Wrong Thinking Regarding Church Membership

This month we are focusing on the importance of Church Membership. Don't worry you read that right! Church Membership is very important. But sadly many don't understand this truth. The following list reveals where many go wrong:

• Christians can think it's fine to attend church indefinitely without joining; 
• Christians think of getting baptized apart from joining;  
• Christians take the Lord's Supper without joining; 
• Christians view the Lord's Supper as their own private, mystical experience for Christians and not as an activity for church members who are incorporated into body life together;  
• Christians don't integrate their Monday-to-Saturday lives with the lives of other saints; 
• Christians assume they can make a perpetual habit of being absent from the churches gathering a few Sunday's a month or more; 
• Christians make major life decisions (moving, accepting a promotion, choosing a spouse, etc.) without considering the effects of those decisions on the family of relationships in the church or without consulting the wisdom of the church's pastor and other members; 
• Christians buy homes or rent apartments with scant regard for how factors such as distance and cost will affect their abilities to serve their church; 
• Christians don't realize that they are partly responsible for both the spiritual welfare and the physical livelihood of the other members of their church, even members they have not met. When one mourns, one mourns by himself. When one rejoices, one rejoices by herself. 

How important is Church Membership to you? 

Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus, Jonathan Leeman, pg. 23

Communicate the Gospel Plainly

Last month we focused on Evangelism (the 5th mark of a healthy church), so I wanted to spend a few blog posts encouraging us in our evangelism. I recently read through a great summary in Michael Lawrence's book Conversion.

First we must communicate the gospel PLAINLY

Someone once said, "Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words." This quote may sound good, but just because something sounds good doesn't make it true. The gospel (a.k.a. good news) needs to be spoken and spoken plainly.

There are many good and bad things that have attempted to take the place of the gospel through the centuries, but no message can replace the gospel. Lawrence writes, "The gospel isn't merely that "God loves you" or "Jesus will give you purpose." It doesn't promise a happy marriage or success at work or successful children. It may help, but it offers no guarantees. The heart of the gospel is that Jesus died and rose again as a substitute for sinners, appeasing God's just wrath and reconciling us to himself."

What this means is followers of Jesus must know the gospel message so well that we are always ready to give an answer for the hope we have (1 Peter 3:15). Let me encourage you to learn and practice PLAINLY communicating the gospel with others.

Culture of Evangelism

I long for a church that understands that it - the local church - is the chosen and best method of evangelism. I long for a church in where the Christians are so in love with Jesus that when they go about the regular time of worship, they become an image of the gospel. I long for a church that disarms with love, not entertainment and lives out counter-cultural confidence in the power of the gospel. I long for a church where the greatest celebrations happen over those who share their faith, and the heroes are those who risk their reputations to evangelize.

I yearn for a culture of evangelism with brothers and sisters whose backs are up to mine in the battle; where I'm taught and teach about what it means to share our faith; and where I see leaders in the church leading people to Jesus. I want a church where you can point to changed lives, where you can see people stand up and say, "When I came to this church two years ago, I didn't know God, but now I do!" I long to be a part of a culture of evangelism like that. I bet you do, too.

Evangelism, J. Mack Stiles, 60

From a Dying Church to a Church Willing to Die for Christ

 As you read this pointed quote by Andrew Davis, please consider your own life.

Dying churches have gotten to the sad state they are in because they selfishly loved their lives in this world and refused to take up their cross daily and follow Christ. They have become inwardly focused; they spend their money on themselves and their own comforts; they rarely invite people to church; they stopped looking for ways to engage the community and to serve its needs for the sake of the gospel. They have forgotten what Jesus taught; 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit' (John 12:24). As German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, 'When Jesus calls a man, he bids him, 'Come and die!'"

I truly believe God has great things in store for Meadowview, but only when we selflessly give ourselves to His work. Meadowview will you come and die with me for the sake of Christ and His church?


Revitalize: Biblical Keys to Helping Your Church Come Alive Again

The Purpose of Church Discipline

Since we have been working through 1 Corinthians 5, I thought this summary of the Purposes of Church Discipline by Leeman would be helpful...

1. Discipline aims to expose. Sin, like cancer, loves to hide. Discipline exposes the cancer so that it might be cut out quickly (1 Corinthians 5:2).

2. Discipline aims to warn. A church does not enact God's retribution through discipline. Rather, it stages a small play that pictures that great judgment to come (1 Corinthians 5:5). Discipline is a compassionate warning.

3. Discipline aims to save. Churches pursue discipline when they see a member taking the path toward death, and none of their pleading and arm-waving causes the person to turn around. It's the device of last resort for bringing an individual the repentance (1 Corinthians 5:5).

4. Discipline aims to protect. Just as cancer spreads from one cell to another, so sin quickly spreads from one person to another (1 Corinthians 5:6).

5. Discipline aims to present a good witness for Jesus. Church discipline, strange to say, is actually good for non-Christians, because it helps to preserve the attractive distinctiveness of God's people. Churches, remember, should be salt and light. "But if the salt loses its saltiness...," Jesus said, "It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men" (Matthew 5:13).

Church Discipline: How The Church Protects The Name of Jesus, Jonathan Leeman

How Do I, "Be Holy?" (2)

Great word from Ryle...

I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness who was not diligent about his Bible reading, his prayers, and the use of his Sunday's. (Ryle, Holiness pg. 26)

How Do I, "Be Holy?"

As we have been studying at Meadowview scripture calls us to Holiness, "...as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct" (1 Pet. 1:15). So how can we become Holy as God is Holy?  Here is how RC Sproul answers that question,

The key method Paul underscores as the means to the transformed life is by the 'renewal of the mind.' This means nothing more and nothing less than education. Serious education. In-depth education. Disciplined education in the things of God. It calls for a mastery of the Word of God. We need to be people whose lives have changed because our minds have changed. 

True transformation comes by gaining a new understanding of God, ourselves, and the world. What we are after, ultimately is to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are to be like Jesus, though not in the sense that we can ever gain deity. we are not god-men. But our humanity is to mirror and reflect the perfect humanity of Jesus. A tall order! 

To be conformed to Jesus, we must first begin to think as Jesus did. We need the 'mind of Christ.' We need to value the things He values and despise the things He despises. We need to have the same priorities He has. We need to consider weighty the things that He considers weighty. 

That cannot happen without a mastery of His Word. The key to spiritual growth is in-depth Christian education that requires a serious level of sacrifice. That is the call to excellence we have received. We are not to be like the rest of the world, content to live our lives with a superficial understanding of God. We are to grow dissatisfied with spiritual milk and hunger after spiritual meat. (The Holiness of God, 164)

Deceitfulness of Sin

Sunday while studying the issue of Church Discipline we spent some time considering the warnings and instruction found in Hebrews 3:12-13.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Commenting on that last line and the deceitfulness of sin J.C. Ryle writes, "You may see this deceitfulness in the wonderful proneness of men to regard sin as less sinful and dangerous than it is in the sight of God; and in their readiness to extenuate it, make excuses for it, and minimize its guilt." (Holiness, pg 8)

Does "readiness to extenuate sin" and "making excuses" describe you? Of course it does! We are all prone to sins deception and we all need the watchful eyes and truth speaking lips of our brothers and sisters in Christ to help us faithfully follow Jesus.

Ryle continues,

I fear we do not sufficiently realize the extreme subtlety of our soul's disease. We are too apt to forget that temptation to sin will rarely present itself to us in its true colors, saying, "I am your deadly enemy, and I want to ruin you forever in hell." Oh no! sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss; and like Joab, with an outstretched hand and flattering words. The forbidden fruit seemed good and desirable to Eve; yet it cast her out of Eden. The walking idly on his palace roof seemed harmless enough to David; yet it ended in adultery and murder. Sin rarely seems sin at first beginnings. Let us then watch and pray, lest we fall into temptation. 

Friends watch and pray and while you're at it remember that love compels us to watch out for and pray for others too.

Your Phone Is Changing You

I recently read 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke and let me begin with a strong encouragement to follow the link and purchase a copy for you and your family.

This book challenged me on so many levels and I would love to share all of those with you, but that post would be entirely too long to read - and I would rather you just read the book - so instead let me summarize Reinke's main points and then I will share a few quotes that challenged me specifically.

Here are Reinke's points in summary, the last being the most important.

Our phones amplify our addiction to distractions, which splinters our perception of our place in time.  

Our phones push us to evade the limits of embodiment and thereby cause us to treat one another harshly.  

Our phones feed our craving for immediate approval and promise to hedge against our fear of missing out. 

Our phones undermine key literary skills and, because of our lack of discipline, make it increasingly difficult for us to identify ultimate meaning.  

Our phones offer us a buffet of produced media and tempt us to indulge in visual vices.  

Our phones overtake and distort out identity and tempt us toward unhealthy isolation and loneliness.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes,

"If you want to internalize a piece of knowledge, you've got to linger over it. But we have been trained to not linger over digital texts." (84) 

"Point-and-shoot cameras may in fact be costing us our most vivid recollections." (98) 

"Compulsive social-media habits are a bad trade: your present moment in exchange for an endless series of someone else's past moments." (101) 

"...if people see us bored with God, absorbed with ourselves, and conformed to worldly celebrities, they will not see the image of Jesus reflected in us. If we fail to reflect Christ, we fail to be what God created us to be; we lose our purpose." (115) 

"His omnipresence shatters the mirage of anonymity that drives so many people to turn to their phones and assume they can sin and indulge without consequence." (137) 

"...our hearts delight in and relish a Christ we cannot yet see, a Christ we take by faith, a Christ who is so true and so real to us that we are filled in moments of this life with a periodic and expressive joy that is full of glory. Our imaginations must come alive to Christ so that we can 'see' that we live in him, so that we can turn away from the visual vices grabbing our eyes, and so that we can live by faith and share a present joy as we anticipate the unimaginable future joy of his presence." (142) 

"When I grow bored with Christ, I become bored with life - and when that happens, I often turn to my phone for a new consumable digital thrill." (143) 

"My appetite for diversions and new daily curiosities has been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer the old me that lives online, but Christ living in me, and the life I now live online I live by faith in Christ, who loved me so much that he shed his blood for me." (181) 

"If I consider my phone only as a tool to 'instantly express' my life, then my phone use is vain. I must ask: Am I lazy and careless with souls, ignorant of the power of words, images, and links on others? Or am I using my digital chitchat as a way to build into someone (or some online community) with a larger relational goal of edification? These questions determine whether my texts, tweets, and images are thoughtless fragments or purposeful strategies to point others to find their joy, meaning, and purpose in God. This is digital chitchat with historical (and eternal!) purpose." (184) 

"Aimlessly flicking through feeds and images for hours, we feel that we are in control of our devices, when we are really puppets being controlled by a lucrative industry." (193) 

"Apps can help me stay focused on my Bible reading plans and help me organize my prayer life, but no app can breathe life into my communion with God." (194)

Get this book! Read it! Apply it!

False Conversion

In yesterday's post we looked at how Scripture defines Real Repentance (using Michael Lawrence's book Conversion). Today consider how Lawrence describes false converts...

A false convert is someone who is excited about heaven, but bored by Christians and the local church. 

A false convert is someone who thinks heaven will be great, whether God is there or not. 

A false convert is someone who likes Jesus, but didn't sign up for the rest - obedience, holiness, discipleship, suffering.  

A false convert can't tell the difference between obedience motivated by love and legalism.  

A false convert is bothered by other people's sins more than his or her own.  

A false convert holds grace cheap and his own comfort costly. 

If you're reading this list and recognize these wrong beliefs and practices in your life then consider your conversion. Consider your repentance. Consider your faith. Talk with another mature follower of Jesus and share your concerns. Come talk with me. As Peter encouraged us in Second Peter 1:10, "...give diligence to make your calling and election sure."

Real Repentance

I've really been enjoying Michael Lawrence's new book, Conversion: How God Creates a People. A few chapters into the book Lawrence writes about repentance and the dangers of false repentance. Here is how Lawrence defined repentance...

Real repentance is a new worship. It looks like a changed life, but the changed behavior results from a change of worship, not the other way around.  

Repentance is being convicted by the Holy Spirit of the sinfulness of our sin - not the badness of our deeds but the treachery of our hearts toward God.  

Repentance means hating what we formerly loved and served - our idols - and turning away from them.  

Repentance means turning to love God, whom we formerly hated, and serving him instead. It's a new deepest loyalty of the heart. 

So what do you think? Is your repentance genuine or false? Tomorrow I'll post how Lawrence describes false converts.

Where Have You Drifted?

Recently our church has been studying the holiness of God. We are praying this study will lead us to greater repentance and a passionate love for our Savior and our neighbors. Along these lines I recently read this challenging paragraph from the book Revitalize:

It is precisely because a church has drifted from holiness that it needs to be revitalized. At some point, it ceased trembling at God's holiness, and its members began seeking to fill that emptiness with the idols of Babylon. They fell into secret patterns of sin. They began having conflicts with one another, as would carnal people. Their marriages began falling apart, sometimes because of adultery. They failed to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They busied themselves with the pursuit of money and other earthly goals. They became less discerning doctrinally and less passionate for biblical truth. They stopped reaching out with the gospel and started seeking the world's applause rather than the world's repentance. They forsook their first love and embraced the illicit love of the world. Ultimately, they began to wither and die. If one could take a spiritual 'flight' through the secrets of the church members' hearts as Ezekiel did through the temple in Ezekiel 8, they would see modern versions of the abominations that provoked God to jealously. A church does not die apart from a decisive move away from holiness. And revitalization begins with repentance from unholiness and a commitment to what God says: 'You shall be holy, for I am holy' (1 Peter 1:16)        

 *Andrew M. Davis, Revitalize, 66

Conversion

This month (June) we are focusing on our understanding of Conversion and the role it plays in being a healthy church. So let's begin by considering what conversion is. 

Conversion is a U-turn in a person’s life. It is turning with one’s whole person away from sin and to Christ for salvation. From idol worship to God worship. From self-justification to Christ’s justification. From self-rule to God’s rule.

Conversion is what happens when God awakens those who are spiritually dead and enables them to repent of their sins and have faith in Christ.

• When Jesus calls us to repent and believe, he’s calling us to conversion. It’s a radical change in what we believe and do. (Mark 1:15)
• When Jesus calls us to take up our crosses and follow him, he’s calling us to conversion. (Luke 9:23)
• In order for us to repent, God must give us new life, new hearts, and faith (Ephesians 2:1, Romans 6:17, Colossians 2:13, Ezekiel 36:26, Ephesians 2:8, 2 Timothy 2:25).

*This material is taken from 9marks.org

Romans 8:32 - "He who did not spare His own Son..."

"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32

This promise has been a favorite of mine for the past 13 years. It has carried me through many difficult seasons of life. I was recently reading Future Grace by John Piper who considers this verse "the most precious verse in the bible to me." He goes on to write, "There never has been and never will be a circumstance in my life where this promise is irrelevant."

So take a moment and consider your present circumstances....

What are you worried about?
What floods your heart with fear?
Where are you doubting God's goodness to give you the things that you need?

Now take a moment and consider that the same God who has already delivered up His son Jesus for you - which is as big as it gets - also promises to see you through life's dark days and bumpy roads. The question I ask myself as I consider this promise is, "Why isn't the gift of Jesus enough to convince me that God is working all things together for my good?" Ouch, it hurts me to even type that out!

Here is John Piper's take...

What a truth! Giving us all things is the easy thing! Think on that every time you fear being denied something that would be good for you. You think it is a hard thing. You see many obstacles. It looks impossible. At that discouraging moment think about this heavenly logic. Giving you what you need is the easy part. And the hard part is already done. Creating the world and running it for the good of his people is a relatively easy thing for God to do compared to handing over his Son to ridicule and torture. But he did it. And now all future grace is not only sure; it is easy.

Friends, God loves us and is working all things together for our good (8:28). The validation of that promise is the Cross where God did not spare His own Son so that He could spare you.

What Is the Gospel?

This month we (at Meadowview) have focused on the 3rd mark of a healthy church - The Gospel. Just last Sunday Jordan Chambers encouraged us to know the gospel so we can share this good news with others. So my question is, do you know the gospel? Are you equipped to share the good news with others?

We can summarize it in four words: God, Man, Christ, Response

God. God is the creator of all things. He is perfectly holy, worthy of all worship, and will punish sin.

Man. All people, though created good, have become sinful by nature. From birth, all people are alienated from God, hostile to God, and subject to the wrath of God.

Christ. Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross to bear God's wrath in the place of all who would believe in him, and rose from the grave in order to give his people eternal life.

Response. God calls everyone everywhere to turn from their sins and trust in Christ in order to be saved.

*taken from God's Good News: The Gospel by Bobby Jamieson

Amen?

Have you ever wondered why Christians conclude their prayers with an Amen? Is it just a convenient way of letting everyone know that you are done? Or what about when someone in the middle of a song or sermon boldly shouts, "AMEN!" What does it mean to say Amen?

This week I was reading in John Piper's book Future Grace and I really appreciated his closing paragraphs in a chapter that focused on prayer.

...Amen is a full and precious word in times of prayer. It doesn't mean primarily, "Yes, I have now said all this prayer." It means primarily, "Yes, God has made all these promises." Amen means, "Yes, Lord, you can do it." It means, "Yes, Lord, you are powerful. Yes, Lord, you are wise. Yes, Lord you are merciful. Yes, Lord, all future grace comes from you and has been confirmed in Christ." "Amen" is an exclamation point of hope after a prayer for help.
When we come to the end of our prayers and say the simple words, "In Jesus' name, Amen," we are really saying two Amen's. When we say, "In Jesus' name," that is God's Amen to us. All his promises are Amen in Jesus; Jesus Christ is God's Yes and Amen at the end of our prayers. Then when we say, "Amen," this is our Yes and Amen back to God for his. Which means that our Amen, and the prayer it supports, is our Yes to God's Yes to us. It is a commitment from our hearts that we will now live by faith in the Yes of God's guaranteed future grace. (pgs 107-108)

All I can say is AMEN!

Cleaning House

Recently we've heard politicians and pundits repeat the phrase "drain the swamp," which seems to be a figure of speech meant to communicate change or reform. I prefer the phrase "cleaning house." Maybe because I actually like to clean my house and I have never drained a swamp...so i don't really know what that entails.

Anyway back to my point...this morning I was reading in 2 Kings 22-23 about Josiah's rise to power as King of Judah, which wasn't much of a "rise to power" since he was eight years old when he became king. Yes you read that right - eight years old. I have a nine year old and I do not want to imagine what his kingdom would look like, but scripture says that Josiah "did what was right in the sight in the LORD and walked in all the ways of David his father..." (22:2)

Eighteen years into his 31 year reign Josiah decided to repair the temple and in doing so the law of God was discovered. Josiah read it and realized how far Judah had strayed from God's good commands so the "house cleaning/reformation" began. He tore down the altars to Baal and Asherah; he removed anything in his kingdom that was defiled by false worship; he re-instituted the Passover; and he did a bunch of other stuff too that you can read about in 2 Kings 23.

My thoughts: Do I need to clean my house? Are there idols that I need to tear down? Are there less than holy things in my life that are derailing my walk with Christ? Where am I veering to the left or to right that will lead me so far off course that in 30 years I won't even notice that God's Word is missing?




Am I more like Judah - content in my sin - or Josiah - cleaning house?

Spending Time in Another Context

So it's obviously been some time since I have posted a blog. Was it life? laziness? Probably a mixture of both. But today I'm back for at least one more post.

Sunday I announced that we (Meadowview) are participating in a missions trip this Summer to Guatemala. I was very excited to make the announcement and I imagined in my mind that after the closing prayer a mass of people would surround me anxious to know more about the trip and sign up that afternoon. But that didn't happen. And that's alright. We Pastor's tend to have wild imaginations!

I have no doubt that some of you are considering the possibility of joining in the trip this Summer and I recently re-read something that might encourage you as you are considering.

In his book Radical, David Platt challenges Christians to Spend Time In Another Context. Here is what he writes, "...give some of your time in the next year to making the gospel known in a context outside your own city. I suggest you plan on dedicating at least 2 percent of your time to this task. That 2 percent works out to be about one week in the next year that you will travel and take the gospel to another context in the world, either domestically or internationally." So basically he is challenging us to get out of Southwest Missouri and take the gospel somewhere else on this globe.

Some may respond, "Why? What difference will it make?" Well I really like what Platt writes next, "We have discovered that 2 percent of our time living out the gospel in other contexts has a radical effect on the other 98 percent of our time living out the gospel in our own context."

We call it perspective. Short-term mission trips help us to regain a right perspective of our lives and the world we live in.

So pray hard and consider the possibilities.