Thursday, March 7, 2013
Friday, March 1, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
GO!
This February FSBC will begin "GO" events. We will strategically place ourselves outside the walls of our buildings for the purpose of being Jesus to our community. Dr. Brent Taylor, pastor of First Baptist Church of Carrolton, Texas, recently preached a sermon titled "Jesus was Outside." What he said describes well the reason we need to GO.
The following is an excerpt from Dr. Taylor’s message from January 13, 2013 and is a picture of how we can be more like Christ.
The following is an excerpt from Dr. Taylor’s message from January 13, 2013 and is a picture of how we can be more like Christ.
Jesus was an outside-kind-of-leader. In other words, He was always with people. Jesus didn’t come to hide, but came to be with people. Certainly, there were times He got away from the crowd.
But Jesus was out with people.
I wrote down some of the times the Bible mentions Jesus being outside. I hope it reminds you of the fact that helping people means being with people.
Jesus was outside when He was born in a manger.
Outside when tempted by the devil.
Outside when His enemies threatened to throw Him from a high cliff.
Outside when He called Peter, James, John, Matthew, and others.
Outside He healed a man with leprosy.
He was outside when He preached the Beatitudes.
Outside when He called followers to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.
Outside when He cursed a fig tree.
Outside when He encountered a centurion with great faith.
Outside when He met a woman at a well, a woman with an issue of blood, and a woman caught in adultery.
Outside when a demon possessed man fell at His feet.
Outside when He fed 5,000.
Outside when He walked on water.
Outside when He calmed the storm.
Outside when heard Peter exclaim, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Outside when He was transfigured on the mountain.
Outside when a desperate father begged for his possessed son to be healed.
Outside when He explained the high cost of being His follower.
Often outside when He confronted religious leaders.
Outside when He met Zacchaeus.
Outside when He healed ten men with leprosy.
Outside when a blind beggar received his sight.
Outside when He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead.
Outside when He rode a borrowed donkey into the city.
Outside when He cleansed a temple that had become a marketplace.
Outside when He watched a widow place her mite in the offering box.
Outside when He wept over the city.
Outside when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane while sweating drops of blood.
Outside when He was arrested.
Outside when He was mocked, beaten.
Outside He stood before Pontius Pilate and the crowd.
Outside He fell under the scourge of a whip.
Outside He was nailed to a wooden cross.
Outside He bled.
Outside He laid down His life for the salvation of mankind.
Outside He cried, “It is finished.”
Outside He was buried in a borrowed tomb.
Outside the Son of God died for the sins of mankind.
But outside on the third day, He rose again.
Outside He was seen by the masses.
Outside He ascended into Heaven.
And outside He will break through the clouds when He comes again!
Outside when tempted by the devil.
Outside when His enemies threatened to throw Him from a high cliff.
Outside when He called Peter, James, John, Matthew, and others.
Outside He healed a man with leprosy.
He was outside when He preached the Beatitudes.
Outside when He called followers to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.
Outside when He cursed a fig tree.
Outside when He encountered a centurion with great faith.
Outside when He met a woman at a well, a woman with an issue of blood, and a woman caught in adultery.
Outside when a demon possessed man fell at His feet.
Outside when He fed 5,000.
Outside when He walked on water.
Outside when He calmed the storm.
Outside when heard Peter exclaim, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Outside when He was transfigured on the mountain.
Outside when a desperate father begged for his possessed son to be healed.
Outside when He explained the high cost of being His follower.
Often outside when He confronted religious leaders.
Outside when He met Zacchaeus.
Outside when He healed ten men with leprosy.
Outside when a blind beggar received his sight.
Outside when He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead.
Outside when He rode a borrowed donkey into the city.
Outside when He cleansed a temple that had become a marketplace.
Outside when He watched a widow place her mite in the offering box.
Outside when He wept over the city.
Outside when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane while sweating drops of blood.
Outside when He was arrested.
Outside when He was mocked, beaten.
Outside He stood before Pontius Pilate and the crowd.
Outside He fell under the scourge of a whip.
Outside He was nailed to a wooden cross.
Outside He bled.
Outside He laid down His life for the salvation of mankind.
Outside He cried, “It is finished.”
Outside He was buried in a borrowed tomb.
Outside the Son of God died for the sins of mankind.
But outside on the third day, He rose again.
Outside He was seen by the masses.
Outside He ascended into Heaven.
And outside He will break through the clouds when He comes again!
Jesus’ ministry was not hidden or private.
He was not behind a desk, in an ivory tower, or hidden away in a heart.
His ministry was to people.
He was a public leader.
He was outside.
We cannot sit behind the safety of church walls and be like Jesus.
We must be outside with people.
Just like Jesus!
He was not behind a desk, in an ivory tower, or hidden away in a heart.
His ministry was to people.
He was a public leader.
He was outside.
We cannot sit behind the safety of church walls and be like Jesus.
We must be outside with people.
Just like Jesus!
Sunday, December 16, 2012
LIFE AND DEATH AT CHRISTMAS
LIFE AND DEATH AT CHRISTMAS
By John Piper
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”—John 10:10
As I was about to begin this devotional, I received word that Marion Newstrum had just died. She and her husband Elmer have been part of Bethlehem longer than most of our members have been alive. Marion was 87. They had been married 64 years.
When I spoke to Elmer and told him I wanted him to be strong in the Lord and not give up on life, he said, “He has been a true friend.” I pray that all Christians will be able to say at the end of life, “Christ has been a true friend.”
Each Advent I mark the anniversary of my mother’s death. She was cut off in her 56th year in a bus accident in Israel. It was December 16, 1974. Those events are incredibly real to me even today. If I allow myself, I can easily come to tears—for example, thinking that my sons never knew her. We buried her the day after Christmas. What a precious Christmas it was!
Many of you will feel your loss this Christmas more pointedly than before. Don’t block it out. Let it come. Feel it. What is love for, if not to intensify our affections—both in life and death? But, O, do not be bitter. It is tragically self-destructive to be bitter.
Jesus came at Christmas that we might have eternal life. “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Elmer and Marion had discussed where they would spend their final years. Elmer said, “Marion and I agreed that our final home would be with the Lord.”
Do you feel restless for home? I have family coming home for the holidays. It feels good. I think the bottom line reason for why it feels good is that they and I are destined in the depths of our being for an ultimate Homecoming. All other homecomings are foretastes. And foretastes are good.
Unless they become substitutes. O, don’t let all the sweet things of this season become substitutes of the final great, all-satisfying Sweetness. Let every loss and every delight send your hearts a-homing after heaven.
Christmas. What is it but this: I came that they might have life. Marion Newstrum, Ruth Piper, and you and I—that we might have Life, now and forever.
Make your Now the richer and deeper this Christmas by drinking at the fountain of Forever. It is so near.
By John Piper
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”—John 10:10
As I was about to begin this devotional, I received word that Marion Newstrum had just died. She and her husband Elmer have been part of Bethlehem longer than most of our members have been alive. Marion was 87. They had been married 64 years.
When I spoke to Elmer and told him I wanted him to be strong in the Lord and not give up on life, he said, “He has been a true friend.” I pray that all Christians will be able to say at the end of life, “Christ has been a true friend.”
Each Advent I mark the anniversary of my mother’s death. She was cut off in her 56th year in a bus accident in Israel. It was December 16, 1974. Those events are incredibly real to me even today. If I allow myself, I can easily come to tears—for example, thinking that my sons never knew her. We buried her the day after Christmas. What a precious Christmas it was!
Many of you will feel your loss this Christmas more pointedly than before. Don’t block it out. Let it come. Feel it. What is love for, if not to intensify our affections—both in life and death? But, O, do not be bitter. It is tragically self-destructive to be bitter.
Jesus came at Christmas that we might have eternal life. “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Elmer and Marion had discussed where they would spend their final years. Elmer said, “Marion and I agreed that our final home would be with the Lord.”
Do you feel restless for home? I have family coming home for the holidays. It feels good. I think the bottom line reason for why it feels good is that they and I are destined in the depths of our being for an ultimate Homecoming. All other homecomings are foretastes. And foretastes are good.
Unless they become substitutes. O, don’t let all the sweet things of this season become substitutes of the final great, all-satisfying Sweetness. Let every loss and every delight send your hearts a-homing after heaven.
Christmas. What is it but this: I came that they might have life. Marion Newstrum, Ruth Piper, and you and I—that we might have Life, now and forever.
Make your Now the richer and deeper this Christmas by drinking at the fountain of Forever. It is so near.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH
Tuesday, December 11
GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH
By John Piper
When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.—Matthew 2:10–11
God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25). The gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need-meeting. It would dishonor a monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care-packages.
Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes. Deuteronomy 10:17 says that God takes no bribe. Well, what then do they mean? How are they worship?
The gifts are intensifiers of desire for Christ himself in much the same way that fasting is. When you give a gift to Christ like this, it’s a way of saying, “The joy that I pursue (verse 10) is not the hope of getting rich with things from you. I have not come to you for your things, but for yourself. And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by giving up things, in the hope of enjoying you more, not things. By giving to you what you do not need, and what I might enjoy, I am saying more earnestly and more authentically, ‘You are my treasure, not these things.’”
I think that’s what it means to worship God with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
May God take the truth of this text and waken in us a desire for Christ himself. May we say from the heart, “Lord Jesus, you are the Messiah, the King of Israel. All nations will come and bow down before you. God wields the world to see that you are worshiped. Therefore, whatever opposition I may find, I joyfully ascribe authority and dignity to you, and bring my gifts to say that you alone can satisfy my heart, not these.”
© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH
By John Piper
When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.—Matthew 2:10–11
God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25). The gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need-meeting. It would dishonor a monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care-packages.
Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes. Deuteronomy 10:17 says that God takes no bribe. Well, what then do they mean? How are they worship?
The gifts are intensifiers of desire for Christ himself in much the same way that fasting is. When you give a gift to Christ like this, it’s a way of saying, “The joy that I pursue (verse 10) is not the hope of getting rich with things from you. I have not come to you for your things, but for yourself. And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by giving up things, in the hope of enjoying you more, not things. By giving to you what you do not need, and what I might enjoy, I am saying more earnestly and more authentically, ‘You are my treasure, not these things.’”
I think that’s what it means to worship God with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
May God take the truth of this text and waken in us a desire for Christ himself. May we say from the heart, “Lord Jesus, you are the Messiah, the King of Israel. All nations will come and bow down before you. God wields the world to see that you are worshiped. Therefore, whatever opposition I may find, I joyfully ascribe authority and dignity to you, and bring my gifts to say that you alone can satisfy my heart, not these.”
© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
Monday, December 10, 2012
BETHLEHEM’S SUPERNATURAL STAR
Sunday, December 9
BETHLEHEM’S SUPERNATURAL STAR
By John Piper
“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”—Matthew 2:2
Over and over the Bible baffles our curiosity about just how certain things happened. How did this “star” get the magi from the east to Jerusalem?
It does not say that it led them or went before them. It only says they saw a star in the east (verse 2), and came to Jerusalem. And how did that star go before them in the little five-mile walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem as verse 9 says it did? And how did a star stand “over the place where the Child was”?
The answer is: We do not know. There are numerous efforts to explain it in terms of conjunctions of planets or comets or supernovas or miraculous lights. We just don’t know. And I want to exhort you not to become preoccupied with developing theories that are only tentative in the end and have very little spiritual significance.
I risk a generalization to warn you: People who are exercised and preoccupied with such things as how the star worked and how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell and how Jonah survived the fish and how the moon turns to blood are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal. You do not see in them a deep cherishing of the great central things of the gospel—the holiness of God, the ugliness of sin, the helplessness of man, the death of Christ, justification by faith alone, the sanctifying work of the Spirit, the glory of Christ’s return and the final judgment. They always seem to be taking you down a sidetrack with a new article or book. There is little centered rejoicing.
But what is plain concerning this matter of the star is that it is doing something that it cannot do on its own: it is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship him.
There is only one Person in biblical thinking that can be behind that intentionality in the stars—God himself.
So the lesson is plain: God is guiding foreigners to Christ to worship him. And he is doing it by exerting global—probably even universal—influence and power to get it done.
Luke shows God influencing the entire Roman Empire so that the census comes at the exact time to get a virgin to Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy with her delivery. Matthew shows God influencing the stars in the sky to get foreign magi to Bethlehem so that they can worship him.
This is God’s design. He did it then. He is still doing it now. His aim is that the nations—all the nations (Matthew 24:14)— worship his Son.
This is God’s will for everybody in your office at work, and in your neighborhood and in your home. As John 4:23 says, “Such the Father seeks to worship him.”
At the beginning of Matthew we still have a “come-see” pattern. But at the end the pattern is “go-tell.” The magi came and saw. We are to go and tell.
What is not different is that the purpose of God is the ingathering of the nations to worship his Son. The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations is the reason the world exists.
© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
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