The Facebook Song

I love this video. It illustrates something that Ben and I have been discussing for a while now. We often get e-mails and various other messages from people concerning different happenings in our church or in their lives and many times people say things that we are both quite sure they wouldn’t say to us in person. We have called this “cyber-courage”. A friend of ours mentioned to us a phrase from back in his “drinking days” called “liquid courage”. The sense is that if a man gets enough alcohol in him, he’ll do things he would never dream of doing while sober. The same is true of e-mail and facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. They provide a forum for people to speak their minds and never be held accountable. They don’t have to look at people, hear their voice or see their expressions, and there is always the joy of saying, “Well, if you thought I meant that in my post, that wasn’t what I intended. Ah, yes, the warm blanket of plausible deniability. You can read anything into an e-mail or instant message or facebook post when the author only intended good things when writing!

Now, you could say that I am engaging in the very thing I am being critical of, and maybe so. Maybe we need to ditch the idea of a blog at our church lest we be tempted to say things that we can’t be held accountable for. We’ll see. And if you were offended by this posting…I didn’t mean it. Really.

Family Room= Theology Class

For the next seven weeks, we will be studying the biblical pattern of the family. God has a very specific plan for men, women and children in Scripture and he calls us to obedience and ultimately to joy as we discover his plans are far better than ours.

It is clear by now that we aren’t a flashy dashy, new and improved, marketing savvy kind of church. So you might be wondering why we would go the way of the topical series instead of the typical, systematic, verse by verse style by which we normally proclaim the Scriptures. The answer is simple and has two parts: First, we wanted to focus on the importance of families because of the year of doctrine. If our focus this year truly is doctrinal clarity and depth, the family should be the first place where that doctrinal clarity is established. As go the family rooms of the membership, so goes the church itself. The church is not an institution, meant to “fix” everything. The church is indeed a hospital where we all come to find the teaching, reproof, correction and training of Scripture and the fellowship of God’s people to equip, encourage and edify our souls, but it is not a place for parents to drop their kids off and hope they “get better”, or a place where teenagers can go so the youth pastor can make up for 17 years of bad parenting. The church is a place of training where families can be equipped to be what God intended them to be: the primary gospel-teaching, doctrine learning, God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, sin killing, holiness practicing center of the Christian life.

Secondly, every “topical” message will be an exegetical message. We will not toss our commitment to sound hermeneutics in order to have a “cool series.” In upcoming posts I will be addressing the issue of churchy coolness as well as McChurch, or the seemingly ever-present desire for the church to have just the right menu lest the customers bolt. Buckle up.

Lately, I’ve heard a lot about the steroid controversy in baseball and I can’t help but equate that to the Christian steroid controversy. My wife and I went into a local Christian bookstore last night and found many examples of Christian steroids. For example, there was a book on understanding and applying every book in the Bible. “All 66 books explained and applied!” That particular volume was about 25 pages long. My favorite example was that of the charismatic section, which should read “how to be devoured by wolves”. That section was packed with books on how to have your best life now, while a book of Jonathan Edward’s sermons was on the “last chance clearance” table. Sure, pick up the book written by the guy with a golden coffee table and a $30,000 toilet, but the book by the greatest American theologian in history has to be on the last chance table. This is why I say Christian steroids are far more dangerous than those used in baseball. Just like baseball players want a quick fix to get huge so they can hit the ball out of the park, so too Christians want to buy the latest merchandising campaign that will get them to spiritual maturity in 40 days or less (or your money back!). How do I know that this is how Christians operate? Simple. It sells. Jonathan Edwards is marked down, Joel Osteen flies off the shelf. Steroids, not just for baseball anymore.

You can learn a great deal about life from the honesty of a toddler.  Abraham just turned two this Christmas and he really enjoyed opening presents.  He would begin ripping into them and tearing every last piece of paper off the box.  There was one present, however, that revealed a great deal to me about the human heart.  Abraham tore all the paper off the box, he threw off the lid, and it was clothes.  He quickly scrambled to find the lid, placed it back on the box, and piled the paper on top of the box, ending it all by saying “No.”  Abraham wanted gifts so long as they were fun, but the moment it became something that was essential to everyday life he was no longer interested.  This glimpse into a little boys heart illustrated for me the profound reality in most churches and at times in my own life.  We get so excited about the gift of the gospel provided in saving us from sin and securing a place for us in heaven, however, when it comes to the hope it provides for a changed life on earth, we are less excited.  We get excited when we read passages like Romans 6:5, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”(ESV) However, when we read passages like 6:12, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.”(ESV),  we tend to cringe.  We often love to hold onto our sin and our idols in this present life.  When we do this we are stuffing the gospel back in a box, putting the lid on, and throwing the paper on top,  saying, “No thanks God.”  There is no partial gospel.  You can not take it a piece at a time. You must embrace the gift of God as a whole.  It is the whole gospel or no gospel.  We must accept the whole gospel of God and yes, be forgiven of sins, and yes, have a new home prepared in heaven, but also have a newness of life on this earth.  Let it be said of us as it was of the Roman church, “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,  and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.(Romans 6:17-18 ESV)”

The Body of Christ:

Pessimism, Repentance, and Gratitude

By: Benjamin Leonard

I must confess I have in the past been quite pessimistic about people, especially church people.  I have to constantly fight the desire to think less of people than I should and rarely give the benefit of the doubt.  Jeremy has told me how great of a church Heartland has been and how well they have cared for him and his family.  I have to say I was a little cautious about this.  I indeed wanted to believe everything he had to say, but I was still very cautious.  As I was reading this morning the author began to discuss 1 Corinthians 13:7, “Love believes all things.”  The author writes, ‘“To believe all things” means we are to believe the best about others.”  It was at this point that I realized I was in the wrong.  Church your love for me and my family has refreshed for us a picture of the love found in the body of Christ.  Your love for us has not been an empty gesture.  Your love for us has been selfless and sacrificial.  Many of you I do not even know your names yet you have loved on us more than we could have ever fathomed. We would like to express our humble gratitude to you the church for all that you have done for us.  You made the moving in quick.  You solved problems with our apartment without us even asking.  You have helped my wife with the children while she tries to unpack.  You have showered us with food. You have spent your evenings fixing our dryer.  You have prayed for me and my wreck.  You have done more than I could have ever asked for or thought about.  But most of all thank you for showing us once again what the body of Christ is supposed to look like in a real way. 

Sincerely,

Benjamin Leonard and Family

We haven’t done this in a while, but I wanted to change the pace on Sunday nights for a few weeks, so if you have a burning question about…anything (within reason, of course), reply to this post and I will choose 10 questions or so and answer them in an upcoming Sunday Evening service. I won’t mention any names, either, so ask away.

While on a mission trip with our church and First Baptist Church Arnold, the reality of the need to make disciples of the nations grasped my heart more than ever before. I was confronted with my own sin of complacency and apathy in sharing the gospel with those who don’t believe and I was blessed to see people believe in Christ as a result of our efforts in Mexico. Please pray for the new believers in Alvara Obregon, Mexico and for Walter, Francis and Elda (missionaries to that village), as they seek to minister to them. Also, remember to pray for those within your circle of influence (family, friends, neighbors, co-workers) who don’t know Christ that God might use you to share the gospel with them.

Thank you to all who came out to the Heartland Baptist Church Men’s Golf Scramble today. We had perfect weather and a good time was had by all. This was to kick off our Bible Conference that begins this Sunday and goes through Wednesday night. Our service times are the same for Sunday, but Monday-Wednesday nights will have a 7:00 p.m. start time. It is our prayer that God will work in a powerful way in your hearts that you might know Jesus more and follow him more passionately.

This Sunday, I will reference several different resources that can help your personal spiritual growth and I wanted to give you a quick way to get those resources in your hand.

Family & Personal Devotions: Donald S. Whitney’s website contains great resources for your personal and family devotions: http://www.spiritualdisciplines.org/ .

Puritan Stuff: Begin with the Valley of Vision, but feel free to dive into the depths of these passionate followers of Christ: http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/home.php .

Other Resources: This online bookstore is my personal favorite and it contains many resources that would greatly aid your spiritual growth: http://www.monergismbooks.com/ .

I hope these resources are helpful to you.

Pastor Jeremy

How should I as a believer in Jesus Christ view politics?This question is a popular one in many circles and spawns much debate and confusion. As we enter the 2008 election season, in fact, this question looms over the way Christians read the paper, listen to the radio and watch the news. The Scriptures are not silent on these issues, however, and we would do well to pay attention to God’s Word at this critical time. Romans 13:1-7 speaks clearly about the Christian responsibility to respect the governing authorities, since there is no authority on earth that God himself has not established. Therefore, we as believers in Jesus Christ have a duty to obey the law and respect those in authority whether police or politicians. Peter echoes Paul when he says, “Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter 2:17). While it is clear that we are to respect those in authority over us and obey the law, there is still a question as to how Christians should think about politics specifically. Scripture makes it very clear that the goal of Christian interaction with the culture is centered in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, as people looking at the world with a Christian worldview, we are to filter everything we encounter through the gospel. So, when a radio host or a media darling says something that makes sense in our minds and agrees with our political viewpoint we are not allowed to be satisfied with that. We must search the Scriptures to see if the views we hear agree with the gospel. The main question we should ask is not, “What did they say on T.V.?” Rather we should ask, “What does the Bible say?”