DESIRING GOD IN SAN CLEMENTE BLOG

AFTER GOD'S HEART

2012-01-20T11:56:00.000-08:00

"The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart" 1 Samuel 13: 14

"‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will." Acts 13:22

What is the Lord looking for in a man and a woman? Is He looking for someone who is perfect? Successful? Strong? Victorious? Flawless? As I look at the scripture, we learn what God is looking for in you and me: A man and woman after His heart. The Bible is full of stories of people who had a passion for God yet frequently failed; imperfect people who loved God.

I know no better model for a man after God's heart than King David. God's own description of him was that he was a man after God's heart in Acts 13:22. His very name meant, appropriately, "beloved." An unavoidable question dangles over the account of David's life. How could anyone so obviously flawed-he did, after all, commit adultery and murder-get the reputation as "a man after God's own heart"?

Let me give you two examples from his life. The first we find in 2 Samuel 6:12-23. In one of his first official acts as king, David sent for the sacred ark to install as a symbol of God's presence in Jerusalem, the new capital city he was building. When the ark finally arrived, to the accompaniment of a brass band and the shouts of a huge crowd, King David totally lost control. Verse 14 says, "David danced before the LORD with all his might". Bursting with joy, he broke out into a dance in front of everybody. The sight of a king dancing for joy in a scanty robe scandalized his wife until David set her straight. "I will celebrate before the Lord and i will become even more undignified than this" (Verses 21- 22), he told her. David did not care about his royal reputation as long as the One before whom he danced and celebrated before could sense his jubilation. A man after God's own heart of passion, David felt more passionately about God than about anything else in the world, and during his reign that message trickled down to the entire nation.

The second scene occurred years later, at the peak of David's life, and more than any other it shows the king's greatness. If you read 2 Samuel 12:1-15 you will see an explicit account of David's sin with Bathsheba. This episode with Bathsheba reveals a weak, fleshly, carnal ,and evil side to David. Augustine once wrote, “Who is not aghast at the sudden crevasses that might open up in the life of a dedicated man?” When his plan to cover up the adultery failed, he turned to a ruthless scheme involving the husband's murder and needless death on a battlefield. David, a man after God's own heart, broke the sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth commandments in quick succession. When Bathsheba moved into the palace and married David, it appeared he had gotten away with the crime. No one raised a word of protest-except the prophet Nathan.

Nathan began his confrontation with story of a rich man with many sheep who stole his poor neighbor's single pet lamb. Then Nathan risked his life by making a direct application to David. What happened next brought out the reality of the heart of this fallen, weak man, and flawed man. David could have had Nathan killed. Or he could have laughed and thrown him out of the palace. He could have issued a string of denials and demanded for evidence that Nathan could produce?

But listen to David's humble, honest, and contrite response. "I have sinned against the Lord"(verse 13). No blame, no rationalizations, no minimization's, no justifications, and no excuses came to mind; only God. As he had danced before God, so David had sinned before the God.

David wrote a Psalm that reveals to us the outcome of Nathan's confrontation over his sin, Psalm 51. This psalm exposes the true nature of sin as a broken relationship with God. "Against you, you only, have I sinned," David cried out in verse 4. He saw that God wanted "a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart" (Verse 17); qualities, which David had, in abundance within his soul.

Looking back on all the bible says about the words and deeds of the greatest king to ever rule the Jews, what ultimately stands out is Davids pure devotion. Yes, he was a lustful; yes, he committed murder; yes, he was vengeful; yes, he was weak and flawed; but....King David was deep within his soul, "a man after God's own heart." He loved God with all his heart, and what more could be said?

What made David this way? The two scenes, one a buoyant high and the other a devastating low, hint at an answer. Whether dancing behind the ark or lying prostrate on the ground for six straight nights in contrition, David's strongest instinct was to relate his life to God.

Psalm 73:25-28, "whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For indeed, those who are far from You shall perish; you have destroyed all those who desert You for harlotry. But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all Your works."

In comparison, nothing else mattered at all. As his writings make evident, he led a God-saturated, God-centered, God-entranced, life. He writes in Psalm 63:1-2, "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.... Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you."

I have learned over the past 38 years of being a Christian that God's approval depends not on my performance and actions, but solely upon God's grace. I have also learned that my relationship with God does not switch on or off depending on my behavior. God does not love me more when I am good and less when I am bad. He does not send me to a vacant room down the hall when I disobey him. Quite the opposite. The times when I have felt most estranged from God have brought on deep senses of desperation, which presents a new launch pad for God's grace. Sulking in a cave in flight from God, Elijah heard a gentle whisper that brought comfort, not a scolding. Jonah tried his best to run from God and failed. And it was at Peter's lowest point that Jesus lovingly restored him. John 21:17, "He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep"

God can forgive any sin and deal with any flaw, sin, or weakness in our lives. We fall down, we get up. We know where to go. John 6:68, "Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."

As Luther remarked, we are always at the same time sinners, righteous, and penitent. The halting, stuttered expressions of love we offer may not measure up to what God wants, but like any parent he accepts what the children offer.

Philippians 3:12-14, Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

God dwells with flawed people like you and I who are after His heart. 2 Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us."

God’s grace triumphs over the sins and flaws of mans. David passion, his experience, and his life was built on one reality, the reality of God’s grace alone. May our lives be full of a boundless passion after God’s own heart like David.

Pastor Bill

GREATNESS JESUS STYLE

2012-01-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

"They came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house, he asked them, `What were you discussing (arguing about) on the way? But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them. 'If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all"' (Mark 9:33-35).

What is greatness? What does it mean to be great? Synonyms include glory, honor, or recognition. To be great is to be recognized and honored for accomplishing something truly significant. Our concept of greatness is often associated with success, achievement, wealth, prestige, learning, celebrity, athletic ability or political might. Let’s be honest: all of us desire greatness in life. Greatness may mean different things for each one of us, but underneath the surface the desire is there. As a kid, I dreamt of playing in the NBA as a point guard or the NFL as a wide receiver. Later on I dreamt of being a world champion surfer. When I was in college I desired to be a straight A student and at the top of my class. I have dreamt of being a great and successful pastor with a great and impactful church.

How do you measure greatness? I have discovered that my desire for greatness to be weak and is misdirected. I have often times allowed the world to influence and shape me in my quest for greatness. I have been satisfied with desires for temporal, fleeting, empty, and low level desires for greatness in comparison to the kind of greatness that God defines as greatness, offers me by His grace, and desires for me to pursue. Do you know that God also desires greatness for you? We must judge our ideas of greatness in the light of God and allow Him to show us how to become a great person. Greatness, Jesus style, is available to you. What is true greatness according to God? God’s order is different to ours. He turns the world’s understanding of greatness on its head, and says that in God’s order "true greatness comes in humble servanthood.

Jesus disciples had a hard time with greatness. Think about this. Men who were receiving intensive training from Jesus Christ, the ultimate example of humility and servanthood (Read John 13; Philippians 2:5-8), were embroiled in a full-scale dispute about their relative superiority to each other. The burning question among them was the position that each would have, who would sit at Jesus right hand of power, and who would be given most authority and recognition. The disciples repeatedly struggled with what Jesus was trying to teach them about His Kingdom. They jockeyed for position, maneuvered for favor, argued over who was the greatest.

Jesus knew their hearts, just as He knows ours. I am so thankful that He did because it gives rise to Jesus richest teaching about greatness. So He immediately addressed their selfish ambition, their competitive hearts, and to my own motives: "And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them. 'If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all"' (Mark 9:35).

Jesus was radically redefining greatness. What Jesus does here is very profound. He recognizes in his disciples' quest for greatness a good thing that has become ugly and distorted by sin. And instead of destroying the whole distorted thing, he describes a pathway on which the distorted and ugly pursuit of greatness will be radically transformed into something beautiful. He says true greatness does not want to be first while others are second and third and fourth, but true greatness is the willingness to be last. And true greatness is not positioning yourself so that others praise you, but true greatness is putting yourself in a position to serve everyone, to be a blessing to as many as you possibly can.

All Christians are ministering servants. We are to serve people as if serving the Lord. That means God’s glory and peoples needs are to be our agenda. Great persons are the Lord’s foot washers. So Jesus doesn't condemn the quest for greatness. He radically transforms it. Go ahead and pursue it, he says. But the path is down, not up. We are all called to true greatness in humble service whether homemakers, pastors, bankers, lawyers, or businessmen. The measure of true greatness is to what degree has the impulse to self-interest, self-serving, and self-exaltation been crucified? How much heartfelt desire to serve others has there been? How much readiness and willingness to decrease while others increase?

Are you pursuing greatness this week? It is clear that God is utterly unimpressed with the world’s criteria of greatness. “What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.” (Luke 16:15). Which will you pursue: selfish pride or humility; being served or serving others? Mans standard of greatness or God’s? A life that glorifies self or a life that glorifies God?

I am issuing a call for greatness to you my readers. Would you join me in the search for true greatness? The paths to greatness are many. Don't waste your life laying up treasures on earth for yourselves and seeking the praise of men. True and lasting riches await you in humble servanthood. And the only praise that matters is the praise of Jesus: "Well done good and faithful servant." May we seek the path to true greatness: humility, for our joy, others benefit, and His glory.

Pastor Bill

PRAYING GOD'S PURPOSES

2012-01-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

In the late 19th century a thin, frail, slow speaking, almost deaf Englishman named John Hyde set out to be a missionary to India. While in India, frail Hyde was attacked with Typhoid fever. For seven months he lay sick. During this time he decided since he could not evangelize or preach, he would use his sickbed as a place of prayer. So he read the purposes of God and the promises of God and began praying them every day. He discovered the power of intercessory prayer, and the results were staggering. He proved that prayer was an evangelical force in India when, by faith, he claimed one soul a day, then two, then four. His plea was “O God, give me souls or I die!” His prayers were answered as he went out among the Hindu’s and witnessed for Christ. Through his prayers, history records God was able to work in remarkable ways in cities, churches, and personal lives.

For example, Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman once wrote to a friend, telling of John Hyde's influence on him. He had been holding meetings in England, but the attendance had been disappointingly small. Then he received word that John Hyde was going to pray down God's blessing upon him and his work. As a result of Hyde's powerful praying, the tide soon turned and the meeting hall became packed with people. At Chapman's first public invitation, fifty men received Christ as their Savior. From these times of intercession, history now refers to him as Praying Hyde and the world still feels the impact of his powerful life.

Oh for us to see what God can do through one who is willing to seek his face and pray. God makes a wonderful promise to those who pray:“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). We have much spiritual ground to be possessed; that there are many obstacles in our way, and a yet we have a God who can do for us exactly what he did for John Hyde by prayer. As James 5:16 says, “The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].”

This week I want to challenge you to pray great big sweeping prayers filled up with a radical biblical agenda for God to accomplish in you individually, in your family, in your community, in the church, in our nation, and in the world. the bible gives us a radical vision of what God purposes to do, therefore, I believe that a radical biblical vision from God deserves some big, sweeping, biblical prayers. Big prayers become powerful when they are filled up with radical God direction, God centered, biblical goals for the ones we are praying for whether yourself, others, or the church! Do you pray this way?

I am so very encouraged that no matter what, God is going to accomplish His purposes.

“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose”(Isaiah 46:9-10)

"I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16)

"I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"(Matthew 16:18)

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come"(Matthew 24:14)

But I am also both encouraged and challenged by the fact that our sovereign God has chosen to accomplish His purposes though people like you and me. It is not that God needs our help, but for whatever reason that remains secret to Him (Deuteronomy 29:29), He has chosen to use us as a means to accomplish His plans. That is why we cannot sit back passively in regards to God’s purposes.

For example, Jesus commands us to “go make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). He tells us that people become will become disciples through the teaching and proclamation and doing of the word through us (John 17:20; Matthew 5:14-16; Romans 10:14-17). But, just as God appoints us to serve Him and speak for Him as a means of accomplishing his purposes, so also God appoints our prayers as a means of finishing a mission that He has promised will certainly be finished. There is a critical place of prayer in the accomplishment of the great and unstoppable purposes of God. The role of prayer is so unspeakably significant in God's design.

So, dear readers, not only has God made the accomplishment of his global purposes of salvation hang on his pastors and His people proclaiming the gospel; He has also made the success of the proclamation of the Word and the Gospel, both to the church and to the nations, hang on prayer. God's goal to be glorified and loved in a world full of white-hot worshippers will not succeed without the powerful proclamation of the gospel by people like you and me; and that gospel will not be proclaimed in power to all the nations without the persevering, resolute, intense, faith-filled prayers of God's people.

This is the awesome place, privilege, and exciting challenge of each one of your readers beginning to pray the purposes of God for the world, the church, and in your life. They won't happen without prayer. I do not understand this in many ways, but this is how God operates in this universe. How do we know this? We know it by the way the apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus make prayer:

Ephesians 6:19, "Pray also for me, that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel."
Colossians 4:2-3, "Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving….Pray for us also, that God may open to us a door for the Word, to declare the mystery of Christ."
2 Thessalonians 3:1, "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified."
Ephesians 6:18, "Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."
Matthew 9:38. "Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest”.

It is God's way before he does a great work to pour a Spirit of prayer upon his people so that they plead for the work. As the saying goes, “When man works, man works; but when man prays, God works.”

In Luke 18:7-8, Jesus says, "Will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily" and Paul boldly declares, "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us" (Ephesians 3:20). Would you join me in steadfast, vigilant, thankful prayer by going to the bible and praying big sweeping God centered, Bible saturated prayers for yourself, the church, and the nations?

George Mueller said that for years he tried to pray without starting in the Bible in the morning. And inevitably his mind wandered. Then he started with the Book, and turned the Book into prayer as he read, and for 40 years he was able to stay focused and powerful in prayer.

What I have seen is that those whose prayers are most saturated with Scripture are generally most fervent and most effective in prayer; and where the mind isn't filled with the Bible, the heart is not generally filled with prayer.

Jesus said in John 15:7, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you" When he says, "If my words abide in you . . . ," he means, "If my words saturate your mind . . . if my words shape your way if thinking . . . if my words are known and just as likely to come to your mind as advertising jingles . . . then you will pray.'

The great battle today is fought not with swords but with the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen. It is fought for the souls of men. It is fought in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is fought with words of truth and deeds of love and justice; and all of that is backed by prayer. The victory for your life, the church, and Christ's Gospel cause, is certain to come and it will come by prayer.

William Carey said,

EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM GOD; ATTEMPT GREAT THINGS FOR GOD

Praying big sweeping prayers for big sweeping purposes,

Pastor Bill

LIVING WITH FLAWED PEOPLE WITH FORGIVENESS AND FORBEARANCE

2011-12-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7)

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." (Colossians 3:12-13)

After finishing my 58th year on this planet I am profoundly convinced than ever of one great truth: I AM A GREAT SINNER AND CHRIST IS A GREAT SAVIOR! What does that mean in how I live my life if I really believe that about myself? I read a statement by John Newton this week that deeply and profoundly moved me to fall on my knees and ask hard questions of my soul as I live in relationship with flawed people like me.

"[The 'wretch' who has been saved by grace] believes and feels his own weakness and unworthiness, and lives upon the grace and pardoning love of his Lord. This gives him an habitual tenderness and gentleness of Spirit. Humble under a sense of much forgiveness to himself, he finds it easy to forgive others."

If what I believe about myself as a flawed sinner who has a great savior and who lives upon the grace and pardoning love of my Lord is true; than is there any more important thing in my relationships with flawed people than forgiving and forbearing? That is what Paul seems to think in Colossians 2:13, "...bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive"

Oh how much grace given, mercy shown, patience expressed flawed people like you and me should be living in such a way that in grace, mercy, and love we make allowances for the weaknesses and ignorance of others and takes the kindest perspective towards them whenever possible. Why? On what basis? Because God is that way to you. Oh how I desire to be a person who delights to make allowances for the weaknesses of others, knowing how constantly both God and man have made allowances for me!

I love the phrase "habitual tenderness" made by John Newton to describe the way a believer should live. In writing to a friend he describes the believer's life:

"He believes and feels his own weakness and unworthiness, and lives upon the grace and pardoning love of his Lord. This gives him a habitual tenderness and gentleness of spirit. The effect of this amazement is tenderness toward others…Humble under a sense of much forgiveness to himself; he finds it easy to forgive others."

Oh Christian your relationships with others and your patience, faithfulness, obedience, and effectiveness is directly tied to the cross. We are saved by the grace of the cross of Christ, we live by the grace from the cross of Christ, and we therefore, must give to others the grace that comes from the cross of Christ. This means, God has forgiven me, so I can forgive others. God has been patient with me, so I can be patient with others. God’s grace is changing me, so I can trust that He will change others. God has been lovingly patient with me, so I can be more patient with my brothers and sister.

We're all struggling with life's problems. And isn't that what we all want from others?This is the rule our Lord Jesus gave us: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Matthew 7:12). I would take it even deeper in light of the cross: Do unto others as Christ has done to you! Every one of us needs and longs to be forgiven by others and for their patience towards our flaws. Probably all of us should have a big sign hanging around our neck that reads, “Be patient with me; God’s not finished with me yet.” C.H. Spurgeon said, "If you are tempted to lose patience with your fellowmen, stop and think how patient God has been with you."

George Elliot once wrote,

"Oh, that my tongue might so possess The accent of His tenderness That every word I breathe should bless For those who mourn, a word of cheer; A word of hope for those who fear; And love to all men, far and near. Oh, that is might be said of me, "Surely their speech betrayeth thee as friend of Christ of Galilee!"

It is truly possible for every Christian to be forgiving, forbearing, and patient towards others. It has nothing to do with personality and temperament and everything to do with the grace of the triune Godhead working mightily in us. Colossians 1:11, “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” Paul is praying for that grace to operate within our souls so that we are "...forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive" (Colossians 2:13) and loving each other "because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19)

Forgiveness and forbearance are evidences of an inner strength that is not supported by outward things like people or circumstances. Paul is praying for something that only God can give. Paul is praying for God to do something for us. Today you can be forgiving and forbearing as a gift of grace from the blessed triune God: From God the Father, who is kind, merciful, gracious, forgiving, and forbearing towards sinners like us. From Jesus Christ the Son, who came as our gentle, forgiving, and forbearing Savior, putting up with offenses on every side and enduring such a contradiction of sinners. From the Holy Spirit who brings us the fruit of the Spirit, which above all is love, produces forgiveness and forbearance towards others.

Jesus says in John 15:8. “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit (forgiveness and forbearance) and so prove to be my disciples”. Oh how essential is the work of the Spirit in our lives for us to be seen as forgiving and forbearing in our relationships!

I do not see how anybody could know who and what they are without Christ and not treat others with kindness, patience, and mercy. If you are a hard person, you do not properly know what has happened to you or you have forgotten. You are not duly feeling the wonder that you are saved, forgiven, accepted.

May you the next few days dwell on all the mercy and forbearance that you have been shown by God and others this past year. Reflect that you are doing far better than you deserve. Marvel on all that this implies about your relationship with Jesus both now and forever. It will soften you towards others and before God.

Pastor Bill

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME THIS NEW YEAR!

2011-12-23T12:02:00.000-08:00

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is"Ephesians 5:15-17 ESV

There are three things that always make me think about the preciousness of time: death, illness or injury, and the New Year. I lost three friends this year to death. All three loses have reminded me that someday I too would have my day of my death.

Life is short and so very fragile isn’t it? Death,loss, and illness remind us of that fact. Changing the calendar to a New Year also has a way of reminding me of how short life is. The clock of life never stops to give you a time out and stay 21 or 39 (as much as we’d like it to!); it just keeps ticking toward the final buzzer.

TIME IS VERY PRECIOUS! Time is a taker. Once past, it never returns. How it’s spent determines the satisfaction and significance of a life. Time is precious. We are fragile. Life is short. Eternity is long. Every morning God makes deposits into your bank of time-of 86,400 seconds which represent 1,440 minutes which, of course, equal 24 hours each day. How do you use the time that God deposits? In a lifetime (72 years) we spend on the average 21 years sleeping, 14 years working, 7 years in the bathroom (I’m not sure if this is averaging men, women, or both because I would double that if its gals!), 6 years eating, 6 years traveling, 5 years waiting in line, 4 years learning, 3 years in meetings, 2 years on the phone, 1 year searching for things lost, 8 months opening up junk mail, 6 months waiting on red lights, and couples talk 4 minutes per day.

Now listen to this, if a person went to church every Sunday, but also went to morning class before church and 1 midweek bible study per week, and devoted 5 minutes a day to prayer and bible reading, he would only have spent 1.9 years of his life for his soul! (Ouch!) When we think of time and how we use it in this way, it doesn’t amount to much. And seen in the light of eternity it is but a fleeting moment. Surely God means for our minutes on earth to count for something significant.

WHY IS TIME SO PRECIOUS?

Do you understand the preciousness of your time? The importance of time has been summarized poetically: Time is so precious. I have only just a minute. Just a tiny little minute only sixty seconds in it. Forced upon me. Can't refuse it. Didn't seek it, didn't choose it, I must suffer if I loose it, Give account if I abuse it. Just a tiny little minute, But eternity is in it. Time is precious because:

1. Time is very short

“What is your life? “For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14). A little time, says James-just a little time. Your time is short. And keep in mind that you will disappear. You will be gone and life will go on without you. It is but as a moment to eternity. You and I will exist forever-either as friends of God on His terms, or enemies-on our own terms-which will be proven in this life. And life is short, it is a vapor. Two seconds and we will be gone. Time is so short, and the work which we have to do in it is so great, that we have none of it to spare.

2. We are uncertain of how much time remains for us.

We know that it is very short, but we know not how short. We do not know not how much of it remains, whether a year, or several years, or only a month, a week, or a day. We are every day uncertain whether that day will not be the last, or whether we are even to have the whole day. The only sure time we have is this moment. You don’t know whether you will be alive at this time tomorrow, let alone on next New Year’s Day.

3. When it is past, time cannot be recovered.

There are many things which men possess which if they part with, they can obtain them again. If a man have parted with something which he had, not knowing the worth of it, or the need he should have of it; he often can regain it. But it is not so with respect to time. When once that is gone, it is gone forever; impossible to recover.

4. Because God values time

There are two Greek words for “time” that are relevant to this passage. One is “chronos” from which we get our word chronology, chronicles, and chronic among others. We might define it as clock or calendar time, the continuous time that is measured in years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. That is mans view of time. But then there is God’s view of time. The Greek word used in our text is “kairos” which can be translated as “time” or “opportunity”, means an allocated, fixed, measured, and distributed time. It literally can be translated “the time”. It means that time is a gift from God. From God’s perspective your time isn’t “chronos”, it is “kairos”. It is not simply a commodity at our disposal but rather than a daily gift of grace dispensed from God.

The giver of time is God Himself and that places a far greater value on time. It means that we are not to let time rule us, nor see ourselves as rulers over our time; but instead, to see that we are the given time to be responsible stewards over. “My times are in Your hand" (Psalm 31:15). “Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” (1 Cor. 4:2) Time is a talent given us by God. Our life is appointed for purpose; therefore he will, at the end, call us to an account. Oh, to be a faithful steward of the breath God has given me! “Only one life will soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last”. Surely God means for our minutes on earth to count for something significant.

5. Because the days are evil

Paul doesn’t call us to action because the days are short, but because the days are evil. I fear that the American church is blissfully drifting downstream with many evil currents in our day. As God chided Israel through the prophet Hosea, “Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it; gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it” (Hosea 7:9). The times are evil times and there is the devil is at work robbing us of our time. He is called by Jesus in John 10:10 the thief, the liar, and the destroyer. The devil according to Jesus is a thief of time, a liar about time, and a destroyer of time. He has switched the price tags on the things of value and made them worthless and has made the things of little or no value valuable. He would have us invest our time in worthless things of no eternal value. He would have us to waste our lives. A wasted life is a life spent on the unimportant, short term fixes, the convenient, easy, shallow, and superficial, the tyranny of the urgent, trivial diversions, living for comfort, ease, health, wealth, prosperity, and security. A wasted life is spending time only in busy worldly pursuits, neglecting their souls.

The days are evil. Time is too precious for you to allow it to be robbed and killed. You can't allow your time to be killed without hurting yourselves because your time is your life. The way you spend your time is the way you spend your life. If time is so precious, how are we to look at time?

BE WISE, UNDERSTANDING, AND THOUGHTFUL ABOUT HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME

Paul speaks about time by first connecting us with his previous thoughts with the word “then” or some translations say “therefore”. Paul has made a tremendous statements in the preceding verses about our identity- as “ dearly loved children” (v.1-2), “light in the Lord” (v.8a) and “children of the light” (v.8b) and how we are to live in the light of that identity with purpose- “be imitators of Christ” (v.1), “walking as children of the light”, “trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord”, and “taking no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but expose them” (v.8b, 10-11). So since God has enlightened us and given us identity as His children and given us purpose as His lights in the world, in verse 15 he exhorts us to conduct ourselves with thoughtfulness, foresight, and care rather than living thoughtless, aimlessly, and carelessly- walking wisely instead of foolishly. Than in verse 17 he admonishes again to “not be foolish, but understanding the will of the Lord”. A fool is someone who is careless and pays no heed to his life. He is one without reason, stubborn, reckless and careless with his thinking. The way that we live in wisdom here is by having God’s view of time - “understanding the will of the Lord” and living our lives thoughtfully and wisely in light of that view- “making the best use of our time.”

HOW DO THE WISE USE THEIR TIME?-THEY MAKE THE MOST OF IT! "making the best use of the time"(verse 16)

The wise and discerning Christian life is meant to be an exciting adventure of expecting great things from God because God is daily opening up the circumstances and the opportunity before us to do great things for God. This is the time for it. The decisive time, the determinative time, the appropriate time. God gives us opportunity and time with a purpose. Do you recognize this? Do you realize that the Lord gives you time and opportunity with an aim, with a purpose? Our responsibility is to make the most of the opportunities that God gives us and attempt great things for God: to see these opportunities then to seize them. The phrase making the most of can also be translated as “buying back, buying out, or buying up.” It conveys the idea of, an almost greedy attitude toward making the best of time -perhaps in a figure of a collector who buys, say, every antique clock he can get his hands on.

"Buy up the time" for it is a most precious commodity, We are called to buy up and buy back what the thief would take. Just as Christ redeemed us from a futile existence and gave us a new life, so now we have been rescued from the meaninglessness and the futility of the clock and calendar and have the privilege of using our time for the Lord’s purposes. The world ticks to the rhythm of sin, but God wants us to reclaim time for Him and His glory. See the very hours of our earthly lives as a precious commodity, a resource that has eternal potential. Christians can buy back time that otherwise would be wasted in such selfish living and use it for eternity.

We all have enough time to do what God wants us to do. Nothing is worth more than this day. If you could go back and change the past, how would you change how you have used your time? The things you regret not giving more time to are precisely the things that you should begin giving more time to. Opportunities may have passed you by which will never be recovered. But do not let the opportunities of today pass you by. Do not wait for tomorrow. Begin today to seize the opportunities. Let us, spend our TIME about the things of God. Let us spend our TIME with those who are about the things of God. Let us gather together every TIME the saints gather. Let us spend less TIME doing unprofitable things and more TIME in things that edify. Let us not waste our TIME in pursuit of material nor temporal things, but use our TIME pursuing things eternal. Let us take more TIME to read, study, pray, worship, fellowship; Yes, LET US REDEEM THE TIME!

The apostle said in another place, "And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed" (Romans 13:11). So, beloved brethren and sisters "LET US REDEEM THE TIME!" Time is important, not because time is money, but because time is life. Let us walk in the wisdom and spirit of David Brainerd, “Oh, that I might not loiter on my heavenly journey… O I longed to fill the remaining moments all for God! …I want to do something for God. ..Oh, how sweet it is to be spent and worn out for God!"

THE INCALCULABLE RIPPLE AFFECT OF A GODLY LIFE

2011-12-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

This past week I have reacquainted myself with the biographies of 19th century missionary to the cannibals in Vanuatu, John Paton; the great man of faith, George Mueller; and the prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon. God has reminded me that I am not the first to face the things that I have faced in my life. I am so thankful for the healing of history and the ripple effect of the lives of others upon us.

So many times I have slipped into the abyss of the present. You cannot know yourself, nor your times, nor your God if you only know the present. I bless God for history and biographies. I have turned many times to others and oh how the ripple effect of their lives have helped me to live my present circumstance with perseverance, faithfulness, passion,obedience, wholeheartedness, and with all my might.

Just as others this week have had an incalculable effect upon me, I want you to think about the effect that you can have on others. As a kid, I lived close to a running stream in a forest. One of my favorite pastimes was skipping stones across the flat, slow moving surface of the stream. Each time the pebble would land inevitably, ripples would flow from the impact of the stone. Your thoughts and actions are like stones dropped into still waters, causing ripples to spread and expand as they move outward. The impact you have on the world is greater than you could ever imagine, and the choices you make can have far-reaching consequences. Every moment of your life is a divine appointment to influence the world. Every conversation is a chance to change a life. And every choice you make impacts another choice, which in turn impacts another, rippling through your life and the lives of those around you for the glory of God.

The ripple effect of your life can be incalculable. I thought about this often when I visited Englad three years ago. One day I ate my lunch in Bunhill Field’s Cemetery in London and there on my right was the tomb of John Bunyan and behind me was John Owen and to my right was Susanna Wesley, and just across the street was the tomb of her son John Wesley. All these precious saints have made incalculable impacts on others for hundreds of years by the ripple effect from the pebbles of their precious lives.

I think of David Brainerd. I love this man! His life was a short life: twenty-nine years, five months and nineteen days. Only eight of those years as a believer, and only four of those as a missionary, and less than a year to see any fruit in his attempts to reach the Indians. He died in obscurity in Jonathan Edwards home. Two years after Brainerd died, Jonathan Edwards took his diaries and published them as a Life of Brainerd in 1749. His diaries are still in print today.

Oh the ripple effect of this man’s life! John Wesley said, "Let every preacher read carefully over the 'Life of Brainerd". It was written of Henry Martyn that "perusing the life of David Brainerd, his soul was filled with a holy emulation of that extraordinary man; and after deep consideration and fervent prayer, he was at length fixed in a resolution to imitate his example". William Carey regarded Edwards' Life of Brainerd as a sacred text. Robert Morrison and Robert McCheyne of Scotland and John Mills of America and Frederick Schwartz of Germany and David Livingston of England and Andrew Murray of South Africa and Jim Elliot of modern America looked upon Brainerd with a kind of awe and draw power from him the way they and countless others did.

David Brainerd had a profound effect upon Jonathan Edwards. Edwards' bears his own testimony:
"I would conclude my observations on the merciful circumstances of Mr. Brainerd's death without acknowledging with thankfulness the gracious dispensation of Providence to me and my family in so ordering that he ... should be cast hither to my house, in his last sickness, and should die here: So that we had opportunity for much acquaintance and conversation with him, and to show him kindness in such circumstances, and to see his dying behavior, to hear his dying speeches, to receive his dying counsels, and to have the benefit of his dying prayers."

Gideon Hawley, another missionary protege of Jonathan Edwards spoke for hundreds when he wrote about his struggles as a missionary in 1753, "I need, greatly need something more than humane (human or natural) to support me. I read my Bible and Mr. Brainerd's Life, the only books I brought with me, and from them have a little support."

John Piper says of Brainerd’s Life;

“Through this Life the impact of Brainerd on the church has been incalculable, because beyond all the famous missionaries who tell us that they have been sustained and inspired by Brainerd's Life how many countless other unknown faithful servants must there be who found strength to press on from Brainerd's testimony!”

In the scriptures we see the ripple effect of the apostle Paul’s life:

“I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of all brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear” (Philippians 1:12-14).

Do you hear what Paul is saying? Imprisoned, chained, unheard, uncertain, he looks back at all the trials of his life and says, "What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel."

Think of it! All of the frustration, all of the delay, all of the physical suffering and Paul sees his circumstances not as curtailing his mission but for the advancement of his mission!. Paul means to say that his imprisonment—which seemed to be a setback—actually served to advance the gospel in Rome. Paul tells us how the ripple effect of his own imprisonment produced two wonderful and extraordinary outcomes. The gospel has advanced in two ways:

1. It advanced the preaching of the gospel.
Paul says that his imprisonment gave him an opportunity to witness to the whole Praetorian Guard. Paul realized that he was not only chained to soldiers, they were chained to him! Paul had a "captive audience". So Paul experienced a shuffle of soldiers chained to him 24 hours a day. Since they changed guards every six hours, this meant Paul had a new audience four times a day, 28 times a week, and over 2900 times in two years talking to these men about Jesus Christ and living by faith in Him before them. The very chain which Roman discipline riveted on the prisoners arm secured to his side a hearer to whom Paul would tell the story." These soldiers thought they were guarding a prisoner of Rome, but soon found that they had inadvertently enrolled in a course of systematic theology. And apparently, his witness was effective. Paul remarks that because of his imprisonment, the gospel of Jesus Christ was known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard. It is assumed (since he sends greetings from those in Caesar's household. (Philippians 4:22) that the gospel message had even worked its way into the Emperor's home.

2. It produced Bold Witness in other Christians
God used Paul's situation to "light a fire" under some of the other believers. Just as reading those three biographies that I mentioned lit a fire under me! The ripple effect of Paul’s witness gave the church confidence and boldness. The people of God were set on fire for the Lord, and all this did not happen through Paul's mighty preaching in Rome. He was in prison chained to an unbelieving soldier, but the effect of his life in jail impacted the whole congregation who were all out of jail. His chains led to their freedom!

Have you ever thought about the effect of your life on others in this way? Many people today have been disappointed because of being let down, abandoned, failed by other Christians who have not trusted or walked with God when times got tough. That is why I encourage you all to read Christian biographies!

What a breadth of fresh air to see someone committed, persevering and trusting in God like Paul; loving, serving, caring, sacrificing no matter what! When you’re courageous, others are inspired by your courage. When you are suffering under tremendous adversity and keep on praising God and having joy, the ripple effect is contagious in convicting others and inspiring them as well. When you choose to trust God in a trying circumstance, others see your faith and are encouraged by it. Faith can be caught. Your example can be more encouraging than anything you say. When the church saw how Paul was being in prison it challenged them to confront their difficulties and speak up for Christ whatever the cost. If the apostle could do so much from a prison cell how much more should they be accomplishing with their freedom. New courage and boldness was given to the church.

Let me share with you something that came home to me about the ripple effect when I went to Northwood cemetery outside of London and saw Charles Spurgeon’s grave. read on the side of the tomb his words “For since by faith I saw the stream thy flowing wounds supply; redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die. Then in a nobler, sweeter song I’ll sing of thy power to save, when this poor stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.”

Then on the front of the tomb there was an open bible with the words of 2 Timothy 4:7-8, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

That day I read those words of that dear pastor and servant of God I was moved to recommit my life to Christ and his Kingdom and to preach the gospel of Christ and grace and to serve the Lord till my dying day. The pebble of Spurgeon thrown in the pond of history 110 years ago has created a ripple effect that reached out to touch me on a cold, rainy, isolated evening and I will never be the same.

John Piper gives this illustration of the ripple effect one life can have:

"A book by Richard Sibbes, one of the choicest of the Puritan writers, was read by Richard Baxter, who was greatly blessed by it. Baxter then wrote his Call to the Unconverted which deeply influenced Philip Doddridge, who in turn wrote The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. This brought the young William Wilberforce, subsequent English statesman and foe of slavery, to serious thoughts of eternity. Wilberforce wrote his Practical Book of Christianity which fired the soul of Leigh Richmond. Richmond, in turn, wrote The Dairyman's Daughter, a book that brought thousands to the Lord, helping Thomas Chalmers the great preacher, among others."

The stone of David Brainerd or of the apostle Paul have made a huge vast ripple effects on countless souls. Oh brothers and sisters you don’t know the effects that flow outward from the pebble of you and your soul falling in the pond of those all around you. If Christ stirred Paul and Paul stirred pagan guards and the Christians in Philippi, if Christ stirred Brainerd and Brainerd stirred Edwards and countless missionaries, and if in reading this he has stirred you, than it is obvious the waves are in motion and the waves are going onward to you, in you, and flowing out through each one of you.

Make your life count. Don't waste your life. May the ripple effect of the pebbles of your drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity.

Pastor Bill

LIVING ON HOPE

2011-12-09T13:53:00.000-08:00

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13 ESV

It is something as important to us as water is to a fish, as vital as electricity is to a light bulb, as essential as air is to a jumbo jet. It’s one of the most powerful words in the English language. It’s a power that keeps us going in the toughest times of life. It’s a power that energizes us with confidence, excitement, and anticipation as we look to the future. It gives us a reason to live. It takes obstacles and transforms them into possibilities. What am I talking about? HOPE!

It’s been said that a person can live 40 days without food, 4 days without water, 4 minutes without air, but you can’t live 4 seconds without hope. Tertullian said, "Hope is patience with the lamp lit." Hope is holding on when things around you begin to slip away. Hope is praying expectantly when there seemingly are no answers. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan tells of a man whose shop had been burned during the disastrous Chicago fire. He arrived at the ruins the next morning carrying a table. He set the table amid the charred debris and above it placed this optimistic sign: "Everything lost except wife, children, and hope. Business will be resumed as usual tomorrow morning."

Many men become bitter toward life because of the unfortunate circumstances in which they find themselves. Many quit. Others have taken their own lives. What makes the difference in the outcome? Talent? No! The only difference between those who threw in the towel and quit and those who used their energy to rebuild and kept going, is found in the word hope. What does hope do for mankind? Hope shines brightest when the hour is darkest. Hope motivates when discouragement comes .Hope energizes when the body is tired. Hope sweetens while the bitterness bites. Hope sings when all melodies are gone. Hope believes when the evidence is eliminated. Hope listens for answers when no one is talking. Hope climbs over obstacles when no one is helping. Hope endures hardship when no one is caring. Hope smiles confidently when no one is laughing. Hope reaches for answers when no one is asking. Hope presses toward victory when no one is encouraging. Hope dares to give when no one is sharing. Hope brings the victory when no one is winning.

There is nothing to do but bury a man when his hopes are gone. Losing hope usually precedes loss of life itself. You don't need a better environment; you just need more hope. It's the one thing in your life that you cannot do without! Hope is that basic to life. I have hope today. “Where there is no hope for the future, there is no power in the present.” It is an unshakable hope. It is a hope based on something eternal and all-powerful. It is a hope founded on good evidence.

If you are without hope today, or if you have a loved one who is without hope, there are links for hope you need to know about and take into your life..I am thankful to Sam Crabtree for his article that has influenced this blog.

Three Ways in Which We Use the Word "Hope"

We use the word "hope" in at least three different ways.

1. Hope is the desire for something good in the future.
The children might say, "I hope daddy gets home early tonight so we can play kickball after supper before his meeting." In other words they desire for him to get home early so that they can experience this good thing, namely, playing together after supper.

2. Hope is the good thing in the future that we are desiring.
We say, "Our hope is that Jim will arrive safely." In other words, Jim's safe arrival is the object of our hope.

3. Hope is the reason why our hope might indeed come to pass.
We say, "A good tailwind is our only hope of arriving on time." In other words, the tailwind is the reason we may in fact achieve the future good that we desire. It's our only hope.

So hope is used in three senses:

a.a desire for something good in the future,
b.the thing in the future that we desire, and
c.the basis reason for thinking that our desire may indeed be fulfilled

The Distinctive Biblical Meaning of Hope

All three of these uses are found in the Bible. But the most important feature of biblical hope is not present in any of these ordinary uses of the word hope. In fact the distinctive meaning of hope in Scripture is almost the opposite of our ordinary usage.

I don't mean that in Scripture hope is a desire for something bad (instead of something good). And I don't mean that in Scripture hope is rejection of good (instead of desire for it). It is not the opposite in those senses.

It is the opposite in this sense: ordinarily when we use the word hope, we express uncertainty rather than certainty.

"I hope daddy gets home early," means, "I don't have any certainty that daddy will get home on time, I only desire that he does." "Our hope is that Jim will arrive safely," means, "We don't know if he will or not, but that is our desire." "A good tailwind is our only hope of arriving on time," means, "A good tailwind would bring us our desired goal, but we can't be sure we will get one."

Ordinarily, when we express hope, we are expressing uncertainty. But this is NOT the distinctive biblical meaning of hope. And the main thing I want to do this morning is show you from Scripture that biblical hope is not just a desire for something good in the future, but rather, biblical hope is:

A confident expectation and desire for something good in the future.

Biblical hope not only desires something good for the future; it expects it to happen. And it not only expects it to happen; it is confident that it will happen. There is a moral certainty that the good we expect and desire will be done.

1. The Link Between Gratitude and Hope

Gratefulness looks back. Hope looks forward with desire and reasonable confidence and expectation. By looking back, gratitude fuels forward-looking hope. As with over-matched ball teams that are behind late in the game, hanging their heads without oomph, without hope for the future, there isn’t power for the present. Persons who tend not to be grateful tend not to be hopeful.

2. The Link Between Hopelessness and Misplaced Trust

Hopelessness is a curse; it’s the curse of trusting in man or in anything other than God and his perfect wisdom and timing. Marshall Faulk wrote, "There are no hopeless situations, there are only men and women who have grown hopeless about them.” Despair looks at immediate realities; hope sees ultimate realities. Some see a hopeless end, but others see an Endless Hope. Psalm 33:17, The war horse is a false hope for salvation. . . How is hope sustained? Answer: trust the right thing, God. Hope believes that God is not done. Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not the feeling we will have. That is, hope is the (up) feeling we have that the (down) feeling we have is not permanent.

3. The Link Suffering to Hope

Romans 5:2–5, "we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

The goal of everything, including suffering, is hope. Many lose hope during tribulation, but God intends for tribulation to produce hope… through faith. How does one grow in hope during tribulation? Answer: God’s love is poured into our hearts (through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us).

4. The Link Jesus to Your Hope

Jesus is our hope. In the baby Jesus, God was fulfilling the hopes of his people in a way that they did not recognize. We may not see it now, but God has already acted for us, and God is working even now behind the scenes to bring about his good will. The key is to remember Jesus, who knows your situation, and whose Spirit in us is a down payment of glory yet to come. God is not done.

5. The Link your hope to the God is the origin and object of hope.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope" (Romans 15:13)
God is the One who gives hope. He is the source; He is the origin of hope. He is the object of our hope and He grants His people peace and joy as they believe. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” The God of hope is the one who fills you with joy and with peace.

6. The Link Your Hope to the God Who Is Not Done

"Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God." Psalm 42:5

The best sermon you preach yourself this week may be only three words long: HOPE IN GOD! John Piper

God was not done when Noah was in the boat, Sarah was barren, Joseph was in prison, Moses was on the run from Pharaoh, the children of Israel were pinned against the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho blocked possession of the promised land, Gideon was hiding from the Midianites, Samson was seduced by a woman and blinded, Ruth was widowed, David was mocked as a boy facing a giant, Job’s children were all killed, government officials persecuted Daniel, Jonah was in the belly of a fish, Paul couldn’t get rid of this thorn, and Jesus was put in the grave. God is not done! Hope is not undone, because he is not done!

In your life hope is like a reservoir of emotional strength. If put down, look to the emotional reservoir of hope for the strength to return good for evil. Without hope you have no power to absorb the wrong and walk in love, and you sink into self-pity or self-justification. If you experience a setback in your planning—get sick, or things don't go the way you want—you look to the emotional reservoir of hope for the strength to keep going and not give up. If you face a temptation to be dishonest, to steal, to lie, or to lust, Look to the emotional reservoir of hope for the strength to hold fast to the way of righteousness, and deny yourself some brief, unsatisfying pleasure

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus'blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand….
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.”

Holding on to hope,
Pastor Bill

LOOKING TO JESUS

2011-12-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV)

A teenager had decided to quit high school, saying he was just fed up with it all. His father kept trying to convince him to stay with it. “Son”, he said, “you just can’t quit. All the people who are remembered in history didn’t quit. Thomas Edison, he didn’t quit. Douglas MacArthur, he didn’t quit. Elmo McCringle…” “Who?” the son burst in. “Elmo McCringle”, replied his father. “Who the heck is Elmo McCringle?” asked the son. “See,” the father replied, you don’t remember him. He quit!”

One of the most significant utterances ever to come from the mouth of Jesus was spoken on the cross. In the midst of His grand passion, as He suffered the pangs of the agony of death, Jesus managed to gasp, "It is finished."(John 19:30) That is when Jesus quit life; when His task was finished. Not before. Not until. The work had to be finished.

The Apostle Paul stated it this way: "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God…Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus…I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith " (Acts 20:24; Philippians 3:13-14; 2 Timothy 4:7). So at the end of his life Paul said, "All my life has been like a fight and like a race. Keeping faith has been a struggle. I have fought the good fight and run the race of perseverance." And before he died Paul made clear that this view of his own life was his view of the Christian life everybody is called to live. In 1 Timothy 6:12 he says, "Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called." And to explain, he said in verse 11, "Flee [the love of money]—flee all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, gentleness." Note the two words: "flee" and "pursue"—flee the love of money and all the evils that grow out of it, and pursue faith and love and perseverance. These are the words of war: Flee! Pursue! Paul knows nothing of coasting or casual Christianity. Paul simply does not recognize a Christianity that is not running a race and fighting a fight. Nor does the author of the letter to the Hebrews

The writer of Hebrews describes the Christian life as a race. When you are in a race, it is extremely important where you look. Nothing will throw off your stride or slow you down like looking at your feet or looking at a runner coming up behind you, or looking at the crowd in the grandstands. The Christian race is the same. Some may look too much to themselves, what they are doing, or on others and what they are doing. Some people will focus upon the difficulties and the obstacles along the way. Some will keep looking back at the past, whether losses or better days. Some will keep their eyes upon the goal; the finish line. Where you are looking will determine whether or not you finish the race.

The writer of Hebrews wants to encourage us to look to Jesus. "Looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith."(Hebrews 12:2). He uses the Greek present participle that implies the idea of a constant attention during the race. He exhorts us to focus continually upon Him. Jesus will keep us running and winning. Fixing our eyes on seeing Jesus is what saves us and strengthens us.

Who is He? He is the author and the supreme example of our faith. Jesus has gone through everything we have to face, and by faith, He faced it successfully. Like a pioneer He started and finished the race in triumph! That is why He can help us to succeed! He has gone ahead; he knows what paths to take and what ones to avoid. He is also the perfecter of our faith. He worked to author faith and to perfect faith. He works to begin it and He works to complete it in our lives.

Not only that, but the very Jesus we look to is ever present with you and in you through the Holy Spirit. “I am with you always…” (Matthew28:20). “I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5). “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17). Did you know that the Holy Spirit’s work is to help us to turn our eyes away from self and our problems to Jesus; but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us look at our problems, others, and ourselves instead of Christ. All those gazes upon ourselves, our problems, and others will never bring us any strength, help us to find comfort, or give us any hope and assurance.

The Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self and turns them to Jesus. He tells us that “Christ is all in all.” Remember, therefore, do not look at your fragile hold of Jesus Christ, look at Jesus Christ! Do not look at your feelings about yourself and your life, look at Jesus Christ! Do not look at your little faith you have in Jesus Christ- look at Jesus Christ the author and finisher of your faith! Do not look at your weakness and failings as a Christian, look at Jesus Christ and His blood and His work! Do not look at your loose grip on Jesus Christ, look at Jesus Christ’s grip upon you! Do not look at your little hope in Jesus, look at Jesus, the source of your hope!

Charles Spurgeon says that “We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by “looking unto Jesus.” Keep your eye simply on Him; let His death, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon your mind; when you wake in the morning look to Him; when you lie down at night look to Him. Oh! Let not your hopes or fears come between you and Jesus; follow hard after Him, and He will never fail you.”

I encourage you to keep running, persevering, and fighting. How? By looking to Jesus, who “is at work in us to will and to do his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). Look to Jesus who will “complete what He started in us.” (Philippians 1:6) Look to Jesus who while you run and fight can enable you to “be strong in Him and the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10).

Psalm 123:2, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us.”
2 Chronicles 20:12, “…we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."
Isaiah 45:22, "Look to Me, and be saved,All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other."

Hear again what the writer of Hebrews says, ‘Look to Jesus’! Don’t waste your look, looking at yourself, that look won’t help. Hebrews says, ‘Look to Jesus.’ “Look to Jesus! See Him hanging on the cross the cross bearing your sins and the wrath of God that you deserved upon myself. Look at Jesus who died and buried. Look at Jesus; He rose again. Look at Jesus; He ascended to heaven. Look at Jesus; He is sitting on the throne at the Father’s right hand. Look at Jesus, He is coming again. Are you tired, defeated, discouraged, weak, feel like giving up, can't take another day, hopeless, helpless, and lost? Do you hear dear reader? Look to Jesus! Look to Jesus!” Look! Look! Look! Maybe something is clicking inside of you. You know this is what you need to do. Look to and trust in Jesus Christ. Look to Jesus, take heart, trust him, and run.

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,
Pastor Bill

JAMES THOUGHTS ON YOU, PLANNING, AND GOD

2011-11-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." James 4:13-15

I am convinced that how I view God and how I view life really matters. It really matters whether a true view of life and of God informs and shapes the way I think and how I speak about my plans. Our mindset matters. How you talk about your plans and how you think about God matters. Why? Why does that matter? Because God created us not just to do things and go places with our bodies, but to have certain attitudes and convictions and speech that reflect the truth; a true view of life and God. God means for the truth about Himself and about life to be known and felt and spoken and lived out as part of our reason for being. You weren't just created to go somewhere and do business; you were made to go somewhere with thoughts and attitudes and words that reflect a right view of life and God.

HAVING A HUMBLE VIEW OF LIFE

1. A HUMBLE view of life sees that the future is uncertain

James tells us says in verse 14, that in all of your planning keep in your mind and give expression with your lips to this truth: “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring." That is, in humility, keep in mind that you have no firm substance on this earth. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know what we think we know because our knowledge, like our life, is limited. O how I have learned how limited is my knowledge during theses past 19 months! 19 months ago I was planning for a future that included my wife and my church. Little did I know that I would be divorced, I would not be pastoring my old church and be attempting to start a new church, that my income would decrease by 80%, and that I would be starting my life completely over at 58 years old. So much for my plans!

I have learned that I am not God; therefore I cannot see what is coming next! This has profoundly humbled me and kept me in a very humble posture before God in living the rest of my life! But I have come to believe that ignorance concerning the future is a God-given blessing and not a liability. Oh, I know we would all like to join with the fictional characters in Back to the Future movies and be able to bet on sporting events and invest in the stock market with a knowledge of all that is going to take place. But I think that God in his wisdom has very wisely hidden the future from us. Think about it. If God were to let you look ahead and see your future prosperity, you might become extremely careless. If you saw ahead to the adversity and personal losses you are going to be facing, you might despair or you might try to take control to make sure it doesn’t happen. God has hidden the future from you for a very good reason. It is so that you might be compelled to trust in him wholeheartedly and completely every moment of every day of your life. The Bible teaches us that the people of God shall live by faith (Romans 1:17). And without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

2. A HUMBLE view of life sees that life is fragile

James also says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes away" (Verse 14). Not only is the future uncertain, you are as fragile as mist and vapor. This is an eloquent simile. You see the mist at one moment and a few minutes later it’s gone. You see the steam coming out of your coffee cup and in just a second, it disappears into the air. Life is like that. James’ point is that you have no assurance of a long life! You have no promise that you will live for ten more years, one more year, one more week, one more day or even one more hour. You don’t even know if you’ll make it till tomorrow morning!

In Psalm 103:15-16, the Psalmist writes, “As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” Every day of your life, every breath you take is totally dependent upon God. You are always just one heartbeat away from eternity. Did you know that your days, from a heavenly perspective, are numbered! You will never live one day, or one hour, or even one second longer than God has planned for you to live. In Psalm 139:16 the Psalmist writes, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

That’s why Moses prays in Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” On October 13, I turned 58 and a half. I have about 4562 days until I’m at my allotted seventy, if I even make that. That only adds up to about 652 weeks or 152 months! Yikes! Only God can give me the wisdom I need to spend those days profitably in light of eternity. Keep in mind that you have no durability on this earth, for you appear "for a little while" - just a little while. Your time is short. And keep in mind that you will disappear. You will be gone, and life will go on without you. It matters, he says, that you keep this view of life in mind in all of your decisions and planning.

HAVING A HUMBLE VIEW OF GOD

James tells us the true view of God that we should have in our minds and in our mouths as we plot our future - as we make our plans. It not only matters that you have a humble view of life when you make your plans,- you are like a vapor, but it also matters that you have a humble view of God as you make your plans. And that you give expression of this humble view of God: "You ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that'" (Verse 15). Now it is important to see that James is not just giving us a teaching to make sure that we preface all of our actions with “if it is the Lord’s will”.

We all know that people use “God’s will” to get their way; “lord willing” becomes a cliche used to rationalize selfishness. James is not talking about spiritualizing decision making. Anyone can say the words if the Lord wills and intend nothing more than to be RC- religiously correct. James is not looking for a change of words, but a change of heart. James offers a correction to a deeply ingrained philosophy of life. The big issue is between those who live, really live, as if God exists and those who do not. In your planning for tomorrow or next week or next month or next year or for ten years from now, God wants you’re planning to be done with Him and His will in mind.

There ought to be small parentheses written in all the sentences of your planning even as Jesus taught us by both His example in Gethsemane, “Father, not my but thy will be done” and in his teaching to us on prayer: . “Father in heaven…Let Your will be done”. It is the submissive attitude toward God that says, “Lord, you may interrupt at any time. In fact God, I welcome you to do so. Change this whole plan in accordance with your will and I’ll accept it from your hand.” “Give me the desire to want what I want to ought, so that I will do what I ought to do”.

So what is the right view of God that he teaches us to have in verse 15? He tells us two very important things about God. One is contained in the words: "If the Lord wills, we will live." And the other is contained in the words, "If the Lord wills, we will . . . do this or that."

1. First, when he says, "If the Lord wills, we will live," he teaches us that the duration of our lives is in the hands of God. Or: God governs how long we will live. Or: God is ultimately in control of life and death. We may not know how long our vapor-like life will linger in the air, but God knows, because God decides how long we will live: "If the Lord wills we will live." And James is saying: If this is a true view of life and God, then it should shape our mindset and shape our way of talking. In Acts 18:21, Paul left Ephesus and said, "I will return to you again if God wills." In 1 Corinthians 4:19 he writes, "I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills." For most of his life he did not know if the next town might be his burial place. That was in the hands of God. And so are our lives. Psalm 31:15-16, "But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, "You are my God. My times are in your hand.” God will decide how long we live and when we die. And James' point is: God means for that truth, that reality, to shape our mindset and our attitude and our words. He means for that truth to be known and spoken about. He means for it to be a part of the substance of our conversation. God means for a true view of himself to be known and believed and embraced and cherished and kept in mind and spoken of.

2. Now, there is another truth about God in verse 15: When he says, "If God wills we will . . . do this or that," he teaches us that the activities and accomplishments of our lives are in God's hands. God governs what we accomplish. Not only are our lives in his hands, our success is in his hands. Proverbs 16:9 we are told: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”

1. Let us remember how wonderfully secure we are in the confidence that it is God who finally governs our lives

God and not chance, God and not our enemies, God and not disease, God and not the devil. I, for one, am very glad that my life is in the hands of an all-loving, all-wise, all-powerful Father. I pray that in the Gethsemane evening of my life I will be able to say with Jesus, "Not my will but yours be done," and then, "Into your hands I commit my spirit." Rejoice in this. You are immortal until God's work for you is done.

2. Since your life and your accomplishments are ultimately in the hands of God, then he is able, in ways you never dreamed, to help you fulfill His plans for your life and provide every need besides.

Philippians 4:19, "My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." 2 Corinthians 9:8, "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed."

3. Trust God with your future plans.

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Things don’t always go the way we plan them. I can absolutely testify to this! At best, our plans are tentative, because we can’t see ahead. We make plans but many times God has a much better plan. That’s why he sometimes changes our plans so that they will fit perfectly with his plan. So we must learn to be humble, flexible and tentative as we look to the future, knowing that God may have a totally different plan than what we are now thinking. In his sovereignty he may very well change those plans according to his perfect will. Oh may we live our lives in humble, loving, trust, and submission in God who governs our lives and our achievements for our good and his glory!

Trusting in Him who holds the future,
Pastor Bill

Trusting Christ With Gutsy Guilt.

2011-11-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Have you sinned lately? This morning? this afternoon? A minute ago? The reality of the Christian life is that while it is God's will that we do not sin, as long as we are here in this body of ours we all still sin. The apostle John clearly spells this out for us.

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. .. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 1:8-10; 2:1-2).

Does not this describe your life? We sin. We confess our sins. We know that we should not sin. But we do and when we do we have our advocate and propitiation, Jesus Christ. So how does God look at us when we sin? "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1) Do you believe that? The devil hates this truth and he hates the finished work of Christ. So his mission is to keep you in the place of guilt, shame, and darkness through lies, deceptions, accusation, and condemnation.

Frequently when I do sin, in spite of 1 John and Romans, even after I have confessed my sin and repented, I still feel guilt, shame, condemnation, and insecure in my perspective of God and how He views me and my sin. I find it hard to accept His mercy and feel that He does not want anything to do with me. I now know that is exactly the enemies tactic of keeping me distant in my communion with God because of my own guilt and shame.

Micah 7:8-9 is a picture of what you say to your enemy when he scoffs at your defeat. This is a description of what we do when there is "no condemnation" and yet we have sinned. How do we think and act?

Here is what you say. My summary of these words is to call them like John Piper calls them, gutsy guilt. I call it that because when I sin I must admit that I have done wrong and that God is dealing with me. But even in a condition of darkness and discipline, I will not surrender my hold on the truth that God loves me and is on my side (Romans 8:31-38).

Listen to these amazing words. Mark them. Memorize them. Preach them to yourself. Use them whenever Satan tempts you to defeat, discouragement, guilt, shame, condemnation, and despair.
"Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication." (Micah 7:8-9)

This is what victory looks like after defeat. reflect on this deeply, frequently, and faithfully. Learn to take this truth and speak like this to the devil, yourself, or anyone else who tells you that Christ is not capable of using you mightily for His kingdom purposes.

Here is what you say to the devil after you have confessed your sins and he accuses you:

“Rejoice not over me, O my enemy.” You celebrate and rejoice over my failure? You had better think again Satan!!

“When I fall, I shall rise.” Do you know why? Yes, it is true that I have fallen and I hate and despise what I have done. I grieve at the dishonor I have brought on my Lord Jesus and my God. But hear this, my enemy, I will rise. I will rise. (Proverbs 24:16, "...for the righteous falls seven times and rises again")

“When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.” When I sin, I feel as if I am sitting in darkness. I feel miserable. I feel guilty because I am guilty. But that is not all that is true about me and my God. The same God who makes my darkness is a sustaining light to me in this very darkness. He will not forsake me (Hebrews 13:5).

“I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.” It is true that when the devil tells you that you have sinned, he is right. Until I confess my sin I am bearing the indignation of the Lord. But that is where the devil's using the truth against me stops and my theology begins: God, the very one who is indignant with me, will also plead my cause. The devil lies and says that God is against me and that I have no future with him because of my sin. That is a lie from the pit of hell and Satan is a liar!(John 8:44) My God, whose Son’s life is my righteousness and whose Son’s death is my punishment, will execute judgment for me. For me! FOR me! And not against me.

“He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication.” This I know for sure, as sure as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is my punishment and my righteousness, God will bring me out to the light, and I will look upon his righteousness, my Lord and my God.

Now that is a picture of how to think and act when you sin against God whose whole disposition toward you is almighty mercy, free grace, and omnipotent love. He will not always handle you gently. But he will always love you. And always be for you and not against you (Romans 8:31).

So we must take our sins seriously. We hate them because God does. We must see them as a contradiction of who we are in Christ and a contradiction of our Father's love. We must confess our sins (1 John 1:9). We look to the cross where all our pardon and righteousness was fully secured. We accept the Father's displeasure and discipline, and may dwell in darkness for a season. But if our enemy rejoices and says to us in our sorrow, "See, God is against you. He is angry. You are guilty and under his condemnation," then we will say, with the authority of Romans 8:1 and on the basis of Jesus Christ's death and righteousness, and in the words of Micah 7, "Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall I will rise; Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord Because I have sinned against Him, Until He pleads my case and executes justice for me. He will bring me out to the light, And I will see His righteousness."

That is what I mean by gutsy guilt. I do not know any other way to persevere in the Christian life in view of my constant failings. I do not know any other way to stay on course for the cause of Christ. I do not know any other way to live with God, others, and myself in peace, assurance, and rest in my soul. I do not know any other way to maintain hope, faithfulness, and fruitfulness in ministry, than this gutsy guilt: When I fall I will rise . . . though I have sinned, the very one against whom I have sinned will plead my case and execute justice for me - not against me, but FOR me!

Oh, love this truth, dear reader! Love and live this truth with all your might and all your faith. Do not let the devil have the final word over your sin.

Resting in the finished work of Christ,
Pastor Bill

LIVING ON GRACE

2011-11-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." 1 Corinthians 15:10
"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work" 2 Corinthians 9:8
"For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed." Romans 15:18
"With great power the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all." Acts 4:33

There is a saying that I have used over the years that personally means more to me than ever. It simply states: Christian living is either supernatural or it is nothing. I have been a Christian for 37 years. I believe that the call to deny ourselves, to love God and others,to do the works of Jesus like healing the sick, to return good for evil, to forgive seventy times seven, to endure one another, to obey His commands, and to keep doing this with joy for fifty, sixty, or seventy years is just not possible to the natural human. It is only possible to do this supernaturally.

I am thankful that the scriptures affirm this.
John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Colossians 1:10-11 that you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy;

It truly takes supernatural power to live and endure for Christ until we die. So we must seek the supernatural power of God’s sovereign grace daily in order to be the church and to be a Christian. Paul confirmed with his own words the absolute necessity of God’s grace for his ministry. He said, "By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not 1, but the grace of God with me" (I Corinthians 15:10).

Paul realized that the first part of this verse might be misunderstood. Someone might say, "See, he is telling us that God gave him grace in the past and now Paul is simply responding to that grace, out of gratitude or a sense of duty, by working for God as hard as he can." {This is exactly how some look at the Christian life!} That would be a partial, but very distorted, truth. It is not the picture of Christian living Paul wants to leave in our minds. So he goes on to say, "Yet not I, but the grace of God with me."

Paul says that, at every moment, the grace of God enabled his work. Does it really say that? Doesn't it just say that the grace of God [worked] with Paul? No, it says more. We have to come to terms with the words, "Yet not I." Paul wants to exalt the moment-by-moment grace of God in such a way that it is clear that he himself is not the decisive doer of this work. "Yet not I. "

Now the paradox is that nevertheless, Paul is a doer of this work. "I worked harder than any of them." He worked. But he said, it was the grace of God "with me." If we let all the parts of this verse stand, the end result is this: grace was the decisive doer in Paul's work.

This means that, as Paul faced each day’s ministry burden, he had a firm conviction and lived out that conviction with a humble, dependent posture and attitude that unless God’s grace was given for that day’s work, he would not be able to do it. He recalled the words of Jesus, "Apart from Me you, can do nothing’ (John 15:5). So he prayed for fresh supernatural grace for the day, and he trusted in the promise that it would come with power. "My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19). Then he acted with all his might. And when he came to the end of the day, he called his might the might of grace and gave God the glory. "Yet not I, but the grace of God with me." Or, with different words, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13); ""I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me"(Galatians 2:20). So, God’s grace did not replace Paul's effort; it enabled and carried it. No wonder Paul could say His grace toward me did not prove vain! Grace made Paul what he was. Grace gave him the courage to be who he was. Grace energized him to accomplish what he did. Grace was the silent partner and his constant traveling companion.

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Heb.13: 20-21

God himself, graciously arriving each moment, brings grace into the present moment. So when Paul describes the effect of the grace of God that was with him he says, "I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed" (Romans 15:18). The power we need for today’s ministry is the today grace of the omnipotent Christ, who will always, be there for us..

So how do we tap into this grace that we need to live supernaturally? Prayer connects us today with the grace that will make us adequate for today's living for Christ.

Hebrews 4:16 tells us, "Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need” The Greek original behind the phrase "grace to help in time of need" can be translated literally, "grace for a well-timed help."' The point is that prayer is the way to find God’s grace for a well-timed help. This grace always arrives from the "throne of grace" on time. The phrase, "throne of grace" means that grace comes from the king of the Universe who sets the times by his own authority (Acts 1:8). His timing is perfect, but it is rarely ours: "For a thousand years in [his] sight are like yesterday when it passes by" (Psalm 90:4). At the global level, he sets the times for nations to rise and fall (Acts 17:26). And at the personal level, "My times are in [his] hands" (Psalm 31:15). When we wonder about the timing of grace, we must think on the 'throne of grace." Nothing can hinder God's plan to send grace when it will be best for us. God’s grace is always well timed.

The need for grace is the constant plea of the praying psalmists. They pray for it again and again to meet every need. They leave every minister a model of daily dependence on grace for every emergency. They cry out for grace when they need help: "Hear, 0 Lord, and be gracious to me; 0 Lord, be Thou my helper" (Psalm 30:10). They cry out for grace when they are weak: "Turn to me, and be gracious to me; 0 grant Thy strength to Thy servant" (Psalm 86:16). They cry out for grace when they need healing: "Be gracious to me, 0 Lord, for I am pining away; heal me, 0 Lord" (Psalm 6:2). They cry out for grace when they are afflicted by enemies: "Be gracious to me, 0 Lord; behold my affliction from those who hate me" (Psalm 9:13). They cry out for grace when they are lonely: "Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am lonely and afflicted" (Psalm 25:16). They cry out for grace when they are grieving: "Be gracious to me, 0 Lord, for I am in distress; My eye is wasted away from grief" (Psalm 31:9). They cry out for grace when they have sinned: "O Lord, be gracious to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee" (Psalm 41:4).

Once we are persuaded that the normal Christian life is supernatural, if we desire to “be” Christians, we will be on our knees. His grace is available to each of you.

1 Corinthians. 2:1-5, "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
2 Corinthians 12:9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Habakkuk. 3:17-19, Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls--Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength; he will make my feet like deer's feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
John Newton

Learning to live on grace,
Pastor Bill

HOW GOD MAKES LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE DESIRABLE AND DOABLE

2011-11-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

One of the most encouraging passages in my life is the statement that the apostle Paul makes in Philippians 2:12-13, "“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” In verse 12, God tells us what He wants for our life. Many Christians hear just that part of the verse and get very very discouraged because it seems as if God is saying something that we must do on our own, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."

Now let us first understand what Paul is not saying. The verse does not say, "Work for your salvation." There’s only one person who has worked for your salvation and that’s Jesus Christ. He alone worked for your salvation. Nor does Paul command the church here to work on their salvation. Our salvation cannot be improved upon. The rescue is complete. The salvation equation is very simple: Christ = salvation. There’s no plus sign in this equation. You dishonor Christ if you try to add a plus sign, if you try to work on your salvation, because a plus sign suggests that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross wasn’t enough for you.

So what then does Paul mean when he says “work out your salvation”? Christians sometimes struggle with growing in grace because they don’t understand how it works. Either they think that God does something like this…He says, ‘OK, I’ve saved you by Jesus Christ, I’ve forgiven you, and now you’re on your own. Get crackin’! Get to it.’ And other times, they think, ‘Well, God saved me, and He’s at work in me changing me, so I don’t have to do anything.’ And the Apostle Paul with this exhortation is both encouraging us and correcting us at the same time.

The ideal behind the words "your own salvation" is that God has a plan for each of our lives. He has a design for you and He has a duty for you. Paul says in Romans 8:29 that we were predestined to be conformed the very image of Christ. We are to fulfill that plan so that our lives will bring forth fruit to the glory of God. So one thing Paul is saying here is that as Christians we must strive to get the greatest potential benefit from our salvation. God puts tremendous capacity for good in our lives-like the mother lode in silver mine or a field full of ripe crops-and He wants us to realize that capacity to its fullest. It is as if Paul is saying, don’t stop halfway; don't be satisfied with partial benefits when it comes to your relationship with God. Get the full benefit of the gospel.

The Christian life is not just a one time commitment. It is an ongoing walk, a race to be run, a fight to be fought. As Paul writes in Colossians 2:6-7, “As you received Jesus Christ as Lord (past tense), so (now, presently) walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him.” God wants to continue His saving work in us everyday-refining, strengthening, making us more into His likeness. Discipleship is a lifelong process. So Paul urges us here to get on with that process-to continually strive to work out our salvation-to mine all the benefits we can from it-to constantly seek to grow and mature and be more and more like Christ. 1 Corinthians 9:24, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.” Colossians 1:29, “To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.” 2 Peter 1:1, “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble.” Believing does not make the Christian passive. It makes them hopeful, energetic, and courageous. Each day there is work to be done and we are commanded to work.

BUT...

How many of you have lived in verse 12 and felt completely discouraged, defeated, debilitated, and downcast because you cannot do what verse 12 seems to demand of you? You battle your desires to work out your salvation, your will to work out your salvation, and your ability to work out your salvation. Perhaps you feel defeated before you even get out the door.

Thank God for verse 13!It is here that we find the key to the door of living verse 12. In verse 13, He tells us how this is brought to pass. “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” Do not get stuck in verse 12 dear reader!

"It is God who works in you.” Is this good news my friend? Paul is telling us that the Christian life is not our attempt at the imitation of Christ but the incarnation of Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20). The Christian life is not a series of “ups and downs” it is rather a process of “ins and outs.” God works in and we work out. Paul is saying that God is the decisive worker in your life! We work, but we work by and through and because of His working in us.

There are two great needs in every Christian life. First, there is the desire to do God's will and the second is the ability to do His will. If I only have the desire chances are on the basis of what I have seen in my life I will not do God's will. I will want to, but because of my flesh, I won't do what I want to do. I need the power and the ability to do what I want to do. That is why Philippians 2:13 is such stupendously good news to you and me.

God does more than merely strengthen our willing and doing. He does not add just a little help so that I can partner with Him. Paul's explanation goes deeper. "God himself is working in us both to will and to act: He works in us at the level of our wills and at the level of our doing God works in us, not merely with us. It is not the thought that my work plus God's work gets it done.

Augustine wrote, "Our deeds are our own, because of the free will producing them, and they are also God's, because of his grace causing our free will to produce them." And he says elsewhere, "God makes us do what he pleases by making us desire what we might not desire."' And finally he says, "Give me the grace [O Lord] to do as you command, and command me to do what you will! . . . O holy God . . . when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them."

Notice the enthusiastic heart of God in his working in you. "...it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” The word "pleasure" means "a happy joyful desire or purpose." God is working in us that His desire and purpose for our life to be fulfilled and that brings him great joy.

Second Thessalonians 1:11-12, "To this end we always pray for you, that our God may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.”
Hebrews 13:20-21, `Now may the God of peace. equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
1 Corinthians 15:10, “by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
Romans 15:18, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.”

This is encourages me so much, and there are two things that encourage me. He says we can do verse 12 because God Himself is at work in you already, so that you will want to do it, and you will be able to do it, so that you will do it for His good pleasure in you. God is the workman; we stand in need of his services. He is the doctor, we are the sick patient. We are the weak, He is the strong. We have the broken down jalopy, He is the mechanic. That’s incredible.

In short, God makes living the Christian life so desirable and so doable!!!

Do you know what else is encouraging to me about this? It’s that he says this in the present tense. God is working now at this very moment! NOW! Dear reader, say that to yourself! ____________ God is working now at this very moment in me.

Even when we are most actively working out for God, we are still the recipients of His working in us. The power to work out daily our salvation is the power of the living God always there to work for us and in us every moment that we enter. Not only that, He doesn’t stop and wait for you to get working rather He is now and always working The God who in the past worked and changed you is the same God who is at work in you now to change you. And let me tell you, my friends, that truth keeps me from despair, because one of the great realities that I live with every waking moment is that I know that I am not what I ought to be. And the Apostle Paul is simply saying to you here, ‘Child of God, He’s not finished with you yet. He is at work with you, in you, for you, for His pleasure and glory.’

I cannot imagine a more comforting and encouraging thing to know in the pursuit of godliness in the Christian life than that my God is not done yet. It keeps me from going over the edge. It keeps me from the brink of despair. It is the promise (God will work in you!) that sustains and gives hope to the willpower (work out your salvation). Take heart. God will not leave you to yourself. John Newton once wrote: I am not what I want to be, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I should be, but by the grace of God, I am what I am.”

Can anything be more radical than this? It means every good desire; every Christ-like thought, attitude, decision, and aspiration which I have is something which has been produced in me by God. God controls my willing, it is God who is energizing my very desires and hopes and aspirations and thoughts. He stimulates it all!” It means God understands our weakness and is committed to helping us. It means we are not left to simply work to muster more of our strength but we are invited to tap into His. It means we don't have to worry about falling away in the end because God is working on our desires and appetites so that we won't want to drift away. It means that the victories and accomplishments we have in the spiritual realm should be acknowledged as coming from the Lord and we should give Him the glory. It means that we can live the Christian life.

Oh reader, we need not fear the will of God or flee the will of God on the basis of feeling inadequate or insufficient. God will enable us to do anything He asks of us. God wants to lure you into obedience with his irresistibly beautiful and ineffable promises of enablement! Where God guides, He will provide.

Take the following texts as encouragements from God that He will help you fulfill His purposes for your life:

Jeremiah 31:31 33, `Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.
Deuteronomy 30.6, "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart...so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. "
Ezekiel 11:19–20, A new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them."
Ezekiel 36:26-27, `I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.
2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, "To this end we always pray for you, that our God may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.”
Hebrews 13:20-21, `Now may the God of peace. equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
1 Corinthians 15:10, “by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
Romans 15:18, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.”
1 Peter 4:11, "Whoever serves" is to do so `as one who serves by the strength which God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
1 Thessalonians 3:12. "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another "

Utterly thrilled that God makes living the Christian life so desirable and so doable!
Pastor Bill

HOW I BATTLE MY SIN OF FEAR

2011-10-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

I confess that the greatest battle in my life is the battle of fear. There are times that I have been so fearful that I have lay in bed shaking in my dread. I have suffered many sleepless nights, troubled days, wasted hours imagining outcomes, and I have devoted countless hours at times to allowing fear to darken my mind and cloud my soul. I have also seen some of my biggest fears come to pass. That most certain weighs deeply in my struggle with fear. My biggest fears center around people and the future.

Many times in my life I fear people. People often times seem very big to me and God seems small. Here are some of my fears Perhaps some of you can relate:

Abandonment
Rejection
Betrayal
Hurting me
Giving up on me in my imperfections
Not accepting me once they know me
Trying to control me
Disapproval

Here are some of my fears of the future:

Ministry failure
Being left to myself and my own decision making ability
Old age
Unhappiness
My worst fears all happening
Utter poverty
Loneliness
Uselessness
Wasting my life
God forsaking me.

I am glad that I am not alone in my fears. Even in the Bible, we can see where men were stalked by their fears:
-Abraham lied about Sarah out of fear - Genesis 12:11-13
-Jacob displayed fear of Esau - Genesis 32:6-8
-Moses feared Pharaoh - Exodus 2:14
-Moses feared Rejection - Exodus 4:1
-The Disciples feared the storm - Matthew 8:24-26

What makes fear even more difficult for me in my struggle with fear is that over and over in scriptures we hear God demanding us to “be not afraid”(ex. John 6;20;14;27; Acts 18:9; 27:24; 1 Peter 3;14; Revelation 1:17). Often times when I am afraid I will hear this demand and all I can feel is more discouragement because God demands of me something that is the opposite of what I am feeling and how can I stop feeling fear when I feel fear? God says, “Be not afraid’ but I feel that “I am afraid.” What’s the way to overcome fear and to obey His command to not fear? Is there a solution?

Please reread what I wrote on October 10 titled LEARNING TO TALK TO YOURSELF INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO YOURSELF. You deal with fear by battling unbelief. And you battle unbelief by confessing your fears to God, meditating on God's Word, speaking it to yourself, and asking for the help of his Spirit. The windshield wipers are the promises of God that clear away the mud of unbelief. And the windshield washer fluid is the help of the Holy Spirit. Without the softening work of the Holy Spirit the wipers of the Word just scrape over the blinding clumps of unbelief. Both are necessary—the Spirit and the Word. We must read the promises of God and speak them to yourself; and then we we pray for the help of his Spirit. So I want to receive the promises of God, and promises from God are the key that leads from the dungeon of fear. So consider these and do not be afraid.

1. We will not die apart from God's gracious decree for His children.
If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. (James 4:15)
"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:29–31)
See now that 1, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. (Deuteronomy 32:39) (See also Job 1:21; 1 Samuel 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7.)

2. The plans of man including your enemies do not succeed apart from our gracious God.
The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. (Psalm 33:10)
Take counsel together [you peoples], but it will come to nothing; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us. (Isaiah 8:10) (See also 2 Samuel 7:14; Nehemiah 4:15.)

3. Man cannot harm us beyond God's gracious will for us.
The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? (Psalm 118:6)
In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? (Psalm 56:11)

4. God promises to protect His own from all that is not finally good for them.
Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. (Psalm 91:14)

5 God promises to give us all we need to obey, enjoy, and honor Him forever.
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?"...Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33)
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

6. God is never taken off guard.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalm 121:4)

7. God will be with us, help us, and uphold us in trouble.
"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)
"For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, `Fear not, I am the one who helps you."' (Isaiah 41:13)

8. Terrors will come, some of us will die, but not a hair of our heads will perish.
Then [Jesus] said to them, ". . . there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.... and some of you they will put to death.... But not a hair of your head will perish." (Luke 21:10-11, 18)

9. I am immortal till it is God's appointed hour.
So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. (John 7:30) (See also John 8:20; 10:18.)

10. When God Almighty is your helper, none can harm you beyond what He decrees.
So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:6)
If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

11. God's faithfulness is based on the firm value of His name,not the fickle measure of our obedience.
And Samuel said to the people, "Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.... For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake." (1 Samuel 12:20—22)

12. The Lord, our protector, is great and awesome.
Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome. (Nehemiah 4:14)

13.The battle is the Lord's
“Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15).

14. God loves to comfort us in scary times.

I, I am he that comforts you; so are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass?” (Isaiah 51:12)

Warring over my fear for my peace and his glory,
Pastor Bill

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT YOU CAN PRAY

2011-10-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

I am always desiring to pray more effectively. On reason is that so many of my prayers as I listen to them come out of my mouth are all about me. So this week, I have gone back to the word of God to help hear the Father’s heart and what He would have me to pray for. Thankfully, He does not leave me to try to figure it all out. There are things that He considers very important. People ask me all the time about what is the most important thing that they should pray for? The best way to find out what is the most important thing to pray for is to learn to pray the heart of God that is revealed through the scriptures. It actually simplifies things when you stop trying to figure it out and begin simply praying the heart of God as revealed to us.

It seems that the apostle Paul was very concerned about love in his teachings and in his prayers (Read 1 Corinthians 13). He fervently prayed that God would make love grow in the hearts of Christians. "I pray that your may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment" (Philippians 1:9). "May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for
one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you" (1 Thessalonians 3:12). "[I pray] that you [would be] rooted and grounded in love" (Ephesians 3:17)." May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ" (2 Thessalonians 3:5).

It was an urgent plea when Paul prayed this way. Why? Because what is at stake in "increasing and abounding in love to one another and to all men" is immense. What is at stake is a compelling, supernatural demonstration of God's reality in world and the reality of God's nature is that He loves. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:7-8). Jesus described the impact of the unity of love like this: "[I pray, Father] they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may be in Us; that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory You have given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have I Me" (John 17:21-23). We may not fully understand this. But it is clear something tremendous is at stake in the practical unity of love in the body Christ.

Or consider John 13:34-35, where Jesus says, "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love one another." This is the one indispensable public mark of the Christian: visible, tangible, authentic. real love for other Christians. Jesus assumes that the world is watching this and that judgments are being made. He means it to be this way. He gives the world the seeming right to make these judgments about us.

Or consider Matthew 5:16: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." The glory of our heavenly Father is at stake in the pattern of good deeds that out from our lives. When the light of God is seen in deeds wrought in His power and love, men and women will treasure God and give Him glory.

On the basis of all these texts, it seems that growing in love is of paramount importance in these difficult days. Paul prays in Ephesians 3:17-19, "...that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." To grow in love is to grow in evangelism and missions and caring for others and marriage and relationships and how to get along people you disagree with; and virtually everything else Is it no wonder that Paul calls love "the greatest of these" (1 Corinthians 13:13)?

So, the most important thing that you can pray is to make a name for Jesus Christ by the radical difference of your love for Him, your neighbor, your brothers and sisters, your enemy, and your friends.

To that end I pray in the words of Paul, "May the Lord cause you [and me] to increase and abound in love for one another. ant for all people" (1 Thessalonians 3:12). This is the great work of God. The great and first fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). "Now faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

May the Lord encourage you by His Word and His Spirit what to pray for and to begin praying big sweeping things about his love. May you know that you can boldly and confidently ask for from the Father and know that He will answer!.

Praying for us to love more than ever,
Pastor Bill

LEARNING TO TALK TO YOURSELF INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO YOURSELF

2011-10-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls;all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. 9I say to God, my rock: "Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" 10As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?" 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God." Psalm 42:5-11 ESV

What do you think about during the day? Do you finding your mind saying things to you that strengthen you or weaken you? What emotions do your thoughts produce? Are your thoughts producing faith and trust and comfort and hope and peace and security and assurance? Or do they produce sorrow, grief, fear, anxiety, despair, hopelessness, fear, insecurity, anxiousness, and doubt? I have thought much about these matters because I have warred so much these past seventeen months. There have been days of great inner peace, tremendous resolve, confident hope, deep heartfelt gratitude, expectant faith, and inexpressible joy. But there have been other times of complete despair, utter darkness, feeling completely abandoned and alone, tremendous fear and anxiety, and totally lost. It always has to do with what is going on in my mind.

There is a major battle going on in your mind every day. Paul speaks of it this way: "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). He calls it the "fight the good fight of faith”. Fighting the fight of faith is the struggle to keep the faith. Every day is a battle in your mind to treasure Christ above all else, to keep on believing God, to keep on trusting his promises, to stay faithful, and to lay hold of eternal life over the promises of sin.

Paul Tripp writes,
The battle is in your mind where you are constantly involved in an internal conversation that greatly influences the things you decide, say, and do...What do you regularly tell yourself about yourself, God, and your circumstances? Do your words to you encourage faith, hope, and courage? Or do they stimulate doubt, discouragement, and fear? Do you remind yourself that God is near, or do you reason within yourself, given your circumstances, that he must be distant? Do you encourage yourself to run to God even when you don't understand what he's doing? Or do you give yourself permission to back away from him when you are confused by the seeming distance between what he's promised and what you're experiencing?....When others talk to you, is your internal conversation so loud that it's hard to concentrate on what they're saying?

So how do we fight these thoughts that lead to despair, anxiety, fear, and unbelief? We fight by preaching to ourselves the Word of God instead of listening to our unbelieving selves speak. I learned this from Martin Lloyd Jones in his book Spiritual Depression based upon Psalm 42. Listen to what he says. It has helped me greatly.

Listen to what he says. It has helped me greatly.

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you.’… The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’– what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’– instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.”

That is exactly what we must do. I have discovered that most of my unhappiness in life is due to the fact that I listen to myself instead of talking to myself! What we have each day is an internal conversation that never ends. It is ceaseless. It continues always within us. And so each day, throughout the day, we have two simple choices: We can either spend the day listening to ourselves, listening to ourselves in our constantly changing feelings and circumstantial interpretations, or we can spend each day talking to ourselves. We can talk truth to ourselves. We can preach the gospel to ourselves.

My mind cannot be trusted and my circumstances often lie to me. They informing me that God isn't sovereign, God isn't wise, God isn't kind, God isn't active, God isn't present, God doesn't love me, God won't help me, God isn't for me, in fact, he has forgotten me. Do you ever think that way?

THIS IS A BATTLE THAT I FACE EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE! Therefore, my only hope for victory is to preach to myself. I must talk to myself instead of allowing myself to talk to me! It is what I do when I am afraid, stressed, defeated, grief stricken, battling health, discouraged, depressed, tempted, losing hope, feeling useless, abandoned, lost, and overcome. I pull out my sword of God’s word, God’s promises and weld it against my mind.

Charles Spurgeon wrote the following about welding God's promises,

God's promises were never meant to be thrown aside as waste paper; He intended that they should be used.... Nothing pleases our Lord better than to see His promises put in circulation; He loves to see His children bring them up to Him, and say, "Lord, do as you have said." We glorify God when we plead His promises. Do you think that God will be any the poorer for giving you the riches He has promised? Do you dream that He will be any the less holy for giving holiness to you? Do you imagine He will be any the less pure for washing you from your sins? He has said, "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins...be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Faith lays hold upon the promise of pardon, and it does not delay, saying, "This is a precious promise, I wonder if it be true?" but it goes straight to the throne with it, and pleads, "Lord, here is the promise, do as You have said." Our Lord replies, "Be it unto you even as you will." When a Christian grasps a promise, if he does not take it to God, he dishonors Him; but when he hastens to the throne of grace, and cries, "Lord, I have nothing to recommend me but this, You have said it;" then his desire shall be granted. Our heavenly Banker delights to cash His own notes. Never let the promise rust. Draw the word of promise out of its scabbard, and use it with holy violence. Think not that God will be troubled by your importunately reminding Him of His promises. He loves to hear the loud outcries of needy souls. It is His delight to bestow favors. He is more ready to hear than you are to ask....It is God's nature to keep His promises; therefore go at once to the throne with, "Do as you have said."

The battle in my mind is a battle to believe the promises of God. And that belief in God comes by hearing the Word. And so preaching to ourselves is at the heart of the battle. You must take yourself, talk to yourself, question yourself, and preach God’s word to yourself. The victory comes not by looking at our grief, nor back to our past, nor round at our problems, nor projecting upon our future; but away and up to the living God. He is our help and our God, and if we trust Him now, we shall soon have cause to praise Him again. Thus, as one writer sums up, "faith rebukes despondency and hope triumphs over despair". Why restless, why cast down, my soul? Hope still, and you shall sing the praise of him who is your God, Your health's eternal spring. (Tate and Brady, 1696)

So stop listening to yourself; turn on him, speak to him; condemn him; rebuke him; turn on him; exhort him; encourage him; remind him of the truth; and don’t let him drag you down and depress you. Turn your outlook into an up look.

Let me give you some of my favorite weapons I use to preach to myself against my unbelieving thoughts:
• Psalm 16:8 have set the LORD always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
• Psalm 23:1-6, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.
• Psalm 27:13 – 14, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! “
• Psalm 31:14-16, “But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD; I say, "You are my God." My times are in Your hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, And from those who persecute me. Make Your face shine upon Your servant; Save me for Your mercies' sake."
• Psalm 46:1-2, “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear.”
• Psalm 50:15, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me."
• Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden on the LORD, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.”
• Psalm 57:2, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.”
• Psalm 73:25-26, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
• Psalm 112:6-8, “For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid.”
• Psalm 121:1 – 8, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”
• Psalm 123:1-3, “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us.”
• Matthew 28:20, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
• Matthew 7:7-8, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened."
• Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
• John 6:35 “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
• John 14:1-3 , “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
• Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
• 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “We do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
• Philippians 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
• Hebrews 13:5-6, "I will never leave you nor forsake you” So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"
• 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

These are but a few of my weapons that I use to preach to myself and fight the good fight of faith.
Pastor Bill

GOING DEEPER IN THE SCRIPTURE IN ORDER TO LET GOD BE GOD

2011-10-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9)

In a time of distraction by entertainment, technology, and the media the church needs deep thinking and deep feeling Christians. Growing and maturing Christians are always reading, exploring, and learning; especially in regards to the scripture. This is one of the reasons that I have started a new ministry. I have an ongoing frustration with weak, shallow, glib, overly simplistic, and lazy approaches to God and His word. I often hear pronouncements about the nature of God that if they were paid attention to, would raise more questions than answers. Not only that, would have profound practical, pastoral, and personal implications in our lives if thought out and many that are not good. I know, I have seen at times during my journey in my own immature teaching, the effects on the lives of those I have taught and counseled.

I have been studying the Bible for 37 years. Yet the more I read the scripture, the more I realize how little is my understanding of God and His ways. I am not so quick to make simplistic and glib pronouncements about God these days as I once was. Sometimes I listen to myself when I make shallow pronouncements and remind myself that a preacher can sometimes say things that he does not understand and make it seem like it's your fault. Reading God's word raises many questions for me that demand prayerful reflection and thought, careful analysis, humility, teachability, and openness to what God really says and means even if I do not agree with Him, like it, or understand. I often times use the analogy of a man who has a yard full of leaves and a buried treasure in the same yard. He can either quickly rake leaves and have a nice yard or he can work hard and dig for the gold and acquire that buried treasure! I am after the treasure not the nice yard.

The Bible is both simple, yet complex; light, yet weighty; easy to understand, yet extremely difficult. Did not the apostle Peter himself say that there are some things in Paul’s writings that are hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16)? Yet, we are also told that if we think, ponder, and reflect upon God’s word, that God will give us understanding (2 Timothy 2:7). Add to that, we have been given the gift of the holy Spirit to teach us, illuminate us, and guide us into all truth. When we pray like David in Psalm 119:18, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." The Spirit of God does His eye opening illuminating work.

This is the great challenge and joy for a lifetime of studying the scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15) which are profitable for teaching and training ( 2 Timothy 3:16). I am thoroughly committed to allowing the scriptures to set my beliefs, ideas, and understanding about God and His ways excited that God has revealed Himself to us (Deuteronomy 29:29). I Agree with David that the truths of God's word are wondrous things! But they are deep and demand effort in order to glean understanding. After all, they are from the infinite, eternal God!

For example, the longer I know Christ and the more that I understand His ways, the more that I am astounded at how He thinks and feels and wills. God's will is not a simple thing. He can will a thing in one sense and not will it in another sense. When we read that God wills a thing or that he does not will a thing; or when we read that he delights in a thing or that he has no delight in a thing, we must always be ready to admit that this simple statement of what he wills or delights in is not the whole story in our limited understanding. God's heart is capable of complex combinations of emotions infinitely more remarkable that ours. This is the great challenge of reading passages like Psalm 135:6; Ezekiel 18:23,32; and Deuteronomy 28:63. These verses need much prayer, reflection, openness, humility, and illumination in order to understand who God is and how that He operates in this universe.

When I read Psalm 135:6, “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. ” I discover that God always acts according to and for His own “good pleasure,” following the dictates of his own delights. He never becomes the victim of circumstance, or Satan or human decision. He is never forced into a situation where he must do something in which he cannot rejoice. This is a glorious picture of God in his sovereign freedom—to do whatever he pleases and to accomplish all his pleasure. God is not constrained by anything outside himself to do anything he does not want to do. If God were unhappy, if he were in some way deficient, then he might indeed be constrained from outside in some way to do what he is not pleased to do in order to make up his deficiency and finally to be happy. But, because he is complete and exuberantly happy and overflowing with satisfaction in the fellowship of the Trinity, all he does is free and uncoerced. His deeds are the overflow of his joy. This is what it means when the Scripture says that God does something according to the "good pleasure" of his will (Ephesians 1:5).

Psalm 115:3 says the same thing: "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases." This verse teaches that whenever God acts, he acts in a way that pleases him. God is never constrained to do a thing that he despises. He is never backed into a corner where his only recourse is to do something he hates to do. He does whatever he pleases. And therefore, in some sense, he has pleasure in all that he does. Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word (haphetz) in Isaiah 46:10 where the Lord says, "My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my pleasure."

In Ezekiel 18:30 God is warning the house of Israel of impending judgment: "Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord." And he is urging them to repent: "Repent and turn from all your transgressions." At the end of verse 31 he says, "Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I do not have pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord God; so turn, and live."

This seems to be a very different picture than the one we saw in Psalm 135, where God does whatever he pleases. How can God say that he does not have pleasure in the death of any impenitent person, if in fact He accomplishes all his pleasure and does whatever he pleases?” The very same Hebrew verb is used in Psalm 135:6 (“he pleases”) and Ezekiel 18:32 (“he does not have pleasure”).

So what does this mean? Here God seems to be cornered. It seems that he is forced into judging them when he really does not want to. He seems to be about to do something that he is not pleased to do. Is he going to accomplish all his pleasure or not? Is God really free to do everything according to his good pleasure? Or does his sovereign freedom have its limits? Can he do whatever he pleases up to a point, and then after that is he forced into doing things he only grieves to do?

Let’s add to this. What does it mean that God who takes pleasure in all that He does yet allows Satan to attack all that Job has? But then in Job 1:19 “a great wind” levels the house where Job’s children are and kills them all. The text does not say who caused the wind to blow. But in Job 1:21 Job himself says, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” So even if Satan has a hand in making the wind blow, Job knows that behind Satan is the real Ruler of the world and the wind, namely, the Lord. So he says, “The LORD has taken away.” Should Job have said this? The writer takes away all doubt that Job is right to say this, because in the next verse (1:22) he says, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”

What does it mean that God who takes pleasure in all that He does yet says in Isaiah says, “ I form light and create darkness, I make comfort and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). Or “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil [i.e.,calamity] come?” (Lamentations 3:38). Or “Does evil befall a city, unless the LORD has done it?” (Amos 3:6). So when Psalm 135 says that the Lord does whatever he pleases, it has to include the taking of personal life through natural forces which he alone controls. This can cause us to be deeply disturbed and confused by God both theologically and practically. It gets deeper.

In Psalm 135:8–10 it says that God’s sovereign freedom was shown most vividly in the Exodus when he delivered Israel from Egypt: “He it was who smote the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and of beast…who smote many nations and slew mighty kings.…” Therefore when the psalmist says in verse 6 that “whatever the LORD pleases, he does,” he refers explicitly to the destruction of rebellious Egyptians and nations and kings. This is the scope of what God does when he does all he pleases.

So going back to Ezekiel 32, it says that God is not pleased with the death of unrepentant people, and in Psalm 135 it says that God does whatever he pleases including the slaying of unrepentant people, for example, the enemies of his people in Egypt.

I would direct attention to Deuteronomy 28:63 where Moses warns of coming judgment on unrepentant Israel. But this time it says something strikingly different from Ezekiel 18:32: "And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you."

So what are we to make of all this? Is the bible confused? Is God confused? Are you confused? Are you angry? Are you disturbed? Do you negate one passage or the other?

Here is the truth as far as I can see: We are brought back to the inescapable fact that in some sense God does not delight in the death of the wicked (that is the message of Ezekiel 18), and in some sense he does delight in the death of the wicked (that is the message implicitly of Psalm 135:6–11 and explicitly of Deuteronomy 28:63).

Or to put it another way, there is a sense in scripture where even acts of judgment which in one sense do not please God in another sense do please him. Let us let God be God! Better yet, let us submit to the God of the bible in all of His God-ness and mystery, yet who has revealed wondrous things about Him that make Him God! Let us not be locked into reasoning's, speculation, and our finite logic; let us humbly let the scripture speak even if we are not fully able to understand. Our method is not to choose between these texts, or to cancel out one by the other, but to go deep enough into the mysterious mind of God to see (as far as possible) how both are true. How shall we account for this apparent tension?

The answer I propose (and I borrow from John Piper and Jonathan Edwards) is that God can be grieved in one sense by the death of the wicked, and can be pleased by the death of the wicked in another sense. God’s emotional life is infinitely complex beyond our ability to fully comprehend. Who of us could dare say what complex of emotions is not possible for God? All we have to go on here is what he has chosen to tell us in the Bible. And what he has told us is that there is a sense in which he does not experience pleasure in the judgment of the wicked, and there is a sense in which he does.

From this I conclude that the death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself no delight to God. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked! (Ezekiel 18:32,24).God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. He grieves over these things.

But...when a rebellious, wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God delights in is the exaltation of truth and righteousness, and the vindication of his own honor and glory. When Moses warns Israel that the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon them and destroying them if they do not repent (Deuteronomy 28:63), he means that those who have rebelled against the Lord and moved beyond repentance will not be able to gloat that they have made the Almighty miserable. God is not defeated in the triumphs of His righteous judgment. Quite the contrary. Moses says that when they are judged they will unwittingly provide an occasion for God to rejoice in the demonstration of his justice and his power and the infinite worth of his glory. Romans 9:22-23 says, “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”

Jonathan Edwards tackled the problem of how God and the saints in heaven will be happy in heaven for all eternity knowing that many millions of people are suffering in hell forever by proposing that it is not that suffering is pleasant to God and the saints in itself, but that the vindication of God’s infinite holiness is cherished so deeply.

In other words, God can view an event from these different sides and see in it something horrific and from another angle say that I ordained it for these holy purposes by which I rejoice with infinite approval and delight. God can see things that way. So can we in a far lesser measure in our own experience in life. We can look in our own life from different angles and see an event momentarily as undesirable and on another angle as exactly right. God has the capacity to view the death of the wicked from different angles and grieve, take no pleasure in it for itself; but also He can step back and approve and delight in it because of what it accomplishes.

It is so important that we see that God is not miserable in this world. Those who rebel in this world are unable to gloat that they have made the almighty miserable or have robbed Him of His joy. Or to put it another way, Satan will not be able to rejoice through all eternity that at least he has robbed God of His joy because people are in hell that God put there. This wonderful truth of Psalm 135:6 pulls that possibility right out of the devils hand! He cannot say that "I have a frustrated God because I have so many of His creatures in hell". No Satan, you do not have that power!!! Psalm 115: ,"Our God is in heaven, He does whatever He pleases."

So let us stand in awe and wonder at this amazing, unique, deep, profound, awesome, sovereign, purpose driven, and infinitely happy God, —eternally happy and infinitely exuberant in the wisdom of his work; free and sovereign in accomplishing His purposes!
"Our God is in heaven; he does whatever he pleases." Psalm 115:3

Pastor Bill

AWAKENING MY AMNESIA WITH A STORY OF AMAZING GRACE

2011-09-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

"And Samuel said to all Israel, "Behold, I have obeyed your voice in all that you have said to me and have made a king over you. 2And now, behold, the king walks before you, and I am old and gray; and behold, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my youth until this day. 3Here I am; testify against me before the LORD and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against me and I will restore it to you." 4They said, "You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man’s hand." 5And he said to them, "The LORD is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand." And they said, "He is witness." 6And Samuel said to the people, "The LORD is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. 7Now therefore stand still that I may plead with you before the LORD concerning all the righteous deeds of the LORD that he performed for you and for your fathers. 8 When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the LORD and the LORD sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. 9But they forgot the LORD their God. And he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them. 10 And they cried out to the LORD and said, 'We have sinned, because we have forsaken the LORD and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you.' 11And the LORD sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. 12And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, 'No, but a king shall reign over us,' when the LORD your God was your king. 13And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the LORD has set a king over you. 14If you will fear the LORD and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God, it will be well. 15But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you and your king. 16Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the LORD will do before your eyes. 17 Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the LORD, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking for yourselves a king." 18So Samuel called upon the LORD, and the LORD sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel. 19And all the people said to Samuel, "Pray for your servants to the LORD your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king." 20And Samuel said to the people, "Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. 21And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. 22 For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself. 23Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24 Only fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. 25But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king." 1 Samuel 12:1-25

One of the reasons that we fail to love God as we ought is because of spiritual amnesia. That is to say, we forget who God is and we forget who we are. God’s design in the Bible is that we come to know him and that we come to know ourselves. There are two revelations in Christianity: the revelation of God and the revelation of ourselves. We never really see ourselves until we see ourselves in the presence of God; and then we are appalled at the sight. In 1 Samuel 12, we see God revealing His greatness, and we learn about ourselves from the Jews in Samuel's time. And what we learn about ourselves are some of the subtle reasons why our understanding and love for God is so small. And the reason he exposes our sin in this way is to help us see our great need, and how He alone can meet it. Jesus says, "He who is forgiven little, loves little"(Luke 7:47)and "we love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

It is always good to be freshly reminded of God and ourselves in order to kindle the flames of love in our soul. I was reading 1 Samuel 12 and became re-amazed by grace all over again.

God was the divine king of Israel but Israel began demanding for an earthly king instead of a divine king (1 Samuel 8). In chapter 12:8-11 we read that the Lord “brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. But they forgot the LORD their God. And he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them.And they [the people of Israel] cried out to the LORD and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken the LORD and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you. And the LORD sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety.”

The point of those verses is to show that God was faithful as their divine king. When they cried to Him, He saved them. He gave them safety. What was their response? Verse 12, “And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me [Samuel], ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the LORD your God was your king.”

Can you hear the disbelief in Samuel’s voice? You asked for a king, when God was your king! What should Samuel do? The Lord had already told him in 1 Samuel 8:7-9, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. . . . Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel says in 1 Samuel 12:13b, “Behold, the LORD has set a king over you.” Then he calls on the Lord to give them a sign in thunder and rain, and he describes their sin as a great wickedness. Verse 17, “Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the LORD, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking for yourselves a king.”

Oh reader, can you see the light that God gives to awaken our spiritual amnesia? First, we learn from this how stiff-necked, rebellious, and unthankful we are. That’s why 1 Samuel 12 begins the way it does reminding the people how God saved them from Egypt, then gave them the promised land, and then rescued them from evil kings; and each time they forget God and go after other things. That is not just the story of Israel. It’s the story of humanity. It’s the story of my life and your life. How often, even as Christians, we are not consistent and steadfast in our affections for God. We have days we feel love and passion for Him and days that we don't. We have thankful days and unthankful days; and even our thankful days are not as thankful as they should be. Just think of how joyful and thankful you would be if your heart responded to God Himself and His ten million gifts with the admiration, appreciation, and gratitude that He is worthy of. So God in His kindness and love, awakens us by giving us pictures of ourselves in stories like this. He allows His people to drift into these kind of ungrateful and idolatrous seasons so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world held accountable before God (Romans 3:19).

Second, we learn from this how amazingly grace for sinners like us flows from God’s supreme allegiance to His own name in the midst of sin. Look at the amazing illustration of this in verses 19-22. In verse 19, the people are terrified at the sin they have committed against God. They say, “Pray for your servants to the LORD your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” The words that follow this are a picture of God's amazing grace to sinners. Samuel says to the people in verse 20, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.”

Do you hear what is being said here? Please read this again! Stop right there and be amazed. Let the light of the holy Spirit illuminate the eyes of your heart and enlighten your mind to hear this astounding statement. “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.” Isn’t that a misprint? Shouldn’t it say, “Be afraid; you have done all this evil.” But it says, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.” That is pure amazing, divine, undeserved, grace. God’s grace always treats us not the way we deserve: “Be afraid; you have done all this evil.” (Without grace that would be our deserved and our appropriate response.) But instead God speaks through the prophet a word that God treats us exceedingly, stunningly, stupendously better than we deserve: “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.”

How can this be? What is the basis of this grace? Not us! We have only done evil. We must never forget what sin is and how God sees it. What then? We’ve seen it already. Verse 22, "Don’t be afraid “for the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake.” God’s allegiance to His own name is the foundation of his faithfulness to you. If God ever forsook his supreme allegiance to Himself, there would be no grace for us. If He based his kindness to us on our worth, there would be no kindness to us. We are stiff-necked, rebellious, and ungrateful. Free, unmerited, undeserved grace is our only hope to be otherwise; and the basis of that grace is not the worth of our name, but the infinite worth of God’s name. Recall 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” God means for us to learn from this sin that the grace of our salvation is ultimately based not on our value to Him, but His value to Himself.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?" For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen Romans 11:33-36

My amnesia has been awakened and I again am amazed by grace, in awe with admiration, and in love with such a mighty and merciful God,
Pastor Bill

LESSONS LEARNED FROM JOSEPH

2011-09-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

"So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt." Genesis 45:8

"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." Genesis 50:20

I have been going through the most difficult time of my Christian journey these past 17 months. I have been trying to let go of my past, come to grips with my present, and look ahead with hope to my future. There have been moments of great victory,joy,healing, and progress. Conversely, there have been moments of defeat, severe depression, despair,loneliness,and wondering how I would make another day. It has been very difficult for me to let go of my past and the life that I once had so that I could move ahead into my destiny. God has been so faithful and gracious to me during this strange time and is teaching me much. He has used the story of Joseph to bring me perspective, healing, faith, and the courage to leave my old life and move on into my future. These are four lessons I have learned from him that I am currently reflecting on.

I. JOSEPH HAD A DEEP SENSE OF HOW BIG GOD IS

As most of you readers know, Joseph lost his parents, sibling, culture, food, language, freedom, and hopes in one day! Then in Egypt, while serving as a slave in the home of Potiphar; he was falsely accused of rape and sent to prison for years. A door opened for his release while in in prison, but he was forgotten once again. He languished in prison for at least ten more years. Yet he remained faithful as a seeker and lover and servant of God. Then an amazing thing happened and Joseph was pulled out of the pit of prison and was made the second most powerful man in all of Egypt. He walked with the Lord till his dying day and became a blessing to his family, Egypt, and the world.

Over and over throughout his life, Joseph saw the large, loving hand of God working through all of his pain and difficulties. He frequently affirmed that "it was not you who sent me here, but God". In doing so he affirmed that God mysteriously leads us into his purposes through darkness, loss, pain, and obscurity. God is the Lord God Almighty who has your history and my history, your life and my life, in His grip. He works in ways that are often very hidden to us. Joseph understood that God is at work, in spite of, through, and against our efforts and the efforts of others, to fulfill his purposes. (Philippians 1:6; Psalm 57:2; Psalm 138:8)

God never loses any of our past for His future. Every mistake that we make, every sin that we do, every decision people make that affect us, every detour we take in this journey called life, is under the hand of God and taken by Him and is used for His future purposes and blessings.God has used all these things for His purposes. thus Joseph could declare to his brothers, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." (Genesis 50:20;Romans 8:28)

I don't know why God allowed Joseph to go through such pain and loss. I don't know why God has allowed so much to happen in my life. So much remains a mystery. But in Genesis 37-50 and in my own life, I can see good things coming out of it. When we trace the hand and purposes of God, we can rest in His goodness and love.

II. JOSEPH WAS HONEST ABOUT HIS GRIEF AND LOSS

When he was reunited with his family, Joseph repeatedly wept.Genesis 45:2 relates the magnitude of his grief, "he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it." I am thankful that God does not despise us in our tears of grief and loss. I have wept every day for seventeen months. I can't help it, I feel hurt, grief, and pain over my past. Joseph did not rationalize or minimize those painful years; but out of his honest grieving of the pain, he was able to forgive and bless the brothers who betrayed him. And bless he did, providing for them financially to the end of his days. Joseph was able to look realistically at his pain, loss, and grief yet beyond that he saw that "God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors." (Genesis 45:7)

III.JOSEPH ALLOWED GOD TO DIRECT HIS LIFE, NOT HIS FEELINGS, WOUNDS AND PAIN

Joseph had plenty of reason to have feelings and thoughts like "I have no reason to exist","my life is a waste", "Why go on", "I am useless and worthless", "I should never trust others", "I'm a loser", "I don't want to feel anymore, it is too painful", "I have no future". I confess that these are exactly the kind of thoughts and feelings that I have had these past seventeen months. They have all paralyzed me and caused me to view my life with little faith, optimism, and hope. Oh how easy is it for us to be directed in the present and have a view for our future by past events, experiences, or tragedies. Joseph was very aware of his past. But he did not allow the events, the thoughts, and the feelings from the past to control the present and determine the future. He opened the door to God's future by breaking free from the past and living in what God had for Him in the now.

IV. JOSEPH PARTNERED WITH GOD TO BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS

When he was confronted with the brothers, Joseph could have destroyed them with his anger. Instead he joined God to be a river of blessing to them. He simply did what had become a lifetime practice of turning all his loss, sins, wrongs done, pain into a launchpad to follow the Lord God and to receive from Him what life and others had taken away. God always gave Joseph grace and favor, even during the pain and loss. He lived on God, not his feelings, circumstances, past, or others. That freed to live as a servant inside or outside of prison and trials. When moments came for decisions, he was ready. At that moment he chose to follow God and to be a blessing to others whether in Potiphar's house, prison, the palace, or facing his family.

So, I write this believing in a God of great purposes. I believe that I have been placed me into my life with particular trials, in a particular place, in a particular time in history. I don't see what He sees, but I am asking Him to show me the revelation and purposes that He has for me in His decision. I do not want to miss, waste, or be ungrateful to what he has given me. I want to let go of the past and move on into the future with confident hope and great expectancy. I want to learn from my past, be freed from my past, and not to be crippled by it. I long to be a blessing to my earthly family, my spiritual family, and the world at large.
With God's help, I will!

Pastor Bill

The Most Important Reason I Do Not Want To Sin

2011-09-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

"So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him..."For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised."
2 Corinthians 5:9,14-15 ESV

I have thought allot lately why I don't desire to sin. What is the most God-honoring reason not to sin? Is it fear of consequences? Is it fear of punishment? John Calvin says, "the truly pious mind restrains itself from sinning, not out of dread of punishment alone; but, because it-loves and reveres God as Father, it worships and adores him as Lord. Even if there were no hell, it would still shudder at offending him alone"

I am so very moved by this statement! Listen carefully again: "Even if there were no hell, it would still shudder at offending him alone." This thought compels me to ask: What accounts for my obedience to God? Why do I fear sinning? Is it merely because I know that discipline awaits me if I don't obey but rather persist in sin? Is there nothing in God besides his wrath that awakens me to holiness? Am I more concerned about negative consequences and bad feelings than pleasing Him? Am I motivated to seek righteousness for purely personal gain? Is self-interest at the core of my decision to heed his commands?

On one level there is nothing wrong with seeking to avoid judgment and the pains of hell. But should that by itself account for how we live? I think that the root of holiness is being in love with Jesus! Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, "For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for
themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised."

For Paul the love of Christ evokes self-restraint and service and reverence and worship and adoration. Calvin asks, "Were there no hell, he says, should we still not find him worthy of our devotion?" Is there not something beyond the prospect of judgment alone that energizes our hearts to adore him and our wills to obey him and our affections to delight in? Yes, says Calvin! The truly pious soul "loves and reveres God as Father" and "worships and adores him as Lord" irrespective of all other factors." God's intrinsic and inherent beauty, his glory as Father, and his power as Lord ought to be sufficient to stir our hearts to love and admire and worship him as it did for Paul."

N.P. Williams said, "The ordinary man may feel ashamed of doing wrong: but the saint, endowed with a superior refinement of moral
sensibility, and keener powers of introspection, is ashamed of being the kind of man who is liable to do wrong" That is what happens when
we love God.

I think an excellent illustration of this is recorded in the autobiography of the great missionary to Vanuatu in the South Pacific, John Paton. He records of the day of his parting from his beloved father to go off on the mission field.

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsel and tears on that part ing journey are fresh in my heart as if it had been yesterday. Tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then. For the last half mile we walked in almost unbroken silence, my father, as was often his custom, carrying his hat in hand, his long, flowing yellow hair streaming down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers for me, and his tears fell fast when our eyes met. We halted upon reaching the appointed parting place. He grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence, and then solemnly and affectionately said, "God bless you, my son! Your father's God prosper you, and keep you from all evil. Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in si lent prayer. In tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could. When about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him. Waving my hat goodbye, I was 'round the corner and out of sight in an instant.. But my heart was too full and sore to carry me farther, so I darted to the side of the road and wept for a time. Rising up cautiously, I climbed the dyke to see if he yet stood where I had left him. Just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dyke and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after he had gazed eagerly in my direction for a while, he got down, turned his face toward home, and began to return. I watched through blinding tears till his form faded from my gaze.

Now listen to and feel the emotion of John Paton as he reflected on this precious and most moving moment. It graphically and poignantly illustrates what I am trying to say:

Hastening on my way, I vowed deeply and often to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as God had given me.

What a father John Paton had! The feelings Paton had for his father were a deep reflection of his fathers greatness as a father. I never had the privilege of having a loving father like this. But oh does this story evoke in me feelings and thoughts that I have a precious and most wonderful Father in heaven! Ought this response that Paton felt be not all the more to be true of our relationship with God? Is he not infinitely deserving of glory and praise and honor and obedience for who he is, in himself, even before we consider what he will do should we fail to respond as we ought? Do you "shudder at offending him"? Oh that we would vow deeply and often to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father like our Father in heaven! Oh, that we would see what a loving Father He is that His love would constrain us not to sin!

Seeking to bring God nothing but glory and to live a life pleasing to Him,
Pastor Bill

CARING ENOUGH TO GIVE AND RECEIVE CORRECTION

2011-08-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.” Proverbs 9:7-9 ESV

A few weeks ago I wrote two blogs on the ministry of rebuke. The feedback that I have received has confirmed to me the need there is for the church to address this very important and necessary ministry both for the growth of the local church as well as the individual Christan. I feel this subject warrants a little more insight and discussion so I thought that I would focus on a beautiful example in the book of Acts.

In the book of Acts chapter 18 we read of a Jew named Apollos who was preaching in Ephesus. We read in verses 24-25 that, “He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue.”

At first glance it seems as though this man really has it going on; he is eloquent, competent, and orthodox in his doctrine about Jesus. But then in verse 26 we read, “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately”. There was apparently something wrong with the teaching of Apollos. We don’t know what exactly it was but Priscilla and Aquila deemed it important enough to need correction. So they took him aside privately and instructed him in his error. As a result, we read in verse 27-28 the outcome of their correction, “When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus”.

What a great little story this about caring enough for someone to confront them as well as becoming a person who welcomes correction like Apollos. The fact is that like Apollos, all of us at one time or another need correction. As I have mentioned before, left to ourselves, our self perception is about as accurate as a carnival mirror. The only way to see yourself correctly is to be willing and able to allow others to hold the mirror of God’s word in front of you. Hebrews 3:12-13 exhorts us to, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

We cannot escape the fact that personal insight is the product of being in relationship with other Christians. We cannot achieve full insight into ourselves on our own since each one of us still have sin remaining in us and have pockets of spiritual blindness. The problem for us is that we can be spiritually blind and think that we can see quite well.

Being told you’re wrong or doing wrong is never fun. It is easy to get offended when people act as if they see us better than we see ourselves. Yet, without others helping me to see myself clearly, I will listen to my own arguments, believe my own lies, and buy into my own delusions. I will forget the Biblical warning that “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but the wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15).

How do you receive correction from others? There is a range of responses we can make when others correct us that can reveal much about our character. In Proverbs 9:7—9, we learn that the wise and the fool are measured, at least in part, by their response to correction and reproof.
There are at least four responses to Biblical correction that I would like you to think about:

1. The Response of the Wise Christian

The wise Christian loves correction and pursues correction. They desire to live right and in truth. Because they love God and desire to live to please Him, they welcome the lamp of others insight for their continual sanctifying growth even if it is not 100% accurate. There is a heightened response to oppose sin in the wise Christian.

2. The Response of the Growing Christian

The growing Christian appreciates correction or at other times can receive it, but then in his pride begrudgingly accept correction. The growing Christian will sometimes be open and sometimes get defensive. Sometimes self-deception will get in the way of their ability to receive your correction. Yet the Holy Spirit will eventually guide them into the truth. Other times they may even appear to not receive correction but after prayer and reflection will usually humble themselves and be glad that they were corrected. The growing Christian is progressing in their knowledge of their own sinfulness and awareness that the help of others is needed in their battle with sin.

3. The Response of the Foolish Christian

The foolish Christian is immature pride and annoyed by correction and critically judges those who correct. They will get angry with you, defensive, tell you that you have no right to judge them, say they are answerable only to God or the Holy Spirit; they can become bitter, resentful, a victim or martyr about their correction, and they might even go to another church if they don’t like the correction they received. The foolish Christian is immature in their understanding of sin and its gravity in their life. They think that they are right with God and are growing in their walk, but they are self-deceived. The foolish Christian will not grow or progress in their lives until they are willing to humble themselves before God and others to receive truth.

4. The Response of the Scoffer

Notice I did not even call the scoffer a Christian. That is because the Proverb writers generally associate the scoffer with the wicked. The scoffer hates correction. They simply keep a relational distance from others in order to safeguard that nobody knows them. Therefore, no one will ever be qualified, able, or permitted to speak into their life. In their pride and rebellion they are unwilling to submit themselves to God and would rather live self-deceptively in their sins. As Aldous Huxley said, “Man cannot take too much reality.”

The reality for all of us is that we need to live our lives centered on the cross. The reality of the cross brings us to the place where we are reproved for our sin most directly. Looking at the cross of Christ shows God’s displeasure and wrath against all sin, including the sins that we refuse to see and others we do see. The cross devastates all of my foolish pride, self deception, and lies. Correction from others is not devastating to those who have already been devastated by the cross.

On our own none of us will ever be competent to recognize our own sin; we will always need help. Never forget that others see what you do not. By God’s loving grace others can impart clarity to help protect you from the hardening effects of sin. They are a gift from God to you in your battle against sin and you will never grow out of this need.

Be wise, thoughtful, and prayerful when you receive correction from God through others. When you humble yourself God will supply the blessing He promises. "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:5-6).

Now, let us consider, Priscilla and Aquila and the manner in which they corrected Apollos. Priscilla and Aquila had "heard" Apollos as he "began to speak boldly in the synagogue". I'm certain they were impressed with the "eloquence" and charisma of this young man, how he shared Biblical truth in a "mighty" and compelling way. They saw his heart and discerned his potential for Jesus Christ and the furtherance of His Kingdom. Yet, they quickly realized that although Apollos spoke "accurately" in one sense, his understanding of Jesus was very limited. To not help him would invariably dishonor God by giving people an incomplete Gospel and one lacking understanding, as well as hurting Apollos’ effectiveness.

Observe how they instructed Apollos more fully in Christian truth. Notice the way Aquila and Priscilla were patient and perceptive. First, they "took him aside." The NIV translates, "they invited him to their home." They took him aside privately.

Here are some Biblical principles to apply. First, do not tell others about other people’s sins, flaws, or issues you have with them period! Secondly, do not tell others that you are going to confront someone. Thirdly, do not confront others through email, long rebukes on answer machines, Facebook, text messages, through a letter, or telling someone else and having them do it for you. It is unbiblical, ineffective, cowardly, unloving, unfair, and inappropriate; and more often than not hurts and confuses the recipient.

Jesus instructs us in the proper manner in which to confront someone: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone” (Matthew 18:15). Notice our Lord’s clear instruction for correction. Jesus says “Go to the person”, “tell him his fault”, and “do it privately between you and him alone”. The key word to consider is the word “sins.” The word means missing the mark. The question is what mark Jesus is referring to. Is it God’s mark of righteousness or man’s mark of personal standards, personal affronts, or petty grievances? This qualifier alone would probably eliminate most of our confrontations. In the Old Testament, the word “sins” implied transgression or the breaking of the law. To break the law meant that a person was trespassing into areas that were unlawful and immoral. To break the law meant one was missing the mark of God’s holiness. In short, a clear violation of God’s word. In Apollo’s case, it must have been in his erroneous teaching. Romans 3:23 takes Christians one step beyond the law to tell them that when they sin, they invariably fall short of the glory of God. Since sin mars and distorts the reality of God; it means that all sin is about the diminishing and dishonoring of God and His glory. (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

There are several other scriptural guidelines for confrontation: Galatians 6:1, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” Hebrews 3:12-13, “See to it (We are responsible and accountable), brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage (Come alongside to help) one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.”

Priscilla and Aquila were obedient to the scriptures in confronting Apollos and did it appropriately. Priscilla and Aquila teach us the importance of the why and how of Godly correction. They were concerned about the means as well as the end effect of what they were trying to do. They obviously were gentle and tactful. They practiced what R.C. Sproul calls “The Judgment of Charity”. It is the right evaluation of others tempered with love. It is simply a judgment of love that causes us to speak the truth in an attitude and spirit of love. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). In their humility, they saw Apollos from a divine perspective, and they allowed this perspective to determine their attitude and approach towards him. They cared for Apollos and they loved God and His truth. What a beautiful balance. Paul calls it “Speaking the truth in love…” (Ephesians 4:15).

This is the key to effective confrontation. Some people focus upon speaking the truth and are harsh, critical, and ineffective in their confronting. Others focus so much on the loving part that they end up not confronting because they do not want to hurt or make the person feel bad. As a result, the person is never encouraged to face their sin and to be restored.

This Godly couple "explained to him the way of God more accurately." They "filled in the blanks" in his theology and experience. They were able to share with Apollos what he needed to know instead of confronting him harshly, they corrected him lovingly. Aquila and Priscilla had the essential ingredients for Biblical, Godly confrontation: tenderheartedness and tough mindedness. They were tender-hearted in their love and concern for their brother Apollos, and they were also tough minded in their love for God and truth.

As a result of their confrontation and correction, look at the outcome; it is a good one! Apollos became a great help to those who had believed, refuted the Jews in public, and proved the deity of Christ from the Scriptures. The on fire Apollos, got even more on fire! He proceeds to have a wider ministry. In 1 Corinthians 1-4 Paul will write appreciatively of Apollos ministry in Corinth and will speak of him as a fellow worker in God’s field. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.”(1 Corinthians 3:6) The fruitfulness of this man’s life was the result of humble confrontation by Priscilla and Aquila, and by Apollos humble reception of their correction.

May the Lord Grace each one of us to humbly receive and give correction for the glory of God and the souls of others,
Pastor Bill

LEARNING TO LOOK ALONG THE BEAM INSTEAD OF AT THE BEAM

2011-08-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

"When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others mocking said, "They are filled with new wine." Acts 2:1-13 ESV

I must confess that I am a born skeptic. My default response when I hear of miracles or signs and wonders is to immediately question, doubt, and look for a rational explanation for what I see or hear of. Now don't get me wrong,I have witnessed, experienced, and participated in many supernatural events over the course of my life and ministry. I have had visions, seen miraculous inexplicable healings, and have had extraordinary encounters with God. But...I have still been a skeptic and doubted.

I have gone to Pentecostal/Vineyard meetings and have watched behaviors that in my skepticism have cynically been determined by me to be nothing but learned behavior, auto-suggestion, manipulation, group psychology, hypnotism, wish fulfillment, self fulfilled prophecy, cultural expectations, parroted, mimicked or learned behavior, demonic, hysteria,and just plain flesh. In short, I have been able to in my own thinking, to explain away supernatural behavior and phenomenon through some combination of my own psychological or sociological theories of what was really going on.

I have been one confused person. On one hand, I have professed a theology of the reality of the supernatural, the miraculous, the perpetuity of the gifts, the power of God, healing, etc.; while on the other hand, generally denying most everything I have seen that does not fit into my grid and paradigm of how God operates in His universe.

Two things have happened to me that have changed my way of thinking. First, I was at a meeting a month ago where twice the Holy Spirit fell upon me and I went down on the floor. You have to understand, I don't do going down on the floor ( i.e. being slain in the spirit). I have been in meetings where everyone went down but me and I proudly boasted to myself that I did not succumb to charismania and emotionalism. But that night , something supernatural happened to me. Shortly after this, in front of the whole church, the pastor spoke words over me that could not have been spoken except by the Holy Spirit. He did not know me from Adam and read my mail so to speak. I instantly knew that God was talking to me. Finally, a group of people did nothing but gently and silently lay hands on me in prayer and the next thing I knew, in front of the whole church I was laughing hysterically and weeping tears at the same time. my pride could not stand it. I did not know what was happening to me, except that the Lord was on me and flooding my broken, despairing heart with overwhelming joy. My life has not been the same since that night.

The second thing that happened to me was reading C.S. Lewis. Lewis once wrote a profound essay titled "Transposition". In his essay, Lewis suggests, that there is a continuity between things that are natural and things that are supernatural; the reappearance of the supernatural in all the elements that make up our natural life. So the supernatural, for example in my life, expressed itself through human vehicles of laughter and falling down on the floor.

Lewis talks about the phenomenon of tongues on the day of Pentecost. An undeniable spiritual event , the descent of the Holy Spirit, expressed itself in the strange phenomenon of speaking in another language. To the bystanders at Pentecost it resembled to them and their understanding, drunkenness; today many scientific or rational observers would call it hysteria, babbling, or some nervous disorder. So how can such natural actions like falling down on the floor, laughing hysterically, or the movement of vocal cords express the supernatural power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God?

Lewis suggested the analogy of a beam of light in a dark tool shed. When he first entered a shed, he saw a beam and looked at the luminous band of brightness filled with floating specks of dust. But when he moved over to the beam and looked along it, he gained a very different perspective. Suddenly he saw not the beam, but, framed in the window of the shed, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 93 million miles away, the sun. Looking at the beam and looking along the beam are quite different.

The "post-modern" American church excels in techniques of looking at the beam. Another word for this is "reductionism". Reductionism is the process of reducing human behavior down to rational and explicable natural reasons.

This modern world is so adept at looking at the beam from every angle. It is a world hostile to faith. I know that I was and in the process I defined God right out of the equation and many Christians have done the same. Is it no wonder why we are seeing and hearing of amazing moves of God in Asia, Africa, and South America while the church in Europe has become irrelevant and non existent?

I am amazed that societies that take for granted the existence of an unseen supernatural world, seem to have no problem seeing who is along and behind the beam of a thunderstorm, a sunrise, a healing, a depression, a sickness, or unbroken habits. But we reductionists can explain them all and reduce all phenomenon to their component parts.

On the great day of Pentecost, think about how many missed God because of their reductionism? Are we doing the same? Reductionism has caused many of us to be trapped in our woodshed(Borrowing from Lewis's analogy) and miss going along the beam the glory of the illuminated trees, the sky, all the way to the sun! We will never have a sense of the greatness and power of God as long as we stay in the natural and do not follow along the beam to the supernatural. We will lose the "Godness" of God and his ability to do as Paul says in Ephesians 3;20, "far above anything we can ask or even imagine, according the power that works within us..." I want to challenge you to begin looking at the beam of a person falling down, speaking in a tongue, laughing in church, shaking, crying, wailing, etc. ; but also to be looking along that beam and see that behind human behavior (that may seem weird or uncomfortable to you), the Holy Spirit and the power of God are at work.

Looking from a reductionist perspective as I did, most spiritual phenomenon had a natural explanation. Soon a sinner repenting was contrived emotionalism; the day of Pentecost for first century witnesses, an outbreak of drunkenness; being slain the spirit, self hypnosis; but, faith, looking along the beam, sees natural acts as sacred carriers of the supernatural power of God.

As I have begun looking along the beam, I still get uncomfortable with some things that I see.I find myself resorting to my default reductionism at times. When I do that, I am missing out on God being God to His glory. The fact is that I need to learn from the Day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost is a perfect picture of the beam and the source: God's voice on earth, speaking through human beings in a manner that there could not even comprehend.

When I look along the beam I am beginning to see God along the beam of the weird stuff that I don't understand. I have chosen to begin looking along the beam for now on. I want to be open to God being God and looking for His hand behind the natural events I see. I want to be okay if I don't understand the beam if along the way it is leading to the living God. I do not want to go back to a safe, controlled, confined, doubting, skeptical, unbelief any more. If I stay on just looking at the beam in the woodshed I will miss the glory of the Son of God who comes into time and our natural world and our human bodies and does strange, wonderful, and marvelous supernatural things in our world.

Looking along the beam,
Pastor Bill

THE MINISTRY OF REBUKE Part 2: Giving and Receiving Rebuke

2011-08-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have been very pleased with the response to last week's blog as I discussed the "why" and the "when" of the very necessary and highly valued "ministry of rebuke". It is one thing to know why we ought to rebuke others and be rebuked, as well as the timing of rebuke; but it is another thing to know how to give rebuke and how to receive rebuke. This makes or breaks us and others.

I must confess I have given many impetuous, impulsive, anger driven, reaction based, selfish, harsh, unkind, destruction aimed, ineffective, hurtful, and sinful rebukes in my 37 years of being a Christian. I can also say I have received many of the same from my friends, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ over the years. That is why I am so concerned about the how of giving rebukes and the how of receiving rebukes.

How to Rebuke

1. Know who you are.

Some people hate conflict. They probably need more of it. Others run into it. They need to chill. If you can’t wait for your next opportunity to rebuke, take a little Sabbath from being the Holy Spirit in everyone’s life. It’s like C.S. Lewis said, the hard sayings of Jesus are only good for those who find them hard. Anyone who is eager to rebuke is not ready to do so.

2. Check your heart.

Are you getting in his face so you can serve your notice of indignation, or are you going to serve their sanctification? This is utterly key. There are many times that I have disqualified myself from rebuking someone because my heart was not right towards that person. The key principle that we find in the word is from the apostle Paul who exhorts us to be “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). In short, to rightly rebuke we must love God, love God’s truth, and love people!

Consider this wisdom: “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding” (Prov. 17:27). And, “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention” (Prov. 15:18). In other words, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Or as James puts it, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person by quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20).

3. Check your eye. As in, is there a plank in it.

Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”

Jesus is warning us about the danger of wrong judgment: the general human tendency to see the faults of others while casually overlooking our own. He is saying, don't be disapproving. Don't conduct your life with a judgmental or negative or critical attitude. In this sense, to judge means: to assess others suspiciously, to impute worst case motives on someone, to find petty faults, to seek out periodic weaknesses and failures, to cultivate a destructive and condemning spirit, to presume a position of authority over another. In other words, your motive is crucial!

You judge someone wrongly when you assume that you know all of the pertinent facts and motives behind the person’s words or actions. You judge someone wrongly when you set up human standards, rather than holding to God’s word as the standard. You judge someone wrongly when you do not first judge your own sin before trying to help him with his sin. That is Jesus’ point in Matthew 7:1-5. He does not say that it is wrong to help your brother get the speck out of his eye, but rather, before you try to do so, deal with the log in your own eye. If you went to an eye doctor to remove a speck from your eye and he had a log protruding from his eye, you would not want him to touch your eye! And, from the other point of view, if you haven’t removed the log from your own eye, you will come across as arrogant and lacking in compassion if you try to help a brother with his speck. Removing our own logs has a way of humbling us! Jesus says we see clearly.

Oh how often when I see clearly, the specks are not even there. And if they are then grace and love radically affect how I deal with my brother’s speck! By speaking about judging your brother in this way Jesus is reminding us of the profound and deep relationship that God has brought us with the one whom we are judging. This suggests a beautiful and radical new way that we are to relate to one another in the body of Christ. This is especially important in regards to our attitudes towards one another. If my fellow believers are viewed as chosen by God, that God has previously acted on them and is presently acting on them, if they are ones for whom Christ died, who are loved and cherished by God, and with whom we will spend eternity with in heaven, we will not only guard our words about them, we will guard our thoughts about them! If we are going to live humbly before God, and therefore live in the light of his Holiness and our sinfulness and if we are going to be instruments of grace towards our brothers and sisters in the power of grace, then we must abandon the deeply rooted sinful practice of judging others. Oh how God wants to make you the kind of person who cares for others instead of condemning others.

4. Don’t be loud if you can be soft.

Galatians 6:1 says restore your brother gently. 2 Timothy 2:25 tells us to correct our opponents with gentleness. A gentle answer, Proverbs tells us, turns away wrath (15:1). It was always Paul’s desire to come in a spirit of gentleness; the rod was only a last resort (1 Corinthians 4:21; cf. 2 Corinthians 13:10). You see a pattern here? Try gentleness first. Don’t be the one whose rash words are like sword thrusts (Proverbs 12:18).

Immature Christians only have one decibel level. Some don’t know how to whisper and some don’t know how to scream. The goal is to administer the rebuke as softly and gently as possible. In most situations, the trumpet blast should come only after you have tried the flute first. Don’t launch the nukes at the first sign of trouble. Try diplomacy, then sanctions, then warnings, then strategic targets, then air, then sea, then ground, then start consulting about the big red button. Don’t punch them in the gut if an arm around the shoulder will do the trick.

5. Ask yourself, will this rebuke give grace to this person.

The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:29, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear". The bottom line of giving correction biblically is that the person we rebuke is given grace by our rebuke: soul edifying, life transforming, and God glorifying.

6. Above all, we need to strive for what R.C. Sproul calls The Judgment of Charity.

It is the evaluation of others tempered with love. It is simply a judgment of love. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). Charles Simeon once said, “let us sit on the seat of love instead of judgment.” It is the golden rule with skin on it. The judgment of charity gives the benefit of doubt while fleeing the temptation toward heartless and cruel denunciation. The man or woman with this quality makes allowances for the weaknesses and ignorance of others and takes the kindest perspective whenever possible. The Christian loves to make allowances for the weaknesses of others, knowing how great need he stands in constantly having made allowance made for himself by both God and man.

How to Receive Rebuke

1. Consider the source.

Ask yourself: is this rebuke coming from someone I trust and respect? Is it from someone I know and someone who knows me? Is this person out to lovingly and sincerely help, restore, and correct me, or are they out to hurt, control, or wound me? Is this person someone to whom I am accountable–a spouse, an elder or pastor,a closely knit friend, brother or sister that you are in fellowship with, or an employer? We can’t take every rebuke to heart. But ignoring every unflattering assessment is foolish too.

2. Consider the substance.

Pray about the hard word spoken to you. Is there any substance to what they say? Is this an issue that can be demonstrated by scripture that needs correcting? Ask others what they think. Maybe this rebuke needs as Spurgeon says, your blind eye and deaf ear. Jesus was rebuked by Peter, so not every correction hits the mark. If you take an honest, humble look at the rebuke and it does not seem to fit. Don’t wear it. Forget about it. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4 “My conscience is clean.” That did not mean he was necessarily acquitted before God, but as far as he could tell, he had not sinned. So he moved on.

But sometimes we do screw up. Even the best of men are men at best. I doubt many of us are over-rebuked. Most of us, myself included, would probably do well to receive more specific correction. So consider the source, consider the substance, and be prepared to grow.

3. Consider the sin.

We will never benefit from rebuke (and our friends will be scared to tell us the truth) if we are never open to the possibility that we might have sin that needs rebuking. i have found many in the body of Christ say how teachable they are until they are rebuked. There are few things more necessary in a child of God than being teachable. “A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool” (Proverbs 17:10). Or more to the point: “He who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1).

C.J. Mahaney tells the story of a man in a thousand dollar suit, driving a Ferrari, wearing a Rolex watch who he observed eating lunch one day, got up and forgot to wipe the cream cheese off his mustache. Mahaney wondered if he went to his next meeting with the cream cheese there on his face. Did anyone tell him? Who? What if no one did? The fact is we all have cream cheese moments in our life.As a matter of fact, you have cream cheese on your face right now. You may not see it, but it is there. Others see it clearly and you need their help to identify its presence. Our self perception is about as accurate at times as a carnival mirror. If we are going to see ourselves clearly, there are times we need others to hold up the mirror of God's word in front of us in order to help us to see.

Without others help to see myself clearly, I'll listen to my own arguments, believe my own lies, and buy into my own delusions. I'll forget God's warning in Proverbs 12:15, "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,but a wise man listens to advice".

4. Consider the Savior.

Jesus sees all your sins right now. Why not see them for yourself? The way of godliness is the way of confession, cleansing, and change. One of the reasons we are not really changing, is because we are not really confessing. And we are not really confessing because we are not really seeing. And we are not really seeing because few of us love enough to give a rebuke and very few are humble enough to receive one.

But in the end, we have a lot to gain with rebuke–a restored brother, a conquered sin, a greater sense of the Savior’s love–and we have got nothing to lose but our pride.

Learning about giving and receiving rebuke in truth and love,
Pastor Bill

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MINISTRY OF REBUKE? Part 1

2011-08-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

Have you been rebuked by anyone lately? Have you rebuked anyone lately? What was the outcome? I have been the blessed recipient of some very truthful and loving rebukes over the past 15 months (To which I am exceedingly grateful) and I have also needed to give some rebukes as well. I have also noticed that in attending other churches and fellowships that the body of Christ is very weak in this area. In the body of Christ I have found to be two kinds of Christians: those who like to rebuke and do it often and those who are scared to rebuke and never do it. The irony is both kinds of Christians are prone to sin. Those who enjoy giving a good rebuke are usually the least qualified to give one, while those who would rather do almost anything else are often the very people who would serve the body best with their correction.

We live in a strange day. With email, blogs, texting, and social media, rebuking has never been easier. And yet in a culture of hurt feelings and thin skin, rebuking has never been more suspect. Often times in church life, we consider it intrusive to correct someone. Some of us think that it is not our place to judge. I call it "sloppy agape". Some of us value relationships over truth and maintaining peace at all costs. So we supposedly stand for love, but not for truth. I have been at meetings where young or immature believers spoke complete erroneous statements and the leader or mature believers just smiled approvingly and did not even attempt to gently correct. I have seen someone post something on FB that was in error theologically or mean spirited or wrong and proceed to see 25 people say how good that comment was without one word of correction. I have seen churches or groups where it is known about a behavior, attitude, or speech of someone that is sinful and everyone buries their head in sand and refuses to deal with it (That is, if they themselves even know that it it is sinful, wrong, or harmful to the person and the body of Christ.)

But I have also seen people who are truth oriented and not love and relationship oriented. They can be very invasive, intrusive, harsh, critical, hurtful, mean spirited, and ineffective when it comes to rebuking others. Some give rebukes where no rebuke is needed. Others like to tell people what to do or have some control or power over others. Some truly are judgmental and critical when it comes to relating to others.

So which is it? Should we rebuke or should we not rebuke? Do Christians rebuke too much or too little? Well, of course, that depends. Some Christians rebuke too much, while others rebuke to little. So let's look at the art of rebuking. I will break this down into four headings: Why we rebuke. When to rebuke. How to rebuke. How to receive rebuke. The first two, I will discuss this week, and we will conclude with the remaining two next week. I hope you will read both blogs because all four sections go together.

Why Should We Rebuke?

1. It is the biblical thing to do.

When Peter came to Antioch, Paul opposed him to his face because he stood condemned (Galatians 2:11). Bravo to Paul for dishing it out, and kudos to Peter for taking it to heart. “Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence, reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge” (Proverbs 19:25).

We are supposed to correct one another (see Matthew 18). It’s strange that we get correction in school, correction from parents, correction from employers. Yet in the rest of life, in the stuff that matters most, people will rarely dare to tell us hard things. Every bit of Scripture is useful for reproof (2 Timothy 3:16). If we only use the Bible to tell people things they want to hear we’re wielding a single edged sword.

There is a beautiful instance we find in Acts 18:25-28 where there was "...a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus."

Notice that Apollos was gifted but a novice in terms of doctrine. Priscilla and Aquilla heard him preach and took him aside privately to rebuke or correct him in the "way of God". What was the outcome? Apollos helped the believers, refuted the Jews, and showed in the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. Now that is what I call a beautiful, successful, textbook rebuke.

2. It is a loving thing to do.

“Those whom I love,” Jesus said, “I reprove and discipline” (Revelation 3:19). He didn’t say, “I love you so much, but I still have to rebuke you.” He said, “Because I love you, I will rebuke you.” The reason we don’t rebuke more often is not because we are so full of love, it is because we do not truly love. We like people to think well of us. We like our relationships to be easy. As one writer said: “the opposite of love is not correction, but indifference.”

And yet, if you rebuke or discipline, people will say you are not loving. Just count on it. We live in an age that is emotionally fragile, easily hurt, and quickly offended. People don’t make arguments, they emote feelings. They don’t respond to logic, they claim that you use your logic in a mean way. So don’t be surprised when people equate rebuking with reviling. If you dare to correct a friend, he may think you hateful, judgmental, and meddlesome. But Jesus said, “those whom I love, I reprove.”

3. Rebuke protects you from hurting others and from hurting yourself.

It also protects the flock from false teachers and evil doers. One of the chief responsibilities of the elder or pastor is that he be able to rebuke (2 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:9, 14; 2:15). A leader who never rebukes sin and never corrects false teaching is not protecting his flock. And he who refuses to protect refuses to love.

In Ezekiel 3:16-21, the leaders were likened to watchmen on the city walls. That’s what the elders are to be (Acts 20:26-31). If we see enemy doctrines or enemy sin in our midst, we must warn the city, lest we have blood on our hands. Correction is our calling.

4. Rebuking restores.

The goal of a rebuke, like any kind of discipline, is always restoration. It’s not punishment it is correction. A loving rebuke is not supposed to be like a gunshot, but like a flu shot. It may hurt, but the goal is to help you get healthy. “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).

When Should We Rebuke Someone

1.We should rebuke someone the more hurtful the action or error.

If your friend keeps talking about Calvinism and Arminianism and thinks the last book of the Bible is Revelations, a corrective word at the right moment might be in order but a full-fledged rebuke is not. On the other hand, when someone’s sin is ruining a marriage, killing a church, grinding down your small group, or destroying their own soul, you had better get on the rebuking train. And fast. I have seen the results in my own life and ministry when I failed to deal with these matters. It never is pretty.

2. We should rebuke someone the more potential there is for the issue to escalate into a bigger problem.

For example, say you are over a friend’s house and you hear her snap rather inappropriately at her children. You could probably overlook the incident. But if your friend snapped at three other families’ children in the hallway at church, you better talk to her. There’s a real possibility this mole hill will becomes a mountain unless she does something to address her mistake.

3. You should rebuke a person the more the person is blind to it.

Christians who make mistakes and feel terrible about it don’t need a rebuke. They need the Savior. But it’s a different story when your brother or sister does not see the problem. Suppose you begin to notice that one of the couples in your small group never seems to get along. You sense coldness and hostility in their marriage. But they’ve been open with the group that they are seeing a biblical counselor for help. Probably no need to rebuke what they already see. But if they were blind to their problems, someone needs the courage to confront.

4. You should rebuke a person the more habitual the problem is.

An errant swear word is bad, but depending on the situation may not require your rebuke. But where there’s a habit of letting the filth fly, reproof is in order. When Christians fall into sin they need a hand up. When they fall into the same sin in the same place day after day, they need a kick in the pants first.

5. You should rebuke a person because if you don't, the more you will be held account for your silence.

We don’t all have to rebuke the President when we think he makes a mistake. We can in a free country, but unless we are his advisers, friends, or family it isn’t incumbent upon us to do so.

Likewise, we don’t have to rebuke every wayward Christian author, pastor, or church (that would be daunting). No one is responsible for speaking into everyone’s life on every issue (praise God for that). But for your children, your spouse, your close friends, your accountability partner, your flock, that church member who invited correction in his life–for these people our silence in the face of sin will not be golden.

6. You should rebuke a person the more the name of Christ is dishonored.

We must distinguish between honest struggles that are part of the normal upward trajectory of the Christian and flagrant sins that embarrass the cause of Christ. Yes, every sin dishonors Christ. But some are more egregious, more public, more high-handed. These are especially harmful to our Christian witness and deserve a sterner rebuke.

7. You should rebuke a person the more the gospel is threatened.

Young zealous Christians sometimes don’t get this one. Every theological error looks and smells exactly the same to them. But they are not all the same. Some matters are of first importance, which means others must be secondary.

To be continued...

Pastor Bill

FROM THE KINGDOM OF NOISE TO THE KINGDOM OF QUIET

2011-08-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

"When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Revelation 8:1)
“The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (Habakkuk 2:20)
“Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near” (Zephaniah 1:7)
“Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zechariah 2:13)

Heaven is place where everything that is not music is silence and Hell is the kingdom of noise.

If you read the book of Revelation, you will notice that the author of Revelation, the apostle John, takes us back and forth between scenes of heaven and scenes of earth; of moments in past time, moments of future time, and scenes of eternity.What a fascinating book! Throughout the first seven chapters of Revelation, there are several heavenly scenes, and in each we see scenes of great worship, celebration, and jubilation. But, Revelation is full of surprises, and at the beginning of chapter 8 is one of the greatest. Instead of the expected escalation in the noise level, there is complete silence in heaven. This silence is the climax to the worship going on in heaven around the throne. Having sung their praises, these creatures, both heavenly and earthly, shut up. In silence they worship their Creator and their Redeemer. Silence is the climax of their worship, not an interruption of it. Silence enhances their worship, not diminishes it.

The writer George MacDonald wrote of heaven,
Heaven is a place where everything that is not music is silence.

We live in a noisy world and amidst noise at all times; the clamor of talk radio, the barrage of texting, the blaring of music,the ring of cell phones, the drone of cars, the voices of Madison Avenue. the clang of the cash register, the endless thoughts that we carry with us at all times.

In The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis makes an interesting observation about noise in a fictional letter between a senior devil and a new tempter:

“Music and silence – how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell … no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise – Noise, that grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile – Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anywhere like it.”

Noise – as described above, is more than just a loud cacophony of discordant sounds. It is all thoughts and distractions which make it impossible for us to hear the sweeter and more important melodies of life that constantly surround us. This noise is found in many forms and, interestingly enough, assumes the quality of being noise not so much by the sound it makes as much as by the setting it is found in. What might be beautiful and uplifting in one setting becomes noise in another.

We live noisy lives. I don’t mean just the audible noise to which we are exposed. We are constantly bombarded with more and more items clamoring for our attention. One of the more insidious aspects of noise is that it becomes addicting.We can get into our cars and immediately turn on the radio. We can hear the cell phone ring and have to answer. I cannot tell you how many times I have been with someone who allows their cell phone or texting to interrupt our conversation as if it is something really important. We can come home from work and turn on the television or put on music. We are all vulnerable to allow noise to be a part of our surroundings. “If we try to be quiet, we are assaulted by what C.S. Lewis called ‘the Kingdom of Noise.’ Everywhere we go we hear background noise. If the noise isn’t provided for us, we can bring our own via our iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Even our church services can have that same restless energy. There is little space to be still before God. We want our money’s worth, so something should always be happening. For many of us, a moment of silence in church seems awkward and uncomfortable.

All of this seems innocent enough, but what is it costing me? how often are thrown back into the Kingdom of Noise and lose our precious contact with the Lord of Silence. When noise becomes my natural environment, I struggle to hear the whisperings of the spirit. If I favor noise to human interaction, I am missing out on the conversations and experiences that will bind me closer to those who matter to me. And, the more immersed I am in noise, the more my inner core becomes attuned to the frequencies of the world. When I stop to think about all this I am convinced that noise is one of the many subtle tools that Satan uses to create distance between us and our Heavenly Father.

All of us are like the soundboard of a piano, reverberating and amplifying the sounds that we are associated with. By putting ourselves in close proximity to our Heavenly Father in our thoughts, actions, and surroundings, we can tune ourselves to the appropriate heavenly pitch we are meant to echo and reflect. Fortunately for us, these divine influences surround us every bit as much as the noise does. The difference is that we must be properly tuned to hear and experience them. Once we learn to identify these uplifting influences they can become so powerful that they eliminate the distractions of worldly noise.

To be properly tuned we need to recognize the role of noise in our everyday life and eliminate its influence as much as possible. This doesn’t mean that we can never listen to our favorite music or watch movies again (unless they drive the Spirit away by their very nature). It means recognizing when these influences become noise and then being prudent with our time and resources. The natural result of this exercise will be to fill our time with worthwhile activities that are more in line with what our Heavenly Father wants for us, and this is the second half of the solution. These worthwhile activities will expose us to heaven’s sounds and make them easier to hear and recognize.

If we eliminate noise we will begin to recognize that our Heavenly Father is not an absent parent. He is always there for us, as long as we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand. We will then join the ranks of those who realize as Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote that,

“Earth is crammed with heaven and every bush is aflame with the light of God, but only those with eyes to see take off their shoes.”

May we embrace silence and learn to quiet all the inner and outer voices in order to hear God's voice. God revealed Himself to Elijah in "a still and small voice" (Literally a "sheer whisper") (1 Kings 19:12). I have found silence and quiet to be full of God's presence. Try this week turning off the cell phone for a moment, turn down the answer machine, turn off the radio and television, stop multi-tasking, go away from superficial, empty conversation, and be still not just to be still, but to know that He is God. Let us learn to worship our Lord sitting silent--in patient waiting for His Voice to comfort us, to lead us, to teach us, to refresh us. Let us abolish the Kingdom of Noise with our soothing melodies of solitude, with our quiet chorus of silence.

In stillness and simplicity
In the silence of the heart I see
The mystery of eternity
Who lives in side of me
In stillness and simplicity
I hear the Spirit's silent plea
That You, oh Lord, are close to me
In stillness and simplicity
You're the Word
Who must be heard
By those who listen quietly
Is the reason we're not still
To hear You speak because
We don't believe
You will
In stillness and simplicity
I lose myself in finding Thee
Oh Lord,
You mean so much to me
In stillness and simplicity
So, seek the One who dwells in you
The kingdom that within is true
That innermost reality
In stillness and simplicity
Michael Card

Breaking free from the Kingdom of noise,
Pastor Bill

THE GLORY OF GOD FOR DUMMIES LIKE ME: A PRIMER Part 6

2011-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Psalm 50:23, "Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God."
Romans 4:20, "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God."
1 Peter 4:11, "If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

I have been writing a primer on the glory of God. We have learned that it is something you see or reflect upon or point to rather than define. It is Christ’s beauty of his perfection, His worth, and His moral excellence in His character AND SO MUCH MORE! I made a statement, “The deepest longing of the human heart and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are summed up in this: the glory of God.”

God means for us to see His glory with our eyes, know His glory in our minds, and relish his glory in our hearts, and reflect his glory in our lives. God has made us to see His glory, to savor his glory, and to show His glory. God says in Isaiah 43:7, "Everyone who is called by My name…I have created for My glory..." That means that we were all created to express the infinite worth of God's glory.

So we have been learning about the glory of God, what it is, how seeing it affects us, and what it means to fulfill our duty and highest purpose. Our duty and privilege is to conform to this divine purpose namely, to reflect the value of God's glory-to think and feel and do whatever we must to make much of God, to magnify Him, to increase His fame and renown. Our reason for being, our calling, our joy is to render visible the glory of God.

Today I want to share some implications of the ways we bring glory to God.I am thankful to John Piper who has given me these pointers by which I am expanding upon.

When we do evangelism it means more than simply giving gospel facts and information. It means depicting the beauty of Christ and his saving work with a heartfelt urgency of love that labors to help people see Jesus for who He is and to savor Him for all that Her is worth. Christ is glorified in evangelism when we help people to come to love and treasure Him. (Matthew 5:14-16)

Similarly true, authentic, biblical, Christian preaching, as part of the corporate worship of Christ’s church, is the preacher treasuring over the glories of God in his word, designed to lure God’s people from the fleeting pleasures of sin into the sacrificial path of obedient satisfaction in Him.(1 Peter 4:11)

The essence of authentic, corporate worship in song is the collective experience of heartfelt love, pleasure, cherishing, and satisfaction in the glory of God, or a trembling that we do not have it and a great longing for it. (Psalm 29:2; 50:23)

World missions is a declaration of the glories of God among all the unreached peoples, with a view to gathering worshippers who magnify God through the gladness of radically obedient lives. (Psalm 96:3)

Prayer is calling on God for help so it is plain that he is gloriously resourceful and we are humbly and happily in need of grace.(Psalm 50:15)

All ministry is meant to be done in humble dependence of the strength He supplies so that He receives all the glory. (1 Peter 4:11)

The work of the Spirit in the life of a believer is meant to produce God glorifying fruit. (John 15:8; Galatians 5:22-23)

The way to magnify God in death is by meeting death as gain.(Philippians 1:21)

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)

"It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always, Christ shall be honored in my body, whether by life, or by death." (Philippians 1:21)

The only right way to live, serve, work, worship, eat, and drink is when we do it to His glory.

A PRAYER

0 Father of glory, this is the cry of our hearts-to be changed from one degree of glory to another, until, in the resurrection, at the last trumpet, we are completely conformed to the image of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Until then, we long to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord, especially the knowledge of his glory. We want to see it as clearly as we see the sun, and to savor it as deeply as our most desired pleasure. 0 merciful God, incline our hearts to your Word and the wonders of your glory. Wean us from our obsession with trivial things. Open the eyes of our hearts to see each day what the created universe is telling about your glory. Enlighten our minds to see the glory of your Son in the Gospel. We believe that you are the All-glorious One, and that there is none like you. Help our unbelief Forgive the wandering of our affections and the undue attention we give to lesser things. Have mercy on us for Christ’s sake, and fulfill in us your great design to display the glory of your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
John Piper

Longing for us to go deeper in seeing, savoring, and showing His glory,
Pastor Bill

LIFE AS A STORY

2011-07-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

"God works all things to the good for those who love Him" Romans 8:28
"What you intended for evil, God intended for the goo and the saving of many lives." Genesis 50:20

Today I had an epiphany that I must muse upon for awhile. I thought of life as a story. There is the story itself, the story that I want it to be, and the story that God is writing. Many of my disappointments, discouragement's, and frustrations with God are due to the fact that He is not writing my story the way that I desire. Often times His seeming silence is simply my ears turned deaf to the story that He is writing in my life. In difficult moments, I am in the middle of His story. If instead of despairing,or becoming frustrated,disappointed, and angry with the story God is writing; what I need to do is look for traces of His hand as He writes my story. II must surrender to the supreme author and stay in the story that He is writing. It will inevitably make for a much better story than the one that I would like to write anyway and it will inevitably lead to a very happy ending.

I am watching and listening to the story and the painting and the weaving of the tapestry of my Father in Heaven over my life. I am getting my eyes off what I think is missing and instead beginning to trace His beautiful poetry, artistry, and ineffable design. It truly helps fill in so many momentary gaps. I like to watch and listen to Him write,weave, and paint. Incomparable and supremely inspiring!

Pastor Bill

THE GLORY OF GOD FOR DUMMIES LIKE ME, A PRIMER Part 5

2011-07-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

"Everyone who is called by My name…I have created for My glory..."Isaiah 43:7

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. “ (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. "(1 Corinthians 10:31)

"It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always, Christ shall be honored in my body, whether by life, or by death." (Philippians 1:21)

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

The past month I have been writing about the most important reason why you are on this earth. The great Westminster Catechism summed it up this way:

Man’s chief end is to glorify God,and to enjoy him forever.

So we have been learning about the glory of God, what it is, how seeing it affects us, and what it means to fulfill our duty and highest purpose. Our duty and privilege is to conform to this divine purpose namely, to reflect the value of God's glory-to think and feel and do whatever we must to make much of God, to magnify Him, to increase His fame and renown. Our reason for being, our calling, our joy is to render visible the glory of God.

One of the greatest statements that I have ever read on the glory of God was penned by Jonathan Edwards in his most wonderful book, A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World. Edwards writes:

All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God... The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God, and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.

The deepest longing of the human heart and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are summed up in this: the glory of God. God means for us to see His glory with our eyes, know His glory in our minds, and relish his glory in our hearts, and reflect his glory in our lives.” God has made us to see His glory, to savor his glory, and to show His glory.

Edwards says,

God is glorified within Himself these two ways: 1. By appearing... to Himself in His own perfect idea [of Himself], or in His Son, who is the brightness of His glory. 2. By enjoying and delighting in Himself, by flowing forth in infinite . . . delight towards Himself, or in his Holy Spirit...So God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1. By appearing to... their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself...God is glorified not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might [be] received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God's glory [doesn't] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.

The implications of this paragraph for all of life are immeasurable. One of those implications is that the end and goal of creation hangs on knowing God with our minds and enjoying God with our hearts. The very purpose of the universe-reflecting and displaying the glory of God-hangs not only on true knowledge of God, but also on authentic joy in God. "God is glorified," Edwards says, "not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in."

In short, to glorify God is to enjoy Him, to delight in Him, to treasure Him, and to love Him. Therefore, we should be blood-earnest-deadly serious-about seeing the glory of God and being happy in the glory of God. We should pursue our joy with a passion and a vehemence that, if it must, would cut off our hand or gouge out our eye to have it. God being glorified in us hangs on our being satisfied in him. Which makes our being satisfied in him infinitely important. It becomes the supreme vocation of our lives.

How can we pursue seeing,savoring,and showing our joy in the glory of God. Let me give you some applications I have learned from some very wise men, John Owen and Jonathan Edwards.

The great 17th century Puritan, John Owen, gave five ways we can behold the glory and beauty of Christ:
1. Fix it in mind that this glory of Christ in the divine constitution of His person is the best, most noble, useful, beneficial object that we can have in our thoughts and affections.
2. Diligently study the Scripture and the revelations that are made of this glory of Christ in them.
3. Having attained the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ from the Scripture, or by the dispensation of the truth in the preaching of the gospel, meditates frequently upon it.
4. Let your occasional thoughts of Christ be many, and multiplied every day.
5. See to it that all thoughts concerning Christ and His glory are accompanied with admiration, adoration, and thanksgiving.

Jonathan Edwards gives us three practical ways:

1.We should 'endeavor to increase spiritual appetites by meditating on spiritual objects.

Each time we surrender our minds to meditate on lessor things their grip on our lives is intensified. there is no way I will be able to increase my love for God if I fixate my mind upon sinful things. Paul said as much in his letter to the Philippians: 'Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things' (Philippians 4:8). Merely acknowledging that such 'things' exist is woefully deficient. More than defining them and defending them as worthy of our affection is needed. We must actually 'think' about them, ponder them, pore over them, and become vulnerable to the power God has invested in them to transform our values and feelings and to energize our volition.

Perhaps no one was more diligent in meditating on spiritual objects than David, King of Israel. I'm reminded of two statements in particular, both of which express the intensity and exclusivity of his devotion.

" I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken (Psalm 16:8).
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:25-26)

David was diligent to avert his eyes from all lesser beauty. His resolve was to set the Lord before him, to concentrate his attention and the energies of his soul on the majesty and power of the One who alone would sustain him when all else is shaking. This was not an infrequent or occasional choice or one to which he reverted only in times of crisis, but an orientation of life to which he was `always' committed.

2."Endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement"

Edwards says,

"Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites.They ought to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures. . . . Our hungerings and thirstings after God and Jesus Christ and after holiness can't be too great for the value of these things, for they are things of infinite value. . . . [Therefore] endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement...11There is no such thing as excess in our taking of this spiritual food. There is no such virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting."

Posture your life so that you may be easily enticed by the beauty of Christ. Make it easy on your soul by exposing your senses to those things that awaken spiritual desire and deepen holy longings.God has appointed specific activities that are designed to ignite passion for his Son and elicit insatiable hunger for his presence. Let me humbly remind you of the importance of of prayer, scripture,fellowship with God-driven , God-hungry Christians, Meditation and contemplation, reading good Christian books, listening to worship music,regularly participating in the Lord's Supper, practicing silence, contemplation, and solitude, and spending time in nature.

3. "We should express our longings to God; they will increase by being expressed.'"
Passions often wither in silence. Undeclared delight is a virtual contradiction in terms. God never intended for our joy to be quiet. C.S. Lewis wrote;

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy: because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."

There's nothing more frustrating than an experience of sheer delight in the absence of someone with whom you can share it. I went to four national parks last summer by myself and it was very lonely and very empty without someone to share the beauty with. When I see a glorious sunset my instinctive reaction is to shout at anyone within earshot `Did you see that? Wow!' To leave my exultation unexpressed is unthinkable. So it is with worship, but on an even grander scale. When I gather with God loving on fire, white hot worshippers something happens both in my being in the presence of the Lord with them all and joining them in expression of our delight in God together.

Worship is not only the expression of joy, it is the soil in which additional and even greater joy is seeded. As we celebrate God in word and praise, the Spirit works within to cultivate still deeper delight in God that cries out to be vented in exuberant exultation. Enjoyment issues in worship. Worship incites knowledge. Knowledge awakens joy. This joy issues in worship ... and so it goes, to the gladness of our hearts and the glory of God!

May the Lord himself open our eyes to see the glory of God and be changed.

To be continued...

Pastor Bill

THE GLORY OF GOD FOR DUMMIES LIKE ME, A PRIMER Part 4

2011-06-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. "(1 Corinthians 10:31)

What is it that will bring the greatest satisfaction to your soul? What is the highest purpose that God has made and redeemed you? It is important to know God's purpose in creation and redemption because that tells us why we are here on the earth, and common sense says that if you know what something was made for, you can get more out of it. That's true for your life. If you know that a lawn mower is made for cutting grass and not for cutting your hair, your life will be happier. And if you know that you are made for God's glory, you will make better use of it and be happier.

I have been humbly attempting to do a basic primer on the glory of God the past few weeks. We have learned that it is something you see or reflect upon or point to rather than define. But, for definitions sake I simply defined it as the beauty of God unveiled. It is what makes God, God, and shows Him so worthy of our praise, our love, our allegiance, our admiration, our boasting, our hope, our trust, our joy, and our confidence

God means for us to see His glory with our eyes, know His glory in our minds, and relish his glory in our hearts, and reflect his glory in our lives.” God has made us to see His glory, to savor and delight in His glory.This is fundamental in order to be able to live for His glory. God's glory is not something we merely see; it is something that transforms us (2 Corinthians 3:18). His purpose in seeing His glory is designed to evoke breathtaking delight and incomparable joy.

THE PASSIONATE AND JOYFUL ADMIRATION OF SEEING AND EXPERIENCING GOD IS THE GOAL OF OUR EXISTENCE!

When that begins to happen to you dear reader, you are ready to begin to live for His glory. I said last week that the whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way in your life and in your death that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God. We are supposed to be like well-polished mirrors of God's truth to the world. Or like prisms that take the beams of God's greatness and break them up into lots of varied colors for the world to see in our actions and words (Philippians 1:21; Ephesians 3:10; Matthew 5:16).

So, the way we glorify God is to acknowledge it, to value and delight in the glory of God above all things, and to desire and act to make it known. In short, to glorify God is to make Him look good, to place Him on display so that when others see our lives, they stand in awe of God. What does it mean to glorify God?

WE LOVE HIM: Matthew 22:37, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
WE ARE THANKFUL TO HIM: Psalm 50:23, "Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God."
WE TRUST HIM: Romans 4:20, "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God."
WE SERVE HIM: 1 Peter 4:11, "If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
WE OBEY HIM: Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

The great duty of the Christian life is summed up by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Whatever you do, whatever circumstance you are in, in other words, in the totality of your life: GLORIFY GOD! Even in the most mundane activities of life, Paul says, make God look good! So that is what every man and woman and child should devote his or her life to. That is why we live. That is our duty. Or you could say, that is God's will.

But perhaps there is a great disconnect here for some of you.First, because you do not know what it means to do everything to the glory of God and it seems disconnected from my daily routine and mundane activities. Secondly, because the words "duty" and "will" are not words of joy or freedom or happiness. They tend to sound oppressive,legalistic, and burdensome. What does it mean that it is the duty or the will of Gods to glorify Him? How do we joyfully, delightfully, passionately, compellingly glorify the Lord? Let me illustrate with the help of John Piper.

If you want to glorify a beautiful painting, you don't feel a burden to work to improve it. You simply enjoy it. You love it. You talk about it excitedly to your friends. Or if someone makes a wonderful meal and serves it up before you, how do you glorify the excellence of the meal? Not by putting on your apron and going out to the kitchen to make a few more dishes or add a few spices. No. You glorify a perfect meal by eating a lot and by feeling contented and saying, ahhh. In other words if it is your duty to glorify something infinitely beautiful and wonderful, that is no burden. It is a pleasure. In fact when you take from it pleasure, you show it's a treasure.

Or suppose it's your duty to glorify the strength of a new metal alloy that holds up a bridge. How do you glorify the strength of the metal? Not by working hard to provide some extra supports, but by getting in your car with all your family and trusting the bridge with your life as you peacefully drive across without any anxiety. You glorify strength by trusting it not by working to supplement it. So the duty to glorify power is not a burden. It's a restful pleasure.

Or suppose your duty was to glorify someones generosity. Suppose someone was so rich and so generous that they just spilled over in love and generosity and grace and kindness to you. How would you glorify that quality in them? Not by trying to pay them back. That would turn their kindness into a business deal. It would treat their free gift like a trade. Tit for tat. That would not glorify the wealth of their generosity. No the way to glorify their generosity and their kindness is to be lavish and genuine in your gratitude and thanksgiving. And that is no burden. If you get a billion dollar gift, you do not groan under the duty to feel thankful. It is a pleasure not a hardship.

Finally, suppose it is your duty to glorify someones great wisdom? Say the wisdom of your coach (if you're on some team) or your counselor (if you are in some kind of therapy)? The answer is that you don't glorify their wisdom by trying strenuously to help them figure out the answer to some problem. You glorify their wisdom by doing what they say. If you want to show that your coach is really wise, you run and do his drills without doubting or grumbling. If you want to glorify your counselor's wisdom, you do his assignments without doubt or grumbling. In other words, glad-hearted obedience glorifies great wisdom. And this is not a burden (1 John 5:3).

Now do you see what all this means? It means that God is love. It means that when He created us for His glory, He also created us for our joy. How so? Because the way He seeks to be glorified in us is by making us satisfied in Him. The good news of Christianity is that God is the kind of God who is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

This duty is not a burden. It is freedom and joy. You glorify God's beauty and excellence by loving it and delighting in it. You glorify God's power by trusting him with all the hard and threatening things in your life. You glorify God's bounty and generosity and kindness and grace by overflowing with gratitude. And you glorify God's wisdom by obeying his counsel. And everybody knows that this is no burden. This is no heavy law. This is love.

God is a God of infinite love because He wills to share all that He is with us for our enjoyment and His glory.

You glorify God's beauty and excellence by loving it and delighting in it. You glorify God's provision for your thirsty souls by drinking and being satisfied in Him alone. You glorify God's bounty and generosity and kindness and grace by overflowing with gratitude. It is there spontaneously. It is not consciously willed. It is not analyzed in terms of an appropriate response. It is not decided upon. It comes freely from deep within, from a place beneath the conscious will.

The only right way to live, serve, work, worship, eat, and drink is when we do it to His glory “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Oh may you dear reader, see His glory. May you delight, treasure, and savor His glory. May you be changed by his glory, so that we will reflect it to a world that is blinded to His glory and has sinned and fallen short of His glory.

Next week I will give you some practical ways to stoke the fire of seeing his glory in your daily life.

Longing to live for His glory in everything that I say and do,
Pastor Bill

THE GLORY OF GOD FOR DUMMIES LIKE ME, A PRIMER Part 3

2011-06-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31 NKJV)

If I asked you what is your primary purpose in life, what would you say? What is your greatest goal? The Apostle Paul makes explicit what is the highest and most precious purpose any person could possibly have. The better we understand it, the more we reflect on it, the more we pray about it, and the more we will fulfill it in our lives. "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

I have been humbly attempting to do a basic primer on the glory of God the past few weeks. We have learned that it is something you see or reflect upon or point to rather than define. But, for definitions sake I simply defined it as the beauty of God unveiled. It is what makes God, God, and shows Him so worthy of our praise, our love, our allegiance, our admiration, our boasting, our hope, our trust, our joy, and our confidence

I made a statement, “The deepest longing of the human heart and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are summed up in this: the glory of God.” “God means for us to see His glory with our eyes, know His glory in our minds, and relish his glory in our hearts, and reflect his glory in our lives.” God has made us to see His glory, to savor his glory, and to show His glory. God says in Isaiah 43:7, "Everyone who is called by My name…I have created for My glory..." That means that we were all created to express the infinite worth of God's glory.

I said that God is always manifesting His glory in creation, in providence, in scripture, and Pre-eminently in the face of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4). When we truly see Him it has profound effects on our lives.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. “ I really like the New Living translation of this passage. “And all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him and reflect His glory even more,” The Amplified version helps us even more. “And all of us, as with unveiled face, because we continue to behold (in the word of God) as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another: (for this comes) from the Lord (Who is) the Spirit.”

An encounter with the glory of God is profoundly transforming.The point of what Paul says is, "what we see is what we be." John Piper says, "beholding is the way of becoming." This is the epicenter of learning to live for His glory. God's glory is not something we see; it is something that transforms us. His purpose is designed to evoke breathtaking delight and incomparable joy. God’s glory is what makes Him eminently desirable, attractive, and quickening to the soul that it was made for another world.

God has pulled back the curtain on His glory. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (Psalm 50:2). He has disclosed Himself on the platform of creation and redemption that we might stand awestruck in His presence, beholding the sweet symmetry of His attributes, pondering the unfathomable depths of His greatness, baffled by the wisdom of His deeds and the limitless extent of His goodness and mercy and grace. This is His glory and how it affects our souls.

THE PASSIONATE AND JOYFUL ADMIRATION OF SEEING AND EXPERIENCING GOD IS THE GOAL OF OUR EXISTENCE!

This week I would like to begin to discuss what it means to reflect the glory of God in our lives. Paul says it is that it is our duty to live for the glory of God in every aspect of our life to the point of even our eating and drinking.

Perhaps the best way that I can describe what Paul means is from what Paul wrote from prison in Philippians 1:21, "It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always, Christ shall be honored in my body, whether by life, or by death." Chained to a Roman guard, Paul applies this thought to his own experience, desiring that Christ will be honored in his body whether by his life or his death.

The word Paul uses where the ESV translates honored “megalounthsetai” can also be translated exalted or magnified or glorified. The word "magnify" literally means to make large. To magnify or glorify God, in common language means to make God look as He truly is. We may think, “Christ is the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. How can I possibly magnify, exalt or glorify Him?”

Think of Him as being a distant star. It may be more brilliant than our own sun, but to the human eye, it is just a dim speck in the night sky. To many in this world, Christ is that way. He is the very splendor of God, brighter than a billion suns. But the world doesn’t see Him that way. So God has purposed that the believer is to be a telescope to bring the truth about Christ into view for the unbeliever. Through us, and especially through how we handle trials, Christ is magnified to a skeptical, unbelieving world. The calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is. The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way in your life and in your death that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God.

Let us catch this purpose and it will revolutionize the kind of questions we ask in our daily lives. In view of Paul’s circumstances, it is remarkable that his main focus was not on getting released from prison, but rather on exalting Christ. Paul asked the question of himself, "How can I magnify Christ in this situation, this relationship, this trial?" If this world is going to see Christ they will see Him in our lives. He will be revealed through our bodies. Paul desires that Christ “be honored (exalted, magnified) in my body” Our hands must be His hands, our eyes His eyes, our mouth His mouth our feet His feet.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”. In this life Christ is meant to be exalted and magnified in the bodies of those who believe in Him, or He will not be magnified at all. The reason for this is that God dwells only within His children. And if He is to be seen at all in this life, He must be seen in the lives of those who know Him. This means that we may either exalt Christ or bring shame to His name by our attitudes, our words, and our behavior.

How do you use your eyes? How do you use your ears? How do you use your tongue? Your hands? Your feet? Your countenance? How do you use your body? What about your personal appearance? Paul's passion was that his tongue will speak warmly of his Savior. He will exalt his name in testimony, in prayer, and in preaching. His knees will bend before the great, high and holy Lord. His hands will be zealous in serving the cause of such a Friend. His feet will run messages for the Lord. His eyes will see his glories everywhere and his likeness in all his people. His ears will hear his word and in His heart there will be a melody of praise to him. Always in his body he will exalt the Messiah. Oh reader, be encouraged, be focused, Let Christ be Magnified Through You! “Now! Always!" says Paul.

To be continued next week...

THE GLORY OF GOD FOR DUMMIES LIKE ME, A PRIMER Part 2

2011-06-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

"One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that 1 may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple”. Psalm 27:4

Last week I wrote about the glory of God. I simply defined glory as the beauty of God unveiled. Glory is all of God that makes God God. Glory is what you see and experience and feel when God goes public with his beauty.

King David longed to see the glory of God.“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that 1 may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple”(Psalm 27:4). His desire centered upon what he called the "One thing"; to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, the incomparable, transcendent, all¬ satisfying, awe-inspiring beauty of God.The wonderful thing about God is that He desires us to see His glory. He wants us to not only see it, but cherish it, enjoy it. God means for us to see His glory with our eyes, know His glory in our minds, and relish his glory in our hearts, and reflect his glory in our lives.

Jonathan Edwards shows that this is the root of worship:

“God glorifies Himself toward the creatures . . . in two ways: 1. By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself. . . . God is glorified not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. . . . When those who see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by understanding and in the heart.”

Therefore, God is always manifesting His glory in creation, in providence, in scripture, and Pre-eminently in the face of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4). His purpose is designed to evoke breathtaking delight and incomparable joy. God’s glory is what makes Him eminently desirable, attractive, and quickening to the soul that it was made for another world. God has pulled back the curtain on His glory. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (Psalm 50:2). He has disclosed Himself on the platform of creation and redemption that we might stand awestruck in his presence, beholding the sweet symmetry of His attributes, pondering the unfathomable depths of His greatness, baffled by the wisdom of His deeds and the limitless extent of His goodness and mercy and grace. This is His glory!

Throughout the Psalms we read of David’s passion for God’s glory. Read and catch his “One thing” passion:
Psalm 42:1-2, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”.
Psalm 63:1-3, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory…Your steadfast love is better than life.” Psalm 84:10, “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
Psalm 16:2, 11; “I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you… You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

For David nearness to God in order to see Him in all his glory was the only experience that would truly satisfy him. Only God could satisfy a heart like David’s and David was a man after one thing: the glory of God. This is what we were created and redeemed for! This is the essence of loving God; as John Piper says, “being satisfied in Him”. Jonathan Edwards understood about the one thing. That’s why he wrote: “God’s is glorified not only in His glory being seen, but by in His glory being rejoiced in.” God’s glory satisfies the heart with joy and delight.

So what happens when we desire to see the glory of God? First, glory satisfies the heart with joy and delight. Secondly, God's glory transforms the soul. The encounter of the human soul with divine glory, is more than merely satisfying and enjoyable, it is profoundly transforming. There is within it the power to change our lives into something radiating God’s own glory!

The apostle Paul alluded to this in 2 Corinthians 3:18 when he said, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” The point is what we see is what we be! Or as Jon Piper puts it, “beholding is becoming.” We do not simply behold God's glory: God's glory takes hold of us and challenges the allegiance of our hearts. His glory calls us to reshape our lives and exposes the shabbiness of our conduct. It awakens us to the reality of a transcendent Being to whose likeness of glory we are being called and conformed by His gracious initiative. God's glory has the power to dislodge from our hearts the grip of moral and spiritual ugliness. The soul's engagement with glory elicits love and forges new affection that no earthly power can overcome.

Jonathan Edwards wrote of this transforming beauty in his sermon The Way of Holiness,
“Tis the highest beauty and amiableness, vastly above all other beauties; 'tis a divine beauty, makes the soul heavenly and far purer than anything here on earth-this world is like mire and filth and defilement [compared] to that soul which is sanctified-'tis of a sweet, lovely, delightful, serene, calm, and still nature. 'Tis almost too high a beauty for any creature to be adorned with; it makes the soul a little, amiable, and delightful image of the blessed Jehovah. How may angels stand with pleased, delighted, and charmed eyes, and look and look with smiles of pleasure upon that soul that is holy!”

The supreme manifestation of God’s glory is seen in the person of Jesus Christ. "He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature" (Hebrews 1:3). "He is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1: 1 5). The glory of Jesus has nothing to do with how He smelled or looked or the sound of His voice or the strength of His arms or the color of His hair or the way He dressed. Jesus is beautiful because He has a glory, an excellence, a spiritual supreme beauty-that can be self-evidently true. That is to say, when you see Him there is a direct and personal apprehension of the glory that you see. It’s like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light, or tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet. There is a direct apprehension and attraction once you see Jesus that affects your thinking, your will, and your feelings, it goes deep and does something to your very soul. It changes your life. John writes of his experience with Jesus in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

When it comes to the glory of Christ, who can adequately describe glory and beauty that is infinite and is therefore beyond description? There is no one like Christ in this regard.

Spurgeon said it well:
“Hope not, my brethren, that the preacher can grapple with such a subject. I am overcome by it. In my meditations I have felt lost in its lengths and breadths. My joy is great in my theme, and yet I am conscious of a pressure upon my brain and heart, for I am as a little child wandering among the stars. I stumble among sublimity's, I sink amid glories. I can only point with my finger to that which I see, but cannot describe. May the Holy Spirit himself take of the things of Christ and show them unto you.”

What makes Jesus Christ so precious, so beautiful, and so glorious is what Jonathan Edwards calls in his profound sermon series The Excellence of Christ, “an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies” Christ's attributes work together in harmony. And there is a glory in Christ that exceeds any of His individual characteristics. It is like a rainbow in which the individual colors are beautiful, but their combination heightens the sense of beauty.

The effect of seeing these excellencies is described by Edwards in this way:
“The excellency of Christ is such, that the discovery of it is exceedingly contenting and satisfying to the soul. The carnal soul imagines that earthly things are excellent-one thinks riches most excellent, another has the highest esteem of honor, and to another carnal pleasure appears the most excellent. But the soul cannot find contentment in any of these things, because it soon finds an end to their excellency. Worldly men imagine that there is true excellency and true happiness in those things which they are pursuing. They think that if they could but obtain them, they would be happy. But when they obtain them, and cannot find happiness, they look for happiness in something else, and are still upon the pursuit. But Christ Jesus has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when they come to see him they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in Jesus! It sees that until now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance. It sees that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean.”

How do we see those excellencies of Christ's glory? The Apostle Paul describes this path to discovery in 2 Corinthians 4:6, "For God, who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” We can see the preciousness of Jesus through the portraits of Christ given to us in God’s word by reading it and hearing it proclaimed. This portrayal, accompanied by God’s shining in our hearts, appears to us what really is-“the glory of God in the face of Jesus.” Or to put it another way the beauty of Jesus Christ. God shows us that Jesus is beautiful through the word and the work of the Holy Spirit opening our blind eyes to see His beauty.

Oh reader, God invites us to do just what David desires. He has created the longings and satisfies the longings of our soul (Jeremiah 31:33). David gives an astonishing invitation from God in Psalm 27:8, "You have said, "Seek my face. My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” God invites us to seek His face, to dwell, to see, to gaze, and reflect upon His glory and beauty. How does that affect you?

This is God’s desire for you: “SEEK MY FACE”! This is the central business for your life- to see the glory of God. To get your head into the heavens. To know him for whom he is. He is the main reality.

There is nothing beyond this. Nothing more urgent. Nothing more important. Nothing more satisfying. Another time Edwards wrote:

“The pleasures of loving and obeying, loving and adoring, blessing and praising the infinite being, the best of Beings, the Eternal Jehovah, the pleasures in trusting Jesus Christ, in contemplating His beauties, excellencies, and glories, in contemplating His love to mankind and to us, in contemplating His infinite goodness and astounding lovingkindness…these are the pleasures that are worthy so noble a creature as a man is."

What was the most loving thing Jesus could do for us? What was the endpoint, the highest good, of the Gospel? Redemption? Forgiveness? Justification? Reconciliation? Sanctification? Adoption? Are not all of these great wonders simply means to something greater? Something final? Something that Jesus asked his Father to give us? "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me" (John 17:24). The highest end of the gospel is to see,to savor, and to show the glory of Jesus. You can be sure, dear reader, that the Father is earnest to see that happen for you.

Next week we will look at the effects of seeing the glory of God upon our lives.

Longing to see His glory,
Pastor Bill

THE GLORY OF GOD FOR DUMMIES LIKE ME; A PRIMER Part 1

2011-06-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

"Everyone who is called by My name…I have created for My glory..." (Isaiah 43:7)
"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. " (I Corinthians 10:31).
".. to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout ail generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:21).
"To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be
honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." (I Timothy 1:17).

If I asked you what is your primary purpose in life, what would you say? What is your greatest goal? The Apostle Paul makes explicit what is the highest and most precious purpose any person could possibly have. The better we understand it, the more we reflect on it, the more we pray about it, and the more we will fulfill it in our lives. "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)

I regularly ask both privately and at my bible studies this question of my fellow Christians. Those who have hung around me or sat under me are well acquainted with this. They have no problems speaking of the "glory of God" and of "glorifying God" until I press into them what this means. For many of these same people, 'glorifying God' is an empty shell. Ask them to describe what it means and you're likely to get a blank and embarrassed stare. Ask them to explain bow it's actually done and they have not the slightest idea. I understand because I myself, was never taught this until I had been and Christian over 20 years! The fact is, the Glory of God and Glorifying God have become something of a mantra in the evangelical world, yet often misunderstood. Sincere Christians simply don't know because either they've never been taught or they're rarely challenged to think deeply on what the glory of God is and what a life that glorifies God is supposed to look like. So the next few weeks I would like to give a primer on God's glory and what it means for our lives.

What is “glory”? 2 Corinthians 3:18 says,. “And all of us, as with unveiled face, because we continue to behold (in the word of God) as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another: (for this comes) from the Lord (Who is) the Spirit” (Amplified Version). It is really not easy to define. Our text helps us out. It is something you see or reflect upon or point to rather than define. It’s like beauty. How would you define it? I simply define glory as the beauty of God unveiled. Glory is the resplendent radiance of his power and his personality. Glory is all of God that makes God God, and shows him to be worthy of our praise and our boasting and our trust and our hope and our confidence and our joy. Glory is the external elegance of the internal excellencies of God. Glory is what you see and experience and feel when God goes public with his beauty.

The glory of God is a very, very, very great. The reason is because God is very, very great.And therefore his glory is very great. John Piper has written eleven ways God shows us the greatness of His Glory. I wanted to use this today to help you begin to really understand.

God has been very good to us in the New Testament by giving us many different ways of seeing the greatness of his glory. I am going to mention eleven of these in the hope that one or several will sink into your heart and give you a longing for God's glory. I am not going to define it first, but just let the texts point you to the reality.

1. By Saying It Is Eternal

God shows that his glory is very great by saying that it is eternal. Romans 11:36, "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen." The greatness of God's glory is seen in the fact that it will never end. It is great in durability and permanence.

2. By Contrasting It with the Frail Glory of the World

God shows the greatness of his glory by contrasting it with the frail and temporary glory of the world. 1 Peter 1:24, "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides for ever." "Flesh" in that verse simply refers to all that is not spiritual. All the accomplishments of natural man are like grass and all their glory—engineering glory, architectural glory, artistic glory, electrical glory, atomic glory, computerized glory—all our greatest human glory is like a dandelion ball compared to God's permanent glory.

C.S. Lewis preached a great sermon on June 8, 1941, called "The Weight of Glory." He said, "Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat." And if the greatest glories of the world are to us as the life of a gnat, how much greater must be the God of glory in whom we live and move and have our being!

3. By Speaking of Its Might and Power

God shows the greatness of his glory by speaking of its might and power. Colossians 1:11, "May you be strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory." And 2 Thessalonians 1:9 turns it around and speaks of "the glory of his might." The point is not very different: the glory of God shines forth in great power, and the power of God exhibits itself in great glory.

If you want to conceive of the glory of God in its proper proportions, dwell on the scope of God's power. How great is the power of God when Isaiah 40 says he "measured the seas in the hollow of his hands . . . and weighed the mountains in scales"; and when Daniel 4 says, "He does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say to him, What doest thou?" And when Hebrews 1:3 says, "He upholds the universe by his word of power." God is exceedingly powerful beyond all imagination, and his power is only one expression of his glory. Therefore his glory is very great.

4. By Raising Christ from the Dead by It

He makes the greatness of his glory known by telling us that it was by his glory that he did the greatest acts of power and love in history. Romans 6:4, "We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. If the resurrection is a great thing, if the eternal hope of millions hang on this great deed, then the glory of the Father must be very great. For it was the glory of the Father that burst the bonds of death and brought life and immortality to light.

5. By Repeatedly Reminding Us of the Riches of It

God presses the greatness of his glory on our minds by referring again and again to the wealth or riches of his glory. Romans 9:22–23, "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?" God compares his glory to wealth and says that the ultimate purpose of all history is to make the greatness of that wealth known to the vessels of mercy prepared for glory.

6. By Contrasting Its Joy to This Life's Suffering

God highlights the greatness of his glory by telling us that the joy of experiencing it will so far outweigh the sufferings of this life that they are not worth comparing. Romans 8:18, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." No matter how much you suffer in this life, the joy of the glory of God will be so great as to make you feel as though your years and decades of suffering were as nothing.

7. By Calling It a "Weight of Glory"

God says this to us in 2 Corinthians 4:17 and adds that the glory we will experience is a "weight of glory." "For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." Notice, the glory is eternal and weighty; the affliction by comparison is momentary and light.

Is there any heaviness in your life? Do you carry any burdens that are heavy and seem to drag on and on? The Lord teaches us that the glory of God is going to be so heavy that when it is put in the scales of your life for your enjoyment, it will make all the heaviness of this world go up like air in the balances.

8. By Linking Eternal Punishment with Exclusion from It

God causes us to see that his glory is very great by telling us that the great punishment in the day of judgment will be exclusion from his glory. 2 Thessalonians 1:9—at the coming of Christ unbelievers "will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might." Your heart was made to enjoy the glory of God. God is your real home. His glory is very great! And without it you will forever be heartsick. Don't live a life that results in being excluded from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

9. By Showing Us That It Will Replace the Sun

The Lord pictures the greatness of his glory for us by showing us that in the coming age the glory of God will replace the sun for our light. Revelation 21:23, "And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb." For now the immensity and brightness of the sun are reminders and symbols of the greatness and brightness of the glory of God. But someday we won't need any symbols or reminders, for the real thing will swallow us up in light.

10. By Revealing It in Settings of Heavenly Worship

The Lord magnifies the greatness of his glory by revealing it to us in awesome settings of heavenly worship where it is held in proper esteem. Revelation 5:11–14, "Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying, "To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!" And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped." Surely the purpose of giving us a glimpse into this heavenly worship is to make us feel the greatness of the Lord and the tremendous worth of his glory.

11. By Showing Us Jesus, the Perfect Reflection of It

Finally, we are made to see the greatness of the glory of God when Hebrews 1:3 tells us that our Lord Jesus "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature." The glory of God is not merely a distant and strange thing. If we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father! We know what the moral character of this glory will be. It will be like Jesus—full of grace and truth.

So when Paul says in Romans 5:2 that "we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God," he means for us to know and feel that the glory of God is exceedingly great. If there is any wonder, if there is any awe, if there is any admiration, or fame or praise or applause, it belongs to the glory of God. For all other glory is like grass compared to God's.

“The deepest longing of the human heart and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are summed up in this: the glory of God.” “God means for us to see His glory with our eyes, know His glory in our minds, and relish his glory in our hearts, and reflect his glory in our lives.” God has made us to see His glory, to savor his glory, and to show His glory. God says in Isaiah 43:7, "Everyone who is called by My name…I have created for My glory..." That means that we were all created to express the infinite worth of God's glory.

Next week, we will discuss the effects that seeing the glory of God is meant to have upon us.

Pastor Bill

THE DUTY OF DELIGHT

2011-05-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

“Delight yourself in the Lord" Psalm 37:4
“Serve the Lord with gladness" Psalm 100:2
“Rejoice in the Lord always" Philippians 4:4

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Westminister Cathechism 1647

My favorite place in the whole world is the tropical island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. I was fortunate to have lived there for a year from 1972-1973 and have been a regular visitor ever since. I never get tired of the sights, smells, and sounds of this little island paradise. When the plane approaches the airport, I cannot help but notice the deep greens (my favorite color) and the amazing contours of Kauai’s landscape. Then there is cool breeze of the trade winds that bring the tropical smell of Plumaria flowers greeting me as I step off of the airplane. The ocean is so warm and deep blue bursting with sea life. I can never get enough of surfing Hanalei Bay, sitting on my surfboard letting my eyes survey its breathtaking beauty and grandeur. Drive to the end of the road on the North Shore and you cannot help but be captivated by what is known as “Bali Hai” and the majestic Napali Coast. But my favorite thing of all about Kauai is to watch the glory of the Hawaiian sunset at the end of the day. When the sun goes down and reaches the horizon you can for a split second see a green flash of light before the sun disappears. The after sunset is amazing with its palette of color and beauty that goes on until the darkness steals its glory. I have witnessed many sunsets alone but my greatest joy has been when I have been able to watch the sunset at Tunnels Beach with friends. As we sit together on the white sand beach surrounded by palm trees overlooking the blue ocean stretching out to the horizon, the sun begins its descent at the end of a wonderful day spent together. As the sun sets over the horizon we speak words of delight to one another as we share what we are seeing and experiencing, “Wow!" "Amazing" "Isn’t this awesome?" "So beautiful." "Can you believe the colors?" Somehow the joy of our experience is enriched and completed by expressing it one to another.

In our sharing the experience of that sunset, no one had to talk or coach or persuade themselves into appreciating the view. We never once said, “We ought to enjoy this. Shouldn’t we appreciate this and say something about it?” There was absolutely no sense of duty in our enjoyment and communicating its worth to one another. All we had to do is see it and seeing it evoked a spontaneous response of delight and praise for what a Kauai sunset is; beautiful, breathtaking, and glorious! And the greatest joy was expressing our joy one to another!

How much more joyful is a life lived in the presence of the beautiful living God! There is something so compelling, so moving, so delightful when you see Him and experience His presence. That is why the key to Christian living is being happy in God. It is God’s aim and it is my duty to be supremely happy in God!

Psalm 144:15 says,“Happy are the people who are in such a state; Happy are the people whose God is the LORD!”

The duty of Christian living is a “peculiar” duty. Webster’s dictionary describes “duty” as “obligatory tasks, conduct, service, or functions that arise from ones position as in life or a group. The service required or a moral or legal obligation”. But God looks at duty in a completely different way. Tragically most of us have been taught that duty, not delight, is the way that we glorify God. But we have not been taught that delight in God is our duty! John Piper calls it “the dangerous duty of delight”. Being satisfied in God is not an optional add-on to the real stuff of Christian duty. It is the most basic demand of all. It is the foundation of living in God’s world. "Delight yourself in the Lord" (Psalm 37:4) is not a suggestion but a command. So are: "Serve the Lord with gladness" (Psalm 100:2); and "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Philippians 4:4).

Jonathan Edwards taught that the essence of glorifying God is when He is shown to be most beautiful and valuable by His people enjoying him above all things. “True religion, in great part, consists of holy affections.”

Loving and cherishing and honoring and delighting in God comes alive when our affections are fully engaged. The heart of man is a desire factory where the battle rages for joy in all God has for us in Christ. So the peculiar duty of the believer is to pursue maximum joy in God alone.

Jesus devastated the worship of the most religious people in Israel with these words from the prophet Isaiah:This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.(Matthew 15:8-9).

When the heart is not in an act of worship, the lips can move all day long and it will be in vain! The number one duty of worship is not merely a duty to perform outward acts. It is a duty to feel inward affections. John Piper says, “Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead.” Without the engagement of our affections our worship is vain and empty.

That is why the Bible uses the word hypocrite. A hypocrite is one who performs the outward form of worship signifying affections of the heart that aren’t there. “This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me”. If God‘s reality is seen or displayed and we feel nothing in our heart‘s desires towards him, then we may dutifully sing or pray but it will be hypocrisy and vain worship.

The fact is that duty toward God can never be restricted to outward action. Yes, we must worship Him. But our duty to worship is a peculiar duty. What kind of duty? The kind C. S. Lewis described to Sheldon Vanauken: "It is a Christian duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can." Or the way Jeremy Taylor spoke of it when he said, "God threatens terrible things, if we will not be happy." The peculiar duty of the Christian is an inward duty to “delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4) and to “be glad in the Lord, and rejoice” (Psalm 32:11).

Consider the analogy of a wedding anniversary. Suppose on this day a man brings flowers for his wife. When she meets him at the door and he hands her the flowers, she says, "Oh honey, they're beautiful, thank you," and gives him a big hug. Then suppose in response he holds up his hand and says matter-of-factly, "Don't mention it; it's our anniversary, I’m supposed to do this, it’s my duty." What happens? How does the wife feel? Perhaps she feels like dumping the bouquet on his head! Is this exercise of duty a noble thing? Does the wife feel loved and valued by him? Hardly! Not if his heart’s not in it. Flowers given by duty are a contradiction in terms. If he is not moved by a spontaneous affection for his precious wife as a person, the flowers do not honor her. In fact they belittle and demean her. They are a very thin covering for the fact that she does not have the worth or beauty in his eye to kindle affection. All he can muster is a calculated expression of marital duty. But when he brings his wife that bouquet of flowers, and she asks him why he gave them to her, the answer that honors her most is, “Because nothing makes me happier than to do this for you, I love you so much!” “It is my duty” dishonors her. “It is my pleasure” honors her.

The reason this is the real duty of worship is that this honors God; while the empty performance of ritual does not. If a man takes his wife out for the evening on their anniversary and she asks, "Why do you do this?" the answer that honors her most is, "Because nothing makes me happier tonight than to be with you." There it is! A peculiar duty. How shall we honor God in worship? By saying, "It's my duty"? Or by saying, "It's my joy"?

But for some people -- most people -- the word "duty" is not a happy word. It tends to sound oppressive and burdensome. So it doesn't sound then that God is very loving. That he doesn't have our best interest at heart. How do God’s glory and our duty to delight in Him work together? How do you bring glory to an all-sufficient, perfect, infinitely beautiful, infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, overflowing God? Let me give you illustrations from ordinary life.

At the beginning of this blog I discussed the experience of my friends and myself observing a Hawaiian sunset. If you want to glorify a beautiful sunset, you don't feel a burden to work to improve it. You simply enjoy it. You love it. You talk about it excitedly to your friends. Or suppose you are hiking at Yosemite in the winter time and arrive at Summit Meadow, a huge, breathtaking, snow covered meadow surrounded by a conifer forest. How do you glorify the excellence of the meadow? By looking intently all around you, taking it all in, by enjoying the view, and by thinking and saying “wow this is awesome!” In other words if it is your duty to glorify something infinitely beautiful and wonderful, that is no burden. It is a joy and a pleasure. In fact when you take from it pleasure, you demonstrate that it's a treasure.

Or suppose your duty was to glorify someones generosity. I have known people who just overflow in love and generosity and grace and kindness to me over the years. Sometimes it has been overwhelming. How have I glorified that quality in them? Not by trying to pay them back. That would turn their kindness into a business transaction. It would treat their free gift like a trade. Tit for tat. That would not glorify the wealth of their generosity. No, the way to glorify their generosity and their kindness is to be lavish and genuine in your appreciation, gratitude, and thanksgiving. And that is no burden. If you get a generous gift you do not groan under the duty to feel thankful. It is a pleasure not a hardship.

Now do you see what all of this means? It means that God is love. It means that when He created us for His glory, He also created us for our joy. How so? Because the way He seeks to be glorified in us is by making us satisfied in Him. The good news of Christianity is that God is the kind of God who is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

God created us for His glory. Therefore the peculiar duty of every man and woman and child is to live for the glory of God. What a wonderfully peculiar duty it is! And the wonderful thing is that this duty is not a burden. It is freedom and joy. You glorify God's beauty and excellence by loving it and delighting in it. You glorify God's provision for your thirsty souls by drinking and being satisfied in Him alone. You glorify God's bounty and generosity and kindness and grace by overflowing with gratitude. It is there spontaneously. It is not consciously willed. It is not analyzed in terms of an appropriate response. It is not decided upon. It comes from deep within, from a place beneath the conscious will.

This is what keeps worship from being "in vain." Worship is authentic when affections for God arise in the heart as an end in themselves. In worship God is the Hawaiian sunset. God is the running mountain stream and its refreshing waters. God is the wonderful meal and the generous benefactor.

Eric Liddell, the great Christian missionary and Olympic athlete, was once asked why he ran. He said, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." What an amazing duty God has given us! “Delight yourself in the Lord.” Our duty is our very delight! When we fulfill our “peculiar” duty, God gets much glory and we get much joy. We come into His presence with joyful singing from the heart and if someone asks us why we can say like Eric Liddell, “I run to give God pleasure and worship God my treasure because it gives me so much pleasure.”

Enjoying God,
Pastor Bill

HELPLESSNESS AND PRAYER

2011-05-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about the gift of helplessness. I ended by saying, The very thing we often times try to escape, our own helplessness, becomes the launch pad to prayer and then to God's help and grace.

I pray allot in my life. I do this not because I am highly disciplined but because I am highly needy. It is because I am aware and in touch with the poverty within my own soul, realizing that I cannot do anything in life without the help of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I am very thankful that as I have learned to pray over the years I have discovered that the more that I seem to know God, the more mature I may become, the stronger I may seem to be to others, I also pray more because I realize how truly weak that I really am. My weakness has become a channel whereby I access the amazing grace of God.

As we grow as Christians, we become more and more aware of who we really are in our sinful natures, but at the same time we see more and more of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:16-18). This seeing of myself and this seeing of Jesus causes me to truly see my need for more moment by moment grace.

When I was a younger Christian, if you could picture this in your mind, my view of Bill was much larger and my view of Jesus was much smaller. I had a small view of my sin and a large view of me. As I have grown my view is now of a small Bill with big sin and a huge, powerful, amazing, beautiful, and wonderful Jesus so overflowingly "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14.)

That is why I felt not the need to pray as much. I can say that because I spent little time in prayer. I was a doer, way to busy to pray. I had God's work to do. I had a church to build. I had people to see, places to go, and things to do that were really important. When I used to look at my heart I did not see most of what I see now. I felt that I was strong, wise, able, disciplined, godly, and mature. I was wrong!

Now I understand that spiritual growth manifests itself in surprising ways: humility, brokenness, neediness, desperateness, insatiable desire,and a can't do mindset. It agrees with Jesus when He says in John 15:5, "Apart from Me you can do nothing." I realize that all the things that I have done without Jesus are NOTHING and have become NOTHING.

Jesus my Lord lived in total dependency to the Father. "The son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees the Father doing." (John 5:19), "By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear." (John 5:30), "My teaching is not my own. It comes from Him who sent me." (John 7:16). Jesus modeled a life we as his followers are to imitate. If the Son of God had to learn dependence on the Father, then so must we.

Jesus asks us to do what He did; live a life of total and helpless dependence upon His heavenly Father. Be encouraged dear reader, if you feel helpless, if you feel weak, if you are desperate, if you feel increasingly unable to do life; then you are entering into His life, the life that He calls "the abundant life" (John 10:10).

If you think that you can do life on your own, you will not enter into a lifestyle of prayer. Prayer will never be the default response to life. It will be the last resort after we have tried all that we "can do". At best when we are drawn in our attention to our own lack of prayer, our lack of prayer will feel to us like something else-a lack of discipline, another duty or obligation to us, not being spiritual enough, too busy, too many obligations, or not enough time for it.

The secret of prayer is thinking that you cannot do life on your own. Jesus calls it "poverty of spirit"(Matthew 5:3). Poverty of our Spirit makes room for God's Spirit. With that attitude and view of life, yourself, and God, you don't need to feel duty, discipline, or obligation to pray. Prayer becomes your default response to your life. It can become a simple prayer like Jesus who frequently cried out "Abba, Father". I have prayed frequently the Psalms and specifically many of the two or three word prayers of the Psalmist, such as Help me, deliver me, save me, empower me, heal me, teach me, show me, guide me, forgive me, show me, or fill me. It helps me because I frequently do not or have much more to say at any given moment than to simply cry these things out to God.

I Often times pray a simple prayer from the 5th century called "The Jesus Prayer". It is based upon Luke 18:38 where a blind beggar called out to Jesus as He was passing by, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" If you add Paul's statement from Philippians 2:11, "confess that Jesus Christ is Lord", you have the Jesus Prayer. Here it is, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner."

My dear brother Pastor Ed Piorik taught me a couple of other simple things that I cry out that make my address to God very trinitarian in focus. I simply plea, "Holy Spirit Come." or "Abba, Father, find me in your love." Sometimes all I pray is to cry out in shorter cries such as "Father" or "Jesus" or "help!"

I think I am finally beginning to understand what it means to "Pray unceasingly". Paul speaks of this in many ways in (Romans 1:9-10; 1 Corinthians 1:4;Ephesians 1:16; 6:18; Colossians 1:9; 4:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:2;2:13;3:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:11; 2 Timothy 1:3; Romans 12:12; 1 Thessalonians 5;17). Unceasing prayer means simply living a lifestyle of dependence and need upon God alone. Like Paul we develop a 2 Corinthians 1:9 perspective on our selves,

"Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead." NIV

So I encourage you to see that a praying life isn't a set prayer time (though there is nothing wrong with that as I wrote last year on taking Sabbath breaks throughout the day); it is slipping into prayer at any moment when you are in touch with your own poverty of spirit, realizing that you cannot even walk through a grocery store or your neighborhood without the help of Jesus.

Learning in my helplessness to pray,
Bill

THE GIFT OF HELPLESSNESS

2011-05-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28

"As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:4-5

How do you feel about helplessness? I have nothing but mercy and compassion towards those who are helpless. Babies are good at being helpless. Little children are good at helplessness. Feeble, ill, weak, and crippled people are good at being helpless. I have ministered to many who are in places in their lives that they are hopeless, hapless, and helpless.

When it comes to me, helplessness is a different story altogether. I have developed as an adult an aversion to helplessness. I do not like being helpless at all. All of my life I have worked to maintain at least an illusion to myself and others that I am not helpless. By nature I have been a high achiever, a self sufficient loner, very self disciplined, highly ambitious, in control, a planner, a success driven striver. I always made sure my ducks were lined up and that I had alternatives to my alternatives to fix and solve any problem that I had. It has taken me thirty seven years of being a Christian to learn that before God I am truly helpless.

I had ministry, a comfortable income, a 35 year marriage, and my life seemed in total control, just the way I like it. Then a year ago my life crashed. It went from order to chaos,; predictable to unpredictable, comfortable to uncomfortable, in control to out of control, safe and secure to totally insecure. AND I HATED IT!!!!

I tried everything to fix it, get it back in order, line up my ducks in a row, get everything back to the way it used to be, the way that I wanted it and nothing worked. I was utterly humbled by the realization that I cannot fix my life to be the way I wanted it. I realized the illusion of my self sufficiency and ability to control my life. Suddenly i had no wife to depend on, few friends to lean on, no job, no open doors, no ministry, my health was failing, the phone was not ringing, my ability to solve problems was failing, my tools and skills were inadequate, and I was in big trouble.

I was empty-handed, weary, scared, lonely, utterly broken, and heavy-laden. For the first time in my life, I was so desperate, so broken, so tired, so weak, so scared, so inadequate, and so helpless that all I could do is throw myself in desperation on His mercy and cry "help me", "save me", "deliver me"

I became motivated to come to God because of the reality and the deep conviction that I am completely helpless to do my life on my own. I have learned that these are the very cries that bring us into the deepest communion and bring God the greatest glory.

The 17th century Scottish pastor Samuel Rutherford was imprisoned by the Anglicans for non-conformity. In prison he made a great discovery that he expresses in these words.

If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I can be in this world, and then He told me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all of my usual sources of enjoyment. I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all of his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven."

When I suffered the loss of virtually everything that mattered and faced a dark, uncertain future, I found myself praying for God to give me back my life over and over again. When God began to blow out my lamps, I began asking God to give me my lamps back. When He didn't, I found myself angry, depressed,terrified, anxious, despairing, and inconsolably sorrowful about the wind that had blown out my lamps. But now I have began to see what God was doing, blowing out my lamps in order to throw open the shutters and let in the light of heaven!

Throughout the gospels we see people coming to Jesus because they are helpless like me. I have been teaching in John where we see it over and over again. The Samaritan woman had no water (John 4). Later in that same chapter, the officials son has no health. The crippled man at the pool of Bethesda has no help to get into the water (John 5). the crowd has no bread (John 6). The blind man has no sight (John 9). Lazarus has no life (John 11).

When we received Jesus, we apparently felt we were helpless. Many of us forget that is how we follow Him. Paul wrote in Colossians 2:6, "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him". Really feeling, thinking, and believing in our helplessness is fundamental to living the Christian life.

For Paul, helplessness was his badge of apostleship and authority from God. Listen to his words:

"So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. " (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV)

Paul argues for the authenticity of his ministry by appealing, not to his visions and revelations nor to his successes and gifts, but instead to his weakness! He attributed all of his ministry to his helplessness, brokenness, neediness, and weakness. That is the ground by which the power and glory of Jesus flowed through him. It was in that lowly place of utter dependency that God moved in his life.

Helplessness is the design and will of God for our lives. The Psalmist writes that "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalm 51:17 ESV). God finds pleasure in us when we are in the place of brokenness, humility, poverty of spirit, and neediness.

These places of brokenness and weakness are not desired in this world. Nobody wants to be known as weak, needy, poor, or inadequate. Paul sure didn't! He asked the Lord repeatedly to take away whatever it was that handicapped him.He did not want to have to live and serve God in this lowly state. The Lord, refused."Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Paul came to see that this helplessness, this weakness, this brokenness, this neediness was indeed a precious gift from God. This was the place that released the true flow of God's power, strength, and grace in his life and ministry and it will be the same for you. God knows where His power and glory thrive and where it is diminished.

Paul's growth as a Christian is remarkable in that his growth increased as his own sense of his helplessness, weakness, and sinfulness increased. In 1 Corinthians 15:9, Paul calls himself "the least of the apostles." Five years later, in Ephesians 3:8 he calls himself "the least of all God's people." Finally, two years before his he calls himself after walking with Jesus for thirty years, "The worst of all sinners" in 1 Timothy 1:15. For Paul, the way up in God's kingdom was down! The less he saw of Himself, the more he saw of Christ. The greater awareness of his helplessness, brokenness, and sinfulness before God, the more he was amazed by God's gift of grace towards someone like him. He received help by being helpless. He became stronger by becoming weaker. He became rich by becoming poor. He became successful by becoming a failure. Oh dear reader, do not despise those gifts.

The gospel uses your helplessness as the doorway to God's grace. When you agree with Jesus that "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), you are maturing as a Christian. I now see that the security of a marriage, a ministry, a job, relationships, approval of man, and health from which I have fallen from was really a trusting in my strength and ability and plans and people. Today all I can do is trust Jesus and no one and nothing else.

So now I pray all day, every day. I cry out to my Father in heaven in my helplessness, "help me", "heal me", "save me", "guide me", "fill me ", "teach me", "show me", "enable me", "strengthen me", "fill me", "deliver me", "forgive me", and numerous more simple helpless cries.
Jesus is not asking you and me to do anything that He is not already doing. He is inviting us into His life of helpless dependence upon our heavenly Father. To become more like Jesus is to feel more and more that you cannot do life. The very thing we often times try to escape, our own helplessness, becomes the launch pad to prayer and then to God's help and grace.

Helpless and being helped,
Pastor Bill

SEEING THE FATHER'S LOVE FOR YOU!

2011-05-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure! I John 3:1-3

John, in his writings, thinks often of God’s love. As you look at the Gospel of John it would seem that John was overwhelmed with the thought that he was loved by God and compelled to exult in it. In John 3:16 he records the words of the Lord Jesus, “God so loved the world” and reveals the measure of God’s love. As you look at the Epistle of 1 John it would seem that even in his old age he was still amazed by the fact that he was loved by God. John now says, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” His words show us that…

The Father’s love for you is meant to be seen and savored!

I want to draw your attention to one word: “See”. It may not immediately impact you but it should. It is rich, powerful, and life-changing. This is John’s passionate exclamation and command to all of us. “See” is often translated, “behold”. As an exclamation, “see” shows that the Fathers great love is meant to amaze us, but in order to be amazed by it, God’s love is meant to be seen and savored; to be known and cherished; to be understood and treasured.

Some things grow very commonplace over time. We’ve heard about them and known them for years. Maybe at first, when it was new, an idea or experience affected us, but over the years, the effect grows weaker and weaker, until finally it’s just a far distant memory. But the Father’s great love for us is the kind of experience that God wants to grow stronger and stronger over the years in understanding and intensity, until it totally dominates every aspect of our lives. He desires it to consume our thoughts and control our behavior. He wants our seeing and savoring His love to motivate us to serve Him and to live holy lives. He wants the sight of His love to give us comfort in all our trials. He desires his love to fill us with the eager hope of being with Him in heaven. The sight of His love is meant to fill us with awe and worship.

Do you see and savor the Father’s love? I think of Paul who in thinking about God wrote in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” I ask myself and ask you: where is your “Oh!” in response to God and His great love?

There are so many diverse “Oh’s” that come out of seeing the Father’s love. Do we feel the “Oh” of enchantment, excitement, amazement, awe, wonder, yearning, submission, joy and satisfaction over the sight of this love? I think many people have lost the “Oh!” in their relationship with and response to God. Don’t let yourself ever hear of the Father’s great love and think, “Ho hum!” Perhaps this happens to us because when we think of God’s love, our response is more of a “who” of ignorance, or a “Huh” of disinterest, or a “so what” of bored indifference. It isn’t exclamatory excitement but a religious snore that emanates from the soul of those who don’t see and savor the love of God. How different this is from the cry of John, who is so amazed, awestruck, humbled, joyful, and excited that he invites us to join him and “see what manner of love the Father has given to us”. Look at it, be staggered by it, feel the wonder of it, be touched in the core of your soul by it, be amazed and astonished by it- the depth, the quality, the commitment of His heart to you.

The Father’s love for you is meant to instruct you

“See” is not only a passionate exclamation, it is also a command. “Stop everything else! Look at this! Think about it! Reflect upon this! Fill your minds with this truth! Ponder the significance of it!” Paul exhorts us in 2 Timothy 2:7, "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.". John doesn’t just speak of the fact that God loves you, but how God loves you and he wants you to see this and feel it!

The word translated, “what kind”originally meant, “of what country, or race”. It is the same word spoken about Jesus in Matthew 8:27 after He calmed the storm out at sea and they said “what sort of man is this that even the wind and the seas obey Him?” What they saw the Lord do amazed them. When they saw the miracle, they thought, This man is out of this world. What we saw is strange and foreign. They had never seen anyone do what they saw Him do.

John says that the kind of love that He has shown to us, when seen and reflected upon, leaves us speechless and amazed. It is the kind of love that leaves us saying “Wow”! It is as if John thinks about the Father’s great love and says, “Where does this come from? It must be from heaven, because there’s nothing like it in this world!” It is supernatural, divine, peculiar, unique, stands out, incomparable, exceedingly beautiful and compelling. What kind of love is it? The heavenly, infinite, perfect, gracious, divine, supernatural love of the Father and He wants us to know it, understand it, see it, and savor it!

Is it no wonder why Paul prays in Philippians 1:9? “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” Or in Ephesians 3:17-19, “…I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Or in 2 Thessalonians 3:5, "May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God".

A habit of devout, thankful meditation on God’s great love lies at the foundation of all vigorous, happy Christian living. This is why John makes this a command. It is the grace given, grace enabled, love caused, and wonderful duty of the believer to see and savor the love of God. John Owen, the great Puritan, wrote that the revelation of God and His great love “deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them.” If you had a friend in New York, but you never thought about this friend and never communicated with him, that friendship would fade and not have much significance in your life. Friendship maintained and built always requires great effort. For the friendship to affect you, you must think often about this friend and what he means to you and spend time with him. That is why John Owen suggests that “Friendship with God is most maintained and kept up by visits”. Oh how we need regular visits with God to stoke the fires of our love!

We all have too many other things crowding into our daily lives. That is why we lose the sense of “oh” in our lives. If we do not deliberately take the time and effort to block out all of these pressing things and to focus on what God has done for us in Christ, His great love will get crowded out of our thoughts and daily lives. So John shows us that the Father’s great love is meant to both amaze and instruct us. Stop and behold it often!

The Father’s love for you is lavished to you as a gift! “See what kind of love the Father has given to us” (Verse 1c).

John puts this in a very interesting way. Notice John doesn’t just say says that this love been shown us, revealed to us, manifested to us, or spoken about to us; even though He has done all of that. John says God has gone even further- He has given His love to us! The word speaks many things. First, it speaks of the measure of God’s love to us; it could more literally be translated lavished on us. Romans 5:5 tells us that, “the love of God is being constantly poured into us by the Holy Spirit”.

Second, it speaks of the manner of God’s giving of love. Giving has the idea of a one-sided giving, instead of a return for something earned or deserved. God’s love is purely a gift that comes from His undeserved favor, or grace. John writes in his gospel that there is an overflowing fullness from Christ poured out to us "full of grace and truth. ...And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."(John 1:14,16).

We see Paul emphasizing God's heavenly love in action in Romans 5. First he says in verse 6, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Further, in verse 8, he adds, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Even then he does not exhaust this miracle. He goes on in verse 10, “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” Add up the terms: we were helpless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies of God. His great love is demonstrated in that He sent His Son to die for us while we were in such an awful condition!

That is why John cries, “What amazing love!” God is under no obligation to save us. He is not obligated or owes us love. You and I are totally in debt to God with an unpayable debt! The fact that God’s great love is a gift means that you cannot do anything to earn it or deserve it. All you can do is receive it. It is all grace. It is a miracle!

Oh let the love of God for you touch your mind and your heart. Let it amaze and astound you as you see what kind of love it really is. There is no other word for God’s love than amazing. It is a love that leaves us standing in awe. It is a love like no other.

Dear reader, to the degree that you behold the free grace of God, to the degree that you meditate on it and you let it become a holy fire in your heart, to the degree you experience and behold the love of God, to that degree you are going to agree with John and say and feel “How great is the love of God!” This morning John wants you to look, see, savor, and be compelled and wooed by the wonder of His great love for you. Oh for a spirit of wonder that permeates your life. That you would gaze at this love and look at yourself and say, "I am a Christian, a Son and daughter of God, now. I am deeply, eternally, loved by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! This is wonderful, incredible, miraculous, unbelievable! It is amazing that God is so good to me; that God is for me. All I get from Him is undeserved love and grace.

There is nothing more important for each of you than to see God’s love for all it is and to savor it for all that it is worth.

Pastor Bill

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED A YEAR LATER

2011-05-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

Last May 4th I wrote a blog titled "What I have learned since I stepped down from my church". It is now a year later and I will be divorced this coming Sunday May 8th. So many things have happened and so many lessons i have learned over this past troubling year. So I thought I would simply bullet and comment upon what I have learned since last year.

-Living in the "Now" is the happiest, most peaceful, and most freeing way to live.
-Either humble yourself to God or He will humble you.
-God loves me even when I am not feeling or being very spiritual.
-This simple prayer has brought much comfort to me: "Jesus Son of David, have mercy on me. Holy Spirit come. Abba Father, find me in your love."
-Things don't always get better in life, sometimes they get worse, but God is good.
-Keep your expectations only in God and not yourself, people, and circumstances.
-Kiss the pain in your life. Do not try to run from it, deny it, compensate for it, and minimize it.
-There are two things that happen in every adversity we face; the adversity itself, and the way we respond to the adversity. How we respond will either transform us or destroy us.
- The Psalms are God's prayer book. They have been my life line when I have been scared, sad, weak, lonely, stressed, broken, doubting, and lost.
-The Lord really does take care of us.
-Listen to God. His ways are always right, true, and best for us no matter what seems right to us in the short term.
-Be sure to take care of your soul above all things. If you don't, the time will surely come when you will find out that you did not and you will wish that you did.
-The hardest person to know is ourselves. Our hearts are full of self deception and there is a way that seems right in our own eyes that always leads to death.
-The only way to know ourselves is to know God.
-God is always speaking if we would only become open, alive, and alert to Him speaking through the Word, nature, daily providence's, and others.
-God speaks to us through our brothers and sisters. Be humble, be open, and be teachable. It might save your life.
-The spirit is very willing but the flesh is very weak.We need to be self aware and utterly depend upon His strength in order to live the lives He has called us to live.
-Do not make decisions when you are emotional. You will regret it.
-A man reaps what He sows. Disobey God and He will lovingly chasten you.
-Sin does not pay ever!Obedience pays both in this life and the life to come.
-Life is very short, don't waste it.
-Stay in fellowship with those more Godly than you, wiser than you, and who love God more than you, therefore will love you enough to speak truth to you.
-Submit to the place God has you in.
-Adopt to the pace He is moving and working in your life. Do not run ahead of Him.
-Hurting people will always hurt people and make it seem like its your fault.
-It is what you know after you have learned everything that matters.
-Let him who cannot be alone, beware of being with others. Let him who cannot be with others, beware of being alone.
-God is not concerned near as much about what I do as He is concerned for who I am.
-A clear conscience before God is the most freeing and wonderful way to live.
-Keep very short accounts with God. Confess your sins. Be honest with Him.
-Peace in my soul is the most important peace that I need.
-It is good to be quiet, cantered, and contemplative. God will get the glory and others will glean the benefits.
-Do not think that you can control your life or God. If you do, He will show you how out of control you really are.
-Do not presume upon God and put your trust in what you want, wish, or desire. If you do, you will become deeply disappointed in God. Put you trust in Him alone. He will fulfill His purpose for your life.
-The Father loves me.
-Apart from Jesus, I really can do nothing.
-His grace is the operating, moving, motivating, faith producing,enabling force in my life.
-Love is the most important thing there is in the life of a Christian.
-God wants us to be free and to allow others freedom. He wants us to be less intrusive and invasive in others lives. He wants us to learn to accept each others differences and not try to change people to be like us.
-Faith is acting like its so, when it seems not to be so, because God says so.
-Jesus is with me, even if I don't see Him, feel Him, or believe Him.
-You can always find numerous reasons for gratitude to God. Something happens in your soul when you become a thankful person.
-I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great Savior. On His kind arms I fall.

Reflective,
Pastor Bill

GOD ENTRANCED CHRISTIANITY

2011-04-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV

There are millions of voices in the world telling us what is really important in life. What matters is not what the world determines is important, nor social scientists, philosophers, cultural watchdogs, behavioral scientists, Oprah Winfrey, nor even popular church culture (just go on line and read mission statements of some churches and you’ll see what I mean!). For that matter, it doesn’t matter what we feel or think is important.

The creator and sovereign Lord of the universe alone declares the true measure of what really is important. There is nothing more important issue in life than seeing Jesus for who He really is and savoring Him above all else. For this is the very reason for our existence –the capacity to know and love and enjoy the glory of God. And if we lose the true knowledge of God and lose the love of God and the joy of God-then we will lose the ability to reflect His truth and beauty in the world. And the world loses God. We need is a true vision of the greatness of God: A God-immersed life birthed out of a God-entranced vision of reality. Therefore seeing Jesus is something we should desire with all our hearts. This is an experience of great love, faith, and joy because in it we taste the very reality of God and his love.

The Apostle Peter gives us a threefold description of God entranced Christianity. He encourages Christians that what they were experiencing was the result of their seeing and savoring God; challenging other Christians who had drifted away; and awakening those who have never seen Jesus to eternal realities.

A God entranced Christian is loving Christ and trusting Christ and enjoying Christ.

1. Loving Christ "Though you have not seen him, you love him..."

Loving Christ means seeing and experiencing Christ as precious for all his character and virtue and as a result being compelled in mind, heart, and soul to cherish Him, treasure Him, and feel toward Him as the supreme object of your affections. Augustine put it this way:
“I call love to God the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for His own sake.”

2. Trusting Christ "Though you do not now see him, you believe in him "

Trusting Christ means seeing and experiencing Christ as reliable in all his promises and all his counsel. In other words: Love is attracted to the Beloved for who he is. Faith is confident in the Trusted for what he will do.

3. Enjoying Christ "Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory"

Joy in Christ is the deep good feelings that come in loving him and believing him. It's the echo in our emotions -- our hearts -- of experiencing Christ as precious and experiencing Christ as reliable. It's the deep good feelings of being attracted to him for who he is and the deep good feelings of being confident in him for what he will do.

Peter calls joy inexpressible. What give joy its character as inexpressible is the source of the joy. Christian joy is the joy of craving the preciousness of Jesus and the reliability of Jesus. You become like what you crave. Christians crave Christ. Therefore they become like Christ. Christ's preciousness and reliability are inexpressibly great, and so our joy is inexpressible in him. A soul that craves and delights in Christ is a great soul, a noble soul, a soul that has risen to highest of what its precious maker designed as creator and saved as redeemer to be! Why? Because “The worth and excellence of a soul is measured by the object of its love.” Henry Scougal

How do we come to crave the preciousness of Christ and trust the reliability of Christ if we can't see him? “Though you don’t see Him you love Him”

It is not based on a physical seeing of Christ. There is a kind of seeing that is not seeing of t he physical eyes. Paul prays for us to have it in Ephesians 1:18, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” or David prays it in Psalm 119:18, Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law." Paul speaks of the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ that we “see” when God overcomes the blinding effects of Satan and our own hardness of heart in 2 Corinthians 4:4.

Peter says, though you do not see Him, you love Him. Yet Paul says that we walk by faith not by sight in 2 Cor. 5:7. He means physical sight not spiritual sight. It is not a blind leap of faith or credulitous. It’s a peculiar kind of seeing. In the preaching or reading of the gospel Christ can be seen in a way that is more important than seeing him physically. No wonder Jesus said it was to our advantage that He go away (John 16:7). Hundreds of people in Jesus' life time saw him physically and never really saw him. When the gospel of Christ is preached or read we can see Christ more clearly for who he really is than many could see in his own lifetime.

If you read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with openness to Christ, you can see the true glory of Christ far more clearly than most of the people who knew him on earth could see him. The Spirit of God thorough the word of God grants us the sight of the self-authenticating glory of Christ. And because you see him with the eyes of the heart you love him and trust him and rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. This is true Christianity-the God entranced life.

We must realize that the experience of the Christians Peter was describing is not like hypnosis or electric shock or drug-induced hallucinations or shivers at a good tune or mysticism. Rather it is mediated through knowledge of the word. Or to say it another way, this experience of the love of God is the work of the Spirit giving unspeakable joy in response to the mind's perception of the Christ as precious for all his character and virtue found in the word. Christ is the focus and content of the mind in this inexpressible joy. In fact, 1 Peter 1:6 says that the joy itself is "in" the truth that Peter is telling us about the work of Christ. It says, "In this you greatly rejoice." And what is "this"? It is the truth that...

1) in "His great mercy [God] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead;" and

2) we will "obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away;" and

3), we "are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:3-5).

In this we "greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory." We know something and in knowing see something and as a result we feel love, faith, and joy! This is a mind in love with God!

So let’s review how we see:
Mind-corresponds to the understanding of the truth of Christ’s exceeding worth and glory. Love-corresponds to the delight in the worth of the beauty of those perfections. God is glorified in being understood and delighted in. You cannot divorce delight from understanding nor can you divorce understanding from delight. Either way you will have problems: Cold dead intellectualism or emotional, empty enthusiasm divorced from truth. I’ve seen both in my Christian journey. There is truth in Christ to be seen and known and there is beauty to be cherished.

Jonathan Edwards describes it this way:
The glory of God is not merely seeing or perceiving His perfections; for we may perceive the power and wisdom of God, and yet take no delight in it. The glory of God consists in his creatures admiring, rejoicing, and exalting in the manifestations of his beauty and excellence…The essence of glorifying God consists in rejoicing in God’s manifestations of his beauty.”

The greatest moments in our lives do not come when we think about ourselves or this world, but when God liberates us from the bondage of self so that we can we forget about ourselves and enjoy knowing and admiring the greatness, power, love, wisdom, and beauty forever! Truth stirring our affections in such a way that we feel love and inexpressible joy in Him!

Oh for a mind in love with God! A God-centered, Christ-exalting life. John Piper says, “The wasted life is a life without passion.” Nothing makes God more supreme and central than when people are persuaded that nothing will satisfy their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God. This conviction will breed a people who will go hard after seeing and savoring Christ. “The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean.” Jonathan Edwards

Longing to see and savor Jesus,
Pastor Bill

HOLY WEEK MEDITATION: THE TEARS OF JESUS

2011-04-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation." Luke 19:41-44 ESV

I have become quite skilled at weeping this past year. I can probably say that in the past year, not one day goes by where I do not weep over the losses of people and things that hold dear to me. It is a lonely place, the place of tears. Sometimes i have had to run into the bathroom at the gym because of the sudden eruption of tears as I lift weights. I have been out surfing and had to paddle away from the guys because all the sudden tears will erupt. Almost every week at my Tuesday study I find myself weeping during worship. As a man, I try to keep my tears private and in my moments alone because it isn't considered manly to cry. But what do you do manly or not when the tears come? I have been very encouraged that there is one I can come to in my lonely, broken hearted, sad tears, Jesus, the savior who wept.

If you read the story of Palm Sunday, it was a great day in Jerusalem. People are believing that the messiah has come in Jesus and are waving Palms as Jesus passes them by on a donkey and shouting out joyous praise while quoting the Messianic Psalm 118. It is the greatest moment in their lives. But during this time something very strange happens. Luke is the only writer who tells us about it. At the height of the celebration Jesus begins to weep. When Jesus saw the city of Jerusalem, He began to weep.

On three separate occasions, scripture speaks of Jesus weeping. The first we find in John's gospel. The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” It is also the most poignant. Those words are like a window pointing to the nature and glory of Jesus. It cuts the heart out of any view of God that places Him in some distant universe looking down dispassionately on His creation. Jesus wept. Maybe that surprises us, or frightens us, or threatens us, or embarrasses us. It is all too easy for me to think of Jesus always as unemotional and always serene facing danger and crises without even flinching. But Jesus wept. Never has so much been said so succinctly. Here is the love, mercy, passion, compassion, grief, and anger of Jesus chiseled down into two words: Jesus wept.

The second occasion of Jesus weeping is found in Hebrews 5:7,”During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”

The third occasion is in Luke 19:41, where we have what is commonly called “Jesus Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem ” or Palm Sunday. Luke tells us that as Jesus entered the city to the tumultuous welcome of the people, His own spirit was not festive. When He saw the Holy City, He wept over it. We must never forget this. The Greek word for "wept" is poignant with meaning. It comes from the Greek word, "klaio”, which means to sob, to wail aloud." This is much more than just a few tears; it was loud and deep sorrow. The sorrow of mourners after someone died in Hebrew culture. Imagine the Lord of the universe wailing over Jerusalem!

Why was Jesus crying? What pain was in our Lord’s heart? With all this joy, praise, emotion, and enthusiasm about Him from the people, why is Jesus weeping? This does not make sense! This is His coronation as King. This is His moment of glory. Jesus was weeping, not for himself, but for the city that was about to reject him. Jesus saw beyond the cheering crowd to the mob that would soon crucify him. they did not get it. They were right about Him and oh so wrong. Their elation will turn to deep disappointment and Jesus is brokenhearted. Jesus knew on Palm Sunday that Good Friday was only five days away. And through the dim mists of history, he saw into the future, to the time when the Roman army would sack Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and destroy the city stone by stone, killing men, women and children by the thousands. Because the nation would reject its Messiah, such awful judgment would soon fall. Why? God’s Son had come and they did not recognize him. “He came unto His own, but His own received Him not.” (John 1:11). . These are his words: “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke 19:42-44)

Oh what a revelation of the tender heart heart of Jesus! Jesus really feels the sorrow at what He sees. This does not mean his sovereign plan has wrecked because of man. It means that Jesus is much more emotionally complex than we think he is. Jesus is the Lamb and the Lion; He is the Savior and the judge; He is full of mercy, love, and grace and full of wrath; He is kind and severe. Jonathan Edwards said, "He is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies."

Oh how I savor the beauty of Jesus tough in proclaiming a coming judgement on the holy city, but oh so tender in feeling and weeping over what is to come. Don't you just treasure this Jesus? Jesus is well acquainted with tears. Isaiah 53:3-4, tells us "He was despised and rejected by men;a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows..."

Jesus has borne and carried upon Himself all your sorrows, grief, and tears. He knows, understands, and weeps with you as you cry. Jesus can be in control of your life, yet weep over your griefs, pain, and loss. The Psalmist says, "You have kept count of my tossings;put my tears in your bottle.Are they not in your book?"(Psalm 56:3)

I pray this passion week that God would give you tears and that you would be free to give Him your tears. There is so much pain in the world this Passion Week. So much suffering far from you and so much suffering near you. And maybe this week there is much sorrow within you. Pray that God would catch your tears and help you be tenderly moved like Jesus. pray that your tears would be rooted deep in what John Newton calls "Habitual tenderness of spirit".

Today our sovereign Christ is a sympathetic High Priest who knows our grief. Jesus weeps! He wept over a friend who died and he weeps over a nation who wanted its own way and died as well. He also called both out of their tombs. Lazarus came forth and lived. Jerusalem did not and was destroyed.

Do we weep? Is there anything about Jesus that will touch your heart and teach you to love Him and others? He is God, who became a man, a real, vulnerable, touchable, man. Entering into all the grief and suffering you know including tears.

Oh how we need his heart and his care. Oh how we need for the Spirit of Jesus to melt our selfish, cold, and indifferent with the fire of His true love. That we might weep with him for the lost, the poor, the suffering, the broken, the hardened, and the blind. Jesus felt enough compassion for Jerusalem to weep. If you haven’t shed any tears for somebody’s losses but your own, it probably means you’re pretty wrapped up in yourself. Jesus tears cause me to repent of my own hardness and callousness to human suffering, pain, grief, and loss and to ask God to give me a heart that is tenderly moved like my savior.

Weeping with tears of sorrow and gratitude and longing to weep for others and with others this passion week,
Pastor Bill