Post-Easter Thoughts

I hope you had a great resurrection celebration!

Some initial reflections on yesterday’s services:

-The gospel was simply, clearly presented. Preaching on Easter is an interesting activity because you have to fight the inclination to “complicate” the sermon. Many who gather in churches are familiar with the resurrection story, and in an effort to not disappoint them, many pastors try something fancy and out of the norm. That can be effective at times, but this is also the one Sunday when people gather who are not as familiar with the gospel message. No matter the familiarity, the gospel message has power for the saved and unsaved, so on a resurrection celebration, you just preach the “old familiar story” and pray it changes lives. I felt we did this yesterday through the different elements of the service. I thought it was clear how one can be saved.

-The elements of our service were effective in exalting Jesus! Everything we did was intentional, not just something we put in for the sake of doing something special for Easter. It was special, but it was planned to intensify the message of Jesus in an intentional way. Thanks to everyone who participated! The music, choir, drama, special instrumental, and even those who purchased lilies to decorate the platform– it all went together to make a special day.

-The sunrise service was a great start to the day with cooperation between churches. I might have heard the best rendition of His Eye Is On the Sparrow sung by two young ladies at this service, and the opportunity to worship with people from other churches was great. not to mention the breakfast was incredible!

“Do We Really Believe What We’re Saying?” David Platt Asks

Do We Really Believe What We’re Saying? from The Church at Brook Hills on Vimeo.

David Platt is the senior pastor of the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, AL.

How To Live Intentionally (lots of practical tools)

For most Christians, maybe the greatest sin of omission is our failure to make disciples, teaching people to obey everything that Jesus commanded.

2 Cor. 5:17-20 reminds us that we represent Christ and are supposed to be sharing with people how they can be reconciled to God.  That’s what it means to live intentionally. The simple question is:  are we doing that?

I believe there is no better consistent way to see people come to Christ than through the personal investment we make in others—that everyday decision to share Christ with the people we have some type of relationship with.

How can I say that? Because I look at Jesus’ life. You might ask- what about those large group settings where Jesus preached to crowds?  Or what about those large revivals in our history?  Those are examples of an immediate large response from people to obedience in Christ. And you would be right—they were. Those large group responses have their place, and will continue to happen as the Lord wills.

Witnessing Training Recap

This past Saturday, Duane Floro, from the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, came to Central to lead witnessing training with those who attended.  We had decent attendance and a great time learning from Duane!

We often think about sharing our faith as memorizing a step-by-step presentation and then reciting it to someone who gives us time to recite it.  That’s not what this training was about at all.

I would summarize this training as being a time to show us from Scripture the need to share our faith in Jesus and the difficulty in doing so (the parable of the sower).  And it was also a time to learn how to recognize people’s receptivity to the gospel.  This is paramount in witnessing.  Not every person is alike, yet sometimes we think there is only one way to share the gospel.  Duane’s way of teaching this topic was engaging and very practical.

We have the message of true life in the gospel of Jesus Christ! If it is really about life, then we should be concerned with the lives that we are witnessing to. That’s the idea behind a person’s receptivity to the gospel.

The training was great and I hope the people who were there are able to apply the practical truths learned.

Here are some quotes from Duane I noted throughout the session that I wanted to share:

“Acts 17:6-7.  Why is no on accusing us of turning the world upside down?”

“Nothing is worse than a testimony that comes out of a life not living it.”

Failure is to recognize something and not do anything about it.”

Monday Morning Rewind- What is Our Message? (Acts 4:5-13)

What are Monday Morning Rewinds?  Click here to see my original post explaining them.

Yesterday’s sermon was the second sermon for our 2010 focus for the church: Live Intentionally.  This sermon dealt with the scripture text of Acts 4:5-13, examining Peter and John’s telling of the gospel, and applying it to our lives and church.  You can listen to this sermon here.

If you were to go to someone and share the gospel with them in 2 minutes or less, could you do it?

That’s how I started this sermon.  The gospel is the heart of Christianity because its the story of Jesus and His salvation.  Yet so many Christians are hesitant to share the gospel because they either think they don’t know how or they think they’re scared of rejection.

The point is– if the people of our church are going to live intentionally, we must know our priority (making disciples, from last week’s sermon) and we must know our message (what we are making disciples of).

In Acts 4:5-13, Peter and John are standing before Annas and Ciaphas, the high priest as well as some others who would have been apart of the Sanhedrin, being questioned as to how they healed a lame man outside the temple.  These are the same people who had just participated in an unfair trial of Jesus Christ, leading eventually to his crucifixion (look at John 18).  Understanding who these people are will help us better understand what Peter and John are saying.

Excited About the "carried." Book Tour

Central has a great opportunity to host the book tour for carried (see info here). Justin Hanneken and Jeremy Willet have authored this book about social justice and the gospel of Jesus.  The book tour comes to Central on Sunday, February 21, during our 11:00 worship service.  In that service, the authors will be speaking and the band Willet (Jeremy is part of that band) will be leading our music acoustically.  It should be a great time of worship!

Justin is a good friend of mine from Maryland.  He and I have worked together in ministry efforts for several years and I have grown to respect him greatly for his love for the Lord and the people he serves.  He is as genuine as they come as someone who realized the grace of God and let Christ change his life and impact others through him.  I got to know Jeremy through Justin and in the small amount of time I’ve spent with him and the band, their commitment to the Lord is humbling for me to see.  Jeremy and the band have amazing musical ability and have surrendered their lives to spreading the gospel through their music, even if it means they sacrifice opportunities to make more money or live more extravagantly.  They finished school as quickly as they could to be able to tour and be available to the mission efforts their band leads (see their website for a lot more information).  As I am typing, they are in New Zealand on tour with great Christian bands like Switchfoot.

The guys who are coming are not as important as their message though. 

Monday Morning Rewind: The Reputation of the Church

Yesterday, I preached the first sermon in the new series, “Living Together,” where I’m preaching through the letters to the Thessalonians.  You can find more info on this series by clicking here.

The focus scripture text was 1 Thessalonians 1 and focused on the reputation of the Thessalonian church.  Before getting into what was written in the letter to the Thessalonians, I shared the historical context of the writing so we could properly apply it.

We know that Thessalonica was the capital of Macedonia, a port city with much trade and the exchange of philosophies due to many different people traveling through.  By reading through Acts 16-18, we learn that Paul set out for Macedonia on his second missionary journey, and that took him through Thessalonica.  He spent at least three weeks with the Jews there proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, and then was strongly opposed publicly for it.  This still happens when we boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus.

Paul was sent on from Thessalonica probably for his safety.  But in those few weeks of being with them, a church was formed.  Paul eventually sent Timothy to check on them and report back to Paul.  Paul wrote the letters to the Thessalonians after hearing Timothy’s report.

At the start of the first letter, Paul takes time to thank God for them for what he learned about them.  He was concerned about his little church plant, and it overjoyed him to hear they were doing well in their faith.

Specifically, the church was noted for:

1- Faith, love, and hope. This was found in verse 3, and Paul gives particular attention to hope in his letters to this church.  Hope is given the prominent last position in this triad, not because the others are not important but because it is what applied most to the people there.  I explained to the congregation that the New Testament letters are examples of situational theology where the letter does not cover the entire scope of doctrine, but only addresses the issues specific to that people.  We do this today still, but we usually call it contexualizing the gospel.

2- Proclamation of the Gospel & Evidence of their Faith (v.8). Not only did they hear the gospel, but it went forth from them.  They shared it, and their faith was evident in this area.

3- Deserting Idolatry (v.9). They turned from idols to the only living and true God!  We deal with idolatry still today, which is placing anything above God in our lives.  I explained how even good thing become an idol in our lives, and told them this cliche that I’ve heard preached before: when good things become god things, they become bad things.

4- Hope for Jesus’ Return (v.10). They had a strong hope that Jesus was coming back, and no matter how troubling their affliction (we know they were persecuted from the content of this letter), Jesus was in sight.

After preaching through the chapter, I simply asked the question, what is the reputation of our church? And it must be noted that this reputation of the Thessalonian church was made known by the community around them!  Paul refers to this in verses 8-9.

If the community around our church was asked about us, what would our reputation be?