Who We Are in Christ (I Peter 2:1-10)

Posted on by

Everyone knows how the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, beggar human language telling us who God is. Synonyms pile up until we walk away with a list of “names of God” numbering in the hundreds.

“I love you, O Lord my strength. The Lord is rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:1-2)

Scripture is filled with similar texts.

But, what is not as commonly known or considered, is that the Bible does the same thing in announcing who the people of the Lord are. We come away awed at the realization that in Christ, we are far more than anyone ever expected.

Take the first 10 verses of I Peter chapter 2, for instance.

vs. 2 — newborn babes

vs. 5 — living stones, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood

vs. 9 — a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God

vs. 10 — the people of God

Let’s do two things here. Let’s comment on what each of these mean, then walk through the entire epistle of I Peter and identify every similar expression of who we are in Christ.

NEWBORN BABES. We’ve been born again, we have become as little children, and we are to have the kind of ravenous appetite for “the pure milk of the Word” as a baby has for its mother’s milk.

LIVING STONES. Each of us is a brick in the building of this house. Remove any one stone and it affects everything around it. Each is essential. In this case, Peter stresses that we are not inanimate objects without life or feeling. We are “living stones.” .

Continue reading →

The Pastor’s Second Biggest Job

Posted on by

Like a coach, the pastor’s biggest job is turning his team into winners. The second is keeping them winners.

I’ve sometimes thought the reason professional football is more satisfying to follow than college ball–and I confess to loving both–is that the makeup of the college teams keeps changing as players graduate. In the NFL, they can stay around as long as they’re able to play at a high level.

But it doesn’t happen quite that way.

Take the two teams everyone around here roots for, the LSU Tigers and the New Orleans Saints.

LSU will have to replace 13 starters who graduated after the 2009 season. That’s 13 out of 22 key players. It’s a huge task. Doubters should ask any college coach.

The Saints, who less than three weeks ago won their first-ever Super Bowl, making them champs of the NFL, should be in a better position, right? Maybe. Maybe not.

However–and this is the parallel I’m making with pastors and churches–no team stays static. People change. They age, they grow satisfied, they slack off on workouts, they want to enjoy the big money they’ve been making, they lose their hunger for great achievements. Their family demands grow stronger, they fall into bad habits. And, they become free agents.

A free agent in football is just what it sounds like: the player has completed his contract with his present team and is at liberty to sign on with a new team, hopefully for a lot more money.

Take Darren Sharper, for instance. He plays a defensive position for the Saints known as “safety.” His main assignment is to cover the opponents’ receivers, either breaking up passes thrown to them or intercepting the ball himself. Nine times this season he intercepted passes. Three of them he returned for touchdowns.

In football, an interception is a game-changer. The other team was moving the ball, gaining yards, heading toward your end zone. Suddenly, you step up and catch a pass meant for the other guy. Now, the other team leaves the field and your offense comes on, ready to move the ball toward the opponents’ end zone. Anyone who can deliver nine interceptions in a season of 16 games you want on your team.

Darren Sharper is a favorite among Saints fans. Now, after earning around $2 mil last year, he’s a free agent. The Saints will try to keep him. Some other teams will probably offer him big bucks. What will he do? No one knows right now, not even the man himself.

Continue reading →

Cleaning Up the Police Department

Posted on by
3

This is not the usual kind of article with a spiritual message.

This is a report on New Orleans. Specifically, it’s about the corruption in the police department and an FBI investigation that is busting this city wide open. Thank the Lord. It’s been a long time coming.

Today, retired NOPD Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. He faces up to 5 years in prison and a fine of a quarter of a mil.

This is the Danziger Bridge shooting that took place on September 4, 2005, less than one week after Hurricane Katrina. The city was still in lockdown and a report came in to the police that there was a shooting on this bridge.

If you are familiar with the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on Gentilly Boulevard, then you know the Danziger Bridge. You may not know it by that name–I’d never heard it called that until this shooting happened–but it’s a few blocks east of the seminary on Gentilly. It spans the Industrial Canal, and is parallel to the High-Rise Bridge on I-10.

No one is questioning that when the police arrived–driving a rental truck of all things–they shot and killed two men and wounded 6 others. Witnesses say the men were unarmed and the police shot without any provocation.

Every investigation until now–and this has been in and out of the news for nearly 5 years–has exonerated the cops. Now we know why.

Continue reading →

What to Do When the Accelerator is Stuck

Posted on by

The Lion’s Club calls him the tail-twister. In the locker room, he’s referred to as a sparkplug.

In the church, he’s the accelerator.

He’s the guy–or she’s the one–who wants to “get this show on the road,” who builds a fire under everyone else, who pushes the leaders.

Every organization needs a few of those.

Nothing of what follows is meant to diminish the importance of those church members who are never satisfied with the status quo but want to make a lasting difference for Jesus’ sake. Every church should be blessed with a few.

However, as the Toyota Motor Company (or whatever it’s official name happens to be) has learned the hard way, an accelerator needs to be under strong controls.

An accelerator that “sticks” causes crashes. Crashes cause deaths.

I sat in the waiting room of my Toyota dealer for an hour last week while the service man made some small adjustment to the accelerator of my Camry. It was part of a several-million-car recall that is turning the automobile business upside down these days. Nearly 40 deaths have been attributed to gas pedals sticking, causing the car to speed ahead uncontrollably.

My wife and I had a disagreement that morning. She vows that she was riding with me once when the pedal stuck on this car. I reply that I would have remembered that, but I don’t. She refused to budge. So, I called the car dealer and they told me to bring it in. No waiting, no cost, a simple thing. My wife has peace of mind, and frankly, so do I. Sometimes a wife has to insist on something to get her husband to act.

My wife was my accelerator, you might say.

From time to time, I have seen the work of accelerators in churches. Sometimes, they do a great job. And sometimes, they are missing the controls that will safeguard the congregation and staff from their get-out-of-my-way attitude.

Not long ago, for instance….

Continue reading →

How to Lead A Parade

Posted on by
2

What I call my “New Orleans Sermon” goes like this: In order to start a parade (a movement of some kind that catches on and makes a lasting difference), four things should be kept in mind:

–someone has to be first. This is the person of vision.

–someone has to follow. Getting people to buy into your vision is not a simple thing.

–parades tend to fizzle. So they must be constantly renewed.

–the object is to finish strong. The leader must keep his eye on the prize, and not be sidetracked, deterred or detoured.

Let’s focus on the first of these: “In starting a parade, someone has to be first.”

I’m thinking of a number of movements (that is, parades) that make our point.

Global Maritime Ministries, a work with seafarers and port workers for the New Orleans riverfront, grew out of the vision of John Vandercook nearly 50 years ago.

Baptist Crossroads Ministries, building homes for the poor of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, grew out of a vision of David Crosby, pastor of the FBC of N.O. I was sitting beside him the very moment that happened.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s “Disaster Relief Ministry,” which is led and administered through our North American Mission Board, got its start through Bob somebody-or-other who directed the Baptist Men’s work for the BGCT (Baptist General Convention of Texas) in the 1960s. Today, the SBC DR work has 1,000 units all across the country, ready to respond to emergencies in a moment.

And another, which is not a religious work but which we all treasure and which makes the point very well, is the Adopt-a-Highway program. It got its start in Tyler, Texas, one day in 1984 when a DOT engineer named James Evans grew concerned over trash blowing out of the pickup in front of him. Today, that program is in 49 states and a number of foreign countries.

You want to start a parade? You have an idea for a movement that could make a real difference in people’s lives? Excellent. Good for you. Let’s talk about that.

But first, let me tell you about Harlan Proctor.

Continue reading →

In Praise of Small Churches

Posted on by
11

With a few exceptions, all churches were small at one time. They began with a handful of people and went forward from there. Some grew a great deal and are still expanding, some grew a little and leveled off, while some failed to grow at all.

If most of the churches in America of all denominations are small–and in my mind, that means 100 or less in attendance–then several things are true.

–In the words of Lincoln about common folk, “God must have loved them; He made so many of them.”

–Small churches must be doing something right or people would not keep attending them.

–The “bigness culture” that is so dominant in American life has dumped a burdensome load of guilt on these small congregations. “If you’re so good, why aren’t you big?” seems to be the mantra.

–For every book celebrating the small church, there are a hundred telling them how to leave smallness behind and become “great.”

Someone should put in a good word for small churches. Think I’ll give it a try.

Continue reading →

How to Spot a Sick Church

Posted on by
8

The late great evangelist Vance Havner, who never weighed more than 120 pounds in his life would be my guess, used to quip, “I’m the healthiest sick-looking person you’ve ever seen in your life!”

It’s not easy to tell the state of a person’s health by looking. That’s why doctors put us through a whole battery of tests. Some abnormal conditions are harder to diagnose than others.

Some churches are so clearly sick that a visitor does not even have to get out of his car to tell. The run-down condition of the facilities, the two-month-old message on the outside sign, and the sparcity of vehicles in the parking lot tell you all you want to know about that church. Unless you are the invited speaker for the day, you drive on down the highway to another more inviting looking church.

Other churches give signs of being healthy but have fault lines running through the interior of their relationships and operations.

A friend who read our earlier posting on “building a healthy church,” and who himself has been wounded by an unhealthy congregation or two in his 20 years in the ministry, suggested we try our hand at identifying characteristics of unhealthy churches.

Nothing that follows is the result of any scientific polling or in-depth studies. As with almost everything on this blog, this is my observation from nearly a half century in the ministry.

What does a sick church look like? How can we recognize one when we spot one?

Continue reading →

The Bible Speaks on the Bible (I Peter 1:22-2:3)

Posted on by

It’s not that we think the Apostle Peter sat down one day and said, “I believe I will write something for the Bible.”

He most definitely did not say, “I believe I will write the Word of God.”

In fact, most likely he did not even decide, “I shall now write something of lasting benefit for the church.”

All the epistles seem to have addressed particular situations being faced by certain Christians at the time of the writing. The apostles were telling how to deal with opposition, temptation, inner conflict, false teachers, and such. The counsel they ended up delivering was so solid that over the years God’s people elevated them to the status of scripture.

How they came to be part of the Bible itself is a subject for another day. Today, the issue is what the Apostle Peter said about God’s Word in the portion of Scripture which we also call “God’s Word.”

One more word about that.

To call something “God’s Word” does not mean we believe God dropped it out of Heaven full-grown with no human instrumentation any more than calling a preacher “God’s Man” means we think he was immaculately conceived in some celestial vacuum somewhere.

God uses people to get His message to others.

In the passage before us are four great uses of the Word of God, as revealed in that Word.

Continue reading →

Building a Healthy Church

Posted on by
10

The books on how to build a healthy church are flying off the printing presses these days. Seminaries are holding conferences and consultants are finding fertile fields for their congregational therapies.

I do not have a set program–and precious little expertise, probably–on restoring the health of a church so much as I have a heavy burden for it.

I’ve served all kinds of churches and been used of the Lord to restore the health of at least two. As you surely know, the Lord never likes to waste experience.

I’ve seen the damage sick churches can inflict in a community and want no more of it ever again. An unhealthy church can destroy the reputation of Jesus Christ throughout its area of influence. An unhealthy church perpetuates itself by bringing up a new generation of wrong-headed members who spread their poisons to other congregations.

An unhealthy church turns people against the truth and inoculates them against the overtures and ministries of a healthy, normal church.

An unhealthy church sucks the life out of missions by cutting off its support of missionaries in order to keep themselves afloat to the bitter end.

Recently, a pastorless church asked me to come for a “renewal weekend.” Now, that term can mean anything, but the leadership was clear on what they had in mind.

They said, “We are not inviting the community to this. They’re certainly welcome, but we’re not ready to have a harvest time. We need to get ourselves straight.”

They sent me a number of subjects such as unity, health, effective evangelism, and leadership in order to guide my prayers and planning.

Rather than the sanctuary, we would hold all but the Sunday morning session around tables in the fellowship hall. They would serve lunch at noon and refreshments in the evening. The attire and the approach would be strictly informal.

We met twice a day, at noon and at 6:30 pm, for three days, Thursday through Saturday, and concluded with the Sunday morning service.

I’m not going to try to encapsulate here what we covered in seven sessions, except to lay out the general plan. My heart’s desire, you will not be surprised to learn, is for three or four more churches to invite me to do something similar. I’d like to do this until I get the hang of it, working the rough edges off the material, and then turn it into something of lasting benefit to other churches.

Here is the layout of the seven sessions.

Continue reading →

The Worst Command? (I Peter 1:14-16)

Posted on by
2

If there is a command in Scripture guaranteed to offend the “modern mind of man” and set off a stubborn inner resistance that is determined to hold its ground and cede nothing, it’s this: Be holy.

“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

“But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do,

“For it is written, ‘Be holy, because I am holy.'” (I Peter 1:14-16)

The apostle is clearly quoting Scripture. Somewhere in the Old Testament, God tells us to be holy .

He does, in many places, actually. Leviticus chapter 11, for example.

“I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” (11:44)

“I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore, be holy for I am holy.” (11:45)

What is the most important principle of Bible interpretation, class? Right. “Establish the context.”

The context makes it clear that the Lord has in mind His people shall be “a cut above” the surrounding population. They are to be “otherwise,” “the great exception,” what the KJV calls “a peculiar people.” Different from the rest. Standing out from the clutter.

Verses that surround Leviticus 11:44-45 make this clear. The Lord’s people were not to eat certain animals. “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of them or be made unclean by them.” (11:43)

We are to be clean.

Yesterday, I walked into the ICU at Tulane Medical Center to see a friend who had had a stroke this weekend. I would not have been surprised to see him sedated and with tubes everywhere. Instead, he was sitting up in the bed and on the phone. He greeted me heartily and said, “What are you doing here?”

I said, “That’s my line. You’re clearly not sick.” He said, “The only thing wrong with me right now is I need a bath.” He had been 4 days without one.

The small blood clot that had attacked his brain, shutting down the use of the left side of his body, had dissolved, he said. The medical staff planned to release him later in the day.

Before we prayed, I asked, “What can I get for you–other than a bath?”

Not everyone misses cleanliness. In ignoring their unwashed state, they reveal a great deal about themselves.

Here’s a paragraph from John Steinbeck’s “Once There Was a War,” a collection of his war correspondent dispatches.

Continue reading →