The Word of God & Our Children

How are we to raise our children?  What are we to teach them?  Wow, as a young dad, those are two powerful questions that my wife and I are faced with constantly.  Our daughter will be 8 months old next week.  Soon she will be walking and talking.  And just like any loving parent, we want the best for her and our other children that Lord willing we will have one day.  So what is it that we must make sure to teach her in life and about life? 

There are all sorts of things that we learned from our parents, which we will likewise pass on to our children…things like tying our shoes, the stove is hot, how to swim, to say “thank you,” and to drive a car… just to name a few.  Every one of these things has helped me in life.  I mean, praise God my parents taught me how to tie my shoes.  But is that all I am to teach my daughter?  Am I only responsible for teaching her how to handle the mechanics of life?  The answer of course is “no.”  In fact the Bible tells us that as a Christian parent my primary responsibility is to teach my children about God and the salvation He has provided through His Son, Jesus Christ. 

This morning during my time with the Lord, I was reminded of just how crucial this is.  In Judges 2:8, Joshua dies along with his generation and passes from the scene.  Unfortunately, we discover in verse 10 that not only did the leader pass from the scene but so did the knowledge of God.  The text says that “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.”  Wow!  What a tragic indictment of the people of God.  It seems that despite the great things that many in Joshua’s generation did, they failed in the most crucial area…they failed to pass their faith on to the next generation…their children.

Some people would those of us who are evangelical Christians that we should not shove the Bible and Jesus down our children’s throats.  Instead we should let them decide for themselves.  And to some extent I would agree with them.  However, as I read my Bible, I see the very clear instruction that I, as a Christian parent, am responsible for teaching my daughter about God and His redemption through Jesus Christ.  I am to teach her the Word of God (Deut. 6:7) so that she will know who God is and how much He loves her.  Think about it.  How else will my daughter know about God if I don’t teach her?  Is someone else going to do it?  What are the chances of her seeking God out on her own?  The truth is, left to herself, she will never seek after God; the Bible clearly says that no one seeks after Him.  Therefore, if she is to ever discover all that God’s Son did for her because He loves her and has a plan for her life, I as her dad along with my wife have to tell her.  That is our responsibility as parents.  We must train up our child in the way she should go.

But there is another great element to the Deuteronomy 6 passage.  Moses as he reiterates God’s Law is speaking to the community of faith.  Each family was to teach their children about God.  So the children were receiving instruction at home, but they would also receive instruction as families gathered together for worship and prayer.  The same would be true of us today in the church.  In the modern church we have created specific ministries to help us instruct and reach out to the diffrent segments of society.  And I am grateful for our children and student ministries.  They are a great help to our Christian families, teaching our children about the Bible, salvation, and missions.  They help us connect with young families, so that we can continue to reach new people with the gospel of Christ. 

Today, I am excited about the future of those ministries at FBC Sheffield.  I believe that God has great things in store for us in the days ahead as He brings to us His leader for children’s ministry and continues to use the Oglesby’s as they minister to our teenagers.  I want to encourage our church to pray that the Lord would confirm in our hearts His perfect leading in this crucial area.  And soon we hope to be able to bring to the church the person we believe to be God’s called leader to help us reach children with the gospel.  I am becoming more and more convinced that He has placed His leader right in our laps.  So church pray for us that we might know God’s will for His church, and pray for yourselves that you would be open to what the Lord has for our church and the future of our children’s ministry.  I’m telling you great days are ahead.

 

Living in Defeat vs. Living in Victory

Does the Lord desire victory and triumph for our lives as His children?  The answer is an obvious “Yes!”  But how many followers of Christ setting in our churches can declare with confidence that they are walking in victory and triumph?  I know that when I look around the landscape of the church, I am not seeing that much victory and very little triumph.  In fact when I look at my own life, I don’t see the victory and triumph that I know that my God wants for me.  Why?  What is hindering me and what is hindering our churches from experiencing and accomplishing all that God has before us? 

Is it because our God is weak and incapable of giving us the victory?  I cringe even asking that question.  Of course the problem lies not with our great  God.  For He is the One who created something out of nothing.  He is the One who holds the galaxies in the palm of His hand.  He knows each of us by name, even knowing the very number of hairs on our head.  He is the One who has wrought the greatest of victories that of victory of sin and death in His Son.  No, the problem is not with the Lord. 

Then where does the problem lie?  The problem is me.  God has always had great plans for His people.  He created man and put him in a perfect world, yet it was man who rebelled, bringing sin into the world.  God promised to bring His people Israel into a beautiful land full of everything they needed, but it was Israel that rebelled, wanting to return to Egypt.  Even when Isreal was coming into the promised land 40 years later, they messed up. 

In Joshua 7 we find Israel rejoicing in the victory that the Lord had given them over Jericho.  Their next conquest was a little people in Ai.  Joshua sent a couple of spies who returned and told Joshua that he only needed to send 3,000 men to defeat this seemingly insignificant foe.  Joshua did so, but Israel was defeated by Ai.  Joshua and the people were devastated.

What was it that caused Israel to be defeated?  As we read on in that chapter, we learn that the reason Israel was defeated was because of the sin of one man, Achan.  Wow!  An entire nation was hurt by the sin of one man.  Verse 12 says, 12 ”Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand before their enemies; they turn their backs before their enemies, for they have become accursed. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy the things under the ban from your midst.  The Bible says that Achan had taken some silver and gold and some other items of the spoils from Jericho even though he knew that the Lord had forbidden them to do so. 

God dealt with Achan; we read that he and his entire family and possessions were destroyed as punishment for his sin.  Only after his sin was dealt with was Israel able to gain victory and triumph over the people of Ai.  What is the lesson here for us living in the age of the church?  The lesson is this: when there is sin in the camp, sin in our lives, it doesn’t just affect the individual.  Sin affects the entire church.  My sin and your sin hinders the church of Jesus Christ; it hinders the First Baptist Church of Sheffield. 

May God help us to live lives that are holy and blameless before God.  It is only when we are holy that we will begin to live in victory and triumph and experience all that God has planned for us.

 

Jesus Christ is Everything

“The saddest place in the world is the Bible believing South, where we have just enough Jesus to make us moral and comfortable.” 

“What does Jesus require of you?…Everything!!”

May we live for the glory of God every day of our lives…no longer satisfied with nominal, ordinary, cheap Christianity.

Paul Washer video

 

The Simplicity of Kindness

Mark Twain said, “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”  Every one of us know kindness when we see or experience it, and every one of us also can easily spot the lack of kindness when we see it. 

The Bible teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of kindness.  It is His kindness according to Paul that leads to our repentance.  So then if Jesus is the ultimate expression of kindness and those of us who call ourselves Christians have received His forgiveness for our sins, why is it that so many Christians have trouble simply being kind to others?  That is an interesting question. 

This morning I preached my third message in a series entitled Living in Authentic Community, speaking on the subject of being kind to one another.  I preached out of Ephesians 4:31-5:2.  In this passage Paul gives us some very good instructions on what we are to do in order to become a more kind person, and he helps us understand the reality of what our kindness or lack there-of portrays to others.

The first thing we learn is that we are to put off natural vices (vs. 31).  The Bible clearly teaches that when a person gives their heart and life to the Lord Jesus and recieves His forgiveness, then that person immediately becomes a new creature in Christ…old things have passed, new things have come.  But that doesn’t mean that the person is immediately perfect or sinless.  He still struggles with sin, because he still resides in a fleshly tent as Paul puts it.  However, because of Jesus that person now has the capacity to live for God; which means that he must now put to death those natural vices such as bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slandre, & malice.  These are the sins that break fellowship and destroy relationships and that weaken the church and mar its testimony. 

The second thing we learn is that in place of the natural vices we must practice supernatural virtues (vs. 32).  Paul commands believers to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving.  How could we do any less than those three things since that is exactly the way in which Jesus has treated us?  The truth is we often do much less.  The parable in Matthew 18:21-35 clearly articulates that for us.  That is why it is imperative that we discipline ourselves to practice these virtues because they don’t come natural. 

And third thing that we learn is that as we practice these virtues we portray Jesus Christ (5:1-2).  The people around us are looking for something that is authentic.  They want something that has substance.  Unfortunately, what they typically see in Christians is unauthenticity.  They see lives that boast of God but lack the power of God.  However, when others see a person genuinelly love, forgive, and be kind to people because they want them to know the love of Christ, then those folks are seeing a picture of who Jesus really is.  He is love.

And that is why it is so crucial that we who call ourselves Christians must always model the love of Jesus Christ in our lives.  We do not ever have the right to be unkind.  Kindness is so simple, yet it is so often forsaken.  Be kind today!

 

Territorialism in the Church

I’ve discovered that when I am reading through Scripture, I often find myself berating those who obviously didn’t have a clue about what was going on (i.e. the Pharisees, the Israelites in wilderness, etc.).  Those people missed every aspect of what God wanted to do in their lives.  The Israelites were so short sighted the couldn’t see the Promise Land and wanted to turn around, and the Pharisees threatened by Jesus’ miracles missed the Savior.  What a bunch of loons.  You almost have to be crazy to miss the things of God around you, right?  Right?

Here’s a question…Is there territorialsim in the church today?  Do church members become critical of things that seem to threaten there “stuff?”  You better believe they do.  As a pastor unfortunately I see it and have to deal with it all the time.  Escpecially, when you’re trying to lead a church out of decades of decline.  There are lots of entrenched traditions and prgrams (sacred cows) that good meaning, Godly Christians want to continue to hold onto.  And you know what…I have some too.  Those wonderful traditions and great programs at one time did their job, but as does everything they become outdated over time. 

Therefore, it is imperative that as followers of Christ we never allow ourselves to be threatened by new opportunities God brings our way.  The Pharisees definitely missed Jesus as Savior, but let’s not forget why they missed Him…They missed Jesus because He threatened their paradigm.  Oh how the traditional Southern Baptist church needs to sit up and listen to the lesson that they teach us.  If we are not careful, we too act like a bunch of Pharisees squabbling over jots and tittles while an increasingly large number of people are headed down a road that leads to hell.  Let’s simplify the gospel and get back to being committed to seeing people saved regardless of the method (RA/GA, AWANA, KIDMO, Sunday school, home groups, etc.).

 

The Mission…Evangelism

As believers and followers of Jesus Christ our mission in life and as a church is to touch every neighbor and every nation with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  If that is true and I believe that it is, then why do we not take the gospel and our churches more seriously?  Unlike many believers today, Jesus never saw church as a place to go but as a people who love Him, a people who are learning to love others, and a people who are passionate about expanding His glory.

 I heard some years back Evangelist Junior Hill share 5 strategic ways that Satan uses to keep Christians from talking with others about Christ.  I shared this strategy of Satan with my church this past Sunday, preaching out of Luke 8:5-15.  I realize this is not a comprehensive list, but these are 5 things that Satan uses to keep you and I from sowing our gospel seed.

1.  Discouragement

The apostle Paul recognized the propensity that we all have to be discouraged when he said to the church in Galatia…

9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. Gal 6:9 (NASB)

One of the major problems we all face in the ministry is dicouragment.  Satan loves to use the success of others to discourage you.  Unfortunately, observing the success of others isn’t always the most encouraging thing in the world; in fact often it is discouraging because when I see the success of others it seems like Satan silmutaneously whispers in my ear and reminds me of my failures.  The inevitable fact is that when you get discouraged, you don’t sow the seed.

2.  Distraction (2 Tim. 2:4)

I find that in my life I am constantly battling distraction.  It seems like the more I desire to follow God and tell others about Him, the more things that I have on my plate.  Some how we’ve got to figure out how to simplify our lives and focus on those things that really matter in life…namely evangelism.  There are a lot of good things to do, but they aren’t all the most important.  Beware of letting evangelism slip down your list of daily priorities.

3.  Dilution

There is a very sublte and insidious danger that is lurking in our paths.  If ther devil cannot keep you from scattering the seed, then his second choice is to get you to alter that seed and rub off the edges of its demands and to sow a diluted seed which probably doesn’t have a chance of ever sprouting.  We need to remember that the gospel is always offensive, so just go ahead and share it out of  love to everyone you can.

4.  Disgrace

Here’s an interesting statistic I came across a few years ago.  For every 10 ministers graduating from a Southern Baptist seminary only 3-4 of them will still be in the ministry when they turn 50 years old.  The reason many of them will leave the ministry will be because of immorality.  Adrian Rogers once said, “The greatest accomplishment that a man of God can ever have is to finish clean.  It’s like saying water ought to be wet, but it is not always so.”  God help us to finish clean.

5.  Delays

We live in such an instantaneous culture today; we expect things to happen yesterday.  Therefore, Satan uses the delays in our ministry to hinder us from scattering our gospel seed.  The lie he feeds us is that when we share the gospel we should expect an immediate conversion.  That may be true on occasion, but in my experience that is not usually true.  Does that mean we stop sharing?  Absolutely not…we must continue to sow, water, and let God bring the increase.

Let’s remember our mission…it is to make disciples of all nations and to present every man complete in Christ….It’s to bring more glory to our glorious King.  So, let’s go to work.