Two-Men-In-a-Bed-a-Phobia

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I had to laugh out loud when I got copied on an email today from one of our elders to certain brothers in the body that he wanted to challenge to attend Recharge, our retreat coming up on Nov. 18 and 19.

I assume each of you men have signed up for the retreat and are looking forward to a spectacular day and a half together. Please let me know if you have any barriers to joining us that we can help to overcome such as: finances, transportation, work schedule, too long of a honey-do list, can’t find a babysitter, afraid you will be home sick, don’t want to sleep in a strange bed, afraid you will miss your football game, allergic to sand or surf, Saturday is your day to sleep in, think you already know how to make disciples, or quite possibly your wife won’t let you out of the house. We will try to help in any way we can.

That just about covered the list of objections in my mind, except for one. I call it two-men-in-a-bed-phobia. In an attempt to keep costs down and to enable us to fly in our speaker Jonathan Dodson from Austin, Texas, we decided to book four men to a room. That means two guys per queen bed. Now I get it. I don’t relish this prospect myself. I like my space. Sleeping next to some snoring brother with hairy legs just doesn’t sound like my favorite way to spend the night.

I already decided that I would bring my own mat, pillow, and blankie and take a spot on the floor in my room just for my own comfort.

And then today I learned about a couple of brothers that have ruled out coming only because of this arrangement! So I thought, why not make it official and offer one of them my bed to help overcome the objection?

It makes me wonder how many other men out there suffer from the same phobia? Maybe more than we think.

So here’s my challenge. Who else will join me in such an offering? Who will voluntarily give up his space in a bed for the sake of some who struggle with this unfortunate affliction?

The gospel can help you do this! Paul tells us in Phil. 2:5-11 to imitate Jesus in His looking-out-for-the-interest-of-others example based upon His magnificent stoop from heaven to earth to become obedient to the point of death. Let’s defer to one another, serve one another, and stoop for one another from the bed to floor in the name of Christ Jesus, shall we?

If you think the Lord wants you to make such a gesture for the sake of our diseased brethren, please let me know in an email so I can apply this gospel medicine for their healing and relief. Many thanks!

Japan Disaster Relief Update

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Back on Good Friday of this year, in a joint communion service with our friends at Faith Baptist Church, we collected an offering for the relief work in Japan following the devastating tsunami that ravaged the northern part of that country in March.

We put in some significant due diligence to determine what agency or individual on the ground could ensure 100% of our gifts going toward relief and relief alone.

Through a previous member at OGC, God led us to Cal Cummings, a missionary with the OPC for many years working not far from the epicenter of the quake.

At our last leadership team meeting I shared a thank you letter from Cal’s home church in Philadelphia. Our elders exhorted me to publish its contents for our assembly’s encouragement, something I am only to happy to do in JapanReliefLetter070711.

Thanks be to God for the generosity of the people of both churches and the work of Cal and others in bringing the gospel to bear on the peoples of Japan!

His Mission/Our Mission

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Yesterday’s message from Luke 19:1-10 is now on the website. You can listen to the audio here.

Here’s how I wrapped things up:

Grasping Jesus’ rescue mission to even this world’s lost of the lost summons us to embrace that same mission as our own – grasping the interest He drew, the initiative He took, the irritation He made, and the inspiration He gave. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. He did that with Zacchaeus. He did that with me. If He has done that with you, then He lives within us with the same gospel-shaped, soul-stirring mission to engage lost people that they might be found even as we have been found. As we look to the opening of our building next year, let’s be all the more about making His mission our mission through the power of the gospel.

For more information of the book I recommended at the top of the message click here.

The Best Friend

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Last Saturday’s Oxford Club discussion in Richard Phillip’s The Masculine Mandate may have been the best yet. We tackled chapter 11, Men in Friendship. Phillips argues that biblical masculinity starts with a commitment to our wives and children to work and keep (see Gen. 2:15), but it doesn’t stop there. Meaningful relationships with other godly men we call friends enter into the mix as well.

Toward the end of the chapter he makes this statement: The best friend is always one who turns our hearts to rest upon the Lord. He draws that principle from the account of David and Jonathan in 1 Sam. 23:16 were Jonathan went to his friend, David, on the run for the express purpose of strengthening his hand in God. Rightly so.

Thus we asked on Saturday, what does it look like to act as this kind of best friend? How do we strengthen one another’s hands in God? We came up with four things.

First, we point our brother to the promises of God. This came from Phillips himself as he argues from 1 Sam. 23:17 how Jonathan reminded David that God ordained him to reign as Israel’s next king so he need not fear Saul’s murderous threats. Phillips adds: A godly friend ministers primarily to the faith of his brothers in Christ, seeking to build up their trembling hearts and protect them from the danger of unbelief and fear. Few things help that battle more than the unshakable promises of God.

Second, we comfort our brother with our presence in his suffering. This we took from the example of Job’s friends in Job 2:11-13. Job’s friends were at their best when they just sat with him for a whole week in his suffering. Things went badly down hill from there. Discernment knows the difference between a time to strengthen with words of promise and  a time to comfort with a silent, compassionate presence.

Third, we support our brother with our prayers for his strengthening. Jesus modeled this in preparing Peter for his three-fold denial in Luke 22:31-34. Our Lord countered Satan’s threat to His disciple through intercessory prayer that ensured Peter would survive the onslaught and even use it to strengthen the other disciples in their need.

Fourth, we help our brother with our provocations of his obedience. Hebrews 3:12-14 urges best of friends to exhort each other daily in light of the deceitfulness of sin and the potential for hardening of the heart. Anyone can flatter but only true, loving friends risk all with loving reproof when needed.

Do you have a friend in Christ who does such things for your welfare? Regard him among the best of friends. Are you that kind of friend to others? They will rise up and call you blessed.

Masculine men, friendly men, strengthen one another’s hands in God.

Why Celebrate Reformation Day?

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Better known for Halloween in our culture, October 31 marks the anniversary of Martin Luther’s bold and courageous posting of his 95 theses on the Wittenburg Church door in 1517. The dominoes toppled from that point on culminating in what we know as the Protestant Reformation.

Last night folks from our church gathered for a family-friendly, interactive-learning, fun-filled and creative celebration of this oh-so-important date in church history. Many thanks to all who served to make the evening so memorable and worthwhile!

At the outset of the evening, I spoke briefly as to why I believe we simply must as a church shaped by reformed theology mark Reformation Day with some sort of observance and celebration. In a nutshell, it is because all that was recovered for God’s people in the radical departure from the doctrinal and ecclesiastical aberrations of Roman Catholicism.

We need only look at the five solas of the Reformation to summarize what Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Zwingly, et al managed with God’s help to restore to Christianity.

Sola Scriptura – scripture alone. We got the Bible back as the sole source of divine authority. No pope, no council, no confession, no creed can bind the conscience. Only God’s word can. Unless all of the above conform to holy scripture, we should bear them no heed.

Solus Christus – Christ alone. We got the gospel back. The real gospel. Instead of a Christ plus human effort – baptism, church attendance, indulgences, giving alms, etc., we saw recovered the only thing that will actually save lost sinners – the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. Without the declaration of this precious truth,  a so-called gospel is no gospel, no good news at all.

Sola Gracia – grace alone. We got sovereign grace back. This recovery goes hand-in-glove with the previous one. The Reformation recovered the majesty of God in His sovereignty and the glory of His grace in that due to man’s sinful condition inherited from Adam leaving him unable to do anything on his own to remedy his condition, only by God’s electing, calling, and justifying of His own good pleasure is there hope for any member of the human race.

Sola Fide – faith alone. We got the chief article back. This became the rally cry of the Reformation. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The Reformers never tired of declaring justification by this formula. Where would we be without the reformation restoring to us this precious truth: justification is the act of God by which he declares sinners to be righteous because of Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone?

Soli Deo Gloria – to God alone be the glory. We got the centrality of God’s glory back. The Reformation returned us to Rom. 11:36. All things are from God and to God, especially our salvation, so we must cry to God alone be the glory.

To my grief I have gone far too many years in a near forty year walk with Christ ignoring Reformation Day. No longer. Two years and counting. I am committed to this observance for as many years as the Lord will allow me to live. If you sing things like Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling, I would urge you to do the same.

For a couple of excellent blog posts from others on this Reformation day click here and here.

Seven Reasons to Get Recharged

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This year’s men’s retreat at OGC is just around the corner. Here are seven reasons I think our men will want to attend:

  1. It’s good and pleasant for brothers to dwell together in unity and we will do that together in spades for a weekend (Psalm 133).
  2. Our mission is the Great Commission to make disciples and this event will help equip us to do that (Matt. 28:18-20).
  3. We are to fight the good fight and our speaker wrote a book (Fight Clubs) on how to do that (2 Tim. 4:7).
  4. Sin hunts us to deceive and harden our hearts and a concentrated time of fellowship and mutual exhortation like this weekend can help guard us from the enemy (Heb. 3:12-13).
  5. Our iron as men is to be sharp and getting together like this for iron-on-iron interaction will contribute to our razor-edge biblical masculinity (Prov. 27:17).
  6. Everybody needs an armor bearer to fight his Philistine-like battles and you may find one or more at this retreat who will say to you, Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold I am with you heart and soul (1 Sam. 14:7).
  7. And best of all perhaps is that the gospel is that in which we stand and by which we are being saved and the thread of teaching we will hear from Jonathon Dodson will strengthen our grasp of and delight in that gospel (1 Cor. 15:1-2).

Brothers, this retreat has the potential to generate more ripple effects long-term in our community at OGC than perhaps any I can remember in recent time.

Early registration closed on Friday, but there is still plenty of time to claim you spot. You have until November 11 to register for the normal rate of $75. After that late registration will run you $85, so act now.

If you need some help with a scholarship for registration, contact us at the office and we will see what we can do!

To register now, click here.

Why I Won't Preach on the Graces of Gospel-Shaped Community This Sunday

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Well, it’s certainly not because I don’t believe that the series matters. I continue to pray that God will use our fall emphasis on loving community motivated by the impetus of God’s love in the gospel (1 John 4:7-12) to shape us into a people fiercely devoted to one another. I hope you do too!

But some Sundays deserve special attention and warrant given their historical significance. The next two at OGC are no exception. This week, on October 30, we observe Reformation Sunday. It marks the anniversary of the magisterial reformer Martin Luther’s posting of his famous 95 theses on the church door at Wittenburg on October 31, 1517. That daring feat unleashed divine tectonic forces that launched the monumental event in the history of the church known as the Protestant Reformation.

Now we are a distinctly reformed, baptistic, protestant church. We owe our existence and distinctives to the sovereignty of God displayed in this historical event. That I have failed to acknowledge this significant Sunday in years past (last year excepted) during my watch as pastor-teacher at Orlando Grace borders on the unforgivable. Shame on me for my ignorance and neglect.

Never again. I simply must preach on something pertaining to and emblematic of the significance of the event. And so I will turn to Romans 1:16-17, what some have called Luther’s text, as my sermon text in a message entitled How Not To Be Ashamed of the Gospel. I will undertake to show you five glories of the gospel that should make us all eminently eager to “preach” the gospel to the whole world, Jew and Gentile alike.

In addition to the special emphasis during the morning service on this theme, in the evening at the SDA, beginning at 6 PM, we will have a special worship/educational/fellowship celebration commemorating the reformation that you won’t want to miss.

Whether you do Halloween the next night or not (let your conscience guide), I urge you to enter into the superior celebration the night before that is commemorating a heritage without which we might still labor under the tyranny of Rome’s work’s gospel without access to the treasure of all five solas – scriptura, Christus, gracia, fide, and deo gloria .

For more insight into the history and significance of Reformation Sunday click here.

Dealing With Death and Disease

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The good folks at Ligonier Ministries have hit the ball out of the park once again with this month’s edition of Tabletalk Magazine focused on death and disease.

How I wish I had a copy during my head and neck cancer journey back in ’05. The articles within touch on so many redemptive themes that encourage the disabled, the suffering, and those experiencing the heartache of loss that comes with the last enemy.

And, true to form, my connection at the magazine has come through by making available to me several complimentary copies to distribute this Sunday at OGC. If you or somebody you know now walks through the valley of the shadow in some way, shape, or form, I highly encourage you to come see me this Sunday for a copy.

Here is a sample of the content from an extremely penetrating interview with Joni Eareckson Tada as she talks about various Scriptures that have sustained her over the years in her hard providence of quadriplegia:

Another anchor is Deuteronomy 31:6, where God tells me, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified [of quadriplegia, chronic pain, or cancer], for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (NIV). I’m convinced a believer can endure any amount of suffering as long as he’s convinced that God is with him in it. And we have the Man of Sorrows, the most God-forsaken man who ever lived, so that, in turn, He might say to us, “I will never leave you; I will never forsake you.” God wrote the book on suffering and He called it Jesus. This means God understands. He knows. He’s with me. My diving accident really was an answer to that prayer to be drawn closer to Him.

While I hope you enjoy these freebies, beyond that I hope it will propel some of you to become regular subscribers to Tabletalk even as I am. It anchors my daily quiet time with the Lord and that sweet place has profited all the more ever since I took a subscription.

To subscribe click here.

Men in Friendship

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This Saturday we resume our study in Richard Phillip’s excellent treatment on manhood entitled The Masculine Mandate.

We have come to chapter 11 – Men in Friendship. The author derives numerous practical principles from the relationship of Jonathan and David in the book of First Samuel.

Here is a sample to whet the appetite:

Jonathan’s example with David shows us that a godly friend ministers primarily to the faith of his brothers in Christ, seeking to build up their trembling hearts and protect them from the dangers of unbelief and fear. This is the Genesis 2:15 work-and-keep mandate at work in the important arena of male friendship. When we come to a friend and “strengthen his hand in God,” we restore his wavering faith to its certain confidence in the unfailing promises of the Lord (p. 127).

For help with your reading and study you can click on The Masculine Mandate – SG 11.

Bring your own breakfast and join us for the fellowship and interaction at the church office from 7 AM to 9 AM!

The Grace of Clothing with Humility

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Today’s message from 1 Peter 4:19-5:7 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

John Calvin said this of the proverbial expression, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble:

We are to imagine that; God has two hands; the one, which like a hammer beats down and breaks in pieces those who raise up themselves; and the other, which raises up the humble who willingly let down themselves, and is like a firm prop to sustain them. Were we really convinced of this, and had it deeply fixed in our minds, who of us would dare by pride to urge war with God? But the hope of impunity now makes us fearlessly to raise up our horn to heaven. Let, then, this declaration of Peter be as a celestial thunderbolt to make men humble.

May God strike us with humility’s celestial thunderbolt! Then we will have sheep who submit to their shepherds. Then we will have people given wholeheartedly to lowly-mindedness toward one another.

What could be lovelier before our eyes and more glorifying to our God than a report like: Oh yes, I know OGC, a more lowly-minded, humble community you will rarely find!?