I had the opportunity this past weekend to have the privilege of preaching at a DNOW in the Huntsville area that included 9 participating churches. These Student Ministers put together a great even and Summit Crossings Church in Huntsville had a great worship center to host the event. The Museum did a great job leading worship for the three services. I love doing events like these, and when they are well put together like this one it makes them a breeze! Thank you Madison Student Ministers for inviting me to preach to your students! Below are a couple of iPhone pics from the weekend.

Below is a pic of the table I got to preach from at Summit Crossings. It was made from a stump that was found on the current church property. It’s awesome.

In December I had the opportunity to complete a milestone that seemed I had been working toward forever. On December 17th I graduated from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with my Master of Divinity. I am grateful for the opportunity to receive this degree and thankful to be … done! Below are some pics of the big day.

Image via wikipedia.com

I remember as a 7th grader the awesome fad (in my 7th grade opinion) of “tight rolling” your jeans. This was true art in middle school. It was taking the jeans pants leg and pulling it out to the side and folding it over and then rolling it where the jeans fit tightly around the ankle. This fad was being rocked at its peak if you could pull it off with a pair of white Guess jeans with the triangle on the pocket. It was incredibly awesome. Unfortunately, this fad did not last. If I tried to pull that look off today I would probably sit alone a lot at public functions. It was a fad. It was cool for about 15 minutes and then it was just silly, and now it is a tad embarrassing.

If you have heard or seen any statistics over the years you know that for many teenagers their faith is a fad. For some it is simply something they toy with in high school, abandon in college, and for some never return to. Thankfully, it is not this way for all. I personally was saved at 17 and God is still growing and teaching me today. However, the sad reality is that for some their faith is simply not genuine, not lasting. It fails to produce lasting fruit. Some blame the church for this. They blame the church for pushing people away, being legalistic, unloving, judgmental, and uncaring. While the church is full of imperfect people who make mistakes daily, let’s not fail to realize that the church is not the author nor the finisher of faith. The bottom line is that Jesus is Savior and Sustainer, and he finishes what he starts. God certainly works through His people and the Christian community is the context in which our faith is lived out but Jesus has never had to say “oops.” While the church needs to seek to be loving and authentic and it needs to concern itself with those that wander from the truth; we must remember that for someone to have an enduring faith that is not merely a fad it must be genuine faith. So, we need not only ask questions about how we treat people but also how we share the message. In emphasizing life change are we also emphasizing that this only comes through believing the gospel? Are we truly preaching the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? We can talk about “turning a life over to God” or “living for God” or “being on fire for God” but those are generic terms that do not communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ that is essential for true life change.

Some music is classic and will be played for decades, some fashions never go completely out of style. Genuine saving faith is not a teenage years fad, it is a lasting transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit when one truly believes the gospel. Let us not settle for anything less in our churches.

I would say that many that profess Christ in our culture today go as far as not only to separate the “sacred and secular” but to actually behave one way in one world and a different way in another.  It has become common place for some to divide up or segment their life into “worship” that takes place on Sunday from “living” that takes place every other day.  Most would probably deny such a thing if asked, because we should easily recognize this as hypocrisy.  But the truth is it happens.  I think many people fail to have a proper view of worship and with that a proper view of life.  It’s easy to call what happens on Sunday morning worship, and it is.  Many people however do not seem to see that life is meant to be lived in worship at all times.  Our very lives are meant to be offered up to God in worship, this is the very essence of Christian living.  The Gospel frees us from sin and to truly worship the living God.  As Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 5:15, “and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (ESV)

There may be no greater text to sum up the essence of living a life of worship than Romans 12:1-2.  Recently I had the great privilege of preaching on life and worship from Romans 12:1-2.  Feel free to visit the link below to hear the sermon.

Sermon Link: Life and Worship (Romans 12:1-2)

I don’t know if Joshua in the Bible struggled with this fear, but I do know that in Joshua 1 God challenges and encourages Joshua and the things He shares with Joshua are a great remedy to this fear.  God had been preparing Joshua to take over after Moses’ death for a long time.  It was Joshua who traveled a portion of the way up Mt. Sinai when Moses’ went to meet with God.  It was Joshua who was 1 of the 12 chosen to scope out Canaan, and he was one of only 2 with a good report that would get to see the Promise Land.  He was greatly prepared.  But imagine being Joshua, you are following Moses! One of the greatest leaders in history! One can only imagine the weight he may have felt going from being Moses’ assistant to the leader of God’s people.  So what would God say to him as he launched out to lead the people of God?

[5] “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. [6] Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. [7] Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. [8] This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. [9] Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5-9 ESV)

God tells Joshua to “be strong and courageous.” Based on what?  Based on his experience?  Based on his abilities, talents, and gifts?  No, it was based on one simple fact.  God would be with him. God’s presence would be with Joshua.  God’s power would be with Joshua, hence no man being able to “stand before” him.  God simply asked him to be strong, God was providing the strength and to be courageous and God was giving him the reason.  God only asked that in his new journey he be obedient, specifically in regards to the Law.

We need to redefine failure.  Failure to the world and to God can look very different.  The world desires achievement. God desires obedience.  God is not seeking superstar salesmen, famous preachers, and award-winning doctors.  God is seeking an obedient people, who are confident in God’s abilities more than their own.

Many times I wonder if our fear of failure is actually a sign of over confidence in the flesh or at the very least a lack of faith and focus on God.  We must get our eyes off of ourselves and set them on the one who is “with us” and “will not forsake” us.  How could you not want to obey a God like that?  He is worthy of our obedience. And when we obey we do not fail.

Image Via photosfan.com/Stephen-Hawking

Dr. Stephen Hawking is regarded by many as one of the smartest people in the world.  As a scientist his research is well-respected by many.  On Monday I read an article where Hawking called Heaven and the afterlife, “a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” For those who don’t know Hawking suffers from “motor neurone disease.”  One of the effects of the disease is that e is unable to speak without the aid of a voice synthesizer, he also suffers from being paralyzed to a great degree.  Hawking apparently has admitted according to the article that at least one of the reasons he is taking such a negative view of Heaven and God is the suffering of his own disease.  The sad reality is that the Gospel offers hope to all of us who have been impacted by sin.  There is coming a day when all believers in Christ will be gloriously be transformed and sin will be done away with along with all its effects.  There will be no sickness, no pain, no suffering.  We believers will in fact have a glorified body designed to live forever in perfect health so that we can worship and serve God without hindrance for all eternity.  I’m thankful that Heaven is no “fairy story for those afraid of the dark.” It’s as real as God, as real as Christ, and as certain as His resurrection.  Stephen Hawking has suffered much in this life and I only pray that he will be surrounded by Christians who would be faithful to share the truth while not looking for a fight.  When we hear words like Hawking’s coming from someone with much influence in the scientific world it may be easy for one to get in “fight” mode and to say things that are mean-spirited.  Even biblical truth can be shared in an un-biblical spirit.  Paul taught if one doesn’t teach, preach, share, and minister in love they are simply a clanging symbol.  No doubt most of us will never meet Stephen Hawking, but many of us will meet people like Hawking.  People who think they have it figured out, people who have been impacted by experiencing or witnessing suffering in this world, and people who scoff at the idea of God and Gospel.  In those moments we need to be a people who share the truth in a spirit of love.  May Hawking’s life be impacted by many who believe in what he calls a “fairy story.”  Let’s pray that God would open his eyes and those like him to truth of the Gospel so that He can know our great God and have no reason to be afraid of eternal darkness.

Click on the link below to listen to the sermon I had the privilege of sharing at MeadowBrook Baptist following the tornado disaster that drastically effected our state that Wednesday.  The sermon text is Romans 8:17-39.

LISTEN TO: PRESENT SUFFERING AND FUTURE GLORY

What does it mean to say that in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself?

To answer the question “what does it mean to say that in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself” one must first understand the world needs to be reconciled to God. In this paper one will see that, to say that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself” is to say that Jesus makes it possible for us to be in right relationship with God.   Reconciliation means, “The removal of enmity and the restoration of fellowship between two parties.”[i] This means there must be broken fellowship between God and the world for there to be a need for reconciliation.  This broken fellowship and enmity is caused by sin.  Wayne Grudem writes, “The history of the human race as presented in Scripture is primarily a history of man in a state of sin and rebellion against God and of God’s plan of redemption to bring man back to himself.”[ii] Grudem goes on to correctly define sin as “any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.”[iii]  The Bible is very clear that we are all sinners (Romans 3:23).  This sin that man has chosen since the Garden of Eden brings with it the judgment of God (Romans 1:18).  God, being the holy, just, and righteous God that He is, must punish sin.  He hates sin.  Therefore man’s fellowship with God is broken because of sin and man is marred at his very core with a nature to sin.

With man marred by sin and a slave to his sinful passions (Romans 6:17), and with the judgment of God on his life (John 3:18), God in His love, mercy, and grace chose to make a way for man to once again be in right relationship with Him.  The way in which God has provided for man to be reconciled or made right with Him again is in Jesus Christ and Him alone (John 14:6).

When one speaks of Christ in terms of reconciliation one may speak of His person and His work.  In referring to the person of Christ, one is referring to the fact Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.  Jesus Christ is 100 percent God and 100 percent man.  He is the sinless Son of God.  That is what one means by the person of Christ.  In referring to Christ’s work one is referring to what Christ did and is doing to reconcile God and man.

As I learned in Stacey Boutwell’s Systematic Theology class, “Most of the historical treatments of Christ’s work are individualistic.  They miss the scale of what God has done is doing in Christ.” While Jesus’ work secures the eternity of each individual believer, His work has a much broader scope as well.  Christ’s focus in the New Testament is the Kingdom of God.  As Boutwell taught, “From that perspective, his work has a cosmic and eschatological reference.” Through His death, burial, and resurrection Christ has inaugurated the Kingdom.  Through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the spread of the Gospel on the planet the Kingdom work is being done.  When Christ returns to the earth the work of the Kingdom will be consummated. (Stacey Boutwell’s Class Notes)

Through His death, burial, and resurrection Christ has purchased redemption for mankind and made it possible for God and man to be reconciled.  2 Corinthians 5:18-19 states, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;  that is, in Christ God was reconciling  the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” (ESV) Of the term “reconciliation” in this text, John MacArthur writes, “The terms always portray God as the reconciler and sinners as the ones reconciled, since it was human sin that ruptured the relationship between God and man.”[iv] Reconciliation is an act of grace on God’s behalf.  It is initiated and carried out by God.  It is God who pursues man and God who makes reconciliation possible.[v] Through His work Jesus satisfies the righteous demands of God, taking the full brunt of God’s wrath (Propitiation). He also makes it possible for man to be cleansed from His sin and to be declared just in the eyes of God.  He’s the sacrifice for our sins that makes it possible for us to be in God’s presence, the victor over sin and death, and the perfect demonstrator of the love of God. (Stacey Boutwell’s Class Notes) It is important to note God reconciling the world to Himself through Christ does not mean everyone gains a right relationship with God.  The above passage in 2 Corinthians 5 that states that God was “reconciling the world” does not mean that everyone is forgiven.  MacArthur writes, “World, in this context, indicates the sphere in which reconciliation takes place; it denotes the class of beings with whom God seeks reconciliation-people from every national, racial, and ethnic group.”[vi]  Only those who have turned from their sin and personally placed their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will be reconciled to God.

As one can see, to say, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself” is to say that Jesus makes it possible for us to be in right relationship with God.  It is also important to note that Christ not only reconciles us to God but it is through His reconciled people that God spreads this message of reconciliation.  2 Corinthians 5:20 is clear, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (ESV) John MacArthur writes, “It is to all reconciled people that God gives the ministry of reconciliation.”[vii]  What a gracious privilege God has given the forgiven to share with others how they also can be reconciled to God through His Son Jesus Christ.