In the past 3 years I have gone from being a very single young 23-year old man finishing a computer science engineering degree at the University of Texas at Arlington, to being a married man of slightly less than a year and a half with one eight-month old little girl, working as a systems engineer, working towards a Masters of Divinity degree and prayfully considering where our little family is going to put down roots.

Much in my life has changed.

Along with these changes have come many lessons and mistakes.

Of these lessons (or perhaps more fundamentally observations based on fundamental truths), two have stood out in my 15 months of husbandhood and 8 months of fatherhood (not counting the in-the-oven time): namely, as a Father, I’m to exemplify God the Father and as a husband I’m to love my sweet wife as Jesus loves His Bride, the Church.

Now, in many ways, this is both a blessing and a curse.  It is a curse because the reality is that there is no one on this earth who can do it.  It’s nigh impossible.  I am absolutely incapable of loving my wife like Jesus loves me.  I simply cannot.  I can never love my daughter like the Father loves me.  Any attempt, while noble, will always fall short because I am, quite obviously, not Jesus.

Yet, this reality is also an extreme blessing because in the Father and in the Son I have perfect examples of how to love my family.  When my daughter is crying at night, very loudly, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to soothe, calm, or quiet her and I am tempted to get made and flustered and discouraged, I can remember all of the times I have whined and cried and shook my little fists at God and my mind can be calmed and I can love my daughter in some small way like how my Father loves me.  When I get flustered and my wife and when the romance is not there and when I’ve had a sucky day and she’s had a sucky day and I’m short with my words and I’m impatient and angry with my thoughts and I just want to go to bed instead of being with my wife,  I can be kindly rebuked by my Savior’s Love for me; that love that lived on this earth, was broken, beaten, bruised, spat upon, tortured, bloodied, crucified and killed and I can know His great love for me and have a tangible example to encourage me to forget myself and my own petty needs and love my wife as Jesus eternally loves me.

Being a husband and a dad is better and harder than I ever imagined.  God has surely graced me in allowing me to do it.

Pastor Jarrett preached yesterday out of Revelation regarding the letter from Jesus to the Church in Ephesus. In this letter Jesus commends the Ephesians for their doctrinal purity, patient persistence in the midst of trial and for their steadfast service to Him. Yet He (rightly) accuses them of leaving their first Love. Jarrett reminded us of Paul’s words that if we are living and breathing and serving without love, then all of our effort is of no intrinsic value and is unprofitable, worthless and generally rather annoying. These words hit me where it hurts! I love Truth and Persistence and Doctrine and Ideas (even if I suck at all of them!), but what good is that to anyone if I’m not loving (as Jesus first loved me)? Is it even Truth that I believe in if I’m not loving? Do I love the same people that Jesus loves? Do I love them the way that Jesus loves me? Or am I the guy who has been forgiven a massive 10 million dollar debt, but can’t forgive a measly five dollar IOU?

Do I love Jesus’ Church, His Bride and Body? Do I love the sick and the poor and the widow and the orphan? Do I love the unclean, the unrighteous, the homosexual, the adulterer, the murderer, the thief and the child abuser? Do I love those on the edges and margins of society? Do I love those who would commit heinous crimes against me? Do I have “faith” without the corresponding works of love (and it IS work!)?

Yet, a more profound and searching question must be asked. Do I love Jesus? Or do I love my understanding of Jesus? Do I love the teachings of Jesus more than Jesus Himself? Am I too much like the serving Martha in her bad moments (as important and godly dutiful service can be …) and not enough like the enraptured-with-Jesus Mary? Am I stuck-up, haughty, arrogant and prideful about my understanding and faith, or am I abased and humbled and broken and contrite before the One who saved a wretch like me?

Lord, break me and abase me before Your Son and be my strength to love you more and more each day! I’ve not the strength in my frame and I’ve not the will to obey, apart from Your Grace …

I love my Savior God
I long to do His Will
But oh my soul I’ve lost my way
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love

I’m steeped in doctrine pure
I know when error comes
With patience I endure so well
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love

I toil and bear for Christ
I’ve not grown tired yet
Like Martha, service is my Call
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love

Jesus with the flaming eyes
Jesus with the two-edged sword
Your eyes see all, your mouth speaks Truth
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love

You control the skies above
You calm the raging seas
And oh my God, come calm my heart
Jesus please show me Your Love

I do no love the one’s you love
A hypocrite is what I am
I show my knowledge is not complete
All of my brothers I don’t love

I know it was for me you died
Your love was pain and suffering
With patience you endure Your own
Jesus I know it’s me you love

Jesus bring me to the day
When pain will melt away
I’ll dwell with you for all the days
It’s you, my God, I love

Please protect me from myself
The sin that dwells therein
Until I die keep me from my sin
Jesus keep me in Your Love

Below are some links to some thoughts from the SBC 2009.

Of interest is the list of things that Michael Spencer notes over at Internet Monk.  Of those, item #6 stands out:

“The patient teaching of the Gospel and church-centered theology by the Founders Ministries and 9Marks has paid off in more fruit than can be put in a basket. Hundreds and hundreds of young people, hungry to hear how to build a Gospel centered, God honoring, missionary focused church. It is astonishing. It may not be revival, but it is a solid outcome that will make a huge difference for a small number of churches.”

Nothing effects change (in terms of human understanding) than faithful, patient, plodding, grinding, constant persistence.  Now, may the change that has been effected by Founders and IX Marks be Spirit-directed, Christ-focused and God-honoring.

More thoughts:

Tom Ascol (Overall Reflections HERE)

Daniel Akin

SBC Voices

Tim Brister (10 Highlights) (10 Lowlights)

Baptist Press News

The Baptist Standard

Biblical Recorder

SBCImpact

Ed Stetzer

James Galyon

Owen Strachan

Wade Burleson

Alvin Reid

Micah Fries

Shawn Bergen

Thom Rainer

Peter Lumpkins

Alan Cross

It seems that true, persistent, plodding faithfulness is perhaps the hardest part of the Christian walk.

It is fairly easy to be flashy and it is easy to exert a great amount of energy for a small amount of time. But to be faithful and constant … that is hard. Patience and persistence is required for such faithfulness. To be faithful means constant warfare with the flesh. For the faithful man or woman there are no breaks, no rests, and no separation from the grind. The faithful Christian is a plodder. She is content in doing what she is called to do, even if she spends her whole life in relative obscurity. The faithful Christian does not mind doing the dirty work. In fact, he puts all of his effort into the task, knowing that there will be few who notice. The faithful Christian will be told at the end of things “Well done, good and faithful servant”. The faithful Christian is a slave and he rejoices in it. She is a servant and in her servitude she seeks the honor of God. He knows he might never be noticed, but he is ok with that possibility and general reality.

He is the pastor of a small congregation in the Texas Hill Country. The church he serves in has never had much numerical growth. He has never had many converts. He is not flashy and he is not real relevant. He is faithful in the little things and faithful in the big things he is given responsibility for.

She is the mother of ten believing children and currently the grandmother of fifteen. She was a beautiful woman in the flower of youth but now her body is wrinkled, bent and worn out. She is not flashy and she’s not real sexy. She is faithful in the little things and faithful in the big things she is given responsibility for.

This man might not be successful in the eyes of the world (or even the eyes of Evangelicals!), but in the Lord’s eyes this man is honored. This woman might not be beautiful in the eyes of the world, but in God’s eyes this woman exhibits true human beauty.

Are we content with faithfulness to God, or are we in such pursuit of fame, success, relevance and beauty that we lost sight of the one by whom and for whom all things exist?

My previous posts in this series are below: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 I finished Part 3 in this series with a basic question: how is this missions model incarnational? To explain, the normal and traditional way of doing missions (at least according to this model) is shown below: Usually, the missionary is trained and mentored in the sending context and sent out into the rest of the world to evangelize, and for the church-planter, to plant churches. But, what if the model took on this shape: Notice in what context the whole model exists. Within this model the missionaries leave their home churches, go to their mission field and serve, are trained, are sent and plant planting churches within the indigenous context.

As many have noted, the number of “unreached” people groups have been dropping precipitously. This is a wonderful development and we should thank God for it. But, we dare not forget the scores of lost men who remain in groups that have been “reached”. We are called by God to make disciples among all the nations and all of the people groups, not just among those who are unreached. A direct (and obvious) corollary of the reality of there being fewer unreached people groups is the reality of there being more reached people groups. Because of this reality, there are more indigenous churches to serve in, to be trained in, and to be sent by to plant more indigenous, Bible believing, Gospel-Saturated planting churches.

Consider what a profound example of incarnational humility this can be. If you are a man called of God to someday pastor, it will be a great statement of trust in Christ and submission to others to, in faith, immerse yourself in another culture and serve in a local church in that culture. You then are trained by “indigenous” pastors and are sent by indigenous churches to plant indigenous churches that themselves plant indigenous churches that plant indigenous (or glory be to God, foreign) churches. You’ll more fully learn how to live with people of another culture. You’ll more fully learn how they think, how they live, how they worship and how they serve. You’ll be trained by men who know their culture, to serve others in that culture. You allow and encourage the indigenous church to take ownership and responsibility to plant indigenous churches that otherwise would have been planted by your home-culture church. Is this not a wonderful example of Christian unity? Is this not a wonderful example of the Biblical diversity that is found in the love of Christ? Is this not a profound declaration of the priority of our Heavenly Citizenship over the citizenship of our native land?

What are the full implication and ramifications of this model? Honestly, I have no way of knowing. I would pray that it would foster a passion for the glory of Christ in our unity as children of the Father. I pray it would encourage humility and discourage the arrogance that is found all too often in the saints. I pray that it would encourage us to preach Christ to all peoples. We must remember that every generation presents us with a new crop of souls to be harvested. May we ever submit to the Will of God and seek his glory, by the Son’s Grace and through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

In review, here is the suggested model for living and serving incarnationally in missionary church planting.

In Scripture (1 Peter 3:8-9, Ephesians 4:1-6) Christians are called to submit to and live in deference one to another. In Hebrews 13:17 Christians are called to submit to their leadership (within Christian mutual submission). Being a churchman can and should be a very humbling experience. As much as the human being desires absolute autonomy, the simple truth is that in Christ we are unified to each other. In Christ we are to submit to one another with humble selflessness, giving deference to each other. If a man cannot do this in a local church, how can he have any reasonable expectation of asking men and women to follow his leadership as an undershepherd? How can a pastor hope to lead like Christ unless he can first be led? There is so much emphasis in evangelicalism on being a good leader that many people forget that in order to be a Christ-like servant-leader you must be a Christ-like servant-follower. Pastors are servants, under-shepherds, slaves and messenger boys, called of God to minister to Christ’s Body.

It is within this context that certain men are called out of the body of believers into roles of leadership. Yet, this does not necessarily happen instantaneously. In the examples of Barnabus and his protégé Paul, and then in Paul and his protégés Timothy and Titus, there is a very strong element of pastoral mentoring that occurs.  In this modern era of Christianity, most of the heart of pastoral training is expected to be completed at a seminary. There is on the job training that happens, as with any job, but usually, to be a pastor means that one must go to seminary, get a degree of some kind, and then wait for one’s resume to be picked up by a church somewhere who will then call the candidate in question and examine him. Where is the ownership in the local church for a man’s training and development in such a system?  Seminaries are not bad institutions. There is a lot of good that come out of seminaries, as well as bad. The problem comes when the local church abdicates her responsibility and ability to train her own pastors, missionaries and missionary church planters by farming out the work to the plethora of available para-church organizations and denominational institutions.

Once the pastors or missionaries or missionary church planters are trained and ready, who sends them? Should the local church rely solely on Missions agencies and church planting networks to send their men and women to the field? I think the example of the Holy Spirit through the Church in Antioch is a hearty no! It was the local church in Antioch that sent Barnabas and Paul. The local church must send out her own! This duty, calling and privilege is not the purview of the missions agency or the denomination. Are missions agencies or denominational missions wings bad? Again, not necessarily. Problems arise when local churches renege on their responsibilities. The church must train her people and she must take ownership of her calling before God to send them out among the nations.

Finally, as men and women are sent around the world to spread the good news of the Gospel, it must be done within the realm of planting churches that plant churches. Thus we see the organic nature of the Church: by God’s Grace, in Christ and through the Spirit’s power, churches reproduce. Interestingly enough, the three previous elements of this model happen at this point. One the one hand serving, teaching/learning and sending comes into play with this fourth element; but at the same time, the planted church is learning how to serve, teach/learn and send. In order for a church to be able to plant churches there should be a corporately similar trajectory of growth for the church as their should have been for the missionary church planter.

There are two additional aspects of this model that should be explained.

First, each subsequent element of the model is within the context of the previous element. Every Christian should be a part of a local church, that’s the large context of the model. Yet not everyone will be mentored to be a pastor/church planter. Even fewer will actually become pastors and even fewer will actually become church planters. Of the church planters and the churches that will be planted, even fewer churches will be planted that actually go out themselves to plant churches.

Secondly, every subsequent element of the model envelopes a larger and larger focus. For the first element, the focus is within the local church. As mentorship progresses to being sent the focus grows, finally culminating with an ever-expanding reality of planted churches planting churches for the purpose of worshiping God and evangelizing and discipling of all the peoples in all the lands throughout all the world.

A potentially obvious question is perhaps apparent. How is this incarnational?  I’ll answer that with the last and final post.

There are scores of ideas in our contemporary milieu of evangelical thought on how to best accomplish our Christ-given Great Commission Responsibility. There are many various and sundry models, concepts and strategies that are used to bring the message of Jesus to a lost and dying world in ways that are missional, confrontational, contextual, relevant and incarnational.

All of these ideas and means can be well and good, so long as they are within the realm of biblical thought, principles and orthodoxy. Is that not the rub? Are we biblical in our methodologies or do we evangelize according to our own abilities and devices? Our evangelical strategies and missiological frameworks must be examined in light of and submitted to the Truth of God’s Written Will and Word. As such, please permit me to submit to you a biblical model of incarnational missionary church planting, based on the example of the early Church as led by the Holy Spirit.

As much as we read and hear about the epistle writer Paul, it is very enlightening to understand how Paul became the Missionary Church Planter we read about in the book of Acts and in his letters. After his Damascus Road Experience, Paul does not automatically seek to become a missionary church planter.  After a time of learning from the Lord in Arabia, he sought to be with the disciples, in Damascus and Jerusalem. He recognized the need for the community and accountability that a group of like-minded believers can provide for each other. Then, when the need arose, Barnabas went to Tarsus (where Paul had been sent by the disciples in Jerusalem, because he had severely angered the Hellenists with his bold and biblical preaching), found Paul, brought him back to Antioch and together they ministered to the saints. The Scripture then says that in those days a prophecy was made concerning a famine in Jerusalem, so that the church in Antioch, taking responsibility to help their brothers in Jerusalem, sends Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem with relief. We’re then told in Acts 13:1-3 that while the disciples in Antioch were worshipping and fasting that the Holy Spirit sets Barnabas and Paul apart for the work that was prepared for them to do. And, in obedience, the local church in Antioch sends Barnabas and Paul on God’s mission.

It is in the middle of Acts 13 that we see a major shift in Paul’s Ministry. He takes the lead. The student had concluded that stage of his education and training and took the leadership responsibility of the missionary team. From that point on in Acts, we see Paul planting churches in Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, and Philippi. It is important to note that Paul planted churches in major cities. It is from these urban centers that the indigenous churches were planted and from the urban areas that these planting churches planted.

In addition to Paul, we see this same example of serving/submitting, teaching/learning, sending and planting in Timothy and Titus. Both were men discipled under the ministry of Paul, both were trained in some measure by Paul and both then had the responsibility of discipling, mentoring and leading other men and churches.

Based off of the examples of Barnabas, Paul, Timothy and Titus, I would submit to you the following model for Biblical Missionary Church Planting:

In the next post in this series, I’ll explain what each element of the model means and why it matters.

There is much talk in evangelical circles on living missionally, incarnationally and with relevance.  There are strategies and ideas, concepts and creative methodologies to achieve such a mission.  Some are accused of going too far in this quest, outside of the realm of orthodoxy; and some are accused of not going far enough, not knowing how to get their tushes out of the church pews.  How does one balance these considerations? Here are some thoughts (and Lord willing born out by biblical examples).

To begin with, I believe very strongly that if a person is to minister to a group of people, that person must know the people. In order to know the people, that person must live with the people. To genuinely live with the people, that person must live like the people. This idea is, I believe, firmly rooted in the incarnation of Christ.

On one hand, no man can live incarnationaly like Christ. He is the God-Man, we’re simply men. He humbled himself as deity to live as a human being. I can never hope to come even remotely close to that kind of sacrifice. But, in Christ, I can at least attempt something that is in a similar vein. When Christ came to earth, he did not commune with angels all the time and then at specific times venture out.  He experienced exhaustion like we do. His body needed replenishment like ours does. He went to the bathroom like we do. He felt emotions like we do. He reasoned with a human brain like we do.  He did not cop out or wimp out. He went through what he had to in order to save a people for his Father. In His incarnation He showed just how thoroughly He loves us. He was not sent by the Father to amuse Himself or to please Himself or to have a vacation. He was sent to be incarnated, to live amongst us, in perfection, to die for us and to be raised from the dead for us. If that kind of a mission propelled Christ, should it not also propel us? Are we not striving in this life to be Christ-like?  If a person is called to go overseas or to another culture, should he/she not give up his/her way of life here in the States to serve amongst a people, living for Christ, and learning the ways of another people in order to minister to and make Christ known to them? Or, if you’re not called to go overseas and you’re called to stay at home in the States, should you not study the ways of your people in order to minister to and make Christ known to them?

To think about it another way, the goal of the missionary church-planter is to plant indigenous churches.  If you’re not leaving your home to go serve the Lord in another culture, are you not serving already in indigenous churches? Another example of living incarnationally is the Apostle Paul.  As he rightly declared in Philippians, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews.  Paul knew the Jewish culture, religion, society and way of life.  He was raised with it and before Christ grabbed a hold of him and saved him he worshiped it.  Likewise, as can be seen in Acts 17, Paul knew something of Athenian culture.  He had read their prophets and studied their objects of worship.  Yet Paul, in being “all things to all men” still preached the same message: Christ and Him crucified.  In preaching a message that was absolutely insulting to Hebrews and Greeks (being a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles), Paul ministered and lived and preached and pastored to both groups of people.  Paul did not sit on his haunches.  He went and he lived.  YET, neither did Paul so relate to the culture around him that he destroyed the message of Christ.  In fact, more often this not, he was so ardent in preaching this message that he was almost killed for it, multiple times, and and in very creative and painful ways.  (see Paul’s litany of his sufferings for the sake of Christ in 2 Corinthians 11:16-33).

What does this incarnational ministry look like though?  I’ll give my thoughts of it in the next part.  :-)

In many ways, the Christian life is full of tension. This is seen most acutely in the internal war between the flesh and the spirit. When presented with sin, sometimes parts of us want to sin and we don’t, but sometimes we do. Most of the time we don’t want to sin, we want to do good, but we still sin anyways ( Romans 7:7-25 ).  We live in this world, but we’re not of this world ( John 15:18-19 ). We fight against multi-cultural pluralism, but we must also ward off arrogant ethno-centrism( 1 John 2:15-17 ). We’re not fatalists, but neither are we emotionalists. God’s in control, but we’re still held responsible for our lives. We must communicate the Gospel well, yet we must never ever lost the message of the Truth of Jesus Christ ( 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ).  We plead with men to turn to Jesus and be saved, yet we know that we ultimately have not the ability to save them; we must leave the saving up to God ( Ephesians 1-2 ).  We love our spouses, but we don’t love them the most. We care for our families, yet we understand that eternity will be spent with a much bigger, global family ( Luke 20:34-36 ).  We love our unbelieving friends, but we know that we can never have real, brotherly communion so long as they are apart from Christ ( 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 ).  We strive to be sanctified, but we know we do not ultimately have the power ( John 17:18-23 ).  We preach to the lost and trust God to do His work, but we don’t really know what that might look like; some might believe, but some might also be hardened even further (we thus become God’s tool for a worse condemnation) ( Isaiah 6).  We live on this planet, in nations, societies, clans, cultures and families, yet we know in our heart, in our core, that this world is not our home ( 1 Peter 2:11-12 ).

Why the tension?  Why is the Christian pulled into so many different directions?  Is it a perspective thing?  Some might say that the Christian life could be thought of as an attempt to balance on that wire of tension between any number of extremes. Yet, is this the reality? Is life in Christ about balancing between vastly different (and wrong) ideas, or should it be about standing on the Standard? Is the balance dictated by the extremes, or are the extremes defined by the balance? Is right defined by all the wrong in the world, or is the wrong understood to be wrong by what is right? Is holiness defined by sin or is sin defined by holiness?  Is Truth defined as being non-false, or is False thought of as being  non-True?  Are such distinctions even appropriate?

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.  5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,a’ and will deceive many.  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.  Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains.

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.  At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,  and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.  Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,  but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

- Matthew 24:3-14

Question #1:

When we define “unreached” people groups, how much reliance are we placing on ideas born of sociological, anthropological, linguistic, philosophical and psychiatric disciplines in order to hasten the conclusion of the Great Commission and the advent of Christ’s Return?

Question #2:

In trying to bring about the conclusion of the Great Commission and the advent of Christ’s Return, how much focus are we placing on making people groups “reached” and how much focus are we placing on primarily evangelizing all sinners?

Question #3:

In defining “unreached” people groups, are we considering the effects that time has (in terms of the evolution of language, interbreeding, emerging people groups, etc.) on the structure and makeup of the nations?

Question #4:

Assuming, again, that we are defining people groups correctly and appropriately what is our confidence level that we have done our research correctly? Have we thoroughly mapped these unreached groups (especially to the point that we can confidently expect the return of Christ when the number of unreached people groups reaches zero)?

Question #5:

Are we defining “unreached” correctly?

Question #6:

Are we defining “reached” correctly?

Question #7:

What do we do about the people in the reached group who are born into sin and are outside of Christ? Do we focus too much on the unreached groups such that are we forgetting about generations of new sinners?

Question #8:

In striving so hard to bring Jesus back again, are we failing in our duty and privilege to evangelize the lost in order to get to heaven sooner?

Question #9:

In striving to “evangelize the world in our generation” are we failing to teach the next and upcoming generation[s] to evangelize the lost? Is the Missio Dei so dependent upon us? Have we considered that perhaps God might not complete His Mission in our lifetime? Do we forget that just as the past 2000 years worth of generations were called to evangelize the world, that we are called to that as well and that the generation following us will most likely still have work to do? Are we willing to admit that another generation might very well have the privilege of being on earth when Jesus Returns?

Question #10:

Are we not called to evangelize, making disciples of all peoples and that Christ will always be with us, even to the end of the age? Should we not focus on Christ’s Great Commission and leave the saving, completing and returning up to Him?

]]> http://www.biblicalreformation.com/blog/2009/04/03/the-end-of-the-great-commission-10-questions/feed/ 525 http://www.biblicalreformation.com/blog/2009/02/27/the-non-conditionality-of-god%e2%80%99s-eternal-reality/ http://www.biblicalreformation.com/blog/2009/02/27/the-non-conditionality-of-god%e2%80%99s-eternal-reality/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:38:00 +0000 Andrew J. Nicewander http://www.biblicalreformation.com/blog/?p=748 Continue reading →]]>

God’s self-designation of the “I am” is the only non-conditional reality that can ever be. Or, to phrase it another way, it is the only self-conditional statement that can ever be.

To explain: God cannot be unless he has always been. Existence cannot be unless God is. How is this so? Because everything else that is, is conditioned upon God being. For instance, the very language we use to describe such ideas are dependent upon the condition of God (who made language) being. Our own reality can only be understood with the condition that God is. Creation is conditioned and dependent upon a Creator. Love is conditioned on a Lover. God’s Grace is conditioned on the reality of sin (as well as the Sinner and the Grace-Giver) which is conditioned upon God’s Holiness which is conditioned on the essence of God’s character which is conditioned on God’s existence. If God is not the “I am”, then there is no such thing as holiness and thereby no standard with which to condition sin and thereby no sinner and thereby no Grace to save us from our sin. Scripture is conditioned by the reality of a God who reveals Himself and Truth itself is conditioned upon a God who defines it.

Because God is, reality itself is possible and in fact actual. God’s existence is because He is. He is because He exists. He is the un-conditioned Reality from which all reality is understood and known. He is not bound to any external understandings or realities. He defines what is, because He is. He is the un-influenced Influencer, the un-moved Mover, the non-Created Creator, and the non-conditioned Reality.

There has been a good amount of discussion in recent weeks and months within Baptist circles on how exactly we are to “do church” and “do worship” and “do missions”.  As such, there is a great deal of healthy suspicion of ideas that are new and different.  Much of the concern is justified.  If we are worshiping or witnessing or evangelizing in a way that supersedes the truths of Scripture, or if we are not trusting God to communicate, through His Word, but are rather trusting ourselves and our own clever creativity, then we have some real soul-searching to do.

My question then is this: Is it not possible that our traditional ways of doing evangelism and worship and Christian living should also be subjected to the same scrutiny?  If we sang fewer songs or prayed at different parts of the service or ceased having a Baptist Altar Call, would our members think that we had left a Biblically prescribed mode of worship?  If we stopped handing out tracts or going door-to-door, would our people believe that we had stopped evangelizing biblically?  Has our understanding of the Bible become so wed to our traditions that anything besides those traditions smacks to us of heresy (or at least the seeds of it)?

Put another way, is it not possible that our insistence on doing church and evangelism “biblically” is really an attempt to communicate the Bible to our church members (in good standing) in ways that they will understand?  And is this communication of a nature such that we are practicing the same distrust and disdain for the power and efficacy of the Scriptures (and dare I say, of the Gospel itself) that we suspect and charge the “new” and the “different” with?

Are we really looking to live biblically as Christians, or is our understanding of Christ, the Church and how we relate to both fundamentally dependent on our own understanding?  Are we submitting to Christ and to His Word, or are we judging others by our faulty standards, traditions, restraints, constraints and assumptions?

In my reading this morning I read Psalm 62.

For God alone^(B) my soul^(C) waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
^(D) He only is my rock and my salvation,
my^(E) fortress;^(F) I shall not be greatly shaken.

How long will all of you attack a man
to batter him,
like^(G) a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
They only plan to thrust him down from his^(H) high position.
They take pleasure in falsehood.
^(I) They bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse.

Selah

For God alone, O^(J) my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
^(K) He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my^(L) salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock,^(M) my refuge is God.

^(N) Trust in him at all times, O people;
^(O) pour out your heart before him;
God is^(P) a refuge for us.
Selah

^(Q) Those of low estate are but a breath;

those of high estate^(R) are a delusion;

in the balances they go up;

they are together lighter than a breath.

Put no trust in extortion;

^(S) set no vain hopes on robbery;

^(T) if riches increase, set not your heart on them.

^(U) Once God has spoken;
^(V) twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and that to you, O Lord,^(W) belongs steadfast love.
For you will^(X) render to a man
according to his work.

-Psalm 62

During the rest of this election season both candidates will promise us a better economy, better national security, better health care, and a generally better life.

As such, we would do well to remember the words of Psalm 62.  John McCain and Barack Obama are but a breath.  They’re a vapor.  In and of themselves they are simply vanity.  But the Lord, He is our refuge and our trust.  No matter who wins this presidential election, we are assured of this, that the Lord is still reigning, that God is still ruling, and that His Purposes will never be thwarted.

For God alone , O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

Being a human being, I’m a sinner.  And, being a sinner, I sin.  And, one of my sins that I commit is discontentment.  And, being a human who is a sinner, and thus sins by being discontent, I am also prone to envy.  I don’t think that this is necessarily a sin that I have some corner on.  In fact, I would wager to think that there are a fairly large amount of people who are also humans and sinners and discontent-ers and envy-ers and thus it is a problem somewhat common among members the human race.

Well, this morning in my daily Bible reading I came across verse 2 of Judges chapter 13:

“There was a certain man of^(C) Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah.^(D) And his wife was barren and had no children.”

Up until about 5 months ago I would have read that and promptly moved on.  After all, the nice little headers that the NASB translators put on my study bible said that this was a chapter on Samson, and being a man who used to be a little feller who used to sit in Sunday School, I was fairly familiar with Samson and his prodigious and legendary strength (Samson also had an awesome Cool Factor going for him).  But, since I got married 5 months ago, and thanks be to God me and my wife got pregnant very quickly, pregnancy has been a fairly huge part of our life for practically our whole marriage.  Thus, when I got to verse 2, I paused for a moment.

I got to thinking about Samson’s mom.  This was a gal who was barren.  And being barren was not a good thing.  I’m quite sure that she probably had a good amount of friends who either had been pregnant, or were pregnant, and I’m also fairly sure that she probably felt left out a good deal of the time.  In fact, seeing as she was a sinner and being a sinner, sinned, she probably dealt with at least a small measure of discontent.  And, since she was a sinner who did indeed sin who was also discontent, she probably experienced at least a little bit of envy of all of her friends.

So, I realized that Samson’s mom and I have something in common!  We both struggle[d] with discontent and envy!  Well, whoop-de-freakin’-da.  Thankfully, we have the rest of chapter 13 and 14 and 15, and we see that though Samson’s mom was barren, she not only gave birth to Samson, but she gave birth to a legend (flawed as the man was…).  But then, I though of Hannah and Elizabeth, mother’s of Samuel and John and I realized that those two ladies probably struggled with the same envy, yet look how the Lord saw fit to use the sons they ended up having for His purposes!  Heck, if you wanna go back even further, you see how the Lord used Sarah and her barren womb to birth the child of promise, Isaac!

Does this mean that if we’re in a place where we’re discontent that God will do something miraculous and use us in a super-duper mighty way?  Na, not necessarily.  But, we can take comfort from the fact that He is working even in the midst of our discontent and that His purposes are never thwarted or swayed.

One of our pastors, Larry Vincent has started a new series on Ephesians.  During the introduction today he listed seven questions that help define the structure for the book.

1)How did you become a believer?
2)Why did God save us?
3)What are we do to now that we are saved?
4)What are our means for having our minds changed?
5)What’s our standard for assessing our behavior?
6)How does this affect the way we relate to other people?
7)What opposition will we face?

A wonderful point that Larry made this morning was the idea that thoughts always proceed actions.  Belief always proceeds behavior.  A Christian cannot love like Christ if he/she doesn’t understand the doctrine of Christ.  To attempt to love like Christ without this doctrine is to not love at all.  To have the doctrine of Christ, yet not love like Him shows that that doctrine is not of Christ.

May God give us the Grace to be consistent with how we apply the beautiful teachings that He gives us in His Word.