Thursday, October 28, 2010
Radical Lessons
We are still studying David Platt's book Radical in our small groups, both in home and on Wednesday nights. I had a request for the learning guides that I created to go along with each lesson. I have only created guides for lessons 1-5. These lessons are in a zip file that you can download by clicking on this link. I will post the new lessons as they are created.
Sermon 24Oct2010
Once again we had technical difficulties with recording the sermon this past week, so only printed copies are available. This sermon is part 2 of a study of the encounter between Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10.
Sermon24Oct2010Word
Sermon24Oct2010 pdf
Sermon24Oct2010Word
Sermon24Oct2010 pdf
Monday, October 18, 2010
Several Updates
There are several items to share with everyone this week.
First, here is a slideshow of pictures from Mobile Church 2010 - Orchard Hill. There were graciously provided by Jerriann P. If you would like a copy of a certain picture, click on it during the slideshow. Or you can view the entire set of photos here and select the ones you wish to print.
Next is the sermon from this past Sunday. We are continuing our study through the book of Acts. This sermon begins our look at the encounter between Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10-11.
Sermon 17Oct2010 mp3
Sermon 17Oct2010 MS Word
Sermon 17Oct2010 pdf
Finally, I learned something today about blogger. If you would like to comment on any of the blog entries, you can do so. You have to click on the title of the blog. That will take you to another page with only that entry. Then you can comment at the bottom of the blog. So let me hear from you!
First, here is a slideshow of pictures from Mobile Church 2010 - Orchard Hill. There were graciously provided by Jerriann P. If you would like a copy of a certain picture, click on it during the slideshow. Or you can view the entire set of photos here and select the ones you wish to print.
Next is the sermon from this past Sunday. We are continuing our study through the book of Acts. This sermon begins our look at the encounter between Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10-11.
Sermon 17Oct2010 mp3
Sermon 17Oct2010 MS Word
Sermon 17Oct2010 pdf
Finally, I learned something today about blogger. If you would like to comment on any of the blog entries, you can do so. You have to click on the title of the blog. That will take you to another page with only that entry. Then you can comment at the bottom of the blog. So let me hear from you!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Update
God is good – all the time. Lately, He has really blessed our church.
Last weekend (Oct. 2-3), we hosted our third Mobile Church event in Orchard Hill, GA. While the first two events (August 2009, June 2010) were lots of fun and very rewarding, we did not see anyone attend as a direct result of our outreach efforts.
However, this weekend, we had as many as 25-30 guests come to worship with us on Sunday morning! What a great day! Praise God for bringing those guests. We had even more who came to eat lunch with us. It was a lot of effort, but everyone who helped was greatly rewarded for their efforts.
This past weekend, we had baptism – admittedly, the first in quite a while. The whole worship service this past weekend was exciting because everyone’s heart was filled with the joy of seeing Christ at work in people’s lives.
If you are interested in the sermons from these past two weeks, you may read or download them here.
On Wednesday nights, one of our small groups is a study of cults and other religions. We are in the fourth week of the study. We are not only studying the history and beliefs of other cults and religions, but how we can witness to them as we encounter them in our lives. If you are interested in reading about other cults or religions, here is an article with some links that you can visit to learn online.
Finally, our study of Radical by David Platt continues in homes and at church. This week we postponed the study because so many people are gone for Fall Break and other reasons. Here is the study guide for Chapter 4. This study guide was made from a small group lesson guide produced by and purchased from lifebiblestudies.com.If you are interested in one of the studies you might have missed, you can download them here.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Two Cents Worth
For the last month or so, the "mytwocents" section of the Griffin Daily News has been regularly salted by those who are really angry with pastors they accuse of being "Calvinists." All in all, reading the things they have written has brought moments of laughter as well as amazement at the degree of anger they have expressed.
Yet, I have serious doubts that any of these who are so adamantly set against the teaching of election have ever read even one single article or book written by John Calvin himself. If they had, they would have run across several statements that Calvin made such as this: "No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief." If you would like to read what John Calvin believed in his own words, I recommend his Institutes of the Christian Religion. I will warn you that it is a lengthy read.
I am one of those whose character has been demeaned and critiqued with a great deal of savagery. Of course, I am humbled to be classed along with such distinguished theologians/preachers as John Calvin, the Puritans, Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, and John MacArthur. But I have to say, some of the remarks made by these contributors border on profanity. Some of the terms these writers have used to refer to me and other pastors who teach the doctrine of election include...
slinky cat burglar
common thief
deceitful
dishonest
cultist
sneaky
slimy
hijacker
arrogant
wolf in sheep's clothing
cold
calculating
immature
ungracious
hard-hearted
without a conscience
without a sense of right and wrong
without intestinal fortitude
coward
faithless
money hungry
It may just be me, but those do not sound like the endearing terms that one would expect when one Christian addresses another Christian. Oh yeah, I forgot. We are the devil.
One of the things I have been accused of is lying to the Pastor Search Team about my beliefs in election. I tried to defend myself, but I could not convince my accusers that I had been honest with the search team. So....
Here is the excerpt from what I gave the Pastor Search Team when we first started meeting concerned with a question related to Calvinism:
Question:What are your views of the Calvinistic Theology?
My answer:
Theology is the study or knowledge (-logy) of God (theo). I believe John Calvin had it right about God. God is the absolute Sovereign of the Universe. He created it and us by the simple expression of His thoughts, and by Him all things consist. He is self-determining. He does not choose to do what is right, but what He chooses to do is right. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, immutable, infinite, and eternal. He is purposeful. The fact that there is a Universe with static laws is evidence that there is design and purpose in the Creation.
His purpose for Creation was so that He would receive glory. This Universe is the factory in which He is creating for himself sons – heirs to His kingdom – who will worship Him forever. The process He chose to use included the Fall of man and man’s ultimate redemption through Christ Jesus. The plan of salvation is totally His and was determined before the foundation of the world. Those who call Him Father were chosen by Him before the foundation of the world. So that salvation is His responsibility – one hundred percent. We do not seek Him – He seeks us and calls us and saves us by His own volition and by His own absolute sovereignty.
At the same time, God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that the only true worship was that which came from a willingly humbled heart. Love that is forced or coerced is not love. He therefore created man with the capacity to decide. Man chose wrongly – selfishly – and, as a result, inherits the capacity to die – something that is not natural, but is the result of disobedience and judgment. The result is that every man who is approached by the Spirit of God must ultimately decide what he will do with the Lordship of Christ. To reject Him is to choose an eternity separated from the presence of God and the heavenly hosts. So that salvation is his (man’s) responsibility – one hundred percent. Man does not seek God because there is no natural facility within him to prompt him to seek that which is infinite.
While it may seem thus, there is no contradiction in these parallel thoughts. We would love to be able to reconcile these two concepts that seem to be in opposition, but we cannot because we are finite – limited by time, space, and matter. To reconcile these two concepts would require knowledge that God did not see fit to reveal to us. It is a knowledge of eternity that, if we possessed it, would truly make us like God. It is a piece of the puzzle that God chose to keep from us until all is revealed at the last day.
If you would like to read the whole questionnaire, you can download it here.
Pastoral Candidate Questionnaire
Yet, I have serious doubts that any of these who are so adamantly set against the teaching of election have ever read even one single article or book written by John Calvin himself. If they had, they would have run across several statements that Calvin made such as this: "No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief." If you would like to read what John Calvin believed in his own words, I recommend his Institutes of the Christian Religion. I will warn you that it is a lengthy read.
I am one of those whose character has been demeaned and critiqued with a great deal of savagery. Of course, I am humbled to be classed along with such distinguished theologians/preachers as John Calvin, the Puritans, Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, and John MacArthur. But I have to say, some of the remarks made by these contributors border on profanity. Some of the terms these writers have used to refer to me and other pastors who teach the doctrine of election include...
slinky cat burglar
common thief
deceitful
dishonest
cultist
sneaky
slimy
hijacker
arrogant
wolf in sheep's clothing
cold
calculating
immature
ungracious
hard-hearted
without a conscience
without a sense of right and wrong
without intestinal fortitude
coward
faithless
money hungry
It may just be me, but those do not sound like the endearing terms that one would expect when one Christian addresses another Christian. Oh yeah, I forgot. We are the devil.
One of the things I have been accused of is lying to the Pastor Search Team about my beliefs in election. I tried to defend myself, but I could not convince my accusers that I had been honest with the search team. So....
Here is the excerpt from what I gave the Pastor Search Team when we first started meeting concerned with a question related to Calvinism:
Question:What are your views of the Calvinistic Theology?
My answer:
Theology is the study or knowledge (-logy) of God (theo). I believe John Calvin had it right about God. God is the absolute Sovereign of the Universe. He created it and us by the simple expression of His thoughts, and by Him all things consist. He is self-determining. He does not choose to do what is right, but what He chooses to do is right. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, immutable, infinite, and eternal. He is purposeful. The fact that there is a Universe with static laws is evidence that there is design and purpose in the Creation.
His purpose for Creation was so that He would receive glory. This Universe is the factory in which He is creating for himself sons – heirs to His kingdom – who will worship Him forever. The process He chose to use included the Fall of man and man’s ultimate redemption through Christ Jesus. The plan of salvation is totally His and was determined before the foundation of the world. Those who call Him Father were chosen by Him before the foundation of the world. So that salvation is His responsibility – one hundred percent. We do not seek Him – He seeks us and calls us and saves us by His own volition and by His own absolute sovereignty.
At the same time, God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that the only true worship was that which came from a willingly humbled heart. Love that is forced or coerced is not love. He therefore created man with the capacity to decide. Man chose wrongly – selfishly – and, as a result, inherits the capacity to die – something that is not natural, but is the result of disobedience and judgment. The result is that every man who is approached by the Spirit of God must ultimately decide what he will do with the Lordship of Christ. To reject Him is to choose an eternity separated from the presence of God and the heavenly hosts. So that salvation is his (man’s) responsibility – one hundred percent. Man does not seek God because there is no natural facility within him to prompt him to seek that which is infinite.
While it may seem thus, there is no contradiction in these parallel thoughts. We would love to be able to reconcile these two concepts that seem to be in opposition, but we cannot because we are finite – limited by time, space, and matter. To reconcile these two concepts would require knowledge that God did not see fit to reveal to us. It is a knowledge of eternity that, if we possessed it, would truly make us like God. It is a piece of the puzzle that God chose to keep from us until all is revealed at the last day.
If you would like to read the whole questionnaire, you can download it here.
Pastoral Candidate Questionnaire
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