I was privileged to ring in the new year by filling the pulpit for our pastor, this past Sunday. As we look forward to what this new year holds for us, there’s only one thing we can be certain of. Life will present its challenges for us in the months ahead. This may be sobering but it doesn’t have to be alarming. In fact, James teaches that trials are actually God’s good gifts to us, intended to mature us and prove our faith to be genuine.
I won’t continue with the rest of the sermon, you’ll have to either peek at my notes or download the sermon. Blessings to you all this New Year.
Place:Beacon of Hope Church, St. Paul Date: January 1, 2012 Title: Preparing for the Trials of 2012 Text: James 1:1-18 Notes:Download PDF Audio Link:Listen online or download (right click the link and save it to your computer)
I mentioned in my last post that I found that variations of the following promise are found at least 28 times in the Old Testament: “I will be their God and they shall be My people.” Often it includes a promise that God would dwell with His people, or make His dwelling place among them. Seeing this great theme of Scripture and how it intersects with the Church – God’s people today, is both thrilling and educational. We can find our place in the narrative of Scripture and see the “already/not yet” fulfillment of these promises in our own experiences.
Today I thought I would just list these promises and let us meditate on them together.
Genesis 17:7-8 “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Exodus 6:7 “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”
Exodus 19:5-6 (with 20:2) “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Theses are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel…. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
Exodus 29:45-46 “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.”
Leviticus 26:11-12 “I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
Deuteronomy 4:20 “But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.”
Deuteronomy 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
Deuteronomy 14:2 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
Deuteronomy 26:18 “And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments,”
Deuteronomy 29:13 “That he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
2 Samuel 7:24 “And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God.”
1 Chron. 17:22 “And you made your people Israel to be your people forever, and you, O LORD, became their God.”
Jeremiah 7:23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.'”
Jeremiah 11:4 “That I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God,”
Jeremiah 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”
Jeremiah 30:22 “And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
Jeremiah 31:1 “At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Jeremiah 32:38 “And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Ezekiel 11:20 “That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Ezekiel 14:11 “That the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord GOD.”
Ezekiel 34:24 “And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.”
Ezekiel 34:30 “And they shall know that I am the LORD their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord GOD.”
Ezekiel 36:27-28 “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
Ezekiel 37:23 “They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Ezekiel 37:27 “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Hosea 2:23 “And I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people‘; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.'”
Zechariah 8:8 “And I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”
Zechariah 13:9 “And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people‘; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.'”
2 Corinthians 6:16-17 “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,'”
1 Peter 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
Revelation 21:7 “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”
Once again, I had the privilege to fill in for our pastor this past Sunday, and deliver the Sunday sermon. With it being Communion Sunday, I was asked to keep the message to around 30 minutes. So I ended up cramming a lot of content into 35 minutes. I apologize in advance for that!
The topic: the Temple and the Church, has been on my heart a lot lately, and was driven home as I recently finished reading a book on this same theme by G.K. Beale The Temple and the Church’s Mission (IVP). I begin the sermon with a romp through the numerous OT texts promising that God would be “God” for His people, and they would be His special people, and that God would make His dwelling place with them. I found this promise some 28 times in the Old Testament with three (or more) reiterations of this in the New Testament. That was the launching point for this brief look at what it means that Jesus Christ is the True Temple, and that we, His Body, are also “being built up” into a spiritual Temple. What does it mean and how should it shape how we live our lives?
I’ve included my notes for the sermon as a .pdf file here. But please download the sermon and ponder these texts with me. At around 14 minutes in, there is a minute or two cut out of the audio as the battery on the microphone died and the sound guy replaced it for me. (Sorry about that too!) Let me know what you think, I’d love some feedback.
Place:Beacon of Hope Church, St. Paul Date: October 30, 2011 Title: “God With Us:” Jesus, The Temple & The Church Text: Matthew 1:23 & John 1:1,14 Notes:Download PDF Audio Link:Listen online or download (right click the link and save it to your computer)
A new book forthcoming from Zondervan includes a chapter from Dr. Kevin Bauder of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis. I won’t talk about the book other than to mention its title, and that it is worth getting! The book is Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, edited by Collin Hansen and Andrew Naselli.
I’m still only about half-way through a galley copy of this book, but my eyes lit up when I came across Bauder’s characteristics of hyper-fundamentalism. I think he has captured lightning in a bottle with this list of descriptors, since for a very long time I’ve struggled to pinpoint the cross-over line from reasonable fundamentalism to fundamentalism run wild.
I just have to share Bauder’s eight characteristics of hyper-fundamentalism with you, but I strongly encourage you to get the book and read his entire essay. This quotation is from a pre-published version of the book so it may diverge in part from the final published product.
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First, hyper-fundamentalists often understand fundamentalism in terms of loyalty to an organization, movement, or even leader. They equate the defense of the faith with the prosperity of their organization or its leader. Someone who criticizes or contradicts it is subjected to censure or separation.
Second, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a militant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. [He sites KJV-onlyism as an example.] …When individuals become militant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism.
Third, hyper-fundamentlists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error….
Fourth, hyper-fundamentalists are marked by an inability to receive criticism. For them, questioning implies weakness or compromise. Any criticism — especially if it is offered publicly — constitutes an attack….
A fifth characteristic of hyper-fundamentalism is anti-intellectualism. Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being…. Colleges, when they exist, are strictly for the purpose of practical training.
Sixth, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists…. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers.
Seventh, hyper-fundamentalists occasionally treat militant political involvement as a criterion for fundamentalist standing. During the 1960s and 1970s, anticommunism was a definitive factor for some fundamentalists. Its place has now been taken by antiabortion and antihomosexual activism. Most fundamentalists do agree about these issues, but hyper-fundamentalists make militant activism a necessary obligation of the Christian faith.
Eight and last, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes hold a double standard for personal ethics. They see themselves engaged in an ecclesiastical war, and they reason that some things are permissible in a warfare that would not be permissible in ordinary life. They may employ name-calling, half-truths, and innuendo as legitimate weapons. They may excuse broken promises and political backstabbing.
Hyper-fundamentalism takes many forms, including some that I have not listed. Nevertheless, these are the forms that are most frequently encountered. When a version of fundamentalism bears one or more of these marks, it should be viewed as hyper-fundamentalist…
Hyper-fundamentalism is not fundamentalism. It is as a parasite on the fundamentalist movement. For many years it was simply a nuisance, largely ignored by mainstream fundamentalists. Ignoring the problem, however, permitted it to grow. While statistics are not available, hyper-fundamentalists now constitute a significant percentage of self-identified fundamentalists, perhaps even a majority. They have become the noisiest and often the most visible representatives of fundamentalism. They may be the only version of fundamentalism that many people ever see.
–Excerpted from Kevin Bauder’s chapter on Fundamentalism, in Four Views of the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Zondervan, 2011).
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Let me know what you think. Doesn’t Bauder nail it with this description? I think so.
Recently, Pastor Greg Locke, a well known speaker among both Independent Fundamental Baptists and some Southern Baptist churches, announced that he is removing “Baptist” from the name of his church. Instead their initials GVBC will now stand for Global Vision Bible Church.
Removing the word “Baptist” from the church name is not an uncommon move. The argument is that removing the name makes the church more accessible to some who would shy away from the Baptist label.
In Locke’s case, it means more than dumping the baggage that the title Baptist holds. Instead, he views it as a departure from the IFB movement as a whole. I wonder how much of this is in part due to the recent 20/20 expose on the IFB movement? Perhaps other pastors and churches need to think through this issue themselves. Understandably, this has caused some shockwaves and Locke’s Facebook page was all abuzz with comments good and bad.
I wanted to share his reasoning for removing the name Baptist, and then ask others to chime in on your thoughts related to this. Personally, I’m a deacon at a Baptistic church, that doesn’t have the word Baptist in our name. Yet I’m not necessarily ashamed of it either. That being said, I do think that “being all things to all men” can definitely include modifying the church name (to some extent). And I’m a Christian more than a Baptist anyway.
Here’s the excerpt from Locke in a letter written for his church, explaining the change:
Here is a list of reasons that I feel this is a very important move:
1. Because of our geographic location (Nashville) 95% of any Baptist church is automatically associated with the SBC. While I have many friends in the Convention, we are not affiliated as a church. I preach in some of the greatest Southern Baptist churches in the country but I believe GV should remain Independent in our structure and governance.
2. The IFB “movement” as a whole is totally out of control and I do not personally wish to be identified with it any longer. Legally, our church will still be Global Vision Baptist Inc., Practically, I am worlds away from where I was even 5 years ago and I cannot in good conscience give my full support to a movement that has become nothing more than a mini controlling denomination. I understand that every “camp” of churches has it’s own issues, but I am unwilling to have GVBC submitted to the dictates of a legalistic mindset of man-made regulations. I preach in dozens of IFB churches, but we desire to be truly Independent, even in our identity.
3. The type of families/people we are reaching could care less about such an issue. I have come to realize that people’s lives are so much more important that the name a church has on the sign. We are the church and if we are not healthy as a body it doesn’t matter what the sign says. So many of our people are brand new Christians or are healing from an experience in the same type of church we are distancing ourselves from.
4. Because of our strong emphasis on Powerful Preaching, the term BIBLE would be much more in line with our DNA and overall vision. People say that to remove “Baptist” will take away our identity. Exactly! I want our identity to be nothing but the Word of God. We didn’t start a church so people “like us” would show up. I want a church that is solely built upon the radical principles of the Book. If people know that there is a place like that, they will flock to it. However, if they merely think we are the same kind of church they grew up in, then we won’t even get them in the door. I don’t want our church identity sabotaged by a loyalty to denomination, movement, camp or tradition. I want all my allegiance to God’s Word.
5. Personally, I’m a very hard guy to put in a box. I feel like I have not been true to who God made me to be and it has caused me much frustration. If I were to start the church over again tomorrow, this would be something I would do from the very beginning. God has done so much in my heart these last few years. But overall, I have allowed this constant “identity crises” to become such a focus that it has greatly affected my judgment and my family. I say “NO MORE”. How foolish I have been to seek so much of man’s approval. I am at a point in my life and ministry that if I can’t be who God made me at GVBC, then I must go somewhere that God can use me without the restraints of others that have nothing to do with our church. However, I know this is where God has placed me and I am positive that this is His leading. I’m not dying on the hill of being “Baptist”. But I will gladly lay down my life for the truth of the BIBLE.
We are going to remain as fundamentally sound as we have ever been. We are not changing Bibles or compromising truth. We will continue to keep a red-hot pulpit and build our congregation on expository preaching, soul-winning and world missions. I am grateful for my IFB heritage, but it will not be my future. If others interpret this as an attack on IFB churches, then they have clearly read between the lines. “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind”. This is not easy, but I know for us it is right. I love you all. Now, let’s change the sign and reach this town for Christ.
What do you think? I for one, commend a man who doesn’t walk a party line but is willing to follow God’s leading and stand on his own two feet. I also predict the reaction to this may just prove once and for all that the IFB movement is in fact, a de-facto denomination. Reactions such as this one by Pastor Gary Click, indicate that to remove the name and distance oneself from the IFB movement is taken (by the supposedly “non-movement”) as “separation”, with the result that the true IFBs will then respond in kind.
For more on Greg Locke, you can read an interview that Re:Fundamentals did with him back in 2009. Please, let me know what you think about this. For the record, I don’t necessarily endorse bailing from the IFB movement as the solution for everyone and every church. But it’s hard to argue that the label is falling on hard times.
I was privileged to ring in the new year by filling the pulpit for our pastor, this past Sunday. As we look forward to what this new year holds for us, there’s only one thing we can be certain of. Life will present its challenges for us in the months ahead. This may be sobering but it doesn’t have to be alarming. In fact, James teaches that trials are actually God’s good gifts to us, intended to mature us and prove our faith to be genuine.
I mentioned in my 
Recently, Pastor Greg Locke, a well known speaker among both Independent Fundamental Baptists and some Southern Baptist churches, announced that he is removing “Baptist” from the name of his church. Instead their initials GVBC will now stand for