Morningview Baptist Church

This saying came to mind this week as I was reading Genesis in our daily Bible.  The story of Abraham is both inspiring and thought provoking.  He was a man that manifested faith in God from the moment he was first called out of Ur, yet he was also a man who struggled to walk by that faith at many points in his personal history.  Each time I read Abraham’s story, I see reflections of my own frailties.  Each time I read Abraham’s story, I am also moved by the grace and faithfulness of God.

According to Barna research, a majority of self-identified Christians believe Continue reading

Adapted from Holiness by J.C. Ryle

What does it cost to be a Christian?  The question is not what it costs to be justified, since that costs the righteousness and blood of Christ received by faith alone (Gal 2:16).  Rather, the question is what true Christians must be ready to give up (Lk 14:33).

It costs little to be an “outward Christian.”  Many attend worship services twice on Sunday, and they have a tolerable external morality during the week, such that others would say they are good people (Lk 18:11-12).  But, these things require no real self-denial and sacrifice.  They are no evidence of genuine belief.

To be Christian requires fighting battles, making sacrifices, and running races.  True believers look upon the Lord Jesus Christ and love Him such that more and more, they hate what He hates and love what He loves.

Consider what it costs to be a true Christian:

It costs you your self-righteousness. You must put away pride and high thoughts of yourself.  A true Christian must give up trust in his own morality, respectability, praying, Bible-reading, churchgoing, and trust in nothing but Jesus Christ for his righteousness before God.  “Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord . . . and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that depends on faith” (Phil 3:8-9).

It costs you your sins. You must be willing to give up every habit and practice that is wrong in God’s sight.  There must be no truce with any sin.  “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good” (Isa 1:16-17; cf.  Ezek 18:31; Dan 4:27).  You must be willing to fight against all known sin: “Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus . . . In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Heb 12:1-4).

It costs you your love of ease. You must take pains and trouble yourself to run the race and stand guard in every company, in every place, public and private, at home and among strangers.  You must watch your time, tongue, temper, thoughts, imaginations, and conduct in all of life.  There can be no progress without pain. “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Prov 13:4).

It costs you the favor of the world. A Christian must be willing to be ridiculed, mocked, hated, and thought a fool or fanatic by the world.  Jesus said, “Remember the word that I said to you: a servant is not greater than his master.  If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.  If they kept My word, they will also keep yours” (Jn 15:20).  Christ Himself was rejected by the world: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed Him not” (Isa 53:3).

Never!  That’s the answer that we all would like to be able to give to the above question.  After all, what good can come out of our disagreements?  This may surprise you, but there are actually many good things that can come out of our disagreements when we handle them biblically.

This past Sunday, part of my sermon lent itself to a brief discussion of eschatology (or the doctrine of the end times).  As I preached that section of my sermon, I stated that eschatology was a third-tier doctrinal discussion.  First-tier issues are those doctrines that we must agree upon to be considered Christians; doctrines like the authority of Scripture, justification by faith, the substitutionary Continue reading

How many times have you heard someone described as a “very spiritual person?” You have likely heard it often, because this kind of jargon is very common in our culture, especially in Southern Bible-Belt culture. But what does it really mean to say someone is “spiritual?” I mean, a devoted Muslim can be a very spiritual person; so can a devoted Hindu, a devoted Mormon, or even a devoted Satanist.

Even in christianized culture, this label can mean many different things. Someone can be classified as a very spiritual person if they have an ardent belief in God and if they live a very moral life, yet they may never pray, never attend church, and their ideas of God and religion may not even be tied to the Bible. Conversely, someone may be called a very spiritual person if they attend church regularly and serve in leadership, if they speak all the proper Christian cliche’s, and if they send their children to a Christian school. Yet that same person may rarely pray, may never read Scripture, and may be indulging Continue reading

I love being an American. Despite all of the troubles our country faces today, the cultural and material advantages that we experience as modern Americans are really so far beyond the standard of living of the vast majority of humanity across the world and though the ages that they are almost incomparable. Oh how blessed we are! Thanks to God’s grace to me through the blessings of this land, I am warm in winter, cool in the summer, medicated when sick, fed when hungry and even entertained at the touch of button. Statistically speaking, I can be reasonably confident, Lord willing, that all of my children will survive to adulthood, and I’ll probably one day even enjoy grandchildren. This is a combination of blessings that most of humanity would have, at one time, considered only available to the richest of the rich.

You and I have so much to be thankful for, but least we stop there, we would be wise to remember that blessings in the hands of sinners (read “us”) are easily misused and can quickly become curses. Abundance of food becomes gluttony. Abundance of leisure time becomes idleness. Abundance of provision becomes entitlement and thanklessness and the list goes on. How, you may ask, could this relate to corporate worship? It’s actually quite simple. We come to worship as Americans and not as Christians. This is not at all to say that the categories “American” and “Christian” are necessarily exclusive, but to assume that they are necessarily connected is to do so at the peril one’s own soul. As Americans, we are always looking for the return on our investments. This is the way that we are taught to think about our money, our time, our attention, and sometimes even friendships. Thus, rather than arriving at our corporate gathering as the redeemed adopted heirs of the Kingdom of Christ, we often find ourselves in worship as consumers, spectators, thrill-seekers or even critics.

The fact is, when we apply these habits to worship and come with underlying assumptions and expectations of a capitalistic-type transaction of mutual benefit (i.e. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”) we are treating the church like the market and thinking like pagans. Sadly, much in contemporary Evangelical church culture even encourages us to think just this way. Rather than describing our own churches in terms of what we believe to be true of God (theology), we drop theological words from our names and instead advertise our churches as if they were time-shares, attempting to coax prospective members to spend a weekend with us while we show our amenities (programs, activities, worship styles for every preference) and eventually push toward closing the deal and working out the payment plan. Thinking like this is worlds removed from the biblical concept of the church as the “Pillar and support of the truth” (I Tim. 3:5) and a gathering of “aliens and strangers” (I Peter 2:11), or the fellowship of redeemed sinners (I Pet. 1:18) and it will destroy your joy.

In contrast to the spectator/consumer mindset that we can so easily (and even unknowingly) adopt, the Christian response in worship to God’s person and work is one of overflowing thankfulness (Eph. 5:19, Ps. 23:5, I Thess. 5:18, Rom. 1:21) and praise (Eph 1:3-10, I Pet. 2:9). This is not at all to suggest that when we come to worship we should check our minds at the door, but rather that the central desire of our hearts should be glorifying God through joining together in communion with Him around the elements of worship. If we come to worship looking for fulfillment and perfection from the “forms” of worship or even other worshippers, our focus is misplaced, for these things can only be found in Christ himself. Again, this is not to say that we should adopt an “anything goes” attitude, but rather that our hearts should be set upon the Christ who pardons and sanctifies sinners, and thus gracious towards our co-heirs of God’s unmerited favor. The idea that we should offer or withhold our praise based upon our preferences in worship style, personal comfort with public singing or even approval or disapproval of other believers is completely alien to the Bible. Try to imagine a “Consumerist” among the worshipers pictured in the book of Revelation. It’s absolutely inconceivable! In John’s view of the throne room of God, everyone in the company of Heaven worships: the Elders, the Living Creatures, the Angels and especially the Redeemed. The only people in the book not joining in to worship the Lamb are those who have no purchase with him. Oh dear Saint, do you love the Lamb? If so, you have no business being among those who stand before him with no praise to offer for their place is a sad one indeed.

If you find yourself attending corporate worship with the mindset of the concert-goer or a critic, then you probably need, in that moment, to privately repent to God of making your preferences the true object of your worship. Be thankful for the earthly blessings that your citizenship in our country affords you, but reject the idols of our culture! Oh dear Believer, fight to remember that you have received more from Christ that you can ever measure or repay and let thankfulness consume you! Consider anew your citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven and fight to remind yourself that you come to worship as one purchased by precious blood. Consider the depths of sin from which Christ has redeemed you and tremble in joy that the Lamb has written your name in his book of Life, the great register of all of His worshippers.

In His Eternal Mercies,

David

from R.C. Sproul

I remember Mama standing in front of me, her hands poised on her hips, her eyes glaring with hot coals of fire and saying in stentorian tones, “Just what is the big idea, young man?” Instinctively I knew my mother was not asking me an abstract question about theory. Her question was not a question at all—it was a thinly veiled accusation. Her words were easily translated Continue reading

It is December now, and with the Christmas season coming into full swing, I have been taking some time to ponder the significance of the incarnation of our Lord.  After the Gospels, the book of Hebrews is the source of some of our greatest Christology in the New Testament, and it has much to say on the subject Continue reading

This coming Sunday, November 14th, is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  As I have stated before from the pulpit, American Christians typically fail to acknowledge the widespread reality of Christian persecution because the laws and freedoms we enjoy here shield us from experiencing such suffering.  But every single day Continue reading

November 21, 2010

“Defend the cause of the fatherless…” ~ Isaiah 1:17 ~

Come to hear special messages and testimonies related to our responsibility as Christians to care for the orphans.

Have you ever stopped to think how good we have become at “receiving?”  It’s not hard.  In fact, we like it, and we benefit from it.  When we are born, we receive care and love and the basics of life from our parents.  As we grow, we receive teaching Continue reading