Healthy Fear

"There is no fear of God before their eyes" is the commentary of people who don't know God in Romans 3:18.  I'm afraid this same problem has carried into the church even after people have accepted Christ as their Savior.  Could it be that it is the way we present salvation in the first place?   Many teach that your sin will send you to hell if you don't repent. The Bible says God himself will send all those to hell that do not confess their sin to God and accept Jesus as their Lord. The more I get relational with God the more I understand how we were created in His image.

Sin is not just an inanimate object but an offence against the Creator of the universe.  The reason we don't see the life change in our churches after salvation is because we failed to put the gospel in the context of a relationship.  Paul spends a lot of time in Ephesians 5:1-11 describing the difference of a child of light and a child of darkness.  We must understand that God is offended by sin, both by the lost and the saved.  Again in Romans 6:1, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid!"

The problem is we don't have any fear of God.  There are churches that take communion every Sunday using 1 Corinthians 11 as their model but yet they don't instruct the people to examine themselves and make sure they are not living in offence to the gospel which has caused many to be sick and some to die.  Yes die!!  When a christian becomes on offence to the gospel they will be chastened (convicted) by the Lord.  If the chastening doesn't work then He scourges (whips) every son (Hebrews 12:5-11).

We as pastors must take a close look at the way we represent God.  He is the God of love and forgiveness.  He is the God of second chances.  He is the God of restoration.  And He is also the God of righteousness.  He is the God of holiness.  He is the God of justice.  My prayer is that we would "walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called."

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Meeting New Friends

Do you ever feel like you lived a month in a weeks time?  This was last week for me. It started off with an amazing Sunday at Reliant. We had music and guests and it was outstanding.  Then on Monday, Brian Clark was in town for a Missions conference and we had lunch with his entire family.
Brain as been a missionary in the outskirts of London, England since 2002 and is doing a great job bringing discipleship to that place. He is the pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church and is active in modern day evangelism with the teams that come over to help during the Summer months. He set up a lunch date with two other pastors here in town so that I could meet them.  This was much appreciated since I haven't had a chance to really get out and meet a lot of guys yet.

One of the guys at the table was Billy Wood, pastor of One Baptist Church in Douglasville.   It was good to meet a guy sold out to discipleship and ready to do a great work for God.  He is the pastor of a 2 1/2 year old church plant and has got a good group of people behind him.  I look forward to the time I can visit their place and hang out a bit.

The other guy at the table was James Dekoker, pastor of Connect Church in Emmerson.  James is also a new church plant and has been running a discipleship model somewhat similar to mine.  I was excited to hear about the people they had won to Christ through relationship building.  If you are out the Emmerson way, Connect Church would be a good one to go and visit.  I'm excited to talk with James more about the Church Plant and get some pointers from him as we get ready to launch Reliant.

That just gets us to Tuesday afternoon.  Brian preached at Reliant on Tuesday night and was really helpful in getting the people to understand the balance of evangelism with discipleship.  The bottom line of his teaching was this.  If you don't A.S.K. people about Jesus you're not going to win anybody. If you would like to catch Brian's powerful message online, just follow this link.

I'm been blown away by some of the things that the Lord has been teaching me in Joshua.  Things I had never seen about Rahab.  So, I'm excited about Sunday.  If you would like to be a part of an exciting church plant, come to Reliant this Sunday.  You won't be disappointed. We had to purchase some chairs this week which cost us $500.00  If you would like to help with the cost you can donate by CLICKING HERE. 

Avoiding the Trap of Legalism

Growing up in an independent fundamental Baptist Church,  I was exposed to quite a bit of legalism.  Over the last few decades legalism has taken on a broader meaning than its first intent.  The definition of legalism is the gaining of salvation through the adherence to a set of laws.  The church I grew up in was not so. We were always taught that salvation was by Jesus alone through faith alone.  So in the strictest definition we did not practice legalism.

We were called legalistic because there were certain rules that were placed on us by the church that were not found in the Bible.  For example, I remember going to Astroworld in Houston in the heat of summer with jeans on because we "as Christians" were not allowed to wear shorts.  The crazy thing is I wore shorts every day of my life just not at church functions.

Legalism can take on many forms and creep up on you before you realize what happened.  Today we understand legalism to be any set of rules that is used to determine one's spirituality.  Legalism would say today, "If you do ___________ then you will be closer to God and God will accept you."  For centuries men have been setting up these sets of rules and laws to be able to determine who is the most spiritual or superior in their spirituality.  This is a dangerous game to play.  It is the same game that the Pharisees were playing in Jesus' day and he called them hypocrites (and that was the nice term he used).

We know that if a person says you must were a suit to worship God that is described as legalism.  But what about the guy who says you can't were a suit?  He is just as legalistic.  Is the person who has a quite time with the Lord in the morning more spiritual than the guy who reads his Bible twice a week.  We would think so, but that really depends on a persons heart doesn't it?  Generally I believe that it is better for a person to spend a daily quite time with the Lord, but I can't say that it is going to make you more spiritual.  The fact is, a child of God is spiritual and accepted into the beloved by the blood of Jesus Christ.  It is nothing that we can obtain or gain, we just are.

Here is the danger of legalism.  The church has used sets of rules and laws to control people for centuries.  There have been many denominations that have set up these rules to use and manipulate people into doing whatever they want.  These rules usually come back around to money at some point.  Jesus turned over the money changing tables in the temple because the temple had established rules that you had to use temple money to tithe and buy sacrificial animals and they were cheating people in the exchange rate.  We would call that a racket today.  But what about things like coming to church, or serving on a serve team, or giving a tithe, or taking communion, or taking bible classes.  I think all these things are helpful in the walk of a christian but they are not required.  And when a person is made to feel guilty or less of a christian because they don't do these things or others, we have crossed the line into legalism.

So have your quite time, study your Bible, take communion with your local assembly, and serve your church not because it makes you any closer to God but because you are close to God.  "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." (Eph. 2:13)

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Mission Minded

I remember growing up in a midsize Church in Houston, TX, now North Park Baptist Church where missions was always at the forefront of our minds.  It is an Independent Baptist Church which means we supported our own missionaries directly.  The plus side of this kind of Missions Program is that you get to see and meet the missionaries in person instead of just seeing their stats on a spreadsheet.  (There are some negatives to this type of system as well, but this is just one of the positives).

Because the missionaries had to raise their own support they would travel around all over the country (that would be the negative side) and preach in any church that would let them, hoping they would be taken on with monthly support.  So, I heard hundreds if not thousands of sermons on reaching the world for Christ.  I got to witness first hand how men and women would push through the struggles of deputation just to see their people group have a witness of Jesus Christ. I have to be honest, it made an impact on my heart.  I would dare say it made it very easy for me to answer the call of God on my own life.

There are still couples traveling all over the country trying to raise the support needed to preach the gospel in foreign lands and I applaud their efforts.  It seems that with the modern movement of programming the church services, there is little time or room to hear a man's burden for the lost in other places.  Jesus was very intentional about giving his disciples a world view of evangelism.  They were commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  This is a command and a responsibility that we still have as disciples today.

I have had Ivan Kunderenko staying in my home for the last few days.  He is a Pastor in Ukraine and aides the churches of Ukraine in understanding the Cults in the area.  He is truly a warrior for the cause of Christ.  He will be addressing our core group in the meeting this evening.  I am excited to introduce him to the people of our church.  As Kingdom Builders, We will take every God-given opportunity to advance His kingdom in this world.

Excellence & Discipline

For those of you that have been following my posts, you know that our first Sunday to have our Core Group meetings was this past Sunday.  Last week was a blur as we were transforming my house into a meeting place that would accommodate about 30 people.

I asked the group to get here at 9:00 am, because I didn't know how long it was going to take to get the garage all set up and the children's area worked out.  To my surprise and joy, everyone was here on time and we had the whole thing set up and ready to go in about 20 minutes.  Everyone pitched in and before we knew it, we were ready for our time of preaching and teaching.  These people are amazing.

We had everything up and going that any church in town would have had, just on a smaller scale.  Everything from coffee bar to a giving kiosk to the check-in station for the kids was set up and ready.  I want to set a culture of excellence from the very beginning because excellence in all things relates to trust in the message.

When you find a disciplined person,  they are usually disciplined in all areas of life.  And the same is true when you find an undisciplined person, that he or she is so in all areas.  So, it is important that when people come to your church that you present yourself as a people of discipline and excellence.  This tells the visitor that you will be excellent in your interpretation of the scriptures and in the care of their souls, just as you are with everything else.

Very few times do people see or pay attention to organization, because being organized is the standard of living.  But people will immediately detect disorganization and remember because it directly affects them.  We, as the people of God, must always strive for excellence and discipline as we are ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ and speak on His behalf the ministry and message of reconciliation.

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."  2 Corinthians 5:20

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