Just A Thought

Just a Thought

 

It may take a few observations to express how important church life is to me. But please indulge me for just a few minutes.

Arriving at church on Sundays and Wednesdays has become something I anticipate and am thankful for. I find such thoughts help me walk in the Spirit throughout the week. Upon arriving at church, I am greeted by Deacon Tibbs most of the time; there are occasions when he is parking cars and caring for the church’s parking arrangements. But he typically greets with a smile, handshake, and a warm, “How’re you doing, Brother.” Deacon Tibbs can really make you feel important to the Lord and himself simply by his greetings. He and the other greeters literally ‘welcome you.’

When it’s time to pray; I am invited to enter the presence of God and given a prayer sheet. The church is counting on me to talk with God about the needs listed on the prayer sheet. These are items of great concern and some anxiety for several people. I sense my need to pray fervently. When it’s time to give, if it’s not my turn to usher, I typically silently observe that time because I give to CBC online. I also tend to listen carefully to the choir selections not only because they can really sing, but they often sing of a trait or quality about God I needed to be reminded of. As I sit in various locations in the church meetings, I am warmly welcome in those areas and those believers enthusiastically participate in the worship, congregational songs, specials by Ms. Baldwin, Ms. Anita, Brother Nathaniel, and the preaching. My how I have been corrected, inspired, and helped by their commitments to our Lord. They repeatedly provide the right kind of spiritual influence for me.

In Sunday School I am typically encouraged and informed from the Bible to keep living for the glory of God, by Deacon Hartwell. Many times, these same believers strengthen me greatly in the Lord. I love these occasions so much that I must restrain myself from adding my two cents when the class is prompted. This is a feature I cherish deeply in the church’s life as a Bible student.

My favorite part is the preaching of the Word which often follows the music leadership afforded by Brother Pascal. Pastor Baldwin always speaks from the Bible, and he favors expository explanations mingled with preaching that reproves, rebukes, exhorts, with a generous measure of patience and insight. I cannot count the number of times I have been helped from the Bible…. Sometimes I convince myself that my need is an explanation or reason and then I am reminded that what I really need is God. Sometimes I think an answer will solves my problem, but I am reminded what I really need is God. I may even be emphasizing a biblical idea so much that I forget about other equally important Bible concepts but preaching generally fixes that issue.

I know the most important time of all at church is during the invitation. It is a special joy to see people saved, baptized, and added to the church. Saint are also meeting with God in their seats and in the alter at invitation time. Every believer is encouraged to talk with our Lord. It is here that we all realize why we have come to church…it is to meet with our great and glorious God on his terms. The driving purpose in coming is to adjust by becoming more completely a living sacrifice to our Lord and His great will. Church is not church until I meet with my God in the assembly of the upright.

Yes, there will always be people who think too much of themselves and choose being a Pharisee instead of a humble servant. There will always be those who really think people come to see them…. There will always be some visitors and some members among us who just don’t get it. But praise the Lord for genuine saints who really pray for you and you for them, greeters who welcome you from their hearts, food preparers who will delight in feeding you, ushers who are poised to help, deacons who afford meaningful assistance and ministry, nursery workers who take care of your children like their own, members who love good music and cherish deeply solid preaching, a choir that sings for God’s glory, a preacher who proclaims God’s precious Word, and a God who meets with His children as we make ourselves available to him.

I am so thankful for my church family and do not want to take them for granted! They are a wonderful gift from my heavenly Father to me. I know that I am blessed! Yea even uniquely fortunate! I must do more to appreciate their service and sacrifices. I need to do more alongside them as we serve our Lord together.

The Road to Maturity in Christ II

The Road to Maturity in Christ II

1 Corinthians 3:1–4

Theme: The Christian journey leads to maturity in the Word, discernment, and righteous decision-making.

Relevance: God designed the Christian life to grow continuously into obedience dominated by His Spirit and will.

Introduction: Much like a normal family, everybody helps the new baby grow and mature, so in the family of God we must encourage spiritual maturity.

Message:

I.               “Walk as Men” (1 Cor. 3:3).

II.               “Ye are Yet Carnal” (1 Cor 3:1, 3).

A.   These are Carnal Believers

                                                   i.     Carnal is a believer who is still dominated by their fallen nature

1.    Paul begins by saying that the Corinthians are…not only made of flesh but dominated by the flesh. It means human nature apart from God, that part of men and women, both mental and physical, which provides a point of entry for sin. So, the fault that Paul finds with the Corinthians is…that they have allowed this lower side of their nature to dominate all their outlook and all their actions.^[1]

2.    The believers were still in a carnal or fleshly state of soul. This was evidenced by the fact that there was envy and strife among them. Such behavior is characteristic of the men of this world, but not of those who are led by the Spirit of God.^[2]

3.    As a result they were still worldly (v. 3). Instead of mature behavior characterized by humility and concern for others—obedience to God—the Corinthians were infantile, self-centered, and therefore divisive (v. 4; cf. 1:12).^[3]

                                                 ii.     The immature Christian lives for the things of the flesh and has little interest in the things of the Spirit. Some believers are immature because they have been saved recently, but that is not what Paul is addressing here.

                                               iii.     The carnal Christian is the one who hasn’t grown up spiritually, and it is evident that he lacks spiritual discernment—not because he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit dwelling within him, but because he is not growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Again this is a consequence of his relationship to the Word of God. That is so important to see. This unnatural man, this carnal Christian, is a babe in Christ. He has an ability but no desire. A baby has the potential to become a learned man, but he has to start out by drinking milk. Paul carries this figure of speech over to the spiritual level.^[4]

B.   They Still have a Secular Mindset

                                                   i.     Saved People Still Motivated by Godless Ideas and Values.

                                                 ii.     This sectarian spirit was evidence that some of the spiritually gifted believers in the Corinthian church were carnal … behaving like mere men (1Cor. 3:3, 4). When there exists carnal behavior (such as “envy, strife, and divisions”), carnality (relying on the basic nature of the weak, sinful, human flesh) must be the cause. (W. W. Wiersbe)

                                               iii.     They wanted lives of exaltation (4:8) without lives of humiliation (4:9–13) because they did not understand that “Christ … crucified” was a message concerned not only with justification but also with sanctification (cf. Phil. 2:1–8). This misunderstanding was at the root of their disunity (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10; 3:4), which error Paul wanted to correct.^[5]

                                               iv.     It is often expressed in a weak and frustrated Christian accompanied by a poor prayer life, not studying the Bible, and limited Christian fellowship. A carnal life-style increases our vulnerability to temptation and sin.—W. W. 

Conclusion:

The Christian must drive forward focusing on maturity in the Word, discernment, and righteous decision-making pursuant of God’s plan. God literally designed us to grow continuously into a lifestyle of obedience dominated increasingly by His Spirit and will.

Some need to be saved today. Stop putting it off and trust Christ as your Savior and Lord now.

Some need to make the choice to pursue spiritual development and progress. Stop faking actual divine advancements; refuse to be like the Pharisees any longer. Study the Word, use God-given discernment, and make decisions that reflect God’s rule in your life.

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^[1] William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, 3rd ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 35–36.

^[2] William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, ed. Arthur Farstad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 1754.

^[3] David K. Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 511.

^[4] J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Commentary: The Epistles (1 Corinthians), electronic ed., vol. 44 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 41.

^[5] David K. Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 511.

The Road to Maturity in Christ I

The Road to Maturity in Christ

1 Corinthians 3:1–4

Theme: The Christian journey leads to maturity in the Word, discernment, and righteous decision-making.

Relevance: God designed the Christian life to grow continuously into obedience dominated by His Spirit and will.

Introduction: “As I write this chapter, we are watching our grandson and our granddaughter grow up. Becky is still being nursed by her mother, but Jonathan now sits at the table and uses his little cup and (with varying degrees of success) his tableware. As children grow, they learn to eat different food. They graduate (to use Paul's words) from milk to meat.”— W. W. Wiersbe

There are unsaved and saved people in the world, and regarding the saved, there are mature (spiritual) and immature (carnal) believers. As the "spiritual father," Paul brought this family into being with the gospel (1 Cor 4:15). During his ministry in Corinth, he tried to feed his spiritual children and help them mature in the Faith. Much like a normal family, everybody helps the new baby grow and mature, so in the family of God we must encourage spiritual maturity. We want to observe this progress in three movements.

Message:

I.                 “Walk as Men” (1 Cor. 3:3).

A.   The Church’s Spiritual Situation is Referenced. Remember the Bible's description of the lost condition; they were:

                                                             i.      Separated from God: a sin-created barrier between God and people (Isa. 59:2).

                                                           ii.      Spiritually Dead: lifeless to God because of their trespasses, moral failures, and sins (Eph. 2:1).

                                                        iii.      Blind to Truth: they are impaired by Satan’s lies, the god of this world (Eph. 2:2-3; 2 Cor. 4:4).

                                                         iv.      Eternally Condemned: they faced everlasting punishment away from God because they insisted on dying in their sin (Matt. 25:46).

B.    These Believers Resemble the ‘Lost Condition’

                                                             i.      Behaviors were governed by our corrupt, fallen, fleshly, godless selves, and sinful nature

                                                           ii.      These Corithian believers were behaving like lost people… “it means that they were acting fleshly, not that they were fleshly by nature.”^[1]

                                                        iii.      “You are thinking and behaving in a fleshly way.”^[2]

C.   This Church was Still Enslaved to Sinful Habits, Ways, and Tendencies

                                                             i.      Eph. 2:1-3, And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2, Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3, Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 

                                                           ii.      Sinful desire is like cancer; it has many forms and affects many parts of the church in many ways—all of them destructive. Carnality is a general evil that has many manifestations. It will corrupt morals, weaken personal relationships, produce doubt about God and His Word, destroy prayer life, and provide fertile ground for heresy. It will attack right doctrine and right living, right belief and right practice.^[3]

                                                        iii.      Immature, fleshly Christians are never the result of deficient spiritual genes or of a spiritual birth defect. They are the way they are by their own choices. One of the worst and most disappointing problems the church can have is a congregation full of babes, Christians who are not growing because they seek to fulfill fleshly appetites.^[4]

Conclusion:

The Christian must drive forward focusing on maturity in the Word, discernment, and righteous decision-making pursuant of God’s plan. God literally designed us to grow continuously into a lifestyle of obedience dominated increasingly by His Spirit and will.

However, some need to be saved today. Stop putting it off and trust Christ as your Savior and Lord now.

Salvation involves coming to Jesus Christ as God and the supreme authority over our lives to graciously rescue us from the penalty of our sin. It is impossible for Him to save anybody who is not willing to acknowledge their sinfulness in a spirit of repentance. God can only save us when the right conditions exist in the human soul—repentance and faith. Bible examples of conversions present evidence of clear righteous changes in new Believer’s beliefs and behavior. These changes alone do not save us from sin, but THEY ARE certainly the FRUIT of genuine salvation. Such authentic conversions involves both repentance and faith (Rom. 2:4; 2 Cor. 7:10).

The Gospel requires sinners to repent turning to God in faith. As a result of genuine conversions, new converts are expected to do works in keeping with true repentance. This launches a lifelong adventure of faith and repentance as the Believer grows in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1).

I am totally convinced that many professing “Christians” are not Believers at all because they never humbled themselves before God in repentance and faith. This is principally why there is such little or no evidence of spiritual progress in so many “Christians.” It gives me no pleasure to highlight these frustrations. My singular hope is to help those who are deceived to genuinely come to Christ God’s way to truly be saved.

How Can We Experience Spiritual Birth? The answer is by consciously opting to place our faith/trust in Jesus Christ—His death, burial and resurrection as the full payment for our sins. We acknowledge God’s acceptance of Christ’s redemptive work by raising Him from the dead. Therefore, we accept what God accepts as complete payment for our sins. Recall what the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:14-18, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15, That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17, For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18, He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Each person must utterly entrust our eternal salvation to Jesus Christ the Son of God. The story has been told many times with varying emphasis about the man who stretched a cable across a certain deep canyon. He first walked across the cable displaying fascinating balance and control. Secondly, he took a wheel barrel and made his way across with it and back again. Finally, he asked the watching audience if they believed he could carry someone across in a wheel barrel. Many of them gleefully responded with a “yes.” Then he asked for a volunteer and no one stepped forward. You see they did not really believe enough to trust him with their lives. When we trust Christ, it is like jumping into the wheel barrel and utterly depending on Him transfer us form no relationship with God into a relationship, from guilt to forgiveness, from condemnation to full acceptation, from death unto life, and from earth to heaven. We must believe on Christ Jesus!

This is exactly what Paul says in Romans 10:9-10, writing, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [10] For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. We cannot simply believe anything about Jesus, we must believe that the Son of God, died for our sins, was buried, and God raise Him up again the third day to declare us as right before The Father. Beloved, it is crucial that we exercise faith in the Person and Work of Christ to experience the spiritual birth.

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^[1] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 1 Co 3:3.

^[2] John F. MacArthur Jr., 1 Corinthians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 73.

^[3] John F. MacArthur Jr., 1 Corinthians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 72–73.

^[4] John F. MacArthur Jr., 1 Corinthians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 72.