"Sowing and Reaping" - Scott Parsons

If you are able to attend worship regularly at all, you know that the message of Galatians is a message of grace.  Even though grace is the central theme of scripture, many still balk at it.  Some (despite Paul’s clear teaching in Romans 6) believe that a consistent message of grace encourages people to keep sinning.  Others believe that a consistent message of grace misses the real point of the Christian walk.  They prefer that we just tell them how they ought to live and let them do it.  But I think the real reason people reject the message of grace is because they really don’t want grace.  You see, the message of grace is not about us, it’s about God.  The message of grace says that apart from God’s kindness and mercy, I am nothing and I have nothing.  Receiving the gift of grace changes everything and we really don’t want everything to change.   Instead we desperately cling to the things that grace strips away from us. 

Galatians reminds us that while the gift of grace is free, receiving the gift means that we die to ourselves and now live completely for God, relying on him for everything.  That is a hard pill for many to swallow.  Our preference is to retain control of our lives, keeping God in the background for when we get into a jam.  This way when things don’t work out the way we planned, we can still blame our problems on God.  This type of Christianity is a wonderfully convenient religion that blends nicely with our self-absorbed culture.  Especially when we combine it with the concept that no one is ever allowed to judge anyone else for anything.  This allows us to openly live according to any view of God and ourselves that we like (whether it is consistent with scripture or not) without fear of question or rebuke.  But this is not how a Spirit filled man or woman lives.

This is why, at the end of the book of Galatians, Paul issues a stern warning: “Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked.”  He wants us to understand that we may be able to fool ourselves and others with our self-centered religion, but we cannot fool God.   Paul does not give this warning out of an angry or judgmental spirit.  He gives it out of love…the same love that he calls us to in view of the grace God has given us. His desire is that we move beyond our love affair with ourselves and discover the true love of God that produces the Spirit’s fruit in us.  Take the time to prayerfully read through the entire book one more time before you come to worship on Sunday.  Ask God to reveal to you the truth about your own heart, and the wonders of his grace.

Blessings,

Scott

"Knowing Yourself" - Doug Rehberg

In 1875, Englishman William Ernest Henley wrote a seminal poem entitled Invictus, meaning “unconquerable” or “undefeated”. It is described as a poem that evokes Victorian stoicism and a stiff upper lip. I think the first time I remember hearing it quoted in its entirety was by Dr. R.C. Sproul in a class he taught on Contemporary Theology in the early 1980s. He cited it as the perfect manifesto to secular humanism.

In the last 40 years little has changes when it comes to the secular worldview. The message of Invictus is as relevant today as it’s ever been for anyone staking claim to victory on the strength of his own indomitable spirit.

This is the poem that is said to have inspired South Africa. During his 27-year imprisonment on Robben Island, Nelson Mandella leaned upon its words. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandella writes that it was this poem that helped him learn that “courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” If you saw Morgan Freeman’s brilliant portrayal of Nelson Mandella’s life story in the film, Invictus (2009), you know that he quotes this poem in its entirety at the end of the movie.

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul. 

When Morgan Freeman went on the Charlie Rose Show less than a year later, he quoted Invictus again and Rose was nearly speechless. It was as if Freeman had uttered a supernatural oracle.

Now I know nothing about the faith of Charlie Rose or Morgan Freeman, but what strikes me about Mandella is the disconnect between the stoicism of his Robben Island interment and the warmth and interpersonal passions of the rest of his life.

The reason I bring all of this here is because this week we will examine Galatians 5:26 where Paul speaks to the greatest problem facing anyone who wishes to walk in the Spirit. And the problem is as old as Genesis 3, and what Paul lays out in Galatians 5:26-6:5 is the key to gaining victory over our deadliest flaw. Here’s a hint. It’s the opposite of Victorian stoicism. It’s the opposite of rugged individualism. It is the heart of the Gospel, a message that’s relevant every day of your life and I can’t wait to explore it with you.

In preparation for Sunday’s message, you may wish to consider the following:

1. How does verse 26 point to the relevance of the Gospel?
2. What does “conceit” mean?
3. What is the relationship between verses 14 and 15 and verse 26?
4. How are “provoking” and “envy” the opposite ends of the continuum of self-possession?
5. Why does Paul always connect walking in the Spirit to the nature of our interpersonal relationships?
6. How does the fruit of the Spirit require relationships?
7. Why does God say it’s not good for man to be alone in Genesis 2:18?
8. What do I learn about myself from engaging with others?
9. How does the Gospel enable me to live in accordance with Paul’s words in 6:3 & 4?
10. How do I Corinthians 15:9, Ephesians 3:8, and I Timothy 1:15 fly in the face of the Invictus poem? What’s the good news here?

See you Sunday!

"The Anatomy of Change" - Doug Rehberg

There’s an old preacher’s story that has been used and reused for years. I’ve seen it in books of children’s sermons. I’ve heard it delivered in sermons across the country. It’s titled, “The Farmer and the Preacher” and it goes like this...

The preacher is driving down the road one day when he comes across the most beautiful farm he’s ever seen. He stops and admires its beauty. It looks like a perfect 3-D painting.

It’s by no means a new farm, but the house, the barns, and the fields are perfectly arrayed. A garden around the house is filled with perfectly placed flowers and shrubs. A fine row of trees lines each side of the white gravel driveway. The fields are beautifully tilled and planted. The cattle are grazing in lush pastures.

As the preacher sits there admiring the bucolic scene before him, he notices the farmer on his tractor, hard at work, and coming his way. When the farmer gets near enough, the preacher shouts a friendly “hello”. When the farmer stops his tractor, the preacher says, “My good man, God has certainly blessed you with a magnificent farm!” The farmer nods, shifts in his seat, and says, “You should have seen the place when He had it all by Himself!”

Dr. John H. Gerstner, the distinguished Professor of Church History at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary, used to tell his students that if any of them ever used that story as an illustration in any sermon, he would flunk them from his class immediately.

Why such extremity? Because Gerstner knew the Gospel, the Scriptures, and the character of God. He also knew the depravity of man. All combine in to produce nausea at the thought of such profound heresy.

Paul understood that entirely. If there’s anywhere in his letter to the Galatians that proves it, it’s here at the end of chapter 5. Look at what he says:  

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these…But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, self-control…"

According to Paul there’s not a scintilla of evidence that anything good flows from the natural human heart. Indeed, it is only as the presence of the Holy Spirit changes the heart that anything good flows from it.

And that’s what’s so profound about the fruit of the Spirit. In no way is it the product of human labor. Unless God tills the ground, plants the seed, waters and fertilizes the heart, no fruitful growth will ever occur.

But what is the nature of the change necessary to produce such fruit? How can we be sure fruit production is occurring in our lives? What is the pattern and process the Holy Spirit employs in growing such fruit? It’s these and other questions, that we will seek to answer this week in a message entitled, “The Anatomy of Change” from Galatians 5:16-18, 22-25.

In preparation for Sunday, you may wish to consider the following:

1. What does Paul mean by verse 16?
2. How does II Corinthians 3:12-18 relate?
3. How are we being “transformed to the same image”?
4. Has anyone ever exhibited fully grown fruit of the type Paul is describing in our text?
5. What’s the purpose of fruit?
6. What aspects of fruit-growing give you confidence as expressed in Philippians 1:6?
7. What are the best conditions for knowing if fruit is being produced in your life?
8. How does each aspect of the fruit of the Spirit compliment the other aspects?
9. What does Paul mean in verse 24?
10. How are verses 24 and 25 complimentary?

See you Sunday!

"Keeping in Step" - Doug Rehberg

Some call him the new Oswald Chambers. Others say he’s written the best devotional on the market today. I love what one reviewer said after reading his New Morning Mercies, “…Paul David Tripp aims to energize Christian readers with the most potent encouragement imaginable: the gospel.”

Listen to what he writes on February 23^rd when he asks the probing question: “Why do we say we place our hope in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and yet practically ask the law to do what only grace can accomplish?”

It’s done every day in Christian homes around the world. Well-meaning parents, zealous to see their children doing what is right, ask the law to do in the lives of their children what only grace can accomplish. They think that if they have the right set of rules, the right threat of punishment, and consistent enforcement, their children will be okay. In ways these parents fail to understand, they have reduced parenting to being a law-giver, a prosecutor, a jury, and a jailer. They think that their job is to do anything they can to shape, control, and regulate the behavior of their children. And in their zeal to control behavior, they look to the tools of threat (“I’ll make you afraid enough that you’ll never do this again.”), manipulation (“I’ll find something you really want and tell you that I’ll give it to you if you obey.”), and guilt (“I’ll make you feel so bad, so ashamed, that you’ll decide to not do this again.”).

This way of thinking denies two significant things that the Bible tells us. The first is that before sin is a matter of behavior, it is always a matter of the heart. We sin because we are sinners. For example, anger is always an issue of the heart before it is an act of physical aggression. This is important to recognize because no human being has the power to change the heart of another human being. The second is that if threats, manipulation, and guilt could create lasting change in the life of another person, Jesus would not have had to come. So this way of thinking denies the gospel that we say we hold dear. It really does ask the law to do what only God in amazing grace is able to accomplish. If you deny the gospel at street level, you will attempt to create by human means what only God can create by powerful grace, and it will never lead you anywhere good.

Thankfully, God hasn’t left us to our own power to change. He meets us with transforming grace and calls us to be tools of that grace in his redemptive hands. He lifts the burden of change off our shoulders and never calls us to do what only he can do. So we expose our children to God’s law and faithfully exercise authority while we seek to be tools of heart change in the hands of a God whose grace is greater than all the sin we’re grappling with.

It’s not just parents who endow the law with powers it can never have; it’s rife in the Church today. But thankfully Paul suffers from no such parental malpractice. As he writes to his “children in the faith” he never fails to lay the entire burden of heart change on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, even in a text like the one we will examine this week, Paul underscores the unique power of the pure, unadulterated gospel.

The title of this section of Paul’s letter is a perfect give-away, “Walk by the Spirit”. Unlike the legalists, when Paul juxtapositions two entirely different ways of living, he unquestionably credits one to the work of the flesh, and the other to the work of the Spirit of God.

We will only begin our examination of this great text this week, but we will clearly see the  difference between the old human heart and the new one that the Spirit is producing in us.

In preparation for Sunday’s message, “Keeping in Step”, you may wish to consider the following:

1. How does Paul arrive at his conclusion that true obedience is a function of the work of the Holy Spirit in a life?
2. In what way are the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit opposed to each other?
3. What is different about the work of the Holy Spirit after the resurrection of Jesus?
4. Why does Jesus say what He does in John 16:7?
5. What does the word, “walk”, mean in verse 16?
6. Is the list of “works of the flesh” Paul cites in verses 19-21 original with him?
7. What is meant by his warning in verse 21? Does this mean that if you refrain from these things you will inherit the Kingdom of God?
8. What does Jesus’ warning in Mark 7:20-21 add to our understanding of what Paul is saying?
9. How are both lists (verses 19-21 & 22-23) a product of the human heart?
10. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in fruit production? 

See you Sunday as we gather at the Table.

"Our Freedom in Christ" - Doug Rehberg

I just finished having lunch with a woman who almost single-handedly has enabled her granddaughter to thrive. And what a price she’s paid! Over the years she prayed thousands of prayers; she shed rivers of tears; and she’s spent untold thousands of dollars. The main culprit was a neurotic, narcissistic son-in-law who combined with his nuclear family to make her granddaughter’s life a living hell.

For more than half her granddaughter’s life she wanted to be free of the dysfunction of her father and his family. Due to the hasty break-up of her parents’ marriage, the courts ruled that her father would have primary custody – something she’s hated.

But not long ago the courts determined to listen to her pleadings to be free of the toxic environs of her father’s domain. Within minutes of their ruling in her favor, she packed her bags and hightailed it to her mother, and the indefatigable devotion of her grandmother. Now she’s on the cusp of a whole new chapter in her life with her recent appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.

The reason I mention all of this is because it fits so well with what Paul describes in the Galatians text we will be considering this Sunday – Galatians 5:5-18. Here, in rather stark detail, Paul discusses the nature of every Christian’s freedom in Christ. And interestingly, that freedom is far different from what most people think freedom involves.

Have you ever noticed that the stories that move us most deeply are the ones where someone is freed not only from something, but to something? Think of this 17-year-old who has been freed not only from the clutch of her father’s dysfunction, but to the whole new range of academic, athletic, and professional leadership opportunities. She is not only freed from something, she’s been set free for something; something much greater than she’s ever known. And that’s exactly what Paul is saying about everyone who has been freed by Jesus Christ.

Today, in our culture, when most people think of freedom they define it as release from something. It’s actually got a name – “Secular Negative Freedom”. SNF says, “I am free when I am free from all impediments and obstructions that prevent me from doing what I wish to do.”

Christianity offers an alternative to SNF. While many hold that Christianity is a religion that represses freedom because it says, “If you don’t comply with God’s will He will get you”; the Gospel says something radically different. Christianity is not just another repressive religion, and Paul proves it.

The truth of the Gospel is that Christ sets us free not just from something, but for something. And that’s what we’re going to talk about this Sunday in a passage entitled, “Our Freedom in Christ.” In preparation for Sunday’s message you may wish to consider the following:

1. How do Jesus’ words in Luke 4:16-21 blow away the common view of Him and His message?
2. If in biblical terms sin is slavery, what is salvation?
3. Why do you suppose that freedom “from” gets all the airtime among Christians, especially in their presentation of the Gospel to the world?
4. How does the view, “I just want to do what I want to do,” express bondage rather than freedom?
5. According to Paul, real freedom is compatible with the complexity of the human heart, for our hearts are a jumbled mess of incompatible, contrary desires. Do you agree?
6. Someone has said, “True freedom is not the ability to wholly desire what’s best.” Do you agree?
7. Freedom is wanting the right thing? Do you agree?
8. What does Paul tell us about true Gospel freedom in verse 13?
9. What is the connection between freedom and love?
10. In verses 16 and 18 Paul talks about the Holy Spirit’s role in our freedom. What is His main job and how does it relate to real freedom?

See you Sunday!

"Freedom to Love" - Doug Rehberg

This Sunday the sermon title is “Freedom to Love.” It’s based on Paul’s words to the Galatians in Chapter 5:1-12. How interesting to preach on the dynamics of love, especially the day after the Heart Breakfast!

Last week we embarked on a journey into chapter 5 to see Paul’s answer to the question, “If Jesus has done everything that needs to be done to insure our acceptance by His Father forever, then why should we spend any time trying to please God? Why seek to live godly lives when it doesn’t affect our standing with God?” And last week, in verse 1-6, we saw part of Paul’s answer (listen to the podcast or pick up a CD if you missed it). This week, however, we delve deeper into the heart of the matter.

In preparing for Sunday I took a fresh look at a 1986 edition of Brennan Manning’s work, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus. In chapter one he tells the following story, adding his commentary:

If the question were put to you, “Do you honestly believe that God likes you?” – not loves you, because theologically He must – how would you answer? God loves by necessity of His nature; without the eternal, interior generation of love, He would cease to be God. But if you could answer, “The Father is very fond of me,” there would come a relaxedness, a serenity and a compassionate attitude toward yourself that is a reflection of God’s own tenderness. In Isaiah 49:15, God says: “Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you” (JB).

One spiritual writer has observed that human beings are born with two diseases: life, from which we die; and hope, which says the first disease is not terminal. Hope is built into the structure of our personalities, into the depths of our unconscious; it plagues us to the very moment of our death. The critical question is whether hope is self-deception, the ultimate cruelty of a cruel and tricky universe, or whether it is just possibly the imprint of reality.

The parables of Jesus responded to that question. In effect Jesus said: Hope your wildest hopes, dream your maddest dreams, imagine your most fantastic fantasies. Where your hopes and your dreams and your imagination leave off, the love of My heavenly Father only begins. For “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him (I Corinthians 2:9 KJV).

Shortly after I was ordained, I took a graduate course at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The professor was an old Dutchman who told the following story:

“I’m one of thirteen children. One day when I was playing in the street of our hometown in Holland, I got thirsty and came into the pantry of our house for a glass of water. It was around noon and my father had just come home from work to have lunch. He was sitting at the kitchen table having a glass of beer with a neighbor. A door separated the kitchen from the pantry and my father didn’t know I was there. The neighbor said to my father, ‘Joe, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time, but if it’s too personal, just forget I ever asked.’

“’What is your question?”

“Well, you have thirteen children. Out of all of them is there one that is your favorite, one you love more than all the others?”

The professor continued his story: “I had my ear pressed against the door hoping against hope it would be me. “That’s easy,’ my father said. ‘Sure there’s one I love more than all the others. That’s Mary, the twelve-year-old. She just got braces on her teeth and feels so awkward and embarrassed that she won’t go out of the house anymore. Oh, but you asked about my favorite. That’s my twenty-three-year-old, Peter. His fiancée just broke their engagement, and he is desolate. But the one I really love the most is little Michael. He’s totally uncoordinated and terrible in any sport he tries to play. The other kids on the street make fun of him. But, of course, the apple of my eye is Susan. Only twenty-four, living in her own apartment and developing a drinking problem. I cry for Susan. But I guess of all the kids…’ and my father went on mentioning each of his thirteen children by name.”

The professor ended his story, saying: “What I learned was that the one my father loved most was the one who needed him the most at that time. And that’s the way the Father of Jesus is: He loves those most who need Him most, who rely on Him, depend upon Him and trust Him in everything. Little He cares whether you’ve been as pure as St. John or as sinful as the prostitute in Simon the Pharisee’s house. All that matters is trust. It seems to me that learning how to trust God defines the meaning of Christian living. God doesn’t wait until we have our moral life in order before He starts loving us.”

Again, though, that nagging question: Won’t the awareness that God loves us no matter what lead to spiritual laziness and moral laxity? Theoretically, this seems a reasonable fear, but in reality the opposite is true. You know that your wife loves you as you are and not as you should be. Is this an invitation to infidelity, indifference, an “anything goes” attitude? On the contrary. Love calls forth love. Doing your own thing in complete freedom means, in fact, responding to her love. “The more rooted we are in the love of God the more generously we live our faith and practice it."

As we will see again on Sunday, when Paul focuses on obedience, his attention is not on the will, but the heart. And we will see that again this Sunday as we look at the TRUTH (vv. 7-9), the TRAUMA (v. 11), and the TREASURE (vv. 5-6).

In preparation for Sunday’s message, you may wish to consider the following:

1. Why doesn’t Paul yield one inch to the false teachers when it comes to grace?
2. Why does he say that those who depend at all on the law for their justification are “severed from Christ”? (verse 4)
3. What does “hope” mean in the Bible?
4. Why is the only thing that counts is faith working through love? (v. 6)
5. What is it about our old nature that makes even our obedience self-serving and without love?
6. Why does Paul use the word “truth” rather than "law" in his verse 7 question?
7. How do Jesus and Paul agree in using the “leaven warning” in verse 9? (see Matthew 16:6)
8. What is the “offense of the cross” that Paul’s referring to in verse 11?
9. In what way are all human works motivated by love?
10. “Every act of goodness and obedience that does not arise from security in Christ is done for yourself.” Do you agree?

See you Sunday!

"Freedom to Hope" - Doug Rehberg

Five years ago The Guardian published an email from a retired Royal Navy officer, Nick Crews, to his son and two daughters. It quickly became a viral sensation. Listen to the final paragraph:

I can now tell you that I for one, and I sense Mum feels the same, have had enough of being forced to live through the never-ending bad dream of our children's underachievement and domestic ineptitudes. I want to hear no more from any of you until, if you feel inclined, you have a success or an achievement or a REALISTIC plan for the support and happiness of your children to tell me about. I don't want to see your mother burdened any more with your miserable woes — it's not as if any of the advice she strives to give you has ever been listened to with good grace — far less acted upon. So I ask you to spare her further unhappiness. If you think I have been unfair in what I have said, by all means try to persuade me to change my mind. But you won't do it by simply whining and saying you don't like it. You'll have to come up with meaty reasons to demolish my points and build a case for yourself. If that isn't possible, or you simply can't be bothered, then I rest my case.

I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

Dad

Now if you’re a parent you can relate to Admiral Crews’ frustration. And many of us can probably relate to his children and the disapproval they must have felt. It doesn’t sound like Crews is making things up. He and his wife apparently have every reason to be bitterly disappointed and angry. Like the law itself, the content of his missive may be well founded, and their standards may be perfectly reasonable (righteous).  But expectations, as they say, are planned resentments; law and bitterness are frequent bedfellows. We expect people not to be self-centered sinners, and when they turn out to be just that, we get angry and blame them.

Do you think that letter had the effect that Admiral Crews intended? Absolutely not! I don’t care who you are, no one responds to a letter like that with a thank you note. Guilt and fear can be powerful motivators in the short turn, but they never can change a heart from self-seeking to self-sacrifice. Instead of bringing his children closer, his email pushed them further away. This is why Paul says in Romans 5: “The law was brought in to increase the trespass.” There’s only one thing that can change a human heart and that is love – pure, unadulterated, unconditional love. And that’s exactly what Paul is saying in Sunday’s text – Galatians 5:1-6.

Someone says, “I just don’t see how telling people that God accepts them no matter what they do can be any incentive to live a righteous life.” Another says, “If I’m already accepted by God in Jesus Christ, why should I work hard to please God?”

What Paul explains in Chapter 5 is that the Gospel of salvation through free grace is a greater incentive to live a life of honesty, love, sacrifice, and holiness than anything else. In fact, in spiritual terms, it’s the only incentive that ever works.

Look at Galatians 5:6: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” This is the heart of his argument; an argument that’s 180° from Admiral Crews’.

In preparation for Sunday’s message, “Freedom to Hope”, you may wish to consider the following:

1. Why is true Gospel preaching always susceptible to the charge of antinomianism (lawlessness)?
2. How is Christian obedience the opposite of self-help methodology?
3. Why does C.S. Lewis say that a world of nice people is harder to save than wicked people?
4. How had the Galatians been under the same yoke of slavery to the law before they had come to know Christ? (see verse 1 and Romans 1)
5. How is the elder brother in the story of the Prodigal (Luke 15) a perfect example of what the false teachers were encouraging the Galatians to be like?
6. What does Paul mean in Titus 2:11,12? How does it relate to Galatians 5:1-6?
7. “Until you know that you’re saved by grace everything you do is for yourself and not for God.” Do you believe that?
8. What does the word “hope” mean in verse 5?
9. How does the Gospel fill you with certainty that you belong to Jesus no matter what and therefore change your heart? 
10. How does verse 6 signal that the key to obedience is the condition of the heart and not the will?

See you Sunday!