Katrina and I are in Jackson, Mississippi.  Tonight I had the opportunity of speaking in a seminary class meeting at Mississippi College, then to a large and lively group in the school’s auditorium for a Red Sea Rules Rally, arranged by Dr. Lee Cope.  Thanks to all who came!  Tomorrow night and Sunday morning and evening, I’ll be at Jackson’s First Baptist Church.  If you’re in the area, please join us.  I love this church and it’s pastor, Stan Buckley.  What a friendly place!  What a great work in the heart of Jackson!

I’ve come to Numbers 9 in my morning devotions, and I’ve been impressed by how confidently God guides us.  For the Israelites, His guidance took visible form in the mysterious cloud, which at night turned to fire.  Whenever this cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; whenever it settled, the Israelites camped.  When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the Lord’s order and did not set out.  Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; sometimes only one night; sometimes a year.  But whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out.  Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would camp; when the cloud moved, they moved.

Both our steps and our stops are ordered by the Lord.  He goes before us, yet stays with us.  Knowing the future, He can guide from day to day.  We no longer have His visible cloud above us, for we have His invisible Spirit within us and His infallible Word in our hands.  We have His providential ordering of our circumstances, and His promise to direct us in all our ways.

If we seem “stuck” for the moment, even if it appears to be for a prolonged period, we’re better off to remain stuck in God’s will than to wander off on our own.  Sometimes we can make a lot of progress when we’re standing still, though it doesn’t appear so at the time.

If as best you can determine, you’re in God’s will, don’t worry about the pace of things.  Just enjoy one day at a time, and let Him lead you step by step according to His divine agenda.  The Lord knows the way through the wilderness.

PS – If you’re in the Jackson, Mississippi area, I’m speaking Thursday night at an event at a local college, then Friday night and all day Sunday at Jackson’s First Baptist Church.  I’d love to see you there.

If you were asked to describe your church, what phrases would you use?  In 1 Peter 2, the apostle Peter (who had helped launch the era of the church with his sermon on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2)  uses eight phrases to describe the Lord’s church on this planet, and each word of each phrase is terribly inportant.  We are:

1. Living stones – verse 5
2. A spiritual house – verse 5
3. A holy priesthood – verse 5
4. A chosen generation – verse 9
5. A royal priesthood – verse 9
6. A holy nation – verse 9
7. His own special people – verse 9
8. The people of God – verse 10

And Peter gives us two great reasons for our existence on this earth.

1. To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ – verse 5
2. That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light – verse 10

You can hammer out a powerful sermon or Bible lesson (or a series of them) from Peter’s view of your church and mine, here in 1 Peter 2.  Check it out.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently conducted a fascinating study of religious restrictions in 198 countries, reviewing the governmental laws and legal prohibitions relating to religious expression.  The Forum found that seven out of every ten people on this planet – 70% of the world’s population – live in countries with high restrictions on religious expression and practice.  There are 64 nations highly restrictive, and these tend to be nations that are very populous.  Communist and Islamic nations are among the most restrictive, while Japan and Brazil were among the least restrictive.  The United States was also noted for its freedom of religion. 

It seems to me there’s an enormous implication to living in a land of freedom.  It’s easy to go to church in our country.  We don’t have to sneak into a cave .  We don’t have to risk anything.  We don’t have to whisper when we worship or worry about being killed for our faith, or being fired from our job, or denied entrance to the university.  No one is going to kidnap or behead us for going to church here in America.  We are part of the 30% of the world that has freedom to worship as we choose.

As a result, we sometimes take it carelessly.  If we feel like going to church, we’ll go.  If we’re a little under the weather or it’s an overcast day or if there’s an exciting event on television, we’ll skip.

In my message tomorrow, I’d like to advocate a high view of the church.  In 1 Peter 2, the Lord uses eight different phrases to describe the church.  A couple of them are repetitive, but they are repeated for emphasis:

1. Living stones – verse 5
2. A spiritual house – verse 5
3. A holy priesthood – verse 5
4. A chosen generation – verse 9
5. A royal priesthood – verse 9
6. A holy nation – verse 9
7. His own special people – verse 9
8. The people of God – verse 10

And Peter gives us two great reasons for our existence on this earth.

1. To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ – verse 5
2. That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light – verse 10

 What a calling, and what an opportunity!  For the whole message, click here – and I’ll see you at TDF tomorrow!

I’m in Roan Mountain this week, resting and looking into some repairs needed on the old house.  In the meantime, here’s something you might identify with–why we don’t go to ball games:

1. Every time I go, they ask me for money.
2. The people I sit by aren’t very friendly.
3. The seats are too hard and uncomfortable.
4. The coach never comes to call on me.
5. The referees make decisions I don’t agree with.
6. Some games go into overtime, and I’m late getting home.
7. The band usually plays some numbers I’ve never hear before.
8. My parents took me to too many games when I was growing up.
9. My kids need to make their own decisions about which sports to follow.

No, this isn’t original with me; I only wish it were.   It’s anonymous, but sadly true to form.

Our God is full of surprises.  He tailor-makes every miracle; He individually designs every life.  Every day is different, and His every deliverance is unique.  Yet He’s never capricious, changeable, erratic, or unstable.  He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.  Amid the complexity of His manifold ways, there’s the solid foundation of His love.

Last Sunday was a special day for Katrina and me as we thanked God for the honor of serving The Donelson Fellowship for 30 years.  I had the opportunity of speaking briefly about my philosophy of pulpit ministry.

Nehemiah 8:8 is my working definition of preaching.  It says Ezra read from the book of the Law distinctly, gave the sense, and caused the people to understand the reading.

As a ministerial student years ago, I was trained to preach expositional sermons.  I was told there’s no power within me or within my personality to change lives.  The power is in the living and active Word of God. 

I was told it’s not what I say about the Word of God that changes lives; it’s the Word of God itself.  It’s not my personal opinions; it’s His revealed truth.

I was told to devote my mornings to the study of Scripture. 

I was told I shouldn’t go into the Bible to find sermons but to meet the Sermon-Giver.  And I was told that as He fed my mind with His Word, my sermons would be overflow.

It’s tempting to preach a lot of how-to, positive–thinking, shallow, sentimental, entertaining, trendy, story-heavy, need-based sermons.  And certainly our messages should be relevant, practical, well-illustrated, need-sensitive, and engaging.

But we don’t preach to entertain an audience; we preach to edify a church.  And only the consistent exposition of Scripture, rightly divided, given in its naturally unfolding context, will do that. 

Text:  Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed  (1 Peter 1:13-16).

Introduction:  The first word of verse 13 is “Therefore….”  This points to the previous paragraph.  Peter has been talking about our salvation, and he’s going to say three things about it:  It is incredible precious to Christ and to us (v. 3-9).  It was a subject of great yearning for the Old Testament prophets (v. 10-12a).  It is an object of great intrigue among the angels (12b).  Suppose you walked into the most exclusive jewelry store in the world and saw three men behind the counter studying a necklace.  You recognized them as Jesus Christ, the prophet Isaiah, and the angel Gabriel.  This necklace was so valuable not one person on earth could afford it.  It was precious in Christ’s eyes, an object of yearning for Isaiah, and a matter of great curiosity for Gabriel.  Seeing you walk in, Jesus beckons over, hands it to you, and says, “This is yours.  I have bought it for you as a gift.”  How would we want to treat that necklace?  What kind of person would we want to be in wearing it?  That’s the importance of the “Therefore” in verse 13.  Therefore…

1.  Spend Some Time Every Day Reading and Thinking (v. 13).  Prepare your minds for action.  Literally, bind up the hips of the intelligence of you, or bind up the loins of your mind.  This harkens back to the way people in biblical times would tuck the hems of their robes in their belts if they had to run.  We would say, “Roll up the sleeves of your mind.”  Turn down some of the entertainments and amusements that are crowding into your minds and stealing your time and your thoughts.  Read.  Study.  Meditate.

2. Bring Some Habit in Your Life under Control (v. 13).  One by one, we have to bring every careless habit under the self-control of the Holy Spirit.

3.  Live as if Jesus Were Coming Today (v. 13).  Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.  If we somehow knew for certain that Jesus was coming this week, would it make a difference in your priorities, your activities, the emphasis of your life?  We don’t know the day or hour of His coming, but we should train ourselves to live as though He were coming imminently. 

 (For a fuller version of this message, click here.)

The Christian Post is reporting that the latest discovery of fossilized footprints by four-legged vertebrates overthrows the model for how land animals emerged.  These footprints were found in Poland, and the journal Nature carried an article about them in the January issue.  Per Ahlberg, a Swedish paleontologist who lead the new research, told CNN, “In the course of a single afternoon I found myself revising the entire understanding I had of my own research.”

Dr. Fuz Rana, a biochemist who is following the story, said, “This is a huge discovery… another example of supposedly a well-established evolutionary story, that has presumable fossil evidence to support it, that is now blown out of the water by a single find.”

He continued, “People who are skeptics of the evolutionary paradigm are even more justifiable in their skepticism today than they were yesterday because of this particular discovery.”

You can read the whole article here.

[Guest post by Joshua D. Rowe]

I had worked late that day, so I ate a quick dinner and hastily prepared to teach my weekly English Language Learning class.  I was jumping in the car when Rob called, asking if I had time to proofread an article.  I told him I had 5-10 minutes max, but would be glad to stop by.  I expected to skim through the article, point out some minor things, and be on my way.  What I didn’t expect was that, after proofreading something so quickly, the words would continue to preach to me so powerfully.

It’s a basic tenant of the Christian faith that we become a new creation when Christ saves us.  Yet daily we forget that we are “but now” people.  In Rob’s article, he notes Scriptures that make this abundantly clear:

• “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2: 13).
• “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Romans 6:22).
• “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8).
• “Once you were alienated from God. … But now He has reconciled you” (Colossians 1:21-22).
• “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10).
• “I was blind but now I see!” (John 9:25).

Rob writes:

When we experience the power of the Gospel, we become But now people. We were lost, confused, hell-bound, alienated from God, groping for answers when we didn’t even know the questions. But now we are children of God, members of the body of Christ, citizens of Heaven with one eye peeled to the Eastern sky for His return. When the cross of Christ enters our lives, it comes with But now differences. Our guilt is washed away.

The words of Scripture and Rob’s exposition moved in my heart as I drove to class that night.  Jesus has truly transferred me from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.  What if I were not living a “but now” life?  I’d be stuck in destructive habits, burdened with guilt, trying to cover my shame with fig leaves.  But now, I have a Father in God, a brother in Jesus, a comforter in the Spirit.  I have an inheritance, a family, eternal life, and blessings beyond measure.

I don’t often write a guest post on Rob’s behalf, but I wanted to challenge you to take a few moments to read his article.  Then take a few moments to ponder the mercy of God and praise Him for what He’s done for you.  And if you’re not living a “but now” life or don’t know Christ, please contact us so we can get you in touch with someone who can help you with that decision.

The article I read that evening was written by Rob for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and is now online at the Decision Magazine website and is available in the January 2010 issue of “Decision” Magazine.