Month March 2018

Finding the Right Church

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The following article is completely satirical…or is it?

8 Steps To Finding The Right Church
Statistics indicate that if you live near a major metropolitan area, there are literally three million churches in your neighborhood alone, making your choice of where to worship each Sunday that much more difficult.

Thankfully, the variety of churches also means there’s probably a church designed to your exact specifications and built from the ground up to cater specifically to you.

The Babylon Bee is here to help you whittle down the search with this checklist of essentials to look for in a potential church match, and hopefully get you plugged into a congregation sometime in the next decade or two.

1.) Anything less than hand-crafted pour-over coffee is a red flag. Jesus died for the church, and yet they’re only able to muster up an unevenly brewed pot of drip coffee? Puh-lease. This is an indication that they don’t care about the gospel.

2.) Make sure the worship band only plays the genre you like. If you’re into industrial metalcore and the band’s playing late-90s soft rock, it’s time to split. Remember what worship is really about: you and your modern sensibilities and preferences.

3.) If the preacher makes you feel uncomfortable, run. Preachers, above all else, should refrain from sounding preachy. If he starts calling you to self-examination and repentance, make the emergency signal to your spouse, go get the kids, and book it out of there to the nearest restaurant.

4.) Speaking of the preacher: if he doesn’t have at least 20,000 Twitter followers, you’re in the wrong place. You need a church that has a pastor who is not only well-known and cool, but who also specializes in short, sweet, entertaining messages. Look him up on Twitter and verify that he has at least 20,000 followers to confirm both of these attributes.

5.) The youth room must have a fully stocked video game arcade. We’re talking the classics: Galaga, Pac-Man, NBA Jam. This is a non-negotiable if you want your kids to grow up in a Christian environment they love and not walk away from the faith in college.

6.) Shop around for the church with the very best swag to give away. A free donut and complimentary coffee are really the bare minimum at this point. What you’re looking for is a church giving out free T-shirts, stickers, aluminum coffee mugs, carabiners, and those cool pens that can write in space. God gave us every spiritual blessing in Christ—the least the church can do is load up His people with some nice swag.

7.) Pick a church where everyone pretends to be happy. If anyone breaks down sobbing or insinuates that they need prayer for some sort of malady or ill fortune, everyone will understand if you excuse yourself to check out the other church down the road. You want a place where no one will burden you with their personal struggles. You don’t need that negativity in your life!

8.) Remember: it’s not you, it’s them. It helps to keep things in perspective: your specific perception of what a church should look like is probably correct, while their congregation is just jacked up if they don’t fit into that vision. Make sure to let them know this on a comment card or email to the pastor after you leave, so they’ll be edified by your brief presence.

There you have it. Now you have no excuse. Go find your perfect church and get plugged in!
http://babylonbee.com/news/8-steps-finding-right-church/

The Babylon Bee is a satirical website dedicated to mocking everyone. I am in no way promoting them. However, this “humor” hits so very close to what you may hear when you ask what folks are looking for in a church. As the “bee” mocks modern day denominationalism, modern day denominationalism mocks God. Every point of error in this article has been preached from this pulpit.

FOOD? What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God? 1Corinthians 11:22

MUSIC? Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16

SERMONS? Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 2Tim 4:2

PREACHERS? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? 1Corinthians 3:4

FUN / FROLIC? And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. Acts 2:42

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME? the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. 1Timothy 3:15b

BEARING BURDENS? Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

SELF DIRECTED WORSHIP? These things seem to have a sort of wisdom in self-ordered worship [BBE] Colossians 2:23

When Forever is not

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One of the objections folks will bring against us, in the Lord’s church, is the one about us no longer holding to the commands of the Old Law. They will point to the regulations regarding the Sabbath and say, “it says we must keep it forever, but you say no. Who’s right, you or God?” this line of argument is most often used when we point out that although David used an instrument for worship, that is no authority for us today. They think they have us caught. However, as I will show in this article, it is they who are “caught” and it will be by the very way Jesus corrected the Sadducees; “Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” [Mat 22:29]

When ‘forever’ is not

First, we need to point out to these folks that there are some ‘forever’ things that are not forever.

These things are called “eternal” and “perpetual” in the Bible, yet they have been abolished: The Feast of Unleavened Bread: [Ex 12:17]; Burnt offering: [Ex 29:39-42]; Day of Atonement: [Lev 23:28-31]. According to their logic, we should STILL HAVE ANIMAL SACRIFICES! If we still have animal sacrifices what then was the need for Jesus to die on a cross?! Surely, they have read Hebrews 10:10… “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

If the Sabbath day is to be observed because of the words ‘forever’ ‘everlasting’ ‘permanent’ ‘eternal’ [all of which are translated from the Hebrew ‘owlam’] then we ought also to keep all the Jewish holy days and feasts! Interesting side note, I met a lady this past week who intends on starting a “new” church that will do this very thing, KEEP THE JEWISH FEASTS because they were commanded to be kept ‘forever.’

Setting aside the admonition from Paul that if one keeps one part of the Law they are obligated to keep the whole law, and if they do, they ‘have fallen from grace’ that is, lose their salvation [Gal 5:1-4. (this particular woman has no salvation for she also said that she had asked Jesus into your heart, a primary error needing to be taught more accurately.)

The meaning of forever

We need to examine the meaning of ‘forever’ as well as the meaning of ‘throughout their generations’ as it was used in the Old Testament.

As pointed out above, the Hebrew word ‘owlam’ that is translated forever, everlasting, perpetual, eternal or permanent does not mean never ending rather it means ‘age lasting.’ In Jonah 2:6 Jonah says that he was in the fish forever, but he wasn’t, he was only inside the belly for 3 days!

Another example of ‘forever’ meaning ‘age lasting’ is with a righteous earthly king. It is said that these will have thrones established forever. “The king that faithfully judgeth the poor, his throne shall be established forever.” [ Proverbs 29:14] Did they? Of course not, their throne only lasted as long as they were alive.

When God spoke about something being forever, everlasting, perpetual, eternal or permanent in the Old Testament He was limiting it to their generations, that is, He limited it to the Jewish age. The Jewish age stopped when Jesus died on the cross. The Sabbath, the feasts, all Jewish holy days and institutions were ‘nailed to the cross’ [Colossians 2:14].

‘shall surely be put to death’

Here is another problem that comes from ‘not knowing the scriptures.’ Are they going to keep ALL PARTS of the command to keep the Sabbath? You can read about it in Exodus 31:13-17;

“… Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant…”  [Exodus 31:13-17] [emphasis mine seb]

I know of no one today who advocates for keeping the Sabbath who will put to death any who don’t. Why follow it at all if you’re not going to keep it all? Which is the point Paul made to the Galatians, “o foolish Galatians” [Gal 3:1].

There are even more examples we could cite that destroys this foolish notion that the Sabbath, the feasts and the holy days be kept forever.

  • Will the Earth remain forever [Eccl 1:4; Ps 78:69; Ps 104:5]? Nope! [2Pet 3:10-12; Rev 20:11; Rev 21:1,4,23; Rev 22:5; Heb 12:26-27; 2Co 4:18]
  • Shall circumcision remain forever [Gen 17:10-14]? Better not. [Gal 5:1-4; Rom 2:28-29].
  • How about tabernacle candles or Tabernacle Shewbread [Lev 24:2-9]? I think not. [Heb 8:13-9:4]

This last one really freaks them out when I say I don’t follow the 10 commandments [Deut 5:1-29 Esp. v29]. Romans 7:1-7 explains how we are dead to the Law to be joined to the body of Christ!

Let’s abandoned all these attempts to bring back the Old Law, our High Priest and King has delivered to us a much better covenant.

ETERNAL LIFE

Under the better covenant of Christ, He promises eternal life. At the judgement, the last day of this physical realm, Jesus will separate all of humanity into 2 groups;

Mt 25:31-46 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left…And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

It’s at that time that those who have obeyed the Gospel will inherit “eternal life.”

Please, obey the Gospel so that you may enjoy the spiritual blessings promised in Christ. Ephesians 1:3

Getting Ready for Worship

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One Sunday morning I woke up the 3 boys to get them ready for worship. They were quite a bit older at this point, so I just gave the one notification. I then went and got myself ready, had a cup of coffee, some breakfast and looked over my lesson.

I knew the boys weren’t getting ready, but today was lesson day. You see, we had been through this routine several hundred times since Diane and I became Christians. We had been attending Sunday morning worship “religiously” (pardon the expression) ever since.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. [Hebrews 10:25]

We had gotten into “the same thing happens every Sunday” routine. But today was lesson day, the day the boys would learn that we were going to worship NO MATTER WHAT. There was no alternative, no excuses, no other activities scheduled. This is what we do, had been doing and plan to continue to do for as long as it’s within our power to do. They weren’t ready for worship, and today was lesson day.

So, I went to the door, called to them and said, “I’m Leaving, and so are you!” Now there was some activity, a lot of it. You see, in our house, skipping worship just wasn’t an option. Oh sure, when one of us was legitimately sick we might miss a service, but not out of habit. If you were well, you went. So, we went. The 3 boys hustled to the car, “church clothes” in hand, unwashed, bed head and all. We arrived alive and on time with a curious look or two. We worshiped. Here’s the rest of the story; we were never unprepared for worship again, NEVER.

THEN I HEARD ABOUT THIS ONE FELLOW.

Years have since passed, the boys have grown up and moved out, and I heard another similar story of a family who was always struggling to make it to worship on time. This family had children too. This family had to hustle to get everyone together and moving in the right direction. Mom needed to get a roast on, Dad going over his bible lesson for he was leading a class that morning. The children were behind on memorizing their weekly bible verses. You know, the “same thing happens every Sunday” routine.

During one of the more hectic mornings, spilled milk, whiny children, stressed out dad and minutes before they HAD TO LEAVE, mom said, “don’t worry, we’ve got time. I set the clocks ahead 15 minutes because I knew this would happen.” Dad looked at her with disbelief and said, “I noticed the clocks were 15 minutes ahead, so I set them back to the right time.” Panic followed as the family piles into the minivan to race to be 10 minutes late for worship.

Upon their arrival, the parking lot was empty save the old sedan of one of the more senior members who was getting out of his car to walk to the building. They had no idea what was happening. They pulled up beside him and he says, “Hello, I see you’ve decided to get a head start on worship this morning.” Dad asks, “how is that, we thought we were 10 minutes late.” “Ha ha” the old man laughed, “you must have forgotten that today was the end of Daylight Saving Time and didn’t set your clock back 1 hour, YOUR 50 MINUTES EARLY!”

After the embarrassed chuckles dad asked, “But why are you hear so early?” The wise old man said, “I’m always here early to spend some quiet time in prayer to GET MYSELF READY FOR WORSHIP. Why don’t you join me?”

GETTING READY FOR WORSHIP

That phrase means something so much different than what it ought to mean. Getting ready for worship means, for most of us, we take a shower, get some nice clothes and fix our hair so we can be presentable to the brethren. But that’s not what God is looking at when we worship. When men are looking on the outer appearance, He is looking at the heart.

“for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” [1Samuel 16:17b]

Oh sure, there is a clothing that is appropriate for the worship, and we ought to get those things ready for worship. However, let us never be found guilty of not having our HEARTS ready for worship. Jesus said,

“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” [Matthew 15:8]

Those hectic mornings do little to get our hearts ready for worship. Often, they lead to car fights. You know, the fight you have on the way someplace, that only verbally ends when you arrive. We can tell. We can see it in your faces. Oh, don’t worry, we have them too. All of us have at some point in our lives, and I hope we’re working on them.

Let us come to worship with HEARTS and body’s ready to worship. Do our bible lessons earlier in the week, lay out our clothes the night before or set an earlier alarm. As our brother Mike often says, “As Christians we know there’s no better place to be on a Sunday morning.”