May we be sincere in the light of God's Word

My preacher friend, Russ Fox, shared this from Philippians 1:8. As I read it, I'm reminded that I think the furniture in our house is clean until the sun comes shining through the window exposing the dirt. Let us as believers not be fooled until we have been examined by the sun of God's light.

Philippians 1:8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. ⁹ And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, ¹¹ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

“Sincere” refers to something that is able to stand inspection when put in the sunlight. In the Marines we had to spit-shine our dress shoes; and you really couldn’t tell whether they were without smudges until you looked at them in the sun light. In the Proverbs we find this statement, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes; but the LORD weighs the hearts” (21:2; see 16:2 also). We humans do tend to think that what we do is OK; we can easily justify our actions as appropriate, finding an excuse for most anything that we do. However, God is the ultimate sunlight, the ultimate bright light that shines on all our actions, weighing it according to His righteousness. The Bible tells us that even our motives will come under His scrutiny one day (1Corinthians 4:4-5) and the “hidden things” will be brought “to light.”

Christians, as Paul prayed, should live in such a way that they are “sincere” or “pure” in their motives and deeds. That they should live according to the word of God and the leading of God’s Holy Spirit, allowing both to expose any smudge, any wayward thought or deed, bring everything into obedience to Christ. This may seem a tall order, particularly when you’ve measured yourself by God’s righteous standard; Christ; but this is the will of God for His children. As I wrote in the last email we are to keep God’s goal in focus always striving to be like Jesus in “all things.”

Tabernacle and Temple Details

As you know, I love the ESV (English Standard Version) Study Bible. I have written of it several times here in this blog. I ran across this blog site where it is showing you the details of the Tabernacle and the Temple from that Study Bible. This is good. Click here to see it.

Sermon notes from Sunday, December 6, 2009

I began a new, but short (2 messages) series today for Christmas called "Gifts from Seasoned Saints." Today, I preached about Anna from Luke 2: 36-38. Read the notes here. Next Sunday, Mrs. Lucille Camp will be sharing in the service. Then in two weeks (12-20), I will preach from Simeon's life in Luke 2.

Benefits of Expository Preaching

Tony Merida, Teaching Pastor of Temple Baptist Church, Hattiesburg, MS wrote Faithful Preaching, 2009. In this book, he gives the benefit of a pastor doing expository preaching. Let me list his nine benefits with his explanations as they appear in the book:

First, exposition calls for attention to be given to biblical doctrine. One has to preach on every doctrinal issue if they preach the whole council of God. This keeps the preacher from only dealing with his favorite subjects, and it will give the hearers theological stability.

Second, exposition, done well, is good for both audiences: believers and non-believers. If one preaches the Scriptures in view of its redemptive history that culminates in Jesus, then the gospel will be integrated naturally into every sermon. The unbeliever will be confronted with his need for repentance and his hope that is in Christ. On the other hand, exposition will grow the believers in the church and remind them that they do not work for grace but from grace and by grace. So I am a huge fan, and hopefully a practitioner of, gospel-filled exposition.

Third, exposition gives authority to the message. Preachers that just try to be cutting-edge, or fill their sermons with endless stories, lose authority. The authority of the sermon is not in the suggestions, stories, or observations of the preacher. Authority comes from God’s Word.

Fourth, exposition magnifies Scripture. Preachers may claim to believe in the sufficiency of God’s Word, but if they do not take people for a swim in the text, then they deny their belief in practice. You will show your people what you believe about the Bible by how you use it. This is how you magnify the nature of Scripture with something more than repeated clichés.

Fifth, exposition is God-centered not man-centered. By starting with God’s Word instead of a popular idea or a perceived need, the preacher will expose the nature and truth of the Triune God to people—which is their greatest need.

Sixth, exposition provides a wealth of material for preaching. By moving through the Scriptures, you will avoid reductionism; that is, picking only the topics that seem important (money, sex, and power). The Bible will provide you with more subjects to preach on than you ever dreamed. A holistic approach will produce holistic Christians.

Seventh, exposition grows the person delivering the Word. This is the most enjoyable part of committing to exposition. By studying the text week by week, you will be developed as a disciple and you will continue to fill your soul with spiritual nourishment.

Eighth, exposition ensures the highest level of biblical knowledge for the congregation. By regularly expounding the Word of God, you will train a group of people who know the Scriptures. Further, you will not only remind them of who they are in Christ and how to glorify God, but you will also train them to think Christianly. Other types of preaching may put a band aid on people’s felt needs, but such will not transform their worldview unless they understand the mind of the Holy Spirit in the Word. Exposition is a primary means of transforming people by the renewal of their mind (Rom 12:2).

Finally, exposition teaches people how to study the Bible on their own. The old saying is true, “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.” By moving systematically through passages and books you will teach the people how to engage the text. They will understand the importance of context, words, and biblical genres. After doing exposition in various places, I have discovered that the people are able to predict my next point, and see how I got it. Expository preaching will produce expository preachers and expository students.

Anne Graham Lotz' new book review

Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy Graham ( who he called the best preacher of his children), has written a new devotional book (Magnificent Obsession: Embracing the God-Filled Life) and is just coming out. Baptist Press did a story on it today. Here is some of that article. To read it fully, click here.

In the aftermath of 9/11, religions in America took a front page position, and Anne Graham Lotz felt burdened to convey the message that the one true God is not interested in religion.

"Abraham is considered the patriarch of these religions (Judaism, Islam & Christianity), but he actually left religion in order to pursue a personal relationship with God. He was not a religious man from the time he left Ur on. He instead pursued a relationship with God," she said.

"So it was really 9/11 and the aftermath of that and what I see going on now that I felt like it needed to be underscored that we're not talking about religion," she said. "God has not invited us to a religion or a denomination or an organization. He has invited us to a personal relationship with Himself."

After studying the life of Abraham for 33 years and following his pattern of interacting with God, Lotz decided the time was right to communicate her testimony through the book "Magnificent Obsession: Embracing the God-Filled Life," the story of friendship with God in a daily walk of obedient faith.

"I think just having that quiet, focused time to spend with God every day is vitally necessary to pursuing a relationship with Him. You establish that relationship at the cross by faith, but then you develop it day by day, step by step," Lotz, evangelist Billy Graham's daughter, said. "It requires time spent reading your Bible, listening for His voice to speak to you, applying it to your life, living it out in obedience.

"And then it also requires talking to Him in prayer, developing a prayer life. Busyness hinders both of those things, I think. Even if we make the time for them, we can be so distracted or so tired that we don't keep our focus and we don't concentrate."

One way Lotz could have been knocked off course early on in her walk with God was to allow criticism from people in the church to defeat her, she said. One of the major lessons she had to learn was from Hagar in the story of Abraham.

"She was a servant girl who was hurt by those who called themselves by God's name, and I think one of the biggest lessons to learn is that God is not necessarily like the people that call themselves by His name," Lotz said. "God is not necessarily like the way Christians portray Him -- so to separate out the two.

"Don't let the way people treat you in His name turn you against God or cause you to forsake God because that's not Him. I think that's one thing. And then the other thing in my life has been when I'm treated that way it makes me 1) recognize there's a difference between God and the people that sometimes give a very tarnished reflection of Him and 2) it makes me want to pursue Him even more," she said.

"I want to know Him, not the way people say He is or people think He is or people hope He is. I don't want to know Him secondhand that way. I want to know Him firsthand for myself. I want to be strong in my relationship with Him so that when I am treated that way I can sort it out.

"Sometimes people can be firm or strict or harsh and actually they do the right thing and just don't do it in the right way. But sometimes people in God's name will do the wrong thing in the wrong way and it's not from God at all. I want to have a strong enough relationship with Him that I can know that difference," Lotz said.

Why People Become Atheists

As the members of our fellowship know, I am studying to do some teaching on atheism in January. Rick Warren just tweeted this:

People become atheists because of hurt, then seek intellectual arguments to validate their desire to live without God.

What DID Jesus do?

By John MacArthur)

Today’s post comes from John’s new book, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore.

There’s nothing wrong with asking, “What would Jesus do?” That’s a fine question. For our purposes, we might ask, "What would Jesus do in response to the contemporary evangelical landscape."

How would He react to the post-evangelical goulash of opinions represented in Christian magazines, in the Emerging blogosphere, or in the trendy evangelical megachurches that have held the evangelical movement in thrall for the past few decades? Would He affirm the current mainstream of evangelical apathy toward truth and authentic biblical unity? Would He approve of those who, confronted with a plethora of contradictions and doctrinal novelties, simply celebrate their movement’s “diversity” while trying to avoid all controversy, embracing every theological renegade, and elevating orthopraxy over orthodoxy? Was Jesus’ meek-and-gentle mildness of that sort?

I’m convinced we can answer those questions with confidence if we first ask a slightly different question: Whatdid Jesus do? How did He deal with the false teachers, religious hypocrites, and theological miscreants of His time? Did He favor the approach of friendly dialogue and collegial disagreement, or did He in fact adopt a militant stance against every form of false religion?

Anyone even superficially familiar with the gospel accounts ought to know the answer to that question, because there is no shortage of data on the matter. Jesus’ interaction with the Scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites of His culture was full of conflict from the start of His earthly ministry to the end. Sometimes the Pharisees provoked the conflict; more often than not, Jesus did. Hostile is not too strong a word to describe His attitude toward the religious system they represented, and that was evident in all His dealings with them.

Jesus never suffered professional hypocrites or false teachers gladly. He never shied away from conflict. He never softened His message to please genteel tastes or priggish scruples. He never suppressed any truth in order to accommodate someone’s artificial notion of dignity. He never bowed to the intimidation of scholars or paid homage to their institutions.

And He never, never, never treated the vital distinction between truth and error as a merely academic question.