Sunday May 23rd, Happy Pentecost!

Happy Pentecost!

Today we celebrate one of the most important events in the entire Christian calendar.  The feast of Pentecost is just as important as Christmas and Easter.  Every year around Christmas, you see articles ‘dis-proving’ the virgin birth.  Every Easter, someone writes about how the crucifixion was cosmic child abuse and the resurrection is a myth.  Do you know what horrendous thing the unbelievers think about Pentecost?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!  Do you know why?  Because they don’t care.  In fact, if you are visiting today, you only really know what’s going on if you grew up in church.

If Pentecost is as important to the Christian faith as we say, why does our culture not think to even give Pentecost enough credit to try and discredit it?  Because it’s weird, and they don’t understand it.  We can understand the birth of a savior.  We can understand the death of a martyr.  We can understand resurrection as a principle.  For some reason, we cannot understand what it is we celebrate on Pentecost.

Why can’t our culture understand what happens on Pentecost?  For the simple reason that when we think of the term “The Holy Spirit” we tend to think of it in a way that is absolutely alien to that of the world of the First Century Church.

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Philippiand Devotional Week 10

Day One

Philippians 2:25-27

 Pray for God to show you the godly character of Epaphroditus in such a way that it challenges you to grow in your service of Him.

 In 2:17-24 Paul has offered as examples for Christ-like self-sacrifice respectively himself and Timothy.  In these verses, he turns our attention to Epaphroditus.  Epaphroditus, unlike Paul and Timothy, is not a famous super star Christian.  He isn’t a bold and courageous missionary like Paul, and he’s not a super-pastor like Timothy.  Epaphroditus is just a man that the Philippians trusted to bring a gift to Paul.  Epaphroditus emulates that Christ-centeredness of Timothy in looking to Christ’s interests over his own in a different way.  When Epaphroditus becomes sick and approaches death’s door, his first concern is for how sad his church will be to hear the news!  He doesn’t care about his own illness, but about the church’s distress.  Needless to say, this kind of selflessness is not common in the church.  Epaphroditus, however, loves Jesus enough to trust Him with his well-being.  Can we?

1. What does this passage say?

2. What does this passage mean?

3. How do you respond when you face hardship?  Illness?  Financial worries?  Relational strife? 

4. Are you more concerned with how it will affect you or others?

Prayer:  Almighty God, we thank you for the selfless sacrifice of your Son, Jesus.  Send us your Spirit to cure us of our own selfishness and self-centeredness that following Him, we might find our joy in living not for ourselves alone but for Him who died for us and those He died for.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

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Willing to suffer for the name… Acts 21:1-16 Sept 21

In the first part of Acts chapter 21, Paul is repeatedly warned that when he arrives in Jerusalem, he’ll face persecution, imprisonment, and hardship.  Yet, Paul still goes.  Why?  What reasons does he give in Acts 20:24-5?  What kind of character does Paul show in Acts 21:13?  What is his attitude towards suffering?  How do you tend to view the possibility of future suffering in your own life?  Does it make you anxious?  Does it point you towards Jesus?  Have you ever felt ready to suffer for the sake of Jesus?

In Acts 21:4 and 21:11, the Holy Spirit tells Paul about what he’ll face in Jerusalem.  How does Paul know to keep pushing ahead?  What priority is it for Paul to stay safe?  How does Paul view his life (Philippians 1:21)?  What does it mean that ‘to die is gain’?  What does it mean that ‘to live is Christ’?

Most people either view living as Christ or dieing as gain.  In other words, some people have so much joy in this life, that they don’t have much concern for what happens to them in the life to come.  Paul has this to say about the life to come, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing witht the glory that is to be revealed to us (Roms 8:18).”  If that’s true with our sufferings, how much more true must it be in our pleasures!  Other people know they are miserable in this life, so they have no hope except to die and go to heaven!  Look at Paul’s attitude in Philippians 3:12.  Is he just simply waiting for heaven? 

Which is easier for you, to focus on the pleasures of this life to the exclusion of the joys of heaven, or to focus on the joys of heaven to the exclusion of the presence of Christ now? 

In Philippians 3:12, Paul says that he strives to make Christ his own.  How can we strive to make Christ our treasure now so that, for us, ‘to live is Christ’?  Some suggestions: Colossians 3:16-17; Ephesians 5:18-20

(note: notice the correlation between being ‘drunk in the spirit,’ and letting ‘the word of Christ dwell in you richly)

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A Vision for Your City… September 7, 2008

As we looked at the church in Corinth, we learned how Paul could love an unloveable church in an unloveable city. Namely, Paul was deeply convinced of the truths of the Gospel. That he was a sinner deserving condemnation, but God had been gracious to him. Therefore, Paul could no longer write anyone off as undeserving of God’s grace because he knew himself to be the chief of sinners. In fact, it was for this very reason that Paul was able to write this to the church in Corinth.
In Acts 19 we learn how not just how we can have hope for our city, but what we can have hope for. 

Read Acts 19:17-20 What were the people in Ephesus given to?  Was the church exempt?  Is there anything wrong with this?  What? 

Do you see any problems in your own city?  What are the major sins your city is known for?  Is the church taking part in them? 

In Acts 19:17 How is the church freed from this sin?  Is it through social reforms?  Legal sanctions? 

What we see in Ephesus is that these things can do only so much in a city, but they can never change a person’s heart.  According to the Scriptures, only the Gospel can change our hearts.

How could the gospel change the face of our community?  How could we take part in that process? 

Read 1 Corinthians 9:16 Why does Paul preach the gospel? Is it a duty to him? Do you feel compelled to preach?
Do you think if we were “compelled to preach” like Paul, it could change the heart of this city?

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Praise, One of the Chief Employments of Heaven

“Come Lord Jesus.” Christians have been praying that prayer for two thousand years. I pray that prayer too. Mostly, I pray it when i wake up at 6:00 in the morning. Or when I know that I’m gonna be out of the house every night of the week with work. Or when I’m tired and I just wanna take a nap in the afternoon, but I can’t because I have a job.  That’s usually when I pray “Come Lord Jesus.”  Where’s my heart in that?  Most of us have a picture of heaven revolving around something that we love.  Some people can’t wait to get to heaven, because they won’t be sick there.  Some people are waiting for world peace.  Some just want to take a nap.  In Praise, One of the chief Employments of Heaven Jonathan Edwards presents a challenging view of heaven that every Christian has to come to terms with.
     Of the saints in heaven, Edwards has this to say, “They are not idle.  They have there much to do.  They have a work before them that will fill up eternity.”  Wait a minute!?!  I thought heaven was gonna be a big nap! Edwards affirms that life in heaven will be restful, “But yet the rest of heaven does not consist in idleness, anda cessation of all action, but only a cessation from all the trouble and toil and tediousness of action.” The picture Edwards paints of heaven is one of the saints bending all of their energies eternally towards the praise of their Creator, which, according to Edwards, is why the voice of those praising God in heaven is as the voice of many waters and loud thunder!

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Good Theology, Depression, and the Psalms

Fighting to Hope in God

In all of this, he is fighting for hope. Verse 5: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” Verse 11: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” He is not surrendering to the emotions of discouragement. He is fighting back.

I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times in the last twenty-eight years at Bethlehem I have fought back the heaviness of discouragement with these very words: “Hope in God, John. Hope in God. You will again praise him. This miserable emotion will pass. This season will pass. Don’t be downcast. Look to Jesus. The light will dawn.” It was so central to our way of thinking and talking in the early eighties that we put a huge “Hope in God” sign on the outside wall of the old sanctuary and became known around the neighborhood as the “Hope in God” church.

His external circumstances are oppressing. His internal emotional condition is depressed and full of turmoil. But he is fighting for hope. And the really remarkable thing is that at the end of the psalm, he is still fighting but not yet where he wants to be. The last words of the psalm—and the last words of the next psalm—are “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” He leaves us still fighting for the joyful experience of hope and freedom from turmoil. He is not yet praising the way he wants to.

 

read it all here
listen to audio here

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A Divine and Supernatural Light…

One of the most serious concerns I see in the hearts of people in the church is whether they have made a genuine profession of faith.  In churches where free will is overemphasized, people fear that they have not been earnest enough in their commitment and come forward again and again to “make a decision for Christ.”  I have even heard people say, “it took me 42 times going forward for altar calls before I finally got it right”!  On the other hand, in churches where God’s election is emphasized at all, I have seen parishioners who fear lest they be among those whom God has not chosen and they just don’t know it!

Of course, I believe that this is a fear that God desires none of His children to live under, and I believe that Scripture answers this.  Particularly, Scripture answers this anxiety from shifting our trust away from our own personal decision towards the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. 

It was to answer this question that Jonathan Edwards ascended the pulpit in Northampton in 1734 to preach on Matthew 16:17 “And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:  for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.“  In his sermon “A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be Both Scriptural and Rational Doctrine.”  Jonathan Edwards tries to discover what evidences we may find that God is doing this work that “flesh and blood” cannot do, but only the “Father which is in heaven.”

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Monthly Edwards

Does the name Jonathan Edwards ring a bell?  If you’re response is “Isn’t he the guy who preached ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” you don’t know the man!  You might as well describe George Washington as “that guy who killed all those English people,” or “the guy who built that big house in Virginia”.  If you’ve only ever thought of him as a hell fire and damnation preacher, you’re sadly mistaken.  Jonathan Edwards is quite possibly one of the most profound theologians in the history of America.  Reading his sermons, more than almost anything I’ve ever read, consistantly causes my heart to burst with love for Christ.  These sermons sparked the revival which has come to be known as “The Great Awakening.”  It is said that the man preached in a totally monotonous voice, but because of the depth of his theology and the force of the images he used while preaching, it was not uncommon to see people in the audience swoon and pass out, cry out in anguish, or be reduced to sobbing.  Possibly his most significant contribution to Reformed Theology comes from his own reflections on watching this revival.  The writings and sermons of Jonathan Edwards read very much like a medical textbook for the soul.  Suffice it to say, I think that all of us neglect Jonathan Edwards at our own peril.  So, my solution to this is to lay out on this blog Your Monthly Edwards.  Each month I’ll be reviewing and summarizing a Jonathan Edwards sermon for your own edification.  Enjoy…

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