Category: Exploring Church Ministry Blog

Faith, Hope, and Love

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            God is real.  The Christian life works.  Those are the bedrock presuppositions and assumptions I work from each and every day of my life and ministry.  If I did not believe those statements I would be knee-deep in the muck of church work with little to offer people.  Because I believe that Christianity works for people, I also confidently hold that the correct response to the reality of God is faith, hope, and love.  Any response to God less than this will result in an inability to function well in the Christian life. 
 
The path to maturity for any local church is to bring all thinking, desires, attitudes, aspirations, and actions in harmony with trusting God, loving God, and making Him the object of our hope.
 
            At first glance this might sound difficult.  But this is really not rocket science.  It is only confusing if we have not been taught correctly according to the Word of God.  If we have lived in error when it comes to how the Christian life works, then there are established patterns of thinking and behavior which are neither easy to identify and evaluate, nor to defeat.
 
            Therefore, the very first step in solving this kind of problem is to get back to the bedrock belief of God.  We cannot effectively respond in faith, hope, and love to a God we do not know much of. 
 
Knowing God, then, is an absolute necessity to the Christian life in order to experience spiritual freedom and be fruitful in ministry.
 
            God is a Person.  He is the infinite God, the Creator of all things and is thus worthy of all our trust and affection (e.g. 1 Samuel 17:20-51; Daniel 6:1-28; 2 Chronicles 14-16).  God is absolute truth, love, and holiness.  God will always remain true to himself in all of his relationships and actions with us.  He does not act out of harmony with his basic character.  Therefore, God can be trusted.
 
            God has revealed himself through the Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  The Bible is God’s Word to us.  The Word of God cannot fail because God cannot fail.  God is always true to himself and to his Word (e.g. Psalm 119:49-50; 146:5-6; Jeremiah 32:1-44; Romans 4:21; Hebrews 2:1-3).  The Word of God is living and is therefore powerful. 
 
To the degree that we know and practice the Word of God, we have the experience of the grace of God and therefore have the power of God.
 
            It is a wonderful and tremendous privilege to possess the Word of God with all of its potential to effect change in our lives; its certainty concerning who God is; and, its assurance of pardon through faith.  So, then, each and every believer has a sacred responsibility:
 
We must be aggressive in knowing the Word of God; we must be confident in believing God; we must be active in claiming the promises of God; and, we must be intentional about living according to what God has revealed about himself and his creatures.
 

 

            Church ministry, then, has a sacred trust to help people know God better.  No matter what the ministries, programs, or activities, our greatest aim is to connect people with the God who is real and who has given us guidance by means of his powerful Word.  Faith, hope, and love are the logical and heartfelt responses to knowing God.  The promise we have is that when we seek God will all our heart, we will find him.  Amen and amen.

On Loving Others

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Here are a couple of things to know when reading the New Testament:  whenever you see the phrase “one another” in the New Testament, it is talking about fellow Christians; but whenever there is the phrase “the other” (NIV “fellowman” i.e. Romans 13:8), the Bible is talking about outsiders, that is, non-believers. 
 
So, the Apostle Paul’s vision for the church is that it should love all people, without exception. 
 
We need to do away with any kind of notion of the church being like a country club that caters to members who pay their dues, as if there is no responsibility toward outsiders.  Yet, neither are we to see the church as heading out to the deer stand and spending all our time outside trying to bag non-Christians with no regard for what is happening internally with the believers.
 
            Loving others is a message that is really not anything new for us.  My guess is that none of you will read this post and say, “Well, that was new!  I’ll be!  The Bible actually says I am supposed to love other people!”  It is not as if we are ignorant about the need to love others.  Yet, at the same time, we all know there is a lack of love in this old fallen world, and sometimes even in Christ’s church.  When author John Shore did research for his book titled, I’m OK – You’re Not:  The Message We’re Sending Non-Believers Toward Christianity, to his surprise the over-and-above answer he got from those outside of the faith was this:
 
“Why do Christians hate us so much?”
 
            I don’t know about you, but over the past few years I have actually “de-friended” some of my brothers in the faith from Facebook because their postings were so often filled with hate toward “the other” that it was just bringing me down. 
 
Feeling justified to hate another person does not come from the New Testament Scriptures. 
 
We, as Christians, owe the world our love, not our hate (Romans 13:8-14).  Just as I was writing this sermon, a man came into my office I have interacted with many times.  He is usually down-and-out, and looks the part.  Sometimes I help him with tangible assistance, sometimes I don’t.  But there is something that he needs as much or more than help; he needs love.  He needs a friend.  He needs relationship.  All people, no matter who they are, have been created in the image of God and, therefore, deserve the dignity of conversation and relationship rather than being looked at as a project or overlooked just because they are different. 
 
            We cannot really love one another in the church or love the other if we are continually putting ourselves in the position to indulge our sinful nature.  Like wearing a set of dirty clothes, we are to take off our selfish sinful desires, and put on the new clean clothes of God’s love in Christ.  If we are busy demonstrating love, then there is no room in our lives to behave indecently in any kind of immorality, dissension, or jealousy.  If we are committed to exercising our spiritual gifts given by God, there is not enough time in the day to think about how to gratify our sinful impulses.
 
            Another potential hindrance to a life of love has to do with the law.  The law is a good gift from God.  Yet, law has its limits.  What the law cannot accomplish, love can.  The law must serve love of God and neighbor, and not the other way around.  That is, the law must bow to the demands of love.  In Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, Ebeneezer Scrooge was a law-abiding citizen, and when faced with the needs of those less fortunate, old Scrooge appealed to the law.  He saw no need for loving actions or words when there were already poor houses, relief organizations, and prisons in operation.  It is the appeal in our day of saying that I am a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen and have no obligation to “the other.”  This brings us back to relationship.  It is easy to say people need to just work harder and not be lazy when we are not in a relationship with anyone who is in need.  Furthermore, it can be easy to indulge our sinful nature when we believe that we have earned the right through our law-abiding selves, without seeing God’s hand behind our success, to speak ill of the other, and even to a brother or sister in Christ.
 
            As followers of Jesus, we need to take a kind of Christian Hippocratic Oath:  to do no harm to our neighbor, but to do everything within our power to love them.  Since Jesus will return soon, the prompting of the Holy Spirit that we neglect today may not have opportunity tomorrow.  When Jesus does return, he will hold us accountable for our conduct, our speech, and our spiritual condition.
 

 

            Our guiding principle as Christians is:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  The hour has now come to wake up and have eyes to see the people all around us in need of Jesus Christ and his grace so that we can be long on love of God, deep in our love for each other, and cast a wide net of love for others in the world.

Thoughts on the Successful Christian Life

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            The entire Christian life can be summed up in three important words:  faith, hope, and love.  Both new believers in Jesus and veterans in the faith know from experience how difficult it can be to practice these in our daily life.  One reason for this difficulty, even when we want to please the Lord, is due to the confusion that occurs between our inner feelings and our outer actions.  Once we have an understanding of this confusion and how to evaluate our inner experience, then it is a whole lot easier to make daily decisions of faith, hope, and love – decisions that are vitally essential to the successful Christian life.
 
            The confusion starts with the creation and fall of humanity.  In the beginning God created humans as persons with our relationship to Him as central to daily life (Genesis 1:26; 2:16-25).  What is more, God created us with the capacity to receive His revelation through our ability to think and reason (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10).  Before disobedience entered the world, in the original state before the fall, all human functions were under complete control with an inner experience of unity and harmony with one another and God (Genesis 1:31; 2:7, 16-25).  It is critical for us to recognize the distinction between our being persons and the functions that we do (Romans 1:21-32; 6:16-22; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Ephesians 4:21-32).
 
            If we do not grasp how cataclysmic the fall of humanity was, we are going to have big struggles with living the Christian life.  With Adam and Eve’s original disobedience to God, the authority for life was transferred from God to ourselves so that our sinful bent is to call our own shots without God.  The source of authority was also transferred from our ability to think and reason to our emotions so that our feelings rule how we think and act.  As church leaders, if we do not understand this dynamic we will be forever frustrated with people because they do irrational things.  We are flabbergasted that parishioners do not simply take what we teach them and go and do it.  If it were that simple there would be no place for the Holy Spirit!
 
            There is more.  In the fall, we lost control of our capacity to function well.  We are all now vulnerable to manipulation from our inherited sinful natures, from the surrounding culture, from sinful people, and, of course, from Satan (Ephesians 2:2-3; Galatians 5:16-21).  As a result, our inner consciences have become confused.  We are not always certain of right and wrong.  We misunderstand what life is really supposed to be all about.  We become obsessed with feeling comfortable and secure and pursue false gods.  And those false gods disappoint us and leave us with a lack of fulfillment in life.
 
            But the good news is that through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, and a new birth, the bondage of sin was broken in our lives are we were legally reinstated in a relationship with God where He is central in our daily life and the final authority.  In this new relationship we can again receive truth through the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures.  We regain control of our functions.  However, unless we learn the Scriptures and growin a daily walk with Jesus, the practical experience of this relationship with all its freedom, joy, assurance,  power, and fruitfulness may be greatly limited (Romans 7:14-25; 1 Corinthians 3:1-4).
 
            Even though we may have been redeemed by Jesus Christ and have believed in Him, it is still possible to regress to giving our functions and our emotions a place of authority in our daily life.  This is why Christians can experience conflict, doubt, fear, anxiety, frustration, disappointment, and confusion.
 
            To live correctly means to grow in the experience and application of what it means to have Jesus Christ at the center of our lives.  We must, therefore, make daily decisions of faith, hope, and love based in who we are in Christ and recognizes His authority over us.  The following seven suggestions may be helpful:
 
1.      Recognize that you are a person with the ability to function in faith, hope, and love as God’s beloved child in Christ (2 Corinthians 7:1; Romans 8:14-17).
 
2.      Recognize the difference between yourself and your functions.  Evil thoughts and emotions do not make you evil.  What you do with your feelings is what is vital.  (Check out how Jesus handled this in Matthew 4:1-11).
 
3.      Recognize that you can take charge of your functions and your life (Galatians 5:22-23).
 
4.      Recognize that the key in all of this is your use of the will in living in harmony with revealed biblical truth.  In other words, you really can make choices of faith, hope, and love that seem to contradict your feelings (Romans 4:17-21; Psalm 56:3; Psalm 43:5-11).
 
5.      Recognize the absolute necessity of rejecting whatever is contradictory to the Bible – in your thinking, emotions, and bodily desires.  All non-biblical patterns of action must be broken in Jesus’ name (Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:5-9; Titus 2:11-12).
 
6.      Recognize the absolute necessity of choosing to respond to God and His Word by daily obedience.  Learn to think and act on the basis of truth and in spite of how you think, feel, or desire (Acts 27:25).
 
7.      Recognize that practicing the truth will result in freedom, a re-patterning of thinking and functions, as well as the fruit of the Spirit (John 8:32; Titus 2:11-14; Philippians 2:12-16).
 

 

Part of the reason the church exists is to provide a supportive community of fellow redeemed people who worship and love Jesus together.  Just showing up at a church building without sharing our collective learning of the Scriptures and daily struggles of faith, hope, and love will inevitably result in a spiritual immaturity over the long haul.  Rather, seek to become part of a small group or bible study which will help to reinforce godly decisions and spiritual growth.  Talk about your shared experience of worship and the preaching of the Word.  In doing so, God is glorified and the church is strengthened.  

Leading with a Limp

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry Blog1 Comment
 
 
Confrontation and struggle were a way of life for me in my first pastorate.  In just the first six weeks of being in the church I faced every kind of sin imaginable, to the point that my mentor in the faith recommended I take some time off having not even been there for two months!  Although that was a difficult time, the greatest struggle was with God himself and feeling like my prayers were doing nothing but bouncing off the ceiling.  In fact, I spent several years of my life in an extended wrestling match with God.  He touched me and crippled me by his grace, reminding me how much he is in control.  Since that time, I lead with a limp that is not visible – a limp that reminds me that I am a different person who knows Jesus better and is much more at peace with life.
 
            After I left that pastorate I needed to take some time off from ministry and I took a job in a factory believing that this was a brief sojourn of maybe a year before I would return to pastoral ministry.  I ended up being in that factory for seven years laboring in obscurity wondering if God knew what he was doing.  The short story to this is that I discovered that being a pastor was who I was, and not a position that I held.  So, I began shepherding my factory flock – literally spending my working days doing more than supervising others and doing repetitive activity, but leading others to Jesus. 
 
            If we do not wrestle with God in the stressful times of our lives, we will not learn what genuine humility is, how much we need the Holy Spirit, and the grace that can be ours to face the rest of our lives.  Nearly five hundred years ago Thomas a Kempis wrote to new priests entering ministry with this advice:  “We should so firmly establish ourselves in God that we have no need to seek much human encouragement.  It is when a man of good will is distressed or tempted, or afflicted with evil thoughts, that he best understands the overwhelming need he has for God, without whom he can do nothing.  While enduring these afflictions he takes himself to prayer with sighs and groans; he grows tired of this life and wished to die so that he could be undone in order to live with Christ.  It is in such times of trial that he realizes that perfect security and full peace are not to be found in this world.”
 
            In the Old Testament, the patriarch Jacob was worried and stressed.  He knew he had deceived his brother Esau many years earlier to gain their father’s blessing.  Now Jacob is about to meet Esau after all these years, and he is downright afraid for himself and his now large family.  So, he divided them up into two groups, thinking that if Esau was going to attack, the other group could escape.  The night before the big stressful meeting, Jacob sent his wives and family across a tributary of the Jordan River, the Jabbok, and spent the night alone wrestling with God.  Jacob came away from that encounter with a permanent limp that forever changed his life (Genesis 32:22-32).
 
            God will put us in positions of life that create encounters with him so that we will walk away changed.  Those encounters usually come in the form of engaging God with all the questions and difficulties of a very stressful situation.  The inner change that occurs comes in the form of a new identity, a new limp, and a renewed understanding of God’s grace that through disability and weakness we are able to lead.  Leadership is not so much about being strong and having all the answers; instead, it is shepherding in weakness; it is being mindful of our limitations; it is being comfortable with mystery; and, it is leading from the invisible places that no one sees.
 
            Has God left a permanent mark on you?  Do you carry a limp from him?  What is your name?  How does God identify you?  Our great need is not in being more clever, or smart, or working harder; it is God’s grace that we all need.  As a kid, when my parents left the house, my brother and I would rearrange the furniture so that we could have a good-solid-knock-down-drag-out wrestling match.  Since my brother was older, it usually ended badly for me with a pile-driver that left me incapacitated.  It is seriously a miracle that I am still alive after being dropped on my head so many times.
 

 

            Whenever we come to the Table, we are reminded of the Son who wrestled with the Father in prayer in the garden of Gethsemane and came away confident of facing a cruel cross so that we might have life.  The Lord Jesus carries with him even now the reminders of his suffering – the marks on his hands and his feet from a crucifixion that accomplished deliverance from sin on our behalf.  The elements of bread and cup are deeply symbolic reminders of what Jesus did as the cost for our salvation.  And they are further reminders that just as we eat the bread and drink the cup we will drink again with Jesus at the end of the age.  It is faith in Jesus alone that creates and secures for us a transformed life so that we can share in a crippling grace from him forever.