Month: July 2015

Counted Worthy

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Friday I am heading to Europe with a mission team to Hungary and Romania and I will take a short jaunt down to Serbia on my own apart from the team. I will be teaching at a churches in Budapest and Eger, Hungary and in Subotica, Serbia, and the team will be doing 2 week-long youth outreaches – one in Eger, Hungary and the other in Bistrita, Romania – which will be youth camps where we will teach English and hope to build relationships through which will share the Gospel with these young people.

We created a website where you can follow us; all the team members are registered as authors, and will be posting photos and updates over the 2 week trip.  Here’s that site: https://whitefieldsmissions.wordpress.com

On Sunday I taught Acts chapter 5 at White Fields, and there is this phrase in there which is captivating: that the apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name [of Christ] (Acts 5:41).

That evening, my son told me that there was a “stinky mud” coming up from the drain into our basement shower. You might have already guessed, but it wasn’t exactly mud – it was sewage. I spent that whole night and most of the next day snaking our sewer line, ripping out carpet, and bleaching walls because of the sewage that had come up into the bathroom…

The next morning we got an email from the church in Eger, that many of their key members for this outreach had come down with the flu; one even had to be taken to the hospital.

My wife’s comment on Facebook in response to all of this?  “Rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer for His name!”

What a grand perspective that is!  And what a much neglected perspective that is, amongst so many Christians! When the reaction of so many is: “Why would you let this happen to me, God!?”  – the response of rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer for His name is absolutely counter-cultural.

Paul the Apostle talks about the “fellowship of suffering”:  that I may know [Christ] and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 2:10)

What Paul is talking about is a special kind of fellowship you can have with Jesus in your suffering.

Not to say that what we went through was particularly abnormal or outstanding, but I believe the perspective is a good and important one to have no matter the degree of your trial, and particularly when those trials come in relation to serving Jesus.

Worst Sermon Ever

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On Saturday night I was struck with a feeling that I have from time to time: that my sermon for Sunday was not good. I was convinced it was one of my worst sermons ever.

As I looked it over I thought: My exegesis and hermeneutics are good, I’m presenting the Gospel and talking about how the Gospel speaks to all of life…  The essential elements were in place, so what was I worried about?

Maybe I was just tired from the long drive back from California, maybe I was just feeling that the final draft wasn’t like the way I originally envisioned the message. But I went to church on Sunday morning asking God more than usual to speak through me, even through this message.

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. But here’s the irony: it seems that every time I feel this way, convinced that my sermon – although it has all the right elements – is not my best, God seems to use it in an extra special way.

This Sunday, through this message, I had more than one person respond to my invitation to give their life to Jesus and make a decision for him. Another person told my wife that it was the best sermon I had ever preached. I got several emails and text messages after church about the message from people saying they were encouraged and blessed by it.  Here’s the audio of that message.

On a previous occasion, where I specifically remember telling my wife that my sermon was going to be my worst ever, I preached a message which again someone afterwards told me was my best ever, and now has also become one of my favorite sermons as well. When it recently aired on our radio program on GraceFM, we had several people contact our church asking for copies of it. A newer member of our church ran across that message a week or so ago and shared it on Facebook, and then wrote me that if I preached that message every Sunday, he would come – it was the best sermon he’d ever heard in his life. Here’s the audio of that message.

What should I make of this?

I heard Timothy Keller say once in a lecture to pastors about preaching, that we should always seek to prepare “Good Sermons” – meaning that we should make sure all the essential elements are in there: good exegesis and hermeneutics, good presentation of the Gospel and of Jesus as the answer to all the riddles, that they are “Good”. Our job is to prepare “Good Sermons” – because only God can make a sermon “Great” – and that happens, when the Holy Spirit takes our “Good Sermons” and makes them “Great” in the hearts and minds of our hearers. If we try to make “Great Sermons” we will be trying too hard to do something that only God can do.

When I heard him say that, I agreed in theory that he was right, but more and more I am experiencing the reality myself. God likes to glorify Himself, and it’s less about me that I am inclined to think. Praise God for that.

Pastors’ Conference

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I just spent the past week at the Calvary Chapel Pastor’s Conference in Costa Mesa, CA. 

Even though the church I lead is called White Fields, I was ordained in Calvary Chapel and have many good relationships there, and very much respect for the core values and aspirations of the movement.

One of the best things about these conferences is the fellowship with other pastors – having so many people together who are doing the same work, facing the same issues and working for the same things for the same reasons is rare, and very refreshing.

I remember one leader I worked with who used to discribe these kinds of meetings as being like Gilgal: the place in the book of Joshua that was the home base of the people of Israel during the time they were moving out to take conquest of the land which God had promised to give them, but which they had to go out and take by faith, but with much work.

This leader would say: This is our Gilgal. We go out into the fight, steping out in faith, obeying God, fighting to take hold of territory – and we come back here, after our defeats, after our victories, to worship, to encourage each other, to share stories from the field of what we experienced: to celebrate victories, to lick each others wounds – and then we go out again.

I’ve always considered that a great analogy of these kinds of gatherings, and that is certainly what this conference was like for me. I’m feeling blessed and refreshed and excited to get back to the work that God has called me to in Colorado.

Tomorrow we will begin the drive back to Colorado from Southern California… Pray for us… 18 hours, to make it there for church on Sunday… 

My Thoughts on the Supreme Court Ruling on Gay Marriage

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I have been hesitant to write anything about the SCOTUS ruling which disallowed States to ban gay marriage, simply because I have seen how social media has been so consumed by it, and it is clearly an issue which people have made a dividing line, which greatly saddens me. My initial feeling was that it is a lose-lose to write anything on the issue for these reasons, but I keep returning to the idea that I should share some thoughts, since the purpose of this blog is to give a pastor’s voice on happenings in society.

So here are some thoughts:

I’m not surprised by the decision. It didn’t happen overnight. This is the culmination of things which have been in the works for a long time. The debate is basically between identity and practice. For some time now in our society, there has been a movement pushing to see homosexuality as an identity which a person is inherently given, and therefore not to act on it would be to betray who they fundamentally are. The Bible, on the other hand, doesn’t say that homosexuality is a person’s fundamental identity, but that it is a practice – but not who a person is. A person may have inclinations towards certain behavior, but that doesn’t mean that they must act on those inclinations at risk of betraying who they are – rather every person must choose to deny certain inclinations and act on others, and the Bible says that homosexuality is a behavior which should be denied – not an identity which defines who a person is.

The Supreme Court’s decision marks a change in the cultural climate – where now homosexuality is to be celebrated and anyone who doesn’t celebrate it will be marginalized. Whereas historically in America, for the most part churches and religious organizations have been regarded in a positive light, that is less and less the case, as they are increasingly being portrayed as “hate” groups, unless they are willing to compromise convictions held for thousands of years. This change of climate is something American Christians are not used to, although it does exist in other places in the world – namely Canada and France.

The biggest implication for churches will not be in the realm of officiating or hosting homosexual marriages. See this article for more details on that.  The biggest implication in the long term for churches will be in the area of tax exempt status. Just this past week, Time published an article in which the author stated that “Now’s the time to end tax exemptions for religious institutions”. The author references a 1983 court ruling from a case involving Bob Jones University, which stated that a school could lose tax-exempt status if its policies violated “fundamental national public policy,” and states that in light of the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, this might now be applied to religious organizations.
That prospect seems daunting to many Christians, and I personally wouldn’t like to see that happen – but I do keep in mind that the early Christians had no money, no tax exemptions, they were considered an illegal religion for hundreds of years and were considered radical in their statement that Jesus was the only way to heaven.  And yet, the message of the Gospel changed lives and brought about love and new life, whether it was legal or illegal, preached in a tax exempt mega-church or an underground meeting.
You may not agree with the direction things are changing, but we can have confidence both historically and eschatologically of the victory of Jesus and the ultimate need of every person in the world for the Good News of the Gospel to give them new life.