He Ran

As I was preparing for my Wednesday night message I came across something really great that I would like to share.
Genesis 18:1-2 says, "And the LORD appeared unto him (speaking of Abraham) in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lift up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground."
We find Abraham at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. Taking his afternoon break as was typical in that culture because of the extreme heats. As we continue through the chapter we see that Abraham serves these three men (one of them being the Lord). I cannot say that I am particularly impressed with Abraham's hospitality, after all, it was customary for people in those days to accommodate travelers. Not bringing them into his home and giving them a meal would have been considered very rude. So when we see Abraham giving these three a meal without being prompted it is really only because he was doing what he was supposed to do.
Here is what does impress me: He ran! I am a 24 year old man. You could say that I am in my prime. Life may never get better for me (at least in a physical sense). Despite all of that, I absolutely HATE RUNNING! Let's look at Abraham for a minute: Verse 11 says that Abraham was old AND well stricken in age. Basically, Abraham was not just old, he was very old! Also, because we see in verse one that Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day, we can assume that he had already been working hard in that day up until that point. If anyone had an excuse to not run, it was him.
Think for a minute about some of the other approaches Abraham could have taken besides running. Abraham could have always ignored the three travelers. He could have always pulled an "Oh, I didn't see them!" Of course, Abraham would not have done that but Abraham could have easily just walked to the three travelers. Think about it, nobody would have blamed Abraham for slowly getting up and making his way over to those three at his own pace. It was a hot day, he had been working, he was old (very old). But Abraham ran.
Why do we run? I am not talking about soccer practice where the coach forces you to run. I am talking about when you run out of your own free will. What cause you to run? Let's quickly look at two reasons why I believe we run, and how that can apply to our spiritual lives:
1. We run because of excitement- Abraham showed his excitement to serve the three travelers by running. One time my best friend and I went to Kings Dominion. We got to the park a little before opening. What Kings Dominion does is that they allow early comers to stand in the main hub and wait for the attractions to open, that way as soon as they open up you don't have to worry about ticket lines you can just get to the ride you want to ride on. We really wanted to ride the Volcano Roller Coaster and we were determined to be the first ones on the ride. We stood right at the rope that blocked off the rest of the park and as soon as they lowered it we ran as fast as we could. We ended up being the first to ride the Volcano because we ran. We were excited about a ride, so we ran to get there. Let me ask you something: Do you serve the Lord with excitement? It seems like too often, as Christians, we find ourselves doing the "Christian thing" simply because we have to. We say to ourselves, "It's Sunday, I have to go to church," or "I guess I should do my devotions today." We treat our Christian life more like it is a routine and less like it is a blessing. The Psalmist says to serve the Lord with gladness! How is your service and your Christian life? Are you excited about the opportunity to serve God? Do you look forward to church? prayer? soul winning? Ask yourself this question, "Is God really pleased with my service, even though it is simply a routine to me?" I believe that the answer is an emphatic "NO!" God wants us to be excited, enthusiastic about our service for him.
2. We run because of urgency- Across our nation and even across the world many marathons are held every year. The marathon is actually in memory of a Greek messenger during the battle of Marathon. The Greeks had just defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon and the general commanded a messenger named Pheidippides to send the message of their victory to Athens as quickly as he could. The messenger ran the entire 26 miles, ran right into the assembly and proclaimed “We won”. As soon as he said that, he fell dead.
Some say it is history, some say it is legend, regardless, we can learn a less from that messenger. The general gave him a command, and he ran. He had urgency. Today we need to be urgent about our obedience. I do not know when Jesus is coming, but I do know that we are a day closer than we were yesterday. We need to obey with an urgency as if he was coming back tonight. We shouldn’t look at our Bible reading as a routine, we should view it as very important. We should be urgent about our prayer lives because it is important; we should be urgent about winning our friends for Christ because it is important; we should be urgent about church attendance because it is important. We should never sit at home on a Sunday morning and ask ourselves “I wonder if I should go to church today?” Yes you should go to church! It is important for you to go to church! There is an urgency for you to be in church. It is time we take our Christian lives and re-evaluate. We treat too many other things as if they are important and urgent. We need to ask ourselves tonight, “I wonder have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me?” We need to work for the night is coming when man works no more.
We shouldn't simply obey God, we need to do so with Excitement and Urgency. How is your excitement and urgency today?

Friend Day- Effective Church Outreach

I am, by no means, an advertising or marketing expert. However, it is my job as the assistant pastor of Ballenger Creek Baptist Church to understand a little bit about reaching an audience. I am, more or less, the outreach director of our church, which is basically just a fancy title to say that I tell people about our church. Being in some of the best churches in America (Lancaster Baptist in Lancaster, CA, Church of the Open Door in Westminster, MD, and Granite Baptist in Glen Burnie, MD. I'm biased when I say "best") I have seen how to reach out to communities and get unsaved people to come to church. After all, our target audience is not people who already go to a good solid church, it is those who do not know Jesus Christ as Saviour that we are trying to reach. I fear that when churches hear the words "advertising" or "marketing" they get a false idea and quickly label the person speaking those words as a heretic who is trying to leave the old paths. But what is advertising and what is marketing? Isn't it reaching out to people? And isn't reaching out to people where we get the word "outreach" from? I believe that outreach and advertising are, in essence, one and the same.
Through watching, through reading, and through experiencing, I have learned some things about outreach. As I said, I am not an expert, but I do think I may have an insight or two that can help someone:
First, You should never keep all of your eggs in one basket. What do I mean? There are a lot of churches who only reach out to their communities via door knocking and door hangers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with door knocking, but doing door knocking alone won't accomplish anything. I love Lancaster Baptist Church! One of the great things they focus on is door knocking, after all, it is the best type of outreach for the layman to do in the church. But Lancaster does not simply go door knocking, they also have tv commercials, radio spots, newspaper ads, Facebook ads, and on and on the list goes. Outreach involves much, much more than going out soul winning on Thursday night.
Second, a sharp website wraps everything together. Every form of outreach and advertising you do should lead to your website, which in turn will lead people to your church. Nearly every visitor we have had since we started services in February went to our website before they came to visit us. I personally thing our website looks pretty good. We use a web hosting service called Share Faith, and it is very user friendly. Since I basically control the website, it isn't everything I would like it to be (I am not tech or code savvy) but I believe it is sufficient for what we are trying to do (check us out at www.ballengercreekbaptist.org). There are some church websites that stink. They stink really bad! I'm sure you have seen them: Words bouncing around the screen, GIF's of a stick figure running from the fires of Hell with a Bible under his arm, background music, a calendar with no info on it, and overall not presentable. Most of the time, people will look at a tacky website and assume that you have a tacky church. Nobody wants to come to a tacky church. Honestly, Dr. Bob Jones Sr. said, "It is a sin to do less than your best." If you have a church website, do the best you can with it and make it sharp.
Third, measure outreach by 2 things: Is it Biblical? Is it Effective? I will quickly hit these: I will never compromise on our Biblical stand just to bring in a crowd. Churches are changing the way they do church, they take out the preaching, they bring in the rock band, they change their Bible version all to get a crowd. It is unbiblical and doesn't get people saved and growed (I know it isn't a real word, it sounds good though) for the Lord. Don't lower your Biblical standards or convictions. Is it effective? There are some methods of outreach that churches do that are no longer effective. Some churches still pay a lot of money for a yellow pages add and get no results from it because NO ONE USES YELLOW PAGES. I am amazed by how many churches do not have a Google Places account. Everyone uses Google, Google Places is easy, free, and get high amounts of traffic. This is a no brainer.
Here is the crux of this post. When it comes to effectiveness (I'm going to get some people mad at me for this), door knocking is not very effective, tv and radio spots are not very effective, Google is not very effective. Let me introduce you to the one outreach method that both the church world and secular world agree works the best: Word of mouth. How to you get people to church? You invite your friends, neighbors, and coworkers to church and be genuinely excited about it. People no longer respond to sales gimmicks they respond to relationships. So when you go door knocking, the idea is to build a relationship with those people and then invite them to church. A lot of people don't do this because it takes more time and effort than a 5 minute sales pitch to a total stranger. When doing a Facebook campaign, build relationships with those who leave comments and likes. What our church is doing in October is Friend Day. Honestly, the church is not putting much effort corporately into making this day happen. We are relying on our members to bring their friends, the people that they already have a relationship with. Friend Day does two things, it gets your members involved in bringing their friends to church (and also gives them a deeper burden for lost souls), and it brings people into the church who have never heard the Gospel. As a church, let's not get so wrapped up in advertising and outreach that we forget that the most effective (and I honestly believe the most Christ-honoring way) to bring people into the church is by word of mouth through relationships. The four men who brought the sick of the palsy to Jesus were not strangers with the man who was sick of the palsy, they were his friends. We can not call ourselves soul winners until we bring the people that we care about and love most to Jesus. Bring your friends to church!
I hope this helped someone. I am still learning this stuff, if anyone has any insights from their own ministry I would love to hear from you since I do still have a lot to learn.

Real Faith

Last night I was continuing my study through Genesis at Ballenger Creek Baptist Church. We started on Abram last night. Boy, was I excited! I preached about faith, since Abram was such a man of faith. But as I studied for the sermon I became amazed at faith. Maybe it is because the other week my dad came and preached on faith to our church, and it was a HUGE blessing. The thought came to my mind that when we say that Abram had faith, we normally equate his faith with his actions. Rightfully so! Faith is not a concept or an idea; it is a literal, physical thing that we can see through a person's actions. I fear that modern Christianity has so over spiritualized faith because if we were to have the real, Biblical faith we would realize how little faith we really have. Many of us claim to have faith in
God, but never back it up with our actions. Here are a few verses I found on faith:

Matt 17:20, “And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”- in this passage, Jesus tells his disciples that there faith will produce real, physical results such as removing mountains!

Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.”- Do you notice the concrete words in this verse. Substance, evidence. A pulpit is substance, hope is not substance; a piano is substance, time is not substance. Substance is something physical. Faith is substance.

James 2:17, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”
 

James 2:17 is where I'd like to stop for a second. James is, in my opinion, one of the greatest books in the Bible because it takes the doctrine and faith that was already being taught in the church but then gives it practical application. In essence, James is saying that your actions show the faith you have. I want to challenge you today with something: If you say that you have faith that God will bring revival and people will be saved but our never actually try to win people to the Lord, then you really don't have faith! If you say that you have faith over God's plan for your life but you never go to church or read the Bible, then you don't have faith! If you say that you have faith that God will bless your church but never give tithes or offerings, then you don't have faith! When we say that we have faith, God is saying "OK, prove it. Show me." Faith is not a stagnant thing, it is acting.
Once a little farming town was suffering a drought. It got so bad that the church in town called for an emergency prayer meeting to pray for rain. One family was about to leave their home for the prayer meeting when the little girl said, "I forgot something, I'll be back." The little girl ran away for a second and came back with an umbrella. The father looked at her with confusion and said, "Daughter, why are you bringing an umbrella with you? It hasn't rained here for months!" The little girl then said, "But daddy, we are going to the church to pray for rain. I'm bringing an umbrella just in case it does."
Faith is not just praying for rain; faith is taking an umbrella with you.

 

My Name is NOT Lazarus

I preached last Sunday morning from Mark 2 at Ballenger Creek Baptist Church. The story of the man sick of the palsy and the four men who brought him to Jesus by tearing apart the roof of the house that Jesus was in is one of the most exciting and important miracles of the Bible. This event has many lessons: the biggest problem in life is not physical but spiritual, the power of Christ to forgive sin, the power of Christ to heal, etc. I would like to focus this post on the 4 men that brought the man that was sick of the palsy to Jesus.
Now, you are probably looking at the title of the post and thinking that I am going to write a long post about how the fourth man in this story could not have been Lazarus; you are mistaken. I chose this name because I really love the song "My Name is Lazarus" (here is a link if you've never heard the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJMFSsf2G6A), also I chose the title because I personally thought it was witty (I hope you do as well). Let me make a few observations about these four men today:
No one knows anything about these four men. We do not know their names, we do not know their occupations, we do not know how they all met and became friends. There is really only one thing that we know about these four men and that is that they were determined to get their friend to Jesus. In fact, this whole story would not have been possible hadn't it been for these four men. Let me ask you something today: how determined are you to get your friends to Jesus?
I hate crowds! I will do anything possible to avoid being in a crowd of people. One time my wife took me out for Black Friday shopping and I still haven't forgiven her! I can imagine these four men looking at the huge crowd surrounding Jesus. The crowd was so bad that they couldn't even get into the house. Honestly, I may have given up. These men could have said, "Oh well, we tried!" and went back home. But these men were creative and what did they decide to do? Tear the roof off the house! Now, I don't think I would have been creative enough to think about doing that. But these men were so determined to get their friend to Jesus that they were not concerned about the obstacles, they did not fear the bumps in the road, they would get there friend to Jesus no matter what it took. Such a convicting thought for us modern day Christians who are too afraid to even speak the name of Christ to our friends and loved ones.
The other thing I see about these men today is found in verse 5. It says that when he saw their faith he forgave the sins of the sick of the palsy. Now, I need to be careful with this point. Jesus did not forgive this mans sins because of the faith of his four friends, but when he saw their faith. This man was forgiven of his sins the same way every other person is, by believing and accepting Jesus Christ, but there is still a correlation between the faith of the four and the forgiveness of this mans sin. Here it is: If these men had not had the faith to bring their friend to Jesus, this man would not have had his sins forgiven or his palsy healed. There are thousands, even millions, of people in this world who are starving for the truth. These people are not just in the far corners of our planet, they live in your neighborhood, they work next to you every day, they live in your family. But the only way that they can learn about the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is by you showing them the way. I believe this passage makes it very clear that when we have enough faith to bring people to Jesus, people will get saved. No, it may not be the first person you witness to, it may not be the second, but if you are tenacious and determined to bring people to the Saviour I believe that God will reward that faith and that people WILL get saved.
Here is the catcher: we have to go! No one is going to get saved by us keeping our mouths shut. We must proclaim the Gospel of Jesus. One question for you to ponder on and I'm done: What have you done lately to bring your friends and loved ones to Jesus?

Sermon on Revival

I haven't written in a few days, and I really don't feel like writing today! Instead, I'm going to copy my sermon from yesterday. I often, in preparation, try to type them as close to word-to-word as possible. If you are looking for a sermon to preach, feel free to use it. If you are just looking for something to read, I hope you enjoy and that it challenges your heart.

 

How to Experience a Great Revival

2^nd Kings 11-12

Intro: As we look through the time of the kings in the nations of Israel and Judah we see much wickedness and idolatry. The book of 1^st and 2^nd Kings as well as 1^st and 2^nd Chronicles document some of the most wicked times in the history of the Jewish people. Yet in the midst of all the wickedness that would happen in these times there would be an instance of revival. Today, we are going to look at one of the greatest revivals in the history of the nation of Judah and the 4 steps they took to get there:

1.       We must remove wickedness 11:13-16

Give historical context of passage- Ahaziah died, Athaliah took over, Joash was hid by Jehoiada for six years, Joash made king.

Athaliah was a wicked, wicked women. 2^nd Kings 11”1 says it best, when her son, King Ahaziah, died, she killed all the royal seed (all of her grandchildren and children) so that she could be the in charge. In 2^nd Chronicles 24 we also see that she was a Baal worshipper and that she took dedicated items from the house of the Lord and bestowed them upon Baal. This women was not what God wanted for Judah.  As long as she remained queen over Judah, God’s blessing and revival would never come to Judah. That is why we see that they first had to get rid of her before their nation could experience any revival.

What wickedness are you harboring today? 2^nd Chron. 7:14 makes it clear that when God’s people are wicked, we don’t have revival. We are God’s people. Wickedness doesn’t have to be some gross, immoral sin; it can be one small sinful pleasure that you will not let go of. God needs a pure vessel to bring about revival.

When I am done working outside after a long day, what I really want is a tall glass of lemonade. I’m not going to pour my lemonade into the doggy dish and drink out of it. Instead, I’m going to go into my kitchen cabinet and find a clean glass. Why? The doggy dish is dirty, the dog has been drinking from it, but the glass in the cabinet is clean (or it at least should be). God is not going to use a “doggy dish” Christian to bring about revival. That is why we must get rid of the wickedness in our lives.

I believe the biggest need in America today is for Christians to reform. The world sees how ineffective Christianity is, and they blame it on the product when they should be blaming it on the seller. God is not weaker today than he used to be, and the Gospel is still as strong as it was in the first century. What happened then? Why do we not see the results that other Christians in the past have seen? Why has Christianity seemed to become so irrelevant in this age? The reason is because Christians have not decided to overthrow the Athaliah in their lives. They know how they are supposed to live and they know what God expects of them but they refuse to do it.

The term “Christian” came about in Acts 11 in the city of Antioch. It was a name given to them by unsaved people, probably meant to be somewhat derogatory, meaning “little Christ’s” the idea was that these “Christians” were acting like Jesus did when he was on earth. But the church in Antioch took that name and used it. Why? Because they liked it. They were not ashamed of the name of Christ and they wholeheartedly agreed that they were striving to live like Jesus. I believe that we have many people today that are saved but that aren’t Christians. Yes, you’ve accepted God’s “Get Out of Hell Free Card”, you’ve been saved from eternal separation from God in Hell, but you have not put on Christ. You have not made the decision to give up your wicked ways and live a consecrated, holy life before God.

Let me challenge you with something. Try going to work and tell your co-workers that you are a Christian; if they act shocked, something is wrong. We need to live our lives in a way that when we tell people that we are Christians they can say, “I can see that”. Holy, consecrated before God, removing the wickedness from our lives.

2.       Commit yourself to God 11:17

When the nation got rid of their wicked queen, they immediately made a covenant with God. What was this covenant? That they were God’s people. On that day, they all testified that they belonged to the Lord.

We belong to the Lord. Every single person that has asked Jesus to be their Saviour is a child of God. We don’t always act like it though.

The Corinthian church was involved in some pretty wicked sin. They didn’t understand the idea of godly living, so a lot of them were involved in immoral sins of a sexual nature. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a reprimand, telling them that they are in error. In 1^st Cor. 6, Paul is reprimanding them especially for fornication in the church. At the end of this chapter, in verse 19, Paul asks, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Why are we the temple of the Holy Ghost? Verse 20 says, “For ye were bought with a price,” See, Jesus’ blood was the price that needed to be paid for the redemption of our souls. We are saved, we have been bought back through Christ’s blood. So what now? The end of verse 20 says, “therefore,” or because of this, “glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

                We belong to God. But just like the Corinthians, sometimes we do not act like it.

The children of Israel in this passage did not just overthrow their evil queen, they also said, “we are turning from that wickedness, and now we are fully committing ourselves to God.” Has there ever been a time in your life when you have done that? Have you ever just gotten with the Lord and said, “Lord, I am yours. Do with me what you want; use me as you will.” Guess what, chances are, you will not be called to preach or to become a missionary, but God will use you where you are simply because you are open and willing to follow his lead.

Our prayer should be the same as the great hymn, "Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated Lord to Thee".

3.       Get the bad influences out of your life 11:18

The nation of Judah got rid of their queen and they committed themselves to God, but then they did something extreme. They went into the house of Baal and destroyed the place. This was something that many of the kings before this would not do even though they tried to do what was right. It was one thing for these people to commit themselves to God, but it was a completely other thing to destroy the temple of Baal. They could have just allowed the temple to stay, as long as they didn’t go in and worship there; they could have allowed the two temples to co-exist, but no. They were proactive, and they destroyed it.

Why do you suppose the children of Judah were so extreme in their actions here? I believe it is because they had a great understanding of their past and they knew what their biggest hang-up as a nation was, and that was idolatry.

Today, you may be willing to commit to God and to throw out the evil in your life, but if we are going to experience revival we need to go beyond that. We need to really re-evaluate our lives. Some of us may need to spend less time with some of our friends because we end up not honoring God when we spend time with them. Some of us may need to delete a Facebook account because of the temptation to do inappropriate things on there. What I am saying tonight is that, besides God, nobody knows you better than you. You need to be honest with yourself and ask the questions “What are my biggest areas of weakness?” and then, “Is there anything I need to get rid of that can help me to do better with this?”

Let me put it this way:

It is not necessarily a sin to walk down the liquor aisle at Walmart, sometimes the Arizona tea is in that aisle, but if you’ve had troubles with alcohol in the past it would be unwise to go down that aisle, even if you do just want to get an Arizona tea.

It is not necessarily wrong to go onto the internet without blockers and security features, but if you’ve had trouble with pornography in the past it would be unwise to do so.

It is not necessarily wrong to spend time with certain friends, but if you have an inclination to gossip when you are around them then it would be unwise to spend time with them.

We need to come to a point where we don’t just get rid of sin, but be so turned off by sin and so repentant of past sins that we determine to do everything we can to keep ourselves from every doing those things again.

Don’t think that you are weak simply because you get rid of the temptation in your life. That is your pride talking. We need to get rid of any temptations that will be in our lives. Think about Joseph, when Potiphar’s wife caught ahold of him and tried to get him to lie with her, he didn’t say, “Now, Mrs. Potiphar, let’s sit down for a few minutes and discuss why I can’t do this.” Hey, why was Joseph in the house? He had work to do. Joseph could have just said no and then went on to keep working with her standing right there sulking. But no, what did Joseph do? The passage says that he left his coat in her hands and fled! Joseph ran away. Why? Joseph was tempted and instead of testing his limits and trying to be strong, he simply ran away from the temptation. Guess what? Joseph avoided sinning that day. Don’t just get rid of the sin in your life, get rid of those opportunities to be tempted.

How much do you hate your sin? Are you willing to make some sacrifices in order to not displease your Savior?

4.       They gave to the Lord’s work 12:9-11

The nation of Judah did not just talk the talk; they walked the walk. How did they show their dedication to the Lord, by giving to him. They put their money where their mouth was, if you will.

Today, I would like to suggest that giving to the Lord can be one of the most important things that you can do. Every single one of us hates paying bills; we don’t like giving our hard earned money to the insurance company, or the phone company, or the landlord. When we write out that check to pay the bills we aren’t saying to ourselves, “This is great! I have the opportunity to invest into the future of Verizon!” Many people look at tithing and giving above and beyond with their offerings as paying a bill, but they should see it as an investment. When the nation of Judah gave to the temple it gave the priests the opportunity to fix the breaches. When we give to the Lord through the church, it gives us the opportunity to invest in winning more souls for Christ.

The nation of Judah realized, “This money I have is not mine, it is God’s; and I want to see God use it in a more powerful way than what I can do with it.” I truly believe that the day is going to come when we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. God is going to look at the person who obeyed God in tithing but also went above and beyond in offerings and he will say, “Well done, my good and faithful servants.” At that point I believe that person will see all the good that his investment did: he will see the children saved, he will see the married couple who found Jesus and got their marriage back together, he will see the broken families that Jesus healed through him, he will see the countless souls reached and lives touched at home and on the mission field simply because he gave. And isn’t that what revival is? Souls reached and lives changed? Yes!

Conclusion:  picture your life as being in a circle. Today, what I am trying to say is that we need to experience revival and the way to do that is in the way that you deal with that circle. First today, we saw that the children of Judah got rid of their wickedness; we need to get all the filth and evil out of our circle, we need to clean house. Second the children of Judah committed themselves to God; we need to commit our circle to God. Next, the children of Judah got the bad influences out of their lives; we need to reach outside of our circle and clean the immediate area around it. Lastly, they gave to God’s work; we need to put godly things around our circle. Do you want revival? If so, we need to get rid of our wickedness, commit ourselves to God, get rid of bad influences, and then give to the work of God.

Reposting: Only for Special Occasions

I normally don't do this, but seeing as I posted yesterday about our Parenting Seminar I have had parenting on the mind. Just a few hours ago Pastor Paul Chappell posted a great article on his blog about parenting; it was a real blessing to me. There are very few parents whose lives I would want to emulate, Pastor Chappell is one of those few. All of his kids are now serving the Lord, but more importantly, all of his kids love the Lord. As I said yesterday, my goal as a parent is for my daughter to love the Lord more than anything else; Pastor Chappell has raised his children in that way. So here it is; I hope it is an encouragement to you.
http://www.paulchappell.com/2013/07/31/5-ways-dads-can-redeem-the-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ThePastorsPerspective+%28The+Pastor%27s+Perspective%29

Parenting Seminar and Loving Jesus

We will soon be having our Parenting Seminar at Ballenger Creek Baptist Church. Pastor Curtis King (my dad) from Emmanuel Baptist Temple will be joining us to teach a session called "Raising 'G' Rated Children in an 'R' Rated World". I cannot possibly describe how excited I am about this event. By the way, if you are interested in coming, it will be on Friday, August 16th, at 6:30 pm at Arcadia. The address is: 4720 Buckeystown Pike, Frederick, MD 21704. Pastor Sharff and I planned this evening a little before my first daughter was born on May 27th. Before my daughter was born, I thought that this series would be helpful in getting young families interested in the church. The day my daughter was born I suddenly realized something; I realized that God had me, Curtis King, on this planet for several important reasons. Obviously, the most important reason is to glorify Him, seeing that this is the sole duty of man and that every action that I do should ultimately bring Him glory (1st Cor. 10:31) but as I stood there with my baby daughter in my arms I realized that God had me here so that I could raise my daughter to LOVE JESUS with all of her heart. In a few years, I will be so proud to hear people tell me that my daughter has a great singing voice, or my daughter is a sweet person, or my daughter is the most well behaved; but all of those things will pale in comparison to her loving Jesus. That is what I want more than anything else in the world! She doesn't have to be a pastor's wife someday, she doesn't have to be a church secretary or a sunday school teacher someday, she doesn't have to go to the mission field; what will bring me more joy than anything else in the world will be for her to love Jesus more than anything else in the world. I hope the theme song of her life is "I'd Rather Have Jesus": I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold, I'd rather be his than have riches untold, I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands, I'd rather be led by His nail pierced hands, Than to be a king of a vast domain, or be held in sins dread sway; I'd rather have Jesus than ANYTHING this world affords today!
Now, there are some reading this and saying to themselves, "Wow, talk about digressing, he started this by talking about his church's parenting seminar and now he is going off about his daughter." For those who take joy in critiquing amateur writers (which I think is a pretty weird pastime); I'd like you to know that I did that on purpose. See, I am so thankful for my upbringing. I understand that there are not a whole lot of people in the world that can say that, but I can. I believe that I had two incredible parents, maybe even the best. My parents made sure that my relationship with God was more important than anything else. Now, on August 16th, my dad will be coming to my church, and he will be teaching on parenting. You'd better believe that I will be front and center taking the best notes that I can! Why? because I am on a mission to raise my daughter in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
If you live in Frederick, MD and you want to raise your child to love the Lord, you absolutely must come to Ballenger Creek Baptist Church's Parenting Seminar. It will be an encouragement to you and I believe you will walk away from it with a great help in how to be a great, godly parent. I hope you come; our children are depending on it.

3 Things That Still Work

Yesterday was our annual Chuck Wagon Sunday at Ballenger Creek Baptist Church. We had such a great time! The music, provided by the Marshall family from Littlestown, PA, was a great blessing. Pastor Sharff preached a great message from 1st John 1, and the food was absolutely delicious. We had several visitors, some from relationships with our church members, one from door-knocking. Most importantly of all, two people got saved yesterday! When all the festivities were over I brought everyone into the meeting room and gave a short devotional before everyone went home, I called it 3 Things That Still Work. Let me give you those three things:

1. Soul-winning Still Works
In the past 3 weeks over 1,000 doors in our community received door hangers with information about our church and an invitation to Chuck Wagon Sunday. As a church plant, we are still trying to get the word out about our church, nobody knows where we are! I was beside myself with joy yesterday when a man came up to me and said that he was invited through a door hanger! He also said, "My community was curious about the church because all of them received door hangers too, so they sent me as a guinea pig!" He really enjoyed himself and said that he will absolutely come back. To those who say that reaching people door-to-door no longer works, I will say to you, "Yes, it does!"
2. Bible Preaching Still Works
Yesterday we did have a lot of food and we did have great music, but when it was all said and done, the preaching of God's Word was the central part of the day. Those two people that got saved yesterday were not saved through the music or through the fried chicken, they were saved through God's Word, and God's Word was presented yesterday through preaching! I am so thankful that I am in a church that has not set aside Bible preaching for the rock music, or for "discussion time", or for any of these other silly ideas that take the place of Bible preaching. I understand that some preachers have used the pulpit to preach their opinions, badger and belittle people, or be just plain mean; ket me say that those things do not work. God will not bless the church or the preacher that uses the pulpit to his own advantage. But when the man of God gets into the pulpit and preaches "Thus saith the Lord," You'd better believe that God is going to bless!
3. Prayer Still Works
The other day as I was driving to the area that I was going to put up door hangers, the thought came to my mind that I was wasting my time. You might think this contradicts my first point, but it doesn't. You see, I can invite people door-to-door until my feet have blisters, we can prepare and have everything on the property and in the program perfect, we can have the best food and music, and we can be the most excited, but none of that will matter, it is all in vain, if the hand of God isn't in it. A church can't be built without God's working, and God will not work unless you ask for it. Prayer is so key in God's blessing, but it is often so overlooked! We practically kill ourselves doing the work of the ministry, but when we don't see any fruit for our labor we wonder why and very often the reason is, is that we didn't ask God to bless. I have heard my dad say very often, "Work like it all depends on you; but pray like it all depends on God." I cannot think of a truer statement for this topic. We cannot ever overlook the power of prayer.
So these are the three things that still work. I hope it is a blessing to somebody; and I hope it encourages someone to continue to serve God.

What Will Be Said of Your Life

Tonight I will be preaching from Genesis chapter 5 in Wednesday night Bible study at Ballenger Creek Baptist Church. Can I be honest about something? Genesis chapter 5 is a very boring chapter, it is all genealogies and the only great truths that you can find in it are concerning Methuselah's name (http://curtking.blogspot.com/2013/07/methuselah-and-what-he-teaches-us-about.html) and about Enoch. Aw, Enoch! The man, Enoch, is the exact opposite of boring; he takes this dry, kind of dull passage and turns it into something amazing. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Now, I could easily talk about the miraculous events around the idea that Enoch "was not, for God took him," but I don't see how that would be as helpful to anyone as what I am about to say:
Let me ask you a very personal question. What do you want to be know for? What do you want people to say about you? While we are living on this planet, we do have ways of controlling people's perception of us; I understand that doing so does produce consequences at times, but we have all tried to direct people's thoughts in a certain way when it comes to their perception of us. Some of us try to come off as funny, some of us try to come off as serious, some of us try to come off as wise, some people even try to come off as idiotic! There will come a point in time where you can no longer control people's perception of you. The point that I am speaking of is death. You see, the moment you die, people will remember you for who you were and that memory will forever be locked into their minds. How does this apply to Enoch? In Genesis chapter 5, Enoch is mentioned in 6 verses, five of which are genealogies. He is also mentioned in Luke 3, which is a genealogy, in Hebrews 11:5, recounting the events of that one verse in Genesis, and lastly in Jude 14 speaking of Enoch's prophetic ministry. Ultimately, there are only three verses in the entire Bible that say anything about Enoch other than who his father was or who his son was. That isn't very much! But with only three verses completely dedicated to him, we still know one huge thing about Enoch: Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him. Enoch will forever go down in history as the man who walked with God.
Here is my challenge: Someday you will die. What will be said about your life? Will people say, "Boy, he sure was a jokester!" or "She was so good with children," or any thing similar to that? My hope is that when I die people will say, "He sure did love Jesus," or "His walk with the Lord challenged me to live for Jesus". Do you see the difference? We should all strive to walk with our Saviour so much that it just rubs off onto other people and they can't help but see it! If your friends and family can't tell that you've been walking with Jesus, then you may not have been walking with Jesus! Let's all make it our goal: Jesus will be all the world to me and my greatest goal in life is to walk with him. When we do this, I believe we will leave behind a godly legacy, just as Enoch did. I want to make it so that when my time on earth is done, people will say "Curtis walked with God."

When God Is Trying to Make a Point

In these past few weeks we have had several guest preachers come to Ballenger Creek Baptist Church. Dr. Mark Rasmussen came with the West Coast Baptist College tour group this past Tuesday night and yesterday we had Dr. Mark Campbell from the National Center of Life and Liberty. It is amazing how the Holy Spirit moves! You see, God has directed the sermons in a very specific way in these past weeks. Pastor Sharff and I have already preached several messages on the subject of serving the Lord. Honestly, at one point we thought maybe we should preach on this subject a little less, because we thought we were hammering it too much, maybe the congregation was getting tired of hearing about serving. I can testify ,though, with all certainty, as I'm sure Pastor Sharff can as well, that we have preached what God has laid on our hearts and that the Holy Spirit has been in the messages. But then Tuesday came, Dr. Mark Rasmussen got into the pulpit and said, "I was going to preach about prayer, but what I feel like this church needs is a message on serving." He then gave a convicting message about being a disciple. Last night was the climax of these past few weeks, Dr. Campbell preached a message from John 2, entitled "But the Servants Knew", it was a wonderful message about being a servant for the Master, Jesus Christ. I sincerely believe that God is trying to speak to hearts, or at least one person.
I have a great fear when God works in this way. Unfortunately, it shouldn't take the same thing being preached many times for someone to "get" the message. This reminds me of the time I preached for Student Revival at West Coast Baptist College. I preached on how we are the bride of Christ and that since we are in that position we need to keep from sin, be consistent in our walk, and be set apart. When my message was over and I was on my way back to my dorm, a classmate came to me with tears in his eyes. He said to me, "That message was exactly what I needed, Thank you!" I don't know that classmates heart, but I do know that he had a great testimony and that he was seen as one of the more godly people at school. The thought crossed my mind, "My sermon wasn't to him; my sermon was for the rebel who needs to get his heart right." This is the struggle of being a preacher: We prepare sermons that are intended to bring people back to God, but the ones with the tender hearts are the ones that always respond. The only thing that I can do as a pastor is to pray that God will break hearts.
All this being said, let me show you three things that I plan on talking to the church about on Wednesday night. So many times we sit through a sermon and we don't get out of it what we should. It is never the Bible's fault, it is rarely the preacher's fault, but it is often the fault of the person sitting in the pew. Let's look at three things that we should do when sitting under Bible preaching:
1. Do not shift blame- If you are sitting in the sermon thinking "Boy, my wife needs to hear this sermon!" or "Man, I sure hope George is listening, he needs to get his heart right with God!", then you have the wrong attitude. Come to church expecting to get something for yourself.
2. Examine your heart- Ask God, "Lord, am I obeying you in this area as I should? How can I do better?" If we are sincere in our asking, I believe that God will honor it and show you how you can apply the sermon to your life.
3. Take notes- there are several reasons to take notes in church. First, it helps you to concentrate. Second, you can look at the message during the week and meditate on what you learned on Sunday, Third, and I believe the most important, so that you can look back on past messages and remember decisions that you made for God. I have a wide-margin Bible that my wife gave me for my birthday, I have taken many, many sermon notes in it. Every so often, I will look back at some of those messages and remember how they had touched my heart. Doing so renews my zeal to keep the decisions that I had made, it reminds me of commitments that I made to God.
I believe that we so often do not listen or even hear God when he is trying to make a point to us. I know that he is definitely trying to make a point at Ballenger Creek Baptist Church; to who? I really don't know; but through these past few weeks it has been made abundantly clear. I hope, I pray that if you are reading this you will take these three ideas to heart so that God doesn't have to keep trying to get a point across to you, but that your heart will be tender for whenever he wants to tell you something. Last thing, I promise, I once heard it said that whenever you sit through a sermon you either are drawn closer to God or you backslide further. I agree with this statement. Let me ask you as I close this post: Did you draw closer to God last time you were in church, or did you backslide and reject the preaching of God's Word? convicting thought.

Methuselah, and What He Teaches Us About God

You know who Methuselah is, right? He is the man to live the longest in all of recorded history. He lived to be 969 years old!
Wow, that was a short post, to bad there is nothing else interesting about Methuselah who only appears in 5 verses of the Bible...
But there is more; and this info is very interesting! Let me give you some facts about Methuselah and then tie them all up for a lesson about God. The name Methuselah means "his death shall bring judgement". Methuselah was the father of Lamech who was the father of Noah, making Methuselah Noah's grandfather. Now, we do not know about the spiritual walk of Methuselah, we would assume that he walked with God based on his family history (Enoch, his father, walked with God; Noah, his grandson, found grace in the eyes of the Lord). Lastly, according to mathematically minded people and scholars of the Bible (who are all a lot smarter than I am!) Methuselah died in the same year as the Flood! Some extra-biblical accounts even hold that Methuselah passed away only 7 days before the Flood.
There is something great that we can learn about God in this. You see, Enoch, Methuselah's father, walked with God. I sincerely believe that when Enoch named Methuselah, he did so because he was so in touch with God, he knew what to name him. Methuselah's life was a warning, and every time someone heard his name people were struck with the looming prophesy that judgement for their wicked behavior was coming. Pretty depressing. Here is where it gets good, Methuselah was the oldest man to ever live; 969 years! God didn't have to allow Methuselah to live as long as he did. God could have said, "Ok Methuselah, you're 500 years old now; your time is up." But God didn't. Why? I believe that God, in His great mercy, was keeping Methuselah alive as a warning to the people around him. God wanted these people to know "Judgement is coming; repent while you still can!"; and he extended that offer, not for 100, not for 500, but for over 900 years.
I serve a God who is rich in mercy! He hates evil, and must punish evil, but is so merciful and loving that he is willing to extend out his hand to us and say, "Repent of your sins, and we can have fellowship once again." Wow! We serve an amazing God.

"Humble" Cars

Just to start off, I am against the Catholic Church. I believe that it's doctrines are not founded on Scripture, I believe that they hold tradition above their respect for God's Word, I believe that the Catholic Church is evil. But I cannot say that there are some small things that I agree with Catholics about. For instance, the Catholic stance on abortion has always been very strong. This is an area where I agree with Catholics. The Catholics have a new pope, Pope Francis. I believe he is unsaved, I know he is the leader of the greatest false religion in the world, but I am very impressed by his sincerity. I truly wish that preachers in my circles had the same sincerity that Pope Francis has. Yesterday I saw an article that I would like to share with you: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/08/pope-francis-priests--nuns-should-drive-humble-cars_n_3560058.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
I applaud the Pope for saying this. I think so often those of us in the ministry lose our focus. We have all seen the preachers who drive a brand new Rolls Royce, wear the brand new, super expensive tux to church, and building themselves beautiful, ornate offices simply to stroke their ego's. These things ought not so to be. Ministry is all about people. My purpose in the ministry is to snatch as many people out of the fires of Hell as I possibly can. Unfortunately, when preachers lose their focus they isolate themselves from the people they are trying to reach. Here is a thought, a preacher's standard of living should never be much higher than the people in his congregation. He needs to be able to relate to his people in this way. I once heard of an evangelist who made fun of people who shop at Walmart; who doesn't shop at Walmart?!? This evangelist effectively isolated himself from his audience in one simple sentence that he probably said for a cheap laugh. On the flip side, I do not think a pastor's standard of living should be grossly lower than that of his congregation.
What does it all come down to? Humility. God has not called me into the ministry to lord it over my congregation. The ministry is not a "get rich quick" scheme. The ministry isn't about how many Bibles I can sign in my lifetime or how many people can say that I'm there favorite preacher. The ministry is first about JESUS and secondly about OTHERS. Let us not forget that.
If you are in the ministry, please take a second, right now, to evaluate why you do what you do. So many of us have become so irrelevant to our people, and it's not because God's Word is irrelevant; it is because we have made ourselves irrelevant by our lifestyle.

Why Do We Expect the World To Act Like Christians When Christians Don't Act Like Christians?

We live in crazy times. It seems like with every passing day the world is getting worse and worse. Some Christians have started to cry foul. They have taken to Facebook to complain about the state of our nation or they will sit around their dinner table and discuss how terrible things have gotten. Some have turned to political activism and picket city hall or attend meetings. I am in no way criticizing political activism, but I have seen, especially lately, that some Christians have taken to political activism but have neglected their duty as a Christian. I hear complaints all the time about how our nation is going morally down the tubes, but the same people that complain are the ones that do not go to church. I said in my sermon yesterday, "If you do not take the time to go to church, then you have no business to complain about how our nation is becoming." Why? Because a strong nation is built by strong churches. Why does it seem like Christians are losing the battle in our country? Because we are not willing to act like Christians. In my independent Baptist circles there is so much infighting, so much hatred, so little reaching out that it is no wonder that the world doesn't take us seriously. What am I trying to say? As Christians, we need to take a good long look at ourselves and figure out what we are doing wrong. I believe that when we are honest with ourselves we will see that our biggest problem is that we are not as consecrated to God as we should be. We haven't given ourselves wholly to God, and now we are seeing the consequences of the world calling us out on it. Why is the United States failing morally? The Bible says that it is because of us, "If MY people, which are called by MY name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked way, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land." This nation is not being ruined by the homosexual crowd, the abortion crowd, or the evolution crowd; it is being ruined by Christians who are not willing to humble themselves, pray, and turn from their wicked ways. How sobering! So let me ask you, are you being part of the problem or part of the solution? If we had churches and Christians who were completely given to God, I believe we can see a revival the likes of which we have never seen before. Pray for revival! Start by praying for yourself.

Fully Rely On God

So, it has been years since I have posted. I am now the assistant pastor of a church plant in Frederick, MD.  Check out our web site at www.ballengercreekbaptist.org. As I embark on this new journey in my life: marriage, pastoring, parenting (a lot has happened in these few years!) I can't help but ask my self whether or not God really can use me. Why should he? There is nothing special about Curtis King; I am not some spiritual giant! But then I stop to think about some of the heroes in the Bible. You know, men like Moses, Abraham, and David were just normal everyday guys. They were a lot like you and me. The difference between the great Bible heroes of old and Christians today is that those men understood how big of a God they served. Yes, sometimes they faltered (Abraham and Hagar, David and Bathsheba) but it is pretty clear that when they were walking with God and fully relying on Him, that was when great things happened. So what? I see two thinks out of this: 1. As a pastor and a Christian I must fully rely on God. 2. As a church, we must fully rely on God. A lot of churches rely on programs, activities, musicals, and cook-outs for their growth. Other churches rely on their outreach ministry for growth. There is nothing wrong with these things, especially the outreach ministry, we must reach out to our community and we must do door to door visitation. But are we relying on that? Am I relying on how many doors I knocked this week instead of relying on God? I have often heard a phrase "Pray like it all depends on God; work like it all depends on you." I agree completely with this statement. God will not bless a church or a Christian who will not work, but on the flip side, God will not use a Christian or a church that is relying on their work rather than on their God. All that was to say this one simple thing: God WILL use Curtis King and Ballenger Creek Baptist Church when we sincerely believe that GOD will give the increase. I want to see a great work done in Frederick, so does God; I do not want to be the one to hold God's blessings back on my city. Ultimately, when we are fully relying on God, he will get the glory for the great work done in the church and in the changed lives of people. Isn't that what we are here for? to glorify God? Yes! So here is my challenge to myself and to whoever may read this (you know, the thousands of people just dying to read what I have to say!): Trust God! Everything else will fail you! People will fail you, programs will fail you, outreach ministries, yes, will fail you. There is only ONE person who we can trust and that is God. Lean not unto thine own understanding, in ALL thy ways acknowledge Him. Then and only then will we see God truly use our feeble attempts. If you are reading this, please pray for me and for Ballenger Creek Baptist Church, that we will fully rely on God and that we will reach the city of Frederick, MD for the glory of God. Thank you!