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What is the greatest grief of a parent? Many say the death of a child die. As a loving parent I can imagine the heartbreak of that grief and loss.“There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.” (Dwight Eisenhower) Or this anonymous quote, “My child died. I don’t need advice. All I need is for you to gently close your mouth, open wide your heart and walk with me until I can see in color again.” Perhaps a close second to this great grief is daily watching a child flounder in unbelief.

Children who reject God can can spawn agonizing questions for parents. ‘Did I do something wrong as a parent? How could God allow this to happen?’  There is something here of the raw emotional pain that we see in Psalm 38:10, ‘My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.’

I am not a survivalist but I read about the Rule of 3 for survival. ‘You can survive 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, and 3 minutes without oxygen … but you won’t make it 3 seconds without hope.’  Without hope, all is lost. If you believe things are hopeless, they most likely are.

Where do you find hope when those dearest on earth are living in rebellion against the God of grace?  Many search for hope in their lost loved ones.  They scrutinize their every action looking for some slight sign of hope.  They are looking in the wrong place.  The character of God is the ground of hope.

Ezekiel 33:11, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” 1 Timothy 2:3-4, “God our Savior … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

God is in the business of seeking and saving the lost. He bled and died to redeem them! He has found millions, even billions of fallen sons and daughters of Adam! He saves hopeless sinners everyday! There is always hope – hope in the character of God and in the certainty and power of His Word!  

God, for our greater assurance and comfort, has entered into a covenant with us and with our children.  God set aside the children of Abraham from the world to be His very own.  They are covenant children and they belong to the believing community. “In baptism, parents link the spiritual livelihood of their child to the spiritual life of the church. They promise to intertwine their family’s life of faith with the life of the church so that they and the child will hear wise counsel from others (including more experienced parents), encounter the reality of God’s presence in worship, and learn from the example of mature saints how God’s grace forms the beauty of the soul in both good and difficult circumstances. . . . as the church repeats its own testimony year after year, the whole body of Christ learns of its obligation and power to influence the eternity of her children.” (Bryan Chapell)  

The Covenant hope is that God works his salvation along family lines. He is the God of our Children.  In fact, the Canons of Dort, Section 1, Article 17 could state on the basis of God’s covenant that, “godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy.”

So, what should we do if our children to not currently believe?  

Pray.  Salvation is God’s work. Only he can do it.  And He does! Ask him to save your children. 

Don’t blame yourself. You are not the Holy Spirit. Confess your failures as a parent but entrust your children to the perfect Father. Do not wallow in self-pity. Live in the joy of the Lord.  The best thing that you can do for unbelieving family and friends is grow in godliness yourself.

Love your children. Praise what you can. Serve them when you are able. Be yourself around them. Let them see the love, mercy, and grace of God in you and the way that you live with them. Don’t always ‘witness’ to them and don’t force feed your views on life or the gospel.  It is God’s work.  If they know the gospel, it is enough that they see its effect in you. Wait for the opportune moment – the teachable moments. They will certainly arrive if you wait for them.

Ask others to pray for them.  When God works, he often starts with stirring up prayer among the people of God.

Where God is, there is hope. Not in signs of possible change in unbelievers, nor in your punching all the right spiritual buttons, but rather in the God of hope. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

We don’t think much about the words that we speak.  And that is a big problem. “The tongue is set among our members…setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.” “It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” An unbridled tongue, it seems, is worst than a stampede of wild horses. “No human being can tame the tongue” (James 3:6,8). So much for the tongue lashing from James. We do need to think more carefully, biblically, about our words.

Thoughtless words can deeply wound. That is no surprise. Weaponizing speech is so easy.  Just speak your mind.  Say what you really think. Be frank.  It seems so justified and even righteous.  I have seen many draw blood with their biting words of ‘truth.’  But the Scriptures call us to a higher standard in our speaking.

Ephesians 4:29 instructs, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  Corrupt talk is foul or rotten; like spoiled fruit or rotten meat.  Listening to some people speak can make you sick! Our words should be good, appropriate, and intended to build up.  We can minister grace with our words! Our words can wound or they can heal. Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”  Salt flavors and prevent corruption – so should our speech.  Always gracious.  Do you know such angels? I just love to talk to those people. They minister grace and healing with kind words. They speak health into our souls.  What a gift.  Be that angel! Be that gift to others!

Proverbs 18:21 shares her wisdom with us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”  We promote life or death with the words that we speak.  I have noticed that the more I speak harsh, cruel, bitter, and angry words, the darker and more corrupt my heart becomes and the greater distance others keep from me.  Yet, the more wholesome, grace dealing, thoughtful and kind, my speech becomes, the more smiles I see.  In many ways, our speech creates our environment. “For Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit” (1 Peter 3:10), and “A gentle tongue is a tree of life” Proverbs 15:4.  Think before you speak. Filter your words through the high standard set by the Word of God.  If you do, you will bring a little of heaven down to earth.

Something is not right with me. I know it. Yet when others tell me where I am failing I still attack them. I even defend my wrong. I blame others for my situation. I shelter my diseased heart and cherish my sin.  Why do we do that? Well, we are fallen. Change is hard. We are fighting against our very nature. So then, how can we overcome our sin?

I want to change but I don’t know how.  I make resolutions but they are simply a bridge too far, they become the road not taken. My resolutions are often a dead end street.  I fail. Continually. Guilt and shame multiply with every defeat. The only path to peace, it seems, the way to reach some level of comfort, is to stop trying to change.  I grow comfortable right where I am. So, how can I change my failing resolutions into victorious resolve?  Stop fighting alone!

When God gave his people his law, his perfect law, that we are to obey, what were his very first words?  “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). God declares deliverance and victory before he gives the law! To change your nature you must start with God and embrace his steadfast, covenant love.  He has already delivered you! So, put on the armor of God and be who you already are!

Augustine prayed to God,“Command what you will and grant what you command.” Demand away, but give us the strength to obey. God’s grace enables God’s people to fulfill God’s commands. Fallen man is unable to self-generate self-control nor embrace the transforming love of God on their own. It is grace that empowers obedience.

Look at Philippians 2:1-4. “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”  The encouragement and comfort of Christ is required to selflessly slay the dragons of sin.

Or take Titus 2:11-14, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to all ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” The grace of God empowers us to say no to ourselves and yes to God. The love of God makes us willing, eager, and able to overcome our sins.

You cannot slay sin on your own. 

Resolutions are pointless. God given resolve cannot fail. Stop fighting on your own. Receive the victory of Jesus.

“What can I do to fill the empty pews at church? I have no idea; but someone should do something! Church growth is for the experts, right? We need the Madison Avenue crowd’s advice to grow the church. I can’t do anything to grow the church, can I?” Yes you can!

Pray – Church work is God’s work. God grows his church. He builds his own temple and beautifies his own bride. Ask God to grow the church. Every church member can, and should, pray that God would make and mature disciples here at Westminster.

Participate / Connect – Be a larger part of what the church is already doing. Come to Sunday School, Sunday Night prayer, and Wednesday Questions Dinner. Participate in the church community more than you do already. Do one more thing. Good things happen when Christians gather together. I knew a church that expected all their members to attend Sunday Morning Worship, Sunday Night, and Wednesday meetings. If they did not, they would put you under discipline. We won’t do that. Worship is commanded but not Sunday School and Prayer meetings. Your participation in addition to worship should be willing, eager, and enthusiastic. If it is not, your presence will not be a blessing to you or to others. Still, come. But lead with your heart. That makes the church attractive.

Grow Yourself – Be a mature disciple. Grow in the fear and knowledge of God. Think often and deeply of God. Commune with him on more than Sunday morning. Read good books. Listen to sermon. Walk with God. “A holy man is a mighty weapon in the hands of God.” (Robert Murray M’cheyne) You are a walking advertisement for what God is doing at Westminster. Let your light shine.

Invite Others – Statistically this is the foremost engine of church growth. “Someone invited me.” Invite them to worship, to church events, and into your home. Have your lives overlap in simple things. Do them a solid. Invest in the relationship and then include them in what you are doing – walking in friendship with God!

Use Your Gifts – Serve. Many hands make light work; but they also do more work. Volunteer on a Ministry Team. Be an usher. Mow the church lawn. Share a meal. The talents that God has given you belong to the church. When the church is firing on all cylinders that car moves just fine.

Fellowship – Don’t simply hang out. Talk about more than football and politics. If you never talk about your best friend, what he is doing, why you like him, what your fellowship is like and how it helps you; is He really your best friend? Love one another in the church. Invest in others; in normal, everyday things. Bring a meal, send a card, give a chainsaw to your brother. Be the church and the church will grow.

Give – What you give to and sacrifice for you eagerly desire to succeed. If you invest money you regularly check your mutual funds and property. “But I do give to the church!” Yes, but do you invest in the church. Do your heart and hands follow the money? Give of your time, talents, and treasures to kingdom work and the church will grow.

Pray – Did I mention that already? Why list it again? I want you to pray more than once. So, pray. Pray like you mean it; like you expect it to happen! Growing the church is God’s work. He includes us in his work, but it is his labor. We have not because we ask not. Ask God to grow the church. And be the answer to your own prayers.

Albert Camus in his one act play No Exit famously said that ‘Hell is other people.’  Forever bound to other fallen people who all want to be in control and therefore ignite perpetual conflict is mental torture. So, other people can seem like hell. Perhaps. But hell is also loneliness. Having no vital connection with anyone, being all alone in a dark and fright-filled world can be excruciating.  We, as God’s image bearers, are made for communion with other image bearers.  We are to know others and be known by them.  To be in fellowship with each other. We  hunger for deep, intimate, interpersonal relationship with others.

Speech connects us to other people. Words convey our heart and mind  Verbal communication can minister to others. It can help them to understand themselves and to navigate through their journey.  Journey where?  Their journey back to God.

We are all lost and trying to do the best that we can, In our fallen world.  We are all seeking directions with our temptations, weaknesses, brokenness without a map. We are empty and confused. As we flail amidst the great waves, we tend to drag other underneath the water with us. But, the gospel is a life jacket. It provides us the map, the solution. It leads us to Jesus in whom is life and that life is the light of men (John 1:4).

We can share the life jacket. So, other people can point to heaven! Knowing these people, those sanctified by the grace of God and living the heavenly life now, can be a taste of heaven. Our words should  minister grace to each other. “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,  but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

It is true that our words can carry the power of death, and often have. “The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell” (James 3:6).” Words can be a scourge.  We are painfully aware of the lash of biting and hateful words.  It is hell!

But life is also in the power of the tongue.  Wise, compassionate, gracious words bring healing. “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16:24).  Can you think of a conversation that breathed life into your soul?

How do you use your words? Do that bring life, help, healing, grace – heaven? Or do they tend toward death?  To you build deep, lasting friendships with your words, or do you burn bridges?

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits” (Proverbs 18:21). He a slice of heaven to other people.

“(T)he Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). We are made in the image and likeness of God and God exists in a community of persons. We are created for community and it is painful to be alone. Fred Rogers invited everyone to be his neighbor and his friend.

“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood

A beautiful day for a neighbor

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

“Neighbors are people who are close to us

And friends are people who are close to our hearts

I like to think of you as my neighbor and my friend.”

Sin separates us from God but our rebellion also divides us from each other. Guilt and shame so control us that we cower behind relational barriers for self-protection. For we fear understandable rejection if we are truly known.  We build our walls and nurture our loneliness and feed our fear of being fully known and completely rejected. We often settle for mere acquaintances or virtual likes and painfully struggle to build true friendships. We can exist with mere casual kindness and therefore not risk being more fully known and rejected.

The grace based community that God builds draws us out from behind our lonely walls.  In true Christian fellowship we are known, warts and all, and still loved and accepted by grace. Knowing this divine, unmerited favor we gradually invest in true, grace-driven friendships We are rescued, nurtured, discipled, and befriended by grace in the church community.  But, that is where most of us stop. We enjoy friendship and acceptance within the church – our guilt, shame, and loneliness are healed, but we do not invite others to join us and to venture out from behind their walls of guilt and shame.

Church growth is really the expansion of the grace community. It is growing our fellowship by inviting neighbors and friends to enter in.

How can I invite friends and neighbor to my church community? First, have friends, and know your neighbors. Be friendly, help a neighbor, invite them to dinner. Get to know them. Allow them to get to know you. Start open-ended spiritual conversations. “I love my church; where do you worship?” “The grace and kindness of God has held me through so many trials.” “My pastor is the best. Isn’t it great to have pastor?” “Have you heard the good news?”

Invite them closer to you. Build trust. Offer a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. Make plans to have your lives increasingly overlap. Deepen the friendship. Then, invite them to a church event – a fellowship meal, a questions dinner, a Bible study, a small group, a worship service, a prayer meeting. Talk them through it beforehand, hold their hand through it, and debrief with them afterward. Calm their fears. Answer their questions. Bear their burdens.  The closer they grow to you the more of Christ they should see in you. I call this the grace/friendship offensive of hospitality! It is simply the Great Commission in personal terms. Fred Rogers was right, it is a beautiful day for a neighbor.

Who am I? We are the only creatures asking that question and our Creator is the only one who can answers it. Rabbits, Robins, and Redfish do not question who they might be. They simply live as Rabbits, Robins and Redfish.  And they glorify their creator God by being what they were created to be. Simple. But we, the fallen sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, have made it complicated.  We refuse to joyfully live as dependent creatures needing a word from God to define and fulfill us.  We now seek to change our created identity and become as God.

Who am I? We now try to answer that question with the broken and insufficient tools of our fallen, limited reason. We do not accept our Creator’s answer. We seek to “find” ourselves. We think, self must be fulfilled and my desires satisfied. We choose our own path and re-invent our created selves. 

Justin Anthony Kennedy once claimed, wrongly, “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence.”  That was Satan’s successful strategy in the Garden of Eden. “Don’t be content with what God says you are. Go your own way! Make your own rules!” Today, that that focus  constitutes a false gospel. “Be true to yourself.” “Look within for answers.” “Follow your heart.” “Be uniquely you – however you might define it.” If you listen closely, you can hear the tempter’s voice: “don’t let anyone tell you what to believe, or what to do, or limit who you are.” “Follow me, heed me, submit to me, conform to my voice and be independent. Be authentically you!” And so we deny reality and run from our created glory.

Have you seen toddlers who think they are birds? They jump off the picnic table fully expecting to fly! But facts are stubborn things and reality teaches them a painful lesson. 

Who are we really? God says we are made in His image, fallen in Adam, redeemed in Christ. We are dependent servants, safe in His hands, guided by His purpose, and becoming more like Jesus.

“I would rather be 

What God chose to make me, 

Than the most glorious creature 

That I could think of.

For to have been thought about— 

Born in God’s thoughts— 

And then made by God,

Is the dearest, 

Grandest, 

Most precious thing 

In all thinking.” 

― George MacDonald, Essential Poems*

When you commit to walking with God through faith in Jesus Christ he promises to give you a hard time. “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). But I don’t want to be  persecuted!. “Share in suffering as a good solider of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3). But I don’t want to suffer! 

Why does God sent the hard into our lives? Why are trials, sickness, heartbreak on the menu in God’s restaurant and why must I eat there? “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). 

Francis Schaeffer said the the modern church want personal peace and affluence. We want to go to heaven “on flowery beds of ease.” But God’s pathway to paradise takes us through difficult twists and painful turns.  Why? 

Many reasons could be given. God allows pain and suffering to confront us with our sin, or to strengthen our faith in God’s provision and comfort, or to equip us to comfort others when they suffer with the comfort that we ourselves have received from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), to name but a few. I will narrow the focus on two reasons: it strengthens our faith and makes us more like Jesus. 

One essential target in the Christian life is become more like Jesus Christ. Suffering shapes us. Trusting the Father in the hard of life makes us look like Jesus. Trusting God when there is no known answer and no immediate relief is pure, undiluted faith.  “In this (salvation) you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith … may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).  God is present in your trials, proving, to you, the strength of and reality of your object of faith. Job trusted God in the hard until the questions and confusion overwhelmed him. But then God spoke to him, restored and comforted him. God is helpfully with you in the hard.

Our suffering is both informative and formative – it teach us the strength and power of true faith, and it can form Christ in us. Even our Jesus was made complete through suffering. “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10).

We do not desire the hard, but we should envy the result. A purified and strengthened  faith and a likeness to Jesus. Embrace the hard, trust the Lord, and God will make you shine.

 

Has God given us one message or two? Do we have one story to tell unbelievers and another to believers? Is the gospel intended for them or for us?

I recently read a radical thought from John Leonard in “Get Real.” We should disciple unbelievers and evangelize believers. Now that seems backwards. And it certainly is against conventional wisdom. But conventional wisdom is only good at conventions.

God has given us one message for all mankind. It is the Good news of what God has done for us in Christ. We all must embrace the grace and wisdom given to us in Jesus.  We assume that Evangelism, with its 5 or 6 isolated texts, is for those outside the church, and discipleship – learning or training – targets those inside the church. Evangelism is for unbelievers and discipleship is for believers.  Yes, that is true as far as it goes. But, it doesn’t go far enough.

In Matthew 28 we are commanded to make disciples of all nations. We are to disciple the unbelieving nations. We must teach them to walk with God in God’s world. In the United States, a basic, Christian understanding of the world, of marriage, of right and wrong, could be assumed 70 years ago. Not anymore.  The unbelieving world needs to be taught the basics to even understand the gospel.  They no longer think in Christian Categories. They need to be discipled, and taught.

Believers, too, never grow beyond the good news. We go deeper into it; we value it more and treasure what God has done for us. But we never mature beyond the simple gospel. Perhaps we have been taught to see the gospel as our ticket into the church, but once in, we can throw away the ticket.  Not so.  If you picture your growth in sanctification as so many rooms in the house of your salvation that must now be cleaned; the gospel is the key that unlocks every room. The law is the light that allows you to see the dust bunnies, and the gospel is the duster.

We must be reminded of who we are in Christ and the power at work within us. The gospel is not only good news once, it is good news for us every day, and as we seek to clean every room. Believers, and unbelievers, need discipleship through the gospel.

It is a brand new year! Everything is fresh, unspoiled and the possibilities are endless.  This is a time for new beginnings – a time to make some needed changes! Or, so we think. Is the New Year really a great time to make personal improvements? Yes, and no. Last year is not really any different from this year. The earth merely completed another orbit around the sun. You basic convictions have not changed. The major influences in your life are not altered. Are they?  

If I were to ask you who is the major influence in your life what would you say?  You might say “Jesus,” or “The Bible,” because I am a pastor and that is the expected answer.  But think about it for a minute. Really think. Perhaps you might mention an author that you read, a parent or grandparent that really loved you, or a friend, etc.  But, I think that answer lies closer to home. You are you own greatest influencer.  Your ‘self-talk’ determines your choices in life as well as if you will ever change for the better.

There is something of a slogan in Biblical Counseling circles. “What is your problem? You are. And that means there is hope.” In more directly Biblical terms, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,… envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23). You are your own worst enemy. And yet, you can become your own best friend.

Have you examined your self-talk lately? What do you say to yourself doubt God and yourself? What you really believe about you – your weaknesses, abilities, limitations, or vast potential – largely determines the course and trajectory of your life. “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

You are in a continuous conversation with yourself, analyzing and interpreting past events, your present circumstances, and determining what you should do, or say, next.  Your self-talk is the command and control center of your life.  So, how do you talk to yourself?  Do you spend your thought-life defending and excusing your past behavior and generating excuses for your future failures? Or, do you speak truth, and then grace to yourself? What do you tell yourself about God, the others around you, and your present circumstances? Is your conversation grace-based, God-centered, and gospel infused? Do you regularly remind yourself of the beauty and loving kindness of your God and your need of and delight in Him? Do you include Him in on your conversations?

Put God back in the center of your thinking. Have Him as the substance of your self-conversation. Romans 12:2 commands, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.” Do that, and you will have a Happy New Year!