Labor of Love God is so good to us. Our common confession is that we are saved by glorious grace. Saved by grace means that it is an unmerited favor from God. This means that there is NOTHING you could have done to deserve it or earn it and there is NOTHING you can do to lose it. With this fact firmly established, the Bible does talk about our effort (2 Peter 1:5;15) and striving (Hebrews 4:11) in our life for the Lord. Therefore, Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light Matthew 11:25-30). Jesus is not saying that our lives as Christians will be easy, for certainly all who seek to live godly lives will be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12). Jesus is saying that in comparison to the glory that is coming these present struggles are light and temporary (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Because this is the way that Christ has revealed Himself to us in the church then we ought to recognize that loving Him means serving Him. And this is a delightful duty! We get to serve God through what Paul called a labor of love (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3). In this passage, Paul commends the Thessalonians, telling them how thankful he is to God for their work of faith, labor of love, and steadfast hope! God has made us to work and serve. Ironically, the world seeks to be served, but the Lord Jesus Himself said that he came to serve rather than be served (Mark 10:45). So for us, as the body of Christ, our path to fullness and joy is not the path of consumption and entertainment but rather humility and service. Servants So, on this last Friday of November, I want to express my gratitude for our deacons and their wives. As a pastor, when I am with other pastors it is common for them to joke about trouble with the deacons. I can say with all honesty and sincerity that I have never seen a group of deacons be more supportive of a pastor than what Bob King, David Branscum, and Bob Blair have been for me. These men have served, not only me, but our church well and I am thankful for them. Also Bronwyn, Judy, and Debbie are faithful servants to the church. I am not the best planner and these ladies often get asked to handle things on short notice and do so beautifully. Saints I also want to extend this thanksgiving to the entire church. You all are wonderful to jump in and serve the needs of the community and especially our body. I will refrain from attempting to list all the ways that you all serve, for this blog isn’t intended to be a book. However, I want you to know that your labor and service does not go unnoticed. I will highlight one person because this is sort of comical and she deserves it. I have a bad habit of locking myself out of the church and Leada has made countless trips from her house just to let me in the door. Leada is a tireless and gracious worker for the Lord. Staff I have a couple of more people I would like to extend my personal and public gratitude to as well. Of course, only Lucy is staff, but Dustin and Lucy do so much behind the scenes that almost no one including myself sometimes ever sees. Much of the labor they are involved in doesn't get noticed because they do it so well. Dustin comes and checks the heat and air system, monitors the facility and even gets the lights all on in the mornings before church. I am thankful for this humble brother and his hard work for the Lord. Thank you Dustin! And if you enjoy reading this blog you should thank Lucy. This blog 100 percent wouldn’t happen with her. Lucy also deals graciously with my unique style of last minute ideas. She makes things much easier for me to do the ministry that God has given me here in our church. Thank you Lucy! Thank you Lord, for the blessing and privilege of not only being a part of this church family, but of being able to serve them as well!
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Knowledge Why are people not thankful? Our first inclination may be to conclude that they have a problem in their soul. Often, we may think that not being thankful is the product of bitterness, stemming from the inner being of the ungrateful person. This could be the case. However, it is also possible that the problem is a lack of faith induced by a lack of knowledge. Christianity encompasses our whole being and that includes our minds. My point is that the reason we may lack thankfulness could be a lack of understanding and instruction that would lead us to recognize all we have to be thankful for and who our gratitude is owed too. Education Christianity certainly extends beyond mere mental assent, but it is not less than knowledge of God and His gospel. With the elementary knowledge (Hebrews 6:1) necessary for salvation (2 Timothy 3:14-15) believers also advance to a more mature understanding of who God is and how He has revealed Himself. The purpose of growing in this knowledge is not to satisfy our curiosity or to inflate our ego, but rather, to increase our thanksgiving and worship of our God and King (2 Corinthians 9:11)! Christianity is about the relational reality of fellowship with God. Too often people believe that the true religion of biblical Christianity is like all the other religions in the world. In those religions, the focus is on practices that either serve the worshiper or appease the deity. But in Biblical Christianity we are learning things that God has revealed about Himself and us, not so that we can have a better life or appease Him with proper behavior but so that we can know Him and fellowship through what A.W. Tozer called “The Knowledge of the Holy.” This means that central to the life and health of the local church and each individual Christian is continual Biblical education. So often when we think of education what comes to mind is classrooms and lectures and books. Of course, we do have a book (which is actually a library of 66 books) that we must read and study, because it is the way that God speaks to us and reveals Himself to us. However, our Christian education should not be limited to formal classroom settings. For instance, after we have listened together to the word of God being taught in the corporate worship gathering, then taking the opportunity to discuss it with our family or with other brothers and sisters over a Lord’s Day meal would probably help all of us to gain greater understanding and insight into that particular passage of Scripture. It also could be that Christian conversation around other activities where we discuss the things we are reading in our own daily study of scripture would help us to think through difficult theological issues. This is the same way Jesus and the disciples talked as they traveled in the gospels. Living in this time we ought to be extremely grateful for the vast resources we have, both personally and corporately, to study and learn what the greatest minds in the history of the Church have thought. We also have available (basically in real time) how other Godly Christians are applying the teaching of the Scripture to the same things that we are facing today. Teachers But even with all the tools and resources which are available to us virtually, God has always seen fit to provide His church with local pastors and teachers to educate the believers (Ephesians 4:11). We need to be grateful to God for giving us people who actually know us and our lives to instruct us in the truth and exhort us to apply the truth to our lives. I want to thank all of our Sunday School teachers who have labored hard in teaching so that the church could grow more health through the knowledge of God in His word. Thank you Bob King, Matthew Harness, Nancy Graves, James Tilley, Zach Massey, Sherry Jennings, Mary Wilson, Scarlet King, Samantha Tuell, Laura Ragsdale, Lucy Trammell, Shannon Hilmes, Sarah King, Debbie Blair, Ashley Harness, Robert Horton and Micheal Horton. Again, thank you for sacrificing so that we as a church could reap these benefits and learn more of Christ! Gratitude This is the month in our American culture when most folks are thinking about what they are thankful for and, hopefully, who they should be thankful to. I mentioned on Sunday how thankful I am for Marshall First Baptist Church. I know that there are many godly men who God could use to pastor this church (& I look forward to other brothers being raised up to labor alongside me), but I can’t imagine pastoring another church. As I said Sunday, MFBC doesn’t need me, but I need you all. This month, I intend to write on this theme of gratitude each week. I know, I’m innovative and original, lol. The reality is that I always get to feeling quite nostalgic this time of year and love making much of all that God has done. In truth, when we express our genuine gratitude for the situations and circumstances of our lives, we are actually pointing the attention not on the blessed gift but the amazing and glorious giver of all God gifts, our great Lord and God! The Voice In our passage this last Sunday the prophet Jonah referred to the voice of Thanksgiving (Jonah 2:9). He was speaking about how he would, even from the fish’s belly, worship God with gratitude for bringing up his life from the pit. Are you thankful for your voice? And do you use your voice for God’s glory? In asking these two questions I am not trying to be profound, but rather simple. There are at least three clear ways that we know God intends for us to use our voice for his glory. First, we should use our voice to talk about all the great things that He has done in us and for us. We are supposed to be witnesses of our relationship to Christ and what He has revealed in His word (1 Peter 2:9-10). We must be proclaiming that Jesus has freed us from our sin through His death on the cross and glorious resurrection. We need to be using our ability to communicate to make known who Christ is to those still waiting in the darkness. Second, we should begin using our voice to glorify God through prayers of Thanksgiving. In Jonah chapter 2, the only form of worship and sacrifice available to Jonah from the belly of the fish was the sacrifice of praise. Oh, how we need to be praying! And not just to receive things, but to recount all that we have received and witnessed from God’s hand in our lives and in our church. Each week when we have an opportunity to share in the church about all that God has done we should be ecstatic to relate the news that exalts His goodness, grace, and glory (Colossians 3:16-17)! The third way that we should be using our voices in praise and thanksgiving is the most obvious. Christians have always been a singing people. Even when you read the Scriptures you can tell the parts when the Apostles are singing out in praise even as they write or dictate their works. We know that worship is more than singing alone, but understand brethren it certainly isn’t less. We ought to use our voice to the maxim of our abilities to give Glory to God in song. For some of us that ability is limited, for others it is accentuated but God desires and desires for every voice to cry out in joyful song. Bold & Beautiful Voices As we enter this month of thanksgiving, I want to express great thankfulness and appreciation for those who God has gifted with musical talent and humble hearts to help the rest of us in worship. You of course know who I am talking about. Thank you Kevin, Kelly, Kristin, Ashley and Brady. You brothers and sisters serve the Lord not only with your natural talents, but also with your sweet & willing spirits. I’m sure that the whole church would echo this thankfulness for everything you all do. I also want to include a big thanks to Micheal and Robert who work hard in the booth to keep things going right with the audio and visual needs. Oftentimes, this kind of work only gets noticed when something goes wrong, but I want to say a heartfelt thank you to you men for your important ministry. Time Change At the time that I am writing this post, we are about to change our clocks back one hour. I know that most people do not like the practice of changing the clocks and this is something that people can be pretty opinionated about. There are a couple of things that we should probably keep in mind. First, the days will have the same number of hours of both light and dark regardless of the clock so you're not losing daylight that you would have had if the clock didn’t change. The other thing to remember is that if the clocks never changed, then they would stay standard time all the time, which is the time that we have in the winter months. This time of year does get us thinking about change. When you drive a vehicle, the transmission has to shift from one gear to another to allow the car to have the proper ratio and conversion of power from the engine to the wheels. (I’m not mechanically inclined so that could be stated more precisely.) In a similar way, you and I can be greatly helped by a shift in our thinking so that the way we are thinking and believing can drive us to godly behavior and action. RPM When talking about motors RPM refers to revolutions per minute. For the purposes of this article I am going to use those letters to start the three phrases that could help us to shift our hearts and minds so that we can glorify the Lord in our lives. Reliance on God’s Revelation Humanity is totally depraved. That does not mean that we are as evil and rebellious as we could be, but that we are sinful throughout our whole being (Romans 3:9-18;23). Because this is true, we cannot work our way to righteous standing with God. However, this fallen state extends not only to our moral actions and choices, but also to our minds. Our understanding, our intellectual capacities, and our reasoning abilities are also tainted by the deforming nature of our fallen state. This means that we cannot know God through human reason or philosophy or simply through the observation of the general revelation in creation (1 Corinthians 1:18-31). Rather, we must have the special revelation of the righteous character and nature of God in the Scriptures so that we can know God and worship Him rightly. We must have the illuminating presence of the Holy Spirit to understand the spiritual realities that can only be known by those who are spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:6-16). Plans According to God’s Purposes God is sovereign, and He reigns providentially over His universe with distinct purposes. The universe is not random. Order pervades all of the creation (Isaiah 55:8-9). You even hear the evidence of this when unbelievers speak of how things in nature are designed or wired for certain things. Evolutionary theory cannot account for specificity of design through natural selection. Rather, in creation, what is clear is that God is accomplishing His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13). Everything in God’s universe has meaning in bringing Him glory, one way or another. This means that nothing in your life is inconsequential. Nothing happening to you or being done by you is unimportant because everything matters. Minds Focused on Eternity with God Ultimately, probably the greatest thing that can help finite beings like ourselves to shift our hearts and minds toward the grandeur of the transcendent God is to have an eternity focused perspective. We need to be thinking about things from an eternal point of view. Temporal thinking will always be tempting us to take shortcuts and resort to pragmatic methods instead of opting for faithful obedience. But our home and citizenship are in heaven and so our perspective should be for the long range not just the next step (Philippians 3:20-21). Even when all we can see through the fog of our present suffering is the next step we must remember that there is an eternal glory that we cannot now fully comprehend (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). |
AuthorEddie Ragsdale Archives
May 2024
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