New Year

Look forward to incredible things in 2012 as God continues to grow,

stretch and use First Baptist Church for His Kingdom!

At the end of a year we all eagerly look forward to what we would like to accomplish and what God will do in us and through us during the next year. Unfortunately, anxiety tends to sneak in as we remember yesterday’s sins and blunders. Our yesterdays are filled with failures and irreconcilable things. We let God-given opportunities to serve Him and others slip away and have chosen selfishness and greediness instead. Fortunately, God is the God of our yesterdays and He uses them to turn our past into growth for the future. Oswald Chambers says in his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, “Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ. Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.” Happy New Year!

Why Didn't You?

What an amazing opportunity it was to deliver the Christmas boxes and to serve for the Community Christmas Dinner! If you missed one or both of these opportunities to minister, I sincerely hope and pray you can be involved next year. I do want to go a step further and pose a question to those who were in town and physically able to take part in these two outreach events but chose not to: “Why didn’t you? What caused you to decide not to serve?”

We all need to think deeply about this when God gives us an opportunity to reach out in His name and we decide to sit it out instead. The clothes closet ministry could also be included in this conversation. What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of failure? Are we ashamed to be seen as a Jesus-follower? Are we afraid that someone who knows our “other” life away from church will see us there? Are we not willing to serve some of the people who will show up due to their skin color, status in life, or their sins? Jesus met needs, told of the Father’s love and the only way to salvation, and then charged them to “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). We cannot get this out of order! First, serve and love them. Second, share Christ with them. LAST, challenge them to follow our example as we follow Christ. If we do this, we cannot fail!

Are You Here?

God is present this morning! Are you here? Each Sunday that we come together, we should come for the purpose of seeking, glorifying, and worshipping Jesus. This takes some premeditated planning and effort, though!

I think the first way you can do this is to come to this place not to only talk about God with others but to be with God. You should come to reflect on what He has done for you, what He has made you, and what He still wants to do in and through you. If you are saved by the blood of Christ, Scripture says you are a “new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17) and literally, a new person remade from the inside out. This does not mean a finished product, but a work in progress! Scripture also says you must “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14) each and every day. That is the tough part; that is the “working out” (Phil. 2:12) of our salvation and it is a process with its completion only in Heaven.

I Cannot Fail

I once had someone tell me that when sharing our faith in Christ with someone, there can be no failure. We often see the person’s lack of response, indifference, or even their slamming the door in our face as a sign that we have failed. God asks us to “Go” (Matt. 28:19) and as long as we open our mouths we cannot fail. As a part of God’s family, we share in Christ’s victory! Oswald Chambers says, “The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level in life.”

This truth is also extremely liberating in our service to God. Whether we serve in the area of music, food preparation, teaching, or even writing a birthday card or visiting someone, we cannot fail if we are doing it for His glory and other’s best. There are many opportunities to serve God in our church in the next two months. Whether you are to accomplish something alone or as part of a group, the fear of failure can creep in. Do not let it! Remember that as long as we are serving Him, we are victors and “more than conquerors!” (Rom. 8:37) If you are not already involved in one of our events coming up, find Pastor Rick or myself and ask where you can serve. There is always something needing to be done.

Plastic Fantastic

This week, I was constantly reminded of the words of Danny Singleton, our revivalist from earlier this month. He challenged us as a church to remember that as children of God we have the privilege to meet with fellow Christians and to meet with Him each time we come to church. He commented that, “before we step out of the car we put on our plastic fantastic.” He was speaking of the masks that we all put on before we come to church. We have this idea that we can’t share our struggles with anyone or even let them know that we have struggles. As my former pastor used to say, “It is complete hogwash!” but we all do it at times. We are all guilty of this “hogwash” in certain ways but why is that? Most likely, somewhere along the way someone has told us that we can’t trust church people or we have actually experienced firsthand a church acquaintance going back on their word. Well, (again) why is that such a surprise?! We all know that when we were saved we did not become perfect but it is almost as though we expect that of other Christians. I encourage you (and myself) to take off your “plastic fantastic” and relate with a brother or sister in Christ on a deeper level. You never know what will come of it!

Marriage

“This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” Eph. 5:32

God chose to bless me in an amazing way through another person! Many of you have been blessed in the same way. I am speaking of someone who knows you inside and out, and loves you anyway. They are someone you call your dearest friend and also other names (i.e. sweetie pie, honey bun, sugar lips). You may not use these names but the truth remains: they are special to you and they have your love. Of course, I am speaking of your husband or wife.

Ephesians 5 speaks of the covenant relationship between God and His people, the church and goes on to relate the marriage to this kind of covenant. Mindy and I traveled to Tampa in early September for what was called a “Weekend to Remember” Marriage Getaway put on by FamilyLife Ministries. One speaker discussed our witness to a lost world and commented that a Godly marriage relationship between a man and a woman is one of God’s greatest tools in showing and demonstrating His love to our fallen world. This perspective opened our eyes in many ways to how God wants to use our marriage—and yours! How you treat your husband or wife—how you love them, how patient you are towards them, how compassionate, caring, and respectful you are to them—will either show the lost an accurate picture of God’s love or a tainted one. Husbands, love your wives! Wives, respect your husbands!

Call of God

When a person surrenders their life to Jesus and allows Him to be Lord of their life, God gives a call. It may not come immediately, but the call to serve Him in a unique way will come. God will call some to teach, some to cook, some to pray, some to clean, some to begin a new ministry, some to work with children, youth, or adults. None of these are above or below any of the others. God’s call on your life is not to be compared with His call on others’ lives. It is only to be obeyed!

“For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.” 1 Corinthians 9:16

Paul basically said that he would lose his purpose and reason for existing if he could not preach. He couldn’t stand to not preach! I will conclude with Oswald Chamber’s words on this issue: “If you have ignored, and thereby removed, the great supernatural call of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances. See where you have put your own ideas of service or your particular abilities ahead of the call of God. Paul said, ‘…woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!’ He had become aware of the call of God, and his compulsion to ‘preach the gospel’ was so strong that nothing else was any longer even a competitor for his strength.”

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is of the utmost importance in our lives as believers! I was reading through chapter 18 of Matthew this week and was reminded of Jesus’ parable of the slave and his master. This parable tells of a slave who owed his master “ten thousand talents.” You think your debt is impossible to get out of? One talent was worth more than fifteen years’ wages for a typical laborer in this time. Owing “ten thousand talents” meant his debt was more than 150,000 years of wages. Wow!

What is even harder to comprehend is the heart of the master when he called his slave’s debt. “So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience on me…’ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt” (18:26-27). I know personally the amount of forgiveness that has been granted to me simply blows my mind. Not one of us deserves to be forgiven for our sins against God, but our Master is compassionate, loving and forgiving. Of course, the parable ends with the forgiven slave not showing the same compassion and forgiveness towards a fellow slave who was indebted to him. The master heard of this and “handed him over to the torturers” (18:35). Chapter 18 ends with a stern warning to me and to you in the area of forgiveness: “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” Remember this verse when you are faced with a choice to forgive:

 
“Freely you received, freely give.” Matthew 10:8

Don't Think...Obey!

If you are an analytical person who thinks through things long before acting, then we have something in common. I can remember as a child standing in the candy isle at the gas station unable to choose one. I am analytical and critical by nature. This is how God made me and this may be how God made you. If He did, you know that this can also have its weaknesses. You know, as I do, that you can think your way into disobedience, laziness, and ultimately sin.

Oswald Chambers says this in My Utmost for His Highest: “You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter.”

I think we would all benefit from less thinking and more obeying. All of us, at times, tend to think rather than obey. What if we decided to not think about how to fix the gossip, the finances, and the staff? What if we decided to simply obey what God is asking of us? A man or woman of God knows that reasoning or trying to be wise is not how they see. Rather, they understand that they must see as a child. After all, Jesus said, “You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Matt. 11:25).

Who is Jesus?

“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” Matthew 16:15

Our identification of Jesus Christ is of utmost importance. Is He a poor carpenter’s son or God’s son? Is He a great example of a moral man or the sinless sacrifice for our sins? Is He one way or the only way? This question from Matthew 16 was asked by Jesus to his disciples. He began in verse 13 asking them, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Their answer was this: “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

If you ask a young person what areas of life most teenagers struggle with, their answer will most likely include—whether they realize it or not—the areas that are the greatest struggle for them personally. Jesus may have known this when He asked His disciples what “people” say about Him. He may have known that their answers would not be generalized but would actually be their own beliefs. Then in verse 15, Jesus left no doubt as to what He was asking. He changed the wording of His question to personalize it for His disciples and for us. He asks you the same question this morning. “Who do you say that I am?” As C.S. Lewis says, we will either answer that He is a lunatic, a liar, or He is Lord. In verse 16, Peter answered how we all should answer. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Who do you say that he is? Answer this question in your heart this morning. Answer it in your worship, in your giving, in your study and attention while God’s Word is being preached. Answer it by standing firm in the truth of His Word and by standing against anything contrary to His Word in His church.