The Praise of God

Our Baptism service is coming up in a few weeks (June 9^th, sign up HERE), and I’m really excited about the fact that people who have accepted Christ will have an opportunity to make a public celebration of their decision to follow Christ!  But some might wonder, is it really important?  I think it is, and as I was reading through the gospel of John this morning, one passage in chapter 10 stood out:

But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him…

Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. - John 12:37, 42-43 NLT

We all like to think that if we had lived in Jesus time, surely we would have been followers.  After seeing all of the miracles that Jesus performed, who wouldn’t believe that He was the Son of God?  Well, apparently many didn't, as I supposed there would always be those who will not accept God, no matter what. 

But then there were others who did believe, but they did not confess Him.  In other words they weren’t willing to publicly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.  So, were they “secret agent” Christians?  Were they really saved, but they were just hiding in the shadows?  I can’t say for sure, but Jesus was pretty clear about it:

“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”

 – Matt 10:32-33 NLT

And further, Roman’s 10 reads:

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”[e] (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. – Rom 10:8-10 NLT

To confess something means to make an acknowledgment or to agree to; To declare faith in or adherence to; To profess. 

It is an outward expression of an inward reality; It means that we are identifying ourselves with Jesus Christ; who He is, what He stands for, what He did for us. 

Why would some people want to believe in Christ, but not publicly confess Him?  John 10 tells us:  It was because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. In other words, they were worried about what the leaders in the synagogue would think.  They were worried what their friends would think.  Bottom line:  Confessing Christ would have had an impact on their life. 

That same situation stills exists today, there are those who want to believe, but they want to believe in secret, fearing that if they let their friends and co-workers know that they’ve made a decision for Christ, it will have an impact on their life.  

You know what?  They’re right… it will have an impact.  The decision to follow Christ changes EVERYTHING!  There are some things that will have to go: Relationships that don't honor the Lord; practices and behaviors that are sinful; our career might be impacted; our neighbors might not invite us over anymore.

Yet while we might experience loss in some areas, God promises us that we’ll gain in others:  

• We are promised forgiveness (1 John 1:9), 
• Peace (Phil 4:7), 
• That all of our needs will be provided for (Phil 4:19), 
• Deliverance from fear, power, and a sound mind (2 Tim 1:7), 
• Inclusion in the family of God (Eph 2:19), 
• Eternal life (1 John 2:25), 
• ...the list goes on and on! 

And that verse in John adds one more significant thing:  “they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” Did you catch that?  “… the praise of God.”  Why would God praise us?  I can only assess one reason why that would occur:  When we publicly confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

I look forward to an exciting day on June 9^th, when we celebrate with our brothers and sisters in Christ their public confession that they have given their lives to Jesus Christ, and that they are now the recipients of the greatest blessings that can be bestowed upon a human being:  the praises of God.

... till the whole world hears,

Pastor Clay

Feeding on Trash - Prov 15:14

Today’s daily reading from the One Year Bible (HERE) contained a proverb that really jumped out at me:

A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash. (Prov 15:14)

I read that and thought, “who want would eat trash?”  Pictures of people picking through a dumpster came to mind (no offense to any dumpster-divers out there).

But of course, Solomon was using a metaphor to describe a person who is mentally consuming information and material that is “junk.”  In our culture that would be feeding on titillating news, gossip and rumors, and crude humor.  TMZ.COM would be a good example. Jersey Shores.  I would even have to include a majority of the blogosphere and Twitterverse, both conservative and liberal, in that category.

That’s not to say that there isn’t some good and even godly content out there that can be encouraging.  But the majority of it is indeed, trash.  It has no spiritual or redeeming value.  Instead of building you up, it only riles you up!

I have to confess that I go through times when I get really caught up in the fray: political stories that flash across my dashboard can bring out my righteous indignation. But each time I am reminded of two things:

1. Man is simply not capable of governing himself, regardless of what political party he or she may belong to.
2. There will be no righteous king until our King, The Lord Jesus Christ, returns and establishes His kingdom.  He will rule in righteousness!

Another verse in our One Year Bible reading today brings me back home, when Jesus said:

“Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God.” (John 8:47)

That clears it up for me:  If we are wise, we’ll be hungry for the words of God, where true knowledge is found.  A lot of the other stuff out there is just trash.

Looking forward to seeing you all on Sunday, as we open the word of God, 2 Samuel 13, where we’ll be studying the fallout in David’s life from his area of weakness.

Pastor Clay

Use What's in Your Hand

This past Sunday I shared one of the things I learned at the Pastors Conference: a metaphor about how worship leaders are like the Sno-cone man, they bring sweet things and everyone loves them!  All humor aside, we did learn quite a lot at the conference.  One of the neat things I heard was:

Use whats in your hand.

Often we look at others, the gifts they have, the resources they have, and we think "I could be successful if I had that..."  While that might be true, the fact is that if God wanted you to have that gift/ability/resource, He would have given it to you!   See, God often uses what we perceive to be a lack of gift/ability/resources to a way to grow our faith, and glorify Him.

In John 6, Jesus is being pursued by the masses who were following Him.  He climbed to the top of a hill, and asked John how they could get bread to feed all those people.  John's response was practical, "Even if we worked for months we wouldn't have enough money to feed all these people."  True, but what John didn't count on was the "God Factor." Some kid comes up and says "Hey, I have a few fish and some bread," so Jesus takes that small amount of food, and uses it to feed five thousand people. In other words, that kid offered what was in his hand, and when Jesus got involved, it was enough!

Sometimes I feel like John, "Lord if we only had more money, or a bigger building, etc, etc, we could be more successful!"  But I am now reminded that God doesn't need any of those things, all we have to do is take what's in our hand, offer it to the Lord, and let Him multiply it - it will be enough!  And when the work is successful, what happens?  My faith is increased, and God is glorified.

Pastor Clay