A Friend of Sinners

What kind of difference are you making in your workplace and in your neighborhood and in those places that God has providentially placed you in order for you to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16)? What kind of relationships are you building so that you can love those around you that do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior? How are you involved in people’s lives for the sake of the Kingdom and for the sake of their eternity?
Jesus was called a “friend of sinners” by the religious establishment of His day. They saw that He spent time in the company of those of questionable backgrounds and practices and believed that to be scandalous. But I pray that we would be bold enough to live in such a way that the same might be said of us.
While Christians are to clearly look different from the world (John 17:16; 1 John 2:15) we must live in a way that demonstrates to the people of the world that we love them. This is what Jesus did as He interacted with those around Him. The religious people of Jesus’ day looked down upon sinners; Jesus looked for sinners because He came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10).
When Jesus hung out with sinners He did not condone what they were doing and their sinful lifestyles, He simply affirmed that these people and their lifestyles can be transformed. And He was able to hang out with sinners without becoming a sinner Himself.
So as we seek to live in the world but not look like the world we need to avoid two extremes. One extreme is to retreat. This is where the only people that we know and hang out with are those like us: they believe like us, live like us, think like us, have the same morals that we do, and have the same worldview that we do. This is retreat and this is defeat.
The other extreme is to relax. This is where we begin to look more like our unbelieving friends then we do like Jesus. We relax our morals and relax our values and the sinners and the culture begin to affect us more than we affect them. This is just as dangerous as retreat for while retreat causes there to never be a Christian witness, relaxing causes the Christian witness to tainted and therefore ineffective.
Thankfully Jesus did neither of these. He did not retreat and He surely did not relax. Jesus redeemed. And that is what He has called us to do as well. Jesus has called us to be salt and to be light, but in order to do that I must get out of the salt shaker and into a world that needs some salt and that needs the light of the Gospel.
So I ask again: What kind of difference are you making in your workplace and in your neighborhood and in those places that God has providentially placed you in order for you to be salt and light? What kind of relationships are you building so that you can love those around you that do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior? How are you involved in people’s lives for the sake of the Kingdom and for the sake of their eternity? Let us go and be known as friends of sinners so that Jesus might use us to bring redemption to those around us!

Marriage for the Glory of God

Marriage, just like all of life, is meant to glorify God. It is meant to picture the loving relationship between Jesus and His church (Ephesians 5:32). God created marriage upon the pattern of Jesus and His relationship to His bride the church, so the goal is to live and love in such a way that God is glorified and the relationship between Jesus and the church are portrayed.
We all know that a strong, God-glorifying, Christ-centered marriage takes a lot of hard work and a lot of determination. It takes following the instructions of God, the One who created marriage in the first place. This kind of marriage does not come about by looking at the pattern of the world, but by looking at the pattern of the Word; the Word of God.
The building of a strong and lasting marriage is much like building a strong and lasting house. When you build a house you want to use materials that will make it last a lifetime. You want to work hard so that it will be built into something that will stand up to the test of time. And building a strong, God-glorifying marriage is no different. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Likewise we can say that unless the Lord builds the marriage, those who try to build it labor in vain.
The building of a marriage, just like the building of a house, must start with a strong foundation. And the foundation that is needed in marriage is Jesus Christ. There is simply no other foundation with which to build a marriage upon. Jesus said, "Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys Me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse, because it is built on rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25). The only foundation that will stand when the storms of life blow hard is the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ. A commitment to Him as individuals and a commitment to Him as a couple is the only lasting, solid foundation that can support a marriage. He alone must be the rock.
But a house also needs walls: something that builds upon the foundation and adds structure and support. And in a marriage what adds that support is love. The Bible says, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). And the love that a husband and a wife should show one another should reflect the love that God has shown them in His Son, Jesus Christ. A sacrificial love that seeks the other’s good above one’s own. It must be a love that is predominantly centered not in each other, but in Jesus Christ where you love one another out of the overflow of your love for Him.
Not only does a house need a foundation and walls, but a house also needs a roof; something to protect the house from rain and acts as a shelter in the storm. And in the building of a marriage grace and forgiveness serve as that roof. The Bible says, “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). The grace and forgiveness that the husband and wife show to one another should reflect the grace and forgiveness that God has made available through His Son, Jesus Christ. That is free grace that is not deserved or earned, but is freely and lavishly given. Grace that is not dependant upon each other’s performance or worth, but grace that reflects the blessings that we have been shown in Christ. Free and unearned grace must permeate your marriage so that it protects and shelters from struggles within and problems without.
When these things are done, a marriage will be made that will be strong and that will last a lifetime. But above all else, it will be a marriage that will bring glory to God.

Walking By Faith

We know from Scripture and from personal experience that God leads and directs His people. The main way that He does so is by His Spirit working through His Word the Bible. God’s will is mainly revealed in His Word as we embrace it, know it, internalize it, and come to know more about the mind and the heart of God through it as we conform our lives to what it says. Any means of seeking the will of God that does not involve the rigorous, regular, and systematic study of the Word of God is flawed and is a potential recipe for disaster.
God also leads His people through the godly counsel of others who are studying and loving and embracing and living God’s Word. There is wisdom in a multitude of counselors provided that the multitude know the Word of God.
It is also true that God sometimes leads through circumstances that we seek to interpret through the lens of the Word of God. God sometimes does close doors and open doors and these are indeed factors (not sole factors, but factors) in determining His leadership for our lives.
God uses these and other means to lead and guide His people; the list could certainly go on. To think that God does not lead His people would be unbiblical and contrary to the experience of most Christians. But as God leads His people He rarely (if ever) leads them in a way that does not call for faith. And while the way that God leads His people is important, it is not nearly as important as how God’s people trust their God.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This faith does not find its anchor in what is known and understood and what can be checked out and mapped or planned. The anchor for this faith and this trust is the person and the promises of God: Who He is and what He has said He will accomplish. This kind of faith enables the Christian to press on steadfastly even when he does not know what the future holds for him. And he presses on not because he understands or trusts the future, but because he understands and trusts God who firmly holds the future. Faith knows that God can be relied upon and trusted.
Faith clings to God when you do not know how things are going to shake out and where exactly you are going. Let’s be honest: most of life from our perspective is absolutely uncertain. That is our perspective, but that is not God’s perspective. Our uncertainty concerning the future is only an apparent uncertainty; everything is certain to the God that we are called to trust.
But all of this is a matter of perspective. It all derives from how one sees things: do you see by merely sight or do you see by faith? Fear sees only the uncertainty and the unanswered questions and the range of options. Faith sees only God. The Apostle Paul called this “walking by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Walking by sight does not require a lot of faith. When you walk by sight you have things seemingly figured out and there is a fail-proof plan that you have come up with and there are safety nets galore around you to catch you if you have made a miscalculation somewhere. When we walk by sight we have a tendency to trust ourselves and others and not to lean heavily and desperately upon God.
When you walk by faith you do not walk by sight. You cannot do both: to walk by faith is not to walk by sight. Most things that we do in life we structure to ensure that we do not have to walk by faith. But God expects His people to walk and live and think and make decisions that is a living out of their trust in Him and not a denial of it. And walking by faith is what is pleasing to the Lord because it is a demonstration of a person’s trust in the Lord. Two verses later in 2 Corinthians Paul writes, “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). Trusting God pleases God.
As a matter of fact, it is the only way to please God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” If I am not walking by faith I am either trusting in myself or I am walking in unbelief and neither is pleasing to God. Walking by faith realizes that the goal of the Christian life is not to know the plan of God, but to know God Himself and to be one who “diligently seeks Him.”
So what do you do when you come to a crossroads and are not sure where to go? You trust God and you walk by faith. And you realize that the plan of God is not about a plan, it is about a Person and knowing Him (2 Peter 3:18).

25 Damaging Effects of Pornography

If you are reading this it means that you have access to the internet. And if you have access to the internet then you also have access to pornography. The statistics on porn viewing are astounding and shocking to say the least. The internet allows for porn viewing through accessibility, affordability, and anonymity. A deadly mix that lures many men (and women).
Let me list for you some of the damaging effects of pornography. (These are just 25 that I came up with and shared with a group  of men at our church a few months ago; I am sure that we could list more.)
1) Pornography breaks the seventh commandment concerning adultery
2) Porn is unnatural in the sense that it is sexual pleasure that is solo
3) Porn is usually a deceptive secret sin that allows one to continue under a pretense of sanctified and holy living
4) The pornographic images that are viewed will stay with a man in their mind long after the computer is shut off
5) When a man views porn they are viewing someone’s daughter
6) When a man views porn they are viewing someone’s current or future wife
7) When a man views porn they are adding to the shame that the people in the pornographic images feel currently or will feel in the future
8) Viewing pornography gives no thought to the image of God within the people in the porn images, no matter how marred that image may be
9) Porn gives a false view of true sexual relations within marriage
10) The law of diminishing returns is in effect with porn
11) Women are made an exclusive object of sexual desire which diminishes their personhood and the reality of the image of God
12) Porn sets up unrealistic expectations concerning what one’s wife will do and will look like
13) It is difficult, if not impossible, not to mentally recall pornographic images when in a real sexual situation with one’s spouse
14) Pornography disgusts God
15) Much of pornography depicts lesbianism
16) Much of pornography depicts abuse
17) Viewing porn supports the porn industry which is ruining millions of people’s lives
18) Pornography ruins marriages
19) You would not view porn with Jesus sitting in the room with you
20) For the Christian porn leads to overwhelming guilt and shame
21) Viewing porn breaks a Christian’s fellowship with God
22) It is hypocritical to tell your children to abstain from porn if you are viewing it
23) Viewing porn wastes time that is meant to be used for the glory of God
24) It turns your attention to sexual things in an inordinate fashion that may spill over into non porn viewing times
25) You would not want others to view porn if it was your loved one on the screen
Job 31:1- "I have made a covenant with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a young woman?"
1 Thessalonians 4:3- "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality"

True Fellowship

What do you think about when you hear the word “fellowship” at church? Maybe it is hanging out in the foyer for a bit after the service getting caught up on the events of the week. Possibly your thoughts turn to sharing a meal together at someone’s house and getting to know them and their family a little bit better. Or maybe you are thinking “pot-luck” dinners and fried chicken after the service. While all of things are good and I readily admit that I enjoy all of them (especially the fried chicken part!), they are just a small part of what true, biblical fellowship is all about.
Over forty years ago Bruce Larson wrote, “The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give to His Church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality. But it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love, and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers.” People are longing for true biblical fellowship, but unfortunately they are content to settle for inadequate imitations. Whether we know it or not, or even admit it or not, we long to live life in relationships with others.
The word “fellowship” in the New Testament comes from the Greek word group koinonia. While this word can be translated in a few different ways and it carries various nuances to it, it generally means “a relationship characterized by sharing in a close partnership” or “an association involving close mutual relations and involvement.” I like to think of it simply as sharing life together.
But our fellowship with one another is rooted and grounded in our fellowship with God in Jesus. In Galatians 3:26 the Apostle Paul writes, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” We “receive the adoption as sons” into the family of God through trusting in Jesus Christ to save us from our sins (Galatians 4:5). Because Jesus has saved us from our sins we are now brought into a new relationship with God where we can now relate to Him as Father (Galatians 4:6-7). And this new relationship with God also brings us into a new relationship with other followers of Jesus Christ.
The new relationship we have with each other springs from and flows out of our new relationship we have with God through Christ. That is why John wrote in 1 John 1:3, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Our fellowship with one another is derived from our fellowship with God through Christ; that is the common bond that we have that unites us.
John MacArthur comments on this fact and writes, “Anybody in fellowship with Jesus Christ is also in fellowship with anybody else in fellowship with Jesus Christ. This is our common ground. It is not social, economic, intellectual, cosmetic, or anything else superficial. Our common ground is that we posses a common eternal life and are children in the same family.” No other human relationship compares to the relationship that we have with fellow believers in Christ because our bond is Jesus Himself. So biblical fellowship occurs when I am living out my relationship with Jesus in relationships with other of Jesus’ followers.
But authentic New Testament fellowship does not happen automatically. Rather, it comes when we actively seek relationships within the Body of Christ where we can love one another (John 13:34), bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), pray for and confess sins to one another (James 5:16), encourage and build up one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11), be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving to one another (Ephesians 4:32), be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10), rejoice and weep with one another (Romans 12:15), and through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13).
But here is the catch with all of these “one anothers” of the New Testament: they cause us to be focused on others at the expense of self. Fellowship within the church flourishes when we have a heart to love and serve others and when we actively seek ways to live life together with them for their benefit.
If it were possible for us to live the Christian life in isolation from other believers then the Lord Jesus would not have established the church and the Spirit of God would have never inspired the writers of the New Testament to include so many things we need to do in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ. But they did, because we need the church and we need one another. And when the church ministers to one another as it is called to do then we experience true biblical fellowship, true koinonia, and God is glorified and we are blessed.

What is a disciple?

The word “disciple” is used around 275 times in the New Testament. Though the word is used exclusively in the Gospels and in Acts, the concept of discipleship is found throughout the entire New Testament. The word translated “disciple” simply means “learner” or “pupil” and it carried with it the idea of being a student or a follower of a person. It would have been similar to the modern day idea of apprenticeship where the less experienced learned from the more experienced, seeking to emulate them and their life. The task of the disciple was to learn from their master and to then pass along the teachings of their master to others and thus spread the teaching of the master beyond his own personal realm of influence.
When “disciple” is used in the New Testament it most often applies to followers of Jesus Christ. Sometimes it refers to the twelve disciples, it is sometimes a reference to a larger group of followers that included the twelve, but went beyond them, and in Acts it is used to refer to all those who are followers of Jesus Christ. This is important to see, because all Christians are disciples of Jesus: we are His followers who are committed to Him and to following Him and His teachings. And as such we are seeking to emulate Him. In Luke 6:40 Jesus said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” Jesus’ point was that over time the disciple would begin to live as the teacher did.
We could define discipleship like this: Discipleship is learning from God’s Word how to live my life as Jesus would live it, striving to live that way, and teaching others to do the same. So there is a learning component, a doing component where you put what you have learned into practice, and then a teaching component where you take what you have learned and what you are doing and transfer that to others helping them to become disciples as well.
This concept of discipleship is seen in the life of Ezra, a priest and scribe of the fifth century B.C. The direction of Ezra’s life is summed up in Ezra 7:10: “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach His statutes and rules in Israel.” The phrase “set his heart” denotes certainty: Ezra had established that this was simply how it was going to be for his life. He had set his heart upon learning and knowing God’s Word, doing God’s Word, and teaching God’s Word to others.
Ezra set his heart to “study the Law of the Lord.” The word “study” has the idea of “seeking or searching for frequently” and conveys a serious desire for something. So for Ezra, God’s Word was not just something that he could either take or leave; it was something in which he had a burning desire and passion to learn and know. Ezra realized that to know God’s Word is to know the God of His Word, so he came to the Bible with a desire to know God.
But Ezra also set his heart to do it. He wanted to be the man that James would later write about who is not just a hearer of the Word, but a doer of the Word (James 1:22). Studying the Bible and coming to know God in a deeper way is not just an academic exercise, it is a call to action. And God uses His Word to make disciples of Jesus more like their Master as He conforms their lives to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29). Any study of God’s Word that does not lead to “doing” is not truly fruitful study!
Ezra’s study of the Word that led to his doing of the Word did not end there. He then sought to pass along what he was learning and doing. Ezra taught God’s “statutes and rules in Israel” so that people would come to know this God and what He expects of them. Teaching is not just standing before a class and giving a lecture. It is sharing your life with others so that they can learn and benefit from what Jesus is doing in your life. Colossians 3:16 gives instruction to every disciple of Jesus when it says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.”
I pray that God would give us all a heart like Ezra: a heart that was set upon learning the Word, living the Word, and then teaching the Word. And when we have a heart like that what was said of Ezra may be said of us: “For the good hand of His God was on him” (Ezra 7:9).

Take Up Your Cross

Jesus Christ spoke some of the most radical words that have ever been uttered in the history of the universe. But it is not just what He said; it is the fact that these words passed through the lips of the one who is the God of the universe. That gives what Jesus said gravity and weightiness that is not there if a mere man speaks them. But Jesus is no mere man: He is the man who is also God.
Among the radical words of Jesus Christ are these: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). These words hold particular weight because Jesus is laying out for us what it really means to be one of His followers.
What Jesus says in that verses goes totally against popular thinking today about what it means to follow Jesus. In the modern church in America there is the mindset that to follow Jesus simply means that you go to church more Sundays than not; you give a little bit here and there; you don’t have any scandalous sin in your life that others know about; you and your family and your kids try to look somewhat normal and adjusted; you help out a little bit at VBS and other things at the church; you own a Christian t-shirt and a couple of contemporary Christian CDs; you cautiously invite a person to church every Christmas and Easter; you pray on occasion and read the Bible now and then; and you are overall satisfied with how you are living the Christian life. That is the picture of Christianity in our society today: it is a cozy picture; it looks like Norman Rockwell painted it; it is a safe picture where there is little or no risk involved in it. And with these words Jesus destroys that picture.
The call to follow Jesus is a call to deny self. The idea here is not of denying things, but of denying yourself. It is the total renunciation of self. This is you and I ceasing to make life about us and placing Jesus and not you at the center of your life. That is difficult to do because everything within you (other than the Holy Spirit) wants you to live for you! We are by nature self-centered and self-focused. But the call to follow Jesus is the call to live as if you do not exist. That is how we are to deny ourselves: to live as if we simply do not exist anymore.
But Jesus does not end there: He then says take up your cross. Taking up one’s cross is not some minor irritation that is in your life that you must bear. It is not something that just makes life inconvenient for you that you have to endure. I have heard people say things like, “My boss is so unreasonable. He is always on my case and gripes and complains about everything that I do. I guess everybody has their cross to bear and he is mine.” Those things are called thorns and not crosses. Thorns hurt and irritate and you really want to get rid of them because they are very uncomfortable. Crosses will kill you.
A cross is a means of death and suffering, not inconvenience. Jesus is calling for self-execution here; not just a denial of self, but a death to self. When you take up your cross you will die to self and you will live as a dead man.
The Apostle Paul understood this. He wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Paul is saying that he is dead, but Jesus is alive and well living within him and now his life is lived by Jesus and for Jesus.
Then, and only then, Jesus says, “Follow Me.” If you are not denying yourself and if you are not taking up your cross then you are not following Jesus. Because it is doing the first two things (the denying and the dying) that frees you to truly follow Him.
Many people today feel this kind of “radical” Christian living that Jesus is referring to here is reserved for the super-saints and the real spiritual people; people in the ministry or people that are missionaries. We think that this passage and these demands are meant for someone else and it is not really meant for “normal” Christians like us. But Jesus says that this is normal Christian living. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to call radical what Jesus calls normal.