May 12, 2008

I love the missionary heart of Psalm 96:10—“Say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns!’”

On Mother’s Day, May 11, I encouraged our moms (and dads and grandparents and other adults, too) to “teach and show your children that God is worthy to be made known and to have a heart for the peoples” of the world, and to “encourage your children toward a “Say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns!’” life!”

Parents, you will be able to do this as you, more and more, embrace this heart and mindset—that the great, big, glorious God of Psalm 96 is worthy to be worshiped and worthy to be declared and made known among all peoples of the world!

What is your dream for your kids? To get a great job and have a nice family, including grandkids you can dote on? To have a huge house and all the amenities of American convenience and comfort? There is a much greater dream to impart to your children—that of being a part of God’s work in reaching all the peoples with the great gospel of Christ!

I know a young man, Mike, (now married and an expectant daddy) who is completing his training for reaching unreached people for Jesus in the Philippine Islands. I’ve known him since he was a pre-schooler and was his pastor for 14 years. During adolescence he went through a rebellious stage for a while; and then God used our youth pastor to impart a vision of God’s captivating greatness and Mike was never the same! He couldn’t be and didn’t want to be! One short-term visit to the Philippines did it and his life’s course was set for spreading the glory of Christ’s great name and gospel to those who have not heard!

I also know Mike’s mother. When her son laid down his rebellion and began headlong pursuit of obedience to Christ, she was thrilled—until she realized that her all-American dream was being supplanted by Mike’s “all peoples of the world with the gospel” dream. It was hard for her to think of Mike (and probably her daughter-in-law and grandbabies) half way round the world for years at a time, living in the wilds of Asia. Hers was a very dear vision of the future and one difficult to give up. “Lord, Mike is yours, I know, but do you really want him over there? Can’t you use him here?” But as a lover of Christ she came to support Mike and will willingly, and sadly, release him and his family to their calling very soon.

What is your dream for your children? Will you encourage them toward a “Say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns!’” life?

May 6, 2008 : "Pursuing Peace and Pummeling Pride"

Pursuing Peace and Pummeling Pride

I saw it on Sunday morning during our Celebration Service marking “the end of the beginning” of Peacemaker focus at Rocky. It was during that very sweet hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul” and at first I was struggling to sing it from my heart. And this truth came clear—I cannot be a peacemaker and nurture pride at the same time. So, by God’s grace, I confessed my pride as sin before God and sang that magnificent verse:

“My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious tho’t:

My sin not in part, but the whole

Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.”

At the conclusion of the Celebration Service I encouraged all of you to commit yourself to be a Peace Pursuer by implementing the Biblical principles of peacemaking.

“Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil” (1 Peter 3:10-12).

Again, pride obstructs the pursuit of peace with others. In her testimony on Sunday morning Elaine Bandy specifically spoke of overcoming pride so that she could seek restoration and peace with her long-time friend. Pride is at the root of unforgiveness, self-justification, “punishment” of those who have offended us, destructive bitterness (see Hebrews 12:14-15), and self-righteousness (or the need to “right” instead of righteous in God’s sight).

Therefore, as you seek and pursue peace I urge you to pummel pride! Be a Peace Pursuer and a Pride Pummeler! How can you pummel or beat down pride? Two Biblical thoughts:

1. Captivate yourself with God and humble yourself before Him!

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, who name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).

Be amazed at God! He is the High and Lofty and Eternal and Holy One, Who dwells in the High and Holy Place, and also with those who are humble before Him!

2. Live out the gospel!

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:30-32).

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, 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 let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful” (Colossians 3:12-15).

April 24, 2008

Following last Sunday’s Peacemaker sermon from Luke 15, I recommend an excellent book from Dr. John MacArthur. A TALE OF TWO SONS:THE INSIDE STORY OF A FATHER, HIS SONS, AND A SHOCKING MURDER. You may buy it on line at Christianbook.com, or at other booksellers.

April 16, 2008

As we continue in our Peacemaker focus in the Sunday morning preaching and in our LIFE groups, our attention will turn to the subject of forgiveness on April 20. Luke 15 will be our biblical text. Please anticipate Sunday morning by reading and meditating on Luke 15:1-32.

A great enemy of the grace of forgiveness in our relationships is bitterness. As you seek to internalize and implement biblical peacemaking in your life, I encourage you to prayerfully read the article included below by Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile (First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman). May the Lord be pleased to deliver us from unforgiveness and bitterness by the power of His gospel of peace!

How the gospel empowers us to overcome the temptation toward pride and unforgiveness

By Thabiti Anyabwile

I remember the first time my oldest daughter tasted a lemon. She must have been around a year old, and she kept begging for the alluring yellow fruit tantalizingly adorning the rim of mom's iced tea.

We thought we'd get a little chuckle and teach her not to beg by giving her a taste. Her eyes brightened as we passed the lemon wedge to her. She took it straight to her mouth with both pudgy little hands. Whomp! She took a big hunkin' bite of the lemon with all eight little teeth!

The clinched eyes and flexed neck muscles told the entire story. She hadexpected a happy yellow taste, and what she received was a surprising bitter jolt.

What we didn't expect was what followed. The corners of her eyes slightly watery, she glanced at mom and me, and then took another hunkin' bite of the lemon! She loved that bitter taste! And for her first couple of years, lemon wedges were a delicacy for her.

Spiritual Bitterness

My daughter's love for lemons taught me something about spiritual bitterness: It's addicting. A bitter response can be as alluring as a glistening yellow lemon peel holding out the promise of a happy taste. Of course, bitterness doesn't announce itself so that we may know it right away and avoid it. Often, bitterness calls to us in the voice of "justice" or "wisdom," or some other more noble action like "self-protection." So, when we bite into it, our spiritual teeth clinch, our neck muscles flex, and our jaws lock hard. But then we grow accustomed to it and begin to think of it as our friend.

Many Christians struggle with bitterness—a harsh, hard to bear, stinging, pain-inducing, resentful, and unpleasant attitude. Generally in Scripture, "bitter" is used to describe the suffering and pain that people experience at the hands of others. The labor of the Israelites was bitter (Ex. 1:14). Unfaithful kings caused bitter suffering for Israel (2 Kings 14:26). Mordecai wailed loudly and bitterly at the news of Haman's plot against the Jews, and so did Peter after denying the Lord (Esther 4:1; Luke 22:62). Sometimes, even life itself can feel bitterly burdensome to a person in despair, as Job experienced (Job 3:20-21). Often sin and spiritual poverty result in bitterness of soul (Prov. 5:4; 27:7; ad. 7:26; Jer. 2:19; 4:18). And sadly, we are often bitter with those closest to us. This is why Colossians :3:19 insists, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh [or bitter, KJV] with them."

That's the effect of bitterness. It hurts and it hardens. But from where does this sour water flow?

Bitterness springs from an unforgiving and proud heart. Typically, bitter persons are convinced of their own righteousness in the face of offense (pride), and equally convinced that others are wrong and deserve justice at their hands (unforgiving). There likely has been some real injury clone to them. Perhaps there has been the unkind word received, some broken promises, some praiseworthy deed overlooked, or even physical abuse of some sort. But the bitter person responds in a way that loses sight of his or her own heart and sin, and of the cross of Calvary. To be bitter is to forget the gospel. And forgetting the gospel is neglecting to take the medicine that heals all wounds.

The Gospel and Bitterness

In two short sections of his epistle, James helps us to understand how bitterness forgets the gospel. He writes:

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt [bitter] flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water" (James 3:9-1,2).

Here we learn that bitterness is blindness. First, the bitter person cannot see that our Fellow man is made in God's likeness. Instead, the bitter person thinks of others as opponents to be conquered, enemies to be attacked, threats to be neutralized, or weaklings to be trampled. Second, bitter people lose sight of the holiness of God. "Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing." James tells us "this should not be." But the bitter cannot see that hypocrisy is displeasing to God (Matt. 6:1-18). The bitter tend to think that "God understands," meaning he will look lightly on their sinful outlook. They are blind to his holiness. And third, this of course means they are blind to their own hearts. All that the gospel rests upon—the sinfulness of man, the holiness of God, and the universal need for the Savior—is not seen by soi ir-hearted people.

James continues his instruction to us in 3:13-16:

"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice."

Overcoming bitterness requires that we begin by asking ourselves a question: Are we wise and understanding in God's sight and the judgment of our church family? Do we live by the wisdom of the gospel or the wisdom of this world and the devil?

It's a sobering question designed to help us see ourselves with the more reliable assessment of God and God's people. And it's a question answered objectively. If we are wise and possess understanding, we must "show it by [our] good life, by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom." Pride and bitterness cannot coexist. And a life stirred to love and good deeds cannot live alongside a resentful, harsh, and critical heart.

Second, overcoming bitterness requires ruthless honesty and humility. Sins of the heart are sometimes the most deceptive and the most easily concealed. The fact that others cannot see our hearts and that we can be deceived by our own thoughts and feelings is a great disadvantage to us. Like my daughter's love for sour lemons, we can come to love and coddle—to "harbor"—bitterness. So, wherever we discover it by the grace of God, we must acknowledge the truth about bitterness and cultivate ht

The truth is that bitterness is rooted in sinful pride, jealousy of others, and selfishness. And the fruit of a bitter heart is always pain and destruction. We mustn't hide from these facts and be deceived by the momentary allurement of "control" and "self-protection" and "just desserts." The anger of man does not lead to the righteousness of' God. So, we must be truth loving, never denying the truth. And we must not brag about shameful things, including bitterness.

Third, in the power of Jesus Christ and his Spirit, with hearts longing for true worship of our glorious God, we must heed the counsel of Ephesians 4:31-32—"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

How has God in Christ forgiven us? Completely. Where have our Sins been laid? On the back of the crucified and resurrected Savior. So, where then should the offense of others be placed? On his back, nailed to the cross. Our Savior knew the sting of bitterness—from the jeers of the crowd, the mocking and scorn, and the gall-soaked sponge, to the agony of God's wrath against sin.

This is why Christian kindness and compassion take the form of forgiveness. We are to "get rid of all bitterness" and "every form of malice" like so much garbage better suited for trash heaps. And we do that by considering that this is just what God did with our sin when his Son was crucified outside the camp.

Leaving Bitterness Behind

Today, my daughter looks at me with surprise that she ever liked lemons. They are the tartest things she can drink of now. So it will be with the people who lean on the forgiveness of God in Christ and calls upon the resources of' the gospel to battle bitterness. By God's grace, they will one day look at their bitter past and treatment of others surprised they ever gave themselves to such a sour life.

__________________________________

Thabiti Anyabwile is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman inthe Cayman Islands. He has authored two books, The Faithful Preacher and his latest The Decline of African American Theology. Pastor Anyabwile will be one of the featured speakers at the 2008 Peacemaker Conference in Orlando.

April 7, 2008

After “Criticism and the Cross”, the Peacemaker sermon on April 6, it was beautiful that Pastor Carey Dean obeyed the Spirit’s prompting to call us to prayer in couplets and open our lives to humility, thereby opposing pride and its destructive power. I had a sweet, quiet time of prayer with a man who was sitting in the front row where I usually sit during gathered worship. And the subdued, holy hum of prayer was lovely to hear in the worship center.

May God be pleased to grace us with desires to battle pride and humble ourselves before Him! Here are three passages from Isaiah that help us know how we can do this:

1. Seek God and His glory and be astounded!

“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

the whole world is full of His glory.’

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” Isaiah 6:1-5

2. Seek to be broken over sin so that you may be revived!

"And it shall be said, ‘Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.’ For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the heart of the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’” Isaiah 57:14-15

3. Tremble at God’s Word!

“All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word.” Isaiah 66:2

March 31 - "Do You See Conviction of Your Sin as a Happy Thing?"

The fourth in our Peacemaker sermons rose out of Psalm 32. The thrust of the text and the sermon begs the question: Do we think of conviction of our sins as a good, happy thing? We ought to, because the Word tells us that conviction brought David to confession leading to his testimony—

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (32:1-2).

Conviction brought him to a place of great happiness and joy because it moved him to confess his transgression and sin and iniquity to God.

Conviction for David was miserable (and all of you who have experienced the Spirit’s convicting work know of this misery): physical symptoms, heavy conscience, a sense of the Father’s displeasure, and sapped strength. Then he

“acknowledged his sin to [God] and did not cover [his] iniquity…and [God] forgave the iniquity of [his] sin” (32:5).

And God blessed him, and He blesses us when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9).

Therefore, it is true that God’s conviction of our sin is a good and happy blessing for us.

Because all of us want to be blessed by Him, it makes sense that we would welcome and invite His convicting work in us.

Do we? If we don’t we are choosing against joy and blessedness and preferring sin and misery.

"Blessed is the one…”

Do we believe this?

March 27, 2008 - "Reasons For Good Friday"

I was moved by a little poem by Jane Kenyon and surprised to find it quoted at the end of a washingtonpost.com column by Michael Gerson in which he reviews Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God. The column’s title is “Reasons for Good Friday”, and here is the poem—

The God of curved space, the dry

God, is not going to help us, but the Son

whose blood spattered

hem of His mother’s robe.

March 19, 2008 - "Let Judas Shake You"

“Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver Him over to you?’ And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.”
Matthew 26:14-15

Today Chris Quinlan, our great Communications/Technology Director, reminded me that he will portray Judas in the Passover presentations on March 21 and 22. That conversation came just minutes after reading this brief commentary by John Piper, found in the blog section of desiringgod.org:

“Judas left the fellowship of the twelve apostles after the anointing in Bethany and arranged to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14-15). But when they met again at the last supper, there he was! Near enough to dip into the Savior’s cup.”

“When our family read this for devotions last night I was angry at the absolute wickedness of Judas coming back to eat Passover with the one he had just sold. I said to my daughter, evidently with more emotion that she was used to, ‘That is utterly wicked!’”

“She said, ‘What is so wicked?’ I said, ‘What if I went out tonight and arranged for a cruel man to kill you on the way to school tomorrow morning? That would be horrible. But then would it not be wicked to high heaven if I came home, after arranging your murder, and had devotions with you and prayed with you?’

“She was shaken.”

“Small wonder that Jesus said, ‘It would have been better for that man (Judas) if he had never been born’ (Matthew 26:24).”

“Let us be shaken this week, again and again.”

Powerful. O Lord, that I may not pretentiously follow you and call you my Lord and then sell you out for the temporary pleasures of sin! Shaking is good, so do shake me at the thought of such betrayal. Amen.

March 13, 2008 - "Taking Sin Seriously"

Since March 9^th’s sermon my mind has returned again and again to Matthew 7:1-5 and I’ve been amazed at the Lord’s thorough knowledge of human nature. It is common to all of us—an unwillingness to take logs out of my own eyes and a ready willingness to search for and extract specks from others’ eyes. Why? Is it because the logs are to close to really see? Have we become so used to having eye logs that they don’t irritate us anymore? Is it ego protection and fear to admit our sin and wrong, born out of stubborn pride?

Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of you eye, when there is the log in your own eye?’ You hypocrite, firs take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:1-5

On March 11, Rynette and I read this in Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning devotional:

Beware of light thoughts of sin. It is sadly true, that even a Christian may grow by degrees so callous, that the sin which once startled him does not alarm him in the least. By degrees men get familiar with sin. The ear in which the cannon has been booming will not notice slight sounds. At first a little sin startles us; but soon we say, "Is it not a little one?" Then there comes another, larger, and then another, until by degrees we begin to regard sin as but a little ill; and then follows an unholy presumption: "We have not fallen into open sin. True, we tripped a little, but we stood upright in the main. We may have uttered one unholy word, but as for the most of our conversation, it has been consistent." So we palliate sin; we throw a cloak over it; we call it by dainty names. Christian, beware how thou thinkest lightly of sin. Take heed lest thou fall by little and little. Sin, a little thing? Is it not a poison? Who knows its deadliness? Sin, a little thing? Do not the little foxes spoil the grapes? Doth not the tiny coral insect build a rock which wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings wear away stones? Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer's head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be "exceeding sinful."

As we at RBBC give ourselves to growing in biblical peacemaking and development of a culture of peace as a church family, let us beware ego-defensive pride that leads to destruction (Proverbs 16:18) and invite the Holy Spirit to apply Matthew 7 to our calloused consciences so that we may obey Christ’s command to take logs of sin out of our own eyes. We know that Jesus Christ took our sins seriously; let us take our sin seriously, too.

“Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be “exceeding sinful”.

March 3, 2008 - "Unity and Sound Doctrine"

On Sunday morning we saw in Ephesians 4 that there are five commitments needed to cultivate and demonstrate peace and unity in the body of Christ. I want to expand on thoughts regarding the second one, commitment to sound doctrine (see verses 4, 5, 14 and 15).

Last year doctrinal controversy erupted in our church, causing much pain and loss in our fellowship. So should we just step around doctrinal questions for the sake of unity and peace? No! The apostle Paul would say, “Absolutely not!” “Without sound doctrinal teaching, the body of Christ will dissolve into a myriad of personal opinions on issues that God Himself has defined in His Word” (The Powerful Witness of Unity, March 2, 2008).

But God’s Word calls us to deal with doctrine humbly, gently, patiently, and lovingly, as we eagerly maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:2-4). Such a God-given disposition of humility is the attitude necessary as priorities of doctrine are discussed and decided upon.

Humility, but not wishy washiness… We must “beware of a modern mistake here. Humble does not mean wishy washy when it comes to truth…It is a great mistake to confuse humility with uncertainty. But many today do confuse them. They think that the only humble demeanor is the uncertain, vague, iffy demeanor.”

“Is that what Paul meant? The only way to preserve the unity of the Spirit is to be vague and uncertain in your grasp of truth? He didn’t seem to be that way…G.K. Chesterton put his finger on the problem…in a little book called Orthodoxy:

“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled on the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason.”

“The humility that leads to unity is not uncertainty and doubt and vagueness and confusion. It is the demeanor that says: I am not the center; truth is the center and I submit to the truth and go where it leads. I am not king; God is King. My will is not the law; God’s Word is the law. I don’t tell God how many faiths (beliefs) are acceptable to Him; He tells me. I don’t define the foundation of the unity of the Spirit; God does.”

(Sermon by J. Piper, Nov. 8, 1992)

Therefore, let us humbly pursue God-honoring peace and unity in the Spirit, committed to sound doctrine.