Wanted: Weekend Warriors

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Don’t know any other way to characterize my weekend.

Today at 3 PM – Allmand/Taylor wedding.

Tomorrow at 8:30 AM – prayer on the property.

Tomorrow at 9:30 AM – adult equipping hour teaching – So Many Questions: How to Answer Common Questions about Christianity.

Tomorrow at 10:45 AM – worship service preaching – Faith’s Ultimate Display (Part Two), from John 12:1-11.

Tomorrow at 6 PM – annual congregational meeting – state of the church at OGC.

Have already scheduled a complete meltdown for Monday.

Anyone care to join the fray?

The Highest Charity

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I opted to preach from Hebrews 13:4 for my wedding sermon last Friday night.

Let marriage be held in honor among all.

The context at the end of chapter 12 urges the reader to offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, since He is a consuming fire. Presumably the bullet points at the top of chapter 13 spell out what that looks like in all kinds of ways, like esteeming marriage as an honorable estate.

But for this post, my attention turns to the first thing on the writer’s list in Hebrews 13:1 – Let brotherly love continue.

Now I can think of a host of specifics which flesh that out in the everyday covenant commitments among followers of Jesus, but none perhaps more virtuous than that of intercessory prayer.

J. C. Ryle, in a tract entitled A Call to Prayer, comments:

This is the highest charity. He loves me best who loves me in his prayers. This is for our soul’s health. It enlarges our sympathies and expands our hearts. This is for the benefit of the church. The wheels of all machinery for extending the gospel are moved by prayer. They do as much for the Lord’s cause who intercede like Moses on the mount, as they do who fight like Joshua in the thick of the battle. This is to be like Christ. He bears the names of his people, as their High Priest, before the Father. Oh, the privilege of being like Jesus! This is to , be a true helper to ministers. If I must choose a congregation, give me a people that pray.

This morning in our weekly prayer/staff meeting six of us prayed through the Tuesday group on the OGC prayer/directory call list. Am I ever glad we did.

Is it time to dust off your copy of that sheet with all those names and phone numbers? Why not lay a little charity of the highest form tomorrow on the J through Ms?

And then just keep on rolling through the rest of the week and beyond so that love of the brethren might continue in our precious flock.

Are You a Joy?

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I thought this was pretty gutsy.

One of my sheep sent this shepherd a post from a counseling website labeled Excellent Evaluation Question.

Drawing from Hebrews 13:17, the counselor sometimes challenges his clients to ask their pastor, and other significant people in their lives for that matter, the risky question, Am I a joy?

The application gets unpacked this way:

This is a fantastic question for you to ask your pastor. And should you ask your pastor this question, then take it further. Ask him to give you specific areas in your life, where you have been a joy to pastor. But don’t stop there. Keep pressing the issue. Also ask him for specific areas in which you need to address or change. Can you imagine if your son came to you and asked you if he was a joy to parent? If so, then you can imagine how any pastor would feel if one of his congregants came and asked a similar question.

Let me press the application a bit further. Ask these questions if they apply:

  • Ask your spouse if you are a joy to them. Why or why not?
  • Ask your small group leader if you are a joy to serve, lead, teach and equip.
  • Ask your children if you are joy to follow. Why or why not?
  • Additionally, a child can ask a parent if they are a joy to parent.

Note the responses you get and share with a close friend. This should give you much to chat about.

Yes, I would rather guess so. Of course he could turn the tables on me with the challenge to ask Am I a joy to follow? Why or why not?

Again, risky stuff, but worth thinking about.

Faith's Ultimate Display (Part One)

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Today’s message from John 12:1-11 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here’s how I closed:

Because of Mary’s one-of-a-kind act of extravagant devotion, we should believe in Jesus as the Messiah and follow Him with similar commitment.

Make no mistake about it. The choice to believe or not is an intensely personal one and ultimately a sacrificial one, even financially, if money tends to be your idol. Believe in Jesus if you are yet to do so.

And take care in case you are tempted to take comfort in the illusion as a non-believer that at least you have never sold out Jesus like Judas. John MacArthur has an answer for such:

You say, “I never sell Christ. I never betrayed Christ.” Oh yeah, for anybody who doesn’t receive Jesus Christ as Savior, you’re selling Him. Whatever it is that keeps you from inviting Christ into your life is the price that you’re selling Christ for. Some people are selling Christ for money, they want to play around with money, they want to become a financial success and they don’t want Christ horning in on it. Some people are selling Christ for sex, they want to live the kind of immoral life they want to live and so that’s the price they’re selling Christ out for. Some people want to sell Christ out for ambition, others for all kinds of other things, self-glory. Whatever it is that keeps you from receiving Jesus Christ is the price for which you sold Him. It would have been bad enough if Jesus had only been kissed by one Judas, He’s been kissed a thousand-thousand times the same way.

With what kind of kisses are we kissing the cheek of the Lord Jesus?

So Many Questions

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Tomorrow, Lord willing, we begin our follow up to the Two Ways To Live evangelism training during our 9:30 equipping hour for adults and highschoolers with another combination video/discussion curriculum called So Many Questions.

You needn’t have participated in the last seven weeks of training in order to take advantage of and profit by this follow up emphasis on apologetics – defending the faith.

Matthias Media posts this description of the course content on their website:

When was the last time you were asked one of these questions?

» How do I know God exists in the first place?
» Did Jesus really come back from the dead?
» Hasn’t science disproved Christianity?
» You can’t trust what the Bible says—it’s been changed too much over the years!
» No-one can claim to have ‘the truth’—everyone’s opinion is valid.
» Wasn’t Jesus just another great religious teacher?
» Discussing religion just divides people and causes problems!
» If the Bible is so clear, why can’t Christians agree on what it says?
» Why is the Bible anti-gay?
» If God is good, why is there so much suffering in the world?
» Can’t we just be good enough to please God?
» Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites!
» Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?

Find out how to answer these common questions.

In a series of short sessions, So Many Questions will take you through each question, helping you to work out what to say, and providing an ‘expert’ answer from which to learn. You’ll also learn the basic principles behind all these answers.

Tomorrow we will lay some ground work before getting into the specific questions. We will talk about why it is important to be prepared to answer such questions, how to listen in such situations, and how to answer effectively.

Hope to see you in the auditorium at the SDA at 9:30 AM sharp!

How Don't I Love Thee?

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Valentine’s Day.

Upon finishing this post, I will grill for my bride and we will spend our 35th February 14th together cocooning at home. What a gift.

I confess I’m not much of a poet or even lover of poetry (much to my detriment, I suspect), but my thoughts turned today to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous Sonnet 43, as I think of the love I have for Nancy.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Missing from the all in those last three lines of how I love my wife, I must all too painfully admit, until of late, would be prayers. Breath, smiles, tears, and prayers, of all my life.

The conviction of this lack came strong from God at the Desiring God pastor’s conference a couple of weeks ago with Joel Beeke’s message on family worship. In the panel discussion the day after that message, someone asked the speakers how well they fare in applying the principles Dr. Beeke taught from the example of the Puritans. Beeke himself claimed to have never failed in one day of 22 years of marriage to have prayed with his wife, even from the road when he travels! I felt about two inches tall.

Francis Chan, on the other hand, brought things back to the reality for most of us, I suspect, when he admitted he might pray with his bride once a week at best. He admitted that Beeke’s message hit him hard. No duh.

Then John Piper chimed in with his admission that he finds it easy to pray in public as a pastor but hard to pray in private with his wife. He added, “If we show in public an intimacy with the most important relationship we have vertically with God by the way we pray, but fail to demonstrate that in the most intimate relationship we have horizontally, something is amiss.” He got that right. Knock me down another inch.

So I came home from Minneapolis determined to do differently. Have to admit, last night, I dropped the ball again. Praise God for the gospel. But by and large the Lord has helped me take a different tack in our home and I am grateful.

How do I love thee, dear Nancy? Lord, help me to repent in the most grievous way I do not.

How Read You the Signs?

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Today’s message from John 11:45-57 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here’s how I closed the sermon:

The divided reactions to Jesus’ signs challenge us to examine our own that we might believe in Him. Many believed. Some rejected. Jesus withdrew. Others reflected. Where do you see yourself in these closing paragraphs of John 11? Are you like the many who believed? Have you seen the Son of God in His works and words and come to Him to do His bidding like Lazarus, Martha, and Mary? Or are you more like those who rejected, even conspired against Jesus? Either way He will use you. One way or another He will accomplish His purposes through you. Do you want it only to occur unwittingly? I hope not. Trust in Christ today that He might work in partnership with you as opposed to sovereignly in spite of you. How read you the signs?

O to grace how great a debtor that the signs would point us to Christ and that we might believe in Him as the Messiah, God’s Son.

The Awe Factor of God

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Just started reading Francis Chan’s Crazy Love.

Over a million copies sold already. I picked up a copy at the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference in Minneapolis last week. Figured I needed to see what all the ruckus was about.

He begins in a rather unorthodox way with chapter one entitled Stop Praying. He wants us to step back and take a look at the awesomeness of God. He directs the reader to a website to view this:

Have to admit. That perspective will definitely fuel your awe tank. Amazing.

Later in the chapter, Chan quotes A. W. Tozer:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

Will you pray with me that God gives us a fresh and accurate view of Himself tomorrow as we gather to worship His awesome name?

American Caesar's Fatal Flaw

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Significant Christian leaders have referenced William Manchester’s bestselling biography of General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), American Caesar, among the most influential books of that genre a godly man might want to read.

Recently I picked up a copy to tackle for my neighborhood book club choose-your-own-biography night. I was not disappointed.

Prior to reading this nearly 800 page tome, all I knew about MacArthur I learned from watching Mash reruns on TV. Few generals have distinguished themselves in terms of military accomplishments like MacArthur did in the Pacific theater in WWII and the Korean conflict. I took notes as I read on the man’s numerous virtues as a leader, everything from bodacious courage to strategic planning.

But the biggest lesson learned from this read had to do with the man’s fatal flaw, his ultimate undoing. I will let Manchester explain:

Probably no other commander in chief relished the spotlight so much or enjoyed applause more. In a word, he was vain. Like every other creature of vanity, he convinced himself that his drives were in fact selfless. . . . What Douglas MacArthur believed in most was Douglas MacArthur. . . . The yearning for adulation was his great flaw. He had others, notably mendacity and overoptimism, based on his conviction that he was a man of destiny, which repeatedly led him to announce “mopping-up” operations before battles had been won. . . . But it was his manifest self-regard, his complete lack of humility, which lay like a deep fissure at his very core. In the end it split wide open and destroyed him ( p. 9).

Little wonder. The Bible says in Prov. 16:18, Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Now I am no MacArthur nor son of  a MacArthur, but I fight the temptation to relish the spotlight and enjoy applause. I wasn’t a theater major for nothing in my undergraduate, pre-Christian days. And God help me, I can love adulation way more than I should.

Douglas MacArthur’s legacy of hubris serves as a good reminder to me to embrace the words of the prophet Micah, which a young, budding preacher/church planter recently reminded me of: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (6:8, emphasis added).

Are you guarding your heart from the fatal flaw of the American Caesar?

A Book You Won't Want to Read If

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Generally I prefer to recommend books folks might want to read.

This one you want to avoid like the plague . . . IF you prefer to remain mired in a mediocre north American version of following Jesus.

I am referring to David Platt’s dangerous little ditty entitled Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Multnomah, 2010, 230 pages). And obviously I wax facetious.

You want to read this book if you desire to rescue your faith from the kind of perverted counterfeit version American affluence often deceives us into accepting as if it were the real deal.

Here is a sample of the kind of hard-hitting content you will encounter in Radical:

We are, by nature, receivers.  Even if we have a desire to learn God’s Word, we still listen from a default self-centered mind-set that is always asking, What can I get out of this? But as we have seen, this is unbiblical Christianity.  What if we changed the question whenever we gathered to learn God’s Word? What if we began to think, How can I listen to his Word so that I am equipped to teach this Word to others?  ….When we realize that we have the responsibility to teach the Word, it changes everything about how we hear the Word (p. 102).

Platt concludes the book with an extremely practical five-point, one-year plan for a life turned upside down. I struggle to dare believe what might happen in a church like ours if everyone read a book like this and put the author’s one-year challenge into action with God’s help.

You will rarely find a resource so biblical in its content and yet practical in its approach.

Dangerous? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

Unless you prefer to remain mired in the you-know-what.