Well, have you ever been caught with your pants down?  OK, too graphic so let me say it this way:  have you ever been caught with your foot in your mouth?  I am not asking if you have ever put your foot in your mouth; we all have done that and some do it every day; my question is whether or not you have been caught with all ten toes tickling your vocal cords and your heels at the edge of your mouth so that your eyeballs are bulging with embarrassment and shame.  Let’s put it another way:  have you sinned and been caught in your sin.  There is nothing more humiliating or humbling and nothing quite as good as that.  It happened to me this week.  I was shamed.  Rightly so.  I was caught and should have been.  I was trapped by the truth of God and my own transgression and was confronted lovingly and clearly by the one against whom I had sinned.

A good friend in our church has sent me a facebook message about a project that he is working on.  We both were waiting for word from one of our IMB Missionaries about how this project was going to work in actuality and we had not heard frankly fast enough for me.  My friend on this end is eager to go and get to work on the task; I am anxious that it is all going to work so I sent back in reply to his facebook message that the missionary is prone to procrastinate and has to be kept in check by his wife in order to stay on task.  Words wound.  They do.  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a lie.  Words do sear the soul.  Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold, it is true.  Well, my little indiscretion with words went straight to my friend the missionary.  How is that for putting your foot firmly in your mouth?  There it was and he is reading it.  He wasn’t laughing, I don’t think!  He called me and confronted me.

My first words:  “you got what . . . .”  here is where you see my heels protruding from my mouth and this preacher who has been given the gift of the words had done.  My friend had been used of God to teach me a huge lesson about speaking the truth in love.  I was overwhelmed by both guilt and shame.  I had sinned against my brother and this man who mimics Jesus to me fare more than I ever do the same to him had done it in my life again.  He is so gracious and loving, so caring and kind; so full of great joy and genuine laughter.  We worked through the initial phases of healing agreeing that God would use this to strengthen our relationship as brothers and friends and colleagues in ministry.

My mother would have washed my mouth out with soap; lava to be exact or worse.  Ivory always made too many bubbles and tasted far too good for her taste.  God just let my shame wash over me for awhile while the guilt was taking its toll, and then came the cleansing of grace.  If we confess our sins . . . .  Thank you God for a wonderful lesson and I pray that as I hit the “publish” button for this post that it will find its way today to somebody who needs like me to be more responsible with their words and to value more deeply the meaning of friendship.  Thank you God for catching me in my sin; and thank you God for the majestic glory of  Your great grace.

Montanus was a maniac.  He has relatives in the church today. His family has been a part of the faith community in every age.  Montanus believed that he was the third member of the trinity, except that he was not a spiritual being but a flesh and blood being.  God talked to Montanus and told him what His will was on any and every situation.  He became the recipient and the avenue of the truth of God.  God spoke to him directly and directed him about what he was to say to others.  People were crazy enough to listen to him even after he was roundly and rightly condemned as a heretic.  People listened to him because people want to hear from God.  We want a clear word about every subject under the sun so when someone tells us that they have that or that we can have that, even the best of us are prone to listen.  Now here is where I have a struggle that I want to share with you.  You may not have my struggle, and that is ok. This is all I ask:  hear me out on this one and don’t judge me as just having too little faith.

I hear people say to me:  we just want what God wants.  We just want to do what God wants us to do.  Well, I am a believer and a pastor and I want that too.  But how do we know?  This is where it gets sticky to me.  I actually believe from some that say the above words to me that they believe that if we pray hard enough and listen long enough that God will speak on every issue in a way that is crystal clear.  We will know.  And this includes all kinds of issues.  For example, our church selects deacons by having the church nominate men for the office and then we have a selection team that prays over the list of names and works until we can come to a consensus of the number of men that we need.  We do not meet to discuss these names nor do we examine their credentials.  We pray.  Now according to the approach outlined above, it would seem to me that if God speak directly in this way that the seven members of the selection team praying over the deacons should come to the same names for the number of men needed.  And it is marvelous how this system works but I have never seen it where all seven on the selection team came to the exact same number of names.  And that is in part because the list of names includes many men who meet the biblical qualifications for deacon.  So, how do we know for sure?  Recently we were dealing in our church with whether to stay with two services on Sunday morning or to go back to one.  Lots of factors were involved and our elders had to make a decision.  Does God speak directly about this kind of issue and if so, how do we explain that a group of godly men were at some level of absolutely harmonious disagreement about what to do.

I believe that God has spoken and what He says is what we know as the Bible.  This is God’s Word to us.  Now it is clear in the Word of God that the church should have elders and deacons.  That one is hard to miss, but it is not clear about how they are to be selected.  They could be appointed by the pastor or they could be selected by the congregation or some mix of these two.  Each church has to decide what is best for the church and most coherent with what Scripture teaches.  The Bible is clear further that the Lord’s Day is set aside for the worship of God and for rest from ordinary labor.  I do not think that the Bible addresses directly when that is to be done or for how long.  I do think that the Bible is clear about how worship is to be done and what is to be the center of worship.  Worship if for God and is directed to the glory of His Name; and the center of worship is to be the preaching/teaching of the Word of God.  But whether we worship once a Sunday for three to four hours or in the morning and evening is a decision that the leaders have to make with wisdom in the light of whom worship is for and what worship is to be.  I do not think no matter how long you pray or wait that God is going to say:  I want you to worship twice on Sunday morning at whatever time or I want you to have “x” number of deacons and elders and their names are.

So many matters we face even in the church are what is known as “adiaphera.”  They are matters about which the Bible does not make a distinction and about which the Bible does not speak in detail.  So how do we hear from God in these matters.  I believe we take seriously and study sincerely what the Bible says and then make decisions that are rooted in prayer and governed by wisdom.  Does this guarantee that we will not make mistakes?  NO.  But I am certain that we are making a serious mistake when we think that if we pray long enough and wait long enough, God will speak to us directly about who is to do what in the church and what time services or to be held or whatever matters or not directly addressed in Scripture.  Such an approach was the approach of Montanus who really did see himself as the Holy Spirit.  He wasn’t.  Neither are we.

I am a pastor in a Southern Baptist Church.  My initial and continued draw to Southern Baptist life was the marvelous vision that the SBC has had from her beginning concerning the mission of the church to make the Gospel known to all the nations.  I have never been drawn to Southern Baptist Life by our polity and our provincialism has always come very close to making me nauseous.  Provincialism among Southern Baptists is expressed in phrases like “Baptist born and Baptist bred, and when I am gone I will be Baptist dead.”  It  shows up in communities where the Baptist churches work in concert and cooperation with each other to the exclusion of other conservative evangelical churches.  It is manifest among people in our churches who want only Baptist literature in our churches and Baptist curriculum in our organizations.  It is beyond sad.  It is tragic.  But this article is not about our provincialism which I pray in a few more years will be all but dead because it is mostly generational; this article is about our polity.

Baptist polity in the Southern Baptist Convention is congregational which is understood by most Baptist congregations as democratic or majority rule.  Now it is true historically that the polity of SBC churches is congregational but it became democratic only at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century.  I struggled with this method of doing church business from my first involvements with the church when I was seventeen.  My first struggles were not biblical and theological but practical.  I watched my home church invest more energy and time and create more conflict in a “church conference” than in anything I had ever seen.  I watched young people and young adults observe the behavior of these so-called “christian” people and walk away from the church.  I am absolutely convinced that more people have walked away from SBC churches never to return because of something that happened in a church conference.  And can I be so bold as to say that I fully understand that.  I was next bothered by our polity because it is so impractical.  It just doesn’t work.  There is no way to do the business of the church when everything is up for discussion and vote.  And then I turned bitter over our polity when I realized that it was hypocritical.  I began after about five years as a pastor to recognize that the majority vote was a manipulated vote by the powers that be that “ran” the church and that I as a pastor was not the leader–I was not given that choice–and had no real voice.  As one well-intentioned deacon told me, “you boys comes and go every few years and we are here to stay so we decide how she goes.”  Honest.  Hypocritical.  Heretical.  But my struggle with our polity took wings of glorious flight when I had enough Bible and history under my belt to see clearly that our polity is not biblical at all and is not even historical.

Congregational government of a church by democratic process emerged after the turn of the twentieth century.  Are you ready for this:  it did not even exist until then.  It is so foreign to what is so faithfully taught in Scripture that only an apostate church would entertain such a notion or in the case of the emerging SBC powerful men in powerful places who could only usurp elder rule in our Baptist churches by overthrowing the entire system thus creating a congregational democracy that they could manipulate toward their own ends.  And they did.  And their children and grandchildren still do in many churches in the south that are dying.  Actually I don’t believe they are dying; I believe many churches like this are dead and have been put to death by God and that in part because they are run (read thia as ruined) by men and not ruled in accordance with God’s Word.

The church is no business that is to be operated like the rest of the world. We are  not a secular institution.  We are the body of Christ and our business is to be witnesses for Jesus in the world so as to see people saved so that we can disciple them as devoted followers of Jesus.  We exist to worship God and to grow under the authority of His Word.  We then go into the world to see people come to know Him through what we share with them.  This is our business and the members of the church are to pursue this path as their business trusting the elders to set the proper biblical and spiritual context in which this can happen and the deacons to give such good oversight to the administrative matters including decision making about buildings and budgets that the membership is free to pursue our calling through the church and in the world not having to be bothered by those temporal matters of the church.  My conviction is on the one hand that God is raising up His kind of church in our day and that those who most want what used to be when the church gathered to discuss every detail of every decision want that because if they look closely at their lives, they are not really doing the business of the church in the world of every day.  Put simply those who focus on church business are not really doing the business of the church and those who are doing the business of the church are too busy with it to bother with church business.

I must issue a warning at the beginning of this post.  This will be far too candid on what some of you may consider an “untouchable” subject so if you begin reading and what you read bothers you, STOP.  I am not forcing you to read this blog or to pay attention to its subject matter.  This is a simply for me a forum where I want to address from my understanding of Scripture and from my heart some of what I see going on in our crazy, corrupt culture.  So with that said I want to first establish the context for this blog and then address what has made me mad this morning.

I have spent the summer for the most part completely removed from television.  I have only seldom had the television on in my home this summer some due to being gone a lot but mostly due to a desire not to be dominated in any way by audio or visual media that is not Gospel Centered.  I walk on a treadmill every morning and listen mostly to good teaching from Alistair Begg, Sinclair Ferguson, Al Mohler. R.C. Sproul etc. but came to walk this morning realizing that I had heard everything that I currently have downloaded to my ipod.  So, I turned on FOX News.  Now you need to know that I don’t think FOX News is any more “fair or balanced” than any other news network. FOX leans heavily toward midstream to right wing Republican politics while CNN and the major networks lean toward midstream to left wing Democratic politics.  Both are biased to one or the other political party.  FOX just pretends that it isn’t but in the process only fools those who are so dominated by the Republican party that they are blinded to any alternative realities.  So, I was watching FOX and walking on the treadmill and saw the little teases about the girls from Victoria’s Secret but did not pay them or it much attention. I am not lying.  That is the truth.  I perked up when the interview began as I heard Steve or Brian ask them about the new brassiere line called “Incredible.”  And one of the girls said that it is brand new and called by that term because that is what the women were saying who were wearing these bras for the first time:  a bra line for every woman that is guaranteed to make women finally feel good about who they are.  It is right here that I turned off the television because I was mad.  How absolutely openly exploitative of women can we get!  How stupid do we think women are that  they would think that what they need is a new bra line from a soft porn company to make them feel better about themselves.

But then I got even madder.  Because I thought about men who maybe watching these girls and thinking thoughts about them that are exploitative; looking and lusting.  I thought of men who gawk at the soft porn catalogs from Victoria Secrets and walk in front of the store and drool over the skimpiness of the clothing line.  I thought of men who are watching women that way even in the church and men who are addicted to internet pornography and nobody seems to think much of that because it is mostly done privately and in secret.  These same men would not ever have a woman who is a friend because they would not know how to handle that kind of relationship because of where their eyes go and how their mind thinks whenever they look at a woman.  Yet, these kind of men are never chided for their lustful looks and their sexual stares unless they are caught on a pornographic site by their wives.  But a man who would have a friend who is a woman would be looked upon with suspicion and castigated as at best crude because of the way we think in terms of male/female relationships.  The end result is a man can look and lust after women and it is ok but if he connects with a woman and shares with her a simple and meaningful friendship, that is not ok.  And we see it that way because we see the latter as an affair.

An affair is a sexual fling between a man and woman fueled by intense emotional passion that usually lasts from three to six months.  It is not about love or care; it is about sex.  It carries with it an air of mystery, meetings between the man and woman are arranged in secrecy and the driving and determining force in the relationship is sex.  Now it is true in most affairs that the man and woman will convince each other WHILE HAVING SEX TOGETHER that it is not about sex.  Strange irony, isn’t it?  But that is the world of affairs.  Friendships are different.  They are conducted in the open and lived out in the light.  They are enjoyed in the context of full disclosure to spouses and strong relationships of accountability with boundaries clearly drawn and dangers fully recognized.  I have a woman who is like a sister to me. Anne knows it.  She and I talk from time to time less now than in the past.  She is like someone I have known all my life who is so different from me that we don’t really live in the same world, but we talk as if we have known each other all our lives.  She is my sister.  She knows it and I know it.  And I have a friend, a dear friend who is a woman.  Our pasts and our pain from the past are very similar.  It is like our hearts have been wounded at the same places and in the same ways.  We understand each others struggles in ways that others may not who have not been where we have been and encountered what we have encountered.  Anne knows and loves my friend and knows that what we share is not at all sexual but is in fact a real and genuine friendship.

Now this is what I know.  Some who read this kind of post would find that having a woman who is like a sister to me and a woman who is a real and genuine friend to me is odd and strange and why would you feel that?  Is it because it is wrong?  Or is it because of how you think men and women must always relate?  Some of the same people who would struggle with a man and woman being friends would also stand outside the Victoria Secrets store and drool or examine the soft porn publication from the same company and lust.  You could not imagine a relationship with a woman that was not looking lustfully.  And part of your problem if you are a man who is a believer is to see women who are believers in their place of first and fundamental importance to you:  your sister in Christ whose life is to be lived out to bring glory to God.  That is the foundation and the only foundation upon which these kinds of friendships can be formed and be fruitful.  We must recognize that the foundation for any and every relationship between believers is that we belong to Jesus.  He is Lord.  And our lives are to be lived out in honor to Him so as to advance His Kingdom and to bring glory to His Name.

And that is why I got mad this morning.  Here on what is supposed to be a conservative television channel, women were being exploited openly as exclusively sexual beings who need something to make them feel better about themselves, and this soft porn company has produced it in a bra.  Incredible.  It really is incredible.

Some statistics show that many men and women who are called into the ministry of the Gospel come out of moderate to deeply dysfunctional families.  Now granted that all families are dysfunctional to one degree or another, I am an example of one of those who was called into the ministry of the Gospel out of a deeply dysfunctional family.  My mother wept in bitterness the night I told her that God was calling me to preach.  Her words were simple and straightforward, “of all the things that you could do with your life, this would be the last thing that I would ever want you to do.”  And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I am in Cleveland, Ohio this week where my wonderful wife has spent the summer with our daughter who is pregnant with twins and already the mother of a 2.5 year old.  You may understand why she was needed this summer.  Our daughter is married to an absolutely wonderful man who is in residency at the Cleveland Clinic and works hours that make my work schedule appear as if I am on vacation most of the time.  It is really unbelievable.  I came this week to visit and to bring my wife home for a couple of weeks, but while here I have been thinking a lot about family.

I believe that one of the greatest hindrances to the cause of the Gospel among conservative evangelicals in America is our very unbiblical notion about family.  We have made our biological families into the institution of first and foremost importance.  We will lay anything and everything down to make our marriages better and to enhance the lives of our children in every way from athletics to helping them along to the good way of life that is chasing the American dream.  We sacrifice everything and anything for our families; we call it love.  The Bible would call it idolatry.  Now hear me properly:  Anne and I do invest in our marriage and we want it to be for the glory of God all that it can be.  We want our marriage to be a good model for other marriages.  She is my best friend, my lover, my companion in ministry and above all my sister in Christ.  I love my children and grandchildren and want them to know that I love them but I must not love either Anne or other family even at the level that I am in love with God and His people.  He and they must be first so as to enable me to be focused and faithful in loving my family and everyone else with proper perspective.

I believe that being from a dysfunctional family helps me understand more fully the dynamics of the demands for love of the Lord Jesus Christ and His people as a matter of first importance than those who come from a moderately functional family.  Such families emphasize the togetherness of the biological family almost to the exclusion of other concerns.  A man and a woman from the same town meet and marry and give birth to children who are raised in an environment of daily contact with grandparents and other relatives.  Such a situation though not wrong in and of itself creates the kind of bond to one another that cannot be severed even by the Spirit of God.  People who are raised in this kind of setting would rather lose anything than a child moving away from the family.  It is simply understood that we grew up here (wherever that may be) and we are going to stay here together because that is what family does.   Well, that is not what my family did.  Family gatherings with everybody around the table is a strange event to me.  I don’t even today comprehend it fully even though I have seen it go on for years in Anne’s family.  I like it, don’t get me wrong; but I surely don’t live for it or derive life from it.  I don’t despise it or think it wrong but I surely would not make any real decisions based on its importance.  And part of that is because of it being absent from my background as a child.

The end result is that when I say that I want to go wherever God wants me to go and do whatever God wants me to do I mean that.  I have visited that again this week in Cleveland.  I love my family.  My wife and children and grandchildren and son-in-law are precious to me.  I just spent the whole day at Firestone Country Club with my son-in-law and it was so much fun.  We laughed.  We walked and walked.  We joked around with one another.  It was fun.  But I am not living for that.  I love my church family at FBC Waynesboro and every member of this precious family, but I am not living for that either.  I want to love them and serve them to the best of my ability but at the end of the day I want to be able to stand before God and say that when I heard You calling me to go and to do, I went and I did because I am owned by You and not my lesser loves and loyalties.  And I believe that one of those lesser loves and loyalties in America is the biological family.  Ask many missionaries on the field about the greatest hindrance to their going and serving and you will hear them say, “well, it was my parents or my spouse’s parents who could not believe that we were going to take their grandbabies to and you can fill in the name of whatever country.”  That is sad to me.  It is beyond sad.  It is tragic.  Jesus will not ask you at the end how faithful you were to your family but how faithful you were to Him and some will have to say, “I loved them more than you.”  I don’t want to be one of those.  Do you?

We all struggle with sin because we are all sinners.  No single human being save Jesus is free from the confession, “I am a sinner who sins,” and I sin because I am a sinner.  No person is ever set free from his or her flesh nor from the allurements and enticements of the world.  We struggle.  But is there a difference between the way the believer struggles with sin and the unbeliever deals with the same issue?  Absolutely.  Paul points us in that direction in Romans 7 [+/-]Romans 7 [7:1]Or do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? [2]For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. [3]Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. [4]Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. [5]For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. [6]But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. [7]What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." [8]But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. [9]I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. [10]The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. [11]For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. [12]So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. [13]Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. [14]For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. [15]For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. [16]Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. [17]So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. [18]For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. [19]For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. [20]Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. [21]So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. [22]For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, [23]but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. [24]Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? [25]Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (ESV)
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The Bible makes plain that God has born witness to Himself and to His identity as God in the creation of the world and in the conscience of humans.  We know enough God from the world that He has made to know that He is a God to be feared and a God to be thanked  The beauty of a sunrise evokes thanks while the blackness of of a storm shows us that this God is not one to toy with.  He is an immense creator.  God has also made us as His creation with a conscience that carries us along in life with a sense of what is right and what is wrong.  So, when a unredeemed sinner does what is wrong they know that they are doing what is wrong whether it is the abuse and exploitation of another human being or sexual immorality.  We know.  What keeps the unredeemed sinner going down the road of sin, however, has noting to do with the One against whom they have sinned.  They stay the course because of the absence of the Holy Spirit in their lives so that the only real caution light in their life is the fear of being caught and the consequences that will come.  Typically, the power of the flesh and the allurements of the world are so enticing that the unredeemed sinner goes down the road of sin.  What keeps him or her on that road without repentance is the enjoyment of fleshly indulgence and the way of life that comes with worldly enjoyments.

The believer is different.  The Holy Spirit lives in the believer and guides us to the Truth of God which is the Word of God to which the believer is committed and submitted or quite frankly he or she is not a believer.  Just bogus.  True believers love God’s Word and are committed to a life of consecration by its standard and directed by the Holy Spirit.  Now this does not mean that we do not do battle.  We are still fleshly beings who if we live in America, live in a very pagan environment.  The pull of both is powerful.  No one is immune from the flesh and the world.  The devil knows this truth better than we so he seeks to take us down this path while getting us to so focus on the satisfaction of the flesh or the gratification that comes from the world that we quench the Spirit  and fall headlong into sin.  In our struggle then with sin the key to the battle is our faithful focus on the Word of God and the worship of God in accordance with His Word which will always lead the believer to hate sin. Here is the difference.  The believer so desires to live in devotion to God that he hates sin.  Sin is high treason against our holy God.  It brings us shame.  It severs for a season out connection with our head, the Lord Jesus Christ.  We do not flee it.  We forsake it and all that is around it that has the smell or sense of sin.  We focus our hearts on our God and we live so in love with Him that we want our lives to be an offering of praise to Him.

Don’t ever think that you will not battle with sin and that every day of your life.  But know that the battle is not yours to win or lose.  It has been won for us through our Lord Jesus Christ.  If you have fallen, seek His grace.  If you have been faithful to Him and are being in a battle in your life, give Him praise and keep walking with your nose and heart in His Word and your face turned toward Him.  My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought; my sin not in part but the whole; is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more; praise the Lord, praise the Lord; O my soul.

I really do enjoy all the dimensions of being a pastor in the local church.  Some things, however, are just simply more difficult than others.  And one of the most difficult is walking with families through the valley of the shadow of death.  I am being called upon to do that twice during the days of this week.  The circumstances of the deaths are different but the journey is still difficult.  One of the deaths was of an older man who had been suffering for some time with cancer.  He was a friend.  I lived in an apartment above his house when I first moved to Waynesboro.  He had such a heart for hurting people and particularly those who were “down on their luck” or held captive by the sinful structures of our society.  He loved the poor and would do anything in the world to help anybody.  He ran and insurance agency in our town and would tell people from time to time to go to other places that offered the same insurance that he sold but at a cheaper rate.  He believed in doing what what was right for others regardless of what that choice cost him.  He was very invested in what is known as mercy ministries or “hands on” involvement in the lives of others.  He cared and cared deeply.  Cancer had taken its toll on his body and mind so that death came as a welcome guest so that he could enter through it into the portals of heaven.  Still, standing before people at his funeral and walking with his family during the days of grief will not be easy.

The other death and funeral will be far more difficult.   A young man of 23 years lost his life this past Sunday afternoon in a tragic motorcycle accident.  Sunday afternoon for his family turned from a family lunch to a family fatality.  A day of worship and relaxation turned quickly into an evening of trauma and tragedy.  Talk of tomorrow turned to wanting it not to come for with it come the dawning of the reality that the death was really real.  Many will come today to the funeral with the American question, “why?” and with the American anger as deep inside us we have redefined who we are and redefined by our own sinful standards who God is.  These redefinitions make days like today really difficult because so few can really hear the Truth of the Word of God.

We ask “why” and demand an answer because we have come to think in our culture that we have both a right to life and a right to live it as we please and we pile on top of that a perspective of God who is to do right as we define what right is and to be fair as we define what fair is so that when a young life is snuffed out we are are prone to pound God with our complaints that He is neither good nor fair.  He does not do right or good.  We assume that we are both and we deserve better.  The truth is that by nature we are neither good nor right and what we deserve as sinners is that we would not be given breath for a day let alone a number of months and years.  No one is good by nature and no one is innocent of sin before a holy God.  We are all sinners who rightly deserve the judgment of His wrath, so that any day or number of days that we are given is purely an offering of the power of His grace.  The question that must be asked and answered in the presence of what we call “tragedy” is not why this happened but what does it mean for us when we come face to face with our own mortality?  Will we keep on living as if life is about us and God owes us something or will we have out eyes opened to see that life is about Him and we owe Him everything; even our lives?  God, give us eyes to see that life is not at all about me; set us free from live being about what we want to do and give us grace that we would love and live for you; come to us we pray today, and give us what we need so that we can walk in your way and then we will know what questions to ask:  not why did this happen and in this way but what can we learn so as to live more fully for you each and every day?

I hope you get excited when God begins to show you things in His Word that you have not seen before.  They have always been there.  So when this happens, don’t think that you are making new discoveries; you are simply being given the grace of God revealing to you what has been, is, and will always be eternal and inerrant Truth.  This has been happening me yet again when I was not looking for this to happen and in the most normal of circumstances.  Let me tell you how it came to be and then let me tell you what it is that God is showing me.

We are getting ready tomorrow morning to send out two mission teams.  There are nine people on one team and ten people on the other.  One is flying to the Ukraine to conduct an ESL camp the other is flying to England to work alongside a local church in outreach in the community.  The two teams together represent monetarily at least a forty thousand dollar investment in missions.  This is the context in which the Truth of God’s Word came to me.  We will gather tonight to pray over these teams and to send them out under the authority of the Word of God.  I never come to this kind of time without a genuine sense of excitement tainted only by the few (praise God that they are only a few and their number is decreasing) who still wonder why we go and do elsewhere when there is so much to do where we are.  Such an attitude always has the potential to evoke guilt and sympathy for such people who must love their community so much.  But this sentiment always comes from people whose lifestyles do not really reveal real love for the community; they are typically going wherever else they want to go and doing whatever else they want to do.  And the biblical truth that gets lost in all of this is that we are basically done with an area when that area has been saturated with the Gospel.  When we live and work in an area where churches, preachers, and Bibles are plentiful; we would be blind and deaf not to turn our attention elsewhere.  So, it is not that I hear this kind of concern as genuine gospel concern or that I pay attention to it as if it has any biblical legitimacy but is still causes me to pause and think about what I am hearing. Until now.

As I was preparing for our send off tonight, I began to be struck by the reality that the rule in the Bible is that God calls people who live in one place to go to another place and another people and that the logic of why he sends some one place and others another place can only be computed by Him.  Think about it.  Abram was what we would call a Gentile living in an area roughly equivalent to modern day Iraq and God called him to be the father of the faithful with primary focus on one people group, the habiru or Hebrews.  Why not call a habiru to lead the habiru?  Paul was as Jewish as one could be and he was called to go to the Gentiles.  Luke was a physician who was focused primarily on the poor while Matthew who would have been hated by the Jews wrote a Gospel with a distinctive Jewish focus.  Now it is true that when the Gadarene demoniac wanted to go with Jesus on His “mission” tour that Jesus sent him home to his own, but this is not the typical way.  Could it be that we have missed this reality in the Bible and that our focus on where we are is not because of the compassion born of the Holy Spiirt but the provincialism born of pride.  Here is what I know experientially:  God stretches me and grows me in relationship to Him much more when I am involved in the work of the Kingdom in unfamiliar territory than He ever does when I am on my home turf.  Could that be the reason He called Abram from his home?  Could that be the reason He calls us from ours?  Abram turned Abraham could not have lived out Genesis 22 [+/-]Genesis 22 [22:1]After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." [2]He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." [3]So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. [4]On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. [5]Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you." [6]And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. [7]And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" [8]Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. [9]When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. [10]Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. [11]But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." [12]He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." [13]And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. [14]So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided." [15]And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven [16]and said, "By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, [17]I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, [18]and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." [19]So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba. [20]Now after these things it was told to Abraham, "Behold, Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor: [21]Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, [22]Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel." [23](Bethuel fathered Rebekah.) These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother. [24]Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Reumah, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah. (ESV)
had He not obeyed the call of God in Genesis 12 [+/-]Genesis 12 [12:1]Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. [2]And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. [3]I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." [4]So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. [5]And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, [6]Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. [7]Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. [8]From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. [9]And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb. [10]Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. [11]When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, "I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, [12]and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. [13]Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake." [14]When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. [15]And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. [16]And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. [17]But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. [18]So Pharaoh called Abram and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? [19]Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go." [20]And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. (ESV)
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Every preacher should know when God has used him to “hit a nerve.”  The truth is that the Gospel does not really have any real impact on the lives of most professing Christians until it hits us in those areas where we would just as soon not go.  And when the Gospel goes to areas where we are living rather comfortable lives while thinking we are Gospel people, then our eyes get steely and our dander gets elevated.  I saw those steely eyes yesterday and knew that some dander was elevated among the fine people of FBC Waynesboro because the Gospel was coming really too close to home.  We love the Gospel when it is all about saving our souls and securing us for heaven but we are no so sure about the Gospel when the issue is about the transformation of our lives as we live as a colony of heaven here upon the earth.  Yet, the Gospel that does not transform our lives is not capable of saving our souls.  Oh, I know; we think it is.  We believe it is.  But this is not our Gospel.  It is the Gospel of God which means that it comes from God and is all about God and this God is one who makes worlds out of nothing and if He can do that, surely He can and does transform our lives.  So away with the nonsense that you “got” your soul saved one day and some day you want to see your attitude and actions change.  Such nonsense makes no sense because it fails to capture the core sense of Scripture.  When God calls me by His Holy Spirit to repentance because of my sin which is always and ultimately against God, He begins to revolutionize my heart and life, He changes my attitudes and actions.  And that is why a white man who lives his life with prejudice against black people or a black man who lives his life with prejudice against white people is a man who professes to be something that he isn’t because the Gospel has not drawn near His life.  Oh, he may believe in a gospel which is just that:  a gospel, but it is not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Thus, the steely eyes and the dander elevated yesterday.

God is building His church and it consists of people from all kinds of backgrounds brought together on the basis of the blood of Jesus who by the power of the Holy Spirit gather to give praise to God and scatter to serve His purpose as we live to bring glory to His Name.  So when we find a true church, a real body of believers; we find people from all kinds of backgrounds who have been drawn together by the Holy Spirit on the basis of our common love for and loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ.  We genuinely love one another and care for one another and do not see one another in the way that the world has taught us to see one another.  We are black and white together.  We are rich and poor together.  We are north and south together.  We are those who have been here a long time and those just recently arrived together.  We are Americans and Europoeans and Africans and Australians and Canadiana and Asians together under our primary identity as the people of the livng God.  Really?  Really!  This is the kind of community that the Gospel creates and the Gospel sustains.  It is the kind of community that is in the world and is hated the world because the world does not organize this way.  The world organizes according to kind.  Try being a black man in our town and apply for membership in the local country club and you will quickly learn the difference between the church and the world, or will you learn the difference?

I wondered as I left church yesterday and made my way to Atlanta if what I said was true.  Is this right?  Satan was on the move against my heart.  So I popped into the CD player a sermon by Tony Evans who gave one of the best treatments of what the church is in the world that I have ever heard.  He said a lot that I had been trying to say but said it in a much more powerful way.  His words were painful to my heart and penetrated my soul.  I was convicted.  Deeply convicted.  I had not said too much.  I had not said nearly enough.  Evans argued that the church exists in the world to establish for the world the absolute standard of the Kingdom of God.  We are the outpost of heaven upon the earth and we are not to look like the world; we are to look like heaven.  And when we do, the world will despise us and seek to destroy us.  And he would argue that the world of our day does neither of these to any great extent not because the church has had such great influence on the world but because the world has had such great influence on the church.  We do not reflect Jesus to our culture; we too often reflect the culture and a Jesus that we have created to conform to our culture.  You know this Jesus, don’t you; He is the one who has come to save your soul, to make your body always whole, He is the Jesus who loves your prosperity, whose greatest joy is in delighting over all your toys, who in good time will take you to your heavenly home, but not before you have finished here with all your fun.  You know this Jesus, don’t you; He exists for you and all that you want to do.  He brings you treasure and is delighted in your pleasure, and when you have pain, it did not come from Him; So you pray in faith believing, and soon are delivered from suffering so that when the preacher would say that God uses suffering to make you holy, you reject that word totally because you know the Jesus that is for you; He lets you be all that you want to be and do all that you want to do.  Oh, you better get ready for your Fall, it is coming you know, because the Jesus in whom you are believing is no Jesus at all.  “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.”

Am I just playing with words or is there a real difference in the two descriptives in the title of this post?  Well, let’s ask the parents of the man born blind that is recorded for us in John 9 [+/-]John 9 [9:1]As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. [2]And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" [3]Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. [4]We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. [5]As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." [6]Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud [7]and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. [8]The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" [9]Some said, "It is he." Others said, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." [10]So they said to him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" [11]He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went and washed and received my sight." [12]They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know." [13]They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. [14]Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. [15]So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, "He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see." [16]Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them. [17]So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet." [18]The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight [19]and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" [20]His parents answered, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. [21]But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." [22](His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) [23]Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him." [24]So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, "Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner." [25]He answered, "Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." [26]They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" [27]He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" [28]And they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. [29]We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." [30]The man answered, "Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. [31]We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. [32]Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. [33]If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." [34]They answered him, "You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?" And they cast him out. [35]Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" [36]He answered, "And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" [37]Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you." [38]He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. [39]Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." [40]Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?" [41]Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains. (ESV)
.  Jesus healed this man who was born blind and it created a serious controversy for the religious leaders.  They wanted to know who did it and how it was done, and they kept pressing the issue.  To read this account in the Gospel of John is to recognize that like most narratives in this Gospel, it is operating at multiple levels all at the same time.  It is absolutely rich with irony.  One level of course is the theological issue of sin and sickness and how or whether they are connected.  Another issue is the way this man is healed and his subsequent emerging awareness of who Jesus really is.  But one of the most interesting levels at which this narrative operates is the subtle way in which the parents are seeking to avoid being thrown out of the synagogue (Jn. 9:18-23 [+/-]John 9:18-23 [18]The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight [19]and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" [20]His parents answered, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. [21]But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." [22](His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) [23]Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him." (ESV)
).  The religious leaders find the parents of the blind man and asked them how he came to receive his sight and not only do they not want to answer the question; they do not even want to engage the dialogue because “they feared the Jews for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue,” 9:22.  They sold their son down the river to protect their own skin.  Why?

The first believers who were primarily Jewish began a pattern of worship and witness that kept them tied to their synagogues and to the Temple.  They observed the festivals including the Sabbath.  They practiced kosher regulations.  They lived as Jews who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah.  This way of living was by all indications the way they intended to keep on living.  Acts 15 [+/-]Acts 15 [15:1]But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." [2]And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. [3]So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. [4]When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. [5]But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses." [6]The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. [7]And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. [8]And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, [9]and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. [10]Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? [11]But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will." [12]And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. [13]After they finished speaking, James replied, "Brothers, listen to me. [14]Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. [15]And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, [16]"'After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, [17]that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things [18]known from of old.' [19]Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, [20]but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. [21]For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues." [22]Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, [23]with the following letter: "The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. [24]Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, [25]it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, [26]men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. [27]We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. [28]For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: [29]that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell." [30]So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. [31]And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. [32]And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. [33]And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. [35]But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also. [36]And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are." [37]Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. [38]But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. [39]And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, [40]but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. [41]And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. (ESV)
represents a stage in this development so as to enable the Jewish Christians to accommodate themselves to the Gentile invasion.  But by the time we get to the incident recorded in Acts 9 [+/-]Acts 9 [9:1]But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest [2]and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. [3]Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. [4]And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" [5]And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. [6]But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." [7]The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. [8]Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. [9]And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. [10]Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." And he said, "Here I am, Lord." [11]And the Lord said to him, "Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, [12]and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight." [13]But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. [14]And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name." [15]But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. [16]For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." [17]So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." [18]And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; [19]and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. [20]And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." [21]And all who heard him were amazed and said, "Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?" [22]But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. [23]When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, [24]but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, [25]but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. [26]And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. [27]But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. [28]So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. [29]And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. [30]And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. [31]So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. [32]Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. [33]There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. [34]And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed." And immediately he rose. [35]And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. [36]Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. [37]In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. [38]Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, "Please come to us without delay." [39]So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. [40]But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, "Tabitha, arise." And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. [41]And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. [42]And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. [43]And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner. (ESV)
, the issue has become much more complex.  The Jewish leaders have now forced the hand of Jewish Christians:  you will not be able to continue in the Synagogue if you continue to confess that Jesus is the Messiah.  Now be assured that this was far more than a crisis over a confession.  This reached to the heart of every day life because the center of life for the Jewish family was the Synagogue.  Remove them from the Synagogue and the Jewish man is robbed of work and the Jewish family is robbed of their way of life.  This is big.  And it all boiled down to this choice:  You will be either a Jew or a Christian or to put it more plainly you will either be a Jewish believer or a believer who is Jewish; and they had to choose.

Do you see the connection?  If I say that I am an American believer then I am saying that my relationship to Jesus is defined first and foremost by my being an American.  I have placed something as wonderful as it is in front of my devotion to the Lordship of Jesus.  It happens.  It happens more than we know.  There are far too many professing beleievers who do not understand that the cross stands over and dominates the flag so taht the flag and the cross do not occupy the same system.  The flag as wonderful as it is, is the ensign of one nation on the earth; the cross stands over all the world as the only way to salvation.  The flag represents a society of cititizens; the cross represents the people of God in every land who are seeking to serve the One who died for them that we might live for Him.  The right way to understand who I am is that I am a beleiver in the Lord Jesus Christ who has been given through providence the good grace of living in America.  I am grateful to live in this land but as a believer I am not locked into this land.  I will wave the red, white and blue and do so with emotion but at the end of the day I wll stand at the foot of the cross and lift up His Glory because it is His grace that gives me my identity.  I am a believer who lives in America; I am not an American Believer.

Death always causes me to pause.  It did yesterday and even into today.  Our community witnessed the death of a saint.  I do not use that word casually;  I use it in reference to anyone who is truly a child of God.  This person was that.  She has passed from death into the fullness of life.  Pain is over.  Struggling has ceased.  Breathing comes easy and it is deep with the delight of the goodness, grace, and greatness of God.  This dear lady had fought the good fight, she had kept the faith, she finished her course.  She lived faithful to Jesus till the end.  And it is here where death always causes me to pause.

You see, I live in a place where nobody who dies is lost.  Now I know that that is not true.  There are far more lost people than saved people.  Take the average population of a small town like Waynesboro and only a small percentage of people are ever in church on the Lord’s Day, an even smaller percentage on the Lord’s Day evening and not even all of them belong to Jesus.  So, the larger percentage of the population in any town in America is lost.  That ought to break our hearts and drive us to our knees.  It ought to incite a revolution of the release of the Gospel through our lives and lips, but it doesn’t.  It doesn’t because particularly in the south most everybody who dies is considered to be in heaven when they die.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Hear me:  this dear saint who died yesterday is not in heaven because she was faithful to Jesus.  That would be salvation by works.  The ground of her salvation was for her and is for me and you the grace of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  But the evidence of that life changing grace is a life lived in and through the church for the glory of God in a growing sanctification as seen in a deepening desire to obey God and His Word.  That is who she was.  That is who anybody is who is truly born again.  We have been changed by the grace of God through the gospel, drawn into an active investment of our lives with other believers in the church in which and through which we are constantly growing in obedience to Him. “More like Jesus” is our song and the fleshing out of that is our reality.  But who believes that this is true?  Not many if you ask me when we gather for funerals.  We believe everything and anything but this which leaves people like me in a real dilemma.

Not too many years back I was asked to do the funeral for a man that was as pagan as any I had ever met.  He was a good man.  Most men in the south are that.  He did for others and gave to others.  But he was no child of God.  There was no evidence visible or otherwise of the work of the Gospel in his life.  Why I was asked to do his funeral was beyond me; but I agreed.  I had long since ceased to do eulogies.  Got really convicted about them because that is to stand in the presence of our greatest enemy and to exalt human beings.  Truth is that nothing matters anyway except that which extends the Kingdom of God which means if I can be so bold and blunt that for an unbeliever, death comes and leaves in its wake the reality that nothing mattered!  So, I knew what I would do that day:  I would proclaim the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that saves sinners.  It is what we need in the face of death.  It is what I need in the face of death. I was preceded to the platform that day by a man who proceeded to praise this man for his goodness.  I was at first deeply distressed but then realized that even he was grabbing for something that day.  But it was nothing because the Bible says that our own goodness that we produce is filthy rags.  So I stood that day to preach the Gospel.  Never before or since have I received such backlash.  One even suggested that I must have believed that a man that did as good as this man did did not go to heaven??   Why such anger?  I can tell you.  Because we live in a culture dominated by the devil who has deceived thousands upon thousands into believing the lie of universalism:  all good people go to heaven.

I still remain convinced that the Bible is true and that the way to life is narrow and few there be who find it and that many are indeed called but only a few are chosen.  The only way that we can continue to believe what we believe in the face of death in our own culture is to have come to the contorted conclusion that there are far more Americans in heaven than there are others from other nations and peoples.  Otherwise we must be wrong or we have to admit that the Bible is.  What would it take for us to be honest about people in the face of death?  I promise you this:  if we got honest we would then get serious about seeing people saved.  And we won’t really get serioius until God shows us what true salvation looks like and makes it clear that a true change of heart leads always to a real change of life without which and apart from which there has been no change at all.  Do we really believe that?

What makes a person a true New Testament believer?  Ephesians 2:1-10 [+/-]Ephesians 2:1-10 [2:1]And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2]in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- [3]among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. [4]But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, [5]even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- [6]and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [7]so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [8]For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9]not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10]For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (ESV)
or Romans 3:9-26 [+/-]Romans 3:9-26 [9]What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10]as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; [11]no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12]All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." [13]"Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." [14]"Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." [15]"Their feet are swift to shed blood; [16]in their paths are ruin and misery, [17]and the way of peace they have not known." [18]"There is no fear of God before their eyes." [19]Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20]For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. [21]But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- [22]the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23]for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24]and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25]whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26]It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (ESV)
or Titus 3:1-8 [+/-]Titus 3:1-8 [3:1]Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, [2]to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. [3]For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. [4]But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, [5]he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, [6]whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, [7]so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. [8]The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. (ESV)
or John 3 [+/-]John 3 [3:1]Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. [2]This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." [3]Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." [4]Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" [5]Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. [6]That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. [7]Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' [8]The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." [9]Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" [10]Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? [11]Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. [12]If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? [13]No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. [14]And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, [15]that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. [16]"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [17]For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [18]Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. [19]And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. [20]For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. [21]But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." [22]After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. [23]John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized [24](for John had not yet been put in prison). [25]Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification. [26]And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness--look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him." [27]John answered, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. [28]You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.' [29]The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. [30]He must increase, but I must decrease." [31]He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. [32]He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. [33]Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. [34]For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. [35]The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. [36]Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (ESV)
would argue that being a true New Testament believer begins with the acknowledgment of our real depravity in the light of God’s great holiness which drives us to the cross to trust in Jesus alone which trust expresses itself in a life of learned and lived out obedience to God.  A true believer is one who has been drawn to God by His Spirit and under conviction of sin commits himself or herself to Jesus as Lord.  This commitment expresses itself daily in a longing to grow in the grace of God through the learning and living of the Word of God among the people of God with whom we gather as family to worship God and to fulfill together His purpose for our lives for the praise of His Name.  This is what makes a true New Testament believer.  To put the above in theological language is the work of the Spirit of God in regeneration that under the conviction of the Holy Spirit leads us to repentance and faith whose outcome is an always jagged but very real commitment to the work of God in sanctification.  Salvation in a truly biblical sense involves our being justified by grace through faith, our being sanctified by the Spirit of God through the Word of God among the people of God so that one day with all of the saints we will be glorified as we reach that distant shore to fall short and to sin no more.  Now it seems to me that if I am in the biblical ballpark on this definition of what it means to be a believer that we have a lot of people in our churches who wear the logos of the team but are not in the game because they really aren’t on the team.  Oh, they think that they are because they have been captured by a cultural communication about what it means to be a believer.  They show up for the morning session of the team but seldom return for the evening activities.  They participate in the life of the church where it is convenient to their calendar and they would admit that their lives are not consumed by the glory of God while still holding tenaciously to their false truth that they are believers.

Now we must be careful here and I mean careful in being biblically sensitive.  One of the dangers that I face in my own ministry is to overemphasize the outcomes of sanctification to the exclusion of the operative work of the grace of God.  In other words, the last few sentences of the above paragraph become the “law of the Gospel.”  The upshot of that is that without intending it I begin to teach a works salvation when what I intend is to emphasize and underscore what I believe to be basic biblical truth:  there is no justification that does not lead to sanctification.  There is no real experience of the love of God that does not lead to love for God and His people.  But these things that are the inevitable expressions of the work of grace do not save us.  What saves us is the grace of God manifest in the Gospel of Jesus.  And I for one am so glad about that because of my inherent sinfulness and my penchant for acting out who I am as a sinner.  I can grieve the Holy Spirit and quench the Holy Spirit with the best of sinners.  So that if my salvation depends on a constantly ascending trajectory toward holiness, then I am in trouble.  It is up and own with me; what about you?  But here is the issue with me:  as a believer, I know when I have grieved the Holy Spirit.  I knew it this past week while on vacation in some small and some would say insignificant ways where I chose to live more like the world and was grieved afterward because I knew that I had grieved the Holy Spirit.

How many true beleivers do you know?  Get over Matthew 7 [+/-]Matthew 7 [7:1]"Judge not, that you be not judged. [2]For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. [3]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? [4]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? [5]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. [6]"Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. [7]"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. [9]Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? [10]Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? [11]If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! [12]"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. [13]"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. [14]For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. [15]"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. [16]You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? [17]So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. [18]A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. [19]Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20]Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. [21]"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. [22]On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' [23]And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' [24]"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. [25]And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. [26]And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. [27]And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." [28]And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, [29]for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. (ESV)
which is a word about how true believers are to relate to one another:  Do not judge so that you will not be judged.  That text has nothing to do with us assessing ourselves and others whom we love in the light of what the Bible says about what it means to be true believers.  Let me tell you what I discover every time I start thinking about true believers in our culture:  there are fewer of them than we think.  Look at your family.  Look among your friends.  How many?  So, what are you going to do about it?  I can tell yout this that at least in our part of the world many who say they are, aren’t; and it would take a mighty act of God to change them.  But that is what God does best.

Go back with me to May 25, 1980.  It is around 6:00 in the evening and Dr. Baker tells us that it is time to go to the delivery room.  It had been a long, long night much more for Anne than for me.  All I did was stay away with her and tell her when to go, “hee, hee” and “ha, ha” and all that other stuff that we learned in lamaze classes that we later learned in labor was mostly of no value.  While I was telling Anne when to go “hee, hee” and all that other stuff, she was telling me where to go as well.  The place she in mind rhymes with “well.”  Well, there were were in that room in which we had never been before awaiting the arrival of our first child.  We had no idea whether “it” would be a girl or a boy.  We were just excited and anxious.  My role now was to tell Anne when to “push” and as I did she looked at me with this awful look and just wanted to know how much longer.  I hurt for her in those moments and wanted to do anything to make it easier.   And it was no time to give her a biblical lesson on one of the results of sin being pain in labor, so I just did the best I could unitl at 6:14 p.m. Dr. Baker handed me a little slimy bundle of baby with the words, “this is your daughter.”  I cried.  I am now as well but through those tears I was able to say, “welcome to our world, Haley Anne; you are our little princess and we are so glad that you are finally here.”  She had beautiful black hair that was spiked like a punker and the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen.  I was crying, Anne was shaking all over from the trauma of it all and we prayed right there and then with gratitude to God for this precious gift.

Well, this bundle of baby weighing it that night at 6 pounds and 4 ounces just turned thirty today.  She is still second to her Mom the most beautiful woman I know and she is still and will always be my little princess.  Someone bought for her shortly after her birth a little crocheted door hanger that says, “sh-h-h, Princess asleep.  I hung it on the door of her room.  it still hangs there.  I can’t move it and probably won’t.  I have watched God grow that little girl into a wonderful woman whose love for God and His glory is passionate and pervasive.  She lives and walks in the Spirit of God with a zeal for His glory.  She loves the Word of God and wants so much to know it because she knows that in knowing the Word of God we know Him.  She loves the people of God and shows it by her being actively involved in her church.  I some time talk with parents about their children going off to college and the children getting involved in church.  Call me strange, I just say it is biblical to believe that this is one of the ways that we can know where our children really are in relationship to God.  Those who are truly His find that finding a church when leaving home is a matter of both supreme and urgent importance; those who don’t belong to Him find it of  little value and thus show who they are in relationghip to God.  Haley without prompting from the time she left home until now has found finding and being actively involved in a church a matter of major importance so that from Ingleside in Macon to Warren in Augusta to Hudson in Ohio, she has not ceased to be a part of the church.  I love her because she is my daughter but what I love most about her are the evidences of the great grace of God that I see in her.

And it is His grace.  I would not dare say to you that she is who she is because of me or her mother.  We worked to give her what she needed spiritually.  Captured by our crazy culture we would both confess that we tried to give her to much of what was so unnecessary.  I see it as more unnecessary now than ever.  Like most parents who are captured by our culture I saw what we were doing as right and good when we were doing it.  I see now that our own daughter had more spiritual insight even at a young age than we did.  Let me give you one example.  When Haley was a preteen, Social was a big thing hhere in our town.  People spent lots of time, money, and energy on Social Inc.  We felt it was good and right.  We made Haley go.  She went in obedience to us and never with enthusiasm.  She would tell me how unnecessary it was and how it didn’t really mean anything.  I would see later than sooner how right she was and how wrong I was to make her go to something that had no eternal value.  She was showing even then the seeds of grace at work in her life.  Seeds that are producing so much fruit now,  I praise God for her and most of all for the work of God’s grace in and through her.  She is thirty today.  It does not seem possible but it is true.  Thank you God for your grace that has blessed me with such a beautiful display of your glory that I see so clearly in my daughter, my little princesss.

The Psalms disturb me and delight me. The comfort and confront me.  They lift me up to the heights of heaven and drag me down to deal with my own indwelling sin.  They teach me what I need to know about our great and glorious God and they show me all that I want to see of my dreadful depravity.  John Calvin says that a right understanding of the Bible begins with a proper knowledge of God and proper knowledge of ourselves. Well, if you want both in one place; just go to the Psalms. This book of The Book confirms over and over again the inerrancy and infallibility of Holy Writ but it also shows significantly the sufficiency of Scripture.

I have made it a habit for several years now to pray through the Psalms several times a year.  It is part of what I do during my quiet time. I do believe firmly that we in America (and I say America only because it is the culture that I know best) have hijacked prayer for our own uses.  And just as one who hijacks an airliner is up to no good, so such hijacking of prayer does not produce good for either the glory of God or our own lives.  I see this both in small prayer groups and in large gatherings for prayer.  Our primary priority is not the praise of God and His glory or the concerns for the Gospel to reach every people group in the world.  Seldom do I hear us praying for specific people groups by name or parts of the world far removed from us, and we would almost be embarrassed to focus our prayers on lost people that we know. Most of our praying is intercessory prayer that pertains almost exclusively to those who are closest to us.  This kind of praying is not wrong. It is good and right, but it should never be the primary purpose nor the primary priority of prayer.  God through my wife has helped me to learn how to pray more effectively and one day out of the week I focus exclusively on petitionary or intercessory prayer but on other days God has me locked in to what I consider the larger concerns of the Kingdom of God.

This is the pattern of the Psalms.  The Psalms are dominated by the praise of God and even when pain is the basis for the prayer, the praise of God always pushes through to dominate the declarations of the one who is praying. Take Psalm 77 [+/-]Psalm 77 [77:1]I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. [2]In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted. [3]When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah [4]You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. [5]I consider the days of old, the years long ago. [6]I said, "Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart." Then my spirit made a diligent search: [7]"Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? [8]Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? [9]Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?" Selah [10]Then I said, "I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High." [11]I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. [12]I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. [13]Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? [14]You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. [15]You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah [16]When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. [17]The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side. [18]The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook. [19]Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen. [20]You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
for example. The Psalmist is dominated in the first eight verses with his problems and his pain. These issues in his life that are troubling him have taken him to the place where he is questioning God and then God presses in upon Him and brings him to the place of praise.  We see it in verse 10 of Psalm 77 [+/-]Psalm 77 [77:1]I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. [2]In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted. [3]When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah [4]You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. [5]I consider the days of old, the years long ago. [6]I said, "Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart." Then my spirit made a diligent search: [7]"Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? [8]Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? [9]Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?" Selah [10]Then I said, "I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High." [11]I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. [12]I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. [13]Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? [14]You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. [15]You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah [16]When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. [17]The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side. [18]The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook. [19]Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen. [20]You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
:  ”Then I said, ‘I will appeal to this,to the years of the right hand of the Most High.”  He has found his resting place.  His life has at this point found its lodging. His circumstances have located the compass.  He appeals to the length of the days of the Almighty, the strength of the way of the Almighty, and the identity of the Lord God Almighty as El Elyon, the supreme and sovereign God over all that is or will ever be whether in his life or His world.  And he turns from that place to spend the rest of the prayer praising God.

Are you in a hard place?  Start right now with Psalm One and listen, listen, listen.  You will figure before you get too far that the hard places are gifts from God that are only made harder because we focus our eyes on the wrong person and the wrong purpose. It is too easy for us in the tough times to turn our eyes toward ourselves and to wonder why we are in the place of misery.  And our tendency to do this so often and so quickly is why we need the Psalms so desperately.

I was in Kenya in who knows what year.  I do lose track now of where I have been and when which is really odd for a guy who just a few years back had no interest nor intent in going anywhere much beyond Waynesboro.  My investment in missions was the SBC way of giving through the cooperative program and a basic gift of not much to Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon.  I was satisfied.  No, I was comfortable and cozy in doing my pastor thing in Waynesboro.  Then God showed up and called me out of my comfort zone and all these years later I sit in Kiev, Ukraine writing this little blog.  Anyway, I was in Kenya one year when I was asked to spend a Saturday at a wedding.  And then I was asked to give the sermon.  Well, I thought.  I know very plainly the best text in the Bible on marriage but does it apply in this culture?  I was struggling in my spirit until it dawned on me that if the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, and fully sufficient Word of God, then it is not only eternal it is trans-cultural.

I stood that hot Saturday in the midst of the fascinating sights and sounds of a Kenyan wedding to preach, “for this reason a man shall leave behind his father and his mother and give himself to his wife and the two together shall become one flesh.”  There are seven essential elements about marriage in this one little sentence.  It really says all that we need to know about marriage.  God gives it to us in Genesis and Jesus underscores in the Gospels and Paul punctuates it in his last letter to the church.  I preached this text that day somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Kenya.  And afterwards people came to me from Kenya and from Tanzania and from other places as well wanting a copy of the sermon.  ”We have needed to hear this,” they said; “our families need to hear this word from God.”  I was astounded.  I should not have been.  But it was true that what was true for me in doing marriage counseling in America was a most profound need in Kenya.

So this week I came to the Ukraine to teach about marriage.  I began the course after going through what the Old and New Testaments say about marriage by focusing on the marriage text and again I heard the same thing. Students wanted my notes. We need to hear this in our churches and we need to teach this in our churches.  We need to hear this Word from God.

All of this has caused me to think yet again about our addiction to contextualization in ways large and small.  We seem to think that there are some places that are so secularized or so marginalized that we have to sneak up on them with the Gospel.  We have to burrow in to the culture in order to bear witness to Jesus.  And in smaller ways we tend to think that there are some people who have been so blinded by the philosophies of the world that we have to get to know their system of seeing before we show them the Truth.  I say:  show them the truth of God by speaking the truth of God and the God who specializes in opening blind eyes will open their blind eyes and cause them to see.  Let’s stop apologizing for the Truth of God as if we have to make it compatible with culture.  Let’s speak its truth into every culture and watch God sovereignly superintend His Word to save sinners and to strengthen the church.  I know at least that His Word about marriage works in an out of the way place in Africa and a metroplex in Ukraine. It is transcultural because it is eternal and it will even work for you wherever you are.

One of the great advantages of being in a seminary for two weeks teaching students is the incentive given by the environment and the time that is available since I teach only four hours out of the day with only an hour or so needed for preparation to spend time in uninterrupted study.  So, I always bring a bunch of books thinking that I have brought too many but find due to the time that I have and the environment in which I am working that I get through most of them.  It is such a wonderful blessing for me to be able to have this kind of opportunity for study.

I just finished a wonderful book on regeneration and justification.  A popular treatment of the subject, it will go down for me as the most simple and yet uncompromising treatment of these two subjects that I have ever read.  Any person who has any doubt about the work of God in our salvation quite apart from our efforts should read this book. It was a reminder to me that our natural rebellion against God includes our rejection of His Word about what it means to be saved. We simply want to have some “say so” in the process.  We really do love our control.

I am being blessed by two books by Paul Tripp.  The first is Broken Down House with the subtitle, “living productively in a world gone bad.”  Written in the rich folksy style for which Tripp is known, there are nuggets of gold on every page. His books wear out my highlighters and give me a headache, not from their depth though they are deep, but from my smacking my forehead with my hand and saying,”wow, why didn’t I see that?”  Let me give you one of those nuggets.  Tripp says that some of us if not most of us will live our whole lives in “houses” that are not what we want them to be but we can rest in God’s sovereignty as His children knowing that we are right where God wants us to be:  God is ruling through Christ and the rule of Christ is “comprehensive, personal, and redemptive.”  After establishing this reality biblically Tripp shows how the Bible bears witness to the truth that the fool is the one who wants to partner with God in His rule or wants to live as if he can affect the rule of God in the world.  And then since I am teaching a course on marriage and the family I brought along the just published book by Tripp, What Did You Expect? The book has just been released and I want to make a prediction:  pastors everywhere will be recommending this book as the book to read for every couple that comes either for premarital counseling or marriage counseling.  I will now have two:  Sacred Marriage and this book by Tripp.  Let me give you another nugget:  A marriage must be rightly focused vertically before it can function horizontally.  Isn’t that good?  And right?  This is the one that got me because I know it is so true and I see it all the time:  romantic love is not real love; it has to die before real love can come to life. Tripp puts it this way, “it is when attraction wanes, flaws show, and the dream dies that real love has its best opportunity to germinate and grow . . this is God’s plan but we struggle with God’s plan because at street level we don’t really want what God wants. We want what we want and we want God to deliver it.  But that is not the plan.  You see, God didn’t give us His grace to make our kingdoms work; He gave us His grace to invite us to a much, much better Kingdom.”  Ouch and thank you, Dr. Tripp.

One other for this first week here is a new book that is the first in a series of five on Jonathan Edwards the greatest theologian and most important philosopher and preacher in American history.  No one can begin to understand the shape of the church in America without having Edwards as a point of reference.  But he is so hard to read that the average person just quits after a few pages. This book and this series will provide immense help.  Written by Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney the first in this series looks at Edwards as a lover of God.  And I think I will stop now so that I can read a little more about Edwards.  Fun, fun, fun.

Henry Blackaby has taught a whole generation this truth:  God is always at work and wants us to join Him in His work.  Now this statement assumes the absolute sovereignty of God in all things.  It is a marvelous thing to get to see His work up close and personal.  And boy did I ever see it on my trip from Augusta to Kiev on this particular journey.

My trip to Kiev began as a bummer.  I was scheduled to fly out of Columbia, SC on Sunday afternoon but was prevented by the volcano.  I drove to Columbia only to be turned around and sent home.  I spent Sunday night scheduling a new departure from Augusta, GA on Tuesday afternoon arriving in Kiev in time to teach two hours of my four hour class on Wednesday afternoon.  Here is where the adventure begins.  The plane flying from Atlanta to Paris (the only part of the trip that was totally uneventful was the trek from Augusta to Atlanta) was diverted from its flight pattern due to volcanic ash and arrived in Paris an hour behind. I had heard the horror stories about Charles DeGaule airport but did not know that I was about to add to the lore.  I found the terminal and gate from which my plane to Kiev was departing but had to get on a bus to get to the terminal and the bus was running late.  Imagine that?  I arrived at the gate only to see the plane with the doors closed.  I was too late.  I showed my boarding pass to the ticket agent but to no avail.  Here is where the Kingdom Adventure begins.  Three guys stood with me there watching that plane and I would quickly discover that one was from the Ukraine, one from Turkmenistan and one from Melbourne, FL.  The man from Melbourne whose name was Webber was pitching a fit.  He began to cry and to beg to be on the plane. He was making demands.  I finally reminded him that his behavior was not helping us get on the plane and it was time now for the four of us to stick together to get four seats on the next plane.

Now what happens next is marvelous.  I had been asking God for some time to slow me down and give me patience.  I knew that this gift was about to come or that I would be too stressed to be used of God to bless this man and the others. So I asked them all to go with me back to the terminal where Air France ran its operations and to stick together so that we could get seats on the next flight out to Kiev.  They followed as I led as if I knew what I was doing and we got in the line to get the tickets.  The first guy went alone to the ticket agent and was told that the flight was full. I was next and called the other two to go with me.  I told the guy that there were four of us and he immediately got us four flights on a plane that was supposed to be full. Imagine that.  We walked together to the gate and “hung out” as if we were a traveling team.  I sat beside Webber on the flight.

I pulled out a book to begin to read and laid my bookmarker on the empty seat between Weber and me.  I was given it by one of the students at Guido Training Institute.  On the one side it reads, “have you prayed about it?”  and on the other, “whatever you ask in my name, that will I do.”  He stopped my reading to help him fill out his customs form and then asked, “do you believe what is on that card?”  And without going into detail what emerged was a wonderful time of witnessing during which he began to weep and pour out his heart because he was on his way to Kiev to attend the funeral of a long time friend who had died suddenly, and my new friend was not only grieving but groping to find God in the midst of it all.  I shared the Gospel with Him and how I saw the hand of God at work in our pain.  He listened intently, thanked me; and then drifted off to sleep for the remaining ride to Kiev.  We all then walked through everything at Kiev together including the loss or our bags.

Imagine that.  God was at work and for me it was all about being able to share with this man in his pain on plane ride in the wrong plane at the right time. That opportunity was worth all the bother that happened to bring it about.  Off to teach for the first time during this stint in a place I love dearly.

Grounded.  Literally.  Never happened to me before, but as they say, “there is a first time for everything.”  I was supposed to leave on Sunday afternoon from Columbia, South Carolina and be by now in Kiev, Ukraine.  Since it is after midnight on Monday in Kiev, it would be safe to say that rather than tapping out keystrokes on a keyboard I would be sleeping happily stretched out in a bed getting needed rest for the class that I am supposed to be teaching.  But I am grounded.  Stuck here staring at this screen as my fingers move from “asdf” to “jkl;.”  Grounded.

So what has God been teaching me while grounded that is keeping me grounded.  Several key lessons have already emerged out of this experience the first two of which are just stunning to me.  Here is my normal response to an event like this one:  I would stand at the counter of whatever airline and assure them that if they just tried hard enough and worked at it more that they could find a way.  I would be persistent, impertinent, and fully frustrated with all of it showing in a full array of ugly pretending to be pious colors.  But even while yesterday standing at that counter after driving all the way to Columbia, SC, I was so patient and so full of contentment that I was shocked.  When I found out after an hour long telephone conversation with Jenny at Travelocity that everything was cancelled and that they would refund all of my money, I thanked her and had a nice conversation with her and then for another thirty minutes had a good talk with the guys at the United Counter.  It was definitely not busy yesterday at the Columbia airport.  Nice airport, though; I enjoyed my time there.  Parked in the long-term parking area and paid five dollars for my just under two hour stay.  That’s a bargain for long term parking.  I also learned that God really is sovereign and I can rest in that.  I even learned today that Joel and Mary Ellen (the wonderful IMB Missionaries that take such good care of me when I am there) had found someone who could teach the course until I arrived.  I am expendable.  Imagine that:  coming to the realization that you are not nearly as important as you thought you were.  That will ground you in a big, fast hurry.  And I have learned of God’s detailed care.  I never travel without nasal spray.  Stay with me here.  I learned this from one of our members.  It is a buger of an idea but it works.  I get serious sinus headaches when I travel by air that stay with me for at least five to seven days.  My head hurts horribly for that long after air travel.  But then one of our dear saints told me about nascort or nasonex and ear plugs.  Put the ear plugs in your ears just before take off and landing and snort a little nasonex just before take off and just after landing and voila:  no headache.  I have done it twice now and it works.  Well, I did not have any and did not have time to get any until I was grounded and woke up this morning with yeah, you know it, a serious sinus headache.  So, I called my doctor and now have my nasonex.  Laugh at it.  But I rejoice in it because I would now without it be asleep in Kiev with a serious headache but now have what I need to avoid that buger.

So being grounded can provide what is needed to be grounded.  God is always at work around us we have learned, I hope.  We simply have to have the eyes to see Him and the ears to  hear what He is doing.  And sometimes that does not happen until we are grounded.

One of the striking features about moving from Ephesians 1:3-14 [+/-]Ephesians 1:3-14 [3]Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, [4]even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [5]he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, [6]to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. [7]In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, [8]which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight [9]making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ [10]as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. [11]In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, [12]so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. [13]In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, [14]who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (ESV)
to Ephesians 1:15-23 [+/-]Ephesians 1:15-23 [15]For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, [16]I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, [17]that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, [18]having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, [19]and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might [20]that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, [21]far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. [22]And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, [23]which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (ESV)
in addition to the move from one sentence to a second sentence, yes; that is right that 3-14 is one sentence and 15-23 is a second sentence, is the move from the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation to Paul giving thanks to God in prayer.  Paul has just proclaimed the majestic goodness and grace of God in the gift of spiritual blessings to His people:  God chooses those who are His, God adopts them into His family, God redeems His own from the bondage of sin as He saves them by His Spirit, secures them by that same Spirit and by that same Spirit begins the progressive work of sanctification as God makes us to become in Christ what we already are in Christ.  And every dimension of it is from God and for God.  It is by His great grace and for His great glory because He is such a great God.  Someone has said that there is no higher statement in the Bible of the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation than is found in Ephesians 1:3-14 [+/-]Ephesians 1:3-14 [3]Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, [4]even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [5]he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, [6]to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. [7]In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, [8]which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight [9]making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ [10]as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. [11]In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, [12]so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. [13]In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, [14]who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (ESV)
.  So, what does Paul do at the end of this declaration:  he prays.

I find that both interesting and intriguing particularly in the light of the struggle that some seem to have between God’s absolute sovereignty in all things and our praying to this God.  Paul does not have this struggle at all.  In fact, it seems that it is precisely God’s sovereignty that moves Paul to pray with great gratitude to this God who will do what He declares.  His prayer is a prayer that is focused on the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and it is a prayer of faith as He trusts God to provide what God promises to provide.  Working through this section of Ephesians prompted me to take pen in hand with pad before me and to write down my first responses to this question:  “if God is absolutely sovereign, then why do we pray?”  Add your own responses to this list.  Make your own list.  These are things that first came to me when I raised this question:

1.  I pray to give thanks and praise to a God who is so great; 2.  I pray to bring Him pleasure because it pleases Him for His people to call upon His name; 3. I pray because I so much want to be a part of His plan to be productive for His praise and to live out His purposes; 4.  I pray bringing my petitions to Him because I do not know what He knows so that I can plead with Him for my brothers and sisters who are in pain that as it pleases God He wold heal their hurts and make them whole so that they can be a testimony of praise to His Name; 5.  I pray for God to grant sufficient grace and perfect peace where it is not His will to deliver form the pain that penetrates the body and the soul so that those who are in such dire straits will praise Him in the “dark night  of the soul” as much as they would if they were walking in sunlilght; 6.  I pray for His help in the midst of temptation and His grace to deliver from the evil one; 7.  I pray for His protection and His provision of “daily bread.”  8.  I pray for power from on high without which there is no effectiveness in the preaching and teaching of His Word.  I pray because He is the sovereign God of all who knows and sees so that I can pray in confidence and faith.

It was while I was making this list that it occurred to me that the people who have come into my life who struggle with prayer in the light of God’s sovereignty are those who want to be in control of their own lives.  They want to will their way to heaven and reason their way to their understanding of God.   Their God is a God with a little “g.”  They pray to their “god” and when it goes their way they talk much about themselves and their prayers, but when it does not go their way they either beat themselves up as sinners or they just pray more and pray harder.  But when we rest in His sovereignty we don’t have to pray this way.  We can pray in faith believing that our God sees and our God knows and our God acts for the glory of His Name which is always, always for the good of His people.  I do not pray in spite of His sovereignty; I pray with great joy because He is sovereign:  Our Fahter who is in the heavens . . .

I love the preparation to preach and teach the Word of God perhaps more than I love the actual delivery of the message.  The study of the Word of God has always excited me and it excites me more now than ever.  Do you know that feeling you get on the evening before you leave on a special trip, particularly if it is some place you have been looking forward to going?  Know that feeling?  Well, that is precisely what churns in me most nights as I anticipate the next day and digging around some more in the Bible.  It is a wonderful way to live.  Anyway, I am preaching again this week from Ephesians One about those rich spiritual blessings that God gives us from heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ.  I will address three of them this Sunday (I know, it is a Baptist Preacher thing to see God’s Word in terms of threes), but there are actually five in the full text of Ephesians 1:3-14 [+/-]Ephesians 1:3-14 [3]Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, [4]even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [5]he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, [6]to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. [7]In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, [8]which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight [9]making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ [10]as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. [11]In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, [12]so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. [13]In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, [14]who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (ESV)
.  God gives us these five spiritual blessings:  election, adoption, redemption, eternal inheritance, and the ultimate gift of the Holy Spirit living in us to save, sanctify and seal us for the glory of God.  Read back over those five.  Ask yourself this question:  how do I contribute anything at all to any of these blessings?  Therein is the rub.  We so desperately by nature want to have a part in everything about us that we are easy targets for Satan to hit when it comes to these blessings.  So, think with me for a few moments about how Satan can seduce us in relationship to the final three.

God blesses us with redemption.  He saves us from bondage to sin and purchases by the blood of His dear Son our freedom.  So far, so good.  But Satan slips in to suggest that freedom means freedom for us.  We are free, don’t you see; freed by the blood of Jesus, free to be me.  What a horrible half-truth.  We are redeemed by the blood of Jesus through the good grace of God the Father so that being freed from sin we are owned by the Savior.  Being bought with the price of His death for us, we now die to ourselves so as to live for Him.  Quite a different picture, isn’t it than Jesus died for me, now I’m free to be me.  But I promise you that there are far people who believe the half-truth of Satan sitting in our churches than believe the whole truth of the Gospel.

Next, God blesses us with an eternal inheritance.  Now what is striking is that this iheritance is both here and hereafter.  Here and now it is the glorious privilege in the midst of the pains and pressures of this world to be the ambassadors of Christ.  Now mark this one:  because of the inheritance that is ours forever in heaven, we are not after much that this world has to offer here and now.  We don’t need much and we don’t want much.  Is that true for you or the believers you know?  Do our conversations revovle around how simple our lives are and how we rejoice in that because the simplicity of our lives frees us from worldly care so as to live for godly gain?  Do you see the seduction of Satan?  He gets us to live for what this world has to offer and in so doing we are diminishing the value of our eternal inheritance.  Go back soon and read the kinds of things that Paul faced in his ministry and ask yourself why it is that you and I are not facing those things.  I can tell you that it is either because we live in Paradise or because we have  found a way to be both in the world and of the world while mouthing pious phrases about how much we really want to please God.

And then God blesses us with the never ending presence of Himself in the person of His Spirit living in us to make us more holy.  Now does it make sense to you that if the everlasting creator of all that is lives in you that He will not fail to fulfill His promise to you.  He will do what He says He is going to do.  But the lie of the enemy is to get us to focus on our eternal security because of some step we have taken rather than focusing on what it means to truly follow Jesus.  The end result is people who profess to be Christians who are living like the devil but are sure they are Christians because they are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.  Yet, the truth is that the only ones who are sealed are those who are being sanctified are made holy which is very evident both to those who are being made holy and to those who are living among them.

Spiritual blessings are real and rich.  Receive them for what they are.  Don’t let the enemy seduce you into making them something other or less than what they truly are.