Our Wonder at the Miracle of the Incarnation of Jesus -- who is Emmanuel, God with us

Greetings All!

     At this special time of the year I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a blessed Christmas observance.  I know it gets busy, and a million other things compete for our attention, but one thing should remain preeminent amidst all the others -- our wonder at the miracle of the incarnation of Jesus -- who is Emmanuel, God with us
     Donald M. Fairbairn, Jr., professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, puts it so well:

"In Hebrews 1:3 the writer describes who the Son is—the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.  God is often pleased to work through beings he has created—through people and angels.

But for his greatest works—creating us, sustaining us, and making purification for our sins, God works not beings who reflect his glory, or are created in his image, but through the one who gives off that glory, who exactly matches his own being—his very own Son.  For the task of redeeming us, no one less would.  For the task of redeeming us, no one less would have sufficed. Let us worship the Son this Christmas!"

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!   Pastor Jeff 

The International Anthem: Come and See What the Lord Has Done

Greetings All,

     This week's 'thought' comes to you from an young man (an elder in my congregation) who preached for us this past Sunday on the topic of world missions.  He, his wife and children hope to be on the mission field soon, and thus I would venture to guess his comments underlie a great part of their motivation for desiring to go abroad. I thought his insights were superb and would be a blessing to others, and thus I send them along. 

     His name is Pete Falconero, and this selection comes from his message to us entitled: "The International Anthem:  Come and See What the Lord Has Done." Enjoy and be encouraged! 

     "Charles Spurgeon once said: "It is the WHOLE BUSINESS of the WHOLE CHURCH to take the WHOLE GOSPEL to the WHOLE WORLD."

     Does the term "whole business" mean that everything we do in the church, including the local ministries, needs to be focused on Global Missions? The answer is No... and yes.  Missions doesn't need to be in the forefront of every ministry, but every ministry should have an impact on Global Missions.

     What we’re doing here with our local church and local ministries is igniting small fires of passion for the glory of God in all the geographic areas around our church.  But these are not fires we want to contain.

     We want to let these fires spread horizontally to neighboring towns and counties and states and countries and peoples.  We set little fires with the hope that these will become a huge conflagration of wildfires sweeping across the globe.  In this way, missions IS the WHOLE MISSION of the church.

     The existence of any 'mission' whether its a Navy Seals mission, or Christian Missions, indicates there is a problem that requires the dispatching of men and women into a strategic location. There is a situation for which there is great risk and yet great reward.

     So in the context of Christian Missions, what is the problem? Romans 3:23 says the WE are the problem. The crux of the problem is that, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." ALL. Every person in every nook and cranny on the face of planet earth.

     We share this in common with our human family: We've all fallen short of his glory.  Man has deviated from his design and now everything is wrecked. Every problem on earth is due to man’s fall from glory… sickness, oppression, violence, and perversions of every kind. It all points at us... But -- praise God -- this is not the whole story.  Missions exists because the story’s not over.  Missions seeks to re-introduce mankind to its over-riding purpose: To glorify God in all things.

     The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks: "What is the chief end of man?"  And the answer?  "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." There are tons of verses to support this conclusion. And notice it says "chief end" not "chief ends."  It’s singular because glorifying God and enjoying God always go hand in hand.  And when we joyfully proclaim the glories of God to the world, we are showing His true worth to us.  This is worship. God’s glory and our joy are the essence of worship.

     As John Piper says, it is also the engine of missions. “Missions," he says, "is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.  Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.”   The gladness of peoples in the greatness of God -- that alone is enough of a reason for Missions right there.

     Read Psalm 98. The psalmist starts out by singing the glories of God for His marvelous works, His salvation, His righteousness, His love, His faithfulness.  And he is bursting at the seams with joy. He is so joyful in his glorification of God that he can’t keep this to himself. So in v. 4 he invites all the earth to sing along! The people, the mountains, the rivers, the sea.  Everyone and everything grab an instrument!  You can’t miss out on singing this song!  All created things doing what they were created to do: Joyfully proclaiming the glory of God in song.

     For most of us, singing is a response to a joyful state.  My wife knows when I’m in a good mood because I go around singing -- in the car, in the shower.  I don’t know what kind of notes I’m hitting, they aren't the right ones, and she let’s me know -- but I am singing!  Yet, conversely, when I’m upset, I don’t sing.  I've never once said, “I’m so mad I could just sing." Because worship requires joy.  Worship must include both glorifying God and enjoying God. If worship didn't include glory and joy, than we could just get Siri from the iPhone up here to lead worship by reading us some lyrics.

     So, again, this is the problem: There are people all over the world that aren't worshiping or glorifying the One True God.  And they are not experiencing the overwhelming joy that is the result. We want to open up the peoples of the world to Joy.  Not just happiness.  If it was just circumstantial happiness we’re after, we could fly around the world airdropping puppies and clowns.  People need the joy of knowing Christ.  And here’s my definition of Joy: Joy is the fixed smile of the soul that comes when one is glorifying and worshiping God.

     This is the BIG WHY for missions. There are smaller why’s, but they all flow out of this BIG why: The glorification of God for the enjoyment of all peoples."

     It was a fantastic message.  And if you would like to hear it uncut, as he covers the other three points, you can simply click on http://www.christcommunitybiblechurch.org/ and listen to it.  It's the most recent message from the sermon archive.

May God's richest blessings rest upon you,  Pastor Jeff

Created, Redeemed and Loved

Greetings All,

This week's thought comes to you from Henri Nouwen, a prolific Dutch writer and at various times a professor of Christian spirituality at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard. His last few years were spent at one the L'Arche communities, caring for mentally handicapped people. This profound insight comes from his time working in that community and has to do with how we in our culture measure our value as people. It is found in his book "In The Name of Jesus." Enjoy.

"The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking or disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction...

Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, and reputations could no longer be counted on.

This experience was and, in many ways, still is the most important experience of my new life, because it forced me to rediscover my true identity. These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self -- the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things -- and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, and open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.

I am telling you this because I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God's love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God's Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life...

Beneath all the great accomplishments of our time there is a deep current of despair. While efficiency and control are the great aspirations of our society, the loneliness, isolation, lack of friendship and intimacy, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression, and the a deep sense of uselessness fill the hearts of millions of people in our success-oriented world... Feeling irrelevant is a much more general experience than we might think when we look at our seemingly self-confident society... More and more people are suffering from profound moral and spiritual handicaps without any idea of where to look for healing.

It is here that the need for new Christian leadership becomes clear. The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there."

Nouwen's book is well worth a read. I would like to quote more, but the longer the quote the less likely people are to read it! All the places where you see the.... is an indication I skipped over a section to keep it as short as possible. A complete reading of In the Name of Jesus is recommended.

Yet, what is written here is enough to help us to ask: "What do I base my value on? What do I consider to make me a person of worth? Is it my accomplishments and achievements? My competencies and talents?"

Or is it as Nouwen discovered by being in a place where none of that mattered: "That God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love." And have we, like him, realized that we are not simply to affirm that truth, but realize that as Christ followers God has "chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life."

In the Bonds of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff