According to Barna research, a majority of self-identified Christians believe that the saying, “God helps those who help themselves” is a quote from the Bible.  In reality, it is a saying coined by Benjamin Franklin who was not a Christian, but a Deist.  However, we do see biblical figures seemingly living as if this statement were inspired.

In Genesis 15, We have God speaking to Abraham in a vision to once again confirm His covenant.  Abraham had experienced many blessings of God, but from his perspective, the most important promise seemed painfully out of reach.  God kept telling Abraham that He would give him numerous offspring, that He would bring forth a great nation through Abraham, but Abraham remained childless, and he and his wife were well past child-bearing years.

Genesis 15:1-6 says, “After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great.”  And Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what wilt Thou give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”  And Abram said, “Since Thou hast given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.”  Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”  And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”  Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

As we can see, this part of the narrative ended well.  God said it, Abraham believed it, and in the rest of chapter 15, God sealed His covenant with Abraham by passing through the midst of sacrificed animals which He had commanded Abraham to prepare.  This is once again a beautiful picture of grace through divine promise.

But then everything goes wrong in chapter 16.  Abraham and Sarah are impatient.  They seem to be buying into the false belief that “God helps those who help themselves.”  Genesis 16:1-2 says, “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar.  So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

We all know what happens from here.  Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, and we have millenia of conflict (right up through today!) as the descendants of Ishmael are constantly in conflict with the descendants of Isaac and Jacob.  Sarah thought God needed a helping hand to keep His promise, and Abraham listened to the voice of his wife Sarah instead of looking to God in faith.  Their sin of presumption and lack of faith did not deter God’s promise.  Sarah did later give birth to Isaac, the child of promise.  However, their sin did introduce severe consequences that are still being born out in the world today.

As I close this article, I would leave us with a critical realization:  God does not help those who help themselves; God saves those who cannot help themselves.  And ALL of us are “those” kind of people — the helpless kind.  We cannot save ourselves from our bondage to sin nor from the wrath of God.  Our own wisdom and our own strength will always fail us.  To believe that God somehow needs our help or to believe that we can somehow pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps is pride.

Ephesians 2:4-5 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

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).

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

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 atonement of Christ, the full deity and humanity of Christ, and the trinity of the godhead.

Second-tier issues are those doctrines that we must share agreement on to be in church fellowship with one another; in other words, you can still be considered “Christian” if you don’t agree on these things, but they are clear biblical teachings over which we join or separate fellowship with one another.  These doctrines include believer’s baptism, regenerate church membership, church discipline, perseverance of the saints, election, church polity, and other similar doctrines.

Third-tier issues are doctrines where there is difficulty discerning a single, clear biblical interpretation or doctrines where Scripture allows for freedom of our preferences.  At this level, we can have disagreement yet still have church unity and fellowship with one another.  Such doctrines include millennial views in eschatology, worship styles, church structures, and methodologies of church ministry.

Now, back to the subject of my Sunday sermon, I stated in my sermon that disagreement at this level of third-tier issues is “good,” and I wanted to clarify my meaning at this point.  I was not saying that disagreement in and of itself is good.  Having disagreement with brothers and sisters in Christ over any matter of Scriptural teaching is a result of sin being in the world and limiting the understanding of our minds and hearts.  Sadly, our post-modern culture says that such disagreements and differences in perspective over the idea of “truth” are acceptable and even valuable.  Such an idea is completely contrary to Scripture and to the Person of Christ who has told us that He Himself is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)

What is good is what can come out of our disagreements when we handle them biblically.  The first good thing is a more faithful study of Scripture.  When we disagree with another believer over a matter of Scriptural teaching, it should turn us into Bereans.  Acts 17:11 says that when Paul and Silas preached at Berea, the people there received the Word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to make sure that what they were hearing was the truth.  Any disagreement between believers should lead us to do likewise.  The basis of our fellowship is the gospel of Christ and the Spirit of Christ, and that spirit of love is what should drive us to intense study, that we may strive together to discern the truth of God’s Word which is our ultimate authority.

A second good thing that can come out of our disagreements is humility.  You all know as well as I how quickly we can boast in our own knowledge, how quickly we can become prideful and puffed up in our viewpoints.  In 1 Cor 8:1, Paul wrote, “Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.”  We can be arrogant about a certain doctrinal position, arrogant about our traditions, arrogant about our worship preferences, and even arrogant about our piety.  In such cases, having brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with us (or confront us!) and who take us to the truth of Scripture is a good thing.  Thus, God will often put people in our lives who will disagree with us so that we may be brought down from our position of boasting to a position of humility in our understanding.

A third good thing that can come out of our disagreements is dependence upon and rest in our sovereign, omniscient God.  In Scripture, God has given us everything we need for salvation, sanctification, and exaltation.  He has not told us everything we want to know, but He has told us absolutely everything we need to know.  So when it comes to matters that God has not revealed, or something that He has not revealed with the specificity we would prefer, we must trust and rest in Him rather than turning human conjecture into doctrinal dogma.   Logic and reason that is based upon Scriptural truth may lead us to a certain position, but we must be very cautious of speaking in absolutes where Scripture has not spoken in absolutes.  Only God has perfect knowledge, and it is only by His grace that we know and understand anything of spiritual significance.

Remember these pertinent truths next time you find yourself disagreeing with your spouse, your parents, your co-workers, your neighbors, or your fellow church members.  God has made us all different and has given us to one another not as an exercise of frustration, but as an exercise of edification and accountability; so that iron can sharpen iron.  I love you all dearly!

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

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 a whole host of hidden sins. In spite of outward appearances of spirituality, such a person does not love God.

In our culture, the word “spiritual” is generally used to reference personal devotion and adherence to any religious ideology. But as biblical Christians, we really need to recover and reinstate a more biblical meaning for this word. “Spiritual” should be a term used to denote someone who is literally “of the Spirit of God.” Among the members of the Trinity, God the Spirit is particularly the agent of our spiritual regeneration (our re-birth in Christ), and He is also the originating agent of God’s revealed Word, the Bible. Thus, to be “of God’s Spirit” necessarily means that a person is “of God’s Word.” To state it another way, a truly Spiritual person is a thoroughly Scriptural person.

So how exactly do we define “Biblical Spirituality?” To answer that question, I would like to provide a perspective given in a book I am currently reading. It is a book by Peter Adam entitled “Hearing God’s Words: Exploring Biblical Spirituality.” In the first chapter of his text, Adam gives us four points that compose the shape and structure of biblical spirituality (pages 44-45). They are:

1. Biblical Spirituality’s content and focus is God in Christ — It shows us God’s great plan of creation and salvation, how God revealed Himself in His deeds and words, how He spoke through law, prophets and wisdom, as He pointed forward to Christ, and how Jesus Christ fulfilled God’s plan by His saving death and resurrection, and will finally complete God’s saving plan at His return.

2. Biblical Spirituality’s practice is hearing the Word of God by faith — It is how God speaks to His people and His world today, as He addresses us with words He spoke long ago at the time of His revelation leading up to and in Christ and His messengers, and has preserved as His personal, powerful, effective, universal, relevant and sufficient Word to us, to be heard and obeyed by faith.

3. Biblical Spirituality’s experience is that of meeting God in His Spirit-given words — As we read the Bible, we hear the voice of God. We are challenged to change our world-view, our lives, our relationships, our desires and our actions; we are comforted, enriched, enlightened, given hope, stretched, empowered and changed by the living and enduring words of the living God.

4. Biblical Spirituality’s result is trust in Christ and our heavenly Father — As we grow in trust, thanking and praising God for His grace in Christ, praying to Him and obeying Him, loving His truth and His people, growing in the fruit of the Spirit and in godliness, serving God in His church and His world, using the gifts He has given us, bringing glory to Him and waiting for the return of Christ.

I know this is a lot of detail for a definition to contain, but such detail is given to protect right understanding. True spirituality is a biblical spirituality — a spirituality grounded in and grown by a knowledge of God that is given by His Word. To be the people of God or to be children of Christ means to be a people of “the” book, to be a people characterized by fidelity to Scripture. Thus, let us cultivate this area of our devotion. Love God’s Word, drink deeply of His truth, be nourished by His Word. I love you all dearly!

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

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

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

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 to mean, “Why are you doing what you are doing?” She was challenging me to justify my behavior with a valid idea. I had none.

Recently a friend asked me in all earnestness the same question. He asked, “What’s the big idea of the Christian life?” He was interested in the overarching, ultimate goal of the Christian life. To answer his question, I fell back on the theologian’s prerogative and gave him a Latin term. I said, “The big idea of the Christian life is coram Deo. Coram Deo captures the essence of the Christian life.” This phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the presence of, or before the face of, God. To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.

To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God. God is omnipresent. There is no place so remote that we can escape His penetrating gaze. To be aware of the presence of God is also to be acutely aware of His sovereignty. The uniform experience of the saints is to recognize that if God is God, then He is indeed sovereign. When Saul was confronted by the refulgent glory of the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, his immediate question was, “Who is it, Lord?” He wasn’t sure who was speaking to him, but he knew that whomever it was, was certainly sovereign over him.

Living under divine sovereignty involves more than a reluctant submission to sheer sovereignty that is motivated out of a fear of punishment. It involves recognizing that there is no higher goal than offering honor to God. Our lives are to be living sacrifices, oblations offered in a spirit of adoration and gratitude. To live all of life coram Deo is to live a life of integrity. It is a life of wholeness that finds its unity and coherency in the majesty of God. A fragmented life is a life of disintegration. It is marked by inconsistency, disharmony, confusion, conflict, contradiction, and chaos.

The Christian who compartmentalizes his or her life into two sections of the religious and the nonreligious has failed to grasp the big idea. The big idea is that all of life is religious or none of life is religious. To divide life between the religious and the nonreligious is itself a sacrilege.

This means that if a person fulfills his or her vocation as a steelmaker, attorney, or homemaker coram Deo, then that person is acting every bit as religiously as a soul-winning evangelist who fulfills his vocation. It means that David was as religious when he obeyed God’s call to be a shepherd as he was when he was anointed with the special grace of kingship. It means that Jesus was every bit as religious when He worked in His father’s carpenter shop as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Integrity is found where men and women live their lives in a pattern of consistency. It is a pattern that functions the same basic way in church and out of church. It is a life that is open before God. It is a life in which all that is done is done as to the Lord. It is a life lived by principle, not expediency; by humility before God, not defiance. It is a life lived under the tutelage of conscience that is held captive by the Word of God.

Coram Deo … before the face of God. That’s the big idea. Next to this idea our other goals and ambitions become mere trifles.

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”  (Hebrews 1:1-3a)

Consider the first verse.  God revealed Himself in many ways and through many means up to the point of the incarnation, but in sending Jesus Christ to take on human flesh, God gave us the ultimate disclosure of Himself.  Jesus is, as it were, the ultimate Word spoken by God to men.  God had not dwelt among men since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, but in the person of Christ, the One who made the world once again came to live among us — to identify with and sacrifice Himself for sinful men.

John echoes this same thought in John 1:14 when he writes, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  The Greek word used for “dwelt” in this verse could actually be translated as “tabernacled”  which alludes to Old Testament imagery of God coming into Israel’s midst in the tabernacle, or the tent of worship, that was the center of Jewish religious life.

This whole idea of sinful men being able to behold the incarnate glory of God in the person of Christ is staggering, to say the least.  It reminds me of words written by Charles Wesley in his song, “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing”:  “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail th’incarnate Deity, Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.”

Infinite God dwelling through finite humanity. . . Infinite spiritual holiness perfectly united with limited human flesh. . . Jesus existing as 100% man and 100% God.  It is this truth that Hebrews 1:3 seeks to elucidate.  Jesus is the exact representation of God among men.  And as Philippians 2 teaches us, Christ took on flesh for a purpose — “Although He existed in the form of God, {He} did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)  The infinite clothed Himself in the finite to accomplish our redemption from sin.  Praise be to God!

In the end, when we plumb the depths of the doctrine of the Incarnation, we eventually come to a point where must resign ourselves to divine mystery.  Scripture tells us that it happened, and Scripture tells us why it happened, but it does not fully disclose to us exactly how God united the infinite with the finite.  Yet this mystery is marvelous and beautiful in how it brought about our redemption from sin.

I want to close with a quote from Charles Spurgeon.  He said, “As Jesus Christ is a child in his human nature, he is born, begotten of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary. He is as truly-born, as certainly a child, as any other man that ever lived upon the face of the earth. He is thus in his humanity a child born. But as Jesus Christ is God’s Son, he is not born; but given, begotten of his Father from before all worlds, begotten—not made, being of the same substance with the Father.  The doctrine of the eternal affiliation of Christ is to be received as an undoubted truth of our holy religion. But as to any explanation of it, no man should venture thereon, for it remaineth among the deep things of God—one of those solemn mysteries indeed, into which the angels dare not look, nor do they desire to pry into it—a mystery which we must not attempt to fathom, for it is utterly beyond the grasp of any finite being. As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God. A God whom we could understand would be no God. If we could grasp him he could not be infinite: if we could understand him, then were he not divine.”

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

As we continue to build missions awareness and participation here at Morningview, it is important for us to be informed and in prayer for fellow believers who are facing such trials.  I encourage you again to avail yourself of resources provided by organizations like Voice of the Martyrs.  Below are just a few of the hundreds of stories they reported on over the past few months.  Be in prayer for those mentioned here, and pray for all our brothers and sisters in Christ this coming Sunday!

IRAQ:  On Oct. 31, Islamic extremists attacked worshipers at the Syrian Catholic Church of Baghdad, killing 59 Christians and severely injuring more than 80 others.  Several gunmen armed with automatic weapons and explosives entered the church during a worship service and opened fire on the worshipers. Two priests were among those killed in the attack. “This church was attacked because they are very active, especially among the youth and community,” Voice of the Martyrs contacts said. “This church works closely with the United Bible Society and VOM by distributing Bibles and Action Packs in Iraq. This is the second time this church has been targeted; in 2004 it was hit with a car bomb.”

A militant organization called the Islamic State of Iraq, which has links to al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Compass Direct News.  Following the attack, sources told VOM that churches throughout the city had received death-threat letters, warning them to stop their Christian activities or face similar consequences.

IRAN:  Christians in Iran are reporting that Pastor Youcef Nardarkhani has been sentenced to death for what is called a “thought crime.” VOM contacts confirm that the pastor’s trial was held in recent weeks in the 11th Chamber of The Assize Court of the province of Gilan, but a formal verdict has not yet been delivered by the court.

Pastor Youcef, a leader in the Full Gospel “Church of Iran” network, is one of several members of his church who have been imprisoned. The Iranian government has also threatened his wife with life imprisonment and has threatened to take away their two children, who are currently being cared for by relatives. Pastor Youcef was arrested in October 2009 after protesting a decision by the government requiring that his son study the Quran.

SOMALIA:  A 17-year-old girl in the Gedo Region of Somalia was severely beaten by her family recently after they discovered she had converted to Christianity, according to Compass Direct News. Nurta Mohamed Farah, 17, was later taken to a doctor, who prescribed medication for a “mental illness.” When she refused to abandon her Christian faith, her family forced her to take the medication.

Nurta’s family has read Islamic scripture to her twice a week since May 10, when they learned of her conversion. Somalis traditionally believe that the Quran cures the sick — especially the mentally ill.  Nurta has been shackled to a tree during the day and held in a small, dark room at night, according to Compass. “There is little the community can do about her condition, which is very bad,” a Christian source told Compass. “I have advised our community leader to keep monitoring her condition but not to meddle for their own safety. … We need prayers and human advocacy for such inhuman acts, and for freedom of religion for the Somali people.”

INDIA:  On April 17, Hindu extremists attacked a group of Christians at a prayer meeting in Madhya Pradesh, India, causing the death of a 25-year-old man and severely injuring three other believers, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts.

Hindu radicals disrupted the meeting of more than 400 Christians and began destroying Bibles and other property. They attacked the Christians with sticks and iron rods, accusing them of forcible conversions. During the attack, Amit Gilbert, a master of divinity student, fell into an open well, hit his head on the well’s outer wall and drowned. One of the other injured Christians sustained a broken back and at last report remained in serious condition.

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

“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.

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

We receive a lot spiritually as well.  We receive salvation and the indwelling of Christ when we repent and believe in Jesus (John 1:12,16).  We receive direction and grow as disciples as we receive the Word through reading, study, teaching, and preaching.  We receive care and shepherding from our spiritual leaders and through our church family.  In fact, we receive blessing after blessing after blessing from God in so many different ways.

Many Christians, however, fail to receive the blessings that come from giving and sacrificing and sending.  It sounds almost like an oxymoron, but Scripturally, it couldn’t be more true.  God has given to us an abundance of blessings, and we have been called to embody His character and obey His will by by giving and sacrificing and sending, for His glory and for the good of others.

Admittedly, this is harder for us.  We prefer to receive.  Giving sacrificially of our finances to support God’s work can be challenging.  Giving quality time for the sake of devotion and ministry to others can be quite difficult.  Sharing the gospel with unbelieving neighbors and friends can be down-right scary.  Giving our children and grandchildren to ministry and to the mission field can be agonizing.  But it shouldn’t be that way.  Notice in all these instances that I said it “can” be, not that it has to be.  In fact, when we foster a biblical perspective, these can be some of the most joyous times of our lives.

Sitting, soaking, and souring is not God’s design for His people.  God blesses us so that His name and His salvation may be known on the earth (Gen 12, Psa 67).  God delights in children who reflect His giving nature, who trust in His hand even in difficult circumstances, and who gladly surrender their all for the sake of His name.  Thus, we should delight in being a people who not only “receive,” but who also “send” for the glory of His name.

In light of recent events, we have two important areas where we can manifest the joy of sending.  First, our missions conference was an incredible blessing.  It was so edifying to spend time with our missionaries and to be challenged by the truth of God’s Word.  We have the joy of partnering with some incredible families who are planted on the foreign fields, and we should pray that God will raise up more laborers from among us.  It would be such a blessing to be able to see some of our adults, some of our children, and some of our grandchildren heed God’s call to reach the unreached with the Gospel.  Pray now for Him to equip and call people to these international fields from our very own church family.

A second opportunity we have to be a sending church comes as we raise up biblically equipped Pastors who will go and shepherd sister churches.  This past month, we sent three more of our young people off to seminary, to receive the training they will need to serve God in vocational ministry.  Pray for Jon, Rebecca, and Jordan as they settle in to their studies.
Also, we have the privilege of sending the Breedlove family to our sister church in Opp, Alabama.  Randy and Missy and their children have been blessings to our church family in numerous ways.  We have “received” much from them and they have “received” much from us.  Though we will miss them greatly, we rejoice over the opportunity to send them to a field where their gifts are needed.  The congregation in Opp will benefit greatly from having a pastor who loves and preaches the Word.   and from a pastor’s wife who is so encouraging and loving.  This Sunday will be their last Sunday with us, and we will have a Send-Off Celebration with the Breedloves this Sunday evening.  Make sure you are here to encourage them and to experience the joy of “sending” them forth.  I love you all!

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

Morningview will be hosting its own Parenting Conference on Saturday, November 6th.  Our pastors will be leading us through key principles of a Christian Home.
Please save this date on your fall calendar!  You will be glad you did! Look for more information in the weeks to come.

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

Our problem in prayer is we say the same old things about the same old things.  Praying that way is often boring.  When prayer is boring, we don’t feel like praying.  And when we don’t feel like praying, it’s hard to concentrate in prayer and to pray for very long.  Our problem is not that we pray about the same old things.  To pray about your Family, Future, Finances, Work, Schoolwork, Church,  Ministry, and the “current crisis” is normal.  If you’re going to pray about your life, these things are your life.  So our problem in prayer is not that we pray about the same old things, but that we say the same old things about the same old things.  That’s boring.  When prayer is boring we don’t feel like praying.  And when we don’t feel like praying, it’s hard to pray for any length of time or with much consistency.

What’s the solution?  Whatever it is, it must be fundamentally simple.  For God has children of all ages, IQs, educational levels, etc.  If He expects (and invites) all His children to pray, then consistent, meaningful prayer must be doable by all kinds of people.  And if it were not possible for you—with all your Christian advantages (such as proximity to good churches, accessibility to Christian books, recordings, and other media, etc.)—to have a meaningful prayer life, then what of the tens of millions of Christians without these things?  Here’s the solution:  when you pray, pray through a passage of Scripture, especially a Psalm.

Let the words of Scripture become the words of your prayers.  For example, if you pray through Psalm 23, read “The Lord is my shepherd,” and thank Him for being your shepherd.  Ask Him to shepherd your family that day, to guide, protect, and provide for them.  Pray that He will make your family members His sheep; that they will look to Him as their shepherd.  Ask Him to shepherd you through the decision you must make about your future.  Pray for Him to bless the undershepherd at your church, shepherding him as he shepherds the church, etc.  When nothing else comes to mind, go to the next line—“I shall not want”—and continue to pray.

Simply go through the passage, line-by-line, praying what you find in the text or what it brings to mind.  If nothing comes to mind, or if you don’t understand the verse, go to the next.  You might choose to linger long on one verse.  Conversely, there may be only a handful of matters that prompt prayer as you go through many verses.  Nothing says you have to pray over every verse.  Continue in this way until (1) you run out of time, or (2) you run out of Psalm.

One approach to choosing a Psalm to pray through is the “Psalms of the Day” approach.  This divides the 150 Psalms into 5 Psalms for each of 30 days in a month.  Take the day of month as your first Psalm.  Then keep adding 30 to that number until you get 5 Psalms. So on the 15th of the month, your first Psalm is Psalm 15.  To Psalm 15, add 30 to get the next one, Psalm 45.  These would be followed by Psalm 75, then 105, and 135.  (On the 31st, use Psalm 119.)  Take 30 seconds to scan these five Psalms, then choose one to pray through.  One advantage of this method is that gives you direction when it’s time to pray and defeats aimlessness.

The Psalms are the best place in Scripture from which to pray Scripture.  This is because of the original purpose and usage of the Psalms.  The Psalms were songs inspired by God for the purpose of being reflected in song back to God.  Moreover, there’s a Psalm for every sigh of the heart.  The entire range of human emotion is recorded in the 150 Psalms.

Perhaps the second-best place in Scripture from which to pray Scripture is the New Testament letters.  These are so densely packed with truth that virtually every verse suggests something to pray about.  It is also edifying to pray through the narrative passages of Scripture.  Unlike praying through the Psalms or New Testament letters, however, a different approach must often be used with the narrative passages.  Instead of looking at each verse almost microscopically, in a narrative passage it’s usually easier to consider it paragraph-by-paragraph, looking for the “big ideas” of the story.

Once you actually experience praying through a passage of Scripture, you’ll likely be able to turn to any part of the Bible and pray through it.  You won’t need these notes to remember how to do it the second time.  Like riding a bicycle, you never forget.  By praying through a passage of Scripture, you’ll find yourself praying about most of “the same old things,” but in brand new ways.  You’ll also find yourself praying about things you would never think to pray about.  Jesus prayed the Psalms.  The early church prayed the Psalms.  Great Christians like George Mueller prayed the Psalms.  Why not you?

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

This week, we continue our look at the GCR report with Challenges for Individual Families.  Again, I would ask you to read these and prayerfully consider how they might apply as a challenge to your family.

Challenges for Individual Families
14.  Emphasize biblical gender roles with believing fathers taking the lead in modeling Great Commission Christianity and taking the primary responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their families.

15.  Recognize that parents have the primary responsibility of educating their children and helping them to cultivate a Christian worldview way of thinking and living.

16.  Build gospel saturated homes that see children as a gift from God and our initial mission field. Consider, in this context, the vital ministries of adoption and orphan care.

17.  Make prayer for and the evangelism and discipleship of children a family priority that begins with parents and is assisted by local churches.

18.  Develop strategies as a family for praying for, serving, and sharing the gospel with neighbors, coworkers, and others with whom family members come into regular contact.

19.  Adopt a different unreached people group each month and pray as a family 1) for IMB missionaries working with the people group, 2) for the conversion, baptism and discipling of countless individuals within the people group, and 3) for the establishment of biblical churches among the people group.

20.  Adopt a different North American church plant each month and pray as a family 1) for the church’s leadership team, 2) for the conversion, baptism and discipling of countless individuals in the church’s region, and 3) for the birthing of future church plants from the church.

21.  Spend a family vacation participating in a local church or association sponsored mission trip.

22.  Consider setting up a mission’s savings account for each of your children that would enable them to spend six months to a year in a North America or International Missions context soon after graduating from high school.

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

Consider sorrow. Neither Jesus nor the Holy Spirit has ever sinned. But both have grieved. Both have been sorrowful. Therefore, godly sorrow is possible.  Not only that, godly sorrow is possible also for sinners. It is possible precisely because of our sin. One form of sorrow is sorrow for doing something wrong. So Paul writes to the Corinthians:  “For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it. . . . I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.  For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” (2 Cor 7:8-10)

At least two things govern what makes sorrow good. One is the cause, the other is the outcome. The cause of godly sorrow for our own sin is the spiritual perception of its moral ugliness, not just its negative consequences. We see it as morally repugnant. This repugnance is owing to our spiritual preference for the taste of the truth and beauty of God. Therefore our sorrow for sin is rooted in our savoring of God. Sin is a revolting flavor in the feast of godwardness. Therefore, sorrow over this is a signal that we delight in God. That is what makes the sorrow good.

The outcome of good sorrow for sin is repentance and holiness. In fact, repentance includes sorrow for sin and extends it to a more durable experience of holy living. This holy living is the outward form of delighting in God above all sin. Therefore delight in God is what makes the sorrow and repentance good.

But what about sorrow that is not for our own sin, but for the way we are sinned against or the way we are hurt by calamity and loss? Jesus sorrowed like this. For example, when he saw the Pharisees murmuring about his healing on the Sabbath, “He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5). And in the garden of Gethsemane, he said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch” (Mark 14:34).

Jesus’ sorrow was not owing to his own sin, but to the sins of others. This is the way it is with the Holy Spirit as well. Paul calls us to put sin out of our lives so that we do not grieve the Spirit: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:29-30).

In the same way believers embrace godly grief not only for our own sins but for the sins of others and for the pain that loss brings us. For example, Peter speaks of our grieving over trials: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Pet 1:6). Paul speaks of our grieving over lost loved ones: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13). And Paul refers to his own grief over the lostness of his kinsmen: “My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart (Rom 9:1).

Nevertheless Paul makes the astonishing statement in 2 Cor 6:10 that what marks his life and should mark ours is “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” This is what makes our sorrow godly. I do not claim that this experience is simple or that we can even put it into adequate words—what it means to be joyful in sorrow. Heaving sobs at the loss of a loved one does not look like joy. Indeed is not joy in its fullness, as we will know it when “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4).

Rather the joy that endures through sorrow is the foretaste of that future joy in God which we hope for in the future. When Jesus was “very sorrowful, even to death” in Gethsemane he was sustained by “the joy that was set before him” (Heb 12:2). This does not mean that he felt in the garden or on the cross all that he would feel in the resurrection. But it does mean that he hoped in it and that this hope was an experienced foretaste of that joy.

Therefore, we groan here, waiting for the redemption of our bodies and for the removal of all our sins (Rom 8:23). This groaning and grieving is godly if it is molded by our delight in hope of glory (Rom 5:2-3). The delight is muffled by the pain, but it is there in seed form. It will one day grow into a great vine that yields wine of undiluted delight.  So let us embrace whatever sorrow God appoints for us. Let us not be ashamed of tears. Let the promise that joy comes with the morning (Psa 30:5) sustain and shape our grief with the power and goodness of God.

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

As we consider the answers to these significant questions, I want to contrast the answers given by two of the most prevalent World-Views:  Biblical Christianity and Secular Naturalism.

WHY AM I HERE? The Naturalist believes they are here as a product of evolution.  Life theoretically began billions of years ago when the first cells came about through some yet unexplained process of biochemical combination.  Human beings, as creatures who have evolved to the use of higher skills of communication and complex reasoning, are responsible for contributing positively to the continuing process of biological and cultural evolution in whatever way they define as “positive.”

The Christian believes that the entire universe was created out of nothing as a special act of God, that man is created in God’s image (or after His likeness), and that we have been entrusted with leadership and stewardship over the earth as His image-bearers.  God created us with this purpose:  to joyfully honor Him as our first love, to enjoy His creation as we rightly exercise stewardship over it, and to fill the earth with other image-bearers through the beauty of marriage and family as He has defined them in the Bible.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD? The Naturalist believes that there is turmoil and evil in the world because of two things:  poor environment where human needs go unmet, and lack of education about culture and science and world community.  They believe that if we can bring every society to a place where needs are met and people are properly educated, then most of the evil and strife will disappear and mankind will realize a utopia of peace and creativity and mutual respect.

The Christian believes that evil exists because, rather than enjoying God and seeking His standard of righteousness as embodied in His laws, we have acted upon our selfish desires and rebelled against God’s reign and God’s law.  This rebellion is called “Sin,” and our sin separates us from our Holy, loving Creator and makes us worthy of His wrath.  Most basically, evil exists in this world because all of us sin; some of us in greater ways and some of us in lesser ways, but every single one of us regularly chooses to put our desires above God’s; thus, evil reigns in this world.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? According to the Naturalist view, you become food for worms.  Period.  There is no afterlife because there is no “spirit” in man that lives on.  This is the cycle of life according to evolution.  All that remains of you when you die is whatever knowledge you might have contributed to your progeny or to humanity as a whole.

According to the Bible, we all have a Spirit or Soul that will last forever.  And Hebrews 9:27 says when our appointed time of death comes, we all face God’s judgment.  Those who have repented of their sins and believed explicitly in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior have their sins forgiven and are saved from the just penalty of their sins.  They will inherit eternal life with Christ in heaven forever and ever.  (John 14:6, 3:16)  Those who never repented and believed in Jesus Christ still bear the weight of their own sinfulness, and they will suffer God’s wrath in a literal place called hell forever and ever.

HOW IS IT ALL GOING TO END? According to the Naturalist, it won’t end, it will all just continue to evolve.  We may reach utopia, we may gradually turn into another species, or we may be decimated by some planetary or cosmic event.  No one knows.

According to Christianity, the day will come “when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed.” (2 Thess 1:7-10)  God’s everlasting kingdom will then be established forever.

Remember that the answers to these questions are different for every World-View.  A Muslim, a Hindu, a Mormon, etc. will all give different answers to the questions above.  Also notice that every World-View is formed on the basis of faith.  Even the Naturalist view, which they claim is predicated on the facts of Science, is really a system of faith.  Evolution is an unprovable theory.  Their perspective on the origins of the universe and the origins of life are unproven theories (and some aspects of these views even violate scientific law).  They “believe” these things to be true and act accordingly.

The bottom line is that our World-View is important, because your “Faith” determines who you are and how you live.  It is also important to see the superiority of the Christian World-View, because no other view guarantees us an eternal hope grounded in the grace of God rather than our human effort.  No other system of thought addresses the key issues of life with perfect authority and certainty and clarity.  No other system of thought combines these certainties with the directives that correlate to what brings out the best of our humanity (which, of course, goes back to God’s design of us as His image-bearers).  I love you all dearly!

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

While proclaiming the gospel is to be our primary platform and purpose in engaging society, there is still value in letting our distinctively Christian voices be heard on moral issues that the Bible directly addresses.  We have the privilege of living in a democratic nation, and though we would all admit to the imperfections of this system, it still affords us freedoms that we should exercise for the glory of Christ.  Thus, the children of God should seek to protect the lives of the unborn and to care for orphans.  We should seek to protect the institution of marriage from divorce-happy heterosexuals as well as radical homosexuals.  We should be good stewards of the environment, though not in an unbiblical way that assaults biblical freedom or the primacy of humanity as God’s unique image-bearers.  And we should be first among those caring for and protecting the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, and the homeless.

That is why we should let our voices be heard on the issue of gambling.  Gambling is an industry in America that victimizes families and poor people in the name of entertainment and tax revenue.  It fosters an addiction based upon human greed where the promise of quick, abundant wealth is continually communicated and never fulfilled.  In fact, as it regards the particular issue here in Alabama, addiction counselors have called video slot machines the “crack cocaine” of the gambling industry because it is so addictive.

Gambling is bad economic policy.  Gambling is a form of regressive taxation, as studies have shown that the poor and uneducated tend to gamble at a higher rate and with a much greater proportion of their income than the middle class, the rich, and the well-educated.  Studies have proven that when casinos open, other local businesses suffer and often close as both discretionary and necessary income is funneled into gaming and profits sent out-of-state.  According to John Warren Kindt, in his statement before congress in 1994, “For every one dollar of revenue generated by gambling, taxpayers lose three dollars in increased criminal justice costs, social welfare expenses, regulatory costs, and increased infrastructure expenditures.

Gambling increases crime.  The Department of Justice and the National Institute for Justice have found significant links between gambling, crime, and druge use.  A 2004 study by E. L. Grinols at MIT found that counties with casinos had notably higher crime rates than non-casino counties.  A University of Nebraska study by John Jejkal in 2000 concluded that problem gambling is as much a risk factor for domestic violence as alcohol abuse.

Gambling destroys homes and families and children.   SMR Research Corporation has called gambling “the single fastest-growing driver of bankruptcy.”  Gambling related bankruptcies in metro Detroit increased by as much as 40-fold within 18 months of the opening of Casino Windsor, just across the Detroit river.  Three years after casinos were legalized in Deadwood, South Dakota, felony crimes had increased by 40%, child abuse had increased by 42%, and domestic violence assaults had risen 80%.  In Indiana, a review of the state’s gaming commission records revealed that 72 children were found abandoned on casino premises during a 14 month period.

In the National Gambling Impact Study, done at the university of Chicago in 1999, they found that the lifetime divorce rate for problem gamblers was 39.5% and for pathological gamblers it was 53.5%; for non-gamblers, it was only 18.2%.  Dr. Rachel Volberg, President of Gemini Research, has noted, “Suicide attempts among pathological gamblers are higher than for any other addiction and second on to suicide attempt rates among individuals with major affective disorders, schizophrenia, and  a few major hereditary disorders.”

In short, when gambling is legalized in a commnity or state, an ever-growing tide of human wreckage ensues and the economic situation of the populace worsens.  Thus, our response to gambling interests should be certain and strong.  Because we belong to Christ, we share His concern for the poor, for families, for children, for marriages, and for human lives.  Gambling fosters greed, neglect, indebtedness, crime, a poor work ethic, and ultimately, the loss of human life.  Let us therefore pray for strength for those who are fighting the Casino Moguls, let us pray for many of our legislators to be released from their blindness to the facts, let us be heard in their ears as we make the biblical viewpoint known, and let us be seen at the ballot box if they take it that far.  I love you all dearly!

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

There are others who are opposed to the idea of membership.  They believe that Christians only need to be part of the universal body of Christ by believing in Him, and that any formal, subsequent commitment to a local body of faith is uneccesary.  They overlook the example of believers identifying with local churches in the book of Acts and excuse themselves by stating “Membership in a local church was never explicitly commanded.”

There are a vast number of others who simply take their church membership for granted.  For them, joining a church is nothing special or serious.  They believe anyone who wants to join a church should be able to do so and that it is no more serious a commitment than picking a grocery store or registering to vote.  If they want to get married, buried, or have a need, their name is on the role, thus giving them access, but otherwise they manifest no serious commitment to the Lord’s body, to those who are supposedly their spiritual family.

Ideally, all Christians should endeavor to have a biblical perspective of church membership, a perspective that sees commitment to a local family of faith as one of the natural fruits of a true relationship with Christ.  Those who love Jesus and who have Jesus abiding in them will share His love for His bride, the church.  They will manifest a commitment that encompasses the desire to be accountable for faithfully living out the grace of Christ, the desire to be active in fellowship that is centered around the ministry of the Word of God, and the desire to be equipped and available to serve the body and the community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is realities like these that are represented in our Church Covenant.  We recited it together before we took our last communion, and we rejoiced together as we watched our New Members sign it this past Sunday.  A Church Covenant is certainly not as authoritative as the Bible itself, but it is derived from the Bible.  It represents, in a succinct fashion, a commitment to God and to one another to faithfuly embody the lifestyle, character, and priorities of a disciple of Christ.

All of us will stumble at times, and that is when the Spirit will convict us, the Word will instruct us, and our church family will encourage us.  However, when we have members who continually and unrepentantly violate their commitment, the most loving thing we can do is to seek to restore those members, or ultimately, if they refuse restoration, remove them.  Removal is grievous step to take, but it protects the witness of Christ through the body, the example of Christ within the body, and it protects the one in open error from confusion and self-deception regarding the Lord’s view of their choices.

In his book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever writes, “If the church is a building, then we must be bricks in it; if the church is a body, then we are its members; if the church is the household of faith, it presumes we are part of that household.  Sheep are in a flock and branches are on a vine.  Biblically, if one is a Christian, he must be a member of a church.  Leaving aside the concrete particulars for a moment—whether membership lists are kept on white cards or on computer disks—we must not forsake our regular assembling (Hebrews 10:25).  This membership is not simply the record of a statement we once made or of affection toward a familiar place.  It must be a reflection of a living commitment or it is worthless, and worse than worthless, it is dangerous.  Uninvolved members confuse both real members and non-Christians about what it means to be a Christian.  And active members do the voluntarily inactive members no service when they allow them to remain members of the church, for membership is the church’s corporate endorsement of a person’s salvation.  Again, this must be clearly understood: membership in a church is that church’s corporate testimony to the individual member’s salvation.”  May God, in His grace, guard our hearts from apathy and make us a fully committed family of faith.  I love you all dearly!

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

Recovering daily, meaningful prayer is a matter of self-discipline – a matter of learning how to say “No” to lesser pursuits, “Yes” to the Holy Spirit who guides us to God’s presence in prayer, and “I will” to what Scripture sets before us as instruction in prayer.  From that point, it is a matter of being a “doer” of the Word by praying – by simply talking with God.

Prayer is a matter of opening up your heart in genuine sincerity and offering yourself and all of your concerns up to God.  It is confessing your sins before Him and savoring again the grace of Christ in forgiveness.  It is the humble acknowledgement of your complete dependence upon the sovereign Lord of the universe.  It is seeking the fruit of His presence, His gifts, and His promises in what is truly an act of worship.  It is casting upon Him your burdens, thanking Him for His grace, being still and waiting upon Him in faith, and celebrating His splendor.  Finally, it is maintaining an ever deepening expression of all of these things without falling back into a “rut” of empty repetition.

This is where praying through Scripture is so valuable.  Scripture is God’s inerrant, inspired, sufficient revelation of Himself and His purpose of redemption.  When we take the truth of God’s Word and use it to guide our hearts and inform our minds and frame our speech, we realize a prayer life that encompasses a height, width, and depth that we have scarcely experienced before.  The benefits of this discipline are many, but here are three of the most important:

1.  Praying Scripture will lead you to explore and give expression to previously unprobed areas in your life.  Just as expository preaching through whole books leads you to discover all the precious jewels of Scripture, praying the Scriptures leads you to personally meditate upon and express all facets of God’s Word.  For example, if I were to pray through a short chapter like Philippians 4, I would would be drawn to consider and pray about standing firm in Christ, the harmony of my relationships with others and how to have a forebearing spirit, my Christian joy, being free of anxiety through prayer, how the peace of God guards us, and the chief things my mind is to dwell upon.  And all of this is just in the first 8 verses!  When was the last time your prayers were concerned with any of these things?

2.  Praying Scripture will help you to enrich and vary the language of prayer.  When we pray, we too often fall back to repeating cliche’s and statements we have heard from others in prayer rather than depending on God’s Spirit and truth to give proper expression to what is in our own hearts.  When we articulate the realities of our own hearts through the lense of biblical truth, we develop the habit of praying biblically rather than the habit of praying repetitiously.  Consider the beauty of what we have in Psalm 1:1-2 – “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night.”  That is indeed rich language to be guided by in prayer!

3.  It directs us to focus more on the person of God rather than upon ourselves.  The average Christian believes prayer is more about expressing our needs than it is about worshiping God.  Don’t get me wrong – we are certainly to be dependent upon God to meet our needs, yet the greater priority of prayer is being still, and knowing He is God. (Psa 46:10)  When was the last time your prayer consisted mainly of celebrating the attributes of God?  When was the last time you recounted to Him the splendor of how He has revealed Himself in creation?  In redemption?  In your sanctification?  Consider what it would be like to pray Job 38-42, Psalm 19, or Romans 11:33-36.  Great prayer is birthed through meditating upon our great God.

These a just a few of the numerous benefits that come through praying God’s Word, so commit now to join with your church family in praying through Scripture in 2010!

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

Winter Quarter:  January 10 – March 14

Sunday Evenings 5:00 PM – 6:15 PM

Christian Worldview 200
Text: Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey
Room: 329 (Adult 3)  Ben Robinson

New Testament Survey 200
Text: New Testament Introduction by Donald Guthrie
Room: 321 (New Member’s Room)  Joel Thompson

Biblical Theology 101
Text: According to Plan by Graeme Goldsworthy
Room: 331 (Adult 4)   Tom Hicks

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

David, a faithful Old Testament follower of Christ, wrote, “Oh how I love Your law” (Ps 119:97).  Paul, a faithful New Testament follower of Christ, declared, “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7:12).  Scripture teaches that God gave us His law as a “rule of life” in order to show us how to express our love for the Savior (Deut 5:10; Jn 14:5).  God’s Word teaches us to obey the law out of gratitude for what Christ has done (1 Jn 4:17-21), for our own good (Deut 10:12-13), and for God’s glory.  Far from being a burden to the believer (1 Jn 5:3), God’s law is a gracious gift, which should be cherished, esteemed, enjoyed, reverenced, studied, and diligently and meticulously obeyed (Rom 7:12; Ezra 7:6, 10).

The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689) rightly says, “The moral law forever binds all, [including] justified persons as well as others, to the obedience thereof . . . neither does Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation” (Rom 13:8-10; Jas 2:8, 10-12; Matt 5:17-19; Rom 3:31).  So, if “legalism” is not synonymous with faithful law keeping, then what is “legalism?”

The word “legalism” does not appear in the Bible, but the concept of legalism does appear.  “Legalism” is a word coined by theologians to label “any abuse of law.”  “Legalism,” therefore, is a term that is rightly applied to all unbiblical assertions and applications of law.  1 Timothy 1:8 says, “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully.”  Scripture describes two main abuses of law, both of which are sinful and idolatrous.  The first abuse stems from misunderstanding justification.  The second abuse stems from misunderstanding the sufficiency of Scripture.

Legalism vs. Christian Freedom
The first form of legalism teaches that we have to keep the law for our justification.  But this idea is flatly unbiblical.  Galatians 2:16 says we are “not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Galatians 2:21 warns, “If justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”  Any form of teaching that says we must keep the law either to “get in” or “stay in” right standing with God is legalism.

This first form of legalism robs us of Christian freedom.  Christian freedom is the biblical teaching that we are free from the legal guilt and condemnation of the law because Christ was condemned in our place and because His righteousness is credited to us.  Galatians 5:1 says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Legalism vs. Christian Liberty
The second form of legalism misunderstands the sufficiency of Scripture because it teaches that we are required to keep extra-biblical commandments.  The Galatian Judaizers, for example, went beyond Scripture in requiring the Galatians to be circumcised and to observe Jewish food laws, even though there are no such biblical requirements for new covenant Christians.  The Pharisees also went beyond the Scriptures by adding their own laws to the Bible’s law.  But, Scripture opposes all man-made additions to the law of God.  In Mark 7:7, Christ opposed those who taught “as doctrines the commandments of men.”  Deuteronomy 12:32 warns, “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.”  There God positively forbids us to add to His laws and commandments.  What God has already revealed is enough.  Legalists of this second kind “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders” (Matt 23:4).  They abuse the law by adding their own laws to those of the Bible.

This second form of legalism robs us of Christian liberty.  Christian liberty is the biblical teaching that we are free to do whatever we please as long as our actions are obedient to and violate no law of the Bible.  Augustine said “love God and do as you please.”  To love God, we must keep His commandments (Jn 14:15).  But beneath God’s revealed commandments, there is liberty!  Scripture says, “where there is no law there is no transgression” (Rom 4:15).

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church

Christians have three great enemies: (1) their own sinful natures, (2) this wicked world-system, (3) Satan and his demons.  Satan uses our sinful natures and this wicked world as the means to tempt us to believe his well-crafted lies and to live in both subtle and open rebellion against God’s good commandments.  Of these three enemies, Satan is the only super-intelligent one.  He is brilliantly crafty and masterfully strategic in all his efforts to deceive us.  Therefore, we must be on guard!

There are two deadly mistakes, however, that Christians make about Satan and his evil forces.  Some Christians overestimate the devil, while others underestimate him.  Christians who overestimate Satan end up putting him at the center of their thoughts and theology, rather than Christ.  Overestimating Satan is actually a form of Satan worship, which we must studiously avoid!  But, underestimating him is an equally perilous danger.  Christians who underestimate Satan run the risk of being ensnared by his deceitful schemes.  We must therefore avoid both overestimating him and underestimating him through rigorous Biblicism.  We must know and understand what the Word of God tells us about our enemy.

In order to fight Satan, you have to understand his goals.  Just as Satan’s original goal was to destroy the work of creation, his goal is also to destroy God’s gracious work of redemption.  Satan tries totally to reclaim believers.  He thinks of believers as defectors from his army and that we should be chased down, caught, and reconscripted into his forces.  Even though Satan knows he can never finally succeed in this goal, his impulsively wicked nature is such that he will never stop trying, and because of his relentless efforts, he does achieve certain levels of success.  Satan attacks believers by trying to deceive them, by obscuring their vision of God, by causing them to misunderstand themselves and by blinding their understanding of how sin is at work within them.  Satan tries to get Christians to surrender to their temptations and to lead them into all kinds of lawlessness.  He tries to convince Christians that their sin and guilt make them too bad to drink from the delicious springs of divine grace, that they must clean themselves up before they bathe in Christ’s blood and before they warm themselves under the garment of Christ’s righteousness.  The devil makes us think that our repeated sins disqualify us to receive forgiveness and that we should look away from the gospel to some other idolatrous motive in order to achieve outward obedience.  Satan does all of this under the cloak of darkness and secrecy, working hard not to be detected.  The only way to fight this cunning attack is to feed on God’s Word, flee from sin, be satisfied with and nourished on the grace of Christ, commune with Christ in prayer, and to understand the gospel deeply and never move beyond it.  We must be satiated with Christ himself, realizing that God is not against our pleasure, but that he is for our pleasure in Christ through His glorious gospel of grace!

The weapons God gives us to fight the attacks of Satan are described in Ephesians 6:10-20.  God gives the Christian powerful and effective weaponry.  He gives believers the belt of truth.  Believers must not merely hold the truth of Scripture; rather, they must be held by the truth of Scripture.  Divine truth must “grip” believers, such that they have deep and earnest conviction of it.  God complements the belt of truth with the breastplate of righteousness.  This righteousness is the righteousness of Christ, which alone protects our vital spiritual organs from destruction.  Only the righteousness of Christ can protect us from the devil’s accusations.  The believer’s personal inherent righteousness could never stand against Satan’s charges because it falls far short of the righteousness God requires.  But the believer is protected from being cut to pieces by Satan’s accusations because of the righteousness of Christ, which alone fills up the standard of God’s justice.  God further gives us the shoes of the gospel of peace.  Believers must stand on the gospel, and walk in the gospel, just as we walk in our own shoes.  Unless the gospel undergirds and directs our every step, then we walk in futility.  We must set our minds and hearts firmly on the gospel of Jesus Christ and resolve never to move beyond it, since doing so would strip us of God’s own protection and open us to Satan’s attack.  The gospel, and nothing else, must fill and form the very center of the church’s proclamation and life.  God also provides believers with the mighty shield of faith.  The shield of faith protects us from the fiery deceptive darts of the devil.  When we trust the promises of God in Christ, we are shielded against Satanic deception.  God further supplies us with the helmet of future salvation.  We put on the helmet of salvation by living in light of the hope of future glory!  Satan wants us to think that this fallen world is all important, but God calls us to live in the light of the hope of our inheritance on the last day.  Finally, God gives us the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  The sword of the Spirit is the only offensive weapon in the Christian’s armory.  The word for “sword” here refers to a small sword, which must be wielded with deftness and acute precision.  Believers must study diligently the Word of God to know how to apply it with surgical accuracy such that Satan’s dark kingdom must fall back in defeat.

By: Tom Hicks, Jr.

SOURCE: Morningview Baptist Church