New Life Baptist Church, College Station Texas

New Life’s Annual Meet­ing will be held tonight at 6:30 pm.  This evening we will have the priv­i­lege of cel­e­brat­ing what God has done in the past fis­cal year and look ahead to what we hope He will do in the year and years ahead.  We will spend time in wor­ship through song, in prayer, and then in sev­eral impor­tant busi­ness mat­ters.  All mem­bers are asked to attend.  See you tonight at 6:30!

Last night was a great start to our new ser­mon series called New Life M3: The Mes­sage, The Mis­sion, The Meth­ods.  We dis­cussed the first and most impor­tant of the aspects of who we are as a local church.  The Gospel mes­sage is our foun­da­tion, and it informs every­thing we do, includ­ing our vision state­ment (which we will dis­cuss next Sun­day night) and our phi­los­o­phy (which we will dis­cuss in the final week of the series).

Many Chris­tians wrongly believe that the Gospel is merely a set of facts that we must believe in order to go to Heaven.  While it is true that the Gospel is based on his­tor­i­cal facts (Jesus really lived, really died, and really rose from the dead), the Gospel is not merely a set of facts to be believed.

Rather, the Gospel is the Good News that Jesus lived per­fectly, died, and rose again to purify for Him­self a peo­ple that are zeal­ous for good works (Titus 2:14).  The Gospel is the Good News that a believer no longer has to live in bondage to sin, but is made a new cre­ation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).  The Gospel is the Good News that a believer no longer has to strive, hop­ing to please God by doing good works and avoid­ing bad works (Gal. 2–3).  Best of all, the Gospel is the Good News that a believer is no longer an enemy of God, but a friend, and is counted as both not guilty and right­eous in God’s eyes (Jn. 14:15; Rom. 3:21–4:8).

The Gospel is not just Good News for the day on which I die, though it most cer­tainly is Good News on that day.  The Gospel is Good News every day of my life, because every day of my life as a believer I enjoy fel­low­ship with God through the shed blood of Christ.  I am set free to serve Him, to serve His peo­ple, and to serve unbe­liev­ers in my life.

This is why we talk so much about the Gospel mes­sage at New Life.  The Gospel has changed us, is chang­ing us, and will con­tinue to change us each day.  And that’s Good News.

Tonight we will begin a new series called “New Life M3: The Mes­sage, The Mis­sion, The Meth­ods.”  This evening we will con­sider the mes­sage of New Life, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, from Acts 13:13–41.  The Gospel is the power of God for sal­va­tion, and is the foun­da­tion of our local church.  We hope to see you tonight at 5 p.m. for wor­ship and that you will stay after the ser­vice for din­ner with us!

Since this is the final week of sum­mer and we will begin our new blog series shortly, I am going to try to tackle all of Eph­esians 6 today.  While today’s post will be far from exhaus­tive, I hope that it will serve you well.

Verses 1–4

Paul opens the final sec­tion of his let­ter with instruc­tions to chil­dren and fathers.  He com­mands chil­dren to obey their par­ents in the Lord, because that is right.  It is right because all of God’s cre­ation points back to Him and to His order, includ­ing the fam­ily.  Chil­dren learn to sub­mit to God by first learn­ing to sub­mit to their par­ents, just as wives are called to sub­mit to their hus­bands as the church is called to sub­mit to Christ.  Fathers are then com­manded to avoid pro­vok­ing their chil­dren to anger, but instead to bring them up in the dis­ci­pline and instruc­tion of the Lord.  Dads, dis­ci­plin­ing our chil­dren will keep them from being pro­voked to anger. Dis­ci­pline must be bib­li­cally informed, which means it must be done con­sis­tently out of love with a view toward restora­tion, not toward pun­ish­ment.  You will pro­voke your chil­dren to anger if you dis­ci­pline incon­sis­tently, out of anger, or with a view toward pun­ish­ment rather than restora­tion.  I encour­age you to med­i­tate long and hard on Hebrews 12, con­sid­er­ing how God’s dis­ci­pline of His chil­dren should inform our dis­ci­pline of our children.

Verses 5–9

Paul moves on to slaves in the next five verses.  Through­out his­tory and even today, some have believed and taught that Paul con­doned slav­ery.  This is not the case; much of the Bible is descrip­tive rather than pre­scrip­tive.  Paul is merely acknowl­edg­ing the fact that slav­ery does exist, and that Chris­t­ian slaves should act in a man­ner wor­thy of the Gospel.  This sec­tion can be applied as instruc­tions to employ­ees and employ­ers.  Employ­ees should not “go through the motions” of their jobs, but work as though they were serv­ing God Him­self.  Employ­ers should treat their employ­ees fairly by com­pen­sat­ing them appro­pri­ately and treat­ing them decently, espe­cially those who are of the house­hold of faith.

Verses 10–20

Finally, Paul instructs the Eph­esians to be strong in the Lord and to put on the whole armor of God, which includes:

1. The belt of truth (to com­bat the enemy’s lies)

2. The breast­plate of right­eous­ness (to deflect the false gospels of works righteousness)

3. Shoes of readi­ness given by the Gospel of peace (to ensure pre­pared­ness to preach the Word)

4. The shield of faith (to extin­guish the flam­ing darts of the evil one)

5. The hel­met of sal­va­tion (to pro­tect us from doubts about the promise of God)

6. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (the only offen­sive weapon we have)

And how do we put on this armor?  By pray­ing at all times in the Spirit, with all power and sup­pli­ca­tion (v. 18).  We must pray both for our­selves and oth­ers that we would open our mouths boldly to pro­claim the mys­tery of the Gospel.  In order to do this, we must have the power of the Spirit to war against our enemy, the devil, because our fight is not against peo­ple, but against Satan and sin.

Verses 21–24

As he closes, Paul lets the Eph­esians know he is send­ing Tychi­cus to them so that they may know how Paul and his com­pan­ions are and so that their hearts may be encour­aged.  This is the kind of love and con­sid­er­a­tion that we must show for one another.  Send­ing Tychi­cus to them meant that Tychi­cus was not with Paul, help­ing him and keep­ing him com­pany.   But it meant that the Eph­esians would know what was going on with them and that their hearts would be encour­aged.  I pray that I would have that same self­less atti­tude in my life and min­istry.  Last, Paul blesses the Eph­esians with peace, love, and grace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

I hope you have enjoyed our quick tour through the book of Eph­esians this sum­mer.  We’ll begin our next blog series shortly, and I hope that God will use it to bless you.  Thanks for fol­low­ing along!

One may make the appli­ca­tion that this song should lead us to ces­sa­tion and sub­se­quent avoid­ance of boast­ing. The thought there is that “I boast no more” can mean, “I will no longer boast”. The elim­i­na­tion of all boast­ing in our own efforts is desir­able and cer­tainly drawn from Scrip­ture as in Eph­esians 2:8–9, where Paul speaks of sav­ing faith com­ing by grace so that “no one may boast.” Also, in 1 Corinthi­ans 1:28–29 Paul says that God chose the things that are “low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to noth­ing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the pres­ence of God.” Clearly, there is an agenda to remind pride­ful, self-sufficient man that God desires us to not make much of our­selves. But, it does not stop there. Avoid­ing and pre­vent­ing mis­placed boast­ing is just step 1. We glo­rify God when we make our boast in Him and His accom­plish­ments. We are to boast, to glory in, to pub­li­cize, the mer­its of Christ, namely His life of per­fect obe­di­ence to the Father, death, and res­ur­rec­tion, which demon­strated God the Father’s approval of the sac­ri­fice through which the right­eous­ness of the One, jus­ti­fies the sins of the many.

This month’s hymn is inex­tri­ca­bly linked to Gala­tians 6:14, where Paul declares, “but far be it from me to boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been cru­ci­fied to me, and I to the world.”

No more my God, I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done
I quit my hopes I held before
To trust the mer­its of Your Son

The first verse begins with the dec­la­ra­tion of the end of boast­ing in our own good works. I will no longer boast about all that I have done. After all, as Titus 3:4–5 says, “but when the good­ness and lov­ing kind­ness of God our Sav­ior appeared, He saved us, not because of any works done by us in right­eous­ness…” His sav­ing us had noth­ing to do with even the works of right­eous­ness we per­formed. There­fore, “I quit my hopes I held before”…presumably those hopes in our own efforts toward earn­ing God’s favor. In place of those futile hopes, we sub­sti­tute a supe­rior hope by plac­ing our trust in the mer­its of Christ.

No more my God
No more my God
No more my God
I boast no more

And now by grace I bear His name
What was my gain I count my loss
My for­mer pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross

This verse is seem­ingly para­dox­i­cal as it recounts the words of Paul from Philip­pi­ans 3:8, “I count every­thing as loss because of the sur­pass­ing worth of know­ing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Paul repeat­edly teaches us that our weak­ness reveals the glory and power of God. He even speaks of His own past worldly hon­ors in near sar­cas­tic tones, recall­ing what He once thought to be gain.

Yes and I must, I will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus’ sake
Oh that my soul be found in Him
And of His right­eous­ness par­take, Amen, Amen

Verse 3, which in this arrange­ment is sung like a bridge between verses 2 and 4, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of Philip­pi­ans 3: “For his sake I have suf­fered the loss of all things and count them as rub­bish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not hav­ing a right­eous­ness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ…”

The best obe­di­ence of my hand
Dares not appear before the throne
But faith can answer His demands
By plead­ing what my Lord has done

Finally, lest we con­clude that any of our efforts, even some of our good works for the glory of Christ, might be enough to earn the favor of God, we sing that that very best we could pos­si­bly do does not even dare to appear before the throne. This is talk­ing about God as judge, sit­ting on the throne. His judg­ment of us can­not be based on any of our own mer­its or we per­ish. The only answer, and our only hope, that is suf­fi­cient in response to His demand for the right­eous­ness required to enter into His pres­ence, is faith in the fin­ished work of Jesus Christ. Our plea that we enter before the judg­ment seat of God must be humbly, yet boast­fully to pro­claim that we belong to the Lord Jesus who has granted us repen­tance and faith and accom­plished for us all that we could not. The Right­eous Judge will look upon us and see His Son’s work, and be pleased.

Every­one needs heroes, but we must rec­og­nize that our heroes are sin­ful, fallen peo­ple like us  (unless we’re talk­ing about Jesus, who was sin­less and should be everyone’s pri­mary hero).

Samuel Choi, one of the pas­tors at Mars Hill, recently shared what he learned from one of his heroes, George White­field, on the Mars Hill Blog.  Here’s the intro:

“When I was a stu­dent in col­lege, I read about George White­field. I was in awe of his pas­sion and works. There was noth­ing in his biog­ra­phy that I would have said any­thing neg­a­tive about.  Now as I re-read a biog­ra­phy on George White­field as a hus­band, father and pas­tor, there are some things on his life, I do not want to repeat as a hus­band, father and pastor.”

I encour­age you to read the whole post, and to praise God for the heroes in your life with­out idol­iz­ing them and min­i­miz­ing their sins and weak­nesses.  Learn from their vic­to­ries and mis­takes just as Samuel Choi did from Whitefield’s.

This Sun­day we will begin a three-week series called M3:  The Mes­sage, The Mis­sion, The Meth­ods.  We will kick-off the fall by focus­ing on the Gospel (the mes­sage), the Vision of New Life (the mis­sion), and the Phi­los­o­phy of New Life (the meth­ods).  This series will be a great reminder to those who are already mem­bers and a solid intro­duc­tion to those who are con­sid­er­ing mem­ber­ship at New Life.

Please join us Sun­day at 5 pm as we con­sider the Good News of Jesus Christ — the mes­sage that we strive to pre­serve and proclaim!

Last night we stud­ied Psalm 139 and were encour­aged to find our rest in God and His char­ac­ter in the midst of the busy­ness of life and min­istry.  As I con­sid­ered how to apply the mes­sage, some of Don Whitney’s quotes came to mind.  Many of you know that Don Whitney’s book Spir­i­tual Dis­ci­plines for the Chris­t­ian Life is one of my favorites.

In chap­ter ten, Whit­ney deals with the dis­ci­plines of silence and soli­tude (some of you are think­ing, “Those are spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines?” with your iPod going, the dog bark­ing, the TV on, and your room­mates wrestling on the floor next to you). Remem­ber Jesus’ actions – after the dis­ci­ples had spent an entire day serv­ing in min­istry, Jesus told them, “Come with me by your­selves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mk. 6:31).

On silence and soli­tude, Whit­ney writes, “But more than any­thing else, the Dis­ci­plines of silence and soli­tude can be so trans­fig­ur­ing because they pro­vide time to think about life and to lis­ten to God.  The plain fact is that most of us don’t do that enough.  Gen­er­a­tions ago most of our fore­bears would have spent their days work­ing in the fields or in the home where the only other sounds were those of nature or human voices.  With­out elec­tronic media there were fewer dis­trac­tions from the voice of con­science and the still, small voice of God.  This is not to glam­or­ize the sup­posed ‘good old days’ (a sin­ful prac­tice; see Eccle­si­astes 7:10) or sug­gest that we try to return to them.  I’m sim­ply reaf­firm­ing what we’ve said from the begin­ning of this chap­ter:  One of the costs of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment is a greater temp­ta­tion to avoid quiet­ness.  While we have broad­ened our intake of news and infor­ma­tion of all kinds, these advan­tages may come at the expense of our spir­i­tual depth if we do not prac­tice silence and soli­tude” (194).

If you aren’t in the habit of spend­ing time alone in quiet places, get into the habit.  That will make med­i­tat­ing on God and His char­ac­ter eas­ier, which will help you to find your rest in Him.

After four months and a cou­ple dozen ser­mons, we are fin­ish­ing up our series through the book of Psalms called, “Reflec­tions:  See­ing Our­selves and Our Sav­ior in the Psalms.”  If you have missed any of the mes­sages, you can down­load them here.

This evening we will con­sider Psalm 139 and learn how God’s attrib­utes — namely His omni­science, omnipres­ence, sov­er­eignty, omnipo­tence, and gra­cious­ness — lead us to rest in Him.   We hope to see you tonight at 5 pm!

This morn­ing we are help­ing move fresh­men into their dorms.  This is a great oppor­tu­nity for us to serve them dur­ing a big tran­si­tion in their lives.  We’ll have the oppor­tu­nity to meet real neds, share the Gospel, and talk about God’s work in and through New Life.  Check the details in the pre­vi­ous post.  See you there!