No fightin' in the building. You got a grudge against someone, fight him Saturday afternoon.

Yesterday's sermon at Providence Church dealt with horizontal peacemaking (i.e., among humans), from Matthew 5:9.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." (ESV)

(click to listen)

“Peacemaking tries to build bridges to people. It does not want the animosity to remain. It wants reconciliation. It wants harmony.” -John Piper

I had essentially 4 points or contentions:

1. Be a peacemaker between yourself and others.

• This may entail being taken advantage of (Matt 5:38-41) and taking the initiative to love your enemies (Matt 5:43-48).
• However, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones notes, after conversion we see (a) ourselves differently, (b) others differently, and (c) the world differently (i.e., the purpose being the glory of God).
• So we forgive, as we have been forgiven (Col 3:13). We overlook an offense (Prov 19:11), knowing it is better to be wronged than to embarrass the church in court, for example (1 Cor 6:1-8). We may have to sacrifice our rights and privileges to live peaceably with the weaker or less mature Christians (Rom 14:13-19).
• Try to reconcile relationships as best you can (Heb 12:14; Rom 12:18), but even if the other party will not entertain the idea, you can always pray for softened hearts to allow for reconciliation in the future.
• Remember, fractured horizontal relationships jeopardize the experiential peace of the vertical relationship.(Matt 5:23-24; 1 Pet 3:7)

2. Be a peacemaker for others.

• Following Paul's example, we don't assume devout Christian people will work out their disagreements on their own. To prevent factions and threats to church unity, we must intervene to make peace (Phil 4:2-3).
• When you hear a Christian talking about another, bashing, belitting, and carrying on, suggest he/she talk with that person to get right the relationship. Offer to help them reconcile, though it be potentially costly and draining for you to do so.

3. Peace in the church glorifies God in the world.

• Sadly, the world does a better job of striving for peace than the church does. Ironically, the church knows the root problem is sin and the cure is the gospel. Until people have vertical peace, there's no chance for real horizontal peace.
• Sadly, the world puts a greater value on diversity than the church does. In contrast to the homogeneity principle, regardless of how much easier it makes church growth, unity in diversity around the cross glorifies God and gets the worlds attention. A good church for you is not necessarily one where there are many like you, but one where you can benefit from there being many unlike you.
• Christians in the church ought to handle conflict differently than the world does. Sadly, when there's a conflict in the church, the peaceful option is for someone to leave. Even in a Christian marriage, when conflict arises, someone will leave. But reconciliation of relationships is what glorifies God.

4. We do not pursue peace "at all costs."

• We do not pursue peace to the sacrifice of purity (Matt 5:8), of ourselves or the Gospel message. We do not contextualize to the point of espousing another gospel to get decisions or get along.
• We do not pursue peace to the sacrifice of righteousness (Matt 5:10-12) in behavior or doctrine. We do not sacrifice truth/doctrine to be ecumenical. J.C. Ryle wrote, "Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the altar of peace."
• We do not sacrifice our relationship with Christ to get along with others, even family members (Matt 10:34-37).

Just when I thought you couldn't get any dumber, you go and do something like this ... and totally redeem yourself!

The book's cover was too enticing to leave in the "Super Bargain" section: The 10 Dumbest Things Christians Do, by Mark Atteberry.

I've decided it's a worthwhile read, but also worthy of a blog series and perhaps even a Sunday school series.

By way of introduction, I share some quotes and the table of contents, intending to offer a weekly post interacting with each chapter's theme.

Along the way, I welcome your feedback, stories, and suggestions for "dumbest moves" runners up.

"Right now, there's every reason to believe that several people in your church are working daily to frustrate God and hinder the progress of His kingdom." (xi)

These 10 are things often done in ignorance. That is, the people aren't intentionally trying to sabotage the work of God with their actions, but they are nonetheless.

Why do Christians do these dumb things? According to the Mark Atteberry ...

1. "in some cases there's no 'book, chapter, and verse' that condemns them. As a result, they're very rarely discussed, let alone denounced, from the pulpit or in print."
2. "they often involved some sort of religious activity or behavior that makes it easy for us to blindly accept them."
3. "they tend to be things we've done for years without anyone ever shrieking in horror, calling the cops, or telling us we can no longer serve on the deacon board."
4. "On the contrary, some of the dumb things we do actually earn us respect and hearty congratulations from other believers who are just as blind to them as we are." (xii)

One of the things that rang true with me was his observation that these 10 dumbest things not only act to frustrate God's activity, but they must please the devil, who loves to see God's church in-fighting and being selfish and unsuccessful.

"I'm going to identify what I believe are the ten dumbest things we do to frustrate God and keep the devil in stitches." (xiii)

What are these 10 dumbest things?

• Dumb Move #1: Slinging Mud on the Bride of Christ
• Dumb Move #2: Winning People to the Church Rather Than to the LORD
• Dumb Move #3: Living Below the Level of Our Beliefs
• Dumb Move #4: Speaking Above the Level of Our Knowledge
• Dumb Move #5: Hopping from Church to Church
• Dumb Move #6: Fighting Among Ourselves
• Dumb Move #7: Missing Golden Opportunities
• Dumb Move #8: Settling for Mediocrity
• Dumb Move #9: Allowing Wolves to Live Among the Sheep
• Dumb Move #10: Accepting the Unacceptable

I think the pastors out there will most readily recognize and appreciate these 10 dumbest things, even though we all might have been guilty of at least a few of these in the past. Hopefully, these aren't in our future.

Atteberry offers 2 Cor 6:3 as our goal with regard to church ministry:
"We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry" (ESV)

I pray our churches don't contribute to the trite excuse of "bad church experiences" being used to justify the lack of church involvement.

(Click to get a copy of The 10 Dumbest Things Christians Do, in case you want to read along.)

Still prayin'! Still prayin'! Gettin' right with Jesus!

My sermon yesterday at Providence Church was on Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

(click to listen)

Peacemaking is a characteristic of those who have been born again and are children of God, with all the rights, privileges thereunto from "sonship." I broke our peacemaking obligation up into two varieties, the vertical and the horizontal.

Yesterday we focused on making peace between people and God (i.e., vertically):

• positionally (e.g., Rom 5:1) - through proclaiming the peacemaking power of the cross in evangelism (Is 53:5; Col 1:20)
• experientially (e.g., 2 Thes 3:16) - through repentance, prayer (Phil 4:6-7), restorative church discipline (Matt 18:15-20), and church involvement (Heb 10:24-25)

Next week we'll focus on making peace between people (i.e., horizontally).

The following are a few quotes I shared in yesterday's sermon:

"It's been said that peace is that glorious brief moment in history when everyone stops to reload."
-John F. MacArthur, Jr.

"My pappy was a pistol; I'm a son of a gun. Dang me. Dang me. They oughta take a rope and hang me. High, from the highest tree. Woman would you weep for me?"
-Roger Miller, “Dang Me”

"even though by nature we are rebels against God and have committed high treason and are worthy to be eternally court-marshaled and hanged by the neck until dead, nevertheless God has sacrificed his own Son and now declares amnesty free and clear to any who will lay down their arms of independence and come home to faith."
-John Piper

George Washington Carver made the first computer! Out of a peanut! A PEANUT!

I have my first guest blogger, my daughter, Rachel. She wanted to share with the blogosphere her report on ... George Washington Carver.

Little George was born in Missouri sometime in 1864 and died on January 5th, 1943. He was a slave and got stolen. They managed to find him but could never find his mother. So, he lived with the Carver family. Young George couldn’t go to school every day because he lived very far away and because of his skin color. But he spent time outside learning about God’s creation and became a scientist.

George made 350 products from the peanut. His gravestone read, “He could of added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.” He liked to wear a flower every day on his jacket and hated to wear shoes. George Washington Carver helped farmers rotate crops so that the plants would grow better. Mr. Carver invented over 100 ways to use sweet potatoes. He made milk, coffee, crayons, dye, soap, flour, paint, and ink. These were things that he discovered that they didn’t have until he made them.

At church we watched a DVD about Mr. Carver called “Man of Science, Servant of God.” I liked that he never gave up and kept trying even when people were mean because of the color of his skin. Like him, I want to be a leader and not follow things that aren’t right. He was a great Christian man because he helped people and loved God.

Some quotes from or about Dr. Carver, some from the above mentioned DVD:
"God gave them [the discoveries] to me; how can I sell them to someone else?"

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these"

"Learn to do common things uncommonly well."

"No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving something behind."

"It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success."

"He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."
-Inscription on George Washington Carver’s grave

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

"We have become ninety-nine percent money mad. The method of living at home modestly and within our income, laying a little by systematically for the proverbial rainy day which is due to come, can almost be listed among the lost arts."

"We get closer to God as we get more intimately and understandingly acquainted with the things He has created. I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for one's self."

I don't work January 8th, cause that's Elvis' birthday.

This is good bull. This link will tell you what was the Billboard chart's #1 song on the day you were born, graduated, married, etc. (HT James "Rev" Galyon)

For me?

The number one song the day I was born was ... no kidding ... Three Dog Night, "Joy to the World."

What was the number one song the day you were born?

It ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

My sermon this morning at Providence Church was on Matthew 5:8.

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.



Click to listen to “Pursuing Purity.”


The following are some related quotes (some not in sermon) as well as my threefold application to HOW we are to be pursuing purity.

“Sin is the dare of God's justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of His love.”
- John Bunyan

“There are only two kinds of religion in the world. One is the religion of human achievement, which comes under every name imaginable. It teaches that you can earn your way to heaven. The other is the religion of divine accomplishment, which affirms that God brings salvation through faith in Christ alone and that people can't make it to heaven on their own. The many forms of the religion of human achievement all serve to propagate Satan's lies.”
– John F. MacArthur, Jr.

“…the Christian faith is ultimately not only a matter of doctrine or understanding or of intellect, it is a condition of the heart.”
- Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The heart is what you are, in the secrecy of your thought and feeling, when nobody knows but God. And what you are at the invisible root matters as much to God as what your are at the visible branch.”
- John Piper

“How many today rest satisfied with a head religion, supposing that all is well if their creed be sound; and how many more have nothing better than a hand religion—busily engaged in what they term ‘Christian service.’ ‘But the Lord looketh on the heart’ (1 Sam 16:7), which includes the mind, conscience, affections and will.”
- Arthur W. Pink

“Christian people can see God in a sense that nobody else can. The Christian can see God in nature, whereas the non-Christian cannot. The Christian sees God in the events of history. There is a vision possible to the eye of faith that no-one else has. But there is a seeing also in the sense of knowing Him, a sense of feeling He is near, and enjoying His presence. … Another way we see Him is in our own experience, in His gracious dealings with us. Do we not say we see the hand of our Lord upon us in this and that? That is part of the seeing of God.”
- Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“… one of the most conclusive evidences that we do possess a pure heart is to be conscious of and burdened with the impurity which still indwells us.”
- Arthur W. Pink

How are we to pursue purity?

1. Pursue purity by reading your Bible, to facilitate the renewing of our minds. (cf. John 17:17; Rom 12:2)
2. Pursue purity despite discouraging setbacks. (cf. James 3:2; 4:6-10; Phil 1:6; 2:13)
3. Pursue purity for God’s glory (i.e., not your own).

“So often when we sin we are more vexed at the lowering of our self-esteem than we are grieved at God's dishonor. We are irritated at our lack of self- control in subjecting ourselves to some unworthy habit. ... God does not honor these self-centered desires. This is one reason we do not experience more of his enabling power in our day-to-day struggles with so-called besetting sins. God does not give us power so that we can feel good about ourselves; he gives us his power so that we can obey him for his sake, for his glory.”
- Jerry Bridges, Pursuit of Godliness

Mercy?! I'm afraid that my condition has left me cold to your pleas of mercy.

The following are some quotes I used in my sermon yesterday at Providence Church, “Mercy Me, Mercy You,” and a few that I ultimately had to leave out.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
-Matthew 5:7

Click to listen.

“Mercying others shows that you’ve been mercied by God.”
-Gunny

“The Christian gospel places all its primary emphasis upon being rather than doing. The gospel puts a greater weight upon our attitude than upon our actions. … A Christian is something before he does anything; and we have to be Christian before we can act as Christians.”
-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“[The cross] is God, I say, looking down upon man in his pitiful condition as the result of sin, and having pity upon him.”
-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“My willingness to mercifully forgive others demonstrates that I have been mercifully forgiven.”
-Gunny

“If, when you sin, you see it and in repentance go to God, and there on your knees immediately realize that you are not forgiving somebody else, you will have no confidence in your prayers; you will despise yourself.”
-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We proclaim, therefore, whether we have received forgiveness or not by whether we forgive or not.”
-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If you are not merciful there's a good possibility that you aren't a Christian. Those who show mercy are merciful because they have received that characteristic from God.”
-John F. MacArthur, Jr.

“If I am not merciful there is only one explanation; I have never understood the grace and mercy of God; I am outside Christ; I am yet in my sins, and I am unforgiven.”
-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

To be merciful “is a melting disposition whereby we lay to heart the miseries of others and are ready on all occasions to be instrumental for their good.”
-Thomas Watson

“No merciful man could forget the poor. He who passed by their ills without sympathy, and saw their sufferings without relieving them, might prate as he would about inward grace, but grace in his heart there could not be.”
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”
-Jesus in parable of unmerciful servant (Matt 18:33)