's where the rubber meets the road.
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  Solomon is arguing that wisdom, which is simply the skill of
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  living according to God's Word, yields a profit that currency
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  just cannot match. Wisdom gives you a life that
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  doesn't collapse on itself. So let's talk about the
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  defenses. How do we fight this?
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  The source outlines 4 specific defenses against this greed, all
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  based on where Gehazi failed. The first one is remember godly
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  examples. This is so crucial.
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  Gehazi had Elijah right in front of him every single day.
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  He saw a man who did not need money to be happy or powerful.
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  He saw a man content with God. But he ignored.
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  Him. He ignored him.
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  He looked right past the godly example to the object of his
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  greed, the source. Contrast this with Timothy in
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  the New Testament, who Paul says followed his teaching, conduct,
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  aim in life, faith, patience, love.
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  He watched him closely. Very closely.
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  So for us, we're for a young missionary on the field, this
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  means watching the veterans. Find the right mentors.
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  Yes, look at the people who have finished well.
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  Look at the missionaries who have lived simply for 40 years
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  and we're just radiating joy and peace.
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  Don't look at the ones who are busy building their own little
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  kingdoms. Imitate the ones who are
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  imitating Christ. OK, the second defense is
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  remember the Lord's supremacy. This goes right back to the
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  idolatry issue. It's about who gets the glory.
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  Naman wanted to give the gift, but Elijah wanted God to have
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  the glory for the healing right. If Elijah took the money, it
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  might have looked like Naman paid for the miracle.
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  It would have cheapened grace. Gehazi didn't care about God's
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  glory. He cared about the two talents
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  of silver and the changes of clothes.
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  He put himself first. He put self pleasing above God
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  pleasing. That is the functional
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  definition of idolatry every single time.
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  The third defense. Remember Sin's deceitfulness.
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  We touched on this, but let's go a little deeper.
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  Gehazi actually thought he could hide this from a prophet.
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  This is the part of the story that just boggles the mind.
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  He gets the loot, he hides it. He goes back and stands before
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  Elisha and Elisha asks him where have you been Gehazi?
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  And he lies. He lies to a prophet who he
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  knows hears from God. He says your servant went
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  nowhere. It makes no sense.
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  It's completely suicidal. That's the point.
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  Sin makes us irrational. It blinds us to the obvious
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  presence and knowledge of God. He thought if I just hide the
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  money in the clothes in the tower, God won't see it.
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  He became a practical atheist in that moment.
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  He lived as if God didn't exist or wasn't paying attention.
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  And that leads to the 4th defense, which is it's the scary
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  one. Remember the Lord's discipline.
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  Elisha's response is immediate. He says, Did not my heart go
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  with you? When the man turned from his
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  chariot to meet you, he knew everything.
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  He saw it all. And then he pronounces the
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  judgement, Therefore the leprosy of naman shall cling to you and
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  to your descendants forever. And the text says he went out
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  from his presence A leper as white as snow.
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  That's. So heavy it sounds incredibly
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  harsh to modern years. It's meant to be heavy.
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  It is a sobering reality that God disciplines His children,
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  especially those in leadership. It is not safe to play with
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  greed in the ministry. You might get what you want in
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  the short term. You might get the money, but you
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  might also get the leprosy. Maybe not physical leprosy, but
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  a rotting of the soul, a destruction of your family, a
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  complete loss of your testimony and usefulness to the Kingdom.
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  So that's the deadly enemy, that active pursuit of comfort and
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  gain. But there's another side to this
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  coin, isn't there? Sometimes we're not actively
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  chasing money. We just want the suffering to
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  stop. We just want things to be
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  normal. Right.
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  And this moves us perfectly to our second source, which is by
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  Rick Crass on First Peter. We're pivoting from the internal
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  threat of active greed to the external pressure of burnout and
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  hardship. The outline poses a really
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  pointed question. Why do so many missionaries come
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  home early? And the answer, so often, is
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  that reality did not match their expectations.
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  They expected it to be hard, maybe, but they didn't expect to
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  feel so alone, so alien. They didn't expect the deep
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  isolation. Elect aliens.
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  That's the key phrase from first Peter.
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  One verse one. It is a profound paradox.
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  Elect meaning chosen by God, precious, loved, secure, and
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  aliens. The Greek word is Paul, rabbit
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  and Moi. It means strangers, exiles,
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  refugees, people who don't hold a passport for the country
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  they're living in. And Kress argues that
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  understanding this paradoxical identity is the actual antidote
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  to burn out. How does that work?
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  Well, think about it this way. If you go on vacation to a five
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  star luxury resort, you expect comfort.
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  You expect everything be perfect.
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  If the air conditioning breaks and the food is bad, you're
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  miserable because you feel entitled to comfort.
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  You're supposed to be at home there, OK, But if you're a
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  soldier deployed to a war zone, or if you're a refugee passing
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  through a hostile country, you don't expect luxury, you expect
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  trouble. You expect the ground to be hard
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  and the food to be bad. Your expectations are completely
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  different. So the burnout comes from
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  expecting this world to be our home, to be the luxury resort.
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  Precisely. We are constantly trying to make
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  Earth into heaven, but Peter says no, you are aliens here,
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  this isn't your home. If you can accept your alien
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  status, it brings a strange kind of peace.
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  It explains why things are hard. You stop asking why is this
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  happening to me? And you start saying, of course
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  this is happening, I'm in enemy territory, I'm not home yet.
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  The source breaks down the Trinitarian foundation of this
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  identity. It's not just a label Peter
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  slaps on them. It's rooted in the very nature
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  of the Godhead. Yes, look at first Peter one
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  verse 2. He says we are chosen according
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  to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying
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  work of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling
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  with His blood. So our alienation from the world
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  isn't an accident. It's not a mistake, it's not
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  Plan B. It's a Trinitarian design from
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  before the foundation of the world.
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  That changes your perspective on suffering completely.
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  It's not that God has forgotten us, it's that God has placed us
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  here on assignment as aliens. And Chris pulls out three
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  specific encouragements from Peter for us to hold onto when
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  we feel that alien status. The 1st is what we just said,
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  the plan of sovereign grace. We are aliens by divine design,
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  OK? What's the second encouragement?
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  The second is the praise for saving mercy.
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  This is verses 3 through 5. Peter just erupts and prays.
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  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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  Why? Because in His great mercy He
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  has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
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  resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
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  And then listen to how he describes our inheritance.
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  He says it is incorruptible, undefiled and unfading.
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  And the most important part is where it is.
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  Exactly. It is kept in heaven for you.
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  That is the key distinction, isn't it?
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  Ghazi wanted his inheritance now on earth and talents of silver.
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  Peter says no, your real inheritance is kept in heaven.
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  It's in a divine vault that cannot be looted.
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  It can't be touched by stock market crashes or war or moths
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  or rust. Chris makes the point that our
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  ultimate security is not in our fruitfulness on the field or our
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  fundraising numbers. It's in God's power, Peter says.
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  We are shielded by God's power until the coming of the
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  salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
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  God is the one doing the shielding.
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  That leads to the third encouragement, which I think
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  this is the most challenging one for most of us, the pleasure of
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  trusting Jesus and specifically what the source calls the
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  theology of if necessary. This might be one of the most
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  doctrinally dense 2 word phrases in the entire Bible.
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  First Peter one verse 6. In all this you greatly rejoice,
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  though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief
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  in all kinds of trials. And then he adds the key phrase
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  if necessary. If necessary, that just stops
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  you in your track. It does because it implies that
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  the trial, whatever it is, is doing a specific job.
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  It is not random. It is not meaningless bad luck.
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  It is a necessary precision tool in the hand of Divine Surgeon.
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  So if I'm going through a fire, I have to believe that God in
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  his sovereignty looked at my life and said this fire is
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  necessary for his faith to be refined.
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  Yes. Peter says it's for the testing
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  of your faith, which he says is of greater worth than gold.
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  Gold perishes when it's tested by fire, but genuine faith
• 18:37
  doesn't. Peter says this testing leads to
• 18:39
  praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
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  And for the believer right now, this leads to, of all things,
• 18:47
  joy inexpressible. That is such a strange phrase
• 18:51
  for people who are in the middle of suffering joy.
• 18:54
  Inexpressible. It's supernatural joy.
• 18:56
  It's not happiness based on circumstances.
• 18:59
  It is the ability to love Christ without seeing Him is the
• 19:02
  spiritual capacity to grieve and rejoice at the exact same time.
• 19:05
  It's not a fake smile. No, it's a deep anchor like
• 19:09
  weight of joy that says my treasure is safe in heaven.
• 19:12
  My soul is shielded by God's power in this trial, as painful
• 19:15
  as it is, is making me more like Jesus.
• 19:17
  So we have the danger of actively seeking comfort, which
• 19:20
  we see in Ghazi. We have the theology of enduring
• 19:22
  a lack of comfort, which Peter gives us.
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  Now let's go to where the rubber meets the road, or maybe where
• 19:28
  the tank treads meet the road. The Ukraine report.
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  This is from Pastor Oleg Kellen, February 2022, Kiev.
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  We all remember watching the news, seeing those images, but
• 19:38
  for him the news was it was right outside his window.
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  This is where we move from theory to the harshest possible
• 19:44
  practice. It's one thing to talk about
• 19:46
  suffering is necessary when we're sitting in a quiet
• 19:49
  recording studio with a cup of coffee, right?
• 19:52
  It is a completely different thing when the air raid sirens
• 19:55
  are going off and the windows of your apartment are shaking from
• 19:58
  explosions. The report opens with that
• 20:00
  moment of decision. The invasion starts.
• 20:03
  What do you do? Pastor Oleg says there were
• 20:05
  basically three options on the table.
• 20:07
  Leave the city, lead other people to safety out of the
• 20:10
  city, or stay and minister to the flock that remains.
• 20:14
  And the verse that was running through his head was John 10
• 20:16
  verses 11 to 13. The shepherd versus the hired.
• 20:19
  Hand, we're right back to it. It all connects.
• 20:21
  It all connects. The hired hand sees the wolf, in
• 20:23
  this case the Russian army, and he flees.
• 20:26
  Why? Because he doesn't own the
• 20:28
  sheep. He cares more about his own life
• 20:30
  than he does about the flock. But the Good Shepherd stays.
• 20:33
  Oleg realized that all his years of seminary, all his theological
• 20:37
  study, it wasn't academic anymore.
• 20:39
  He says it this way in the report.
• 20:41
  The Lord was bringing theology to practice.
• 20:44
  He realized that if he ran, the sheep would scatter.
• 20:48
  He had to be willing to lay down his life, potentially to be a
• 20:52
  faithful shepherd. Now, there's an important
• 20:54
  distinction he makes here about the role of the church.
• 20:57
  Because in a war, obviously there are massive physical
• 21:00
  needs. People are hungry, cold, they
• 21:02
  need medical supplies. And his church did help with
• 21:05
  that. They did.
• 21:06
  They became a distribution Center for aid.
• 21:09
  But he is very, very careful to distinguish the church from just
• 21:12
  another charitable organization or an NGO.
• 21:15
  He tells this really powerful story about a woman who came to
• 21:18
  him asking for a pill to sleep. That story just stopped me in my
• 21:21
  tracks. This one comes to him terrified,
• 21:24
  traumatized by the bombing, and all she wants is just give me a
• 21:27
  pill, something that will make me sleep.
• 21:28
  She wanted a physical solution to a spiritual terror.
• 21:31
  Precisely. Ambassador Oleg says physical
• 21:35
  needs are real, but the deepest need is peace with God.
• 21:40
  A sleeping pill might knock you out for 8 hours, but it won't
• 21:43
  fix the terror of death. It won't resolve the question of
• 21:45
  eternity. He realized that the Church's
• 21:49
  unique job in that moment of crisis was to offer the Prince
• 21:52
  of Peace. If the church just hands out
• 21:54
  blankets and food, we're really just the Red Cross with a
• 21:57
  steeple. Right.
• 21:58
  And the Red Cross does wonderful work, but the Red Cross doesn't
• 22:01
  have the message of eternal life.
• 22:03
  The church is the light in the darkness because we have the
• 22:05
  word of God. Speaking of the Word, let's talk
• 22:07
  about his preaching. I think the temptation for any
• 22:10
  pastor in a crisis like that is to scrap the plan and start
• 22:14
  preaching topical sermons. You know, five ways to deal with
• 22:17
  anxiety or what the Bible says about war.
• 22:20
  That's the immediate temptation, isn't it, to try to be relevant.
• 22:22
  But Pastor Oleg made the decision to stick to his
• 22:25
  sequential exposition. He was preaching verse by verse
• 22:28
  through a book of the Bible, and he just kept going.
• 22:30
  He preached the next verse in the series, and what happened?
• 22:33
  He found that God's Word is completely sufficient.
• 22:36
  He said he could not have planned it better if he tried.
• 22:39
  The next verse in the sequence, week after week, ended up being
• 22:43
  exactly what his terrified congregation needed to hear.
• 22:46
  He gives the example of the word orphans.
• 22:48
  Yes, he said he was reading a Psalm, a verse about God being
• 22:51
  the father to the fatherless. Now he's read that verse 100
• 22:55
  times in his life, but suddenly he's looking out at actual war
• 23:00
  orphans sitting in his congregation.
• 23:02
  Wow. He's literally holding a child
• 23:05
  who just lost their parents to a missile strike and the text just
• 23:08
  explodes with new weight and meaning.
• 23:10
  It wasn't that the text changed, the context changed, and the new
• 23:13
  context revealed the depth that was always in the text.
• 23:17
  That's the power and the weight of expository preaching.
• 23:19
  You trust that Scripture was written for crisis.
• 23:22
  You don't need to dress it up or adjust it.
• 23:24
  You just need to serve it hot as it is.
• 23:26
  There's also a Really counterintuitive point here
• 23:28
  about his spiritual disciplines. You would think I'm in a war
• 23:31
  zone. I'm busy saving lives.
• 23:33
  I'm sheltering people in the church basement.
• 23:35
  I don't have time for deep theological study.
• 23:37
  You'd think that you'd think I'm too busy for doctrine right now,
• 23:41
  but Oleg says the war drove him deeper into study.
• 23:45
  He started reading the entire New Testament every single
• 23:48
  month. Every.
• 23:49
  Month while under bombardment. Because he needed the fuel, he
• 23:54
  realized that weak, shallow theology collapses under
• 23:57
  pressure. If you only have a surface level
• 24:00
  sentimental understanding of God, it won't hold up when the
• 24:03
  Rockets start to land. He needed something solid to
• 24:06
  stand on. He needed the granite of God's
• 24:08
  absolute sovereignty under his feet.
• 24:10
  He had know that God was in control even of the bombs.
• 24:13
  He mentions the book of Second Timothy specifically.
• 24:16
  He calls it a manual for out of season ministry.
• 24:19
  Paul tells Timothy preach the word be ready in season and out
• 24:22
  of season. He realized he was living the
• 24:24
  out of season. It wasn't convenient, it wasn't
• 24:26
  popular. It certainly wasn't safe, but
• 24:29
  that is when the manual applies the most.
• 24:31
  OK, So we have these three incredibly diverse sources.
• 24:34
  We have Ghazi running after silver, we have Peter writing to
• 24:37
  the elect aliens, and we have password Oleg holding the line
• 24:40
  in Kiev. How do we synthesize all this?
• 24:42
  What's the through line that connects them?
• 24:44
  I think the through line is treasure.
• 24:46
  It really all comes down to where your treasure is located.
• 24:49
  Explain that a bit more. OK, look at Ghazi.
• 24:51
  Where was his treasure? It was here on Earth.
• 24:55
  It was tangible. It was silver he could hold in
• 24:57
  his hands, fine clothes he could wear.
• 24:59
  He sought his treasure on Earth. And what did he get?
• 25:02
  He lost his ministry, his health and his legacy.
• 25:05
  He got the money, but he also got the leprosy.
• 25:08
  A terrible bargain. And Peter?
• 25:10
  Peter points the Exiles to a completely different treasury.
• 25:14
  He points them to a treasure that is kept in heaven.
• 25:17
  He's telling them, don't look for your payoff here.
• 25:19
  Don't expect your comfort here. If you expect your treasure to
• 25:22
  be on earth, you will burn out when the trials come.
• 25:26
  But if you know your true inheritance is safe with God,
• 25:29
  you can endure the fire. And Pastor Oleg.
• 25:31
  Pastor Oleg lived that out in real time.
• 25:34
  He stayed in Kiev because his treasure was not his own safety.
• 25:37
  His treasure was the flock of God that he was entrusted with
• 25:40
  and the glory of the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
• 25:42
  He was willing to lose his earthly treasure, his own life,
• 25:46
  to protect the heavenly treasure which is the Church.
• 25:48
  It really is a thoroughly reformed perspective on reality.
• 25:51
  It's not about human heroism or pulling yourself up by your
• 25:54
  bootstraps. No, not at all.
• 25:55
  It's about God being the primary actor in all three stories.
• 25:59
  God is the one who heals. Namangahazi just tried to
• 26:02
  monetize it. God is the one who keeps the
• 26:05
  inheritance safe in heaven. Peter just reminds us of that
• 26:08
  fact. God is the one who sovereignly
• 26:10
  orchestrates the trials if necessary.
• 26:13
  Oleg just submitted to that reality.
• 26:15
  So the responsibility of the believer, then, is to trust the
• 26:18
  main actor. It's to mortify the love of
• 26:21
  comfort, to kill the Gehazi that lives in all of our hearts, and
• 26:25
  to trust the Good Shepherd even when he leaves us through the
• 26:28
  darkest valley. This brings us to a final
• 26:30
  thought. We always like to leave you with
• 26:32
  something to chew on, something to think about this week.
• 26:35
  We've talked about Gehazi and the Exiles and the pastor in
• 26:37
  Ukraine, but now the question is really for you, the listener.
• 26:41
  If your specific life circumstances right now, your
• 26:44
  job, your bank account, your physical safety, your nice home,
• 26:47
  your comfortable life. If all of it were stripped away
• 26:50
  tomorrow. If the doctor's diagnosis came
• 26:52
  back positive. If the market crashed, If the
• 26:55
  war started in your town, would your theology be robust enough
• 26:59
  to make you stay and minister to those around you?
• 27:02
  Or would you run like a hired hand?
• 27:03
  Would you try to grab what little comfort you could, like
• 27:07
  Gehazi, or would you be able to stand firm in what PETA calls
• 27:10
  the true grace of God? It's a question we all need to
• 27:13
  answer for ourselves before the crisis comes.
• 27:15
  Because once the crisis is here, what you truly believe is
• 27:19
  already revealed. This has been a deep dive into
• 27:22
  the heart of missions, money, and suffering.
• 27:24
  Thank you for listening to Reformed Thinking.
• 27:26
  Grace and peace to you.