To Dream

To dream is to experience what reality can never provide and what no one can ever take away.
When I dream joy is deeper, life is fuller, and love is lasting.
Reality robs. To dream is to abound.
Time traps. To dream is to be free.
Death destroys. To dream is to never think upon such things.
To dream is to know a life this one cannot give.

Lord, Change My Attitude

Here is the new ETS class I will be leading starting Sunday night, August 9 at 6:oopm. The class will run for 12 weeks. It is scheduled to be in the choir suite.

Restrained By Grace

As a born again Christian when one sees or hears the word “grace”, we so often think of our conversion or salvation. We think of the song Amazing Grace and what Christ did for us. But we rarely think of it as something that God is still working into our lives on a daily basis. We may also not realize that even unbelievers experience God’s grace on a daily basis, but they do (whether they acknowledge it or not). God’s grace is displayed in many forms and one of those forms is called restraining grace (sometimes preventing grace).

This is a grace that believers and non believers alike all experience. And it is something that, like all of his expressions of grace, we should be so grateful for.

Retraining grace is God working in our lives in such a way as to keep us from sinning. Or to put it another way, it is God “preventing” us from sinning. Even though we may desire to sin,  God steps in and intervenes, thus stopping us from sinning. Can this be found in scripture though? Yes.

In Genesis chapter 20 we see where Abraham had his wife Sarah tell King Abimelech that she was Abraham’s wife. So Abimelech took Sarah into his home. But the Lord spoke to Abimelech in a dream and told him that Sarah was Abraham’s wife. Abimelech told the Lord that he was innocent and had not touched her. TheLord responded in verse 6 by saying: “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her” (emphasis added).

In 1 Samual chapter 25, David and 400 of his men have strapped on their swords and are going to deal with a man by the name of Nabal. Nabal’s wife, Abigail, rushes to meet David and his men in an attempt to stop them from killing her husband. In verse 26 she says: “Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal” (emphasis added).

And looking at Romans chapter 1 we see that in reference to men’s constant sinning,  it is mentioned 3 times that “God gave them over”. For God to give them over to their sin and their own ways, then there must have been something holding them back or restraining them. Knowing the true condition of fallen man in this world one shudders to think of what the world would be like if it were not for God’s restraining grace. Because of it we are able to continue to live in a somewhat orderly society.

John Owen in his book on Indwelling Sin says that God works his restraining grace out in our lives in two main ways.

1. Rational Considerations: This is where God allows man to think over the consequences of his desired actions. He allows fear of death, judgement, punishment and even hell to cause us to choose what is correct.
2. Providentual Dispensations: This is by in large a mystery, as is all of God’s sovereignty. But It is God’s control over all of creation and his ability at any moment to use anyone or thing to stop us from sinning if he so chooses.

And yet all of this is underserved and is why it is called grace. We all have benefited from this type grace. So often we may not even know it. So let us be careful that we don’t somehow think that we are so strong and become prideful. Owen said in reference to this subject in another book of his that “Until we are tempted, we think we live on our own strength.” Sometimes we are blessed to see and know that it was God and God alone who has kept us from ruin. Rejoice and be thankful! Knowing that you have a God who loves you enough to save you from yourself.

My First Trip To The Southern Baptist Annual Convention

So I have been a Southern Baptist all my life.  No really all of it. And I have been in the ministry since 1999 and I have never been, nor cared to go to an SBC meeting. This year all that changed. For about a year leading up to the meeting, I began to feel compelled to get more involved in or denominations convention. Issues were beginning to be raised that were important to me, and I also felt should be important to the local church. There was also a lot of division in the denomination. Mostly between younger leaders and older leaders. Calvinist and Non-Calvinist. Old school vs. new ideas. In many ways it was a fight for our identity. But just a few months before the convention Danny Akin gave us his 12 axioms of a Great Commission Resurgence (GCR). Our President Johnny Hunt took those and ran with them. A divine movement had begun. I wanted to be a part.

So me and Nathan Dewberry (Student Pastor) made our hotel reservations for Louisville, Kentucky, and off we went. What took place during that week was historic and life giving to our denomination. For starters I noticed young adults. All I had ever heard is how the convention is dying out and it is nothing but a gray headed convention. Surprise! Then the messages (for the most part) were some of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard preached. At one point at the beginning of the week many people made their way to the stage to kneel, weep and repent. This was also a convention like no other in that it united young and old, Calvinist and non-Calvinist, Old school and pioneers. The one cause, the one heart beat, was the Great Commission Resurgence. Taking the gospel to the world and making disciples.

Another thing that added to the week were the additional gatherings that brought leaders together like the BaptistTwentyOne Panel discussion (awesome!) and Nine Marks at Nine. As I said before that this was my first trip to a convention, but it was obvious and spoken by all that the Holy Spirit was doing a work in a mighty way. So I am excited about our direction as a denomination. But it also hits closer to home for me. I have a renewed zeal and excitement to proclaim the gospel to those around me. To cut the “fat” from my own personal life and get real about what Christ has called me to do.

Through this experience I have made many new friends through Twitter who were there and I look forward to hearing how God is moving them and their churches. By God’s grace, I will attend next year. See you then.

Dr. Johnny Hunt On The Great Commission Resurgence

Registration Is Now Open For Our Men’s Theological Reading Groups

Back last July I first read about and blogged about a church in Alabama that was doing Theological Reading Groups. I am excited to announce that we will be starting our own groups at Lindsay Lane this July. Registration is now open! These first groups will be for men only but ladies group may be in the future depending upon interest. Each group will meet once a week to discuss that weeks assigned chapter reading. We are currently offereing two tracks to choose from. The first is Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. The second is Biblical Theology (actually 2 books: Promises Made & Promises Kept) by Mark Dever. You decide which track/book(s) you wish to read. Buy the book. Sign up for a time and day of week (which you get to pick), show up for our first kick-off meeting and off you go. You will have started on a 16 month journey that will change your life. For more info and to register, download the brochure/registration form here. Try this facebook link to join our facebook group.

Church Discipline Is An Expression Of Love

Church Discipline is rarely if ever practiced in most Southern Baptist Churches. But it is not as if it has not been discussed. I found this article from 1999 that illustrates what has been discussed for years. Here is an excerpt of the article:

Addressing church discipline, (Don)Whitney pointed to statistics that two-thirds of Southern Baptist church members are absent from church every Sunday. He cited three reasons for such a problem: a methodology that is bringing large numbers of unconverted people into the church; the lack of biblical preaching; and the failure of churches to practice church discipline.
With many lost people as church members, churches often are not interested in calling a Bible-preaching pastor who supports church discipline, he said.
“The church that follows that pattern over a long enough period of time is on the path to apostasy,” Whitney said.
Speaking from Matthew 18:15-20, Whitney said churches should practice church discipline because it honors Christ by obeying Scripture. Also, he said church discipline maintains the purity of Christ’s church, restores fallen brothers and sisters to righteousness, returns believers to spiritual freedom and reconciles broken fellowship between believers.
“One of the misunderstandings is that [church discipline] is punitive, but the goal is restorative,” Whitney said. “The goal is to win someone back, not kick someone out.”
Church discipline, when done correctly, should follow a precise process, Whitney said. A Christian should first reprove a fallen brother or sister in private, then take one or two more people along for a second visit, if necessary. If the person still refuses to repent, only then should the church deal with the problem and consider withdrawing fellowship from the person.
Withdrawing fellowship “requires a persistent refusal to listen to the church and repent,” Whitney said. “It’s not a one-time mistake where someone messes up and they’re out of here.”
Church discipline is never an easy process — Whitney called it “gut-churning” — but Christians should take comfort in the fact that God has promised to be with the church through the process. Southern Baptists need pastors who are bold enough to stand on the teachings of Scripture, even when it’s not popular to do so, Whitney said.
And how do churches know when discipline has been successful?
“It’s when you obey Christ,” Whitney said. “Our job is not to bring about the repentance. Our job is to obey Christ, and he is the one who will effect repentanc

And as of most recently Dr. Daniel Akin, in his now famous and hopefully historic address at Southeastern Seminary said the following when he gave his speech on A Great Commission Resurgence back in April of this year:

Each of these distinctives must be embraced under the lordship of Christ as revealed in Christian Scripture and interpreted by gospel-centered congregations. We must be willing to alter our practices to better accord with a robust Baptist identity, including in many churches a more responsible baptismal policy, a recovery of redemptive church discipline, a healthier balance between pastoral leadership and congregational authority, and a commitment to an every-member ministry.

Sounds good right? Biblical and logical even. So why don’t we practice it? Are we ignorant, afraid, too busy with other things, or just lazy. I think all are true to some degree. But I think one of our biggest problems is not what we see about this issue but what we don’t see. We don’t see church discipline as being a loving act.

Number 7 of the Nine marks of a Healthy Church has this to say about church disciple being an act of love:

We know intuitively as parents that love is not always lenient – love doesn’t always let.  If I let my daughter touch a hot stove repeatedly without disciplining her, I am not loving her enough to keep her from burning herself.  My discipline, or lack thereof, reflects on the quality and extent of my love for her. In the same way, if God lets us continue to commit the same sin with impunity, He is not loving us enough to teach us the importance of avoiding the burn of sin. It follows that if a church member sees his brother sinning continually and says or does nothing, that lack of discipline reflects poorly on the quality and extent of the member’s love for his brother.

Hebrews 12:5-11 says:

⁵My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; ⁶for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.  ⁷It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  ⁸But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.  ⁹Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?  ¹⁰For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.  ¹¹All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

How is it that so many churches and church members have lost their way in this area? We are so afraid or apathetic to confront others for their own good. And we wonder why “Christianity” has lost it’s appeal to so many in the world. I think part of it is due to the fact that there are so many unrepentant Christians in the church. The result of not disciplining church members over the years has been a lowering of standards in the church. We are afraid we will run people off from the church, yet those in the church lives are falling apart. Marriages are splitting, gossip runs rampant, Men don’t lead in their homes and our children are being held captive and captivated by the world. As we discussed this in my Sunday School class a couple of weeks back an young lady wisely said we are just too selfish. Too selfish to lovingly confront someone to turn them back to their one true joy; the only thing that can satisfy them…Christ.

I know that we have all heard the horror stories of  people who go on witch hunts and think they are the Church police, dragging people up front for the purpose of just getting rid of them. But we can’t allow the fear of abuse keep us from being obedient to what scripture tells us to do.  It begins with each of us as members of the body getting involved in community. Placing ourselves under the authority of the church. Making ourselves accountable to each other. If each of us were to be involved in each others lives in this way we would rarely ever have to bring a matter before the church. And when matters are brought to the attention of church leaders, we must have the courage and love to discipline.

To listen to a conversation on this topic with Matt Schmucker, executive director of IX Marks and an elder at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, click here.

Thinking About Some Events

High Deposit, High Withdrawal: Church Staff Philosophy

Pastor James MacDonald asked the question, “What’s the cultural ethos of your church staff?” In the video he discusses a “High Deposit, High Withdrawal” philosophy. Sounds like a high expectations approach with great rewards.

New Amy Grant Music

Amy Grant is “back” with new new music and a new video. What do you think?