Coming Events of Note

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There are two things coming up in the near future that I want to highlight in this post.

The first concerns Good Friday, April 2. Orlando Grace will participate with Faith Baptist Church, 500 N. Bumby, in Orlando, in a joint Good Friday worship observance from noon to 1:00 PM. Pastor Jack of Faith will preach. I will lead worship and communion. If you are off from work and/or have the lunch hour free that day, please consider joining us for a time of remembering our Lord’s crucifixion and the priceless atonement His death secured for His own. Check the events section of this website for a map on how to get to Faith Baptist Church.

The second concerns new adult 9:30 equipping hour classes for the second quarter of 2010, set to begin on April 4. There will be four offerings from which to choose:

  1. Biblical Peacemaking Training: Matthew Antolick will lead this study in principles of biblical conflict resolution with a view to forming a reconciling team at OGC that will help people with dealing with conflict when it arises.
  2. The Thessalonian Epistles: Delroy Thompson will lead this book study through Paul’s two epistles to the Thessalonians.
  3. The Shorter Catechism (Part 2): Pastor Clay will pick up where he left off at the end of 2009 with another look at the Baptist Catechism.
  4. Discover OGC Newcomer Orientation Series: I will teach another installment of our introduction to the values, mission, and vision at Orlando Grace, the gateway to covenant membership for those interested in learning more about the church.

Please watch for more details on these classes on the website, in the enews, and in the announcements on Sunday mornings throughout the rest of the month of March. Be praying where the Lord would want you to focus attention on your spiritual growth by participating in one of these classes. For more information, feel free to contact the instructor of the course in which you are interested.

A Call to Spiritual Reformation Study Guide

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Here is the study guide for this week’s 9:30 equipping hour class in prayer in case you missed it.

Chapter Nine – A Sovereign and Personal God

  1. What challenges does Carson bring early on in this chapter to the popular notion prayer changes things?

  2. What two truths does Carson work from at the outset on p. 148 on the way to unpacking biblical reflections that can help us pray better? What problem does he say we have concerning these? Where does he offer biblical support for both?

  3. Which passages of Scripture does Dr. Carson argue bring both these truths together at the same time? Which proves most illuminating to you and why?

  4. Why does the author argue that the Acts 4:23-30 passage proves to be the most revealing of the seven passages under discussion?

  5. If we agree with Dr. Carson that the Bible affirms both truths as he attempts to demonstrate, where does he say we are to go from there on p. 156ff?

  6. How does he qualify the notion of freedom in dealing with the issue of mystery in reconciling these two truths?

  7. How does he qualify God’s relation to good and evil in furthering his argument?

  8. How does Carson relate the nature of God to the discussion? What wonderful truth does he articulate? How do you react to the statement, Christians are prepared to accept certain mysteries?

  9. What crucial lesson does Carson draw out before he concludes the chapter? How do the examples he cites help you in your understanding? How does he relate all this to prayer? How does he deal with the problem passages related to God relenting?

  10. How will this chapter make a difference in your prayer life?

How To Be Certain Your Faith Is Not Fatally Flawed (Part 2)

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This morning I concluded my message in John 8:31-38 with six practical applications by which we can measure our assurance of salvation in terms of the third evidence of a genuine faith – liberation from one’s sin. You can listen to the entire message here.

I blew through these applications fairly quickly. I offer them here on the blog for further consideration.  These things will be true of us in this area, if we truly belong to the One who sets free indeed.

  1. We will not habitually commit sin. – Rom. 6:2 – How can we who died to sin still live in it? We will experience over the course of time, sometimes painfully slow, the progressive, gradual, transforming power of grace from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18).
  2. We will deliberately rely on grace and the power of the Gospel for transformation not our own moral effort. 2 Cor. 3:18 begins And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord (emphasis added). It’s not about trying harder; it’s about becoming transfixed, gloriously mesmerized by the beauty and grace of Jesus who sets free by the power of the gospel appropriated by faith.
  3. We will consistently confess and repent of our sins when we do fall in this life and pursue accountability so as not to deceive ourselves. If you battle an addiction, you may battle for years. Don’t give up. As long as you have accountability, practice James 5:16, see others signs of God’s grace at work in your lives, you may legitimately have assurance of salvation. Claim promises like John 8:32 & 36 and host of other grace-empowering, sin-liberating promises of God’s word until you prevail. Get out of compromising situations and patterns that set you up. Don’t tell me you’re serious about your faith and overcoming lust if you continue to put yourself  in the wrong place at the wrong time with your boyfriend/girl friend. Tell somebody what’s going on and pick someone with guts who will get in your face when you get out of line.
  4. We will seek to live a holy life as an overall pattern by obeying God’s words and doing good works. Eph. 2:10 says we are created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared before hand in which we should walk. Good works are conspicuous and even those that aren’t can’t remain hidden according to 1 Tim. 5:25. Does anybody anywhere see anything of this nature going on in your life?
  5. We will practice love for all, but especially for our brothers and sisters in the faith. 1 John 3:14 – We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. Tremble, shake in your boots, if you profess to follow Christ but anger, bitterness, malice, wrath, and resentment consume you. Genuine believers give off the aroma of kindness/grace/love. They practice forgiveness. They are peacemakers.
  6. We will seek to set our affections more upon the things above as opposed to worldly things below. Col. 3:1-2 – Seek the things above, set your minds on things above not things below. If your delights and affections get more traction downtown in the bar and club scene on Saturday nights as a rule than they do in a God-centered, Christ-honoring, joy-giving church scene on Sunday morning, and I’ll grant you not all churches fit that description, you should ask yourself some very hard questions. Your faith may be fatally flawed.

If these things are true of us and growing, we may draw hope and strength from the assurance that our faith is genuine. All glory to Him who saves and keeps His own to the very end.

Missing the Boat at SeaWorld

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What are we to make of the tragedy at a local theme park this week?

A seasoned trainer of killer whales got dragged under water by her ponytale by a male Orca known for a history of living up to its name.

The debate in the news remains alarmingly this-worldly in terms of animal rights, conservation, ad nauseum.

As always, the Scripture speaks profoundly on an altogether different level.

In response to Job’s complaints in the face of unspeakable suffering far exceeding that of the family of Dawn Brancheau who dared tether Tilikum to her less-than-containable leash, the God of the universe said this:

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook
or press down his tongue with a cord?
2 Can you put a rope in his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he make many pleas to you?
Will he speak to you soft words?
4 Will he make a covenant with you
to take him for your servant forever?
5 Will you play with him as with a bird,
or will you put him on a leash for your girls?
6 Will traders bargain over him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears?
8 Lay your hands on him;
remember the battle—you will not do it again!
9  Behold, the hope of a man is false;
he is laid low even at the sight of him.
10 No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.
Who then is he who can stand before me?
11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?
Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

Leviathan is the English translator’s best guess for a difficult-to-translate Hebrew word often rendered as a large sea animal. Orcas fit the bill. They are among the hugest of the dolphin species weighing up to six tons and measuring up to the length of a school bus. Males are particularly large and aggressive. Tilikum serves the SeaWorld community for his stud services and large-splash-making capabilities  – a crowd favorite indeed.

Until this week when he took a 40 year old handler so very easily to her watery grave.

If you seek to see the world through heavenly-minded eyes, the lesson seems plain. Who dares to trifle with a killer whale? No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Ms. Brancheau, I am certain, dared not in the slightest to stir up the mighty beast floating in the pool before her. Even so, her proximity to creation’s majesty cost her nothing less than her very life. Word to the wise.

Word to the wiser still. Who then is he/she who can stand before God? Let the question sink in. Who then is he/she who can stand before God? None. I say it again, none. If dear Dawn (and my heart goes out to her grieving family and friends) could not stand poolside by Leviathan and escape with her life, who among us can pretend to put God, who owns the whole of heaven, including Orcas, great white sharks, lumbering hippos, and the rest of His wondrous and fearsome creation, in the dock and claim some legitimate argument with His sovereign administrations in their life for which we might better respond, He gives and takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21).

May we not miss the boat along with the masses debating the pros and cons of killer whales consigned to captivity as if the only things we should consider lie along an animal rights plane and no other. Far more can and should result from this tragedy than that. Let nature and its grandeur speak to us internally rebuking our sinful pride. Let it speak to us vertically recalibrating our hearing and seeing such that we hear and see Him and thus, along with Job, despise ourselves and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6).

Bridge Building by Road Refurbishing

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Our mission as a church stands on record as this: engaging peoples everywhere to pursue ultimate satisfaction in Jesus.

One important way we seek to do that is by building bridges into the community through works of service and acts of mercy.

After all, Jesus commanded us to do this very kind of thing in Matthew 5:16. He means for us to let our light shine in such a way that a watching world sees our good works and thus glorifies the Father in heaven.

The community outreach team recently sought to lead us into one dimension of this by acquiring for us the Adopt-a-Road rights to the stretch of Maitland Avenue that includes our office, property, and the SDA church where we meet. The boundary runs from Orienta on the north end to Oranole on the south.

Last Saturday a bunch of us gathered at the office for training (yes, you need training to pick up garbage along the road – we did other things too) for our first quarterly clean up effort along our roadway. Three hours later she looked as good as she has ever looked since I’ve lived in this neck of the woods. As three of us worked our way north from the office, we had numerous occasions to greet folks walking on the sidewalk. A police officer even stopped, lights flashing, and asked us to identify ourselves as we leaned over to clean out the entrance to another storm drain!

May I encourage us not to underestimate the significance of even this small step of road maintenance as a local church? It’s a means to a very important end. We are excercising our outreach muscles. We are reaching out beyond our cloistered reformed sanctuary and venturing out into a lost world that needs Christ.

May we do so more and more in 2010 individually and corporately! Hear the words of Robert E. Coleman in his chapter of Telling the Truth called The Lifestyle of the Great Commission.

To reach them [skeptics], we must take the servant’s mantle. When they know they are loved, we have their attention. In a generation like ours that has lost a sense of objective truth, living by their feelings rather than by faith, this may be the only way to make sense to them initially. Look around and see how you can meet a need. Take a fresh-baked loaf of bread to your neighbor. Better still, have the family over for dinner. Help the man next door on a work project like fixing a roof or building a room in the home. Tutor a child on a school project. Visit people in sickness. Be there to help in times of bereavement or when someone is in trouble. There are a thousand things we can do. It’s our business to identify felt needs of people around us and try to help. Unassuming as it may be, this is how our witness becomes credible. Communication usually begins at the feeling level. Don’t you like to be around persons who can feel where you hurt? One who is known as a servant will never lack opportunities in evangelism. Soul-winners are first known as shepherds (pp. 256-57).

While writing this post I noticed through the window my neighbor across the street hauling out his yard waste for tomorrow’s collection. I broke away and went to ask about his significant other. She hasn”t been around much. Turns out she has cancer – just diagnosed three weeks ago. Looks like this shepherd/cancer survivor has some work to do.

Won’t you do the same as the Lord leads?

Let us be bridge builders for God’s glory and our joy!

A Call to Spiritual Reformation Study Guide

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Here is the study guide for chapter 8 for this Sunday’s 9:30 equipping hour!

  1. Whom have you known personally who you would describe as distinguished by a particularly gifted ministry of prayer? What made it so?
  2. What is one of the most important steps we can take according to Carson in terms of our own prayer experience?
  3. Why does Carson think Paul’s prayer in Phil. 1:9-11 has so much potential to help us?
  4. What is the first of three steps in Paul’s prayer? What are the distinguishing things related to this step for which Paul prays? How does the virtue of love tie in here? How does Carson tie in Phil. 1:6 and 3:10-11 to make his point? How does Carson use specific examples to get after his meaning and where do you need to make application?
  5. How does Carson make application of this first step to members of the clergy in particular? Where does this give you insight into the challenges of your pastors?
  6. What is the second of the three steps in Paul’s prayer? How does Carson explain two expressions in this part of the prayer? What conclusion about Paul’s praying on p. 136-137 does Carson make and how do your own prayers match up to what he calls this most urgent need in the Western church?
  7. What is the third of the three steps in Paul’s prayer? How does he caution us about our pursuit of the excellent? How do you react to the statement, God is not interested in one hundred percentism? Where does Paul take such care in the end of the prayer to guard against the risk under consideration? What practical test does Carson apply to help figure this out in our own lives?
  8. With God’s help how might your prayer life change in light of this chapter in Carson’s book?

Helpful Tools for Truth Acquisition

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This morning I introduced part one of what will end up as three sermons with the same title from John 8:31-38: How To Be Certain Your Faith Is Not Fatally Flawed.

Jesus prescribes three tests for testing faith’s genuineness in vv. 31-32:

  1. Continuation in His word – If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.
  2. Acquisition of the truth – you will know the truth.
  3. Liberation from one’s sin – and the truth will set you free.

I made much of the connection between the first and second points. One glorious consequence of remaining in the word of Jesus, hearing and obeying it, is that we gain increasingly greater understanding of truth over and against falsehood.

Certain tools must belong in your toolkit if you hope to grow in your knowledge of the truth. It is not enough to read the Bible, though that certainly is essential to what Jesus means when He says we must abide in His word as a test of genuine faith. We have to get our arms around the meaning of His words and grasp the truth contained within them.

Along the way several extra-biblical helps can aid in one’s understanding of the truths taught in the Bible, truths that serve to set us free from the bondage of sin.

Some, not all, you can access online. I have sought to provide links below where this is the case.

Here are my suggestions for helpful tools for truth acquisition as a follower of Jesus Christ. More exist for sure, but these seem basic to  me.

First, you need a solid one volume commentary of the Bible. Puritan Matthew Henry’s complete and unabridged work can be accessed here. You don’t want to rely on a commentary to do your own study, but you definitely want to check your work by comparing it to a solid teacher either from the past or today. If you can afford it, John MacArthur’s New Testament Commentaries are now available. But here’s a tip. Much of those works come right from his sermons that you can access here. The same is true of John Piper’s sermons here. Save yourself some bucks. Calvin’s commentaries are online too here.

Second, make sure you have a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia at your disposal. You can access ISBE, a classic for cultural and historical background study, here. For example, if you wanted to learn more about Abraham and the significance of his reference in John 8:33, you could look up his name in the encyclopedia and have a wealth of information about him at your finger tips.

Third, invest in a one-volume systematic theology. Wayne Grudem’s is among the best for accuracy and readability. However, if you can’t afford that option, you still have online hope. John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion can be found here. You don’t get a helpful index with this masterpiece by the reformer, but you will be reading one of the all time great digests of truth that has ever come from the pen of man. This year I am reading through this work a paragraph at a time as part of my devotions. It is a must read for the reformed follower of Jesus.

Fourth, utilize a devotional guide. I love Ligonier’s TableTalk. After using this resource for a year now, I am amazed at how much truth this little booklet crams into each monthly installment. It is the first thing I open each morning as I approach the Lord for communing with Him. You will find a daily reading and themed articles each month that will greatly contribute to the increase of your truth quotient.

Fifth, make sure you include some reading from the saints of the past. You can get absolutely free Free Grace Broadcaster from Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida. Every quarter they publish a booklet of largely Puritan writings on different subjects. Order your subscription or read online here.

Sixth, books, you’ve got to read books! As I mentioned this morning, books change your life. They bring truth to life. I can’t even begin to tell you how often God has brought a book across my path that He has used to further my sanctification in a significant way. I have referenced often recently J. C. Ryle’s classic Holiness as a book I am currently digesting. Guess what? You can get it online too here! Reading good, solid, extra-biblical literature that opens your eyes to the truths of the Scriptures will make a huge difference in your life.

Seventh, go to conferences. God shows up at meetings that honor His name and teach His truth. Ligonier Ministries holds their annual conference every year right here in Orlando. How sweet is that! No travel costs. No hotel costs. Pack your own food if you need to save even more money. Register early like Nancy and I did and you will get the benefit of early bird pricing. This year’s conference theme is Tough Questions Christians Face.The lineup of speakers will knock your socks off. Take a vacation day or two and go to Ligonier. You can learn more about this year’s conference here.

No doubt there are more. Faithfully attend church and the preaching of the word. Utilize the 9:30 equipping hour. Get into a growth group. Attend the 1689 Confession tutorial class every other Wednesday (see the events calendar on the website) or listen to the classes online on our website.

If it is true that acquiring the truth in greater degrees of understanding is a mark of true discipleship, then let us be a people who are rabid for truth and as crazy about accumulating tools to that end as the carpenter is for stocking his toolkit with nothing but the very best equipment!

He Gives Snow Like Wool

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Images like this make me deliriously glad I live in the tropics. At least in February.

Still we have endured our share of cold this winter in Florida. Several times lately I’ve asked various people with tongue in cheek, “When will the Lord turn the heater back on around here?”

The statement belies correct theology as evidenced by a passage like Psalm 147:12-20.

12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14 He makes peace in your borders;
he fills you with the finest of the wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and rules to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his rules. 
Praise the Lord!

Among the things the psalmist cites for reasons to give praise to God he includes the commands of His word in swift providence that send snow like wool and cold before which no one can stand. Those same snows melt when and only when He sends out His word for that purpose.

Praise God for the cold, the snow, the frost, the wind, the rains. None of them comes apart from the issuance of His word.

As wondrous as that truth is, it’s not all the truth nor the only reason to praise. God sends out His word not just as creator and sustainer of the earth but as redeemer and revealer to His people. Verse 19 says He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. No other people enjoy such a privilege according to v. 20. This is indeed reason to praise the Lord. He has given His people His word. He has revealed His truth — truth that sets us free, free indeed (John 8:32).

Charles Spurgeon wrote in his masterpiece, The Treasury of David:

He who is the Creator is also the Revealer. We are to praise the Lord above all things for his manifesting himself to us as he does not unto the world. Whatever part of his mind he discloses to us, whether it be a word of instruction, a statute of direction, or a judgment of government, we are bound to bless the Lord for it. He who causes summer to come in the place of winter has also removed the coldness and death from our hearts by the power of his word, and this is abundant cause for singing unto his name. As Jacob’s seed of old were made to know the Lord, even so are we ill these latter days; wherefore, let his name be magnified among us. By that knowledge Jacob is ennobled into Israel, and therefore let him who is made a prevailing prince in prayer be also a chief musician in praise. The elect people were bound to sing hallelujahs to their own God. Why were they so specially favoured if they did not, above all others, tell forth the glory of their God?

So as we gather together tomorrow on the Lord’s Day, let us give thanks to the Lord and praise Him for His word that gives snow like wool and truth like keys that open sin’s prison doors and sets the captives free.

Let There Be Church Membership

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This Sunday, Lord willing, we will receive seventeen new members into the body at Orlando Grace. Thanks be to God! What better time to review ten reasons why church membership is biblical and necessary.

First, God keeps lists and the New Testament church did as well. God has a book. It’s called the book of life. It’s where He keeps the list of all those who belong to Him having been bought by the precious blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. Rev. 20:15 – And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. The New Testament kept lists of members like widows who were enrolled according to strict criteria (1 Tim. 5:9-16). Paul speaks of the punishment of church discipline upon an erring member as sufficient by the majority in 2 Cor. 2:6. It makes no sense at all to speak that way if there was not some way to distinguish who belonged to that majority and who did not. Membership distinguishes accordingly. More on church discipline is to come later in this post.

Second, the New Testament clearly notes the reality of specific churches meeting in specific geographical places with specific individuals practicing specific ministries in covenant relationships. Among them are Rome, Galatia, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, Crete, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. The church universal and invisible of believers everywhere manifests itself as the church local and visible in distinct locations and places in which all members participate.

Third, the initiatory rite of baptism implies an entrance into and belonging to a new community, the body of Christ. 1 Cor. 12:13 – For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. Baptism identifies you uniquely with Jesus’ church. It marks you as belonging to His church. Membership in a local church serves a similar purpose, identifying you with a visible, functional assembly.

Fourth, the proliferation of false/heretical doctrine in every age necessitates affiliation with a ministry which identifies the believer with all-important sound doctrine which is able to save one’s soul. In 1 Tim. 4:16 Paul gives this charge to his young pastor friend. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. Certain teaching, if you sit under it and buy into it, will damn your soul to hell for an eternity. Sound doctrine, if you sit under it and embrace it, will save your soul to heaven for eternity. This is why we are a confessional church. We subscribe, with a few but some strategic exceptions/clarifications, to the London 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. It represents one of a handful of historical, thoroughly orthodox summarizations of biblical Christianity that all of church history has commended as conducive to salvation. You want to be a member of that kind of church to help keep you from straying into error and shipwrecking in your faith.

Fifth, the demands to examine continually one’s faith, to make one’s election more sure, to solidify one’s assurance of salvation, to give evidence to the legitimacy of one’s profession of faith, particularly in obeying the all-important command to love one another, as well as all the other one another’s of the New Testament, make membership an absolute necessity. A command like 2 Cor. 13:5 – Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves – makes little to no sense to a great many professing followers of Jesus in today’s evangelical world. They pray a prayer or walk an aisle and merrily go about their lives with little to no concern for making their calling and election more sure (2 Pet. 1:10).

Mark Dever calls the local church an assurance of salvation cooperative. We need the church in our lives and disciplines of membership to test the fabric of our so-called faith to ensure that we are not self-deceived, that our faith is not bogus. Never underestimate the capacity for spiritual drift (Heb. 2:1). Peter says if you lack qualities like faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love — what’s more if you aren’t making every effort to supplement them and grow in them, you may become ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ and be so nearsighted as to be blind. Don’t fool yourself. Membership in a local church is one way to help guard yourself from spiritual shipwreck.

Sixth, membership provides a practical outlet for the exercise of one’s spiritual gift and fulfilling of one’s role as a spiritual priest in God’s house (Eph. 4:11-16; 1 Pet. 2:4-5). For example, if someone has the spiritual gift of teaching, a wise church will not permit that person to exercise his/her gift apart from the examination that the membership process brings to bear on that person’s life. To release someone to teach without that doctrinal and personal filtering process puts the body potentially at risk for the proliferation of error in its midst.

Seventh, membership manifests a tangible expression of your willingness to submit to duly constituted ecclesiastical authority (1 Pet.  5:5; Heb. 13:17 – obey your leaders and submit to them). Don’t fool yourself on this one. You are not genuinely and rightly and fully under the authority of the Lord Jesus you profess to follow if you are not pledged covenantally to membership in a church governed biblically by servant-minded godly elders as established by Jesus for the good of His church. God has ordained such leadership in all the social spheres of His invention–the home, the state, and the church.

Eighth, membership affords you spiritual oversight and care by shepherds charged with your wellbeing including your discipline in the case of your getting ensnared in sin. Here is another huge way the isolationist, free-agent Christian is at risk. Without being under spiritual authority, you have no one answering in heaven for you. You fall under no one’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction who can rightly come to your rescue if need be in ways prescribed in a host of passages like Matt. 18:15-18, 1 Cor. 5, Gal. 6:1-2, 2 Thess.3:14-15, 1 Tim. 5:20, etc. That puts you in a most vulnerable position without the benefit of the means of grace that is godly servant shepherding.

Ninth, membership in a local church makes possible the provision of material means in the case of a crisis in one’s life that necessitates help. That does not mean that benevolence giving cannot happen to a nonmember. At times it does. But I invoke 1 Tim. 5 here in the case of widows as proof of what I mean. For a widow to make the list that would assure her benevolence help, she had to meet strict criteria. Membership makes for the lines of demarcation that can assure that the help is warranted and appropriate. We get calls in the office asking for help regularly. The answer is the same. It is reserved for our members into whose lives we may speak and shepherd. That’s good stewardship.

Tenth, and finally, membership assures access to the continuation ordinance of communion with less prospect of self-delusion that leads to incurred judgment for eating and drinking unworthily (1 Cor. 11:27-32). The elders of this church will at the necessary times instruct specific members from partaking FOR THEIR SAKES. Why — because we will give an account (Heb. 13:17) — among other reasons. I am not accountable for you in the same way at all if your name appears on the active church list without a bullet mark indicating you are a member. If there is such a mark, you are a stewardship allotted to my charge by God and He will judge me for the way I handle it. You want that kind of sanctified pressure in my life as a pastor, in the elders’ lives as servants, when it comes to shepherding you. Woe unto you if your pastor doesn’t tremble at the thought of giving an account for your soul at the judgment.

Let there be church membership.

Titus 3:2 & Marital Communication

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When I do marriage counseling as a pastor I often hear the same lament. We just don’t know how to communicate.

Recently I heard it again. The couple described the tenor of the relationship as one of yelling at each other, and not just occasionally but fairly often.

I immediately thought of Titus 3:2. Paul exhorts Titus to instruct believers in the church at Crete on how to live out the gospel in a life of good works in the world. Among other things that includes speaking evil of no one, avoiding quarreling, being gentle, and showing perfect courtesy toward all people.

I made the secondary application to marriage for obvious reasons. Who more important to show perfect courtesy toward than your spouse?

That led to a list of principles of communication in marriage or any relationship for that matter rooted in a Titus 3:2 theology of peacemaking.

  1. Stay in the “I” and avoid the “you.” In other words, self-report, don’t accuse. Instead of saying, You are judging me when you say something like that, frame things something like this: I struggle with feeling judged when I hear something like that.
  2. Listen carefully. Don’t interrupt. I don’t know how many times in marital counseling I hear a spouse talk over their partner rather than hearing things out to the end.
  3. Do everything you can by the power of the gospel to stay composed. Once your conversation deteriorates to yelling you’ve lost the battle and maybe the war.
  4. Ask questions in order to draw out the heart. Instead of stating conclusions and making ultimatums, seek to get at what’s behind your spouse’s position or choices by asking things like, Can you help me understand why that matters so much to you?
  5. Give the benefit of the doubt whenever possible that the problem may be only a failure to communicate rather than a deliberate sin. One of my most often used proverbial expressions is Never underestimate the capacity for communication to break down. Work hard to communicate so as not to be misunderstood, not just to be understood.
  6. Practice the golden rule. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Ask yourself if your manner of communicating reflects how you would want someone else to engage you in a conflict or misunderstanding. If it doesn’t, repent.
  7. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger (Eph. 4:26). Few things hinder communication more than failing to deal decisively and constructively with your anger in a timely manner.
  8. If you haven’t already done so, read Ken Sande’s The Peacemaker or Peacemaking for Families. You’ll have to anyway if you come to me for marital counseling for further help on your communication. Might as well get a leg up on the homework.

Marital dynamics in one sense aren’t rocket science. Paul boiled it down to two things in Eph. 5:33. Wives need love from their husbands and husbands need respect from their wives. Men, does the way you communicate reflect love? Women, does the way you communicate reflect respect? If the banner of Titus 3:2 waves over the way you communicate with your spouse, the answer will be yes.