Monthly Archives: May 2024

June 2nd, 2024

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Sunday I will be preaching from Matthew 28:16-20; The Great Commission. In this sermon series titled – “Mission: God’s Purpose for the Church,” we are working our way through various passages related to mission, and there is none that is more familiar or used more than Matthew 28. When it comes to this passage and mission, many people focus on the word “GO” . . . that you have to go to some place in order to participate in mission. Go is not the primary action of the text. The great commission given to the church by Jesus in Matthew 28 is to “make disciples of all nations.” Do you see the word “mission” in the word “commission”? What Jesus has commissioned us to do is the mission of making disciples of all nations.

There are a lot of things a church does. Churches are known for our programs, ministries, services, campaigns and all the volunteers it takes to do all of those things. But at the end of the day, there is really only one thing the church is commissioned by Christ to do: Make Disciples. I would go so far to say that if any of the other things we are doing as a church are not participating in the mission of making disciples of all nations, there is really no point in doing it. When the church added the title “The Great Commission” to Matthew 28:19-20 we could assume it was called great because all the nations of the earth are great in number. But that is not why it is great. Great is the mission because there is no greater purpose to your life than to be part of making disciples of all the nations. You may have done greatly in your profession, or with your finances. You may have great family members and friends. But nothing will bring a greater sense of purpose to your life than participating in making disciples. Join me this Sunday for a fresh look at Matthew 28 – Great is the Mission.

May 26th, 2024

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This weekend our nation celebrates Memorial Day as a time to remember and honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedom. If the intent were simply to honor the dead, then a one-time event would have sufficed. But our nation has chosen to honor every year those that died for a deeper reason. The circumstances that necessitated our nation entering into war at times in our history were so important that we were willing to place the lives of our citizens at risk of death for the defense of what our nation values. People in general are forgetful, so we have Memorial Day in order that current and future generations will remember the horrors of war and the great sacrifice that was paid for our freedom.
As we recognize Memorial Day this weekend at our services, we will look at Joshua 4 where the Israelites placed memorial stones, taken from the bottom of the Jordan river, to help future generations remember the amazing thing God did when He parted the waters of the Jordan and they walked across on dry ground. A challenge every society faces is the ability to pass on to the next generation the values of past generations. In Joshua 4 we will see principles of establishing memorial stones in our lives that give us the opportunity to talk with younger generations about the things that we value. For us Americans who are also Christians, it is important that we establish memorial stones that speak to the shared values we have. Values that are based first on our relationship with God and then how that relationship with God has shaped the values we have as a country. Join me this Sunday as we see the importance of having memorial stones.

May 19th, 2024

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Throughout our marriage, Sue and I have lived about a third of that time in fairly rural, farming areas. There are two things I came to understand about farmers: 1) once the seed has been planted they always want you to pray for rain and 2) they want you to pray for no rain when the crop is ready for harvest. When harvest time came there was excitement and pressure to get the crop harvested. And it was all hands on deck! Everyone associated with the farm was expected to play a role in the harvest from the farm hands to the wife and children, and yes, sometimes the local preacher. Harvest time is a window of opportunity when the crop is ready to be harvested that can’t be missed or great loss will result.
When Jesus was on earth he spent most of his ministry doing three things: teaching, proclaiming the gospel, and healing people.(Matthew 9) And people responded to his ministry by trusting Him as their savior. This was Jesus gathering the harvest of His kingdom and he called His disciples to pray for more laborers in the harvest. What’s interesting is the ones Jesus called to pray were the same ones he sent out as part of the harvest. Harvest time in the mission of Jesus is the opportunity to go into the world to gather those that God has called to himself. And it is all hands on deck! Everyone associated with the Kingdom of Christ is expected to play a role in the harvest because if the opportunity to harvest is missed, it will result in great loss. We live in a time when the harvest is plentiful and Christ calls us to pray for laborers to go into the harvest. Join me this Sunday as we continue our series on Mission by considering specifically the Mission of Jesus.

Mother’s Day – May 12th, 2024

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Sunday is Mother’s Day, and we plan to celebrate the mothers in our lives!  If you are a mother, thank you for the sacrifices you make to bring new life into the world and for the ways you have helped shape that new life. Mother’s, you fill an essential role in our society, and we praise God for you. All of us are born from mothers, and Sunday is an opportunity to give thanks for those people that brought us into this world and helped shape us to be who we are today. On a personal note, I am very grateful for the mothers in my life: My mother was a loving person who was devoted to serving God and serving her family; For Sue, the mother of our children who continues to lovingly support and care for them; For my daughter Katie, the mother of my four grandchildren, who has sacrificed so much for her children. 

On this Mother’s Day we want to recognize the worth of all women in our lives. Historically our society has not treated women with the respect they deserve. Most cultures around the globe and throughout time have considered women as holding a second-place status compared to men. It wasn’t that long ago that women could not vote in this country. While a woman’s role has come a long way in recent years, society continues to find new ways to devalue the worth of women. Rather than celebrate and support the essential and unique role women play in giving birth to children, society is trying to make them as unpregnant as men are. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if we don’t continue to give birth to children, humanity is only one or two generations away from collapse. In an attempt to satisfy those that would want to create something that is against the natural order of things (this is one area where evolution and creation can agree) the worth of a woman is being diminished as the differences between women and men are being exploited.

In Proverbs 31 King Lemuel records for us the women of noble character, and in those words we will discover the Worth of a Woman. It is important to see that when this chapter was written some 3000 years ago it was in the backdrop of a society that generally treated women as objects of very low value. Sadly, society today is finding new and creative ways to devalue women, which makes this chapter still very relevant. Join me this Sunday as we discover the Worth of a Woman. 

May 5th, 2024

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13 years ago Sue and I visited Plymouth Rock in Plymouth Massachusetts where the Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower and stepped into the new world. They came to this new world to escape the culture of Europe which they believed to be counter to their religious convictions. The Pilgrims came to establish a society that would be Christian in every aspect of its existence. As I looked at the rock they stepped onto (which is not as big as you might think it is) I thought what a different world this turned out to be than what they had hoped it would be. Books have been written about the extremes and failures of the Pilgrim experiment in the New World and the culture that eventually evolved in New England is anything but Christian. We live in a world of constant change, including changes in the culture. It is natural the older we get to look back to how things were in a time gone by, longing to recapture some of what was. Compared to what the Pilgrims envisioned for the New World, this is a cultural wasteland.
When it comes to the mission of the church we need to recognize the cultural differences as we seek to reach people with the Gospel and build the kingdom of God. Engaging in mission would be so easy if societies would simply acquiesce to the teachings of Christianity but we all know that is not how it happens. I shared last week that there are over 17,000 distinct people groups in the world, each with a distinct culture of their own. Each of those cultures will have unique aspects to them that will require a specific understanding of how to share the Gospel with them. If that is true of the various cultures around the globe, and it is, then it is also true of the changing culture of our own communities. I have no doubt that some of you would say the culture of today is almost unrecognizable to the culture you grew up in, even in the same geographical area. Because we know that different cultures require a specific understanding of how to share the gospel and even unique strategies for that culture, we need to accept the needed changes in order to influence this generation – this culture of people living in our community. The question for every new generation of the church is, “How do we effectively share the gospel with our current culture?”
The best biblical example of how we are to do this is not found in the New Testament. This Sunday we are going to turn to some of the books that close out the Old Testament that give the account of the Jews in exile. When Babylon overtook Israel they captured the brightest and most devout Jews, taking them back to Babylon. During this time of “exile” they were plucked out of a culture they were very familiar and comfortable with to be placed in a culture that was about as foreign as they could imagine. Compared to Israel, Babylon was a cultural wasteland. Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel all gave important messages for those Jews living in a cultural wasteland. That message has a direct application to the church today and how we are to do Mission in the Wasteland. Join me this Sunday as we discover how God has called us to reach our contemporary culture with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.