No one person can know everything that is going on in the lives of everyone in a church. In any given week our sisters and brothers will face overwhelming trials, tremendous joys, crippling temptations, frustrating disappointments, and unbelievable pain. Some people are plugged into some people’s lives while others are plugged into others. We would never imagine one person knowing what is going on in the lives of the wide spectrum of even a small congregation like Calvary.

The entire body intimately concerned about, connected to, and engaged with each other is God’s design for His body. Think about it the way Paul wrote about it,

“…Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

We are the “every joint” that Paul is talking about that holds the body together. Individually we are the ligaments that God has so sovereignly supplied to keep the body from falling apart, and when we are held together as God has equipped us then we are “working properly” together. We are like a well-oiled machine. But we are more, because we are a living organism that bumps into each other, gets in one another’s way, holds hands, puts arms around, hugs, and touches one another in all kinds of life-changing ways – that, to me, is “working properly.” It may not all be pretty at times, but it does mean we are together trying to work out how we fit together as God designed us.

The result is growth through love. Primarily Paul is talking about the spiritual growing we go through as a church. Working properly together results in taking steps in the right direction spiritually. But I truly believe that a church that operates like this will grow numerically as well. People of all walks of life want to be a part of a body that is working properly together in love. They are not looking for a perfect body; they are looking for a loving body.

We are not alone stranded on a desert island, slugging out our daily existence hoping help will randomly fly by some day. That is a miserable existence. But I wonder how many people feel that way in a typical church…at Calvary?

I do believe God has gifted our little body of believers with a spirit of genuine, loving care for one another. You love well! But I want to challenge all of us as we grow to make sure we don’t fall into the trap of believing somebody else will love the new person. Remember, new people are so easy to love because they come in with a clean slate; they have a clean plate that needs to be filled by someone serving them in love.

Keep Loving Well,

I wonder how many people we casually cross paths with every day. And of those people, I wonder how many of them don’t know Jesus. And of those who don’t know Jesus, I wonder what it would take for us to create a relationship with them. And of those with whom we create a relationship, I wonder how many of them we would eventually be able to tell our story of Jesus. I would like to share just a couple of thoughts this week along these lines…

Life touches life. A person’s life is best changed through another’s life touching them in a significant way. The opportunity to touch someone’s life will come through a variety of ways: crisis, joy, need, fun, business, and vacation. Those are just several ways God brings people across our paths. The key is availability; we must be willing to enter into someone’s life story. We must be prayerfully looking for God-given opportunities to get involved in people’s lives.

Tell them the story of Jesus. The reason we look for God-given opportunities is so that we can build a relational bridge that will lead us to sharing with them how Jesus changed our life. The key to this is intentionality. We must be intentional about the direction of our relationships. Those who are in Christ will naturally want others to be in Christ. Gospel centered people created gospel partners. We’ve found the secret to a joyful life, and it is for the purpose of sharing this joyful life with others that we make friends out of strangers.

We live our lives for the purpose of interjecting our life into someone else’s for the sake of the gospel. We are not haphazardly stumbling through life. We are looking for those moments when God sovereignly places someone across our path so that we can begin a great adventure with them. And this adventure will prayerfully lead them to the cross where their life will never be the same.

Grace & Peace,

We have so much for which to be thankful and so much to which we can look forward.

First a note on thankfulness. We should stop to praise and thank God for a great Awaken Weekend for our students. Each year this weekend seems to exceed our expectations. Thank the Lord for good leadership (Kristy Hall and all those who volunteered). Thank the Lord for a great group of students who sacrificed their time to paint the youth room and spruce up the prayer garden. Thank God for Jared and Victoria Snead coming to us again to invest their lives into our students. Thank the Lord for good weather for the entire weekend.

If Sunday morning was any indication of what God did over the weekend, then our hearts should be overflowing with gratitude. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Second let’s think about anticipation. Too often in youth ministry we are looking of immediate results and quick fixes, but I’ve learned over the years that we must be patient with the seeds planted today. We may not see the results from this Awaken Weekend for several years. It takes time for trees to grow, mature and then bear fruit. And that’s where the rub comes – waiting…patience. This character trait of patience is something at which we are just not that good, but the fruit of patience is well worth the wait.

Just think of pushing through, pressing into God, holding out hope, trusting in what only God can do, and then one day seeing the bud on the tree that is a promise of fruit to come. The alternative is to hang it up, cut the sapling down, throw it to the side and sulk in self-pity because things didn’t go the way we planned it. I think I’d rather wait it out and see what God is up to.

With Gratitude & Waiting,

We are in the middle of our series on Getting Calvary Back on Track and have covered the main mission of the church. We have been created by God to glorify Him. The church exists to reveal and display the glory of God. This glory revealing is basically going public with the fame of God. We are to let the world know that everything is about God!

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Now that we know what our focus is we can ask, “How do we get there?” God has given at least four means that we honor Him as a church. These are four tools in our toolbox; these are four avenues to travel in spreading God’s fame to the world; these are four truths we tenaciously hold to…

First, we gather to worship God. Our gathering is not focused on entertainment but on worship. We don’t want to be about us, but about God.

Second, we grow in the grace and knowledge of God. We accomplish this primarily through Sunday school groups that meet at 9:15 on Sunday morning. Keith Higginbotham our Sunday School Director knocked the ball out of the park on Sunday night during the vision casting meeting. What a blessing it is to have a guy like this leading us.

We are praying and planning that this grows and more classes are added to meet that numerical growth. We are also praying for new groups to form. We could easily see small pockets of men, women, couples, and students meeting for prayer, accountability and encouragement throughout the week. All of these groups meet for the purpose of helping us find strength in God (1 Samuel 23:16).

Third, we give of ourselves to the Lord. This giving includes our time, talents, and treasures. God created us to be givers, not takers. Giving takes sacrifice and everyone in the church is called upon to sacrifice to see the gospel advance in the kingdom of darkness. We are not called upon to give with an eye on others; we always give to God, not because He is needy but because He is worthy. Paul attributed the following statement to Jesus,

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

We will cover the fourth avenue next week. Until then…

Grace & Peace,

The loudest voices I seem to hear this time of year is about what we can get out of the season. Children are wondering if they are going to get what they’ve been asking for, for the last three months. And moms and dads, we’re wondering if the people in our lives have been paying any attention to the litany of hints we’ve been putting out there about what we want for Christmas. But I just kind of wonder…is this really what Christmas is all about – you know, the decorations, presents, songs, parties, etc.? All these things are nice and we certainly can have some fun with them, but we have to keep in mind that they are all shadows that should point us to the true substance of Christmas: Jesus Christ. And what was Jesus about? The answer to that question would take more space that I have time for, but as I reflect on Christmas I’m thinking that the answer, at least in part, is giving. Jesus came into this world to give Himself for the glory of the Father and the salvation of humanity.

From this we can surmise that believers should follow suit. We are in this world to give. God saved us to give our lives for His glory and for the good of other people. You see, when we got rescued from Satan, evil and death, God also saved us from selfishness. This salvation changed everything. Paul said it best:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:15)

God created His children to be givers, not takers. It is truly not in our new nature to hoard all the stuff of this world, but to give to others willingly, freely, enthusiastically and joyfully. But a problem enters and interrupts this ethic when we listen to the world’s voices and make selfish choices. Now we think Christmas is all about what we can get and not what we can give; and Christmas is just a small snapshot of how we tend to live the rest of the year. I struggle with this, don’t you?

So, I want to encourage all our hearts to think a little differently. Let’s trying to put giving at the top of our lists instead of our wants. Here are some great giving opportunities to prime the pump:

Let’s end 2014 and begin 2015 giving, not taking!

Grace & Peace,

What if we lived during a time when God is silent; He is not speaking through any means. Use your imagination and try to envision living when there was a drought of God’s word. In this case silence is not golden – that only applies to kids!

It was not hard for Samuel to visualize life like that because he was living that nightmare.

“Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD in the presence of Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.” (1 Samuel 3:1)

Samuel was the son born to Elkanah and Hannah. He was born out of a vow; they promised to give their firstborn to the Lord for service. Samuel eventually was taken to the Temple and given to Eli the priest. He was to live there and serve the Lord his entire life however God saw fit to call and gift him. Samuel would become the last judge and first prophet of Israel. What we know about the times of the judges is that the Israelites were doing whatever they wanted to do:

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)

The unchecked, wholesale wickedness of the day was in direct proportion to the absence of God’s revelation. If there is no direct revelation from God then people will do all sorts of wicked and unconscionable things (cf. Proverbs 28:18 [“Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law”]).

A quick read through the book of Judges gives you a sense of the vicious cycle they were in: comfort, complacency g disobedience g punishment g repentance g God shows up with grace. This cycle repeats itself for about 410 years. At the core of their decline was forgetting what God had done in the past and compromising with sin in the present.

It’s a catch 22 – people don’t hear from God therefore they live wickedly, and because people live wickedly God doesn’t speak. What is the answer to the dilemma? The answer is found in hearing from God.

This is where our responsibility comes into play. We must put ourselves in the position of hearing from God. We need to beg God to speak to us through His Word, but we cannot expect God to speak if we neglect the Bible. The answer is not avoidance, the answer is engaging. We need to be engaging ourselves in God’s Word. This means we will not be content with having someone else read and explain it for us; this means that we will open the sacred pages of God’s inspired Word and read it for ourselves.

Maybe we don’t hear from God because we’ve grown spiritually fat in our culture and are content to let sin continue. Disobedience only brings punishment. God cannot, and will not, allow sin to be left unchecked even if we do. We must repent of our sin of a lethargic attitude toward the Bible and go in a new direction. We must get back into the Bible in order to get our lives back on track. Or, are we content with God’s silence?

Grace & Peace,

Happy Father’s Day! This is a pretty awesome weekend for us guys, right? No lawn work, don’t have to wash dishes, forget about washing the car, fixing the broken stuff around the house, no way; but you’re saying, “Ok, I get it, but who’s going to do all those things?” My answer: that’s why we have the week after Father’s Day – catch up week! Just kidding.

Being a dad is great but it’s also hard work. I’ve always believed that if you put in the time, energy, blood, sweat and tears early then as the kids get older it’ll be easier. So, if you’re a dad of “ankle bitters” fight, work diligently, put in every ounce of effort to raise those kids in the fear, love and admiration of God. They are worth the time.

Think about it this way…usually you’ll work at more than one place in your lifetime; you might even have more than one career, and one day you will walk away forever from a perfectly good job (it’s called retirement). But we still put so much effort into work; we spend exorbitant amounts of time at the office, and still jobs come and jobs go, but kids – that’s a different story. They are yours for life. Shepherding a child’s heart is one investment that is worth the exertion, determination, sacrifice and risk. Dads, you can do it because God has given you everything you need to be a good dad. He’s given you a father-shepherd’s heart and He’s given you a manual from which to teach – the Bible.

On a personal note…I have loved every stage of fatherhood and I am learning a new one now. It is exciting and a pleasure to be the dad of adult kids. I really have a great time uniquely interacting with each of our brood. For one it’s be a tearfully deep conversation in the car over coffee; for another it’s a weekly FaceTime Bible Study; for another it’s catch up texting or a 3 mile run and talk; for another it’s Sunday lunches with her new husband. The relationships never end; they just take on a different and, may I say, “deeper” dimension.

What I would say to you dads today is: enjoy Father’s Day and let it remind you that you have a God-given opportunity to shepherd your children’s hearts. Do it well, do it with diligence and do it through the Word!

Grace & Peace,

Scott

God’s Word is cleansing. Here’s how it works…

The Holy Spirit takes the revealed words of God (the Bible) and washes us from all the filthy junk that we get attracted to. Like, the addictions and the words and the thoughts and the patterns of sin and the images. The Bible scrubs us clean through replacing our sinful desires, thoughts and actions with holy and godly desires, thoughts and actions. The Holy Spirit gives us a bath through the Word.

David put it like this,

“How can a young man keep his way pure?

            By guarding it according to your word.

With my whole heart I seek you;

            Let me not wander from your commandments!

I have stored up your word in my heart,

            That I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:9-11)

Paul, speaking of Christ, makes it super clear in Ephesians,

“…Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:25-27)

In both of these passages we can clearly see the agent God uses to cleanse us – it’s His Word!

Thinking we are going to get rid of the filth in our lives without getting into the Bible is like thinking we are going to take a bath without soap and water. We need the Bible; we need its cleansing power in our lives to gain the victory over sin.

Let me add a word of warning: we can’t rely on someone else’s teaching and preaching alone to clean us, we need to get into the scrubbing power of God’s Word on our own. Now, when I was a little boy my mom would give me a bath and scrub behind my ears and in all the right places. But, I quickly outgrew that and could eventually do it on my own. Wouldn’t it be tragic for a mom to be giving her 51-year-old son a bath? It is doubly tragic for mature believers to rely on someone else to give them a spiritual bath.

So, let’s get into the Bible. Study it; fall in love with its stories and teachings and poems. The Bible is trustworthy, reliable, clear, relevant and authoritative. Let the Holy Spirit wash you with the scrubbing power of God’s Word!

Grace & Peace,

At the end of Paul’s letter to the Roman believers he takes some time to write specifically about some people who impacted their world with the gospel. He’s careful to name names and point out godly traits that meant something to him. You see, Paul had it tough at times, but God always provided him with people who were a bright light along a dark path. These were people who encouraged him with their lives. For example he wrote about those who “risked their necks for my life” (16:4). I find that a fascinating statement. Or how about “the first convert to Christ in Asia” (16:5 [i.e., the first Asian Christian]). This was a believer who risked everything, refusing to follow the crowd of his national heritage. He mentions those who understood his suffering because they shared a prison cell with him because of their faith (16:6). He writes about the one “who worked hard in the Lord” (16:12). And then he tenderly remembered an unnamed woman “who has been a mother to me” (16:13). Can you imagine being that woman; she goes down in history as Paul’s surrogate mother. That’s just beautiful.

These were not Superman (-woman) believers, they were common, ordinary, everyday, what we would call “blue collar” Christians. This is what the church is made up of. What’s special about the people of God is not their heritage or their clothes or their bank accounts or their transportation or their house; no, what’s special about God’s family is their sacrifice for the sake of the gospel.

This is the church we should strive to be. We are different people, from all walks of life, with all types of stories to tell, who eat at different fast food joints, and live in all types of houses, driving all shapes, sizes and colors of vehicles, but what we do have in common is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel will completely and irreversibly change people forever.

Think about the people in your life and how they’ve shaped you spiritually. God uses so many different colors and so many different shapes of brushes to paint the portrait of His grace on the canvas of creation. I want to encourage you to write down (as Paul did) the people in your life whom God has used to encourage you in your walk of faith. And don’t just write their names but also write down beside their names what it is in their lives that God used to help you. And then, write them a note of thanks telling them what characteristic in their life encouraged your walk in the Lord for the sake of the gospel.

Grace & Peace,

God has blessed my life tremendously. He has blessed me with a gracious relationship with Himself through the redemption He provided through His Son, Jesus Christ (back to this in a minute). He has blessed me with a wonderful family. He has blessed me with a loving church. He has blessed me with caring friends. He has blessed me with a beautiful place to live. He has blessed me with clear instructions through His Word. He has blessed me with life. He has blessed me with opportunities to serve Him. And the list goes on. In fact, most everyone reading this has been blessed in many of the same ways. Now back to redemption…

Redemption is the plan whereby God beautifully reverses the fortunes of those who are not His own. Peter put it like this,

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:10)

That is the gospel and the gospel is the great reversal. Throughout the Bible we can find different metaphors describing the reversal. Once we didn’t belong, but now we do belong; once we had no identity with God, but now we are identified with God; once we didn’t know who our father was (Satan), but now we do know that our Father is God; once we were lost, but now we are found; once we had no hope, but now we are filled with hope. Isn’t that a beautiful reversal of fortunes?

Peter shares the purpose behind this reversal in the previous verse:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (verse 9)

So God changed our lives so that we could tell others how He could do the same for them. This is at least part of why God saved us, isn’t it? Yes it is! Evangelism is not about some new program that the church needs to buy into; it’s not about a certain night when we all “go out” to knock on doors. While those may be helpful they may also become harmful. How? Because it leads the church to think that getting the gospel out into the community is something that we can check off our list of things to do for the week. It can also be dangerous because it leads Christians to practice evangelism once a week instead of making it part of our lifestyle. What about the girl you work with? What if she was to ask about your hope and joy on Friday morning but visitation was Tuesday night? I guess she’s just out of luck for four days, right? No, right then and there we can begin to share the gospel by sharing our story of how God’s marvelous grace rescued us from the darkness and placed us into His beautiful light.

Has God’s blessed you the way He’s blessed me? If so, then why don’t you thank Him and then look for an opportunity to share His blessings with others.

Grace & Peace,

We are where we are spiritually because of somebody else. Two facts I would like to share with you this week…

First fact, our salvation began with what God did for us. We are saved because God loved us and gave His Son to take our rightful place on the cross (Romans 5:8). We brought nothing to the game; God did it all. Our response to this elaborate display of love was faith, and the Bible is clear that we didn’t even conjure that up on our own (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Next fact, we owe our knowing about what God and Jesus did for us to someone (or “someones”) in our life. They are the ones who shared the gospel with us at some point. It was their testimony or life or words that the Holy Spirit used to convince us of our need for a Savior. These are the faithful people who loved us enough to confront us with our lost condition and tell us how God could transform us into a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The above two facts lead me to a concluding question: “Why are we content to let it stop with us?” Every Christian is called to reproduce their lives in others. Jesus put it this way: “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). We are called to make a strong commitment to the great commission. Being a witness of the gospel is not optional in the Christian life, it is an obligation.

Paul felt such a pull to this calling that he wrote about it to the Christians in Rome.

¹⁴I am under obligation both to the Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. ¹⁵So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. (Romans 1:14-15)

He expresses his pull toward evangelism by using the word “obligation” that can also be translated “debt.” If we owe somebody money we are quick to pay it back. Why do we become negligent in paying the debt of sharing the gospel with others?

Grace & Peace,

Without an active and effective witness in the world the church is dead in the water – its doors will close one day. I’m not talking about the church universal; God will always have a group of His people who will risk everything for the sake of the gospel. However, as an individual part of that church, Calvary could cease to exist one day if we shut down our witness to the community. Jesus’ words to His disciples are appropriate and applicable to us…

³⁴…If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses him life for my sake and the gospel’ will save it. (Mark 8:34-35 ESV)

Jesus is describing a believer who is willing to give up everything, including life, instead of saving themselves for comfort or fear or convenience or whatever excuse. These are the type of people who keep the church alive and thriving; they are the ones who “keep the doors open.” Think about it – if we don’t reach people who are unsaved then eventually nobody will be left.

Friends, we have a tremendous, God-provided opportunity right in front of us. Building a building doesn’t reach a community; it just puts us providentially and strategically in a good place. If we stand back and think we’ve done a good job and now God can “bring them in” then we are missing the point of being a church. Being a church means, at least in part, being a witness. And that is where the fear comes in. Let me put our fears to rest. By saying four things.

First, the results are not up to us. As Paul pointed out to the Corinthian congregation, he planted, Apollos watered, but God harvests (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9). So breathe easy, the pressure is off. It’s all on God and He’s good at what He does. He saved us didn’t He?!

Second, and I can’t stress this enough, get into the Bible and study God’s promises. Hopeful people look hopeful and hopeless people will notice and ask why we are so hopeful. The best way I can tell you to be an effective witness is to get happy in God, and the only way we are going to get happy in God is to be saturated with His Word.

Third, build meaningful relationships. The normal way God opens a door for witnessing is through people we know. It may be somebody in your family, somebody you work with, somebody you play with (you know, shopping, golf, shooting guns, or skydiving), or somebody who lives across the street. Just figure it out.

Fourth, pray hard and long. Pray like everything depended on God, oh, yeah, everything does. Pray for yourself and others. Pray for wisdom and courage. Pray for an occasion. Let’s pray for one another and share our stories. It’ll be beautiful!

Grace & Peace,

On Sunday mornings we have been working our way through the book of Malachi. On thing that has been screaming out at me week-after-week is the fact that God begins His rebuke (and saves His sternest rebuke) for the spiritual leadership of the nation of Israel (cf. 1:6; 2:1, 4, 7, 8; 3:3). The strongest section is found in chapter 2. Read these words and let them sink in:

⁷For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. ⁸But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, ⁹and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction. (Malachi 2:7-9)

Wow, what an indictment. God didn’t shy away from taking them out behind the proverbial woodshed. He bent them over His knee and thoroughly got to the seat of the problem.

What are some of the lessons we learn from this?

First, the direction of spiritual leaders is the direction of the people. The entire nation stumbled because of the wrong teaching of the priests. The tone of the book of Malachi is belligerence. The people were debating God’s steadfast love because the priests began doing it.

Teaching God’s people God’s Word carries with it a high level of accountability. Teachers of God’s Word can’t mess up and then say, “Oops, my bad.” That may be okay every once in a while, but to consistently mislead people through sloppy teaching is unconscionable. Remember the words of James?

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers [and sisters], for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. (James 3:1)

Repentance is the only way out. Once the wrong has been pointed out the only course of action is to seek forgiveness and change direction. This is what God was shooting for in Malachi, but unfortunately it didn’t take place. We see the theological mess when Jesus shows up 450 years later.

This is why it’s crazy for us to think being a pastor or spiritual leader is cool. Too often this is the reason behind choosing this path. We think becoming a pastor is a piece of cake with lots of benefits. It would be “off the chain” to lead a group of people, teach them, and play with the youth once in a while. That is so far from the truth it’s pitiful.

The life of a pastor is a wonderful life. I love what God has called me to do, but my calling doesn’t come from what I think is hip and cool; my calling comes from the LORD of hosts who tapped me on the shoulder in 1981. It was a calling that I couldn’t shake. I am compelled to pastor and I would be miserable if I had to go through a season of not under-shepherding a group of Jesus’ disciples.

I write this not looking for pity or accolades; I write this letting you know that when the church gets off course God will begin the process of correction with me. He will take me over His knee to get us back on track.

I want to share that I was challenged in my Sunday school group this week by Keith Higginbotham. He said something that got me thinking. He shared that before his feet hit the floor in the morning he meditates on the Lord’s Prayer. I want to encourage and challenge all of us to do just that. Wake up 5 or 10 minutes early and meditate on God’s Word. This is a time that we all would connect with God. Go over the verses you are memorizing (hint: Proverbs 26:13-16) and meditate on them. Ask three key questions: “What do they say?” “What do they mean?” “What does it matter?”

Remember what David wrote,

"I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." (Psalm 119:11)

Grace & Peace,

Scott

This last week has been a wonderful week of vacation. I appreciated the opportunity to take some time off, sit poolside, and enjoy my family. I’ve discovered that it takes about 2 days to finally feel relaxed. Until then I am a pretty keyed up person. Ok, to be honest an 8 hour day on the interstates of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida don’t help, neither does getting awakened at 3:11 am to the sound of your neighbors fighting, nor witnessing the near drowning of a four year old, but I guess these are things I need to learn to take in stride when leaving the comforts of the small, unincorporated town of Boiling Springs. But there were so many good things during the week…the laughter of adult kids playing Nertz, 24 hours a day for a whole week with Barb, getting to see my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, newly married niece, and great nephew, and spending a day at “Harry Potter World.” Yeah, all that stuff is good! Overall the good definitely outweighed the bad!

I missed my Calvary Church family while I was gone and can’t wait to see you Sunday morning! One of the truly soul satisfying, Christ exalting things I do with my life is teaching the Word. Every opportunity I have to open God’s sacred Book and explain what it has to say fills my heart with joy. I hope you will be there as we look at the second thing a lazy person will not do – Start Things (Proverbs 26:14).

That’s all I have for now. I’ll get back to enjoying my view of the pool from five stories high!

Grace & Peace,

As I bring another series of messages to a close I usually look back and wonder if we got it. Did we get the main point of what the author of Judges was trying to communicate? If we didn’t then I feel that I haven’t accomplished what God has called me to do. If I could give you a one-sentence summary of Judges it would be:

Forgetting God and excessively devoting ourselves to something else always ends in being enslaved by those idols.

Time and time again the tribes of Israel forgot about God and pursued the gods of their day. The phrase “Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” is repeated seven times (2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1) and gives us a clue as to their problem. The root of the Hebrews’ evil was in forgetting God and chasing after the gods of their time. The gods they became devoted to were the false religions of the day. They began worshipping the Baals and Asheroth of the Philistines and the Amorites and the Perizites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Once they were on the road to idolatry God would give them over to be “owned” by these foreign nations. Soon enough the Israelites would have enough and would cry out to God for deliverance. What is beautiful in the story of Judges is that even though the Israelites forgot God, God never forgot them. The evidence of this is that when they repented God was there to rescue them from the domination of the nations and their gods. He would raise up a judge to lead them out of their oppression and slavery. This deliverance resulted in years of blessing, peace and prosperity. And then the cycle would begin again…

The difference between then and today is that our gods don’t look the same. Yes, we have the same problem of excessive devotion to something else other than God, but we usually don’t worship our gods by making little statues. Our gods follow the American dream that in reality is a nightmare. Our gods are leisure, consumerism, addiction, entertainment and narcissism. We have become so consumed with the things of this world that following God is no longer engaging. To be honest the gods of the 21^st century “own” us and are beating us down every day. The only way out is to cry out to God and ask Him to rescue us.

The design of preaching through Judges was not to be a wet blanket but to give us all hope when we find ourselves buried under a present-day god of this world. The hope is found in pursuing our relationship with God, not chasing after the American dream!

Grace & Peace,