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It’s football season, so I think it’s very appropriate to talk about passion and excitement. Real fans wildly cheer their team’s victories, and occasionally, deeply mourn their losses. Do you identify with that, or are their other things that light you up? What do you get really fired up over, what excites you, what causes emotion to burn deep into your being?
Now another question, what are your most intense emotions. Really think about it – when you have an intense emotional reaction to something, what are you typically feeling. Chances are, the most common and intense emotions we experience are sadness, anger, or joy.
What about regret and remorse? More than likely, it’s been a while since you’ve truly allowed yourself to experience these emotions. Our culture idolizes personal happiness, glorifies anger and rage, and romanticizes sadness, so it’s “acceptable” to experience these emotions. Shame, guilt, regret, and remorse are the red-headed stepchildren in our culture’s collective bank of emotions. We live in a society of “no regrets.” We say it is meaningless to live in the past, and “What’s done is done.”
Yet when we embrace this mindset, we abandon the gravity of sin and forget the holiness of God. Furthermore, this nullifies the grace of God and downplays the sacrifice of Christ. When we reject remorse, we silence our consciences and the Holy Spirit within us.
When was the last time you wept over your brokenness? When was the last time you looked back on your day and realized you had abandoned God, that you had ignored His calling and thumbed your nose at His command? When was the last time you felt sadness wash over you because you disappointed God? The Bible records one particularly poignant story of two men who blatantly abandonded, betrayed, and rejected God. Their response was not to “forgive themselves” and move on immediately. Both men had intensely sorrowful reactions when they realized what they had done. Why do we not call all of our sins “betraying God’s grace?” Was it not our sins that put Christ on the cross?
Some may say this is a negative view of God – that He is full of love, grace, and is “the God of second chances.” These would say that we need to bask in the grace of God and freely accept it. Those statements are true – God is like that. Yet sin is sin, and after all He has done for us, is it not the height of arrogance to vaccilate freely between accepting the love of God while ignoring the will of God?
Some may say this is a dangerous approach to considering sin – that we as a society are prone to depression, and overemphasizing our faults and flaws would be extremely detrimental. This is also true. Yet God has left us with an appropriate way to deal with our own sin. Returning to the story I referenced earlier, who were these two men who abandoned God? Judas and Peter. Both men realized they had betrayed Jesus in their own ways. Judas felt sorrow and disgust at himself, and tried to erase his actions and distance himself from them – eventually his sorrow led him to commit suicide. Peter also betrayed Christ, and “wept bitterly” when he realized what he had done. Yet he stuck around long enough to run back to Christ with passion and humility when given the opportunity.
2 Corinthians 7:8-13 talks about a “godly sorrow” that yields repentance. God is not in the business of inducing depression. Longstanding shame and guilt only neutralizes us and makes us impotent for the Kingdom of God. Rather, God sends the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, to induce remorse, so that we would acknowledge our wickedness (incidentally, calling all our wrongdoing “wickedness” greatly increases its perceived severity) and turn from our ways (i.e., “repent”) towards a closer relationship with God.
David asked God to create a “new heart” in him after he abandoned the ways of God in favor of murder, sexual immorality, and passion (Psalm 51). In fact, the psalms are filled with the remorse of a man who would turn to God and run away from Him. Would that God would soften our hearts again, and give us a sensitivity towards our own sin, and passion for personal holiness.
(This essay was written by Chris Coultas, worship leader of our 10am Worship Service)
October 17, 2011 in Bible Study, Christian Living by PABC
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A while back, my Dad bought a Christian CD for my son, Jeremiah. It’s a great CD that puts Bible verses to music. One of the songs is based on Philippians 2:14 … a verse I sadly paid much attention to before Jeremiah got the CD. The song goes like this:
Do… do… do… do… do all things,
Do… do… do… do… do all things,
Do… do… do… do… do all things,
Without complaining or arguing!
Pretty deep stuff for a children’s song, huh? And, simple, too. My son sings this all of the time, and the cool thing is that he’s learning to apply the Scripture to his life.
So, what’s in it for us? Well, I think it’s time we all learn to stop complaining. Now, I’m not talking about providing helpful feedback to a person or an organization that asks for feedback and wants to improve (think restaurants that offer comment cards). I’m talking about the unproductive stuff. Like complaining to a friend or family member about some person, place, thing, or event when there’s nothing that they can do about the situation. I’m talking about complaining about work, church, family members, and the like with your only real purpose being to let people know how unhappy you are.
One of the world’s most prolific bloggers, Seth Godin, recently wrote a post about the uselessness of whining. Take a look at what he wrote about the two problems with whining:
The first is that it doesn’t work. You can whine about the government or your friends or your job or your family, but nothing will happen except that you’ll waste time.
Worse… far worse… is that whining is a reverse placebo. When you get good at whining, you start noticing evidence that makes your whining more true. So you amplify that and immerse yourself in it, thus creating more evidence, more stuff worth complaining about.
If you spent the same time prattling on about how optimistic you are, you’d have to work hard to make that true…
Well, we’ve identified the problem. We know what God thinks about it. And, we know how useless our complaining is. So, what are we going to do about it? Hmmm?
(Contributed by Jonathan Williams. This post first appeared on Jonathan’s blog November 2010)
August 22, 2011 in Bible Study, Blog, Christian Living by PABC
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One of the churches that we have learned a lot from through the years is NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. NewSpring’s pastor, Perry Noble, recently wrote a blog post for his church about understanding evangelism, and though Sanford, Florida is a long way away from South Carolina, we felt like this post was valuable enough to share with Palmetto Avenue Baptist Church today. So, read on…it’s good stuff.
Evangelism (telling others about Jesus) is not a great idea…it is a COMMAND issued by CHRIST Himself.
It’s not easy, it does cause us to get uncomfortable, people will think you are crazy and following the command of Christ will create tension at times…
Nonetheless we are still called and empowered to do this!
So, today I hope you will take a little time to read Acts 8:4-8 and then Acts 8:26-40 and let’s think about six things together…
#1 – Evangelism Is The Proclamation of Jesus Christ–PERIOD! (Acts 8:4-8)
One of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard in my life is, “preach the Gospel all of the time and, when necessary, use words!” DUMB!!!!
Because…GOD SAID in Romans 10:14-17 its through THE WORD that people are saved.
Listen, good deeds are never a bad thing…but please don’t try to convince me that cutting someone’s grass or paying for their coffee is evangelism…it’s NOT! The BIBLICAL definition of evangelism is when we PROCLAIM CHRIST…and unfortunately a cowardly church culture has turned it into a whole lot of things that Jesus never intended for it to be. The Bible says in Acts 8:5 that Phillip proclaimed CHRIST…Acts 4:12 says there is no other name by which we must be saved…I Timothy 2:5 says there is ONE mediator and we’ve been commissioned and commanded by Jesus with this calling/responsibility! (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:45-48, John 20:21, Acts 1:8, II Corinthians 5:17-21!)
#2 – Evangelism Will Disrupt Our “Normal” Routine!
In Acts 8:4-8 Phillip is declaring Christ to the masses…but notice in Acts 8:26 God specifically speaks to His heart and leads him in a different direction. One of the things we’ve GOT to do is beg God to disrupt our “normal” routine and make ourselves available to do whatever He wants us to do. (I HIGHLY recommend “Just Walk Across The Room” by Bill Hybels, the BEST book I’ve ever read on the subject of Evangelism!)
#3 – God Is Preparing The Hearts Of The People He Is Prompting Us To Share Christ With!
Check out Acts 8:27-28, the reason God sent Phillip down this road is that He was working on the heart of a man who desperately needed Him! Please understand that we NEVER know what God may be doing in someone else’s life. They may portray that they have it all together and they are not interested…but you never know what God is doing in their heart. If God is prompting you to share Christ with someone then He has gone ahead of you and is preparing them as well!!!
#4 – Be Normal!
Please notice in Acts 8:29-30 that Phillip did not say, “Hello hell bound sinner, did you know that unless you repent of your sin and give your life to Jesus you are going to fry like bacon in a devil’s hell?” He did not scream, yell, hold up signs…
He simply listened to the Spirit, ran up to the chariot (it does take effort) and asked a simply question, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
It’s amazing the opportunities that God puts in front of us every single day…and when we see them and embrace them we simply need to be normal, engage them in conversation and communicate that we are interested in them.
#5 – Evangelism Must Come Back Around To A Conversation About Christ.
I said it in point one…I will say it here…we are called to PROCLAIM CHRIST!!! Notice in Acts 8:31-35 that Phillip began where the eunuch was and brought the conversation back around to JESUS! It HAS TO come back to Christ…we can’t allow the conversation to get sidetracked with political and sociological issues…no one EVER surrendered their lives to Christ because they had all of their questions answered!!! Always bring it around to JESUS!!!
PLEASE understand this…if Phillip had simply said, “I am not going to share Christ with him…I’m just going to buy him a cup of coffee and give him a warm smile” then we would have had nothing more than a story about a caffeinated eunuch who felt good about himself for a moment but NEVER HEARD ABOUT JESUS!!! BAD STORY!!!
#6 – Evangelism Isn’t A One Time Deal.
Notice Acts 8:36-40 (one of the coolest sections in the Bible…God literally teleports someone!!!) The eunuch receives Christ, is baptized and then God moves Phillip someone else to KEEP proclaiming Christ. We are NEVER done with this…God has strategically placed each one of us in places of work, in neighborhoods and in certain social situations NOT for our comfort…but rather He placed us there with specific relationships so that we can literally tell others about Jesus!!! It’s NOT a one time deal…it’s a core value that we must embrace in our lives if we are going to follow Christ!!!
August 17, 2011 in Bible Study, Blog, Christian Living, On Mission by PABC
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Do you want to get more out of your personal bible study time? Have you ever wondered how it is that some Christians, pastors, or bible study leaders seem to be able to identify so much more truth in God’s word? Well, there’s a three step process that can put you on a path to understanding and applying God’s word to your life. This will help you to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only (James 1:22).
Here are the three steps of inductive Bible study:
1). Observation: What does it say?
This first step is a simple one. Read the text carefully a time or two in a Bible version that you can understand. (There are many great versions and translations available. The one that I use personally and recommend is the NET Bible. If you want to know why I like this one best, ask me some time.) As you read, look for the following things:
- Are there any commands?
- Are there any promises?
- Are there any repeated words or phrases?
- Are there any results or conclusions (look for therefore or so that)?
- What is the main idea of the passage?
2). Interpretation: What does it mean?
This can be a challenging step, and it’s the one that people sometimes fail to carry out correctly. To perform this step, you may need to seek out a few Bible study tools (commentary, concordance, etc.). But, don’t get too intimidated at this step. Simply, consider the following questions:
- Are there any terms, words, or phrases that need to be defined?
- How does the passage fit into the broader context of the chapter & book?
- What was the author of this book trying to say?
- What did the audience understand the author to have been saying?
3). Application: What does it mean to me?
Now, it is time to apply the timeless truth of the passage to life. Though all of the Bible may not be written directly to us, it is certainly written for us. And, we must ask a few questions to learn how this passage should change our lives:
- What attitude does this passage instruct me to have?
- What action does this passage instruct me to take?
- What does this passage instruct me to believe?
- What does this passage instruct me to avoid?
At this step of application, also look for the How and the Why. In addition to telling us what to do, believe, and avoid, the Bible also frequently tells us how and why to apply the truth of the passage. So, look for that.
Certainly, this is not an exhaustive guide, but it should be a great start to helping you learn more from your Bible study time. So, try taking these steps sometime this week, and let me know how it goes. And of course, feel free to ask me any questions that arise from your personal study of the Bible.
(Contributed by Jonathan Williams. This article was first posted in June 2010 on Jonathan’s website.)
July 20, 2011 in Bible Study, Blog, Christian Living by PABC
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