Rescued!

It is a scene forever etched in my mind. It haunts me. No matter how hard I try I cannot escape the sight. The scene is of a little orphan boy, bent down, and digging through the trash. He is dirty, not just playing in the sandbox dirty, but filthy. His clothing barely qualifies as sufficient covering and yet he is among the few that even have rags to drape over himself. He is dangerously skinny due to malnutrition. His body if filled with infected sores that remain unattended to. He is lonely, but cannot cry, his tears have basically dried up. When he did cry, no one came to his rescue anyway. So, he continues day after day, rummaging through trash looking for something that he can eat. At night he cuddles in a dark corner of lonesomeness, and there he goes to sleep. I cannot see his face. I only see the boy. His story one of multitudes.

I begin to wonder, “Why don’t somebody do something! Why does God not provide something for him?” Unfortunately, I bought into the lie of the American dream. My thought has always been that I am suppose to be successful, have a big house, drive nice cars, take regular vacations, maybe even have a vacation home, wear nice clothes, eat at nice restaurants, have huge, enormous flat screen televisions, iphones, ipads, and have lots of other super nice things. I could even be real spiritual about it and talk about how greatly God has blessed me with all my stuff. I could talk about how God has provided for me and how He desires for me to live a good life, which includes all my stuff. I could talk about how God had given me so much because He loves me so much. Surely, God wants me to have, have, have---you know---live the good life!

But, there he is bent down rummaging through the trash for something to eat. And there I am wondering why God doesn’t do something. Then it dawns on me that God has done something, and He has provided for him. God rescued, saved, redeemed the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to be His hands and feet in the world. God cares for the poor and needy and imprisoned and stranger and widow and orphan. His plan for caring for them is for His Church to be His ambassadors, to do His work in the world. God has provided for these dear people. The problem is, he has given the resources to me and to you. While we continue to drink $4.00 lattes and make sure we keep our hair or golf appointments, there he sits digging through that trash.

Then God does something amazing. He brings that little dirty, smelly, diseased, orphan boy into a more clear view. Its almost as if someone is pushing the zoom button on a video recorder or camera. The little boy is still rummaging. Then a voice calls out, “I love you, come to me, I am here for you!” A hand reaches out toward the little boy. Finally, he turns so that I can see his face. And I am floored. Its my face! I am the little boy! The voice calling me is the Good Shepherd! He takes my hand, cleans me up, dresses me, and calls me His! No longer an orphan am I. He tells me that He is my everything, not stuff. And He supplies me, not so that I can live the American dream, not so that I can have, have, have. Rather, He desires for me to give, give, give. He desires that I do unto others, as He has done unto me. And so, I begin to think what a difference God could make through me if I began planning to live on less. What if I did not need a newer car, but drive an older one? What if I did not need to take regular exotic vacations? What if I did not need to eat at nice restaurants regularly? What if I did not need all of those clothes? What if I did not need a larger television, or even one at all? What if I really began to live as one that God has blessed so that I can be a blessing to others in His name. What if I intentionally lived lower so that others could live. That is what He did for us, is it not? (2 Cor 8:9
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich), ESV.

Fasting

In this post I will lay out a few basics of fasting. This is, by no means, exhaustive. It is very basic. For a very good and exhaustive study on fasting I highly recommend John Piper’s book "A Hunger For God." It can be downloaded for free here: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/online-books/a-hunger-for-god.

Let me begin with a few things fasting is not. First of all, fasting is not a means for manipulating God. Some folks believe that if they just fast, it will force God to take notice. But that is not fasting, it is really nothing more than a hunger strike. God is not interested in our hunger strikes. He will not be manipulated. Secondly, fasting is not to be a means for validating our righteousness. This is exactly the idea Jesus addressed in the Sermon on The Mount concerning the Pharisees. They would fast in public so that people could see how “godly” they were. But Christ informed them, and us, that they were displaying pseudo-piety that could be summed up with the word hypocrisy. Third, fasting is not a weight-loss routine, which is one of the only times fasting mentioned in our times. So what is fasting with the proper motive? Let me sum it up in three basic ideas.

1. To Draw Closer To God.

In his book Hunger For God John Piper wrote, “The birthplace of Christian fasting is homesickness for God.” Fasting is ultimately about God. This is the heart of fasting, not making sure that people see us fast, not to validate our righteousness. Fasting is all about drawing closer to God. It is about whole-heartedly seeking His will. In fasting we seek to draw close to the heart of God. It always centers on God. Luke spoke of the elderly woman Anna in Luke chapter 2 saying that “She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.” The key word in regards to fasting in that verse is the term worshiped. Fasting is an act of worship. Theologian John Wesley said of fasting, “First let it be done unto the Lord with our eye singly fixed in Him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father which is in heaven.”

2. To Increase Our Sense of Dependance upon God.

In our affluent society we often forget just how dependent we are on God. When we are hungry, we rarely ask God to give us food, we get in the car and go get it. Jesus says that we are to pray for our daily bread. Bread not only represents food but is symbolic of all of our needs. Fasting reveals to us just how weak we really are, and that without God’s constant provision in our lives, we would not hold together. Fasting forces us to rid ourselves of the things we crave and appropriate our craving toward God. In the Sermon of the Mount, Christ said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled” (Matt 5:6). Jesus said in John 6:48-51, “I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread , he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Jesus basically said, “Hunger for me for I am the bread of life.”

He also told us to thirst for Righteousness. In John 4:10 Jesus told the woman at the well, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water ." Then pointing toward the drinking water he said, in verses13-14, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Jesus basically said, “Thirst for me for I am the living water and in me you shall never thirst again.”

Fasting causes us to abstain temporarily from the things that temporarily sustain us and points us to the One who ultimately sustains us, and that One is our Father in Heaven. Fasting points us to our desperate need for God.

That is why you see folks in the Bible fasting during some of the most trying times in their lives. Here are a few instances: David fasted when God caused his child born to Bathsheba to become ill. The Bible says in 2 Sam 12:16 "David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground." When Nehemiah heard of the desolation of Jerusalem, he knew that this was a problem that only God could fix and the Bible says in Neh 1:4 "When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven." When Daniel contemplated from the Scriptures that Judgement was coming upon Jerusalem the Bible says, Dan 9:2-3, "I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes." Then perhaps the best known fasting passage in the New Testament occurred as Jesus went in the wilderness to prepare for his time of tempting by Satan. The Bible tells us, in essence, that he readied himself for that temptation by fasting. It says, "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.' 4 Jesus answered, 'It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’" (Matt 4:1-4). Now, if fasting was an important part of Jesus’ relationship with the Father, demonstrating his reliance upon the Father, how much more are we dependent upon the Father and in need of practicing this spiritual discipline?

3. To Give More Attention To Prayer With God.

We can pray without fasting, but we cannot fast, biblically, without praying. In every biblical account of fasting, it is always accompanied with prayer. In fasting we devote special concentrated time to prayer. We pray when we would normally eat, as we seek the Lord’s heart and will. All of the great heroes of the faith have been folks who fasted and prayed with a great deal of intensity and determination as they sought the Lord’s will. Prayer was indeed their lifeline. Communication with the Lord is nourishment for the soul. Fasting expresses a special hunger for God, calling upon Him to be our nourishment.

Christ Crucified

In 1 Cor 1:22-25, Paul wrote, 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

I love this simple declaration of Paul the Apostle. The Apostle held to a strong belief in the sufficiency of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He believed that in the Gospel was the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). The proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was his consuming passion. He told the Corinthians in 1 Cor 2:1-2, 1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Paul knew something that we, in our generation, are apt to forget: the sufficiency of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nothing else can transform lives. Yet, we tend to underestimate this gospel at the very least, or worse, we tend to deny its power by our actions.

I read a story this week of a small English village that had a small chapel. The chapel was made of stone and had ivy covered walls. Over the arch when the chapel was originally built were inscribed the words "We Preach Christ Crucified" so that everybody whoever entered would know what they were there for. And there was a generation of Godly men that did precisely that. They preached Christ crucified. But times changed and the ivy grew and pretty soon it covered the last word and the sign said "We Preach Christ." And the Godly men changed. And there were other men who came and they preached Christ: Christ the example, Christ the humanitarian, Christ the ideal teacher. The years passed and the ivy grew covering the name of Christ and finally it said "We Preach." And they did, they preached politics, economics, social gospel, and whatever.

That sounds like a parable of our day and time. Today there is much preaching of Christ the republican, Christ the democrat, Christ the capitalist, Christ the socialist, Christ the humanitarian, Christ the giver of stuff, or no Christ at all. In many places it is more subtle than others. For instance, it may be that the preaching of Christ crucified has been so clouded with smoke machines and other gadgets that its lost in the chaos. For others, there is a desire to attempt to soften the sting that comes with the preaching of the gospel. Still others fall into the trap of giving the people what they want to hear. Yet Paul said, " For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles." Why would Paul make such a determination to preach Christ crucified in a cultural setting that was so opposed to the Gospel? Because Paul knew that it was the Gospel he had been commanded to preach and the Gospel was their only hope. Besides, the preaching of anything else would be to declare that the Gospel is not enough. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon put it well when he said, "I do believe that we slander Christ when we think that we are to draw the people by something else but the preaching of Christ crucified"

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Today (Sept. 20), marked the official end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), a policy implemented in 1993 as a compromise between those who wanted to allow open service by homosexuals in the military and those opposed to it. The end of DADT marked a significant victory for the Obama administration as the fulfillment of a campaign promise made by the Senator in 2008.

I guess I could spend my time here lamenting this event. Certainly it troubles me. I could spend time pointing out the biblical mandate of the one man/one woman marriage relationship and the sinfulness of homosexuality. But, as I am well aware, I am preaching (actually writing) to the choir. Therefore, let me focus on something the choir (including myself) needs to hear.

I fully support the end of a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Now that i have your attention, let me explain. I am certainly not talking about the military policy, but another, more sinister DADT policy. The one I speak of is an unwritten policy, practiced not by the government, but by the local church. I am referring to the DADT policy in regards to evangelism, lovingly sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with a lost and dying world.

You see, such things as the end of the military's DADT policy are simply symptoms of a larger problem, the ever increasing spiritual lostness of American culture. Homosexuality is just one among a mulititude of sins for which Christ died. The answer to lostness is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But this Gospel must be proclaimed in order for the spiritual lostness to be impacted. In Romans 10, Paul wrote, (13 For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?...ESV). We must understand this truth, unless we preach, they will not hear. If they do not hear, they will not believe. If they do not believe, they will not call on His name. If they do not call on Christ, they will not be saved. The eternal destiny of millions is at stake. So, lets put an end to the church's DADT policy and proclaim Christ, that His name will be glorified among the nations, and multitudes will join us in praising Him for eternity. (Rev. 7:9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen").

Earthquakes, Soccer balls, and Crutches

Bounce, bounce, bounce! That is a sound I will never forget. It was a sound I heard often in Haiti. It was the sound of a young teenage boy playing soccer by himself. That doesn’t sound too extraordinary, kids often play ball by themselves. I remember as a child throwing a tennis ball on the roof of our home and waiting for it to roll back down so I could catch it. What made this scene in Haiti different? This young man lost one of his legs in the 2010 earthquake.

I have thought about that young man’s experience many times since I first saw him. I can imagine him, in his home, on an average, ordinary day in Leogane. It was just like any other day, nothing special. That would all change at 16:53 local time as Leogane was at the epicenter of a major catastrophe. When the dust cleared, many of this young man’s friends and fellow citizens were dead, his home severely damaged, and he himself badly hurt. I can imagine the days following the quake, as it became clear that he would live the rest of his life with only one leg. Life for him would never return to normal, at least not the normal he knew. Instead, he would have to establish a new normal.

One of the things the young man loved more than anything was soccer. I can imagine him wondering if he would ever play the game again. Fast forward and there I am, along with some others, fascinated at the sight of this young man, on crutches kicking his ball. The ball was an e-ball, a soccer ball with various colors on it, each color representing a different point in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Someone, on a previous mission team, had given the young man the ball. Everyday, there he would be kicking that ball against the wall.

As I watched the young man, day after day, I was reminded of some great Gospel truths. First of all, we often face affliction in this fallen world. Life can be very difficult and we often find ourselves flat on our face. Our circumstances can even seem impossible. But, glory to God, greater is He who is in us, than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Our God is a God who specializes in demonstrating His sovereign power over things that appear impossible to us. In fact, those situations can even serve as Gospel reminders that we can’t, but God can and will and already has in Jesus Christ!!

Second, I was reminded that by the grace of God, I will be lifted up when knocked down. I cannot do it on my own strength, but by the strength that God provides. It may take a while, as God may have some lessons I need to learn while on the ground, but eventually He lifts me up. My job is to simply trust Him by faith. Tozer wrote, "What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is coming when we shall have nothing but God. Health and wealth and friends and hiding places will be swept away and we shall have only God. To the man of pseudo faith that is a terrifying thought, but to real faith it is one of the most comforting thoughts the heart can entertain."

Third, the sight of the young man reminded me that I too am on crutches. Thankfully, my crutches are not physical, but certainly in the spiritual sense. Greg Koukl wrote, “When people ask me, ‘Isn’t Christ just a crutch?’ I have a simple reply. I tell them, ‘You’re right. Christ is a crutch. But you’ve asked the wrong question.’ The real question is, ‘Am I lame; am I crippled?’ because crippled people need crutches. The fact is, everybody leans on something. As a Christian I lean on Jesus, because He’s a crutch that can hold me. What about you?”

Just Some Thoughts on The Journey

I am a blessed man. God has blessed me so very greatly. He has blessed me first of all by saving me by His loving grace. I have the best pastor’s wife any man could ever pray for. Together, Kristie and I have been blessed with three awesome boys and have opened our hearts and our home for another child at God’s leading. On top of that, we have been blessed with the privilege to serve the Lord at a most awesome church, Walker Baptist Church.

The last several months have been especially trying. Being a pastor is one of the most fulfilling and yet painful jobs a person can have. As believers, we are commanded to love one another (John 15:12). In our Box family devotion time, we have been reading 1 John and one of the themes we have been looking at is how our love for one another, as believers, is directly connected to our love for Him. In fact, our love for one another is actually a witness to a watching world. Jesus Himself said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35, ESV). Love for God and love for one another are inseparable.

Over these past several months, God has been doing some great things in my heart and has even used the unkind and unloving expressions of others in this process of purifying my heart. For instance, my love for people has been tested. Thankfully, through prayer, I can honestly say, by God’s grace, I love everybody, even those who are not loving toward me. In fact, I can honestly say I would get up right now and go to the aid of any person, regardless of their love for me, or lack thereof. It is quite easy to have compassion on individuals who are kind and loving toward you, but what about those who are not? Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:43-45, ESV). So, its not just our love for one another as believers that demonstrates our love for God, but also our love for our enemies.

Our Lord has also been gracious to show me issues of pride in my heart. I believe C.J. Mahaney described it best when he said, “I am a prideful man, seeking to be humble by the grace of God.” I am not sure that I would have seen those things had it not been for the circumstances I have endured recently. Its not easy to have individuals tear you down and at the same time point to something or someone else they declare to be superior to you. Perhaps, as you read this, you know something of this feeling. Perhaps, you have people tell you or make you feel as if you are not good enough. We can either respond to such things with anger, or we can allow those cruel and painful things to be used by God to bring humility in our lives. Only God can take such things that are intended for evil and bring good out of it. Thankfully, He has reminded me that He didn’t call me to be anybody other than who He makes me by His Sovereign Grace. That is why Paul wrote, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Cor 15:10, ESV).

Finally, the Lord has taught me a lesson in patience. I have been reminded to wait on Him and to trust Him, not only with my situations, but also with the outcomes. He will take care of me. In the mean time, I will cling to Him. I will stay in His Word. The Psalmist wrote, “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. I am yours; save me, for I have sought your precepts” (Ps 119:92-94, ESV). I will not return evil for evil, but will give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all (Romans 12:14-21). I will seek to love everyone, to be kind, compassionate, and forgiving. I do this to bring glory to my Father, who saved me by His loving grace. And I do this in the hope that the world might see the love of Christ in me and they too would glorify the Father. I love you all. God bless each of you.

Finishing The Great Commission

Imagine for a moment that you are in a room filled with people who are, you included, starving to death. Suddenly, by no merit of your own, you are chosen out of the crowd, given food to eat and then commanded to begin distributing food to all the others who are starving. Immediately, you go to work. You take a basket filled with bread and you go to the first row of people and give them bread, some take it, some refuse it. You keep distributing the bread regardless of the response. After some time, you have offered bread to the first ten rows of people and yet ten rows of people remain. So, you get more bread and instead of going to the back ten rows, you return to the first ten rows and begin to distribute bread again. After you have completed a second distribution of the first ten rows, you do it again. You begin to think of what a great job you have done in distributing bread to the first ten rows and how you have been faithful to offer the bread even when refused. Yet, what you are missing is that among the back ten rows, there are people dying of starvation, and as the bread distributor, you have neglected the commander’s orders to distribute bread to all of the people.

Prior to our Lord’s ascension, he said that we are to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). He said that we are to make disciples of ALL nations (Matthew 28:19). That means we are to spread the gospel here in our town and state, but we are also to spread this gospel to the ends of the earth, that the glory of God may be known among all the nations of the world.

Our International Mission Board has identified 3800 people groups remaining in the world that have been classified as untouched and unreached, meaning they have never heard the name of Christ, have no current access to the Gospel, and there is no current strategy to reach them. Left alone they will die in their sins apart from Christ. I don’t know about you, but I cannot be satisfied with continuing to give bread to the first ten rows while neglecting the back ten who are starving. And the reality is, this is a problem for which we cannot hire enough missionaries. This will take every church getting involved. As the pastor of Walker Baptist Church, I do not plan to stand around and do nothing. My plan is for our church to be involved. The goal of the Southern Baptist Convention is to have at least 3800 churches adopt one of these people groups. I am asking you to join me now in prayer as we seek God’s plan for our involvement. I will also be attending a conference on September 7 in Marietta. I would invite as many of you as would like to go with me. The conference will better inform us of ways we can be involved in this global effort. Let me know as soon as possible if you will join me for this event. The cost is $20.

Brothers and sisters, this is a very serious matter. We have been commanded by our Lord to spread the gospel. Will you join me and the rest of our fellow SBC churches as we together embrace the ends of the earth and do our part to finish the Great Commission. “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matt 24:14, ESV). I love you all.