From Pastor Andrew’s Desk
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Greetings First Church friends!
Maybe like me, you are in denial. I am denial that my favorite season (summer) is over. Yet, I hope that you, like me, had a great summer. Juliette is starting to smile and make us all laugh. Speaking of laughing, what a joy it will be to all be back together again this Sunday as we reconvene as a church for Refreshed and Ready.
And just as an FYI on this, we will have an awesome BBQ after the service in the FLC. We have some big time cooks (AKA the Wood brothers and company) on the grills so you don’t want to miss it! And you won’t want to miss checking in at the FLC beforehand for our Ministry Fair. Some of our wonderful ministries will be setting up tables to share with you about their ministry. How exciting to see how you can plug in. There are so many ways your gifts and talents can be used so you don’t want to miss it!
Adult Sunday Classes We are also starting our Sunday School season this Sunday. The “Big Idea” for the Fall in teaching, preaching and dialogue will be “identity”. Identity is such a buzz word in our society for many things. We’re going to look at “who the world says we are” and “who we are in Christ” as we circle around the overarching theme of identity.
This Sunday I will teach an all church Sunday school on the topic of
“who the world says we are”
and next Sunday (9/18) Rebecca Morgan will teach an all church session on
“who we are in Christ”.
Then starting on (9/25) we turn to finding ways of living out our faith in Christ with two (or potentially) three classes on our identity via dialogue and life application. More details to come! As for this week, let’s take a look at the world’s statements that are false buzzwords like “follow your heart” , “just be free and autonomous” and “everything is relative.” These statements, while innocuous on the surface are really rather deadly if they are applied. We’ll expose the lies of the world and investigate what part of those lies we have ingested, and seek to live in His ways, not the world’s!
9/11
Also, we will certainly recognize the 15th anniversary of the awful tragedy that was September 11th this upcoming Sunday. Our country will never be the same since this happened, and we will never forget. May the Lord be near to all those families who were so tragically affected and may His give our nation courage in facing up to the current threats of terrorism.
Fall Pulpit Focus
I have been spending significant time praying and thinking about the fall. Sometimes in our walk with the Lord, He’ll give us a sense of someplace to go even if it isn’t crystal clear where He is taking us. After praying, speaking with some wise counsel and reading the Word, I am focusing on 2 Corinthians, more specifically for this week, 2 Corinthians 1:3-22. The book of 2 Corinthians is a letter written by Paul to admonish the Corinthian believers to live a life worthy of the Gospel in every way, even in the midst of great pressures to conform to the world and give up their pursuit of Christ.
Verse 3 starts off by stating,
“praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles…..”
Pretty cool that the God of the universe wants to bring us total comfort and rest in Him! The following verses describe the comfort that we receive from God, but also from others. We hope that more small groups and caring communities develop in our church to deliver the type of biblical comfort Paul references.
Paul describes in verse 8 the many hardships they experienced in Asia, suffering so much so they despaired even of life. Undoubtedly, they dealt with heavy persecution, hatred, hunger, etc. Yet, Paul takes the “long view” on this suffering, asking the Lord what He wants to do through him. Paul states in v. 9,
“indeed, in our hearts we felt this sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”
Paul had many gifts and talents. And he also had many amazing experiences of walking with God. Paul knows simply relying on his gifts or his experiences was a temptation and knew he needed to rely on God to get him through life. Paul knows that had he not suffered and at times suffered intensely, he would never know what it is like to truly rely on the Lord in every way.
Speaking of identity, self reliance is one of the areas that is so prevalent as a value in our society. Indeed, this is more of an American concept, but not uniquely so. Other societies tend to value community a bit more and the type of interdependence that grows through that. But we Americans like to be self-reliant! We don’t want to lean on anybody for help. If America is self-reliant then the “Yankee spirit” of New England even notches it to the next level. Although there are certainly many admirable qualities in this spirit, it can be extremely damaging when we stop acknowledging our need for others and even worse our need for God. A totally ‘self-reliant’ person does not recognize their absolute dependence on the living God for their very next breath. A totally ‘self-reliant’ person acts as a ‘mini-sovereign’ and when things are going well in life….nice house, healthy kids, good job, etc, etc…..they can live off this and be deluded into thinking they are in control. But when something goes wrong….a kid gets sick, foreclosure on a house, lost job, etc. people have a choice…will they turn to the Lord or turn inward. Sadly, many turn inward.
Not just non-Christians but even Christians make this move inward. In doing so, they are missing out on the joy and challenge it is
to release control,
to surrender to Him,
to allow Him to move and
to rely on Him fully!
May it be said of us that this is how we lived our life. That in the good times and hard times of our lives we chose not to rely on ourselves (how foolish), but chose to fall on the grace of the Lord for His leading and guiding. How much more amazing is our walk with Him when this is the case.
Is the Lord giving you opportunities in your life now to fully rely on Him? Write down some areas of concern in your life right now. Then take inventory – are you relying on yourself or Him through the circumstances. And here are some things to think about as you do:
in your situation are you moving toward or away from Biblical community?
in your situation are you moving toward or away from the Word?
in your situation are you trying to “figure it all out”, or
stepping out in faith and following Him?
May the Lord guide you if you need a time of redirection in His ways, for He is gracious with us and we can come to Him for His healing and love and in all things!
Paul shares that as he has relied on the Lord the Lord has delivered him from a deadly peril and that the Lord continued to deliver him as he hoped in the Lord (v. 10). Whether we live or die the Lord is our deliverer. Either He delivers us from death to life into His presence and away from separation from Him or in our life He delivers us through various and sundry challenges to be filled by Him. In your pain and your suffering and in my pain and my suffering what is our primary hope for deliverance? It might be doctors, family and friends, or financial blessings. Again, these things can be very wonderful and helpful, but truly the Lord is only true deliverer through challenges. He is Paul’s one and only hope and may that be ours. Do we believe this? May it go deeper into our hearts today.
Then Paul goes on to boast in verse 12 that
“we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom, but according to God’s grace.”
In Paul’s day, like ours, there was so much “wisdom” that man conjured up by using the mind that God had given them for their own interpretations on matters, not God’s interpretation. Do you remember the temptation in the garden in Genesis 3 when the serpent deceived Adam and Eve into eating the fruit? “You will not surely die” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4).
Satan knew that the greatest temptation for people would be to be totally sovereign and to be able to make their own decisions and invent their own wisdom. Even though man can make up such wisdom of the universe about various topics and it can sound very good, if it is not led by the Lord it is ultimately worldly and has no eternal value. Sure, for this life it can be useful for someone to get ahead or to add some nugget of wisdom, but ultimately it is totally worldly. What voices are we listening to? Whoever and whatever gets our ear the most completely determines how we live our lives. Always. Often this temptation to accumulate worldly wisdom is subtle and it appeals to our pride and desire to be in control. May the Lord protect us from this perspective!
Paul and those he served with, were reliant on God’s grace and leaned on Him for His wisdom. They knew that God’s perspective on things was the one that mattered. Lord, protect us from having our head on a swivel listening to all the ‘latest and greatest’ trends of the world. Take an inventory if you can…
where in your life and where in my life have we been listening to worldly wisdom rather than godly wisdom?
how has this affected the way that we live?
Our culture is full of worldly wisdom because of how indecisive and relative things have become. It feels as though there is no anchor at all at times. Paul asks rhetorically in v. 17 if he makes plans in a worldly manner they would look like “yes” and “no” simultaneously. There is a better way….God’s way! The Lord’s ways are not indecisive, they are clear…crystal clear. No matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. Thanks be to God that His Truth is not relative and in this world of constantly shifting sand, on Christ the solid rock we stand! May we be people of the Word, who are people of our word.
Lastly, Paul concludes by reminding us to whom we belong to. He states that,
“He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (v. 22).
In thinking about identity we will never know who we are until we know whose we are. If we don’t deeply know and understand that we are His and that we are owned by the Lord we will constantly try to take life into our own hands, to control situations and act like an autonomous deity. The more humble yet more rewarding option is to acknowledge that He alone is sovereign and that we belong to Him. This is such a joy because in this He gives us His Holy Spirit which convicts, guides and strengthens us. It is His grace and power working through us. None of the other points above can be fully understood until we deeply grasp this truth! May God give us wisdom and joy in the process of surrendering to His will and His ways!
Look forward to seeing you Sunday for a wonderful time of worship and praise!
Blessings,
Pastor Andrew
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