GCC and the Sovereignty of God

“You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’  But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” (Romans 9:19-21, ESV)

In the Book of Romans, chapter 9, our God, through the apostle Paul, reveals some of the thorniest and complex aspects of His sovereignty – attributes that not many understand and even fewer accept.  They are not the crowd-pleasing, praise song-inspiring characteristics of love, compassion, and mercy that we want to focus on to the exclusion of everything else.  We cannot, however, fully appreciate God’s love, compassion, and mercy until we understand His wrath, judgment, and complete sovereignty over all (even sinful acts of men).  And it is so clear, especially when you read Bible chapters like Romans 9, that God wants us to truly know Him.  All aspects of Him.  God wants us to plumb the depths of who He truly is because only then will we be inspired to the heights of worship and adoration of Him for which we were created (1 Corinthians 2:14-16).

The Frightening Precipice of Sovereignty

Few teachers would tackle the above passage in an adult Sunday school class, but one of our pastors here at Grace Community Church did last Sunday and I have been so blessed by it.  Like many other Christians, I misunderstood Romans 9:19-21 to mean that God looked over a neutral lump of clay representing humanity and decided which part of this lump He would form into vessels of honor (save) and which part He would form into vessels of dishonor (condemn).  It seemed then to me that God decided beforehand who would be destined to heaven and who would be destined to hell.  This was an exceedingly difficult passage that made me question our interpretation of the Scriptures and be uncomfortably uncertain about God’s goodness.

But the problem was never Romans 9, it was me.   I was approaching this passage from a human point of view, applying a frail, tainted human understanding of fairness to God’s Holy Word.   This is where I often go wrong in trying to interpret the Bible.  As a member of Grace so kindly reminded me, God is not like us.   The minute I entertain thoughts like, “Well, if I were God, I would…..”  I’m already careening in the wrong direction.  God will not be brought down to my level and judged by human sensibilities.  He stands at a viewpoint totally unique to Him, one that is not enjoyed by any of His creatures.  He is the Sole Creator of all there is.  He Himself was not created, He has always existed.   All things were created through, by, and for Him (Colossians 1:16) and His number one priority is to display all of His attributes – mercy, compassion, righteousness, judgment, wrath. 

I was also wrong about that lump of clay mentioned in verse 21, for we are not so neutral and innocent as we suppose.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  God in His sovereignty has the right then to condemn us all.  Our actions against Him have earned this response.  But, to display all of His attributes, God can choose to be merciful to some and allow the others to remain condemned, and that is what He has done.  This truth has completely shut my mouth in submissive reverence.  He is God.  He is altogether worthy.  Who am I to question Him?

Moved to Praises

The sovereignty of God looked to me like a steep, treacherous mountain, its foreboding precipice stretching high above the clouds.  As I began to climb this mountain and look down at the crashing waves and jagged rocks below, I thought,

 “I don’t know if I can take this.  Is God really like this?  Why does He do that?  Why won’t He do this?”

Halfway up the mountain, there was no turning back.  I couldn’t go back down to where I had been before, I already knew too much.  Yet I feared going on to the steep cliff of God’s sovereignty ahead of me. 

“I didn’t know this about Him.  Will I still love Him if I keep moving on?  Will the knowledge of Him still be precious to me?”

But when I finally reached the top of the mountain, when I finally accepted that God has the absolute right to do what He wants with His creation to glorify Himself, I saw something wonderful.  I saw a lush, verdant valley full of breath-taking beauty, visual richness, and stimulating pleasures the likes of which my eyes have never seen.  I can never enjoy God truly until I accept Him completely.  And our God is so BIG!  He’s HUGE!  He is so much more magnificent and transcendent than our minds can comprehend!  Knowing this makes me want to fall down and worship Him with almost reckless abandon, breaking out into spontaneous singing,

You are beautiful in Your holiness!

Ever merciful, great and glorious!

Indescribable in Your majesty!

All too wonderful for my eyes to see!

Our Kind Teachers at Grace

This experience in Romans 9 has made me so appreciate the pastors, teachers, and elders at Grace Community Church.  There are few like them.  Most church leaders will not even venture into Romans 9 because they find it too controversial.  So they keep the sheep of their flock bound by a small, weak, easily-explained view of God, a much less magnificent “god” than the One the Word reveals.  Other church leaders who dare to wield this sword often do so carelessly and thoughtlessly, attempting to wow members with their superior knowledge, injuring fragile sheep in the process.   

Our leaders at Grace do neither of these things.  They see themselves as faithful stewards of God’s Word, respecting it, loving it, being careful to interpret and exposit it correctly.  What's more, they not only love God and His Holy Word, they clearly love the sheep in their care as well.  They have slowly and painstakingly navigated our journey through the much-maligned Romans 9, cutting it into bite-sized pieces, even spoon-feeding it to us if that was needed.  Their patience and humility in teaching us about the sovereignty of God has not only set a good example, it has allowed me to enjoy a more accurate view of God……which makes me want to know Him more!

I love you, Grace Community Church!

Getting Ready for Wednesday Night!

Wednesday night church service is such a treat!  It’s like a refreshing oasis in the middle of a dry, dusty work-a-day desert.  Not only is it a welcomed break from the weekly routine, it’s the fuel that gets me through the rest of my week.  “If I can just make it to Wednesday….” I often say to myself on Monday morning, after coming down from a spiritual high on Sunday.  I so look forward to the worship, learning, and fellowship that Wednesday night provides.

But Wednesday night church service can also be a challenge.  Unlike Sunday morning service which comes at your freshest, happiest, most awake time of the day, Wednesday night service comes after a usually long day of stresses, errands, tasks, and work, work, work.  You’re beat-down tired by 5pm on Wednesday with often nothing more than the desire to slump down in an easy chair and vegetate in front of the TV.  Have you ever heard journalists use the phrase “phone it in” to describe an actor’s performance?  Like, “Tommy Lee Jones really phoned it in on this movie role.”  It means the actor didn’t seem to be into the role; they did their job carelessly without any passion or conviction. 

Sometimes, after an especially long Wednesday, I am tempted to “phone it in” at church as well.  Not that worship is a performance, mind you, but it’s so easy to get distracted by the concerns of the day, to pay too much attention to my growling stomach crying out for dinner, to yawn a little too much during the prayer, and just not be as “into it” on a Wednesday night.  But I don’t want to be that way and I’m sure you don’t either.  So how do we cure those Wednesday night blahs?  How do we come to Wednesday night service ready to worship our great God?  Letting the following thoughts simmer in your mind is a good place to start!

Created to Worship

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16).  All things were created by our Lord for his good pleasure – to glorify, honor, and praise him. 

Scientists have recently discovered a star located towards the center of the universe that is 10,000 times more luminous than our own Sun.  Having yet to be officially named, it has apparently been blazing out there in the heavens for centuries unbeknownst by us humans.  Why?  What is it out there for?   The famous Giant Red Spot on Jupiter is a persistent and powerful anticyclonic storm that is larger than Earth and has existed for at least 182 years (that was the earliest time it was noticed).  Why does this storm exist?  What is its purpose?  It all comes down to one basic truth:  Both the luminous star and the Giant Red Spot exist to glorify God, to display his infinite attributes, to acknowledge him, to give him delight.  The same is true for birds chirping in the treetops, mighty rivers flowing through the terrain, lowly earthworms burrowing in the earth, thunderous lightning crackling across the sky – they were all created by God, for God.

Redeemed to Worship

Man was also created to glorify, praise, and honor his God, his Creator.  His hands were made to be lifted up to the Lord in adoration, his mouth was formed to extol God – to sing to the Lord and about the Lord, his ears were fashioned to listen in rapt attention to his Word.  But man in his rebellion flat out refuses to give God the praise he is due.  He is like God’s description of rebellious Judah in the book of Jeremiah, “the word of the LORD is to them an object of scorn; they take no pleasure in it” (Jeremiah 6:10).  Unless he is in trouble, man sees no reason to pay any respect or attention to God.  He instead goes on with his life, absorbing himself in the pettiest of concerns, working against his very design, and rendering his life completely useless as a result.  As the Scriptures say, “no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless” (Romans 3:11,12).

You and I were made to worship!

Christian, we were once like that.  We were once God-hating, rebellious, idolaters who wanted nothing to do with praise, adoration, and worship of our Holy God.  But God redeemed us.  He purchased us, bought us back from total worthlessness and destruction, and at great cost – the blood of his precious Son.  He did all of this not because we deserved it, but so we could do what we were created to do in the first place:  Worship our God with gladness and joy!

Grace Community Church, do you realize that we (along with other Christians throughout the world) are unique in all of God’s creation here on earth?  We are not like the birds of the air or the grass in the meadow existing to glorify God but being completely unaware of it.  Having no will or analytical mind of their own, they have no choice but to glorify God.  And we are not like the reprobate who has a will that is controlled by the sinful nature, unable to know God, blinded to his majesty, averse to praising him.  We are the only ones on this earth who can deliberately, intentionally, joyously, purposefully, prayerfully, and thankfully praise our Lord!  What an honor and a privilege that is!

Let your mind dwell on those thoughts this Wednesday.  As you drive to Bible Study tonight be in prayer asking your heavenly Father to give you the strength, desire, and yearning to know him, enjoy him, and worship him.  Let your mouth salivate at the thought of singing his praise; let your heart pound as you contemplate hearing his Word.  

Happy Wednesday!

What's Your Gift for Grace?

What’s Your Gift for Grace?

If I’m not careful, I often fall into the habit of thinking of the spiritual gifts as supernatural experiences manifesting themselves only in “Bible times”.  I think of the miraculous gifts of healing performed by the apostles, the gifts of speaking in tongues so common in the Corinthian church, and the many awe-inspiring acts of the prophets of old.  These were the sign gifts that accompanied and authenticated the proclamation of God’s Word.  The Holy Spirit, however, has not ceased to dispense spiritual gifts – in fact He has made the use of spiritual gifts an integral part of the growth of the church.   In Ephesians 4:11-13, Paul states “and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”.  We see here that the Spirit gives gifts to certain men to equip the church and help it to become “the fullness of Christ”, representing Christ here on Earth.

But it’s not just certain men who are assigned spiritual gifts to build up the church.  Each individual member of the church has a spiritual gift, a way in which the Spirit Himself through each member blesses, sanctifies, and matures the body of Christ.  “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness” (Romans 12:4-8).  This is an exciting reality that as believers we often overlook.  And if you are not using your spiritual gift, allowing the Spirit to work through you on behalf of the body, then our church isn’t functioning as well as it should and Christ is not being fully magnified.

So what is your gift for our church, Grace Community Church?  What special ability has the Spirit assigned to you to build Grace up into the measure of the stature of Christ?  And how can you discover what your gift is?

A great place to start is to see how the Spirit is moving powerfully through some members of Grace.  We are so blessed to have many examples of the spiritual gifts on display!

They're all called "Grace Community Church".  But they are not OUR Grace Community Church.  Very interesting.

Visibly Gifted

It should be obvious to all that our pastors are very talented men.  They are well-educated – schooled extensively in the historical, grammatical interpretation of Scripture – they are very adept at speechwriting, and each has a lucid and winsome sermon delivery style.  These are all learned behaviors and our pastors excel at them.  But it is not these traits that make them effective preachers and teachers.  After all, many unsaved men are dynamic speakers and some of our most knowledgeable biblical scholars (who have contributed to the various Bible translations) are non-Christians.  These learned behaviors then are the vehicle by which the Spirit moves through our pastors, they are not the gifts themselves.  The reason we feel as if God is speaking directly to us when our pastors preach and teach is because He is speaking to us through them.  Please understand, I don’t say this to butter up our pastors.  There is really no point in doing that since this gift does not originate from them, but from the Holy Spirit.  I don’t dare compliment them except to say this:  They are all humble enough to allow the Spirit to speak through them.  This is their gift.  It is the reason their preaching is so powerful, convicting, and life-changing.

There is another man at Grace and he is so humble and unassuming that he would not want me to mention him by name, but you all know him.  He has an unquenchable thirst to share the gospel with everyone he comes across.  I have enjoyed the privilege of going on evangelistic outings with him where he has, when given the opportunity, preached the gospel publicly in the open air to passersby.  Now some of this is done with human effort:  he has diligently memorized Scriptures that he quotes throughout his gospel declarations.  But often as I listen to this man extolling the virtues of our loving heavenly Father to all who will listen, explaining the sacrificial deeds of our Lord and Savior, and pleading with sinners to obey the gospel there is a moment in time when I no longer hear the man but the very Spirit of our God imploring with terrifying clarity! (2 Corinthians 5:20)

Did you know there were so many Grace Community Churches out there?  Is this starting to freak you out, too?

But it’s not just the leaders of our church….the pastors, elders, and deacons…that the Spirit wants to work through.  He wants to work through all of us who are the redeemed, all members of Grace Community Church, with just as much power and effectiveness.  We often erroneously see the church as simply a human institution represented by our leadership.  This is not at all what the church is.  According to the Scriptures, the church is a heavenly organism built and sustained by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Matthew 16:18, Ephesians 5:25-32, 1 Peter 2:4-5).  And the leadership, though they are highly visible and well-known throughout the congregation, are simply members of the church.  They are important members but not the only members.  You may think this is a silly thing to point out (we all know we’re members, don’t we?).  But I think there is a tendency to think that the work of the church is done by the leadership and their wives, making the rest of us passive spectators.  The reality is none of us are spectators. We are all active, living, functioning parts of Grace Community Church and our gifts, the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to each of us, are needed to make the church appear as Christ to this dark world.

Discovering Your Gift

So how can you discover your gift for Grace?  Here are few helpful tips.

Commit to Prayer – Pray to the Lord that He will use you to build up Grace Community Church and that you will fulfill the works He has created for you to do as a member of this church (Ephesians 2:10).  This is a prayer the Lord very much desires to answer and it will surely be a welcomed change from our usual prayers for physical comforts.

Fill Up on the Word – It is very unlikely that you will discover how the Lord wants to supernaturally work through you if you consume a steady diet of TV, watching Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, American Idol and the like.  Instead, spend your free time diving deep into the Word of God, dwelling on its promises and precepts, nourishing your spirit with its truths.  Remember, it is though prayer that we communicate with God but it is through His holy Word that He communicates with us.  You will not “hear” Him if you don’t regularly dwell on His Word.

Get Involved! – You will never be used by the Spirit if you are satisfied existing on the fringes of church life.  Don’t simply “go” to church, BE the church.  What I mean is do not see church as simply a location where you go to sings songs and hear a message.  Come to the assembly looking for opportunities to be a blessing to others.  Interact with other members, get involved in activities, and look for ways to do the “one-anothers” of Scripture.  It will be through these interactions that you will begin to notice things that you love to do that seem to come naturally and that appear to bless and inspire others.  After a while, you will start to get feedback from others such as,

“You encouraged me so much the other day when you…..”

“I am so glad to know you!  You are so good at……”

“What you did the other day helped me so much!  You seem to be a natural at…..”

“This person needs you.  Could you please go to them because you are better than I am at……”

Aha!  There's the one I know and love.  Rock on, Grace Community Church!

Take note that the spiritual gifts will not be natural abilities such as the ability to make delicious pies and cakes.  You may have this ability and may really enjoying baking and sharing baked goods with others, but this is a learned behavior, one that non-Christians can also do well.  A spiritual gift will be something that the world cannot learn to do.  Your love of baking may instead be the vehicle by which the Spirit displays a supernatural ability to show mercy to others in need.  In this example, the ability to show mercy as the Lord does will be your spiritual gift, not baking, though baking may be one way in which it manifests itself.  Another characteristic of a spiritual gift is that it will make others praise God and not you when this gift is displayed, as it states in Matthew 5:16, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

A spiritual gift will not simply be an ability that makes you look impressive.  Rather it will focus on making others around you more like Christ.  It will also be something that gives you an almost inexplicable feeling of happiness and fulfillment.  Notice the joy and the passion that our pastor-teacher displays from the pulpit as he pours out his gift of preaching and teaching among us.  It is obviously more than just a job to him.  It is the very air he breathes.  That is how the Holy Spirit wants to work through each one of us.  When we allow Him to do this, what a beautiful picture of Christ will be on display in the body that is Grace Community Church!

What will Grace Community Church look like when we are all pouring out our spiritual gifts?  What will it feel like?  How will Jacksonville respond?  The thought is thrilling!