Grace and truth for abortion
Abortion is the most widespread expression of evil and death the world has ever known. Yet it’s magnitude is largely hidden from us. It is the largest killer in our nation. We murder more unborn children per year in our nation than Hitler killed Jews per year during the Holocaust. We have lost more than 50 million unborn children since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Regardless of whatever the Supreme Court rules, the Bible is our authority.
Sunday was our annual Sanctity of Life Sunday, and we dealt with that theme in both Sunday School and morning service. In Sunday School, we’re working through Deuteronomy, and our pastor’s message came from 1 Kings 13:1-26.
Our culture is not ashamed of its sins. We are King Jeroboam, sacrificing our children to the idol of freedom and acting like it’s a good thing.
We must speak the Word of God boldly. What we are to speak is the Word of God and not our own opinions. There is no power or authority in our opinions.
We must share the grace of God unconditionally. It is so important to realize that even in the midst of sin, God shows grace. Do we pray for those who take a different view of abortion than us? We must not be judgmental and condescending. Truth and grace are both found in God. God offers grace that is greater than our sun.
We must hold onto the Word of God relentlessly. God’s Word is unchanging truth. He never changes His mind. Thus, Scripture never changes. God has already spoken the truth. You will hear it asked “Did God really say?” Yes, he really did say.
With this in mind, here’s what the Word of God has to say about abortion and sanctity of human life:
Human beings are created by God in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
God’s work of creation doesn’t start at birth. It starts the moment He begins to knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13).
Every single person is formed by God in the womb. When any baby is growing inside a mother’s womb, God is the one forming that baby (Job 31:15).
A baby in the womb is already a person, capable of human emotion and actions (Luke 1:44, Genesis 25:22).
The only way to be followers of Jesus
Sunday marked the conclusion of a 5-month study into who we are as believers. It was called our “DNA” series. The following is a summary:
Our purpose as believers is to glorify God.
Our mission is to make followers of Jesus.
Our vision is to love God, love people, and go into the world.
Because we love God, we are learners, prayers, worshippers, and givers.
Because we love people, we are relaters and servers.
And we go into the world to become reproducers.
This is not just having programs at church. Christ has to be changing our lives. These things must become our values. We must be all of these.
So how do we become this type of person? We are completely dependent on God to do His spiritual work in His church and in our lives, because only God can do it.
We boast in God and praise His name. God takes pleasure when we trust him completely. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. Cursed is the one who trusts in man.
Filled with joy when I feel forgotten
Sunday, we got one last taste of the Christmas story in the form of the miraculous conception of John the Baptist, born to Zechariah and Elizabeth when they were advanced in years. Zechariah was a priest, and Elizabeth was the daughter of a priest, and the married couple are considered to have been faithful, righteous people. But Elizabeth had heretofore been barren.
The story is related at length in Luke 1. Therein are several points to remember.
First, we tend to feel forgotten when righteousness goes unregarded. Things that can destroy faith are being unfed, unwed, unconnected, and infertile.
We tend to feel forgotten when faithfulness goes unrewarded.
And we tend to feel forgotten when time goes on unrelenting.
On the other hand, we feel joy when God’s presence is revealed, when God’s comfort is experienced, and when God’s provision is detailed.
When the angel describes their yet-to-be born son, he gives five characteristics of greatness: consecration, Spirit-filled, redemptive, typical, harmonious.
The name John literally means the Lord has been gracious to me. Zechariah means Yahweh remembers. Elizabeth means God, my promise.
Your capacity to be blessed is directly related to your willingness to embrace the message that God has been gracious.
Big endings from small beginnings
God has chosen small, weak, foolish things in this world to bring about His great, mighty, wise plan.
The hope of Christmas is that God will accomplish all of his purposes.
The birth and life of Christ is the greatest success story of all-time. The parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-33) is a perfect analogy. Honestly, who but Jesus Christ ever became a king by dying, and who but Jesus Christ ever built a kingdom by being crucified? Of course, Christ didn’t stay dead. He is the ruler and judge of the universe.
Christianity is the most significant movement in the history of the world. But even Christians can sometimes get discouraged and wonder if God really is accomplishing His purposes.
Remember, God can use you.
God calls us to be faithful and trust Him with the results.
God also calls us to be patient and steadfast over time.
The king’s forgiveness
Today, we shift gears from out months-long study of what defines a New Testament church to a study of forgiveness. The Scripture passage comes from Matthew 18:21-35, in which a brief exchange between Peter and Christ segues into a parable on forgiveness. In this parable, a king forgives an enormous debt owed by one of his servants, while the servant turns around and refuses to forgive a much smaller debt owed by a fellow servant.
There are three themes to this parable. One, forgiveness is demonstrated, because God graciously forgives a debt we can never repay.
Two, forgiveness is denied, because we too often fail to forgive really small stuff.
Three, forgiveness is demanded, because God expects us to forgive others.
If you’ve been forgiven by God, you have to be forgiving like God.
We don’t forgive others to earn God’s forgiveness; we forgive others to honor God’s forgiveness.
If we have experienced forgiveness, we must also extend forgiveness.
We’re not given a limit for forgiveness; we’re called to a lifestyle of forgiveness.
If we’ve received God’s grace, God calls us to reflect His grace.
Why do we struggle to forgive? We often find it easier to begrudge others than to forgive. We fail to realize just how much God has forgiven us. We owe an enormous debt to God. We also don’t fully understand what forgiveness really is. Forgiveness is our only hope of reconciliation with God.
We don’t deny that bad things happen. Forgiveness acknowledges this, and means we love each other, anyway, offering grace when we are hurt. We futilely try to forgive in our own power; it doesn’t come naturally, but spiritually. Followers of Christ ought not to hold grudges, but instead ought to reflect His grace.
Following Jesus is more than a decision
We glorify God by making followers of Jesus who love God, love people, and go into the world.
Followers of Jesus are reproducers who bring other followers to Jesus.
As soon as you start following Jesus, He calls you to be a reproducer who brings people to Jesus (John 1:35-45).
Most often, you’ll bring people to Jesus through relationships. The gospel naturally spreads through relationships.
Spiritual reproduction does not mean we just get people to make one-time decisions. It means we make disciples of Christ (2 Timothy 2:2).
Practical expressions of spiritual reproduction:
1. Church planting.
2. Sunday School classes starting new classes.
3. Teachers, leaders, and servers training teachers, leaders and servers. You should always be training your replacement.
4. Be a mentor.
5. Teach your children.
6. Teaching you to teach others.
STATE CHAMPS!
I am writing this five days after the Blue Cross Bowl in Cookeville, Tennessee. It was the final chapter in one of the most remarkable runs you’ll ever see by a high school football team.
The high school football team comes from Friendship Christian School in Lebanon, Tennessee. That’s where my son goes to school. He’s in the 8th grade. We’ve been there 7 years. We’ve been treated to some really good football over the years. Since we’ve been there, the worst regular-season record we’ve ever posted is 7-3. They’ve always made the playoffs. They’ve always won at least one playoff game.
Back in 2006, our second year at FCS, our team went 10-0, and breezed through the playoffs all the way to the championship game. (That year it was held at MTSU in Murfreesboro.) We threw 6 interceptions and lost to Jackson Christian School 19-13 to finish 14-1. It was painful to lose that game. I don’t think we had fully gotten over that, even five years later. The silver ball is nice, but it’s a far cry from a gold ball.
During the ensuing four years, the script was always the same. Make the playoffs. Win the first playoff game at home. Lose the second game on the road. And we’ve had some really good teams and stud players come through high school during that time.
When we lost the Blue Cross Bowl back in 2006, I figured, eh, we’ll be back. But I was now beginning to doubt we ever would.
Something happened this year that I never remotely expected, something almost other-worldly that I, as an observer, still can’t fully explain. I jumped on the ride, like I always do, just to see where it would go. This time, that ride went all the way.
August 19, 2011: Opening night at Pirtle Field went really well for 46 minutes. Hosting Donelson Christian Academy, the Friendship Christian Commanders had opened up a two-touchdown lead with two minutes to play. Then the wheels came off. DCA scored a touchdown, recovered an onside kick, scored another touchdown, intercepted a pass, scored yet another touchdown, intercepted another pass, and ran out the clock. It was a shocking sequence of events. DCA 28, FCS 20.
August 26, 2011: Friendship Christian traveled to White House Heritage for a game I did not attend. FCS methodically pulled out a ho-hum 21-7 victory to even our record at 1-1.
September 2, 2011: Back at Pirtle Field, Gordonsville, a local 1A football powerhouse, dropped FCS to 1-2 with a 26-20 victory. It was a very winnable game for the Commanders, except we didn’t win. Now, we were in a situation where we needed to win 6 of our last 7 games to assure ourselves a playoff berth, and we still had Trousdale County left on the schedule. You can get into the playoffs at 6-4, but our region is so tough that going 6-4 is really living on the edge. It’s imperative to get that 7th win. At this point, though, the playoffs seemed about as far away as Mars. My good friend Doyle, who always sits with me at football games, and I were faced with the prospect of perhaps not making the playoffs for the first time since our kids started going there.
September 9, 2011: Friendship Christian traveled to Clay County. I did not go. It’s a long way to Celina, and I figured we’d blow them out like always. And we did, 55-6. We evened our record at 2-2.
September 16, 2011: Friendship Christian on the road again, this time to Jackson County. Again, I did not travel, for the same reasons as the week before. Gainesville isn’t a great deal closer than Celina. The Commanders were predictably easy winners, 45-0. Halfway through the season, and we were just now above .500 for the first time. Still a long way to go for the Commanders.
September 23, 2011: Pickett County made the long drive to Lebanon as FCS returned home. No offense to Pickett County, but they are quite possibly the worst football team in the state of Tennessee. They are a relatively new program with very few players. Honestly, it’s embarrassing to watch, even from the winner’s angle. The Commanders won 55-0, and that was only because we took our foot off the gas early. Now we were 4-2, but looming next was…
September 29, 2011: Some people call it the Creekbank. I call it the House of Pain. Hartsville, Tennessee. Trousdale County Yellow Jackets. These are our rivals. More like bitter enemies. We hate them, and I think they hate us more than we hate them. Trousdale County is a tiny place, and when we play, literally half the town of Hartsville squeezes into that football stadium. They’ve won 9 state championships, as they so often remind us. We came into this game 4-19 all-time against Trousdale County, with exactly one win to our credit in their house. This game was televised on My30 TV Thursday Night Lights. In a nutshell, the score was tied 0-0 at halftime. But Trousdale County had controlled the ball for long stretches of time, and by the time the second half rolled around, our defense was tired, and, just as we had all feared, the Yellow Jackets won 17-0. This was accompanied, as always, by the glee and pandemonium you would expect from a blood-thirsty crowd of rabble at a gladiator bout in the Roman Colosseum. Yeah, Trousdale, you won again. Sheesh. Now I hated them even more.
So now the Commanders were 4-3, needing to win every one of it’s remaining games. The season was hanging in the balance. It was at this point that things changed dramatically for Friendship Christian.
October 7, 2011: Watertown came to Pirtle Field sporting a nifty 6-0 record. I was worried about this game, because Watertown could have effectively ended our season. Instead, the Commanders, still smarting from being shutout at the House of Pain on TV eight days before, chased the visitors halfway back to Watertown in beating them 54-14. We were 5-3.
October 21, 2011: Homecoming night at FCS as Red Boiling Springs came to town. It wasn’t much of a game. With RBS, it never is. The Commanders won easily, 63-6. I have no idea how RBS got those 6 points, either. The Commanders were now 6-3 with one game left.
October 28, 2011: Last game of the regular season at Monterey. I’ve never seen a game at Monterey, and did not make the trip this time, either. I expected us to be an easy winner. By now, Doyle’s boy, who played for the middle school team, was among a handful of eighth-graders who got called up to the high school team to finish out the year. It was a cold, drizzly night. Doyle, who made the trip, sent me texts from Monterey, and honestly thought it was going to snow. Friendship Christian won 58-7 to finish the regular season 7-3.
November 4, 2011: Here we were back at Pirtle Field for our first playoff game. We played host to Jackson County, and were expecting to be an easy winner. Being a playoff game, the game was surprisingly sparsely attended. The home bleachers were only half-full. At halftime, though, we only led 7-0, and I was a little worried. But not for long. The Commanders unloaded on Jackson County in the second half, and we ended up winning 42-0.
The second half became so non-eventful that Doyle and I were left talking about other things.
Karl: I hear we got two new middle school baseball coaches for the spring. Mmmm-hmmm.
Doyle: Yeah. They’re gonna be pretty good. Looking forward to this.
Doyle is from Cosby, way over in the east. That’s the moonshine part of the state. (Some people call it moonshine. I call it corn liquor.) He says they always look forward to the corn harvest this time of year. He’s a CPA, but you would never know it just by talking to him. He’s as country and low-key as they come. He went to UT. I went to Memphis. But we both hate Kentucky. We’ve had a really good time going to high school football games over the years. But, unbeknownst to us at the time, the real fun was just beginning.
We had won our first playoff game, but our season was about to end at…
November 11, 2011: The House of Pain. Hartsville, Tennessee. Trousdale County was ranked #1 in the state. They were 9-1, with their only loss coming to some team up in Kentucky. They were undefeated against Tennessee teams. I hate going there, but that’s where the playoff bracket had us going, so I figured I’d make the 50-minute drive, sit with Doyle, support our boys, represent our school, and go down with the ship. There was a full moon that night.
We won 24-14.
November 18, 2011: Okay, so our season didn’t end the Friday before, but dare we start dreaming about a state championship? We had taken out the #1 team in the state, but the task was only slightly easier, because now we had to travel to Chattanooga and face the #2 team in the state, Boyd-Buchanan.
It was a cold night, and I was wrapped up like an Eskimo. The Boyd-Buchanan boys were a bit bigger than ours, and I wasn’t feeling really confident. We raced out to a 14-6 lead, and had things going our way for the first quarter-and-a-half. In the second half, though, our offense sputtered, producing exactly one first down, and Boyd-Buchanan used a touchdown and two-point conversion to ultimately send the game to overtime.
FCS won the toss, and deferred to Boyd-Buchanan. It was the first overtime game I had ever seen at FCS. The home team set up on the 10-yard line and scored in two plays. However, our defense blocked the extra point.
The Commanders took over, but could only gain 4 yards in three plays. That set up 4th-and-goal at the 6-yard line. This was it. The entire season for both teams came down to one play. Whatever play we drew up quickly broke down, and our quarterback was left scrambling in the backfield. Suddenly, he found a tiny opening and raced toward the end zone, making a desperate dive for the left pylon. There was an official standing right there on the goal line. He signaled a touchdown. The visiting crowd went nuts. I remember thinking, “Wow, he must have just barely gotten in.” I thought his knees had touched the ground before the ball broke the plane, but then, I was at an angle. We made the extra point and won the game 21-20 to advance to the semifinals.
On the way out, I was mildly accosted by a Boyd-Buchanan fan who asked me if I thought he was in. I told him I thought he was, but then I was at an angle and couldn’t really tell. Truth is, I didn’t know if he scored or not, but the Boyd-Buchanan folks weren’t too happy right then, and I, wearing FC gear, wanted to make it out of Chattanooga as fast as I could. I wasn’t up for conversation at that point.
It wasn’t until I got home and checked the message board that I realized the full magnitude of the controversy. The Boyd-Buchanan fans were apoplectic. They were mad at the officials, of course, they were mad at the TSSAA, and they were mad at us. In all honesty, the entire officiating crew was lethargic. It was the only football game, at any level, that I have ever seen in which no penalty flags were thrown. Not a single one. I probably would have been mad, too.
Was FCS “given the game?” Let me put it this way: we had a close, make-or-break call at the end of a quarterfinal game go our way. Would a replay have overturned it? Quite possibly. But the only thing that matters is the scoreboard said Visitor 21, Home 20, and we were in the semifinals.
It was the day after my 42nd birthday.
November 25, 2011: Oliver Springs, Tennessee. Where is Oliver Springs? In the proverbial middle-of-nowhere. I had never heard of Oliver Springs until about two weeks before when I started looking ahead in the brackets. It’s in Roane County. You take Interstate 40 to exit 347 (Harriman), and stay on Highway 61. It’s about 18 miles from the interstate to Oliver Springs. Along the way, you drive past Taylor’s, the local speakeasy, which was packed when I drove past the first time, and still packed when I drove past on the way home.
Oliver Springs
Oliver Springs is a small town that reminds me of some of the places where I grew up in West Tennessee. Overall, they’re nice folks. Good country people. But I have no idea how their football team made it to the semifinals. We scored early and scored often, and won the game 39-6, and those 6 points came inside the last minute of the game, long after the outcome had been decided.
Doyle and I enjoyed the smell of hickory smoke that night. As you can see from the photograph, there is a tree and a chain-link fence just a few feet beyond the left back corner of the far end zone. There’s an old, two-story white house that reminds me of one of the parsonages I lived in as a child. They had a nice campfire going where they were roasting wieners. Well, some folks call them wieners, some call them hot dogs, but I prefer the more proper frankfurters.
Anyway, as I was leaving, the PA guy announced the final score as “Private School 39, Public School 6.” I don’t think it was meant as a compliment. But I didn’t let it bother me. People like to knock on private schools. They call us “sweatervests” and think the students are all spoiled rich kids. Well, some of them come from wealthy families. The majority don’t. But people can say and believe whatever they want. My wife and I have our son enrolled in the best school that’s available to us, and that’s all that matters.
At any rate, I was anxious to get to my car and leave the place. We had been made aware that several visiting cars had been broken into the week before. I had parked right under a streetlight, so I wasn’t too worried, but I still wanted to get out of there quickly.
Well, here we were, the Friendship Christian Commanders, with a second opportunity to win a state football championship. We had failed at the first opportunity. Would we succeed this time? If we lost, would we ever make it back again? Indeed, the older I get, the more I appreciate the difficulty in winning championships, the difficulty in even getting that far in the first place. It is just so hard to do.
We had eight days to think about it.
December 3, 2011: Campus of Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville, Tennessee, host site of the Blue Cross Bowl. Our game was at noon that Saturday. Our opponent was Dresden. I was excited the entire week leading up to the state championship. Yet I also had this strange sense of peace and calm about the game. I wasn’t really nervous until that morning. In fact, the butterflies were so thick I couldn’t even eat. I just wasn’t hungry.
My son and I drove up that morning. It’s just over an hour from Mt. Juliet. It was the shortest drive we’d had since the Trousdale County game. The place was packed with both Friendship Christian and Dresden fans. The FCS contingent was the largest I have ever seen. The sweatervests were there en masse.
It was a cloudy day, but the clouds were thin enough so that there was still plenty of sunshine. It was chilly, though, with a strong breeze blowing from south to north, or from right to left across the football field from our vantage point.
FCS won the toss and kicked off with the wind behind us. Dresden went three-and-out, punted, and the Commanders scored on their first possession. It was 13-0 after the first quarter. It was 13-0 after the second quarter. It was also 13-0 after the third quarter. I was relaxed to the point that I got a frankfurter at halftime. My appetite was back, but the game still wasn’t over. We still needed one more score to more or less ice the game.
After a head-scratching fake punt deep in their own territory on about 4th-and-23, we got that third touchdown to go ahead 20-0. Dresden had had a terrible game up to that point, but it was about to go from bad to worse. A blocked punt, again deep in Dresden’s territory, set us up to increase the lead to 27-0. We got the ball back again after another punt, and that’s when things got ugly. Dresden picked up a facemask penalty and a personal foul on back-to-back plays, and, for good measure, we pushed across one more touchdown with about 2 minutes remaining to post a 34-0 lead. We dominated Dresden every way that you can dominate a football team. The only thing they did better was turn the ball over.
(Read the game article here.)
I really cannot describe the joy I felt in winning this. I wanted it for the players, the coaches, and, most of all, for the school. This was not only the first state football championship in school history, but also in Wilson County history. I have never experienced a football championship. My high school never one won. My alma mater, the University of Memphis, has never won one, and never will. My favorite NFL team, the Tennessee Titans, have never won one. For me, this was uncharted water.
The thing about championships is that they are forever. No one can take it away from you. It will be there long after Doyle and I and our boys are gone. We might be back next year, or we might never get there again. Being simply good, or even great, usually isn’t good enough. You have to have a lot of things go your way to win a championship.
I had nothing to do with this accomplishment. Unlike Doyle, my son doesn’t play football. I didn’t have a player dressed out. I’m not a coach. I never drove the bus. I never washed dirty uniforms. I’m just a parent who has a child at Friendship Christian School and likes to go to football games. I’m sure that those who actually had a hand in the gold ball are even more joyful than I am.
Gold Ball
The greatest movement in the history of the world
I missed last week’s sermon notes. I was not in church and had to listen to the morning sermon on podcast, and was not in a position to take notes. In a nutshell, we are still learning about being reproducers (i.e., making followers of Christ).
You’ve heard the phrase “there are two kinds of people in this world,” and then you fill in the blanks with any two variables. Indeed, we classify ourselves many ways: ethnicity, gender, nationality, economic status, education, etc. In an eternal sense, there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who are sinners saved by Christ, and sinners who are without Christ. We call them “lost.” And it is of paramount importance that we, the saved, love the lost so as to gain a hearing of the gospel.
This week, we built on that theme by discussing the need for missions. You see, Jesus calls us to take his gospel all over the world. This is why we Southern Baptists are so heavily involved in missions. (In the end, nothing, not even the gates of hell, will prevail against Christ’s church.)
When we’re involved in missions, we’re involved in the work that Jesus himself calls us to do. We’re also involved in the greatest movement in the history of the world (the spreading of the gospel). And we’re involved in the culmination of all world history, for when God is satisfied that the gospel has been preached to all peoples, then the end will come.
Before time began, God willed that people from across the entire world would worship him. Missions is therefore the work that Christ has given us to do.
Three ways for us to be involved are to pray for missionaries, give to missions, and go on mission trips.
How God causes growth
I am way late in getting my sermon notes from this past Sunday posted. Nothing to blame it on but laziness.
At any rate, our pastor continued what he calls our DNA series, moving to the last phase. We’ve talked about being learners, prayers, worshippers, givers, relaters, servers, and now reproducers.
This is probably the toughest part for me. I’m naturally shy and introverted, and have not done well in sharing the gospel. I’d prefer to write than talk, for example.
Sunday, we looked in-depth at Acts 1:8, but also went back to a passage we’ve studied commonly throughout this series, that being Acts 2:42-47.
God causes growth. His will for our life is to make the gospel known.
He does this by calling us to be his witnesses. He pours out his Spirit and gives us spiritual power to be his witnesses.
God calls us to take the gospel everywhere in the entire world, literally to the ends of the earth. This is why we must be involved in both local and international missions simultaneously.
If we look back to the early church in Acts, the Jerusalem church was persecuted and scattered, which caused the gospel to be spread.
Our message is all about Christ. Evangelism and spiritual reproduction are not about church programs, but believers telling other people about Christ where they already are. Be excited and encouraged about growth. Be humble, because God gets the glory. Praise God, and join God in his great work.
Our job is to be faithful, and we trust God to take care of the results. Look at Stephen. It appears as though Stephen was a failure, yet many were saved as a result of his martyrdom.
God is able to use everything in your life for the gospel.
We are to be witnesses for Jesus wherever we go.
Greatness comes through service
We glorify God by making followers of Jesus who love God, love people, and go into the world.
Today we dove into a passage in John 13:1-17, where Christ, on the night he was betrayed, demonstrated what service really means when he washed the feet of his disciples.
Humans have a tendency to establish a “pecking order,” even in churches. This goes completely against the example Christ set. Remember, it was the disciples who argued amongst themselves who was greatest, yet when Christ humbled himself by washing their feet, he showed that glory is stooping below others, through serving others, which goes counter to worldly thinking.
The big idea is that greatness comes through service.
Christ-like service must flow out of love. This is different than serving out of duty, which most often results in negative consequences.
Christ-like service serves everybody. Christ even washed the feet of Judas Iscariot, knowing Judas had already betrayed him.
Christ-like service is expected of everyone. Even the all-powerful Christ served those whom he discipled.
Christ-like service is a blessing … to the one who serves. Again, this runs opposite to what the world believes. The world, after all, doesn’t initiate service; it expects it.
And so we believers are expected to use our individual gifts to serve and minister in the church of Jesus Christ.
What we share in Jesus
We glorify God by making followers of Jesus who love God, love people, and go into the world.
Yesterday, we discussed a brief passage found in Acts 2:42-47 that describes fellowship in the early church.
True Christian fellowship means that we share the gospel of Jesus. The gospel of Jesus is all we need to be united. The church of Jesus can only be built on the gospel of Jesus.
Loving people means we are in relationship with others. Biblical fellowship is a way of life. In Acts, the Holy Spirit enabled believers to hear the gospel in their own languages. New believers had come from all over that part of the world — people with nothing in common except the gospel of Christ. It is therefore a tragedy when the church is divided over anything less than the gospel.
True Christian fellowship means that we share our day-to-day lives. Even though the first church was enormous, believers met daily in smaller groups, even in each others’ homes.
Finally, true Christian fellowship means that we share our possessions to meet one another’s needs.
Christ teaches us about love
We glorify God by making followers of Jesus who love God, love people, and go into the world.
Today, we studied the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). There are 3 truths Jesus teaches us about love: it is active, it is costly, it is commanded. The crucifixion of Christ is a perfect example of just how costly love is.
You cannot separate loving God from loving people. The parable of the Good Samaritan is, again, a perfect example of this concept. Christ shared this parable because he was being tested by a legal scholar.
We are saved by faith, and true faith always expresses itself through love of God and neighbor.
The lawyer who tested Jesus was trying to justify himself. He was using Jesus to make himself look good. It’s a danger we can fall into, as well. Instead of loving Christ, we want to appear knowledgeable. We don’t want to serve other people.
Jewish scholars had tried to narrowly redefine the meaning of “neighbor.” They hated Samaritans, as there had been a long period of rivalry between the two groups. Thus, Christ’s use of a Samaritan as a hero in the parable was offensive to Jews.
Love can be messy. How can we put the needs of others we despise above our own? We are in danger that we’ll seek comfort in our own churches and groups instead of being that Samaritan. God help us if our religion ever looks like that.
We are not to avoid others who are different from us, because Jesus wants everyone to love the gospel. So profess to God our lack of love. Pray that God would pour out his Spirit.
An awesome sight
Yesterday morning upon leaving work, I was treated to the unique combination of steam fog on Old Hickory Lake (which is not uncommon by itself) and a layer of stratus clouds about 50 feet off the ground. I pulled over and took several photographs, only two of which turned out well enough to publish. The pictures don’t do it justice. The scene was almost surreal.
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Jesus is priceless
We glorify God by making followed of Jesus who love God, love people, and go into the world.
Today’s lesson comes from Matthew 13:44-46, a parable I had paid scant attention to until yesterday’s church service. The main idea is that the kingdom of heaven is so valuable that it’s worth giving up everything for its sake.
You will never make a sacrifice for the kingdom of heaven, because the kingdom of heaven is worth more than everything you give up for its sake. You will see Jesus for who He is and realize how valuable and priceless He is. Christ deserves our all, and He’s what’s best for us.
We still struggle with our worldly perspective and what we give up feels like a sacrifice. In the end, we won’t regret any of our “sacrifices” we made. We’ll wish we had “sacrificed” more.
Practical ways to give to the kingdom of heaven:
1. Tithes and offerings
2. Missions offerings (Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong)
3. Journey of Grace capital campaign at the First Baptist Church of Mt. Juliet, TN
Tithe is not a four-letter word
I was not in church Sunday, but fortunately our pastor’s sermons are always available via podcast. I’ve stated before that I honestly believe God has something to say to us as a congregation, and our pastor is locked into it, and so I still take notes even when I’m not there to hear it in person.
Everything we have and earn ultimately belongs to God. But the tithe is to be treated as holy. He wants us to set apart 10% of our gain to give back to him. It’s an expression of gratitude and worship. It’s an expression of faith that we trust God to continue to provide for us. And it’s an acknowledgement that everything ultimately belongs to God.
If we keep the tithe, then we’re overstepping our authority. When you tithe, it teaches you reverence. Withholding the tithe is an act of irreverence. You cannot respect God the way He deserves if you ignore what He says.
But I deserve to keep what I earn, right? Wrong. It is the Lord God who gives us the ability to create wealth. Evaluate your spending and giving methods in light of His commands on giving.
If you don’t tithe, you’re stealing from God. It is no different than if you walked in and stole from the offering plate.
When you tithe, on the other hand, you’re trusting God. When you tithe, you’re actually better off, because you are placing trust in God. You can trust God to provide for your needs — not necessarily your wants, but your needs. In fact, God often gives us far more than we need. No, you cannot buy blessings from God. Still, God will often provide abundantly when you give faithfully, but not always in the form of material goods. The best blessings tend to come in spiritual form. You love God more and the things of this world less.
Indeed, the real blessing from tithing is that you desire stuff less and desire God more. Tithing forces us to literally put our money where our mouth is.
Tithing is also good for you. The Lord would not have us do something that was not in our best interest.
Is tithing legalistic? The idea of tithing one-tenth back to God goes all the way back to Abraham and Jacob in the book of Genesis. This precedes the law God handed down to Moses by about 400 years. So tithing is not a legal and monetary issue. It’s about loving God and putting your heart in the right place. Followers of Jesus who don’t tithe don’t have a money problem, they have a heart problem.
So we don’t tithe because the law demands it, but because Christ deserves it.
Grace-giving is giving more than you think is humanly possible. Grace-giving is not reluctant giving, but cheerful giving. Christ expects us to share his grace by giving. When you’re under grace, you give more than simply what the law demands, because Christ is worthy. The tithe is the floor, not the ceiling.
Coffee shop sighting
Starbucks Coffee inside Wolfchase Galleria, Memphis, Tennessee
Mark’s list of virtues
1. Love the Lord your God.
2. Love your neighbor.
3. Speak well of others.
4. Take care of your body. Also take care of your mind.
5. Make a good first impression.
6. Don’t fritter away your time. An idle mind is the devil’s playground.
7. In everything, seek the truth. Accept it when you find it.
8. Be careful not to waste money or other resources.
9. Try to limit your worries.
10. Be thankful what you do have, not resentful about what you don’t.
11. Have compassion for others. They’re fighting battles, too.
When less is most
We glorify God by making followers of Jesus who love God, love people, and go into the world.
Today’s message comes from Mark 12:41-44, which is the story of the widow’s mite. And so today we talk about giving. Giving, you see, is about something much more important than money.
In the events that play out in this part of Mark’s gospel, Christ was in the temple watching what worshippers were putting into the treasury. Some were making a show of their giving. Yet Christ praised the widow’s seemingly meager gift above all the others, because hers turned out to be the greatest sacrifice. Jesus is pleased when we give with a sacrificial heart.
Giving is not about the size of the gift, it’s about the size of the sacrifice. Giving is about our heart, not about our money. And so Jesus cares about the size of the sacrifice, not the size of the gift, because Jesus cares about our heart, not about our money.
Three truths to motivate our giving:
1. Jesus is watching what we give. Is Jesus changing your heart? We should want to give in a way that pleases Christ.
2. Jesus knows our circumstances, whether we have little or an abundance.
3. Jesus knows the value of sacrifice. Believe me, Jesus knows all about making sacrifices. He doesn’t call us to do anything that He isn’t willing to do and hasn’t already done in abundance.
The type of worship God wants
We glorify God by making followers of Jesus who love God, love people, and go into the world.
Yesterday, we continued for a third straight Sunday in John 4:19-24 as we define the real meaning of worship.
Worshipping in spirit and truth means that we worship with our hearts, and we worship with our heads.
True worship engages both our emotions and our thoughts.
You can worship God everywhere, anywhere, at any time, because God is everywhere all the time, not just at church on Sunday morning.
The only way we can know and worship God the Father is through Jesus the Son. Worship is the purpose of salvation, because God is seeking worshippers. But we cannot approach God without the saving power of Christ.
Worshipping in spirit means the Holy Spirit must produce worship in us.
Worshipping in truth means we must be in Jesus, because He is the Truth.
Three goals for our worship are that it be Christ-centered, congregational, and a celebration.
Four characteristics of Biblical worship are that there will be truth, passion, authenticity, and freedom in worship.
We must worship God on a personal level. We have to become worshippers as Christ works in us. Worship is all about God.
Buried with Christ
On Sunday, our pastor discussed baptism as one of the two ordinances handed down to us by Christ (the Lord’s Supper being the other).
We baptize by immersion, which is how they did it in the Bible.
We baptize those who have expressed a belief in Christ. We call this believer’s baptism.
We don’t baptize for salvation, because salvation comes through repentance and faith, and not just by baptism. Baptism is the expression of obedience that faith produces.
There are 5 reasons we do baptize:
1. Baptism is obedience to Christ.
2. Baptism is following Jesus’ righteousness.
3. Baptism is public identification with Jesus.
4. Baptism is symbolic of our spiritual death and new life in Jesus.
5. Baptism declares the gospel of Jesus.
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