This past week, my wife and I had the privilege of sitting down with someone we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know over the past year or so.
Each time we speak with her we find ourselves encouraged by her example but challenged by the Lord about our lack of depth in our relationship with Him. After leaving that meeting, it stirred my heart to think about how many brothers and sisters like her I have had the blessing of knowing in my short life. These folks have encouraged me, instructed me, corrected me, testified to me, challenged me, helped me, and modeled faith to me. None of them have been perfect or have claimed to be perfect- but they have been faithful and remained teachable throughout their lives.
Of course, my mind then wandered to the brothers and sisters who went before me historically. The family of God is a treasure trove of help that sits unlocked and open for all Christians to utilize; each witness helping point us toward our great Redeemer. The author of Hebrews says it like this, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith..."
What should we do with “our cloud”?
First, recognize "our cloud" is a rich heritage that includes the brothers and sisters well before our time on earth began. One of the greatest blessings of technology and education in Western culture is the ability to reap bountiful lessons from the past. We can hop into a time machine and travel to another place to see what following Christ "looked like". It helps unpack what genuine faith looks like regardless of the cultural setting, what it costs to deny ourselves to follow Jesus, the mistakes that were made in their time, and what is cultural vs. what is not doctrinally pivotal in our time. Further, we can identify with men and women just like us who found Jesus sufficient as Savior and Lord. Some great books like Foxe's Book of Martyrs or From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya or The Story of Christianity go such a long way in bringing our faith to life and granting us perspective in the present. We should find ourselves familiar with names like Robert Moffat, William Borden, Henry Nott, Fanny Crosby, "Lottie" Moon, etc. Really, just pick up any Christian missionary biography and you will be helped "by the cloud".
Second, be proactive to meet up with the older brothers and sisters in your church. I confess I am not the “sit and have tea” kind of pastor I wish I was. It always seems like there is something blocking or bumping those appointments or moments. That said, Titus 2 instructs older saints to invest in younger saints. The proactive emphasis is upon the older generation BUT the implicit application would be that the younger generation should receive it, even seek it. Husband of 10 years, seek out one of the men in your church who has an imperfect but godly marriage for over twenty years. Young mom, why not ask the older mom who just dropped her kid off at college to have coffee? Parents should ask older parents what they would suggest focusing upon for eternal and spiritual significance in their children's lives vs. what culture encourages. The man or woman who is about 10 years to retirement should probably ask one of the retirees in the congregation about what they would do differently with the most valuable asset- time. No matter the age or stage of life, make a monthly commitment to proactively seek out help from the family of God in your church (and beyond).
Third, embrace the significant responsibility we each have "in the cloud". If the point of being in the cloud is to be a testament to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus and the transformation He creates, then such privilege calls us to holy responsibility in the present and for the future. Given the pace and self-emphasis/self-centeredness of Western culture, we might fail to embrace the act of love we each owe one another in discipleship. Whether it takes place formally or informally, we are called to be "teaching them all things" kind of Christians to those within our church primarily and then in the family of God at large. This means pointing people to the Scripture as the final authority in their lives, asking them questions to help them consider if spiritual wisdom is guiding their lives, exhorting or admonishing one another, and intentionally spending time with them each month. The people within our sphere of influence at church and in the family of God are avenues for God to accomplish His sanctifying work "in the cloud". A good question to consider might be, "Who is or will be a more yielded follower of Christ because of your investment in them?"
We sometimes read Hebrews 11 and find ourselves in awe of the people God used. Without diminishing their incredible choices of faith, it is important to realize that they are as much a part of the cloud as you and I have the opportunity to be. There is help in the cloud for you today. There is an opportunity for you to be a help as the cloud today.
Serving together,
Pastor Paul
Resetting the Rhythm
Spiritual Renewal Conference this past week was a great time of fellowship, encouragement, and challenge for my walk with Christ. I enjoyed spending the first four evenings of the week focusing on gathering with our church to walk through the book of Philippians. However, setting aside four evenings in a row also messed up my “Rhythm.” My normal schedule didn’t work this week (though to be completely honest, I am not a heavily scheduled person at all). Even with my loose schedule, I had to push certain things off until later in the week or give up on them completely. Throughout the week many of the teens I spoke to echoed that their schedules would be changing rapidly as well. School will be starting soon, vacations and travel are lightening up and many of us are preparing to settle into a new schedule, or rhythm, for life. Knowing that my rhythm is changing and using Spiritual Renewal Conference as a launchpad, I want to be intentional about making time and space for eternal and important matters, rather than just drifting into a new schedule and letting things that hold no eternal value take up my time on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Establishing (or re-establishing) daily spiritual disciplines. When I have a consistent schedule, my daily spiritual disciplines flourish. Then, random stuff happens. My life gets disrupted, I stay up too late, have to wake up too early, a need arises from my friends, family, school, or job, or a great opportunity comes my way. None of these things are bad, but they rock my schedule. I start operating based on what needs to get done rather than crafting my ideal schedule with ample time for God. My daily disciplines get shoved aside. Because everything else in life seems to carry some form of pressure, my disciplines get shoved aside. Here are a few adjustments that I have to make to my beliefs:
Time with God isn’t an ideal bonus to a great day, it's a necessity. This is something that I have heard said, and I believe. But somewhere in the back of my mind, there is this whisper “Time with God is good, but I don’t need it. After all, God has already saved me.” This whisper makes an incredibly wrong assumption. Just because God has saved us, does not mean that we don’t need Him anymore. Because we have recognized Christ’s mercy, love, and power, we recognize how much we need Him to do anything of value at all. We are fully dependent on Christ in everything we do. If we want to think the right way, we need Christ. If we want to feel the right way, we need Christ. If we want to act the right way we need Christ. When we don’t rely on Christ, we have cheap imitations of the right thoughts, feelings, and actions. Our salvation points to a greater need for God each day, not a lesser need.
Our relationship with God is not something that we fit into our schedule, it is the thing that defines our schedule. If we can not glorify God in whatever we are doing, then we shouldn’t be doing it (Col 3:17). Now how does that play out? If I am at my job, am I living and communicating the gospel message to coworkers or others? If I am at school am I respecting my teachers, and showing grace to my fellow students? If I am spending time with friends or family am I encouraging them? Am I discipling and being discipled? Am I an active witness for Christ? With my free time and rest time am I being refreshed by God through His Word, prayer, and His people, or do I chase distraction or my desires to the point that God is not present or welcome in my free time? When we are simply trying to make God a part of our schedule, God gets cut out when our schedule gets rocked, but when all parts of our schedule are fully devoted to God, even when our schedule is rocked, the focus does not change.
As you prepare for the next week on the heels of the welcome and encouraging interruption from Spiritual Emphasis Week, where in your schedule can you make time for God? Where in your schedule can you lift God high as you interact with the world?
Serving Together
Brother Tyler
Time to Recalibrate...
This week, we will take part in another Spiritual Renewal Conference. It is a time of great spiritual enrichment organized to help us further our walk with Christ. It is an important time together as a church that allows us to calibrate our hearts spiritually.
Growing up, I loved playing the Wii with my siblings. Mario Kart and Wii Sports were two of our favorites, however, we would sometimes run into our Wii remotes not working properly. Where we would point our remotes would not line up with what would happen. The process to fix this was going to the pause menu and recalibrating the Wii remote to the sensor bar. Over time, it seemed to need to happen every 10 minutes for the remotes to work properly.
Likewise, you and I often need times of spiritual recalibration. Colossians 3 expresses it this way: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” All of us need times of reorienting ourselves to the Biblical reality that Christ has freed us to enjoy. But our sinful hearts often move us away from focusing on that reality.
This week gives us the opportunity to lay everything else aside and ask, “Where are my affections?” The busyness and opulence of our American culture creates competition for my heart’s affection. If we aren’t careful, spiritual items become what we cut in order to allow our earthly affections to reign supreme. Paul is calling us away from that reality, and that takes work!
In Romans 12, Paul reminds us it takes a renewing of our mind in order to operate in a way that glorifies God. Why? Because our mind’s natural thinking is rooted in our sin nature. We all can easily default back to living in alignment with our sin nature. So, it is important to have times of recalibration where we allow God’s Word to search us and reveal how we have allowed sin to take root or the ways we have shifted our affections.
This Spiritual Renewal Conference is an opportunity for us to recalibrate just like those Wii remotes my siblings and I had. Those remotes would not work properly, and we could never be successful in the game if they were not calibrated. If you and I are not properly aligned with God and in our affections, we cannot be the successful Christian that Christ desires us to be.
I want to encourage you to take some time today to read through Philippians to prepare for our conference starting tomorrow morning at 10 AM. Prioritize taking twenty minutes and allowing the Spirit to work in our hearts and minds, drawing us closer to Him.
Pastor Derek