Mar
25
Grace in dark places: FPC Bible Conference
Filed Under Around the Church, Bible, Nota Bene, Prayer | Leave a Comment
Thursday marks the beginning of FPC Kosciusko’s 2008 Bible Conference (click here for schedule and info). Dr. Derek Thomas will be coming to us from Jackson to preach on the topic Grace in Dark Places: Finding Hope in Depression and Suffering. We are praying that the Holy Spirit will use this conference to renew the ‘inner man’ of many people in midst of pain–pointing us to Christ as our hope in suffering, encouraging us in faith, and empowering us in our battle with sin.
Extra note: Derek Thomas will be the guest on WFCA’s morning call-in program, It’s Your Call, beginning at 7:30 am Wednesday, March 26. He will be talking about the conference and taking questions from callers. WFCA is on 107.9 FM or click here to find the link to listen over the internet from anywhere in the world.
Jan
1
A prayer for year’s end and beginning
Filed Under Around the Church, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms, The Church, Worship | Leave a Comment
Psalm 107 says, ‘Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.’ This past Sunday evening a good number of the Lord’s redeemed testified as to how goodness and mercy followed them during 2007. Laughter was heard, tears were shed, and God was glorified and enjoyed.
Below is a prayer adapted from The Valley of Vision that we pray together at FPC Kosciusko as the calendar turns.
O God, your love is beyond compare. You are good when you give,
when you take away,
when the sun shines upon me,
when the night gathers over me.
You have loved me before the foundation of the world,
and in love you have redeemed my soul.
You love me still, in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust.
Your goodness has been with me during another year,
leading me through a twisting wilderness.
Your goodness will be with me in the year ahead;
I launch my boat on the unknown waters of this year,
with you, as the pilot of my future, as of my past.
If you appoint storms of tribulation, you will be with me in them.
If you ordain joy and success, you will receive thanks and honor.
If I die, I shall see your face the sooner;
If I live, I shall walk by faith and not by sight.
Only glorify yourself in me whether in comfort or in trial,
as a chosen vessel suitable always for your use.
Give me your grace to sanctify me,
your comforts to cheer,
your wisdom to teach,
your right hand to guide,
your joy to strengthen,
your law to convict,
your presence to stabilize.
May the fear of the Lord keep me in awe of you,
and may the triumphs of your kingdom be my joy. AMEN.
May 2008 find us all faithful in adversity and thankful in prosperity. Grace and peace to you in the new year.
Nov
14
Ordination: lashed to the mast
Filed Under Around the Church, Four big ideas, Music, Poetry, The Church | Leave a Comment
I was ordained to the gospel ministry on November 13, 1994, by Southeast Alabama Presbytery. That was thirteen years ago yesterday. I remember it very well. I won’t bore you with the details. But, in God’s good providence, I found this on the web today: a recording of Rev. Greg Thompson of Trinity PCA in Charlottesville, Virginia, performing a beautiful song he wrote for an ordination service. You can listen here. I transcribed the words as best I could from the recording (with Joe’s help). If I have misheard something, I apologize and welcome correction.
Ordination Song
by Greg Thompson
Father, O you are the beautiful shepherd.
Who am I, Lord, that you summon me now
To serve at your table, to bless in your name, to shepherd your people somehow?
The way that you lead is a way that leads downward.
O, if I follow, the low place is mine.
Honor forsaking, my glory my shame, my footsteps imaging thine.
In darkness thou my portion art, my laughter in the light,
My comfort on the downward path, my goal and my delight.
From self-reliance, O King, would you guard me?
Almighty hands are more able to bear.
The Fall’s ridden sorrow and Eden’s lost dream, teach me to lay down there.
You are my Father and I thy beloved—this, my identity, etch in my soul:
Driven by mercy, singing of love, welcome thy welcoming goal.
So now do send me to comfort your people.
My God, I beg you, to go with me there.
The strength of my weakness, my poverty’s wealth, this, for thy glory, my prayer:
Further thy kingdom.
Restore our true home,
And may I be found with thee there.
Nov
7
May it not be charged
Filed Under Around the Church, Christian Living, Ethics, Family, Prayer, Psalms, The Church | Leave a Comment
I have been walking the familiar paths of Paul’s letters while keeping my eyes open for things along the path I have not noticed before. I had one of those moments the other day while reading the end of what we reckon is Paul’s final letter: 2 Timothy. He is writing some closing thoughts (and 4:6 suggests that Paul considers his execution a fait accompli) and warns Timothy about the treachery of Alexander the coppersmith. Paul takes comfort in his assurance that the Lord will certainly deal with Alexander according to his deeds (v.14-15). In the following verses, Paul recalls, At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. Those words deserve some further review.
You can read the commentators’ speculations on exactly what this first hearing incident was among his various encounters with the Roman legal system. Let’s be candid: it’s not that important. At a previous court appearance, Paul felt the disappointment of desertion by friends. He expected some support; instead, no one came. I think back over the last seventeen+ years I have been involved in the gospel ministry, and, while I’ve never faced arraignment before a court, I can identify with Paul to some degree. People let you down. They misunderstand you. They won’t stand with you in the face of opposition. They become hypercritical. They are fickle.
In one case, Paul speaks of enemies in the spirit of the imprecatory psalms–you know, Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun [Psalm 58:8]. In the other, he speaks of friends–people who ought to know and do better–who to a man deserted him at an hour of crisis. But he doesn’t lower the boom on them. Of them he says emphatically, May it not be charged against them! For one party he asks the Lord to repay with vengeance; for the other he seeks their pardon. May it not be charged against them! Paul asks the Lord to repay one to the last penny; to the other he asks the Lord to write the whole thing off.
Calvin comments on this difference:
He desires God to forgive the others, because they had fallen through fear and weakness, for we ought to have compassion on our brethren’s weakness. But Alexander had risen up against God with malice and sacrilegious audacity and was openly attacking the truth he had once confessed, and such wickedness deserves no mercy.
In times past I have been deserted and disappointed by church folk. Maybe there’s been an Alex Coppersmith in my life, but right now I can’t recall. But I can think of many deserters. No unbeliever has ever done me so much harm as fellow believers have. I don’t expect unbelievers to ‘get it.’ When they oppose, that’s par for the course in my book. But when insults, misrepresentations, slander, backbiting, and plain-old meanness and spinlessness come from within the family, that hurts!
Just when I am ready to start singing and praying the imprecatory psalms, I hear the words of Jesus: whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses [Mark 11:25]. Isn’t all of life worship? No, Jesus says. There are times when you stop whatever you’ve been doing to the glory of God and you stand still, and you enter (as it were) the temple of God, and you address God. Then forgiveness becomes a big issue. How often does Jesus speak of the need of his people to forgive those who have sinned against them? Very often. Always he mentions it in the context of our assurance that God has forgiven us. The forgiving heart is a forgiven heart. If we’re not forgiving people then we’ve no reason to believe that God has forgiven us. Jesus teaches this in the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, pray saying, “forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us”. The Lord makes the peril spectacularly clear, that if you forgive men when they sin against you your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you don’t forgive men their sins your Father won’t forgive you your sins. A man in Georgia said to John Wesley, “I never forgive.” Wesley said to him, “I hope you never sin.”
Was it a sin for certain individuals to hang back in the shadows while Paul stood alone defending himself? Absolutely. They prized convenience and safety more than standing with a brother in the midst of hardship. Did Paul ever confront all of these folk about it? Maybe. We don’t know. The loving rebuke of sin is a good thing. Regardless, Paul didn’t write them off. He didn’t savor the offense. He apparently didn’t refuse fellowship with them. On the contrary, he wants the Lord to deal with them as if it had never happened.
I once heard Geoffrey Thomas ask a group of ministers in a sermon, ‘Why do we feel the need to be vindicated all the time? Why the need to be so quick to defend ourselves? What of the glory and honor of Christ suffers when we are misunderstood or criticized?’ I’ll admit, I don’t necessarily like the right answers to those questions. As much as I want to claim to defend truth and righteousness, I am so much more eager to pursue them when my own skin is involved. I am often much more interested in advancing my reputation than that of Christ and his kingdom.
Praise be to God, for he will bring justice to the wicked and avenge the blood of his saints. He alone knows who the subjects of Satan are and when and how he will judge them. We can pray with Bonhoeffer, ‘God, now step in and destroy your enemy. Use your power, let your righteous wrath blaze forth.’ And we must also pray for others, saying, ‘May it not be charged to them. Forgive them for their weaknesses and ignorance and feebleness.’
For me, there can be no grudges. I thank God that he is still at work in me to will and to do of his good pleasure-so much so that I can say more and more, when I remember brothers and sisters who have let me down, May it not be charged to them!
Oct
25
Do not hold back
Filed Under Around the Church, Christian Living, Missions, The Church | Leave a Comment
FPC’s 52nd annual World Mission Conference begins tomorrow. The Rev. Les Newsom, RUF campus minister at the University of Mississippi, will be the main speaker (pray that he will be able to speak in spite of throat and respiratory problems!). Below is the exhortation I gave last Thursday evening at a well-attended special prayer meeting for the conference. It contains some thoughts on our theme “Do Not Hold Back”.
“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.”
Isaiah 54:2-3
Before going off to Ceylon [Sri Lanka], William Carey made and mended shoes. He also took a few hours of the day to teach some local school children. The students of William Carey’s geography class sometimes saw their teacher weep as he pointed on the map, marked with shoe black, to distant continents, islands and peoples. “And these are pagans, pagans!” he would say.
On May 31, 1792 in Nottingham, England, Carey preached a sermon which has been called ‘a burning bush of missionary revelation.’ He preached from Isaiah 54:2-3 and uttered a resounding plea that the gospel be proclaimed throughout the world. Carey’s message is summed up in these words: “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”
Carey was bold, wasn’t he? But he understood the Messianic promises, and he understood how to respond to those promises. The opposition of some who claimed they were being faithful to the doctrines of grace was shameful. Carey said,
‘We are sure that only those who ordained to eternal life will believe, and that God alone can add to the church such as shall be saved. Nevertheless we cannot but observe with admiration that Paul, the great champion for the glorious doctrines of free and sovereign grace, was the most conspicuous for his personal zeal in the work of persuading men to be reconciled to God.’
We need to hear that message once more. We need to see the picture the Lord set forth by Isaiah: the desolate woman bearing children, her tent being enlarged, her descendants spreading in every direction and inhabiting the desolate cities. We are wrong if we see its fulfillment only in the return of the exiles from Babylon. This is a Messianic promise. We need to see that the architect of the expansion of the kingdom is our Maker and that for good reason he is called the God of all the earth.
We need these promises of God’s unfailing love and unconquerable purpose so that we will not be afraid and hold back. Standing on these promises we will not fear our neighbor who needs to hear about Christ. We will not fear the forces that wage war against God and his Word. We will not fear Islam or secularism. We will not count our Savior to be too small and too weak to conquer the world.
Assured that our Maker is our husband, that the Holy One of Israel is our Redeemer, we must go ahead and enlarge the tent, to stretch the canopy wide, to lengthen the ropes and strengthen the stakes. Confident that the Lord Almighty is God of all the earth we must not hold back in our efforts to proclaim his message to all. God is declaring here that we may expect great things from him. Let’s also be ready to ask, “But am I holding back?”
Oct
10
Happy Birthday Phillip!
Filed Under Around the Church | Leave a Comment
Today is Phillip’s birthday! Why don’t you extend some birthday well wishes in the comments section.