Summitpastor's Blog

This Sunday, we begin a series on the 10 Commandments.  I feel like Amos, who said in Amos 3:8, “A lion has roared; who will not fear?  The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?”  These messages are intended to be a breath of fresh Biblical air in a culture of self-centered, anti-authoritarian relativism. 

By His grace, God has spoken His Word.  We are blessed if we obey, and we ignore it at our peril.  In these messages, I will point out the things that are pivotal to our relationship with God.  Our worship always shows our view of God.  We will learn through the 10 Commandments that our worship either points to God as He is revealed in Scripture or it doesn’t.

The Church used to use the 10 Commandments to teach “Christianity 101.”  There are riches to glean for the new in faith as well as the mature.  In a culture with all kinds of voices bombarding us, I hope that the 10 Commandments will silence all the noise around us and call us to hear the only voice that will ever lead us to a life of holiness.  And I hope that we will be reminded that something is going on around us that is so much bigger than we are.

So be in prayer with me as we look at the pivotal things in our relationship to God.  There is relevance in this ancient code for today’s confused world.

Recommended reading:  Prayer:  The Cry for the Kingdom, by Stanley Grenz.  This book focuses us to see that all prayer is intended to be an extension of God’s kingdom over the earth.

Fred Smith once said, “There are two kinds of people in any organization:  polluters and purifiers.”  Several things on a team are not contagious:  talent; experience; diligence.  But you can bet that attitude is contagious. 

Polluters are like smokestacks, belching out dirty smoke all the time.  They hate clear skies and no matter how clear the air is, they can find a way to poison it with gloom.  People who have to work around polluters must breathe in their toxic refuse and they usually feel sicker and weaker for it.

Purifiers, on the other hand, seem to clear the air around them.  No matter how rotten the atmosphere, they seem to find a way to filter out the toxins.  And they filter their own words and attitudes before letting others breathe them in so that anything that pollutes is filtered out and only what purifies is heard.  They can receive polluted air, but somehow they seem to breathe it back out as purified air.

So when others are around you, do they walk away sick and weak or energized?  Are you an air-clearer or an air-killer?  Most people tend to assume the attitudes of those they are forced to work with.

“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.  Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”(Ephesians 4:29-30).

Here’s to purifiers!

God is in control.  All things work together for good.  God sees and rewards faith and obedience and will one day confront unbelief and disobedience.

Most Christians would embrace these faith statements.  But they’re not real until they’re tested by a misalignment between what we see and what we believe.  It doesn’t always look or feel like God is in control.  I don’t always see good coming from things.  And it often seems today, as it did often with the Psalmist, that the righteous struggle along while evildoers seem to have an easier go of it.

The goal of faith is not only to change how we think and believe, but ultimately how we behave.  In other words, our faith must become a life-transforming force if it is genuine faith.  If it doesn’t transform my life, it isn’t really faith.  It may be opinion, hunch, or something else.  But genuine faith that flows from the Holy Spirit’s ministry in our lives takes Christianity out of the worship center on Sunday morning and starts to walk down the street, into the workplace, and right into our homes and hearts on Monday.

I’ve been forced time and time again in the last year to eighteen months to revisit these statements and ask myself if I really believe them.  And I do, even when what my eyes are telling me doesn’t match up. 

What I’m reading:  The Rainmaker, by John Grisham.  Interesting narrative and Grisham’s normally keen consistent characterizations make this work of fiction a favorite of some.

Recently our students were challenged to write letters to God as an exercise growing out of a study that was based on the movie “Letters to God.”  I thought it would be therapeutic to write a letter or two of my own.

Dear God:

I’m hurting.  I feel like faithfulness to you and service for you have been misunderstood by some and misrepresented by others.  I don’t understand why you allow suffering in general, but I’m really baffled as to why that suffering is often the result of our best efforts.  I totally get that we suffer when we do wrong or if we act unwisely.  You have never promised to protect me from my own unwise choices, so I don’t expect you to bail me out when I’m being foolish.  But when I’m really trying to serve you, sacrificing time, energy, financial opportunity, and other things in your service, and I suffer for it, I’m honestly just baffled.

It’s not that I don’t trust you; you see and know my heart.  Your own Son said, “I praise you, Father…that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants…for this way was well-pleasing in your sight.”  Sometimes you simply delight in the simple trust in my heart as you perform the mystery of your will.  So I’m not asking to understand; I’m asking for the courage and faith to trust you more as your mysterious will plays out in my life.  And if it’s through the fire that you call me to walk, then I’ll go, but you’re going to have to go with me.

I love you,

Pastor Joe

Is it okay to ask God questions?  I was brought up to believe that if you ask God questions, you’re doubting Him.  But I don’t think that’s so.

Just look at Jesus Christ, who on the cross cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  I was reading in Psalm 42:9 where David asked the same question.  Habakkuk asks God why.  And so do I sometimes.

Would it surprise you to know that someone as eminent as the Apostle Paul had his character questioned?  Read 2 Corinthians 12 sometime.  It’s a comforting thought, to me at least, that you don’t necessarily have to make any mistakes to be criticized.  I tend to internalize things.  If I were a better pastor, better planner, better organizer, better manager, better communicator, better whatever, this wouldn’t be happening to me.  It’s just not true.

I love the freedom of being honest with God about my pain, my struggles, and my suffering.  When the sudden burst of questions, fears, and imponderable situations overwhelms me, I can pour my heart out to Him–not for answers, because He normally doesn’t clue me in.  But for the simple pleasure of knowing that He cares.  “We do not have a high priest who is untouchable with the feelings of our weaknesses…”

Recommended Reading:  The Gospel According to Jesus, by Chris Seay.  I’m not an advocate of the emerging church movement, and I certainly have some challenges to some assertions in this book.  But I nevertheless enjoyed the reminder of clearly articulating the Gospel to our generation.

Yes, when all 4 Georgia football teams lose(UGA, Tech, State, and Southern), it’s a dark weekend.  Doesn’t happen very often.  And to add insult to injury, the Falcons couldn’t get it done against a Pittsburgh team on its third-string quarterback.  Why? 

All 5 games have something in common:  critical penalties/turnovers and basics like tackling and protecting the ball weren’t observed.  I couldn’t help but reflect on how important it is for us as individuals and as a church to always be about the basics.  What are they?

For individuals, the spiritual disciplines are the basics:  prayer, worship, Bible study, service, and sharing our faith.  When we don’t take care of the basics, we don’t win the spiritual warfare that has so much more at stake than any football game.

For churches, the basics are the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.  Rick Warren says that a Great Commitment to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment make for a Great Church, and I agree.

We need to love God supremely.  I think we demonstrate that actively by emphasizing truth and elevating the preaching portion of the service.  I know we can show it in our singing.  It should be reflected in the way we give.  And when we pray, we must ever remember God’s grace and mercy as our entry ticket into His presence.

Loving our neighbor as ourselves is integral to the Great Commission.  We need to be friendly, welcoming, warm, unassuming, and patient.  We need to look for ways to put ourselves in the shoes of a first-time guest and remove any barriers that we can and enhance the chances of our opportunities to minister to them in the future.

And if we see to these basics, we can avoid the dark weekend…

Recommended Reading:  Keeping the Ten Commandments, by J.I. Packer.  As in all his other works, Packer is lucid and precise, using helpful illustrations and anecdotes.  I’m reading this in preparation for the series to come.

It is not often that I find myself in agreement with the Obama Administration, and when I do, it is for completely different reasons.  Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, is in the news for all the wrong reasons.

On September 11, the church will host International Burn A Quran Day.  As I have listened to Reverend Jones and his reasons for this event, two things have become clear to me.  One is that he is a man of zeal.  The second is that he is a man without knowledge.

Paul mentions the two in Romans 10; he says that Israel has a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  Zeal is a wonderful thing, and it played a pivotal role in the ministry of Jesus.  He applied an Old Testament passage about zeal to Himself as justification for cleansing the Temple.  But Jesus’ zeal was tempered with knowledge; in other words, He was able to quote chapter and verse for his motivation.

Reverend Jones can quote historical atrocities of Muslims against non-Muslims, but he is in short shrift in quoting chapter and verse for an obvious publicity stunt.  In fact, the sacred record speaks clearly the other direction.  “Do not let your  good be evil spoken of”(Romans 14:16).  This verse is clear; when a believer, like Reverend Jones, uses his liberty to to bring harm, the unbeliever will assume that Christianity is filled with unloving religionists and reflect poorly on God Himself.

So I will not burn a Koran on September 11th. Instead, I will pray for the families of those who were murdered by terrorist thugs, pray for guidance for our armed forces, and pray that militant Islam will be defeated in whatever way our sovereign God chooses.

Recommended reading:  The Bowden Way:  50 Years of Leadership Wisdom,by Bobby Bowden.  It’s hard to appreciate a legacy while someone still lives, but this book is well worth your time.

As I was reading the Scriptures a couple of weeks ago, I was convicted to just pause and thank God for what most of us would view as little things.  I know that at Thanksgiving, we pause and devote a day to thanking God for our blessings.  While I think that it’s good and healthy for us to do that, I think the danger we face is in possibly segmenting our gratitude and limiting it to a certain season.

So I started offering prayers of thanksgiving to God as people, things, and blessings came to my mind, and I found myself with a stream that seemed to increase in its scope and intensity.  I must confess that I don’t always do this in my prayer time, but that day it seemed so natural and was such a sweet time to just thank God for everything that came to my mind.  I didn’t exhaust my list at all, but there are other days, in God’s will, that I will have to remain thankful.  Here are a few of the “small things” that God brought to my mind:

Sunrises and sunsets                            Memory                                     Beauty

Ice cream sandwiches                          Music                                         Faith

Laughter                                                    Family                                        Strength

Now, if this seems hokey to you, just read I Thessalonians 5:18, then read Romans1:21 and 2Timothy 3:1-5 where thanklessness is a mark of the unconverted.  Then go and spend some time in thanksgiving for what God brings to your mind.

What I’m reading:  The Grand Designer, by Stephen Hawking.  Hawking is a brilliant scientist whose work in the field of gravity has been revolutionary.  But he argues for a universe without any divine agent–no creator necessary for his universe.  It’s a book that reminds us of the danger of the “god of the gaps” theory.

The church isn’t a human enterprise and we’re not running a business.  It was never intended to be a democracy where the majority calls the shots.  It’s Christ’s body, He is its head, and we are individual cells in it.  We are to obey Him.  The way to do that is to read His Word and then follow it.  This dispels the notions that I listed last week.

It’s distracting when the pastor uses improper grammar, but that’s all it is–distracting.  If he opens the Word and preaches it, is a man of prayer, and is sincerely working to lead God’s people, we should be thankful.

The Lord Jesus hasn’t sent pastors to make churches happy.  He sends a pastor to make a church healthy and holy and to make Jesus happy.  There isn’t any other way to see it.

Paul told the Ephesian pastors, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.  Shepherd the flock of God which He purchased with His own blood.” 

Almost every one of the points I’ve discussed in these last blogs is found in that one verse.  The Lord owns the church.  The pastor’s responsibility is to obey the Lord by shepherding the flock.  God chooses His pastors. 

May the Holy Spirit send a healing balm over the landscape of the modern church and turn the hearts of people and pastors to the Lord Jesus, the Head of the Church.  And I’m so thankful for the healthy relationship God has blessed the Summit with in regard to its leadership.  By His grace, may it continue.

Recommended Reading:  How to Pray:  The Best of John Wesley on Prayer.  This book may be the best value to come along yet; for just 99 cents, you can walk beside one of God’s choice prayer warriors.

So the pastor’s a servant.  And he serves because the Lord chooses and sends him.  The choice of a pastor for any particular church is Christ’s.  We can complicate it any way we please–with recommendations, resumes, search committees, bishops making assignments–but biblically, the Lord calls the shots.

But doesn’t it seem like He gives us a lot of leeway to find the guy who “fits our situation” best, the one with the qualifications we feel our congregation needs?  Well, this is one way to get into trouble fast.  Sheep don’t have the foggiest notion of what they need in a shepherd.  They don’t see storms approaching, danger lurking over the next hillside, or anything of the sort.  Left to themselves, sheep would always choose the shepherd who caters to their every whim.  And the whole process can lead us to the faulty conclusion that the pastor is OUR choice and is there to satisfy US.

We’ve really lost our way on this.  The church is not a social club and the pastor isn’t the winner of a popularity contest.  The pastor and his wife aren’t sent by God to be congregational mascots or favorite guests at civic clubs.  They’re sent to shepherd the Lord’s flock, to represent God, to preach His Word, and train the sheep to be salt and light in a given community.

More guaranteed…

What I’m reading:  Hot Tub Religion, by J.I. Packer.  Packer is one of the best theologians of the last century, and this book is a wake-up call to the church and all those who love the Lord to come back to our roots.