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It’s Not The Same

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As I was leaving a coffee shop today I was stopped by a person who professes to be a believer in Jesus Christ.  I have had many conversations with this person in the fast regarding Christianity.  However, today, our conversation was very different than all of our previous ones.  Somehow he began talking about Catholics, Buddhists, Christians and a few other religions and then all of a sudden, he said “it’s a good thing they all believe something because that is all that matters.”  I then gave him a , “wait, what did you just say?” kind of look.  I then proceeded to say, but you know that all those religions are not the same.  He then returned my look with his own dumbfounded look.  I continued by saying,  if what Jesus said is true, “I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through Me”, then all those religions are wrong except for Christianity (John 14:6).  

He quickly changed the subject, we talked for a few more minutes, and then I left.  But as I left, I could not help but think, “how many professing Christians gather every week with the church and think that there is no real difference between Christianity and other religions?  How many professing Christians think that as long as you believe in something, then that is all that matters?”  

As I have continued to ponder those questions I am horrified to think that the number may be very large.  These questions have in turn made me think deeply about how I preach and generally talk about Christianity.  Do I talk to others (whether preaching, in a coffee shop, or wherever) in way that could be interpreted that all religions are the same?  Am I am clear that Christianity is different?  Am I clear in communicating that the claims of Jesus are exclusive?  Do I back away from presenting the truth  in order to prevent waves in a relationship?

What is clear, is that there are many people who profess to believe in Jesus Christ who are not aware of what the really means.  And if these people are telling others about Christianity, then there are continuing to muddy the water and causing great confusion.  

As Christians we must be bold and clear in communicating that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that only by faith in Him are we saved.  There is no other religion that can bring us into a right relationship with God, the Father.  And we must be clear that there are extreme consequences for rejecting the grace of Jesus Christ.  We must not hesitate in this, the water are already muddied.  Let us with love and by God’s grace tell others with clarity, who Jesus is and what He has done.  

17 Reflections on God’s Word

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As I reflected on the power and wonder of God’s Word today, I began to write all that came to mind.  The following list is the result.

  1. God’s Word creates from nothing. (Gen 1:1)
  2. God’s Word gives life. (Gen1:20-22)
  3. God’s Word defines what is good. (Gen1:31)
  4. God’s Word is the object of Satans attack. (Gen 3:1-5)
  5. God’s Word is what man rejects. (Gen 3:6-7))
  6. God’s Word brings forth curses. (Gen3:14-19)
  7. God’s Word is given in hard tablet form. (Exodus 20:1-17)
  8. God’s Word brings blessing on those who obey and curses on those who disobey. (Deut.28:1-2,15)
  9. God’s Word comes in the flesh. (John1:1-3)
  10. God’s Word gives life to all who believe. (John 1:12-13)
  11. God’s Word is proclaimed by the church as the hope of the world. (Matt 28:18-20)
  12. God’s Word condemns Satan and his followers for all eternity. (Rev 19:15-21)
  13. God’s Word rebukes false teaching and the lies of Satan. (Titus 1:9)
  14. God’s Word equips the man of God for righteousness (2 Tim 3:16-17)
  15. God’s Word produces faith (Rom 10:17)
  16. God’s Word purifies our souls through our faith and obedience. (1 Peter 1:22-23)
  17. God’s Word gives birth to an imperishable community (the church). (1 Peter 1:23)

 

There are many many more things that could be said. But I hope this brief list encourages you to love and study God’s Word all the more. It is God’s Word that gives life and it is His Word that sustains life.  May we the church be committed to God’s Word and may we hide it in our heart that we would now sin (Psalm 119:11).

20 things Christians can do with one another

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Lately at Timberline we have been wrestling more and more about what it means for Christians to be family. Here is a list of 20 things Christians can do with one another on an everyday basis to demonstrate they are family.

  1. Eat together.
  2. Check in with each other regularly.
  3. Actively engage in conversations that go deeper than the weather.
  4. Talk about sin, suffering, grace, fears, the gospel, God, Jesus, Spirit, your marriage, work, hopes, dreams, failures, loss, joy, the sovereignty of God, God's provision, etc…
  5. Watch movies together.
  6. Watch their kids and don't charge them.
  7. Help each other with projects (house stuff, hobbies, work, etc…)
  8. Give small tokens of appreciation.
  9. Cry with one another when their is pain and suffering. Don't sit on the sidelines waiting to be invited into their pain. Actively let them know you care and love them simply with your presence. You don't even need to talk much. Some times a box of Kleenex's and a shoulder is all you need to bring.
  10. Go on vacation together.
  11. Study God's word together
  12. Pray, and be specific about requests.
  13. Rebuke /correct one another. If you cannot correct one another (in love and grace) then your relationship is probably pretty shallow. Go deep with each other and experience the joy that comes with vulnerability.
  14. Take each other meals when sick.
  15. Clean someone's house before they get back from vacation, the hospital, a long day at work, etc…
  16. Do game nights with each other.
  17. Disciple your unbelieving friends together. (You don't have to do evangelism by yourself). This could even take place on a game night. Include your unbelieving friends in your Christian community and let them see the power of Christ in how you talk and love one another.
  18. Pursue your friends when they are hurting, pushing you away, and diving into some form of depression or anger. Don't let them go. Pray, pray and then pray more. Let us fight the spiritual battles for our brothers and sisters when they are to weak to fight.
  19. Go on a mission trip together to another country.
  20. Serve the needy within your community together.

A few thoughts on humility…

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Currently I am working my way through Paul Miller’s book, A Loving Life, which is excellent and I highly recommend it. In this book, Miller takes the reader on a journey though the O.T. Book, Ruth. He shows how Ruth (the book) is filled with hesed love. And just as any good book on love does, it must as some point begin talking about humility. I just finished reading chapter 13, Humilty: The Path Of Love.

Here are a few observations the Miller made which I found to be particularly good:

  1. Humility is physical.
  2. You can see humility. It is not vague. (Humility is not only something you talk about it must also be tangible and observable.)
  3. It can feel like you are disappearing. (While it is observable, it is also practically invisible. Humility does not come with neon signs and loud music.)
  4. Many sins such as anger, jealousy, and quarreling are rooted in our unwillingness to take a low place. (Wimpy people are not humble, they whine too quickly and cannot stand being over-looked.)
  5. Once you get over the shock, the low place is a place of deepl soul rest.
  6. You discover people in the low place. (Humble people see others as more important than themself and place others needs above their own.)
  7. The great joy of the low place is that it is where God dwells. See Phill 2:1-11.

(Whatever is in parentheses is what I added, and not from Millers book.)

 

I love #7, humility is where God dwells. When we act in humility we are truly operating with the mind of Christ and living as He did. When we pray to become like Jesus, we are essentially praying to be humble, to be low, to be unnoticed and over-looked. But just as Jesus went to the cross in great joy (Heb 12:2), so we too, as we walk in the power of Jesus, filled with humility, will experience great satisfying joy.

The Radicalness of Adoption

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In about 12 hours I will see our son Caleb for the very first time face to face. Words cannot express my excitement. My wife and I were matched with Caleb in Novemeber of 2012, and tomorrow we hold him. As I sit here in our hotel room counting down the hours till we see our son, I cannot help but begin to realize how much his world is going to change.
  • He will leave the only house he has ever known.
  • He will say good-bye to his foster mon and dad.
  • He will move to a country on the other side of the world.
  • He will begin to hear and learn a new language called English.
  • He will be surrounded by more toys than he knew existed.
  • He will be introduced to Christianity and be taught the difference between it and Buddhism.
  • He will be surrounded by white people (and he most likely has never seen a white person before).
  • He will go from a small town to a city.
  • He will no longer be an only child but he will have a brother and sister.
  • He will no longer live in a one room house but a house with many rooms.
  • He will no longer share a bed with the rest of his family but he will have his very own bed.
  • He will change from a Thai dominated diet to an Amercian diet.
  • He will become a American citizen.
  • And I am sure there are many more.

Because of our adopting Caleb, his world (and ours) will radically change. Now I don't mean any of these changes are bad, but they are very real. By the end of our trip, Caleb will have a new identity. And as radical as these changes are, they pale in comparison to the changes that take place when we are adopted into the family of God.

  • We go from slaves to sin to slaves of God.
  • We go from sons of the devil to sons of God.
  • We go from under the wrath of God to being at peace with God.
  • We go from condemned to glorified.
  • We go from unrighteousness to righteous.
  • We go from no family to an eternal family.
  • We go from separated from God to united with God.
  • We go from citizens of a temporal world to citizens of the eternal Kingodm of God.
  • We go from broken and shattered to made new and built on the cornerstone of Jesus.
  • We go from unholy to holy.
  • We go from spiritually dead to spiritually alive.

Because of God's adoption through Jesus Christ we are given a new identity and are radically changed. The doctrine of adoption is one of the greatest gifts we receive from God.

I thank God for adopting me into His family and I thank God for allowing my wife and I to participate in an adoption process. Even though I have not yet held Caleb or even touched him, God has already used him to increase my love for Him. Praise God for adoption.
My prayer as my wife and I continue forward is that God will help us be good parents to Caleb, that he will use our adoption to testify of how He adopts us, and that our love for Him would exponentially grow because of the family He has given us.
 
 
 

Our Spiritual Worship

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Warning: this post is a bit of a ramble.  Everything written below is what I am praying and working through right now.  Okay, now that I have prefaced this blog (not sure that is good to do or not), last week I preached on Romans 12:1-20.  Particularly focusing on verses one and two.

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)

As I  studied this text, preached this text and have continued to think about this text, one thing is clear, I cannot stop thinking about this text.  The implications are massive and I mean world-changing massive.  Paul says we are to present our bodies as sacrifices to God.  The basis of this command is on God’s mercies.  Because of all God’s mercies that Paul has talked about in Romans 1-11,  we are to offer our bodies as sacrifices to God.  The reason we do this is because we are worshippers of God (identity) and it is as we present our bodies to God as a sacrifice that we worship Him.  Paul is clear, this “is your spiritual worship.”

The word “body” refers to every part of our lives.  This means everything we do as Christians is for the glory of God. Everything we do is to be an act of worship.  I cannot get that out of my mind.  God did not save me so I would live for Him sometimes but that my life would be a living, holy, and acceptable sacrifice to Him at all times.  I have been saved to Worship God all the time.

In one sense this is not a very difficult passage to understand.  It is pretty clear and straight-forward.  But if we really begin to think about what it means then we quickly come to the realization that it affects everything.  It affects:

  • what I do everyday
  • where I eat
  • how I spend money
  • who I spend time with
  • where I go
  • how I vacation
  • how I relax
  • when I get up in the morning
  • when I go to sleep
  • what hobbies I have
  • EVERYTHING.

It is these implications and so many more that continue to run through my head.  My life is not my own.  My life is to be used as a sacrifice to God.  My life is for God’s glory.

The reason I say the implications of this passage are world-changingly massive is because if we the church lived this way, then this world would be different.  And I don’t mean marginally different, I mean radically different.  Perhaps the world would once again repeat the words of Acts 17:6, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.”

As I write this, I am very much humbled by this verse and by the fact that I fall so short.  At the moment, my prayer is that God, through the transforming of my mind would help me to be a sacrifice for Him at all times.  That he would help me as a father, a husband, a pastor, a friend and a disciple of Jesus to be a living, holy, acceptable sacrifice to God.  I pray this becomes an increasing reality in my life everyday.

I saw Him and I sought Him, I had Him and I wanted Him

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I just finished reading Michael Horner’s book, When Missions Shapes the Mission: You And Your Church Can Reach The World .  This is a great book that emphasizes the Biblical Mandate for the church to go and reach the world with the gospel.  But what was really good about this book, was that after Horner presented the Biblical evidence for missions, he then presented a whole, “how to” section.  I definitely recommend this book for any Christian.

Below are a sampling of quotes that I really enjoyed from the books:

Missions, properly defined is making God’s glory known in all the earth so that in and through Jesus Christ all will be glad and sing for joy in His presence. (4)

Missions is God’s plan for reaching all nations with the good news of Jesus Christ by sending His people to tell them about and show them the gracious, redeeming love of a glorious God. (6).

The motivation force behind the early missions in the church was the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that empowering presence moved the people of God to become vital witnesses for the glory of Jesus Christ. (51).

If our hearts are not held in the grip of a profound love for Jesus Christ and a deep appreciation for the treasure He is, we will not be motivated to continue in our commitment to speak of His glory among the nations for very long. (52).

Before missions takes hold of the church, a consuming desire for Christ and His passions must be shaped in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. (57)

If we are not open to be set apart in the way we live, ho will we ever be willing to be sent away to introduce people from every nation to the holiness that is required to see the Lord. (121)

Another quote I enjoyed was from Hudson Taylor’s journal.  Taylor was an Englishman whose love for Christ led him to give up everything,  go to China, and share the gospel.  By his death in 1904 he had established over 205 missions stations all over China.  This is what he wrote when describing why he went to China.

“Well do I remember how in the gladness of my heart I poured out my soul before God. Again and again confessing my grateful love to Him who had done everything for me, who had saved me when I had given up all hope and even desire for salvation, I besought Him to give me some work to do for Him as an outlet for love and gratitude…

Well do I remember as I put myself, my life, my friends my all upon the altar, the deep solemnity that came over my should with the assurance that my offering was accepted.  The presence of God became untenably real and blessed, and I remember… stretching myself on the ground lying there before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy.  For what service I was accepted I knew not, but a deep consciousness that I was not my own took possession of me which never since [has] effaced…

I saw Him and I sought Him, I had Him and I wanted Him.”

 

The Gospel is Everything

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As Tim Keller said, the Gospel is not the ABC’s of Christianity but it is the A-Z of Christianity.  The point is, the Gospel is Everything.  There is nothing as beautiful, humbling, awe-inspiring, life-transforming, horrendous, gracious, or as loving as the gospel. According to Dave Harvey,

“The gospel is the heart of the Bible.  Everything in Scripture is either preparation for the Gospel, presentation of the Gospel, or participation in the gospel.”

So what is the gospel?  The Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ.  The gospel is that God sent His Son, Jesus, to this world that He would die on a cross so that all who believe in Him would be forgiven of sins, adopted into His family, and worship Him forever.  

And it is this Gospel that is the  hope of the world.  There is salvation in no one else but Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the only one who has come from Heaven as a propitious offering so that man would have a personal peace-filled relationship with God.  

And it is this gospel that has forged the church and continues to forge the church.  What I mean is that the gospel has saved and formed the church and the gospel continues to save and form the church.  The church is a gospel forged people who have been given the mission to proclaim this amazing gospel to the world that more and more people would be continue to be reconciled to God.  

And so this blog will  primarily be focused on how the church is forged by the gospel and proclaims the gospel.