How to build a healthy church

 I am preaching through the book of 1 Corinthians this year and doing a lot of thinking and study on a healthy church.  As part of that study I came across Mark Dever and Paul Alexander's book, How to Build a Healthy Church, and am thoroughly enjoying my read.  In the note to the reader, I came across this quote, "Our goal isn't to see how innovative we can be.  Our goal is to see how faithful we can be." (How to Build a Healthy Church, Mark Dever and Paul Alexander.  Crossway, Wheaton IL.  2021.  page 25)  As I thought about that I wondered how often we do this the exact opposite.  I have read many books that have told me how to make the church better and very few of them contain Scripture that teaches.  We somewhere along the line made church and perhaps even our relationship with God a product that we sell.  And because it is a product, we can analyze it and change it and market it in any way we choose while thinking we are doing God a favor by updating His work.  We talk about being relevant and forget that the Word does not return void.  We talk about testimony and sharing but we forget the content we are supposed to testify to and share.  So this is my plea to myself - Be Faithful!

Time

 Just this past Sunday, we set our clocks forward one hour.  All of this to accommodate for Daylight Savings Time.  I think we can all agree that the fall change is far better - gaining an hour of sleep instead of losing one.  To be perfectly honest, my wife did all of the remembering this year and set our clocks accordingly.  As I reflected in the days after the time change, I wondered when we move the clocks forward and backward if we do not somehow contribute to an illusion that time is within our control?  After all, we really like control, and we like to think that we have control.  But time is one of those things that remind us of our dependent, created reality.  

I cannot stop time.  

I cannot slow time.

I cannot speed time.

I cannot change time.

I cannot move time.

And I cannot do these things for something that like me is a created reality.  Time did not exist before God created it.  And time will not exist when God is finished doing His perfect work.  Time, and the changing of the times, should remind me that I am totally dependent on the God who made me.  Praise be to God.

Pain

 Last Wednesday started the season of Lent - a time of preparation and focus on the work of Christ on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.  As I reflect on the work of Christ I have been reading the gospels and the records of the crucifixion and the events that lead up to it.  When I read these texts, I am reminded of the immense pain that Jesus went through to save us from our sin and sinfulness.  I want to simply remind us today of some of the pain.

Physical Pain - Jesus endured a whipping that was designed to nearly kill a man.  He was beaten.  He had a robe placed on open wounds and then taken off.  He had a crown of thorns slammed on his head.  He had nails pounded through his hands and feet.  And all of this was just the prelude to the real torture.

Emotional Pain - Jesus correctly predicted that his closest followers would abandon him.  He knew and experienced the betrayal and denial of Peter.  He was weeping over Jerusalem even upon the triumphal entry.  

Spiritual Pain - Jesus experienced total isolation from God His Father.  He was forsaken.  He was punished because of our sins.  He bore the literal weight of all of our sins on the cross.  

The pain of death - Jesus surrendered Himself to die.  He was God incarnate.  God eternal.  Death was not a part of what He should have had to endure, and yet he became one of us and was willing to die as one of us so that we could live.

What a Savior we serve who was willing to go through so much pain.

Love - A Valentine's Day Corrective

 As anyone who knows me well knows - I do not celebrate Valentine's Day!  (everyone can let out a collective sigh of sympathy for my wife.)  If you do celebrate the day, please know I bear you no ill will.  However, I think it is important to know that we need to define some terms.  After all, I have been watching a few commercials that tell me what love really is and how I should define it.  The sad truth is that more and more of those ads have included relationships that I would not define as true definitions of love, and I think that this is because we have allowed our culture for too long to define the terms.  I will illustrate this with one word - the word "Love" itself.  

What is Love?  How you answer this question actually has a lot of important implications.  After all, if we say God is love, how we define love matters a great deal for our understanding of God.  If we say we are to love one another, how we define love matters a great deal.  And if we talk about self-love, how we define love matters.  I do not wish to make you read a long dissertation of the definition of love.  I want to pick one element of what love is and simply point out some difference.  The element I choose today is the question of where love starts - does it start internally or externally?

The culture will quickly tell you that love is internal and primarily emotional because it is internal.  Love is a feeling because it originates deep inside of us.  We cannot understand it always because the" heart wants what the heart wants."  Every sappy Hallmark movie, every romantic comedy, every commercial begins with the premise that love starts with me.  The Bible however has a different idea.

Biblically, love is primarily external.  It is not primarily an emotion - it is an act of the will, a choice to be made to act in a particular way.  Love is therefore not a feeling, but as DC Talk said - Luv is a Verb.  (Props to you if you get the reference)  We can understand it because it has been revealed to us by a God who loved us first and it does not start with me and therefore is not only external but can easily be defined because the God who is love has defined it for us.  

I will not today dive any deeper than that.  Love is not something you feel, it is something you choose to do.  Anything less is a culturally driven mis-representation of what love really is.  

Simple and Yet Profound

 I am always amazed at the reality of God and His Word and the Gospel contained therein.  I am amazed because in some ways, God, and His Word, and His gospel are exceedingly simple.  It is so simple that the Bible assumes God needs no introduction. "In the beginning God. . . ".  It simply states that "Your Word is Truth" (John 17:17) And the Gospel is condensed into the fact that Jesus died for me, was raised to life and sits at the right hand of the Father.   In many ways, these are simple truths that even children can understand.

And yet, the truths about who God is, about His Word, and about the gospel are also so profound that we could spend our lives studying them and never exhaust that which is knowable about any single part of these three.  For instance, I can know that God is holy - a simple truth.  And yet to mine the depths of what His holiness means and how it is demonstrated and how I am to respond to it is a profound study.  I can know that His Word is true and yet to seek out the fullest and deepest meaning of this truth would take lifetimes and I would never come to a full understanding of its glory.  I can know that the gospel is that Jesus died for me and was raised but to really comprehend what that means for my justification and sanctification and glorification can constantly amaze me.  

God is simple and yet so profound.  Praise God that I can see His revelation and understand it and yet I will never exhaust it.

Reading Goals

 As each new year comes around, there are always people and blogs and magazines that encourage you to read more and strive to accomplish more and do more and be more.  It is almost as if they want you to keep striving to attain an unattainable goal and of course pay $9.95 a month to allow them to help you achieve the unattainable goal.  So, today I want to take all of that and remind you that reading is important.  And if you are going to read anything - read the Bible.  

I do not say this because other reading is not important.  It is.  But it is not AS important as reading the Scriptures.  Since the Bible is the Word of God it is categorically different from other books.  It is Authoritative - we must listen and obey.  It is Inspired by God - its source and origin is God working in and through the human authors.  It is True.  It is Sufficient.  It is Clear.  And I could go on.  But you get the idea - the Bible has qualities that are not guaranteed in other books.  And so, your time is best spent reading the Bible.  

I know that often times Bible reading plans seem daunting because reading the Bible in a year requires around 4 chapters per day.  And that can be a lot.  And so when I encourage you to read the Bible, I am not saying read the whole Bible this year.  I want to encourage you to simply do this:

    Read more of the Bible this year than you did last year.

If you read once a month this year, try to do more than that.  If you read once a week, try to do twice a week.  If you read one chapter a day, try to do two chapters a day.  If you read the Bible through in a year, try to read it twice this year.  Pick a book and read that book over and over this year.  Choose a verse and read it every day twice or three times a day!  Just read the Bible.  Don't let your fear of failure knock you down, just read it.  If you miss a day, read again the next day.  Don't feel like you have to make up time.  Just read.  I think that if you do, you will be glad that you did!

New Year - Same Goals

 Each new year, many people strive to set new goals for the year.  Some want to exercise, some want to lose weight, some want to eat better, some want to read their Bible more, some want to go to church more often.  And it would seem that for many, each year that passes is a reminder that they did not do the things that they wanted to do.  

I also find it interesting that in our categories of things we want to do better we often put spiritual things like reading our Bible more and praying more, and maybe memorizing some Scripture.  After all - the goals for our life - as given to us by God anyway, have not changed in the last 2000 years.  We have all of these goals recorded for us in Scripture - and since the Bible does not change, neither have these goals.  

And so since there is nothing new in the goals, and there seems to be no consistency in our setting and keeping goals, what is the problem?

May I suggest that the problem is one of authority.  Allow me to explain.  When we make goals for ourselves, we are the authority.  I get to set the goal and the tone for my life.  So when I fail to meet one of my goals, I am alone to blame.  But when this happens I still am the authority, and so next year I will make new goals for me that I am unlikely to keep, but I will feel good that I made them. This is a little tricky because the Scriptures tell me that on my own I can accomplish nothing good.  So to make actual progress in the Christian life, I have to stop trying so hard and instead trust that God will accomplish His work as I obey. 

This means that the singular goal we should all have it to slay our selfish desire for authority and instead submit to the authority of God.  Ironically, this submission will likely accomplish the goals we would have set for ourselves to begin with, but through submission the change will be more permanent and more perfect because it will be God doing the work and not me.  This is however a BIG ask.  I have to be willing to cease to be my own authority and to surrender willingly to my Maker.  I have to be willing to die each day to self and serve a Savior.  I have to be willing to give up my authority to pay homage to a Holy God and trust that He will work in and through me by the very means of my surrender.  This year may we surrender to God.  To God be the glory.