Filed under: Al Mohler, Baptist Courier, Christian response to Islam, Christianity VS. Islam, Moral Relativism, SCBC, calvinism, church planting, contemperary worship styles, emergent church, faith, observations, opinion, traditional churches
The president of Southern Baptist Seminary says Christians should not observe Muslim “holy days,” no matter how well-intentioned they may be.
Brian McLaren is known as the godfather of the “emergent church,” which seeks to recover ancient Christian worship practices. The emergent church movement has, at times, questioned the theology of traditional evangelicalism. McLaren made headlines recently when he announced he would be fasting during Ramadan to better understand Muslims.
Muslims find new Ramadan fast partners: Christians
On a recent radio broadcast, Dr. Albert Mohler, Jr. tackled the issue, saying it is dangerous and confusing when Christians adopt the practices of other religious beliefs which do not acknowledge Jesus as Savior and Lord. Instead, Mohler said Christians must focus on Christ and sharing the gospel with Muslims.
“It is the love of Christ that leads us to love our neighbor enough to share the gospel with them, which takes on the very tangible expression of seeking to have them, by means of the gospel, come to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. That is love, in that God loved us so also we love our neighbor – and love of neighbor is not just in terms of living peaceably among our neighbors,” he contends.
“From a Christian perspective, from a New Testament perspective, loving our neighbor is not just not putting our grass clippings on his lawn; it’s loving our neighbor enough to share the gospel with him, to be motivated to share the gospel.”
Mohler said many Muslims do not understand the true nature of Islam.
From the pastorinthewoods blog spot I want to say that I thank God for men like Mohler who understand the age that we live in and can speak prophetically to it.
Nothing surprises me anymore about the emergent church. They have traded sound theology for pragmatic relevance. Everything is about understanding the journey of others. Instead of focusing on the Creator and Savior of the universe, they have decided to focus on created human beings needs and desires. They have done this to their own peril. In the end it is a shadow church where people demand to be served and stirred by feel good messages about a God who thinks they are the “coolest and most awesomest ever.” These preachers put far more time into their stage props than in their sermon preparation. Worship leaders stand up to lead music and say during the praise time, “ now we worship”, disregarding the read and preached Word when they take time to actually read it and preach it. While I have no issue with a fresh approach to missions and church planting. I do have issues with the direction of church planting when it values pragmatic relevance over the preaching and teaching of God’s Word and the sound fundamentals of the faith. The Gospel has the power to save the Jew and the Gentile not “understanding.” Therefore,we should not be ashamed of it as some seem to be. (Romans 1:16)
Filed under: firefighting, leadership, observations, pastoral leadership and problem solving, sermon ideas, sermon starter
Servant Leadership vs. Fearful Leadership
I will be preaching this Sunday night from 1 Samuel 18 on the subject of “The Anatomy of Envy.” We will be examining the destructive forces of envy in the life of Saul. Along those lines, it is also worth noting the difference between Saul and his son Jonathan in regards to their leadership styles. Saul chose to rule his kingdom based upon fear. His whole agenda was set to defend his own image. He used people and sought to control people continually. After the defeat of Goliath and the subsequent friendship between Jonathan and David, verse 2 tells us that, ”Saul took him(David) that day and would not let him go home to his father’s house anymore.” On the surface, it seems that Saul is doing this to recruit David to be a part of the effort to defeat the Philistines. However, based on the remainder of the passage we find that Saul was fearful of David and really wanted to keep him close in order to try to control him. Saul did many things to intimidate and control David in the days to come. Throwing spears at him, sending him to the front lines, and even making him a part of the royal family. This only caused David to be more successful and popular. The women would sing, “ Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands. The Bible says that this galled Saul. Chapter 18 says in verse 14 and 15, “ and David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. Therefore, when Saul saw that he behaved wisely, he was afraid of him.”
The contrast to this is Jonathan’s response to David’s victory. The scriptures say that he loved him, made a covenant with him, he gave him his own royal robe, and his armor and weaponry. Jonathan saw no threat in David and actually expresses gracious love to a lowly shepherd boy. Both leaders pulled David in close to them. Saul did this out of a need to control and a terrible sense of suspicion. Jonathan did this out of love and a desire to empower David. One leader was afraid of the success of David and another celebrated it. This brings me to the point of the post, what type of leader are you? Here are some questions for us to answer:
How do you respond to the success of peers or those under your care?
Do you find yourself pulling people in to control them or empower them?
Do you give things to people in order to control them more or empower them to succeed?
Are you willing to give away your power to others to see them succeed in what God has called them to do?
There are many pastors and leaders who dwell in the land of fear. They have chosen to be leaders consumed by fear. They fear the deacons becoming to powerful, the church down the road getting too big, the associate pastor being liked to much, or something happening that they cannot get credit for. This is not only common in the pastorate but is all areas of leadership. There is a saying among firefighters, “all good fire chiefs are control freaks.” I have found in large measure that is true. Good fire scene commanders are always worried about what they do not know. This often follows them to the board rooms and the day rooms. They cannot escape their fear of what is going on they do not know about.
The way we order our lives as leaders will determine if we are a Saul or a Jonathan. Did we live our lives in fear and suspicion of others, always trying to keep them under our thumb and within sight? Will we live our lives serving and empowering others? Will we release them to do what God has called them to or will we wait for our moment to pin them to the wall with our spear of discouragement?
The choice is ours.
Hello, again from my long sabbatical from pastorinthewoods. To be honest, I have been going through a serious stage of the “don’t cares” in regards to non essential activities. The more I have beat myself up over it the worse it has become. The fall air has given me a spark so I hope to do a little better. I was reading a leadership handbook the other night hoping that they had some answers to my questions. It turns out that I left the book like I left most other leadership books of this type, feeling lectured by the academic mind. It struck me that there are certain things that leadership gurus never tell the pastor. The things that they neglect to say often are the most crucial things of all. Here are some things that I would include in my book called, ” What they will not tell you but you will soon find out” ( I know it is too long). I know many of you have much more experience and experiences both good and bad that could add to this discussion. Here are just a few things that you will not learn in many classrooms.
1. A pastor in the average church must choose to be a do it all or be patient with people. Most of the time it is like walking a tight rope. You are always wondering if your doing too much or too little. If you do something once you will find that you will be expected to do it everytime from then on.
2. A pastor must live with the choices of others and realize that he cannot help everyone. Pastors are helpers and fixers. One of the most frustrating things is living with the facts that people will make their own choices and they don’t have to follow you. There are some things you can’t fix. It is like we say in the firefighting world, ” sometimes the house is going to burn down no matter what you do.” Sometimes people will dissapoinrt you and you have to be able to handle that.
3. There are very poor relationship skills among church members. If you play favorites you will get burned. You must model appropriate relationship skills in order to teach others how to heal themselves. There will always be people that think you do not like them because you do not play their game of “join my clique.” It is your repsonsibillity to be a friend and a pastor to everyone. Sometimes that means that you refuse to listen to some things and force yourself to listen to others. Sometimes it means joining in or not joining in with certain groups. Cliques will always be there and you must learn to model appropriate relationships be refusing to take part in the judgmental attitudes or gossip chain. Challenge people to reconcile and get over the past.
4. Do not look to the loud and proud for your greatest help. Look to the quiet and faithful few. The few that have weathered the storms and are the quiet leaders among the crowd are those who will be your biggest supporters and help. Every now and then you will find those who are destructive forces, but I have often found these people to be very vocal and demanding of position. This is not universal I am sure.
5. It’s not about you its about the kingdom. Something will happen one day to remove you from your position. Plan to stay a long time but always be thinking of who will follow you. I have been pastor of 2 churches and much of the first year of both were spent trying to figure out the good, bad ,and ugly of previous pastors. I want to leave the church in a position to move forward when I leave not flounder because of the decisions I made. Neither do I want the next pastor to be treated like an underling to the traditions and expectations of what I started.
6. Preach through books and you will not attack others or jump on your pet subjects. In 11 years of preaching I have found this to be my most powerful tool in the pastorate. The church is riddled with problems and with poor theology. If you discipline yourself to preach through books thematically you will speak to the theology and the problems that are out there. The Bible is the whole truth. I believe we are in the best position as teachers when we are preaching the whole truth. It is meticulous and it is not a glamorous and shiny as the topical preaching of the day but it is powerful and effective.
7. One more thing. Pastors should admit readily that they do not know everything. Find a couple of close counselors that are “go to” people when you need help. My dad once said, I am not the best mechanic but I know who to call. That should be the attitude of pastors.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Insights and Outlines from Matthew 7: 1-6
Here are some memorable quotes from M.L. Jones Commentary on Matthew 7:1-6
“There is nothing that so utterly condemns us as the Sermon on the Mount; there is nothing so utterly impossible, so terrifying, and so full of doctrine. Indeed, I do not hesitate to say that, were it not that I knew of the doctrine of justification by faith only, I would never look at the Sermon on the Mount….”
Speaking of the misunderstanding of vs 1 in the church today he says, “ it is almost true to say that such a thing as discipline in the Christian church is non-existent today. When did you hear of a person being excommunicated? When did you last hear of a person being kept back from communion? God back in history and you will see that a Christian church is a place where the Word in preached, the Sacraments are administered, and discipline is exercised.”
Observations and Sermon Brief
For preaching purposes I am trying to approach this passage in a positive way. Jesus tells us to remove the sin from our lives and then we can have clear vision to help others. Therefore, I have outlined this passage to reflect Jesus goal of having clear spiritual vision to help others.
How can we see clearly to help one another? How do we perform the spiritual surgery of removing the speck from our brother’s eye that is causing him so much pain?
- 1. We must have sterile hands to help others
- “Judge not” – implies a condemning spirit. Those who harbor a condemning spirit can help no one. If I were to offer my prediction as to what is the greatest hindrance to the church today it is this. On one extreme we have the passively indulgent that take this to mean that nothing can be said to the sinner. On the other hand we have those who dole out condemnation in order to build themselves up.
- What does a Judgmental spirit look like?
* Self righteous spirit – feeling of superiority
*Self promotion- tearing others down willfully to make yourself look good
* Hypercritical- destructive criticism to destroy another
* Malignant satisfaction in the fall of another
* Habitually jumping into another person’s business
* Prejudice – opinions formed on preconceived notion
* Ignorant assumptions- It takes too much to understand the facts
* Hypocritical- Aggressively pointing out the sin of others while you maintain the beam in your own eye which in this passage is a condemning spirit.
If you want to be a ministry to others make sure you do not have this spirit No one wants a doctor that is more interested in destroying your body than healing it
- No one wants a doctor that uses a someone’s body to advance their career.
- No one wants a doctor who will operate based upon assumptions
- No one wants a doctor that shows no compassion and care
- The same is true for the Christian. If you want a healthy church that ministers to and loves one another then we must rid ourselves of the judgmental spirit that destroys our trust and compassion for one another. The consequences of judging others is that we will find ourselves suffering the same fate at the hands of others. In addition, we will face the judgment seat of Christ where we will see that we took part in the wholesale butchering of a person’s potential in the kingdom instead of building them up.
2. We must have a steady hands
“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye
- The beam(sin of condemning spirit) is removed now we can see clearly to remove the speck. The eye is a very sensitive area that requires the utmost care. We would not want someone looking at our eye that took a large knife with shaking hands and said, “I told you to wear safety glasses stupid! Now hold still while I jab your eye out!” Jesus is reminding us that we are to be compassionate and desire the best for one another.
Here are a few of the “one another” passages in the NT that will point us to how gentle and steady we are to be with one another.
Col 3:13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.
Jas 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
1Pe 3:8 Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;
1Pe 4:8 And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”
1Pe 4:9 Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.
1Pe 4:10 As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
A gentle and steady hand does not mean tolerant and indulgent. It means you see the problem(speck) clearly and you approach helping the person with the utmost care and concern for their spiritual well being.
3. We must have stern hands. Vs 6
“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.
- This may seem to be out of place in this discussion but it is not at all. The simple truth here that Jesus is communicating is that some people just do not want help. Dogs and pigs do not recognize or appreciate sacred things. Jesus is showing us that sometimes people do not recognize or appreciate the jewel of God’s Words. They would rather continue in their sin and if you persist in trying to help them you will be trampled.
- I have responded on many medical calls where the person after settling down a little decides not to go to the hospital. Sometimes it is obvious they need to. However, we cannot force them to take medical treatment. The same is true with a spiritually sick person. If you try to force the truth down their throat then it will be to your own peril.
I hope this helps you to apply Matthew 7:1-6.
