Category: Pastor Tim’s Blog

He is Risen!

Those three words have reverberated through time and will continue to do so in eternity. He is Risen!

The hopeless now have hope….the displaced now have a home…the prodigal has a pathway back. He is Risen!

Death has lost its icy grip on the soul of mankind.  Those who “all their lives have lived in captivity to the fear of death” are set free by the power of those three words. He is Risen!

The sinner can be forgiven….the sacrifice has been accepted…the blood has been spilt…sin has been covered. He is Risen!

The failure gets a new beginning.  The blind receive their sight.  The lame can dance.  The deaf can hear…the mute can sing. He is Risen!

Satan has lost to the One Who holds the keys to Hell and Death…and now he will find his destiny in the flame and smoke of the abyss alongside the demonic forces at his command. He is Risen!

In those victorious words lay our victory as well….we are “risen with Christ” to walk in new life.  He is Risen!

And with the saints and the church throughout the ages we agree: Hallelujah!!  He is Risen indeed!

Easter is upon us!  The most exciting, life-changing news EVER was spoken by an angel outside an empty tomb:  “HE IS NOT HERE…HE IS RISEN!”

We have the joy and opportunity to share that news with people from around our community and this area on Sunday, April 5.  Our service times will be the same with one additional service and two locations.

We will be meeting first at 8:00 am.  This will be a service format that will be repeated again at 9:30 and 11:00 in our worship center.  Also at 9:30, we will have a more contemporary-themed service that will be more casual and will feature band driven worship music in the gym.

I will be preaching in each of the services, and am excited about what God is going to do.  We are thrilled to have Brian Woofter here for his first Easter service with Fruit Cove as well!

As always, be aware that there will be many new people on campus that day, some for the first time.  It would be my hope that we could give our guests the BEST parking places and the BEST seating for this Sunday.  I ask that simply because I know that, among those visiting, some are looking for a church home and some will need Christ.  I want us to put our BEST FOOT forward!

Let me encourage you again to SHARE CHRIST this Easter…bring a friend with you on Easter Sunday.  Share Jesus with them using the “Three Circles” method (see www.fruitcove.com or download at “Life Conversation Guide” in the app store).

We can’t wait for the celebration of an Empty Cross and an Empty Tomb. We will worship with FULL HEARTS.

HALLELUJAH….HE IS RISEN!

Controversy and consternation have again been stirred over the issue of the relationship of the LGBT community and the local church. A church in San Fransisco that claims membership in the Reformed Church of America has joined the company of two other large churches (one in Nashville and one in Seattle) in affirming homosexual behavior as acceptable. This came just before the Presbyterian Church (USA) affirmed their position of sanctioning same-sex marriage.

Can we even talk about this anymore? The last thing I want to do in this blog is throw more wood into an already overheated fire. But while my heart is not to stir a boiling pot, it is important that we keep finding our footing on solid rock in a moral landscape that seems to be made of quicksand.
I am incredulous that pastors and churches are making decisions to affirm, endorse, and even to bless LGBT relationships as Biblically-based and God-blessed. I think with even a rudimentary reading of Scripture, the Bible still condemns such behavior, even as it condemns other sexual sins.

Once I was asked, “So do you think that homosexual behavior is more sinful than adultery?” Well OF COURSE not. But then I do not have an organized block of adulterers coming to me and asking for their behavior to be legitimized, tolerated and affirmed. I have never knowingly allowed church membership to a couple who were participating in an adulterous affair, much less been asked to publicly affirm their behavior.

Let me say clearly that I have never encountered a homosexual person that I didn’t like or care about. I certainly don’t believe there is a homosexual who ever lived that Jesus didn’t love enough to die for.

But belonging to a local church has implications. One implication is that you are “called out” (ecclesia in Greek) from the world. You are no longer walking and living in the desires of your lifestyle before Christ transformed you and called you to belong to the local church. You are empowered to be different from the world.

The churches and even denominations that have diluted their understanding of church or of what is required for church membership to accommodate the LGBT lifestyle, and even to celebrate it as normative and acceptable, have distorted not only the Bible, but the very purpose and defining tenets of the local church. Their morality is now defined by the authority of subjective opinions, more than by Scripture.

Any LGBT person is welcomed and encouraged joyfully to worship with Fruit Cove. I will fight to the extent of my authority in this church to ensure that. We do not inquire about sexual orientation at the door. We believe every person has the right to come to Jesus just as they are. We are not a church of sin-free people. But once we come and desire to formally participate in and align ourselves with the Body as a reflection of Jesus Christ, the requirements and expectations intensify. I am confident that Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that we would have the right to live in homosexual relationships or any other sexually prohibited lifestyle for that matter. He died so we would be empowered to be different, and He expects His followers to be distinct.

We must take our stand like the man who built his house on a rock, not on shifting sand of changing cultural morals. We can rest assured that the storm will batter and the waves of cultural criticism will threaten. But our house is built on the Rock.

And if that is so, whatever comes…the house will stand.

We have all had the experience of standing before a great masterpiece of art; a painting or sculpture, that is regarded as moving or classic.  Perhaps you’ve seen a Monet, or you’ve viewed a classic sculpture by Michelangelo in a foreign country.  No matter what we have created as human beings, no work of art surpasses the greatness of the portrait painted on Mt Calvary the day that Jesus was crucified: a portrait of grace.

Consider the canvas.  The canvas on which this portrait of grace was painted was an old rugged cross.  Two pieces of wood intersected to serve as the instrument of death and suffering and shame on which our Savior died for OUR sins.

Consider the subject.  The subject of this portrait is the sinless Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.  On that cross Jesus was nailed and hung to die as His lifeblood flowed away.  He died an agonizing (literally an excruciating…”out of the cross”) death.  He died that death may die that day with Him and for all who would come to believe in Him.

Consider the painter.  Who is responsible for this portrait?  Who would dare sign his name to such a work?  The artist was none other than God.  He painted this picture.  He showed us in the flesh of His only begotten son how deeply He loves us.  He painted this portrait with the spotless blood of His beloved and perfect Son.

Have you ever allowed the impact of this portrait to sink into your soul?  Are you aware that it was painted for YOUR salvation? Have you ever asked the author to forgive your sins and enter your life?  He’ll save you today if you will “confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.”  That’s the reason the portrait was painted.  That’s the reason the Son of God suffered and bled and died.

The portrait of grace was painted…for you.

“…they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus.”  (Acts 4:13)

Does it really matter whether or not we attempt to share our faith?   Isn’t it just enough that we accept what God says and then just try and live out our belief?  There are several misconceptions about this that prevent us from effectively talking to people about our faith.

Myth One is that, whether we share our faith or not, people will not die and go to Hell.  We may embrace this myth because we really REALLY don’t believe there is a literal, eternal Hell that people will go who have rejected Christ in this life.  But if there is no literal Hell, then neither did there need to be a literal cross for Jesus to suffer and die upon.

Myth Two is the acceptance of a politically correct practice of religion that doesn’t “push” it on someone who may differ with us.  We are penalized and intimidated more because of this assumption than almost any other.  While I have a problem with anyone “pushing” anything on anyone, I certainly do not believe it to be wrong to share from our heart what the Lord has done for us and to try lovingly to persuade them to accept it.

Myth Three is problematic for several reasons.  It implies that, “If we simply live our faith genuinely then people will just see and know that Jesus died for them.”  Wrong on several counts.  It is wrong, first, because it presumes that you can live out your faith clearly enough that people will see Christ well enough to believe in Him.  You can’t.  They won’t.  While it is very true that we must be consistent in our lifestyle and profession, the transmission of the Gospel from the New Testament on has required a VERBAL witness to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  It is wrong, also, because if we manage to live a halfway decent life in front of a lost world, they will simply assume you are a moral, righteous, or nice person.  Their default interpretation will not be that “they have been with Jesus.”

All to say, WE MUST SHARE CHRIST.  We must tell people what He means to us.  We must tell them at every open door we are given.  We must STOP BEING SILENT because we are intimidated by political correctness, fear of reprisals personally or professionally, or temperamental backwardness.

I pray that ONCE, between now and Easter, you will have a chance to share your faith with a non-believing individual.  If you don’t know how, please locate the “3 Circles” App (Life Conversations app) or go to our website at www.fruitcove.com to download it.

Sharing your faith WILL….CHANGE….YOU.  And hopefully, another will see eternity change for them!

Last week we talked about how to have a “renewed mind” as an aspect of our daily experience of worship.  It is through that renewal that we are transformed into the image of Christ moment by moment and day by day, and not be conformed to the mold of the world. (Romans 12:1-2)

The primary means of transformation comes as we input the Word of God into our thinking, our relationships, our worldview.  There are actually five ways that we can get the Word into our lives:

1)   We can DELIGHT IN IT  everyday.

2)    We can MEDITATE on it often

3)    We can LISTEN to it preached

4)    We can KEEP IT BEFORE US and WITHIN US

5)    We can READ IT and COMMIT IT to memory

Each of these methods are dealt with in the Bible.  It is the Word of God that is “living and active” that goes to work inside us, changing and transforming us into a new creation.  While the potential of that transformation is always there, making it a reality is up to our commitment to input God’s Word into our lives.

We are to be a people made new by the blood of Christ but we are also to have the mind of Christ.  “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus….”  Learning to think like Jesus, and thereby to LIVE like Jesus….is a lifetime pursuit and passion.

Let His Word dwell in you richly….and you will reap the dividends.  It will change you….

Forever.

Rob Bell is at it again.  The former megachurch pastor and author of such controversial books as “Love Wins” (advocating that there is no Hell) is now proposing that churches who choose to stand against homosexuality are going to be irrelevant.  Citing his belief on Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen network, Bell has suggested that a church that relies on “2,000 year old letters” as their best defense over “flesh and blood relationships” is a church that is moving quickly toward irrelevance to our culture.

Once again, Bell is making the fatal error of putting human desire and fulfillment as the moral guideline for all behavior.  In other words, if what I want conflicts with what the “2,000 year old letters (the Bible)” say, then what I want always wins.

The problem this presents is pretty obvious.  If we do not consider these “2000 year old letters” authoritative, we have nothing on which to build the church.  I would argue that the quickest path to irrelevance is not accepting the standards set forth in the ancient record, but rejecting them as the Word of God.

His argument, further, is that most of our culture and many of our churches have already accepted homoerotic behavior as a normative lifestyle that is not to be judged or rejected as sinful or wrong.  In other words, everybody else is doing it… we may as well give in and join the party!

But how do we live as “salt and light” in a decaying culture if we simply echo what the culture is saying and doing?   Rob Bell has found a new home serving as a spiritual advisor to Oprah Winfrey.

I certainly pray he isn’t yours.

“Former Megachurch Pastor Rob Bell: A Church That Doesn’t Support Gay Marriage Is ‘Irrelevant’, The Huffington Post,  February 20, 2015.

We have added a new category of rights as citizens of these United States: the inalienable right to be offended. I don’t remember hearing this much growing up; I believe this is a relatively new phenomenon.

I have received letters, emails, or phone calls from people offended at something I was supposed to have said. It is as though we use a magic word, a trump card that must receive attention immediately when used: “I am offended.”

It is a part of being American these days. We hear it on news stories, see it played out in our daily interactions, and encounter it at seemingly every turn. We wear our feelings on our sleeves, and live on the lookout with our antennae high waiting for someone to bump our emotions and allow us to proclaim, “I’m offended!” Frankly, it offends me when I see Christians play this card. I believe that one of the rights we surrender when we become Christ’s is the right to be offended. We REALLY need to learn to get over it for the sake of our witness in the world.

The Bible says two things about offences. First, “they are bound to come.” It is unavoidable that offences will come our way. Does this mean we have a right to play the “I’m offended” game when it happens? Don’t think so.

Second, the Bible tells us to be careful not to be offensive to others. “It is better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and be thrown into the sea” than for you to “offend one of these little ones.” The Biblical word that we translate “offense” is literally “skandalon.” (scandal or scandalous). We have a Gospel that, communicated clearly, will offend some who hear it. That gives us no right to be offensive in how we communicate it, but it also calls us to lay down our right to be offended by or offense to those who need to hear it. I wonder if our right to be offended is offensive to God?

Let’s lower our offences. Let’s find ways to allow the petty hurts and disagreeable ideas we sometimes hear to pass us by without response. Let’s agree to be different than the culture around us.

(By the way, I fully expect to hear from someone who was offended by this column….just sayin’.)