August 2022

Do I Need the Church?

By / September 8, 2022
church

“Do I need the church?”  Hmmm…. If you start feeling uncomfortable about what I have here I beg you to stick with me a while.  I don’t intend to beat anyone up.  I am mindful of Isaiah’s words in prophesying that Jesus does not break bruised reeds or snuff out smoldering wicks and I think a lot of us fit in those categories.  But I recently read something I think I was supposed to agree with but found I didn’t.  It put high emphasis on the need for the church, stating how being away from it will adversely affect your relationship with God.  That part I agree with.  What I took issue with was the other part of the idea, which was when you cut the church out of the deal you can still be a Christian.  The more God teaches me about the church the more I see this as dead wrong.

Now, a lot of this is attitudinal.  I know a lot of people who for reasons beyond their control cannot make it to the gathering of believers.  We call certain people our “shut-ins” because they can’t leave their houses.  Others have jobs on Sunday that are their only means of support.  Still others may live debilitatingly far from other believers.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, astutely points out that none of us is guaranteed a body of believers in which to belong – but that’s not really our problem is it?  The real problem is when by God’s grace we are given a body to meet with and we decide, “Nah, it’s not important.”

Consider – no letter in the New Testament is written outside of the context of a church.  You are thinking “Philemon.”  Go ahead, take a look.  Paul wrote him a letter, v. 1… and to the church meeting in “your home” v. 2.  The two to Timothy and to Titus are chock-full of church matters.  Of course, we have to take God’s word personally – but it is equally imperative (and widely overlooked, dismissed, and fought against) we take it communally.

The fact is, most of what God calls us to is impossible outside the context of the church.  How are we to demonstrate our love to our brothers and sisters if we never see them?  How can all people know we are Christians by our love if we never associate with them?  How can we demonstrate Jesus’ power in destroying dividing walls of hostility if we never set foot inside the walls where our brothers and sisters are?  How can we show the most excellent way of love if we have no one to show Jesus’ radical love to?  “Yeah, but I don’t really have anything in common with or even get along with anyone at church.”  That’s the point!  Jesus Christ is our unifying factor, forming us into one body, teaching us to love each other deeply from the heart!  So, if we call ourselves Christians but purposefully stay away from the church, not only do we obliterate our witness of God’s power in the world (and to the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms), we also stand on incredibly shaky ground, testing the limits of what it means to be a Christian.

Please understand, I don’t mean to be harsh.  It’s just simply too easy to slip into the world’s ways of thinking without even meaning to.  So we need to be clear about what God thinks about the church and strive to help as many as possible understand that.  God help and bless us all….

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In God’s Presence

By / August 22, 2022
cherubim
Good day at North Penn this morning, this is the final lesson from the book of James titled “In God’s Presence.”  The idea is tied to the idea of wisdom vs. foolishness, God’s world view vs. the world’s world view, and double mindedness vs. singleness of purpose.  Outline under the video.
  In God’s Presence James 5:13-20 Our relationship to God….
  • In the bad….
    • James 1:2; 2:6; 5:1-7
  • In the good….
    • Exodus 15:1-18, 21
    • Luke 1:46-56, 68-79
  • In sickness….
    • Miraculous – II Kings 4:8-37; Luke 8:40-56; Acts 3:1-10
    • Other – II Kings 20:7; I Timothy 5:23
    • The fellowship comes to the sick – Matthew 18:20
  • From sin….
    • Confession = accountability – v. 16
    • The need to call others back – v. 19-20
Prayer….
  • Two world views
    • James 1:5-7
    • James 4:2-3
    • Example of Elijah
 
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The Bride of Christ

By / August 18, 2022

Most summers find me working one week at Camp Manatawny, a Christian camp out in Douglassville, PA.  On one evening devotional this past summer our speaker asked us to turn to the person to our right and say one good think about our church.  We did.  He spoke a little longer and then asked us to turn to the person on the left and say one bad thing about our church.  As we turned to the left and took a breath to express the bad and the ugly, our speaker loudly commanded, “Stop!” and then said “Who gave you the right to criticize the bride of Christ?”  It was a beautiful piece of rhetoric with a fantastic slap.

For a couple of seconds, I wondered what I would have heard if we were able to go on, but only for a couple because I already know what I would have heard – I’ve heard it before.  “Our church is too….” “Our leadership doesn’t….” “Our singing is….” “Our preacher is….”  Our services are….”  “We don’t have….”  It’s all there.

We think we’re justified.  After all, most of the letters in the Bible are addressing problems and Revelation chapters two and three have plenty of criticism.  But the one doing the criticizing in Revelation is Christ Himself.  And Paul is doing something a bit different and it strikes me – that difference is in what we too often do by bringing the church down on the one hand instead of placing ourselves squarely within the church and working on the church’s improvement on the other.  If we are the bride of Christ, it makes sense to collectively look at ourselves in the mirror and fix what needs fixing.  Christ’s warnings in Revelation are instructive, as are Paul’s admonitions.

But we must set ourselves solidly in the church.  We must see our brothers and sisters in the church as part of our own body.  And it seems to me if I focus and work on the plenty in me that needs fixing instead of something else I may have very little control over, I’m going a long way towards making the bride of Christ that much more beautiful.

Let me finish on a slightly different track.  Over the past couple of years, a lot of people have left the church.  Some have tried to come back and have been discouraged by the change in their own church’s makeup and dynamic.  Others have tired of the vigorous interaction with other parts of the body that mold and shape us into Christ’s likeness.  Still others have swapped the transforming power of the church for activities.  Despite all this, the church is still the bride of Christ.  She is still the most beautiful thing on earth, teaching us love, humility, righteousness, holiness, service and…well, every good thing God intends for us.  And she is totally worth our attention.  After all, Christ gives her all of His.

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Patience in James 5

By / August 18, 2022

The theme of James 5:7-12 is patience and James exhorts us to have patience in the face of persecution and difficulty.  The outline on patience in James 5 is under the video.  God bless!

Patience

James 5:7-12

Patient with what?

  • Context is injustice – 5:1-6
  • Keep the focus where it belongs, don’t take your hardships out on each other – v. 9
  • God will make it right – v. 7, 8

Three illustrations….

  • The farmer – Psalm 126:5-6
  • Prophets – Jeremiah 38
  • Job – Ezekiel 14:14-20

Do not swear….

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Growing Up Spiritually

By / August 11, 2022
Spiritual maturity

The picture above is of my old toybox my dad made for me before my memory of it.  It’s pretty big, and I could fit all my toys in it as a child.  I remember sitting in front of it one day, thinking of all my toys, how much I loved them and loved playing with them when I was overcome with a sense of dread.  Old people didn’t play with toys.  They didn’t have a toybox.  I couldn’t imagine life without my toys and wondered what exactly happened to people when they grew up that they just lost interest in such important things!

Skip forward to a few decades and I’m sitting in my classroom with one of my 16-year-old students.  He was asking me about Drake.  I was impressed he knew what a male duck was.  It was a minute or so when we realized we were having a breakdown in communication.  He was talking about the rapper.  I had no idea there was a rapper named Drake.  Only partly to himself he said, “Wow.  I don’t ever want to get old.”

But we do, don’t we?  And as we do, we put away our toys and move on, with very little regret and fuss.  But how about spiritually?

Think about it!  Wasn’t a big problem in the Corinthian church really a refusal to grow up spiritually (I Corinthians 3:2)?  God had given them gifts and they were completely enamored with some of them over others, particularly speaking in tongues.  They were treating them like their own personal toys and wanted to show off like second-graders in show-and-tell!  They were metaphorically pushing and shoving each other around, treating worship like a school playground, while quite literally talking over one another.  Paul, like an exceptionally patient parent, walks them through the proper use of the gifts and then says they need to focus on something far more important, something that will never pass away, and that is love.  And then he lays it on the line – “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

And it strikes me – how can we be sure we are growing up spiritually?  Paul would say we can tell when we no longer are concerned about our position or glory.  We can tell when we extend grace to those around us and see the best in our brothers and sisters.  We can tell when we chose the way that builds others up rather than puffs ourselves up.  We can tell when we stand firmly in what remains after all the chaff is blown away.  And all of this is the way of love….

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

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Going Home

By / August 11, 2022

Where is home?  I realized I was doing something a number of years back whenever I just wanted a break from some situation or difficulty.  I would say to myself, “I want to go home.”  Now, the strange thing about that was I didn’t really have a place in mind.  I lived most my childhood in New Jersey (lots of summers in Michigan), spent college in Texas, did mission work in the Czech Republic, and have lived in Pennsylvania for the past 17 years.  But whenever I say I want to go home the only state I’m really thinking of is a state of mind where peace, joy, and comfort exist in abundance.  I know I’m not alone.

Now, the obvious connection here is we are looking forward to another country, a heavenly one.  The image of Lazarus resting at Abraham’s side is compelling.  So is the promise of no more tears.  That’s the home we all really want, and really, I know that’s the cry of my heart when I say I want to go home.  But there is another place that is closer right now, a place I go and I’m home, the frontier of God’s Kingdom on earth.  It’s the church…

…don’t laugh.  I’m serious.  I am well aware the church is not perfect.  I’m well aware we have disagreements in the church.  I’m well aware our auditoriums are full of hurting people; emotionally, physically, spiritually, and mentally.  But it’s also the place where this past Sunday I sat down after services and had a really good talk with a few dear members of my spiritual family.  And here is the thing – none of us would have found one another without Jesus’ church.  Let’s expand it from that small group I was talking with.  In my church we have several different nationalities.  We have several different ethnic backgrounds.  We have people who have voted democrat, republican, independent, and have refused to vote altogether.  We have a wide range of experiences, jobs, education, and ages.  And we can talk about all of that, have talked about all of that in total humility, and widened our ideas about…

…what?  Well, home.  None of those things divide us – because we have a common Father and have found what binds us together is so very much stronger than what could tear us apart.  Because the Lord Jesus is our peace.  Because we have chosen to focus on those things that really matter.  Because we bring all our experiences and all of who we are, redeemed and transformed by Jesus, and are enriched and amazed at God’s grace as wisdom is proven right by all her children as we accept God’s will for our lives.  And in all of this, we find ourselves home….

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Do Not Boast

By / August 2, 2022

A lesson from James 4:13-17 called “Do Not Boast.”  Explores the motivations behind boasting breaking the illusions of control and attitudes of entitlement.  This section ties closely with all of chapter 3 and that is briefly explored.  The video lesson “Do Not Boast” from the North Penn YouTube channel is first, with the lesson outline below.

Do Not Boast

The problem

  • It is the illusion of control – Counterpoint: John 1:10-13
  • It is the attitude of entitlement– Veritasim illustration, Luke 14:7-11 – banquet; Luke 18:9-14 – Pharisee and the tax collector.

The forgotten purpose of our lives.

  • To spend on what they want? 4:3; Luke 12:16-31- bigger barns; Isaiah 22:13
  • To use for God’s glory? 1:27; Luke 16:9 – shrewd manager; Luke 12:35-48 – To the one whom much is given much is required.
  • “The good we know to do”