Free to Serve

Male Friendships

Mike Emlet of CCEF points out that men typically have a harder time talking about personal issues, but they really need to. We are okay on topics like sports and work but not so good when opening up about purity and marriage. Do you think he's right?

 

Challies on a Sunday Evening Service

One of the first changes that I made when I came to MVBC was to add a Sunday evening service. Of course, the church had an evening service years ago, but the nineties were not kind to these meetings.

It has been a huge blessing for my family and I to gather with the body on Sunday evening. It's not convenient (we have four kids in our home, and the service seems to be right in the middle of typical dinner time), but it's such a sweet time for singing, praying, hearing a godly man from the church speak, and getting to know my brothers and sisters in Christ better. 

At MVBC we encourage every member to come to an evening service (we also meet Wednesday evenings) but there is something unusually edifying about Sunday evening.

I was so pleased to run across this brief article by blogger-extraordinaire Tim Challies on why he loves the Sunday evening service at his church. He says it wonderfully, please read it.

http://www.challies.com/articles/why-i-love-an-evening-service

Reaching Out in a Local Church

Yesterday, at Mount Vernon's Church in Conference (our members meeting) I wanted to make some remarks about how we can be deliberate about folding people into the body. Time ran short, and I wasn't able to give those remarks. So, here's what I wanted to say! I pray that God would use you to help others believe and belong to a local church.

Resolved to Love

How fitting that the first sermon this year at MVBC is on the nature of God's love. 1 John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."

Based upon that verse, there is nothing more important than knowing genuine, Christian love. It is the kind of love that John says is "from God." And if we have this love, then we give it away.

There is, sadly, a beastly side to all of us. It is the side that tends to keep love to ourselves, for ourselves. We can be miserly when it comes to love. We hoard it in our heart, constantly looking for others to love us instead of loving others. Like a nation experiencing a trade deficit, we import love from others without exporting it away. That is not the Christian way.

Many of us this New Year have made wise resolutions to be more faithul to read the Word, to enjoy it, to share it, to teach it. That's good. But are we resolved to love more? How can we do this? 

1. Pray for a heartfelt concern about others. We need God's grace to love others. Love is not natural to the fallen human heart. We need God's grace in our lives. We need God's Spirit filling us with God's love. And so we must pray, "Lord, help me love others."
2. Communicate a heartfelt concern for others. Love is more than words, but it is not less. We are communicative beings--we are designed to speak. Our words should do more than communicate data: "Your lunch is on the table." "You have a 2pm appointment with the doctor next week." Our words should communicate love: "I'm thankful for you." "You are a gift from God to me." "I love you."
3. Rejoice in God's heartfelt concern for you. I end here, but this is where it all begins, does it not? Our God loves us. That's amazing. Though we did not deserve God's love, he gave it to us. God's heartfelt concern was never more beautifully or finally expressed than on a tree in Golgatha nearly 2,000 years ago. 1 John 4:10, "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

This Sunday at 10:30am, our own Dustin Butts will be preaching from 1 John 4:7-12. Pray for him as he comes to preach. But pray for all of us, that we would be marked by the kind of love that God, through John, demands of us.

A New Year's Prayer

            Father, how thankful I am for another year. Every year seems like a new beginning, a fresh start, a clean slate. I know that it does not work exactly like that, but I’m still very glad to be able to feel like I’m beginning again. It is hard, Lord, not to make resolutions. This year I want to be more committed to your word, to seeking your face, to enjoying your presence in my life. I want to draw near to you with greater reverence as well as greater frequency. I want to glorify you more and honor you more deeply.

            It begins with praise. Heavenly Father, I praise you as the Creator of heaven and earth. You made everything out of nothing. Those words stun me. Love made the world. You are a good God; you must be a good God to create a world filled with this kind of beauty, with this kind of majesty. I see you in everything you made—in the water that flows down the falls, the leaf that crinkles under my feet, the sun that glares over my head, the wind that blows through my hair. Your creation is beautiful.

            And who am I that you would make me? The pinnacle of your creation is humanity, O Father, thank you for making us. And not just for making us, but for making us in your own image and likeness. To think that the stamp of the Triune God is in my DNA is too much to comprehend and almost too much to accept. Let me never forget your glory is at the heart of every single human.

            But more than anything, this morning I want to praise you for my redemption. You have called me, like Ruth, to leave comfort and home and familiarity and to follow you. You have given me a new heart and a new life. Because the sinless Savior died for me, I have been charged to live for him, and I have been equipped to live for him by the indwelling presence of your Holy Spirit. Thank you, Father, for adopting me into your family through the work of your Son. I am more grateful to you than words can ever tell.

            The clock never stops, Father. Help me to make good use of the days you have given me. Let me serve my family with joy, my church with love, and my friends with kindness. Let me lay aside ambition and pride and selfishness and pick up humility, and peace, and self-control. Thank you for being worthy of all the attention and affection that I can muster, and help me give it all to you this coming year.

            Amen.