What the church needs

W

hen I was in college, I loved intellectual conversations! I loved to sit around the flagpole in front of Jackson Hall and discuss philosophy and theology with my compatriots. As I look back on my life, I realize that my best friends have always been those who spurred me on to deeper thought and who made me consider things from a new perspective.

In those days I began to read the writings of Francis Schaeffer [Wikipedia | L'Abri Fellowship]. I began to devour the publications of Intervarsity Press. I developed an intentional world-view.

Nowadays I don’t know who is impacting the intellectual exercises of our young people. I love to read John Piper, Voddie Baucham, Alistair Begg, Nancy Pearcey, and others in their style. But I don’t know if young people are interacting with them. The Pyromaniacs blog is another potential forum for intellectual conversation. Hopefully, these conversations are taking place.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite early intellectual mentors, Francis Schaeffer, more true and important today than it was when I first read it in college in the early 1980s:

The church in our generation needs reformation, revival, and constructive revolution.

At times men think of the two words, reformation and revival, as standing in contrast one to the other, but this is a mistake. Both words are related to the word restore.

Reformation refers to a restoration to pure doctrine; revival refers to a restoration in the Christian’s life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture; revival speaks of a life brought into its proper relationship to the Holy Spirit.

The great moments of church history have come when these two restorations have simultaneously come into action so that the church has returned to pure doctrine and the lives of the Christians in the church have known the power of the Holy Spirit. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation; and reformation is not complete without revival.

Such a combination of reformation and revival would be revolutionary in our day—revolutionary in our individual lives as Christians, revolutionary not only in reference to the liberal church but constructively revolutionary in the evangelical, orthodox church as well.

May we be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival so that this poor dark world may have an exhibition of a portion of the church returned to both pure doctrine and Spirit-filled life.

Francis Schaeffer, Death In the City, p. 12

A gift for your friends (or you)

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ne of my favorite blogs/web sites is The Sacred Sandwich—a fun, tongue-in-cheek parody of topics related to Christianity.

I thought I’d share one of their advertisements to get your interest up.

Introducing PoMo, the Bear:

Baruch Ha Shem – and save your nation

O

ne of my favorite passages of scripture is the Shema—the command God gave to the people of Israel when he delivered the law to them. The Shema is:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9

Most of us have heard that command, but I don’t think we have taken it to heart. The promises God delivered along with the Shema are an integral part of it. In the following verses, Moses follows up the command with, “when the Lord your God brings you into the land ... then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear.”

We are so prone to forgetting about God when things go right. Prosperity, good health, business success; these things make us feel invulnerable and we begin to forget about God. So God gave the Shema to his people. These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. He’s telling them, “this is so important that I want you to talk about it all day long—every day. I want you to wear my commands as jewelry. I want you to decorate your house with this.” By doing this, God’s people would be less likely to forget about God and what he had done for them.

Knowing that we are prone to bypass requirements, in verse 20 Moses says, “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘...The Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous ... before our eyes.... And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always.’”

God’s commandments are for our good. And when we forget to teach our children why his commandments were given, we are at least to be prepared to answer our children when they ask.

As I read in Deuteronomy this morning I was struck with the high tension levels in our nation at this time. And I fully understand the frustrations that are contributing to the vocal anger against our nation’s leaders. And I don’t condemn those who are speaking up in anger. Each person must get involved in our nation’s political process in the way they see fit.

But it seems that God’s people may need a different view of political action than the general public. Perhaps if we had done as God told his people; if we had proclaimed what God has done for us in the past; if we had spoken of these things when we rose out of bed, and when we walked down the street, and when we sat in our house, and when we went to bed.... Perhaps our nation would not be in the fix it is in now. Perhaps we should look at the current pain in our nation’s situation and think of it as a son asking his father, “What is the meaning of the rules God has commanded?”

Perhaps our political action should look exactly like evangelism.

 

Dear World

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find it so hard to empathize with those who are different than I am. Recognizing this common human tendency, the folks at Revolutionary Media (Website | Facebook) of Portland, Oregon, have published Dear World to remind us that we have brothers and sisters in Christ who are homeless. This book is available as a free download from now until April 11th as part of a greater call to action.

Dear World is full of stories, examples, thoughts, inspirations, and challenges of how the body of Christ can begin to live as Jesus lived, and reach out to those in our very own communities. The book contains excerpts of letters written by the street community to the world. Readers will meet:

• Miranda—a former meth addict who has found healing and restoration.
• Jeremiah, a young man who, like many Americans, misjudged the economic stability and lost it all
• and others

Their stories are paired with their portraits, and readers are given an eye-opening view of what life is really like on the street—nd how we can help people stay off it.

What is the call to action?

1. Download - Download Dear World and tell your world about it. Retweet the link, or place it in your Facebook status.
2. Do Something - After you read Dear World, do something to help the homeless. The ideas are endless. Whether you take a homeless person to lunch and hear their story, write your senator, or volunteer at a soup kitchen, the goal is the same. Get out of your comfort zone to help someone else.
3. Document your story – Document your story with words and or photos, then email it to info@TheRevMediaProject.com. Revolutionary Media will post all the stories that come in to encourage and inspire others to affect this issue.
4. Discover - Revolutionary Media is offering prizes to 3 of the stories received. These three stories must encompass the heart of reaching out as Jesus' hands and feet. The 3 prizes include: a hard-bound copy of Dear World [valued at $65], a softcover of Dear World [valued at $45], and two Dear World posters [valued at $20].

 

You’re wrong!

HT: Phil Johnson

Elitism rejected

“A

re you jealous for my sake?” asked Moses. “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

Many of us avoid the Old Testament book of Numbers. It has a ton of numbers in it (go figure) and it employs massive literary repetition. Reading Numbers can seem quite tedious. But the book of Numbers has some very interesting things in it, and we miss those things if we don’t pay attention while we read.

This morning I read Numbers 11-13 and found an interesting interchange between Moses and his executive assistant Joshua the son of Nun. In Numbers 11 Moses gathers 70 of the elders of Israel around the tent of meeting and the Lord’s Spirit prompts them to begin prophesying. Two elders remained in the camp—they began prophesying as well, except these two were inside the camp where other people could hear their prophecies.

This turn of events disturbed Moses’ assistant, so a greatly disturbed Joshua the son of Nun went to Moses and plead, “My lord Moses, stop them.” In Numbers 11:29 Moses responds to Joshua, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

Numbers 11:26–30

Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

So often we forget that whatever authority we have within the local church was given to us by God. We begin to become territorial and we hold onto our perceived authority with a tight grasp. This puts us in natural opposition to anyone else who may be able to do the same job we are doing. You see this when music leaders try to keep musicians out of “the spotlight,” for lack of a better term, thinking that if folks get to know the other person the music leader may lose some degree of authority. It is seen when pastors try to quash ideas from the people in the pews, thinking that as the spiritual authority of that local congregation, the pastor must be the “idea person.” It is seen when bible study leaders don’t want to turn the teaching reigns over to another person—even when they are out of town for the week. It is seen when the newsletter publisher rejects offers of editing, design, or publishing help. In fact, this problem is probably spread throughout all areas of responsibility within the church. We humans tend to hold tightly to what we think is “ours.”

But Moses did not react this way. When Joshua came to him with this concern Moses said, “I think this is great. In fact, I wish everyone were doing this same thing.”

It’s a good lesson for us all—especially me. I tend to hang on to any web design duties with a territorial bent, and that is not a good thing.

But the story doesn’t really end there. In Numbers 12:2 Miriam and Aaron say, ”Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” So even though Moses was not territorial about his leadership, the accusation of territorialism still arose against him. And it arose from two people who were very close to him.

So did Moses oppose these two when they made this power-play? Not at all. In verse 3 we are told that “ Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.”

In the following verses God deals directly with Miriam and Aaron for their accusations and usurpation. In fact, God gave Miriam leprosy and after Moses plead for her life God allowed Miriam to be quarantined outside of the camp for seven days. She then returned and Israel was able to get back to their nomadic move to the wilderness of Paran.

I take from this that I should not hold so tightly to those areas of ministry God has blessed me with, thinking that somehow I have earned them. And that if others show jealousy or try wrest my ministry from me, I should leave it in God’s hands. God knows the right time for me to retire from my ministry and pass it to another and he knows the hearts of all of the people involved—including me. He will set things right.

 

Songs for the Lukewarm Church

• Blest Be The Tie That Doesn't Cramp My Style
• Pillow of Ages, Fluffed for Me
• I Surrender Some
• I'm Fairly Certain That My Redeemer Lives
• Sit Up, Sit Up For Jesus
• Take My Life and Let Me Be
• What An Acquaintance We Have In Jesus
• Where He Leads Me, I Will Consider Following
• He's Quite a Bit To Me
• Oh, How I Like Jesus
• Fill My Spoon, Lord
• It Is My Secret What God Can Do

Way of the Master

 

Religious egotism

UPDATE/ADDENDUM   I received a comment from someone I respect greatly and, as a result, feel the need to clarify something about this post.

I don’t mean to paint all Christians with the same brush in this article. The characteristics I’m speaking of in this post are too common among Christians, but by no means are common to all. In fact, I believe these things would characterize less than a majority. But the behaviors are far too common in Christian circles and I am hoping in this post to call each of us to a personal high standard recognizing these characteristics and attempting to personally avoid them.

And may God get the glory in all.

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I

have been bothered by an apparent characteristic of the conservative Evangelical Christian community for quite some time. This unattractive characteristic shows itself as the tendency for Christians to view themselves as better-than others and others as less-than themselves. Christians also seem to think that they have a unique right to disobey the laws of the land—especially within the walls of their church building or Christian day school. I think this lawlessness is grounded in the personal elitism of the Christian mindset.

Christian theology should result in exactly the opposite mindset. The bible clearly teaches that those who are drawn to the Father are so drawn for God’s personal reasons and not because of any goodness on our part. In fact, as the Apostle Paul told the Corinthian believers:

“My dear friends, remember what you were when God chose you. The people of this world didn’t think that many of you were wise. Only a few of you were in places of power, and not many of you came from important families. But God chose the foolish things of this world to put the wise to shame. He chose the weak things of this world to put the powerful to shame” (1 Corinthians 1:26–27).

So, if we were chosen for a reason, it was not because of how good we were or how wonderful we were—it was because of how small and insignificant we were.

Genesis 20:11

Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place.”

But perhaps this elitist condition is not new. As I was reading the bible to my son last night, we came across the passage about Abraham and Abimelech. Abraham asked his wife Sarah to say she was his sister so the people of the land would not kill him to get to his wife, who we are told was a very beautiful woman. Abimelech took Sarah into his house and the Lord appeared to him in a dream to tell him that he was in deep trouble for taking a man’s wife. In the end, the Lord agreed with Abimelech that he had acted with integrity and as long as Sarah was returned to Abraham, God would not curse Abimelech and his household.

Genesis 20:12

Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.

Abimelech asked Abraham why he had claimed Sarah as his sister rather than his wife, potentially endangering Abimelech’s household. Abraham answered, “because I thought, there is no fear of God at all in this place.” Abraham then went on to justify his actions further. I find it interesting that this chosen man of God decided to lie and put his wife in a precarious position because he thought Abimelech’s people were less-than he and his household.

In my experience, Christians excuse lawless behavior by appealing to the fact that the church is tax-exempt. They often leave poor tips at restaurants (along with a tract) and claim that they are being “good stewards of the Lord’s money.” They talk about folks who go to a different church in town as if the mere fact of the different church membership is proof that these people are not saved. This should not be. When we act unethically and then blame our unethical behavior on the fact that others are non-believers, we bring shame to the name of Christ.

The recent news about the U.S. missionaries in Haiti seems to be another example of this characteristic among Christians. Perhaps the U.S. missionaries in Haiti acted in integrity. I hope they did. But the lesson I hope we all take away from the story (and from the story of Abraham and Abimelech) is that we Christians should recognize that we are not better than others. Our faith is not because of us—it is because of Christ and He is to be our only boast.

 

Merry Christmas - from a Reformed perspective

HT: Sherry Harlan DeFrank

 

A humble servant of servants

B

eing the son of a pastor, I grew up having a particular focus on folks in positions of leadership in the local church. I saw the good, the bad, and the ugly. Blessed, as I was, with a father who is an outstanding pastor, I didn’t see much of the bad and none of the ugly until well after I had moved out on my own—and I have seen more and more of it in recent years.

The primary ugly feature that I have seen in elders and pastors for the past decade or so has been egotism and elitism. This had become so prevalent in my experience that I had begun to despair of the possibility that there were any humble ministers of God remaining. Over the past few years I have observed that the increase in this elitist attitude among pastors has grown widespread and this has become a great burden to me.

I praise God that the pastor of our current church is a humble man with a heart for God and the people under his ministry. It is a huge relief to see this characteristic in a pastor again. And it was brought to mind by a very interesting post at the IX Marks blog titled “Can Someone Who Is 29 Years Old Be a Senior Pastor?” A response to “On the Principle of the Presiding Elder,” this post shows the humility that is a biblical requirement of those who would lead God’s people:

---

In our church, we practice a "first among equals" approach. This is just a natural development:

1. I was the first elder here and served by myself for some time.
2. I do 90% of the Sunday morning preaching. I used to do all the Sunday night preaching as well. A certain amount of authority accrues with that. This is also true with the other elders in our church. While we're all "equal", some elders will have more authority in the congregation than others by virtue of their teaching and care for the congregation.
3. This is my job and my life. I spend all day every day thinking about this stuff (except when I'm thinking about this or this). The other non-staff elders are committed, but they have day jobs to attend to as well.

I do not, however, take the title "Senior Pastor". The other elder on the church's payroll and I just go by "pastor" and the other elders (not on the church's payroll) for the most part go by "elder" rather than "pastor". We do this for a few reasons:

1. This is how normal English speaking church-goers use those words. When we say "pastor", we usually mean "elder on staff" or something like that. I realize there are exceptions and it's not a Biblical distinction, but I think Reformed people are weird enough. Let's try and be normal whenever we can.
2. I don't take the title "Senior Pastor" (or even the honorific "Reverend") because I have authority issues, so I am constitutionally allergic to inflated titles. Plus, when I started the church I was 29; nothing seemed very "senior" about me.
3. Also, Jesus seems to think it's a dumb idea [see verse below].

Matthew 23:5-12

They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

A few precautions:

1. Because elders are godly men, some may naturally be deferential towards authority. So a pastor in the "first among equals" position will need to work hard to draw the other elders out and get them involved in the decision making process. So in our elders meetings, I try to wait until every other elder has spoken before I state my opinion. That way they say what they really think rather than adjusting their thoughts to come in line with my opinion.
2. Our hearts are prone to self-worship. We all secretly believe that we know what we're doing and don't need much help. We need to cultivate humility and actually listen to what our fellow elders are saying. This helps them to develop as leaders and helps to avoid a monarchy. Plus, it's great to have a group of men to share the blame the burden of leadership genuinely.

Praise God for humble church leaders. They’re quite rare, and just like a rare coin or a rare gem they are quite valuable.

 

What is love?

“W

ords mean things,” says Rush Limbaugh. And, at least on this topic, however simple that phrase may seem, he has it dead right. Words mean things. And when, for whatever the reason, we purposely change the meaning of a word, we do a disservice to those we are communicating with.

I recently had a conversation with Mary about the definition of the word joy and the definition of the word happiness. I believe those two words mean essentially the same thing, but Evangelical Christianity has waged a multi-generational campaign to shift the definitions of those words in order to make an excuse for God, who promises us joy. Folks have rightly determined that most of us are not particularly happy most of the time. So well-meaning Christians have redefined the terms. Happiness now means the surface bubbly, giggly giddiness that comes from experiencing something you really enjoy. And joy (be sure to add the reverb in your mind since this is a very serious theological term now) is that unique deep down state that a Christian has for some mystical reason that causes him to be joyful even though everything in his life is heading down the tubes. That way we can assuage our consciences by saying to our friends, “I’m really, really sad and greatly depressed, but I have the joy of the Lord."

Hogwash!

We don’t need to give God an out. If he says we will experience joy in Him, and we are not experiencing happiness (which means the same thing), the fault is ours—it’s not a definitional breakdown.

That’s not, however, the topic of this post. That was to set the foundation for the definition of the term love. Mary and I are still having an ongoing discussion about happiness and joy, and we still disagree on those definitions. But I think we both agree with John Piper on the definition of love found in the following excerpt from his book, Don’t Waste Your Life. I am posting this because our friend Tim brought up an interesting question about how God could be a loving God if he has created some people who are destined for hell. Hopefully this excerpt will explain, more eloquently than I ever could, the true definition of the term love and what that love should look like.

W

e waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. In the night sky of this world God appears to most people, if at all, like a pinprick of light in a heaven of darkness. But he created us and called us to make him look like what he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God. We are meant to image forth in the world what he is really like.

Does Being Loved Mean Being Made Much Of?

For many people, this is not obviously an act of love. They do not feel loved when they are told that God created them for his glory. They feel used. This is understandable given the way love has been almost completely distorted in our world. For most people, to be loved is to be made much of. Almost everything in our Western culture serves this distortion of love. We are taught in a thousand ways that love means increasing someone’s self-esteem. Love is helping someone feel good about themselves. Love is giving someone a mirror and helping him like what he sees. This is not what the Bible means by the love of God. Love is doing what is best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction. We were made to see and savor God—and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence. Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them. To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors.

Pathological at the Grand Canyon

The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves. And each of these rare and precious moments in life—beside the Canyon, before the Alps, under the stars—is an echo of a far greater excellence, namely, the glory of God. That is why the Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

Sometimes people say that they cannot believe that, if there is a God, he would take interest in such a tiny speck of reality called humanity on Planet Earth. The universe, they say, is so vast, it makes man utterly insignificant. Why would God have bothered to create such a microscopic speck called the earth and humanity and then get involved with us?

Beneath this question is a fundamental failure to see what the universe is about. It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man. God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself. And he says it for us to learn and enjoy—namely, that he is infinitely great and powerful and wise and beautiful. The more the Hubble Telescope sends back to us about the unfathomable depths of space, the more we should stand in awe of God. The disproportion between us and the universe is a parable about the disproportion between us and God. And it is an understatement. But the point is not to nullify us but to glorify him.

Loving People Means Pointing Them to the
All-Satisfying God

Now back to what it means to be loved. The idea has been almost totally distorted. Love has to do with showing a dying soul the life-giving beauty of the glory of God, especially his grace. Yes, as we will see, we show God’s glory in a hundred practical ways that include care about food and clothes and shelter and health. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Every good work should be a revelation of the glory of God. What makes the good deed an act of love is not the raw act, but the passion and the sacrifice to make God himself known as glorious. Not to aim to show God is not to love, because God is what we need most deeply. And to have all else without him is to perish in the end. The Bible says that you can give away all that you have and deliver your body to be burned and have not love (1 Corinthians 13:3). If you don’t point people to God for everlasting joy, you don’t love. You waste your life.

John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life

 

Remembering Jacob Arminius

J

acob Arminius died 400 years ago today. His theology has impacted Evangelical culture and teaching in a way I believe has been greatly detrimental to discipleship, orthodoxy, and evangelism. An understanding of his life and teachings is a good way to get a handle on the importance of holding to proper biblical theology. Failure to conform to biblical theology may cause devastating repercussions for many years to come.

The Exiled Preacher gives a quick, but good, synopsis of Arminius’ life and teachings here.

 

I want to be a clone

P

ersonal evangelism seems to be a dying activity among conservative evangelicals. I have seen fewer and fewer attempts at personal evangelism and know of only a couple of churches that still teach their people to carry the gospel to their neighbors. Why is this? I have been wondering about this for a few years now.

This morning I was reading The Soul Winner by C.H. Spurgeon and I came across the following passage, which I think speaks directly to this issue of why personal evangelism has fallen out of our repertoire of church activities:

I hope we all sympathize in the bighearted spirit of Dr. Chalmers, who, when it was said that such–and–such an effort would not be beneficial to the special interests of the Free Church of Scotland, although it might promote the general religion of the land, said, “What is the Free Church compared with the Christian good of the people of Scotland?” Indeed, what are all the churches put together, as mere organizations, if they stand in conflict with the moral and spiritual advantage of the nation or if they impede the kingdom of Christ?

It is because God blesses men through the churches that we desire to see them prosper, and not merely for the sake of the churches themselves. There is such a thing as selfishness in our eagerness for the aggrandizement of our own party. From this evil spirit may grace deliver us! The increase of the kingdom is more to be desired than the growth of a clan. We would do a great deal to make a infantile Baptist brother into a mature Baptist simply because we value our Lord’s ordinances.

We would labor earnestly to raise a believer in salvation by free will into a believer in salvation by grace, for we long to see all religious teaching built upon the solid rock of truth and not upon the sand of imagination. At the same time, our grand object is not the revision of opinions, but the regeneration of natures. We should bring men to Christ, not to our own peculiar views of Christianity.

When I was a child, my father’s church taught evangelistic outreach. They used the Evangelism Explosion method of teaching personal evangelism and it worked quite well. It got many church members involved in personal evangelism and God was pleased to draw many individuals to himself through this outreach. Some of those folks ended up attending our church (Evangel Baptist Church of Woodbridge, Virginia). Others found Christian fellowship in other churches in the area. This was not of particular concern to the evangelistic efforts being made. The point was always to share the gospel with those in the community and to call them to repentance and to faith in Christ. The evangelistic outreach was never intended to grow the size of Evangel Baptist Church.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Our first care must be that the sheep are gathered to the great Shepherd. There will be time enough afterward to secure them for our various folds. To make proselytes is a suitable labor for Pharisees. To lead men to God is the honorable aim of all laborers of Christ.

But I noticed a shift in the intention of personal evangelism training in later years in churches I attended after becoming an adult and starting a family. The intent seemed, more often than not, to be focused on bringing more members into the specific local church in order to increase the size of the church. No longer was the focus placed on seeking individuals to worship God in spirit and in truth.

I wonder if this shift in focus is contributing to personal evangelism’s apparent dying out. Our God is a jealous God; he will not share his glory with another—not even with a local church. Our personal evangelism should be By His grace and for His glory.

What Would Jesus Do?

T

he “Worship Wars” have brought us some frustratingly shallow in-fighting in the Evangelical community of believers. We fight over presentation style, appropriate instrumentation, intentional quality or lack thereof, use of technology, musical genres, and so much more. And in the midst of the ongoing struggle, we seldom hear anyone ask the clichéd but appropriate (in this case) question: “What would Jesus do?”

Exodus 34:4–8

So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.

So as I was reading in Exodus this morning I noticed that God has given us a very good example of what he wants to hear in our worship. It seems to me that it might be good to ask God his opinion.

Moses had gone up into the mountain to receive the Law. God had given him the law on the tablets and Moses had returned to find the people worshiping the golden calf. Aaron told Moses that he threw the people’s golden jewelry into the fire and “out came this calf,” an amazing story, to be sure.

Moses then asked that God show him his glory. God (Yahweh, which I believe refers to the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ) tells him that he can’t look on his face without dying, but that he will allow him to observe his back.

So Moses goes to the spot the Lord tells him to go to and there is Yahweh, the pre-incarnate Christ, praising God with these words:

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

So there we have it. This is God praising God. This is God demonstrating what we should be doing when we praise God. And he is not saying, “you thought of me above all.” He is proclaiming God’s attributes—both positive (merciful, gracious, steadfast, faithful, forgiving) and negative (will not clear the guilty and will exact punishment for iniquity).

In the English Standard Version, I don’t see any mention of the use of organs and pianos or of the avoidance of guitars or drums; I don’t see any mention of genre or musical style; I don’t see any mention of liturgical cadence or avoidance of liturgical methodology. I see only God’s attributes and acts being proclaimed.

This is not just what Jesus would do; this is what Jesus did. And it is what we should concern ourselves with as well, rather than being distracted by our own man-made ideas of what makes worship good and enjoyable.

Striving together in prayer

 

Meg McGinnis

Y

ou’re not in it alone.

I have been convinced in recent days of the necessity for Christians to show love to one another. This may sound like an obvious thing, but I don’t think we do such a good job at it.

I have been somewhat self-focused for the past few months as we have struggled with finding a new home to live in. But along the way, many of my Christian brothers and sisters have gone through severe trials as well. Close friends of mine have made emergency trips to the hospital, others have gone through surgery, some have lost their jobs, some have seen severe illness hit multiple immediate family members at the same time. If I remain focused on myself, I am not able to encourage those friends and I forget to hold them up before the throne of grace.

James 1:2-7

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

My friend Meg McGinnis has been going through some tough times recently. She has written about it on her blog, Meg’s Journey. Meg posted a recent article in which she discussed The Testing of Our Faith. She quotes James 1:2–7 in that post. This is a great encouragement and something we all need to remember as we go through our own trials.

And then we need to remember to take the time to encourage others and to pray for them. I think it actually helps us to realize that others are in need of our support, our encouragement, our prayers, and our love.

Time to clean house

Much that has existed, and that now exists, among the professed followers of Christ, cannot be contemplated by one who sincerely loves him, without deep distress. Different creeds, and different ecclesiastical organizations, have divided those who bear his name into hostile parties, and Christianity has been disgraced, and its progress retarded. The world has seen hatred and persecution where brotherly love ought to have been exhibited; and Christ has been crucified afresh, and put to open shame, by those who claim to be his disciples.
—J.L. Dagg

Our God is in control...

M

y father co-authored a book on evangelism. The book project was put on hold a while back, but I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy of the first few chapters. What really jumps out at the contemporary reader from this manual is the solid theology needed for a true evangelistic outreach.

Postmodern man vilifies those he disagrees with. In the arena of evangelism, this has mainly been done by those who reject God’s total sovereignty over his creation. The line goes that Calvinists don’t believe in evangelism because they think God is going to handle everything and man doesn’t have a choice. Not only is this wrong, but it is a complete misrepresentation of Calvinistic belief.

We Calvinists believe that man has a choice—he has always had a choice. The problem is that man will choose the wrong thing every time. Only when God has removed man’s “heart of stone” and replaced it with a “heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19) will man seek fellowship with God through repentance of his sins and trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. (Notice I didn’t say the potential saving work—Jesus’ death on the cross did not create a potential for salvation; it completely paid the penalty for the sins of those who would believe.)

I am very proud of my father and of his strong stand on the truth of God’s Word. My father is the most evangelistic man I know and he is a 5-point Calvinist. In fact, by John Piper’s definition, my father is a 7-point Calvinist. The straw man is exposed and has been burned up by the pragmatic proof. If we believe that God is in complete control of his creation, not only will we share the gospel to all, but we can rest in the assurance that he will draw to him those for whom Christ has shed his blood.

    Our part: evangelize the world.

        God’s part: save the elect.

We don’t need to do God’s part, nor can we. But we must do ours.

Take your guns to church Sunday

I’ve heard of some unique “special focus days” at churches, but this one has grabbed my attention. I think I may need to pay a visit to Kentucky for Independence Day.

Convinced yet?

The importance of compassion

I was reading A Treatise Concerning the Religions Affections by Jonathan Edwards and came across a passage that I think has particular importance for the contemporary Evangelical church.

Again, the holy Scriptures do frequently speak of compassion or mercy, as a very great and essential thing in true religion, insomuch that good men are in Scripture denominated from hence; and a merciful man and a good man are equivalent terms in Scripture; Isa. 57:1, “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away.”

Colossians 3:12-14

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And the Scripture chooses out this quality, as that by which, in a peculiar manner, a righteous man is deciphered; Psalm 37:21, “The righteous showeth mercy, and giveth;” and v. 26, “He is ever merciful, and lendeth.” And Prov. 14:21, “He that honoreth the Lord, hath mercy on the poor.” And Col. 3:12, “Put ye on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies,” etc.

This is one of those great things by which those who are truly blessed are described by our Savior; Matt. 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” And this Christ also speaks of, as one of the weightier matters of the law; Matt. 23:23, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.”

Matthew 9:13

Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

To the like purpose is that, Mic. 6:8, “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?” And also that, Hos. 6:6 “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice.” Which seems to have been a text much delighted in by our Savior, by his manner of citing it once in Matt. 9:13 and again in Matt. 12:7.