Gifted, Session 7, 1 Corinthians 14 (Recorded live in the Great Room on October 2, 2013).
Click here to listen or download: 2013.10.02.GiftedMidweekSession7.CharlesMoore
Gifted, Session 8, Ephesians 4 (Recorded live in the Great Room on October 9, 2013).
Click here to listen or download: 2013.10.09.GiftedMidweekSession8.SteveMoore
“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17 ESV).
When two blades rub against each other, the result is that both instruments are sharper. You and I were made for meaningful interaction and life-enriching relationships within Christ’s body. Particularly for us guys, who tend to be less socially sophisticated than the women in our lives, we need male encouragement, mentoring, and accountability. Add some healthy competition, and it can be downright fun!
In recent blog entries I’ve attempted to thank the First Baptist Family for the warm and gracious hospitality extended to Eileen and me since our Paducah arrival in late June. Today I want to expressly thank the church for your kindness to our son.
Joshua feels very much at home among you, and this is in large measure due to your open heart toward him. Thank you. It’s not easy to move across the country and start attending a new middle school and a new youth group, but God has certainly used your love — demonstrated to Josh — to grease the skids.
I particularly want to thank the FBC boys who have gone out of your way to include Joshua in various and sundry activities and conversations. It would have been much easier for you to have waited for Josh to find his own friendships, but you’ve exhibited Christlike grace toward the new guy. Eileen and I have remarked more than once that your maturity level has been exceptionally impressive in this regard. You are fine young men.
I also want to thank the FBC dads who made the effort to give Joshua some instruction and practice at shooting a couple of weekends ago. He was in hog heaven with you guys! You might not have realized how special that day was for Joshua, but let me tell you that you made a lasting impression on a boy who now thinks that Western Kentucky is a way cool place to live. (Even if you are the preacher’s kid.)
So thanks from the bottom of my heart, brothers, for treating my son like your own. May all our sons and daughters grow up grateful to God that He called us to do life together here and now. Sometimes the sharpening process will set off a spark or two, but the results will be out of this world.
Sunday Evening Message: Love is in the Air, Session 2 (Recorded live in the FBC Sanctuary on October 06, 2013).
Click here to listen or download:2013.10.06.PM.LoveIsInTheAirSession2.CharlesMoore
I got to go soaring again with Captain Brad, this time westbound over the farmlands of Missouri. Within minutes of leaving Paducah, my illustrious pilot was pointing out Cairo, Illinois – which sits at the very lower tip of the Land of Lincoln, where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers converge.
I’m sure I’m among many of you who read Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a child. As Huck and runaway Jim float downriver, Jim restlessly searches the riverbank for the town of Cairo:
“We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels! Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!” I says: “I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.” He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says: “Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it!”
Jim and Huck want to get to Cairo so they can buy passage on a steamboat up the Ohio and east to where Jim thinks his family is – remember? Historically, Cairo wasn’t the friendliest place to escaping slaves, but it did offer access to the rivers, and even to Canada, or a possibility at overland transportation to Chicago.
Yes, those memories flooded my mind as my eyes canvassed Cairo and its environs, and as I remembered the tale that had such an impact on me as a kid. And though I’m not a kid anymore, I’ve never forgotten the feelings I experienced as a child pondering intently what it would be like not to be free. That was the power of the story penned by Samuel Clemens (Twain’s real name).Cairo offered a chance at freedom.
We long to be free. We see it in our study of Exodus. We have an innate desire to be free.
The good news of the gospel of Jesus is that you and I are free in Christ. Absolutely free. We’ve been rescued from God’s wrath. We’ve been rescued from our sin. We’ve been rescued from the impossibility of manmade religion to keep any of its promises. We’ve been rescued from a guilty conscience. We’ve been rescued from death. We’ve been rescued from all fear. We’re absolutely free! Free in our Lord Jesus Christ!
But.
The Apostle Paul warns that we can turn in our freedom for imprisonment. In Galatians 5:1 we read: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
What does Paul mean? We used to be slaves to sin, and Christ died to set us free from all of that. Why would any gospel-hearing person ever go back to slavery?
I think that – in order for our lives to reflect the brightness and joy of the freedom that is ours in Jesus Christ – four gospel truths must take root and bear fruit in (and through) each one of us:
We are FREE. Totally free. But Huck didn’t do it. Jesus did.
Beloved, don’t trade in your inheritance for a cup of soup.
We’re free! I jis knows it!
It was great to kick off “Love Is In the Air” Sunday night. Thanks to all of you who showed up to embark on a multiple-week study of the high priority of love in the church. It was a treat to be with you, and in fact to sense the love of this great congregation. We’re growing in love for Christ, love for each other, and love for a lost world.
So this morning our national government is “shut down.” Not really, of course. Mail is still running and planes are still flying and taxes are still being collected (and spent). But it does make us think about the temporal nature of the things in which we’re tempted to wrongly place too much of our trust.
Ah … that’s right. “Three things abide: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.” I forgot, at least momentarily.
To love – to truly love – may mean hard times for us. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I do want to be a Biblical realist. To love after the example of our Lord is often accompanied by at least some suffering along the path that He has charted for us. I say this not to discourage you, Beloved, but to encourage you to look up and consider yourself blessed indeed to in any way be identified with Jesus (Romans 8:16-17; Second Corinthians 1:5; First Peter 4:12-19).
Philip Graham Ryken, president of Wheaton College, writes: “People sometimes say, ‘I know that God will never give me more than I can bear.’ Actually, there are times when God does give us more than we think we can bear. Sooner or later, we all suffer unbearable losses, or face insoluble problems, or have to deal with impossible people. But although God may give us more than we can bear, he never gives us more than he can bear. We are not alone. Jesus is with us – the Savior who suffered every kind of abuse up to and including death by torture. This does not lessen our pain, necessarily, or solve all our problems immediately, but it does mean that we do not have to bear all things or endure all things on our own. The love of Jesus will carry us through. The more we know his love – the love of our suffering, saving King – the more we are able to endure all things for him.”
Relating all of this to our present American landscape, my hope for politicians of every political stripe is the same as my hope for gospel preachers: that they’ll stand up and say (and in fact do) the right thing. That won’t be any easier for anyone in Washington than it is for somebody in Monkeys Eyebrow, Kentucky. (As the relative newcomer, it’s hard for me to spell the latter locale without an apostrophe, so I hope I’ve been advised correctly.) But I’m sure you get my point. To love, and to serve people in love, sometimes comes at a high price.
And we have no guarantees, this side of heaven at least. Our economy may not survive our debt load, making all of us wish we had hung out a little longer in Tightwad, Missouri.
But love wins. We know that. The Lord God reigns!
So you and I, as the Lord’s redeemed, are called to love in plenty or in want. So go ahead and love. I even dare you to love your enemies (political or otherwise).
“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is
than a fattened ox and hatred with it.”
Proverbs 15:17
Sunday Evening Message: Love is in the Air, Session 1 (Recorded live in the FBC Chapel on September 29, 2013).
Click here to listen or download:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”
I love the way Paul closed his letter to the Philippians (4:21-23). The apostle called all the believers “saints.” So, if we’re in Christ, we’re saints. That’s way cool.
Do we then, as saints, enjoy any perks? Indeed we do.
We enjoy the perk of security.
When Paul referred to “every saint” (4:21), I think he was making a point: Security in Christ is the present possession of every Christian person. This was an Old Testament promise coming to life (Isaiah 27:12): “You will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel!”
I’m so glad that, though Jesus was moved by compassion for the multitudes, He went after people one by one.
We also enjoy the perk of solidarity.
Via this letter, the church at Rome – this time Paul said “all the saints” (4:22) – was sending its love to the church at Philippi. The church is not just individuals – but a united body!
Guy H. King preached in 1952: “The Christian songster is not just a soloist, but a member of a choir! The Christian soldier is not just a solitary figure, but a member of an army! The Christian scholar is not just a privately tutored learner, but a member of a school! The Christian son is not just a lonely child, but a member of a family! The Christian sprinter is not just an individual performer, but a member of a team!”
In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body (First Corinthians 12:13).
And we enjoy the perk of surprise.
Paul even included “those of Caesar’s household” in his greeting. “Especially those!”
Paul is including the whole range of imperial employees. Not just Caesar’s family, but his slaves, his army, and his officials. Even the people among whom the fad of emperor worship would be most prevalent. The soldiers have noticed Paul. Some inside the walls have come to faith in Christ. You can almost hear Paul dictating Ephesians: “Put on the full armor of God.”
Paul is showing us the power of the gospel, even in the halls of power. He’s showing us the power of the Spirit to change sinners of all stripes. Paul doesn’t want the church to be bummed out because of his imprisonment.
It’s even happening in Nero’s house. There are believers in the emperor’s own household! In this mad, mean, crazy man’s house there are now Christians. Jerome will report in a couple hundred years that Nero’s wife became a Christian. Just thirty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, this persecuted minority has converts in the upper echelons of the Roman Empire.
About 130 years after Paul wrote these words – in A.D. 197 – Tertullian will write a letter to Roman citizens saying: “We are but of yesterday, but we have filled your empire. Your cities, your islands, your forts, your towns, your marketplaces, your very military camps and wards and companies, and palace and senate and forum – all of these swarm with Christians. We have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods. They are the only places that you can name in your empire where there are not Christians.”
We need to think about this the next time we feel tempted to conclude that we live in too dark a place to open our mouths for the Lord Jesus.
“With your spirit.”
That’s what I pray for you today, Beloved: that God’s grace will be poured out on and in you until it permeates the very core of your being. Charles H. Spurgeon said it like this: “Little faith may bring your souls to Heaven, but great faith will bring Heaven to your souls.”
And Annie Johnson Flint like this:
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction He sendeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth … and giveth … and giveth again!
Midweek Message: Gifted, Session 6 (Recorded live in the Great Room on September 25, 2013).
Click here to listen or download: 2013.09.25.GiftedMidweekSession6.
Biblical Christianity is full of hope.
But not in the sense of “wishful thinking” or “positive karma” or a “pie-in-the-sky” or “head-in-the-clouds.” As a matter of fact, J.I. Packer calls optimism “wish without warrant.” A person who is merely optimistic, simply by nature of their humanity, is completely in the dark about what tomorrow will bring. A doggedly optimistic person may never live to see good things actually transpire – though he or she may persistently hope for those good things. Garden-variety hope is intrinsically uninformed and illusive.
In stark contrast, Christian hope is a confident trust in the promises of God. That’s a very different kind of hope, because it’s rooted in something that’s already settled: the absolute truthfulness of God. All the promises that God has made are as good as done. Christian hope is anchored in God Himself, in His impeccable nature and character.
Our hope in Christ’s promise of eternal life, for example, is simply our faith (confident trust) that Jesus meant what He said (John 14:1-3): “Where I am, there you may be also.” Because of Christ’s finished work on the cross on our behalf, we who are in Christ are already citizens of heaven. (That makes us just visitors here, in a wonderfully exhilarating and liberating kind of way.)
Christian hope is more than a likelihood or a possibility. Much more. We are God’s adopted children. We have a promised inheritance. Guaranteed. Done. We are “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17). We know from that same passage that the path of life along which our Lord has promised to guide us will include some suffering, but we also know that sorrow will not ultimately win the day. This is the amazement of walking with God! “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten … You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you” (Joel 2:25-26).
God is sovereign, and God is good to us. You and I blow it on a regular basis, but God’s magnificent plan not only gets us back on track, but manages to teach us lessons of eternal value as we’re rescued (again and again) by grace. He is good.
Why do I tell you these things? Because these are the kinds of reminders that I need on a regular basis. Otherwise I get stuck in a rut, or settled into make-myself-happy mode, or just generally bummed out by the world’s troubles (everything from violence in Syria to layoffs at USEC).
But when I remember who my God is – and what He’s done for me in Christ – I’m vividly reminded that I can trust Him for the rest. So can you.
There is a line in the Anglican burial service when the body of the believer is returned to the earth “in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul said it like this (First Corinthians 15:55): “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Now that’s real hope. Hope that can smile through tears because Jesus lives. Hope because our real life is found in Him.
Go for hope! Real hope. Not some artificial substitute that kind of smells like hope. Because nothing really fits in hope’s place except hope.
Beloved church family, I know there’s a lot of bad news out there. Many of you fear the future because you see our national strength declining, our cultural morals spiraling downward, and our youth bailing out on the church. But I want to remind you that there is hope because there is God. Peter Marshall, former chaplain to the U.S. Senate, once warned: “The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration.” But even if the people around us choose chaos, compromise, and disintegration, we have abiding hope in Jesus Christ. And don’t forget – we’re just coming off the evening preaching series from Jonah – the Lord was more than able to turn around the very wicked nation of Nineveh in short order.
So hope to you! You and I are drinking from the saucer, because our cup has run over.
“And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5).
I extend my heartfelt thanks to the three hundred women who officially welcomed Eileen to the church family last night. She came home with extra tiramisu, so we both benefited immensely from your creativity and attention to detail. She’s an Italian food lover, and I’m happy to go along for the ride. (As a matter of fact, I’ll hop on just about any ethnic food bus that drives by – but that’s another story for another day.)
I was raised a polite Southern boy, with a fondness for lemon icebox pie and sweet tea. Eileen hailed from Massachusetts via Upstate New York. Having tasted neither boiled peanut nor collard green, she was clearly a misguided Yankee from my point of view. Her family thought that traveling to Washington, D.C., was “going Down South.” Imagine that. She and I were a North-meets-South romance, and were married on the ninth day of April – which turned out to be a picture-perfect spring afternoon in Raleigh, North Carolina. However, in preserving my Southern heritage, I probably didn’t think through our wedding date as carefully as I should have. (You can check your American history on that one.)
After twenty years of marriage, Eileen and I are almost to the point of completing each other’s sentences. The differences that attracted us to each other in the first place, and then drove us nearly crazy in early married life, we now appreciate again. We smile when we think about God knowing exactly what He was doing in bringing us together. Sometimes, after two decades of mutual influence, we pass by each other in predicted behavior. For example, I used to be the spender and she used to be the saver. That’s still generally the pattern, but sometimes now she’ll propose a purchase and I’ll put on the brakes. At those moments she looks at me and inquires as to precisely who has inhabited my body. (A body, I might add, that’s now quite content wearing a Polo shirt bought for half price because it was graced with a minor imperfection.)
So we might as well put all the cards out on the table. Eileen is smarter than I. She made better grades in law school. Her devotional life puts mine to shame. When I’m putting together the barbecue grill (that’s major engineering in my book) and struggling for two hours with that one piece that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere, she walks into the room and sticks it in just the right spot in fifteen seconds. (Yes, that really happened.) She is my perfect partner in life and ministry.
My wife of noble character – my excellent wife – is my crown (Proverbs 12:4).
One thing that Eileen and I love to do together is laugh. We believe that laughter is good for the soul (Proverbs 17:22). Though we’re both somewhat predisposed toward seriousness, we try not to overdo it. Life is just downright funny if you choose to look at things that way. We hope that part of our ministry among you will be to help you laugh. With us, not at us (at least not very often), preferably. We want to be good medicine for you, in the spirit of that same proverb.
And pastoral ministry? It can be off-the-charts hilarious! Remind me to tell you about the time our home was invaded by animals. (And I’m not referring to cantankerous church members.) We believe that the Lord used the whole saga to inspire the sermon series that I was preaching at the time. I promise to tell the whole story at FBC, soon. Stay tuned.
Our life together has taken us from the East Coast to the West Coast, and nearly back. We wouldn’t change even one small chapter if we could. God has been so good to us. Christ gave me the perfect wife for me. A grace gift for sure. I can now eat a green bean that isn’t completely doused with bacon grease, and she will fight me over the last hush puppy.
Yes, I married up. Praise be to God.
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