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Seasoned Veterans In The Church

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Confession: I’ve grown up in church from the womb.  My father was a pastor and BOTH of my grandfathers were pastors.  I’ve heard of the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to church life.  While there are blessed exceptions, I find that many “seasoned veterans” in church life (those who have been walking with Christ a long time) tend to be troublemakers, lacking passion, and those we have to work to pray some sort of commitment out of.  One faithful “seasoned veteran” in my church sent me this sermon clip from none other than John MacArthur.  You can listen to the sermon here, but here’s what he said…

“You say, “Well, I go to church.  I do my part.”  Well, remember 1 Samuel 15:22 where God said, “To obey is better than [What?] sacrifice.”  Ritual will never replace obedience.  And in 1 Peter, chapter 1, Peter writes that, “We are to gird up the loins of our mind.”  In other words, get our act together.  Pull yourself together.  Get your priorities right as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.  Don’t live like you used to live.  You are to be obedient children.  Luke 11:28: Jesus said, “Happy is the person who hears My Word and keeps it.” Who hears My Word and keeps it.  Paul commends Christians in Romans 16:19, “For your obedience has come abroad unto all men, and I am glad.”  That makes the heart of the pastor glad when the, the obedience of his people is made manifest.

Now, you know some things if you come here, because you’re being taught them; but if you don’t apply those things in an obedient way, you don’t mature. I turned on the radio this week, and I was driving someplace, and on came Howard Hendricks, and he said some things, I thought, that were very interesting.  He said that Christians over 50 should be the most turned on, the most excited, the most committed, the purest, the most enthusiastic, and the most available for service.  Why?  Because they’ve been hearing the Word the longest.  They’ve been applying it the longest.  They’ve been maturing the longest, and they ought to be showing the fruit of that process, right?  I mean the most turned on, enthusiastic, excited, available, dynamic, and powerful people in a church, the very energy of that church ought to be the people who are over 50, over 55, over 60.  They ought to be the like, the joy, the thrill, the energy, the dynamic of that church.  They ought to be the people out on the cutting edge in evangelism.  They ought to be the people out on the cutting edge in prayer.  Why?  Because they’ve lived with God the longest.  They’ve applied the Word, so their obedience pattern has gone on longer.  Therefore, they’re mature more so than those with fewer years, because of constantly applied truth.

But how often have you heard this?”

This is the question.  So, I hope we’ll all strive for faithfulness and passion.  May God’s Word richly bear fruit in all of our lives so that He is glorified through us.  I hope this encourages you and exhorts you to live today.

Keeping His Commandments

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My 7/5/15AM sermon, Keeping His Commandments from 1 John 2:3-6, is now online.  Whether it’s thinking that our good deeds can get us heaven or thinking that if we obey God will love us more, we’re in desperate need of what God thinks about obedience and a relationship with Him.  I tease out these things in this sermon and hope it proves helpful to you.

Submitting to God’s Word and Your Relationship With God

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An importantly relevant word from Tim Keller on 1 John 2:3-6, which we’ll look at this coming Lord’s day:

“Unless you see the Bible as God’s Word … That’s certainly how Jesus saw it. That’s certainly how John saw it. Unless you see the Bible as the place where you can find God’s will, you can’t actually have a personal relationship with God. “What do you mean?” you say. Well, let me put it to you this way.

“Plenty of people say, “I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I do! I believe in much of what the Bible says, but there are many things in the Bible you just can’t believe anymore. There are things in the Bible we just can’t follow anymore. We realize there are contradictions, and there are some things that are primitive. So I believe in most of the Bible and in the general principles of the Bible, and I believe in Jesus, and I have a personal relationship in Jesus, but I can’t believe everything in the Bible.”

“Now let me show you what you’ve just done. First of all, there is nothing between the two positions I’m about to outline. When you say, “Some things in the Bible are right and some things are wrong,” the only way you can say that is if you have faith at the moment you’re saying that in some other source of authority by which you can sift through the Bible. In other words, as soon as you say the Bible is only partially right and partially wrong, the only way you can say that is on the basis of faith in some authority which is completely and always right.

“You can’t doubt everything at once. You can only doubt something from a platform of faith in something else. Here’s what’s going on. If you say even one verse in the Bible is not true but the rest are, what you’re actually doing is you’re saying, “My discernment, my experience, my reason, my feelings are a more sure authority for deciding what God’s will is than the Bible.”

“So either (and there is nothing in between) … Even if you say there’s one verse that’s wrong, either your experience and your judgment can sit in evaluation of the Bible, or the Bible sits in evaluation of your judgment. Either your feelings are judged by the Bible, or the Bible is judged by your feelings.

“I’ll put it another way. Either your understanding is judged by the Bible, or the Bible is judged by your understanding. There’s nothing in the middle. Now I’m not going to try to prove which one is right to you right now, and you certainly have the right to believe your judgment is valid, more valid than the Bible. You know, be careful. In the 1890s, there were people who were saying these are things modern people can’t believe anymore in the Bible. They’re very different than in the 1990s. They’ll be very different than in the 2090s. I’m not going to try to prove which is right and which is wrong.

“Let me just show you the implications and ramifications of what you’ve just done. There is never a place now where you can see a standard that can cross your moral will. Do you know what’s happened to you? Now that you say, “This doesn’t seem right to me. Yes, the Bible says it’s wrong, but I can’t believe that. Yes, the Bible says this is wrong, but I can’t believe that.”


“In other words, if something doesn’t feel right to you and the Bible says it is right, or if something feels right and the Bible says it’s wrong, now there is no possibility of moral discipline. There is no possibility of a higher standard than your own feelings and your own experience and your own judgment. What that means is you can’t have a personal relationship with God. You’re treating God like a microphone now. If it feels right to you, that must be God’s will. How will you ever know a God who can say even though it feels right, it’s wrong? Because now what feels right is right.

Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).  This particular citation is from a 1994 sermon entitled “The Freedom of Obedience”

On Nativity Scenes, Christian Liberty, Etc.

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I love reading Mark Lauterbach’s Gospel Driven Life site. Today, he had a post entitled Liberty, legalism and Christmas which answered the question offered by some religious zealots that having a nativity scene is a violation of the 2nd commandment (to not make any “graven image”). Here’s a section I especially enjoyed:

So, hear me clearly — to walk with God we must make those choices and do it knowing that we are pleasing to God. But Romans 14 says we dare not step into the role of law-giver and judge — despising or judging. I am personally tempted to despise men who add to the Word of God. That is sin in my heart.

Read Romans 14 carefully — stew in it, soak in it — it is remarkable. In it, God answers ten thousand secondary questions that would rise in all the cultures of the world where the Gospel is believed. Paul was wise — he knew that when we start into the answering of all those questions and application and start developing a list of appendices to the Law, we are on a path of diversion from the purposes of God and the freedom of the Gospel.

Why don’t you check out the post for yourself.