Do You Do Well to Be Angry?
Many times when things do not go the way we plan we get mad, upset, and angry. Sometimes that anger, hurt, and disappointment is directed at God; and at other times it is directed towards others. What are some things which create anger, resentment, or indignation? Maybe it was a promotion we were suppose to or promised to get. Maybe it was a lifestyle our spouse promised when first married. Maybe it was a loss of a job, house, or family member. It could also be a loss of tradition, and the way things are now are not what was. In the church world, many may become bitter when they are disenfranchised with the direction of the leadership and church to the point they begin to believe that the leadership and the new people of the church are pushing them out and stealing their church.
Jonah had a problem with anger over things that did not go his way. His anger was over the mercy and grace of God, which was poured out on the Ninevites. Also Jonah expressed his anger over a plant, which was only temporary in his life. The plant grew and provided shade for only one day, then the next it withered due to the hand of God. This caused Jonah much displeasure and heartache. Jonah at the close of the book of Jonah is not a happy camper. He is mad at all the people (Gentile people) God saved. He also pouts because he no longer has a plant for shade. God teaches Jonah a valuable lesson which would behoove us all to learn and apply to our lives. God tells Jonah, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"
God teaches Jonah a few things from this statement. First, God teaches Jonah he is Sovereign over everything as well as the Creator of everything, and wants to be the Savior of all peoples. He is the Creator of the Ninevites and the plant. They are all his. He caused them to grow. He watched over them and nothing they did or that transpired happened outside the control of God. Therefore God has much concern and love over the spiritual condition of the world. Rather than being moved by our dislike and disdain of people not of our race, ethnicity, or culture, God would have us direct love, grace, mercy, and most of all the gospel to those people.
The second thing God teaches us through Jonah is that he owns everything and nothing is ours. God tells Jonah the plant was caused to grow by the hand of God, not the hand of Jonah. I know what people are thinking now. Jonah didn't plant the plant, water the plant, and nurture the plant, God did. Therefore, people will say, but,
I work my 40-60 hours a week and nurture my paycheck. I worked hard for that raise. I took care of my children only to see this happen
to them. I shouldn't have to give away my money. I should live the way I want to, and give God what I want. I spent forty years of my
life at this church. I built this building with my own hands. I gave so much money to this building fund. I helped build this church through
all the years of outreach. This tradition has been in our family or church for two generations. I have lived here my whole life. This was
my raise. This was my ministry. I have been doing this for 10 years. This is my city. This is my town. It doesn't belong to these new
people.
The perceptive reality is that people have exerted energy to make things happen and for things to grow. However, there are two responses to these rebuttals. One, who gave you the energy to do all that you have done? Who gave you the energy and healthy to work? Who provided you a job in the first place? Who has called you to work for his glory and his good? Therefore, since you are suppose to be a steward of the energy and job God has provided for you, you should also be a steward and manager of the resources that flow from this job. Second, who ultimately causes things to grow? Not you. Not me. God does. We can water, work, water, and work all day long, but things may not grow. We can cause nothing to grow. All we can do is work the land. God causes things to grow. God ultimately builds what we (as tools) are used for. Jesus says in Matthew 16, "I will build my church." Paul says in 1 Corinthians, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase (the growth)." We must understand that growth, no matter what type of growth, is not a result from our ingenuity or hard work, It is from the gracious hand of God. Therefore, our increase and growth of money, resources, materials, family, church building, church flock, and even friends are not ultimately from us, but from our good and gracious God.
This is why when things do not work out the way we plan, or we lose things we love, we should not become angry at God or even others. We must learn that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. We must learn that the Lord is Sovereign, Creator, and Savior of all mankind and that his mission may not always be what we want the mission to look like or how we would see the mission transpire. We must surrender to the Lord and allow him to use us for his glory and fame. If we do this, we will learn from Jonah not to get angry at the things that are outside our control and those things that we lose, which were not ours to begin with.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Public Scripture Reading and Biblical Preaching
THE NEED FOR SCRIPTURE READING AND BIBLICAL PREACHING.
Paul exhorts Timothy to "devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching...Practice these things, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:13,15-16).
Why should we publicly read Scripture during congregational worship? The Bible says too. Why should preachers/pastors preach and expound God's word? The Bible says too. Paul exhorts Timothy to publicly read Scripture as well as teach and exhort people from Scripture. Paul provides the key to the results of biblical teaching. Biblical teaching is the watering of God's children so that they produce fruit. Paul tells Timothy to persist in teaching so that by doing so "you will save both yourself and your hearers." Does Paul mean that solely teaching God's word and hearing God's word, one is automatically saved, and this salvation is contingent upon persistently doing this? No. Preaching and listening are not salvific.
However, biblical teaching and listening to biblically faithful teaching constantly confronts both the leadership and the congregation with God's standard and direction. This either leads in one or two directions: 1) being reconciled to God, drawing closer to him and producing fruit that validates true salvation, or 2) it leads to being repelled from God and living contrary to his will and ways.
Biblically faithful preaching at some point will cause people to feel uncomfortable. There is a strong movement today in many churches to neglect the public reading and preaching of Scripture. And if Scripture is used in these settings, many times its is abused by its misuse. Paul in his second letter to Timothy writes this in reference to the word,, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth...preach the word...For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off int myths. (2 Tim 2:15; 4:2,3-4)" The word of God is tantamount to Paul. The word of God is inerrant, infallible, sufficient, applicable, relevant, and necessary for believers to live for the glory of God. A neglect of God's word is a neglect of him. Therefore, churches and especially pastors and leaders should fulfill this exhortation once made to Timothy.
Here's a closing thought: Can we really say we have the gospel if we neglect what holds the gospel? How can we preach the gospel or share the gospel if we neglect to preach or share God's word? Are we really pleasing God or doing people justice if we fail to preach the whole counsel of God? Many young preachers and young churches have taken their sermon cue by formatting their sermons around series. Therefore, many of them, being driven by series, bounce from one book of Scripture to another. They bounce from one character of Scripture to another, isolating one particular instance and circumstance in their life. Rather than being driven by the text, they are driven by people and themes. In other words, the word of God is not in the driver's seat navigating people through life, the people are in the driver's seat navigating the Scripture where they are and want to be. Instead of men and women applying themselves to the word of God and the Grand Narrative of God, they apply his word to where they are. It is a man-centered approach (or hermeneutics), rather than a gospel-centered, Christocentric approach (or hermeneutics). Also, by jumping around Scripture, many times they jump over controversial and difficult passages. By avoiding passages and books that are controversial and difficult to understand, they fail to provide meat and potatoes to those in their fold. May we Read the Word, Preach the Word, Apply the Word, and Live out the Word!
Paul exhorts Timothy to "devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching...Practice these things, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:13,15-16).
Why should we publicly read Scripture during congregational worship? The Bible says too. Why should preachers/pastors preach and expound God's word? The Bible says too. Paul exhorts Timothy to publicly read Scripture as well as teach and exhort people from Scripture. Paul provides the key to the results of biblical teaching. Biblical teaching is the watering of God's children so that they produce fruit. Paul tells Timothy to persist in teaching so that by doing so "you will save both yourself and your hearers." Does Paul mean that solely teaching God's word and hearing God's word, one is automatically saved, and this salvation is contingent upon persistently doing this? No. Preaching and listening are not salvific.
However, biblical teaching and listening to biblically faithful teaching constantly confronts both the leadership and the congregation with God's standard and direction. This either leads in one or two directions: 1) being reconciled to God, drawing closer to him and producing fruit that validates true salvation, or 2) it leads to being repelled from God and living contrary to his will and ways.
Biblically faithful preaching at some point will cause people to feel uncomfortable. There is a strong movement today in many churches to neglect the public reading and preaching of Scripture. And if Scripture is used in these settings, many times its is abused by its misuse. Paul in his second letter to Timothy writes this in reference to the word,, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth...preach the word...For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off int myths. (2 Tim 2:15; 4:2,3-4)" The word of God is tantamount to Paul. The word of God is inerrant, infallible, sufficient, applicable, relevant, and necessary for believers to live for the glory of God. A neglect of God's word is a neglect of him. Therefore, churches and especially pastors and leaders should fulfill this exhortation once made to Timothy.
Here's a closing thought: Can we really say we have the gospel if we neglect what holds the gospel? How can we preach the gospel or share the gospel if we neglect to preach or share God's word? Are we really pleasing God or doing people justice if we fail to preach the whole counsel of God? Many young preachers and young churches have taken their sermon cue by formatting their sermons around series. Therefore, many of them, being driven by series, bounce from one book of Scripture to another. They bounce from one character of Scripture to another, isolating one particular instance and circumstance in their life. Rather than being driven by the text, they are driven by people and themes. In other words, the word of God is not in the driver's seat navigating people through life, the people are in the driver's seat navigating the Scripture where they are and want to be. Instead of men and women applying themselves to the word of God and the Grand Narrative of God, they apply his word to where they are. It is a man-centered approach (or hermeneutics), rather than a gospel-centered, Christocentric approach (or hermeneutics). Also, by jumping around Scripture, many times they jump over controversial and difficult passages. By avoiding passages and books that are controversial and difficult to understand, they fail to provide meat and potatoes to those in their fold. May we Read the Word, Preach the Word, Apply the Word, and Live out the Word!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Confrontation and Suffering: Realities that Believers Face
The Gospel and the Cosmic War and Experienced Sufferings.
Two words most Americans despise: confrontation and suffering. Neither confrontation or suffering are two things people like to experience. People intentionally avoid confrontation and cringe at the thought of suffering. Many believers fail to realize the gospel brings about both confrontation and suffering. Following Jesus magnetically attracts confrontation and suffering.
The gospel may bring peace in the inner life. The gospel may bring peace to a family struggling for marital survival. The gospel will bring peace in the afterlife. However, here and now the gospel brings division, war, confrontation, finger pointing, and strife. One cannot escape this reality. Many times these points of confrontation come from both inside and outside the church. Nominal believers, from a guilty conscience, will rail against and murmur negativity towards those who strive to live out the gospel in a radical posture. Those outside the church, like Bill Maher, will many times attack radical believers and paint them as Jesus freaks, close-minded, spiritual buffoons, who use religion as a crutch.
There are also three more primary sources of confrontation believers will experience: Satan, the world, and flesh. Do not think for a second that once someone believes in Christ and commits their life to follow him that Satan will not have anything to say about it. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy any work of God. He desires to thwart, stop, and detour God's plan. Also the world and the flesh are antagonists against the children of God. The world and the flesh live contrary to the laws and ways of God. Every single day we are in direct confrontation with both these powers confronting us to live contrary to the will of God.
Not only does the gospel breed confrontation, it also brings about suffering. The bible explicitly tells believers that the cost of following Christ will lead to suffering. The ultimate experience of suffering is martyrdom. While believers living in the Western world, particular America, have not been subject to this type of suffering, they must realize living out the gospel, in its entirety, can lead to other forms of suffering. Such as: family estrangement, loss of job, loss of friends, giving up certain things out of priority for Christ and the gospel (lifestyle, friends, substances, extra-circular activities, etc.), and mischaracterizations. In any case, suffering exists in life, but also manifests itself to those who live out the gospel in the pursuit of following Christ.
What can we conclude from this two areas of distaste for many believers today?
The gospel is not for wimps or sissies. If you want to follow Christ you must man up, woman up, and pony up. Many Americans are simply accustomed to other people fighting their battles whether it be the military, government, mommy or daddy. Comfort, security, and ease defines many modern Americans. This makes it difficult to adapt to suffering when it comes in any form. Believers are caught up in a cosmic battle for the souls of men and women, but most importantly for the glory of God. Confrontation is a reality that we must deal with in a Christocentric gospel-centered way. And suffering is a reality we must accept and with God's grace and power deal with it.
Two words most Americans despise: confrontation and suffering. Neither confrontation or suffering are two things people like to experience. People intentionally avoid confrontation and cringe at the thought of suffering. Many believers fail to realize the gospel brings about both confrontation and suffering. Following Jesus magnetically attracts confrontation and suffering.
The gospel may bring peace in the inner life. The gospel may bring peace to a family struggling for marital survival. The gospel will bring peace in the afterlife. However, here and now the gospel brings division, war, confrontation, finger pointing, and strife. One cannot escape this reality. Many times these points of confrontation come from both inside and outside the church. Nominal believers, from a guilty conscience, will rail against and murmur negativity towards those who strive to live out the gospel in a radical posture. Those outside the church, like Bill Maher, will many times attack radical believers and paint them as Jesus freaks, close-minded, spiritual buffoons, who use religion as a crutch.
There are also three more primary sources of confrontation believers will experience: Satan, the world, and flesh. Do not think for a second that once someone believes in Christ and commits their life to follow him that Satan will not have anything to say about it. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy any work of God. He desires to thwart, stop, and detour God's plan. Also the world and the flesh are antagonists against the children of God. The world and the flesh live contrary to the laws and ways of God. Every single day we are in direct confrontation with both these powers confronting us to live contrary to the will of God.
Not only does the gospel breed confrontation, it also brings about suffering. The bible explicitly tells believers that the cost of following Christ will lead to suffering. The ultimate experience of suffering is martyrdom. While believers living in the Western world, particular America, have not been subject to this type of suffering, they must realize living out the gospel, in its entirety, can lead to other forms of suffering. Such as: family estrangement, loss of job, loss of friends, giving up certain things out of priority for Christ and the gospel (lifestyle, friends, substances, extra-circular activities, etc.), and mischaracterizations. In any case, suffering exists in life, but also manifests itself to those who live out the gospel in the pursuit of following Christ.
What can we conclude from this two areas of distaste for many believers today?
The gospel is not for wimps or sissies. If you want to follow Christ you must man up, woman up, and pony up. Many Americans are simply accustomed to other people fighting their battles whether it be the military, government, mommy or daddy. Comfort, security, and ease defines many modern Americans. This makes it difficult to adapt to suffering when it comes in any form. Believers are caught up in a cosmic battle for the souls of men and women, but most importantly for the glory of God. Confrontation is a reality that we must deal with in a Christocentric gospel-centered way. And suffering is a reality we must accept and with God's grace and power deal with it.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Thinking about Church Replanting
Lamentations 5:1-2 Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace! Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
Lamentations 5:21-22 "Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old--unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us."
Think about a nation or kingdom whose people are poor, unhealthy, malnourished, sick, and near death. What would one's thoughts be towards that kingdom or nation? Immediately the blame would rest on the king, ruler, and its leaders, not the people. But, what if the king had provided everything the people needed for vitality and vibrancy, and all that was necessary is that the people surrender and embrace the kings remedy to cure their overall pitiful state? Now the blame shifts from the king and the kingdom to the stubborn people of the kingdom.
What is happening all across America is the mischaracterization of the kingdom of God, given the debilitated state of the local churches who are agents of God's kingdom. Somehow and in someway the churches across America have lost the keys to the kingdom. Jesus told Peter that upon himself he would build his church, and the gates of Hades would not prevail against it. While Jesus is busy in remnant churches (new or old) across America, the majority of local churches are suffering decay and decline. A question that must be asked is, does our king and savior deserve such defaming publicity? Is this what our great God and Savior died for? Did he die for churches to be started only to rot and die rather than being replanted and live?
While many will sit and point fingers and distribute blame, the only people to blame and point fingers at is the church and those who constitute it. Those who are part of such dilapidated churches need to realize their state is revocable and reversible. Reversing such a state is difficult, demanding, and radical. It will require repentance, surrender, patience, releasing, forgiveness, and radical transformation. Allowing Christ to work and resuscitate, renew, and replant what life is left in churches, whether it be just the assets having been accumulated over years, will launch a movement of his glory and power. Think about what Jesus did with what the little boy gave him? What if decaying, declining, and near death churches gave what little they had left back to Jesus? Think about what our great God and Savior could do with just a little that is surrendered to him. May churches surrender and may God be glorified!
Lamentations 5:21-22 "Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old--unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us."
Think about a nation or kingdom whose people are poor, unhealthy, malnourished, sick, and near death. What would one's thoughts be towards that kingdom or nation? Immediately the blame would rest on the king, ruler, and its leaders, not the people. But, what if the king had provided everything the people needed for vitality and vibrancy, and all that was necessary is that the people surrender and embrace the kings remedy to cure their overall pitiful state? Now the blame shifts from the king and the kingdom to the stubborn people of the kingdom.
What is happening all across America is the mischaracterization of the kingdom of God, given the debilitated state of the local churches who are agents of God's kingdom. Somehow and in someway the churches across America have lost the keys to the kingdom. Jesus told Peter that upon himself he would build his church, and the gates of Hades would not prevail against it. While Jesus is busy in remnant churches (new or old) across America, the majority of local churches are suffering decay and decline. A question that must be asked is, does our king and savior deserve such defaming publicity? Is this what our great God and Savior died for? Did he die for churches to be started only to rot and die rather than being replanted and live?
While many will sit and point fingers and distribute blame, the only people to blame and point fingers at is the church and those who constitute it. Those who are part of such dilapidated churches need to realize their state is revocable and reversible. Reversing such a state is difficult, demanding, and radical. It will require repentance, surrender, patience, releasing, forgiveness, and radical transformation. Allowing Christ to work and resuscitate, renew, and replant what life is left in churches, whether it be just the assets having been accumulated over years, will launch a movement of his glory and power. Think about what Jesus did with what the little boy gave him? What if decaying, declining, and near death churches gave what little they had left back to Jesus? Think about what our great God and Savior could do with just a little that is surrendered to him. May churches surrender and may God be glorified!
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