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Lost Ones…

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Today’s sermon, God’s Heart for the Lost, from Luke 15 is now online. After being gone to camp all week, it was wonderful to be back among the local church.

I was really struck by a couple of things in the passage:

1) The grumbling of the religious people prompted this chapter of Scripture. God’s reaction to grumbling religious people is so patient and in giving these parables, He is helping us to find grace from Him.

2) The heart of God should influence the heart of His people. Ephesians 5:1 commands us to be imitators of God. Wouldn’t this apply to His heart for the lost?

Camp – Day 5 & Wrap Up

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Today was the final day of camp. We got up early, loaded up the vans, (I drank lots of coffee), grabbed some breakfast, and went to morning celebration decked out in our silver, for the final day with our mission site coordinator. Good time there. Billy and Cindy took us out with Knees Are Bowing. We were dismissed and got on the road, arriving back in Hutch around 3PM. We had an uneventful ride home, for which we thank God.

So, what things emerged to me this week?
1) I was encouraged to be bold in preaching through Neil’s solid leadership.
2) I was exhorted to God-centeredness in the song portion of our services through Billy Foote’s amazing music.
3) I was challenged to serve by Student Life’s staff, as they willingly decreased so that our group could increase. I’m praising God for them.
4) I was warmed through good Christian fellowship with old friends and new. My good friend Dale Baker was there and I was able to meet some new friends in youth ministry and on Student Life’s staff. Furthermore, our group was excellent in discussing the gatherings and reviewing what stood out.
5) I was excited to see God’s Word produce fruit again. While there were many tools God used, if God hadn’t moved by His Spirit, it would have been and empty and futile gathering. God’s Word was lifted up and produced fruit.

I am looking forward to another year of camp next year and am prayerfully considering what God would have us do.

Camp – Day 4

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Morning Celebration today was on John 14:1-7 and how what we believe relates to how we live. There are many realities that emerge in this text that have ramifications for what we believe.

We finished up our week of missions with a Cookout for those we had the privilege of serving.

Then, tonight, Evening Worship included Billy & Cindy’s excellent leadership. Neil preached a provocative message (in my opinion) from 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 and how we need to flip live and learn to LEARN AND LIVE. This passage calls us to learn 4 things from God:
1) Worship Him!
2) Listen to Him!
3) Trust Him!
4) Follow His Leaders!

We ended the day as a church group together. Good day and we head home tomorrow.

Camp – Day 3

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Another day wrapped up and in the books. Had a good day and finished a bulk of our physical labor, which was helpful.

In the AM Celebration, Billy and Cindy brought us usual God-centered songs and Neil opened God’s Word to Psalm 12:6 and spoke on the importance of God’s Word in our lives. God’s Word reveals who we really are.

In the PM Worship Neil spoke on the 129 Words That Changed the World (Romans 3:21-25). He presented 4 things we must believe and respond to:
1) All have sinned.
2) Grace is real (It’s Power, a Gift, and Transformational)
3) Redemption is only in Christ…
4) and it … has to be received by faith.

One more full day and then we’re done.

Spurgeon on belief…

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Related to camp, where day one focused on repentance and day two on belief, I thought it would be helpful to let Spurgeon weigh in. I was reading his sermon An Appeal To Sinners, in preparation for Sunday’s sermon from Luke 15 this morning and came across the following…

Is there is an infidel here who says he shall be well enough off if he shall die the death of annihilation and shall not live in a future world? Well, my Friend, suppose all men die like dogs, I shall be as well off as you are and I think a little better off, even as to happiness and peace in this world. But if—(and mark you I do not put it so because I doubt it)—if it is true that there is a world to come, I would not like to stand in your place in the next world! If it is so that there is a judgment seat and a Hell—(I put it hypothetically, not because I have a doubt about it, but because you tell me you doubt it though I do not think you really do)—if there is such a place, what will you do then?

Why, even now you shake if a leaf falls in the night. You are terrified if the cholera is in the street. You are alarmed if you are a little sick and you rush to the physician and anyone can impose upon you with his medicines, because you are afraid of death. What will you do in the swellings of Jordan, when death gets hold on you? If a little pain frightens you now, what will you do when your body shall shake and your knees shall knock together before your Maker? What will you do, my Hearer when His burning eyes shall eat into your very soul? What will you do, when amid ten thousand thunders, He shall say, “Depart, depart”?

I cannot tell you what you will do. But I will tell you one thing that you dare not do. That is, you dare not say that I have not as simply as ever I could tried to preach the Gospel to the very chief of sinners. Hear it again— “He that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.” To believe is to trust in Christ—to drop into those blessed arms that can catch the heaviest laden sinner that ever breathed. To believe is to fall flat on the promise—to let Him do all for you until He has quickened you and enabled you to work out what He has before worked in you, “your own salvation.” And even this must be “with fear and trembling.”

The bold part is my emphasis and helpful language to employ when we talk of conversion.