Pastor's Message (December 8, 2011)

Pastor's Message (November 3, 2011)

Pastor's Message (October 1, 2011)

Pastor's Message (September 1, 2011)

Pastor's Message (August 1, 2011)

Pastor's Message (July 7, 2011)

Dear Friends,

Pastor's Message (June 13, 2011) 

Someone has said that "A man without goals comes to the end of life only to discover that the bulk of his life's history can be summarized by

(1) 20 years of sleeping,

(2) 5 years of dressing and shaving,

(3) 3 years of waiting on others,

(4) 1 year on the telephone,

(5) 4 years tying his shoes, and

(6) 6 years of watching television." 

Needless to say, 'Without goals, the routines of life become the ruts of life!"

Even Books of the Bible have goals.  When God inspired John to write several Books of the Bible, the goal was established.  "These are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through His name" (John 20:31). 

When 1 John was penned, a two-fold goal was shared:  "These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full" (1:4); and "These things have I written unto you . . . that ye may know that ye have eternal life"  (5:13).

Second John (v.12) again shares God's goal to the recipients:  "Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face that our joy may be full!" 

The goal of 3 John is "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in good health, even as thy soul prospereth" (v.2).

The importance of goals is underlined by Dr. Howard G. Hendricks, "I have never met a Christian who sat down and planned to live a mediocre life.  But if you keep going in the direction in which you are moving, you may land there." 

It is not enough to have goals, the Christian should also test them.  Here is a "Christian's Check List for Testing Goals."

1.  Do all of my goals fit into the context of my written, stated purpose for my life (life-long goal).

2.  Have I been honest enough to set goals in every area of life, believing God is interested in the total "me":  spiritual area?  recreational?  professional?  social?  educational?  intellectual?  family relationships?  financial?

3.  Have I developed long-range, short-range and immediate goals?  Have I developed them in that order so the long-range goal will pre-determine my other goals?

4.  Can my goals glorify God or are they selfish in nature?

5.  Did I ask God for His wisdom and guidance before I attempted to establish these goals?

6.  Would Jesus Christ be willing to be Lord of my life and preside over the reaching of goals such as mine?

7.  If I am thoroughly convinced these are God-given goals, then cannot I expect His power to work in the achievement of these goals?

The main goal of a Christian should not be to be a better Christian.  That is too selfish.  Jesus said we should bear fruit, not be better fruit.  We will not be better fruit unless we bear fruit.  When we are not interested in others, we become self-centered.  When we try to save ourselves, we lose ourselves.  Only as we lose ourselves in service to Him, can we please Him.  "He that winneth souls is wise" (Proverbs 11:30).

The purpose of the church is two fold, according to the Great Commission of Christ:  (1)  to win people to Christ, and (2)  to teach them to do all the things which Christ commanded them to do. 

People at the church should have goals in mind, and frequently speak of the exciting things God is doing.

Excitement is vitally related to goal-setting.  And the excitement rapidly grows with goal reaching. 

Ready for a dare?  First, I dare you to ask God to give you some goals.  Second, I dare you to apply the "Christian's Check List for Testing Goals" - apply it to your goals until you answer all seven questions with a "Yes!!"  Third, I dare you to try to keep from getting excited when God's enabling power works through you and you begin to see your (really His) goals reached!

Pastor's Message (June 1, 2011) 

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21 and verses 21-22, Jesus said this: "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done.  And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."
 
In reviewing the past week and the last few days in our area, I want to commend each of you for your help in the effort in Joplin. 

There have been so many avenues of ministry that have been fulfilled by faithful Christians who are serving our Lord by serving others. 

Jesus said in Matthew 25:40, "Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me."  Many of you have been out in the field actually helping in the clean-up and search process, many of you have been serving meals to the workers and those who have no homes now to go to and have a meal, others have helped in giving out clothing, food, provided furniture, provided places for someone to stay, etc.  I could go on and on with these ministries. 

Our church is providing lodging for a group of 70 people from Americorp who come in each evening and have a cool place to sleep, showers to freshen themselves up, and then leave the next morning to go out and work some more.  Those words of Jesus keep coming back to me, "if you do it to one of the least of these, you did it to Me." 

What an opportunity we have to do things for Jesus and what a wonderful job is being done.  Going back to Matthew 21:22, Jesus said, "and whatever thing you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."  There has been much prayer offered by believers and many are receiving because of those prayers.  It is so good to be a part of the work of Christ in our area and know that God is bringing so many people together to accomplish His will.
 
Here is a prayer I would like to share with you and ask you to keep it in your heart throughout these next months as work for our Lord continues: 
 
Lord, there are so many times when we have burdens almost too heavy to bear.  Our nation faces hardships and pain and our area is suffering from devastation; we need Your wisdom and help in all areas.  Strengthen us as a people and lead us in the way that will bring honor and glory to You.  Lord, You have promised that if we humble ourselves and seek Your face and pray, You will heal our land.  Strengthen our faith.  Help us to never doubt Your Word and Your faithfulness.  Lift us up that we may boldly proclaim Your truth each and every day.  Let us be sensitive to the leading of Your Spirit and never forget that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (1 Corinthians 4:13).  Lord, we praise You because Your mercies are new every morning, and Your faithfulness is great.   AMEN.
 
May God bless you and keep you and His face shine down upon you as you go forth to do the work he has called each of us to do.

Pastor's Message (May, 2011) 

God's peace is not a denial of reality.  God never intends for us to turn a blind eye to the reality of the situation, including evil. 

Pastor's Message (April, 2011)

A young preacher, now wonderfully used of God, was having a rough time a few years ago.  The church he was in was small, nothing exciting happening, and the thought struck him, "If I could just change churches."

The answer is simple, and it's something that we all must face and stare down:  FEAR. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his first inaugural address, declared, "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzed needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." 

Spoken at the height of the Great Depression, his statement is appropriate for us in the economic times of our day.  Fear cripples creativity and diminishes self-image.  Fear creeps into your life, often leaving you impotent to perform.

One of the greatest fears men and women face is the fear of failure, the fear that we will not "make it," the nagging insecurity that we won't succeed or be good enough.  Too often we forget that we are always "good enough" in the eyes of the Lord.  We are all His children, we are His Creation, and as such we are a success. 

But still there are moments in which fear screams so loudly in your ears that you think, "There's no way I'm going to make it."  The first time your mouth says it or your mind thinks it, you have dented your armor and undermined your effectiveness.  If you let it fester in you, it will infect you like a plague and demolish your creativity altogether.

I have found that life will give you enough real enemies to fight without fighting the ghosts and goblins, the haunting voices that lurk in the shadows of your mind.  It is not a tragedy to lose a race when you know you have done your best.  The challenge comes when you finish third, with your cheeks flushed and your lungs burning within you, and you have to hear the nagging voice in your head that whispers that you could have run it more effectively if you had only done this or that. 

Who wants to get up in the morning and look into a face that sneers back and says, "You could have run farther, but you wouldn't strip for the race"?  That's right, I said strip.  Drop everything that is not essential so that you can run faster, soar higher and reach farther and achieve your full potential.

Fear must be at the top of the list of things that you must strip off.  The first thing we leave behind us is fear.  It is the enemy of greatness, the opposite of faith.  The longer it lives within you, the stronger it lives within you.  Fear is fertilized by words.  But it is not the words that others say that leave you trembling or intimidated.  No, it is the words that you say to yourself. 

Now, I better make this clear because many of you are not likely to sit in the corner literally trembling.  You will pass over this as if it doesn't apply to you unless I identify the fact that all fear doesn't manifest itself in the kind of trembling that is obvious. 

Some fears that rob you and weigh you down manifest themselves in pettiness and jealousy. 

Some fears manifest in your need to make people know who you are and what you have done because you secretly fear that you will be overlooked or not measure up to the mark. 

Fear is what causes men to feel insulted by women who make more money than they do. 

It is not always the trembling neurotic fear that makes us bite our fingernails that has to be fought.  It is the fear that will affect your character and cause you to do devious things in order to climb ladders that are not even worth the trip. 

These are weights that hinder you from having good success.  Good success adds no sorrow to it.  But success alone can make you miserable.  

God said to Joshua these words (Joshua 1:8-9):  "This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.  For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.  Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."  

The writer of Proverbs says (Proverbs 10:22):  "The blessing of the LORD makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it."

To strip yourself of the enemy of fear, you must first indentify it.  Fear will hide in your motives.  It will drape itself in overprotctiveness and anger, but it is a liar hiding in your motives. 

It will feed your mind with clutter and weigh you down with the responsibility of feeling like you have to look out for yourself, protect yourself and defend yourself. 

Fear inflates itself so much that it may make you forget that there is Someone greater than the self, and He is looking out for you. 

Fear is an added weight you don't need.  Remember, the worst enemies to fight are the ones that live within. 

Ask yourself every day:  How can I maximize my life if I do not minimize my baggage?  The excessive baggage of fear will defeat you every time. 

Airplanes will not fly without checking the weight load.  No one flies high with too much weight.  The higher you fly, the less dead weight you can carry. 

Stop listening to the words of fear trying to cut you from within.  Stay focused on the prize, not on the threats of harsh competitors.  Most of all, learn to hear the Master's voice whispering your true identity. 

Like the most beloved coach who desires and empowers our ultimate victory, our God speaks to us if we will only listen.

Let's train ourselves to listen and be attentive to what God is saying.

Dr. Fred Craddock, long-time pastor and Director of Preaching and New Testament at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia, has a story that I want to share with you.  Hopefully, it will open our eyes to a lot of things that we need to see around us today.  The story goes like this:
 
My mother took us to church and Sunday School; my father didn't go.  He complained about Sunday dinner being late when she came home. 

Sometimes the preacher would call, and my father would say, "I know what the church wants.  Church doesn't care about me.  Church wants another name, another pledge.  Right?  Isn't that the name of it?  Another name, another pledge."  That's what he always said.

Sometimes we'd have revival.  The pastor would bring the evangelist and say to the evangelist, "There's one now, sic him, get him, get him," and my father would say the same thing.  Every time, my mother in the kitchen, always nervous, in fear of flaring tempers, of somebody being hurt.  And always my father said, "The church doesn't care about me.  The church wants another name and another pledge."  I guess I heard it a thousand times.

One time he didn't say it.  He was in the veteran's hospital, and he was down to seventy-three pounds.  They'd taken out his throat, and said, "It's too late."  They put in a metal tube, and Xrays burned him to pieces.  I flew in to see him.  He couldn't speak, couldn't eat.  I looked around the room, potted plants and cut flowers on all the windowsills, a stack of cards twenty inches deep beside his bed.  And even that tray where they put food, if you can eat, on that was a flower.

All the flowers beside the bed, every card, every blossom, were from persons or groups from the church.

He saw me read a card.  He could not speak, so he took a Kleenex box and wrote on the side of it a line from Shakespeare.  If he had not written this line, I would not tell you this story.  He wrote:  "In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story."

I said, "What is your story, Daddy?"

And he wrote, "I was wrong."
 
As I reflect on that story, I picture so many people who probably feel like Dr. Craddock's father.  They think the only things the church is interested in are "another name and another pledge." 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the church could be thought of as a group of people who really cared for others? 

Why can't that be true? 

Isn't that what Christianity is all about? 
 
If we have the reputation of just wanting names and numbers then our churches are not in, they are just in business.  I believe the church should be the place where people come to receive spiritual guidance, Christian love and support.  It doesn't matter their status in the world.  

John Gooch in his book "Being a Christian in the Wesleyan Tradition" quoted a statement by someone he knew.  That statement was:  "Church people are so narrow-minded and judgmental.  If you don't measure up to some standard they set, you are made to feel like an outcast.  If churches only practiced the love and openness they talk about, I might be interested.  But until then, I'll keep on living my spirituality without any help from them."
 
It is true that the church doesn't always live up to its ideals.  But there is another side of the church as well.  This view says the church is an organized religious body that offers relationship with God within a community of people searching for God.  It offers spiritual growth, meaning for life and an authentic moral existence.  It is a body that challenges us to be better than we are, gives us moral support in our struggles and holds us accountable for our failures. 

When we make a commitment to the church, we commit ourselves to that kind of community of love and service.  We believe that we are all in it together, and that the faith life of every other Christian depends upon how we live and nurture them. 

I look back on my own life and remember all the faithful persons who taught me in Sunday School; our church lay leaders, whom we all wanted to be like when we grew up and who supported us and praised us for whatever we did; countless adults who gave us examples of service and outreach.  Without them, would I (and my friends) have been the faithful Christains today?  I doubt it.
 
You see, it's a challenge being a part of the church.  We can't just go to worship and "hide."  We make a commitment to be a full part of the community and live the kind of life that, if a child wants to be like us when he or she grows up, then he or she will be like Christ. 

That's what Christianity is all about.  May we commit ourselves to keep our church from caring only about "names, pledges and numbers."  Let's continue to be true to the calling Christ has given us. 

Our Vision Statement says:  "Compelled by the love of Jesus Christ, we will serve, share and make a difference by introducing people to a life changing relationship with God through Jesus Christ."  We must continue to carry out that vision to be successful in making disciples for Jesus Christ. 

May God's blessings be with us as we work and share together.

The Gospel we proclaim is the same Gospel that the first century church shared with its world. 

There were many people who needed to hear that Gospel, just as there are many who need to hear it today. 

There were many people who had needs that the early Christians could meet, just as we as Christians can help meet people's needs today. 

There were so many world problems then that Christ gave the Great Commission to those early Christians to go out and help solve those problems.  The same Great Commission applies to us today, and just as He promised to be with them always, He promises the same to us today. 

Pastor's Message (February 4, 2011)

The act of worship isn't for us; it's for Him.  While we are blessed beyond measure in the act of worship, its end object is God, not us.  Understanding why we praise God will help our practice.  There are many reasons, but here are a few.
 
While God has no needs because of His nature, He does have desires.  His top desire is to receive praise and worship from our lips and hearts.  Jesus said, "A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."  (John 4:23).  God actually seeks our worship.  When you go into your prayer closet (whatever and wherever that may be) and begin your prayer time by worshiping God, just know that He's been hovering over that place anticipating and desiring your worship.  God made it clear in Exodus 20:2-5 that we are not to worship any other gods, and in Exodus 34:14, He tells us that He is a jealous God.  God wants us to worship Him and Him alone.
 
After Jesus' resurrection from the dead, the disciples "came to Him, clasped His feet and worshiped Him" (Matthew 28:9).  Jesus didn't try to stop them but received their worship because He was God.  Psalm 33 tells us, "Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise Him."  We worship because God seeks our worship; it is thus appropriate.
 
We worship God because He alone is worthy of our praise.  Worship has been scheduled for Him alone.  "Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.  Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness"  (Psalm 145:3).  God is truly worthy of our praise.
 
Why worship?  Because it fulfills God's very purpose in creating the world.  In the book of Isaiah, God says this about His creation:  "The people I formed for myself that they may proclaim My praise" (Isaiah 43:21).  God created us not that we might be happy, prosperous or well, but that we might praise Him.  In the following passage, God tells His creation to praise Him.  "Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.  Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy" (Psalm 98:7-8).  Here, all that He has created is commanded to praise Him.  One only need read Psalm 145 and 148 to discover that God expects to receive praise from the trees, flowers, rivers, mountains and stars.  In a day when many worship nature, we need to remember that God expects nature to worship Him.  We are not to worship the creation, but the Creator!  Everything God made was designed to point back to Him in adoration and praise.  Even the stones are equipped to cry out if people won't.
 
Our God is a holy God, and worship is the only thing that truly acknowledges that.  I'm afraid we don't understand much about the awesome and holy nature of God.  We treat even the name of God flippantly.  But God's holiness is a serious matter.  I find it very interesting that God tells Moses "to worship at a distance" (Exodus 24:1).  In 1 Chronicles 16:28-29, we are told to "worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness."  He is called "majestic in holiness, awesome in glory" in Exodus 15:11, and in Isaiah 57:15 He's called "high and lofty" and "holy."  When Isaiah experienced the holiness of God in the temple, he said, "I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up" (Isaiah 6:1).  It comes as a surprise to a lot of people that the chief reason Moses wasn't permitted to go into the Promised Land was that he didn't uphold God's holiness in front of the people (Deuteronomy 32:51).
 
God deserves our worship because of Who He is and what He does in our lives every day.  He is holy and because of that He deserves our highest praise.  May His praises continually be on our lips and in our hearts as we come together each week to worship Him.

2.  Is it compatible with what the Bible teaches?

4.  Do the authorities over me consider this choice sound?

6.  Will this help me toward my goal in my Christian pilgrimage?

8.  Do the benefits outweigh the risks?
 
If the choice is not clear, then maybe you need to wait on the Lord.  That, sometimes, is one of the hardest things for me to do.  However, I have found that when there is a question, it is best to wait. 

God knows best and His time is not always our time.

Pastor's Message (January 10, 2011)