At a recent meeting of our women’s Bible study, Sara G. shared a devotional on discipleship.
A number of the ladies couldn’t make the meeting for various reason, but requested the notes.
For ease of access we publish the file Paul, Silas and Timothy for any and all parties interested. Enjoy!
Following services yesterday we took a picture of a good many of the saints that comprise Orlando Grace Church. Our Digo survey team intends to take a framed print to Kenya as one of our gifts toward forging and strengthening ongoing connections to the church and people there. We want them to have some idea of the community of believers here in the US that maintain a gospel love for these half way around the world.
I long as a pastor that we as a people would believe just how significant a movement we embody as part of the church of Jesus Christ on planet earth. Nobody said in better than John Piper way back in 1981.
The church of Jesus Christ is the most important institution in the world. The assembly of the redeemed, the company of the saints, the children of God are more significant in world history than any other group, organization or nation. The United States of America compares to the church of Jesus Christ like a speck of dust compares to the sun. The drama of international relations compares to the mission of the church like a kindergarten riddle compares to Hamlet or King Lear. And all pomp of May Day in Red Square and the pageantry of New Year’s in Pasadena fade into a formless grey against the splendor of the bride of Christ. Take heed how you judge. Things are not what they seem. “All flesh is like grass. And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord (and all His family) abide forever” (1 Peter 1:24,25). The media and all the powers, and authorities and rulers and stars that they present are a mirage. “For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). The gates of hades, the powers of death, will prevail against every institution but one, the church.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God … because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:19, 21).
Lift up your eyes, O Christians! You belong to a society that will never cease, to the apple of God’s eye, to the eternal and cosmic church of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
To read the rest of his message click here.
Oh for lifted up eyes to see and red hot hearts to believe all that God has for us and means for us to do in Christ Jesus among the Digo and beyond!
Check out this week’s enews for an update on the officer nomination process ongoing in 2011.
The three men remaining on this demanding journey will meet with representatives of our leadership this Saturday morning for a debrief from their near two month self-study process of officer training.
Here are the kinds of questions we will put before them:
Please continue to pray for these men and their discernment about the will of God for their future with respect to service on the leadership team at OGC. And don’t forget to check out the update this Thursday!
So expressed Charles Spurgeon in terms of his hopes and aspirations for his people, his fellow-servants of the Lord, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
In a sermon on Psalm 127:1-2 entitled Co-Workers with God, he exhorted his parishioners:
Now, I want all of us to feel that as workers for God—pastor and people, Sunday school teachers and you who teach the Bible classes, you who distribute tracts, you who preach at the street corners, all of you, my beloved fellow helpers—we are doing grand work! You know that it is God’s House that we are building. Under God and with His help, we are
building up His Church with stones that He points out to us, helps us to quarry and enables us to bring into their places. And the work goes on so easily, too, if we will but do it according to the Great Architect’s plan. And if we do not get too fussy and busy, and if we do not think that we should knock a corner off here, and alter the shape of a stone there, but will just do it as God would have it done, in His fear, in simple dependence upon Him, confident that it is all right—the great Master-Builder will complete His work! I think that we ought to be the happiest workers who ever lived! It should be a joy to us to do anything for the Lord Jesus. And, oh, when it gets finished, and the top stone is laid, and the Lord descends and fills the House and none of us will be any longer needed, for the priests will not be able to stand and minister by reason of the Glory of the Christ who has filled His Church—oh, then what joy we shall have that ever we were engaged in the work (emphasis mine)!
Last night our church gathered for its first ever worship service in our under-construction building. What a sweet and special time, never to be forgotten by this pastor! I took unceasing delight in person after person who came to the mic and shared verse after verse of Scripture that got written on those steel girders. Just to hear from the lips of so many such great esteem for God’s word thrilled me to the depths of my pastoral bones.
Many of those selections still swirl in my brain, but one stands out in particular. Unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labor in vain. What more appropriate reminder could we need than that as we near the half way point in the construction process? God must occupy the center of everything we do. When He does, we don’t get too busy and fussy with the work and we do know the joy of the happiest workers who ever lived. It is indeed a delight to do anything for the Lord Jesus.
And we get to labor together with His help in constructing a facility to house our ministry. As I reminded us last night, I remind us once again. We get to do this. This is our stewardship. The privilege is great. The rewards will prove worth it all. With the Lord’s help let us serve more than ever as the happiest workers who ever lived!
Yes. That’s right. Tomorrow night in a special service on the property we will encourage sanctified graffiti as the main event. This is a one-time only offer, folks. After we open the building, any graffiti writers will suffer the full consequence of the law. So make good on the chance while you can.
After we sing a couple of tunes and hear a brief devotional from 1 Timothy 3:13-16, we will hit the steel girders all over the building with Sharpie pens to scribble away ’till our hearts’ content. All you need to know to get in on the act are some Bible verses that you want to record that express your hopes and dreams for OGC for years into the future. Eventually the steel will disappear behind finish walls, but we will forever remember that we took an evening for a pre-dedication of our facility with the word of God in mind.
After we get done, we will gather together again and have a time of sharing about the verses we wrote and why we chose them. Children are encouraged to participate too!
Please bring a folding chair. Sharpies will be provided for those who need them.
Following the service, members of the building committee will conduct tours of the various sections of the building so we may further visualize what God will give to us come 2012.
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening at 6 PM!
As I announced on Sunday morning to our congregation, effective July 1, Greg Willson assumed a full-time pastoral staff position with the title of Church Planting Pastor. Recently God favored us with keeping Greg and Christina around for another year before they answer the call to help with a church plant in Columbia, South Carolina. We are grateful for the “reprieve” in his leaving as it works to our advantage in several ways.
Greg will continue his excellent work as our lead worshipper and shepherd of the young adult ministry. We don’t have to change horses in midstream during this critical year of getting into a building! In addition to those responsibilities, the remainder of his job description will revolve around executive pastor type functions as he oversees the coordination of all efforts related to transitioning into our new facility. We desperately need help on this front and Greg possesses the gifts and talents to help us immensely in this regard.
Another advantage to this arrangement is that we budgeted for the last half of 2011 for a new lead worshipper intern as well as a full-time associate staff person. By not needing to do the former and making Greg the latter through May of 2012, we came out ahead monetarily in terms of latitude in our budget. This too is a great blessing.
Greg and Christina still aim toward helping with the church plant in Columbia, but in the meantime we gain his services on our staff as he further prepares for that assignment on the job at OGC. Having him on board in this position also fits in with the “R” in our BRIDE acrostic – Reproducing Churches. We look forward to launching him out in the future, investing in him in the present, and tapping his gifts and ministry between now and next May, Lord willing. Pray for his fruitfulness in his work among us!
As we close in soon on evaluation of possible elder candidates, we would do well to hear this counsel from IX Marks.
9-Leadership from 9Marks on Vimeo.
I refer to the discipline of waiting on God.
I don’t have to tell you how excruciatingly difficult it is. I often remind people, “Wait is a four-letter word.”
But God’s word assures us though hard it is good. Consider Lamentations 3:26: It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Note the modifier on what kind of waiting counts as good – quietly. Fussing and fuming while we wait doesn’t cut it.
Octavius Winslow, wise man of old, said it well:
The Lord would now often have us wait His time in answering prayer. And, if the vision tarry, still let us wait, and hope, and expect. Let the delay but stimulate hope, and increase desire, exercise faith, and multiply petitions at the mercy-seat. It will come when the Lord sees best. A believer may lose the answer to his prayer, by dictating to the Lord the mode, as well as the time, of answering. The Lord has His own mode of blessing His people. We may prescribe
the way the Lord should answer, but He may send the blessing to us through an opposite channel, in a way we never thought of, and should never have selected. Sovereignty sits regent upon the throne, and in no aspect is its exercise more manifestly seen than in selecting the way and the means by which the prayers of the saints of God are answered. Dictate not to the Lord. If you ask a blessing through a certain channel, or in a prescribed way, let it be with the deepest humility of mind, and with perfect submission to the will of God. Be satisfied to receive the blessing in any way which a good and covenant God may appoint. Be assured, it will be in that way that will most glorify Himself, and secure to you the greatest amount of blessing.
Does God have you in wait mode over something, several things during this season of your walk with Him?
Remember. It’s good to wait quietly for His salvation. Beware trying to manufacture a salvation of your own.
Yesterday’s message from John 12:44-50 is now on line. You can listen to the audio here.
Here is how I summarized the passage:
Jesus makes a predominantly positive message here. He promotes the forever benefits of faith in Him as the Messiah.
To believe in Him is to know the Father. To believe in Him is to enter His light and escape the darkness. But implicit with the positive comes the negative, the flipside of the coin. Not to believe in Him is not to know the Father. And not to believe in Him, to reject Him, means not to enter the light but remain in the domain of darkness. That leads to our third forever consequence of belief in Jesus as the Messiah. But it – deliverance from the judgment, along with the fourth – observance of the commandment, will have to wait until next time.
Praise God for the baptisms that God gave us as real-life examples of not remaining in darkness but walking in the light of Christ!
I struggle with summer in Central Florida for more reasons than one.
Yes, the heat and humidity score high on my displeasure meter for sure. But the physical discomfort that comes with temps in the nineties takes a back seat to the spiritual angst of increased temptation to lust complicated by immodest dress amongst the fairer sex.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming women for any of my battles with impurity. Lust, if entertained, shows my heart and its sin and not that of anyone else .
However Jesus issued stern warnings to His followers about the risk of acting as an accessory to sins like lust by becoming a stumbling block. For example, Matthew 18:7-9 says:
[7] “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! [8] And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. [9] And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
Jesus emphasizes the necessity of forceful elimination of stumbling blocks in our making war on sin, but in so doing pronounces woe upon those who wittingly or unwittingly function as conduits for temptation.
Dear sisters in Christ, may I humbly and earnestly entreat you that your wardrobe choices can and do make a significant difference in this regard for the godly man who wants to please Jesus with the thoughts of his mind and the trajectory of his eyes?
Robert G. Spinney, in an article in this quarter’s Free Grace Broadcaster entitled Modest Apparel, called “Accessories to Adultery” asks:
Why do some Christians dress so as to make themselves “lusting events”? Often it is due to innocent ignorance. Many believers simply do not realize that other Christians are easily tempted to sin by immodest clothing. This is especially
true for Christian women: they often do not understand that many Christian men experience great anguish of soul as they fight with sexual temptation. Without intending to, they wear clothing that is a stumbling block. Be mindful that Christian men are saints, not angels! Sisters, please love your brothers enough to avoid tempting them to sin. Margaret Buchanan is right when she writes, “By dressing in a provocative way, girls and women are actually sexually harassing men.” This is true even when there is no deliberate intent to promote sensuality with one’s clothing.
Again, by no means do I mean to hint even remotely that any of this excuses men for our various and egregious sins of sexual harassment toward women. But I would remind, especially women of God, of Paul’s appeal in 1 Timothy 2:9-10 – women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, [10] but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.
Godly men, let us wage war with drastic action this season of “lusting events” against sin through the power of the gospel and our accountable support of one another. And may our godly women join the fray by coming to our aid with their adornment of respectable apparel.
Ladies, we who too often sin against you with our lust, thank you for this most beneficial assist.
EAGER FOR PEACE 