Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Eph 6:4

Every believing parent worth his or her salt knows this verse.  God takes seriously the call to parents (especially fathers) to actively model and nurture faith, godly character, and Biblical understanding in their children so that they too become God-glorifying worshippers and bearers of God’s image in this fallen world (see also Gen 18:19; Deut. 4:9; 6:7).

Moreover, God has called not just parents to the nurture and education of their children, but the whole church.  Many passages speak of the unity of the body of Christ and the need of one part of the body for all the other parts of the body (see 1 Cor 12; Eph 4).  No family is an island.  We exist as a local manifestation of God’s glorious church to exhibit a unity and loving concern for one another.  Consider this passage from Psalm 78:

Psa 78:1-7  A Maskil of Asaph.

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth!  (2)  I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,  (3)  things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us.  (4)  We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.  (5)  He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children,  (6)  that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children,  (7)  so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;

This psalm summons fathers to teach their children, but also the whole community of Israel to do the same.  He says “Give ear, O my people,” and  he says that this community should not hide God’s word from the children of the Fathers of Israel—that is– all the children of Israel.  There is something powerful about the breadth of reinforcement that  a child receives when the same character is lived out and the same truths are taught not just in their family but among a community of faithful worshippers.  Susan Hunt, in her book Heirs of the Covenant, says it well:

“Educating children is a family affair and a community affair.  I does take a village to raise a child.  It takes a village of faith, the church of the Lord Jesus, to reinforce, expand, model, and practice what is being taught in the home.”

This Fall you have the privilege of helping to fulfill this mission in Orlando Grace Church.  We will be implementing the wonderful new PRAISE FACTORY children’s curriculum for the 9:30 Equipping Hour.  This one aspect of OGC’s ministry to children will require a great deal of work.  Here’s how you can help.

1. Pray for the Christian Education committee who is working to implement the PRAISE FACTORY curriculum for the elementary and younger children.
2. Pray that God would move in the hearts of people to join in this covenant community calling to serve the family of Orlando Grace Church. Ask God if he might be calling you to sacrificially give of your time and abilities to love our dear children in this Sunday School ministry.
3. Pray regularly for the children of OGC, for their faith in Christ and godly character to develop.

God has given us a great responsibility to raise our children to “set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.”  He has not left us on our own.  By His grace and the power of His Holy Spirit we can bring glory to His name in the lives or our children!

What strikes me as so encouraging about Psalm 61 is that the psalmist does not do what I normally do in such a state.  Usually, when I encounter anxiety, fear, and discouragement at feeling overwhelmed by life, my tendency is to pull away from God and try to convince myself that I just need to work harder in some area to gain control over a chaotic and frightening situation, or worse yet, I simply pull into a cave of denial, and self-medicate by distraction with some amusement of life—a broken cistern that can hold no water to quench my thirsty soul.  But the psalmist sees the futility of either of those routes: self-dependence, or idolatrous denial.  He sees with clarity that his only help come from God.  He cries to God to lead him to the rock that is higher than he is.  He doesn’t even have the ability to find the rock himself!  When I am feeling disoriented and tossed about by the stormy sea of life, I need a place of firm footing and security from those waves; only God can be that. And only God can lead me to Himself.  O, that I would remember that God waits for me to simply cry out to him and draw near for help and strength!

The psalmist remembers that God has helped him in the past.  In verse three he remembers that God has been a “refuge…a tower of strength against the enemy;” and on that basis he asks God to be that again for him in verse four.  This is a stark reminder to me to keep close tabs on how God is working and has worked in my life.  A journal is a great way to do this.  There is great value in recounting the saving works of God in history, in Christ, and even in my own life.  On the basis of God’s gracious protection and provision in the past, we can have confidence that He will be there in the storms to come.  We must look to God in time of need, counting on His faithfulness and love, and end our petition where the psalmist does, “I will sing praise to Your name forever,” O God!

Well praise God, they’re out! If you’ve been following the saga of the trapped Chilean miners I’m sure you’re aware that all thirty three were safely extricated from the mine yesterday. The whole incident is quite remarkable on so many fronts: the providential provision of a structurally and atmospherically safe chamber where the men could survive underground for so long; the resilience and cooperation of those miners to endure such conditions for over two months; the ingenuity, tenacity and hopefulness of the rescue drillers and personnel; the unparalleled international cooperation of experts and technology; and, of course, the sovereign mercy of God that allowed all the plans to produce a perfect result and the salvation of so many lives.

I’m sure people will be talking about these events for months and years to come, and many a preacher will use various aspects of the story for powerful sermon illustrations. I would simply like to focus on a few observations that I have made looking back on the events.

First, clearly people were looking to God throughout this duration of this event. Now, whether that was the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or just a nameless higher power, is unclear. I did see that Bible’s were sent down to the miners and that people were praying by crossing themselves. But, whatever the case is for each individual miner’s spirituality and personal salvation, the Triune God of Scripture is the one to be glorified as the only Savior of men, both spiritually and physically:

Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.  (Isa 45:21-22 ESV)

So God receives the glory. But I can’t help but wonder what will happen now. These men, their families, friends and neighbors, have all been looking to God (hopefully the true God). Will this continue? Or will it be back to normal, self-oriented life? Many of the news commentators are talking now about the international celebrity status of these men. The miners are clearly aware of this; in fact, I heard that they all agreed before being extracted that they will not seek independent book deals or other avenues of individual profit, but only as the whole group. Many are saying that their lives will never be the same; fame, wealth, and prestige await them. How will they respond to such enormous life-changes and the temptations that accompany them? If they are genuine believers in the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ, will they continue to seek Him or will they be choked out and caused to stumble by the allure of wealth, pleasure and power?

Let this be a lesson to us that God doesn’t just want us to seek Him, trust Him, and need Him when circumstances are dark and out of our control. He wants us to seek Him, trust Him, and need Him when His blessings are shining brightly on us and all is well in our lives. To do otherwise is to, in our pride, forget how utterly needy and dependent we are on our gracious Lord for everything in our lives. Indeed, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Let us strive to maintain our humble dependence on God throughout bad circumstances as well as good.

When was the last time you read about the life and ministry of a champion of faith who has gone before you?  Do you realize that God has given the testimonies of these faithful men and women to us for our encouragement and to aid in our perseverance?  This Sunday I’ll have the privilege of preaching from Hebrews 12:1-3.  Verse one reads like this:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

The “great cloud of witnesses” the author references is the list he gave in chapter eleven of Old Testament champions of faith who “by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire,” (11:33-34) who “experienced mockings, scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment” (11:36) and gained a faithful testimony before God and men.  These men and women of the past stand like a great crowd in a stadium cheering on the runners in a sporting event.  Only they stand as those who have also run the race…and won!  They tell us, “you can do it, press on, the prize is worth the cost!”

There is great power to be had in contemplation of the faithful lives of our forefathers.  They are those who looked to the promises of God, endured hardship and deprivation, and resisted temptations of an easy trouble-free life.   We should consider their example of faith and allow them to stoke the cooling embers of faith in our souls.

So I ask again, when was the last time you took advantage of this “means of grace”?  When was the last time you soaked in the biography of a champion of faith and allowed your faith to be challenged and strengthened.  John Piper has been transformed by just such contemplation.  He states,

Biographies have served as much as any other human force in my life to resist the inertia of mediocrity.  Without them I tend to forget what joy there is in relentless God-besotted labor and aspiration. (John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 89).

We are surrounded by witnesses to the costly but precious and full life of faith, a great cloud from every age, including today.  Why not pick up a biography of a great Christian and, like John Piper, appropriate a wealth of grace for yourself?

No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or knows him….  No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin because he has been born of God.  1 John 3:6, 9

If these verses have produced some consternation on your part, take comfort in realizing you’re not alone.  These passages in 1 John are some of the most difficult to understand in the Bible and many different interpretations have been offered.  If you missed the 1 John Equipping Hour class last Sunday and would like to see what we discussed about these verses, you can download the lengthy handout here:

1 John3 handout

If you haven’t come out to the class yet, and are interested, it’s not too late! We will meet for two more weeks and there are some very interesting topics upcoming in chapters four and five of 1 John.  For this week’s class, please read chapters three and four.  And if you haven’t done so already, check out the previous handouts (especially handout 1 on background) to get a feel for what we have covered so far.

If you have any familiarity with controversies that swirl within Christendom about details of Reformed Theology then you know what a powder keg this verse is:

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (1Jn 2:2).

Some argue that this verse teaches that Christ’s death is the propitiation for the sins of every human being throughout all human history-that Christ died to make all men savable (unlimited atonement), but that His death actually saved no one.  But is this consistent with how the New Testament speaks of the death of Christ, what it was intended to do, what it accomplished?  And does the context of John’s epistle speak of propitiation as something potential for all or actual for some?  Does the historical context of the book give us any help in understanding John’s point?

Though we didn’t give this controversy nearly the time it deserves, if you missed the Equipping Hour class this past Sunday and would like to see the handout I passed out, here it is:

1 JN 2 HANDOUT

I’ve come to realize that the essence of Christian faith is not overcoming sin, nor doing good things to please God, nor laying down your life in service to others—it is dependence.  I am weak, weaker than I realize, so weak that if I really understood the reality of it I might not even bother to get out of bed.  And guess what…you are weak, weaker than you realize and if you really understood that reality, you might not get out of bed.

But getting out of bed and living my life and serving God and resisting temptation absolutely must come from an active dependence on God.  He is the Light who shows us how to live, He is the Rock who upholds us in times of overwhelming circumstances, He is the shield who protects us from harm and our Enemy.  And most gloriously to me is realizing that in the midst of this dark world with all its travails and suffering, and in full realization of my utter inability to be the man of God that I want to be, He is also our Song.  God loves me and waits patiently for me to learn, and relearn, that He simply wants me to come to Him in dependence, like a child to his Daddy, like the broken and humiliated prodigal son to his father…this is cause for singing!

Think of what God has given you if you are His child in Christ Jesus!  Think of what the Israelites must have felt like in slavery in Exodus when our Savior-God brought them mightily through the Red Sea—out of slavery and into His arms.  It was cause for singing:

The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.  Ex15:2

We ALWAYS have reason to sing!  And when I have one of those days, I remember what music and singing is all about, what it was created for—to glorify God.   When God is being glorified, the human being is most satisfied, most centered, most human.  We are made to worship.  Ironically, it was listening to Twila Paris’s old song “He is a Song” that reminded me of that, that brought me to tears of immense gratitude and realization.  This is the chorus:

He is a light in the deepest shadow

And the wings of a spirit in flight

He is a spring in the dry burning desert

He is a song in the longest night.

So friends, if you’re having one of those days when your head is bowed in shame, turn to the lifter of your head, your Savior-God, your Daddy who loves you and waits patiently for you to just realize that you need Him–desperately.  And if, like me, it takes a song to remind you, then by all means…SING.

Since the information covered this past Sunday for the 1 John class is so crucial to understand the book, for those of you who are interested in coming to the class in future weeks and would like to get a handle on the historical background of John’s first epistle, I have attached the handout which we worked through during the first class.  I knew there were people who would not be able to be there for the first class so I purposed to make a thorough outline so that even if you missed the class you’ll have all the info you need.  Enjoy!

Next Sunday we will start going through the text of chapter one! We will meet in the fellowship hall at 9:30. If you aren’t attending one of the other equipping electives, I hope to see you there!

1 John handout1

This Lord’s Day we will begin a study of 1John, and we will see that the idea of “spiritual innovation” is high on John’s “honey-don’t” list.  In 2 Jn 9 John writes:

Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.

The first phrase “anyone who goes too far” could literally be translated “anyone who goes on ahead.”  For John to “go on ahead” of the historic, apostolic teaching of Christ—His person and work according to gospel—is to NOT HAVE GOD!  The opponents that John has in view did just that.  They bought into the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, and tried to shoe horn Jesus into a new and unbiblical philosophy, denying essential truths about who Jesus was and what He had done.  They were innovators—spiritual innovators—who thought they were being so clever and modern and progressive.  But they were wrong, dead wrong.

John’s message, written almost 2000 years ago is just as relevant today as the day it was written.  Our call is not to rethink, rediscover, or remake Jesus, as many infected by the pluralistic spirit of our day would have us do.  Such efforts at spiritual innovation are evident everywhere from liberal and radical New Testament scholarship who want to reduce Jesus to a mere philosopher or teacher of wisdom (if indeed they even acknowledge His historical existence!), to the Jesus of New Agers and other syncretists of our day who seek to combine as many religions as they can into a big stew, reducing Jesus to just one among equals.  John is clear, DON’T DO IT!  Our call is to stand on the historic, apostolic, and Biblical proclamation that the eternal Son of God entered into His fallen and broken creation in order to die by crucifixion in the place of sinners and provide for eternal salvation of mankind and the utter destruction of sin in this diseased creation.

So, to end this brief blog, I exhort you with John’s final words from 1 John, with regard to the deceptions of those who would seek to deceive us about our Savior:

“Little children, guard yourselves from idols.”

Greetings brethren!  Many of you know that I will be starting a summer pastoral internship under the direction of Pastor Curt.  I have mixed emotions about it.  I’m extremely honored and blessed by the opportunity to serve and learn; it is a great privilege.  However, I find myself considering my own inadequacies and the need for God to do this through me.  It reminds me of Paul’s use of the idea of sufficiency in 2 Corinthians:

In  2:16  he writes, speaking about bringing the gospel to those who are being saved or condemned, that he is “to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?”

In 3:5-6a Paul writes about his ministry, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,  who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant….”

In 12:9-10 Paul writes about his “thorn in the flesh” that he pleaded with God to remove.  He says, “But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I cannot help but find great comfort and encouragement in these words.  This is Paul, the great apostle of Jesus Christ, able to perform all manner of mighty works and miracles, faithful and bold to proclaim the name of Christ everywhere he went, commissioned with the authority to establish the doctrine for the church, the one who wrote two thirds of the New Testament—this same Paul speaks of his own inadequacies and inability apart from Christ.

If you’re facing a challenge that seems more than you can handle, that’s because it really is more than you can handle alone.  But you are not alone.  Our sufficiency to do all that God desires of us is found in Him.  Our weakness is strength because it is in the recognition of our weakness that God receives the glory by accomplishing His purposes through us. Who is sufficient to be a herald of the message of eternal salvation?  Who is sufficient to be a minister of the new covenant?  Who is sufficient for any spiritual service, except by the grace of God?

Such truth is not discouraging but freeing.  We are free to live as bold as a lion (Prov 28:1), not in our power but in the power of the one whose resurrection life lives in us (Eph 1:19-20).  When I am weak, then I am strong!

Soli Deo Gloria!