A Higher Moral Law

Call it a sign of the times, something unbelievably outrageous. The bible tells us that there will be a day when people who call evil good and good evil. Read, then pray!

An Ontario Court of Justice judge erupted in a lengthy, angry tirade against pro-life activist Mary Wagner – and ejected a spectator from the public gallery – in a downtown Toronto courtroom Wednesday...You don’t get it, do you? What’s the rule of law? You’re required to abide by it … You’ve lost the right as a citizen to be anywhere near an abortion clinic or to speak to an employee,” he said. “You’re wrong and your God’s wrong,” he continued. “You have complete contempt … There is a right to (abortion) in this country … You don’t have a right to cause (abortion-seeking women) extra pain and grief the way you do. “[Abortion] is legal,” he continued, “that’s all you have to understand … You start causing people emotional pain and harm, you think that’s okay?”

Earlier, one of Wagner’s supporters in the public gallery spoke up and was addressed by Clements. “These (life issues) are deeply held beliefs. We respect the rule of law. There are ways to change the law. The rule of law is absolutely fundamental. We see what happens in the streets when the rule of law is ignored,” he said. “You wouldn’t like someone in your vestibule every night. People who can’t deal with that, we lock them up.”

Asked whether she had anything to say prior to sentencing, Wagner said she saw the rule of law as a guidepost, not an absolute. “The letter of the law does not always maintain justice … abortion is a short-term solution but causes long-term pain,” she said. She added she never acts out of a lack of sensitivity, but rather attempts to love the women to whom she speaks. She also pointed to examples from history where people who were initially regarded as criminals were later found to be in the right.

Clements was unmoved. “You have, in some measure, displayed utter contempt for the courts and the rights of others,” he said. “You appear to be governed by a higher moral order than the laws of our country.” “Your determination to break the law is a potential threat to the well-being of society and plants the seeds of lawlessness, perhaps even anarchy … You are unable to accord some civility and respect to others. Your view in law is wrong.”

Wow. You can read it all here.

Changed: Billy Graham's America No Longer

The World has changed greatly, no one doubts that. I was struck by Wes Moore's insights this week about how this is "Billy Graham's America No Longer", critiquing the way that many churches emphasize marketing and how it has some ugly unintended consequences in this changed and increasingly changing environment. You can read the whole thing here.

Here are the main things.

The Issue:

Why do so many churches and church leaders believe marketing is the answer? The move towards marketing is based on a single premise—a false premise, actually—that for people to be saved, they must come into the church building to do it!

In the church in America, when we think of evangelism, we think of a Billy Graham Crusade. A high-powered speaker comes in, a thousand lost people show up, and hundreds get saved. But it’s not Billy Graham’s America anymore.

America has changed.

This “big tent” idea of revival just doesn’t work today.

The underlying Problem: 

 Let me give you some reasons this idea is flawed:

1.    In the NT, it wasn’t just the evangelists that preached the Word to the lost; it was also the average pew-sitter. Look at Acts 8:1 and 4. While the apostles (the big named preachers and evangelists) were stuck in Jerusalem, “those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went” (v. 4). That’s the rest of us.

2.    This approach (come to us and hear the Word) is not fundamentally in line with the Great Commission. The first words of it as written in Matthew 28:18-20 are, “Therefore, go…” Jesus expected us to go out to them and take the gospel, not just wait for them to come to us.

3.    The American culture no longer responds to this approach. America has changed. People today don’t know the Bible, doubt its every teaching, and think all Christians are hypocrites. The culture of the Christian church and the culture of the average American, while once more closely aligned, are now polar opposites.

The bottom line is this: People rarely come when you invite them. I don’t care what the supposed studies say. I’ve done it for nearly fifteen years. To help you understand how the average lost person feels when they think about going to a Christian worship service, imagine how you would feel as a biblical Christian if you were invited to a Mormon sacrament meeting (that’s their Sunday service). You’d feel very uncomfortable, and, no matter how many times you were invited, you’d probably never go.

That same kind of uncomfortable feeling, born of various causes, keeps the lost out of our churches on Sunday morning.

What will further the the kingdom of God, and bring people into contact with the gospel in a healthy way:

Growing Today
Sadly, most Christians, Christian churches, and even most pastors today don’t evangelize at all. They have no strategy to reach the lost, and no problem sitting in their seats while the lost and their entire community go to hell around them (literally and figuratively).But, for those who do care, what should they do? Let me suggest two things:

1.    We must go out to the people and share the gospel with them. That doesn’t always mean in a confrontational way with a stranger, though that certainly is biblical. You can also share with those with whom you have an existing relationship: neighbors, school mates, colleagues, coworkers, and friends. I recommend The Way of the Master for a more confrontational approach, and my book, Forcefully Advancing, for a more relational one.

2.    Prepare yourself to answer questions and overcome objections. The average lost person can give you four or five Bible difficulties without taking a breath. You can learn to answer them, however. It will just take some work. My book, The Spiritual Top 50, was written just for this purpose.

One final thing. In today’s culture, you must understand that numerical growth will be slow. We’re not in a season of reaping, but of hard work (John 4:35-38), so get the idea that you’ll have fantastic growth overnight out of your head.

A sharp critique and a final words of wisdom:

Our fascination with drawing crowds has had a negative unintended consequence. The marketing approach has driven us to focus our preaching and teaching on that which draws and meets the “needs” of the lost around us (heavy on temporal problems, happiness, and fulfillment; low on eternal concerns, doctrine, righteousness, sacrifice, and suffering).

The content of that kind of preaching does not constitute meat for the saved. Quite to the contrary, the steady diet of what is at best milk (and, in many cases, spiritual cyanide) has left our people immature, sinful, and vulnerable to every kind of deception.

The best thing we can do for the lost—and the saved—is to train our people to go out into the world and evangelize, and rigorously and continually feed the sheep the rich, full, and God-centered meat of the Word whenever the church meets, whether on Sunday or any other day of the week. If we approach growth this way, we’ll not only see a greater number truly saved, we’ll also see the Kingdom itself return to health and strength.

Need of Grace- Valley of Vision

Prayer from Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions.

O Lord,

Thou knowest my great unfitness for service,

my present deadness,

my inability to do anything for thy glory,

my distressing coldness of heart.

I am weak, ignorant, unprofitable,

and loathe and abhor myself.

I am at a loss to know what thou wouldest

have me do,

for I feel amazingly deserted by thee,

and sense thy presence so little;

Thou makest me possess the sins of my youth,

and the dreadful sin of my nature,

so that I feel all sin,

I cannot think or act but every motion is sin.

Return again with showers of converting grace

to a poor gospel-abusing sinner.

Help my soul to breathe after holiness,

after a constant devotedness to thee,

after growth in grace more abundantly every day.

O Lord, I am lost in the pursuit of this blessedness,

And am ready to sink because I fall short

of my desire;

Help me to hold out a little longer,

until the happy hour of deliverance comes,

for I cannot lift my soul to thee

if thou of thy goodness bring me not nigh.

Help me to be diffident, watchful, tender,

lest I offend my blessed Friend

in thought and behaviour;

I confide in thee and lean upon thee,

and need thee at all times to assist and lead me.

O that all my distresses and apprehensions

might prove but Christ’s school

to make me fit for greater service

by teaching me the great lesson of humility.

Satan’s A-Game

I keep re-reading sections of J.D. Greear’s book Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary. Its loaded with great stuff, and I recommend it to everyone. It’s awesome.

This statement on how Satan tempts us is worth reflecting on. Greear looks at Satan’s attempt to tempt Jesus; coming and trying to get Jesus to think about not having food, even though He (Jesus) is the son of God, and in essence Satan asks, “what are you doing out here Jesus?” Greear then draws out some implications, which I commend to you.

Don't you think it's significant that Satan began his "A-game " by trying to get Jesus to take His eyes off the identity the Father had declared over him and to seek validation in another way? Satan's approach to us is the same. Satan's most effective weapon is to take our eyes off of what God has declared over us in the gospel.

 A lot of times when we think about spiritual warfare we think of it in terms of strange, paranormal phenomena – people levitating 6 feet above their beds, their eyes rolling in the back of their heads and foaming at the mouth, singing back-masked heavy metal music.... Does Satan do stuff like that? I wouldn't put it beneath him. But I'm pretty confident that it's not his main strategy. He attacks our identity in the Gospel. Satan's one direct shot at Jesus didn't include levitation or Ouija boards; nor did he show Jesus pornographic pictures out in the wilderness. He redirected Jesus mind away from God's declaration over Him.

He goes on to look at the fact that Satan’s lies always have the ring of truth to them, and then continues,

Our enemy for example, will points correctly point out our failures. Sometimes he helps us see how badly we're doing at being a Christian by showing as someone who is much better Christian than we are…. Other times he puffs us up with pride. Either strategy is effective, because in either case we take our focus off of Christ’s gift-righteousness and put it onto ourselves. And comparison with others leads us to two of Satan's favorite sins: pride and despair. Pride leads us leads to hardness of heart towards God and hatred of others. Despair leads us to depression, fear, and indulgence in the last of the flesh. This is the cycle he loves to have a sense. Both start with unbelief of the Gospel.

When Satan takes our eyes off of the declaration spoken over us at the Gospel, we lose the security and satisfaction we have in the love and approval of our heavenly Father. The gateway is then opened up for all that the gateway is then open for all the other temptations.

Some of you they will Kill

A person at the church sent this to me Sunday morning. "Some of you they will kill." Luke 21:16. "The victim was spreading Christianity to the Yemeni people. 

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Gunmen fatally shot an American teacher in the Yemeni province of Taiz on Sunday, two defense ministry officials said.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror network's affiliate in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the killing. In a text message sent to Yemeni media outlets, the group said the victim was spreading Christianity, calling him one of the biggest missionaries in the country.

But the International Training and Development Center said the victim, whom it identified as "Joel S.," was not a missionary. "He was an American development worker who had been working in Yemen with his wife and two children since 2010," when he began working for the education center, it said. "Unfortunately Joel S. has been accused of being a part of a proselytizing campaign, but the staff of ITDC, which consists of Muslims, Christians and other religions working together, has continually focused on human development, skill transfer and community development," the center said. "Joel S. was a very professional employee who highly respected the Islamic religion." Authorities have not said who killed the teacher. The head of security in the province, Mohamed Saidi, identified him as Joel Shrum.

The U.S. Embassy in the capital, Sanaa, said it had heard reports of an American death and was investigating. It did not confirm that an American had been killed. On Thursday, tribesmen demanding the release of prisoners kidnapped a female Swiss teacher in Hodeida on the Red Sea coast, officials said.

A couple of thoughts. First, I have no doubt that he was doing missionary work. You cant go to the Middle East as a missionary, at least not out in the open. You always go under some other avenue. Second. Of course the Agency says that, they would not want to damage the ability to work, and yes, maybe proclaim the gospel. 

But Third, while you weep for his family. But at the same time, rejoice, because, as so many saints before him (Act 5:42), He has been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. 

Some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake (Luke 21:16-17). Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:11-13).

Passover Seder Encounter

Saturday, First Baptist will be hosting a  Passover Seder Encoutner. It should be awesome. I am looking forward to getting a better understanding of the Passover and the Gospel, as a result.

Here is a teaser for the Event from Nathan, the Rabbi who will be leading us. 

The scene for God's redemptive plan for our world is set when the Lord parts the Red Sea and Moses leads the Israelites into the promise land. For thousands of years the Jewish people have come together each year to remember God's salvific work in our world and in our lives. During the Passover Seder we enter into the Exodus experience and through taste, song and prayer remember the history of our salvation.

It was during this time, a small Passover Seder in Jerusalem, where Jesus sat with His disciples for His last meal before His impending death. And it was here that He took the third cup, the "Cup of Redemption" symbolizing the redemption of the Jewish people and infused it with new meaning— "This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you." (Luke 22:20) Just as the blood of the slain lamb smeared on the doorposts of the ancient Israelite homes covered them from the death of the firstborn, so too the blood of the slain lamb, Jesus, covers us all from death and brings us into Jesus' resurrection and life.

Passover Encounter is a traditional Passover Seder that is specifically oriented toward the Christian Church. Passover is a celebrated memorial to the book of Exodus and God's faithfulness to the Jewish people. It is an opportunity for Christians to come alongside the Jewish people while entering deeply into the "Lord's Supper" and experience their own personal Exodus.

The night leaves people with a deeper appreciation and understanding for the Jewish people, renewed and encouraged faith as they see the powerful and historical background of our Faith in Jesus, and a deeper appreciation for the Church's own Easter and communion celebrations.

If you haven't already decided to come, I would encourage you to. It's not to late to sign up to come. I know some of you have already signed up, but for those of you who haven’t, you still can (we need a hard count by tomorrow). And as you sign up, remember to invite your friends! Also, remember that children are not only welcome, but will be encouraged to participate. This should be a lot of fun as we gather to share fellowship, and learn more about the Passover and the Gospel.  

If you have not signed up yet and are planning to come, please contact Linda Dougherty (lindad27581@ yahoo.com),  Debbie Ericson (ddericson@ comcast.net), or myself by Wednesday, so that we can know how much food to make. Also, I would like to encourage you to plan on helping out by making something. Most of these recipes are not hard to make. The food is different from what you might usually make, but the recipes aren’t hard. If you would like to make something, but are unsure about making something unfamiliar, I would encourage you to give it a whirl. Linda or Debbie can email you recipes if you would like to bring food or help out in any other way.

Hope to see you there First Baptist!

J.D. Greer on 5 Tests to Determine If You Church Is Truly Gospel Centered

In light of God's desire is to see gospel movements around the world, J.D. Greer, a Pastor, Blogger, and Author of  Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary put up a great article recently entitled 5 Tests to Determine If You Church Is Truly Gospel Centered. It's absolutely worth checking out. Also, since it was a talk before it became a Blog posting, here is the link to the full talk. Enjoy!

Acts 2:41–47 gives us 5 “tests” of gospel-centrality. If we are preaching the Spirit-anointed gospel, these 5 things will be the result in our churches, just as they were in the very first one:

1. Evangelistic effectiveness AND doctrinal depth (Acts 2:41-42, 47)

Acts 2:41 tells us that in one day 3,000 people were saved and baptized, and verse 47  reports that God added daily to their number those who were being saved. The first church grew in a hurry. At the same time, the people were “devoted to the teaching of the Apostles” and were possessed by a great sense of awe over God’s glory.

I often hear church depth place at odds with church width. The early church clearly did both. In reality, the one is impossible without the other. Churches that grow wide without growing deep are not creating “sustainable” width, only generating a little temporary excitement. Churches that don’t grow wide are probably not nearly as deep as they may think. Gospel depth almost always produces gospel fruitfulness (Mark 4:16-17). Understanding the gospel gives you a sense of people’s lostness. You understand the wrath of God against their sin, how imminent His judgment is, how great His grace is towards them. Understanding the gospel gives you humility, because you realize how lost you were before God saved you. Understanding the gospel gives you the faith to believe God for great things, because the gospel reveals how willing and able God is to save. You show me someone characterized by a sense of urgency, humility, love and the boldness that comes from great faith, and I’ll show you someone who will be an effective evangelist!

Healthy churches do both (Col 1:5-6). Certain churches within the gospel-centered movement are suprisingly unconcerned with, or ineffective at, evangelism.  They talk a lot about “mission” and “planting churches” but somehow that never translates into evangelism. Some wear smallness as a badge of honor. They love to critique everyone else’s evangelism, but do very little of their own. Charles Spurgeon—no theological lightweight—said, “I would sooner bring one sinner to Jesus Christ than unpack all the mysteries of the divine Word, for salvation is the thing we are to live for.”

A lot of the criticisms directed at rapidly-growing churches seem (to me) to be motivated by about 30% theological concern and 70% jealousy, fear and laziness. This is not to say that there is no validity to the theological concerns, just that those making them should pay attention to their motives. Our arrogance may keep us from receiving the grace God works even in the midst of theological shortcomings. We ought to be humbled by the zeal for souls present in movements that do not achieve, in our view, a full gospel-centrality. As D. L. Moody said to one Reformed critic of his, “It is clear you don’t like my way of doing evangelism. You raise some good points. Frankly, I sometimes do not like my way of doing evangelism. But I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”

2. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by the presence of God. (Acts 2:43)

This first church was full of the Spirit. There are a few things in that chapter that we will not likely experience in our congregations, but verse 43 gives you a classic description of the effect of the fullness of the Spirit—it says the people were “filled with awe.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said (and I paraphrase), “The presence of God is a felt-sense of the attributes of God as revealed in the gospel.” Their sense of the “presence of God” was not the result of a musical crescendo or an emotive preacher. It came simply from the preaching of the gospel by ones who really believed it and felt its passions within their souls. Another of my favorite theologians, Jonathan Edwards, described his sense of the presence of God like this:

“Sometimes only mentioning the name of Christ or an attribute of God will cause my heart to burn within me. . . . Suddenly God appears glorious to me. When I enjoy this sweetness it seems to carry me outside of myself. I cannot bring myself even to take my eye from this Glorious Object.”

Note that this sort of experience is not at odds with doctrine, or even beyond doctrine, but flows out of good doctrine. It’s not less than doctrine, it is more. God’s beauty and majesty are not just to be perceived with the mind, they are to be felt in the soul.

Where this happens, there is the joy you see in Acts 2:46-47. It is hard for me to believe that a church can really “get” the gospel when its services are not characterized by joy. Yes, there are times for somberness and mourning and repentance in worship, but the predominant motif of biblical worship is joy. Multiple places in Scripture command us to clap our hands, shout with joy, and to sing and delight in God. They tell us that in God’s presence is “fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). So how can we claim to have gospel-centered churches if our services are not characterized by exuberant joy? 

3. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by fervent, faith-filled prayer (Acts 2:42)

The gospel produces a faith in the church that  makes bold requests of Jesus. You see that referred to here in Acts 2, and fleshed out later in Acts 4:24-31. They expected great things from God, and then attempted great things for God.

The early church was born from prayer. After Jesus ascended to heaven, Acts 1:14 reports that the disciples “were devoting themselves to prayer.” This went on for ten days before the arrival of the Spirit on Pentecost. These believers prayed for 10 days, Peter preached for 10 minutes, and 3,000 people were saved. Today we’re more likely to pray for 10 minutes, preach for 10 days, and see 3 people saved.

Acts shows us a profound connection between corporate prayer and our community getting a sense of the glory of God. When we pray, our eyes are opened to the glory of God. When our eyes are opened to His glory, we preach with boldness, passion and power (Acts 4:24-31). In Acts 7:55-56, we see Stephen lift his eyes to heaven in prayer, catch a glimpse of Jesus’ glory, and in awe begin to proclaim it to those around him. When this happens on a city-wide scale, what you get is a spiritual awakening. Tim Keller gives a glimpse of what this looks like:

In New York, in 1857, a man named Jeremiah Lanphier was hired to witness to a local neighborhood. He was frustrated by utter ineffectiveness, and so in desperation he turned to prayer. One day he invited people to pray with him—six people showed up. The following week, 20 people came. The next week, 40. Two months later, hundreds were gathering to pray. Soon the entire downtown area was filled with men and women praying. Evangelistic meetings sprang up all over the city, and in 9 months, 50,000 people came to Christ at a time when the population of NYC was 800,000. This was known as the great prayer revival of Manhattan.

I really want to see that happen in Raleigh-Durham. If you scaled the proportions, that would be like 100,000 people coming to Christ in a 9-month period!

4. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by empowered members. (Acts 8:1, 28:15)

A stubborn theme throughout the book of Acts is that God’s most effective vehicles are “regular” people. Consider these facts from Acts: Thirty-nine of the 40 miracles in the book of Acts occur outside the walls of the “church,” in the workplace. The longest sermon in Acts is by Stephen, a layman. That sermon led to the most significant spiritual moment in Acts, the conversion of Saul (Paul). Acts 8:1 notes that when persecution rose up against the church, the church was scattered around the world preaching the gospel. But note that Luke tells you this worldwide fulfillment of Acts 1:8 did not include the Apostles. These anonymous Christians were so effective in ministry that when Paul showed up in Rome to preach the gospel “where Christ had never been named,” he was greeted by “the brothers” (Acts 28:15). Early church historian Stephen Neill notes that the anonymity of the major gospel movements in the ancient world is breathtaking: “But in point of fact few, if any, of the great Churches were really founded by apostles. Nothing is more notable than the anonymity of these early missionaries… Luke does not turn aside to mention the name of a single one of those pioneers who laid the foundation. Peter and Paul may have organized the Church in Rome. They certainly did not found it…” (History of Christian Missions, 22)

This flows from the very nature of the gospel. The gospel is not about recognizing the gifted, but about gifting the unrecognized. Church leaders who understand that gospel won’t try to build their church around a handful of mega-talented superstars, but rather dedicate themselves to empowering and releasing the church for ministry (Eph 4:11-13). They become committed to raising up other leaders. They judge their success not so much by seating capacity but sending capacity.

5. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by extravagant generosity. (Acts 2:45)

The gospel is that Jesus “became poor for our sake so that through his poverty we might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). When a church gets this, they become extravagantly generous toward others. The first Christians didn’t just give out of their excess. They voluntarily sold their stuff so that their were no needs among them. 

Eventually this sort of gospel generosity overflowed into the streets, but it started in the church. As the apostle Paul says in Galatians, “Let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). Ultimately, the love that Christians show to one another is a profound statement to an unbelieving world. It is by our love for one another, Jesus said, that the world will know that we are His disciples (John 13:35; cf. 1 Peter 4:9). As Francis Schaeffer said, “the final apologetic that Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.”

Evangelistic effectiveness and doctrinal depth; fervent, faith-filled prayer; a sense of the presence of God; empowered members and extravagant generosity are 5 things that the gospel produced in the early church. How present are they in your church? If one of these characteristics are missing, is it possible that we don’t understand the gospel as much as we claim to? These are the indelible marks of a gospel movement.

If these are missing from your church, the answer is not to “go and try harder.” We need to ask ourselves, “Why is the gospel I am preaching not producing these things?”

Soooo... how are we doing? What's your take? Looks to me like we've got a long road ahead.

The Painful Reality that is Abortion

Abortion is a heartbreaking evil. After witnessing the abortion of two of his children, one anonymous father writes:

My soul carries a new scar.  The pain is fresh and keen, and I know that while time might see the pain fade, I will never fully recover from what I've seen, and done.  For I have failed, intentionally and knowingly, in the first duty of a parent: protecting the lives of two of my children.

I pray to G-d every day to take those two innocents to Him, to welcome them, and I ask them every day for forgiveness. As I will every day for the rest of my life. I don't know what accommodation my wife will make mentally and spiritually. That is her business, and a burden her conscience must bear.

But let nobody fool you. It is not painless for the child, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Abortion is not an excision of a featureless bunch of cells; it is infanticide. We have revived the practice of child sacrifice to the new deities of casual sex and convenience. We rationalize the reality of murder by altering our perspective of the nascent life through euphemisms like "fetus" or descriptions of "a clump of cells"...just like the Nazis convinced themselves that the people screaming as they were shot or gassed were "Untermenchen," subhuman, and therefore guiltlessly exterminated. This is how every perpetrator of genocide has always rationalized his or her actions. By doing likewise, we condemn our own souls.

I wept in joy, a few years ago, when I saw my first child's heartbeat on the screen. And I weep in agony now at the memory of two of my children's heartbeats being stilled. "Save one, or save none" has been eclipsed by "Out, out, damned spot!" as I wonder how I can redeem myself.

If, by baring this scar for others to see, I can prevent an abortion, perhaps that will help to balance the scales for when I face G-d's justice and I finally meet those two children -- who I hope will forgive me for my failure.

Please read the whole article at The American Thinker.

Questions to ponder

The Deacons and I are working on the church mission and vision statement, and working to put together a reshaped mission and vision statement, as well as a process for discipleship (how does "connecting, growing, serving, sharing, changing" strike you). Bylaws and church governance comes as the next step.

In this process, I have been reading Going Deep: Becoming A Person of Influence, by Gordon MacDonald (He also wrote, Who Stole My Church: What to Do When the Church You Love Tries to Enter the 21st Century)

These questions stuck out to me, and I've been pondering them for some time now. They are questions I think every Christian should be pondering.

What are you learning?

Who are you teaching?

What are the Results?

So, What are you learning? Who are you teaching? What are the Results? Are you being a student of the word? Are you studying to show yourself approved? Who are you teaching? Are you only taking in, or are you pouring out? Knowledge is great. But what are you doing with it? Are you teaching others, and are you bearing fruit for the Kingdom of God?

The stars fall

As I was preparing to preach on Mark 13:24-27, I was struck by this thought. As intense as this storm is, the Return of Christ will be beyond our wildest imagination. Think 10 million times more crazy and intense than this.

 "But in those days, following that distress, " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' "At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens (Mar 13:24-27).

Zealeous

Zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me (Psalm 69:9).

One of the burning need that our church, and every church faces, is to have a zeal for God, and for His glory. Throughout the centuries, and certainly in ours, there is a tendency to go lukewarm, to be apathetic. To take it safe, and to go for the path of least resistance. But more than that, to treat our faith as something like a club membership, something we can take up, and put down, something that doesn't really redefine who we are, or what we are about. The call to follow Christ is a call not to club membership, but to cross-bearing, to responding to the gospel by living a life zealously for the glory of God.

So what is zeal? It’s not a very common word these days. The Great Anglican Bishop J.C. Ryle gives a great description of zeal in his book Practical Religion.

 Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way. It is a desire which is not natural to man. It is a desire which the Spirit puts in the heart of every believer when he is converted, however, a desire which some believers feel so much more strongly than others that they alone deserve to be called “zealous” men.

This desire is so strong, when it really reigns in a man, that it impels him to make any sacrifice–to go through any trouble–to deny himself to any amount–to suffer, to work, to labor, to toil, to spend himself and be spent, and even to die–if only he can please God and honor Christ.

A zealous man in religion is preeminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, strong, uncompromising, meticulous, wholehearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives, or whether he dies–whether he has health, or whether he has sickness–whether he is rich, or whether he is poor–whether he pleases man, or whether he gives offense–whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish–whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise–whether he gets honor, or whether he gets shame–for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing, and that one thing is to please God and to advance Gods glory. If he is consumed in the very burning, he does not care–he is content. He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God has appointed him.

Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, and work, and give money, he will cry, and sigh, and pray. Yes: if he is only a pauper, on a perpetual bed of sickness, he will make the activity of sin around him slow to a standstill, by continually interceding against it. If he cannot fight in the valley with Joshua, he will do the work of Moses, Aaron, and Hur, on the hill (Exodus 17:9-13). If he is cut off from working himself, he will give the Lord no rest till help is raised up from another quarter, and the work is done. This is what I mean when I speak of zeal in religion.

New England and the Need: Gospel Centered Churches

I was on the Resurgence recently, and I ran across an article by Jared Wilson, the pastor of a church in Middleton, VT, and a blogger at the Gospel Coalition. His article is entitled, Why New England is the New American Missional Frontier.

All of it was good, but one section grabbed hold of me. 

2. New England’s few existing churches are not gospel-wakened.

New Englanders have little desire for anything to do with Christianity or church, but even those who have it have little opportunity to explore it. While the landscape of New England is dotted with little church buildings, some quaint and some beautiful, more and more of these buildings now house liberal, practically Unitarian congregations, if they house church gatherings at all. And where churches are evangelical, the evangel has not yet captured the hearts of many congregations. As the cultural environment became more worldly, conservative churches became more insular, opting to self-protect in their religious “bunkers” instead of engaging their communities in gospel mission. The need for gospel-centered missional churches throughout New England is dire. The good news is that a movement is afoot already, but it needs more workers.
 

Read the article. it's worth it.... But don't stop there. While it was written by a Pastor, challenging Pastors and would be church planters, here's something every one of you can be doing. Pray! Pray like crazy. 

Pray that the Lord of the harvest sends out workers. Praying that God will be at work here in New England.

Pray that God will be building up Gospel centered, bible based churches that seeks to glorify God and build great communities (that's another way of saying Missional). 

Pray that God continues to Guide the leadership (especially the Deacons) as we seeks towards being to be a Gospel Centered Missional Church, and as as we seek to hone the mission of the church (the description of the church on Facebook is, "A Gospel centered, bible based church that seeks to glorify God and build a great community", and the working mission statement that is still under revision is First Baptist Church:  faithfully proclaiming the gospel to Medfield and beyond as we seek to glorify God and build a great community through gospel proclamation, personal conversion, deep disciple making, and faithful service to one another and the world around us).

Most of all, pray that ultimately, we will see revival in this place dotted by beautiful buildings but fewer and  fewer biblical, Gospel Centered churches.

Why do I feel sin more than ever?

 This week, someone texted me a question. “Rhetorical question, if Jesus died for my sin why do I worry about sin more than ever?” It’s a good question. If we believe Christ suffered and died and paid the penalty for our sin, why do I see them more and more? Why do I feel their weight more and more? There are two reasons that stood out to me.

First, the more you understand the cost your savior paid, the more it makes you grieve them more and more. You see the cost that Christ paid, and it moves you. Your sin caused that…in a way, I think it’s a tool God uses to remind you of the gospel. It makes you stare into the suffering of your Lord, and remember what he did on your behalf.

But second, God is also doing something in your life that causes you to see your sin. 

Scripture makes something clear. God doesn’t just save us and leave us. He begins to change us. 2^nd Corinthians states that “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Romans says that “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Romans 8:29)”

When God calls you, He practically hangs a construction sign in you’re the yard of your life. C.S. Lewis described it this way in Mere Christianity.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

Here is the implication of the construction analogy. At the end of the day it comes down to this.  If you are being reshaped into the image of His son, if you are being turned into a castle for him to live in, and if you being remolded and reshaped to love what God loves, and hate what he hates, you will see and hate your sin more and more.

Listening to a Sermon: How should you prepare?

Justin Taylor put up something that I recently ran across entitled How to Listen to a Sermon. It's a compilation of resources for thinking about listening to a sermon. What caught my eye was his comment that

"If you’re a regular church attender (and therefore sermon-listener), it’s sometimes surprising to think we don’t have more teaching on how to listen to a sermon."

My immediate thought was that this is a real weak spot for the church at large. Pastors get a huge amount of training in exegesis and preaching, but how much training do we do for training people to listen to the preaching of God's Holy Word? 

This is an important issue to dig into. He has a great Thabiti Anyabwile comment that all but sang to me, because it affects how pastors preach:

Few things are more discouraging or dishonoring to [faithful pastors] than a congregation inattentive to the Word of God. Faithful men flourish at the fertile reception of the preached Word. They’re made all the more bold when their people give ear to the Lord’s voice and give evidence of being shaped by it. As church members, we can care for our pastors and teacher and help to prevent unnecessary discouragement and fatigue by cultivating the habit of expositional listening.

Here are the resources he provides to help prepare your hearts for listening to a sermon.

• Phil Ryken: So what is the right way to listen to a sermon?  With a soul that is prepared, a mind that is alert, a Bible that is open, a heart that is receptive, and a life that is ready to spring into action. Read the rest for an explanation of each point.

• Christopher Ash, Listen Up! A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons
• John Piper, “Take Care How You Listen!” (sermon)
• Thabiti Anyabwile, “A Healthy Church Member Is an Expositional Listener” (ch. 1) in What Is a Healthy Church Member?

Teach Children the Bible Is Not About Them

Sally Lloyd Jones has a great new article. She is the author of the The Jesus Storybook Bible, which JJ (and many of the First Baptist Kids), have come to love. Check it out here.

Here are some excerpt.

When I go into churches and speak to children I ask them two questions: First, How many people here sometimes think you have to be good for God to love you? They tentatively raise their hands. I raise my hand along with them. And second, How many people here sometimes think that if you aren't good, God will stop loving you? They look around and again raise their hands. These are children in Sunday schools who know the Bible stories and probably all the right answers, and yet they have somehow missed the most important thing of all. They have missed what the Bible is all about.

They are children like I once was. As a child, even though I was a Christian, I grew up thinking the Bible was filled with rules you had to keep (or God wouldn't love you) and with heroes setting examples you had to follow (or God wouldn't love you). I tried to be good. I really did. I was quite good at being good. But however hard I tried, I couldn't keep the rules all the times so I knew God must not be pleased with me. And I certainly couldn't ever be as brave as Daniel. I remember being tormented by that Sunday school chorus "Dare to Be a Daniel" because, hard as I tried to imagine myself daring to be a Daniel, being thrown to lions and not minding . . . who was I kidding? I knew I'd be terrified out of my skull. How could God ever love me? I was sure he couldn't because I wasn't doing it right.

She has a great heartbreaking story of what happens when we make the story about us, and what we have to do.

One Sunday, not long ago, I was reading the story of "Daniel and the Scary Sleepover" from The Jesus Storybook Bible to some 6-year-olds during a Sunday school lesson. One little girl in particular was sitting so close to me she was almost in my lap. Her face was bright and eager as she listened to the story, utterly captivated. She could hardly keep on the ground and kept kneeling up to get closer to the story.

At the end of the story there were no other teachers around, and I panicked and went into automatic pilot and heard myself---to my horror---asking, "And so what can we learn from Daniel about how God wants us to live?" And as I said those words it was as if I had literally laid a huge load on that little girl. Like I broke some spell. She crumpled right in front of me, physically slumping and bowing her head. I will never forget it. It is a picture of what happens to a child when we turn a story into a moral lesson. When we drill a Bible story down into a moral lesson, we make it all about us. But the Bible isn't mainly about us, and what we are supposed to be doing---it's about God, and what he has done!

When we tie up the story in a nice neat little package, and answer all the questions, we leave no room for mystery. Or discovery. We leave no room for the child. No room for God. And that's why I wrote The Jesus Storybook Bible. So children could know what I didn't: That the Bible isn't mainly about me, and what I should be doing. It's about God and what he has done.

Her wrap-up makes me want to sing. It’s awesome. As awesome as the intro to the Jesus Storybook Bible.

That the Bible is most of all a story---the story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. That---in spite of everything, no matter what, whatever it cost him---God won't ever stop loving his children . . . with a wonderful, Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love. That the Bible, in short, is a Story---not a Rule Book---and there is only one Hero in the Story.

I wrote The Jesus Storybook Bible so children could meet the Hero in its pages. And become part of His Magnificent Story. Because rules don't change you. But a Story---God's Story---can.