Mark Scholten

Brother, will you Share your Heart?

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Christian fellowship, then, is an expression of both love and humility. It springs from a desire to bring benefit to others coupled with a sense of personal weakness and need. It has a double motive: the wish to help and the wish to be helped, the wish to edify and the wish to be edified. It is that corporate seeking by Christian people to know God better through sharing with each other what individually they have learned already. We seek to do others good, and we seek that others will do us good. 

We can therefore say three things about fellowship. First, it is a means of grace period through fellowship and in fellowship one’s own soul is refreshed and fed by the effort to communicate one’s knowledge of divine things, to come and pray for others, and to receive from God through them.

Second, fellowship is a test of life. Fellowship means opening one’s heart to one’s fellow Christians. The person who is free to eschew pretense and concealment about himself when talking to his fellow believers is the one who is being open and honest in his daily dealings with God. He is the one who is walking in the light, as John puts it in the first chapter of his first letter (if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, one John one verse seven. If we are not walking in the light we do not have fellowship with one another. If we are not letting the light of God shine full on our whole life, we shall never have free fellowship with others because we shall be unwilling to open up to them. After all, why would we willing to tell them the shameful secrets of our hearts when we are not prepared to open up to God and let him deal with these things? Those who will not walk in the light with God will never walk in light with their brethren.

Third. Fellowship is a gift of God. The new English Bible translates Paul’s blessing in second Corinthians 13:14 like this: “May the grace of God the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The kind of fellowship of which I am speaking, which has as its motive love to our brothers in Christ as an expression of our love to the Lord, and which involves real openness with each other and real reliance on each other – that kind of fellowship comes only as God’s gift in and through the Holy Spirit. It is only where the Holy Spirit has been given, where we are spiritually alive to God and anxious to grow in grace ourselves and help others to do the same, that such fellowship will be a possibility.  It is only as the spirit enables us that we shall actually be able to practice it.

JI Packer

Communion Meditation

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Communion Meditation

May 9, 2021

“And when the Gentiles heard this (that salvation is brought/offered to the ends of the earth), they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Acts 13:48

When they heard that a full, and free salvation through Jesus Christ was sincerely offered to them, they rejoiced, they gloried in that word of the Gospel, and they believed. That reaction to the gospel demonstrated that they were chosen by God to believe.

Election is a great comfort to the people of God; it was never intended as a barrier to belief. 

“The doctrine of election, like every truth about God, involves mystery and sometimes stirs controversy. But in Scripture, it is a pastoral doctrine, brought in to help Christians see how great is the grace that saves them, and to move them to humility, confidence, joy, praise, faithfulness, and holiness in response. It is the family secret of the children of God. We do not know who else he has chosen among those who do not yet believe, nor why it was his good pleasure to choose us in particular. What we do know is, first, that had we not been chosen for life we would not be believers now (for only the elect are brought to faith), and, second, that as elect believers we may rely on God to finish in us the good work that he started. Knowledge of one’s election thus brings comfort and joy.”  JI Packer

In God’s thinking, election leads to faith.

In our experience, faith demonstrates our election.

The question is not, am I elect?  But rather, do I believe the gospel?

That is the question that we ask when we come to the Lord’s Supper.  Do I believe that Jesus came, suffered, and died for me, in my place, and for my salvation.  If you do, you must come to the table for assurance.  If you do not, this table cannot help you.  

The question is not, am I worthy of this table? But rather, do I believe the good news? If so, you are worthy, in Christ, to come to this table.

We come to grow in humility, expand our praise, sweeten our joy, deepen our holiness.  We come for more of Christ, our savior.

8 Ways for Men to Make the Friends They Won’t Admit They Need

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Many men today struggle with maintaining male friendships. This claim doesn’t need to be argued. We know it. I personally have a sporadic friendship track record. Particularly in my early years of ministry, my lack of male friendships was actually inhibiting the full expression of my humanity. I still have a long way to go.

But I’m learning. It has become more clear to me that Jesus and his disciples were genuine friends (John 15:15). They spent time sharing deeply of themselves. And even before Jesus had disciples, before he created the world, he was a friend to the Father and the Spirit. By being a friend we show forth the image of God. So how can men succeed in the old-fashioned but desperately needed art of friendship? Here are eight suggestions.

1. Distinguish Loving Your Neighbor from Being a Friend

God’s children must love all their neighbors, including the hateful ones. But doing so doesn’t mean we have friends. Friends share more than resources and respect. Friends share themselves. They embrace Paul’s call to “be open” (2 Cor. 6:13). They practice fellowship and communion (2 Cor. 6:14), cultivating a common life with shared physical presence, emotional openness, and spiritual understanding.

Being a good neighbor is non-negotiable, but friendship goes beyond the call of neighborliness.

2. Don’t Depend Solely on Your Wife for Friendship

Your wife can be your best friend, but she can’t be your only friend. If you depend on your wife for friendship, you will stunt yourself and stifle her. You’ll end up expecting her to fulfill your need for shared life—a need God intends to be met by a community. Marital discourse can stagnate without fresh insights gained through close same-sex friendships.

3. Be Emotional

John Calvin observed that the Psalms animate “all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the . . . emotions” that convulse our minds. Beautiful, right? Yet men often resist emotional friendships.

David wept over the impending separation between himself and his friend (1 Sam. 20:41–42). At Lazarus’s tomb Jesus sobbed, among other reasons, because he loved his friend (John 11:35–36). The Ephesian elders fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him as he departed (Acts 20:37).

The notion that men should restrain emotion is character-stunting folly.

4. Define Your Friendship with Words

The best friendships have a quasi-covenantal character, for covenants define relationships. David and Jonathan solemnized the terms of their friendship (1 Sam. 18:3; 20:8; 23:14–18). You might be surprised what happens when you articulate with your friends what your friendship means.

True friends also speak well to and about each other. And remember, your friendship also hinges on how you speak of your friends behind their backs. Jonathan stayed true when friendship to David was a kiss of death (19:4). Blaise Pascal once said that if men knew what their friends said about them, there would be few friends in the world. Be among the few.

5. Practice Celebration

Good friends know how to enjoy life. It’s no accident that God’s coming kingdom is described as a party (Rev. 19:9; cf. John 2:1–11). Celebrating life is a revolt against hoarding by those who know God’s grace is present, not just future. It’s been said that “modern man . . . always keeps on believing that the real thing is going to happen tomorrow.” Celebration reminds friends that the real thing is happening now.

6. Don’t Always Do Something

Kent Hughes acknowledges that “men’s friendships typically center around activities, while women’s revolve around sharing.” Men commonly view friendships “as acquaintances made along the way, rather than as relationships.” As a consequence, he notes, male friendships “rarely approach the depth of disclosure a woman commonly has with many other women.”

Undistracted face-to-face time removes the safety net of the activity and invites sharing. We must resist the urge to protect ourselves from a slow-paced, potentially awkward encounter that might actually move our friendship to a deeper level.

7. Include Jesus

I moved to California by myself at 19. Attempting to escape a destructive web of bad choices, I resolved that new friends must be people who would help me walk with God. And good friendships were one of the ways God restored me from backsliding. But even these friendships often lacked spiritual deliberateness. The night before I moved back across the country, my best friend remarked, “We’ve never prayed together.” We had rarely, if ever, talked about godliness. How is that Christian friendship?

Real men don’t hide their faith. . . . They talk with other men about Jesus as a mutual friend. Real men don’t hide their faith. They don’t dance around spiritual matters. They are genuinely vocal about their only comfort in life and in death. They talk with other men about Jesus as a mutual friend.

8. Be Energized by the Gospel

On their own, rules cannot make us godlier people or better friends. The gospel alone—the perfect atoning work of God’s Son—is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). And yet as the Belgic Confession reminds us, God’s moral law “regulate[s] our life in all honorableness to the glory of God, according to his will” (Art. 25).

As we practice the laws of friendship, energized by the friendship of Christ, the better we will both know him and learn from him how to live as friends WILLIAM BOEKESTEIN

 

The Church that Heals

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So how can the local church help comfort and heal those who are hiding, covered in their shame?

First, we need to be communities where the gospel is preached. Not just from the pulpit, but in our small groups and mentoring relationships, around the dinner table, and over coffee. And that gospel must address our shame. Jesus not only justifies us; He also washes us clean and clothes us in His righteousness. This is hinted at in God’s clothing of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21), but it’s fulfilled in Christ, in whom we’ve been arrayed “with the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61:10). The message of the gospel is not less than forgiveness; it is more. Christ removes our shame and gives us His righteousness.

Second, we need to model accepting each other in Christ. Healing shame doesn’t require public disclosure on a Sunday morning, but it does entail revealing our shame to people who will bear our pain with us in love. “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor. 12:26). When we come out of hiding and discover that others don’t reject us, we begin to believe that God in Christ doesn’t reject us either.

Third, unlike the world’s response, our response to shame isn’t to become brazen. The ashamed need to repent. But to do so, they need help distinguishing the causes of their shame. Shame is complex and distorting. We blame ourselves for what others did to us, and excuse ourselves for how we responded. This is “worldly sorrow that leads to death” (2 Cor. 7:10–11). Hope for the ashamed is found as responsibility is placed where it belongs, and that will often require the clear-eyed perspective of others. As we help people see the difference between their own sin and others’ sin against them, godly sorrow and repentance can begin their gracious work in us.

Finally, our churches should be places where shame is redeemed rather than denied. In 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, Paul gives a list of shameful sins that believers should not tolerate in themselves. But then he goes on to declare in v. 11, “And such were some of you.” The ashamed look around at church and don’t see anyone like them. But through public testimonies, transparent relationships, caring small groups, and even wise sermon illustrations, the ashamed discover that they are in the company of redeemed sinners. When that happens, hope is conveyed that Paul’s next sentence could be true of them as well. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Michael Lawrence

Sheep among Wolves

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In Matthew 10:16–20, Jesus is essentially giving His disciples His manual of spiritual warfare for the mission of God.

Jesus used four metaphors to prepare their minds for opposition. He said, “I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” One of the metaphors relates to the malicious men and women of the unbelieving world. The other three regard some aspect of the lives and ministries of the disciples.

In his commentary on Matthew, John Calvin explained the meaning behind each of Christ’s animal metaphors. Calvin first explained what Jesus meant when He likened His disciples to sheep:

“He does not refer to the sweetness and mildness of their manners, or to the gentleness of their mind, but only means, that they will have no greater strength or fitness for repelling the violence of enemies than sheep have against the rage of wolves. Christ requires, no doubt, from his disciples that they shall resemble sheep in their dispositions, by their patience in contending against the malice of wicked men, and by the meekness with which they endure injuries: but the simple meaning of this passage is, that many powerful and cruel enemies are arrayed against the apostles, while they, on their part, are furnished with no means of defense.” 

Regarding Jesus’ allusion to wolves, Calvin wrote,

“The Lord, by calling the enemies of the gospel wolves, expressed their power rather than their desire to do injury; yet, as no man is known to be a wolf but by his rage against the gospel, Christ has joined these two things together, the fierce cruelty which impels them to shed blood, and the power with which they are armed.”2

After explaining the opposition that the disciples should anticipate when going out into the world with the gospel under the figure of sheep and wolves, Jesus employed two further animal metaphors in order to instruct His disciples about their strategy and demeanor when engaged in the mission of God. He said, “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Calvin explained what our Lord was intimating when he wrote,

“Serpents, being aware that they are hated, carefully avoid and shrink from everything that is hostile to them. In this manner, he enjoins believers to take care of their life, so as not to rush heedlessly into danger, or lay themselves open to any kind of injury. Doves, on the other hand, though naturally timid, and liable to innumerable attacks, fly in their simplicity, imagine themselves safe till they are struck, and in most cases place themselves within the reach of the fowler’s snares. To such simplicity, Christ exhorts his disciples, that no excess of terror may hinder them from pursuing their course. There are some who carry their ingenious reasonings still farther as to the nature of the serpent and of the dove, but this is the utmost extent of the resemblance.”

No one knows how intense the opposition to biblical Christianity will get in our country in the days, weeks, months, or years to come. Nevertheless, we should have great confidence that Christ sends His people out in the midst of persecuting wolves to bring the everlasting gospel to bear on a lost and perishing world. Christ does not call us to retreat, to compromise in the name of caution, or to devise other methods and strategies that will counter the preaching of the gospel. He does not call us to worldly sophistication or political maneuvering. Rather, He calls us to learn about our enemies and about ourselves–and to spread the aroma of Christ through the world by the ministry of the word for the salvation of the elect. To this end, He bids us understand that we are like sheep in the midst of wolves so that we will seek to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

Nick Batzig

Communion Meditation March 2021

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We are called to examine ourselves before we come to the table of the Lord.  The Westminster Larger Catechism explains.

Question 171: How are they that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to prepare themselves before they come unto it?

Answer: They that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper are, before they come, to prepare themselves thereunto, 

by examining themselves of their being in Christ, 

Are you in Christ?  United to him by faith. Are you a Christian?

of their sins and wants; 

You are to confess your sins, and your need of the forgiveness that Christ has earned.

of the truth and measure of their knowledge, faith, repentance; 

Do you have true knowledge, faith and repentance?To know Jesus the Christ is to have eternal life.  To rest in the promises of the gospel, to turn from sin and to turn unto God in Christ.

What is the measure, the degree of your knowledge, faith and repentance?  You are to seek a greater degree of each.  You are to long to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

love to God and the brethren, charity to all men, 

Do you love God?  Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ?  Do you live at peace with all men?  Do you stand ready to show charity, kindness to all men?

forgiving those that have done them wrong; 

Have you forgiven those who have sinned against you?  If you will not forgive others, God will not forgive you.

of their desires after Christ, and of their new obedience; 

Do you desire Christ more?  Are you walking in obedience to him?

and by renewing the exercise of these graces, by serious meditation, and fervent prayer.

Are you pursuing Christ as a man, woman or child after his own heart?

If you examine yourself and find that you are not a believer, you don’t confess your sins, your don’t forgive others, you don’t love your brothers and sisters in Christ, you don’t want to grow in grace, then you must not come to this table.

If you examine yourself and find faith, even weak faith is true faith, you confess your need of Christ, you forgive others, you love your brothers and sisters in Christ and you want to grow in the fear and knowledge of God, this table is for you. It is designed for you, and for your benefit.  

Come in faith to Christ, for help, and healing.

What is Faith?

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Christians walk in faith.  We are ‘faith-full’. We live with active, vital faith in God. But what does that mean?  

There are many misunderstandings of faith. Some feel, and I use that word deliberately, that faith is a strong belief in the impossible, or what is against the odds, or not strictly speaking logical. Faith is wishful thinking, a guess that gullible people make. A false crutch to lean upon. Like, I believe my March Madness bracket will be perfect; or this lottery ticket will pay off my debts; or Braves will win the pennant; or Gramma will survive even though she is in hospice.  Faith here is a subjective commitment to the irrational; a leap into the dark.

Others think of faith as strong encouragement intended to prop up the wavering strength or will of someone else. “I know it is the bottom of the ninth and we are down 3 runs, but I have faith in this team.” Faith is hoping against hope. By this understanding, the more intense your faith the better it works.

Still others think that faith is what we believe without facts and contrary to knowledge or science.  The secular mind exclusively sees faith in this way, faith is contrary to truth that can be known.

If those are misunderstandings, what is true faith?  Faith is taking God at his Word. Believing God; his Word, his Character, his promises. It is walking in the knowledge of God and loving the truth about God and his character and will.

Reformation theologians dissected three elements to true faith; knowledge, assent, and trust.  In their thinking, faith involves the whole man – his mind, his heart and his will – knowledge (notitia), assent (assensus), and trust (fiducia). True faith says, “I have heard about God, I believe that it is true, and I will commit myself to acting on it.” “I know what God says, I trust what God says, and I act on what God says.”

The Christian faith does not repudiate knowledge, it is based on knowledge. John Calvin defined faith as “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Louis Berkof, a follower of Calvin, defines saving faith as “a certain conviction, wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, as to the truth of the gospel, and a hearty reliance (trust) on the promises of God in Christ.”

So, faith starts with the knowledge of God, His Word or His promise. Then faith embraces, or trusts that knowledge, Word, or promise. Finally, knowing and believing that promise to be true, you act on it, commit to it, stand upon it.

What does this look like in my everyday life? You take a Biblical promise from God, you labor to rightly understand that promise, you believe that promise to be true and then, bringing faith to completion, you act on that promise. For example; God says lying is a sin, I believe it, so I tell the truth. God promises he will forgive those who confess their sin, I believe it, so I seek His cleansing through confession. God says that children are a blessing from the Lord, I consent to it, and I receive children as a blessing. God promises eternal life to believers, I believe it, and I don’t fear death.  I could go on and on and on.  In fact, we all should.  This is living in faith. God says that I am made in his image and that I should go forth and multiply that image, subdue the earth and have dominion over it for the glory of God.  So I honor God, I image God, I have a family, and I unearth creation’s potential at work, and even in my garden!

I would like to challenge you to live, self-consciously, by faith. Find the promises of the Word of God, understand them, embrace them, and act upon them.  Mine the Word of God for promises and commands, write them down, and act upon them.  That is the life of faith.

Ethics are Absolute

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“That may be true for you, but it is not my truth.” “There are absolutely no absolutes.” How can otherwise intelligent people say such contradictory things?  Where did this perversion of thinking originate?  Today, mankind knows more facts than ever before, but he cannot, apparently, tell right from wrong. We have access to vast knowledge on the internet and yet have no settled standard for ethics.  Mankind has conquered the natural world, untangling its secrets, and utilizes that knowledge to improve physical life for so many, and yet we corrode spiritual life by denying any meaning, purpose, or fulfillment in life.  Science has taught us many things but science cannot lead us into all truth. Science cannot tell right from wrong.  The white lab coat crowd can teach us what is, but not what ought to be. Science is ethically ignorant.

Once upon a time, there was a general consensus in the Western World.  Christianity provided a whole, integrated view of life. Man is body and soul; a physical and spiritual being made in the image of God. We believed, in sum, that God was the creator; that he provided an owner’s manual to human life, and His law provided our ethics. His order gave us meaning, purpose, and direction; that man was made in his image to rule over the created order and to unpack its secrets. Early scientists worked within this framework and were pursuing the wisdom of their creator in all their scientific pursuits.  This is known to Christians as the Creation Mandate. (Genesis 1:26-28) Commitment to these basic biblical principles fueled the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions and which has ushered in the Modern world. While early scientist sought after their creator the modern scientists assume an order, structure and purpose that they cannot explain.  They borrow from a Christian Worldview, without attribution, in order to do science at all. The daughter has despised her mother.  The Western World has rejected the Christian foundation that has given her all of her victories and successes.

Secular culture has become so enamored with reason and science that they expected unaided human wisdom to teach us everything, even create a rational foundation for ethics and religion.  Modern man is so committed to human reason they even assume that if an idea does not have a scientific basis, or if it could not be defended by reason alone, then it wasn’t true.  We had moved from a world at liberty within the bounds of revelation to a much narrower world caged within the bounds of reason.  But reason and science cannot explain human life nor even construct a comprehensive, satisfying worldview. Our contemporaries don’t know who they are (male? female?), why they were created, or what is the right thing to do? They have no meaning or purpose.  ““Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) Unaided human reason cannot offer us what is right and what is wrong; but only what is – what is testable, repeatable within the lab.  Ethics, however, requires a transcendent foundation that reason and science cannot provide.

The Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment caused a disconnect in our thinking.  Meaning, value, religion, and ethics were real and necessary to the human condition, but they were not true; they were not scientific. They were not based on reason. Ethics were considered subjective, optional, alterable and for many, unnecessary.  Anyone could choose what they wanted to believe in these areas because they were not really true.  We divided our minds into two halves; we separated sacred and secular, value and fact, public and private life. Many philosophers and artists accepted and even promoted the compromise in exchange for the continuing existence of religion, ethics, beauty, and love.  They just had to concede that religion, meaning, purpose, were not really true.  Beauty, virtue, faith were comforting crutches for weak-willed men who could not face the truth that only science could provide.  Christianity, although she fueled the victories of the modern world, has become the barely tolerated, woefully misguided, mentally challenged, younger brother and the black sheep of the family.

Too many Christians have accepted this divided thinking. (Science is true fact, faith is believing what you think isn’t real).  Science is based on truth and is applicable to all, but the Christian faith is based on subjective feelings and is only helpful to some. Yet, Christian truth and its Biblical foundation is true Truth. It is a fact, like taxes!  Right will always be right and wrong, wrong, even if many deny it.  Ethics do not change because God never changes. What is true, is true for everyone.  There are absolutely, absolutes.  Therefore let us defend the true truth of Christianity and our creator God as the source of all truth and not be content with the Enlightenment-Romantic compromise.

 

Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat

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If ever death appeared to be triumphant, it was when Jesus of Nazareth, disowned by His nation, abandoned by His disciples, executed by the might of imperial Rome, breathed His last on the cross. Why, some had actually recognized in His cry of pain and desolation the complaint that even God had forsaken Him. His faithful followers had confidently expected that He was the destined liberator of Israel; but He had died – not, like Judas of Galilee or Judas Maccabaeus, in the forefront of the struggle against the Gentile oppressors of Israel, but in evident weakness and disgrace – and their hopes died with Him. If ever a cause was lost, it was His; if ever the power of evil were victorious, it was then. 

And yet – within a generation His followers were exultingly proclaiming the crucified Jesus to be the conquerer of death and  asserting … that by dying He had reduced the erstwhile lord of death to impotence. The keys of death and Hades were henceforth held firmly in Jesus’ powerful hand, for He, in the language of His own parable, had invaded the strongman’s fortress, disarmed him, bound him fast and robbed him of his spoil  This is the unanimous witness of the New Testament writers; this was the assurance which nerved martyrs to face death boldly in His name. This sudden change from disillusionment to triumph can only be explained by the account which the apostles gave – that the Master rose from the dead and imparted to them the power of His risen life.  FF Bruce. NICOT, Hebrews, p. 49.

Session Summary March 2021

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Session Summary

March 2021

Ed Payne walked us through the Kingdom of God in 5 minutes ending with 2 Corinthians 15:23-26 for our opening devotion. April 13 at 5:30PM is our next session meeting.  We approved Ted Kuhn and Bryan McReynolds to stand for a three year term at elders.  A Congregational meeting has been called for March 28 after the morning service to received the Budget and to vote on these two men as elders. Roy Smith and Gary Mullen were thanked for their service as they are rotating out of active office. We approved a Budget that is $28,000 less than year, but still about $16,000 more than we will collect this year.  Year to Date our expenses are $8,000 more than our receipts. We have many reasons to thank God for faithful giving during the year of Covid. 

We will continue to offer a livestream service in the old Sunday School room with extra Covid precautions.  We will revisit this each session meeting.  Communion will return to twice a month beginning in May.  We will celebrate communion on March 21, April 18, May 9 and 23.  A new Shepherd Watch-care list is available and will be published soon. We are looking into the possibility of hosting two Walk Thru the Bible seminars; one this year and one next year. An “Awakened, not Woke,” conference is also being explored.  Lakemont PCA, in the absence of have their own facilities, will be having their VBS at our facility from June 21-24.  Columbia County as also requested the use of our facility for Election Day.  Our deacons will look into this possibility. Special events around Easter are also being prepared.