Category Archives: Christian Life

Abhor What is Evil, Hold Fast to What is Good

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Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. (Romans 12:9 ESV)

One of the things Paul tells us about genuine love is that it “abhors evil”. If you genuinely love someone, you will despise whatever would be against their best interest. You will hate whatever is damaging or destructive to them, including sin and it’s harmful impact.  And you will hold fast to that which is good.
This means that love shows discernment.  Genuine love is willing to look at somebody and love them and make a distinction between evil and good. It’s appropriate that Paul shows us this is what love looks like because we live in a time where many people believe that saying anyone is wrong is hateful. We’re at a point where we consider any disagreement to be offensive. But Paul reminds us that there is a distinction. You can love somebody, but recognize that something they do is evil. While loving them you can hate they self-destructive evil that they do, precisely because it harms the one you love. Because I love someone, I will hate their substance abuse that leads to their destruction. Love makes distinguishes between what is a good thing to do and what is a bad thing to do, and love promotes the good that benefits them and hates the evil that harms. If I love someone, I will hate what is not in their best interests. I will hate anything in them that keeps them separated from God.
Genuine love also holds fast to that which is good.  Just as we can deceive ourselves by saying love doesn’t contradict someone or oppose them, we can also convince ourselves that we are loving someone, even when we’re not doing good for them. We can selfishly say, “I’m doing this out of love for another person”, but keep secrets from them, not share the truth with them or act out of selfish fear or pride.
Love is shown in its attitude towards good and evil. Yet love must not be mere of words or sentiments. There was a time that I would say, “We don’t need to think about love as a feeling, we only need to think about love as what we do for others – acts of our will.”  But I’ve been corrected in this. While love is more than a feeling, shown in deeds and acts of the will, it is not less than genuine affection for others. That’s what he says here, “Love one another with brotherly affection.” (Romans 12:10) So there is a sense of I have a deep caring for somebody.  It’s not just I do good things, and however I feel about them doesn’t matter, because Paul tells us our new attitude towards one another needs to be a strong, warm affection for each other. It is not mere acts, but also how we feel.
It’s interesting the term he used. You might know that Greek has different words for different types of love.  English just uses “love” for everything so I can “love” bacon and I can “love” my wife. We use the same word for both things when we mean two different things. The word used here is storge. It is the love of a mother for her child and a child for the mother. We need to catch how radical this is, because, what he is saying is our love for fellow disciples is the love of a new family.
Brothers and sisters in Christ now need to have that affection for one another. Of course, you want to have a higher priority for those in your household. But at the same time, your love for the people sitting in the pew beside you should be well beyond just somebody that you share a hobby with. Your love for those whom you have promised to share in the spiritual formation of their children at their baptism as you’ve entered a covenant with them should be a stronger love than fraternity brothers, or fellow members of Rotary. He’s taking family affection and showing that this is the love you need to have for one another. And not just in deeds and acts, but in your attitude – in your heart and in your feelings. Do you honor your fellow disciples? Do you recognize that there are bonds there that are stronger than you share with anyone else?

 

Genuine Love

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Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.  Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.  Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.  Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.  Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. (Romans 12:9–13 ESV)

 
We Southerners are pretty good at indirect confrontation. Rather than coming out and saying something, we smile, use our best manners, and say one thing while meaning something else. We can say a lot of things if we have a smile and have the pretense of being polite or sweet.  One of my neighbors, one nice fall day, brought a rake over for me to borrow.   They had a smile on their face and was very polite.  It was very “neighborly” of them.  It took me awhile to catch the hint – they thought I needed to rake my yard.
 
We tend to share all our connections and all our positive feelings for somebody before we criticize them.  So if I someone begins by telling how much they love someone and how they’re connected, I know there’s a good chance that they’re about to tear into them or share some gossip about them.   And we’ve all experienced “bless your heart”.  If you’re not native, understand it is not always a good thing.
 
We can act or speak in a way that contrasts with our true intent or motive. We’re pretty good at that in the South. In other words, we can be pretty good hypocrites.
 
In this section from Romans on living as a Christian Paul tells us, “Let love be genuine”. It follows from remembering what God has done for us “the mercies of God”. In response, we present our bodies as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).  That is, we are now responding to the grace we have received, and we do so in a way that is not hypocritical. “Let love be genuine”. Let your love be sincere, let it be real as it’s shown to others. We need to remember this, because our understanding of love can be merely sentimental. We can talk about love in a way that is more about our feelings and affection, than the actual actions done for them. We can talk about how loving we are when there’s not a genuine sense of seeking their well being. So, Paul begins with a brief description of genuine love. Keeping us from thinking of mere emotion, Paul gives it shape, “Let love be genuine; abhor what is evil; and hold fast to that which is good.”

Faithful Membership 2: Gather to Worship

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This is the second part of a series reviewing three crucial commitments church members should make to their the congregation. The series introduction can be found here.

Our first commitment is to gather with the rest of the community for public worship every Lord’s Day. This is a fundamental way we fulfill our vow “to serve Christ in his church by supporting and participating with this congregation in its service of God”. What makes corporate worship so important?

Scriptural Command

DSC01874First, when we worship we obey God who commands our praise. I Chronicles 16:29 states the direction that runs throughout scripture, “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness”.

Moreover, the one who is worshiped determines how. Our praise of God isn’t a time of self-expression, it calls for submission and obedience. God commands us in the manner of our worship, and this includes the “when”. Worshiping God, in the way He has prescribed, is at the root of obedience to the Fourth Commandment:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11 ESV)

We keep the Lord’s Day holy, in part, by corporate worship – gathering with God’s people to hear his Word, sing his praises, and lift up our hearts in adoration.

Gathering of the Covenant Community

Second, gathering together for worship, as are all of God’s commands, is for our benefit. We can’t be God-centered without being other-encompassed.  As T.S. Eliot wrote in “Choruses from the Rock”:

What life have you, if you have not life together?

There is no life that is not in community,

And no community not lived in praise of GOD.

Gathering together encourages us as we remember our identity as God’s redeemed and embraced children. It reorients us within the body and towards our Head.  As Hebrews instructs, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV)

IMG_6272A cliché sometimes heard by those who frequently neglect common worship is that they can worship God just as well on the golf course, or on the lake, or ball field – or whatever else we allow to take priority over worshiping God with our fellow believers.  But if worship is rightly understood, you can’t.  You might feel close to God, you might think about Him, you might even feel inspired by the majesty of creation.  But you can’t really worship as God has taught us because you can’t encourage and be encouraged by other believers, you can’t gather around the Lord’s table to receive the supper, you can’t promise a new believer your support as they are baptized, and you can’t sit under the proclaimed Word.  Christian worship is fundamentally communal.  This isn’t about being in a particularly holy place, but in the midst of a particular people – “the Kingdom of God is within you”.1  As many commentators have noted, the elemental prayer our savior gave us begins not with my but Our Father.  Even as we pray in private, we remember that we do so as part of our new family.2  This communal nature of worship is unsurprising considering the very nature of the God we Worship.  Within the essence of God, who is Holy Trinity, is a communion of persons, therefore worship is fellowship with God the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

What do I get out of it?

As we worship, we receive.  Caution is needed though, because there is a tendency for us to approach worship asking, “What do I get out of it?”.  The danger with that question is that it reveals a consumer’s attitude.  The question could be rephrased as “Do I enjoy the music?”, “Do I like being with the people?”, or “Do I feel good about the sermon?” In these of questions we approach worship with self-diagnosed needs and our own benchmarks.  This is a shopper’s approach, browsing for an inspirational feeling, wisdom to fix a problem, or an assuaging of guilt.

photo by James Emery

photo by James Emery

To receive as a disciple is to trust that the Master knows better than us and to accept what he offers: commands that I would rather ignore, conviction of sin that I have been suppressing, and humbling assurance of forgiveness.  These are things we will miss if we basing the question on our musical taste or how funny the preacher is.  What we “get out of” worship is God’s Word spoken to us and his gracious promises confirmed in water, bread, and wine.  We receive welcome and fellowship within a community that God calls his own.  We receive nothing less that God himself.

 

 

 

 

1. Luke 17:21, The “you” is second person plural. Jesus is not saying that the Kingdom is and individualistic, internal reality.↩
2. Eliot is helpful here as well, “Choruses from the Rock” continue, “Even the anchorite who meditates alone,/ For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of GOD,/ Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate. ↩

 

Faithful Membership 1: Introduction

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What do you think active membership in a church looks like? I can remember often hearing people bragging about being at the church every time the doors were open, but is simply showing up for services enough? Should a member make a goal of being at everything going on in the life of the congregation?

I’ve thought through what the expectations of the average member should be in a congregation and so now as part of our new member class I encourage everyone to make it a goal to worship, to connect, and to serve.
Over a series of posts I want to discuss each of these in more detail, but first I want to make note of two things about membership commitment and activity in the local church.

First: No one is average. A wise farmer in my first congregation used to joke that while the average summer might have the perfect amount of rainfall for a good crop, average that meant that about half the years would be a drought and the other half a flood. Both of these destroyed crops, so the average was simply an ideal between extremes that didn’t actually occur too often in reality. Our lives our like that. Everyone goes through times of more or less energy and free time. There is a difference in parents of small children, an affluent retired couple, and a grad student with debt and unsure of where she will be next year. So we take into account the season of life we are in and don’t feel guilty if our God ordained calling to care for an elderly parent prevents a lower priority of helping out with Bible school. Likewise, if we are in a place in our life where we have more time and more expendable income, we should avoid doing the “bare minimum” to assuage our guilt and get on with pursuing pleasure and entertainment more than serving and worshiping God. So when I speak of average member commitment, I mean take this as a starting point to think through how to best fulfill the vows you made to God and to the congregation when you became a member.

light-677062_1280Second: It doesn’t take the institution of the church to be a “Christian” activity. Obviously, gathering together with the saints for worship requires the church. And while we need Christians to support and serve in the congregation. Loving your neighbor doesn’t require the approval of the board of elders. Sharing God’s grace and love doesn’t require a committee. This should be obvious, but as a Pastor I am too aware of my own tendency to think of needs in the church as examples of Christian service: teaching a bible class, helping with the nursery, cleaning the church kitchen, or preparing a budget. These are of course needed. But leading your family in prayer and bible study, sharing a meal with a lonely neighbor, or mentoring a child at the Boys and Girls Club is no less Christian. So as we look at these three ways Christians should be involved with their local congregation, keep in mind that this doesn’t exhaust all of what discipleship means. There are other personal and family disciplines and commitments, but I’m only discussing those related to obligations to the local congregation. Also, while members should be involved in the ministry and work of the church, one’s Church involvement shouldn’t take so much time and energy that there is none left to give to your family, neighbors, and community. Salt is meant to add flavor to food, not to more salt. Light is to shine in the darkness, not illumine a bright room.
So with these in mind, I’ll next discuss why every Christian should be committed to gathering for worship every Lord’s Day.

Sermon: Accountable Disciples, Rom 16:17-27

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Do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and to the spiritual oversight of this church session, and do you promise to promote the unity, purity and peace of the Church?

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen. I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you. Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. (Romans 16:17-27 ESV)

Quick to Forget

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Quick to Forget

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I recently returned from a visit with a missionary organization in Honduras where I taught a little and got to see the work they were doing in supporting church plants, providing and supporting medical care, providing food etc… My return was following a large amount of snow, so my flight from Houston to Memphis that evening was cancelled. As I was waiting outside for the van that was to take me to a motel I was tired of travel, I was missing my family, and I was worried about not getting home in time to preach Sunday morning. The time for the shuttle to arrive past, and the longer I waited the more I felt my temper rising. Then, in the midst of my growing irritability it struck me. A little over twenty-four hours earlier…

  • I had been shown pictures of a 6 month old infant who weighed only thre and half pounds due to malnutrition. The mother had been breast feeding on a diet of one tortilla a day.

  • I had prayed with a nascent congregation over land to build a food distribution center and church that had been given in a community whose main source of income was sorting through a massive trash heap for recyclables.

  • I had visited a hospital where patients had to provide their own sanitary water and X-rays might have to be postponed due to unreliable electricity.

And I was getting angry because the heated van that would take me to a comfortable room where I would shower in uncontaminated water and get a night of sound sleep was ten minutes late.

My anger quickly turned to gratitude for the comforts I enjoy and repentance for taking them for granted. I have felt shame for my unappreciative and entitled attitude before, as have most Americans who’ve served on short-term mission trips. What struck me this day was how quickly I had forgotten and lost perspective. It’s amazing how soon insights we have about life and what’s truly important is lost.

This seems to be a part of the Christian life. I can remember times of feeling deep intimacy with God, when prayer seemed to flow, I appeared to be growing in grace, and I had a stronger sense of God’s presence my prayer. In those moments I thought how could I give this up? Why would I not devote myself to prayer and pursuing holiness? Then at some point shortly after I noticed that it had been too long since I had really prayed and I had returned to habitual sins I just knew had been conquered.

So why is it that I can thank God for healthy children one afternoon and the next be grumpy about a late van? That I can feel such a deep communion with God that the fields and trees I drive past seem to radiate his glory but by that evening feel resentment about my life?

An element of all sin is ingratitude. Like a spoiled child opening a gift and saying “Thanks, but why didn’t you get me something else?”, rather than being thankful to God for his good gifts, we seek to find our security or joy in something other than what he gives. If someone is greedy, they are not saying about money “Thank you God for what you have given me!”, but “Is that all?”. If someone is sexually promiscuous, rather than accept with gratitude the gift of sexual intimacy as part of a complete commitment of one’s self to another, they have complained that God’s arrangement is too confining and seek to fashion a better alternative to the offered gift.

So under this ingratitude is a lack of faith, a lack of trust that God truly seeks what is best for us. If we are not thankful it is because deep in our hearts we believe that there is something better than what God, in his providence, has given us. We’re not trusting him to be our strongest security or deepest joy. Do we really believe God works all things for our good? Or do we not often believe that to follow Christ is to settle for something less.

If the root of ingratitude is a lack of trust that God lavishes his love on us, then the remedy is not to stir up a sense of guilt about what I have in comparison to others, or even of the ugly ingratitude, but to be reminded that God showers us with more than we can ask or imagine from the riches of his glory. We need to daily be reminded of our blessings in Christ, to “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits”, (Psalm 103:2). This is part of our daily repentance, our continual turning from anything we trust to provide our deepest joy other than Christ. But we also to remind each other as Christians of God’s faithfulness and blessings. One of the reasons for us to gather with the church on Lord’s Day is to hear again of God’s faithful love and unearned kindness and to come to the table where we taste and see that the Lord is good.

Sermon: A Living Sacrifice, Romans 12:1-8

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Do you promise to serve Christ in his church by supporting and participating with this congregation in its service of God and its ministry to others to the best of your ability?

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

(Romans 12:1-8 ESV)

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Sermon: Living as a Follower of Christ, Romans 6:1-14

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Do you now promise and resolve, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:1-14 ESV)

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Carson on The Downward Drift

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Rowboat Adrift by Jeff Marks

Rowboat Adrift by Jeff Marks

ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING EVIDENCES of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. – D.A. Carson, For the Love of God, Volume 2

Four Lessons on Evangelism from a Runner

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Four Lessons on Evangelism from a Runner

10941133_10153265626059179_4778358026569149987_nI ran my second trail race a few weekends back. I’ve run on and off for several years now, but not too many races and not on trails. I wouldn’t have run this one had it not been for Baker, a brother in Christ and a committed runner. And by committed I mean enthusiastically addicted. He organized the race last year and invited me so I signed up. Now if most people had asked me to try out a trail run I would have found an excuse to not participate. I’m usually moving at a pretty leisurely pace, on pavement, with headphones blocking out the world. But Baker’s enthusiasm for running is so contagious that I felt compelled to give it a shot, and I’m glad I did.
The other day I was running with Baker and another friend. Lagging well behind both of them, I began to think how well the invitation for me to run with them was like good evangelism.

evangelism should…

be a natural to who you are

Anyone who’s around Baker for even a little while picks up that he’s a runner. It’s simply part of who he is. We communicate who we are as much as what we know. While it’s appropriate to learn methods to effectively communicate the Gospel, it is more important that the truth of Jesus penetrates and reorients our own hearts. Method is secondary to a soul overwhelmed by God’s grace.

flow from a love you want to share

Baker is always inviting people to run because of his sincere love for running and a desire to share it with friends. Sharing the good news of Jesus effectively begins with our own sincere love for Christ and His Gospel. We naturally share what we love with those we love. Passion is contagious!

be patient

OK, I have to admit I’ve turned down several invites to run. Sometimes out of laziness; sometimes because I didn’t want to be the slowest, oldest, and most out of shape in the group; and sometimes just because it wasn’t a good time for my schedule. But the invitations kept coming. For most Christians, if we ever do try to share our faith or invite someone to church we probably err more to giving up too soon rather than being too pushy or overbearing. People are more open at different times in their lives to listening and considering spiritual matters. By being patient, respectful, and consistent we reach people in God’s timing.

be a team effort

While Baker is the most passionate one I know, there are several runners in our congregation. Being around so many men and women who lace up and hit the pavement somehow helps nudge me to do the same. Seeing others out, being able to ask questions, and getting encouragement all play their part in inspiring me to sign up for a race or get out when I wouldn’t otherwise. We need to remember that evangelism is a work of the whole church. Someone must share the message and extend an invitation, but the message also needs to be supported with hospitality, encouragement, and sincere kindness.

First Presbyterian Church Runners

First Presbyterian Church Runners