Today we start out Easter series by looking at people from the Easter Story who interacted with Jesus. The theme is based on a question Pontius Pilate asked that every man, woman and child must answer and answer correctly, “What shall I do with Jesus?”
Archive for March, 2023
Message of the Week: What Shall I Do With Jesus? Part 1 Pilate Underestimated Him
Posted: March 12, 2023 in Uncategorized0
A friend online this week posted a post about how to tell true prophets from false prophets. The conclusion the post came to was “false prophets are unable to predict the future with 100 percent accuracy.” I would go along with this to a point. The problem with this is time. We know, having read the Scriptures from our vantage point in time that Isaiah was accurate over and over and over again. That being said, his contemporaries may have assumed him to be false because those prophecies that we look at in the rear view mirror of history, and see as incredibly accurate, took seven hundred years to come to pass.
The reality is there is a wider definition of prophet that has very little to do with predicting anything. These people merely bring messages from the Lord. This could be as simple as a Sunday morning sermon when the preacher has sought the Lord for His message. This is much easier to discern. You merely need to compare what you hear with the word of God. Even this comes with a danger though. We need to take the full counsel of Scripture. The Bible can be misused when we take verses out of context, and so at times a deeper dive is required. What do the Scriptures as a whole have to say about the message brought forth? It might take some work, but what is more important than understanding the Word of God?
When it comes to all of this stuff I am reminded of the Bereans. Do you remember them? The apostle Paul came into their area and began to preach. Now we know Paul as the guy who wrote at least a third of the New Testament, but the Bereans didn’t know him from Adam, if you’ll pardon the pun. So what did they do? They didn’t just write Paul off, nor did they just take him at his word. No they got out their Bibles (probably scrolls) and compared what he said to the Bible. Check this out. Acts 17:11 “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” In other words, these people did their homework and are commended in the Scriptures as an example to be followed.
Now you might wonder what this has to do with the scope of this blog, creative arts ministry. It’s simple really. We are people who have been given gifts to spread the Gospel. We get to get creative with the mode of the delivery of God’s Word and that is an awesome privilege, but check this, it’s also an awesome responsibility. There is a limit on our creativity. We are allowed to change the mode of delivery, with a painting, or a writing, or a play, or whatever. What we dare not tamper with is the message itself. This means we need to make sure that nothing we are teaching in what we do is false, and that means we need to preempt the Bereans. In other words, we need to check ourselves against the Word before they do. This is especially urgent for two reasons. First because an awful lot of people will not be good Bereans. They might just take you at your word, so your word better reflect well on The Word. Secondly the Bible tells us, Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1) This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t teach, but that when we teach, we need to be sure that our teaching is true and not false.
Some of you who are old enough will remember Flip Wilson and his famous quote, “The devil made me do it!” He was wrong. The devil can incite and entice, but he can’t make us do anything. Sin is a choice. We often look at Spiritual warfare as something that only happens in the extremes of life. I think it’s more devious than all of that. I was reading the book Jesus is Risen by David Limbaugh and in his commentary on 2 Corinthians 10, he shares a snippet from J. Philip Arthur that I thought was particularly appropriate for our time. Arthur writes:
“think of it this way. Far more souls have been lost through Satan’s manipulation of the intellectual and theological fashions of the age than through the recruitment of a handful of witches, or luring people into dabbling in the occult.”
I think he is right. There are a lot of people in our world who seem to think they are smarter than God. Sadly many of these are found in religious studies departments and seminaries. While there is need to dig deep into the Scriptures, they can only mean what God intended them to mean. Their meaning is not derived from the prevailing culture of the day, nor from the conventional wisdom, which much of the time is neither. Indeed most of the time the meaning of the Scripture is right there on the surface, interpreted best by other Scripture.
We are not here to change the Scripture. The Scripture is meant to change us. The devil doesn’t make us do anything, but he’s more than happy to let us pridefully deceive ourselves.
So I’ve been catching up own the second season of The Chosen, and wow, just wow. I want to start off by saying, I know this is not a substitute for the Bible. I know they fill in details and combine elements, but I have to say I love watching these stories come to life on the screen. The actors do a wonderful job playing their parts and the actor who plays Jesus is superb. I love this kind of thing, and each time I watch it, it inspires me to want to communicate God’s Word in new and different ways. But when I think of that, I confess there is something that comes up in my heart and mind.
Now I know the show is not without it’s detractors, and I have to wonder what the detractors are trying to accomplish. I am all about doctrinal purity, and I would never want to be a false teacher, but I have to tell you one of the things the detractors do, at least to this creative person. I hear the complaints, especially those that come from keyboard warriors, and I think is it worth it to try to do the creative things I feel inspired to do? Will I put forth my best effort only to have my best efforts shot down by people who will call me all matter of things and question my faith? See the thing is, when I take on creative projects for the Kingdom, I do my level best to be as accurate as possible, yet I have seen an awful lot of people who seem to live to pick things apart without lifting a finger to come up with something more positive. To them I want to ask a question. Are you making things better or are you just being a “resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” adding to the noise, but without love?
It would seem to me that the better tack would be to assume that the creator in question has their heart in the right place and speak truth in love. None of us are infallible and a gentle word, might help the person to polish their work. Of course the other side to this is that if I turn away from what God has called me to do, because I fear the opinions of men, I’m as much to blame as they are. The truth of the matter is we in the church could help each other out a lot more, if we would come along side each other as we appreciate what the person is trying to do and partner with them to make it better.
After all, those who can’t do become critics. Anyone can be a critic, but a mentor is a rare and valuable find.
I know most of you have been following the blog for a while. You know I am an artist, you know I’m in ministry but you may not know I am also a speaker. I have been traveling and doing a unique blend of speed painting and storytelling to communicate the Gospel as well as doing creative ministry workshops. I started doing this in earnest in 2012, though I had been doing things here and there since around 2000. I’ve done my ministry in about 300 different venues in around 20 states. Things were moving along pretty well and the reach of the ministry was expanding, but then 2020 happened and with it a pandemic. In that year, I went from ministering at 30-50 events a year, to two. In the last few years I have bounced back a little, but I would love to do a lot more. If you need a speaker for your next event, I would love for you to consider me.
You can see a taste of what I do below,
and you can check out more of my videos on this page.
One thing you may need to consider is I became a full time pastor in 2020 and as such my Sunday’s are a little more limited, but if you can bring me in and get me home by Sunday morning, I would love to talk to you.
You can contact me here.
This evening I finally got to see the movie Jesus Revolution and thoroughly enjoyed it. For those who don’t know, it’s the story of Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel and the start of the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. It starts off with a staid, uptight pastor who suddenly meets a Jesus loving hippie named Lonnie Frisbee. Frisbee slowly disarms Smith and helps him to see the mission field all around him. Together they begin reaching the hippies and bring about one of the largest revivals in the history of the United States. The movie was really well done and quite touching at places, but there was something who hit me. As an aging pastor it becomes easy to relate to Chuck Smith, and it brings about a question. Who are the hippies of today? Who are the broken and the hurting? How can I reach those people without compromising biblical truth? Can I speak the truth in enough love to reach them? I’m still exploring these ideas and I don’t have a lot of firm answers, but I have one huge one.
Namely, I can’t do most of this on my own, and my suspicion is neither can you. We live in a world where a false sort of tolerance reigns. The only way to be envisioned as loving for many is to totally compromise biblical truth. That helps and serves no one. No the only way any of this changes is if God reaches into lives and changes hearts, and so our main tactic cannot be superior rhetoric or fabulous preaching. No, our main tactic is to seek the One who can actually change things. Our first step is prayer. We can’t start a revival in our own strength. Jesus reminded the people as much in John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” We can be the best artists in the world, but it is still God who does the drawing. (pun intended) If we want to see revival there are two things to do. Pray for revival, ask God what he would have you do, and move forward in faithfulness.
I recommend Jesus Revolution. It’s not a perfect movie, and it’s not filled with portrayals of perfect people, but it is very inspirational, and it will get you thinking. Who are your hippies? Ask God to reach them, and ask Him to help you to reach out to the people He lays on your heart.
Well I seem to have come upon and unintentional sermon series on the signs of the times. This one was inspired by something that happened in our region this past week. There was something of an uproar as a local school district approved an after school club, run by the Satanic Temple. Further developments have changed some of the things, and so I have attached the final thought video to this message as well with some updates. It’s an interesting story that begs a question. How should Christians respond to things with which we disagree in these last days in which we live? Check out the message to learn more.
AMOKArts 