What’s So Amazing About Grace? Part 2

When we talk about God’s grace, we often think of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and that is a very big part of it, but there is another kind of grace. It’s the grace God gives us to allow us to endure our most difficult moments. Join us as Pastor Dave Weiss shares about a time when his was at the end of his rope and maybe his ministry and the wise counsel he got from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12.

What God REALLY Prefers

Ephesians 2:1 says, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…” This shows the horror of the human condition. Do you get that? Our lives without Christ are like a bad zombie movie. We’re walking around dead and too dumb to fall over. Or at least I was….my sin was killing me and I didn’t care. I set up this fake, arbitrary standard of goodness where as long as I could find someone I was better than, I was okay. Know anyone like that? This is what we fail to understand.

There was a picture of a church sign going around Facebook this week that said God prefers kind atheists to hateful Christians. The moral of the story according to the person who posted it was you don’t need religion to be a good moral person. I think the poster was missing the point and I think the church that posted it was way off. Should Christians be kind and loving? We should be the kindest most loving people on the planet… should be… and sometimes we’re not, but…

When I first read the sign and the subtitle, I wanted to laugh. Now don’t get me wrong I really don’t like religion either. I’d much rather have a relationship with the God of the universe than a bunch of lifeless rules, but I’m still kind of wondering where all these good moral people are, because, and I’m sorry to say this, but I’ve never met one. I mean come on, let’s just be real. Have you ever met anyone who could… forget God’s law for a second… have you ever met anyone who could even live up to their own moral code? I haven’t and that includes me. I know some wonderful people, people I really like, people I really love, people I’d do anything for and people who would do anything for me, (and incidentally they’re not all believers…yet) but I’ve still never met anyone but Jesus who hasn’t blatantly done something they know is wrong, on purpose. We don’t need religion to be good moral people, we need something much stronger than that. We need the living God. We need Jesus and we need grace.

God prefers kind atheists over hateful Christians? No, God loves kind atheists and hateful Christians and they both break His heart. Neither the atheist nor the hateful Christian can see his need for grace. One rejects His existence and the other rejects His love, both are sinners. God wants people who will turn from all of that and follow His son. Everyone needs grace.

If God prefers anyone, I think God prefers people who will love Him enough to really love Him and others and love them enough that they show through their words AND their actions, the God that can make even atheists change their minds.

From this Sunday’s message “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” NewCreationMuhlenberg.com

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Yield

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Yield

I think it really is this simple. God loves you, wants what’s best for you and His way leads to life. To turn from that way is to really mess you up.

Joshua, near the end of his life challenged the people of Israel and he said this…
if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Message of the Week: Dealing with the D’s

I have a really simple message for you today, God loves you. I started looking at all the stuff that my congregation has been dealing with and all the struggles we face and felt like we needed a reminder. If you’re struggling today know this God loves you and He has not left you, come to Him through Jesus and hold on.

The text for the message is Romans 8.

God bless! The message will be preached later this morning at New Creation Fellowship. If you’re in the Reading PA area, join us.

Don’t Babel…

I was talking to a friend about the challenges that happen to the faith of students as they enter college. This video and the corresponding message are the result…

I did this video of one of my worship paintings. It’s based on a message on the Tower of Babel from Genesis 11 and it’s a very unusual story, a story where it looks like God injected himself in history to mess up our plans. A casual reader of the story might be tempted to see God as the villain of this story. God can’t be the villain, God is always good so what really happened. Well a few chapters before in Genesis 9, Noah and his family have just left the ark and God commanded them to spread out and fill the earth. The rest of the chapter and all of chapter ten tell us how they did just that, but as we approach chapter 11 the people get a different idea.

They decide to stop spreading and gather, build themselves a city with tower that reaches the heavens to make a name for themselves. You might think, what’s wrong with that. Well first of all it’s the opposite of what God told them to do and it looks as though what they were really trying to do was build a life and a world apart from God and to try to reach heaven in their own human efforts. That’s why God put a stop to it. What did he do? He confounded their language so they could no longer understand each other, when that happened they gave up the project, spread out and filled the earth.

In our world we see the same thing. There are so many people that try to live a life apart from God. They try to explain Him away. They believe that believing in God and following Jesus is stupid or antiquated the choice of lesser IQ’s. When we fall pray to this, we start to really try to make a name for ourselves, to claim glory for our accomplishments and we try to build our own heaven here on earth. But heaven apart from God or for that matter life apart from God is not heaven. It’s the opposite. When the people in Babel tried God confused their language because he loved them and He loves us. We can’t get to heaven apart from Him. He had to stop them to save them.

In Acts 2 though God did just the opposite. Centuries an millennia have passed since Babel and God Himself has provided the only way to heaven, through His son Jesus. By now the people of the world speak many languages, but God has brought about salvation and that is too important to miss because of a language barrier. So God provided a miracle. He gave His followers a gift, that allowed them to speak in such a way that everyone no matter what his language heard the message of salvation through Jesus in his own language. Jesus is the way to heaven and church this needs to be the core of our message to the world around us. People may belittle our faith but that doesn’t make it wrong. The very people who belittle us are the ones God put us here to reach with this truth. We need to share boldly with everyone God gives us. We can’t make our own way to heaven but God in His grace has made a way, one way. He gave us HIs only son to die on the cross for your sins and mine. His name is Jesus. If you’re a believer, Don’t babel, speak it clearly. Jesus saves.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Fluid

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Fluid

Thinking of the word fluid, the first thoughts that came to mind were of water and flowing and movement. From there I was moved to Jesus’ promise that we who believe would become streams of living water, living lives that refresh the world around us with a refreshing only He can give. It involves living honest, generous, faithful, loving lives. How refreshing is your life? Maybe it’s time to stop swimming up stream and go with God’s flow.

Jesus Wants You!

It’s strange. I wrote this one post over a year ago called You Do It. It features an image Jesus in an Uncle Sam like pose saying I Want You. For some reason, it is consistently one of my most hit pages. I’m not sure why but as I began to think about it a few new thoughts came to mind, so I made a new graphic for a new post.

The original post was about how if you see something and think somebody should do something about it, chances are, somebody might be you, so “you do it.” Get the idea.

The real danger in a blog like this though is that it would become all about what you do. Needless to say there is more to a relationship, especially with God, than what we do.

First, He wants our obedience. He wants us to put Him first and follow Him even if everyone else goes in another direction. Following Him will not always be easy or popular but it is always right.

Secondly and maybe most importantly, more than anything else, Jesus wants to be in relationship with you. He wants that more than your gifts, more than your service, more than anything you can do for Him. He just wants you, all of you. He desires to spend time in your presence and He desires you to spend time in His. The bottom line is this. It’s not about what you can do for Him. He really needs nothing from you. He doesn’t need you or me at all, but don’t be upset, because while He doesn’t need you, He wants you, all of you. Obey Him, follow Him and, yes, serve Him but know this more than anything else, He wants you because He loves you!

Isn’t that cool!

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Forward

The challenge this week was the word forward and the first thing that popped into my mind came from the evangelical vernacular, “going forward.” It’s what happens at an altar call when the evangelist extends an invitation to turn from sin and follow Jesus. To go forward is to “come to Jesus” and give Him control of your life.

Some may think that’s old fashioned, but I will tell you this: My life was radically changed for the better and forever when I heard God calling me (through the voice of an evangelist). He extended the invitation to come to Christ. I could have resisted, but I didn’t. I knew I needed what Jesus offered and it was time to cross the line and go forward, so I went. My life has never been the same.

I believe God calls to us all, because He loves us so much.
He might be using this post to call you right now. God loves you so much He gave His only Son for you and me to free us from the stuff that’s hurting us (sin) and to give us eternal life. Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and rose again to set us free. He is the way to a full and meaningful life in this world and eternal life when this life ends.

Coming forward was the best move I ever made. What about you? Is it time for you to come forward?

Political Disputes in the Body

I may beed to define this one a little better. When I am talking about this kind of political dispute, I’m not talking Democrats and Republicans and elections and all that other stuff, though that can be equally destructive. I’m talking about when our churches get caught up in the issues of the day and begin to take sides against each other, within the body. Rather than consulting the teachings of Scripture, we go all liberal or conservative and start to fight among ourselves.

That’s not the way it should be. When an issue divides us, we need to gather together around the Word of God, discern what God is saying in the Word, pray, reunite and get back to the business at hand, sharing the Gospel and being the Body of Christ.

Satan doesn’t hate everything. He just hates us and God. He loves when we squabble about stuff, especially when God’s Word is clear, because that will keep us occupied on things that don’t involve advancing God’s Kingdom.

My denomination has been doing this exact thing with one issue longer than I have been a Christian. Nearly 30 years. It’s time to say “thus sayeth the Lord” and get back to work. Our mission is too important to be sidetracked.

In the trenches…

A friend of mine and I were having a discussion the other day. He is a Christian but does not have a “home church.” He was telling me of listening to a message online from a church he has attended a few times. The message was on the tithe which he felt was in error as it did not take New Testament teaching into account. I am not sure where I stand on that. I get where he’s coming from on one hand, (God owns and deserves everything) but on the other hand I know how many churches struggle financially because the members of the body do not even come close to the tithe. I found myself getting too emotional in the conversation because as a pastor, I need all the help I can get. Believers foregoing corporate worship is a sore point with me.

Yet part of me understands it. A wise man one told me that ministry is easy, except for the people. It’s true we come together with lots of baggage, rough edges and wounds and we often manage to hurt each other. We have difficulty coming under authority, humbling ourselves and forgiving. All those traits are relational time bombs waiting to go off. Yet I maintain the answer is not to give up gathering for corporate worship.

I guess the thing that hits me the hardest is the fact that while I acknowledge that in some ways the church is broken, I also feel a call to do my part in fixing it. For that, I don’t need people who will wander in as consultants, tell me what’s wrong with me and then bounce out of my life again. I’ve been pastoring the church of the revolving door for too long.

Don’t tell me what’s wrong with my church, or even how to fix my church and then walk away. That’s not what I need. I’m not infallible and I do make mistakes, but I don’t need a consultant and I don’t need a critic. I need some folks who will climb into the trenches with me, come to the word with me and hash it out with me, battle by my side and help me. I need people who care about the vision God has given and the Kingdom of God enough to get their hands dirty. Your idea may be perfectly valid, you may even be right, but don’t expect me to change anything I do in the name of God before you show me with your faithfulness that I can trust you. Don’t give me an idea or something to do unless you are willing to put your own effort behind it, and for pete sake, don’t tell me I have to do something because God told you I do. The people I trust most are the ones who will join me in the trenches.

Funny my friend would tell me the church is not the building, it’s the people and he would be right about that but I don’t believe that the church will ever be fixed from the outside. I believe the church is a body that needs all the parts to function. We can’t amputate ourselves and really make a difference.

Plug back in and join us in the trenches.