Sermon audio for Session 3 of the Engage Series, “A Call to Stand” from John 17:11-16. Click here to listen or download (Recorded live at First Baptist Paducah on July 20, 2014):

2014.07.20.Engage.Session3.CharlesMoore

Last night was a tremendous blessing for me as about forty from our congregation prayer walked around the Robert Coleman Park in preparation for Sunday night’s outreach event. Though we weren’t circling the walls of Jericho, we did understand that we were (and always are) up against spiritual forces that are entirely antagonistic to the cause of Christ. That is the nature of Christian ministry.

We were feeling as we walked what Hudson Taylor (for 51 years a missionary in China) felt on the mission field: “It is possible to move men through God by prayer alone.”

The Book of Nehemiah describes a time when God’s people had a job before them that couldn’t possibly be done in human strength. A hundred years had passed. The walls of Jerusalem were torn down. The city had no secure gates. There was excruciatingly difficult work to be done.

The walls had been broken down by the Babylonian invasion in 586 B.C. Two groups had returned from captivity to Jerusalem over that 100-year period. “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1).

Today we sing a similarly sober song when we look at the world around us. There is so much brokenness everywhere we turn, even in the church. There is so much repair work to be done. Idolatry, secular humanism, religious pride. Because the people in Nehemiah’s day had mocked God’s messengers and scoffed at His prophets, they had been taken captive by an invading army. God used the Babylonians and then the Medo-Persians to accomplish His sovereign will, and to teach valuable spiritual lessons.

Rock the Block will be exhilarating but not easy. There is much suffering and chaos in our community, as in every other community. When we move into the lives of people, and allow them to move into our lives, we do so at some risk.

And maybe it’s not all about “them.” Maybe there are some “old walls” in our lives that need to come down so that the Spirit of God can rebuild better walls for His glory! A.W. Tozer in The Roots of the Righteous describes our natural tendency: “Let the owner neglect for awhile his prized and valued acres and they will revert again to the wilds and be swallowed by the jungle or the wasteland. The bias of nature is toward the wilderness never toward the fruitful field.”

Maybe Christ is dealing with some of our sinful habits and attitudes. Some of our worldliness and pleasure-seeking. Maybe some of our uncomfortableness in the area of outreach has to do with what those interactions will cause us to have to confront in our own lives.

The British evangelist and pastor Alan Redpath said it like this: “When God takes up a man and uses him in His service, the first thing He does is to show him his own utter inadequacy, insufficiency, and unworthiness for the task.”

Maybe God is so gracious that He will repair the gates of First Baptist Paducah (First John 1:9), even as we embrace our community with Christ’s love.

In Nehemiah’s day, the people had to come clean (face the truth about themselves), mourn (confess their sin and repent of it), stand strong in the face of opposition (even from within the ranks) and pursue God in genuine praise and faithful obedience. Not a bad recipe for us.

In any event, I’m glad to be in it with you. Thanks to all of you who prayed last night, and to all of you who will pray between now and Sunday night.

Sermon audio for Session 2 of the Engage Series, “A Call to Press” from John 17:6-10.  Click here to listen or download (Recorded live at First Baptist Paducah on July 13, 2014):

2014.07.13.Engage.Session2.CharlesMoore

I’m really looking forward to August and our season of revival. And I believe that – if you and I really want to get the most out of this – we must rid our minds of all thoughts of “revival” that do not come from the Word of God.

We’re not talking about a nightly series of evangelistic services.

We’re not talking about a special guest preacher.

We’re not talking about a visiting choir director or a “pack a pew” night.

No, far better.

Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You (Psalm 85:6)?

Merriam-Webster defines revival as “renewed attention.”

J.I. Packer defined revival like this: “God’s quickening visitation of His people, touching their hearts and deepening His work of grace in their lives.”

“God, would you grab our attention again?”

If I understand church history at all, the greatest revivals ever known had at their center one thing: repentance. This is what you and I most need. It can’t be programmed, but it can be sought.

As far as I know, the Bible doesn’t include any one passage that completely describes every dimension of “revival.” But Isaiah 6:1-8 might serve us well as at least a helpful place to start a discussion about it. Considering that text as a bit of an outline, here are some of the things that I want us to experience at First Baptist Paducah:

1. a fresh VISIT from the one true and living God (vs. 1a)

2. a sound VISION of the Lord in all His glory (vs. 1b – 4)

3. a VICTORY over the sinful chains that bind us (vs. 5)

4. a new VIEW of the gospel claims that free us (vs. 6-7)

5. a VALIDATION of the Spirit’s call to mission (vs. 8a)

6. a VIVACIOUS response to the grace of Christ (vs. 8b)

It just doesn’t get any better than that!

So please bear with me (and with your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ) as we amend our schedules and our expectations for four important weeks: August 3, August 10, August 17, and August 24, 2014.

I’ll close with these words from Charles Spurgeon …

“Of the Samaritans our Lord said, ‘Ye worship ye know not what,’ let him not have to say to us, ‘Ye know not what ye ask.’ The word ‘revive’ wears its meaning upon its forehead; it is … to live again, to receive again a life which has almost expired; to rekindle into a flame the vital spark which was nearly extinguished … While a true revival in its essence belongs only to God’s people, it always brings with it a blessing for the other sheep who are not yet of the fold. If you drop a stone into a lake the ring widens continually, till the farthest corner of the lake feels the influence.”

This is Pastor Charles’ preaching series for July.  Click here to listen or download (Recorded live at First Baptist Paducah on July 6, 2014):

2014.07.06.Engaged.Session1.CharlesMoore

You have no idea how difficult it was for me to be out of town and unable to participate in Billy Hart’s memorial service. Billy was a special man, always demonstrating a gentle and quiet reverence. Billy never wasted words. So when he did have something to say, it made you want to listen, as you knew that it was going to be something important.

My first memories of Paducah include Billy and Linda. Wonderful moments indeed. Just not enough of them, as we were not ready to send Billy home. Not yet.

But home Billy went. And our God makes no mistakes.

Susan and Shannon, I thought of you last night as the sun was setting over the ocean at a spot that appeared to be the edge of the universe. To capture this photograph, I waited just a few minutes for the sailboat to “touch” the sun. For me it symbolizes all the darkness and turbulence of this transient life being swallowed up by heaven’s blissful glow. The Light has won, and Christ has triumphed over sin and death (First Corinthians 15:50-55)! I know that your dad was an Air Force guy, but I think he’d allow me the nautical analogy.

If heaven is every believer’s real home (John 14:1-4), and it is, then why aren’t our deepest longings more often there than here?

Maybe we’re stained by the pessimism of our unbelieving environs. The late (and that word is key for our present consideration) philosopher, mathematician, logician, and historian Bertrand Russell expressed the hollowness of a hopeless generation: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere; only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.” Russell was brilliant, but dead wrong regarding this most important subject. Death is not the end, but only the launching pad for eternity.

I think that C.S. Lewis put his finger on the pulse of our heavenly mindedness (and at times the seeming lack thereof). Even we Christians can take our eyes off the prize. But not for long. Observed Lewis in Beyond the Shadowlands: “There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else … Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, for you were made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.”

Do you remember in Second Kings 6 when Elisha prayed that his servant would be allowed to peer into the heavenly realm that is always just beyond our line of vision? For at least a second the partition between now and forever evaporated, and the Lord’s “horses and chariots of fire” came into the man’s full view! Fear was destroyed by a sure knowledge of God’s presence and power. May you and I be gifted with eyes of faith to see Billy’s homegoing as the beautiful and glorious wonder that it really is.

So we don’t mourn as those who have no hope (First Thessalonians 4:13-18), for our dear friend — just a blink ahead of us — is no longer in the shadowlands. He is fully within those celestial borders where the brightness of Jesus can never be dimmed. Billy has landed on heaven’s shores. Our brother is safely home.

Our guest on June 29th was Shannon Hurley, Uganda missionary and director of S.O.S. ministries.  Click here to listen or download (Recorded live at First Baptist Paducah on June 29, 2014): 2014.06.29.PeopleOfFaith.Hebrews11.ShannonHurley

Friday night was especially sweet for me. Eileen and Joshua were in California re-connecting with friends there, while I was here in Paducah enjoying way too much frozen yogurt with Kent and Tracey Buchanan. (O.K., so the sweet pun was a little intentional.) We laughed and chatted like comrades who’ve done life together for decades.

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy a couple of the photos that Eileen sent home: Josh with his best SoCal bud Noah at the San Diego Zoo; and some of the women from our former Growth Group, part of the church’s discipleship ministry. Wonderful moments not to be taken for granted.

Anyway, when I got back to the house that evening, after spending some time on my sermon, I was surprised to see that the FBC college group meeting at our home was still very much “in session.” You have to remember that 11:00 p.m. is now very late in my book. (Can you say “old and boring?)

What a blessing I walked into! Now I don’t know exactly how you’ve done it, First Baptist Paducah, but I must say that you’ve managed to raise one of the finest crops of young adults I’ve ever been privileged to know! These college-age believers are an absolute joy to hang out with, and to share life with in general for that matter. This sweet treat was the icing on the cake for me.

Later it hit me. Though we were thousands of miles apart, Eileen, Joshua, and I were all experiencing the love and fellowship of the body of Christ. And not one of us was in a church building.

In his book Follow Me, Pastor David Platt makes this compelling observation: “The majority of people in America associate a church with a physical building … Identification of churches with buildings may seem common to us, but it’s foreign to the New Testament, where we never once see the church described as a physical building.”

Buildings can be great blessings as ministry outposts, but our real identity is “in Christ.” We’re God’s family (Ephesians 2:19-22). May our Lord grace us with many more “late nights” of laughter, watermelon, new friends, and heartfelt praise. O, how sweet it is!

Click here to listen or download (Recorded live at First Baptist Paducah on June 22, 2014)

Click here to listen or download (Recorded live at First Baptist Paducah on June 15, 2014):

2014.06.15.WellDone.Exodus35-39.CharlesMoore