If God hasn't forgiven you, you're not a Christian, period.

"I have great relationship with God...I like to be good. I don't like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don't do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad...I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't."

The above quote is typical of a post-modern, "I'm good enough for God" attitude, one sadly often acquiesced to in some Christian circles, though they certainly should know better.  What would Paul's response be to such twisted thinking?  A few simple quotes from his letter to the Ephesians ought to illustrate it: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace (1:7)...As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins (2:1)...Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved. (2:3-5)...For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. (2:8-9)"

We are not good enough for God on our own, never, ever does the Bible say anything of the sort, the idea is anathema to the Gospel.  We must be forgiven for our sins, period, and this only by the blood of Christ, only through faith, only by grace.  Anything less, and we remain dead in our sins, to pretend otherwise is to leave the sinner separated from God.

The initial quote is from a famous person, somebody who claims to be a Christian, who is accepted as a Christian by many people, but who most certainly is not a Christian if those words reflect his/her heart.  The true follower of Jesus Christ knows that he/she is only a sinner saved by grace, and knows that God's forgiveness means everything.

Sermon Video: What If? James 5:19-20

The counter-factual is a staple of sci-fi writing, used to show how our world would be different if one event in the past were changed.  While this may spur our imagination, we know that the past cannot be changed.  It is the future that remains unknown to us, and it is to the future that James looks as his finishes his letter, speaking of what can be accomplished if a sinner is turned from the error of his way.
That Christians can "wander" away from their faith is taken as a given by James, and so is the hopeful response that they can be brought back again.  What you conclude about this leaving and returning will likely be a reflection of your own view of the Calvinist/Arminian debate, but for James, the important point is to reassure his readers that they should be active in the ministry of reconciliation because bringing a wandering believer back to obedience will not only save that person's life, but also "cover over a multitude of sins".  Imagine the impact of helping a wayward Christian to return to God, not only will countless sins that would have been committed had that path continued be negated, but a child of God will be returned to fellowship and once more be contributing to the kingdom of God through works of righteousness.
The focus of James is upon the wayward believer, and the value of bringing him/her home to God, but the same blessing is there when one of the Lost is shown the way of salvation and leaves a hopeless life to find new life in Christ.  Our purpose, as a Church, and as the individuals who make up the Church, must have as its foundation the ministry of reconciliation.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." - Luke 18:9-14

If the actions of two individuals are outwardly identical, or at least nearly so, how would you or I differentiate between the two if we suspected that one was valid and the other was not?  We'd try to look deeper, we'd try to get behind the facade to see the thoughts, emotions, and attitudes that are prompting the actions.  When it comes to God, the same action may be acceptable and pleasing to him from one person and entirely unacceptable from another because God knows the heart of the matter and sees through all our masks.  In the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Jesus uses an example of two men praying at the same time at the Temple to illustrate the principal that outward appearances are not what impresses God.  The Pharisee, with his spotless reputation and over powering self-confidence, prays thanking God for how awesome he is (not how awesome God is), and expounding upon how well he is keeping even the minutia of the Law.  The tax collector, by contrast, offers but one thought, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  Because he is self-aware, knowing the depths of his own sin, the tax collector offers nothing in his own defense, nor does he attempt to speak of his good qualities, he simply acknowledges his woeful state before God and prays for atonement to be made on his behalf.
Two men, both praying at the Temple, one of whom is in the process of becoming right with God, the other of which is drifting further and further away.  Pride is the key factor in the downfall of the Pharisee, trust in himself has replaced dependence upon God, and along with that pride has come prejudice toward everyone else who seems beneath him.  Such dedication and effort to fulfill the Law, by the Pharisee, and all of it a waste, for the grace of God is far from him.  The tax collector, pitiful though he is, and with a history full of sin, has found the grace of God, for he sought it as a drowning man grasping for a life preserver.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: The Faith needed to Forgive - Luke 17:1-6

What does it take to forgive, to truly forgive as we are required to do by God?  In this passage, Jesus speaks of sin, forgiveness, and faith and draws a connection between the three topics.  Sin is important in relation to forgiveness because if we took sin more seriously, and did more to help others when they struggle with it, there would ultimately be less sin that needed to be forgiven.  Jesus' teaching on forgiveness itself is very simple: If a brother or sister in Christ repents of their sin, we must forgive.  No caveats, no exceptions, and no circumstances of the situation are needed to render that verdict.  Because God forgives the repentant sinner, we must as well.  But what of the egregious sins, what of the persistent sins, must we forgive those too?  Jesus anticipates this objection and responds with a hypothetical seven sins, against you, scenario in one day.  In that case, Jesus concludes, if that brother follows up each instance of sin with repentance, we must still forgive after the seventh time.  In other words, God does not allow us to set time, repetition, or severity limits to our willingness to forgive, we must forgive.  How does faith connect to forgiveness?  The disciples responded to Jesus' command to forgive by saying, "Lord increase our faith!"  They thought they needed more faith to do as Jesus asked of them, and we would readily agree.  But to this request Jesus simply responds by illustrating the incredible power of a tine portion of faith in this world.  If mustard seed sized faith can uproot a tree and toss it into the sea, can't the faith that you already have, a normal and regular amount that it is, have the power to forgive?  We need faith to forgive, but not a saintly level of faith, just an ordinary amount, and that is something that every follower of Christ is already in possession of.  In the end, we ought to be confronting and combating sin, we must forgive for we have been commanded to, and we need to obey that command by living by faith.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: The Prodigal Son's brother - Luke 15:11-32

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is the third parable in a row told by Jesus in response to the muttering of the Pharisees and teachers of the law who had observed his friendly social interaction with the tax collectors and assorted "sinners".  Each of the three emphasizes God's concern for the Lost, God's willingness to seek and save the Lost, and the joy that erupts in heaven when God succeeds in saving one lost soul.  The younger son in this third parable is indeed prodigal, that is he is wasteful through loose living of his resources, in this case his portion of his father's estate, at which point he hits rock bottom and reconsiders his choices in life.  The younger son begins the process of repentance, turning from his sinful choices and seeking forgiveness for them, even formulating a plan where he will ask his father for a lesser role than being his son, hoping instead to become simply an employee of his father.  Such a resolution is unacceptable to the father, who upon seeing his son return, rushes out to meet him in a loving embrace and immediately restores his son's rights as a son in a tremendous act of grace.  Likewise, God meets the lost sinner where he is, rushing out to meet us and offering total and free forgiveness as well as cleansing us and making us whole.  This parable is a heart-warming story, a tremendous lesson in love, grace, and forgiveness, as well as a warning about the danger of "freedom" apart from God; but it doesn't end there.  The second son, the older brother, is the true target of the parable as he sits sulking in his bitterness and anger when he learns of his father's generosity to his undeserving brother.  It takes the father's intervention, along with harsh and unfair words from the older brother aimed at his father, before the point gets across that the younger brother had been dead, and is now alive, he had been lost, and is now found.
Why do Christians, people who have been forgiven themselves, become judgmental and self-righteous?  They certainly should not, such attitudes are always and everywhere unacceptable within the Church; as former defendants before God whose sentences were commuted by the intervention of Jesus, our response to grace shown to others ought to be a shout of hallelujah, if it is a mumble of self-righteous indignation, shame on us.  Why does it happen?  Two reasons: (1) Those who don't remember their own forgiveness may resent when it is given to others, which would come from a false sense that one's list of sins was somehow small or petty, not really a big deal.  (2)  And those who don't value the Lost as God values them, seeing them in his image, as our very brothers and sisters, are likely to care less about their salvation.  The Prodigal Son may have left home, and hit bottom before finding forgiveness, but it is those of us who stayed behind, who remained with our Father, who may need to learn compassion.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you" - Acts 2:38-39

To commemorate the baptism of seven new members of First Baptist Church, the text for this week's message was Peter's instructions to those who responded to his message at Pentecost.  Peter told the crowd that had been "cut to the heart" by hearing about the death and resurrection of Jesus, that there first response should be to, "repent and be baptized".  Peter links the inward act of repentance with the outward and public act of declaring that repentance through baptism.  In addition, Peter then says that this need is for, "every one of you", and that both the repentance and the baptism are to be done, "in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins".  Jesus is rightly the focus of our repentance for it is his sacrifice that made our repentance acceptable to God by paining the penalty on our behalf which our sin of rebellion against God had justly earned.  When we accept that act of grace on our behalf, by faith, we the process of transformation that God intends for all his people to cleans them and make them useful, a process made practical when we "receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" to act as our guide, strengthener, and comforter.  In the end, the offer of repentance from God, to man, stands as a lasting offer of hope, hope that those who this day entered the waters of baptism had already committed themselves to, by faith, in Jesus.

To watch the sermon video, click on the link below:

To watch the baptism video, click on the link below:

"Sin is a brat that nobody cares to have laid at his doors" - Matthew Henry

I came across this quote from Matthew Henry in his commentary on the failure of Saul to fully obey God in I Samuel 15 as Saul attempts to deflect the responsibility for his own actions onto others.  It is an astute and memorable way to speak about mankind's propensity to try to avoid blame.  Trying to hide from responsibility or blame others is a tactic that children do not need to be taught, they hope to avoid the negative consequences of their actions, and thus are not above lying to blame others, or pretending ignorance.  That parents can see through this charade is clear to adults, and yet as adults, most people continue to try these same sorts of deceptions when trouble comes from a spouse, family member, boss, or the authorities.  Saul soon learned from Samuel that such half-repentance is worth nothing with God as he looks upon the heart and knows if true repentance lies within.  In that same passage, Matthew Henry also wrote, "it is common for sinners, in excusing their faults, to plead the thoughts and working of their own minds, because those no man can dispute; but they forget that God searches the heart."  Seeking to avoid blame is almost an art form in the business and political spheres, and utilizes well paid consultants and lawyers to shape the narrative and massage the truth.  It may keep you in office following a scandal, or out of jail after an arrest, but it won't matter a bit when standing before Almighty God.  On that day, the only thing that will save us is to have already acknowledged, without reservation, that we are a sinner saved by grace.  The brat is ours, the sooner we own up to it, the sooner God can forgive us and begin to transform us.

Sermon Video: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" - Luke 10:25-28

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  That question lies at the heart of mankind’s hopes to stand before our Creator without fear.  Connected to that question is the related question of, “What is the greatest commandment?”  Jesus interacted with those two questions on multiple occasions in the Gospels, and always came around to the same answer, whether he was answering the question himself or simply agreeing with the answer of someone else: Love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself.  These two summations of the duties and responsibilities of the Law of Moses are recorded in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.  That these two requirements of total love, for God and our neighbor, are an effective summation of the Law was one of the few things about which Jesus and his adversaries among the ruling religious clique of Jerusalem could agree.  The answer to the question is not in any doubt, in order to stand before God, we must love him with everything we have, body, mind, soul, and strength, AND we must love that which he loves, people created in his image, as we love ourselves.  This is what God requires of us, the stark difference between Jesus and the self-righteous leaders who opposed him is that Jesus knew full well that humanity was incapable of even approaching this standard of perfection, let alone accomplishing it.

                “What must I do” is a failing proposition from the beginning.  Because God is holy, our effort will always fall far short.  If we cannot “do” anything to save ourselves, are we simply left without hope?  From the very beginning, when God promised Adam and Eve that he would one day send a redeemer, the answer to mankind’s dilemma lay with God.  The Messiah, God’s own Son, was sent to remedy that which we could never do.  What mankind is incapable of, Jesus did, what we could not do for ourselves, he has done for us.  Where does that leave us?  Grace, God’s grace, that is our hope and our trust, when we put our faith in what Jesus has accomplished, the Spirit of God can begin to transform us, washing away our past sins, and starting us on the road, through his power, to becoming a people that loves God with everything we have and loves our neighbors, all of them, as ourselves.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video

Sermon Video: Those Forgiven Much, Love Much - Luke 7:36-50

The intro and first 1/2 of the initial Scripture reading were inadvertently not taped, the message proceeds as usual from that point...Do you appreciate what you have?  Most people tend to do so only when they've had a taste of what it is like to do without.  In this passage from Luke, Jesus explains through a parable of two debtors that forgiveness from God is treated the same way by us.  Those of us who know how much we have been forgiven, because we realize the depth of our sins, have much to be grateful for, but those who consider themselves to be only minor sinners can be tempted to view the forgiveness they receive with scant appreciation, and perhaps even look upon those forgiven great amounts with scorn.  The woman of ill repute, who crashes the party of his host the well regarded Pharisee Simon, turns out to be the own approved of in the sight of God because she recognizes her sin, has sought the forgiveness of God, and has found it by faith.  Faith is always the answer, whether our sins be a hill or a mountain it doesn’t matter, our only hope to escape their cost is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video 

The small margin of error for the shepherd of the flock

Headlines such as this are a far too frequent occurrence: “Pastor resigns after sex scandal”, “Pastor resigns amid financial scandal”.  There was another high-profile mega-church pastor who resigned this week after admitting to at least two affairs.  This was obviously a newsworthy story, especially with the 20,000 members attending this church and the satellite campuses far and wide, not to mention the book and TV efforts this church was engaged in with this pastor as its public face.  That failures such as this are sad is evident, but something about the comments that are inevitable bothers me.  Those who belong to the church rocked by such failures of leadership often say something like, “he’s a sinner, just like all of us, we all need to be forgiven.”  On the surface of it, that statement is entirely true.  Any and every church pastor is a sinner saved by grace.  There isn’t anyone who avoided needed God’s forgiveness and grace, and there isn’t anyone entering the kingdom of Heaven on their own merit.  There is a big piece of this puzzle missing, however.  That the pastor was a sinner saved by grace, when he became a follower of Jesus Christ, is entirely true, but he cannot continue to be someone who walks in darkness if he is to shepherd the church of Jesus Christ.

Like it or not, the standard by which a pastor is judged is not the same as that for his congregation.  Not everyone is capable of being a church pastor; not everyone has the gifts or talents necessary, and not everyone has the temperament needed to do the job.  Lastly, but just as importantly, not everyone is capable of the high moral standard that must be followed by someone willing to take on both the privilege and the burden of leading a church.  A church pastor is not allowed to continue in his position if he cannot keep his marriage vows (or his celibacy if he is single).  A church pastor is not allowed to continue in his position if he uses drugs, abuses alcohol, is violent, greedy, power hungry, or unforgiving.  The list is a long one, and could go on, but the point is clear.  To be called to the ministry as a shepherd is no small thing.  It has higher entrance requirements, and a high standard to continue.

Is a pastor who breaks his promise to God capable of being forgiven?  Of course he is; we all are capable of being forgiven.  Should he be allowed to continue in his ministry if he confesses his sins and shows contrition?  No, that ship has sailed.  As I said, it’s no small thing to serve the Church of God.  This is, according to the Word of God, a business where no major mistakes, and let’s call them what they are, sins, are allowed.  It is one thing for your senator to cheat on his wife, its far worse for your pastor to do so.

Does it worry me to write such things, knowing that my wife and I are dependent upon this job to provide for our needs?  No, it doesn’t, because I wouldn’t have sought ordination if I didn’t know my own heart.  I wouldn’t have accepted a call to shepherd this church if I was tempted to cheat on my wife, use drugs, or steal from the collection plate.  The Marines call themselves, “the few, the proud”; the Church needs to have similar high standards about those we allow to lead us.  That may not sound like an attitude devoid of second chances, but in the case of betraying the sacred trust of administering the Word of God, there really isn’t one.

Sermon Video: "my righteous servant will justify many" - Isaiah 53:7-12

In this second message on Isaiah 53, the suffering and death of the servant of God is given further detail and explanation.  Isaiah reveals that the servant of God will be “assigned a grave with the wicked” but be “with the rich in his death”.  This odd combination will be fulfilled by Jesus when he is wrongly convicted of being a blasphemer and a revolutionary and yet still placed in the tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea.  Such fulfillment of O.T. prophecies occurs throughout the Gospel account of the death of Jesus because the entire life of Jesus is part of the grand plan of redemption set forth by the Father before the creation of the world. 

            In the end, it was the will of God and love for mankind that held Jesus to the cross, it was our sins upon his shoulders that caused his Father to look away until it was finished, and it was his blameless life that kept death from being able to hold him.  Isaiah also speaks of the “descendants” of this servant, cut off from the living, yet prospering and rewarded.  This seeming contradiction is fulfilled when Jesus rises from the dead, no longer scorned, he now is due honor and glory from the Father.  No longer bereft of those to carry on his name, he now his spiritual descendants who have joined the family of God in his name.

            As the journey to the cross through Isaiah comes to a close the question of why has been clearly seen.  Why the cross?  The ultimate answer is this: there was no other way.  Sin had to be paid for, rebellion had a cost, and only the Son of God, sinless in life, was capable of dying in our place.  

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video 

 

Sermon Video: "Seek the LORD while he may be found" - Isaiah 55:5-12

Is God far from us or near at hand?  To those who continue to walk in darkness, God will never be found, but to those who choose to abandon wickedness and seek God, he will always be available.  This willingness on the part of God to be found by people who did not know him, if only they repent, as well as the vilest of sinners, if only they repent, often causes the people of God to react with confusion.  It makes sense to us that God would have saved us, by why them, or why that type of person?  Our own self-righteousness if a very dangerous thing, something Jesus spent much time in the Gospel combating, and here in Isaiah 55 it prompts God to say, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”.

The will of God has often been misrepresented as something mysterious, even puzzling, when in reality God has made it clear that we don’t understand his will simply because it is based upon a love and mercy that goes beyond our ability to accept.  The “thoughts” and “ways” of this passage are not referring to the disappointments of life that happen to the followers of God, instead it speaks to the effort by God to find as many people as possible who would be willing to find forgiveness by trusting in him.  God’s ways are above ours because he includes people we’d overlook, and God’s ways are better than our ways because he includes types of sinners that we somehow think are worse than we were before the blood of the Lamb washed us clean.  God’s thoughts and ways are not ours, and that’s a good thing; good for any lost sinner willing to return to our heavenly Father.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video