Justification

I found myself the other day telling my youngest son (who can behave very poorly quite frequently!), “I love you even when you’re bad but I don’t love that you’re bad.” And I repeated that a few times. Did he get it in his 2 year old mind? Probably not, but he eventually will. But when’s the point that a kid understands higher thinking? I don’t know and that’s why I’ll speak over his mental capacity continually while directing it to him (I’ll also speak down to his level too!).

Isn’t that how the Bible is written to us? God speaks from the divine perspective quite often and we as His children argue and bicker, or at best, debate at what He means or how His words could be so (especially in terms of ‘election’ and things like that). Yet I find it increasingly and more apparently true in my life that we would relieve ourselves much headache if we would simply take His Word at His Word and not try to connect the dots or figure at “how!?” Well that’s quite hard for us to resist!

Perhaps one day we will get it, but maybe we won’t either. In our glorified bodies, perhaps we will just simply trust God and embrace Deuteronomy which says, “the secret things belong to God.” Isn’t there a reason that Jesus said in Matthew 11:26, “thank you Father for revealing these things to LITTLE CHILDREN.” What is it with little children that make up the Kingdom of God? We aren’t spoiled with too much learning yet. And in that way, our thoughts don’t get in the way of God’s thoughts. We don’t object because we don’t have a clue how to yet.

Then again, little children do at sometime grow enough of a head on them (like in their teenage years) to object to mom & dad’s authority. And if they press your buttons enough, you’ll respond by saying, “because I told you so!”

In Romans 9, God says just that, “But who are you to talk back to the Potter and ask, why did you make me like this?” That’s good logic, so good that every parent, if they don’t like what God says, cannot honestly object against it because they too have presented that reasoning to their kids! And it’s as if God says in Romans 9 & Matthew 11, “you need to play the role of kid, and stop pretending that you can play ‘parent’ on Me. Accept my words and decisions!”

What is my point in all of this? I learn a lot by being a parent. And one of those things is how much I overhear myself talking to my kids so naturally and intrinsically as an echo of how God speaks to me:

He tells me things too wonderful for me to comprehend yet! But as I grow, I’ll eventually understand these things more more and more.

And one of those grand realities is “I love you even when you’re bad but I don’t love that you’re bad.”

This is what it means to be a child of God. He loves us still when we’re bad by virtue of the relationship that He has with us in Christ. But that doesn’t mean that He approves what we’re doing! Yet He loves us so much that He would discipline us (Hebrews 12:3-11).

The Problem of Evil

I don’t mean to oversimplify this issue, though this is how I see it and I believe this is how God sees it: the problem of evil:

At the first simplistic level, we must understand that God is correct. We are evil at the heart and we initiated evil from the beginning of creation. The results of evil in Genesis 3 were that Adam blamed his wife, his wife blamed the snake and both hid from God. Now, our proclivity as fallen creatures (to speak of ‘evil’ in mild terms) is to blame somebody for evil except ourselves. Therefore, the problem of evil lies within us. We would rather blame God than blame ourselves. 

No matter whatever philosophical acrobatics you do with your mind concerning the problem of evil, the fundamental principle remains the same (and don’t you feel a sense of this?): we are sinners and God is perfect. God is perfectly good and yet we don’t trust Him. Isn’t this the real source behind the problem of evil? We don’t trust God, although He’s good. Although He’s good, and clearly we’re bad, we’re the evil ones, we don’t trust Him and yet we trust ourselves. God would tell us not to trust our own reasoning. We can’t even understand the Gospel or spiritual things unless God grants us the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2, Matt. 11:27). So do you think us fallen creatures who dwell with deceitful hearts (Jer. 17:9) have the ability to assess evil? (We can’t even assess God’s good news correctly!) So we always assess evil in scrutiny of God’s goodness as if He could be the bad One. Well if He could be, then our only God is the Devil in which case all of us are little Hellions, literally, we are the children of Satan and the whole world was made by Him too.

And yet that would bring up a greater dilemma: “The problem of good!” Nobody likes to ask that question because we attribute the good so naturally to us, leaving God out of the equation. But we attribute the question of evil to God, and leave us out of the equation! Every debate that I hear on the question of evil is focused on God. I can’t help but think that even Christians like to put God on trial. I cannot think of a better answer to the problem of evil than, ‘faith.’ Take God at His Word. I am condemned as a sinner. God is completely sovereign and permits evil. You may well say that He caused it then because He’s omnipotent and decided not to stop it. Yet, it’s absurd to attribute Him with evil, for then God’s attribute would be evil, and hence the devil himself. God is Holy, not evil, and eternal at that. So His purposes far outreach our limited perspective. 

Plus, I always come back to this simple reasoning when trying to condemn God for evil in the world that He created. Could I make a world any better? Do I really have the right to critique Somebody Who made me (Rom. 9:20!), first of all, and Who has made a world much more wonderful than I’m capable of, and what’s more, who could prove that any human being would make a world as beautiful and lovely and less evil than the one that God’s world became? We assume that we could make a world better than God when we point the finger of blame at Him for what it has become. Yet, we who complain about the problem of evil are born adding to the problem–fighting with siblings, disobeying parents, etc. And if it wasn’t for the preventative grace of God, we would all turn out much worse than we have. Therefore, if we created a world, would we really create it without evil? (look at the families we produce!) So no, we could never, since we are as human beings the first responsible cause for evil (not including Satan) and an additional thrust to evil.

I will say this. The problem of evil is not a problem to God at all, since He permitted it. He throws into Hell, and that won’t bother Him forever. It saddens Him, albeit true (look at Gen. 6!), but He doesn’t lose sleep over a lost creation. Why? Because although people are made in God’s image, we are still made and we are not His image. We are NOT God! I think it’s a very hard thing to grasp because we are people who love ourselves more than God. But the problem of evil can be summarized with just that too: we love ourselves first, and then love God. If we were to love God and then people, we would rejoice in His glory, His justice, and His way. But instead we make the problem of evil one that only exploits our evil. We are inclined to blame God for it. However logical that may be in our head, it’s fallen reason, it’s abominable logic, it’s abysmal arguments, and we are the one’s to blame.

It’s a wonder that the world is still as beautiful as it is, filled with love and any amount of justice. That’s called grace and without evil, we would know nothing of it like we do today. 

Praise be to God for bringing the greatest evil on His Son Jesus Christ on our behalf! The problem of evil brings us to the wonder of love. And in my estimation, that is the solution to our problem of evil. Look to Christ and look no further. He carried our evil on Himself. And that is called gracious justice.

You can either have straight justice in which we would all be condemned. Or you can experience gracious justice, where God in His love took it upon Himself to bear our guilt and blame for us. He didn’t need to do that. But praise God He did!

Fire!

I constantly find myself hearing myself tell my sons when getting close to our stove, “don’t touch the stove, it’s hot.” And I’ll repeat myself and say again, “don’t touch the stove, it will burn you!” My 2.5 year old son Micah will constantly repeat this warning out loud by saying, “Daddy, we don’t want to touch the fire, it will burn me!” 

The reason that I tell my children not to touch that hot surface is because first of all, they don’t realize it’s hot, second, it will hurt them severely, and thirdly, I love them. 

Not only is there hidden fire lurking behind a beautiful glossy ceramic stove top, but beneath the surface of this beautiful God given life is unthinkable, unimaginable, danger that will burn us if we don’t heed our heavenly Father’s warnings. 

I find myself thinking about this hidden reality called Hell quite a lot every time I inadvertently tell my sons, “don’t touch this surface, it’s hot!”

I’m moved by the thought, just the thought of the enemies of Jesus burning in Hell for all of eternity, not just a hand on the stove, but a body thrown into a furnace, not just a hand on a stove that flinches backwards, but a soul that abides in the fire without any escape. 

We often think of our evangelism in terms of God’s love but contrast that against His warnings of Hell. I’m beginning to see, as my sons prove to me, that warning is the greatest proof of your love.

Why wouldn’t we be willing to warn people of the fire of Hell? In most cases I believe it’s because we hardly believe it, we haven’t given it enough thought, and we’re selfish. We care more about what that person will think of me than what will happen to them. 

Hell is probably the hardest biblical subject and truth for me to understand, digest, and speak (although Christ’s suffering should boggle me more than mankind’s punishment). Nevertheless, if indeed all of Christ’s words are true and He wasn’t a crazy lunatic, then Hell is a place of unquenchable fire where the worm does not die and the soul doesn’t either. They remain in torment forever. 

The realities of God are paradoxical, more terrible than you can imagine but also better than we can fathom. He is good and terrifying as the Holy God that He is. 

Just as this earth–His creation–is filled with terrifying realities like tsunamis and tornados and, oh, fires too–so it is with our Creator. 

He is good, but we have much to fear. Of course, He is holy, we are not, therefore we deserve only bad, yet He gives much common grace to all. 

Yet one remaining fact stands with God’s character, and that is the triumphant love that Jesus shows as He conquered death for our sins, even more, paid the Hellish fire for our sins, somehow in His way compressing an eternity of God’s fiery wrath on Himself for all of us in 6 hours. 

And in His love, He warns us. Jesus spoke of Hell in more specific and terrifying language than any other person or part of Scripture. Yet He is God’s expression of love, isn’t He? 

I don’t claim to say that I’m very good at even mentioning Hell to people in my evangelistic efforts yet alone warning them of it because their life is hanging off the precipice, but I believe that I can do better. 

To speak of a fire that will burn you and tell your friends who are without Christ, “don’t touch the fire, don’t go there, lest you get burnt” is not an unloving thing to do, but a naturally loving thing to do IF THAT IS THE TRUTH. You might say it like this: ‘my friend, I don’t want you to experience everlasting torment, I really don’t, so let me tell you about Hell and God’s love for you that quenched it.”

In Jude 23 he writes, “save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” It speaks of our obligation to warn our fellow humans that there is hidden fire lurking behind our nonchalant sin, behind our everyday actions, and it should come from our deep deep love for them to warn them and tell them, 

“Don’t touch the stove, it’s hot–don’t grip onto wrong-doing, even worse, unbelief, it will burn you, forever.” 

God’s Work, Not Mine.

Psalm 103 – “Bless the Lord oh my soul, and all that is within me, Bless His holy name.”

On Thursday, August 25th at 4:35am, something incredible happened. But here’s the back story first.

A man named Rich Morgan has been slowly warming up to the Gospel. He’s a former Jehovah’s Witness who reconnected with a friend named Jason Contino about 2 years ago. Jason Contino is a former Jehovah’s Witness who came to Christ and had given his personal testimony at an online event which Rich discovered. Rich reached out to Jason and their friendship reestablished.

As a result, Jason sought to connect Rich to a good Church. He discovered our First Baptist Church in Warrensburg and reached out to me. Therefore, I entered into the relationship trio between Rich, Jason and I.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve been growing closer to Jason Contino to the point that I joined his ordination counsel. He has been visiting my town of Warrensburg and Church because of his friend Rich. Rich too has been sporadically attending our Church.

But recently, Rich started attending our Church more frequently. In fact, he even took communion a few weeks ago. I’ve been in contact with him as a neighbor who lives a few streets over from me.

With that being said, a few days ago, the Holy Spirit gave birth to Rich!

He had been taking care of his dying next door neighbor Mike. Mike was (and is) a Christian who came with a very very rough history filled with drugs and poor choices. Recently, Mike struck up a better relationship with his neighbor Rich. He had discovered lung cancer which had become terminal. He had a few weeks to live. Rich, as a good and compassionate neighbor, took full time care of him in his dying months.

I had visited Mike and he told me that he believed the reason he stayed in his current location (which he disliked) was for the sake of his neighbor Rich who needed to know Jesus (keep in mind, this is a guy who had filled his life with drugs!).

On August 25th, Rich was helping Mike (who was clearly on his last few days of his life) at 4:35 in the morning, and Rich told him, “I would do anything to help you. I would switch places with you if I could.” At that point, Rich realized what Jesus had done for him. He had switched places with him. Jesus had given up his life for Rich so that Rich didn’t need to die. In mercy and compassion, Jesus died in Rich’s place. At that point, Rich began crying and the knowledge that he knew in his head reached his heart. Rich was spiritually born again.

That night, Jason and I baptized Rich in Lake George. Afterwards, Rich came back to Mike around midnight and told him that he had been baptized into Jesus Christ and Mike breathed his last breath a few minutes later.

God used a weak vessel as an instrument to help deliver His child Rich into the world! I would say that Rich experienced conception before this born again experience, but it was Mike who God used as the delivery nurse.

That next Sunday, Rich gave his testimony to our Church and there were tears in the eyes of our congregation.

Praise God for doing great things that we have not looked for. If there is something that I have learned, it’s this: “who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?” God surprises me with wonderful acts that He is doing apart from me. And he graciously lets me witness His works in such a way where I can claim no credit for myself. Thank you God for this! All glory goes to You! Please continue to do this in Warrensburg and around my life. May I see Your goodness and power and tell others about it!

I hope this is an encouraging story for you and reminds you that God has a plan greater than you and that could be accomplished without you. How humbling, YET, God chooses to make us weak vessels of His strong grace. God often allows us to just witness His work apart from us. Thank God when He does this. At least for myself, it helps guard me against personal pride and helps me keep my trust entirely on God and not myself.

R-Evolutionary Parenting

Raise kids and you will realize that evolution is impossible. Kids destroy. They don’t create and it requires a grown adult parent to withstrain them and clean up after their mess. The world would have gotten nowhere to where it is today with an organized society if it began with kids. In fact, nobody would be alive either. Society would have died a long time ago because kids don’t keep themselves alive. Their parents do. Try telling an infant to grow on their own. They will die. Is it any coincidence that God created Adam & Eve in the garden, full grown adults, not newborn infants? 

Life comes from parents who have been trained by parents. That’s how it works today and that is how it has always worked. 

(It’s an irreducible complexity that cannot be explained by evolution.)

On the other hand, the logic of evolution is that the simple slowly morphed into a more sophisticated form whereas life today teaches us that the more sophisticated raises the young. The young do not grow old by themself. The already old trains the young and in fact makes sure that they stay alive and can grow mature. 

There is no possibility in the world where we live for somebody to grow mature without somebody mature already existing to teach them and nurture them into maturity. The mature breeds the immature. That’s the life that we live. 

It’s a true quandary (or false one) that evolution would teach that the immature breeds the mature. This doesn’t make sense if you actually think about it. It only makes lies. 

Raise some kids and you will know what I mean. You cannot fit parenting young kids into the box of evolution. And if you do, then you as a parent will begin honoring your children as your elders, and see how that will turn out…just as well as our society that has taught and embraced evolution: chaos & confusion. 

Children don’t grow with understanding or wisdom or truth or orientation without an already pre-existent older parent who can teach them & nurture them & keep them alive. 

And this is why I believe in God (at least one reason). We would know nothing today without our eternally pre-existent Creator in Heaven making us and teaching us and keeping us alive. That’s how life works on the smaller scale. That’s how life works in the present sense. And that’s how life operates on the greatest scale in the here and now. 

Our Eternal Parent God raises us rambunctious disoriented and destructive human beings to become mature full grown adults who can in turn raise more young children who need the same thing as we once did (& continually need). 

Let us all learn to see ourselves more as infant children compared to our eternal Father who still need Him to raise us and teach us and conform us more into the image of His only Eternal Son Jesus Christ! 

And operating with the same logic, how does one come to know God as our Father? How does one become a child of God? In the same way that a parent makes a child, by the complete work of the creator. 

Christians–children of God–don’t become God’s children by pushing themselves out to life. You can’t make yourself into a new creation. This is the work of God just as much as a newborn human is the work of his/her parents and their love. 

To become God’s child is the work of our Father God through Jesus Christ His Son & His Holy Spirit to push us out into newness of life. 

It’s another quanray that people would think that they can work to attain ‘child of God’ status. This reduces God to a bad parent and it upgrades ourselves to the parent of God because we think that we can make ourselves born when in fact that’s the parents role. Children don’t make their child status, parents do. It’s the work of the parent, not the child. 

John 1:12-13 says it well: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

What’s our part? Submit to God our Father as Divine Parent, Authority, and His Son Jesus as Lord of our life. He is Lord to die for our sins. He lived in our place. Indeed, we are His spiritual offspring if we simply believe. 

And it’s God’s role to make us born again to find life in Him. 

The Power Of Preaching

1 Kings 18:36-37 – The Fire Of God’s Word!

Preaching with the fire of the Holy Spirit’s power is the difference between the false prophets of Baal and Elijah in 1 Kings 18. The false prophets pray to a god who cannot hear or speak and has no power whereas Elijah prays to our One True God Who speaks & hears us–Who hears him. What happens? Fire comes down from heaven and consumes an altar that had been drenched in water. 

Preaching God’s Word is lit on fire through prayer, true prayer, like that of Elijah.

In other words, the true preaching of God’s Word must presuppose two things; (1) that we believe in the power of God’s mouth, that He speaks, & (2) that we believe in the hearing of God’s ears, that He hears us when we pray and responds to our prayers for His glory. 

We too often, as preachers, believe in the power of God’s voice (which is even rare today) but we place smaller emphasis on believing in God’s listening ear! We need both if our preaching will demonstrate the fire of God’s power!  

In order for me to come to this conclusion that Elijah’s duel with the false prophets of Baal is a demonstration of preaching God’s Word with fire, it’s paramount to understand that fire is a representation for God’s Spirit in Scripture. 

In the wilderness, God’s presence was symbolized as a flame of fire that hovered over the Tabernacle at night. His presence was also symbolized as a pillar of fire leading them to the red sea away from Egypt. 

In the New Testament, when the Holy Spirit came down to dwell in believers at Pentecost, He was symbolized as a flame of fire atop believers heads.

In order to preface that event, Jesus told His disciples in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” And when He does come to dwell in the believers, this power is symbolized as fire over their head!

And in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Paul writes, “do not quench the Holy Spirit.” It’s a picture of sizzling out the flame of God’s Spirit that burns upon our life. 

To Timothy (2 Tim. 1:6), Paul writes: “fan into flame the gift of God.” 

You see, the Holy Spirit is a pillar of fire, a flame, & a burning red hot desire in our souls for God.

In the case of Timothy, his scorching hot gift laid upon him was teacher/preacher of God’s Word. And He’s told to fan into flame that gift. How? I would suggest that he fans into flame that gift of teaching through prayer just as Elijah.

I mention those examples because the fire that comes down from Heaven at the prayer of Elijah is an example of the Holy Spirit’s power accompanying God’s Word. It’s an example of Spirit filled preaching, preaching because Elijah prays that his audience would know, “that I have done all these things at your word.” (1 Kings 18:36). 

You see, the fire that fell from Heaven was a display of the power of God’s Word. 

And it all begins with prayer. But it begins with rightly motivated prayer as Elijah’s prayer will illustrate: 

Here are 5 aspects of prayer that God uses to light on fire our preaching of His Word: 

Notice what Elijah prays before the outpouring of God’s fire upon the altar (1 Kings 18:36-37):

He said, ““(2) O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, (3) let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, (4) and that I am your servant, (1) and that I have done all these things at your word. 37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, (5) that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

(1)st, let me explain the accurate connection between a pastor’s Holy Spirit lit preaching of God’s Word and Elijah’s example of this.

• Elijah says in His prayer that his desire is that his audience would know that he is God’s servant & “that I have done all these things at Your Word.” 

• In other words, Elijah wants God’s Word to be central. Indeed, he is a prophet and who are prophets but those who are God’s mouthpiece. They are those who are servants of God’s Word. They are speakers for God’s Spirit to speak through them. They are but instruments that God blows the air of His Word through and the notes of His truth through in order to perk up the ears of His people. 

• That describes Elijah and he wants his audience to know it. He wants his audience (an O.T. Church audience) to know that all that he is doing is a display of God’s Word. He is a servant of God’s Word, therefore wants God’s Word to be exalted just as Acts 13:48 says, “they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord.” 

• And doesn’t that describe a pastor? We preach God’s Word. We are servants of God’s Word first of all before anything and therefore want His Word to be exalted.  

• The sooner we realize that, the better. And the sooner our congregations realize that the better. Elijah wanted his “congregation” standing around him to be sure that he was a servant of God’s Word, and now he will display it. 

• This needs to be a pastor’s role: not only to be clear that we are clear on our subservient duty to God’s Word but also that our congregations are sure of it! Why? Because God has chosen to work through His Word. It is the agent of power that He uses to make things that were not into existence. It is also the gateway into relationship with God, His Word! 

• So Elijah prays that God’s people would know who he is as a prophet: somebody who exists to be a servant of God’s Word. 

• And before a pastor gets up to preach or teach, whether that be behind a pulpit, on the side of a music stand, or sitting behind a table, he must be sure that he is a servant of God’s almighty Word and nothing less or more. That must remain first! 

(2)nd, Elijah prayed to a God Who he knew, a living God, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.” 

• This would be a precursor for God’s fire to come down and prove that His Word works in powerful fashion. 

• In order to preach with the fire of God’s Spirit, first of all, we must simply pray. If Elijah didn’t pray, this show of God’s power would not have happened. 

• We must pray in tandem with God’s Word otherwise we’re hearing God’s Word, perhaps studying it in great detail, but not responding to His Word! How disrespectful! We must speak to our hearing God, knowing that He hears and responds to us! 
• • He hears just as well as He speaks! 

• This is what Eliah proves that he believes when he prays to God:

• God speaks, and Elijah would know that as a prophet, but He also hears & responds to His children’s requests!

• (Nonetheless, it’s true God can do a gracious work without our prayers, but it’s presumptuous for us to lean on that.)

• So Elijah believes that God is a hearing God who responds to our mouths, and so He prays to the “LORD,” that covenant name for God, meaning the most personal name that there is for God, “Jehovah.”

• He is the God of Abrham, Isaac and Israel.” Elijah knows that God is a family God Who has been faithful to His children. He is a Covenant God. 

• Therefore, He listens to His children just as a married couple in covenant together listen to the offspring of their covenant of love. 

• As pastors speaking to our congregations who are united together under covenant together, we pray to a God who wants to reveal His Fatherly power to children who have gone astray. 

• Indeed, that was the context for Elijah’s display of God’s power. He prayed in front of Israel, not the pagan nations, in order to turn their hearts back to Him. 

• And that ought to be a pastor’s ambition too in Churches Who have many children who have gone astray! 

(3)d, “let it be known this day that You are God in Israel.” 

• Before we go up to preach God’s Word to His people, we ought to ask God to “let it be known this day that You are God in the Church.”

• This is not a prayer that God would merely reveal information about Him but that He would give a show of His power. This is Elijah praying that God’s Word would, as 1 Thessalonians says, “come accompanied by the Holy Spirit with great power.” 

• We ought to pray that God would make it known that He is the true God of the Church, in context to 1 Kings, that He is better than the other false gods. Rather, He is the only God in the Church’s life Who actually provides for us. 

• We ought to pray before the preaching of God’s Word, that God would reveal to His people the false gods that they have been looking to for provision and salvation. Let them see that they have no power to truly help them, like the god of money, the god of plans, the god of family, the god of success, the god of medicine & the god of materialism. None of these will truly respond to us. They won’t answer us just as the prophets of Baal received no answer to their praying. 

• The Church is filled with people who worship idols. And they need to know and see a demonstration of God’s power to provide and help in ways that false God’s cannot! 

• So we ought to pray like Elijah, that God would show a display of His power to prove to His people that He indeed works. His Word is not dormant. His Word does not return void! His Word works to comfort us. 

(4)th, “and that I am your servant.” 

• Elijah prays that the people would know that “I am Your servant.” 

• Elijah was already convinced of this, and the pastor ought to be too.

• But specifically he prays: “and that I am Your servant and that I have done all these things at Your word.”

• You see, Elijah is a servant of God’s Word. 

• It’s not about us preaching God’s Word, but the Lord preaching a mighty display of His Word through us. 

• Nevertheless, Elijah wanted the people to know that he is God’s servant, a servant of His Word as he continues to say, “and that I have done all these things at Your word.”

• As we preach God’s Word, we need to want God’s Word to surpass our personality or our stage presence. 

• And we must, like Elijah, pray that God’s people would see us as merely servants up there, and not the main speaker. We need to pray that God would reveal to the people what is true of us: that we are servants and that they would see God’s Word as the Great Master. 

• Parishioners can easily get caught up in a pastor’s personality or ‘giftedness,’ none of this the fault of the preacher. How do we safeguard against this? We pray that God’s people would be caught up with God’s Word so that they see straight through us and almost forget that we are even speaking! 

• We need to pray that the people would see that we are merely God’s servants and that we have done all these things at God’s Word! 

• We want God’s people to see that we are merely servants of God’s Word, and as servants of God’s Word, we pray that God’s fire would come down and consume us as the sacrifice. 

• You see, the fire would consume the altar that Elijah prepared. But in the New Testament, we’re told that we are to be “‘a living sacrifice’…which is our ‘rational service’” (Rom. 12:1-2). 

• In other words. If a Minister of God’s Word is just that, a servant of God’s Word, God’s Word consumes the man. As Jeremiah 20:9 says, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.’”

• You see, the fire of God’s Word must consume the servant of His Word.

• So when God’s Holy Spirit is at work in a minister of God’s Word, it consumes that man. We are the sacrifice that burns for God, His Word burning in us. And this must be a 24/7 reality, on the clock and off the clock because a pastor/preacher is a pastor/preacher wherever he goes. 

• Perhaps this is what Elijah meant when he prayed, that they would know “I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your Word.”

• What are all these things he speaks of? 

• Elijah wants the people to know that he, as the administer of God’s Word, is also a walker of God’s Word. He is not merely a servant of God’s Word in speech, but he walks according to God’s Word in action. He is a servant of God’s Word all around–“and that I have done all these things at Your Word.”

• Essentially, He talks the talk and walks the walk. 

• He could not talk the talk of God’s Word with fire if He did not walk according to God’s Word with integrity. 

• And something we fail to realize often is that in order for a man to preach full of God’s Holy Spirit, it means that his life is obedient. There is no short-cut to preaching Spirit impactful sermons. The man’s life charges the man’s message. Such was the case with Elijah. He was a servant of God’s Word in walk and talk. He was a full man of God! 

(5)th, “37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

• We need to pray that God would answer us with expectation for His glory!

• We need to pray that people would know God! 

• Preaching with God’s power is not to beckon people to do great things, but it is to pray that God would do great things and that God’s people would come to know God, because that is the truly great thing. Knowing God and believing that He is Who He is is transformational! 

• We ought to pray that God’s people would come to know God, not in theory or as a wonderful idea, but to know Him in wonderful display of power! 

• That’s what Elijah was praying for: that the people would see a display of God’s power and feel the heat of His strength. 

• Aka: to know God. 

• We want preaching, just as Elijah shows, to be an event of expectation! 

• And what is the expectation? That God’s Word would come down with great power and consume people like living altars who have yielded themselves to “take up their cross and follow Christ.” 

• “That You have turned their hearts back” is Elijah’s prayer. 

• We pray that God would turn people from worshiping other idols to worshiping God supremely and singularly. 

• Our preaching ought to take the pluralism out of our lives. 

• Turning from idols to give ourselves solely to the Lord is the great application of preaching and the proof that the Spirit of God’s Fire has come down in preaching. 

• And what was Elijah praying for in order for God’s people to know that God is God? He was expecting God to do something, not the people to do something. 

• In preaching, we expect God to do something before the people. 

• We don’t call God’s people to change or call for personal application before calling on God to show powerful application of His nature. We pray that God would come down and show off His strength because without it, we have no power to change. 

• Without God applying His power to us, we have no application!

• We need the generous nature of God to reveal Himself to us. 

• But don’t forget how Elijah initiates this display of God’s power: prayer!

• The preaching of God’s Word needs the prayer of the preacher to ask God to answer and show off His strength (Acts 6:4). 

• It is not for people to merely be convinced of Who God is but to be convinced of how strong and active God is. 

• Indeed, Elijah’s prayer was for God’s people to see something that God can do. 

• This upsets the way that most preachers think. We think that God’s Word calls God’s people to do something. While that is true, it’s only secondary. 

• The first thing is to preach on what God can do (And what He has done on the Cross!). 

• We preach the application of God and His grace and what He has accomplished for us on the Cross. 

• Then we respond to what God has done for us and agree that we need Him to fill us with His great power. 

• We are rendered dead in all that we can do and come to the conclusion that we need God’s power in us to fulfill anything that He calls us to perform. 

• And this application that the Minister calls on God’s people to do is undergirded with the great understanding AND DISPLAY of what God can only do, which is come down in fire and help us. 

• (When Elijah calls fire down from Heaven, it was really a foreshadowing of what Jesus called down from Heaven in John 16: the Holy Spirit Who would glorify Him Who in turn would glorify the Father!)

• Notice the way that Elijah prays: 

• “that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

• Knowing God leads to more of God’s action. 

• Knowing God leads to God, not man, turning man’s hearts back.

• So pray, “God grant Your people repentance” (2 Tim. 2:25)!

• Do you see what I’m seeing? All of what Elijah prays is that God would do it! He’s praying that God’s people would see a display of God’s power, as a result, not even they would turn their hearts back, but God would! 

• God would turn them from serving the false god of Baal to serving the one true God, but all of this, the work of God! 

• The closest display of this prayer and God’s answer to it happens in 1 Thessalonians 1:4-9 which says, 

• “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. … 9 For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God”

• Notice that the preaching of God’s Word with the power of the Holy Spirit is proven by the way that people turn from idols to serve the living and true God.

• This was exactly what Elijah prayed for as he prepared the sacrifice of the Lord to become consumed with fire for the purpose to “turn their hearts back (form the false gods).” 

(6)th, the precursor and postlude of the Holy Spirit’s work upon preaching: 

• 1st, Elijah, although he called upon the power of God to consume the altar, prepared. Elijah put in the work to make a sacrifice that could be consumed. 

• That altar was a preacher’s sermon. We prepare meticulously hard. And we depend not on what will make sense physically. Just as Elijah poured water on the altar, so also we preach sermons that take away the allure of men. 

• And what happened after Elijah called upon the Lord? 

• Despite the water, God’s fire came down! 

• And God would like to send the power of His Spirit down through the “foolishness” of man’s preaching (1 Corinthains 1-2). He doesn’t need eloquence or no notes or great notes or eye contact or no eye contact in the delivery of His Word. 

• All that He needs is faithful preparation, a servant mindedness to God’s Word (2 Timothy 2:15), & a minister’s life who lives according to God’s Word (“and that I have done all these things at your word,” Elijah says. This spoke of his life and preparation of the sacrifice, not a delivery of it.). 

• Too often we think that a minister of God’s Word needs a great delivery. No doubt, this helps and it ought to be his desire & work, but it helps not as much as we think compared to the help and fire of God’s Spirit.

• The bottom line is that our sermons may be drenched with water, making it hard to think of any possibility that God’s Spirit may use it in the ears of our listeners. BUT, if it’s the water of God’s Spirit, the living waters that Jesus speaks of in John 8:37-39, then let the waters flow clumsily from our mouth as they may, but God’s fire works atop of water! 

• His ways are not our ways!

• He likes to work outside of physical means, physical eloquence, although He uses this too. He’s just not dependent on it like we are. God sees the heart, not the performance. He sees both, truthfully, but He weighs the inner life of the minister with more weight. 

• My main point is for us to notice how Elijah’s preparation sparked the fire of God’s application.

• He prepared the sacrifice faithfully. This would have taken work as animals were buterred, sticks were prepared, stones were laid and water was poured. 

• But then Elijah says, “I have done all of these things at Your Word.” Elijah’s preparation of the sacrifice was crucial for the performance of God’s power. 

• I can’t emphasize this enough. A preacher’s Spirit led preparation is paramount to seeing God work. 

• And the way that a preacher of God’s Word LIVES outside of the pulpit, outside of the delivery, is crucial. That’s preparatory too. Are we “doing all these things according to God’s Word?” 

• Are we watching what we watch?…how we spend our time? 

• Again, God can work through dirty vessels and He has–graciously, but it’s not His habit of doing so and it’s presumptuous for us to assume on this. 

• Finally, Elijah didn’t depend on his delivery of God’s power, but He leaned solely on God Who could do it. 
• Elijah prepared the sacrifice according to God’s Word and then depended on God for the delivery.
• Elijah prepared and God delivered!

• Without God pouring fire from Heaven, Elijah’s preparation, as neat as the altar may have been, would have had no effect! 

• And without the outpouring of God’s Spirit, our sermon prep, as neat as the sermon may be, will lay as sticks in the middle of stones with no heat, no warmth, no mesmerisation, no use! 

• I’ll sometimes pray before preaching, “oh God, light my notes on fire and let Your people feel the warmth of Your Spirit, to smell the smoke of Your Spirit’s ignition. Burn up my words on Your Words until all that is left is the fire of Your Word, the true meaning. As Jeremiah said, 

• “If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” – Jeremiah 20:9 &

• Jeremiah 23:29 says, “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”

• Oh God, I pray that Your people would feel the heat of Your Words as they come through me. I pray that they would understand, yes, but also see a demonstration of Your powerful love, justice, mercy, grace, and respond in fear of You. I pray that You would help me to live as a man of God like Elijah who doesn’t just talk the talk but walks the walk. And may my talk be a talk of prayer. You’re the one Who lights my words on fire when I ask You for great things. 

• Dear God, I pray that this Sunday, just as much as the rest of them that I have the privilege to preach, You would demonstrate Your power and in people’s lives. I pray that Your people would see Your power, not only hear about it. Give them eyes that can see! I pray that Your Word would BURN in their hearts. I pray that You would turn them from the blasphemies of this world. Turn their hearts back from serving false gods and show them that it only makes sense to look to You, our God of power! 

• And help me too to be a servant who does all according to Your Word. Help me serve you and love you supremely “on and off the field,” in and out of the pulpit. 

• Most of all, help me Mighty Rock. Save me from my wandering heart that would look to the baal gods of this world to give me success, growth and fulfillment. Only You fulfill. Oh God, let us not just see a show of Your power, but the fruit of Your power! Lead us to Christ, our Maker. Shepherd us with Your Word.

• In Christ’s name, Amen! 

Big Things Come In Little Packages

“The LORD said to Gideon, “the people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘my hand has saved me.'” – Judges 7:2

This is a stellar verse. We often think about “bigger is better,” but with the LORD, little is much when God is in it. I think that’s the lyrics of a song by Matthew West. And it’s true!

Little is much when God’s in it. Of course, God is glorified in a big group just as much as a little group. He can use both. However, we ought not to think that He is more prone to use a big group of people more than a small group. You can apply this to Churches, families, weather you have one kid or 10 kids, 10 members or 1,000 members. God likes to defeat the enemy by unlikely odds, even impossible odds.
Has God changed? I think that we often think that He has, like He can’t work in a Gideon type of way or He won’t work in this way again.

We are too often Godly pessimists. We assume that the great deeds of the Lord recorded in the Bible were only for then but not for now. Of course, we can’t wave the desirable historical records of the Bible like a wand in hand and formula in our mouth. Gideon and his 300 men is not an abracadabra spell that we can duplicate today.

Nevertheless, God still works in these great small ways. The smaller, the more potential there is for the greater, to see God’s inexplicable undeniable glory and power…Him not us!

You wonder why we always want the big in life when God clearly shows that He uses small entities, small groups, small people and small methods in order to attain supernatural results.

Let God choose how He wants to win the battle in our life, in our town, overcome problems in our Church, etc…He might use the big to accomplish the gigantic. He sometimes does, but don’t forget that God has not changed from Old Testament to New Testament. He is glorified in a neat and profound way when He uses the small to accomplish the big.

Indeed, 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 says the same thing that God says to Gideon:
“26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

You see, God still works in the same way as He did to Gideon. He works in ways that shows without a shadow of a doubt that He is working, working through us.

Let us not get this backwards. We don’t work through God but He works through us. And that’s why we need the Holy Spirit to help us do anything. He helps us help Him.

“And if God is for us, who can be against us” as Romans 8 says. If we would only think with this mentality.
To have God on our side (or rather, us on God’s side) = everything. But to have the company of the whole world = nothing compared the presence of God that dwells in us.

As 2 Corinthians 6:10 says, “as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

That’s true when we know the LORD & have the Lord.

Even more, to feel as if we have nothing, that we are small, despised, weak, underrated, overcome & outnumbered is God’s choice method for showing off His glory!

As 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

In this way, staying small is a safeguard against pride and divine theft, stealing the glory of God.
I can relate to this because I feel small in many ways, not to throw a pity party, but in order to praise God’s glory.

The First Baptist Church is much bigger than we were when I came here to this town 5 years ago. We are balanced with the young to the old, families with widows, etc… Friendships are growing. Kids are running! Babies are crying! It’s a wonderful sound and I still can hardly believe what God has done and still is doing.

On top of that, there is a reputation building in this town of this local Body of Christ. More people know that we exist and that’s a start.

YET, I still feel like we’re small (small is relative, I know!), and there is always a desire to see more added to God’s Kingdom, or I often ask God my motivations: do I just want BIGGER as if bigger is better?
As a pastor of a Church, discerning my motives is always tricky. Do I want our Church to grow because I want success in my job or do I want God’s Church to grow because I want glory going to God, His Kingdom growing and people rescued from Satan to Jesus?

It’s not so easy to discern and to be perfectly honest, I’m never quite sure exactly what my motives are except that I need the blood of Jesus to wash over all of them!

Because I can’t discern my motives exactly except for in some situations when God reveals pride in my life, I always conclude and walk forward in ministry with the firm belief that God loves people more than I do.

However much I really love them, I’m not quite sure; however much I want Church growth for the right reasons, I’m not sure. But I am amazed that God doesn’t want Kingdom growth for Kingdom growth sake. He wants it for His glory and for our good.

Therefore, I pray that, just as God does with Gideon, however God works in this town and in my life and my families life, that He would work in such a way like Judges 7:2 says, “lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘my hand has saved me.'”

Protect me from boasting over God. It’s far too possible and likely, actually certain, if God doesn’t work in a way where I can’t deny that it was Him and not I, then I’ll boast over God. God forbid.

Therefore, in some ways, I pray that this Church would stay small and that God would work victory in bigger than big ways in the world through this tiny Church (we’re about 40-50 at this point. Again, I know size is relative).

And perhaps you can pray or at least accept with thanksgiving that this or that part of your life remains small so that God can work powerfully in a way where He shows off His power and you give Him glory.
Great things come in small packages!

He Must Increase & I Must Decrease

in John 3:30, John the Baptizer says, “Christ must increase & I must decrease.”

I recently preached on this verse and God preached it to me!

(1) Here is the context of this great statement:

John the Baptizer had a popular ministry of proclaiming Christ but all of a sudden his audience started leaving his little flock of students in order to move over to Jesus congregation of pupils.

This upset some of John’s disciples, but not John because this was his entire purpose in ministry:

For Christ to increase and for him to decrease.

This statement is every ministers test of weather or not they are really serving Christ or serving themselves: can you decrease? Will you be okay if your congregation shrinks? Even more, will you rejoice when your congregation shrinks if it means that your people are going to another congregation where Christ is still proclaimed?

John just finished saying in v29 that his joy is complete just like the friend of the Bridegroom’s (the best man’s) joy is complete in seeing his friend the Bride-groom marry His bride.

In other words, John didn’t look at himself as somebody who “owned” his group of followers. They belonged to Christ, the Bridegroom. And John’s entire purpose was to see them grow closer to Christ, become united with Christ, and in that way, John’s greatest joy was to see Christ receiving His Bride, not himself receiving the crowds.

Can we say the same thing of ourselves? Do we delight in seeing people coming to Christ or coming through us to Christ. In our mind, though, we’re very delighted that they’re coming to us more that coming to Christ.

Sometimes our joy is in seeing Christ’s Bride come to us! But we like John aren’t betrothed to the Bride. God’s Church does not belong to us. Therefore, ministers and especially pastors ought to be okay with seeing their congregation moving and going elsewhere insofar as it means that they are following Christ.

We need to be very careful not to think that we as ministers are betrothed to our Church, no because it’s Christ’s Bride (This is called “ministry adultery”)!

And notice that John drew a line of distinction between his ministry and Christ’s ministry as Christ’s ministry would increase while His would decrease. And we must draw this line of distinction too so that we can say, “Christ must increase & I must decrease.”

(2) But I believe that this statement, “He must increase & I must decrease” goes beyond the context. This is a statement that speaks of our sanctification.

In other words, how do we become more holy like Christ? How do we conform into His image? How does Christ increase in our life? By us decreasing.

It is impossible for Christ to increase in our life while we increase too. Christ is not one to compete with us. He is God and Lord; we are not.

Yet we often want to say, “He must increase and I’ll increase too.” That’s not how it works!

While we decrease, Christ increases.

God will often take things away from us, health, money, security, job, relationships, etc…so that Christ will increase in our life. He will strip us of everything so that we find Jesus to be everything.

And this is no option because “Christ MUST increase & we MUST decrease!”

Now the question is weather or not we will submit to this.

This is for God to do and us to pray.

God will make us decrease, not us make ourselves decrease. John says, “I must decrease” not “I will make myself decrease.”

That’s God’s job to do and thank God that He does this graciously to us. But while God decreases our self confidence, He wants to replace it with Christ-esteem. When God decreases your physical health, He wants to make the glory of Christ increase.

This ought to be encouraging for you because it means that God will use every decreasing thing in your life for the increasing reputation of Christ upon your life. God will use every painful and diminishing success in your life for the increase of Christ in your life. And if you love Christ, then this will only, oddly enough, increase your joy!

We were made to find joy in seeing ourselves decrease and Christ increase!

As Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,”

In other words, that is saying that when bad things happen to you and you decrease in happiness, God is working that for your good, but how? He’s working it for the increase of Christ in your life….”to be conformed to the image of His Son.”

We often think of God working all things for our good in a vague way. We think of good as maybe circumstances or as something like, “everything will work out in the end.” But Romans 8:28 is saying that God works all things for the good increase of Christ in your life. As Galatians 4:19 pictures, God puts us through contracting jolts of pain until Christ is formed in us.

We must decrease and Christ must increase. This is God’s model of sanctification upon our life and it is also God’s formula for joy.

Will you pray with me, “Christ MUST increase & I MUST decrease?” It’s a dangerous prayer to pray because God will answer it.

Believing What You’re Preaching

David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, once came to listen to George Whitefield preach of the Gospel and he seemed rather persuaded. Somebody asked him, do you believe in what he just preached? Hume replied, “no but He does!”

I’ve come to realize that this is what preaching is: believing in what you are proclaiming. Preaching is not speaking. It’s not developing a nice sounding speech. Preaching does not mean just presenting God’s Word in an organized fashion (although that ought to be a part of it!).

There are all types of ways to describe preaching. It does mean calling out and it is associated with the herald trumpet. It means, “heralding” (‘Kerysso’).

Such is the example of what 2 Timothy 4:1-2 says, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word;”

Notice the motivation for preaching. Or you might put it this way: notice what ought to blow breath in one’s preaching: “the presence of God & of Christ Jesus.”

Preaching means being aware that God is present and that God is present in preaching. Preaching is the exercise of allowing God’s Holy Spirit to blow through the preacher like His instrument. The preacher is a trumpet who submits to the sheet music of God’s Word, but who allows the presence of God to breath through him (2 Timothy 3:16). Indeed, this is what it means to “herald/preach” God’s Word!

However, the one who preaches needs to believe, truly believe in the unique presence of God that is active as he declares God’s Word.

Therefore, the first and most important aspect to preaching is to believe in God’s presence but not only that, the preacher must believe that God is “the judge of the living and the dead.”

For the preacher to preach, he must believe that judgement day is coming and a person’s eternal destiny is riding on a decision to either believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or reject Him.

And the preacher must believe in the “appearing and His Kingdom.”

Then and only then does 2 Timothy 4:1 move onto say, “preach the Word.”

In other words, preaching God’s Word is motivated by believing in eternal & invisible realities like God’s presence, God’s judgment and God’s Kingdom.

Therefore, to preach God’s Word is to invite people into the Kingdom of God. It is to invite people to make sure that they have the one thing that is most important covered: their sin. People need their sin judged in Christ on the Cross for them lest they experience judgment for themselves!

So what matters in preaching is, “do you believe this?” Do you believe in what you are preaching?

If so, then you’ll sound like something of a trumpet–beautiful, powerful, unignorably, and forceful.

Preaching needs more preachers to believe in what they preach & WHO they preach…Christ & Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2). Preaching invites others to believe in Jesus & “Him crucified for their sins.” Therefore, the preacher needs to believe in what he’s telling others to believe.

What matters is peaching is, “do you believe in what you are speaking is true? Many pastors believe in their job, but that’s it. Perhaps they understand that they have received a high calling, which is true. But do they believe in the “breathed out Scriptures?” Do they believe that the Scriptures are God’s Word? Do they believe that as they preach God’s Word that His Word preaches life into dead souls?…that God’s Word is the summons of the King to enter into His Kingdom? Do they believe that God’s Word makes a way for the greatest salvation ever, to be saved from Hell and saved to God.

If one will believe this, then they can’t help but to become God’s mouthpiece that He blows powerfully through. There ought to be nothing left back. The dynamics of preaching needs crescendo that knows how to, yes, blow soft notes of comfort but also loud notes of warning, high notes of praise, and low notes that are somber. And don’t forget the silence, the pauses that leads the audience to consider, search their heart and allow God to speak to them, and then, turn to God.

In summary, preaching is only possible when you truly believe in the seriousness of what God’s Word says! And preaching is only possible when one allows the presence of God to be the conductor of that preaching.

May God raise up more pastors and preacher who believe, truly believe in what they preach and in Who they preach!

Preaching Passionately

I read this quote in Steven Lawson’s book on George Whitefield and found it encouraging:

“The Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1675 was acquainted with Mr. Butterton the [actor]. One day the Archbishop…said to Butterton…’pray inform me Mr. Butterton, what is the reason you actors on stage can affect your congregations with speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real, while we in Church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?’ ‘Why my Lord,’ says Butterton, ‘the reason is very plain. We actors on stage speak of things imaginary, as if they were real and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.”

How true is that?

I by no means am the best preacher or teacher although I aspire and work hard to be the best that I can be. However, if there is one thing that I want to excel in, it’s passion…not passionate acting, but passionate preaching!

I want to speak of eternal realities with eternal passion. I want to preach on real joys with real joy! I want to speak of sad futures with sadness. I want to preach on God’s love with love! I want to preach the powerful Word of God with a powerful voice!

As 1 Peter 4:11 says, “Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God.”

As my pastor once told me, ‘find the mood of that passage of Scripture and then preach with that mood.” In other words, the tone of preaching ought to match the tone of God’s Word.

It’s true that God’s Holy Spirit can impact a person greatly through a monotone discourse on John 3:16 BUT I don’t think it’s typical. He does work through human instruments.

Now I understand that every personality has a different display of passion, or a different potential for expressing passion. Some people are a bit weaker than others.

Personally, I’m weak in many ways as I preach from the pulpit but I’m beginning to embrace my weaknesses not as an excuse to settle into my own natural limitations, but rather, in order to lean hard into God’s supernatural enablement!

We fail to realize often that God’s choice method of strength is weakness. Yes, it’s a paradox. It might even look like a typo but it’s not. God delights to use weakness in such a way that show off His power, not ours, without a shadow of a doubt.

So my friend, whatever your weakness is, insofar as it isn’t sin, embrace it for the glory of God.

BUT, live passionatly, speak passionately and preach passionately if that’s your calling in life.

I should add, live, speak and preach passionately in proportion to how God has designed you to express yourself. Live and speak and teach in such a way, though, where people take you seriously.

As Romans 12:6-7 says, “having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith, if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching…”

In other words, use your gift, specifically in regard to teaching, in proportion to your full potential given to you by Christ! Teach and preach with as much skill, passion and gusto as God has gifted your personality with!

I once had a family friend join our Church for a service and she made this comment on my preaching: “you were very passionate. I sometimes wish that our pastor was a little more serious in his preaching sometimes because he’s really funny.”

There is no doubt a time for jokes. As one guy said, “hook’em, hold’em, hold on to’em, humor ‘m and hit em.”

However, when it comes to the Word of God, it really isn’t written like a joke book. It is written as a book where God’s Word speaks life into your hurting soul, God’s Word exhorts you to correction, God’s Word disciplines you when you’re off track and God’s Word assures you do indeed belong to Him…no joke! It’s not a joke book. It’s a book of death & life. It’s a book that God uses to speak seriously to people. As for the humor, you can find it in Scripture, but it’s always for a point. It’s usually satire or exaggerations for illustrations. the humor in Scripture is always used to get your attention on divine realities. Therefore, ultimitely, Scripture speaks seriously and passionately.

Consider Ezekiel 33:11 which says, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”

That describes passionate preaching. Can you imagine what the voice behind those words would sound like? He’s PLEADING for people to turn back from a pathway that leads to destruction.

And such should be the case with preaching…passionately pleading with people to turn to God, turn back from their evil ways, and LIVE!

This is no joke and it ought not to be acting! Preaching ought to be heartfelt. Lord, grant me the heart to feel what I preach. Amen!