God is listening (Acts 12)

We often think that the early church, those early believers, operated so much in the supernatural that  all they had to do was ask God and he would break His natural laws to accomplish whatever they wanted.  That was not so.  Now I will grant you that they seemed to encounter more supernatural acts of God than we do but even in their experience, the supernatural was the exception not the rule.  The reason we know that is because when God supernaturally releases Peter from prison, no one believes it is really him.  Why?  Because they know he’s in jail and there is no way he could get out; at least no natural way.  What’s really ironic was that Peter’s release would have been a focal point of their prayers, even as they were praying at that very moment!

So let me encourage you with several thoughts from this little vignette in Scripture.

1. God does hear our prayers.  If there is one thing I’d like you remember, to remind yourself daily, it’s that God always hears your prayers.  Have you ever been talking to someone and realize they aren’t even listening to you?  I must confess I’ve been guilty of that way too often.  I’ve also been intently sharing with someone else only to realize they are somewhere else in their mind and heart.   God is not like that.  He is able to hear and listen to all our prayers.  He actually invites us into his presence to share our heart with him.  I always like to remind myself when I'm praying that God isn't a million miles away in a far off land we call heaven; God is right there with me in that very spot I'm praying.  He hears your prayers.  

2. God can and does intervene in our history to accomplish His will.    Sometimes it can seem that this world is just out of control, a result of our sinful and selfish choices.  The murderous rampage of ISIS against people, and against people who follow Jesus in particular, prods us to ask the questions, “God where are you?  Why are you allowing this?”  You know those early believers who suffered equal pressures and martyrdom often wondered the same thing.   But this story reminds us that God is Sovereign over His creation; accomplishing His will as He desires.   There is no doubt that most of the evil and despair we see in the world is simply God allowing us to reap the results of our sinful and fallen choices.  Indeed, God said that we would 'reap what we sow,' but don’t ever forget that God has not abandoned us.  God is still at work and will indeed accomplish His desires at the end, in spite of our sin.  Take courage, God has not left us alone and God is leading all of history to the conclusion that He desires. 

3. So let me encourage you to not grow weary but to pray!  Jesus once told us to pray and not lose heart.  Accept the truth that God doesn’t always violate His natural laws to answer us BUT He is always listening, always attentive, always involved.  Make your requests known to Him.  Trust that He is at work in the world; He can and does work with all our errant and sinful choices to yet bring about His ultimate will and our good.  Remember the words of Joseph to his brothers, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.”  God was so wise, so powerful, so good that He was not deterred by men’s sinful choices; He could work through them for His perfect end.  That’s the promise of Romans 8:28, “God works all things together for good for those who love Him.”  So pray.  Pray and talk to God always—as you are driving, sitting or whenever you have a free moment.  But also make time to gather with others and pray together.  This story tells us the early church did that a great deal.

Blessings

Jimmy

The dangers of being a stumbling block

One thing is true today-- somebody is watching me.  I don't mean with sinister motives either.  I mean people are watching me as I follow Christ in order to gain encouragement in their own walk with Jesus.  Paul said, "Follow me as I follow Christ" and I've done that my entire Christian life.  I've watched the men who follow Christ and I've followed them.  I followed them as a man, as a dad, as a friend and as a pastor.  I watched what they did and I emulated them.  I guess because of that I've always known that people were following me too.  I don't know if the men ahead of me felt the weight of that responsibility but I know I have as I thought of those following me.  I didn't want to be a stumbling block for others.

Matthew 18:5-7 always challenges me as I think of those who might be following me.  "Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.  Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!"  I have never wanted to be a stumbling block for anyone.

Have you ever thought about how we can be a stumbling block to others?  If people respect me and are following me as I follow Christ, how might I trip them up if I'm not careful?  Here are three things we might do to cause others to stumble.

Sin - When people are following us, and we choose to reject Christ and embrace sin, we are placing a stumbling block before others.  Most all of us know that we are sinners, and even that those we follow are too, but there is something truly disheartening to watch someone we love and respect, someone we follow, choose selfishness and sin over loving God.  Your sin will not only affect your relationship with God, it can stumble those who are watching you, looking up to you.  When you and I choose the selfishness of sin, especially grievous sin, those behind us may choose to give up in their disappointment.

Unrepentance -  We all know that we still sin and deep down we are aware that even our "leaders," those we follow, can fall.  We know they can even fall grievously and that in itself can cause others to stumble, but something else that may stumble even more is a heart unwilling to repent.   When confronted with sin, if you and I are unwilling to repent and turn back to follow Jesus, those who have been following us may decide that Jesus isn't worth it either.  Maybe they didn't stumble over our sin but they stumbled over our unwillingness to repent and turn back.  They may choose to give up because we are unwilling to return.

Rejection - John Maxwell once said, "No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care."  There is a great deal of truth in this.  So often people follow us because they feel loved by us, they trust us.  If we act unlovingly, if we portray rejection, then we may just be setting a trip hazard before others.

Ultimately all of us are responsible directly to God himself.  None of us will be able to excuse our own failures by appealing to a stumbling block someone else put before us.  Along with this reality, there is the truth that God's Holy Spirit indwells and empowers us all to walk and not stumble.  Yet nonetheless, there is this grave word of caution-- do not be the cause of others tripping.

May God help us walk and even run the race in such a way that those who follow will not stumble over us.

Serving is what we do

Jesus often spoke about humility and servanthood.  In Matthew 18 he says;

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  5 And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Here is that familiar call of Jesus to humility.  Greatness in the kingdom of God will always be measured in terms of our servant's heart, our humility of heart.  As a leader I've struggled with this; I desire to be a servant at heart because this is what we do.  Jesus said, "I've come to serve and not be served."  But at the same time, I'm not convinced that my leadership is one and the same with serving.  I often hear Christian leaders say that their platform ministry is one and the same with serving others.  Even in the secular world we hear politicians called public servants.  But serving seems to be something we do personally for others out of our humility.  Jesus speaks of receiving a child and nothing is more servant like than caring for a child.  Platform ministries are rarely personal and instead of lowering ourselves to serve the least, those ministries often elevate us to positions of great praise.  The larger the platform ministry, the greater the praise, power and position that usually follows.

Now I don't mean to imply that leaders can't be servants.  Indeed they can be and should be but service isn't seen so much in the platform ministry but in the heart of that leader outside of that large ministry.  Does that leader serve the least of these personally?  Is their heart of humility seen in how they treat others outside the popular large ministry?  Does that leader have time to talk to and encourage the young, the unknown, the one with no power?

Dr. Al Moyler represents the leader who is both powerful and humble.  Though I don't know him personally, he is the president of Southern Seminary, prolific author and speaker, but I listen to his daily briefing and on the weekend he takes questions from people.  His humility and his desire to serve the least is evident in how he answers their questions.  He is kind.  He is encouraging.  He is never self ingratiating.  I believe he'd always have time for the young ones, whether they were the children around him or the young in faith.

I desire to be the best leader I can be.  I want to be strong and assertive.  I want to be inspiring and challenging.  But above all those things I long to be a servant.  I want to be humble, a man under authority and one who serves Jesus but a leader who also sees serving Jesus as lived out in serving even children.  Jesus told us that to receive the children is to receive him.  Never grow to the point that you are too big, too powerful, too important to have time to serve the least of those around us.  Personally serving the little ones is what we do.

A thorn in the flesh

Yesterday I was reading the passage on Paul's thorn in the flesh.  Here's what Paul wrote:

2 Corinthians 12:7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

God took this passage and spoke to my heart in a very clear and challenging way.  Let me share with you three observations I made.

Whatever Paul's "thorn" was, he didn't want it and asked numerous times for God to remove it.  Paul calls it a messenger from Satan to torment him so this thorn must not have been an easy thing to deal with.  He described it as torment.  My first observation was that this was no little thing to Paul, he hated it and wanted it to change.

But God tells him definitively that He is not going to remove it.  Some how, in some way, God's glory was made more evident in Paul's life through Paul's weakness.  My guess is that when people saw Paul's weakness, his thorn, and they saw his devotion and love for Jesus, they would know that what made him like he was was the power of God at work in his life.  But what was clear was that no matter how much Paul wanted that thorn gone, no matter how much he asked, God wasn't going to remove it.  That was my second observation.

My third observation, something I think I'd glossed over and missed in the past, was Paul had accepted that answer and was content to live with his less that ideal situation if at the end of the day God would be more greatly exalted.  I imagine that he still would very much like to have had that "thorn" removed.  It was undoubtedly an irritant since most thorns are; it clearly hurt him.  But Paul had quit fighting against it and had accepted the answer of God and now was choosing to live in contentment and allow God to shine through that weakness.

Here's where it gets personal.  I've had a thorn in my flesh too and I've asked God repeatedly to remove it, to change it, but he has always said no.  But what was clear to me yesterday was, that unlike Paul, I've never accepted that.  I still fight against it on the inside.  I chaff at it and it often consumes my thinking.  I have been unwilling to accept what Jesus has been saying to me for years-- "Jimmy, I'm not changing it for in this weakness my grace is made perfect in you.  Jimmy, you shine brighter for me in this weakness than you would if I removed it.  I'm not going to take away your thorn."   I've refused to accept that, though almost three decades have gone by. 

But yesterday God tenderly helped me see Paul's contentment and his willingness to embrace the thorn and stop fighting against it.  Today I'm asking God to do that in me.  I can't say that accepting this thorn is going to be easy, or a quick turn around, but I sense God's work in me to that end.

It's easy to rationalize

A few Sundays ago I said something that I believe is worth repeating here in this blog.  We’ve been studying Abraham in the book of Genesis and one thing I’m pretty convinced of is that when he took Hagar as his second wife, he knew that was not what God intended for the fulfillment of his promise to Abraham that he would have a son.  I continue to believe that Abraham knew in his heart all along that God intended to give Sarah a child.  So why did he do it?  Maybe he wanted to support Sarah in her plan—to give her some relief in how she was feeling as a woman who had not been able to give him a son.  Maybe the prospect of having another wife was enticing to Abraham’s lust.  Maybe at the end of the day, he convinced himself this might work but whatever his ultimate motivation, I believe he knew this was not what God wanted him to do.

            But thirteen years go by and he has a son.  His wives have learned to live with the situation so things seem a bit better at home but during this time something happens to Abraham.  He begins to believe that he must have been right in his decision to take Hagar as his wife.  So much so that after thirteen years he doesn’t even think about Sarah having a son anymore.  God had promised him a son and by his own ingenuity he had brought it about—through Hagar.  So when God shows up in person to talk with Abraham and tells him that Sarah’s going to have a son next year, his immediate response is to laugh to himself at the impossibility of such a thing.  Yet God is patient and his rebuke is gentle.  God will bless Ishmael but the promise God made long ago would be fulfilled in Sarah’s son, a boy to be named Isaac.

            When I read that and saw what happened to Abraham, I immediately saw a corollary between what happened to him and what happens to us.   We often do things that in our hearts we know are wrong.  We know God doesn’t approve but we convince ourselves it’s ok.  And as time goes on, and nothing really bad seems to happen, we convince ourselves that not only is it not wrong, it’s what God wanted us to do.  I think we’re particularly susceptible to this in relationships with others but really it can happen in almost any area of life. 

Here’s a couple of “for instances” that I see often.  Walking with God demands a daily personal time of prayer and fellowship in God’s Word but because we know we can talk to God always and everywhere, and because we’ve read the Bible before, we rationalize that walking with God doesn’t need that daily, focused time of meeting with Him.  In fact, we convince ourselves that God would rather have the “on the go prayers” than the disciplined time with Him. 

Commitment to your church family is a command from God but people rationalize that they can worship anywhere.  Before long we have forsaken the church gathered for worship for fishing on the river.  We convince ourselves this is the will of God because God is everywhere in nature and we pray before we launch.  And besides, we’re spending time with our children. 

I could go on but my point is simply this; let’s stop rationalizing our disobedience and submit our selves to God.  For some of you, you’ve been so long ignoring the prompting of the Holy Spirit, it may be hard for you to even hear His voice still.  I’m praying for revival because in revival we all hear Him clearly once more. 

But let this be my challenge to us in the days ahead.  Heed his voice.  Listen to His Spirit.  When you know something is wrong in your heart, when you have that check in your spirit, obey God.  Stop doing what you are doing.  Start doing what you need to be doing.  The old song says, “Trust and obey for there is no other way…”  Trust the Lord Jesus will see you through.  He will help you.  And obey those promptings, obey His voice.  There is no other way for us to walk before him blamelessly than to trust in Jesus and obey His will.

One final word, walking in obedience is not easy.  It often hurts.  It often cost you.  There can be a huge sacrifice in not living for your self.  The world says, “You fool!  This is all there is—why are you wasting your life?”  But we know better.  This is not all there is.  Jim Elliot once said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he can not lose.”  Christ died for our obedience—now by His grace let’s live in it.

            

Buck the shift!

I recently attended a daylong seminar where Andy Stanley was one of the speakers. One of the things that he said was that there has been a shift in church as it relates to one’s participation in worship. Indeed things are always shifting, in culture and in the church. Some shifts are good. Our country has shifted from viewing people of color as chattel to viewing all men as created equal regardless of their race. That has been a good shift. Our country has also shifted from believing in certain moral absolutes to seeing all morality as neutral or relative. That is not a good shift.

The church also experiences shifts. In the last couple of decades the church has shifted in its missiology. In years gone by missionaries would often taken their American culture and impose that on believers instead of working through that cultures’ constructs. Today missionaries are committed to imparting the gospel and separating it from our culture’s distinctives. That is a good shift.

Another shift in the church has been the move away from participating in the central worship service. According to Stanley, today believers are not even particularly committed to a single church family and are even less committed to being a regular participant on a weekly basis. As a response to this, North Point Community Church, where Stanley serves as the lead pastor, closes down the last Sunday of the year and doesn’t meet.

Now it may be obvious from the direction of these thoughts, but I don’t think this is a good shift. In fact, it seems to me that the lack of commitment to a local church family and the Sunday morning gathering is a shift that reflects a general lack of commitment and individualism that we see our culture. Not all individualism is bad but one of the things that should be so true of us as believers is that we are a body, a family, and together we are so much more than we can be on our own. In fact, God calls us to that unity.

In the book of Hebrews chapter ten God tells us that in light of Jesus’ great sacrifice we should approach God’s throne with confidence and we should draw near to God with confidence. But he also says, in light of Jesus sacrifice, don’t forsake gathering together, as some are doing, but make it a time to encourage one another to love and to do good deeds. I guess one response could be to give into the shift, stop resisting and just take the last Sunday of the year off since many people aren’t going to come anyway. But something in me says we should defy this shift and encourage just the opposite; commitment and faithfulness to be here every Sunday whether we feel like it or not and be here regardless of what the rest of the world is doing. After all, it is Jesus’ sacrifice that God says provides the motivation to come and encourage one another.

Less you think this doesn’t affect us at BCBC, did you know that our attendance can fluctuate as much as fifty people from Sunday to Sunday? I believe quite often folks are deliberating on Saturday night or even getting up on Sunday and deciding then whether they will be a part of the Sunday gathering. I realize there will always be major things that cause us not to be here—sickness, vacation, work or travel but if I could, I want to challenge us to make being here not optional. Why not decide, even as you read this, that from this point on being a part of your church family gathering on Sunday morning will not be up for debate or discussion? Why not choose to be here if at all possible and you make it a priority?

When I was a new Christian at Ferrum College, Jeff Denlinger was encouraging me in my new commitment. I was supposed to meet him at the cafeteria and we were going to church that Sunday morning. Well when the alarm went off, I was tired and decided I wouldn’t go so I rolled over and went back to sleep. In what seems like just minutes later there was a knock on my door and there stood Jeff. “Aren’t you coming with me to church” he asked? I gave him some sheepish reply about being too tired and so he left. I got back in bed, wide-awake now, laying there thinking about what I had just done. Jesus died for me, rose again, and I was too tired to be a part of his family? Alan, my brother was my roommate, and he too was wide-awake. “You want to go,” I asked? “Absolutely” he said, and we were up and moving fast. That Sunday morning I made a commitment in my heart I would be at worship with God’s people on Sundays and by the grace of God that has been my heart. And I wasn’t a pastor then-- I was a college student!

Let me ask you to make the same commitment today. Won’t you decide even as you read this that being a part of your church family on Sunday will not be optional? Won’t you make a commitment that unless it is something that can’t wait, you will make God’s people your priority on Sundays? I love you and I hope that you will resist this church shift and you will be one of the family who others can count on to be here and be an encouragement to those around you!

Obamacare

This week I heard of some Christians sitting around bashing our President. As you may know recently he had to have some stitches from an accident and they were so very glad it happened to him. The friend who actually heard these folks was telling me that he thought they would genuinely rejoice if President Obama was assassinated. And these were followers of Christ meeting in a Sunday school class setting.

Why do so many professing Christians seem to "hate" our president? I mean I realize that many of his policies may be detrimental to our nation over time, maybe even now, but is a spirit of hatred and animosity what God calls us to as believers? I don't think so. If anything I think it's just the opposite. Let me tell you how we ought to respond to our president.

First, we should genuinely care for him. No matter how you feel about his policies he is a man that Jesus died for and God loves. Furthermore, the Bible is pretty clear that we are to love our enemies. I personally don't consider him my enemy but for those of you who do, remember the call of God on your life is to love your enemies, care for those who despitefully use you. Obama care is what God calls you to.

Secondly, we are called to respect our president. In the book of Romans in our NT it tells us to submit to those in authority because they are there by God's will. He either set them up purposefully or He has allowed them to rise to power. We are to show honor to whom honor is due and I believe as our elected leader he is due honor. This means we should refrain from name calling and pejorative speech about President Obama.

Thirdly, we should pray for our president. The Scriptures call us to pray for our leaders first of all. We owe it to President Obama to pray for him wisdom and discernment as he leads us. We should pray that God will be at work in his life and that he might truly experience and live out the saving grace of God in his life.

Now I feel the need to say that none of this precludes our seeking to elect another man to the presidency of our nation if we believe President Obama is not the right guy for the job. It is one of the wonders of our government that we the people can elect our leaders. But even as you may long for a different leader, for the time being I challenge you to Obama-care; to care for our President as God would have us. Let us not walk in the flesh but in the Spirit.

Without faith...

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who was really struggling with his failures. No matter how hard he tried, he felt like his life didn't measure up to those around him. They were more successful, they had steady employment, they maybe had families and he was struggling with his lack of those things. Consequently he was having a hard time believing that God loved Him or God wanted to be in His life. Truly I could relate to what he was saying. Sometimes when I try really hard at something and it never seems to work for me I feel like I am no good, a failure. Actually it gets worse. I feel like God doesn't care or God doesn't love me. Why is it not working for me but it is for everyone else? Well the truth is most everyone else is probably struggling too but that doesn't take away my pain. It didn't take away my friend's pain to know that others were not as successful as he saw them.

Well I felt like the Lord gave me a word for him. In the Bible it says that without faith it's impossible to please God. What that means is that no matter how hard we try to please God by our actions, and those things are important and often do please God, we will not please Him unless we believe Him. You see, you can be a success from the world's perspective and a failure from God's but the other can also be true. You can fail at many things in the world but still be pleasing to God because you have faith. As I thought about that I wondered what it is that God wants me to believe in order to please Him? Obviously we must believe that we need Him, our sin separates us from Him and that Christ as God came to forgive us and save us. But immediately there were some other things that were pressed on my heart.

When we are in the midst of failure in our lives, or even in a storm or difficult time in our lives, it pleases God when we take Him at His Word and believe that He knows our frailties, our flaws and our failures and yet He cares for us and He will never leave us. It pleases Him when we believe Him that our worth is not found in how successful we are in the eyes of others, but rather our worth is found in how much God treasures us in spite of our failures! It pleases Him to know we believe Him and trust Him that all things are under His control. I told my friend, it pleases God to know that you love Him and trust Him even when He has given you a harder life that many and maybe you have more setbacks than most. My friend struggles with some disabilities that have adversely affected his life.

So this morning I don't want you to be overwhelmed by the pain of failure. I want you instead, by faith, to believe in the goodness of God! Believe Him that He knows your pain and hurt and He cares. And go one step further and trust Him that He is at work in your life for His glory and your ultimate good. Pick yourself up and press on. If you failed in something you were trying to do, then consider that God's leading in another direction. If you failed the Lord in some area of obedience, repent, confess your sin and then get back to following the Lord. Remember, without faith it is impossible to please God. Our failures do not diminish His love for us.

The Surrendered Life

I think as long as I can remember I grew up singing the song "I surrender all." In case you don't remember it the words are easily sung; "I surrender all to Jesus, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him in His presence daily live. I surrender all! I surrender all! All to Jesus I surrender, I surrender all!" I can't remember when I quit singing it but somewhere along the line I recognized that I could not sing that in good faith. It's so easy to say or sing, "I surrender all" but actually surrendering the things we care about the most is very, very hard. When I do sing the song today I change the words to "Help me surrender all..." You can imagine that changing the word "I" for "Help me" is a mouth full and doesn't sing very well but at least I am being honest.

I'm not sure what we think of when we think of surrender to the Lord. Truthfully I guess most of the time we are not putting anything specific in our minds represented by the word "all." Some of the easier surrenders are money. Most unbelievers think that all the church wants, and maybe by extension, all God wants is their money. But it is not really your money that is hard to surrender. Maybe a bit harder is the thought of surrendering our time. For many of us our time is more valuable than our money. We treasure it more. But truthfully I think the hardest thing to surrender to God are our dreams. What do you dream of in this life? What would you like to see happen with your life? For some of us it's the American dream-- a life of financial ease and all the pleasures that will bring. For others it might be the freedom to do what I want and go where I will. For still others of us its a relationship that we dream of. When we start thinking about surrender as the surrender of our dreams to God surrender takes on a whole new dimension.

But the truth is the Christian life is about surrendering all of who I am to all of who God is and that means bringing my dreams under subjection to His will, His desires for my life. But oh how hard it is! I think of Jesus struggling over this very issue in the garden of Gethsemane the night he is to be arrested and then die on a cross. So agonizing was His emotional pain than the Bible says the capillaries in his skin burst and He was sweating drops of blood. We must never think that surrender is easy or something to be taken lightly. Surrender is painful even when we muster enough faith to trust God and take Him at His Word that His Will will in the end be the best.

For a long time I have known that God is asking me to surrender a dream to Him. Actually it's not just a dream but it is my only dream. I guess since I was a very young man I have only had one real dream and God is asking me for it. He's been asking me for some time, maybe all my life, do you love me more than your dream? One thing about God is he really doesn't like any competition. He expects to be number one but if I'm honest he has a right to that spot. He's my creator and He's a creator who loves me and actually cares for me greatly. So much so that he lowered Himself to be my Savior. He suffered greatly that I might know His love for me and now invites me to be a part of His family-- to be in relationship with Him that will be eternal and beyond anything I imagine. He has a right to first place in my heart though I struggle with giving it to Him.

What really makes it hard is that I see Him give my dream to others! Why can they have it and not me? I guess that is a question I will have to ask Him at a later date-- for now it's "Do you love me more than your dream? Can you surrender to Me?"

So Lord Jesus, I say as I have for a long time now, "Help me surrender all. Help me ever love and trust you and in your presence daily live."

Sacrifice begins small

I've been thinking a lot about living a life of sacrifice and I'd like to encourage us to do so one small sacrifice at a time. So often we focus on the ultimate call of God to lay down our very all but that can be so overwhelming. But God doesn't often ask for the ultimate in our following Him. Instead he ask for little things like getting up early to have our quiet times or to meet with some friends to pray. Or he asks us to send some money to Haiti to help with the relief effort. Or maybe he wants us to forgo eating after dinner that we might lose some weight. Or visiting my neighbor and praying for them or spending time with a new Christian helping them grow in their spiritual life. I'm not saying these sacrifices are easy, they wouldn't be sacrifices if they were, but they are a far cry from asking us to die.

So let me encourage you to make the small, everyday sacrifices that Jesus asks and to do so with joy and eagerness. It is how we offer our lives as a living sacrifice.

One more note, sometimes God does ask for the big sacrifice; the laying down of your life, or maybe harder yet, the laying down of something you love more than your life. When that day comes, the grace of God will help us be a disciple who can deny himself and follow Christ. So for now, build your spiritual life by the little sacrifices He calls for daily.

The Cost of Discipleship

So often we struggle over the relationship between salvation by grace through faith and the high demands of discipleship. After all when Paul was asked what must I do to be saved by the Philippian jailer he simply responded, "Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your whole family." And yet Jesus said no man can be my disciple unless deny himself, take up his cross and follow him. He said no man can be his disciple unless he give up all his possessions.

How do we harmonize these statements that seem to be in opposition to each other? I'll be the first to admit that I struggle here because Jesus statements are so absolute in nature. But I suggest that what Jesus is doing is using hyperbole to make his point. He did this a lot. For instance he tells us that we must hate our loved ones if we are going to be his disciples but we all know that he literally didn't mean for us to "hate them." Instead he was using hyperbole to say that our love for Him most so dwarf our love for others that those relationships seem like hate. He told us to give up all our possessions but again we know that it's not the disposal of our things he desires but rather the surrender of those things to His will.

I say all that to qualify Jesus' statements that we can not be his disciples unless we have obtained absolute perfection in our surrender. Jesus knows, and we all know, that this side of death we will never be there. We will never love him as perfectly as his persona deserves, we will never surrender the things of this world as completely as his nature demands and we will never follow as perfectly as his grace merits. Jesus is setting before us the seriousness of His Lordship. Being a disciple is not meant to be taken lightly. Count the cost. Though it is true we will fall short, but by his grace we will continue to grow in our surrender. And I might add that even in our surrender, we often take two steps forward only to fall back a step or two from time to time.

But one thing we must make clear. Jesus the Savior is also Jesus the Lord. He is Lord whether we acknowledge that or not (Acts 2:36; Philippians 2:11). He is the Lord of every true believer whether or not we grasp this fully or obey him fully. When a person receives God's free gift of eternal life they must understand that God Himself has come, Jesus the Lord, and He has borne our sins on the cross and paid the debt in full. We might not understand all that means, or feel the import of it, but salvation comes when we confess with our mouths Jesus as Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead.

The book of James makes it clear that if we say we have faith but reject God's position as Lord in our lives that there is something wrong with that faith. Saving faith leads us in growing surrender and our faith grows as we surrender.

Here's where the parable of the soils can help us. Many people say they trust Christ and even say, yes I believe on the Lord Jesus. They seem outwardly to be real and genuine Christians but then the Lordship of Jesus takes them to a hard place where they don't want to go. The rocky, shallow soil illustrates a reexamination of the Lordship of Jesus and many people turn away from Him and won't follow anymore because the demand is too great. Or in their faith they realize that must surrender something that is precious to them or something they really enjoy and the thorny soil illustrates another reexamination of the Lordship of Jesus and many others turn away from Him and won't follow anymore because the demand is too great.

In Luke 14 and other places in the Bible Jesus gives us the ultimate demands of His Lordship. They are things like the surrender of your most important relationships, the surrender of your possessions or even the surrender of your very life. Jesus knows that we all fall woefully short of such an absolute submission to His will but none the less this is the supreme call of salvation-- that in the grace given to us by Him, we might surrender our all to Him.

All along our Christian life God is going to be asking for our surrender. He's going to ask us to bow the knee to the Lordship of Jesus. At times we will, at times we won't but eventually will, but this is the call of sanctification. As a believer we will make progress.

I end with this promise and this hope. "For whom God foreknew He predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus our Christ!" It's going to happen. As a Christian, a follower of Jesus, he promises by His grace I will one day be just like Jesus. I will one day be completely and perfectly surrendered to the Lordship of Christ! I look forward to that day. In the mean time, I'm pressing on.

Living sacrificially means loving God most

I've come to realize that idolatry is not just disobeying God, it is setting my whole heart on something beside God. It is making good things, ultimate things. I won't be able to change that by merely repenting or using my will to live differently. It is imperative that I not only uproot that which has taken God's place but I must plant the love of God back in my heart. I must set my heart on things above where Christ is and Tim Keller says that means, "appreciation, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you. It entails joyful worship, a sense of God's reality in prayer. Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol." If we sacrificially surrender the thing we love most to God, but don't replace it with the love of Christ, that which we surrender today will never stay surrendered.

Lord Jesus, I ask you to help me love you most. Help me remember your love and to keep my affections set on you.

Answering the call is voluntary and is made to Jesus Himself

It's Voluntary

The fact that Paul calls us to be a "living sacrifice" also implies a choice we must make. YOU and I must make it. You must choose to surrender, to give your life.

Dead sacrifices are killed by another and placed on the altar. You are a living sacrifice. You choose.

I really believe this is what God wants. He wants YOU, out of love for Him, motivated by his love for you, to choose to lay down your life for Him even as he laid down his life for you.

Isn’t that what we all want in love? We want to know that someone out there loves us enough to give of themselves for us?

God gave himself for us—and is still giving to us promising that a life lived in his love will begin in glory—and now he longs for us to respond to His love with the same kind of sacrifice. He began it. He started. He went first. Now he urges us out of love to respond in kind.

But here’s the deal—he’s not going to make you. Loving God is a choice that comes from your heart. God works there but you must respond. This call to give your life in sacrifice to Him is a voluntary call.

It's to the person of Jesus, not a cause.

Paul urges us to present ourselves as a holy sacrifice. The word holy means set apart but we are not sacrificing our lives for a cause but rather for a person. We are called to give our lives, to set apart our lives, as a sacrifice to Jesus, to God.

When we sacrifice, give our lives, we are doing so to Jesus in response to His giving of HIMSELF to us.

You might think this is just semantics, a play on words, but it’s not. This isn’t a worldview to which to give ourselves, a code of ethic, an altruistic goal—though Jesus gave us all of those. We are giving ourselves to Him as a person. He’s for real. He’s alive. We lay our lives down for Him- it’s a sacrifice acceptable to God.

This is personal—this is relationship. The Muslims give themselves to this idea of God—not to a person who loves them and first gave his life for them.

Answering the call is important and it will cost you

It is Important

Paul says to us, "I urge you..." The word translated "urge" in our English Bibles is not a command but neither is it just a mere 'take-it-or-leave it' request. It is a passionate appeal. Paul is serious-- this is important. 'I want you to seriously consider this and do this' is the essence of his appeal.

Jesus himself challenged us with the importance of this call. He told His disciples in Matthew 16:24-26, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Salvation is free but Jesus repeatedly spoke of the sacrifice that would be needed to follow him.

I believe Paul urged his readers to answer the call because it is important that we remember that sacrifice is expected in true love.

It is costly

Paul urges us to give our life to Jesus as living sacrifice. The living part implies cost, even pain. Dead things don’t feel sacrifice but living things surely do.

When Paul calls you to give your life as a living sacrifice he’s letting you know that doing so will be costly. Jesus himself said we would have sorrow and tribulation in following him.

In spite of what the prosperity preachers tell you on TV, God never promised you that following him would result in a life of happiness. Happiness is an emotional state. He did promise you JOY, which is a spiritual state. In stead he often said that you would have to give up the things that you want the most. He said it would cost you, that people would persecute you and kill you and many would be tortured.

I don't believe that we need to view life bleakly, or be afraid, but we do need to understand that following Jesus often is accompanied by a great cost and when we lay down our lives in a living sacrifice we will most likely feel the pain.

So laying down your life as a living sacrifice is very important and most likely will be accompanied by some cost, even pain, but I promise you that in the end it will be worth it. In the end we will see why and how God's will for us is perfect and good. We have not seen or understood all that God has prepared for those who love Him, so us responding to His love with sacrifice of our own will surely seem insignificant in the day we see Him face to face!

Answering the Call!

2010 is upon us and we have set a challenge before us as a church. That challenge is to "Answer the Call!" Ok, but what's the call? We are taking the call from Romans 12.1-2-- it is a call to live a life of sacrifice. Our theme for the new year is Answering the Call: Living a Life of Sacrifice.

Romans 12:1-2 says, Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

In our American culture of ease, the thought of sacrifice seems almost foreign. After all, if Christ has become our sacrifice, and the grace of God brought salvation to us freely, why should we be expected to sacrifice anything for him? After all, so much of the preaching today says that God wants us to have the very best of everything.

The truth is that this call to sacrifice is a call to respond to the grace of God and not an expectation to earn the favor of God.

Let me show you some things about this call to live a life of sacrifice.

It's Mercy Driven!

In the Romans 12 text the writer urges us to be a living sacrifice because of the mercies of God. This Greek word is different than your every day word for mercy—it meant great mercy! The great mercy of God demands the we present our lives to him as a sacrifice.

The song “When I survey the Wondrous Cross” has this as it’s last verse,
Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

The mercy of God, the grace of God, the love of God demands that I live my life for Him and that will require that I live sacrificially.

There is such confusion at this point. Tim Keller in his book, Counterfeit Gods argues at length, “The default mode of the human heart is to seek to control God and others through our moral performance. Because we have lived virtuous lives we feel that God and the people we meet owe us respect and support. Though we may give lip service to Jesus as our example and inspiration, we are still looking to ourselves and our own moral striving for salvation.”

The default mode of the human heart is to try and earn our way with God—we commend ourselves to God by our moral rectitude. Or in our particular discussion-- by sacrifice. But the author is not calling us to sacrifice to gain the grace of God or His acceptance but rather because we love him we ought to be willing to lay down our lives.

Let me ask you, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” You don’t know? What came first, “grace or works?” The default mode of the heart says, "Works come first and grace follows. Do well and God’s acceptance will follow." Paul in his writings to the church at Ephesus makes it clear, grace came first, apart from our works, and such love demands that will give our lives in sacrifice. (By the way, the chicken came first! Just look in the creation story in Genesis 1-2)

It's Mercy Empowered!

But the phrase 'by the mercies of God' implies something else as well. It implies that living my life as a sacrifice can't even be done except by the mercies of God! Not only does God's mercy and love motivate us and call us to love Him back sacrificially, what little we can offer back to God will be empowered by his love and mercy! We can offer to God the sacrifice of our lives because He will enable that by his mercy.

Let's answer the call because of His mercy!

The Pain of Obedience

     As I was driving in to work this morning I was thinking about the statements Jesus made that he would never leave us or forsake us and his claim in John 10 that we are his sheep and no one can pluck us out of his hand.   I was meditating on his love for us and, as my mind often does, it began to wonder down  a different road of thought.  “Does God really love me if I continue to sin?”  “What if I am unwilling or unable to overcome this or that sin in my life—am I still saved?”  “Or have I been plucked out of his hand?”  “Or maybe I wasn’t ever in his hand to start?”  I’ll be honest, and maybe it’s just that I am a wimp, but those questions are too big for me.  I know that faith in the Lord Jesus saves us and I know that the power of the Holy Spirit transforms us.  I know that his love for us motivates us to love him in obedience and there are so many verses in the Bible that equate our love with our obedience.  You just can’t get away from it.  If you say you love God but there are major flaws and holes in your obedience, something is wrong. 

     As I continued to allow my mind to chase the thoughts that were coming to me, I asked myself, “Why do so many believers have such a hard time obeying?”  The answer flooded my mind like a tsunami.  It’s because obedience hurts.  It’s often very painful to obey the Lord.  We have to relinquish our goals and aspirations.  Sometimes we use sinful things to medicate our pain and to give up the sin means allowing the pain to come back.  So many folks addicted to alcohol, drugs, porn or food are doing so because it helps alleviate their hurts.

    Immediately on the heels of that conclusion, God seemed to bring to mind a verse from Philippians.  In chapter three, verse ten Paul says that his greatest desire is to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection and the “fellowship of his sufferings.”  So often we want the power of Jesus’ resurrection in our lives but we don’t want to know any of the suffering that comes by our obedience.  Jesus suffered because of his obedience.  He suffered emotionally.  He suffered physically.  I think he may have suffered spiritually as His Father turned his back on him while he paid for our sin.

     I wonder this morning, how much am I willing to suffer to be found obedient to God?  How much are you willing to suffer?    Do you think I might be right?  Could it be we have such a hard time obeying because we are so unwilling to suffer for God?  Yet the Bible says that Jesus suffered greatly for us--- shouldn’t our love motivate us to suffer the pain of obedience?

    I hesitate to share this story since I no longer live in it’s reality but I want to.  Years ago I had an experience with the Lord where he confronted me with my sin of gluttony.  He asked me if I loved him more than food and I knew I did.  I remember him so clearly asking me, “Then are you willing to be hungry for my sake?”  At that moment, at that time, I knew that I was and for the next three years I ate so as to honor him even though I often felt the discomfort of wanting to eat but not doing it.

    Beloved, obedience isn’t an option for us, but with it often comes suffering and pain.  My hope and prayer is that God might stir us up and we might say with Paul, “I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings!”  Are you willing to obey even if you must suffer?  Are you willing to love Jesus even though loving Him may be painful to do so?  

    Why not take a minute to recognize the pain that is involved in surrendering yourself to obey the Lord.   What is God calling you to do that if you obey you will hurt?  What sin is their in your life that if you stop doing it, the result will be pain?  Then answer the question, do you love Jesus enough to go through the suffering?  He loved you enough.

Thoughts from the March of Life 2009

    We haven’t been home long from the March for Life but I wanted to write my thoughts down while they were fresh on my heart.  For over fifteen years myself and others have made the yearly trip to Washington to observe the remembrance of the Supreme Court decision making abortion the law of the land.  Since that time it is estimated that thirty-eight million, five hundred thousand children growing in their mother’s wombs have been killed and aborted.

      There are always banners and homemade signs that range in size, color and content.  But the one that always arrests my attention  quotes the start of the Declaration of Independence.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  All men have been given by God the right to life!  That is what it says.  It’s funny but the same supreme court that ruled that children in the womb don’t have an inalienable  right to live also ruled that black people also did not have rights to life and liberty.  We all agree today that they got it wrong back then and I tell you they have it wrong today!  God has given children, even while in their mother’s womb, the right to life and liberty and pursuit of happiness.

    Psalm 139:13-16 says, “Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.  I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!  Body and soul, I am marvelously made!  I worship in adoration—what a creation!  You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.  Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day."

    The Bible is clear that children in the womb are God’s creation and have a right to live.  They are important to him and they should matter to us.  Proverbs 24:11-12 commands us, “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.  If you say, "But we knew nothing about this, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?  Does not he who guards your life know it?  Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”   We know it beloved!  We can not stand by and do nothing. 

    What can we do to light our world and shine for life in ‘09?   First and most certainly foremost, we should pray.  Pray for the hearts of Americans to change.  Today there are very, very few that believe people of color should not have the same rights as white people.  Pray that God would help Americans see that unborn children have the right to live.  Pray for our president.  President Obama is the most pro-abortion president we’ve had in years.  He believes that children who are born alive should not be given medical help but left to die unless their parents desire it.  He affirms partial birth abortion as a viable method of abortion.  This very afternoon he said we will no longer torture our enemies– a move I very much agree with– because we will fight the war on terror but do so holding to our core values.  Pray that he might see that life, the life of America’s unborn, should be a core value.  Pray!

    Speak up for the truth of Life.  Don’t be ashamed to challenge your friends and coworkers with the horrific truth of abortion.  Don’t be argumentative or condescending but be firm and specific.  Use the many tools available to you from videos to pamphlets.  We must speak up.

    Write letters to your congressmen.  It is projected that this year congress will vote on the Freedom of Choice Act.  It will codify Roe v. Wade and truly make it the law of the land.  States rights to regulate abortion in anyway will be done away with.  State laws requiring even such basic things as parental notification will be overturned.  President Obama has promised to sign it if it comes across his desk.  Write Senators Webb and Warner, Congressmen Forbes and Scott,  and ask them to please vote against it.  The worst thing we can do, is do nothing.

    Join us next January on the March for Life.  This year the crowd seemed smaller than in past years.  I know everyone is tired, and I don’t know that we accomplish very much if anything, but we must speak up.

    “God, thank you for giving us life.  Help us to be defenders of this very precious gift.  Use us to stand for righteousness.  In Jesus name we ask, amen”