New Life Baptist Church, College Station Texas

Last night we dis­cussed The Mis­sion of New Life as the sec­ond of three install­ments in our M3 series.  We learned that the vision of the church is to pre­serve and pro­claim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to make mature dis­ci­ples of all nations for the glory of God.  Then we broke down why this is our vision and how we attempt to live it out in our daily lives.

This past sum­mer, I took a sem­i­nary course that focused on strate­gic plan­ning.  Our pri­mary text­book was Aubrey Mal­phurs’ sem­i­nal work, Advanced Strate­gic Plan­ning.  In the 6^th chap­ter, Mal­phurs dis­cusses the impor­tance of vision to a church.  He states:

“The right vision cre­ates mean­ing in people’s lives, pro­vid­ing them with a cause and giv­ing them a sense of divine pur­pose.  They are a part of some­thing big­ger than them­selves, some­thing great that God is accom­plish­ing at this time and place in his­tory.  They are a part of God’s cause.  With a shared vision, peo­ple see them­selves not just as another con­gre­gant or a ‘pew warmer’ but as a vital part of a church that is hav­ing a pow­er­ful impact on a lost and dying world” (147).

Mal­phurs is right on.  At New Life, we aren’t inter­ested in attract­ing or cre­at­ing “pew warm­ers.” We want every per­son pre­serv­ing and pro­claim­ing the Gospel, that God might use us to make mature dis­ci­ples of all nations for His glory.

Every per­son at New Life is dif­fer­ent – and that’s a great thing.  God has given us dif­fer­ent gifts and pas­sions, but has filled all of us with the Holy Spirit and bur­dened us with the same vision. One body with many dif­fer­ent parts work­ing together toward the same goal is a beau­ti­ful thing to watch and an amaz­ing thing to be a part of.  If you aren’t a mem­ber at New Life, I encour­age you to con­sider join­ing this fall.  Be on mis­sion with us and watch God do great things.

We are cur­rently in the midst of a three-week vision series we have called, “New Life M3: the Mes­sage, The Mis­sion, The Meth­ods.”  Last Sun­day we looked at the Gospel mes­sage which is the foun­da­tion of all that we believe and prac­tice at New Life.  Tonight, we will con­sider the mis­sion that keeps us focused on bib­li­cal pri­or­i­ties — the vision state­ment of the church.

New Life exists to pre­serve and pro­claim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to make mature dis­ci­ples of all nations for the glory of God.  Every­thing we do is fil­tered through the Bible and that vision.  we must pre­serve the Gospel so that we have some­thing to pro­claim, and pro­claim the Gospel to ful­fill the Great Com­mis­sion Jesus gave us in Matthew 28 — our text for the ser­mon tonight.  If you are a first-time vis­i­tor, make sure you plan to eat with us after the ser­vice around 6:30 pm!  See you tonight!

Next Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 8^th we will begin our new blog series through Don­ald Whitney’s book, 10 Ques­tions to Diag­nose Your Spir­i­tual Health.  I went through the book a few years ago and really ben­e­fited from it.  I went to my shelf today to grab the book in prepa­ra­tion for this announce­ment, but alas – some­one has bor­rowed and not returned; taken, but not given back.  If you have my copy, could you let me know?  I won’t fine you.

Sev­eral Life Groups will be going through the book this semes­ter, so if you are part of a Life Group make sure to ask your leader if your group will be study­ing the book along with us.  Of course, any­one who wants to may fol­low our blog posts for the next ten weeks.  We will have the book avail­able in our book­stall this week­end for $10. Happy reading!

This evening at 6:30 pm we will observe the Lord’s Sup­per and spend time in prayer and wor­ship with Liv­ing Hope and Liv­ing Hope-Bryan.  The ser­vice will be held in Liv­ing Hope’s build­ing and will last about 75 min­utes.  We hope you will join us!

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.