I'm sure you've all heard it before. "The Bible was written a long time ago to a different culture," or "I don't read the Old Testament because as a 21st century Christian, I just cannot relate to it," or "We want to be a church that invites people in, so we don't preach that old Fire and Brimstone stuff anymore."
Pastors and church leaders are slowly looking around at the world we live in, and they are seeing some disturbing trends. Divorce rates are crazy high in and out of the Church; People who claim to be 'Christian' openly confess that Jesus doesn't have to be the only way to heaven; Our country, which prides itself on being the center of the Christian world, is seeing legislation and popular movements that are absolutely pushing Jesus and his teachings further and further into the backdrop of our society.
In response to these trends, it has become common to see in Christian bookstores, and to hear on Christian radio and in the Sunday morning pulpit, discussions on how to become a force in the culture again. How do we assert the power of Jesus into the everyday lives of this nation? How can we inspire our members to take a stand and do what is right and needs to be done for the Lord in their everyday lives?
And these talks always talk about method. Some people have totally relaxed their church services in an attempt to make it more inviting. Coffee, donuts, superbowl parties, block parties, movie nights are all ways that churches have tried to become more appealing to the world around them.
But these men and women who are wrapped up in this game are missing the truth and the power of the situation.
WE MAKE IT RELEVANT. WE ARE THE FORCE FOR CHANGE, NOT A GIMMICK OR A COMPETING SERVICE TO SOMETHING THE WORLD OFFERS.
Zondervan and Lifeway can, and do, sell books by experts on culture telling us how to influence our neighbors and cities for Christ. They give strategies and tips on how to talk to people, how to break the ice, how to organize parties that people might like to come to.
But how is an 'expert in culture' supposed to know more about our city and our neighborhood and our schools and our friends, than we do? The average lay person knows more about the current culture where they live, and the trends and feel of their friends and neighbors than any two experts put together, simply because we live in that culture everyday and we talk and socialize with those people everyday.
In the book of Numbers, chapter 6, God lays the groundwork for those people of his who wished to take on extra responsibility and extra vows for him. They were laymen who were already considered holy simply because they were God's chosen people, but they wished to become as zealous in their holy living as they could in honor of their LORD.
God called these people Nazirites. Chapter 6 of Numbers lays out the rules and requirements that these people had to follow during their vow to him. Those who took this vow became almost as holy as their priests were.
Flash forward to the New Testament, and in 1st Peter 2:9-10, we are called "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
God expects YOU to be his priest. He expects YOU to proclaim his name and his glory and mercy to your friends.
We want the preacher or the sunday school teacher to do everything. But we can do everything they do more effectively. What I mean by this is they want to reach men and women's hearts with the truth and hope of the Gospel, and so they try to preach relevant texts to people, in order to tell them of their need for Christ.
But we are the ones who live and work with these people. We don't have to think hard or long about how we can be relevant, because we share many of the same interests and activities.
God wants us to be a nation of priests for him. Where we see the church fail, we are seeing not the failure of the pastor or the administration, but of OURSELVES to go out and preach the Gospel.
We must take the lead, and become modern day Nazirites for the Lord.
-Brett
Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Four Soils: You’re going to feel a slight prick….or maybe die.
Mark 4:1-9
This week we are going to talk about the soil with the thorns. I’m willing to bet that this soil is the most prevalent through out the world, especially for us here in America. Here is what Jesus says in verse 7, “Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.” The word goes out, springs up but doesn’t produce fruit because the thorns choke it out. What happens here is very similar to what happens to the seed in the rocky soil that we looked at last week. The difference in the two soils is what hinders the growth of the plant. Last week it was that the soil was shallow and the sun, or persecution, caused the plants to whither and die. In this circumstance it is the presence of thorns. And in verses 18 and 19 Jesus says that the thorns are the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things.
Have you ever had God speak to you and you get all fired up, but the next day your mind is filled with work or your spouse or your kids and you forget all about what God has said. This happens to me all the time, and not only to me. This is what I see most in the people around me. God tells us to stop worshiping possessions and the next week we have a new TV because that old one was just about to die. This is all silly and we are only justifying our sin to ourselves.
One of my favorite passages concerning this topic is Luke 21:34-36,
But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.
Just before Jesus says this he is instructing his disciples on the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as well as the second coming of Christ when judgment will be brought on the whole earth. Jesus warns his disciples and I think that we should heed his warning. We must watch ourselves so that we aren’t so weighed down that when he comes back, we’re surprised. Not only are we surprised by the coming of our Lord, but we are not able to stand before him. This is not a good thing. We must cast aside the sin that so easily entangles and chase after Jesus, longing for the day that he returns not falling asleep and being rudely awakened.
I fear that we have become too complacent with our American Christianity. We live lukewarm lives in the name of grace and freedom. And we are under both, but Paul tells us that we are not to continue in our sin just because we are saved by grace. And pride in possessions is sin. The love the world is sin. If you ever want to doubt your salvation read 1 John. He says if you love the things of the world, you don’t love God. But we continue to justify our materialistic lives in the name of God’s blessing, when maybe really he has given us over to the wicked desires of our heart, and we are storing up wrath for ourselves on the Day of Judgment.
Stay awake! Don’t let the cares of the world weigh you down and keep the word of God from bearing fruit in your life. He knows you have needs but seek first his kingdom. “[cast] all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.” Trust in God and not in the comforts of the world. Bear fruit.
-Mitchell
This week we are going to talk about the soil with the thorns. I’m willing to bet that this soil is the most prevalent through out the world, especially for us here in America. Here is what Jesus says in verse 7, “Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.” The word goes out, springs up but doesn’t produce fruit because the thorns choke it out. What happens here is very similar to what happens to the seed in the rocky soil that we looked at last week. The difference in the two soils is what hinders the growth of the plant. Last week it was that the soil was shallow and the sun, or persecution, caused the plants to whither and die. In this circumstance it is the presence of thorns. And in verses 18 and 19 Jesus says that the thorns are the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things.
Have you ever had God speak to you and you get all fired up, but the next day your mind is filled with work or your spouse or your kids and you forget all about what God has said. This happens to me all the time, and not only to me. This is what I see most in the people around me. God tells us to stop worshiping possessions and the next week we have a new TV because that old one was just about to die. This is all silly and we are only justifying our sin to ourselves.
One of my favorite passages concerning this topic is Luke 21:34-36,
But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.
Just before Jesus says this he is instructing his disciples on the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as well as the second coming of Christ when judgment will be brought on the whole earth. Jesus warns his disciples and I think that we should heed his warning. We must watch ourselves so that we aren’t so weighed down that when he comes back, we’re surprised. Not only are we surprised by the coming of our Lord, but we are not able to stand before him. This is not a good thing. We must cast aside the sin that so easily entangles and chase after Jesus, longing for the day that he returns not falling asleep and being rudely awakened.
I fear that we have become too complacent with our American Christianity. We live lukewarm lives in the name of grace and freedom. And we are under both, but Paul tells us that we are not to continue in our sin just because we are saved by grace. And pride in possessions is sin. The love the world is sin. If you ever want to doubt your salvation read 1 John. He says if you love the things of the world, you don’t love God. But we continue to justify our materialistic lives in the name of God’s blessing, when maybe really he has given us over to the wicked desires of our heart, and we are storing up wrath for ourselves on the Day of Judgment.
Stay awake! Don’t let the cares of the world weigh you down and keep the word of God from bearing fruit in your life. He knows you have needs but seek first his kingdom. “[cast] all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.” Trust in God and not in the comforts of the world. Bear fruit.
-Mitchell
Thursday, April 22, 2010
It's not about who's teaching the message, it's about the message
Matthew 3:9
"And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father', for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham."
John Piper is my favorite pastor. I have been listening to him for a couple of years now, and I have really grown in my understanding and knowledge of God through his ministry. I am going to a conference later this year where he will be speaking, and I'm looking forward to it.
One of the reasons I am looking forward to it, is because it will be the only stateside speaking engagement he will hold all year. He is taking a sabbatical this year, and he may not even come back to the pulpit.
When I heard this, it filled me with sadness. I will miss hearing my pastor, for I consider him one of my spiritual fathers.
And when I heard yesterday that Francis Chan is stepping down from his pastorate, it made me sympathize for his flock out in California, and what they must be going through.
But as I've been reading through Matthew, and savoring and chewing on the words of the Master, it got me thinking. Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, are the only ones who do the teaching in Matthew. Jesus comforts his disciples when he tells them he will leave by promising them that the Holy Spirit will come and personally teach them in John 14:15-31.
And when the early church was trying to form factions around their favorite teacher, whether it was Paul or Peter or Apollos, the Holy Spirit rebuked the church through Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:4-9.
"For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not being merely human? What this is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Aploos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who planst nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building."
I say all this to remind myself, and you guys, that whatever is good about church, whatever is uplifting, whatever is powerful about church, is God.
It's not our lesson.
It's not the preacher.
It's not the luncheon we have after the service, or the fellowship we have in the hallway.
These things are only good if and when the Holy Spirit breathes life into them.
This is why a good lesson at church stays with us for so long, when a good business meeting rarely carries it's weight for longer than a week. This is why a good preacher can show us something in the Scripture that will change our lives, and an equally good teacher at school can present an awesome lesson that will be forgotten at the end of the semester.
God is bigger than John Piper, or Francis Chan, or Andy Jobe, or Brett Crawford. I think he removes men like Piper or Chan to remind us that it is our Father in Heaven who does the work. We are just the messengers.
And lest we become worried that there will be nobody with the ability to carry on the ministry that these men had, remember the verse at the top. We all have hearts of stone, before God transforms them. If he ever needs a need filled, he just breathes life into another rock, and puts it to work.
Praise God!
-Brett
"And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father', for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham."
John Piper is my favorite pastor. I have been listening to him for a couple of years now, and I have really grown in my understanding and knowledge of God through his ministry. I am going to a conference later this year where he will be speaking, and I'm looking forward to it.
One of the reasons I am looking forward to it, is because it will be the only stateside speaking engagement he will hold all year. He is taking a sabbatical this year, and he may not even come back to the pulpit.
When I heard this, it filled me with sadness. I will miss hearing my pastor, for I consider him one of my spiritual fathers.
And when I heard yesterday that Francis Chan is stepping down from his pastorate, it made me sympathize for his flock out in California, and what they must be going through.
But as I've been reading through Matthew, and savoring and chewing on the words of the Master, it got me thinking. Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, are the only ones who do the teaching in Matthew. Jesus comforts his disciples when he tells them he will leave by promising them that the Holy Spirit will come and personally teach them in John 14:15-31.
And when the early church was trying to form factions around their favorite teacher, whether it was Paul or Peter or Apollos, the Holy Spirit rebuked the church through Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:4-9.
"For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not being merely human? What this is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Aploos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who planst nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building."
I say all this to remind myself, and you guys, that whatever is good about church, whatever is uplifting, whatever is powerful about church, is God.
It's not our lesson.
It's not the preacher.
It's not the luncheon we have after the service, or the fellowship we have in the hallway.
These things are only good if and when the Holy Spirit breathes life into them.
This is why a good lesson at church stays with us for so long, when a good business meeting rarely carries it's weight for longer than a week. This is why a good preacher can show us something in the Scripture that will change our lives, and an equally good teacher at school can present an awesome lesson that will be forgotten at the end of the semester.
God is bigger than John Piper, or Francis Chan, or Andy Jobe, or Brett Crawford. I think he removes men like Piper or Chan to remind us that it is our Father in Heaven who does the work. We are just the messengers.
And lest we become worried that there will be nobody with the ability to carry on the ministry that these men had, remember the verse at the top. We all have hearts of stone, before God transforms them. If he ever needs a need filled, he just breathes life into another rock, and puts it to work.
Praise God!
-Brett