Things I Want To Do

Even though this blog is entitled, "Things I Want To Do,"the below list are things "I MUST do." Some of these "things" have been on my heart for most all of my ministry. Some "things" have been on my heart a few years; some a few months; and a couple only a few weeks. But, these are "things" that I MUST see through in order to continue to grow in Christ. You see, I believe that when God lays something on your heart, He does so for His glory--and He receives glory when the task is accomplished and given back to Him. So here I go:

• I want to glorify Christ EVERY MOMENT of my life. I really desire to.
• I want to be the best husband in the entire world. I really desire to honor Kassandra.
• I want to be a Godly dad and be able to claim Ephesians 6:1-4 and Proverbs 22:6. I really desire to raise my boys to be Godly husbands and dads and for Kassandra to teach our daughter to be a Godly wife and mom.
  
• I want to preach the Word of God until I can't draw another breath. I really desire to, but often it seems such a daunting task--so I must fear the Lord and never take for granted the call on my life.
• I want to be content with whatever my heavenly Father supplies to me and my family. I desire to be anxious about nothing.
• I want to learn how to rest. I desire to rest physically, emotionally, and spiritually---but I have never learned how.
• I want to be a better steward with finances. Kassandra and I really desire to go into the next stage of our lives being able to bless others constantly--we want to give back what so many people have given to us.
• I want to write a book. I desire to see this through--maybe even real soon.
• I want to be in the habit of blogging everyday. I desire to leave a legacy of my thoughts and what God has taught me to my family and church. This is a tough one...much discipline needed.
• I want to be in control of my body. I desire to honestly take care of God's temple. Again, much discipline is needed.
• I want to love my neighbor as myself. I really desire not to be bitter or angry with anyone. This too is a daunting task.
• Last but not least, I want to leave a legacy of Christ, courage, and being the kind of person that does EVERYTHING that God lays on my heart---NO MATTER THE COST. I serve an audience of One.
  

Romans 5:12-21...Guilt versus Grace

This coming Sunday, I am going to be preaching from Romans 5:12-21. This is really an amazing part of the book of Romans. These 10 verses basically summarize what we have learned thus far from 1:18-5:11 and what we will learn and be challenged by in 6:1-8:39. Here’s how this section can be outlined:

• 5:12-14 references the fall and ruin of humanity. These three verses summarize 1:18-3:20.

• 5:15-19 references God’s rescuing of humanity by sending His Son as propitiation for all sin. These five verses summarize 3:21-5:11.

• 5:20-21 introduces a Christian’s victory because of God’s indwelling Spirit. This will be discussed in 6:1-8:39.

However, the heart of Romans 5:12-21 introduces us in great detail to the struggle between “good and evil.” This struggle did not begin with you and your first dilemma or your first moral decision in which you may have failed. Rather it began in the perfect Garden of Eden where the first man and woman lived in a beautiful, untainted by sin, garden. Their duty was plentiful and seemingly easy; God empowered them to be vice-regents over the earth. They were to have dominion over all creation, love each other, multiply, and have an intimate, personal relationship with God. The only stipulation: Adam had the choice to choose between good and evil. Since love is a choice, God placed in the garden a tree. Adam was to choose between “right” and this one solitary tree. He chose to disobey and eat from the tree. GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!
Adam plummeted all humanity into sin. Oh, the guilt he must have felt. Actually his and Eve’s first decision was to cover themselves in guilt and not grace. They sowed together fig leaves to hide their shame. They hid themselves from God’s presence. That is EXACTLY what we do with sin. In our guilt, we hide ourselves and our behavior.

Join us this coming Sunday at North Park as we talk about what to do with guilt. Grace trumps guilt. We do not need to live in guilt. Guilt keeps us separated. Christ died for our guilt. Show up this coming Sunday and let’s learn how to deal with the guilt problem

Romans 1:1-17

In our quest to preach/teach through the grand book of Romans, we really haven’t spent much time, if really any in Romans 1:1-17. So, let’s deal with it in this blog.
Paul was a man on a mission. His mission? To spread a cure to a problem called sin and separation that was traced all the way back to the Garden of Eden through the sin of Adam. He felt his mission was to distribute the most precious gift the world had ever been given; the gospel of Jesus Christ—the cure to the sin problem. Paul simply wanted his readers to understand that he was about to unfold the reason why there is a “good news” to a “bad problem.” (For a better understanding of the church at Rome, read my blog entitled, “The Purpose, Occasion, and Background to the Church at Rome.”)
Here are a few key things that Paul does in this salutation to get the readers ready to hear the most amazing story ever.
1.Paul greets them in 1:1-7 with the final salutation in verse 7. Notice in verse 1 that Paul calls himself a “bond-servant.” The Greek word for “bond-servant” is doulos. No one wanted this title. It means “slave,” “under someone else’s control.” For Jews it even carried the idea of their slavery in Egypt. It simply meant “the loss of freedom.” Paul readily identifies himself as person who was under full control and service to his Lord, Jesus Christ.
2. Paul also calls himself an apostle. This word simply designated Paul as not just an ordinary preacher of the Gospel. He had a special task. He was appointed and sent out by God to do an extraordinary task that only a few had been asked to do.
3. In Romans 1:2-5 Paul simply but yet profoundly tells the church at Rome three things about the gospel message:
i. The origin of the gospel—vs. 2
ii. The content of the gospel—vs. 3
iii. The gospel’s purpose—vs. 5
4. In verses 8-13 Paul encourages these believers. A letter from a fellow servant but also someone of Paul’s stature would only affirm, confirm, and encourage their work. Here’s how he does it:
i. He prays for them—vs. 9
ii. He tells them that he wants to join them—vs.10
iii. He promises to help them spiritually and with ministry—vv. 11-13
5.In verses 14-17 Paul pours out his passion on this church. Since the power and dominion of sin is no respecter of person, neither is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul tells them that he feels as if he is obligated to share the gospel with everyone whom he comes in contact with. He sincerely felt as if he was in debt to people who knew not the saving grace of the Messiah. And Paul was not ashamed of his message, mission, or methods of the gospel.
It is my prayer that I become as eager and passionate as Paul with the gospel that saved my life. It is my prayer that NP becomes this eager and passionate about the gospel as well.
FOR I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL, FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD FOR SALVATION TO EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES….

My Heart and Romans

Preaching through Romans has been a matter of heart for me. For nearly 20 years of preaching and teaching the Word of God I have anticipated with honor and some trepidation for the Lord to ask me to preach an in-depth series through “The Greatest Letter Ever Written---Romans.” Over the years I have wrestled with Romans and wanted to preach through it, but God always seemed to lead me in a different direction. Even though I have preached “out of” Romans several times, preaching “through it" has seemed like the tallest mountain ever.

Now is the time. The Lord has confirmed in my heart that through years of study and digging into the history of my hero Paul and the church at Rome, now is the time. I am ready for the most daunting task of a preacher of the gospel. You see, there has been no greater exposition of the gospel than the book of Romans. There has been no more a glorious presentation of the plight of man and the grace of God ever penned.
Why has it taken me this long to be prepared to lead the church that God allows me to shepherd through the book of Romans? A few reasons:

1. Every single word of the Bible is inspired by God. Therefore, all 66 books of the Bible are authoritative, inerrant, and inspired. BUT ROMANS seems to be the magna carta of Scripture. To have the leading of the Holy Spirit to guide a church through such a golden work of God, one must be well seasoned, prepared, studied, and prayed up.

2. A church must be ready. NP has been on the journey of journeys (and thanks for sticking to the great call). God has asked us to do what seems like the biggest task ever. We had to spend a couple of years preparing and understanding what our Great Shepherd was asking us to do—and we now know. So, now that we know and understand NP’s purpose, let’s know and understand from a spiritual perspective why God has asked us to be such a different church. Romans will unfold and enlighten us to a full and deep understanding of man’s fate and God’s grace and our role as a local church in God’s redemptive purpose for this region.

3. It’s time for meat, and friend we are about to chomp on some steak. Romans is the meat of the New Testament. And I don’t know about you, but I am hungry.
Let me end this blog by giving you a quote from one of my contemporary heroes, John Piper. And I am in full agreement with this statement and couldn’t have said it better had I penned it. “I am not as moved now as I used to be by the tyranny of the urgent and by the need to respond to every trendy view that blows across the cultural sea in America. Well past midlife (not for me though…lol), I have a deep confidence that the best way to be lastingly relevant is to stand on rock-solid, durable old truths, rather than jumping from one pragmatic bandwagon to another. Romans’ is as solid and durable and reliable and unshakable and thorough as the truth can get.”

Purpose, Occassion, and Background to the Book of Romans

It’s the winter of AD 57 in a city located on a land bridge between Greece and Peloponnese. A city overwhelmed by heavy Roman commerce due to the shipping industry and tourism. The city’s name: Corinth. Located in Corinth was a wealthy man by the name of Gaius. He was a wealthy man converted under Paul’s preaching and one of the few that Paul baptized (1 Cor. 1:14). Gaius allows Paul and Paul’s secretary, Tertius (as Paul dictated the letter to Rome, Tertius penned it) to lodge in his home while staying in Corinth (Rom. 16:22, 23) as he was on his third missionary journey (Acts 20:2-3). He had hoped to travel to Rome and then to Spain , but he first needed to drop some money off in Jerusalem that had been collected for them (Rom. 15:19-32; Acts 19:21).

It was during this stay that Paul paced the floor in Gaius’ home with much on his mind. Rome had many converts and the amazing thing is Paul played no role in their conversion. This is obvious by his statement in Romans 1:13 where he had often planned to visit them, but was often prevented. Rome had converts either by converted Jews present at Pentecost (Acts 2:10) or the church was founded by both Jew and Gentile Christians who simply traveled to the capital city of the known world and eventually took up residence there. Regardless, there was a church in Rome that met in several houses (Rom. 16). Oh, by the way, Peter seemed to have nothing to do with the founding of the Church in Rome (Catholic Church) since he is neither mentioned by Paul in chapter 16 and by Paul’s statement in 15:20 that there had not been a foundation of the gospel laid in Rome yet…hmmmm!!!!).

So, there was a growing church in Rome that seemed not to have much if any apostolic influence. This must have driven Paul crazy. “Do they believe the essentials of the gospel?” “Who taught them?” “Are the leaders of the church in full agreement to the basic tenants of the gospel?” “Do they really understand that they are a part of a fallen race and in desperate need of the saving grace of God’s Unique Son, Jesus the Messiah?” These are just a few questions that had to be racing through Paul’s mind.

So what does the Apostle Paul do? He pens the first systematic theology of the Christian faith. Basically, it’s the Christian Magna Carta—the believer’s constitution. And what do we get out of this letter? Riches beyond our wildest imagination. A complete theological treatise that gives explanation of the entire gospel---The Creation…The Fall….Redemption…Consummation. In other words, the story of the Bible in 16 chapters entitled, “Romans.

DON’T MISS A SUNDAY AS WE TRAVEL THROUGH THE BOOK OF ROMANS. WE ARE GOING TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THEOLOGY AND THE APPLICATION OF IT THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE….IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME.

The Significance of Romans

Paul told Timothy that “All Scripture is breathed out by God…” (2 Tim. 3:16). “All Scripture” meaning the 66 books of the Bible. While no one book of the Bible is more “God breathed” or is held to a higher standard, the book of Romans seems to have made a huge impact on the history of Christianity and the key leaders of great revival and reform movements. For example in 386AD Augustine of Hippo was converted to Christianity by reading Romans 13:13-14. Augustine turned out to be one of the church’s most influential theologians and leaders.

The great reformer Martin Luther, a simple monk of the Augustinian Order, was struggling with his beliefs on salvation. As he was teaching the book of Romans to group of students he became more and more convinced by the theme of justification by faith alone (Sola Fide). After reading and grasping the truth that “the just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17), Luther was converted and seemed to singlehandedly dissemble the Catholic churches doctrine of a “works salvation.” In 1517AD in Wittenberg, Germany the Great Reformation began and the dark ages dissipated.

The great theologian John Calvin (1509-1564AD) was a pastor during the Reformation period. He has made a lasting impact on most all protestant denominations today with his strong view of the sovereignty of God. Calvin stated, “When one gains knowledge of the Epistle (Romans), he has an entrance open to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture.”

Romans has impacted and shaped the theology of evangelists like John Wesley to Bible translators such as William Tyndale to great commentators as Donald Grey Barnhouse. These men have impacted the world for Christ and when you glean into their testimonies it was the book of Romans that seem to impact and change them the very most.

The book of Romans will stun the intellectual and bring tears to the humble. Romans quotes the Old Testament more than any other book in the New Testament. Romans answers questions of a theological nature like no other book of the Bible. As I said in the beginning of this blog, all Scripture is inspired by God, however, Romans seems to be the theological pinnacle of Scripture. It simply yet profoundly and very succinctly unfolds and explains what the “the gospel” really is and does.

For the next 18 weeks (maybe even a few weeks longer) I am going to be systematically and thematically preaching through this magnum opus of Scripture. Also, I will be providing blog entries on the topics and matters in which I will be preaching. All I can say is “hold on to your hat” because we are about to dive deep into the Word of God. I have preached through several books of the Bible and preached out of Romans numerous times, but I have never preached through Romans. Pray for me because the study and preparation is going to be challenging. Oh, and please pray that I will stay faithful with my blogging on Romans. I want to teach as much as I can through the week to get us ready for Sundays.

MY PRAYER: When we get through Romans we will have a great understanding of the major doctrines of the Bible. We should know why we believe what we believe.

A Few Teaching Points About The Lord's Supper

This Friday, April 2, beginning at 9:00am, NP is going to begin reading the New Testament in the Worship Center. This event will last until 4:00pm or so. The amazing thing about this is the fact that the day in which we remember the death of our Savior, we will read the entire New Testament in His honor. Friday night, April 2, at 7:00pm, we will be experiencing "The Weeping Tree" presented by NP's Worship Arts Team. It is going to be an incredible time of worship and remembrance of the death of our Lord Jesus. As a part of the service, we are going to be observing the Lord's Supper. Let me give you a few reminders of WHY we observe this ordinance and WHO should participate in it.

The Lord's Supper, as called by Paul (1 Corinthians 11:20), bears other names as well. Such as, "Communion," which has implications to a Christian's right relationship with the Father and their right relationship with other believers, especially their local church. In 1 Corinthians 11:24, Paul used the term "Eucharist" (Greek="eucharistia"), which means, "giving thanks" to describe the event. Paul also called the Lord's Supper, "the Lord's Table" (1 Corinthians 10:21).

The Lord's Supper carries great theological significance in that it symbolizes the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. The bread and juice symbolize the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. Some denominations would see it as a sacrament which carries and gives salvation to the participants as it is taken. At North Park, we believe that the Lord's Supper is symbolic only. Though the Lord is greatly honored when we celebrate and partake of this ordinance, His presence is no more prevalent than at any other moment when we meet as a church body. We observe this ordinance "because" we are Christians and not to "become" a Christian. We simply observe and remember. Listen to the words of Jesus in Luke 22:19, ..."do this in remembrance of me." The Apostle Paul, when giving instructions to the church in Corinth repeated the words of Christ and said, "And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,'This is my body which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.' In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'"(1 Corinthians 11:24-25). So, it seems pretty obvious that the Lord's Supper is a memorial event. Nonetheless, it is not to be taken lightly nor observed half-heartily, nor observed when one's heart is not right with the Lord or His church.

A few often asked questions about the Lord's Supper:

• How often should a church take it? There is no commandment on how often, other than the statement of Jesus and Paul that as often as you do it, do it is remembrance of the Savior. At NP, we typically observe the Lord's Supper once a quarter. However, there are those special times such as Easter, Christmas, or maybe some other significant event in our church life that we deem it very necessary to remember and be thankful. Nothing prohibits the number of times in which we partake.
  
• Who should take the Lord's Supper? This, my friend, is a great question. The Lord's Supper is for those who have been accepted by Christ (in other words "saved"), Scripturally baptized (by immersion following salvation), one whose heart is pure before their Lord, and a person who is in right fellowship with their local church. In 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 Paul said, "Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly." There you have it...it is a matter of the heart. If you have unconfessed sin, confess it and allow God to make you pure. If you are not in right standing with your church, get there or don't take it. This is not a North Park issue but rather a Bible issue.
• My heart's right, but I don't feel worthy to take the Lord's Supper? My answer to this question is "who does?" It's not my worthiness that God accepts, it is the worthiness of His Son, Jesus. God the Father accepts me on the merit of His Son. I will never be worthy, but Jesus always is, therefore because He lives in me, I am worthy. Now I know that 1 Corinthians 11:27 has the phrase, "unworthy manner." Here's what we all need to understand about that phrase: "Unworthy" is a word that implies taking the supper in a way that is not God-honoring and Jesus-remembering, such as, ritualistically, with an unrepentant heart, holding an ungodly attitude, or not in right standing with the church. Paul issues a grave warning to folks taking the ordinance in an "unworthy manner." The penalty could equal sickness or even death (see 1 Corinthians11:30).
• Can children who have not yet been saved take the Lord's Supper? To me this one is simple, NO! Go back to the second point I made. If your child has not yet received Christ as Lord and Savior, what a great teaching point about Jesus and His saving grace. Instead of trying to explain away why they can't take it or even make allowances for them to take it, teach them what it all means. The conversation with your child may go something like this, "The bread symbolizes Jesus' body which was given for us and the juice symbolizes Jesus' blood that was shed for us. So child, when I eat the bread and drink the juice, as your parent, I am remembering the day He changed my life and I am also praying that one day soon He will change yours."

See ya Friday as NP's Easter weekend begins