Set Apart -- Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life

Greetings All,

     Our culture has now begun the countdown to Christmas.  It's a mere 26 days away!  And the message we hear from almost every sector is: Get busy buying!!
     This 'thought' does not specifically address Christmas, but it does deal with an issue (because of our culture) that's been forced upon Christmas  -- the holiday as a way to spur the economy and generate wealth.  Christmas, whether we like it or not, is now one of the primary economic indicators in the American year.  A "good" Christmas is often said to be one where people are willing to spend and buy or part with their wealth. Jesus may be taken out of the celebration, and the carols that proclaim the true reason for the holiday are more and more suppressed, but I can pretty much guarantee you that as long as money can be made from observing that day, Christmas will never be done away with!  In fact, it seems that every year our culture tries to start the celebration earlier and earlier!
That said, I wanted to share an excerpt from the book, "Set Apart -- Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life," by R. Kent Hughes.  He was pastor of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the classes I took with him when studying for my doctorate.  This thought will probably not be one of the most popular I have posted. Why?  Because it addresses (I believe very accurately) the Bible's view on wealth. If you disagree (and surely some will) please look at the references he quotes and check to see if he was true to them in their context. The topic of "wealth," of course, had to be addressed in his book, because it really does contribute to the worldliness and spiritual apathy of the Church. Read the Old Testament and you will see that some of the times the people of God strayed the most from their God were the times they prospered most.  And if nothing else, consider what our Lord Jesus says about this topic as we approach the day set aside to honor His incarnation. Enjoy.

Materialism
     "Tellingly, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, spoke more  about money than about heaven or hell, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Gospel of Luke... From beginning to end...Jesus views wealth as a spiritual handicap. His "woe" to the rich, his parable of the rich fool, his epigram "you cannot serve both God and money," his parable of Lazarus and the rich man, his declaration that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven, and finally, the salvation of Zacchaeus who responded by divesting himself of his riches -- all testify that material wealth is a spiritual hindrance.  The evidence is that every time Jesus offers an opinion about riches, it is negative. Each time he teaches on wealth, he advises giving it away. For those of us who take the Bible seriously, this raises great tensions -- sanctifying tensions.

The Benefits of Wealth

     The fact that wealth is a spiritual danger in no way suggests that money is evil. Many of the Old Testament greats were well-heeled, including Abraham, Job, David, and Solomon.  And the same was true of some of Jesus followers, such as Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Zacchaeus.  Jesus' ministry was supported by wealthy women (Luke 8:2-3). Paul set the record straight in his explanation to Timothy: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." (I Timothy 6:10). Randy Alcorn summarizes, "Money makes a good servant to those who have the right master, but it makes a terrible master itself... Money may be temporarily under my control, but I must always regard it as a wild beast, with power to turn on me and others if I drop my guard"... Alan Emery, one of the founding partners of ServiceMaster, said that possessions become either idols or tools. And he has used his immense wealth as a tool to serve God, underwriting hundreds of ministries and repeatedly refreshing the saints.  A. W. Tozer, in a remarkable essay entitled, "The Transmutation of Wealth," put it this way: "Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality."

The Dangers of Wealth

     Yet the downside of wealth is well-documented. It can be delusive, idolatrous and damning... Riches can delude us into imagining that moral superiority is a matter pf homes and cars and yachts and designer labels. Timex and Rolex both end in 'ex', but the wearer of one can imagine a universe of superiority above the other.... Though money is neutral in itself, if your heart is not devoted to God, it can take on what Phillip Yancey describes as, "an irrational, almost magical power... It is a force with a personality. It is in truth, a god, and Jesus called it that."  And, of course, the delusive and idolatrous powers of wealth intensify its capability to damn the soul. The deceitfulness of riches choke out the Word (Mark 4:19). The god of riches instills pride and independence and anesthetizes the victim so that he or she feels no need.  As Jesus charged the lukewarm church of Laodicea, "For you say I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked" (Revelation 3:17).  Such inflated spirits never get into the kingdom, and really do not care.

Handling Wealth

     Since wealth is so spiritually radioactive, a crucial question is how to handle it. And the answer begins by understanding that money doesn't belong to you. Kenneth Kantzer once said: "We must give up all our wealth. We must own nothing. We are only stewards of what God owns. The point is not that we must be merely WILLING to give it up, and then live like anyone else. Rather, we must actually give it up. We are to abandon completely any claims to the wealth of this world. It is not our own, and we do not have ultimate control over it."

      Along with this understanding that our money is not our own, we must give it away joyfully. Theologian Jacques Ellul says that the only way to defeat the godlike power that money seeks to impose on our lives is to give it away, which he calls profaning it: "To profane money, like all other powers, is to take away its sacred character." This destroys its power over us. "Giving to God is the act of profanation par excellence," says Ellul. Every time I give, I declare that money does not control me.  Perpetual generosity is a perpetual de-deification of money.  When you give generously and regularly, it frees you from the bondage of money and declares that it is not a god in your life.

     You can, of course, talk until the moon stands still about what is the proper lifestyle for a member of your church, and the result would be an orgy of judgmentalism. And if we came up with a written description, it would entrench a grace-nullifying legalism.  Yet Paul minced no words with Timothy: "As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life."   This is the way to live -- give, give, give! "  

     Money is one of those Bible topics people like to be taught on least -- especially by Jesus!  For Hughes is right, "The evidence is that every time Jesus offers an opinion about riches, it is negative. Each time he teaches on wealth, he advises giving it away. For those of us who take the Bible seriously, this raises great tensions -- sanctifying tensions."  In my church growing up, you could pretty much guarantee that "Stewardship Sunday" (when the pastor spoke on giving and the needs of the church) would be one of the least-well-attended Sundays of the year!  Part of their mistake was announcing it was going to be Stewardship Sunday!  It's a sensitive topic in our materialistic culture, and those who like wealth will not like hearing Jesus speak so negatively about it. 
     The sad thing is that even people who worry themselves sick over the dangers of carcinogenics in their food, and are careful to avoid even the slightest possibility that any such contaminated product will ever touch their lips, don't give a second thought to the dangers of the spiritual carcinogens which wealth infects their soul with on a day in and day out basis.

     So how can you know if money is a "god" for you? You can get a good idea if while you read this thought you got defensive, were thinking of excuses not to do what he said, wanted to prove him wrong, enjoy getting far more than giving, or have a hard time bringing yourself to give joyfully, generously, and regularly.

Just a little food for thought!  In His Service, Pastor Jeff

A Soul Filled With God

Greetings All,

     This week's 'thought' comes to you from Gary Thomas, and is taken from his book, "Simply Sacred." It has to do with the blessings of a soul filled with God.  It caught my eye because just yesterday I was having this same exact conversation with two different individuals!
     As one who frequently counsels with people who are married, and those who are looking to get married, I always seek to share what Thomas shares in this post today. For if one simply grasps this one principle, it saves a lot of needless heartache.  And, of course, it need not be restricted to marriage. It can benefit any relationship, be it friendships, parent/child relationships, church relations, etc.  Enjoy.

A Soul Filled With God

     "Personal worship is an absolute necessity for a strong marriage. It comes down to this: If I stop receiving from God, I start demanding from others. Instead of appreciating and loving and serving others, I become disappointed in them. Instead of cherishing my wife, I become aware of her shortcomings.  I take out my frustrations with a less-than-perfect life and somehow blame her for my lack of fulfillment.

     But when my heart gets filled by God's love and acceptance, I am set free to love instead of worrying about being loved.  I'm motivated to serve instead of becoming obsessed about whether I'm being served.  I'm moved to cherish instead of feeling unappreciated.

     A wife complains about a lack of spiritual intimacy in her relationship with her husband. "He's never been what you might call a spiritual leader," she says, and this has become almost an obsession for her -- as if her own spiritual health depends on her husband suddenly becoming mature.

     Spiritual intimacy is a legitimate desire, but whenever we place our happiness in the hands of another human being, we guarantee ourselves some degree of disappointment. This is why worship sets us free. It meets our most basic need -- to rest in the fact that we are known and loved, that we have a purpose, and that our eternal destiny and delight is secure -- so lesser needs (including spiritual companionship) serve the role of an occasional dessert rather than our main meal.

     It's simply not fair to ask our spouse to fulfill us. No one can. If we expect our spouse to be God for us, our spouse will fail every day and on every account. Not only that, should our disappointment lead us to divorce, our second, third, and even fourth spouse will fail us too!

     There is no one else who can love us like God, with a steady and giving love. When the one thing we seek is to dwell in God's house, gaze on his beauty, and seek him in his temple (Psalm 27:4), our soul's sense of desperate need is met in our heavenly Father's arms. Then we leave the temple and find tremendous joy in giving, loving, and serving rather than in keeping close accounts as to whether we are being loved or being served."

     One of the most helpful things any couple can learn (and the earlier the better) is that their spouse does not have the ability to make them happy. There are many things a spouse can do, but making their spouse happy and fulfilled is not one of them.

     To understand this is especially important for the engaged and newly married, who often enter marriage with this fanciful falsehood ingrained in their minds through romantic books and movies which play on our utopian wants, and not life's realities. Surely the refusal to accept this truth is one of the factors that has fueled the rising divorce statistics where a husband/wife leaves their spouse in search of another, hoping the next one will supply the happiness and fulfillment #1 or #2 could not.

     To place such an impossible and unrealistic expectation on another human being sets that person up for failure, frustration, and anger. It's like asking that person to take a small cup and fill a bath tub with large cracks throughout and no plug in the drain!

     Yet it also sets the expectant one up for a life of disappointment, disillusionment, frustration, and anger, as well as feeding the blame game.  For whether it's verbalized or not, spouses who have not realized this truth will often think (regarding their partner): "If only they were more ______ and would do __________, then I'd be happy."

     The answer is "No, you wouldn't."  For true inner contentment and happiness doesn't come from others.  It comes as the soul is filled with the presence of God, and learns to rest in the Gospel truths of God's pardon, love, delight, and acceptance of us in Jesus. Then, from that inner soul-fullness, one is enabled to move out and joyfully share their life with others, instead of constantly seeking to get from them what that person is unable to give.

To Him alone who can fill our cup till it overflows in glad service to others, Pastor Jeff

Dependent

Greetings All,

This weeks 'thought" comes from one of the best and most thought provoking books I've read in a while - "Free of Charge - Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace." The author is Miroslav Volf. He was born in Osijek, Croatia, studied at Evangelical-Theological Faculty in Zagreb, and Fuller Theological Seminary, and is presently Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

His previous book, "Exclusion and Embrace" won the 2002 Grawemeyer Award in religion and was selected as among the 100 best religious books of the 20th Century by Christianity Today.

This selection comes from chapter one - "God the Giver," and is found under the sub-section entitled: "Breath" and "Denying Gifts, Wronging the Giver." Enjoy.

"The very existence of human beings comes from God. We live, not so much on a borrowed, but on a given breath. We work, we create, we give, but the very ability and willingness to work, along with life itself, are gifts from God. Moreover, these are not just gifts we can take and then run with on our own. They are gifts that, like breath, must be given over and over for us to even exist, let alone accomplish anything. 'What do you have that you did not receive?' asked the apostle Paul rhetorically (I Corinthians 4:7). The answer is: nothing, absolutely nothing.

Most of us don't quite 'get' the extent of God's gift giving, even if we grasp it intellectually. We live more or less like Raleigh Hays, the hero of Michael Malone's novel Handling Sin. He was a decent citizen and a responsible family man who 'obeyed the law and tried to do the right thing' and who thought he had secured for himself the decent middle-class life he led. He was wrong. Through a series of unlikely events, he had to be shaken into the awareness that some 'grace had given him, for no earthly reason, like surprise presents, everything, absolutely everything he'd thought he earned, and sustained by his own will, and deserved.' To come to believe that God has given us 'absolutely everything' is to know what it means that, as creator, God is a giver...

All things are from God and through God, and yet we want to be independent of God, standing on our own two feet, claiming God's gifts as our own achievement. The young Karl Marx, barely twenty-six years old, put this sentiment as boldly as possible. In a text that remained unpublished in his lifetime, he gave an expression to the heart of his rebellion against God:

'A being only counts itself as independent when it stands on its own two feet and it stands on its own two feet only as long as it owes its existence to itself. A man who lives by the grace of another considers himself a dependent being...'

Marx held firmly to human independence. It almost seemed to him a value that lies at the bottom of all values. Because the reality of God as creator is incompatible with human independence, he denied the existence of God.

Most of us, especially the believers among us, won't deny God's existence in order to secure our independence. Instead, we think that we can have it both ways. We believe that we can stand on our own two feet, independent of God, and still affirm that he is the creator of everything. But that doesn't make sense. We can be both dependent on God and free; dependence on God is the source of our being, and therefore our freedom. But we can't be created by God and independent; God sustains creatures in being and in freedom.

When we assert our independence, when we ascribe to ourselves what comes from God, we wrong God - at least as much as I would wrong an author whose ideas I would peddle as my own. That's our main sin against God the giver. If, like Raleigh Hays, we see ourselves as more or less honest, hardworking citizens, we may believe that we deserve what we have... that rather than receiving it, we earned it. And we want to dispose of our hard-earned goods the way we please. They become not so much gifts given to us to enjoy and pass on, but rather our exclusive possessions.

Assertion of independence, pride of achievement, sense of entitlement, an absolute right to dispose with our goods -- these are the ways in which we live in contradiction to who we actually are in relation to God. And in these ways, we, decent citizens, live as inveterate sinners. To live in sync with who we truly are means to recognize that we are dependent on God for our very breath and are graced with many good things; it means to be grateful to the giver and attentive to the purpose for which the gifts are given."

As 'believers' it's difficult for us to realize (because of the philosophical presuppositions we've inadvertantly adopted from our secularized, man-centered and humanistic culture) that the unbelievers desire to live independent of God and the believers error in thinking we are not entirely dependent on him at all times and for all things, are expressions of practical atheism. Volf (commenting on Marx) is right: 'The reality of God as creator is incompatible with human independence... we can't be created by God and independent," because "God sustains creatures in being and freedom."

Part of the "renewing of our minds" which Paul speaks of in Romans 12:2, involves simply coming to the place where we can honestly acknowledge what is true, and what unbelievers deny: That God is the giver of all -- that life and breath and everything else comes from Him (Acts 17:25), and thus we are entirely dependent on Him for everything! Our hearts would not beat, nor our minds think, nor our feet move, nor our souls feel, dream or desire (or anything else!) were it not for God's sustaining power and grace so constantly bestowed upon us every minute of every day!

No wonder Jesus could say, "I am the vine and you are the branches and apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5

Christianity is not a matter of attempting to believe something that's not true, it's merely coming to concede what is!

In Christ, Pastor Jeff

Learned to Be Content

Greetings All,

This week's "thought" comes to you from Beth Moore. I was visiting my mother's house in Massachusetts two weeks ago and Moore's book "Voices of the Faithful - Inspiring Stories of Courage from Christians Around the World," was sitting on a counter with a little piece of paper marking this entry.

Out of curiosity I picked up the book, opened to the marked page and started reading. I was struck by the truth of her words, and thought I would like to pass them on to you. It has to do with the rare Christian virtue or art of contentment. I trust her words may resonate with you as they did with me. Enjoy.

"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:11-13)

"I'm about to talk to you about contentment. It's not that I'm not content. For crying out loud, I ought to be content! My bird dog lives better than most of the world's human population. It's just absurd talking to you about it in the company of the people who will address the subject [from across the globe] in the next month.

I've noticed on a number of occasions, however, that God doesn't mind if I feel like an idiot... So here's my shot at a subject I know virtually nothing about. My inexperience with more extreme challanges of contentment stems from the fact that I've never really lacked...

To inhabitants of most Third World countries, Keith and I are rolling in cash. So are any of us in America literate enough to read this book. Most Western Christians don't know the first thing about biblical contentment. Then again, perhaps that's why in some ways we should be pitied. We are as addicted to more stuff as a cocaine addict is to his next snort. The more we have, the more we want. What we can't fit in our homes, we move into storage. What we can't pay for, we borrow. Relatively speaking,

we have more and give less than any people in the world. And we -- Western believers -- are arguably the most discontented Christians in the world...

Christians like me cannot say with the apostle Paul that we 'have learned to be content whatever the circumstances' because most of us have been less content with plenty than we are with less. Ironically, excess only increases discontentment. Why? Proverbs 13:12 offers a perfect explanation: 'Hope deferred makes the heart sick.' (NIV)

In other words, we set our hope on the lie that if we could only have this or that, we will be content. If we get it (or him, them or there), we are astonished to realize that it still doesn't cut it. Our hope that we'd finally be happy inevitably defers, and our hearts are left sick. At least with less, we still have the fantasy. Those with more and more attend one funeral of expectation after another.

So would poverty make us content? Hardly! ... Miserable 'have nots' make miserable 'haves.' Unhappy singles make unhappy spouses. Contentment has little to do with what

we have or lack. It is a state of mind. One that is far more often learned than suddenly attained, by the way.

Check out the apostle's wording again: 'I have learned to be content' and I have learned the secret of being content.' The original Greek word comes from the same word as 'disciple.' Paul explained that Christ had used circumstances to disciple him in the art of contentment. Discovering the power and presence of Christ in every circumstance was the secret.

Both 'haves' and 'have nots' alike need discipleship in contentment. How can 'have nots' learn to be content? I would not insult you by suggesting I know. I'll let some missionaries who have earned the right tell you. But how about the 'haves'? How can those among us with plenty -- who find ourselves addicted to more by a billion-dollar advertising industry -- learn a little contentment? Two suggestions: Practice saying no to ourselves if just for the satisfaction of Spirit-empowered self-

discipline. Second, give! Nothing brings the satisfaction of giving. If I'm feeling especially selfish, I know that I haven't been giving enough.

I lost my mind recently and wrote a check for a suit that was way over my price range. The salesperson hesitated just long enough for me to ask for the check back. I can't describe how good I felt walking out of that ridiculously expensive department store empty-handed. Had the discipleship lesson stopped there, I alone would have been helped. The next day I sensed God leading me to give away the money I was going to spend on that suit. I squirmed, then I submitted. Then I learned a secret."

May the Lord disciple our hearts as well -- especially as we come up on the holidays.

In the Bonds of Christian Charity, Pastor Jeff