Telling a Good Story

I love a good story.  If you are ever in my home or office you will find many books and movies that inspire, humble, and motivate.  And a good story can elicit a myriad of emotions from joy, to sadness, and everything in between.

As a pastor, I am always looking for ways to better communicate the best and most important story ever told. The story of the complete, amazing, and persistent love of Jesus spurs me forward every day.  And of course, I consistently proclaim the Gospel to both the members and guests of State Street Baptist Church almost every week. However, proclaiming the Gospel means nothing if my life doesn’t reflect Christ. Even in my imperfection and the process of repentance, the story of God’s forgiveness is proclaimed.

The Gospel literally means “good news” and is often been called, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”  In an effort to better communicate the love of Jesus, I am always looking for inspiration and ways to proclaim the gospel with great clarity and passion.  My inspiration comes from a variety of sources.  God inspires me to hone my craft of preaching often times through with my relationship with my bride and my children. But God also uses comedians, news anchors, books, movies, and even commercials to inspire new, different, and better ways to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

When I see a great rendition of the Gospel I eagerly share it. The producers of the video below describe “The Story Maker” as follows: “The Story Maker animated children's film is a Spread Truth project aimed at helping children understand the metanarrative of Scripture. It's also the first of its kind to help children share the Gospel story with their friends and family. This short film will help children engage and share the story of the Bible and Jesus, the rescuer.” I hope you enjoy this short film and may you have a very Merry Christmas!! 

God’s Love is Not JUST Unconditional

Recently I have noticed some friends of mine struggle with the tension of God’s grace and His demand for holiness in the Believer’s life. Ephesians 2:8-9 is clear when it says, “It is by grace you have been saved through faith and not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.” Scripture is clear that God’s love is unconditional. However if that is where we stop, concerning God’s love for us, we miss the blessing of the fact that God’s love is also transformational.

In James 2:17 we are told that “Faith without works is dead.” Reading Ephesians 2 and James 2 out of context could confuse some to think these two sections of Scripture contradict each other. However, James is not stating our salvation requires works, he is stating that works that glorify Jesus is EVIDENCE of one’s salvation. When a Believer reflects on what Jesus has done for them by taking our sin debt via the cross and the empty tomb, our response should be one of awe, thankfulness, loving Jesus back maximally. Jesus is clear that the only we can love Him back is through our obedience to Him (John 14:15). The love we give back to Jesus through our obedience is not trying to earn salvation, but it is our ONLY way to express love back to Jesus who loves us most.

Let’s examine John 14:15-17.  Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” I love this passage for several reasons. One, we can see all three parts of the Trinity in this passage. Second, Jesus has given us a blueprint for lives saturated with love, joy, and peace that happen more fully for those who love Jesus through their obedience to His Word. And finally, we see that God gives us the person of the Holy Spirit at the time of salvation who leads, guides, directs, and shows us how to love Jesus as we seek Him in our daily loves. Isn’t that remarkable? Jesus says you can’t really obey God without God (The Holy Spirit).  We can’t even love God without God showing us how as we seek Him. It truly all begins and ends with God.

God’s love is certainly unconditional, but it is so much more than that. His love is transformative. Believers receive His love and the gift of salvation without any prerequisites. However, to enjoy the abundant life Christ promises in John 10:10, we must seek Him consistently. Remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:7-8, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Those who earnestly seek Jesus will find the Holy Spirit will lavish on them, “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” Galatians 5:22-23.

Submission In An Age Of Distrust

Respect for authority is at an all-time low. Politicians, police, and leaders in general do not garner the same respect as they once did in years past. Part of the problem is that so many in authority have abused their positions and exploited those whom they should be serving with their position of leadership. However, this does not excuse the general distain for those in in authority who are really trying to use their positions of leadership to serve and aid others. 

The disdain for submitting to authority is very vividly seen on the A&E show called Live PD.  The show follows live police encounters and there are cameras recording their every move.  The police personal have total accountability due to the consistent camera presence.  This show reiterates that there is still a growing segment of the population who totally disrespect police and will not submit to their authority.  Some folks, when confronted about an issue the police are investigating, refuse to even give them their name when asked. 

Part of the problem is the idea of submission to authority is often seen as a bad thing, only for the weak.  However, even Jesus elected to submit to the authority of his parents. Tim Challies has a great article on how Jesus went through every stage of life in order to model submission for all humanity in every stage of life. Challies writes: 

To complete his mission, the Son of God had to live a complete life as a man. He had to be a baby, he had to be a toddler, he had to be a child, a tween, a teen, a young adult, and a grown man. He had to face and endure the temptations that come with every one of life’s stages. He had to be tempted as a toddler to defy his parents, as a teen to retaliate against sinful brothers and sisters, as an adult to be quick-tempered and sharp-tongued. He was tempted in every way we are, yet he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15)… Jesus spent his childhood, his teens, and his 20s in submission to his parents. Never once did he sinfully defy them. Never once did he rebel against their authority. Never once did he talk back in spite. To the contrary, he only ever joyfully and voluntarily submitted to them. He willingly put himself under their leadership, under their direction, and under their authority.[1]

Wow, the Creator of all submitted to His own creations! I am so thankful for the blessing of following and serving Christ, who loves us so much, that he actually stooped to love us!

Biblical submission is blessing and not a curse. Everyone has to submit to someone in the course of their life. However, we are not required to submit when those in authority are asking us to do that which will dishonor God. For example in the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar made a royal decree that all who heard his music must fall down and worship the golden image of his god. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to obey the law (3:16–18). So they were thrown into the fiery furnace, and God miraculously saved them and thus put his stamp of approval on their civil disobedience.

S. Lewis Johnson Jr. defined submission as “Voluntary yielding in love.” Submitting to the Lordship of Christ is, in essence, stating that you trust him to have your best interest at heart, even when it costs you and doesn’t make sense. It takes great love and faith to submit to God. As the writer of Hebrews  so succinctly says, “…without faith it is impossible to please God…” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV). And without faith, it is impossible to submit to God as well.

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[1] https://www.challies.com/articles/advance-learn-obedience-through-submission

The REAL Purpose of Worship

I am a very emotional and expressive person in all that I do. It is part of my personality, as an extrovert, to be very open and honest with my feelings. That can be both positive and negative. It is a negative when I let my emotional state drive me to be mean spirited or overly angry when the Gamecocks do poorly in sports.  It can be very much a positive when I am expressing joy and pleasure in Christ when I am worshiping Him.

  

As I worship, my focus always needs to be on God and not the well-being of my emotional state. If my worship is relegated to my emotions and I worship for the primary purpose to “feel good,” then my worship is on self and my feelings and not on the Lord God Creator of all.  Worship is a lifestyle and not something to focus on once a week during a worship gathering. Worship ought to impact every area of our life. I express daily worship to Christ by the way I treat my bride, or the way I disciple my children, and even in the patience I display while driving.  (OK, the last one is not as consistent as the others.) 

The same applies when we worship together on Sundays. The goal of corporate worship is not to leave feeling satisfied emotionally.  “Worship” that depends of the proper placement of lights, and certain types of music can be man-centered. Worship is not be used to illicit an emotional response, but rather worship should keep the focus on the awesomeness of God.  The heart is to be moved by the truth of the Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit. Our goal in worship is not to have an outlet to express our emotional state. Our goal is to celebrate and stand in awe of what we know about the living God and about what God has revealed about himself. 

When talking to the woman at the well Jesus said, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Jesus never said our goal is to experience a “feeling” about yourself or even about God. Our goal is that we worship in “spirit and truth”. What does that mean? The overall lesson about worshiping the Lord in spirit and truth is that worship of God is not to be confined to a single location. Worship should be a matter of the heart, not external actions, and directed by truth rather than ritual.

If you are looking for a church that is not focused on a style or genre, and the focus is on the exaltation and the majesty of Jesus Christ, State Street Baptist may be for you. Our worship is not going to be mindless, vain repetition, but it will be grounded in God’s Word with the purpose of guiding the worshiper to focus on Christ and our need for Him. 

Take, for example, the hymn we will sing during our time of worship through commitment this Sunday, February 19. The Hymn is called “COME, YE SINNERS, POOR AND NEEDY.” It was written by Joseph Hart in 1759. There was a time when I would have dismissed this hymn as old and stale because of the date It was written and the title contained the word “ye.” But look at the Scripture drenched words of this hymn:

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.

View Him prostrate in the garden;
On the ground your Maker lies.
On the bloody tree behold Him;
Sinner, will this not suffice?

WOW! This hymn gets right to the heart of the matter that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It also help us to reflect on the fact that our only hope for reconciling with God is for us to receive the gift of salvation through the sacrificial atoning death of Jesus Christ, and his glorious resurrection.  While reading the words of this hymn, I couldn’t help but reflect on Romans 5:6-8 which states, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” May God get all of the glory and be the focus of all our worship, both in our daily lives and as we worship together on Sunday.