Tag Archives: Jesus

Mar 20 2009

Smoke on the Mountain


Tonight it was my joy to go with my daughter and a friend to the Strauss Theater here in Monroe to see the musical “Smoke on the Mountain”. What fun! We laughed a lot, we sang a lot, and we were reminded of times gone by and our wonderful Lord.

The setting for the play is the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant, North Carolina just west of Hickory near the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1939. The 63 member church is hosting a Saturday night singing and the guests are the singing Sanders family from Slier City up on Highway 11.

The actors sang hymns, gospel songs, blue grass gospel tunes, and gave testimony to what Jesus had done for them and lamented hard times and the closing of the pickle factory in Mount Pleasant. It was a wonderful, very entertaining evening. I saw John and Maggie Dobbs and the Riley’s, Chuck Adams who leads my 6:30 a.m. men’s group on Wednesdays, and other friends.

As I enjoyed the show the memories flooded my mind. The Singing Sanders family owned a filling station and they talked about Esso gasoline and selling Ne-Hi colas. And of course the church set was very familiar.

In my late teens and through my twenties I attended many Saturday night signings at little frame churches stuck on the side of a hill up in a hollow in the Blue Ridge. The singers were often family members. I was always amused that at least one of the groups would begin their part of the program by one of them saying something like “We an’t much at singing but we like to make a joyful noise for the Lord“. Well, let me tell you, that disclaimer was usually a prophecy! At least 25%  of them couldn’t sing a lick but they tried, and most of them earnestly believed it was one way they could serve the Lord.

Many, many times I led singing at some little church on the side of road where someone I knew was holdin’ a revival and didn’t have a song leader. I was a pitiful excuse for a song leader but I was glad to try. My wife and I would often sing a couple of songs a cappella like More about Jesus…

More about Jesus I would know, more of His grace to others show.
More of saving fullness see, more of His love who died for me.

More, more about Jesus,
More, more about Jesus;
More of His saving fullness see,
More of His love Who died for me.

A good crowd at those little country churches would be 30 or 40. They were country people who for the most part lived off the land, hard working folks who lived a hard life by today’s standards but they loved God and  were doing what they could for the kingdom.

I have preached to perhaps 15 or 18 and I have preached to several hundred and I had just as much joy sharing my heart with those wonderful, simple people, my people, as when I spoke to 800 or so upper middle class people in the city.

I have seen first hand the power of the gospel of Christ. I’ve seen drunks dried up, men addicted to cheap drugs for years delivered in an instant never to use them again. I have seen rough mountain men like my own father changed from bitterness and hopelessness into humble servants of Christ. I don’t know how to explain it but in those days we were not bothered much by hypocrites. Most of those mountain folks were pretty easy to figure. What you saw was what you got. Most of the time a man was exactly what he claimed he was. Yes, there was few devils about but they were the rare exception. Even our drunkards believed the virgin birth of Jesus and that the Bible was the word of God. Everybody respected the preacher. He was the one who would help them get to heaven, bury their dead, and marry their children. He was without question, God’s man.

I am fortunate to have the heritage that I enjoy and appreciate. I am familiar with folks  who believed the only reason to pray was to get what you asked for. Their word was their bond and nobody locked their doors or took the keys out of their cars. It was  good place to grow up and a good place to meet God and begin what is now my almost 50 years of walking with him.

If you ever have a chance to see “Smoke on the Mountain” I recommend it. You’ll get just a glimpse into my history and get to know my people from the hills.

Grace be with you,
Royce

 

Mar 17 2009

The Dumbing Down of Discipleship, Superficial Scholarship in the churches of Christ


In the last several months there have been several dozen blog posts and articles in coC journals about the decline both of the number of churches and membership. The Christian Chronicle has done a good job of examining the raw data available and raising some relevant questions as to why this trend is real.

I have read letters to the editor, blog posts, and listened to on line sermons, each with some suggestion about how to stop the downward spiral. Most of what I have read only touches upon symptoms and does not address the heart of the problem.

Last night I listened to a message preached by John McCord to his people at the El Campo church of Christ in El Campo, Texas. I invite you to listen to this young man’s sermon. John McCord is one example of a preacher who has decided to no longer facilitate the falsehood of legalistic teaching. This is an example of someone with the courage to bring ethics into the pulpit along with his Bible.

All of the hand wringing and ideas about how to be more relevant, develop better programs, and become more attractive to our communities are all exercises in futility unless the root of the problem is addressed. Shoddy and sometimes even dishonest Bible scholarship is our greatest problem.

The recent uproar about 21st Century Christian not including congregations in their directory that had one or more instrumental service on Sunday highlighted a shocking truth. Today, almost 25% of the members of churches of Christ in the United States attend a congregation which has at least one service on Sunday where singing is accompanied by musical instruments.(I am sure there are others the keepers of the gate to heaven have not discovered yet) This is not the problem. The awful truth is that many of the remaining 75% don’t believe the 25% is going to heaven because they have the dreaded “instrument”. This undeniable fact gets at the root of the decline of the numbers of congregations and members. Many educated, thinking people simply dismiss this sort of nonsense as silly and either move on to some other church of Christ or quietly leave the church tradition of their ancestors.

Why should we expect people to be drawn to or stay in a church that teaches you are in danger of hell fire if you don’t agree with what they teach, and what they teach can’t be supported by the Bible? Almost every member of our churches has a computer at home and within a few clicks of a mouse they can tap into the wisdom of trusted theologians on any given subject and quickly decide if a teaching is Biblical or a myth.

We must devote ourselves to honest interpretation of the scriptures and lay aside the traditions of men if they are not valid. Each of us will do so at great risk but it is worth the effort. Christian discipleship is not for the thin skinned and faint of heart. If you set out to be loyal only to Christ and the word of God you will become the target of zealots whose security is not in Christ but rather in what they do, the system they have endorsed, and the religion they are committed to.

To be what God wants us to be, without regard to the numbers or our critics, we must get back to the basics of the Christian faith. We must become a people of the Word whose lives have the flavor of an authentic, vibrant faith relationship with Jesus Christ. Every area of our lives should reflect our devotion to the Son of God and our unconditional surrender to His will. We must become known as people who love each other unconditionally, who hold each other accountable, who look out for the interests of others, and whose mission on earth is to make Christ known.

True disciples of Jesus are known by how they love. They are not known by how they worship, by what sign is over the door where they worship, or by what their church history is.They are known by loving each other and by loving even their enemies and by so doing loving God.

We must stop pretending we have it all right and everyone else is wrong. We must stop being church centered and become Christ centered. It is high time the Restoration Movement churches are restored to the faith of our fathers without all the trappings of man made religion. It is a life or death matter.

Royce

Mar 9 2009

What is Saving Faith?


The Bible teaches that sinners are saved by faith alone in Christ alone.

The moment I make this statement an array of emotions are invoked and people will line up to make the case that what I said is not true.  The reasons people think this statement is untrue can be narrowed down to two major lines of reasoning.

The first is the difficulty of people to grasp the scope of God’s love and ensuing grace. The idea that God would declare a wicked sinner not guilty, and then righteous, and give him eternal life and an inheritance in heaven just because he believed what God said in the gospel of Christ goes against every instinct of man. Such an idea is a scandal! Only the most naive would embrace such an idea! Surely sinful man must prove something to God before He can be approved.

I suggest the second, and larger problem is the common misunderstanding of what is meant by “faith“, especially “saving faith” in the Bible. A surprising number of people evidently believe that “believe” and “faith” are exactly the same in regard to salvation and have the most elementary meaning of each word in mind. It is common in our fellowship for a candidate for baptism to be asked “Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God?”  The problem is that believing that truth is not faith. Giving mental assent to some facts is not what the Bible means when it talks about “belief” or “faith“.

There are many places in the Bible that perfectly illustrates what genuine saving faith is. One of my favorites is found in Hebrews 6.

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
(Hebrews 11:6)

“Without faith it is impossible to please Him…”. Since this is true we need desperately to know what “faith” is. The remainder of the verse explains it clearly.

I suggest that biblical, saving faith has three components, and lacking any one makes what one believes less than what God demands. The second section of the verse says, “for whoever would draw near to God…

  • must believe that he exists”. Unfortunately this is as far as many people ever get. They believe a set of facts about God and about Jesus in much the same way we believe stories about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Believing that Jesus was actually a historical figure, and that he was called “The Son of God” is good but is only part of  what faith is. I can give mental assent to historical facts but I never have to depend upon those facts, or put my trust in one of those historical figures. When Jesus told Nicodemus he should believe on Him he meant to “rely on”, to “lean on”, or to “dependently trust” in Him. This is the most fundamental or basic component of faith, it is intellectual.
  • “and that he rewards” It is not enough to believe God exists, we must also believe he will act on our behalf. This is the emotional aspect of faith. This is the point where what you believe in your head starts to be embraced by your heart. Paul’s description in Romans 10 clearly shows this, v9 “believe with your heart” and v10 “For with the heart one believes and is justified“. When I say I believe something with all my heart it is more meaningful than just a fact I have accepted as true.
  • “those who seek him” This is when faith is complete. Those who are seeking are acting. Until what you know if your head is true and what you embrace in your heart is acted upon it is not saving faith. This is the aspect of faith I have called volitional. It requires an act of the will to do something. Looking once more at the familiar passage in Romans 10 you read in v9 “if you confess with your mouth” and in v10 “with the mouth one confesses and is saved“. A person hears about Jesus and believes he exists, they believe in their heart that he will do something for them, and they then tell someone. It is in this context Paul writes in v13”everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved“.

So then saving faith is intellectual, emotional, and volitional. Now it is easy to see that there is absolutely no tension between what Jesus and Paul taught and what James taught; “Faith without works is dead, being alone” A belief that stops short of surrendered obedience is too short to be biblical, saving faith. There are observable responses to the gospel. Going public with your faith by telling others (confession), reenacting the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus in baptism, and a lifestyle of obedience to what you know to be what God wants of you are all observable and to some degree measurable. But none of these observable acts are worth a plug nickel if first there has not been the first two components of faith. Many, many people are trusting what they do (which are good and noble things) and are not depending on Christ alone. It is the outworking of that solitary dependent trust in him that matters for time and eternity.

Again and again Abraham is put forth as our example of a faithful and faith filled man. He “believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness”. Before he was circumcised, before Issac was conceived, before he took a step toward the place to where God would lead him, God declared him to be righteous. Let us not make the mistake of assigning human limitations to God who is unlimited. Do you not think God knew you, knew exactly what would would do on any given day, how you would sin, when you would hear the good news and respond? It is his foreknowledge that gives him the divine prerogative to justify a sinner in an instant who is yet to do those observable things. Now you will have to show me, and those to whom James wrote would have to show him (James 2:18), but God knows the beginning from the end.

The scriptures are very clear. Those who do not have the walk to match the talk are not Christians. Read 1 John. You will find over and over distinctions, a lifestyle of loving living by those who belong to God and are in Christ. They did not become Christians by doing those things, they do those things because they are in Christ. Because they have trusted him they love as he loved. 1 John 5 makes crystal clear that the division is made between the saved and lost by who believes on Christ and those who do not.

Are we saved by faith alone in Christ alone? Yes we are. But to affirm that statement we must know what is meant by “faith”. I hope this might help someone to understand better. Faith and works are not separated, they are always together in saving faith.

His peace,
Royce

Feb 27 2009

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing


When Jesus gave the great command of the great commission He said “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) Here the Scriptures cannot be clearer. 1. Go make disciples. 2. Baptizing them (disciples) 3. Teaching them  (disciples). The disciples were to make more disciples by preaching the gospel, baptizing those who believed , and then teaching them to obey all that Jesus had commanded. Interestingly, no plan for world evangelism has been devised that beats that plan. It is the only one that is tested and proven and mandated by Jesus Himself. It worked in Acts 2, it worked with the man from Ethiopia, it worked with the house of Cornelius, and it worked for the Apostle Paul. Preach the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) in the power of the Holy Spirit, baptize those who believe, and then teach them to be obedient to all Christ taught. This is not complicated. 

Water baptism in the New Testament is clearly immersion. I can find no other method. Baptism is only for believers. It is only for those who believe the facts of the gospel or “good news” about Christ and put their whole trust in Him. The criteria is not church membership, what one believes ought to be said at baptisms, or even what one believes about baptism.

 

What about “baptism for the remission of sins”?  John the Baptist baptized “unto repentance”, (Matthew 3:11). His water baptism was not actual “repentance” but was “unto” repentance. Those he baptized desired to be identified with the community of faith who had chosen to repent (change their minds) and follow the one who would come, of whom John preached. Being immersed in water was not the cause of repentance; it said to the onlookers “I have repented”. In exactly the same way baptism “for” the remission of sins is not a mechanical action that obligates God to forgive sins in conjunction with immersion. Over 50 times in the New Testament it is made plain that salvation is by faith. Obedience always comes after faith in Christ, not before. The “natural” or unregenerate mind is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can he be. (Romans 8:7) Those who teach that no person can be saved until he or she is immersed also teach that only after baptism will they receive the Holy Spirit. This is inconsistent with Peter’s statement when he defended baptising the house of Cornelius to the church leaders in Jerusalem saying “ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17)  In Acts 10 the record is given of Peter’s visit and his message to Cornelius and those of his household. Peter ended his message to them by saying “To him (Jesus) all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). While Peter was still speaking the Holy Spirit was given to those who believed the message of the gospel and Peter asked “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47) This is consistent with all of the other Bible passages that teach clearly that men are saved by grace through faith.

 

When the believer is immersed in water he is saying to the world and to God, I am dying to myself and my way of doing things, and I am being raised to live my life God’s way. We thus reenact the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and are “marked out” as followers of Jesus and of the household of faith. Water baptism never stands alone and one baptized 100 times will still be lost if he or she did not first have faith in Christ. In baptism we look to Christ and what He accomplished on our behalf when He died for our sins, was buried, and raised from the dead. Water baptism does not join us to the church nor does it join us to God but it does cry out to a watching world “I belong to Christ and I purpose to live only for Him!” So we correctly sometimes say he or she was “baptized into Christ”. Of course we speak figuratively just as we do when we eat the bread and drink the cup. We are not literally eating the body of Christ or drinking His blood. We know that we receive Him by faith, not by physical eating. The symbols are not nearly as important as what they represent. We might eat unleavened bread, a cracker, or some other bread. And, we likely drink Welch’s grape juice, or perhaps even wine, but not literal blood. So the elements of the supper, when we commune with our Lord and His people, only represent His body broken for us and His blood shed for us until He comes. It is not a literal eating and drinking of his body and blood.

 

In my view, water baptism is much the same. We are not literally dying when we go under the water, we are symbolically dying. We are “baptized into His death” in a figurative way, we are not literally dead as He was. We are symbolizing our death to self and sin and our being raised to live the new life He gives. Thus it was necessary for Paul to say right after he talked about being “baptized into His death”, “reckon yourselves to be dead” (Romans 6:11). We are baptized “for the remission of our sins” by submitting to immersion in the watery grave of baptism.

 Just as Adam was our head before we became Christians so now Christ is the “new Adam”, our federal head. As in Adam all die, so in Christ all live (1 Corinthians 15:22). Because Christ is now our representative, when He died we died with Him (2 Timothy 2:11), and when He was raised we were raised with Him. Baptism is a beautiful and holy reenactment of those truths. Thus our eternal salvation was completed before we were born, completely outside of us or our abilities. “This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him,We shall also live with Him.”(2 Timothy 2:11) 

When we come to God’s open book we should come with an open heart. Unless we are willing to be shaped by it, both in what we believe and practice, we will miss many of its truths. We should be careful to not give more weight to a thing than the Bible does. Some Bible truths are more important than others (1 Corinthians 15:3, Hebrews 6:1) and we should assign the same importance to them the Bible does as best we can. (This makes all the fuss about singing in worship pretty silly..)

The mission of the followers of Jesus has not changed since He gave the great command “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you”. If we are faithful to do this we have done well. It is not our job to “convert”, win debates with sinners, but to preach the good news about what Jesus has accomplished for them in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is worthy of noting that the reason we can “go” and “make disciples” is because He has all authority and power in heaven and on earth. We go in his name, his authority, to tell the good news and then baptise and teach those who believe with all their hearts.

Churches that make a big fuss about Jesus and what He has done and is doing are growing. Those who major on anything else are not likely to grow. Our task is not to build churches, church growth is a result of preaching the good news about Jesus. If we will keep the main thing the main thing church growth will happen. Our mandate from heaven is to invite people to Jesus, not to church. There is a difference.

Royce