Pray for your leaders!

1 Timothy 1:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

All right, it’s time for some honesty; I have become convicted that I spend more time complaining about government leaders than I do praying for them.  According to the Bible, this is sin.  In no way should you see this as compromising.  As believers we are responsible to stand for truth and hold our leaders accountable for the decisions that they make.  We also have a responsibility to pray for them so that they can make the right decisions.  Let me point out a couple of things from this passage.

  1. We are to pray for leaders in high positions.  Our prayers should be that the decisions they make lead to peace.  Our God is a God of order and structure.  He always works through delegated authority.  The church has a responsibility as the salt and light of a nation to fight within the spiritual realm to create a culture that is conducive for the Gospel.
  2. God has a certain lifestyle intended for his people.  The breadth of this small devotional will not allow me to fully exegete this point, but look closely at the purpose of our prayer for our leaders.  We pray that they will govern in such a way that allows us to live a quiet, peaceful life.  Sometime soon, I hope to teach on this issue, but suffice it to say that much of what is promoted in modern day evangelical Christianity is not this lifestyle.  It is a flashy, entitled, narcissistic lifestyle characterized by pagan standards and heretically presented as Biblical truth.
  3. Our prayers could be the instrument for our leader’s salvation!  God desires for all to be saved even politicians!  Your prayers could be the spiritual tool that God uses to bring them to faith. 


The Right Goal

1 Timothy 1:  5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

What do you hope to accomplish with your life?  How do you define success?  These questions are the critical components of living a life pleasing to God.   In our contemporary era, the people of God are struggling to properly answer these questions.  Unfortunately, we have allowed the pagan culture to infiltrate our ranks.  The results are scary. 

A few years back I had the privilege to do sports ministry.  Every pastor should have this experience at least for a season to teach them patience.  I love to watch the smallest of our children learn to play organized team sports with all the drama attached.  There is a substantial deal of philosophy and coaching expertise displayed, but success at this level of play is oftentimes simply getting the children to shoot the basketball at the right goal!  Just think about it, the game of basketball with all its complexity ultimately means putting the ball in the right basket.  The greatest most skilled basketball player would be useless to his team if he shot at the wrong goal.

This is the situation we as Bible believing Christians find ourselves in today.  Our churches have succumbed to worldly teaching and surrendered to Satanic influenced watered down objectives.  We cannot win if we don’t shoot at the right goal!  It is this truth that Paul speaks to in this passage.  The objective of your life is love.   Be sure to define love in a Biblical way and not a secular way.  Love is the radiance of God manifesting through your life.  Biblical love grows out of;

  1. A Pure Heart.  Are your motivations pure?  Do you truly desire to honor and please God?  Do you understand your life as redeemed in Christ?
  2. A Good Conscience.  Have you confessed openly before God your failures?  Are you living in right relationship with the people in your life? 
  3. A Sincere Faith.  Can you honestly say that you live every day dependent on the atonement of Jesus Christ to secure you?  Do you have an attitude of dependence on the Lordship of Jesus Christ?

 

Micah 3:12 “…

Micah 3:12 “I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob, 
I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. 
I will put them together like sheep in the fold; 
Like a flock in the midst of its pasture 
They will be noisy with men. 
13 “The breaker goes up before them; 
They break out, pass through the gate and go out by it. 
So their king goes on before them, 
And the LORD at their head.”

 

The Prophet Micah minces no words in his exclamatory oracle to the people of Israel.  His sermon foresees the impending doom of the Northern Kingdom and the painful realization of vulnerability inside the assumed impenetrable walls of Jerusalem.  Micah calls the covenant people of God into the courtroom of justice and lays their sins bare before the judge.  A careful study of this legendary Old Testament preacher leaves the contemporary reader cognizant of God’s expectation for his covenant people and their utter failure in living up to it.  Using the imagery of a court room, YHWY has found his people guilty.

As the prophecy unfolds a picture of savage doom is presented.  The Assyrians will leave the Northern Kingdom devoured and knock on the door of Jerusalem.  What the Assyrians start, the Babylonians under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar will complete.  Jerusalem will be taken.  The Temple will be destroyed.  The people will be taken captive.  With a presentation like this, it is easy to see why the people would want Micah to stop preaching.  They had their own prophets who preached messages of prosperity and blessing.  Jerusalem is safe!  Jerusalem will never fall!  These false prophets created a culture of laxity towards God’s covenant standards and these prophets are called out by Micah as the cause of Judah’s demise. 

In many ways, one can clearly see the parallels between the culture of Micah’s day and the culture of 21st century America.  One can turn the television on at any time of the day and find a “preacher” delivering a message of prosperity and blessing.   Very rarely will the voice of a prophet stand and deliver a message of God’s judgment upon sin and his desire for holiness among his people.  Don’t lose heart!  When times seem the most desperate God the Father speaks and reminds his people that he is still in control.  His sovereign rule of this world is not dependent upon the heretical preachers of a false gospel or the power hungry leaders with temporary rule.  He will judge wickedness and preserve his “remnant.”   

  1. God will gather his people.  Just as God promised the true believers in the Old Testament, he assures us with the same truth today.  The “Church” of Jesus Christ is the gathering of God’s people.  No matter where we go, what dialect we speak, what ethnicity we meet with, when we gather under the banner of the Kingship of Jesus Christ, we are the Church.  The solution for cancers of racism, prejudice, and division is found in Jesus Christ.  We all stand on the same ground at the foot of the cross as broken desperate sinners, but we also all stand secure in by faith in his accomplished substitutionary atonement.
  2. We must keep our eyes on the shephard leading us.  This passage has powerful imagery.  The people of Israel are sheep and desperately need a shepherd to lead them.  I love this picture; “together they follow the shepherd.”  The Bible places great emphasis on the corporate nature of our salvation.  Fellowship and accountability are gifts given to enable us to remain focused on Jesus.  Micah uses words of war to define the sheep’s following.  Following the LORD is not easy, but it can be done together.  He will break us out and lead us to freedom!
  3. We are to always be on the attack.  The people of God should never live defeated.  The people of God have a King that marches before them and because of that they follow him “loudly!”  We should be “noisy” in the way we follow Christ!  Does your life leave a mark?  When you die, will people notice you are gone?  Are you simply holding up the back of the line hoping that Jesus never calls you out to do something, or are you at the front of the pack ready to battle?  Get to the front of the line!  Micah says that although the situation is bleak and destruction of Jerusalem is imminent, the shepherd will free them from captivity and they will loudly break the chains of oppression.  They will be liberated!  Jesus is our liberation!  Live loudly for him!

Pray at All Times

Ephesians 6 18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert in this with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. 20 For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough in Him to speak as I should.

I must admit, for much of my Christian life, this passage has been one that I have read, but simply swept aside as humanly unattainable. Unless, one is going to be a monk (which I must admit sounds good at certain points of the week) and give up living a normal life, praying at all times is simply not possible. It sounds nice, reads well, and adds spice to a sermon, but in the real world of snotty nose children, power bills, and deadlines it just doesn’t seem attainable.

What if it were possible? What if God’s desire for his children is to walk so closely with him that the natural expression of their life was manifested in and through prayer? What if God wants his people to exhibit such dependency that they “literally” live life in constant prayer and continuous fellowship? As I preached through Ephesians 6 over the past few weeks, the Holy Spirit has illuminated the truth of this proposition. It is possible, but only through daily, minute by minute, moment by moment surrender to God through the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Allow me to highlight three key components from these verses.

1. In order to live a life defined by prayer, we must constantly live aware of the spiritual battle we are sent in to. The context of this imperative highlights the importance of readying ourselves for battle. Far too many Christians are made powerless by Satan because they never awake from their slumber and enter the battle. They attain salvation and stick the access card into their back pockets and enter back into the sublime physical world content to cash in their Jesus card swiping it to gain access into heaven. This is the tragedy of modern contemporary Christianity. The life of continuous prayer is lived on the bloody battlefield in the spiritual realm, because the warrior of Christ knows from whence comes his power. We live in victory through fellowship with Christ, we don’t win victory through our physical arsenal. Our strength is in Christ and our effectiveness in the spiritual realm is in direct proportion to our connection to him through the Spirit in prayer.

2. In order to live a life defined by prayer, we must soldier with the army we are commissioned to. Somewhere we American Christians have allowed our independent free spirits to convolute and distort the Biblical teaching of the corporate expression of our salvation. I don’t mean to minimize the seriousness of conversion in an individual’s life; it is real and has eternal ramifications, but the theology presented by Paul paints a picture of salvation having corporate ramifications. Our salvation is not to be kept to ourselves. Our salvation enlists us to a team of warriors all united around one purpose serving one king! Notice that Paul commands the Christians at Ephesus to be alert praying at all times, interceding for all the saints. Somewhere along the way, the Church of Jesus Christ forgot the Kingdom of God is bigger than any one of us or any one particular church. We have built empires, but have we built the Kingdom? Why do churches compete against each other rather than cooperate with each other? The greatest form of church growth is not evangelism it is sheep swapping. The very fact that denominations exist, and many of the churches in our communities see their birth, is a condemnation on man’s inability to stay laser focused on the mission. We focus on periphery issues and lose the mission. If we are to live life in the Spirit, constantly immersed in prayer, it will only happen when we do it together corporately understanding that we are God’s chosen method of proclaiming the Kingdom. This brings us to our final point.

3. In order to live a life defined by prayer, we must constantly live aware of who we are and why we are here. Have you ever sat back and contemplated why you exist? It truly is a very profound exercise and one that many church people need to attempt. If Darwin is right and I am simply a dot on the evolutionary time table then my life really doesn’t matter that much, but if there is a God and that God created me out of nothing, then my life has meaning. The Bible clearly reveals that we are not accidents. We are the crown of his creation. God loves his creation in such a divine way that he gave us the volitional ability to reject him and then took upon himself the method of our restoration. The cross of Calvary is the ultimate expression of our value before God. The empty tomb is the power that emboldens us to live as Christ’s ambassadors here on earth. God has chosen to reveal his glory to a lost world, by redeeming and restoring broken sinners, manifesting his presence through them to tell others the hope of the Gospel, and ultimately to reduplicate the process. We are a living legacy for the early church. Every Sunday we worship together continuing the traditions passed down to us. The reason that so many Christians live defeated, apathetic, superficial, weak, wimpy, uninterested, unmoved, languid, emotionless, passionless, draggy, callous, cold, indifferent, detached, lackadaisical, mellow, pococurante, nonchalant, oblivious, wasteful, and purposeless lives is because they don’t understand why they are here. Our purpose (your purpose) in this world is to make Jesus known! We will only experience life lived in victory when life is lived on the battlefield of proclaiming God’s Gospel. Your job, relationships, family, neighborhood, etc. is God’s ordained sphere for you to make much of Jesus! We will experience a life of engrossed in prayer, when we understand our identity as ambassador’s in chains saved and redeemed to declare the wondrous Gospel of liberation, restoration, atonement, and transformation; the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

One Cry

SBC Today Interview

What do you think are the greatest challenges confronting the SBC?

As a convention, we are divided, fractured, and splintered. If Calvinism is mentioned, an alarm is sounded and we all stand to attention, pick sides, and take up arms. It is not my responsibility to determine what makes a good “Southern Baptist,” but the issue itself is not going away. It seems that there is a lack of clarity over what defines us. The great question that I see on our horizon is the unequivocal need to clearly articulate who we are.

This articulation will allow us to define expectations. Questions such as, can we, (are we willing) as Southern Baptists to unite under an umbrella that includes a wide spectrum of systematic theologies? If so, how big is the umbrella? Is there a percentage expected to be given to the Cooperative Program? What role should the Cooperative Program play? Should denomination leaders pass a “litmus” test in order to serve? This process will bring pain but currently we are going through the motions carrying on as if all is kosher, holding bitterness and resentment towards others. Rather than deal with our differences openly as gentlemen, we get in theological huddles and thank “God” we are enlightened. The conversations on the convention podium are nice and unifying but they do not correspond to the conversations in the hallways.

Quite honestly, our denominational politics has great similarity to the children’s game musical chairs; everyone wrestling to have a seat and not to be the proverbial last one standing and left out of the loop. Our churches, in many ways, are experiencing a Great Commission Resurgence. Unfortunately, on the denominational level it looks more like a Great Convention Restructuring than any type of resurgence. Now more than ever, we need a denominational statesman to emerge who has extraordinary leadership capacity. He must force us to honestly admit and converse on the issues before us.

Allow me to make a rather drastic statement; the divide between us may be too wide. One must admit that the visions for the future of the Southern Baptist Convention are drastically different within the various circles of influence. It is time for Southern Baptist to be honest and mature and acknowledge these differences. I pray that over the next few years, we can find an umbrella all Southern Baptist can agree to cooperate under. But if we can’t, then let’s shake hands as Christian gentlemen and go our separate ways. Let us not forget that our denomination is man-made and our God doesn’t need us to accomplish his will. We are privileged to cooperate together for the glory of our God!

Should we agree to a theological and practical umbrella then let’s get to work together to accomplish what God has placed before us. I have no idea how one would bring about a process to accomplish this objective, but we must have complete transparency and unity around a mission that is championed by all. This process must be grass roots driven from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It is my humble opinion that our denomination has been and will always be a grass roots movement and not one directed by elite. Currently, we are damaging our witness and handcuffing our Kingdom potential. Rather than having a movement we have an institution and quite honestly it’s an institution that no one is really happy with. My greatest concern is that more young leaders are going to lose trust in our convention and leadership, resulting in a slow but intentional pulling away from denominational life. The characteristics of this practical break are twofold; first, leaders will shy away choosing to focus only on their local church and individual partnerships. One can see this already in the attendance to denominational meetings at both the state and national level. Secondly, leaders will direct their churches to reallocate money currently given to the Cooperative Program. This will result in a slow death for the Southern Baptist Convention.

What do you see as the greatest opportunities opening to the SBC?

We are living in an epoch where there is openness to the Bible. There is a hunger for the Word of God and this hunger brings great possibility. The future of the Southern Baptist Convention will be determined by our pulpits. I believe with all my heart that if we regain a belief in the authoritative Word of God and create passionate and powerful pulpits that expose congregants to the truth of the text, then revival will follow. God will do exactly what he said he would do. He will bring life! Now more than ever, we are famished for the Bible, and illiterate of its truth. When we preachers proclaim its eternal and majestic precepts leading to genuine holy living among believers we will shine forth light in a culture of darkness.

I also think that social networking has created a brand new avenue for the Gospel. I anticipate the next generation of leaders will tap into this resource and create powerful methods of using social media to spread the love of Christ.

What are your thoughts about a possible SBC name change?

Wow! As I ponder this dilemma I am reminded of a story told about Marie Antoinnette during the French Revolution. While her country was going through a great famine and struggling to find food, the question was given to Mary as to what to do. She responded, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or in English “Let them eat cake”. She was completely oblivious to the situation surrounding her.

I recognize that by making this parallel I set myself up to be kindling for the blogosphere’s fire, but I feel we are in a somewhat similar circumstance as a convention. The culture around us has become post-Christian. Our churches have lost the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word of God. Our people have a pagan worldview colored and “christianized” by a couple of nice sermonettes. Our pastor’s no longer understand their prophetic role, choosing to be culturally relevant and accepted rather than Biblically faithful. The hip churches that are looked upon as bastions of success are known for putting a bed on top of a building, or cussing in the pulpit, or blatantly saying that they choose to focus on “positive” aspects of God rather than “negative aspects such as judgment and condemnation.” In the midst of this madness we are fighting about a name change! We can pay marketing gurus vast amounts of money to pitch a name that will be well perceived, but what is so desperately needed today is not that we be “better perceived” by a depraved culture, but better received by a Holy God.

Let’s be honest, our impuissance in sharing the Gospel has nothing to do with our brand and everything to do with our heart. We need the Spirit of God to move on our churches and bring a renewed emphasis on the authoritative Word of God. The Sprit of God moving through the Word of God will result in sold out, surrendered, missional living. This new perspective will allow us to see the world through the mind of Christ, with hearts broken for their salvation. Anything less is, to quote Shakespeare, “a much ado about nothing.” We need revival. In my humble opinion, a name change is inconsequential if Christ has removed his lampstand.

What is the key to being a faithful/effective/successful pastor?

Honestly I have no idea what I am doing. Biblically, my call is to be a faithful preacher of God’s Word. I am just thankful that God doesn’t give me a progress report or annual evaluation. It would not be pretty. I also think it is imperative that one be a lifelong learner.

It is a common joke around Thorington Road that I really knew what I was doing before I got here. There is value in that. I have seen our ministries grow and expand as I have been willing to grow and expand. Honest criticism and accountability are vital for that. A successful pastor will have people around him that tell him the truth. Unfortunately, I see far too many young pastors make the mistake of Rehoboam in that we place people around us that tell us what we want to hear and inflate our egos. Although painful, I have grown to I appreciate those in my life that care enough for me to warn me of dangers and pitfalls.

Ultimately, an old preacher in a small, rural, country church once told me that a great pastor simply loves his people. Everything else is mute unless we as pastors love our people.

What is one key mistake that you see pastors and/or church staff members making that causes them problems in their churches?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but my mistake(s) seemingly always stem from my independence from God’s Spirit and his control. I daily struggle to surrender my will and desires to his authority. Ministry can become easy when things are smooth and that ease makes us/me think that success is based on my abilities, intellect, and charisma. It is in these moments I am most vulnerable to the nature that wars within my soul. I am a recovering narcissist who often believes that the cosmos was created to entertain me. Humility is a trait that God is branding into me. My use of branding is representative of the farming community I grew up in and cattle branding that I witnessed. The process hurts and leaves scars. Constant dependence on the Spirit of God is the remedy for my pride. It is this area that I have much growth left to attain.

Who are two or three of your “heroes in ministry”?

As a young(er) man, many of my heroes were the hip, cool, and trendy leaders that spike their hair, wear cool clothes, and say radical things with shock value. As I have matured, this view has changed drastically. The men that I admire are those men with staying power; Men who have been faithful to the Word of God and passionately served King Jesus. Technology has allowed me to feed on the preaching of men from the past such as Vance Havner, R.G. Lee, W.A. Criswell, Richard Owen Roberts, Leonard Ravenhill, Adrian Rogers, and many others. These men are role models for me in the way they handled the Word of God and preached it with what the former generation called “unction.”

One of the greatest blessings that God has placed in my life is Godly men who have invested in me. Three specific men have poured their life into mine and the fruit born from those investments are of priceless value. My home pastor Randy Kuhn saw something in me and chose to see beyond my immaturity and personal failures and taught me to love and cherish the Word of God. Dr. Jim Bryant, a college professor, walked with me as my theology developed and put up with some serious theological flaws and continued to show me a better way. In recent years, Dr. Rick Lance has influenced me to become a better leader; his example of statesmanship and grace through a difficult season has been monumental in my evolution as a leader. I would consider these men to be heroes as well.

What is the toughest lesson you have learned in ministry?

There have been so many I don’t know where to start. Candidly, the toughest lesson I have learned is an ongoing lesson. I am my own worst enemy. During seasons of intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, it seems that positive momentum is generated within our church. In contrast, in seasons where I am distracted and distanced from a powerful prayer life and close fellowship with Christ, the momentum and fellowship at our church suffers the consequences of my sin.

This realization has been fundamental in understanding what God desires from me as a pastor. I have been trained with multiple theories, ideologies, philosophies, and paradigms, but the influence that I have as a pastor is a direct repercussion of my personal holiness. Purity of heart leads to clarity and intimacy of fellowship with God. I am convinced that the most critical area of a pastor’s life is his personal holiness. This lesson is critical for me and one that I will continue to learn until the Lord returns.

What is your approach to preaching?

Preaching is the passion of my life. For me preaching preparation is not a propositional checklist to work through. Preaching is life immersion into the text. Preaching flows from our fellowship with God through his Word. More important than our scholastic abilities, hermeneutical prowess, and homiletical articulation is the power of the Holy Spirit over our task. I am committed to expository preaching. I preach through entire books, but I do feel that at times one can be thematically expositional. Currently, I am preaching a series through the first two chapters of Act.

I was blessed to have the opportunity to be introduced to the Biblical languages and I feel that any preacher truly desiring to grow as a good handler of God’s Word should discipline himself to learn the Biblical Languages if given the opportunity. It has made a tremendous impact on my ability to understand and process God’s Word. I begin in the original text. What is the context? Who is writing? Who is hearing? What are circumstances surrounding the production and reception of the text? What does this text mean? Is my interpretation consistent with the totality of the Biblical text? What was the purpose of the text? How do I transition this truth into today’s language? What cultural parallels can be found to illustrate the truth? What modern story or illustration will allow my people to connect with this text? Finally, in light of God’s exposed truth, what does he expect us to do? What are the walking away points?

How do you help your congregation focus on missions?

We do the traditional Southern Baptist things. We are still paying off Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong. We have ministry connections from out of our church that we give financially towards. I have found it very important to put the faces of those we support in front of the congregation. With modern technology, we have so many resources at our disposal, so there is really no excuse not to put the mission in front of the people. People give to vision not programs. Therefore, it is critical to champion a mission minded worldview. We show successes.

Ultimately, only the Word of God transforming a heart through the power of the Holy Spirit can create a missionary culture. I try to consistently show from God’s Word his expectation for us to live as his ambassador’s in this world. We have a long way to go.

What are the most significant doctrinal issues that the church will struggle within the next few decades?

I have been blessed to have the opportunity to spend time with many of our Southern Baptist greats who fought valiantly to honor the Word of God during the Conservative Resurgence of a few decades ago. We should be thankful for the soil they tilled to provide my generation an opportunity to serve a denomination where the integrity of God’s Word is upheld.

Saying that, I have become more and more convinced of a new battle for the Bible. In my humble opinion I believe the most important doctrinal issue in my era is the sufficiency and practical authority of God’s Word. Is the Bible all we need? Have we outgrown it? Are our churches built on the foundation of God’s Word? Do our churches allow the Word of God to have complete authority over the life of the church or are we using human methods to build great empires? In many cases evangelism has been replaced with marketing and the leading of the Holy Spirit has been replaced with demographic and socioeconomic surveys interpreted for us by pop-psychology. Ultimately, the question before us is whether or not the Bible is sufficient for everything and authoritative over everything. Do we treat it as authoritative or do we use it as a nice moral storybook from which we derive cute therapeutic devotionals. The answer to this question will determine the path of our churches, communities, and ultimately I believe our nation.

How do you balance ministry and family responsibilities?

I’m still waiting for someone to write the authoritative book on this one. My wife is an Assistant Professor at a local university here so her schedule is booked like mine and we have two wired full-octane little boys. I have always taken Friday off and it is known around our house as “Daddy Day.” It is so much fun! We play all day. My wife and I are striving to find a date night at least every two weeks. I know that every week would be ideal, but one thing that helps out is that we do everything as a family.

Another aspect that helps is that we have fought very hard to have a very simple church structure. My week is not filled with meetings. We have no Sunday night service and we try to load up one Sunday afternoon a month with meetings. This helps tremendously. At least three Sunday afternoons a month our family spends the afternoon together. We nap, watch TV, nap, and whatever the boys want to do. This time together is wonderful for us as a family.

As most things in my life, this area is one in which I need to continue to grow.

What do you do for fun?

I am a homebody and don’t like to get out much. My favorite thing in the world is to have my wife and two boys hang out at the house while I read and watch football. For full disclosure, my boys like football as much if not more than me; My 20 month old walks around the house pointing to the TV screaming “football!” I am really a boring person. Recently, I have gotten my oldest son (4 and a half) into watching Star Trek and Star Wars so I am passing on my geekiness to them.

What are your two or three favorite TV shows? Movies?

Anything football, baseball, Sportscenter, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Swamp People.

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