Williamsonfbc.org

I continue to run into people and hear from others that they’ve never been to or seen our church. When we’ve had community events or funerals at the church, I’ve been called and asked about directions from people living in Williamson. Our church unfortunately is set off the road a little, hidden behind houses, tucked back away from where people might notice it. It is one of the most unique churches around with our wonderful cobblestones and many people know about the Cobblestone Church, but this 25 or 30 feet of grass and sidewalk separates our church from the daily view of the world around us.

As I was thinking about this, I wondered about our ministries and missions. I wondered about our worship service and the groups that meet in our church. I wondered if our ministry to the community around us was getting the same way as our church. Set off the road a little. Not getting too involved. Keeping ourselves separate.

When I look at Jesus’ life, I’m always taken back by the way he immersed himself in those around him. He had no boundaries, no barriers to his ministry. He became approachable by anyone. Keep the blind away they said. He’s got no time for them and yet he would go to them and heal them. The leprous are unclean. No one would touch them and Jesus would lay his hands on them and heal them. The children are too young, too noisy, and Jesus took them in his arms and blessed them. The tax collectors are too sinful, the prostitutes too corrupt, the fishermen too smelly, the Samaritans too unclean, and the list could go on and on, but Jesus didn’t care about what the world thought of them. He loved them because they were his children.

My Dad said to me the other night, “You know there are people out there that when you help them will continue to go on living their lives in sin. Doing the same bad stuff they were doing, but you don’t help someone because of how you might change them or what you get from it. You help them because it’s the right thing to do!” Jesus immersed himself in people even if the cost was high and it was for him. It was his life. We need to take note of this. We need to get ourselves on the road. We need to immerse ourselves into our community. Open our church up, our lives up, our gifts, our time, everything. Not because we will get something out of doing that. Not because our church might grow in numbers. Not because we may meet our budget. Not because of the warm fuzzy feelings.

Because It Is The Right Thing To Do!

The right thing to love others, to care for them, to help them in their time of need. The right thing to offer grace, to make it possible for others to grow, to fight for what is right and stand up for those who can’t. And getting immersed, getting back to the road, means that we do have to give up some things. It comes with a price tag that will never be paid back to us in this life on earth. It comes with an uneasiness because we have to trust that God will take care of us. It comes with a wall that we will continually have to climb because our fears will mount up over and over, but these things that we will have to give up do not compare to what Jesus gave up for us so that we could know what true life is, what true love is, what grace is.

As the parable of the talents teaches us, God does not want us to sit with the gifts we have. Instead he gives us the glorious opportunity to use them in amazing ways. Will we fail at times? Will it hurt sometimes? Will it be scary and nerve wracking? Will it stretch us beyond our limits? The answer is yes to all of these. But if we don’t risk it, if we stay at our a little off the road place we will continue to dwindle. There is no growth in stagnation and at the same time there is no risk that does not cause us to grow too.

It is time…I’ve said that statement in over 100 sermons, but it is time. Time to put away our fears. Time to stop blaming our busy lives or our own agendas. Time to stop burying our gifts. Time to stop allowing the concerns and needs of our community to go unnoticed. Time to truly live out what it means to be a follower of Christ! Waiting off the road a little bit is a safe place to be, but getting immersed is how we were created from the beginning of time to live. It is time church. It is time!

Here is the whole Palm Sunday Service for your viewing eyes. Unfortunately the sound did not come through on some parts. I apologize for that!

John Eldredge in his book, “The Sacred Romance,” writes

“As our soul grows in the love of God and journeys forth toward him, our heart’s capacities also grow and expand: “Thou shalt enlarge my heart” (Ps. 119:32).”

“But the sword cuts both ways. While our heart grows in its capacity for pleasure, it grows in its capacity to know pain. The two go hand in hand. What, then, shall we do with disappointment? We can be our own enemy, depending on how we handle the heartache that comes with desire. To want is to suffer; the word passion means to suffer. This is why many Christians are reluctant to listen to their hearts: They know that their dullness is keeping them from feeling the pain of life. Many of us have chosen simply not to want so much; it’s safer that way. It’s also godless. That’s stoicism, not Christianity. Sanctification is an awakening, the rousing of our souls from the deep sleep of sin into the fullness of their capacity for life.”

Three weeks ago I preached on different spiritual blinders. One of them was unawareness. I think John Eldredge is speaking about the same kind of thing. We know in our own lives that to grow, to change, to evolve, costs us something. It is hard work. It involves pain and determination. Sometimes I think we get stuck in the dullness of life, not wanting to change, not wanting to find that very thing our heart desires, God. To release ourselves from our puddles to the ocean of God is a huge step. We know every place in our puddles. We know when there is a ripple or someone else enters in. We know the dangerous places and the where to hide.

In the ocean though, things are always moving. Waves upon waves. Danger is all about with creatures and things we have never seen before. We may feel like we are drowning many times. We may find that we have nothing to hold onto, like we are going out of control. In the ocean we are suddenly challenged to no longer rely on ourselves and our knowledge of where the nice and safe places are. We are challenged to trust. To trust in the one who created us. The one who speaks to our hearts, our very cores. The one who knows us better than we could ever know ourselves.

It is scary to trust God. We go through life yearning to live the fullest life possible, and yet we just can’t take the complete leap off the cliff. We sample the water every now and then only to return to our puddle, our safe abode. I wonder though, what would happen if instead of testing the water, we just closed our eyes and with all that we are leapt…

…Questions run through our minds…

Will someone catch me? Is there someone out there that loves me that much that they would give their life to save mine? Can I really trust God? Is he strong enough? Can he really save me from death? Can he really take care of me, of my needs?

What fears do we have that hold us back in the dullness of life, when we were made for the fullness of life? Jesus came to bring freedom. Don’t trade it for fear. Leave the hesitations behind and experience the fullness of who God made you to be!

Below is a video of a few of our kids singing a Vacation Bible School Song with the motions. We’ve got a lot of great kids!

I was challenged by my family this past week as to why a Baptist is at an Ash Wednesday Service. Catholics are the ones who go to those services and get ashes on their heads, not Baptists. As I thought more about this I wondered myself, why this service was started so many years ago. And I did remind my family that this was not a Baptist thing or a Catholic thing, but a Christian thing.

I have been to Ash Wednesday services before, but this was the first time I was truly questioned about going. And as I thought more about it and did some research on the first Ash Wednesday I realized that this day was a day of new beginning. A day of common ground. A day that truly celebrates our need for God in the midst of a dark world.

The early Christians observed with great devotion the last days of Jesus’ life leading up to his resurrection. These coming days in March are very important to our faith and the early church decided that time was needed to prepare for them. That we shouldn’t just blindly go into Holy Week and so Ash Wednesday and the Lent season began.

Ash Wednesday represents a new starting place. In the early church, new Christians prepared for baptism during this time. It was also a time when people who had committed serious sins and had separated themselves from the community of faith were reconciled through forgiveness, and restored to participation in the life of the Church. In this way the whole congregation was reminded of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in Jesus and the need we all have to renew our faith.

This is a time to realize that all of us, every single one of us is in need of the love and grace of Jesus. In this service we are reminded of our place, alongside each other on the journey of faith. We are reminded that we have all fallen short of the glory of God and we once again confess that it is nothing we do that saves us, but everything Jesus has done.

So I hope you attended an Ash Wednesday service this week. A service that prepares us for lent, a time of self–examination and repentance, of prayer, fasting, and self–denial, of reading and meditating on God’s Word. I hope that you attended and got a mark on your head or hand. A mark that does not show pride, but repentance and humility. A mark that shows it is not about us, but about everything that Jesus has done.

In the puzzle I’m doing there are 550 pieces. It’s not a huge amount of pieces for a puzzle, but what amazes me is that they are all unique. Some pieces can fit in where other pieces are, but they just don’t fit exactly right. Some may even look like they go with the other pieces around them, but unless it’s the exact piece, it won’t look right in the end.

This is just like the body of Christ. We each come to the body as a piece. Not one of us makes up the whole, but we each make up a piece and without every single one of us, the puzzle or the body can never be complete.

My parents told me they were going to take a piece home with them, but their meanness happens in the church too when sometimes the gifts we have aren’t shared with others. What happens then is one piece is tried in many places and it gets a little rough around the edges, or it gets burned out. Every piece is needed to make the whole. Every piece needs to do their part whether it’s an important part like the eye of the m&m or just a background piece of m&m’s that doesn’t stand out. We are all needed and each have gifts that need to be shared.

So stand proud as a puzzle piece that makes up the wonderful and beautiful body of Christ! And don’t be afraid to share your gifts!

This is my second blog on this horrible puzzle and it’s entitled, “The Need For Others!” When doing a puzzle like this, at times you can get disoriented and find yourself trying every piece possible to fit in a specific place and you end up with nothing. Suddenly a passerby shows up and asks, “Hey what are you doing?” Then they go on to pick up a piece from among the billions of pieces and it just happens to go right where you’ve been trying to put a piece for the last 4 hours. What can we learn from this?

We truly do need others to help us along the way. One of the greatest things that other people can do for us is give us perspective. They can see things in a different light that maybe you had never thought of before. They can encourage and lift us up when we are down. They can support us in the midst of our struggle to find just one piece or when it seems the piece we need is missing.

Who has been an important piece finder in your life? Who has helped you see from a different perspective and brought some clarity to the world? Take time to thank them today, it’s something we don’t do enough.

At Midnight, this thought popped into my head after a comment Jennifer made. You know it really is the things that take the longest or that you have to put in the most time and sweat and tears into that are the best things. I still remember many college and seminary nights that I spent pouring into papers and the ones I poured more of myself into were the ones that got the better grades. I guess in a way it goes back to giving our all in everything we do. Really is it worth doing something half-heartedly and getting sketchy results?

I don’t think God planned for us to accept Christ partially. I think he wanted all of us. He wanted every part, not to judge but to love. He asks us over and over to let go. Let go of the worries, let go of the anxiousness, let go of the control. It’s hard for us to do that. We’d rather have the puddle to navigate than the ocean, but it’s the ocean where God wants us to be because you can’t see the other side. You’ve got to trust and depend on him.

Slow and steady wins the race. Start with the small stuff and move to the big. Put all of everything you got into letting go and letting God. See where he takes you! You might just be surprised!

Isaac’s story tonight was on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and I thought to myself once we read it. What did the knowledge of good and evil really give us?

Once we were able to name something good and something evil, suddenly there was judgment and division. In the garden there was only God who defined us and of course he defined us as good. Outside though, we started to define each other. We defined how we looked, how we worked, how nice or good or bad or evil we were and we based it on our actions and words. Suddenly we became perfectionists of the worst kind, trying not to be last at anything and flaunting the things we were good at while putting others down. You may be good at that but I’m better at this. It became an acceptance race and whoever could win the most praise from others became the popular crowd, while others were continually shamed and made to feel dumb or stupid or worthless because they couldn’t keep up.

The knowledge of good and evil is fine to know for God because he is perfect, but for us in all of our imperfections it led to some horrible pains and hurts that all of us live with daily. So what’s the good news? The good news is that Jesus freed us from the knowledge of good and evil and once again brought us back to God.

In Galatians 3:23-25, Paul writes, “Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.” God gave us the Law to send us to Christ, so that Christ could free us from it. Freedom from the thoughts and words of others, freedom from the glaring looks, freedom from failure, freedom from sin, freedom from our greatest enemy, ourselves, freedom from having to try to be accepted. With Christ comes full acceptance, not if we do what is right, but acceptance because he died for us and made us acceptable.

So what does this mean for us? It means we need to put down the knowledge of good and evil and once again focus on Christ to lead us. We need to stop judging and start loving. We need to start forgiving and loving our enemies, In Christ we have the freedom to do that. We need to let go of the Law which we hold so dea, let go of expectations, which are the same as law, and trust Christ. If only the snake had told Eve the whole truth about the knowledge of good and evil. But Praise God that he didn’t give up on us, but continues to love us.

Sunday Evening was the annual Vespers service that had to be rescheduled due to a huge snow storm. This service is one of my favorites because it is truly a representation of the body of Christ. If you get a chance check out 1 Corinthians 12:12-31. This is Paul’s writing about the body. If he were to use choir instead of body, it would sound something like this.

Each of us sing a different part in the choir based on our gifts. We’re not all sopranos or altos. And the soprano can’t say to the base, “you are not a soprano, therefore you are not part of the choir!” Neither can a base say, “Since I’m not a soprano I’m not part of the body!” But all are part of the choir, whether soprano, alto, tenor, or base.
At Vespers each church choir sang a song of their own. They were all beautiful and sounded wonderful. Each church in the world has its own song to sing, it’s own ministry that God calls us to. Some have an amazing soprano section, some have an amazing tenor section. Some have many bases and no tenors, some have many altos and no sopranos. We have different gifts and abilities, different strengths and weaknesses, but just as we are called to sing the song of our own ministries, we are also called to another song. We are called to sing the song that all choirs sing; a song that shows us that we are part of something greater than ourselves and we see that in Vespers when every member of each choir joins together. The weaknesses and the strengths come together to form one huge complete choir. And suddenly the choir is full without weakness because every part has been pulled together.

It was a truly amazing night as usual and I’m proud to be a part of such a wonderful Fellowship of Churches in Williamson. The Body of Christ is truly bigger than our church! It encompasses the rest of the choir of churches also! Praise be to God!