February Sermons

Happy February, everyone! Yes, the month is almost gone, and I’m sure we’re all keeping very busy. (I am, as evidenced by the fact that I haven’t posted anything in over a month!) Thankfully, there are other blogs out there for you to read that should help you “set your minds on things that are above,” and many of them are linked to on the right hand side of your computer screen. (A few are The Gospel Coalition’s blogs and Dr. Mohler’s blog.) By way of updates, I have two new sermons posted on my podcast. The first is a sermon on 1 Timothy 3, dealing with being a pillar and buttress of the truth in our churches. The second is a sermon on John 17:20-26, looking at the love that Jesus wills for us in his high priestly prayer.

I hope you are all having a wonderful 2011! May God bless you all with more experiential knowledge of himself as the year goes on!

God Is Not Dead

Friedrich Nietzsche first said that “God is dead” in the late 19th century. In 1966, Time magazine published an article chronicling the “death of God” theology of the 1960s. In the fifty years since, our culture has consistently lived out its belief that God is dead—not that He ever really lived, in their collective mind, but that His reality is not even worth debating anymore. For the Christless masses, God is dead because God is irrelevant. The Cross does no good, such people claim, because there is still evil in this world. The concept of “already but not yet” is lost on those who claim that “God is dead.”

The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow could have easily argued that “God is dead” because of the death of his wife Frances followed closely behind by the serious injury of his son on a Civil War battlefield. In his grief, though, Longfellow rose above his sorrows and penned the beloved hymn, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Longfellow wrote:

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

Though Longfellow could have lashed out at God and abandoned Christ, Longfellow rose above that to admit, “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.” As Spurgeon puts it, “When you cannot trace God’s hand, you can trust His heart.” This Christmas, may we remember that our Lord Jesus Christ, God born Man, still lives today. In our despair, when all we see is the earth’s hate, may we remember that “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.”

Below is Casting Crowns’ arrangement of this glorious, comforting hymn.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Importance of Investing in Your Children’s (Daughters’) Lives

I first heard this song on the radio shortly before Father’s Day, but Sanctus Real’s song, “Lead Me,” captivated me around the same time, and I forgot about this song. I heard this song again a couple of months ago on the radio and absolutely loved it and its message. This Wednesday, I heard it on the radio, and then they told me its title and songwriter/singer! Below is “Like That” by Eric Greene. He’s the Executive Music and Worship Director at The Summit Church of Birmingham in Trussville, AL.

 

Did you notice that last rendition of the chorus?

Won’t you pray with her?
Daddy, please stay with her,
And be there to hold her close when she’s afraid.
And 25 years from now, she will remember just how
It feels to know that her daddy loves her like that.
It means everything for you, Dad, to love her like that.

Eric Greene gets his lyrics from Scripture. God through Solomon in Proverbs 22:6 commands and promises: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” In Deuteronomy 6:6-7, God commands through Moses: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” In other words, parents are to raise their children in the Lord continually. Or, as Paul says in Ephesians 6:3, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Parents, Church is a wonderful thing. Sermons are wonderful things. Both of these are commanded and ordained in Scripture, but God doesn’t want half-hearted, hypocritical obedience. The time we spend in church each week maybe amounts to 1/28th of our weekly time, and that is a very generous estimate of the time we spend singing worship songs and listening to sermons. Let me ask you: do you really think that giving God 1/28th of our time will lead to lives of godliness? No. Could God use that? Yes. But as he uses it, that time with him would by necessity increase! As many have said before me, “God loves us enough to take us as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us as we are.” God changes us. God conforms us to the image of his Son if we are truly his (Romans 8:29). Parents, God has ordained that you be the primary instrument of his grace to your children. Your children are your “heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:3).

Parents, when you stand before God and give an account of your life, what will your account look like regarding your children? Will our Lord say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21)? Or will you only be able to say, “I’ve wasted it. I’ve wasted it”?

As John Piper says, “Don’t waste your life.” I’m telling you, Don’t waste your children. Your salvation does not guarantee theirs. But God will use your faithfulness in discipling them in order to draw them to himself. “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Or as Eric Greene sings: “25 years from now, she will remember just how it feels to know that her daddy loves her like that.”

Dads, it really does mean everything for you to love your children enough to pray with them, to stay with them, to hold them close when they’re afraid. You can never be perfect in this life, as the heavenly Father is perfect; but God calls you to be holy, even as he is holy. Show your kids the Father’s love. Pray with them, stay with them, be there for them. Love your children enough to invest in their life.

On just a personal note as an illustration, some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to play golf with my dad. He’s invested in my life (so has Mom, but this post is about fathers, primarily). He’s prayed with me before; he’s stayed with me in sicknesses and literally held me as I’ve gone through some particularly hard physical ailments (debilitating headaches and wisdom teeth surgery in particular, both this past spring). And that means the world to me. God shows us himself through his Word, the Bible … but dads, he’ll also show himself to your daughters—and your sons, as I can affirm—if you will show them his love by your actions. It means everything for you to invest in your children’s (daughters’) lives.

Persecution!

Sayed Mossa is a recent Christian convert in Afghanistan. He was arrested at the end of May for his faith in Christ. He has recently smuggled a handwritten letter from prison. Please read this letter below and pray for Sayed. He has a wife and numerous children, at least one of whom is disabled. JD Greear has other suggestions of how we American Christians can help our brother Sayed at his blog. Below is Sayed’s letter to us:

 

The above images were taken from persecution.org. Not everyone in this world has it as easy as we do in America. Please fellow Christians here, “set your minds on things that are above,” and pray for our brother Sayed Mossa, that our Lord would strengthen him in his imprisonment and release him if it be His gracious will.

Celebration of Life Video

For those of you who did not attend Christian Schmidt’s Celebration of Life November 7, 2010, the video is below.

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/16845911?portrait=0" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/16845911">Celebration of the Life of Christian Schmidt</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user3738332">david alan sikes</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

I Will Lift My Eyes

Our God is a sovereign God, and he blesses us in his providence. Last night, I heard “I Will Lift My Eyes” by Bebo Norman for the first time. I might’ve heard the song before, but I had never really listened to the words and internalized its message until last night when I heard it anew. May it bless ya’ll as it has blessed me over the past 24 hours, and may it help us to set our minds on things that are above … may we lift our eyes to our glorious Redeemer.

Updates from Calvary

Good evening, everyone! What with the busyness of the band season (etc.), I haven’t posted here in a while. So while I’m here and posting for ya’ll, I’ll give ya’ll some updates from Calvary Baptist Church.

I have now been at Calvary for two months. November will begin my third month at Calvary Baptist Church, and I’m very much looking forward to continue ministering there.

On October 17, I preached on 1 Timothy 2:1-8 at Calvary. You can listen to that sermon here. I would especially recommend listening to it before election day next Tuesday—not so you’ll know who you should vote for but so you’ll vote in the right spirit (a prayerful spirit for all … not just the ones you’re voting for necessarily).

This Saturday, October 30, Calvary will be hosting its fall festival. This year’s theme is Harvest Hoedown. Come and be with us at Calvary Baptist Church for this community-wide event! The Harvest Hoedown will be from 3 to 5:30 on Saturday, October 30.

Now that there are no more after-school band practices, perhaps I will be able to blog more consistently. We shall see what time the Lord provides for that, though. Until next time, “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth”!

How to React to Homosexuals

A few months ago, I posted a blog about the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality. In that post, I presented the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality as sin. But as the maxim goes: “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” I have said in sermons before that the best way we Christians can love other people is by sharing the gospel with them. Now I would add that we must share the gospel in a humble attitude. Semantics aside, this post dealing with homosexuality has a different aim than my last post. The last post I wrote about homosexuality was meant to be primarily an instruction on the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality. Now I will present from the Bible how we as Christians should relate to and deal with those in our communities (and churches) who struggle with homosexuality.

Dr. Mohler’s blog on Monday sparked this post of mine. In his blog, Dr. Mohler noted that four young men ranging in age from 13-18 all committed suicide in the month of September after their homosexual acts had been exposed. I always have high expectations of Dr. Mohler’s writings, but Dr. Mohler surpassed himself this past Monday in responding to the suicide of one sexually confused young man in particular. What most impressed me about the article wasn’t Dr. Mohler’s theological convictions—though those are clear—but rather how Dr. Mohler applied his theological convictions about homosexuality (that it is a sin) to the situation of this young man’s tragic death. If you have not read Dr. Mohler’s blog, please do so; I will be quoting sporadically from it below.

Preview to “Family Under Fire”

As I continue to prepare my upcoming special edition blog (hopefully I’ll post it this Thursday) to cover Robin Marantz Henig’s NYT article on “Emerging Adulthood,” I will pause to introduce all of you to my upcoming blog series, Refocus on the Family. (Yes, I derived this blog series title from the organization Focus on the Family.) This upcoming blog series is broken into four subseries: “Marriage by the Book,” “Male-Female Roles in the Church,” “The Apostolic Husband,” and “Family by the Book.” I plan to introduce this final subseries (admittedly rather prematurely) with a post by acknowledging the fact that the biblical definition of family—true family—is under fire. And the family is under fire in our current culture. We must realize this if we are to rightly defend the family and recapture a biblical way of doing family.

This subseries “Family by the Book” is admittedly relatively far-off, but I simply must give you a preview to its introductory post, “Family Under Fire,” because of two resources I accessed last Saturday. The first is an article on cnn.com that discusses how many American teens are “fake” Christians. It is an interesting article and will hopefully show you definitively that the family is, indeed, under fire.

The second resource I share with you is Dr. Albert Mohler’s address at this month’s earlier Connecting Church and Home Conference hosted at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is a biblical address that I hope all of you would take the time to listen to. He lays his arguments first from 1 Peter 5:1-11 and gives further evidence from Ephesians 5 and 6. Not only does Dr. Mohler admit that the family (and church) are in a state of perpetual warfare, but he also helpfully lays out practical ways that we Christians can begin to wage this spiritual warfare to take back a biblical view of family, to connect church and home, which is “to connect that which should never be disconnected.”

Resources

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/27/almost.christian/index.html

http://www.sbts.edu/resources/conferences/connecting-church-and-home-general-session-4/ (video below)

How I Read the Bible

As many of you readers may recall, I began a new Bible reading plan this January. How long did it last? Not very. I started second semester of my junior year and it just fell apart. With that plan, I turned Bible reading into a law to be kept rather than food to be gratefully eaten. (For those of you who do use that Bible reading plan, I congratulate you. I could not do so, obviously.) Then I set up my own Bible reading plan for the months of June and July. It was good, but was never meant to be my permanent reading plan. I had planned on using the ESV Bible reading plan beginning January 2011, but in mid-July I decided to catch up on Bob Kauflin’s blog at worshipmatters.com. There, Bob Kauflin recommended a Bible reading plan that he had begun using, and it intrigued me.

I followed the link that Bob Kauflin provided and found myself reading a short 3 page overview of Professor Grant Horner’s Bible Reading System. Professor Horner had been using it since the 1980s and has reaped incredible fruit from doing so (and rightfully so). I didn’t know it when I first read his PDF document, but Grant Horner is a professor at Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles. For those of you who aren’t aware, Master’s Seminary is the seminary that is led by Pastor John MacArthur, one of the best pastors in the United States. (Yes, that gave Professor Horner even more credence with me.)

Professor Horner’s system is groundbreaking, revolutionary, and just plain old amazing. I am giving you this blog before the month is over because if you wish to begin this system yourself, I would recommend starting on the first day of a month (next month, September, if you can and are interested in this system).

For the concern of space, below is my log of my first two weeks (as opposed to all three) that I’ve been on Professor Horner’s reading system:

Sunday, August 1, 2010: I realized before today that I would likely not begin the system today. I spent the whole day in Aberdeen, MS, fellowshipping with dear siblings in Christ there and also preaching at Friendship Baptist Church that night. When I got home just before 11 P.M., I was too tired to read! (This is not an excuse … I knew I could catch up the next day.)

Monday, August 2, 2010: I caught up on yesterday’s reading and read through 20 chapters of the Bible in roughly an hour and a half. I broke the reading down into two time slots today: OT and NT. The experience was simply amazing! God used the variety variety (and familiarity) of what I was reading that day to enable me to read all the chapters. I truly felt “well-fed” at the end of reading those chapters. (Isaiah 1-2 particularly convicted me and provoked some helpful thoughts. I had previously thought Isaiah’s high vision of God began in Isaiah 6, but God is just as big and glorious in the first chapter of that book as He is in the sixth!)

Tuesday, August 3, 2010: I read the ten assigned chapters with great ease. Remaining for the most part in familiar territory helped, I’m sure, but this system does a great job of giving me a ten-course meal of God’s Word each day. I’m reminded of what I read in John R.W. Stott’s The Preacher’s Portrait. In that book, Stott rightly notes that preachers are stewards of God’s household and are both privileged and obliged to feed God’s flock with the whole of Scripture in all its variety. A similar principle applies to us Christians, I’m beginning to realize: we must not settle with plodding along in the same Scriptures every week or month. How great it is to feast on ten chapters (of great variety) each day. Although I am left wanting more of God’s Word, I know that I have been fed from it today and yesterday. The difference is the depth and variety of reading. May God strengthen me to hunger yet more for His Word!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010: I read today’s readings after I got home from Wednesday night Bible study. I am still loving the variety of this reading system!

Thursday, August 5, 2010: Today I read these chapters in two sittings because my supper interrupted them. I read in Genesis and Joshua before supper, and the other books after supper. It still amazes me how filling (yet always making me want more) this Bible reading system is! I also finished reading through 1 Thessalonians today. Quite the milestone, in my opinion!

Friday, August 6, 2010: I read my chapters this afternoon. The joy of reading the Bible in this particular way still amazes me!

Saturday, August 7, 2010: I had a late start reading tonight (8:00), but enjoyed it still.

Sunday, August 8, 2010: I read today’s chapters this afternoon. Proverbs 8:35 was particularly beautiful to me.

Monday, August 9, 2010: I read today’s chapters this evening after supper. Such a healthy portion of God’s Word daily is a wonderful thing! I’m still amazed!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010: Today I read the chapters after supper. Matthew 10 was particularly beneficial to me tonight. Praise be to God, who gives us insight into His Word!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010: Read a bit later today than usual. Still a blessing, though!

Thursday, August 12, 2010: Listened to some of the chapters online (at esvonline.org), and read the rest after doing my Calculus homework. Isaiah’s words in Isaiah 12 were particularly sweet tonight.

Friday, August 13, 2010: Read later on in the evening again. Still was a filling reading!

Saturday, August 14, 2010: Read tonight’s readings after supper. This system of reading through one chapter each from ten different books of the Bible is genius!

A few notes from my own use of the system:

• Contrary to Professor Horner’s command, “Read the books in the listed order,” I read the lists in the order in which they appear in the Bible. In other words, rather than beginning with Matthew and ending with Acts (on day one), I began with Genesis and ended with 1 Thessalonians.
• As you also may have noticed, I also “disobeyed” Professor Horner by reading twice as much as I was supposed to on August 2 in order to make up for August 1. I did so, however, not legalistically (he even says that alternating daily between the Old and New Testament readings would be an alternative way to read), but because I knew I had the time to read the chapters, and I also wanted to start books from the beginning and not begin each starting book in chapter 2.
• I also admit that I did at first wonder why Acts should be read every month, but since it gives us an inspired account of how the apostles carried out the Great Commission, it certainly is profitable for us to read through each month of the year. (Reading Proverbs each month, for me, did not require any second-guessing.)
• I admit, finally, that I have not read all ten chapters every day of this month so far (particularly in the past week), but I have always by God’s grace read a variety of chapters. The key to this reading system is not to legalistically follow it to a tee, but to follow its spirit by feeding daily on the varied richness of God’s Word.

If you’re interested in learning more about or using Professor Grant Horner’s Bible Reading System, you can download his PDF document (which includes an explanation of how the system works and also provides book marks with which you can keep place in your Bible where you are currently in each reading) here.