Testing the blackberry and blogging from it while taking the kids to the dentist and wondering if Onesimus was saved before he went to Rome.

And they have internet access.  How cool is that?  I have been working, and now posting and it is going very well.

Not to mention it is free!  At least for now, I am sure there will be a charge in the future.

My life needs organizing.  I have many things on the go and I can accomplish all if I stay focused.  That, however, seems to be the issue.  I can never stay focused very long.  Self discipline…I wish.  

This all being said, nothing wrong with trying.  I think the worst thing I could do is not try and just slip into laziness, have 09 go by, and complete nothing of worth.  

I say this knowing that I will fail.  I will.  It is not a question of if, but of when.  But, thanks be to God, I know when I fail I will not be held accountable for that failure.  Christ died for my laziness as well.  And that is the motivation for trying to get organized.  Christ, came to earth and died for my failures.  My inability to please Him.  My complete selfishness.  He died for me and I am not worth dying for.

Therefore, I want to make the most of my time here.  I want to “finish the race” and “keep tha faith”.  As Piper said “I don’t want to be a sprinter, I want to be a marathon runner”.  

So here we good, domed to fail but covered by the blood of Christ, therefore, must try, fail, repent, and repeat.

Here are my goals, broken down by day and week:

Day:

1. Read Scripture:  this includes the reading for my men’s study, “eat the word” through Church, and reading with my children for their study.
2. Read from additional books:  could be anything but I am picky about what I read.
3. Call a brother in Christ to see how he is doing with life.
4. Something physical:  walk, gym, hoops, yard work.  Just get away from notebook for a while.
5. Up by 7am in bed by 11pm.

Week:

1. Post one original blog post
2. Listen to lecture:  Right now is Building Great Sentences from The Learning Compan

This is what I am going to start with.  There could be a lot more but I want to stay simple and turn these from goals into habits.  Then, maybe we can add.  

I pray God uses these to sanctify me.

Below is a talk I gave for some members our our Church last night.  For the talk I relied heavily on CJ Mahanney’s work Why Small Groups? and the preaching of John Piper.

You see, but you do not observe,” said Sherlock Holmes to his loyal friend, Dr. Watson. “The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”  “Frequently.”  “How often?”  “Well, some hundreds of times.”  “Then how many are there?”  “How many? I don’t know.”  “Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. This is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and  observed.” If you have read any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective stories, you know that Sherlock Holmes often rebukes Dr. Watson for his oversight. But Watson was no fool. Like me, and probably you, he simply lacked Holmes’ unusually strong gifts of observation and deduction. He could see the very same situations as Holmes without noticing important details. As Holmes stated, Watson saw…but he did not observe.  Sherlock Holmes cared. Observation was a critical tool of his trade. It’s critical for us as well as we examine the subject of small groups. You see, too many of us view small groups the way Watson viewed the staircase. We see but we don’t observe. We attend a group without understanding its real purpose. We fail to understand why our small group exists. And if we don’t know God’s purpose for small groups, we’re never going to achieve it.  - CJ Mahanney – Why Small Groups

If you have a Church background, you know the truth in his statements.  I have been a part of, and to my shame, lead small groups that were not Biblical.  They were primarily social and even enabled continuing sin.  Tonight, we are going to lay the ground work for, as Amos said, walking together.  A ground work for Bible based, God glorifying small groups.  The irony that we are in effect a small group does not escape me.  That we are in a small group discussing how and why small groups should be seems to be too late!  Should we not have done this before?  Yes, and we did.  This might be a good place to discuss motive.  Our goal tonight is that you see the Biblical basis for small group involvement, and what small groups should be.  This is not a sales pitch, but a telling of a Scriptural truth that as Christians we need to respond to.  Our goal is that you see this and continue in small groups until Christ comes or takes you home, and that you do it for the right reasons.  The simple truth is many have looked at this, and Christians through the ages have read the Bible and come to the fact small groups are a Biblical mandate.  JI Packer, a great theologian and author of the book Knowing God said “We should not think of our fellowship with other Christians as a spiritual luxury, an optional addition to the exercises of private devotions. Fellowship is one of the great words of the New Testament: it denotes something that is vital to a Christian’s spiritual health, and central to the Church’s true life…The church will flourish and Christians will be strong only when there is fellowship.  Tonight, through this talk and the discussion afterwards, we will look at why small groups must be, verses that support this (only submit to what you hear from me insofar as it is from the Bible.  If you do not think what I say is Biblical, speak up but do not just assume), and if we have time some practical application for your groups. 

So, with that, 4 reasons why we Biblically have small groups:

1)       To glorify God and respond to the Gospel

2)      Sanctification

3)      Called to Mutual Care

4)      Experiencing and Expressing the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

To glorify God and respond to the Gospel.  Everything you do should first and foremost be to glorify God and respond to the Gospel!  Why do you love your wife?  Why do you work hard?  Why do you read the Bible?  Why do you whatever!  Primarily do this for the Glory of God and in response to the Gospel.  What is the Gospel?  Let me put it in a sentence from Dr John Piper:  The Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ the Righteous One died for our sins.  Rose again, eternally triumphant over all His enemies so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe but only everlasting joy.  That is the Gospel.  You never, never, listen to this, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never out grow your need for the Gospel.  Don’t ever think of the Gospel as that’s the way you get saved and then you get strong by leaving it and doing something else (IE Small Groups), NO, we are strengthen by God through the Gospel every day until the day we drop.  You never outgrow your need to preach to yourself or to have the Gospel preached to yourself.  NEVER.  That is ultimately why you attend/lead/be a part of small groups.  Do you understand this?  Do you agree with it?  Without this fundamental understanding, small groups become nothing more than religious self help.  Please, tell me if this does not make sense to you.

Secondly, sanctification.  A new word for most of you I assume.  No worries, it is a new word to most but I will give you the definition and you will then no longer need to call it a new word but a process you are undergoing with Christ and the Holy Spirit.  Wayne Grudem (describe who he is) gives the definition of sanctification like this “Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.” Now, before we move on I need to make one quick distinction, sanctification and justification.  If you remember we discussed justification when I last spoke.  Grudem defines justification as follows Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which he 1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, and 2) declares us to be righteous in his sight.  Many Christians get these two truths mixed up leading to great spiritual consequences.  Justification is an act of God alone and deals with our position before God.  When we were born again He made us justified before Him.  Sanctification refers to our practice before God and is due to our being justified.  As CJ Mahanney says Though sanctification is the evidence and goal of our justification, we must never see it as the basis of our justification. Here’s where so many Christians get confused. They try to earn what has already been given to them as a free gift. As Martin Luther stated, The only contribution we make to our justification is our sin which God so graciously forgives.   Small groups gives us a place for sanctification to happen.  Although, sanctification is primarily a personal responsibility it would be idiotic (yes, I said idiotic) and unbiblical to try this alone!  Scripture clearly teaches that sanctification is intended to take place within the Church and Small group contribute to the process greatly.  Bruce Milan said The bulk of New Testament teaching on the Christian life, including the major sections on holiness, occur in letters addressed to corporate groups, to churches. All the major exhortations to holy living are plural – “we,” “you” (Ro 6:1-23; Gal 5:13-6:10; Eph 4:17-6:18)…Similarly all the New Testament promises of victory are corporate (1Co 15:57; 1Jn 5:4; Rev 15:2). In other words the apostles envisaged the Christian life and Christian  sanctification in the context of a loving, caring fellowship.

Thirdly, we are called to mutual care.  This principle of caring for each other is again, not hard to find in Scripture.  1 Corinthians 12:24-26 says God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. We are commanded to care for each other unselfishly and without hindrance.  Paul writes “Carry each other’s burdens” and “in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2).  This is something that cannot be done in the larger Church nor can it be done by leaders alone.   Look with me at Ephesians 4:11-12 11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.  Notice that the people given to the Church are to build us up to complete “works of service, so that the body of Christ may be lifted up”.  We need to understand this and act appropriately.  Based on this verse, Mike’s and the Elders role is to prepare the rest of us for works to build up the Church.  He is not solely responsible for this.  John Piper says it like this:

Notice very carefully what it is in these two verses. God gives to a church spiritual leaders whose role is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And from the work of the ministry by the saints, the body is built up. God’s pattern for producing people with powerful faith and genuine love is not to have the pastor-teachers do all the work of the ministry. They are to equip the saints to do the ministry. And the saints are not a class of Christians. They are you, all of you, who have set yourselves apart for God through faith in Christ. According to God’s pattern, the upbuilding of the body in faith and love is the immediate result of the ministry of the laity, not the ministry of the clergy.  The question this then raises for us is can our regularly scheduled meetings (large group) enable the saints to meet the NT requirement of building the body of Christ?  The answer is universally NO.  As a Church we have the opportunity to meet weekly but we are Biblically convinced that this alone does not enable the kind of personal ministry/sanctification required of us. 

Fourth, experiencing and expressing the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  God has given every Christians gifts of the Holy Spirit and we are all expected to use them.  We cannot all use them Sunday morning.  A perfect example is what is happening right now.  This is the second talk I have ever given (you witnessed the first as well) and I am growing and testing this Spiritual gift to see if it is even a gift.  If I thought I had this gift, and then asked for the pulpit one Sunday to work it out, that would not happen.  However, in a small group setting, we can all use our gifts to the Glory of God, the benefit of the body, and the benefit of ourselves.  Sometimes we think too narrowly of Spiritual Gifts and do not define them properly.  We think of them as happening during the apostolic times, but not today.  We worship God the Father and Jesus our savior but leave out the Holy Spirit.  We need to gain a Biblical understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in our Church, and Small Group and then expect Him to work that way.  Practically, this could work by completing a study of the gifts listed in Scripture, identifying who in your group could possibly hold what gifts, and working to the point where those gifts could be used to the Glory of God and His people!  There is a lot to say on this aspect and on how to live with the Holy Spirit but time does not allow. I then ask you this question, again from CJ Mahanney, is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit as much of a reality to you as the Love of the Father and the grace of Christ?

In closing I need to say something that might get me in a little bit of trouble, but please know I believe this is speaking in truth in love.  Small groups are not primarily for social activities.  I love to play basketball but getting together to play basketball on Saturday mornings is not a small group even if everyone is from your Church and you pray together for a better jump shot.  I say this because as you enter the Church you will find groups who primarily exist to build social relationships.  Please understand, this is good, building relationships built on common interests can get a great context for Biblical fellowship but it is not Biblical fellowship.  To have a Biblical small group must support and allow the 4 goals we have discussed.  Scripture must be studied, prayer must be done, and corrective measures in love must take place.  Without that, it is not a small group. 

The church I attend has recently gone through major leadership changes, all of which I believe are good and from God.  One of the key ways I can support our leadership, and especially the Sr Pastor is through constant, determined prayer.  There is a great post over at T4G on this topic and things to pray for you Pastor:

1. That [your pastor] would know and love the living God, would have a saving interest in Christ, being purchased by His blood, and thus would be bound to the Lord by the indissoluble bond of the Holy Spirit.

2. That [your pastor] would know, embrace and ever more deeply understand the Gospel and be shaped by it in life and ministry.

3. That [your pastor] would be useful servant of the Lord, that he would know and love God’s word, God’s people, and God’s kingdom; that he would be used to build it up and so that it prevails even against Hell’s gates.

4. That [your pastor] would study, practice and teach the Word of the Lord, by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

5. That [your pastor] would love to pray, because he loves to commune with his God, and that he would be a man of prayer, characteristically.

6. That [your pastor] would be ever dependent upon and filled with the Spirit; and that he would possess true Spiritual wisdom.

7. That [your pastor] would be holy unto the Lord. That his tongue and heart would be wholly God’s.

8. That [your pastor] would be kept from pride, and especially spiritual pride. That the Lord himself would be gracious to slay pride in him, and that your pastor would endeavor to always be putting pride to death, by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

9. That God would give [your pastor] guidance as to where to focus his efforts in ministry.

10. That He would protect [your pastor] from himself, from the enemy of his soul, and from all earthly enemies.

11. That no decision which [your pastor] ever makes or desire that [your pastor] ever pursues would restrict his ability to pour his whole soul into the Gospel ministry.

12.That many would be converted and many built up under [your pastor]’s ministry, to God’s glory alone.

13. That the Lord would bless [your pastor]’s wife, [. . . ], with holiness and happiness, Gospel assurance and Gospel rest.

14. That God would make [your pastor] a decent husband and father.

15. That [your pastor] would be a good friend to his wife, and love her self-sacrificially,

16. That [your pastor] would be a good daddy to his children. That they would love God, their parents and the church.

17. That [your pastor] would be a testimony in the home so that his wife might be able to respect him when he is in the pulpit, and so that [your pastor] will be able to feed her soul, along with the rest of the congregation.

Since the 1973 Roe vrs Wade decision to legalize abortion, we have seen close to 50 million abortions.  A Mississippi organization has come up with a unique visual to help us understand this number.  

Included is a plaque that reads:

Before you is a collection of 50 million pennies! Each penny represents one child who has been aborted since the Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade in 1973. A penny like a baby seems to be so small and sometimes of very little worth, but when seen in a collection of 50 million it becomes enormous.

Each coin is a person, but in many cases it also represents the difficult process of decision-making, fear, and loneliness. While some speak of pro-choice, these babies had no choice. While some speak of a mother’s right to control her own body, 50 million babies were not given their right to live.

Fifty million missing children represented by these pennies must be cause for us to stop, pray, consider what we are doing as a nation, ask God to forgive us, seek ways to help those who are struggling with the decision, and look to the Lord to restore each of us.

Between Two Worlds makes the additional point that this equals the population of the following states:

• Kentucky
• Oregon
• Oklahoma
• Connecticut
• Iowa
• Mississippi
• Arkansas
• Kansas
• Utah
• Nevada
• New Mexico
• West Virginia
• Nebraska
• Idaho
• Maine
• New Hampshire
• Hawaii
• Rhode Island
• Montana
• Delaware
• South Dakota
• Alaska
• North Dakota
• Vermont
• Wyoming

Proverbs 24:10-12:

If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work?

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

“This study again raises the issue of why the federal government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs,”

“James Wagoner of the advocacy group Advocates for Youth agreed: “The Democratic Congress needs to get its head out of the sand and get real about sex education in America.”

“This study came about because somebody who decides to take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American teenager. The pledgers tend to be more religious. They tend to be more conservative. They tend to be less positive about sex. There are some striking differences,” Rosenbaum said. “So comparing pledgers to all non-pledgers doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Abstinence education programs provide accurate information on the level of protection offered through the typical use of condoms and contraception,” she said. “Students understand that while condoms may reduce the risk of infection and/or pregnancy, they do not remove the risk.”

I thought one benefit of the Post Modern era was the removal of the error that education leads to good decisions.  People need to stop living in this false society of good people.  People are sinners.  They will do exactly what the Bible tells them not to do.  This should not be a surprise to anyone who has read Scripture. Romans 1-3 is a good place to start for this purpose.  A few verses:

  24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

“None is righteous, no, not one; 
11 no one understands; 
no one seeks for God. 
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; 
no one does good, 
not even one.” 
13 “Their throat is an open grave; 
they use their tongues to deceive.” 
“The venom of asps is under their lips.” 
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 
16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 
17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

People need to start having an accurate view of humans.  We are not good people, we are evil people.  We hate, we lie, we steal, we murder, we cheat, we do it all and we do it knowing it would be better if we did not do it!  These kids know that having sex without condoms is a danger, but they do it anyway.  Having sex outside of marriage is dangerous with or without condoms.   

These teenagers do not need a virgin vow.  They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Once they have died in Christ, raised in Him, and the understand this, they will then live like it.  Out of love for Him and what He has saved us from. 

Here is that Gospel as best it can be described in 6 minutes by a great Preacher of our time.

(Please read Post 1 and Post 2 before proceeding)

What is the meaning of baptism and based upon this meaning, should we sprinkle or practice immersion?  

To begin, let me summarize Grudem’s position in his Systematic Theology.  First the meaning.  Grudem says that baptism first signifies us dying and resurrecting with Christ.  Then, but not primarily, it signifies our being washed of sins.  To support this, two verses are supplied:

Romans 6: 1-11 -

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 2:11-12 - 

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

That is all Grudem puts forth in his effort on the meaning of baptism and spends more time on the mode (immersion vs. sprinkling).  Which, after some thought, makes sense because if baptism is primarily a symbol of us being buried and risen with Christ, then putting a few drops on my head makes no sense.  As Grudem writes:

Even the washing is much more effectively symbolized by immersion than by sprinkling or pouring, and death and resurrection with Christ are symbolized only by immersion, not at all by sprinkling or pouring.

If you have not figured it out already, Grudem supports immersion as the mode and proivides the following 3 reasons why (which he does before he points out what baptism means.  Which I believe is because the mode and meaning are connected.  I have yet to see a baby immersed):  (copied directly from the text)

1.  The Greek word βαπτίζω (G966) means “to plunge, dip, immerse” something in water. This is the commonly recognized and standard meaning of the term in ancient Greek literature both inside and outside of the Bible
2. The sense “immerse” is appropriate and probably required for the word in several New Testament passages. In Mark 1:5, people were baptized by John “in the river Jordan” (the Greek text has ἐν, G1877, “in,” and not “beside” or “by” or “near” the river).Mark also tells us that when Jesus had been baptized “he came up out of the water” (Mark 1:10). The Greek text specifies that he came “out of” (ἐκ, G1666) the water, not that he came away from it (this would be expressed by Gk. ἀπό, G608). The fact that John and Jesus went into the river and came up out of it strongly suggests immersion, since sprinkling or pouring of water could much more readily have been done standing beside the river, particularly because multitudes of people were coming for baptism. John’s gospel tells us, further, that John the Baptist “was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there” (John 3:23). Again, it would not take “much water” to baptize people by sprinkling, but it would take much water to baptize by immersion.
3. The symbolism of union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection seems to require baptism by immersion. Paul says,

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:3–4)

But to say that washing away of sins is the only thing (or even the most essential thing) pictured in baptism does not faithfully represent New Testament teaching. Both washing and death and resurrection with Christ are symbolized in baptism, but Romans 6:1–11 and Colossians 2:11–12 place a clear emphasis on dying and rising with Christ. Even the washing is much more effectively symbolized by immersion than by sprinkling or pouring, and death and resurrection with Christ are symbolized only by immersion, not at all by sprinkling or pouring.

A little late in posting, but wonderful none the less.