May 28, 2018 - Get The Bat Off Your Shoulder!

Contemplative Memorial Day! Seems a bit strange to wish a Happy day when we are commemorating those that have lost their lives to purchase our freedom… on any of the Armed Forces days we celebrate and recognize those that serve… realizing that “all gave some…”; yet today is the day to remember that “some gave all!”

I’m gonna try to quickly share from a message I preached yesterday as we dissected the word “serve.”

The root of the word goes back to the idea of being a slave. It denotes one that places others as more important than self… and in the case of our fallen heroes, to place an ideal as more important than self.

Without going through the entire message, I brought out the fact that in the church we tend to gauge our service by our smartphone calendars… or by paycheck percentages. We typically view our “service” as being whatever is formally announced in the bulletin and our giving by if we met our 10% goal. We feel good about our programs and faithfulness to the offering plate… yet when we are faced in our daily lives with people in need we tend to take an “I gave at the office” mentality. We live in a culture where we typically view church as something we go to instead of something we go do…

I believe the Scriptures call us to more than the typical… believe they call believers to an “all-in” mentality. Here are some of the Scriptures I used to remind us of what/who we are called to be:

Matthew 20:26^“Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Deuteronomy 15: 10 You shall surely give to him, and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand. 11 For the poor will never cease from the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.’

I almost hate to use my typical sports references as they pale in comparison to the memory of our fallen heroes. But in the sports world, I believe it always important to get the bat off one’s shoulder. I remember as a little kid being taught to make sure I was swinging at anything close… to never strike out looking! I want us to be taking our swings… here are a few quotes:

“Well done is better than well said!” Ben Franklin

“But denunciatory rhetoric is so much easier and cheaper than good works and proves a popular temptation. Yet is it far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.” William Lonsdale Watkinson 1907

“When I am gone let it be said, ‘He died in church service, not in a church service!’” Todd ‘Coach B’ Burden

Let’s get the bat off our shoulders and Go MAD (Make A Difference)!!!

May 21, 2018 - Piggy-Backing

This past weekend had the spectacle of the latest royal wedding… a “scandalous affair” in which a young lady that did not measure up to the standard for British royalty… not by birth or by choices she has made in life… a young lady many consider to be unworthy. Yet, nonetheless she is now royalty!

It reminded me of situations in sports where we discuss the greats based upon how many rings they have; yet forget how erroneous that argument is when we consider how many have rings that wouldn’t rank on our “greats list…” If number of rings is the test then Robert Horry (with 7) is better than MJ (with 6.) If rings determine greatness, then Jack Haley (95/96 Bulls with 1) is better than Charles Barkley (with none.) [Jack Haley played in 1 game of that 72-win season…]

What I am simply saying is that sometimes in sports players piggy-back their way to championships… and sometimes in life there are rags-to-riches stories; and sometimes that can seem “scandalous.”

Yesterday I got to share at a couple different churches along with our worship team from Statesville Christian School. We did a couple songs that set the stage for my message… one is called Beautiful Scandalous Night and the other Scandal of Grace.

We typically hear messages on the scandal of an innocent Man being crucified… and that in and of itself should move us to “walk worthy” as Paul encourages us to do in Ephesians 4:1. Yet I believe there is another scandalous part of the Gospel that should motivate us as well… the scandal of who Christ chose to be His bride…

Ephesians 2:1-3 reminds us that mankind is “dead in trespasses and sins, ….by nature children of wrath.” But Paul goes on to celebrate that “by God’s grace through our faith we are saved… and no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:8, 19)

The scandal is that Christ extends a proposal to a people of non-royal blood that have made wrong choices to be His bride by believing in Him! That is scandalous!

People can say whatever they want, but Meghan Markle is now royalty… Jack Haley is an NBA champion… and I (and you if you have believed on Christ to be saved) am royalty… I am a King’s kid! I am totally “piggy-backing” on Christ!

May 14, 2018 - Serve the Team

Planning on this week’s devo being short and sweet… (of course I said that I was going to make a message quick this morning in the pulpit… and that didn’t happen); but I have to get up at 3:45am to get ready to leave for a school trip. The text that jumped out at me from this morning’s message is what truly is very short and to the point… but I will get to that in a moment. 

As a coach I have always loved the players that were willing to do the things that don’t always show up in the box score or the news… the players that simply do their jobs to serve the team! They may not be in the limelight, but they are faithful; even though at times may be taken for granted…

With celebrating Mothers’ Day, I was thinking of the faithfulness of moms… how they day in and day out serve the family; even though they may at times be taken for granted…

My point in the message was that the servant-hearts of moms is because they are created in the image of God… and God is a servant… to the point of taking on flesh to serve us to the point of death on a cross…

Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be “imitators of God” and in verse 2 it describes what that looks like, “And walk in love, as Christ has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.”

Our faithfulness should be in the act of serving others as Christ did! Far too often we view Christian faithfulness as being steadfast in avoiding bad things… but I believe it is about being steadfast to serve…

I love the picture of a mom we get in Mark 1… it is Simon’s mother-in-law, and she is said to be sick with a fever and unable to get up; verse 31 records that Jesus healed her “and she served them.”

That is all that is said about her… she served! No fanfare, no spotlight… simply did the right thing because it was the right thing to do for the team!

Be a team player this week… look to be intentional in service!

May 7, 2018 - You Can't Be Anything You Want To Be; But You Can Do What He Has Called You To Do!

I have been teaching/preaching a lot lately… one of the key themes, (that fits well with our worship team that has been very busy), has been the challenge to not sit unchanged when we encounter the living God! A phrase I have used time and again is “rise up or fall down, but don’t just sit there!”

I have been sharing from Exodus 3 where Moses encountered God at the burning bush… God had a specific plan (commissioning) for Moses to “go” and tell Pharaoh to set the Israelites free…

Most that read this weekly devotion claim to have encountered the living God… and if so, have also been given a specific plan (commissioning) to “go” and “preach the gospel…” (Mark 16:15)  and “make disciples” (Matthew 28:18-20.)

Moses, in spite of the directive from God, still was initially unwilling to go… he felt inadequate to carry out the plan… he felt he was not a good enough speaker.

Many of us struggle at times with feeling inadequate to fulfill our calling… we do not feel good enough, prepared enough, or worthy enough…

What God tells Moses is classic… He doesn’t build Moses’ self-esteem and tell him that he is a great speaker… He doesn’t give Moses a motivational speech that he can be anything he sets his mind to… (in fact, He doesn’t really address Moses’ view of himself at all… almost as though God was saying, without saying, “yeah, you’re right… you are not a great speaker.”)

Our culture is so bent on motivational-speech; we tell kids they can be anything they set their minds to. But the truth is that there are some things we are simply not good at… just because you say you are gonna be a great athlete, doesn’t mean you genetically have any athleticism. Don’t get me wrong here, I believe our goal should be getting the most out of what we’ve got; yet some people simply have got more.

Sometimes upon hearing that we are all called to go, the result can be to start comparing yourself to others and think you need to be a great speaker or a great singer or a great writer… and like in Moses’ case, you may be right… you may not be good at those things, but God has still commissioned you!

So where does one’s confidence come from to “go”? God made Moses a promise and He has made you, and me, a promise.

Exodus 3:12 “…I will certainly be with you…”

Matthew 28:20 “…I am with you always…”

Our confidence is not in self, but in Him! Now go… there is no excuse… the God of the universe is on your side and going with you!