Category: Church Life

Are You Devoted?

On By BrianIn Church Life1 Comment

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.  And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. – Act 2:41-42

Yesterday at church we looked at the example of the early church, which I believe is a good example for us today.  At the beginning of this new year, consider your commitment to the church.  How would you answer the following questions?

Have you received the good news of salvation that Jesus offers?  Jesus died for our sins and rose to give us a new life.  He calls us to repent (turn) from our sins and trust in Jesus as our Savior.  Have you received this good news?

Have you been baptized?  Notice it followed directly after salvation.  Indeed it is an outward expression of our faith in Jesus.  In baptism we identify ourselves with him and what he has done for us.  Have you been baptized?

Have you committed yourself to a local church?  Again it followed directly after baptism: they were baptized and then added to the church.  Not only added, but as v42 reminds us, they were committed.  Many seem to want to follow Jesus apart from the local church, but the Scriptures indicate that we are to commit to a local church.  Have you?

Are you devoted to the apostles’ teaching?  Note the context is the church.  Are you committed to gathering with the church each week to hear the Word of God taught?  Or do you only come occasionally?  Do you come with an attitude of anticipation?  Are you devoted?

Are you devoted to the fellowship?  Fellowship speaks of a relationship.  Are you committed to cultivating your relationship with your brothers and sisters in Christ?  Do you gather regularly with each other?  Are you caring for each other?  Are you bearing with each other, and forgiving when needed?  Are you devoted?

Are you devoted to the breaking of bread?  This most likely refers to the Lord’s Supper.  Do you gather with your church to celebrate together Christ’s sacrificial death for you?  Are you seeking to keep the remembrance of Christ central in your life?  Are you devoted?

Are you devoted to the prayers?  Again, the context is the church.  Are you committed to gathering regularly to pray together with fellow believers?  Is this a priority in you life?  A regular event?  Are you devoted?

Go through those questions again.  Do you need to grow in your devotion this year?  In what ways?  What changes will you start to make this week?

Church Is Cancelled – Now What?

On By BrianIn Church Life, Family/Single Life, Heart

The winter storm closed most of the churches in our area this morning.  So how should we respond when we hear that church is cancelled?  Let me give you six suggestions.

1. Disappointment.  We should be excited about the opportunity to gather with God’s people in God’s presence each week for worship, discipleship, and fellowship.   Naturally there will be a sense of disappointment when that opportunity is taken away.  If there is not that sense of disappointment, we must ask ourselves why.  Have our hearts grown dull?  Have we lost interest in fellowship with God and his people?  Lost the hunger to worship and grow?  Certainly we might be thankful that we do not have to brave the winter mess, but to actually be excited about having no church and lacking a sense of disappointment says much about our hearts.  Our hearts should reflect the Psalmist’s heart who wrote in Psalm 42:1-2:  As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and appear before God?  If this is not our response, we must examine our hearts.

2. Trust.  God is sovereign; he is in control.  Our lives are in his hands.  If his plan is to send a winter storm so that we can’t meet together as a church, then that is his business.  We may be disappointed, but we should also trust that God knows what he is doing.  Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).

3. Rest.  This Christmas season is hectic.  Today was supposed to bring not only morning services but a Christmas party and Christmas caroling.  Now suddenly everything has been called off.  Perhaps in the midst of all of our busyness, God knew we just needed a break, a chance to stop and rest.  So perhaps perhaps part of our response is to take the opportunity God has given and rest from the all the hustle and bustle.  Rest was part of the Sabbath principle anyway, wasn’t it?

4. Family Worship.  We may not be able to meet as a church, but we can certainly still meet as a family to praise God and study God’s Word.  Whether there is one or two or four or twenty or any number in between in your family, you can gather to worship.  Sing some songs of praise from a hymnal or chorus book or with a praise CD.  Discuss a passage of Scripture together or listen to a sermon on the radio or internet or from a CD.  Gathering as a church to worship is important, but if you can’t, gather to worship as a family.

5. Personal Time with the Lord.  You have been given the gift of a whole day.  In addition to worshipping as a family, why not spend some personal time with the Lord in prayer and His Word.  Perhaps read part of a book that will challenge you to grow in the Lord or encourage you to look to God in your trials.  Don’t waste the day – invest it for your walk with the Lord.

6. Family Time.  Enjoy time together as a family.  Talk.  Laugh.  Play a game.  Do something together.  Again, don’t waste the day – invest it for your family.

Blind Blind Blind

On By BrianIn Church Life

In Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, David becomes friends with Agnes.  David sees their friendship as a brother and sister type relationship.  Agnes has other thoughts, but keeps quiet.  Meanwhile, David’s aunt sees Agnes as a perfect match for David even while he pursues and eventually marries another girl.  From time to time, his aunt watching her nephew is prone to say: “Blind, blind, blind.”

Blind, blind, blind.  We are all more blind than we like to think – especially as it relates to our sin.  Like David’s aunt, others may see what is incredibly clear to everyone but us.  That is one reason we need the church.  We need others to help us see our blind spots, to see the sins that we are blind to.  Even as we read the Scriptures, our blindness can keep us from seeing obvious applications to our own lives.  This is another reason we need the church – especially the preaching.  The pastor may bring applications from the Word that we would have never made, even though they may be the applications we most need.  Above all, we need to join the Psalmist in crying out to God – “Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  We need to seek God’s help to reveal the sins we are blind to – but again he may do it through the ministry of the church.

John Newton writes in his hymn, Amazing Grace, “I once was blind, but now I see.”  Yes, now we see, but not yet perfectly.  We still need each other and our Lord to help us see the depths of our sin.

Let Us Go Over

On By BrianIn Church Life

Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.”  And his armor-bearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish.  Behold, I am with you heart and soul.” – I Samuel 14:6-7

“Come, let us go over”

The Philistines had invaded Israel.  The two armies were camped on either side of a large ravine.  Jonathan wanted to go over to these uncircumcised – those who were not God’s people, those who did not know God.  His mission was to defeat them and chase them out of the land.  We too need to go over to those who are not God’s people, who do not know God.  Our mission however is different – to make disciples, to show the way to God, to point people to Jesus.

Jonathan needed courage to go.  There was a great risk.  He could have been killed.  We too need courage to go, though the risk is not usually physical death but death to our pride – they might ridicule us, laugh at us, reject us.  It would be easy for us to sit around as Saul did (see v1-5), but God calls us to go.  Are we seeking opportunities to share the gospel with others?  Come let us go over.

“It may be that the Lord will work for us”

Jonathan is hoping God will deliver Israel from the Philistines and bring about a great salvation.  We hope that God will deliver people from their sins and bring about a great salvation.  Salvation is God’s work.  We must go over and share the gospel, but God must convict of sin, and give grace to respond.  We are completely dependent on God for the results of our going over.  As such, we ought to pray, asking God to bless our efforts, asking God to change lives.  Pray – it may be that the Lord will work for us.

“By many or by few”

Saul was concerned with numbers – 600 Israelites against thousands of Philistines.  Jonathan understands that numbers mean nothing when God is at work, and so he goes over.  The result?  God brings a great victory (see v8-23).

Have you noticed that God loves to use the small, the humble, the few?  Jonathan and his armor-bearer against thousands.  David against Goliath.  Gideon amasses a great army, and God says, “Too many.”  God reduces the army until we would say, “Too few.”  But God uses them to bring about victory.  There is a church near us in a town of 125.  Four years ago the church had 6 people.  Today it has over 100.  God delights to use the small, the few, the humble.  Will we trust that God can work through us?  By many or by few.

“I am with you heart and soul”

Jonathan’s armor bearer is also a great example to us.  He is of one heart with Jonathan.  They will go over together.  As local churches, we must be united around the great commission.  We ought to pray for each other to have opportunities to share the gospel, and courage to make use of those opportunities.  We ought to support our church’s outreach efforts – whether through prayer, or inviting people, or helping to do the work.  What a wonderful thing when each person in a church can say to the other – “I am with you heart and soul.”

Come, let us go over!  It may be that the Lord will work for us – by many or by few.  I am with you heart and soul.

The Coming of the Spirit 4

On By BrianIn Church Life, God & His Glory

The Spirit comes and not only makes us part of his church, empowering us to minister and witness, but he also dwells among us.  I Corinthians 3:16 remind us that the church is God’s temple where his Spirit dwells.  As we gather together, the Spirit of God is among us.

Do we gather ready to enter his presence?  Are we even aware as we gather that God is with us?  How often are we like a poor host who neglects his guest?

The church is God’s temple where the Spirit dwells.  Temples are places of worship.  Do we gather not only recognizing his presence, but also ready to worship?  To submit our lives to his Word?  To bring our gifts to him?  To bring our cares before his throne?  To praise and honor him with our songs and our hearts?

The Spirit has come and dwells in his church.  As we gather, let us recognize his presence, bow down, and worship.

The Coming of the Spirit 2

On By BrianIn Church Life, God & His Glory

In the last post we saw how the Spirit empowers us to witness.  But the Spirit does much more.  In this post we want to see that the Spirit makes us part of his church.  Paul tells us in I Corinthians 12:13 – “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”  When the Spirit comes into our lives at salvation, he baptizes us into the church; he makes us part of the Body of Christ. 

Before ascending into heaven, Jesus foretold the coming of the Spirit, telling the disciples that they would be baptized by the Spirit in a few days.  At Pentecost the Spirit came, and the church was begun.

The Spirit makes us part of the church.  We are no longer on our own.  We are related to Christ and to other Christians.  We are part of one body, one church, one family.  We cannot go it alone, trying to be a lone ranger Christian.  The Spirit has made us part of a family.

Paul goes on to apply this truth in I Corinthians 12.  He tells us that though different, each is important.  And we are to use our differences to serve one another.  We are to care for one another, coming alongside one another in the good times and the bad.

The Spirit made us part of the church, part of a family.  Are we serving and caring for others in our family?  How might we do so this week?

The Family of Jesus 4

On By BrianIn Church Life

The church is the family of Jesus.  We are called to unity and community.  We have considered our need for unity amidst differences and offenses.  And we have considered our need to be a community together.  Today we conclude with our need to be a caring community.

Caring Community

Healthy families practice the one anothers.  They care for one another.  They serve one another.  They encourage one another.  They pray for one another.  They simply love one another.

And the New Testament clearly calls us to live out the one anothers as a church.  The church must be characterized by the one anothers.  Care for one another.  Serve one another.  Encourage one another.  Pray for one another.  Love one another.

It would be good for us to regularly ask questions like these:  Who could use some help in my church?  Who could I seek to encourage this week?  Who do I need to pray for?  Who is lonely that I could show love toward?  May we not only ask these questions, but also act on the answers – that our churches might be caring communities.

Conclusion

God has made us the family of Jesus.  He calls us to unity amidst differences and offenses.  May we strive to maintain that unity with humility and love.  He calls us to be a caring community together.  May we strive to build deeper relationships that we might be a more caring community.  May we live as his family – for his glory!

The Family of Jesus 3

On By BrianIn Church Life

The church is the family of Jesus.  As his family we should be united amidst our differences and amidst offenses.  But we should not only have unity, we must also be a community.

Community Together

Healthy families spend time together.  They do things together.  They build relationships with each other together.  They simply are together.

When Jesus chose the 12 disciples, he brought them into a community together.  For three years they ate together, traveled together, simply were together.  As the foundation of the church, so the early church was a community together.  They devoted themselves to the apostles preaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer – in the context all things they did together (Acts 2:42).  They “were together” and were “attending the temple together” (v44, 46).  They were a community together.

The church today needs to be a community together.  We need to spend time together, do things together, build relationships together.  Indeed the one another commands require us first to know one another.  The more we know one another, the more we can love one another, care for one another, serve one another, encourage one another, and pray for one another.  The more we know each other, the more we will share our real needs with one another, and the more we will know how to meet the needs of one another.

We must know each other.  We need to be a community together.  Many church activities are designed to help people get to know each other at some level or another.  And the church needs to continue to find ways to encourage people to grow in relationships.  But real relationships can’t be forced or programmed.

Nor can they be rushed.  Real relationships require time.  Our world has become so busy that deep relationships are hard to find – and the hustle and bustle has come into the church.  We must rethink our priorities, re-adjust our lives, and simply slow down.

We must make it a point to build relationships in our churches.  Get together with another family.  Meet at the park, invite them over for a cookout, have a game night, do something together.  Real relationships are built informally as we simply take the time to be with each other on a regular basis.  Don’t wait for a church program or someone else to act.  Just start.  I know some are shy, and I’m not the most outgoing person either.  Perhaps get a couple families together – that takes the pressure off any one individual to carry the conversation.  Doing something together can help too.

Finally, don’t just consider people that are just like you.  Remember that the family of Jesus includes unity amidst differences.  Include “different” people.  Look for people in your church that look lost, who need a friend.  When I speak of families, I mean not only married couples with or without kids, but also singles.

We are the family of Jesus.  We must be a community together.  May God help us to build relationships with each other for his glory.

(The conclusion tomorrow)

The Family of Jesus 2

On By BrianIn Church Life

The church is the family of Jesus.  He calls us to unity amidst our differences.  He also calls us to unity amidst our offenses.

Unity amidst Offenses

Put the same people together long enough and people will be offended.  This is true in families and churches.  Something will be said or done that will offend someone.  In some cases the words or actions were meant to offend, in other cases the offending person had no intention of offending, but someone is offended anyway.

In Matthew 20:20-28.  James and John have their mom (their mom!) ask Jesus if they can sit on his right and left in glory.  The other disciples are indignant.  Angry.  Upset.  Ticked.  Offended.  Yet a few weeks later after the ascension we find the disciples all gathered together with “one accord” (Acts 1:14).  There is no division.  No lingering animosity.  There was an offense, but it was dealt with.  They moved on as one family.

How we in the church today need to learn from those early disciples!  We will be offended.  We will offend.  But that is not reason to leave or divide or to become bitter.  It is an opportunity to recommit to the unity God has called is to.  We must strive to hold on to our oneness in Christ.  How?

Again, we return to Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:2 – with humility.  Pride refuses to let go of an offense, but humility will exhibit gentleness to the offender.  It will show patience towards each offense.  It will bear with the offenses of others in love.  In love.  As we have compassion for each other, we will be willing to let offenses go, to forgive as needed.  Humility and love will lead the offender to apologize to the offended.  Humility and love will work towards reconciliation, toward unity.

May God help us to grow in this humility and love that we might strive to maintain our unity even amidst offenses.

The Family of Jesus

On By BrianIn Church Life

In Luke 8:19-21, Jesus’ mother and brothers are trying to reach him.  When someone tells him, Jesus responds that his mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.  Those who hear and do.  Those who follow.  They are the family of Jesus.  So Paul calls other Christians his brothers and sisters.  They are family.  The church is a family.  Not all who simply go to church, but those who truly believe and follow Jesus.  We are his family.  What should his family look like?  Two things.  There should be unity and community.  Let’s start with unity.

Unity amidst Differences

The 12 disciples Jesus chose in Luke 6:13-16 is interesting.  You have Matthew the tax collector.  He was working for the Roman government, a Roman collaborator.  Then you have Simon the Zealot.  He was working to overthrow the Romans, kick them out of Israel.  One struggles to see these two getting along.  But Jesus brings them together, and over time they become one in Christ.

The early church was made up of very different people.  Galatians 3:28 speaks of Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, male and female.  Very different people.  Yet they are one in Christ.

The church today is made up of very different people – differences in economic/social status, younger and older generations, hymns vs. choruses, different Bible translations, differences in minor doctrines, differences in personal convictions, home school vs. Christian school vs. public school, differences in personalities, and the list can go on.  But Jesus brings us together as a family.  In Christ we find unity in our differences.

And in our differences, we find strength.  Younger generations have energy; older generations have wisdom.  Different translations can help us understand the meaning of a verse better.  Differences in minor doctrines can help us think through them more carefully.  We need each other.

Yet what Jesus brings together, we too often tear apart.  Too often we approach church as consumers.  We want everything to be tailored for us.  We go to church like we go to McDonalds, each wanting our own thing.  But church is not a fast food restaurant, it is is a family.  And our times together are not like gathering at McDonalds, but gathering for a family dinner.  My wife doesn’t make separate meals for each of us.  She makes one meal.  Sometimes it is my favorite, sometimes it may be my kids’ favorite.  This is a picture of the church.  Sometimes we may sing my favorite song, sometimes we may sing songs that others like.  I won’t like everything our church does.  But that is okay – we are family.

Paul reminds us that we are one in Christ in Ephesians 4:4-6.  This is an objective reality.  We are one.  But in v3 he tells us to maintain that unity.  Live out the reality of our oneness.  How do we do that?  Verse 2 gives the answer – humility.  Humility that looks to the interests of others (Philippians 2:3-4).  Humility that is gentle towards different people.  Humility that is patient with one another’s difference.  Humility that bears with one another’s differences in love.  In love.  Compassion for each other.  Loving as Jesus loved us.  Despite our differences.

How we need this humility and love in our churches!  Pride calls us to divide over the smallest stupidest things.  Pride calls us to hop from church to church trying to find a church that believes and acts exactly as I do in every way.  But humility and love calls us to live out unity amidst differences.  To agree to disagree on numerous things that in light of eternity really don’t matter.

We are one in Christ.  Jesus died for our sins.  We have been saved by grace.  Let us rally around these glorious truths.

(Further thoughts on unity in the next post)