The Cart and the Horse of Personal Holiness

One of the most common Christians struggles is the knowledge that believers stand before God already forgiven and holy even though our actions do not always reflect that reality. This causes a real tug-of-war within our hearts as we try to live the way that we know we should.

1 Peter 1:16 contains the very convicting command "to be holy because God is holy." How can that be? Isn't that some sort of works-based salvation?

I don't think so, at least not if we understand the proper order of salvation (the horse) and Christian living (the cart). Jerry Bridges explains it like this "God wants us to walk in obedience -- not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self."

Anyone who studies mathematics will tell you that it matters how you lay out the equation. For Christian living the equation should look something like this. First God loved us. Therefore He made a way to save us from our sins. Next we accept His gracious offer for forgiveness. This causes us to love God. Our love for God results in a desire to obey God. This is very different from legalism which teaches people to obey God to make God love us.

Practically speaking, the more we love God the more we will want to obey God. The more we obey God the more we will be holy like God.

- Aaron

Change is Hard, Change is Good

Over the last two years there have been a lot of changes in my life. First there were all the things that you don't learn in seminary about being a pastor. Then there were the many things that have changed at Franconia Baptist Church. Finally there was the really important changes, the deep down Holy Spirit changes that have been transforming my spiritual life.

One thing that I can tell you from personal experience is that most people do not like change. I can certainly understand and even appreciate that. Changes makes us uncomfortable. It challenges our sense of security.

That makes it doubly hard when I tell people that change is both inevitable and required from the Christian life. The Bible tells us that we are not to "be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)

These words alert us that for the transformed Christian life, change is coming. This is a different kind of change though. It comes from the power of the Gospel administered by the Holy Spirit and it is something that we should want very much. So even though change is hard, Gospel-driven heart change is very good.

Please pray that the Bults will quickly find the right place to live and will get settled in. I believe that God is going to do great things through them!

This morning it's chilly in Puebla, Mexico. My good friend Kevin and I walked around the streets this morning looking for coffee and talking about God.

Worshipping Christ in Mexico

Where are our priorities?

I was browsing through various web pages looking at the news when I came across this opinion piece on the NY Times homepage. The title of the op-ed was "Congregations Gone Wild" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/opinion/08macdonald.html?_r=1&hp). The NY Times does not give a whole lot of attention to matters of the church so my curiosity was piqued. I chose to ignore the provocative inference in the title and see what the writer was talking about.

The first sentence is "THE American clergy is suffering from burnout, several new studies show." Now I was really interested!

The article goes on to talk about the challenges of reaching an America that is more and more skeptical toward faith. That sounds about right. What's more, Pastor's are apparently burning out trying to keep up with the latest fads in communications and technology in order to entertain their congregations. That also sounds about right.

We need to get back to the basics. Our churches need to be focused on glorifying God and discipling believers. The key is God honoring and Bible focused. There's nothing wrong with doing things with excellence, but the packaging is far less important than the content.

Free to Serve

Late last week my Blackberry failed for the 4th time. Since I had several hours of "free" time while waiting for my phone to get fixed I decided to walk into the used bookstore. I was thrilled to find a $5.00 copy of the 700 page autobiography of Billy Graham's life and ministry called "Just as I am".

I'll confess that I haven't finished the book yet, but have thoroughly enjoyed everything so far. One of the things that I've noticed in reading the book is the relative freedom that Graham feels to serve the Lord as he is given opportunity. At the same time there doesn't seem to be any question that Graham is following God's call for his life.

There is an interconnected relationship between doing what you love and doing what God has made you to do.

Sometimes I see people become so anxious about making the right choice that opportunities for ministry pass them by. If you move outside the will of God He will work to move you back, otherwise enjoy the freedom to serve God by doing what you love to do.

- Aaron

The Church Equips, The Disciples Do

This past Saturday five of us from Franconia began the 13ish-hour journey from Alexandria, VA to Orlando, FL for the 2010 SBC annual meeting. None of us had ever been to a SBC meeting before. Throughout the 26 hours in the car, 2 days of the pastor's conference, and the annual meeting one thought continued to reverberate. What are we supposed to be doing here at Franconia Baptist Church? What is our role in the fulfillment of the Great Commission?

I believe that the local church exists primarily to glorify God by making disciples (Eph 4:12). A new disciple is made when a sinner hears the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Rom 10:13-14; John 3:16) and yields to the calling of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:30). Disciple making was never intended to stop with conversion. In the second verse of the Great Commission Jesus explicity commands the disciples to teach these new disciples His commands. This is the transformational process that Paul describes as the "renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:1-2).

So what is the responsibility of the local church then? We are called to assist in the transformational process of equipping the saints (Eph 4:12). As the disciples are equipped they are then sent out into the fields to advance the boundaries of the Kingdom of God by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ through their words and their actions.

We were standing around, way to late at night, talking with Jonathan Leeman from 9Marks. He summarized the distinction well with an analogy of the church compared to a college. An engineering school trains and equips engineers to go out and engineer things. The church brings glory to God by training and equipping the disciples to God out and make other disciples.

This may seem obvious, but I assure you that the way many of our churches function does not reflect these principles.

-Aaron

Exciting things at Franconia Baptist

I thought I'd take just a minute to let everyone know about what God is doing at Franconia Baptist these days.

This past week marked the final day of our preschool and Kindergarten for the regular school year. They will be having 3 weeks of summer camp and then a summer break.

The preschool will be finishing up just in time for Franconia's first Vacation Bible School in a number of years. We will be using the Lifeway Saddle Ridge Ranch materials for what should be a great time of sharing Christ with the kids.

God continues to bring wonderful new people to our church! We have added to our numbers each month including two by baptism. It feels like we are really making a difference in our community.

This weekend we're going to have a mini retreat at the church to talk about a vision for Franconia Baptist that is rooted in making disciples for the sake of the Kingdom.

- Aaron

Competing for the Truth

It's incredibly thrilling to be a young pastor in the early years of my ministry career. At the same time I've greatly troubled that this is not the easiest time, if there ever was one, to be a preacher of God's Word.

Our church has been in a discussion for the last couple of months about where the boundaries of cooperation should extend. On the one hand we very much want to work together with other believers for the sake of the Kingdom of God. On the other hand it's critical that we don't compromise biblical truth for the sake of cooperation.

This week NPR aired a news article about Brian McLaren's new book "A New Kind of Christianity" (Article Link). I'm sure that NPR thought it would be fitting to air this now because some of McLaren's comments compromise the truth of Jesus' physical sacrifice which is at the heart of the Easter story. Their program folded in quotes from Dr. Mohler and Dr. Ware from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. McLaren's new kind of Christianity is extraordinarily popular because you can fit almost anyone into it, but at what cost?

This new kind of Christianity is not new at all. It's really an old kind of heresy, a term that I don't like to throw around lightly.

Here we are, just days away from Easter, and we have "pastors" redefining the basic Gospel. Jesus did not promise his disciples that they would be popular (John 15:20). It is time to stand together for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not compromising the Word of God for the sake of personal popularity.

- Aaron

Suffering Necessitates Hope

This week we were once again reminded that this world we live in is full of pain and suffering. Before the world could even begin to put the pieces of Haiti back together another terrible tragedy occurred, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in the South American country of Chile.

Carrie and I were touched deeply because of our friendship with a Chilean family who spent the last 72 hours wondering whether their family and friends were still alive. Praise God all were spared, but many did lose loved ones.

There are those like Dawkins that would describe these losses as needless and angrily shake their fists at God. Then the all too familiar angry refrain is played, "how could a loving God do or allow this to happen?"

In Romans 8:18 the apostle Paul says that the "sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us." Some argue that Paul is an escapist when he should be a realist. The skeptics argue that there is either no God or some sort of evil God. This distorts the true relationship between God and man. God is not here to serve man or to make him eternally comfortable. Man is here to bring glory to God.

You might rightly ask, how can the suffering of Haiti and Chile bring glory to God? Or you might wonder how your personal suffering can bring glory to God.

It's not the suffering or the evil in this world that is the basis for God’s glory. Tragedy, whether it’s natural or manmade, is a result of our distortion of God's perfection. Mankind chose to turn its back on God, but the current reality is only temporary. The Bible says that the world itself longs for the day when God will restore it so that it functions properly (Rom. 8:19-21). That means no more earthquakes, or tidal waves, or destructive volcanoes, or diseases, or murderers, or anything else that causes pain and suffering.

What we need to remember is that we can bring God glory even in the midest of tragedies like Haiti and Chile. If the people of God step up then the whole world can witness the grace and love of God. We are called to bring glory to God while we continue to wait for peace on earth and God will toward all men.

- Aaron

The Total Package

Human beings are incredibly good at compartmentalizing things. We often do this as a coping mechanism in order to take something which is complicated and divide it into manageable parts.

Unfortunately the sum of the parts does not always equal the whole. For instance, if you take a slice of bread and eat the ingredients one at a time you didn't eat a slice of bread.

Our lives are a lot like this. God gave each one of us a mind, a body, and a soul. If we treat these seperately without any regard for how they relate to one another our lives will be anemic at best. We must learn to recognize that God made us to be whole people which means that we must care for the whole person.

If you get up every morning and spend an hour in your Bible, praying to God, but eat junk food all day long; pretty soon it will affect not only your body but also your mind and soul. If you exercise 2 hours a day but never spend any time feeding your soul it will soon begin to suffer. And If you read your Bible, spend time in prayer, and gets lots of good food and exercise but fill your mind with perverse images or thoughts it won't take long before your Spirit and body are just as sick as if you neglected them.

The point is this, God made each one of us as whole people with a mind, body, and a soul. In order to be the healthy person that God wants, we must take care of our whole persons.

-Aaron

Church: A Place of Great Encouragement

The day that you walked across the stage to receive your diploma and the audience all clapped for you, the day that the doctor handed you your newborn son or daughter, the day that you tucked your arm around your spouse's back and kissed them for the first time as a husband or a wife... These are all very encouraging days when life is flush with possibilities.

We can understand why these milestone moments are very encouraging, but what about the rest of the time when the day to day grind seems to take the shine off of our dreams.

There is a place where you should be able to find this kind of encouragement. Admittedly if you were to ask most Americans, Christians and non-Christians, where that place is. The answer wouldn't be the church.

The reality of this evidence does not reflect the heart of God. In the book of Hebrews the Bible says that we Christians are to "hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-- and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:23-25)

One of our chief goals at Franconia Baptist Church is to love one another by encouraging everyone not just when we hit the major milestones but throughout the daily grind. Properly handled a jeweler can use the grit to polish a stone into something that beautifully reflects the light.

- Aaron