Mountain Brook Baptist Church: Recent Episodes
Mountain Brook Baptist Church, various
Theme: Jesus promised to send his Spirit to indwell and empower his disciples. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came in power to enable the church to bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
John 14:8-17
Theme: After he appeared to the disciples, Jesus ascended to the right hand of God the Father where he reigns and intercedes for us.
Luke 24:44-53
The devil seeks to devour people. But Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life that we might have abundant life in him.
John 10:1-10
Salt and light have one thing in common. You notice them. They make a difference. Tune in to hear more about how we can be salt and light in the world by the power of Christ's Spirit.
Matthew 5:13-20
Theme: The law was given through Moses.Through the person and work of Jesus we haveall received grace upon grace.
John 1:14-18
We began a new sermon series on the book of Philippians this Sunday. I have titled the series “A Church Transformed by the Gospel." The book of Philippians is often associated with the theme of joy and Paul certainly mentioned joy frequently in the letter. However, as I read through the letter in preparation for the upcoming sermon series, I was struck by the ways in which Paul’s life was transformed powerfully by the good news of Jesus Christ.
Where I would be tempted to see only hardship and frustration if I were imprisoned because of my faithfulness to Jesus, Paul viewed his imprisonment as an opportunity to reach new people for Christ. Where I am tempted to look out only for my own interests, Paul challenged the Philippians to follow the example of Jesus Christ by humbly considering how God was calling each of them to look out for the interests of others. Where I am prone to judge my value and worth according to worldly measures of success, Paul testified that everything he had once held in high esteem was now worthless in comparison to knowing and living for Jesus. Where I can easily be filled with worry or anxiety when I look at circumstances in my life or challenges people face around the world, Paul experienced a peace that passed all understanding as he walked in the assurance that the Lord is at hand. Paul was powerfully transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is exciting to think of the ways God might transform each of us and our entire community of faith as we gain a greater appreciation of the good news of Jesus Christ. I hope you will make plans to participate in worship in person or via the livestream over the next four weeks. I also want to invite you to pray for yourself and for our church as we journey through the book of Philippians. Each week, we will provide you a model prayer in hopes that our hearts will be united as we pray together. Here is the prayer for the coming week:
Father, we come to you grateful for the hope of the gospel, and for how you have shown us your love in Jesus. We pray that your love might overflow in us, that we would love you with our whole hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves. Let that love show us how we ought to live in the world, giving us knowledge and wisdom as we seek to follow you and to live as your faithful witnesses as we wait for Christ’s return. Let that love make us humble, recognizing that all praise, honor, and glory belong to you. Amen.
Our willingness to pray alongside one another as we begin this new sermon series is a way to acknowledge that nothing of lasting worth will take place in our worship apart from God’s gracious work among us. So, please pray for our church during these important days. I am hopeful that we will stand in awe of God’s grace and mercy as we see his hand at work among us.
This Sunday is an important day in the life of our church. We will gather in the Sanctuary at 10 a.m. for a combined worship service at which we will ordain new Deacons, install Deacons who will serve our church in 2022, and honor Life Deacons who have served our church faithfully for many years. We will also recognize the contributions of Deacons who completed a three-year term of service in 2021. As we prepare to recognize these servant leaders in our church, I think it is helpful to remember the qualifications and responsibilities of Deacons as outlined in our Church Bylaws. Our Bylaws state:
“In accordance with the meaning of the word and the practice of the New Testament, Deacons are ordained servants of the church. They are members of the church whose character and qualifications shall be those set forth in Scripture. Deacons shall be responsible for promoting peace, harmony, and a spirit of cooperation among the membership. They shall serve as a council of advice and conference with the Senior Minister in all matters pertaining to the welfare and plans for the church. They shall be responsible for formulating, promoting, and operating the financial program of the church, including appointment of a Finance Committee. They shall apportion the membership of the church among themselves and shall exercise oversight of the spiritual and personal welfare of the members, seeking to enlist them in activities of the church.”
As you can see from this description of the qualifications and responsibilities for Deacons at Mountain Brook Baptist Church, our Deacons play vital roles in helping us become a more unified, effective, and faithful congregation. In addition to praying for our Deacons, we will also hear the testimonies of the Deacons who are being ordained. This part of our Deacon Ordination Service is always a source of encouragement to me as I listen to the ways God is at work in the lives of people in our church.
Please plan to attend this special service on Sunday and make note of the combined worship schedule. We will have Sunday Morning Bible Study at 9 a.m. and the combined worship service at 10 a.m.
Text: Ephesians 3:1-12
The Church is called to make the manifold wisdom of God known as our lives are increasingly transformed by the gospel
Ephesians 3:1-12
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-20
The story of Joseph appears to be a passive character in the Christmas story, but he teaches a great truth: to be used in the Kingdom of God begins with the desire to do right rather than doing something miraculous.
Matthew 1:18-20
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17
The use of Jesus' genealogy to illustrate the different kinds of people God used to bring His Son to the world. He uses all kinds to bring the message to the world today.
Matthew 1:1-17
Scripture: Psalm 107 1-9, and verse 43, I Thessalonians 5:16-18
Central Idea: While giving thanks glorifies God, it also transforms our relationships.
Psalm 107 1-9, and verse 43, I Thessalonians 5:16-18
Text: 2 Corinthians 13:11
As a hopeless golfer always in search of a better game, I have read more than my share of golf instruction books and watched way too many golf instruction videos. Even if you’re not a golfer, you can appreciate someone with an obsession to be better at something who laps up everything he or she can get their hands on. That would be me. And now that I’m moving into retirement, I guess I won’t have a church to blame my weak golf game on. I’ll have to find some other excuse.
This thought came to mind as I was going through my library the other day, trying to decide which books I wanted to keep and which I wanted to throw away. So, when it came to the few golf instruction books I have turned to over the decades of my fixation with getting better at golf, the one book I made sure I could get to without having to hunt it down was the famed golf instructor Harvey Penick’s classic, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime in Golf. As most of you golfers in the congregation will attest, Penick’s little book is filled with gems of golf wisdom, perhaps none more valuable than his simple, but essential maxim, “Take Dead Aim.” By that, of course, Penick meant that without an aim that is clearly focused on the target you’re swinging toward, you will never strike an acceptable shot, unless of course you happen to hit one out of pure luck. And so Penick instructed all his students, “Take Dead Aim.”
Come to think of it, that’s not bad instruction for anything you hope to accomplish in life, wouldn’t you agree? What’s the old saying, “Aim at nothing and that’s precisely what you’ll hit.” In other words, without a goal in mind or a direction to point to or an outcome to accomplish, not even luck will bail you out.
Perhaps that was something of what the Apostle Paul was getting at in this passage I’ve read for you from his second letter to the church at Corinth. As you know from time spent in Sunday School, the church at Corinth was about as unfocused and distracted and dysfunctional a church as you might find. I often say any problem that could conceivably exist in a church today existed in the church at Corinth. Paul’s first letter addresses each of them.
But despite Paul’s Holy Spirit inspired instruction, the church at Corinth evidently didn’t get better; if anything, it got worse. So much so that they turned on Paul and began accusing him of all kinds of uncharitable things. “Paul’s full of himself, you know. Have you noticed how he’s always boasting about his credentials. And when you think about it, when did Jesus ever call Paul to be an apostle? I’m not so sure that he’s not going around trying to advance himself with false credentials. And what bothers me most of all is that he’s always talking about money. I’ll bet if you follow the money you’ll find Paul somehow materially benefitting from his ministry.” I promise you that I’m not making this up. Read the letter and check me out.
And yet, to Paul’s credit, he doesn’t give up on the Corinthians. Paul saw in them too much promise and too much possibility so that instead of bawling out the Corinthians or even worse bailing on them, Paul patiently addresses each of their concerns, and then ends his second letter with what I think is the most hopeful and uplifting exhortation any minister could offer any congregation. He tells them not just to take “dead aim” as they focus on their future, but to take “living aim,” which is even clearer and more lofty. “Aim for perfection,” Paul tells this remarkably imperfect church. “Encourage one another. Agree with one another. Grow with one another. And the God of love and peace will be with you.”
On this my last Sunday as your Senior Minister, I can’t think of a better word to leave with this congregation – not because you are a flawed and dysfunction people, but because you are anything but. So much so, that your ceiling as a church is literally as high as heaven itself! But in order to make such promise and possibility a reality, I urge you to consider Paul’s detailed instructions to a sputtering, conflicted fellowship so that you can become ever more all the church that Jesus is calling you to be. Very quickly, consider with me the blueprint toward perfection Paul lays out.
First, encourage one another. Do what you can to urge one another on to be a more faithful follower of our Lord Jesus Christ. After all, church is the one place in society where people aren’t in competition with one another but in cooperation with one another, or better I should say in coordination with one another so that as the body of Christ, when one part of the body functions effectively, there is every reason for other parts of the body to follow suit. In a day when people seem to be concerned more with bringing other people down, thinking that in the process that they will bring themselves up, instead of discouraging one another, encourage one another. Discouragement is a dead aim; encouragement is a living one.
But secondly, Paul tells the church to agree with one another. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that in a Baptist church that seems an abject impossibility. After 43 years of serving Baptist churches, I have too often been made aware of how if you get ten Baptists in a room, you’ll likely have twenty opinions. We Baptists are famous for not being able to agree on much of anything, except for our conviction regarding our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only reason for any church to be together and Jesus is the only reason by which a church will stay together. The problem today is that too many churches are looking to locate their unity in everything but Jesus – their musical tastes, their political views, their economic interests and their civic affiliations. None of those things is inherently evil, and yet none of them is able to sustain a church’s missional effectiveness. The only way a church can become all that Jesus needs it to be is by focusing their energies and attention around advancing the cause of Christ and agreeing with one another as to how following his lead is the best way to become more faithful in the process. Agreeing with one another around Jesus is also what we might call “a living aim.” Trying to come together around anything else or anyone else is not only a “dead aim,” it’s also a “dead end.”
Encourage one another. Agree with one another. And finally, Paul urges the church to grow with one another. You see, when you peel back the layers of the Corinthian church and analyze where they went wrong, it wasn’t that they never sought to encourage one another and to come together around Jesus, it was because they stopped growing in his grace and knowledge. They became complacent. They became satisfied. They came to a place where they thought they had arrived, only to be made blind to their flaws and imperfections until Paul came along to expose them to the light. Now, I would in now way ever suggest that this church, Mountain Brook Baptist Church, is not a mature church; it is. This church has a 77 year history of life-changing ministry not just in this community but also around the world. And because this church is without question a mature church, the greatest temptation this church will always be faced with is the temptation to put ministry in neutral and to think we have arrived and to grow complacent and to settle with being ordinary. And as we all know, if there’s anything that this community in which our church is located disrespects and disregards more it is the satisfaction with being ordinary. And truth be told, there is no peace or life that comes from being an ordinary church, because that’s precisely what Satan wants for every church – that they be ordinary – and that’s especially what Satan wants for this church. But when we strive together always to be growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus, Satan is frustrated, Jesus is magnified, and we in turn grow to become more of the church he calls us to be.
As I look back on our journey together over these last ten years, it has been such a joy for me to walk with you, and Judy and I will continue to do so in the days ahead, albeit from a distance. We will do all that we can to encourage you, and to agree with you, and to grow with you because that’s what it means to be a perfect people, not so much in terms of our being sinless and unblemished, but being whole and complete and everything that Jesus needs us to be.
So, let us focus our aim on that level of life and everything we will be about will stay “in bounds” and within the confines of the straight and narrow path Jesus himself has blazed for us. We want be spraying anything out along the broad and wide one that leads to destruction, but instead we will stay on the path that quite frankly is less traveled, the cross-shaped path down which Jesus has promised will lead us to life – life now, life tomorrow, and life forevermore.
2 Corinthians 13:11
Text: Psalm 24:1-5
2021 Day of Remembrance
It’s an old story but a telling one. Once upon a time at a revival meeting, a preacher was waxing eloquently on the splendor of heaven. He was painting word pictures as to the gates of pearl and the streets of gold and the crystal sea, and all of those images that are so much a part of our upbringing as people of faith with respect to heaven. At the end of it all, the preacher pressed home his point by asking the congregation the question, “Who here tonight wants to go to heaven?” At which point hands were raised all over the Sanctuary, with the exception of one man, a fact that disturbed the preacher more than a little. Calling attention to the man whose hands were still at his side, the preacher asked, “Sir, don’t you want to go to heaven?” To which the man replied, “Of course I do, but I thought you were trying to get up a trip right now!”
As corny as the joke sounds, it does make an important point, which is that while most people think that their decision on heaven is one they can put off to the end of life, the truth of the matter is that we prepare for that ultimate decision by the manner in which we live out our faith each and every day.
This morning we have remembered those saints who have gone on to glory before us. And because so many of these persons were near and dear to us on many levels, it’s a good time for us to reflect on the importance of making sure that we have done all that is necessary to secure our place in glory with them.
It's a question the Psalmist certainly was reflecting on in this 24th Psalm. I don’t know about you, but I find it providential that Psalms 23 and 24 occur next to one another. Psalm 23 is of course the more familiar one, as it speaks to us of a God who draws near to guide and direct us, to provide for us and to protect us, to carry us through the valley of the shadow of death so that we might dwell in the house of the LORD forever. But the 24th Psalm is one that really ought to be read in tandem with the 23rd Psalm. The 24th Psalm invites us to do what is necessary to prepare ourselves for that time when we will be called upon to stand in the presence of the LORD.
And so, the Psalmist asks what is hands down the essential question to which all of us must find answer: “Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? (And) who may stand in His holy place?”
Ask most people for an answer to that question today and not everyone can answer it convincingly. Some will either rely on their entrance into heaven as something that will come to them automatically, as if eternal life is a benefit that simply comes to individuals once they are born. Others will fall back on what the Bible teaches about God’s nature and being, that God is a merciful God, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” which is certainly true. But instead of casting their hope on that consistently merciful God, they instead wishfully think that God will simply excuse them and accept them without them changing anything in their life that dishonors or displeases God. Worst of all are those persons who think they actually are doing enough good in their lives that God will be obligated to receive them into His glory. Because they hold to an economy of merit, where people always get what they deserve, they trust that while not entirely perfect, they have done enough good to get under the heavenly wire. But as this text reminds us, presumption and merit are no grounds for being assured that when this life is over there is eternal life still to come.
So, how then does one secure his eternity? According to the Psalmist, by having “clean hands and a pure heart, by not trusting in idols or swearing by a false god, and by being open to receiving the blessing and vindication that comes to us from a God who is indeed rich in mercy and grace.” In other words, to stand in God’s presence always requires us to pay attention to both the external and the internal, “clean hands and pure hearts.” They are two sides of the same coin of salvation, both of which are necessary in order for us to know God’s peace both now and forevermore.
One of my favorite stories in the Gospels that speak to this point is that story in the eighth chapter of John, where Jesus encounters a woman caught in the act of adultery. Actually, Jesus didn’t initiate the encounter. The woman was dragged before him by the scribes and the Pharisees. You remember the story. “Teacher,” they say to Jesus, “we caught this woman in the very act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to sone such a woman. So, what do you say?” You can surely see it was a trap. They weren’t concerned about the Law. They were certainly not concerned about the woman. They were concerned about the threat Jesus posed to their system of presumption and merit, and they were looking for a way to get him to incriminate himself.
And what did Jesus do? At first it seems as if he didn’t do much at all. He bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. Some say he was stalling for time. Others say he was writing out the sins of the woman’s accusers. Who knows? That’s all speculation. What matters most in the story are two things, things that point to Jesus’ emphasis on the need to have clean hands and a pure heart. The first is the response that Jesus does give to the religious authorities. “Whoever among you that is without sin, let him cast the first stone,” which none of them was willing to do because none of them was clean enough or pure enough to do. And when all of the woman’s accusers dropped their stones and began to crawl away, Jesus was then left alone with the woman. And turning to that unquestionably guilty soul, he asked her what must have struck her to be a terrifying question, “Where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” Her response was in all likelihood a mix of relief and trepidation. Her accusers had disappeared and yet she still stood before a man who had the cleanest hands and the purest heart anyone could ever find. Therefore, the jury was still out…until the verdict came down from the Judge of all Mankind. “Then, neither do I condemn you. But go your way and sin no more.” This adulterous woman had received from Jesus blessing and vindication, but also a mandate to move on from that moment an eternally changed soul. “Go, and sin no more.”
The thing about heaven is that none of us knows when the moment will come when we will be called to stand before Jesus to give account for our sins. If we did, then we could plan for that time like we plan for everything else – a birthday, an anniversary, a party, a glad reunion. But because we can’t, every moment becomes an opportunity to trust our way to God today so that in Jesus God might ever be changing us more and more each day into a person more fit for His glory.
How was it that Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights icon from the last century phrased it? “I may not be the man I want to be; I may not be the man I ought to be; I may not be the man I could be; I may not be the man I truly can be; but praise God, I’m not the man I once was.” Only Jesus can make such a change possible. So, grow in his grace and knowledge today so that in the coming days your hands will be cleaner, your heart will be purer, and your faith will be more genuine. Then, when the time does come for God to get up a trip to heaven, you won’t be left out. On that day you will be ready to receive your blessing from the LORD and your vindication from the God who is your Savior.
Psalm 24:1-5
Text: Luke 11:33-36; 12:2-3
Series: “The Church Your New Pastor Deserves”
This evening children from all over Mountain Brook will be donning their costumes and happily covering their faces and venturing out into the surrounding neighborhoods to participate in the annual ritual we all know and remember as “Trick or Treat.” When you’re a child, it’s all about dressing up as your favorite character and going from house to house to load up on candy. And when you’re an adult, it’s all about bragging on the creativity of the costumes and making a child’s night with his or her favorite treat. And then later that night, the costumes come off, the candy is consumed, and everyone gets ready for things the next day to go back to normal. Dressing up, disguising yourself, and pretending to be something you’re not is lots of fun for one night of the year, but it’s no way to live with any sense of wholeness and completeness, given how much better it is just to be who you are and to relate to others with genuineness and authenticity.
That’s much of what Jesus was encouraging in these two passages before us this morning. We’ve been walking our way through this section of Luke’s Gospel over the course of these past couple of months, where Jesus is pouring his truth into those who have come around him, both the multitudes as well as his disciples. Here, Jesus speaks first to the crowds; and as far as they are concerned, they’ve come to Jesus looking to him for something that will sustain them in the face of their everyday challenges. The “sugar high” of what they have received from their religious leaders has failed to nourish their souls, in large measure because of the duplicity and hypocrisy that have come from those leaders, who say one thing to them and do something entirely different in private. Instead, the crowds want something that will illumine their souls and cast out the darkness that has come over them, a darkness that does not contain any measure of truth or hope.
And so in the first teaching, Jesus instructs them to be careful what they open themselves to in this world. “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is also full of light. But when they are bad, your body is full of darkness.” In other words, Jesus is telling the crowds that there is so much in this world that passes for light that is anything but. It shines and it glitters, but it has no substance. Better then that we take every precaution to make sure that we don’t just follow the sparkle and in the process lose the chance to experience the glorious. After all, even a candle seems bright until the sun comes out, and then we see how the light of the candle pales in comparison to the radiance of the sun.
I think you see the application. How many people today are all about the bling, which is nothing more than a pursuit of that which dazzles for a moment, but loses its appeal when the harsh realities of life bring a darkness down upon them that totally obstructs the shimmer they thought they would enjoy forever? They’re like little children who dress up for Halloween and pride themselves on their elaborate garb, except that children know that at some point the garb gets packed back into the closet because it is worn only for one night. These people think that they can comport themselves that way forever, until one day they come to see that they’ve only been tricking themselves and that there’s no lasting treat to how they’ve been living. It’s only when we recognize how so much of the supposed brightness of this world actually keeps us from seeing the true light of Jesus that we open our hearts to him so that his light might give meaning and purpose to every part of our lives, so much so that we begin to shine with the light of Christ, drawing others to it from out of their darkness. And in the end, isn’t that the real mission of the church, to bear witness to the light of Christ in such a compelling way that we poke holes in the world’s darkness and offer others a better way to live – today, tomorrow, and forevermore?
“No one lights a lamp,” says Jesus, “and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” Followers of Jesus are called to be open to his light, not what the world tells us is light, so that we might then lead others to that light which alone brings life in all its abundance.
It is that truth which leads to the second teaching, the one where Jesus turns his attention to his disciples to warn them against the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of their day, who ended up obstructing the light they were supposed to be revealing because of their dishonesty and deceit. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” Jesus told them. “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.” In other words, our lives as Christians are to be clear and obvious examples of the truth of Jesus and the difference it makes in our everyday life.
This should go without saying, but tragically, it does not. That’s because of how there are too many people in the church today who are claiming to be followers of Jesus, but who are covering up their secret sins. Like the Pharisees about whom Jesus warned his disciples, these folk look good on the outside and even have the appearance of being Christian, but when they are alone and no one is watching, they are engaging in things that are not consistent with their confession of Jesus. They think they can get away with things as long as nobody finds out about them. But as Jesus tells his disciples, while others may not always recognize our sin, God does, and one day God will bring it to light. This, Jesus assures us, is no recipe for abundance.
Of course, some today have learned this lesson, despite having had to learn it the hard way. I’m thinking in particular of those persons who have gone through recovery for all manner of addictive behaviors and have emerged from their darkness in a much better and healthier place. Ask any of those persons and they will tell you that one of the principles that guided them through their darkness was, “We’re only as sick as our secrets,” which is a hallmark principle for the recovery process. That is to say that any secret that we keep in the dark only grows and becomes more harmful. But once we expose it to the light, no matter how painful it is when we do so, the power of that secret is lost and it becomes replaced with a higher power, and for people of faith, a power that is full of mercy and grace.
This is true not only for individuals, it is also true for churches that seek to be places of healing and hope. And so, over the course of these last ten years, when new people have come our way and I’ve had the privilege to speak with them about the possibilities here at Mountain Brook Baptist Church, I know that many of them have come from places where they’ve been hurt and mistreated. And so, when they ask about our church, who we are and where we stand on matters, I proudly tell them, “What you see is who we are. We are as transparent as a pane of glass. There are no secrets. There are no hidden agendas. There are no skeletons in any of our closets. What you see is what you get.”
Now, does that mean that we’re a perfect church and we have no dirty laundry? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Neither does it mean that we display our dirty laundry for all to see, not because we’re trying to deceive others, but more because we think that doing so would be tawdry and tacky. We confess our sins to God and then show ourselves to others as sinners being saved by grace. It’s not our light we display; it’s the light of Christ shining through us, shining we hope in ways that enable others to see the grace that can help them recover from their rough places also.
The church I attended in college left a lasting impression upon me in this regard. There was something about the layout of the Sanctuary in that church that was radically different from the church I had grown up in or, quite frankly, any church I’ve seen since. All churches have windows, and most of those windows are opaque. They allow light to come through but you can’t see out of them and no one can see in through them. Perhaps they’re designed that way to create a sense of sanctuary, of rest and release from this otherwise threatening world.
This church, however, was different in that it had clear glass, glass you could see through in both directions. But the glass wasn’t like our stained glass, which is situated around the sanctuary. In this church the clear glass was directly behind the pulpit, which I always thought was a huge mistake. “How can anyone listen to the preacher with the beauty of God’s creation so profoundly displayed in the background?”
But then the thought occurred to me, “Maybe that’s the point. None of is the light, not even the preacher. We bear witness to the light. We’re like clear-paned glass that allows the light to show through so that everyone might see the beauty of God’s creation and by seeing Jesus in us, even the beauty of God’s new creation.”
We’re not going to be changing any windows in this church anytime soon, but we can at least be the church that Jesus needs us to be – a church that doesn’t dress up its appearance and certainly doesn’t conceal its flaws, but is instead a church that comes to the light, a church that keeps its eyes on the light, a church that bears witness to the light, not just on special occasions but every single day of the year.
Luke 11:33-36; 12:2-3
Text: Luke 12:15, 31, 34
Series: “The Church Your New Pastor Deserves”
Ask most people what they think about us at Mountain Brook Baptist Church, and they will likely answer that we’re a church that’s flush with money. Now, that’s not because of anything that we’ve done to give others that impression; it’s instead based entirely on where our church is located. Most people hear the word “Mountain Brook” and they automatically assume that anything that comes after that never has to worry about money, whether it be a business or a school or a household or a church. And truth be told, our church is doing well financially, better than any church I’ve ever been privileged to serve.
And I make no apologies for that fact. On the contrary, because our church is located in such an affluent community, I’d be concerned if our church wasn’t in good financial shape. I’d see it as an indictment on our commitment if a congregation made up of people who live in the most prosperous zip codes in the state of Alabama were scrambling for the resources to live out the mission to which God has called them. But the fact that we don’t is Exhibit A as to how our hearts are in the right place and how our hands are open to meeting needs in Jesus’ name.
In that respect, I think we show great faithfulness to this teaching before us this morning from Luke’s Gospel. Here, Jesus is instructing those who have gathered around him as to the motivations they must have to participate in the good future God was sending him to bring about. As was the case in the text we looked at last week, so in the text that is before us this morning there are three aspects to Jesus’ teaching, all of which revolve around keeping money in its rightful lane, and ones that we would do well to keep front and center in our minds and in our hearts.
The first has to do with not falling prey to the temptation to locate our worth and our security in that which can be added up. “Watch out!” he tells those that have gathered around him. “Be on your guard, your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” What strikes me about this passage is how Jesus draws upon the prison culture of his day, a culture that people then as now would have been anxious to have steered clear of. The short version of what Jesus is telling his audience is that it’s best that we imprison our greedy impulses before they imprison us. For once we go down the road of measuring our worth and our security by the abundance of our possessions, there is no end. We will never come to a place where we will think we have enough. So, the first teaching: “Master your money before your money masters you.”
And then there is the second teaching, which tells us how we might keep our greed in check. We do so, says Jesus, by making God’s purposes the defining priority of our life. “Seek his Kingdom,” Jesus tells his disciples, speaking of God’s rule in this world. “And when you do, you will receive all that you need.” In other words, when we focus on God, we come to see how God is more than able to secure our tomorrows, and we are therefore relieved of any anxiety about having to secure it for ourselves, which in turn frees us to give of ourselves to doing what is necessary to advance God’s Kingdom purposes in the world. Thus, the second teaching: “Be motivated to bring to pass God’s Kingdom purposes in this world.”
Which then leads to the third teaching, one that joins the first two together and points us in the direction of a future that money could never buy. “For where your treasure is,” says Jesus, “there your heart will be also.” By treasure Jesus isn’t talking about a pirate’s chest of jewels and gold. No, to Jesus, treasure is anything we value above everything else so that we see everything and everyone through those treasure-laden lenses.
And yet in spite of what should be those crystal-clear lessons, it’s remarkable to me how many people miss what Jesus is saying because they want to make him into a prophet who went about in his day offering a blanket condemnation of wealth. That’s simply not true. Yes, Jesus saw wealth as a potential stumbling block. Yes, Jesus understood how people with resources could be easily tempted to pin their hopes on their affluence instead of God. Yes, Jesus recognized that being blessed with a lot in this life could so easily lead one to think that his eternal life would be secure. And so Jesus offered these types of teachings to correct people’s wrong assumptions and misplaced priorities so that those who had something to give might be able to give it for God and for good.
So, are you so inclined with what God has entrusted to you? Does your life reflect your most earnest efforts toward seeking God’s Kingdom and does your heart chase after the treasure that can never be taken away?
Here’s a good way to answer that question honestly. Look at your junk mail. I’m serious. Those people who fill your mailbox with what we call junk mail know more about you than you know about yourself. They know what you paid for those new shoes you bought this past summer and they know whether you paid for them with a credit card or cash. They know how much you owe on your house. They know what kind of golf balls you like to play. They know what illnesses you have and where you like to eat out the most. They know how much you give to charity and which charities you tend to support. They know all of these things because it’s their business to know. They target your spending habits with scientific precision, and because they do, they know precisely where your treasure is, even if you don’t (“The Junk Mail Deluge,” U.S. News and World Report, 12/8/97.) So, before you throw that junk mail away, pay attention to what the people sending it know about you, and if necessary, make any changes that you must to order your life in a way that better serves God’s Kingdom purposes. For when you do, so much of the cares and anxieties that would otherwise be robbing of you of your life’s joy are all suddenly and supernaturally taken away simply because of how you have yielded your life to God.
I love the story Mark Trotter, a Methodist minister in San Diego, California, used to tell of a minister friend of his who had a member of his church who was a mover and shaker in his community, a real influencer in so many ways. The man, however, had been something of a mystery to his pastor because of the way he ran between hot and cold in terms of his church involvement.
But one day, the pastor got a call from the man to come down to his office because he had something he needed to tell him. So, when he did so, the man started talking about his need to do more for God. In fact, he got up out of his chair, went to look out his office window, then turned to the pastor and said, “Pastor, I’ve kind of got it figured out.” “Oh,” the pastor said. “How so?” “Well,” the man answered, “the Big Guy (speaking of God) is going to ask us two questions when we get to the gate. I’m serious now; I really mean it. First, he’s going to ask, ‘What did you do with what I gave you?’ And then he is going to ask, ‘And who did you do it for?’”
Jesus might have phrased it differently, but essentially, he would say the same thing. Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions; therefore, we should give of our possessions to seek after God’s Kingdom and to prove where our treasure truly lies. Or, as we like to say it here at Mountain Brook Baptist Church, we should give of our possessions to show others how much we want to “Love God and Live with Grace and Generosity.”
So, let us do that and let us do it together. For then, we won’t just be a church that our new pastor deserves; we’ll be a church that Jesus does – a church that knows where its treasure lies and one that pursues it and pursues Jesus with all of their heart.
Luke 12:15, 31, 34
Text: Luke 11:43, 12:49-53
Series: “The Church Your New Pastor Deserves”
If there’s any profession that in recent years has lost the respect of Americans more than preachers have, it would be politicians. I say that because of how when you ask most people what their problem is with politicians, they’ll tell you that they don’t like how they seem to be driven more by polls than by principles. They wait to see which way the wind is blowing before tipping their hand as to where they stand on a given issue. And it’s their waffling on pressing matters that galls us most.
Obviously, not all politicians fall into that category. There are some who are truly committed to doing the right thing even when the right thing is not the popular thing. But even those politicians will acknowledge that their profession in general has been given quite the black eye by others from among their number who lack scruples and ethics are driven more by public opinion than the public good.
Of course, most of us can surely appreciate the desire to have others think highly of us and how that desire sometimes alters our behavior. It matters not what place in life you hold, you want others to hold you in somewhat positive regard. That’s true of businesspeople and professors and health care professionals, and it’s even true of church people. In fact, few are the folk who are confident enough to go about their callings without ever worrying about the reviews others are giving them.
And there’s no sin in any of that, not even for church people; until we allow the pull of popularity to cause us to reorder our priorities so that we end up watering down our discipleship and pursuing things that are not what Jesus would have us to pursue.
Such was the warning Jesus was giving to his disciples in this passage before us this morning. I have to admit that this passage is one of those verses in the Bible that make me uncomfortable because of how it challenges my motives and demands that I take stock of my discipleship. And it likely does the same for you.
Look at it with me. Here, Jesus is setting the stage for the eventual outcome of his earthly ministry and what that outcome will mean for those who have chosen to follow him. There are three parts to this teaching. In the first part, Jesus chides the religious authorities for their obsession with both prestige and popularity. “You love the choice seats in the synagogue and to be greeted respectfully in the marketplace,” he tells them. And in the second part, Jesus turns his attention to the disciples, as he speaks to them of fire and baptism. On the surface it seems like Jesus is talking about two totally separate concepts, but in truth both fire and baptism refer to purification and judgment and the means by which Jesus will be bringing such a future to this world through his death on the cross.
But it’s the third section that leaves us scratching our heads; does it not? “Do you think that I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, not peace, but division. From now on, there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three.” “How can this be?” we ask ourselves. Doesn’t the Bible speak of Jesus as the “Prince of Peace?” Yes, it does. But the peace about which Jesus is speaking here is a wholeness that can only be known when a person makes living for Jesus the most important thing in life, more important than anything else or anyone else.
Let me be perfectly clear; in this teaching Jesus is not encouraging believers to turn on their loved ones; not at all. Neither is Jesus suggesting that conflict and destruction are somehow Kingdom priorities. Anyone who suggests otherwise simply isn’t being fair to Jesus. All that Jesus is saying is that anyone who seeks to live for him will ultimately find themselves at odds with the prevailing culture so that when that time comes, they shouldn’t be surprised at all by the opposition or disregard they receive, but they should instead come to see it as the surest sign that they are firmly on the side of Jesus and have made his cause the defining priority of their life.
I’m not sure that we preachers have been honest enough with our churches about the implications of such a teaching as this one. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to give room for any kind of discord in the church. Maybe it’s because we’re concerned that this kind of teaching won’t attract many newcomers to our gatherings. Maybe it’s because we’re more interested in being perceived as a nice and respectable group of people in twenty-first century society lest we encounter criticisms that we’d prefer not to have to handle. But the truth of the matter is that the more different followers of Jesus are from the prevailing culture, the more the prevailing culture will seek to punish us for it. So, we shouldn’t be surprised when that happens. That’s all Jesus is saying.
So, are you willing to live for Jesus even when doing so won’t win you many friends or enable you to influence people? And are we willing to do that together so that the priority in our church is to focus our time and our energies on advancing the cause of Christ, letting the chips fall where they will?
When we as Christ’s followers are controlled by our concern over what the culture thinks of us, our first instinct will always be to focus on numbers and demographics and polls and how things will play out in the community, none of which is unimportant. Now, we should certainly be aware of these things so that we might best understand them. But we must never be controlled by them. We must be controlled by the promise of Jesus to sustain his church so that we follow his leadership instead of what either public opinion or the proverbial market might suggest. Otherwise, we end up “straining at gnats and trying to swallow camels” as Jesus also once said to religious people who had misplaced their priorities.
Susan Howatch is a British author, whose writings center around family sagas that contain numerous religious and philosophical themes. Her novel, Ultimate Prizes, involves an ambitious but flawed Anglican cleric. At a critical point in the novel, the cleric’s sister takes the opportunity to chide her brother for what she perceives to be his empty chase of worldly success. “You and your prizes,” she says to him. “The only prize worth winning is love – and just you remember that which you’re a lonely old man trying to comfort yourself with your bank balance and your fading memories!”
But sure enough, the cleric can’t help himself. He keeps pursuing worldly success and in the process keeps cutting himself off from the company of others so that toward the end of the novel as he sits alone in his grand house reflecting on the sadness that has come to him, he looks around at all the mementos of the past, what he thought were ultimate prizes, and thinks to himself, “What a success I was. But after a while…I came to know that the only prize worth chasing is the prize I’ve managed to lose.”
The only prize worth winning truly is love – God’s love, not the world’s love. So, let us make God’s love, the love He has shown us through Christ Jesus, the priority of our lives. Then, when division comes, as it inevitably will, while we may lose the love of some, even some we care about deeply, we’ll never lose God’s love and whatever we must go through now will most definitely be worth it in the end.
Luke 11:43, 12:49-53
Text: Luke 12:54-56
Series: “The Church Your New Pastor Deserves”
Someone has said that one of the hardest things to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn. I would have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with that statement, given how so many decisions we find ourselves facing in life can either make us or break us, depending of course on how those decisions work out.
That’s because every decision involves some type of risk. “Do I seize this opportunity, or do I wait for a better one to come along?” “Do I go in this direction, or do I stay put, content with where things stand today?” “Do I change my approach, or do I continue to embrace the status quo?” All these decisions require us to project life beyond the present and to make some prediction as to their consequences. But since we cannot possibly know every eventuality, we make the best decisions we can and then we live with the results.
However, as people of faith we approach our decisions in a different way, do we not? We believe that while none of us knows the future, God does. God knows everything about the future holds because God holds the future, and so nothing about tomorrow ever escapes Him. Why, then, would any person of faith ever think about taking a step into the unknown without first seeking God?
That’s precisely the question that Jesus was posing to the crowd that had been listening in on what he had been teaching his disciples. As we have seen, this section of Luke’s Gospel recounts Jesus final instructions to the twelve. As God Incarnate, Jesus knows what his future holds, and for him it is cross-shaped. Consequently, he has made the decision to embrace the cross because of the Spirit’s leadership in his own life. Jesus knows as well that this crowd that has been listening in will in due time face a decision of their own. “Will they embrace Jesus as God’s Messiah, or will they reject him as a pretender?” He worries that they will make their decision like they do every other decision in life – by instinct or impulse, neither of which represents a heart that is open to God. So, Jesus offers them a parable that might jar them out of their misplaced confidence and call them to trust in God.
“When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and so it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is.” Jesus knew that even though none in the crowd had a degree in meteorology, they could draw on their vast experience of seeing how clouds forming over the Mediterranean always meant impending rain and strong winds from the Arabian desert unbearable heat.
But just when the crowds most likely thought Jesus would be complementing them for their intelligence, he instead chides them for their false faith. In particular, Jesus chides them for not humbling themselves before God, given how they lack the devotion to recognize what God has been doing in him, preferring instead to proceed into the future based on their own best judgment instead of following in Jesus’ way. “You hypocrites (you play actors)! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?”
What Jesus wants the crowd to understand is that their problem is not so much that they lack the ability to make projections of what lies ahead based on what they recognize in the present moment; it’s their failure to factor in the way that Jesus represents the bridge toward God’s future. Instead of crossing the bridge between where they are and where God would have them to be, they are burning it through their cluelessness about Jesus so that they will not be able to enjoy the fullness of the Kingdom that Jesus will be bringing to bear upon the earth.
How easy it is for us to read such passages and turn our noses up at the ignorance of the crowd that rejected Jesus in his day. “How could they have missed the significance of Jesus?” we ask ourselves. “How could they not have looked to him and placed their trust in him?” We should be more careful. After all, we pride ourselves far too much on our ability to make good decisions, but when it comes to the things of God and how we might be a part of that Kingdom work, it’s essential that we follow the lead of the Spirit instead of following our instincts, our impulses, or even our best judgment. In short, we do best when as we are faced with where to go into the future, we do so by pursuing a process of discernment instead of merely making what we hope is a good decision.
So, what is the difference, you ask, between discernment and decision? They both seem to involve the same thing. Actually, they don’t. Decisions are made based on past experience. Discernment is an awareness that comes to us as we attempt to see everything in light of God’s presence and God’s purpose in every circumstance and situation in life. Decisions can be made quickly, and sometimes circumstances require that we make them quickly. But discernment takes a lot longer, especially in light of how with discernment we’re not operating on our timetables or even the world’s timetables. We’re operating on God’s timetable. And God never seems to be in as much of a rush as we are to decide a matter.
For that reason, discernment is not an easy practice. I remember in one church I served how the congregation was split down the middle when I arrived over whether to relocate the church. Now, that’s a major decision. Some argued that the church had no future in its present location; others countered that the location was an historic one and too many memories were connected to that place to leave it behind. I hadn’t been there two weeks before I was being bombarded with questions on my position, and my answer may have seemed to be naïve to all of them, but it was truly my heart. “I don’t care where we do church; I just want to do church as God leads us to do church. Here or some other place, it matters not to me.”
Long story short, it took ten years for us to come to God’s resolution. And it wasn’t that we simply sat on our hands during that period of time. We did our due diligence. We had conversations with property owners and city officials. We analyzed demographics and studied reports of how other congregations had successfully relocated their facilities. And God shut every door. So, when the time came for us to make the decision to stay put as a church and address our facility challenges there, everyone was on the same page, because everyone knew that we had sought God instead of following our own instincts.
Over the course of the coming years, this church will be facing similar decisions, certainly not in terms of relocation but rather in terms of staffing and ministry priorities and facility upgrades. Past experience will be helpful, but in order to move in a direction that aligns best with God’s purposes for Mountain Brook Baptist Church, we will do well to take whatever time is necessary to understand what God is doing all around us that as a community of faith we might offer the best witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we may end up burning bridges that God’s Spirit is calling us to cross.
I like the way Ilio Delio, the Franciscan nun, has explained it. “God is doing new things, Jesus proclaimed. But only those with new minds and new hearts can see a new world breaking through the cracks of the old” (The Hours of the Universe, p.79.) Or might we even say that God is burning down old bridges and building new ones to cross over?
Then let us pray for God to give us new minds and new hearts that we might better discern His new thing. Because when that transformation happens and our minds and hearts are made new, then our decisions won’t be ones we make on our own. They will instead be decisions God leads us to make so that our faith will not be in any way hypocritical, but genuine and authentic, as we see how God is at work in our midst and join Him in it, today, tomorrow, and forevermore.
Luke 12:54-56