Author: Tim Ehrhardt

I'm just a common ordinary pastor, chaplain, father, grandfather, and dog owner who loves the smell of a genuine leather Bible and the aroma of its message. I'm on a quest to track down the best Bibles, how to best read and use them, and to discover the encouragement inside.

Lost People Matter to God

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Hanging-out with “sinners” has always been a scandalous activity for Christians who do it.  The Pharisees had a big problem with how Jesus was spending his time (Luke 15:1-3).  From their perspective, Christ was guilty by association.  The people Jesus hung-out with were actual real unsavory characters; there was really no doubt about their bad character. 
 
But Jesus did not come to earth to make already righteous people feel good about being around him; he came to rescue sinners and restore them to God. 
 
And Jesus never wavered from this fundamental mission.  With everything he said and did, Jesus communicated that lost people matter to God – and that practice eventually got him killed.
 
            Earlier in my Christian life I adopted a practice that most Friday nights I would go to a certain bar known for its less than virtuous clientele, order a bowl of chili gumbo and sit and talk with people.  I learned a lot about speaking with people about Jesus.  I learned even more about God.  I saw the terrible brokenness of many people’s hearts, and saw that the heart of God was pained and that he longed to restore such persons.
 
            One night, in the middle of winter, as I was walking back to my place with a friend at about midnight, we encountered a guy so drunk that he could not walk straight.  He was not wearing a coat, and he had no pants – he was in twenty degree weather with only a shirt and underwear.  All the people who passed by him laughed and kept walking.  It took several minutes to get some semblance of a story out of him about what happened and where he came from and where he lived.  He could not remember losing his pants which had his wallet and keys.  He had come from a bar that was blocks away, so he had been outside for a while.  He lived far enough away that there was absolutely no way he would have ever made it home.  It is likely that without someone helping him he would have passed out somewhere and died.  We got him home, found a way to get in his place, and tucked him in his bed.
 
            The next day I went and checked on him and had a good conversation about what happened and why we helped.  We ended up meeting several times together and talked a great deal about God, sin, Jesus, and salvation.  But, meanwhile, not everyone was happy about it.  Some of the people in my church were not pleased with me spending time in a bar with sinners.  “Bad company corrupts good character” and “it looks bad” they would tell me.  I just looked at each person who had a problem with it and said with as much D.L. Moody flavor as I could:  “I like the way I am reaching out to lost people better than the way you are not.”
 
We are in danger of becoming encrusted with so much insulation from lost people and their real hurts that we do not know God’s heart for them. 
 
Jesus, better than any of us could ever imagine, knows how awful and horrific sin really is because he suffered by taking on the sinful baggage of every person who has ever lived.  It is a staggering thought.  So, because Jesus understands how incredibly terrible sin is, it is God who becomes completely uncorked with joy and celebration when just one lost sinner is restored to his heart.
 
            Grace lies at the heart of the Father – a scandalous grace that defies all earthly sense.  God’s deepest desire, God’s greatest yearning, and God’s most passionate dream is this: that lost people would return home (Luke 15:11-32).  We were meant to be in harmonious relationship with God.  When that is not true of people, it pains the heart of God and He longs for restoration. 
 
In light of the reality that God’s heart burns for lost people, churches really need to:  put away all their petty concerns and realize there are lost people dying apart from Jesus every day; put their worries about the future in biblical perspective because there are people with no hope and no God in our neighborhoods and workplaces; chuck their pre-occupations with attendance and money, and instead have a holy obsession with people coming to know Jesus Christ as Savior. 
 
We are to make it our aim in this life to pray for, long for, look for, run after, and pursue lost people for Jesus Christ. 
 

 

For what does it profit a person to gain the world but lose his/her life because he/she was too pre-occupied with everything but reaching lost people for Jesus?  And what does it profit a church to have buildings, budgets, and butts in the pew but to never see a lost soul come to Jesus?

Luke 15:1-10

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Lost people matter to God.  They matter so much to him that one lost soul found is the grounds for a big celestial party.  Please note this observation of the text:  if there is rejoicing in the presence of angels over one sinner who repents, then who is doing the rejoicing?  God!  He is absolutely giddy with joy over a lost person being found.  These parables of Jesus are meant primarily to give us a glimpse of God’s own heart.  He would do anything to find a lost person, to restore and reconcile a person back to himself.  God would go dumpster diving and wade through the stinky nasty garbage to find that one lost valuable person.
 
            Why should reaching others for Jesus Christ be a high priority?  Because restoring lost people is a high priority to God.  Lost people matter to him.  They matter so much to him that he sent his Son, the Lord Jesus, to this earth.  Jesus paid the ultimate price of a cruel death on a cross in order to reconcile a broken lost relationship between people and God.
 
            I still remember what it felt like to be separated from God, and estranged from the church – it was lonely and awful, like being in a deep black hole with no way of getting out and no one around to help.  But God, in his great mercy, sent people into my life to share the message of salvation with me.  In leaving the ninety-nine and going after the one sheep, God gave preferential attention to the lost.  Can you live with that?  I sure can, because I was once that one lost sheep.
 

 

            Jesus, you are the Good Shepherd.  Thank you for going after me when I was lost.  Help me to remember that you will often leave to go after others.  I’ll go with you when you do.  Let’s take the Spirit with us.  Amen.

Psalm 32

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment


             “Because I kept silent, my bones wasted away; I groaned all day long.”  There is perhaps no better description of depression than this statement by David in the midst of his emotional pain.  David had every reason to feel deeply about the circumstances of his life.  He had been both victim and perpetrator in all kinds of very troubling situations.  But, as a leader, he kept the stiff-upper-lip of stubbornly holding everything inside.  In fact, the word “depression” literally means to depress the emotions and keep them tightly held within and not allowing them to see the light of day.
             There was a time in my past in which I was so good at stuffing my feelings that one night when our neighbor had a blow-out of a party at 2 in the morning, I actually felt no anger.  Just so you know:  that’s not healthy.  I had an anger problem.  Not the kind where you explode, but just the opposite – the kind where you stuff every negative feeling in the book.
          Recovery for me meant first recognizing that I had a lot to be angry about.  Next, I began to let myself feel the past situations of my life, and I need to tell you that what was inside me wasn’t at all pretty.  Like a wound that needs peroxide, dealing with depression hurt like hell.  But I couldn’t heal without it.  I couldn’t go around it, or avoid it; I had to go through it.  Finally, I learned to not only identify my feelings, but to take charge of them.  I discovered I could choose to say how I feel without apology, and I could say it all in a way that helped others, as well as myself.  Like David of old, I had to get what was inside on the outside.
Gracious God, your stamp of approval is on the penitent – those who are brutally honest with the inner self and receive your mercy.  I will not keep silent.  I will declare to you the current state of my life and not run away from the ugliness within.  Through the gracious Name of Jesus I pray with thanksgiving.  Amen.

The Skinny on Sin

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            If there is one constant thing that every church and each Christian will have to deal with until Jesus returns it is the ever-present reality of sin.  Sin is everywhere – in our hearts, in our world, in our institutions, and in our families.  It is on television, the internet, social media, and moves in and out of smartphones.  Sin, apparently, is even in our desserts (oh, the decadence of chocolate!).  If it takes one to know one, we are all experts on being sinners.
 
            From the Bible’s vantage, sin is serious business.  It is both the things we do (1 John 3:4), as well as the things we leave undone (James 4:17).  Sin is both the breaking of God’s commands, and the lack of conforming to the teachings of Jesus.  Christians throughout the ages have generally understood that the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and Christ’s law of love (Luke 10:27) constitute a brief summary of God’s holy and moral instruction for humanity.  This is all based in the character of God, as he is both holy and loving.  Sin, then, may be defined as anything in a person which does not express, or is contrary to, the basic character of God.
 
            All sin, whether in actions or inactions, has as its root an attitude and activity of self-centeredness.  It is the bent of thinking more about ourselves than of God.  And, oh my, the consequences that such an attitude results!  Sinful attitudes bring about an obsession with lust (1 John 8:34; Galatians 5:16); a broken relationship with God (Romans 3:23; Galatians 5:17); bondage to Satan (1 Timothy 3:6-7; 2 Timothy 2:26); death (Romans 6:23; 8:6); hardening of the heart (Hebrews 3:13); and deception (1 Corinthians 3:18; James 1:22, 26) just to a name a few.
 
            What all this means is that we are guilty of transgressing basic morality as well as failing to live up being ethically virtuous people on any on-going consistent basis.  Well, that sounds like a total Debbie-Downer.  Actually, it’s total depravity.  Being depraved people does not mean we are never capable of doing good; it just means that sin has profoundly touched everything in our lives, without exception.
 
            The ironic paradox of all this is that experiencing true joy and comfort comes through knowing how great our sin is.  We can only live above sin if we are set free from it by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  If a person is to be redeemed from sin, then a provision must be made.  Sin has been dealt with once for all through the person and work of Jesus.  He is our representative, taking our place with the punishment we deserved (Galatians 4:4-5; Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:9-15; Hebrews 2:17-18; 1 John 2:1).
 
            Jesus Christ is our ultimate substitute (Romans 5:8); which resulted in our redemption (Galatians 5:13); which resulted in his sacrifice for sin satisfying all justice (Romans 3:25); which resulted in our reconciliation to God (Romans 5:10).  Therefore the person who believes in Jesus is forgiven of sin because Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient to deal with all the effects of sin.  The Christian is complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).
 
            The sin issue has been dealt with decisively and definitively in Christ.  So, then, gratitude is in order for the church.  Christians ought to be the last people on earth that walk around looking like they were baptized in pickle juice.  Instead, Christians ought to be the most thankful and gracious people around because they are forgiven people.  A lack of joy and celebration betrays a lack of Christianity (Luke 15:25-32).
 

 

            Sin certainly is awful.  It destroys everything it touches and can leave terrible consequences in its wake.  But sin does not have the last word.  Thus, effective church ministry has at its core a solid teaching of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection which is the decisive blow to sin’s power.  Anything less isn’t a church, but a country club of people hob-nobbing over donuts and gossip.  The skinny on sin is that it is bad, really bad; but Jesus is good, and overcomes the worst that sin can throw at him.  Thank you, Jesus.