A Pastor's Thoughts

In the past 10 months, my faith has grown as never before. The Lord has allowed us to go through very difficult times. We were looking forward to the birth of our son in late June as the start of a season of joy in our family. The Lord has other plans. Kai was due June 25^th, on June 20^th he died. Our hearts still ache. Some days are better than others. Some hours are better than others. In the midst of all this, the Lord continues to teach us.

I have been trying to flesh out the lessons learned in these past 10 months. It has not been easy. God is faithful. From time to time He has spoken so clearly from His Word to encourage, guide, and direct us. This morning was one of those times. Yesterday, Matthea shared with me what she had read from Luke 6. This is the record in Luke of the Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew 5-7). In verses 20-26 Jesus teaches about blessings and woes. The lesson is so clear!

Jesus mentions 4 life situations to describe the blessed person.  In verses 20-23 He says:

“Blessed are you when you are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in Heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”

The last two seem to mark our lives in the past months. As a pastor, God calls me to do hard things. Sometimes that rubs people the wrong way. Unfortunately, some respond by getting angry at the pastor. I have been on the receiving end of that. I am human and I have made mistakes. I understand when people are upset for the mistakes I make.  But it is a difficult thing to hear the hateful things said about me ‘on account of the Son of Man.’ Each of us has to answer to the Lord.  Each of us must walk in obedience to Him.  I know it comes with the territory of being in ministry. Jesus knows it too. That’s why He reminds us here to have the proper perspective during the tough seasons of ministry. Our enemy, the devil, can have a field day in our minds when we have the wrong perspective. Perhaps this is why the following words were spoken by Jesus in verses 24-26,

“but woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

Do you see the parallel? Blessed are the poor, hungry, mourners, and those being hated for Jesus. Woe to the rich, those who are full, those who laugh, and those who everyone speaks well of. These are complete opposites! Jesus’ point is that we must measure everything with a Kingdom, eternal perspective. The other option is to focus on the physical and temporal. The world says, “be rich, full, happy, and have a good reputation.” Jesus says that these goals are completely wrong! The enemy, the devil, tempts us to think these should be our goals. He tempts us to think that we have done something wrong when we are not “rich, full, happy, and loved by all.” But Jesus says “Woe!” to these people. The word “woe” can be interpreted to mean “there is impending doom”.

When we are following Jesus with all that we are, we must be prepared to be poor, hungry, weeping, and lied about. Jesus promises that eternity will be the ultimate time of reckoning. If we decide to live our lives for the world’s pleasures, there is impending doom. If we decide to live our lives to serve Jesus with all that we are, there will be pain in this life. There will be heartache and broken relationships. But the promise is that there is an eternal perspective. May the Lord help us to always see things in the eternal perspective.

I was reading in Colossians 1 yesterday.  Paul opens this letter as he does several others, with a prayer for the believers.  in verses 9 and 10 he prays that they “would be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”  The Lord wants us to grow in our knowledge of Him and His will for our lives.  He reveals this primarily through His Word.  We must spend time in His Word so that our knowledge of Him grows.

We live in an age with access to information at our fingertips.  Most of us carry around computers in our pockets tat connect us to any information was want to find.  With that comes access to the Bible and a multitude of tools and resources to know the Bible better.  But what are we to do with all this knowledge?  According to Paul’s prayer here, this increase in knowledge is for the purpose of living worthy of the Lord.  This knowledge should change how we live.  It should change how we make decisions.  It should change how we prioritize our lives.  To walk ‘worthy of the Lord’ simply means that we live in a way that is worthy to carry the name of Jesus with us.  When people see us, we represent Christ.  We cannot take this lightly.  As we walk in this way, we bear fruit for Him and increase in more knowledge of Him.  Do you see the cycle here??

So, as your knowledge increases, may your walk increase as well.

I have been struck lately by this idea: God grows our faith through difficulty.  It would be great if we grew in the easy times!  We could have our cake and eat it too….easy life and deeper faith!  Life with Jesus doesn’t work out like that.  Our faith grows through adversity, through the hard times, in the difficult hours.  This morning I turned to Hebrews 11.  I wanted to read about the men and women of God who walked by faith.  What was their life like?  What did they encounter?  Many good things are mentioned…many tough things are mentioned as well.

Hebrews 11:36-38 says, “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.  They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were killed with the sword.  They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (ESV)  Life was hard for most of them.  We don’t even have their names here!  The world wasn’t worthy of them and God doesn’t even give us their names.  But their faith in the Lord sustained them.  Their faith allowed them to suffer, endure, and come out victorious.

Chapter 12 follows with instruction for each of us.  The author says we have such a group around us so we should 1) lay aside every weight that hinders us 2) lay aside sins that pull us from God 3) run with endurance God’s path for our lives 4) look to Jesus – who endured the cross and endured hostility from sinners 5) endure for the sake of discipline – because God disciplines His children 6) lift our heads and strengthen our knees 7) strive for peace and holiness 8) have no bitterness or sexual immorality 9) and be grateful for our unshakeable Kingdom!  What a list.  We are called to walk by faith, endure all things, have joy in the midst, and glorify Jesus.  We do this day by day.  Hour by hour.  At the end, our faith is stronger.  He allows these times in our life so that our faith will grow stronger.

In your hard time, how are you doing?  Is your faith growing stronger?

Our team of 10 had an amazing time in Ethiopia in July.  Here is the audio of our report to our church.  We were following in the steps of Paul and Barnabas as they reported from their journey in Acts 14:26-27

Or, you can right-click on the following and choose “Save Link Location” or “Save Link As” to download the mp3 file.

Ethiopia 2013 Presentation

If you download the file, it is easier to jump ahead to the various speakers.

Rachel at 0:30
Maggie at 7:55
Chris at 15:10
Josh D. at 19:10
Jon G. at 27:30
Adeola at 41:30
Tope at 51:00
Josh L. at 1:00:10
John T. at 1:11:40
David at 1:21:20

This past Sunday, I preached from Acts 2-4.  I talked about my vision for Cresset Baptist Church.  I challenged our church to do something different.  I said, “if we continue to do the same things week after week, why should we expect anything different to happen in our lives or our church?”  At the end of the sermon, I asked people to come forward and pray for God to work in mighty ways in their lives and in our church.  The response was overwhelming!

In Acts 4, the disciples were threatened with arrest if they continued preaching about Jesus.  They responded by meeting together for prayer.  What did they pray for?  Boldness.  They didn’t pray for an easy time, they didn’t pray for the threat to disappear, they prayed for boldness in the midst of the threats.  The Bible says the place where they prayed was shaken!  It goes on to say that they preached the message of Jesus with great boldness!  God answered their prayer.  I pray that God will shake us, that He will use us to bring glory to Himself in our area and in our world.

Click below to listen or download.

Acts 2-4

 

 

 

I ran across a quote a few weeks back.  A sports coach made this statement to his players, “there are 2 pains in life, the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.”  That has stuck with me lately.  Too often our lives can be sprinkled with regret.  The hardest part of regret is the inability to rewind time and do something over again.  The remedy? Do it right the first time.

Discipline is hard.  Discipline requires work.  Discipline requires consistency.  A few weeks ago I started running.  Several people have suggested a training program called “C25K”.  The program boasts that you can go from being a couch potato to running a 5K in 8 weeks!  I am on week 4 of the program.  It is tough.  It requires discipline, work, and consistency.  The encouraging part is the progress I am making.  The first day I struggled to run for 60 seconds.  Now, a 3 minute run is easy for me.

In our walk with the Lord, discipline is required.  Consistent effort, hard work, and intentional obedience all are keys to a disciplined life walking with Jesus.  So we can choose…the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

Recently, a question was asked of high school seniors.  The question went something like this, “what would you do with your life if you had a million dollars?”  This type of question is helpful for a person to search their heart and find what they really want to do in life.  As adults, maybe the question is, “what career would you choose if money was no concern?”  Again, the purpose is to examine your passions in life.  Money and financial security drive many decisions in life, so we need a hypothetical like this in order to discover our true passions.

As followers of Jesus, He has promised to meet our every need.  He has promised to take care of all our needs.  We won’t live like we have a million dollars, but we can make decisions without the pressure of money and financial security.  Jesus has promised to give us these things.  In Matthew 6:33, Jesus says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  The “these things” are basic needs for survival that He mentioned in the previous verses…things like food, clothing, shelter, etc.

So, the question for us as followers of Jesus is this…”SINCE money is no object, how do you want to spend your life?”  This frees us to fulfill God’s plan in our lives without the pressures of worldly things.  Jesus tells us to live for Him and let Him take care of the material things that are needed for daily survival!   If you are living out God’s will in your life, He will meet your every need!  What a blessing!  What a promise!  What a freedom!!

Today I changed the domain name of my blog.  It is now http://jonglass.me

I also changed the look and feel for the site.  I don’t know if these changes will help me blog more frequently (probably not), but we shall see.

I have had several people ask me to post this sermon.  We have been studying 1 Corinthians since the start of the year.  This past Sunday, I preached from chapter 6, verses 12-20.  The point of the message is that for the believer, your entire body belongs to the Lord.  The sermon is about 50 minutes long.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20