The Happiest Workers Ever

July 11, 2011 By revheff in New Building Tags: Joy, ministry, service, vanity, word of God Leave a comment

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!

The DNA of Godly Men

June 19, 2011 By revheff in Exposition Tags: daring, Davidic covenant, devotion, fathers, loyalty, masculinity, mighty men, promises of God, service Leave a comment

Today’s message from 2 Samuel 23:8-17 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here’s how I closed the message:

Brothers, only Jesus makes us mighty men – as we depend on His strength, devote ourselves to His service, daringly act for His pleasure, and ultimately delight in His sacrifice as David’s greater Son. May we more thoroughly than ever orient our lives around Him for the praise of His name and the joy of those we serve.

Praise God for every man who stood for prayer to grow in gospel might!

Wanted: Weekend Warriors

February 26, 2011 By revheff in Events Tags: equipping, meetings, service, teaching, wedding 5 Comments

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?

Day Off Good Word

December 17, 2010 By revheff in Personal Reflection Tags: devotion, justification, outreach, service 2 Comments

Today’s good word on PC’s day off comes from Octavius Winslow and his devotional entitled Morning Thoughts.

God never appears so like Himself as when He sits in judgment upon the person of a sinner, and determines his standing before Him upon the ground of that satisfaction to His law rendered by the Son of God in the room and stead of the guilty. Then does He appear infinitely holy, yet infinitely gracious; infinitely just, yet infinitely merciful. Love, as if it had long been panting for an outlet, now leaps forth and embraces the sinner; while justice, holiness, and truth gaze upon the wondrous spectacle with infinite complacence and delight. And shall we not pause and bestow a thought of admiration and gratitude upon Him, who was constrained to stand in our place of degradation and woe, that we might stand in His place of righteousness and glory? What wondrous love! what stupendous grace! that He should have been willing to have taken upon Him our sin, and curse, and woe! The exchange to Him how humiliating! He could only raise us by Himself stooping. He could only emancipate us by wearing our chain. He could only deliver us from death by Himself dying. He could only invest us with the spotless robe of His pure righteousness by wrapping around Himself the leprous mantle of our sin and curse. Oh, how precious ought He to be to every believing heart! What affection, what service, what sacrifice, what devotion, He deserves at our hands! Lord, incline my heart to yield itself supremely to You!

Tomorrow we build bridges into our community through the gift wrap outreach.

For some reason I am all the more motivated to get out there with the good news in word and deed.

Will you pray for our favor with the community?

The Virtue of Hard Work in the Lord

December 13, 2010 By revheff in New Building Tags: building program, ministry, service, Women, work Leave a comment

As I reflected today on last night’s congregational meeting, I gave thanks, among other things, for the gift of serving along side so many fellow workers in the Lord at Orlando Grace. From the building committee members, to the deacons, to the elders, we saw a display of devotion to the kingdom cause that makes this pastor flush with gratitude.

This blessing made me think of the apostle Paul where he sends greetings to the church in Romans 16:3-16. He mentions several people in the fellowship by name, citing reasons for his praise to God for them. Frequently, the virtue of working hard in the Lord and for His church goes down in the biblical record.

Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus (v. 3).

Greet Mary, who worked hard in the Lord for you (v. 6).

Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ (v. 9).

Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord (v. 12).

What lessons can we take away from a who’s who like this at the church in Rome? At least two come to mind.

First, it takes numerous servants to do the work of the ministry. Paul calls these saints fellow workers. Even the great apostle Paul acknowledged that he could not do the work by himself. It takes teamwork and cooperation among all the saints to build up Christ’s church. Don’t miss, by the way, that women who worked hard in the Lord made Paul’s list just like men. Hard work in gospel ministry applies to both genders. In fact, the term for hard work Paul uses only for women in the context!

Second, it doesn’t come easy. Paul often describes the ministry efforts expended as hard work. The Greek has only one word translated by these two English words. It comes from a root that means to beat or hit or smite something. It means to toil, strive, or struggle to the point of wearied exhaustion.

Spurgeon preached from this text with this exhortation to his people:

It is an honor to labor for Christ, it is a still greater honor to labor much. If then, any, in joining the Christian
Church, desire place or position, honor or respect, the way to it is this—labor, and labor much! Persis had probably been a slave and was of a strange race from the far-off land of Persia. But she was so excellent in disposition that she is called, “the beloved Persis,” and for her indefatigable industry she receives signal mention. Among believers the rewards of affectionate respect are distributed according to the self-denying service which is rendered to Christ and to His cause. May all of us be helped to labor much, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So much hard work went into making last night possible. Many thanks to you all!

We would not find ourselves poised on the brink of so grand an adventure as constructing our new building apart from the faithfulness of God in raising up so many hard working servants with a heart for the gospel and the glory of Christ’s name on display in and through His church.

May we continue to prize hard work in the Lord for the virtue it truly is and may we indeed by helped to labor much, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as we move into 2011 and start construction on our facility.

Fuel for the Fire of Faithful Ministry

April 4, 2010 By revheff in Exposition Tags: service, the resurrection, zeal 4 Comments

My text for this morning’s message was 1 Cor. 15:58.

I summarized the sermon this way:

The victorious reality of our future resurrection compels an unshakable constancy in the work of ministry. Such steadfast immovability will manifest itself in work – amiable work, abounding work, arduous work, and assured work.

Here is the Thomas Manton quote concerning Titus 2:14 I found so provocative:

Christ died to improve piety, not to lessen it, but to raise it to the highest, to make us zealous of good works that we might be carried on to heaven with full sails. . . . True grace is a fire that warms and inflames our affections. Christ came to make us more cheerful and lively, but not slack, careless, and cold . . . A cold Christian will have but cold comfort. For whom did Christ die? For those that are zealous of good works . . . It is not cold prayers, yawning devotions, and drowsy wishes when men are half-asleep that will serve in this case. Heaven is gotten by force and surprised by onset and storm (attack and violent assault).

You can listen to the entire message here.

May the Lord grant that those of us for whom Christ died may be carried on to heaven with full sails, zealous for good works!

What's a Reformed Church Like Ours Doing Washing Cars this Saturday?

November 19, 2009 By revheff in Evangelism Tags: kindness, mercy ministry, mission, service, witnessing Leave a comment

Good question. Let me explain.

Some folks at lunch today asked me how I was doing. As usual, my response included my assessment of the state of affairs in my church. I told them how excited I was about the rewording of our mission/vision/values verbiage to make things more memorable and catalytic to our fellowship. So I laid the BRIDE acrostic on them and quickly rattled off what each of those letters stands for in the way we want to accomplish our mission.

Lately we’ve been making a big deal out of the “B” for “Bridge Building.” That’s our metaphor for crossing over into the community with acts of mercy and kindness a la the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. The intent is to let our light shine via good works in such a way that the unbelieving world will see our good works and so glorify our Father in heaven (Matt. 5:16).

Ray Lau in our church came up with the brilliant idea of hosting a free car wash at our office this Saturday, Nov. 21, from 10 AM to 1 PM. Last Saturday a bunch of us canvased homes around our property giving out fliers advertising the event and inviting people to come. We are praying that the Lord will work to bring a number of our neighbors to our door step so we might serve them in love and build bridges into their lives for the gospel.

Some years ago, Cincinnati pastor Steve Sjogren wrote a book called Conspiracy of Kindness, (Servant Publications, 1993, 236 pages). In it he tells a boatload of stories about how his church penetrated their geographical area with all sorts of creative servant evangelism projects. Inevitably that led to sharing the gospel with people time and time again.

He writes:

In a society where other forms of sharing the gospel often meet with a great deal of resistance–one which feels it’s heard too much “God-talk” and not seen enough “God-activity”–servant evangelism seems to be a fruitful way for Christians to share God’s love with their community. Our experience in Cincinnati has shown us that evangelism must contain the right words, but that those words must follow the demonstration of the love of God (p. 22).

Now I don’t think that is always true. Nor does the author. He allows for the utility of other approaches to sharing the gospel. God uses all kinds of things to reach all kinds of people.

But he does have a point. That was reinforced for me last Saturday when another little ditty from the Ticked Off section of the paper caught my eye. I have to stop reading that stuff! Someone vented their displeasure at the number of people knocking on his door at all hours of the day on Saturdays to tell him about God.

In our day of postmodern skepticism in a post-Christian world, it seems to me that it is more important than ever to work at building relationships with nonbelievers and showing them the love of God in acts of kindness on the way to telling them the gospel of Christ that can save their souls.

That’s why our Reformed church is venturing out this Saturday to wash cars, for free. We want to build bridges into our community to be a blessing. We want to be the gospel so we can share the gospel.

So far about ten folks have volunteered to participate in all aspects of the outreach. We need about twenty.

What are you doing from 10 to 1 this Saturday? If you can help, let Ray know ASAP. And by all means, pray. Pray that God allows us to build bridges for the gospel by washing cars for His glory and their joy.