Sermon Notes from Sunday, February 20, 2011

Here are the sermon notes from yesterday's message "Experiencing All Jesus Has for you NOW" based on Matthew 13: 53-58. Now this message is not taken from a modern-day best seller, but we need to realize that in the eternal this will not be an issue. We will have all Jesus wants for us. But the question is, do we have that now?

Matthew 13:58 is one of the saddest in all the Bible: "And He did not do many mighty works there..."

Click here for the notes.

Sermon Notes from Sunday, February 13, 2011

Here are the notes from this past Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011 in a special message "Is Church Membership Biblical?" Click here to read.

C.S. Lewis on love

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves about the vulnerability of love:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

So You Want to Get Married

The following was given by Ryan Whitley, Pastor in Trussville, AL this week. Good advice.

You’ve purchased your rings. Your date has been set. Your pastor has agreed to conduct your ceremony. And your invitations are in the mail.

Here are ten things you DON’T want to do in your marriage.

#1 Don’t quit.

Marriage is tough. To make your marriage work, you must be tenacious. Couples quit too soon or too often. Hang in there. Stick it out. Don’t ever give up.

#2 Don’t go to bed angry.

Your bed is not the place to argue, and neither is it the place to hold hurt feelings. Work it out. Talk it over. Settle the issue before going to bed.

#3 Don’t nag.

A sure way to ruin your marriage is to point out everything your spouse does wrong. Nag, nag, nag and you will kill, kill, kill your marriage.

#4 Don’t whine or complain.

Life is tough. Marriage demands effort. Don’t complicate matters by whining or complaining about every little thing.

#5 Don’t quit dating.

If you really want your marriage to thrive, keep dating. Plan a date night every week. Keep chasing one another just like you did before you were married.

#6 Don’t keep score.

The point system may work in athletic completion, but it stinks in a marriage. Don’t keep a tally of your spouse’s rights or wrongs.

#7 Don’t spend more than you make.

Don’t fall for the fallacy that says you deserve the best just because you are married. Save your money. Stay out of debt. Be generous. Live within your means.

#8 Don’t compare.

Don’t compare your spouse to someone else. Don’t compare your marriage to someone else’s marriage. And please don’t compare your spouse to their parents. If you want a healthy marriage, don’t compare.

#9 Don’t leave.

Leaving, moving out, or separating accomplishes nothing more than a deeper divide. Stay home and work out your problems.

#10 Don’t get lazy.

Find a way to keep serving one another. Discover ways to help one another. In a marriage it takes teamwork to make the marriage work.

Sermon Notes from Sunday, January 23, 2011

This past Sunday was the last sermon in the series "Three Cords of a Disciple." This message "The Benefits of Fasting" from Isaiah 58 may be seen by clicking here.

The Gospel is Spreading in Iran

by Josh Harris

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This sounds odd, but God used migraine headaches to give me a heart for the people of Iran. It's a long story, I explain it in the last 10 minutes or so of this sermon.

The other day I had the privilege of being on a conference call with a man who has pioneered church planting and evangelism all over Iran (learn more about this work here). He encouraged me and the other people on the call to help spread this information about what God is doing in Iran. (I'm indebted to my friend John who took the following notes from the conference call).

Since Christmas, the government of Iran has been cracking down on evangelical Christians, most of whom are involved in "underground" or house churches. The authorities have attacked and plundered Christians' homes in over 17 cities. He told the story of one man who was recently dropping his daughter off at school, when the authorities showed up at his house and had a message sent to him, ordering him to come home immediately. He didn't run away but instead dialed another believer, expressed his trust in God and willingness to suffer for Christ. He then went home to be arrested.

The governor of Tehran province has recently compared evangelical evangelists to the Taliban, expressing a perspective of their gospel work as a cultural invasion and a threat to Islamic society in Iran. In the past, the government has hesitated to acknowledge the underground spread of Christianity throughout the nation, and someone even declared publicly that he hadn't seen one person convert from Islam by reading the Bible, (although we know that tens of thousands of Iranians have done just that). And yet now, for the first time, the government has openly declared that they have arrested Christians and acknowledged that there is in fact a large contingent of them throughout the nation. A recent news piece declared that officials had discovered 200 house churches in one of Iran's holiest Islamic cities. Such an acknowledgment indicates that the government realizes that the church is taking root in what they are seeking to preserve as an Islamic country, and is growing at an alarming rate.

Many Christian leaders in Iran would estimate that there have been 1 million Christian converts in Iran in the last 31 years, the majority of whom have been converts from Islam. This fact - that muslims are moving towards Jesus and his gospel and away from Islam - is widely hidden in the media, and largely unknown by those in other Islamic countries. But our brother on the conference call emphasized strongly to us that the Muslim world needs to hear this fact!

We can pray that this suffering results in more opportunities for these brothers and sisters to bear witness to the truth. We know from Scripture, and in particular the book of Acts, that it is in the times of intense persecution that God often grows his church and shows his unstoppable power. It is often in the scattering of believers that the seed is sown into unreached territory. The believers in the house church movement in Iran have been expecting this persecution and, in many respects, have been prepared for it.

Let's lift them up to our Heavenly Father, remembering also what the king of Persia (Iran) declared after God showed his power by rescuing Daniel from the lion's den:

Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: "Peace be multiplied to you.

I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, enduring forever; his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end.

He delivers and rescues; he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, he who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions" (Daniel 6:25-27).

Please join me in praying for Iran!

For more information on how to pray visit IRAN30.org and order their prayer guide for Iran. Also an excellent, simple introduction to the recent history of Iran and the spread of the gospel there is Iran: Open Hearts in a Closed Land by Mark Bradley.

Some helpful insights from James Emery White

Vol. 6, No. 25

Ten Things People Would Tell Us If We’d Listen

1. I do not consider myself (nor do I feel like I am) a “pagan.” I mean, really? A pagan? Not sure I like “unchurched” or “irreligious” either, though it’s a step up. Ideally, how about John, or Mark, or Sandra? In other words, my name.

2. I honestly don’t mind it when you invite me to your church, or talk to me about God. Just keep it, I don’t know, natural. Like when we talk about sports or movies. I hate feeling like a project. Let’s keep it a conversation between friends, and as friends. I could see doing that.

3. Please don’t be threatened by my questions. They really are my questions, and I’ve had them for a long time. I would hope that if Christianity is true, it would stand up under any amount of intellectual scrutiny. Anyway, I would feel a lot better if you were less threatened when I raise them. I’m not trying to be a jerk by raising them, I’m just trying to sort it all out. And that means asking you about all kinds of things. I know sometimes it seems combative, or aggressive, but God questions aren’t exactly tame – much less safe. And for me, the answers are everything.

4. Don’t forget that a lot of my junk is emotional, not just intellectual. And it took a lot for me to say that. I almost don’t know how to get into this, but I’ve been burned, disillusioned, hurt…you may win some of our verbal contests, but it doesn’t usually move me forward. It still leaves me feeling cold, mostly because some of the time the intellectual stuff is just a smokescreen for what I’m really battling. Here’s the last five percent: It’s not just whether I can buy into this intellectually, but whether I can buy into it relationally. In other words, are you and your community really safe?

5. I would like to belong before I believe. What I mean is that I’d like to experience this a bit before signing on. Is that legal? I hope so. I think that if I could “test the waters” a bit it would be helpful.

6. There’s a lot I don’t know, and I know it. Don’t make me feel stupid about it, like not knowing much about the Bible or Jesus or whatever. If you could start at the beginning and explain it all to me, that would be great. Like starting with Genesis and moving forward.

7. Can we agree that there’s a lot of weird stuff attached to Christianity and the Bible? Okay, it might be true, or real, or whatever, but can we just agree that some of it is a bit...bizarre? For some strange reason, it would make me feel better to hear you acknowledge how it all looks – and sounds – to someone from the outside.

8. What’s up with all the scandals? I’m sympathetic to screwing up – I do it all the time – but what makes me want to puke is how they’re screwing up while they are telling everybody they don’t, or that nobody should, or…you get my point. It just makes the whole thing seem like a joke. Just own that you have screwed up (that’d be fine with me, really, I do it all the time), or just shut up about not doing it. But this parading and posturing and then being exposed…it just turns me off. It makes me feel like the spiritual one because at least I don’t pretend to be something I’m not!

9. I like it when you help people – care for the poor, house the homeless, tend to the widow, protect the orphan, work for justice against the sex-trafficked – that gets my attention and feels authentic. It’s also convicting, because I’m not doing much in those areas. I agree with it, and write a check now and then, but I’m not on the front lines. When you are, it makes me have to listen to what you have to say, whether I like it or not.

10. I’m really open to it all. More than I let on. In fact, I want to feel good about myself spiritually. But I don’t think I could ever measure up. When I really think about God, all I feel is guilt and shame, so I stay away. It would be nice if there was something in all of this that would make me feel like I could…I don’t know….come home?

James Emery White

Editor’s Note

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