Pastor's Blog

A New Year is beginning! It is customary for us to wish others a Happy New Year. With each New Year comes a new start. People like getting a fresh start, a new beginning, another chance, a do-over, a makeover, a new season, a new resolution, etc. But are things really ‘new’ just because the calendar has turned? For some people, a New Year is simply the beginning of the same old cycle of events all over again.

What can really make things new? THE ANSWER: The Good News of the Christian Gospel. The gospel makes all things new. Paul the Apostle in his second letter to the Christians living in Corinth (II Corinthians 5:17 [NLT]) says, “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life has gone, a new life has begun!” In the gospel a new covenant of reconciliation with God has been established through Christ’s suffering, crucifixion, resurrection, and future return. This means that all things are made new for you when you surrender wholeheartedly to Christ and all He accomplished on our behalf on the cross. Paul the Apostle continues, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ (II Corinthians 5:21 [NLT]).” This is Good News for a New Year!

Do you want to be right with God? The New Year is the right time for a New Beginning. Christ took away our sins by becoming sin for us. In so doing, He has made all things new for us. If you are a Christian, the New Year is a new opportunity to drink deeply from the inexhaustible fountain of the gospel afresh and anew. If you are non-Christian, we implore you to be reconciled to God through Christ now.  If you do, all things will really be made new for you. The sin, guilt, shame, emptiness, confusion, drudgery, bitterness, anguish, anxiety, immorality, purposelessness, alienation, and depravity will be replaced by a New Beginning in the gospel of Christ. I pray this will be a genuinely Happy New Year for each of us.

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Preaching this past Sunday (1/3/11), Pastor Jon Waller asked: Who is Jesus?  a good teacher?  a good moral example?  a great philosopher?  Jesus is cool?  Jesus is radical?  Jesus is a revolutionary?  But are those what the Bible reveals about Jesus? 

Many have constructed their own ideas about who Jesus is, with or without the Bible’s help, with various motives.  If you look close enough at these reconstructions of Jesus you typically find the reconstruction looks more like the author than Jesus.  Israel constructing their own golden god and named it “God” (Exodus 32).  Reconstructions of Jesus are no different.  They are a “false Jesus”.  Our understanding of Who Jesus is, what He has done, and our response to Jesus, is defined by Scripture.

In Matthew 16:16 Peter says to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Scripture says Jesus is THE Christ– the anointed Savior.  Jesus is the Son of God– Jesus is fully God and fully man.  Jesus is Son of the Living God– He is not a dead, nor irrelevant, God.  In one succinct sentence, Peter eliminates virtually every misconception of Jesus any could postulate.  

Any description of Jesus that adds to or takes away from the Biblical account of Jesus is– by definition– not the Jesus of the Bible.  Once you step away from Jesus as revealed in Scripture, you’re talking about a golden calf, an idol, not Jesus.

Christian, Who is Jesus?  Do you worship Jesus, or a golden calf?

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In John 5, Jesus’ name is challenged: is Jesus really the Son of God?!   Pastor Curits Sumpter preached on Sunday that John then cites five testimonies that evidence who Jesus truly is, though the religious leader’s and others refused to accept these testimonies.  The point of these testimonies is that who Jesus is and what Jesus does makes clear that He lives up to His name: Son of God.  Jesus is God’s Son.  All that Jesus says and does and is indicates Who He is.

All who believe in Jesus Christ also bear an important, sometimes unbelievable, name: “Christian”.  The name “Christian” literally means, “Christ-like”.  Christians bear Christ’s name.  In a similar fashion to Christ, Christians are to bear the name of Christ in all that we say and do.  To be a Christian, one must receive faith in Jesus Christ, who reconciles us to God (Ephesians 2:1-10).  Then, the challenging part begins: learning to live for Christ, to bear His name for His glory, not your own (see also, Galatians 2:20; Philippians 2:1-13; 3:7-16).  Many times, Christians want Christmas, but not Easter.  We are eager to claim the name and celebrate all that Jesus does for us, but are not so willing to take up our cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24).  Bearing the name “Christian” also means living a life worthy of the name; we are expected to live for Christ in all that we say and do by virtue of Who’s name we claim.

So, Christian, do you live up to your name?

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Welcome to the Montrose Baptist Church Pastor’s Blog!  We are excited about this new venture into the blogosphere.  We pray that you will find these postings encouraging, inspiring, and instructive for your discipleship and spiritual growth.  The ultimate goal of this blog is to glorify God through concise writings on what the Scriptures teach about the Christian Gospel, the Church, and Christian life in the 21st century.  The Apostle Paul eloquently states the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ’Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures.’   We believe the Gospel is the power of God to save and to sanctify all who believe (Romans 1:16).

Dr. Ken Fentress
Senior Pastor

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Have you read what ____ says your church should do? 

Did you hear what that church did??  They’ve gone from two members to 200,000 in one year!

What’s your vision?  Does your church strategy “work”?

What are you doing to get your church to grow?

We have all heard these kinds of things said time and again, read them in church magazines and leadership materials.  Some have even paid top-dollar to go to a conference to be told what their church should do.  The Bible says virtually nothing about how to grow a church, but it does say something about how to make disciples.  And what the Bible does say is quite surprising…

What is interesting to me is how little the bible says about how to “make disciples” (see Matthew 28:18-20).  That is, the Bible doesn’t say much about the technique or means of making disciples as we understand it today.  Jesus’ last words in the gospel of Matthew simply says to “make disciples” as one goes out, preaching and teaching and baptizing the peoples of the world.  James, the half-brother of Jesus and leader at the church in Jerusalem, says that “good religion” is to remember the orphans & widows (James 1:27), to practice what you preach.  Christians should persevere despite life’s circumstances (1:2-18) and live a life that exhibits faith in Jesus Christ (2:14-26).  Peter simply says to be holy, just like God (I Peter 1:13-16), and to respect those around you (see I Peter 2-4).  John talks about a tree bearing good fruit (John 15), echoing Jesus’ sermon on the mount (Matthew 7:15-23; compare to 21:18-22), and that you can’t say you love God when you hate His children, who are your siblings in Christ (I John 2). Paul talks about having “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5) and putting on the armor of God (Ephesians 6). 

Notice that the Bible never says that we are to “grow the church,” nor to do “whatever works” to accomplish such a goal.  Nor does the Bible say what a church (i.e., a constituted local community of believers) should do to in these passages.  Many at this point say, “Aha!  So there’s liberty to do whatever works to grow the church!”  Wrong.  The Bible actually says that a disciple-making church is successful when it does very little. 

Notice what Paul writes to Timothy under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Preach the Word…” (2 Timothy 4:2-5).  And then to Titus under the same inspiration: “You must teach was is in accord with sound doctrine…” (Titus 2:2-3:11).  And then to the church at Corinth, Paul again says the unthinkable, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest  the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (I Corinthians 1:10-17).

There is only one strategy for making disciples, for “growing a church”: preach and teach the gospel.  This does not mean be “seeker sensitive” and focus solely on evangelizing the lost, nor does it mean to focus only on helping the saints be more holy.  “Preach the gospel” simply means “preach the gospel” to everyone—it saves the unbeliever and sanctifies the believer.  One person cannot “save” another—only God saves.  There is no person or book that can make you holy—only God can do that.  How?  Through the preaching and teaching of the gospel.  This is the essence of what Paul says in Titus 2:11-13.  It is not a person or a book or a great strategy, nor is it even a strong self-discipline that saves us and teaches us and makes us holy.  It is God’s grace that does these things.  

To put it into contemporary church-talk, “you can maximize your potential for a deeper relationship with God in one easy step,” by submitting yourself to God’s grace, the teaching and preaching of the gospel.  And this is precisely what the church is supposed to do: make disciples by teaching and preaching the gospel.  In so doing, unbelievers will hear the good news, receive Christ and be baptized, while believers will be confronted with God’s grace that teaches them to live holy lives.  There are many other good things a church can do, but making people holy is technically something only God can do.  In this regard, then, all a church can do is simply preach and teach the gospel.

What about blogs, magazines, books, Sunday School, Bible Studies, community outreaches, evangelism… all that stuff.  Indeed, much of it is good, but if it is done in place of preached and teaching the gospel, said church is far from it’s Biblical mandate.  A church that does not preach and teach the gospel, the good news that fallen man can be made right before a righteous and holy God, is doing too much.  Simply preach and teach the gospel.  That is what this blog seeks to do and that is what I seek to do as I serve Christ at MBC: to make disciples by preaching and teaching the gospel, letting the grace of God work in the life of every believer to make them right in God’s sight.

 And so, by the standards of some, yes, a disciple-making church should do almost nothing.

In Christ Jesus Alone,

TIMM

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