Let's Talk About You Know What

This is a p.s. to this Sunday’s (4/28) message. You can read it before or after, but this is just a word from the Word that I want to share with the church, but will not be including it in my sermon. That happens sometimes. You could preach about 5 more sermons just with the material I have to cut out for Sunday!

As we talk about all things marriage and physical relations (aka “you know what“, aka YKW), one of the ways we can protect our marriages is by guarding our hearts. 

Proverbs 4:23 says: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

It is sort of an abstract concept. How do I literally guard my heart? Well, he goes on to tell us specifically how to!

First (Proverbs 4:24), put away crooked speech. Lying, deceitful, lustful, angry, sinful… get those words out of your vocabulary. Stop the crass talking about YKW. But let’s hone in on the next 2 verses. Proverbs 4:25 says to let your eyes look directly forward and Proverbs 4:26 says to ponder the path of your feet.

Two words here for you: 1) Watch what you focus on (4:25). My eyes must be on my love and commitment to my own spouse. When you get your eyes off of that, and start looking around, it’s easy to let your heart go astray fantasizing about YKW with another woman. It’s easy to romanticize, ladies, about what it might be like to have a passionate YKW with some other guy. Men tend to be more visually enticed, where woman lean more towards an emotional fixation. Men AND women: Eyes forward! And fix your gaze on what (rather, who) God has provided for you. God meets your needs for YKW with your spouse. Period. Get focused on that.

And 2) Watch where you are going (4:26)! I need to pay attention where I am going. If you are not careful, you can end up on a website you shouldn’t be on (depicting explicit and sinful images of YKW), in a chatroom you have no business entering (talking openly about YKW), or some other compromising situation where temptation to YKW (with someone not named “your spouse“) is pounding down your door. Most sin can be avoided if we sincerely pray, “Lead me not into temptation”, and then follow the Shepherd when He is guiding you away from it. How many tragic stories of life-destroying sin started with, “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time”...?

When it comes to maintaining marital faithfulness, this is advice (no, sorry, it‘s a command from God) you must embrace!

The rest is coming this Sunday! I am doing a whole sermon on YKW. Because it's in the Bible. Because God invented it. Because the church is pretty lame about discussing YKW properly. Pray for me.

p.s. - Let's keep You Know What at You Know Where. You Know How and Sunday, You'll Know Why. (When is up to you and your spouse.)

Baptism - What's Trending in Scripture?

This Sunday, we will be discussing baptism. This subject sees a wide spectrum of beliefs, everything from “baptizing babies brings them into the covenant family” to “unless you are baptized you are going to hell“.

As always, we are just going to the Bible for answers. With all due respect to theologians and “church fathers”, their creeds and beliefs are not absolute authority - only the Word of God is.

As a preview, an appetizer, food for thought… get your Bible and check out these passages in Acts. The church came into being in Acts 2, and the book records accounts of people being baptized throughout the rest of its chapters. See if you notice any patterns or recurring themes…

Acts 2:37-41 -

The promised Holy Spirit came down and Peter preaches at Pentecost! Those who believed were baptized, the text seems to indicate it was immediate (v41). 

Acts 8:12 - 

Philip preached, the men and women believed, and they were immediately baptized. 

Acts 8:26-39 -

Philip shares the Good News of Jesus Christ with an Ethiopian Eunuch, and upon belief, he is immediately baptized (v36).

Acts 9:1-19 -

Saul, persecuting the church, encounters Jesus Christ and is blinded for 3 days. God sent Ananias to Saul, who then was filled with Holy Spirit. He regained sight and was baptized immediately (v18).

Acts 10:44-48 -

Peter learns (v34) God shows no partiality - Gentiles included! Cornelius and company listen to Peter preach (v44). They believe and the Holy Spirit came upon them. Then they were, you guessed it, baptized immediately (v47-48).

Acts 16:11-15 -

Paul was preaching at a ladies fellowship (v13), they received the Word and were baptized immediately (v14-15). Then in verses 25-34, Paul and Silas are in prison and having a worship service! An earthquake brought a jailhouse rock. When the jailer is about to commit suicide, Paul stops him, preaches the Word to him, and he is baptized immediately (v32-33).

Acts 18:-1-8 -

Paul is in Corinth, and facing rejection at the synagogue from the Jews. He shook his garments and walked next door and preached to some Corinthians who believed and were baptized immediately (v8).

Did you see the pattern?

The Word preached, person believes, person receives Christ, person immediately responds by being baptized.

Have you been baptized?

Harvest Bible Chapel will be joining North Way (Wexford campus) in a worship / baptism service on Wednesday evening, March 21 at 7:00. Honor the Lord by making this profession of faith! 

p.s. - Need more info about baptism? Come Sunday and hear all about it.

Election / Free-Will: An Answer

Note: I said AN answer. Not THE answer. Not THE PERFECT answer. Not THE BEST answer. Maybe just the best answer I can give. 

It is coming up in the sermon Sunday on Colossians 3:12-17, so I thought I could use the blog as a sort of appendix to discuss the topic.

I get roped into the conversa… ok, debate, all the time. The big question concerning how a saved person came to Christ in the first place. Do we pick God, or did God pick us? The answer is: yes.

For the record, I don’t consider myself a Calvinist. Or an Armenian. Or a Reformed Dispensational Covenant… guy. I am just a follower of Christ. Some people love to wax eloquently about these frameworks some men built around theology. I just don’t care. And I don’t mean that in a mean way. I just literally don’t care. I don’t think about it. I don’t read books about it. And I have never doodled John Calvin’s name on the front of my notebook.

I care about the message of the Bible and presenting it to people that know the Lord and people who don’t. Sometimes the Bible says God chose us. Sometimes it says we are to choose to follow Him. I simply want to preach the message of each passage, and let the Word of God speak for itself. Let the text be the message, let the message reflect the text. Do the homework, yes. Cross reference, yes. Scripture interprets Scripture, yes. Preach theological constructs from men, no. (The real danger in these is going to the extreme on either side, but that is a discussion for another time).

And at the end of the day, whether you are a Calvinist or Armenian, what difference does it make? It doesn’t change anything. I am to love God with all of my heart / soul / mind / strength and my neighbor as myself either way. I am to worship, to witness, and to pray either way.

My preacher friends are aghast that I am not a Calvinist, in the same way my wife would be if I wore skinny jeans. But I want you to think of the guy who comes to church because his life is a wreck. He needs to know the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel, Jesus revealed in His Word. His death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit indwelling those who believe. I have no interest in introducing him to all this Calvinism / Armenian stuff. Just pursue God, man! Get in the Word and on your knees and revel in the fact that the Holy Sovereign Eternal God loves you and became a man and forgave your sin and gave you eternal life. Then go love people and share that message. "Then what?" Do it again!

The Bible teaches God chose us and we chose Him. At the same time. This makes no sense to us because from the day we were born, we have always ever known 2 things: time and space. We can’t fathom a reality outside of those. But God is not bound by time or space. So whether it is the “who chose who” debate, or the Trinity, or “repentance: a command (Acts 17:30) or something granted by God (2 Timothy 2:25)?”, and many other issues, sometimes we can’t just systematically explain things into a neat and tidy little outline.

These things all make sense to an infinite God. Don’t be shocked that man can’t figure these things out. He is God and we are… not. Is it okay with you that there are things about God that we just don’t understand? Deuteronomy 29:29 says God has some things we don’t know, but He made sure to give us what he wants us to know in His Word.

If using these labels of identification help you, that’s cool, and you are still my brother / sister. Nothing said here was meant to be intentionally offensive, but to share my heart about these things because I am often asked about my position on them. 

So if I have to pick a label, I’ll just go with “clueless but joyful”.

Leave a comment below. I know you want to respond somehow. And we can handle a lively discussion, right?

p.s. - does not wear skinny jeans, for the record

A PS from James MacDonald...

I read this and wanted to re-post it here, because it tied in perfectly to what the sermon was about last Sunday. In the Our Journey devotional, Pastor James has been talking about change, and wrong ways to go about it. Read on! (And if you missed the sermon from last Sunday, listen to it from our sermons links: "Anti-Bullying Campaign".)

One of the persistent faulty plans for change among Christians is the idea of change by the rules. Change by unbending, merciless, military following of orders. Picture the drill sergeant barking out orders right in the face of the recruit. Well that’s the way a lot of churches are. This is the kind of church I grew up in: change by the power of the rules. This is not a new problem for the church of Jesus Christ—it shows up already among Christians in the New Testament.

Change by rules means strict adherence to a list of some kind. Keep the list and you will change. And don’t overlook the importance of making sure others are keeping the list too. Life becomes a daily nightmare of tracking rules and desperately trying to compensate or cover-up for the rules we’ve broken. That’s Christianity? A bunch of rules? Really!?!

I’m a Christian. I don’t do these five things. You know, the Filthy Five, the Dirty Dozen. Whatever they are; it depends on how fired up your church was. But there’s a list. Rules! Rules! Rules!  The problem with that, as Romans 6-8 makes abundantly clear is that it reduces God’s work of life-change to a heart-hardening, mind-numbing, soul-stifling not-so-merry-go-round of effort and disappointment.

Read again the passage above from Romans 7 and note how the rules inflame your desire to sin. Legalism just makes you want to sin. Sin has power; rules have no power. Rules bring sin to the surface.  I don’t want us to be a church like that. God hasn’t offered us a life like that! Some of us need to get off the rule-keeping treadmill and leave it behind. Otherwise, we will never change!

Nuff said!

p.s. - not certain who Nuff is, but he gets credited with a lot