Author: pastorscottwordofgracefellowship

I’m in the middle of preaching on the seven churches in Revelation.  I take the literal view that these letters were written to and about churches in the seven cities named.  The application of these passages is to evaluate our own church and, in the context of Sunday Morning, our own lives.  But what if the naming of those seven cities was just figurative and the real literal meaning was to deliver a prophecy about the church age between John’s time and ours?  It’s an intriguing thought and one held by many theologians over the years.

What if the Ephesian Church (2:1-7) represented the church at the end of the Apostolic Era, continuing to function with a certain militancy but with a receding first love?  What if the Smyrnan Church (2:8-11) is the years of Roman persecution, beginning approximately with Trajan (AD 98) and ending with the reign of Constantine (AD 313)?  What if the Pergamian Congregation (2:12-17) describes the period following Constantine’s embracing of Christianity during which the church became increasing married to the world and eventually theologically and morally apostate?  What if the church at Thyatira (2:18-29) is the church of the Middle Ages, immersed in heretical teaching and moral turpitude?  What if the Sardines (3:1-6) is the church of the Reformation when some are found who have not defiled their garments, even though the majority of the church is still dead?  What if the church at Philadelphia (3:7-13) is the church of Missionary Expansion, beginning with William Carey (1792) and continuing up to the contemporary period?  And what if the lukewarm church at Laodicea (3:14-22) is now?  What if we, individually and corporately, are one of the relatively few places people can find the cool refreshing water of love and acceptance (Great Commandment) and the hot water of truth for growing up in Christ (Great Commission)?

As widely popular and as wonderfully fitting as this view* is, it’s just speculation.  It could be exactly what the Lord Jesus wanted the Angel to communicate or it could just be a fun exercise in historical correlation, but either way our mission is the same!  We all need to return to our first love and be about His teachings; to love each other and disciple each other in His truths!

Pastor Scott

*Credit to Paige Patterson, New American Commentary on Revelation, for this summation

It is said that when the British and French were fighting in Canada in the 1750s, Admiral Phipps, commander of the British fleet, was told to anchor outside Quebec. He was given orders to wait for the British land forces to arrive, then support them when they attacked the city. Phipps’ navy arrived early. As the admiral waited, he became annoyed by the statues of the saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral, so he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ships’ cannons. No one knows how many rounds were fired or how many statues were knocked out, but when the land forces arrived and the signal was given to attack, the admiral was of no help. He had used up all his ammunition shooting at the “saints.”  (Clipped from Our Daily Bread)

In two days we are going to formally dedicate this new (to us) church building to the Lord.  Even though a local church’s building is NOT the temple or the wall around Jerusalem, it’s hard to not at least consider those important dedication texts.  Consider Nehemiah 8. As the post-captivity Israelites gather to celebrate the completion of the wall, Ezra unwraps the book of the Law and reads to the people.  Hearing the Law, for perhaps the first time in their lives, they begin to weep realizing how much they have grieved God by flouting His law. Not a wrong response. James tells us that there is a time to grieve our sin; Paul tells us that godly sorrow leads to repentance; and Isaiah even reminds us that Jesus will be a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.  However, Nehemiah’s response makes it clear that not even grief over something as horrific as generational idolatry has to go on forever.

Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”  ~Nehemiah 8:9-10

He is essentially reminding the wall builders, and by extension us, that as great as their sin was, the Lord was greater still.  Sorrow for sin, sorrow for loss, sorrow for unmet expectations or “unfair” life circumstances are all part of the human condition and are all evident in the lives of God’s people as recorded in His word.  But sorrow is still ultimately all about us and Nehemiah’s instruction says, “That’s not where your hope lies!” Brothers and sisters, let’s not spend our lives as a church, or as individuals, focused on what we don’t have or what we wish was true. Consider, instead, this take from a very old commentary on Nehemiah 8:10

 “‘For the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ This beautiful sentence is, literally, delight in Jehovah is a strong refuge.”  (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers. 1897)

Sad? Wistful? Grieved? Righteously indignant?  Don’t stay there, delight in the Lord Jehovah!

Nuff’ Said,

Pastor Scott

Anybody remember this old song?  I think it was a pop love song, not a hymn, but the line above could have easily been written by God!  Life is hard, and the Christian Life can be even harder.  Not only do we have the normal struggles with economics and physical health, but we have also been called to be holy and to have a good attitude about the struggles.   I for one would like to be happy, healthy, wealthy, wise AND hear “Well done thou good and faithful servant” when this life is done.  How about you?  Wouldn’t you like a trial free life that serves God’s purpose and keeps you smelling like a rose?

Last night in our home bible study, we were looking a Daniel 5.  There is a really interesting turn of events right before God ends, forever, the reign of Nebuchadnezzar’s family.  After Daniel reveals the meaning of the writing on the wall, “Belshazzar gave orders, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck, and issued a proclamation concerning him that HE now had authority as the third ruler in the kingdom.   That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two.”  Did you notice who got the glory?  God’s man, not God.  Contrast that with the Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians chapter four:

”If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!”  (2 Cor 4:7-12 MSG)

Now, don’t hear me saying that God is going to forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), or that He doesn’t care (1 Peter 5:7), but do hear me say that if life isn’t going as planned, perhaps it’s because God is ensuring that He gets the Glory!  After all, nobody gets their sins forgiven and their home in heaven guaranteed, by having faith in Scott!

Deborah Tannen does not write as a Christian, but rather as a professional rhetorician. In her book, The Argument Culture, she recognizes the difficulty for Americans to appreciate societal benefits against a backdrop of individual rights and privileges:

This same spirit of individualism has crept into the Church. While God is concerned about our redemption individually, He has crafted us into a body, each uniquely possessing only a few spiritual gifts. These gifts, when joined together in ecclesiastical community, comprise the full set of abilities able to accomplish all of God’s commands. When believers view themselves only as individual entities in relationship to God, they fracture the body, handicap themselves in service, and distort the picture that Christ has painted of Himself. The Church is not about the individual person, it is about the individual Christ who saved us and has assembled us together in Him.

This little reminder about vigilance is special to me because I’m a big Steve Green fan and, because, my best friend from High School is a concert rigger.  This a powerful a easily remembered reminder of the Water-Walker’s words!  Steve Green tells the story of getting to know the crews who fearlessly hung speakers and lights, in event venues, from ceilings 100+ feet in the air:

Green says, “What they didn’t like, they said, were jobs in buildings that had false ceilings–acoustical tile slung just a couple of feet below the rafters. They were still high in the air, and if they slipped, their weight would smash right through the flimsy tile. But their minds seemed to play tricks on them, lulling them into carelessness.”

It’s a reminder to me that Satan’s business is not so much in scaring us to death as persuading us that the danger of a spiritual fall is minimal. No wonder Peter advised us to “resist him, standing firm in the faith” (I Peter 5:9). ~Pastor Scott

Jesus famously said, “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.”  – Matthew 15:11

As I’ve been preaching on marriage and family these past few week it occurs to me that one’s self isn’t all that is defiled – whole families are brought to ruin by the tongue alone.  The “world” is even starting to notice…check out the Newsweek article:

In order to uncover the processes that destroy unions, marital researchers study couples over the course of years, and even decades, and retrace the star-crossed steps of those who have split up back to their wedding day. What they are discovering is unsettling. None of the factors one would guess might predict a couple’s durability actually does: not how in love a newlywed couple say they are; how much affection they exchange; how much they fight or what they fight about. In fact, couples who will endure and those who won’t look remarkably similar in the early days.

Yet when psychologists Cliff Notarius of Catholic University and Howard Markman of the University of Denver studied newlyweds over the first decade of marriage, they found a very subtle but telling difference at the beginning of the relationships. Among couples who would ultimately stay together, 5 out of every 100 comments made about each other were putdowns. Among couples who would later split, 10 of every 100 comments were insults. That gap magnified over the following decade, until couples heading downhill were flinging five times as many cruel and invalidating comments at each other as happy couples. “Hostile putdowns act as cancerous cells that, if unchecked, erode the relationship over time,” says Notarius, who with Markman co-authored the new book We Can Work It Out. “In the end, relentless unremitting negativity takes control and the couple can’t get through a week without major blowups.”

U.S. News & World Report, February 21, 1994, p. 67.

Do you remember the rather silly children’s song “Arky, Arky?”  I honestly don’t remember if it’s from my childhood or from my children’s era – but since Thursday, April 5th, when we received our Permanent Certificate of Occupancy, that silly song has been running through my head!  We (BRBC/WOGF) have been in selling, packing, moving, and unpacking mode for longer than Noah and his family were on that Ark.  Yes, we weren’t suffering or witnessing what they were, but as far as I’m concerned God has caused “the sun to come out and dry up the landy, landy!”

So fellow Word of Gracers – what are waiting for?  🙂

Oh rise and shout and give God the glory, glory.
Oh rise and shout and give God the glory, glory.
Oh rise and shout and give God the glory, glory.
Children of the lord.

It’s not just a fuzzy sentiment; Jesus said it Himself:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” (John 10:11 NKJV)

Jesus really was our “scapegoat;” a concept the Father wrote into the Law itself:

Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man.  The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:21-22 NKJV)

Seven Hundred years before Jesus was laid in a manger in Bethlehem, the prophet, Isaiah, makes it clear that Jesus was slated to die FOR us:

Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6 NKJV)

 The Apostle Peter wraps up his discussion of Christ’s suffering with these words:

…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2:24-25)

I deserved eternal punishment as a consequence for my sin – Christ suffered a brutal death and infinite suffering on that Cross  – “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – so I could be forgiven and declared righteous!  Yes it is a VERY Good Friday!  For me and for everyone who has believed in His name! (John 1:12)