a living sacrifice

Rom 12:1,2  “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

As we have said so many times before, the word therefore requires that we look back and see what it is there for.  And in this case it signifies a the culmination of 11 chapters of doctrine, bringing us to this grand conclusion.  He is saying, on the basis of all that God has revealed to us, the following is to be our response.

And basically, to condense all eleven chapters into one or two succinct statements is next to impossible.  But the gist of what has been said up to now is this.  That because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, man is born spiritually dead.  Mankind is condemned because all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  But God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth to become our substitute.  He was God in the flesh, and lived a perfect life, and He took our sin upon Himself and died on the cross, so that those who believe in Him might receive righteousness.  2 Cor. 5: 21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Paul goes on in the last chapters which we’ve been looking at, chapters 8-11, to explain to us, as much as we are able to understand it, that God’s plan for our salvation was formed by God before the foundation of the world.  He chose us to receive grace, and then He  called us, and when we responded to that call, He justified us, and now His Spirit is working in us to sanctify us, and one day He will glorify us by changing our bodies to be like Him.  And chapter 11 concludes this  expose’ on the sovereignty of God with the phrase found in verse 36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”  In other words, were it not for the mercies of God, all the world would be lost, and we have obtained mercy according to Titus 3:4 when the kindness of God appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.

Now God’s purpose has always been to redeem the total man.  You remember in Gen. 1 it says man was made in the image of God.  God is a trinity, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And so God created man in His image, and He made man in three parts, spirit, soul and body. And that order is very important.  Man’s spirit was made to be in communion with God, ruling his soul or  mind, which in turn governed his body. But God said that if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die.  And when Adam and Eve were deceived by Satan and ate of the tree, immediately they died spiritually.  And as a result, all men are born spiritually dead.   Satan overturned God’s order of creation.  By seducing man to sin, man died in his spirit, and God’s order was overturned.  Man’s body now ruled the soul (the heart and mind) and the spirit lay dormant.  This was the status of man on the earth.  Ruled by his basest passions, his mind captive to his lusts, and his spirit dead, condemned to eternal separation from God.

But when the kindness and mercy of God appeared to us by the sacrificial substitute of Jesus Christ, the first thing that God does in response to our faith in Christ is justify us.  He makes us righteous, not by righteousness which we have done, but by faith, according to the righteousness of Christ.  And once we are made holy and righteous, justified, God can once again have fellowship with us, and so He sends the Holy Spirit to live inside of us.  And the Spirit is life, and He gives us eternal life.

Now that is salvation.  Through the mercy of God, man is made justified, righteous, a living spiritual being, having the Holy Spirit living inside him, through which he is given life, even eternal life.  So the question now arises, what next?  What is our purpose now that we are saved?  What does God want from us now?  And the answer is now that our spirit which was dead has been born again into life, now we need to bring the other two elements of our being into conformity with the Spirit;  our mind or soul, and our body.  And Paul explains how to do that, starting first with our body.

And there are some key words here that will help us understand how this works. Paul  says, now on the basis of all this that God has done for us, in response to the mercy of God to us, I beg of you, I beseech you, I urge you, I exhort you to present your bodies a living sacrifice.  The word "beseech" literally means to beg, parakaleo, I come alongside to call you to this.  Or it could be like a coach that comes alongside you to urge you onward, to go further, to do more.

The second word that is significant here is present.  To present.  It has the idea of surrendering up, of yielding, of offering. It also is a technical term for the Levitical offerings, to bring  an offering, to bring an actual sacrifice. And what God wants us to present  here is our body.

What does that mean our body must be sacrificed? In the old covenant, the priests offered up various types of sacrifices.  And when they offered up animal sacrifices they first killed the animal and then laid them on the altar. But in the new covenant, Christ has already died.  He paid the price for our sin.  What God wants now is not dead bodies, but living sacrifices.  Now in the old covenant, when they offered up sacrifices to God, they were always supposed to be without spot or blemish.

And in the new covenant, we have already explained that we are made alive spiritually by the righteousness of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  You can’t be saved without the Holy Spirit.  We don’t have to go around looking for the Holy Spirit, you can’t be made alive without Him. John 6:63. The Spirit gives life.  So we that have been saved have been made alive by the Spirit.  And we have been made holy through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  And through the righteousness of Christ which has been credited to our account, we have become acceptable to God.

Now positionally we have been made alive and holy by the mercy of God, but what God is asking from us now is that we present our bodies practically to Him as well as a sacrifice. Rom 6:12 puts it this way, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” So this tells us that those things of the flesh which once controlled us, the lusts of the flesh, the pride of life, the base passions of the body, our worldly desires, we no longer present our bodies to those things.  But instead we present our bodies to be used for God’s purposes.

And 1Cor 6:19 takes it a step further; “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”  Notice one very important phrase in this verse, our body is now a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.  Listen, this is one of the most amazing statements in the Bible.  God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, but in the hearts of His people.  We that have been made righteous are now a temple of God.

 Peter sheds more light on this phenomenon in 1Pet 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” In the old covenant, God’s shekinah glory dwelled in the Holy of Holies behind the veil of the temple.  But now in the new covenant, God tore the veil in two, and God lives in the us, the Holy God living in a holy place, our spirit.  Now that ought to humble you.

Peter tells us that now we individually are the spiritual stones of God’s house, being built up to offer sacrifices to God. Listen, a church is not bricks and mortar.  A church is God’s people, a congregation of the redeemed, living stones, built upon a foundation of God’s word, the cornerstone of which is Jesus Christ. One of the things I have learned here at the beach is when the service is over, and I stand up on the dune and look back on the beach to be sure we didn’t leave anything, all you can see is an empty beach.  There is no building.  God dwells in the hearts of His people.  We are the living stones of God’s church, being built up to offer sacrifices to God.  And so that brings us back to Romans 12 which says that  the sacrifices that God wants us to bring is ourselves; surrendered, sold out.  Those are the only stones worthy of God’s building.  There are many monuments men have built throughout our country that have the name church attached to them. But what a monumental waste of time if the men and women are not living stones themselves. Men and women without the Holy Spirit living in them are simply dead.  And God doesn’t dwell in dead people, or dead stones or dead churches for that matter.

Another consideration here is that a living sacrifice is a sacrifice which lives, which perpetually lasts. An animal was put down and burned up. It was a one-time deal. But what God wants is a perpetual offering. What He wants is not something that you bring once and it's burned up, but something that is perpetually offered and never dies and is never consumed, it's just always offered, always offered, always offered.

A good illustration would be when Abraham was told to offer Isaac on the altar.  Isaac was the son that God had promised to him many years before.  And you remember that God stopped Abraham as he lifted the knife to kill his son, and revealed a ram stuck in a thicket instead.

Now if Abraham had followed through then Isaac would have been an illustration of  a dead sacrifice. But Abraham, not Isaac, is an illustration of a living sacrifice. It isn't that God is saying to you, are you willing to die for me.  What He is saying is, are you willing to live for God, even if it means that I will live the rest of my life without anything that I now hold dear if that is Your will? And that is a perpetual and lasting commitment. That's the stuff of which a living sacrifice is made. And Abraham was willing.

This living sacrifice, this surrender of our will in a humble submissive act to God, this, as Paul put it, bearing about in my body always the dying of Jesus Christ, this kind of living sacrifice is the basis of true worship. It is the foundation of all Christian dedication. It is what Paul meant when he said, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” If we live, we live for the Lord, if we die, we go to the Lord.  So therefore, let’s commit to live for Christ. It’s the only thing that will matter.

Someone wrote, I counted dollars while God counted crosses.
I counted gains while He counted losses.
I counted my wealth by the things gained in store,
But He valued me by the scars that I bore.

I counted the honors and sought for ease.
He wept while He counted the hours on my knees.
And I never knew until one day by a grave
How vain are those things that we spend a life to save

I never yet knew till a friend went above
That richest is he who is rich in God’s love.

God is satisfied, then, when we offer our bodies totally holy, set apart, pure, undefiled, and this is, notice at the end of verse 1, this is your spiritual worship. The word "service," or "worship," is latreia, it is used in the Septuagint which is the Old Testament Greek text to speak of the worship of God according to the Levitical law. And again we're talking still about that priestly kind of language, language of sacrifice. The priests came to worship. And that's the word used for worship in the Old Testament. And here it's still worship. You come to worship God with an offering. What are you bringing Him? Are you bringing Him an offering defiled by the world, defiled by sin?  Or is your sacrifice consecrated and holy before God?

Real worship is not just music, or even elaborate prayers, it is not liturgy, it is not ritual, it is not candles, stained glass, or ceremony. Real worship is not feeling  goose bumps in a church service. Real worship is the willful, spiritual act of giving my body first of all to God, holy, set apart unto Him. That's what God wants.

So our body is to be conformed to the Spirit by presenting it to God as a sacrifice, and then lastly, our soul is to be conformed to God.  Verse 2 says, " And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." And here Paul tells us that the key to your soul being transformed is to be sure that your mind has been renewed. The mind must be presented for renewal.

And notice how he presents it with a negative and then a positive. "Do not be conformed to this world.”  The Phillips translation puts it this way, “Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.”   In Eph 2:1, Paul says it this way, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the COURSE of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”  And the idea of a course is like a river bed, and the current of the world carries us along on a path to destruction.  Everyone else is caught in the same course, and so it doesn’t seem so bad.  But the truth is, we are being swept along by the world, to our eventual destruction.  Paul says don’t let the world sweep you along in it’s course.

On the other hand, he says, "But be transformed," metamorphous is the root idea, totally changed.  That’s what repentance is you know, totally changing direction, changing course.  And how are we to do this?  By the renewing of the mind in accordance with our spirit now made alive.  We need to change the way we think.  We need to change our will.  We need to be changed from the inside out.  It’s like the old adage, you are what you  eat.  (I’m a krispy kreme donut).  We need to feast on the word of God.  I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation.  The word of God is the power to transform your mind.

David said it this way in Psalm 119, " Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” That's the key to the renewed mind.  And again David says, Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Col 3:16 “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.”

God’s word is the only way to renew your soul, for it is the only thing powerful enough to pierce your soul. Hbr 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  Our mind is where the war is fought.  And this is where the battle is won.

2Cr 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

The key to spiritual victory is not getting all you can get, but giving all you have. There's a big difference. And there are people literally flocking into churches, looking for spiritual experiences to get more of God when the issue is not what they need to get but what they need to give. And that's the essence of this tremendous passage of Scripture.  We need to surrender all to Christ.  Everyday.  The problem with a living sacrifice is that it’s always trying to crawl off the altar.  But when we remember that we are not our own, we are bought with a price, and we truly understand the price that Christ paid on the cross for us, then the cost of surrendering everything to God seems trivial by comparison.  We have so much more to gain.

So that we might say with Paul, For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  Yes, thank God for His mercies that He saved us, but now let’s present our bodies and our souls to Him as well, offering up to Him our spiritual worship.  Yes, there is a cost to follow Christ.  But it will be worth it all when we see Christ.

Therefore my brothers and sisters in Christ, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and set apart to God, which is your reasonable response of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, by the renewing of your mind, so that you may do the will of God.

a zeal for God

      Romans 10:2,3 contains one of the most tragic lines in scripture.  Speaking of the Jews, some of the most religious people on the planet, Paul says,  “For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”
     What a tragedy.  To know of the true God, to try to worship Him, to perform all kinds of religious works thinking that they were serving Him, and yet all that zeal be of none affect.  It was worthless, even damning, because the Bible says that to him who has been given much, much shall be required.  And the Jews had been given every advantage and yet failed to follow the Lord fully.
     Paul says their downfall was failing to understand God’s righteousness, what God required to be holy and acceptable.  Instead, they offered up another standard – their own.  In effect, what they ended up doing was defining God according to what they wanted God to be like, rather than what God actually is like as depicted in His Word.  And the end result of that is a form of idol worship.  A god made in their own image, according to their perspective of righteousness.
     Unfortunately, Israel fell short of God’s standard.  They stumbled over the stumbling stone -  that stone being a Savior.  They didn’t really want a Savior.  In their self righteousness they didn’t really consider themselves sinners.  So what was the point of  a Savior?  They wanted an idol, that would work as a talisman when they could use some help or good luck, but would stand mutely on a shelf when not needed.
    But  lest we look down on the poor ol’ Israelites, we would do well to remember that Israel is a picture of the church.  What happened to them was for our example (1 Cor. 10:11).  Today the church is often guilty of the same attitude towards God.  We have dumbed down God in an attempt at making Him relevant, and in the process have stripped Him of all holiness, rendering Him little more than a genie who is manipulated by our faith to bless us and help us on demand.  Then when we are out of our jam, we place Him back on the shelf and hit the mute button until we need Him again.  Jesus Christ has become the means to an end, rather than the end of our means.  Paul says, in Rom. 10:4, that Christ is the goal, He is the end.  And the goal is for our righteousness.  To be holy.  Set apart unto God for righteousness.
     The problem with the church today is not that we aren’t relevant enough to the world.  The problem with the church today is we are too relevant to the world.  We are neither light nor darkness.  We are a nice muted grey.  Unbelievers are way too comfortable in the pew.  And believers are way too comfortable in the world.
     It’s was prevalent in the church in Corinth as well.  Here’s what Paul had to say to the Corinthian church. 2Cr 6:14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial (Satan), or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.  Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.  And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

trojan horse

      Most of us are familiar with the story of ancient Greece, when the army of Greece besieged the city of Troy.   Failing to win the war by typical methods, the Greeks constructed a giant wooden horse and hid a large group of soldiers within it.  The rest of the Greek army sailed away and seemingly left the horse as a departing gift to the resilient Trojans.  However, when the Trojans brought the horse inside the gates, the Greek soldiers were able to come out under cover of darkness and defeat the army of Troy from within their walls.

     Today I believe that a similar strategy is being used to deceive the church by what is being presented as the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but is in fact a tactic used by the enemy to usher in a whole array of false doctrines.   What is purported to be a gift, is actually a Trojan horse by which a whole host of false doctrines are destroying the church.

     So what exactly is the ministry of the Holy Spirit?  Well, to start with we must understand that He is God. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!”  Yet we also believe in the doctrine of the trinity.  And the trinity is a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend with our natural minds.  But maybe the trinity can be explained somewhat by realizing that Jesus is the manifestation of God in the flesh, and the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God in the spirit.  The flesh is visible, and the spirit is invisible.  So Jesus is the manifestation of God in the flesh, visible to man.  And the Spirit is the manifestation of God in the Spirit, invisible to man.  Yet there is one God.  The Bible is filled with the attributes  and characteristics of God.  However there are three manifestations of God; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

     Phillip said, “Lord, show us the Father.”  And Jesus  said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. (John 14:9,10)  That unity is how Jesus could say, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)  So Jesus is the physical manifestation of God.

     And God in the flesh is the same God that is in the Spirit, though His manifestation is different – invisible as opposed to visible.  The ministry of Jesus was so that we might know God, so is the ministry of the Spirit is that we may know God.  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will testify of Him. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”  (John 16:13,14)

     So if Jesus is not speaking of His own initiative but speaking the words of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not speaking on His own initiative but disclosing the words of Jesus, and everything Jesus does is glorifying the Father and everything that the Spirit does is glorifying Jesus, then you have one God, with one message, and one Word, presented in three dimensions, but all unified in delivery.  There will not be some variant, weird thing over here that is contrary to the nature of Jesus.  Just because something is bizarre and freaky is no indication that it is of the Spirit.  He has the same nature as Jesus.  What we saw lived out in the life of Christ is what we should expect to see the Spirit living out in our life.

      See, that is it in a nutshell.  As God lived in Jesus as God in the flesh, so the Spirit lives in us as God in the flesh.  As Jesus lived to do the will of the Father, so we have the Spirit living in us that we might do the will of the Father.  This is called sanctification.  And this is where the rubber meets the road in the Christian life. 

     But the devil would love to substitute a fleshly experience for a true spiritual experience.  However if you understand what constitutes matters of the flesh and what constitutes matters of the Spirit, then you should be able to start to recognize the difference. And if you want to know what the ministry of the Holy Spirit looks like, then simply ask yourself what was Jesus doing?  And if you can’t find any record of Jesus doing it in all four gospels then you can probably bet it’s not of God. 

     1Tim. 4:1 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.”

                                           ******SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT******

Every night this week, Monday May 28 through Saturday June 2, we are doing the Jericho March around Bethany Beach, praying for the destruction of fortresses.  I encourage you to join us at 7pm in the Ocean View Parkway parking lot (Wednesday it will follow Bible study). 2Cr 10:3,4  “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

worship at the beach

      Imagine a crowded seashore in the heat of the summer and Jesus walking down across the sand dunes to the multitude gathered on the beach.  And as the crowd turns expectantly to see Jesus, He announces that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and that He is here to declare the way to enter into the Kingdom.
     The expectant crowd draws closer in anticipation.  Jesus then announces in a loud voice that He wants all the good people to gather together on the north end of the beach, and all the sinners to go down to the south end.  Immediately, there is a great commotion as people start moving, and jockeying for position, hurrying to take their  place on the north end.  Some stand uncertainly, watching to see which way their friends go.  But when they notice that their friends are moving to the “good” end of the beach, they feel that certainly, they must be as good as their friends are, and so they move off to the north end as well.  The “good” side quickly becomes packed.
     Meanwhile, only a few downcast, sorry looking individuals move slowly down to the south end.  They huddle together with their heads down in a small group, embarrassed and ashamed, but knowing that there is no way that they can claim to be good enough to go to the good side.
     Once the crowd has separated, Jesus walks over to the good end of the beach and dismisses all the multitude on the north end.  He says they are not able to enter the Kingdom because of their self righteousness.  Surprised and indignant, the multitude begins to move away, grumbling and complaining.
     Jesus then turns His attention to the few despondent people on the south end - the sinner’s beach.  And He says to them, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32)   “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.” (Isa.61:1)
     Jesus said, “I came to live the perfect life that you could never live, and pay the ultimate sacrifice that you could never pay so that you might be reconciled to God, that sinners might be made holy and righteous by God as a gift of His grace.  ‘If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.’” (Rom. 10:9,10)  And having been justified by faith in Christ’s atonement,  “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  (Rom. 8:1)   Furthermore, He said, whereas before you were powerless in your captivity to sin,  now that you have been made holy by Christ’s sacrifice, God will give you His Spirit to live in you, that you might have power over sin, to live in sin no more.
      Now that “Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom. 8:10,11)
     The Savior then announces to this small group, whose faces are  now shining in hope, their consciences washed clean by faith in God’s forgiveness,  that “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”  (1 Cor. 6:19,20)
     Before leaving them, Jesus gives them this final word. “Now that you have been delivered from sin, justified, made righteous and holy before God by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for your sins,  ‘I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.’” (Rom. 12:1,2)

                              ***SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT***

This Wednesday, 5/16/12, we will be having a cookout at the Savages house.  Dinner is at 6pm followed by a short Bible study.  Please plan on joining us for a fun night of fellowship.  The Savages live on Central Ave., just past Bear Trap on the right side, about 4 houses past Burbage Road.  33476 Central Ave.  Frankford, DE 19945.

faith like Abraham

The name Abram means “father of many”. Yet, at 60 years old, when God called him out of Ur of Chaldea, Abram was childless. But God called him out of his country and gave him the promise that he would become the father of many nations, that from his seed would come one from whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. For the next 40 years, Abraham did not see any of God’s promises come to fruition. Yet, at 100 years old, as he considered the deadness of his body and the deadness of his wife Sarah’s womb, Romans 4:20 tells us that without becoming weak in his faith, “with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in his faith, giving glory to God, being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” It goes on to say that because of his faith, God reckoned unto him righteousness. In other words, Abraham was saved by his faith in God’s promises.

In fact, Paul gives Abraham as an illustration of saving faith. The type of faith by which you and I also can be made righteous before God – to be justified (just as if I never sinned). The next few verses give us a breakdown of what constituted Abraham’s faith. First point, vs. 18, “In hope against hope he believed.” Or to put it another way, against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. You know, faith that is realized, or seen isn’t faith at all. But faith is believing in the impossible, the invisible, the impractical, the unreasonable.

Next, Vs. 19 says, “without becoming weak in faith”. In spite of 40 years of having absolutely nothing to indicate that this incredible promise of land and a nation and a seed that would multiply like the stars in the heavens could come to pass, Abraham’s faith did not diminish. Verse 20, “With respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith.” So actually, the passage of time did not diminish his faith, but actually increased it. How could that happen? Well, God repeated his promise to Abraham many times. And God kept reaffirming it to him. How do we keep our faith from wavering with the passage of time and in spite of all the seemingly impossible obstacles that life seems to throw at us? By reading God’s word and letting the Holy Spirit reaffirm to us over and over again the promises of God.

Third thing about his faith was that he was not discouraged by his own natural weakness. Verse 19. “He didn't become weak in faith even though he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead.” Abraham considered the deadness of his body, and obviously he is thinking of his reproductive power. At 100 years old he considers the reality that part of him is dead, but it never ever diminishes his faith because he understands that this is a divine promise, not something that he has to accomplish. Abraham still counted on a God who could create something out of nothing and bring to life that which was dead.

And finally, verse 21, he was fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. If you look back in the book of Genesis, you could see how many times God repeats the promise, again and again and again. So Abraham is convinced because God continues to reiterate His promise to him. This is the kind of faith that is the model of saving faith. We find assurance through God’s repeated promises found in Scripture. And His promise to us is that we too can receive righteousness by believing in his promises by faith.

****SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT****

The Beach Fellowship will hold a special Easter service on the beach at 8am, April 8. Service will be at our usual location, at the end of Ocean View Parkway in Bethany. In the event of inclement weather, we will meet at the Christian Conference Center. After Easter, we will continue meeting at our winter quarters until further notice.

easter service

We will hold our Easter Service on the beach, weather permitting, at 8:00am, April 8, 2012. In the event of inclement weather, we will be indoors at our usual winter quarters, the Christian Conference Center just north of the totem pole in town. Our beach service is held opposite the parking lot at the end of Ocean View Parkway. Bring a chair and hope to see you there!

a child of God

Perhaps you grew up in a less than ideal home. Who didn’t? But maybe there was a friend you knew that seemed to have the perfect home. And perhaps you enjoyed hanging out there when you were a kid. Maybe you even imagined how great it might be if you were part of the family. But no amount of hanging out over there would actually make you part of that family. No matter how many times you came over for dinner, or went somewhere with that them, you still never really belonged. The only way you could actually become a part of that family would have been if they offered to adopt you, and you agreed to live as their child.

There are some obvious similarities in that scenario to Christianity. Many people see the advantage that being a child of God offers. They hang out in church from time to time. They participate in various things the church is doing. They make some friends there. And many would like to believe that just by association they are part of the family of God. After all, they got baptized there, or they joined the church, or participated in one of the ceremonies the church conducted.

But the truth is, you can’t become a child of God just by hanging out in church a couple of times a week or by anything that you could do on your own. The only way to become part of the family of God is to be adopted. And the only way that God is going to adopt you is if you become holy. God said in 1 Peter 1:16, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Not by becoming good in your own estimation, or in comparison to others, but by becoming as righteous as His Son.

However, Romans 3:10 says, “There is none righteous, no not one.” But God loved you so much that He sent the only righteous one, His Son, to pay the price to make you holy. By the death of the Son of God, your sins were paid for in full. He left His robe of righteousness at the foot of the cross for you to put on. And because of His righteousness which was transferred to us, God sees us as completely, perfectly holy. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. “ 2 Corinthians 5:21

If you are willing to accept that gift of righteousness and agree to give up your life to live the life that He has for you, then He will adopt you into the family of God and give to you the full benefits of an heir. You will become a child of God, and live with Him forever, enjoying all that He has provided for you. I trust you know God as your Father. The price has been paid - all that is stopping you is pride. Pride in your goodness, your ability, your own self sufficiency.

“God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 1Peter 5:5-7.

***Special announcement: There will be no Wednesday night Bible study at the Harrell’s house on March 7. Sunday services will be as usual. The next Wednesday Bible study will be March 14 at 6pm. At that time, we will look at what is known as the Romans Road, a series of scriptures in Romans that show the plan of salvation very clearly. I would encourage all of you who are either unsure of your salvation, or would like to know how to lead others to Christ, to plan on attending that session in particular.

a living sacrifice

Sacrifice is a word that has no cultural relevance today. But to first century Jews it was a vivid reminder of the price of their sins. Imagine if every time you thought a lustful thought, or told a little white lie, or committed some other seemingly innocuous, victimless sin, you had to take a spotless, innocent lamb from your flock, the best of your flock, and bring it to the priest and watch him slit his throat and burn it on the altar for atonement for your sin. Bet you would kind of think twice about willfully sinning next time, wouldn’t you?

Two thousand years later we no longer have any concept of sacrifice, and as a result we don’t really much of a concept of sin either. Somehow we got the idea that Jesus died for our sins, but now we have this grace thing that gives us the freedom to do anything we want without remorse, or guilt, or concern. After all, it didn’t cost us anything. But the price of sin has never changed. The wages of sin is death, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. So somebody has to die for that “minor” indiscretion. Somebody has to pay with their life for my rebellion. Grace isn’t a license to sin, it’s having my sins paid for by taking a perfect Lamb, and strapping Him to an altar and torturing Him to death as atonement for my sin. I bet if we got a picture of that we would think twice about willfully sinning next time, wouldn’t we?

So then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How can we who died to sin continue to live in it? Salvation isn’t just about deliverance from the penalty of sin, but it’s about transformation to live a life for God. Understanding His sacrifice should produce a response from me – my sacrifice. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2: 20

Looking around at 21st century Christianity, I don’t see any crucifixion. Everybody is willing to allow Christ to be crucified, but not willing to sacrifice anything themselves for the sake of the Kingdom. Today’s church is all about self fulfillment, realizing your potential, living your best life right here and now. Oh, we’ll sing a few “worship” songs, and tell Jesus how much we appreciate His sacrifice for us, but don’t ask me to really give anything up. They might be willing to drop a tip in the offering plate, but not many are willing to obey the command of Jesus who said, “"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”

True worship is found in Romans 12:1 which says, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” You’re either serving yourself and your worldly desires or serving the Lord. You are free to do either one you want. But don’t be fooled, you can’t do both. I urge you brethren, present your lives as a living sacrifice to God which is your only reasonable worship, when you consider the sacrifice that He made for you.

running the race

Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

The Christian life is often compared to a race. And a race is not something that you can compete in without getting involved. It takes effort. It takes participation. It is not an invitation to be a spectator, but a participant. It says let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…. Us is the church, particularly, the individual members that make up the body of Christ. You and I are called to run a race. The Christian life is not a spectator sport.

Now not all races are alike. This particular race that we are called to run isn’t a sprint, but a marathon. It’s an endurance race. A long distance race. It begins at the moment of conversion, upon salvation. And it ends with us seeing our Savior face to face. Whether that be in the clouds when He comes back to earth to set up His physical kingdom, or when we die and go to heaven. But in the time in between, we are urged to run.

Now notice there are two things here that we are told to lay aside. The first is weights. What are weights? Well, to start with, it’s not necessarily sin. It may be some innocent thing that in and of itself isn’t wrong, but it slows you down. 1 Cor. 6:12 says, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.”

I’m reminded of the scene in the movie Forest Gump. Maybe some of you’ve seen parts of it on TV. Forest has braces on his legs and he can’t walk very well. But one day he is walking home from school with his little girl friend, and these boys start chasing them. And the girl calls out to Forest, “Run Forest, Run!” And he begins to clumsily try to run with these legs all bound up in these braces, but as he gets going, she keeps calling him to run even faster and as he tries to do that the braces start coming apart and falling off, and Forest starts really running. Turns out he was a pretty fast runner without those braces on. Some of you need to throw away your crutches. Get rid of your braces. You don’t need them. God will give you the strength to run. Just let go of all that stuff that you think you need, but instead is holding you back and run!

Of course, some things are sins. There are weights and there are sins. Some things the Bible says flat out are sins. Adultery. Fornication. Homosexuality. Lying, False Witness. Drunkenness. Disobedience to parents. Stealing. Pride. Your conscience knows it’s a sin. God knows it’s a sin. You know it’s a sin. So quit it. Stop it. Repent of it. If you don’t, it’s going to entangle you. In other words, it’s going to wrap itself around you like an animal in a net and you won’t be able to run anymore. You’re going to trip and fall flat on your face. And you could even lose the race.

Sin is really a form of unbelief. We choose to believe a lie rather than believe what God has said. God said this is wrong and it’s bad for you. We say, no, I think it’s going to be good, to be satisfying. I think it’s going to be fun. And so we chose to believe ourselves and Satan and disbelieve God. Galatians 5:7 says, “You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?”

Listen, Satan would love to trip you up in life’s race and get you to stay down there in the mud and just give up. He may be telling you, “Stay down, give up. It isn’t worth the effort. It’s too hard. It’s too lonely. You’re too discouraged.” But when we fall, we need to lift up our head and look at Jesus. He is right there with us, saying, “Come on Son, you can do it. I’ll be right here with you. I will give you strength. Come on, let’s go.” And the cloud of witnesses who have gone on before us I believe are cheering us on as well. If we could hear them, I believe they would be saying, “Don’t give up, keep on keeping on. It will be worth it all, when you see Jesus!”

hope for the new year

John Lennon wrote a song titled “Merry Xmas, War is Over” which has become popular around the holiday season. The lyrics go like this: “So this is Christmas, And what have you done? Another year over, And a new one just begun. A very merry Christmas, And a happy New Year, Let's hope it's a good one, Without any fear.”

Such a sentiment is a common theme around the New Year. Hope for the future from the world’s perspective is peace, no death, no fear. But the reality is that such a hope is little more than a wish. The truth is, there is no prospect of peace on the horizon. Disease and war and tragedy continue to claim human life. Economic fear grips the world as we struggle to get out of the recession.

But for the Christian, hope produces something more. Hope produces faith. Faith goes beyond where hope stops. It doesn’t simply wish, it actually believes and acts with assurance on that belief. It’s not based just on sentiment. Hebrews tells us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Specifically, faith is believing not just in a vague hope for a “better tomorrow”, but for a Christian, faith is believing in the promises of God. Believing that God’s word is true and will not fail. And the incredible thing is this faith in God and His word becomes our justification. Romans 4:3, “Abraham believed God and He counted it to him as righteousness.” This faith becomes our justification, producing our salvation, by granting to us our righteousness not on the basis of what we have done, but by faith in what Jesus has done. And this salvation becomes our hope. Real hope for a future without the futility of suffering and death that are the hallmarks of this world. It comes full circle. Hope brings about faith, which produces justification, which produces salvation, which produces a more certain hope.

Consider this passage describing our hope from Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

As we stand upon the precipice of 2012, we don’t know what the future holds. And yet for the Christian, we have hope that supersedes any fear. We have peace with God. We have a future reserved for us in heaven. We have a disease free body waiting for us when this old one wears out.

Listen, Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end of our faith. He will walk with us through 2012 and beyond, through whatever trials and tribulations that may lie ahead. He said “I will never leave you nor forsake you. And I will come again for you, that where I am, you shall be also.” This is our hope. A hope grounded in the written promises of God. A hope that perseveres beyond the grave. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in Me shall never die.”

We are starting off the New Year at the Beach Fellowship in our Wednesday evening Bible study with the book of Romans. I hope that you will make a resolution to participate with us this year in this life changing study. Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Luau December 21, 6:30 pm. The Dyer's house, 29460 Cedar Neck Rd.

Christmas Day Service, December 25, 8:00 am. Celebrate Communion with us at the beach.

got faith?

It should be universally recognized, at least in evangelical circles, that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” But in spite of it’s essential nature in salvation, there can be a lot of confusion as to exactly what faith is. Hebrews 11:1 gives the classic Biblical definition of faith: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”

Maybe it would help to state what faith is not. Faith is not a tradition passed on from generation to generation. You cannot be born into saving faith. You may have been born into a family that traditionally practiced a certain form of religion, but you cannot be born with saving faith. Faith is not a lifestyle choice: it’s not belonging to an group of nice, morally good people and joining a local denomination.

Faith is not a positive mental attitude that by possession will accomplish what you want to happen. It is not the power of positive thinking. It may be a good idea to be positive, but a positive mental attitude is not Biblical saving faith.

Neither is faith dependent upon the immensity of our mental focus. It’s not the size of our faith that matters, (remember the tiny mustard seed?) but the object of our faith that is important. It’s not faith in the act of faith. It’s not hoping real hard. It’s not a feeling.

Biblical saving faith is simply trusting in the promises of God. And then living in response to those promises. Faith is not simply believing in God, but acting in response to that belief. The Bible says the “devils believe and tremble” and yet the devils aren’t saved are they? No, they believe and yet rebel against God’s word. So we too are saved not simply by believing in the existence of God, or even in the orthodoxy of scripture, but acting in obedience to God’s word.

The writer of Hebrews through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives several illustrations of faith in action in chapter 11. Abel had faith, and so he worshipped God, bringing an acceptable sacrifice. Enoch had faith, and so he walked with God. And his walk was pleasing to God. Noah had faith, and so he built an ark in the middle of a wilderness in response to God’s promise that it was going to rain and flood the earth – in spite of the fact that he had never seen rain.

Noah could have believed all that God said concerning the corruption of the world and coming judgment and if he had done nothing further he would have been destroyed along with the rest of the world. But Noah heard the word, was obedient to the word, and as result built the ark. His actions proved his faith and were a testimony to the world. Noah is called a preacher of righteousness in 2 Peter. And for a 120 years, he preached a daily message of obedience to the promises of God. And as a result, his life still preaches to us, thousands of years later.

Let us be men and women of faith; doers of the word, not simply hearers. As James warns, “Faith without works is dead.”

Love isn’t a euphemism

Jesus was asked once, "What commandment is the foremost of all?" And in His answer He quoted from Deuteronomy 6:4 - not one of the ten commandments by the way - Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD;” And one application of that is that there is not one kind of a God of the Old Testament, and a different kind of a God that is revealed in the New Testament. There is one God, one Lord, over all, unchanging, eternal in the heavens.

But there is a trend today in some Christian circles to present God in just one dimension: as just a God of love. After all, the Bible does say that God is love, and so there is this tendency to pare all our theology and all our doctrines down to a one word definition of God. God is love. And that sounds good and plausible.

The problem with this philosophy is that God is much more than just love. But when you accept or assert that everything about God can be boiled down to just the concept of love, then you can end up destroying your theology. True theology recognizes that there are many dimensions to God’s character, and while love may be one of them, there are others that must be given equal consideration.

For instance, one of the major doctrines of God is that He is first of all holy. The Bible spends the first five books of the Bible particularly establishing the holiness of God. Take for example, when Moses saw the burning bush and went over to see what this strange thing was all about, as he was coming to the bush, the Lord spoke from the burning bush and said, “Moses, don’t come any further. Remove the sandals from your feet. For the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

Before God even told him who He was or what He wanted Moses to do, first of all God establishes that even the ground around the bush was holy and Moses couldn’t just blithely approach Him.

Now in those days, names meant something about the character of a person. And so at some point in the conversation, Moses says, “Well ok, suppose I go to this people and say so and so, but then they ask me who sent me? What is His name? What shall I say to them?” And God answered, “I Am who I Am. Tell them, the I Am has sent you.”

In other words, God was saying I am so much bigger than one name. By giving Moses His name, Moses could basically put God in a box. Like Love. Once you have God in the box labeled Love, you can define Him by that, and only that. And if something comes along, or even scripture teaches something that doesn’t really fit into that box labeled Love, then you can discount it, or say it must be just a metaphor or an allegory. God really can’t mean that, otherwise God can’t be love. So God said you aren’t going to put Me in a box and label it with a name, and thus think you can define ME. I Am. I am bigger and more wonderful than that. I am unsearchable. I am unknowable. I am a mystery. I’ll tell you what I am, you won’t define what I am.

You see, if we don’t have the right understanding of the holiness of God, then we can’t really understand the grievance of our sin. And if we don’t have the proper understanding of how grievous our sin is, then we can’t really appreciate all that God has done to forgive us from our sin. And if we can’t appreciate how much it cost God to save us from our sin, then we will more than likely not worry too much when we continue in our sin. We end up with a cheap view of grace. To understand grace we need to understand God’s justice. Grace may be a free gift from a loving God, but we need to understand how costly that grace was that was purchased.

Yes, God is love. But God is also holy. And a permissive God is not a loving, holy God. So our sin had to be accounted for. And God counted our sins to Jesus. The payment for our redemption was paid for in blood by the substitution of God Himself in human form. And justice and mercy joined hands at the cross.

access to God

All religions of the world, in every culture around the world, are all interested in one basic thing, and that is access to God. There is an innate recognition in man that there must be something bigger than us, some reason for our existence, some purpose to life. And even those who would deny the existence of God must deny this realization at the very core of their existence, for as it says in Romans 1:19 “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.”

But contrary to the doctrines of many religions of the world, the Bible tells us that we are estranged and alienated from God because of sin, and therefore ignorant about God. Isaiah 59 tells us that “your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”

So the bad news is that man is alienated and estranged from God. He cannot grope for Him and find Him, or lay hold of Him. He cannot even really understand Him fully, but only see enough evidence around him through creation to be convicted, and that conviction and his sin is enough to condemn him. So if we are to have access to God, to know God, it is incumbent upon God to reveal Himself to man, if man is to know enough to be able to be reconciled to God. And that is the good news; the gospel, and the message of the book of Hebrews, that God has appointed Jesus to be our prophet, priest and king. Our prophet to tell us about God, our priest to mediate and minister for us to God, and our king to make us citizens of the kingdom of God.

As Hebrews 1 opens it tells us that God has set about to reveal Himself to the sons of men by first the agency of prophets - and a prophet is a person who proclaims the word of God, and then secondly God reveals Himself by the agency of a priest - who ministers to us from God and from us to God, and finally one day will reveal Himself as King over all the earth when He comes back in glory.

Since man is unable to gain access to God, God sent His Son, His exact image in human form to us. Hebrews 1 says, “God, after He spoke long ago to the prophets in many portions and many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, who whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

He became our priest, our mediator, able to grasp both man and God at the same time. He is our access to God. And there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. All who would come to the Father must come through Him. For He is the exact representation of God. This phrase found in Heb. 1:2 comes from a Greek word from which we get the word character. It speaks of an instrument, which had carved on one end a character or letter, and then would be used to press into clay or wax, leaving an exact imprint. God imprinted His character into human clay – and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father – Jesus Christ. He is our access, our great High Priest, who has gone into the holiest of heaven to intercede on our behalf, not with the blood of bulls and goats, but by the blood of His own sacrifice, as the spotless lamb of God.

Hebrews 9:11 says “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

***Through the end of October, we will try to hold services on the beach, weather permitting. But in the case of inclement weather, we will hold our Sunday service at the Christian Conference Center in the heart of Bethany Beach until we move indoors permanently during the winter months.

***There will be a ladies night out, “Fall into Fellowship” at Patty McCarthy’s house on October 17 at 6:30pm. All women are encouraged to attend. Please call Susie for more information.

fall into fellowship

Just an update on the Beach Fellowship as we enter into fall. The weather has certainly been unsettled so far this season. So, starting October 9, we will have a backup available on Sunday mornings in case of inclement weather. We will keep the main objective to have services on the beach as the weather permits through the end of the month, but will also utilize the Christian Conference Center as a backup. If we have to move indoors, someone will be on the beach to direct latecomers to the Conference Center. Starting in November, we will move permanently into the Conference Center until late Spring of 2012.

As we enter into the “off season”, we just want to encourage you with the words of Paul to Timothy, that we be found faithful “to preach the word, in season and out of season…” We are continuing in our Sunday study of the book of Hebrews which is very challenging, but essential as we mature in our faith. And at our Wednesday evening Bible study, we meet at 6pm for dinner at the Harrell’s house, and then continue in our study of 2 Corinthians.

There is going to be a special women’s night out on Monday, October 17, at 6:30pm which we are calling Fall Into Fellowship which will be hosted at Patty McCarthy’s house. All women of the church are encouraged to attend. Dinner will be provided, followed by a brief word of encouragement. Please call or email for directions or more information.

It’s going to feel like fall on the beach this Sunday, October 2, so dress accordingly. Hope to see you there.

baby talk

“Open up, baby. Here comes the choo choo. Open your mouth. It’s good! Woo! Woo! Here comes the choo choo!”

Sound familiar? If you have ever had a baby in your family then it should. Getting those cute little bundles of joy to eat their pureed peas can take all the creativity that you can muster up. Many times as parents, we succomb to talking baby talk, some sort of weird jibberish, in order to get our little ones to eat what’s good for them.

And when they are infants, it’s kind of cute to see all that green goo all over their faces. Or watching them suckle on a milk bottle while blowing little white bubbles is always good for a laugh. But when a child matures and gets older, that kind of behavior would not elicit laughter anymore, but instead perhaps sympathy. No parent wants to see their baby stay a baby forever. We want our children to grow up normally.

I think that’s what the writer of Hebrews was talking about in chapter 5, starting in verse 13: “For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.” The writer goes on to say that by now you should have become teachers, replicating and multiplying your faith throughout the world in accordance with the great commission which we have all received. But instead, you need to learn your abc’s all over again. You never really learned the elementary principles found in the Word of God.

But solid food, he says, is for the mature. Solid Bible teaching is for the mature. Children’s programs may be ok for children. But when you mature you need to develop a taste for the unadulterated Word of God. Unfortunately, our pastors and teachers, in an attempt to be seeker friendly and entertaining, have dumbed down the gospel to the point where it isn’t even like milk anymore, but rather like whipped cream. And the hungry souls that come to eat of it find barely enough sustenance to sustain them through the morning, much less the rest of the week. It produces little more than a temporary sugar rush.

Verse 14 says, “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” The Word of righteousness produces in us discernment to distinguish between good and evil, as our senses are trained by God’s word and His thoughts become our thoughts. We are able to recognize false teaching, and unholy conduct.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us purpose in our hearts that we will just simply grow up. Let’s put away childish things, things that appeal to our senses and fleshly tastes, and develop an appetite for the things of God and for His Word.

By the way, we are still meeting for another month and a half or so on the beach for our Sunday services. We invite you to continue in our study of Hebrews with us there.

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cheap grace

Did you ever notice the principle that when someone doesn’t work or pay for something, then they don’t appreciate it and end up taking it for granted? Perhaps with children especially, you spend a ton of money to buy them some lavish gift for Christmas, because you want to show them how much you love them or make up for some failing that you think you may have as a parent, and observe with pleasure the response on the part of the child when they first open their gifts, but then a few hours later, notice this expensive gift is left lying out in the yard, or already broken and discarded. And it’s very upsetting for the parent, who recognizes how much it cost them, but how little the child appreciates it.

That’s an illustration of what I call cheap grace. Yes, it cost us nothing. We couldn’t buy it. We received it free of charge. But as a consequence we tend not to cherish it as much as we should. However, we need to be reminded that it cost God something. In fact, the cost to God was priceless.

God’s gift of grace was priceless because first of all we don’t understand holiness. We can’t comprehend the horror of sin coming upon the holy God who had never sinned. Who never had an impure thought. Never hated a person. Never lied, even once, even just a little. Never taken what wasn’t His. One of the main reasons I believe God prescribed the ceremonial law in the Old Testament was to teach us about His holiness. How even little, seemingly innocuous details could be an affront to a holy God. And basically, books 2- 5, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy instruct us of the extent of God’s holiness.

But today we basically discount all of that. We love to quote, “we’re not under the law, we’re under grace.” However, a lot of times, I think we are just looking for a license to sin. Romans 6:1 says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”

Furthermore, we can’t comprehend the cost to God because we have such a dim view of heaven. We can’t imagine it. We can’t imagine the glory that Christ dwelt in before His incarnation. We can’t imagine the legions of angels attending to Him and obeying His every wish. We can’t imagine the glories of the universe that were under His control and authority. We can’t imagine what it cost God to leave heaven to become man.

We see a baby in a manger and it looks so sweet and innocent and we almost find ourselves looking down on Him in condescending pity at His humble circumstances. And we can’t comprehend that even if He had come as a full blown, mature man with all the riches and grandeur that even Solomon himself enjoyed, it would still have been such a humiliation that it is incomprehensible to us. We read that He humbled Himself to become one of us, and yet we cannot comprehend how much that cost Him.

No, grace was given to us for free, but the cost to God was immeasurable. 2Corinthians 5:21 says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” That sounds so cut and dry, so quick and easy, that it goes right over our head. The most vile sinner that ever lived, who committed the most vile sins that can ever be imagined, those sins were placed on Jesus in some supernatural way, and I cannot comprehend what it cost Him.

I know that in the garden of Gethsemane He prayed for it to be taken from Him if there was any other way. And it obviously was not possible in any other way for us to be reconciled to a holy just God, who demanded full payment for our trespasses, and so as our trespasses fell on Him, the Bible says He sweated drops of blood. He was in unbelievable agony, yes from the nails and the whip, but so much more for the little white lie that I told yesterday. My little, momentary impure thought that didn’t really hurt anyone that I indulged in the other day, added even more pain and suffering than 40 lashes with a cat of nine tails.

Oh yes, grace for me was free. It didn’t cost me anything. But Oh, how it cost Him.

not now dad, I'm busy

If you have kids, then I’m sure you’re familiar with the often heard refrain when you ask them to do something. “Not now dad, I’m busy.” Or the other one, “Ok, just a minute. But I’m doing something right now.” It’s funny how easy it is for them to shrug off what I want them to do, because they think what they are doing is so much more important.

Not that what they are doing isn’t worthwhile, or even a good thing, but in my omnipotent wisdom as a parent, I recognize what should be a priority, and I expect them to follow my priorities, not theirs. So, many times my response is, “Well, I don’t care what you are doing, right now I want you to clean your room. And when you’re done with your chores, then you can go back to what you’re doing.” Sound familiar?

It should sound familiar because as children of God, many times I think we respond to Him the same way as our kids often do to us. “Not now Father, I’m busy.” Or, “Ok, just a minute. But I’m doing something else right now.” The truth is, we are busy pursuing our priorities, and we think we will get around to doing what He wants us to do when it’s a little more convenient. And like children, we think that God should understand and even be sympathetic to our willfulness.

I think that was the idea behind what the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 1:6, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel.” Oh, we wouldn’t think of it as a different gospel, but actually it is. It is the gospel according to Roy Harrell, or the gospel according to John Smith. Our priorities take precedence over God’s. A deserter in the armed services may have what he thinks are good reasons to leave his commission, but regardless of his reasoning, to his superiors he is still a deserter.

Being a Christian requires more than just being a sunshine patriot. As the song we like to sing says, “Blessed be your name, when the sun’s shining down on me, when the world’s all that it should be, blessed be your name.” But it doesn’t end there. We’re called to bless His name “on the road marked with suffering, when there is pain in the offering, blessed be Your name.”

The wisest man that ever lived spent much of his life pursuing every thing he could think of to try to find fulfillment in his life. Until finally, at the end of his years, he recognized that it was all chasing after the wind. His conclusion was this, “fear God and keep His commandments." And he prefaced that with another statement that I think is timeless. Ecclesiastes 12 says, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say ‘I have no more delight in them’.” Remember Him, before the silver cord is broken, and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed.”

Let’s be about the Lord’s business, when it’s convenient and it’s not convenient. When the sun is shining, and when the wind is contrary. Let’s be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

P.S. Nobody said we couldn’t have ice cream though. Banana Split Sunday, August 7 at 7pm at the Harrell’s house. Bring a topping or some ice cream for just an evening of fellowship and fun.

strange fire

As you may know if you have visited our Sunday morning services on the beach lately, we have started a new study in the book of Hebrews. And I am very excited about the prospect of digging into these Scriptures. Hebrews is basically a commentary on the Old Testament, utilizing a great many quotes and illustrations in order to enable us to see Jesus Christ.

It is important for us to remember that God never changes. His character and holiness are unchangeable. As it says in Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” God’s grace doesn’t nullify God’s holiness or standard of righteousness. It just makes it possible through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

There is a story in Leviticus 10 about two priests, Nadab and Abihu, who were sons of Aaron. And during the consecration of the tabernacle, they participated in the offering and God brought down fire from heaven and burned up the sacrifice. The children of Israel gave a great shout at the sight of fire coming out of heaven and fell on their faces. And the Bible tells us that “Nadab and Abihu took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.”

You see, God is holy, and He says He will not share His glory with man. Aaron’s sons didn’t follow the commandment of God and tried to bring attention to themselves through their worship. Many times today I fear we may think we are offering up service to God, but the truth is that we are offering up strange fire which God is not obligated to honor, and may not be pleasing to God at all.

We all are familiar with the story of Cain and Abel. God was pleased with Abel’s offering, but He did not consider Cain’s offering. Cain’s offering was offered in pride, and perhaps he felt that God should be pleased with the work of his hands. But God did not honor his offering.

Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” In Spirit simply means not in the flesh. And truth is found only in God’s word. His word is unchanging. It is settled forever in the heavens. It doesn’t change with the culture or the times.

turn your eyes upon Jesus

Just over two years ago, I began our study in the Gospel of Matthew during our Sunday morning beach service. Now finally, we are in the last few verses of the last chapter. And what a tremendous blessing it has been in my life and I trust in others as well to take such an in depth, careful look at the life of Jesus Christ through the book of Matthew.

While all of Scripture, from the Old Testament through Revelation, has the common theme of the Christ, there is something special about the gospels. There we see Jesus Christ unveiled in His glory. And looking at the glory of Christ unveiled is the source of our sanctification. As it says in our text we are studying this Wednesday evening at our mid week Bible study, 2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” When you look in the mirror, do you see Jesus Christ? I know I don’t even like looking in the mirror. I see too much I don’t like there. But when I look at the mirror of God’s word, I see Jesus first, then I see myself in all my inadequacies revealed, but then, by the mercy of God, I see the glory of Christ reflected on my reflection, as I am being transformed day by day by the Holy Spirit.

There is no substitute for looking at the unveiled face of Jesus Christ in His Word. It is the means to our sanctification. And the purpose of our sanctification, in fact even our salvation, is to transform us into the image of God. Salvation and the benefits which follow are not designed to make us merely happier, more successful citizens of earth, but to transform us into citizens of heaven, resulting in the view as the hymn writer said, that when we “turn our eyes upon Jesus… the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

Both Paul and James use the picture of a mirror in context with the Word of God. And there is no better place to see Christ. John starts off in his gospel describing the eternal Christ as the Word, existing with God and as God before time began. How thankful we should be that to see Jesus today, we need only to pick up His Word. We don’t need to travel to Jerusalem, or climb some high mountain, or seek Him in some church or cathedral, we need only to look at the Word, and we see Him.

John went on to say that “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. He was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” But 2 Cor. 4 says that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel.” Our job then, our ministry, is to be the reflection of that glory of God, that the blazing light of Christ would shine from us like it did from Moses when he came down from spending time with God and delivered the old covenant to the Israelites. Christ has come to us with unveiled face, bringing the good news of the new covenant, fully shining the light of God on us as we look on His face, so that we might also shine the light of God in the darkness of the world.

“For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness’, is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

As we continue to preach Jesus Christ on the beach this season, we are careful that we are “not walking in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God”, but by the manifestation of the truth continuing in this ministry which we have received from God. I hope you will join us and strive with us as we shine the light in Bethany Beach.

a firm foundation

It’s important as Christians that we know what we believe. Too often, there is this idea that we don’t really need to worry too much about Biblical doctrine, we just need to have faith. But the foundation of Christianity is not just the power of our faith. In other words, we are not to have faith in simply faith, but we have faith in the promises of God. Faith is not some monkey wrench by which we can manipulate God to get what we want to get from Him. Faith is only valuable as it relates to the promises of God. And the promises of God are our doctrine – the foundation of our faith. We don’t have faith in just any whim of our minds or any whim of doctrine, but we have faith that God keeps His word. God’s word says He has made a covenant with us. A covenant is a legally binding document containing promises and provisions for a transaction. And we can have faith in God’s covenant, because He keeps His word. Therefore, it behooves us to know what is in that covenant. You wouldn’t buy a house or a car or a business without knowing the conditions and the promises contained in that covenant, would you? How much less should we stake our eternal destiny on anything but the truth.

Eph 4:13 says, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.”

Paul is saying, in plain language, that Christians need to grow up. And I think it’s even more true today. For all the advantages of the modern church, we are basically infantile. Our faith is superficial. We don’t really know what we believe or why. And what we do believe too often is based on our own experience or someone else’s, and has no biblical basis. Christianity is not some spiritually sanitized version of the power of positive thinking, but it is the firm conviction of our faith in the truth of the promises that God has given us.

Hebrews 8:6 “But now He [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.” We have a new covenant, a better covenant, because we have a better mediator, and we have better promises. And this time, God says He will write His laws upon our hearts, not upon tablets of stone. He doesn’t take away the law, but He gives us a way of meeting His standard of righteousness, by changing us on the inside and giving us the Holy Spirit to live within us, to enable us to do His will.

the power of weakness

Maybe I could have titled this message, “the anti-prosperity gospel”. Because the real gospel is contrary to the popular theology that claims that being a Christian excludes you from trials, sickness, poor finances, family troubles and all the rest. I'm sure you've all heard that false gospel hawked by television peddlers who claim that if you just believe enough all your wildest dreams will come true. They profess the kind of religion that thinks that the unsaved will be drawn to God by the gilt and gold of successful Christians living the American dream.

Because that is exactly what it is; the American dream. It’s not the reality of Christians living in China, or the Middle East, or most of the rest of the world. They wouldn’t recognize this prosperity, health, wealth and happiness gospel that guarantees an American version of upper middle class to all who believe. And it certainly wasn’t the gospel of the Apostles either. Perhaps these modern peddlers think God is just partial to Americans.

The truth of the gospel actually tells us that trials and tribulations are an important, if not essential element in our sanctification process. Just as we are utterly unable to enter into the Kingdom by any righteousness of our own, but by the grace of God have been granted Christ’s righteousness in exchange for our sins, so is our sanctification process founded on the same principles. As we are being formed in the image of Christ, it is necessary for God to use trials, weaknesses, tribulations, sorrows, health issues, etc, to take us out of the process and allow the Holy Spirit to do that which is necessary to bring glory to God.

2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” What that means is that you and I are just clay pots. Not shiny, gilt edged gold pots. No, what is special about you and I is not what is on the outside, but what is on the inside. The only value in us is in our content, not our ornament.

That’s why 2Cor. 3:5 says, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” So, it is possible that what I consider to be weakness in myself or my circumstances is actually key to my usefulness in the Kingdom.

Paul is a great illustration of that principle. He was a man of great learning. He had climbed the ladder of success in Judaism. He had been saved by a direct appearance of Christ. And to top it all off, he had been taken up into the third heaven and heard and seen things that he wasn’t even able to talk about. He had reason to boast. So God gave him a thorn in the flesh. Something to keep him humble, or else he would not have been useful to the Kingdom. He would probably have been insufferable like so many of us are when our pride has reason to boast.

2Cor. 12:7 “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

What weakness do you have that you are dealing with today? I’m not talking about sin. I’m talking about some burden you bear that you are struggling with God to remove from your life. But it could be that thing you’re asking God to take away is the very thing that enables Him to be able to use you. Our weakness can release the power of God. Sometimes, for our good, God gives us thorns.

the destruction of fortresses

This week we have been doing the Jericho March, a walk around Bethany for 6 days in which we pray for the fortresses of Satan to be overthrown in our community. Every year we do this in anticipation of this season when we move out on the beach and begin our worship services there on Sundays. We don’t think that there is some magical formula in circling the city for six days, but rather we think that it is so important that we begin this endeavor in earnest, concentrated, strategic prayer, because it is God who must do the real work in people’s hearts.

I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 10:3 which speaks to this: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” And this thought is continued in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Vs. 18, “With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”

Scripture shows us repeatedly that God loves to do great things by just a few people, as it says in 1Corinthians 1:27 “but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”

Naaman, the renowned Syrian general, almost missed out on the great healing of God of his leprosy, because he felt like the simple word of God was beneath his dignity. He derided the prophet who instructed him to wash 7 times in the Jordan, because certainly there were nice rivers at home to wash in. He didn’t need to get in the dirty old Jordan. But his servants said to him, “if God had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? Then why not do this simple thing, ‘wash and be clean’?”

I like the simple faith of Jonathan, King Saul’s son. He and his armor bearer got separated from the rest of the Israeli army in a great battle against Midian. And as they were wandering around they came upon the garrison of the Midianites. And Jonathan said to his armor bearer, “Come, and let us cross over to the garrison of the uncircumcised; perhaps the LORD will work for us, for the LORD is not restrained to save by many or by few.” 1 Samuel 14:6. So Jonathan rushed upon this great multitude of enemy soldiers all by himself and slew 20 men in about a 50 yard stretch of ground, and God caused a trembling in the camp, then in the field and among all the people, and there was a great earthquake and God caused a great victory through the faith of Jonathan.

We have two more nights of the Jericho March, Friday and Saturday at 7pm in the parking lot at Ocean View Parkway. And then we will begin the first of our beach services on Sunday at 8am at Ocean View Parkway on the beach. We look forward to being part of a great work of the Lord this season. We invite you to join us.

a couple of important announcements

It’s an exciting time of year here at The Beach Fellowship. We are planning on moving our Sunday services to the beach again starting June 5 for what will be our fifth year! As we prepare for this transition, there are few things that we would like to make sure everyone is aware of, and has a chance to participate in.

As we have done every year, prior to going out on the beach we will be holding our annual Jericho March starting Monday evening, May 30th at 7pm. We will meet every night that week at the parking lot on Ocean View Parkway where we have our services and begin with group prayer, then pray silently as we walk around the city. We pray that God will cause the walls to come down spiritually in our community, that we can experience the freedom to proclaim the gospel in the strength that God provides as we begin our beach services. The seventh day will be our first Sunday morning service which begins at 8am. We hope that you will join us for the Jericho March every night that you can, and if you’re out of town you can still participate in spirit with us each evening.

Also, we are asking you to pray about another event we are calling “sponsor a sign”. As you may know, we utilize yard sale type of signs to get the message out about our Sunday services. In the past we have had only as many as 4 or 5 out there, and yet have seen God really multiply their effectiveness. This year we are hoping to get as many as 12 signs out in our community. And to do that we are asking for people to sponsor a sign, either by donating $25 for the cost of a sign, or by offering a location to place a sign. In spite of the growth we have seen each year, there are potentially many thousands of people that never hear about our services and as a result, may never hear the gospel fully presented in truth.

God has already been working in exciting ways during this “off season” in our church, and we look forward to sharing with you many more things that will be upcoming as we go into the summer. I would also appreciate your prayers for the next few days as I attend the East Coast Pastor’s Conference with a couple of men from our church. It’s an important time for me to get my spiritual tank refilled and I’m really looking forward to it. Thank you for working together with us in this ministry.

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

the God of restoration

There was a full moon lighting up the city of Jerusalem, where thousands upon thousands of people had swarmed into town to celebrate the Passover. It’s almost midnight, as Jesus and his 11 disciples head behind the temple mount and down into a ravine where the brook Kidron flows red with the blood of tens of thousands of lambs that were slain for the Passover meal which ran out the back of the temple into the brook beneath. And Jesus and the disciples step through this blood filled stream and start climbing the Mount of Olives to go to a place in the Garden of Gethsemane that they must have used on a regular basis to spend the night.

And as they are going, maybe there is some discussion among them as to where Judas was and what he was doing. Perhaps speculation that he had deserted Jesus. But somewhere en route up the mountain in the middle of the night, they stop for a moment to catch their breath. And there in the moonlight, Jesus has the following conversation with them.

Matthew 26:31 Then Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP OF THE FLOCK SHALL BE SCATTERED. But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. But Peter said to Him, Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away. Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you that this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times. Peter said to Him, Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You. All the disciples said the same thing too.”

You see, they all affirmed what we would like to be able to affirm. But they were affirming it based on their own sense of strength, their own sense of commitment. They thought their love for Christ was greater than it was. They thought their spiritual strength was greater than it was. They thought their ability to handle Satan was greater than it was. They were leaning on their own understanding, in the terms of Proverbs 3: 5 And when it came time to take that stand when Christ was taken captive in the garden, "Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled."

But Jesus is using this situation to teach them and to teach us as well, that we are inadequate in and of ourselves to stay committed to God by virtue of our human strength, or to understand completely in our own minds the nature of spiritual warfare. And sometimes it may be easier to vow allegiance to God, even to proclaim a willingness to die for Christ in a time when there is no conflict, but when the battle isn’t waged on a battlefield but in the office, or out with the boys, or at school, then often we find ourselves retreating without a hand being lifted against us.

But In spite of everything they did to desert the Lord, in spite of all the cursing and the swearing and the denial and the fleeing and the forsaking and all of that, He was loving, He was merciful, He was restoring. And here we see the absolute classic illustration of mercy. They aren't worthy of anything but He says I'll be back for you. He says in spite of the fact that you will fall away tonight, I'll collect you and lead you to Galilee. And that is exactly what He did. After His resurrection, He went out of His way to restore Peter, and doubting Thomas and all the others. He got everybody back on board, ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit and sent them out to change the world.

Now what does that say to you and me? It says God is in the business of picking up disciples who have deserted, who have fallen away and restoring them. We can take comfort in the fact that we may forsake Him, but He will never under any conditions forsake us. Listen, like he did with Peter that night, Satan is desiring to sift you like wheat today, especially if you’re trying to live for the Lord. You can’t stand without Jesus Christ. If you do try to stand in your own strength, then you’re going to fall. But Jesus is always there to restore you and pick you up again.

“I will never leave you or forsake you.” Heb. 14:5

the fellowship of His sufferings

What makes a church a church? The preaching of God’s Word is certainly the foundation of a good church. It is the power of God unto salvation. And the Bible says by the foolishness of preaching that men are saved. But just preaching alone is simply evangelism. And a church is more than just evangelism. It must also be fellowship.

The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia, which means sharing, communion, association and intimacy. So by the Biblical definition, the church is not defined by a building, or programs, or whether there is all the usual trappings of religion. The church is the body of Christ that is bound together by a sense of fellowship, or sharing in the lives of one another.

Paul used a phrase in Philippians 3:10 from which we can glean even more insight into this idea of what fellowship is about; “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings”. Now this certainly refers to our conformity to the death of Christ by dying to our flesh and the world. We may suffer some of the same things that Christ suffered, like loneliness, or abandonment or rejection, and we can have fellowship with Him through knowing that He also suffered those things and through His comfort. But I also believe that it speaks of a fellowship with the body of Christ, the church, as we suffer also with one another.

So how do we have fellowship with Christ’s sufferings? We can have fellowship with His sufferings by reaching out to other members of His body who are suffering. We are all members of the body of Christ.

1Corinthians 12:26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” So our spiritual gifts are given to minister service to the members of His body. And suffering is something that all Christians will share in, sooner or later. In fact, your suffering should equip you to sympathize with those other members who are suffering. Before you suffered, other’s suffering may not have seemed so significant. But as you suffer, it prepares you for being able to help others.

God comforts people with people. Even Paul needed human companionship. Even preachers and teachers can get despondent. Paul said in 2 Corinthians that he was comforted by the coming of Titus. We all need human encouragement.

As Paul finished up the first letter to the Corinthians in chapter 16, he said, “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” Kissing may have been a cultural thing in those days, but as I was thinking about it, I realized that there may be something about kissing that should still be relevant to our church today. We need to be intimate with one another. We need to touch one another. You know, Jesus could heal with just a word. But very often, Jesus also healed with a touch. As people in the body of Christ, we often need a human touch. That willingness to get involved in one another’s lives in a physical, practical way is what is so often missing in our churches today. But when we are conformed to the image of Christ, and participate in the fellowship of His suffering, we should be found ministering to the needs of the body - the sufferings of His body - His church.

act like a man

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 1 Cor. 16:13

Maybe you can chalk it up to the after effects of 40 years of social revolution. But the traditional role of the American male has been under assault since the hippy movement. Somewhere along the line, it seems that he became the fall guy for every ill of society. And while I don’t defend plenty of examples of wrong behavior or attitudes of men throughout history, I think societies emasculation of the traditional American male has had a negative backlash on our culture.

Today there is a great need in society for men to take hold of their God given responsibilities and start living up to the standard of our forefathers. And also there is a tremendous need in the church today for men to stand up and start acting like men. Paul in writing to the Corinthians said “act like men”, or I like the old English version, “quit you like men.”

Whether or not we want to accept it in our politically correct churches today, God gave the responsibility of church leadership to men. 1Timothy 2:12 says, “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” (Don’t get mad at me, God said it.)

And in the family God also gave responsibility for the leadership role to the man. Ephesians 5:22 says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.”

I believe that if men were to take responsibility for the roles that God has placed in them, then not only would society be a whole lot better off today, but the church would as well. Paul obviously felt the same way. “Start acting like men”, is what he was saying through the Holy Spirit.

By the way, in spite of what some politically correct pastors have been saying lately, God is a HE, not a she. Jesus was and is a man, and “And He [Jesus] is the radiance of His [God's] glory and the exact representation of His [God's] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power." Heb. 1:3

There is a tremendous need today for men to take the spiritual leadership role in their marriage, in the raising of their families, and in the church. “Be on the alert” means be watchful of the devil’s schemes to undermine God’s word, authority and plan. “Stand fast (firm) in the faith” means don’t be moved by every wind and wave of doctrine or whim of the culture – grab hold of the truth and stand firm! And finally, “Be strong.” Exercise your leadership and grow in the role that God has given you. Be mature. Don’t be weak in the flesh. Grow up and act like a man.

And no, that doesn’t give a man the right to lord it over everyone, but to serve them as Christ served the church, laying down His glory, His rights, His privilege to serve us.