As I look out the window of the A-frame building at New Hope, I am deeply aware of how fortunate I am. My car sits waiting for me. I can drive home on roads that I expect to be open, and they always are. Dinner will be waiting for me when I get there. In the morning, coffee and breakfast will await me. I think of how people in Haiti are living in makeshift tent communities. Their roads are barely passable.
The earthquake in Haiti has caused us to think deeply about turning loose of our money in order to help people in a crisis. We are thankful to know that there are people who have the skills to help there. We want to be a part of what is being done to help people who are injured, grieving, hungry, thirsty, and homeless. Thank God for the opportunity to give and join God in what he is doing.
God loves all the people of the world. We cannot fully understand why so much suffering happens to His creatures. Much more important than explaining why bad things happen to innocent people is finding a way to respond in compassion and do something to help.
Jesus gave us a powerful image of what the final judgment will be when he said in Matthew 25, “What you have done for one of the least of my children you have done for me.” Jesus is present among the hurting people of Haiti. He is saying to us, “Don’t miss out on this opportunity to respond in compassion to this gigantic human crisis.”
I am happy to report that our offering for Haitian Relief totaled $769.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Suffering in Haiti and Channels of God’s Love
Haiti has been on our minds and in our prayers since the earthquake devastated the capital city Port-au-Prince. The scenes of people suffering on television tear at our hearts. Knowing that so many have died and so many are hurt calls to us to try to be of help. I would like for us to take up a special offering and send it to our denominational resource: The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The Fellowship has launched its response, which will be largely coordinated through CBF field personnel Nancy and Steve James, who serve in the country and are in Port-au-Prince to assess how CBF can respond. Both medical professionals, the Jameses are bringing emergency medical supplies with them and plan to establish a staging area from which the Fellowship’s response will be channeled.
On the web, go to www.thefellowship.info/CBF. The link is on our New Hope web site: www.nhbcpo.org. Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal offered a message to the Fellowship that included four things you can do:
• First you can pray: Prayer requests will be updated regularly on CBF’s web site.
• Second you can give: Your gift will go to earthquake relief.
• Third, you can get involved: If you want to help directly with response efforts, please let us know your skills and experience.
• Fourth, you can stay connected: Read the latest news release, updates on the CBF blog, and connect through CBF's Haiti ministry network's Ning site.
Our prayers are with the people of Haiti and all who are working there to be channels of God’s love by doing work that brings comfort and healing.
On the web, go to www.thefellowship.info/CBF. The link is on our New Hope web site: www.nhbcpo.org. Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal offered a message to the Fellowship that included four things you can do:
• First you can pray: Prayer requests will be updated regularly on CBF’s web site.
• Second you can give: Your gift will go to earthquake relief.
• Third, you can get involved: If you want to help directly with response efforts, please let us know your skills and experience.
• Fourth, you can stay connected: Read the latest news release, updates on the CBF blog, and connect through CBF's Haiti ministry network's Ning site.
Our prayers are with the people of Haiti and all who are working there to be channels of God’s love by doing work that brings comfort and healing.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Listen to the Voice of God
When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, he heard the voice of God speak to him. The voice said, “You are my son, my son whom I love very much. I am delighted with you.”
The thought I have had most often as I have looked at the scene of Jesus coming up out of the water dripping wet, John standing beside him, wet from the waist down is this: I need to hear God as my Father tell me He is delighted with me, you need to hear God as your Father tell you He is delighted with you.
Jesus has introduced me to God as my heavenly Father.
Jesus has taught me to address God as “our Father” when I pray.
So I can hear the Father – need to hear the Father – say, “You, Bob, are my son. You are my son whom I love very much. I am delighted that you are my son.”
Last Tuesday at Joy Luck Restaurant, my fortune cookie message read, “Encourage me, and I will not forget you.” I liked that. Those who have encouraged me, I have not forgotten. I even remember Dr. Theron Price, who taught me at Furman University in 1964 and 65, saying to me one day, “I didn’t know that you were a ministerial student. I am delighted to know it.” I don’t remember anything he said after that, because Dr. Price – 6 feet 7 inches tall – intelligent, gentle, and an excellent teacher told me he was “delighted to know” that I was studying for the ministry. Wow! That was encouragement, and I never forgot it.
You are listening for a word of encouragement aren’t you? Listen for it diligently and let it soak in when it comes.
God’s light, encouragement, blessing flows through many human channels. I never forgot hearing Father John Powell, Jesuit priest and author of a number of books on relationship and self-image, say, “Whenever anybody gives me a compliment, I ask, ‘Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” Then he said, “I write it down, adding it to a list of encouraging things people have said to me and I keep the list in my desk drawer.”
Can you hear that encouragement from God? Can you hear the voice of God saying, “You are my child, my beloved child! I am delighted with you.”? I am asking you to make Jesus’ story your own in your prayers. Expect the fresh energy of the Spirit to flow into you. Expect to hear the quiet voice which reminds you of God’s affirming love. Expect God’s voice to tell you of the path of vocation which lies ahead for you.
Henri Nouwen believed that the words said to Jesus from heaven at his baptism are words said to all of us if we will listen and believe: “You are my beloved child. I am well pleased with you.” He wrote a book about it called The Life of the Beloved.
What we all need, what you need, Nouwen teaches, is a deep awareness that you are always God’s Beloved. How does anyone ever get the joy and peace we all want? You get it from knowing yourself as God’s Beloved.
Those who don’t know that they are Beloved run here and there looking for the imitation love of praise from others, power over others, and safety within the crowd. When you don’t know yourself as the Father’s beloved, you run after pleasure looking for something to, at least for a little while, take away the pain of not feeling loved: the worst pain in the world. This is a compulsiveness that leads to death.
The truth you need to claim for yourself is that you are “loved long before your parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded you.”
Here is what Nouwen says it means to be the beloved: It means you are Chosen, Blessed, Broken, and Given.
You are chosen, not in the sense that you deserve to be first on the team while other lesser talents are left out. The One who loves you with an everlasting love chooses you. That means you are more than a speck of humanity among millions. “Long before any human being saw you, you were seen by God’s loving eyes.”
Being chosen means, first, that you can reject the lies the world tells you that may demean you. You can know that you are the chosen child of God, even though you may not feel it right now.
Second, being chosen also means that you will seek out the people and the places that remind you of the truth of your chosenness.
Being blessed means that you are open to being encouraged and strengthened by those who will say good things to you. To give a blessing to someone is more than giving them a word of praise or pointing out their talents. It is not, “I love you because you are so beautiful or talented or successful.” It is, “I love you because God loves you.”
“To give a blessing is to affirm, to say “yes” to a person’s belovedness.” A blessing is not telling a person how much you admire them. “A blessing touches the original goodness of the other and calls forth his or her Belovedness.”
Here is an example of the kind of blessing Nouwen gave to people at L’Arche, the community of handicapped people and their caregivers. This blessing went to an assistant in the community, a 24 year old student. “John, it is so good that you are here. You are God’s Beloved Son. Your presence is a joy for all of us. When things are hard and life is burdensome, always remember hat you are loved with an everlasting love.”
“Broken” is Nouwen’s word about our sinfulness and our suffering. His example of his brokenness is his addiction to one person’s attentions and support. While he doesn’t go into any detail, he makes it clear that this one person was too important to him. He seems to have been trying to get all of his feelings of being beloved from one human being. The insight is this: God’s love flows through many human channels, and we make a huge mistake when we rely on one person for all of our security and feeling of being loved.
Nouwen’s guidance: “put your brokenness under the blessing,” has helped me to hear the Father speaking to me about how delighted He is that I am alive.
There is a brokenness in you. How do I know that? Are you a human being? Here is what the Bible says in Romans 3:23&24, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.”
What you tend to say to yourself is this: “The suffering I am going through is proof that the deep feeling I have of being no good is accurate. My brokenness proves it that I am no account.”
But when you put your brokenness under the light of blessing you move toward full acceptance of yourself as the Beloved. You begin to, as the First Letter of John says, “to walk in the light as God is in the light.” I take that to mean, you begin to tell the truth about yourself, about your sinfulness and your brokenness. You don’t try to hide and run and lie.
Putting your brokenness under the blessing means you recognize that God will use what has happened to you because of your own or other people’s sinfulness. God will use your brokenness to enable you to serve others.
Jesus gave his life to allow you to put your brokenness under God’s blessing.
This story gets at the meaning of putting your brokenness under the blessing. Tony Campolo said he was in seminary studying to become a minister when one day a professor called on him to lead the class in an opening prayer. He was praying along and said, “God be merciful to us worthless sinners.”
The professor, he said, “Stopped me right in the middle of my prayer, and I’ve never forgotten what he said to me. “Mr. Campolo, we are not worthless.
We are unworthy sinners. Unworthy, but not worthless.”
Everyday I receive a brief meditation written by Henri Nouwen as an email. This is what appeared in my email when I opened it this morning at 6:15 .
Growing Beyond Self-Rejection One of the greatest dangers in the spiritual life is self-rejection. When we say, "If people really knew me, they wouldn't love me," we choose the road toward darkness. Often we are made to believe that self-deprecation is a virtue, called humility. But humility is in reality the opposite of self-deprecation. It is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God's eyes and that all we are is pure gift. To grow beyond self-rejection we must have the courage to listen to the voice calling us God's beloved sons and daughters, and the determination always to live our lives according to this truth.
You are chosen, blessed, and broken not for your own sake, but in order that we can be given. In the end, what brings you the greatest joy in life is to being able to do something for another person. God’s blessing flows into you in order to flow on to others. All that you receive from being the beloved is to be passed on.
In his book Craddock Stories, celebrated preacher Fred Craddock tells of an evening when he and his wife were on vacation in Tennessee. They were eating dinner in a restaurant called The Black Bear Inn in the Smokey Mountains. A white haired, elderly man who was the owner came over to their table.
“Where are you from?”
“Oklahoma.”
“What do you do there?”
Fred said, “I thought now that’s none of his business, but he told him: ‘I teach preaching.’”
“Oh, you teach preachers! I’ve got a story about a preacher,” and he pulled out a chair.
Fred Craddock is one of the best preachers in the country and, at the same time, is a shy introvert if there ever was one. I heard him speak at a Stetson Pastor’s School one February several years ago. I went up and introduced myself to him. I could tell that meeting new people is not an easy thing for him.
So Fred thought sarcastically, “Sure, sit at our table while you tell it! I’ve heard all the preacher stories. Most of them came off of Noah’s Ark on crutches.”
"I am from around these parts," the old man said. "My mother was not married, and the shame the community directed toward her also fell on me. Whenever I went to town with my mother, I could see people staring at us, making guesses about who my daddy was. At school, I ate lunch alone. In my early teens, I began attending a little church but always left before church was over, because I was afraid somebody would ask me what a boy like me was doing in church. One day, before I could escape, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the minister. He looked closely at my face. I knew that he too was trying to guess who my father was. 'Well, boy, you are a child of. . .' and then he paused. When he spoke again he said, 'Boy, you are a child of God. I see a striking resemblance.' Then he swatted me on the bottom and said, 'Now, you go on and claim your heritage, boy.'
“I left church that day a different person," the now elderly man said. "In fact, that was the beginning of my life."
"What did you say your name is?" Dr. Craddock asked.
He answered, "Ben Hooper. My name is Ben Hooper." Fred Craddock thought, “Ben Hooper, Ben Hooper? I remember when I was a kid hearing my father talk about how the people of Tennessee twice electing as governor of their state a fellow who was the illegitimate son of a mountain woman. His name was Ben Hooper.”
When you know that you are God’s beloved child and you help someone else to see themselves as the Father’s beloved child, too, you never know what may come of it.
You never know what may happen in the life of one person who claims his or her heritage as a child of God!
The thought I have had most often as I have looked at the scene of Jesus coming up out of the water dripping wet, John standing beside him, wet from the waist down is this: I need to hear God as my Father tell me He is delighted with me, you need to hear God as your Father tell you He is delighted with you.
Jesus has introduced me to God as my heavenly Father.
Jesus has taught me to address God as “our Father” when I pray.
So I can hear the Father – need to hear the Father – say, “You, Bob, are my son. You are my son whom I love very much. I am delighted that you are my son.”
Last Tuesday at Joy Luck Restaurant, my fortune cookie message read, “Encourage me, and I will not forget you.” I liked that. Those who have encouraged me, I have not forgotten. I even remember Dr. Theron Price, who taught me at Furman University in 1964 and 65, saying to me one day, “I didn’t know that you were a ministerial student. I am delighted to know it.” I don’t remember anything he said after that, because Dr. Price – 6 feet 7 inches tall – intelligent, gentle, and an excellent teacher told me he was “delighted to know” that I was studying for the ministry. Wow! That was encouragement, and I never forgot it.
You are listening for a word of encouragement aren’t you? Listen for it diligently and let it soak in when it comes.
God’s light, encouragement, blessing flows through many human channels. I never forgot hearing Father John Powell, Jesuit priest and author of a number of books on relationship and self-image, say, “Whenever anybody gives me a compliment, I ask, ‘Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” Then he said, “I write it down, adding it to a list of encouraging things people have said to me and I keep the list in my desk drawer.”
Can you hear that encouragement from God? Can you hear the voice of God saying, “You are my child, my beloved child! I am delighted with you.”? I am asking you to make Jesus’ story your own in your prayers. Expect the fresh energy of the Spirit to flow into you. Expect to hear the quiet voice which reminds you of God’s affirming love. Expect God’s voice to tell you of the path of vocation which lies ahead for you.
Henri Nouwen believed that the words said to Jesus from heaven at his baptism are words said to all of us if we will listen and believe: “You are my beloved child. I am well pleased with you.” He wrote a book about it called The Life of the Beloved.
What we all need, what you need, Nouwen teaches, is a deep awareness that you are always God’s Beloved. How does anyone ever get the joy and peace we all want? You get it from knowing yourself as God’s Beloved.
Those who don’t know that they are Beloved run here and there looking for the imitation love of praise from others, power over others, and safety within the crowd. When you don’t know yourself as the Father’s beloved, you run after pleasure looking for something to, at least for a little while, take away the pain of not feeling loved: the worst pain in the world. This is a compulsiveness that leads to death.
The truth you need to claim for yourself is that you are “loved long before your parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded you.”
Here is what Nouwen says it means to be the beloved: It means you are Chosen, Blessed, Broken, and Given.
You are chosen, not in the sense that you deserve to be first on the team while other lesser talents are left out. The One who loves you with an everlasting love chooses you. That means you are more than a speck of humanity among millions. “Long before any human being saw you, you were seen by God’s loving eyes.”
Being chosen means, first, that you can reject the lies the world tells you that may demean you. You can know that you are the chosen child of God, even though you may not feel it right now.
Second, being chosen also means that you will seek out the people and the places that remind you of the truth of your chosenness.
Being blessed means that you are open to being encouraged and strengthened by those who will say good things to you. To give a blessing to someone is more than giving them a word of praise or pointing out their talents. It is not, “I love you because you are so beautiful or talented or successful.” It is, “I love you because God loves you.”
“To give a blessing is to affirm, to say “yes” to a person’s belovedness.” A blessing is not telling a person how much you admire them. “A blessing touches the original goodness of the other and calls forth his or her Belovedness.”
Here is an example of the kind of blessing Nouwen gave to people at L’Arche, the community of handicapped people and their caregivers. This blessing went to an assistant in the community, a 24 year old student. “John, it is so good that you are here. You are God’s Beloved Son. Your presence is a joy for all of us. When things are hard and life is burdensome, always remember hat you are loved with an everlasting love.”
“Broken” is Nouwen’s word about our sinfulness and our suffering. His example of his brokenness is his addiction to one person’s attentions and support. While he doesn’t go into any detail, he makes it clear that this one person was too important to him. He seems to have been trying to get all of his feelings of being beloved from one human being. The insight is this: God’s love flows through many human channels, and we make a huge mistake when we rely on one person for all of our security and feeling of being loved.
Nouwen’s guidance: “put your brokenness under the blessing,” has helped me to hear the Father speaking to me about how delighted He is that I am alive.
There is a brokenness in you. How do I know that? Are you a human being? Here is what the Bible says in Romans 3:23&24, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.”
What you tend to say to yourself is this: “The suffering I am going through is proof that the deep feeling I have of being no good is accurate. My brokenness proves it that I am no account.”
But when you put your brokenness under the light of blessing you move toward full acceptance of yourself as the Beloved. You begin to, as the First Letter of John says, “to walk in the light as God is in the light.” I take that to mean, you begin to tell the truth about yourself, about your sinfulness and your brokenness. You don’t try to hide and run and lie.
Putting your brokenness under the blessing means you recognize that God will use what has happened to you because of your own or other people’s sinfulness. God will use your brokenness to enable you to serve others.
Jesus gave his life to allow you to put your brokenness under God’s blessing.
This story gets at the meaning of putting your brokenness under the blessing. Tony Campolo said he was in seminary studying to become a minister when one day a professor called on him to lead the class in an opening prayer. He was praying along and said, “God be merciful to us worthless sinners.”
The professor, he said, “Stopped me right in the middle of my prayer, and I’ve never forgotten what he said to me. “Mr. Campolo, we are not worthless.
We are unworthy sinners. Unworthy, but not worthless.”
Everyday I receive a brief meditation written by Henri Nouwen as an email. This is what appeared in my email when I opened it this morning at 6:15 .
Growing Beyond Self-Rejection One of the greatest dangers in the spiritual life is self-rejection. When we say, "If people really knew me, they wouldn't love me," we choose the road toward darkness. Often we are made to believe that self-deprecation is a virtue, called humility. But humility is in reality the opposite of self-deprecation. It is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God's eyes and that all we are is pure gift. To grow beyond self-rejection we must have the courage to listen to the voice calling us God's beloved sons and daughters, and the determination always to live our lives according to this truth.
You are chosen, blessed, and broken not for your own sake, but in order that we can be given. In the end, what brings you the greatest joy in life is to being able to do something for another person. God’s blessing flows into you in order to flow on to others. All that you receive from being the beloved is to be passed on.
In his book Craddock Stories, celebrated preacher Fred Craddock tells of an evening when he and his wife were on vacation in Tennessee. They were eating dinner in a restaurant called The Black Bear Inn in the Smokey Mountains. A white haired, elderly man who was the owner came over to their table.
“Where are you from?”
“Oklahoma.”
“What do you do there?”
Fred said, “I thought now that’s none of his business, but he told him: ‘I teach preaching.’”
“Oh, you teach preachers! I’ve got a story about a preacher,” and he pulled out a chair.
Fred Craddock is one of the best preachers in the country and, at the same time, is a shy introvert if there ever was one. I heard him speak at a Stetson Pastor’s School one February several years ago. I went up and introduced myself to him. I could tell that meeting new people is not an easy thing for him.
So Fred thought sarcastically, “Sure, sit at our table while you tell it! I’ve heard all the preacher stories. Most of them came off of Noah’s Ark on crutches.”
"I am from around these parts," the old man said. "My mother was not married, and the shame the community directed toward her also fell on me. Whenever I went to town with my mother, I could see people staring at us, making guesses about who my daddy was. At school, I ate lunch alone. In my early teens, I began attending a little church but always left before church was over, because I was afraid somebody would ask me what a boy like me was doing in church. One day, before I could escape, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the minister. He looked closely at my face. I knew that he too was trying to guess who my father was. 'Well, boy, you are a child of. . .' and then he paused. When he spoke again he said, 'Boy, you are a child of God. I see a striking resemblance.' Then he swatted me on the bottom and said, 'Now, you go on and claim your heritage, boy.'
“I left church that day a different person," the now elderly man said. "In fact, that was the beginning of my life."
"What did you say your name is?" Dr. Craddock asked.
He answered, "Ben Hooper. My name is Ben Hooper." Fred Craddock thought, “Ben Hooper, Ben Hooper? I remember when I was a kid hearing my father talk about how the people of Tennessee twice electing as governor of their state a fellow who was the illegitimate son of a mountain woman. His name was Ben Hooper.”
When you know that you are God’s beloved child and you help someone else to see themselves as the Father’s beloved child, too, you never know what may come of it.
You never know what may happen in the life of one person who claims his or her heritage as a child of God!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Who Gets the Applause?
Brett Younger is professor of preaching at McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta. He recently wrote about the people he sees in the park where he walks. “My crowd,” he says, “wears knee braces and warm-up pants. We include lots of moms with strollers.” One of the regulars “must be in his 80s. The way he runs makes me think at least one hip and one knee are recent additions.”
One day a group of “young people in $200 Nikes” showed up at the park and “were dashing around at a startling pace. The high school cross-county team had invaded our family-friendly track. A thundering herd of 16-year-olds with 2 percent body fat.” Their parents and coaches were cheering them.
Younger began to think about whether the wrong people are getting the applause. Then he wrote, “The runners we should admire the most may not be the young fast ones, but the grandparents who drag themselves out of bed when they are feeling sore all over.
“The real heroes and heroines may not get the loudest ovations. The quickest, smartest and best looking should not get all of the praise. The best Sunday school teacher may not be the one with the biggest class, but the gracious friend who has been caring for the same good people for decades. The best pastor may not be the one with the biggest church, but the minister who faithfully serves a congregation that struggles to survive. God’s finest are the ones – young and old, large and small – who are not running for applause.”
I like Brett Younger’s way of looking at what deserves the most praise. When I think of our church and our members, I think of these words from the Bible: “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1Samuel 16:7). Being a long-time gracious friend may not attract a lot of applause. Serving faithfully when things are tough may not win awards, but God sees the hearts of those who aren’t seeking praise, just running the race with patience and looking only to Jesus. (See Hebrews 12:1-2.)
One day a group of “young people in $200 Nikes” showed up at the park and “were dashing around at a startling pace. The high school cross-county team had invaded our family-friendly track. A thundering herd of 16-year-olds with 2 percent body fat.” Their parents and coaches were cheering them.
Younger began to think about whether the wrong people are getting the applause. Then he wrote, “The runners we should admire the most may not be the young fast ones, but the grandparents who drag themselves out of bed when they are feeling sore all over.
“The real heroes and heroines may not get the loudest ovations. The quickest, smartest and best looking should not get all of the praise. The best Sunday school teacher may not be the one with the biggest class, but the gracious friend who has been caring for the same good people for decades. The best pastor may not be the one with the biggest church, but the minister who faithfully serves a congregation that struggles to survive. God’s finest are the ones – young and old, large and small – who are not running for applause.”
I like Brett Younger’s way of looking at what deserves the most praise. When I think of our church and our members, I think of these words from the Bible: “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1Samuel 16:7). Being a long-time gracious friend may not attract a lot of applause. Serving faithfully when things are tough may not win awards, but God sees the hearts of those who aren’t seeking praise, just running the race with patience and looking only to Jesus. (See Hebrews 12:1-2.)
Miracle at New Hope
A few New Hope members have pointed me to the fact that Pastor Rick Warren asked Saddleback Church to help make up the $90,000 deficit in offerings for 2009. Then he announced that in the last 48 hours of the year $2.4 million came in. They said to me with a smile, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could do that?” Yes, of course, it would. Rick Warren is calling what his congregation did a miracle. He sent out letters to more than 20,000 church members, and they gave.
Members of New Hope don’t despair. We finished 2009 with our own deficit of $20,700. You will have your chance to be a part of another miracle. We are launching a new initiative to increase our giving. We will vote on approving our 2010 budget on Wednesday, January 20. Then we will give you Pledge Cards that you can turn in on Sunday, January 24 or Sunday, January 31.
We can start fresh and give at a higher level to support the ministries of New Hope. Look at the children reached, the youth served, the families strengthened, the senior community brightened by our birthday celebrations, our Bible teaching, our music, and our financial help to people in need in Port Orange and Daytona. Look at our growth in worship, our second worship service.
By your giving be a part of a miracle: a new decade of ministry at New Hope Baptist Church.
Members of New Hope don’t despair. We finished 2009 with our own deficit of $20,700. You will have your chance to be a part of another miracle. We are launching a new initiative to increase our giving. We will vote on approving our 2010 budget on Wednesday, January 20. Then we will give you Pledge Cards that you can turn in on Sunday, January 24 or Sunday, January 31.
We can start fresh and give at a higher level to support the ministries of New Hope. Look at the children reached, the youth served, the families strengthened, the senior community brightened by our birthday celebrations, our Bible teaching, our music, and our financial help to people in need in Port Orange and Daytona. Look at our growth in worship, our second worship service.
By your giving be a part of a miracle: a new decade of ministry at New Hope Baptist Church.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Goal of Following Jesus
Many of us who have been involved in church a long time have seen some foolish arguments take place between Christians. What I want to say in this piece is simply this: Here at New Hope Baptist Church we are going to avoid foolish arguments by keeping our eyes on what really matters. We are going to think about our potential disagreements this way. “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” I think John Wesley the founder of Methodism said this, but he got it from someone else. It simply means lets agree to be together on the things that really matter and to allow each other freedom to disagree on things that don’t matter. In all things let’s agree that the most important thing is love.
I have it in my new member material, and I always ask those who are attending to think about what things are essential and what are non-essentials.
Paul looked at the arguing that was going on between Christians in Rome and asked them to think about the things that are essential and the things that are not essential. He spends eleven chapters talking about what God has done. God has given great grace to both Jews and Gentiles. Beginning at chapter 12 he begins to say, “Since God has been so merciful toward you, here is how you ought to live – in loving harmony, loving each other, welcoming and accepting those who don’t agree with you.” In Romans 14 he says there ought to be unfailing tolerance of others when they differ over food laws and Sabbath keeping.
So in the time our text was written, the issues were not our issues. We don’t argue with each other about whether we ought to be concerned about what food ought or ought not to be eaten. In our church we don’t divide up over what day we should take as a Sabbath.
What do we argue about? What are the non-essentials about which we might tend to get exercised, but about which we ought to allow ourselves freedom to differ.
· Social drinking
· Types of music to be sung in worship
· Political and social issues
What are the essentials?
To find the answer to that question all we need to do is to look at how Paul came to recognize that the kingdom of God is not about keeping rules and rituals about food or about worship days. Why does he say these are not what the kingdom is about?
In his own life, Paul had tried to earn his right to be called a godly person by keeping rules. He had been a Pharisee. He was good at keeping the Jewish law. That is what Pharisees did. That is how he was keeping his place in line. He was proving that he was right and those who didn’t keep the law the way he did were wrong. The people who were followers of the Jesus Way were so wrong in his eyes that he was doing all he could to wipe them out. He felt very right about having people who followed Jesus thrown into prison and stoned to death. They were messing up Jewish society. They were the enemies, of that he was certain, until he met the living Jesus on that famous Road to Damascus.
Somehow after that encounter with Jesus, Paul saw it all differently. This is the way he put it in his letter to the church at Philippi. You know my pedigree: a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God's law; a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting the church; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law Book.
The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness.
Do you know the word “magnanimity?” It comes from a Latin word meaning “greatness of soul.” Here in Romans 14, the Bible is asking us to live out the magnanimity of grace. Grace is unselfish. We are being called to something that is not easy. It is easy for us to fall into rule keeping, criticism of the way others do things, getting legalistic with others. It is not easy to welcome and accept as members of our family those who disagree with us.
Philip Yancey says that he grew up in a legalistic church in which he got the impression that God was waiting to catch him doing something wrong and kick him out. Why do we so often become caught up in trying to tell others what they should, ought, and must do? Is it because we believe that love is a reward for being good, rather than a gift for just being who we are?
There is something in all of us that loves to be right. There is something in us that feels good when we have one up on someone else. There is a great need we tend to have: The need to be right. To want to be right makes sense in many settings. When you are in school you need to have the right answers in order to make the grades. When you are doing something that affects the lives of others you really need to be right. I want my pilot to be right when he makes decisions about flying the airplane I am in. I want my doctor to be right in his or her diagnosis about what is wrong with me. There are plenty of times when being right is critical.
The problem with being right comes to the fore when we need to be one up over another person. Divisiveness develops when people need to be right over other people. If my need to be right becomes so important that I put it ahead of being loving and joyful, I get into the position of being a divider of the fellowship of the church.
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval” (Vv.17-18). What does he mean when he says, “Anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval?” What is “this way?”
“This way” is serving Christ by keeping your eyes focused on the goal of life. If you are a follower of Christ, the goal of your life is what? To be right about what people ought to eat and what day people ought to worship on? Is the goal of your life always being right? No! The goal of your life is to love others and to be happy in our Lord.
I am convinced that this is about the question that I have tried to learn to ask myself: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” That is what Paul is saying to church people who are arguing over what kind of food ought to be eaten and church people who think they are right and don’t care what other Christians think. Apparently some people are not concerned like their friends in the church about meat eating. Since it is not a concern for them, they are not wiling to give up any times of meat eating for the sake of protecting the feelings of others. Even if their eating meat causes someone to stumble, Paul is saying, they should give it up at the time for the sake of not putting any kind of stumbling block in front of another person. He would say, “You and I agree that eating meat is not wrong. We see eye to eye on that. But there are times when it is best not to eat meat because it will cause someone who sees it differently than you do to get off the track of his or her spiritual growth.” I think Paul would ask, “Do you want to be right about the issues your church is arguing about, or do you want to live in the kingdom of God which is not about what is right to eat and what is right to drink. It is about treating each other right and having peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Whenever we are about to get into it with someone in our church we need to stop and ask ourselves this question: “Do I want to be right or do I want to treat others right and have peace and joy?”
I said that is a good question to ask yourself when you are about to get into it with another member of the church. It is also a great question to ask yourself when you are about to angrily argue with your wife or husband or child or anybody. “Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?”
Looking Back and Trusting God
At the end of the year (I’m writing on New Year’s Eve.) I want to look back over 2009. Here are some things that happened last year. They remind me that we members of New Hope Baptist Church are in this thing called “life” together and that God is with us.
- I met most weeks of the year with long-time friends and some new ones. - Most weeks, Dennis Bucher and I met for lunch and for worship planning. - Our church studied the parables of Jesus together in February and March. - Dennis and I went to Atlanta to church music conference. - Fleda and I spent a few days seeing the Grand Canyon. - Sonny Gallman (Pastor of Central Baptist Church in Daytona) and I started a new Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Pastor’s Learning Group with the help of Doran McCarty. - I went on our Youth Retreat, which Cheryl Secunda organized. - We ordained Joan Wood and Lou Herouart as new deacons of New Hope. - We baptized Marilyn Schneider, Ruth Nearons, Maddison Snow, Jaren and Toren Ford-Jones, and Tom and Barbara Trozzi. - Betty Myers, Guy Wells, Kiyoko Bundens, Harvey Bundens, and Al Bittel died and entered into God’s presence. We thank God for the memories and blessings. - I went through surgery in October and felt the strength of God flow to me through many human channels.
These are some of my memories of 2009. It feels good to review them. God is faithful and can be trusted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)