Category Archives: Preaching

Church, Preaching, Theology, Worship

An echo and an AMEN to A.W. Tozer

The more I read of A.W Tozer, a mid-western born preacher, pastor, author, magazine editor and spiritual mentor to hundreds, the more he both puzzles and astounds me.  In very simple terms he internalizes the words of Jesus and through his writing Christianity is furthered.  He wrote, and preached thousands of words on a myriad of subjects.  He seemed to come back again and again to three themes.  What they are is a genuine heartache for the state of the church.

You could l characterize the first of these concerns as seeing the Bible as an end to itself.  It is seen as a recipe.  Take a verse here and another one from over there and use them to prove your point.  The Bible becomes nothing more than a collection of facts that can be dissected, positioned, extrapolated and preached.  Preachers today seem to have all the right illustrations and answers to any given problem.  They pour two parts from one test tube in the beaker and a couple of drops from another and the expected chemical reaction is the result.  There is little room for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Tozer saw this as the shortest path to dead pulpits and dead churches.  You can be,” Tozer delighted in saying, “straight as a gun barrel theologically and as empty as one spiritually.”  The goal of reading the Bible is not to know more about the Bible, or to be able to quote the correct scripture at the correct time, but to be a pointer.  A pointer to God Himself.  The Word of God, while extremely important, can become more than the source of those words.

Tozer’s second concern was a growing practicality of  programs in the church; to insert methods and techniques to make the Church more palatable with the world.  He called it pragmatism.  It was an attempt to make the church more popular.  It was to add things that were more fun, more exciting, more attractive to the world.   He wrote,The temptation to introduce “new” things into the work of God has always been too strong for some people to resist. The Church has suffered untold injury at the hands of well-intentioned but misguided persons who have felt that they know more about running God’s work than Christ and His apostles did. Let me interject here.  There is nothing inherently wrong with any method unless it dilutes the message or pushes out God. Methodology has become rampant in the church today.  No longer do we sing hymns about the blood of Jesus.  No longer is the bread and cup venerated as a means of grace; instead we have prepackaged cups with bread in the tear off.  It is neater but is it better?  Is convention better than the graceful God.  I wonder what Peter would think of our church service if he silently crept in the back of these new relevant churches.

Third in his triad of concerns for the church was the lack of true worship.  He remarked over and over again about the loss of the sense of majesty, reverence and awe.  The Church as he saw it, was trivializing the very thing it was trying to accomplish. He saw it becoming a form of entertainment.  Hymns were being replaced by gospel songs, (and now by choruses sung over and over again).  The pulpit was becoming a place of humor and endless illustrations. He heard too many laughs and not enough sobs.  According to Tozer, “Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence Our Father Which Art in Heaven.”

AMEN and AMEN

Your comments are appreciated.

Bible Study, Preaching, Theology

Compare and contrast of Sin

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Good or Bad.  Right or Wrong.  Fun or Boring.  Easy or Difficult.  Beautiful or Ugly.  Every day, we’re surrounded by judgments, whether on the television or in our own minds.  Our culture is strongly attached to categorizing and comparing.

Yet we’re also told that it’s not politically or even spiritually correct to judge.  Accept difference, see similarity, no one is better or worse than anyone else.  Some kid’s baseball games no longer keep score for fear of being the “losers.”  I am not bald; I am just hair-challenged”.

In a Bible study the other day I was totally distracted by the concept of compare and contrast of two disciples of Jesus.  One is proclaimed as the founder of the church named Peter and the other Judas who is most remembered as the betrayer of Jesus.  One is held in high esteem and the other has become catch phrase for deceit and disloyalty.

So what was the difference?  What is the judgement Christianity has made through the eons?  I think we have to get down to motives or the mindsets of the two characters in question.

Peter betrayed Jesus purely out of fear.  Three times he denied Jesus.  We all know the story.  There is but one conclusion to Peter’s motives.  He was fearful of being put on trial himself just for being associated with Jesus.  Now fear as a motive can be a good thing.  It keeps us from driving into walls and drinking unknown liquids.  The problem is that is a very selfish motive.  Self-preservation is a natural desire.  The issue comes up that Peter knew it was going to happen.  Jesus had told him just the night before in response of Peter’s claim he would have Jesus’s back no matter what.

OK, how about Judas?  What was his motive?  What caused Judas to approach the religious leaders of Judah?  It could not be about the money.  I would not turn anyone in to the religious hierarch for a few pieces of silver.  He was the treasurer for the twelve.  He could have just taken the purse and run off at any time.  There must be more to the equation.

Judas was the only disciple from Judah.  All the others were from Galilee. The only one that had lived his life in a society that was saturated with religion and the devout.  His life was filled with temple and biblical festivals.  He was familiar with the roles and jobs of the priests.  The Temple was the center of his life.  He saw the Priestly system as a vital part of society.

I can really see Judas being the only one trying to bridge the gap.  When Jesus went to Jerusalem, he condemned the very ones Judas had held in the highest esteem.  Judas naturally tried to stand in the gap between the radical Galilee preacher and the establishment.  When Jesus started to talk about the great confrontation with religion it was just too much for Judas.

Judas thought if he could just bring the two parties together into on final confrontation both the Priestly class and Jesus would reconcile and he would be seen as the peacemaker.  But when it all went sour, when the priests started talking about death and crucifixion, when they brought in the Roman’s into the discussion, when they started to whip Jesus; Judas realized the reconciliation would never happen.  When the ones he had tried to bring together with his Rabbi betrayed, Judas could not take it.  His good motive was dashed by the results.  So Judas, now rejected by both his society and his teacher, could not combine his world of the past and the world of the present, he went out and killed himself.

Was Peter’s motive, what was in his heart, the silent just call of his heart to do better was just stuffed down and he betrayed Jesus.  Judas with a good motive and the best of intentions could not handle the impact of his actions.  Peter’s denial hurt no one, Judas betrayal set in motion the death of Jesus and his ultimate suicide.

Which of these two committed the greater sin?

Neither.  Sin is Sin.  The difference was that Peter found a place to be forgiven, Judas did not.  And so we make a judgement that Judas was bad and Peter was good.

Sin is sin, bad things happen to everyone.  Bad things like disappointment, betrayal, physical problems, rejection of love, broken relationships, all happen to everyone.  Bad things happen to good people.  Bad things happen to bad people.  Bad is not sin.  Bad can lead to sin.  And what can be concluded from this comparison of Judas and Peter is that sin can lead to bad.

What do you think?

Ministry, Preaching, Sermon Illustration

Knowing of God and Knowing God

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Hank, had just graduated from college ….with Landscaping contractor’s license.  He moved to a small rural town and opened a small office, bought a new pickup truck and waited for his first job.

The first job that was offered him was to remove a stump in a farmer’s field.

Wanted to act as if he knew what he was doing when he met the farmer in the middle of the pasture and all the cows.  Dynamite was the logical choice.  After helping the farmer to move all the cows to another pasture, Hank pulled out the box of explosives.

Hank dug a small hole under the base of the very large tree just as was illustrated in his textbook he had read the night before. He knew he would have to pack it in with enough dirt to contain the blast.  He used a calculator to determine the length of the fuse.

The problem was how much to use… He had no idea….  He didn’t want the farmer to know he as an amateur so he simply guessed at the number of sticks of dynamite.  So hoping it would be enough to move the stump but not so much as to kill them all, he put in the charge with the fuse, tamped it in carefully, covered it with dirt.

The moment came with a look at the farmer and a nod he lit the fuse and ran for cover.

An eternity seemed to pass.  In the middle of faint mooing of cows in the distance and huddled down behind the farmer’s tractor, it happened.

It was a mighty blast

The stump not only moved but it was catapulted into the air fifty feet.  It did three complete revolutions and landed right in the middle of the cab of his new pickup.

In the calm that followed, in the deathly silence, the farmer turned to hank and said: “With a bit more practice you should be able land those thing in the truck bed every time.”

There is a great difference between hearing how something is done and actually doing it.

And so there is a great difference between hearing what God is like and Knowing God.

 

Bible Study, Preaching

Are we missing something here?

Open Letter to all that Preach and teach

There is an ongoing epidemic in church pulpits across the nation.  This sickness is not being addressed by preachers and teachers who are simply not willing to address the need for a cure. The pulpits rarely preach and teach about the greatest soul killer.  Subjects are hedged and avoided.  Here is a list that just is not heard anymore:

  • “Stop sinning!” — Jesus, John 5:14
  • “Flee fornication” — the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:18, KJV
  • “God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” — Hebrews 13:4
  • “If you owe taxes, pay taxes” — the apostle Paul, Romans 13:7
  • “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature together with its passions and appetites.” — the apostle Paul, Galatians 5:24, Amplified
  • “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” — Jesus, Matthew 5:28
  • “…all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone” — the apostle John, Revelation 21:8
  • “Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error” — the apostle Paul, Romans 1:26b-27
  • Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery…” — the apostle Paul, Ephesians 5:18
  • “Do not let unwholesome [foul, profane, worthless, vulgar] words ever come out of your mouth…” — the apostle Paul, Ephesians 4:29, Amplified

I just don’t understand.  Why is it like it is? In Romans, Paul proclaims, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” Is that due to the fear of man? Is it a desire to please the hearers? It is that cowardly preachers are afraid of offending people? It is a conscious attempt to speak only uplifting things?

I leave that to your judgment.

2 Timothy 4:2-3  Preach the word… [3] For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Preaching, Sermon Illustration, Theology, Worship

Home Plate and God

Kids today are introduced to sports at earlier and earlier in their lives. Sports teach valuable lessons on teamwork, creates opportunities to get exercise, and gets them out of the house.  When I was young, and that was a very long time ago, my first organized sport was baseball. In our little town, there were two levels of Little League: National League and American League.  All the good kids, the ones that actually had talent were all in the National League and the not so talented were in the lower American League.  The year I started I was in the not so good group.  For some unknown reason the coach decided that I was going to be the catcher.

I played in the American League for two years and finally moved up to the big league.  I never moved out of the role of catcher.  I learned the game from the side of the plate most don’t see.  All the other players had positions inside of the playing field.  Only the catcher has a position outside of the foul lines.

Since that time, I have played both baseball and softball.  Most of the time I always was outside of the lines.  Once in a while I pitched, but most of the time you could find me squatting down behind the batter with a mask, a breast protector, knee pads and waiting on someone else to do something.

The game has changed much from a little kid with a wood bat to modern aluminum double walled nitrogen filled force multiplying bats of vengeance.  But one thing has not changed.  The home shaped base where everything started and ended never changed.  It was always seventeen inches wide.  In the first year of the American League to now that seventeen-inch-wide white home plate has always been the same. Uniforms would change, bats would change, even the ball changed, but the plate stayed the exact width of seventeen inches.

If a pitcher would miss the edge of the plate it was not up to the umpire to make the strike zone a little wider because the pitcher was outside by only an inch.  The strike zone was defined by the width of the plate and the plate was always seventeen inches.  The strike zone was not fungible because the plate did not change.  It was a constant.  No matter what park you went to, no matter what game you saw on the television it was unalterable.

During all of those games and practices, I noticed something.

The plate was one of the most holy things in baseball.  It was holy because it was unchangeable.  It was always an absolute part of every game, the size and position of the plate was immutable.  It was holy because it was set apart from opinion; it was not dependent upon public opinion.  It was holy because majority rule did not dictate the width.  A pitchers preference has no bearing on it.  No one can change it.  It is sacrosanct from the smallest Little Leaguer, to the big show of the major leagues.

So what does this mean to theology?  What can we learn? If a man made game can consider something as small as the width of a piece of rubber being holy, what does God consider as Holy?  What does God set as his seventeen-inch home plate?  What does God consider Holy?  For that matter is raises the question of “Why is it Holy to God?”  And one more step in our rise to understanding, “Are God’s concept of Holy the same as my concept of Holy?”

Quickly here is a list that I believe is on the God’s Home Plate list.

You are holy.

If you are a follower of Christ, you have been bought with a price.  You are united with Christ and you are now holy because God’s holiness is your holiness.  You because of your acceptance of a free gift from God you are “set apart for a purpose.”

Human life is holy.

God’s plan was to create life that would be his.  Every beating heart matters to God.   It does not matter if that heart is in the chest of a prisoner, in the chest of an elderly senior in a convalescent home, in the chest of a great theologian, in the chest of a child in the womb of a mother.  All are holy to God

Marriage is holy.

When the officiant speaks of holy matrimony, it is not by mistake. Marriage is a set apart relationship.  That is true for good marriages or not so good.  It is not stretched to a different dimension just because the pitcher would like to be a little wider.  I believe that marriage even if there has been betrayal, or other circumstances that have broken trust, marriage is still holy.

The Sabbath is holy.

It is God’s dimension of our lives to take a day off.  Six days are enough.  And now that I am older I am thinking one and a half may suit me better.  But at last one day for God as the only focus of my life is what is designed.

Our tithe is holy.

“A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.” (Leviticus 27:30 NIV) The first ten per cent of everything you earn is, in God’s eyes, holy money. We never give it to God, we return what is already his. The tithe is holy.

The name of God is holy.

God’s name is holy.  It is not to be used in a slur or in a time of frustration.  The use of God’s name in profanity is simply making something holy to extend into the unholy.  It dilutes the holy name of God; it rubs the shine of His Glory of the beauty of God.  The world would like the children of God to be so common that God’s holy name becomes common.

The Holy things of God are few and many.  But they must be the same as they were in the old times and the modern.  As the width of the home plate will always stay at seventeen inches, so God will be the same and with that unchangeability comes the Holy things of God.

Our world around would have us change the definition of life not to include the unborn.  Sex outside of marriage is seen as the normal.  We work every day with the expectation to rest latter and we are rewarded for it by a bigger paycheck.  We want make it a free will offering and not a tithe. People become disposable.  Life becomes more of an existence instead of something to please God.  Everything of the world would have us say “that home plate is old school.”  “We need to make is broader so everyone can get a better shot at winning.”

The width of home plate is not up for discussion, neither is God’s call to holiness.

Church, Preaching

Requirements for Preaching

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Whitefield wrote about the need for a special type of preacher: “Yea…that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more . . . raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labor and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness ‘signs and wonders following’ in the transformation of multitudes of human lives.”

My most earnest desire is for the church, my church, might find a Bible infused preacher of the Word.  A preacher that is so overpowered with the holiness of God, so broken by the purity of God, so full of wonder of the majesty of God, and so overwhelmed by the God’s greatness that the church not just be revived but set ablaze in a holy zeal that cannot be quenched.

We need preaching that will lead us to the seriousness of God.  It is more than a heavenly, back slapping, fellowship.  I hear from all sides and church growth specialists that preachers need to “lighten up”, “be more relevant to today’s issues”, and “we have to become more modern.” In these admonitions to the preachers of the day I do not hear the Spirit of Jesus.

Listen instead to the words of God;

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25).

  • “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29).
  • “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).
  • “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
  • “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22).
  • “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44).
  • “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
  • “Some of you they will put to death . . . But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:16-19).

To the church I would ask what kind of preacher do we need:

  • One that would teach us to hold on until Jesus comes, or a fire brand that will hold our feet to the fire?
  • One that is good with audio visuals or someone that imparts the seriousness of God.
  • One that is so up to date with the latest news and current events or someone that has the mind and heart of God so close that he imparts the timelessness of the Holy?

Preaching, Uncategorized

Seed that would not grow.

One of my earliest memories of Marina Del Mar Elementary School was the day a little seven year old me witnessed a miracle.  Kindergarten was not what it is today.  Most of the time was spent normalizing wild children into a homogeneous group.  We played together and the teacher was there to mitigate and bring justice when there was a disagreement.

Oh back to the miracle.

It was time in the late morning for a science experiment.  Each little one was given a paper cup.  We were to go out into the play yard made up of dirt interspersed with hard metal rings and slides and instructed to fill our cup half full with dirt.  We were reminded that the quality of the soil would determine the outcome of the experiment.

Each child went out to find their dirt.  I went to the farthest corner under a large hedge row of Cyprus and dutifully dug a little hole and filled my cup half full with dirt.

Upon returning to the class room we poured out our diggings on individual paper plates and were given some dark soil to mix in.  I did not smell very good.

We refilled our cups with this mixture almost to the top.  George next to me spilled his and had to start over.

Each of us was given a little seed, about the size of a freckle we put on top and covered with the last of the ill smelling stuff.

We watered those little gardens every other day and left them in the window.

That’s no miracle you would say.  But my paper cup garden was different.  You see mine did not sprout out of the ground like the others.  Mine did not come up when everyone else’s did.

We planted them on Thursday. Friday we added water but no indication in any of them. On Monday three of the other kid’s cups had a little sprout of green. Tues the majority of the other kid’s had their sprout. Wednesday everyone had a sprout but me.

I was told that I must have had a bad seed. For a kindergartner that is not a very good answer for the sense of disappointment.

The teacher didn’t want me to start over because I would behind all the rest.  She suggested that I should look on with someone else.

But I would not give up.  I left my cup in the sun. I gave my cup water. Thursday and still no green sprout. Friday and no harvest.

Monday as I arrived at school, fully expecting to be disappointed again, I went to the window sill and there it was the miracle.

GREEN!

Not out of the middle of the cup where the seed had been planted, but close to the edge. In all its green glory my little plant had pushed its little sprout out of the dirt.  It was small but it was there.
The miracle was that in my hurry to plant the seed I had not been very careful with the dirt I had used.  I had placed my seed under a small stone.  The seed had in its effort to rise to the sun had come up against the stone and had taken four extra days to move something probably twenty thousand times as big as itself out of the way.

Never underestimate the power of a seed.

Church, Preaching

Who is leading the flock

Real shepherds know the sheep, live with the sheep, and even eat the same sheep food. The shepherds  life demands both public engagement with real people and meaningful private moments alone with piles of books.

In churches we have code language that goes something like this. If the guy is warm and friendly but can’t preach to save his life, it is said of him that “he has a pastor’s heart.” Conversely, many wonderfully skilled expositors are nothing more than full-time conference speakers who drop into their congregations most Sundays and deliver a conference-like message. In short, if the shepherds vocation hovers anywhere near the end of Ephesians 4:11 (So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers) we need to embrace the full weight of what it means to be a pastor and the commitment involved for those who are called to teach the Word. What does a church need: a pastor or a teacher? The answer should be “both.”

Church, Preaching

What is preaching?

I have been impressed lately on the necessity of preaching in the church.  I have read much on why preaching should be the pinnacle of the gatherings of the Body of Christ.  The words of Jack Hyles have refreshed my concept of preaching more than all the others. I humbly take his ideas and thoughts and share them with you.

Preaching is taking a risk in explaining the mind of God.  Preaching is teaching with a tear in the eye.  Preaching is explaining the unexplainable.  Preaching is facts on fire.  Preaching is the very thoughts of God in the hand, the fire of God in the heart and the zeal of God in the soul.  It is, in the words of Pastor Jack Hyles, “Preaching is the gift of God wrapped in an excited voice.” Preaching has to be more than a 30 minute speech.  It has to be the moral conscience of the church, the nation and the world.  Preaching is the soul of the body of Christ.

All the major colleges in the east were built because of preaching. It was preaching that originally built our public school system. It was preaching that originally established our law system. In the early days of our country, a degree in theology was a prerequisite to a law degree. Every great denomination was founded on preaching. It was John Wesley who said, “I just set myself on fire and folks come to watch me as I burn.”

John Newton said, “Preaching is breaking the hard heart and healing the broken one.

Abraham Lincoln said, ‘When I hear a man preaching, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”

Preaching is the answer to what troubles the church. We cannot allow any substitute for preaching. The church should never settle for something less. Sacred music is admirable, but it is no substitute of preaching. An inspired cantata may be uplifting but is not substitute for preaching.  A poignant dramatic presentation of drama is not a substitute for preaching. Preaching is the highest of professions and the greatest of pure art.

Again as Pastor Jack Hyles in his book “Teaching on Preaching,” emphatically stated:
Preaching is truth set on fire. Preaching is demolition of error. Preaching is doubt’s healing balm. Preaching is the Holy Spirit’s amplifier. Preaching is the Savior’s projector. Preaching is fact on fire and truth aflame. Preaching is worship’s entrée. Preaching is the adornment of the Bible. Preaching is the power of God unto salvation. Preaching is revival’s forerunner. Preaching is the church’s heart. Preaching is doctrine clothed in excitement. Preaching is love’s smile. Preaching is sin’s greatest adversary. Preaching is frustration’s funeral.  Preaching is doubt’s demise.  Preaching is fear’s failure. Preaching is depression’s death. Preaching is disappointment’s decline.  Preaching is faith’s food.  Preaching is profundity delivered in simplicity. Preaching was the first thing done by the Mayflower pilgrims.  Preaching is the mender of broken relationships.  Preaching is the healer of broken hearts. Preaching is the revival of broken dreams. Preaching is Hell’s greatest enemy Preaching is the sinner’s best friend.  Preaching is the saint’s dinner.  Preaching is genius with a halo.  Preaching is fire in the pulpit that melts the ice in the pew.

When the preacher approaches the pulpit, all must stop.  Angels must cease their wings, let holy awe inspired hush come upon heaven itself. This folly of preaching is the most important task of the hour, the day, even of the week. Let Heaven give voice and unction, let the gates of hell shake in fear, let the church wait in a holy expectation.  Quiet the children, let the ushers sit down, let all the past pass away, let the stew boil in the pot, the future can wait, let Satan and his angles be overcome with fear.