Living for Jesus

Church Family,

The prayer below is the one prayed corporately on September 10, 2023. I included it below as a prayer about our assurance of pardon so that you could use to reflect upon, or even pray through yourself, during your devotional time. This prayer is derived from two Puritan prayers found in The Valley of Vision. The prayers are entitled “Living for Jesus” and “Privileges” and have been updated for ease of reading.

O Savior of sinners,
You name is excellent, your glory high, your compassions unfailing, your closeness wonderful, and your mercy tender. We bless your name for the unsearchable riches of the gospel, for in them is pardon for rebels, liberty for captives, hope for the sick, and salvation for the lost. 

We come to you in the name of our beloved Jesus.

From Calvary’s cross, grace upon grace reaches us, deals with our sins, washes us clean, renews our hearts, strengthens our will, draws out what we truly desire, and teaches us of your immeasurable love. How great are the privileges of living in Christ Jesus!

Without Him, we are cast out from his courts
In Him, we can draw near and touch his kingly scepter

Without Him, we dare not look upon his face
In Him, we can gaze upon our Savior, Lord, and Friend

Without Him, our mouths are closed in shame
In Him, we can open our mouths in thanksgiving and praise

Without Him, all is wrath and judgment
In Him, our souls are at peace and rest

Without Him, darkness hems us in hopelessness
In Him, the light of eternity shines through a boundless horizon

Praise be to you, God, for grace and forgiveness…and for the unsurpassed gift of Jesus.

Amen.

-Pastor Sam

Our Living Hope

Church Family,

The prayer below is the one prayed corporately on August 6, 2023. I included it below as a prayer of confession that you could use to reflect upon, or even pray through yourself, during your devotional time. The inspiration for this prayer was from my own reading and meditation in 1 Peter 1, especially verses 3-4 which state, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (NASB).

Did you catch that? What Peter is saying here is that God’s children are born again to a living hope because Jesus is alive! You will notice that the prayer below does not shy away from real difficulties, sorrows, and sins in the lives of God’s people, but it also equally reflects a heart of joy, gratitude, and hope…a living hope. I would suggest that while praying through this prompt, that you hold in your mind the resurrected Christ and remember that his blood was shed for your sins and he has redeemed your soul to a living hope even in this midst of hardship. My hope is that this prayer would provide a helpful guide for you as you incline your heart to Him. I have re-written this prayer in the first-person in order to make it more personal. I would encourage you to also personalize the bullet points in the prayer below to honestly reflect where you are spiritually as you pray. You can also check out the song Living Hope by Phil Wickham!

King Jesus,

I rejoice that I am a benefactor of a living hope because I have a living Savior. Jesus, continue to captivate my heart to the point that all of the distractions and lusts of the world lose their grip on me and may only you remain in my affections.

• As I struggle with loneliness, help me take my eyes off of myself and put them onto you, my living hope.

• As I bear the weight of grief, guide my thoughts to the weight of eternal glory and peace.

• As I am at odds with my brother or sister, remind me that you have given me the ministry of reconciliation.

• As I am ensnared by sin, free me from the schemes of the devil and instead tether my heart to you.

I stand as your glad and happy child, Lord Jesus. I declare that you are good and do good. I agree that you are the worthy one whom I adore. I affirm that whether in the body or at home with you, I will make it my ambition to glorify your Name.

Make me worthy of that purpose today.

-Pastor Sam

Biblical Wisdom for LBC During Pride Month

Hey Church Fam,

Last Sunday, I preached Matthew 7:1-6, and in it Jesus talked about the ways in which we judge others that are sinful and ways that can be loving and build up his kingdom.

I threw in a point of application about Pride Month and how this passage can help us think through some of the judging aspects of it, but I thought it could be helpful to also just throw out a general encouragement to you as a pastor, especially for those of you who are in the cultural trenches. We need the Lord’s help from his word for how to navigate this month and every month as our culture seems to slide deeper into the celebration of sin.

Last month, Pastor Sam and I got to attend an evening service at a church like ours, and one of their pastors shared some pastoral encouragement for his members, guiding them through how to think about living in the world during Pride Month. It was then created into a blog, (click here for the blog post itself if you want), but here below are the points from that talk and the blog. I hope this helps to hid God’s Word in your heart for the moments where you need it with family, friends, in the office, at school, etc.

Always know I and the other pastors are here to give counsel and pray with you through these hard situations we’re put in because of pride month, especially. As I said in my sermon, remember that this world is not our home, Christ will build his church, and we have all the hope in the world that the gospel can work wonders if you share it and live it out.

Love you, church. Below is what I pulled from the blog post.
Paul

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1. IN EVERYTHING YOU DO, LOVE—Mark 12:29–31

 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  

For starters, don’t take love for granted. That’s easy to do when fear dominates us.  

Therefore, remind your members that loving God and loving our neighbor should animate everything we say and do this month. We stand up for truth for love’s sake. We swim upstream for love’s sake. We share the gospel for love’s sake. We say, “No, I can’t do that” at work for love’s sake. We turn the right cheek to those who strike us on the left for love’s sake. 

We, as pastors, can’t tell them everything they will need to say at any given moment at work or school. But we can tell them they must always love—both God and their neighbor.

2. DISTINGUISH GOD’S LOVE FROM THE WORLD’S LOVE—John 14:15, 21, 23, 24

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. . . Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. . . If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.  

Just as quickly as you encourage your church to act in love, pastor, remind that that love, in the Bible, always works together with righteousness, obedience, and truth. Love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth,” Paul remarks elsewhere (1 Cor. 13:6).  

You have to say this because today’s culture has completely swallowed hell’s view of love: love means whatever you want it to mean. People might use the words, “God is love,” but what they really mean is, “Love is God.” That is, our views of love, whatever they happen to be, define all reality and morality.  

Yet that’s not real love. It’s a fake and a liar. Real love always points people to the God who is love, and anything that draws people away from this righteous and holy God is not love but is a deceiver.  

So encourage your members to love, but also teach them what love is. Help them not to be fooled.   

3. NEVER LIE—Exodus 20:16

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  

Many situations at school or work will place your members into situations where lying might seem like the easy road out of a dilemma. Remind them that Christians should not lie. Short-term gains never outweigh long-term compromises. Scripture’s positive command to speak the truth in love doesn’t mean we have to speak up at every moment in which we could. Sometimes silence is acceptable. Yet Christians must never lie.    

4 & 5. NEVER AFFIRM EVIL—Ephesians 5:11 & Romans 1:32 

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them (Eph. 5:11).  

 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Rom. 1:32).  

An everyday rationale Christians offer for going with the cultural flow is, “Well, not everyone here is a Christian, and we shouldn’t impose our morality on them.” That counsel can be correct sometimes. Yet just as you should never lie, so you should never participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, and you should never give approval to anything that provokes God’s judgment. 

Just because your classmates or colleagues decided to approve sin doesn’t mean you should put your hand to doing the same. Abstain. Pull back. Keep your hands off anything that might commend sin and provoke God’s end-time judgment.

Once again, it may be challenging to know where the line is between abstaining and commending, as well as when to actively “expose” what’s sin. Still, our first task as pastors is to teach these basic principles.  

6. REMEMBER WHAT YOU WERE BUT ARE NO LONGER BY THE GOSPEL—1 Corinthians 6:9–11

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.  

Sometimes our moral compasses get a little wobbly. For all of us “wobblers,” Paul’s words here set the record straight and put steel in our spines. It draws clear moral lines for our members, and also reminds them of the gospel.  

Remember, your members still struggle with the temptations to do the very things listed here, such as sexual immorality, greed, or reviling others. Some will struggle with feelings of attraction toward the same sex, or even like they’re in the wrong body. For this latter group, put yourself in their shoes for a second: if they would only tweak their theology, they could be hailed as heroes by our culture.  

Instead, we must hail them as heroes, since they’re exercising extreme faith to follow Christ. Remind everyone of God’s law, but also remind them of the gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. We’re no better than anyone on the outside because we’re all here by mercy and grace. Our worth and value and righteousness and hope is vicarious, imputed from Christ. What a gracious and loving Savior he is!

7. DO NOT PASS JUDGMENT ON ONE ANOTHER—Romans 14:13

Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. 

We must consider three kinds of judging during times like Pride month. First, we don’t want to wrongly judge what’s right and wrong, as with the false prophets who said, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace (Jer. 6:14; 8:11). 

Second, which is another version of the first, we don’t want to overlook our own sins while condemning others, as with the Pharisee in Luke 18 who prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men.” In that regard, check out Jerry Bridges’ Respectable Sins.   

Third, we don’t want to wrongly condemn our brothers and sisters when our consciences draw different conclusions amidst some of these tough situational dilemmas. So often, the path to apostacy is not denial of the faith per se, but a fracturing of church unity under pressure that slowly erodes faith.   

Some convictional disagreements between Christians should split churches. But pick carefully. Paul lists “sexual immorality” and “idolatry” in his list of “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5. Yet he also includes “dissensions” and “divisions” in that list.  

In the month of June, pastor, encourage your members to reach out to an elder if they find themselves in a brutal dilemma at work or school for which they need wisdom. Yet also teach them how to expect some differences of opinion at church regarding how to navigate a culture enamored with the LGBT+ agenda. Teach them to do this in the unity of the gospel, lest any of us “destroy the one for whom Christ died” (Rom. 14:15).  

CONCLUSION  

When the challenging work or school dilemmas come, it won’t always be clear how all of the above texts apply. And sometimes, it might feel like one text commends one path while another text commends another path. Choosing the best course of action will require much wisdom as we study the Scriptures and discuss our dilemmas together.  

Thanks be to the God who promises wisdom when we ask (James 1:5).

The Good Old Days

It used to be the case that typically those with grey hair could speak of “the good old days.” Although, taking into account how quickly our society is barreling towards moral degeneracy and economic instability, one doesn’t have to have any grey hairs in order to resonate with this familiar sentiment. While the temptation for all of us, whether retirees, middle-aged parents, single professionals, or youth, is to idealize the simpler days of the distant past (you know…the “distant past” when there was no confusion about who could use which public restroom), there is a sobering yet encouraging message from the Ecclesiastes that I think is a fitting word for us to reflect upon.

In Ecclesiastes 7:10, the Preacher says, “Do not say, ‘Why is it that the former days were better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.” While reading this verse, my mind took me to two days ago (June 1) when a few houses in our neighborhood began putting out pride flags in order to show support for a certain worldview on gender and sexuality that our culture has fully embraced. Now, I am not very old (at least I like to think of myself as not old!), but I could not help but read this verse and feel conflicted about its message. Is it wrong for me to long for the not-long-ago days where pride flags simply weren’t an issue? Looking back, issues surrounding sexuality, any many more besides, seemed…well…at least less complicated than today.

While an old saying implies that hindsight comes with 20/20 vision, we fail to recognize that hindsight oftentimes comes with our own set of rose-colored glasses too. Alternatively, the Bible presents us with an unvarnished and accurate view of reality, about which the Preacher of Ecclesiastes affirms only a few verses later. He says, “Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices” (Ecc. 7:29). What he is telling us is, that outside of Genesis 1-2, there were really never any “good old days.” Evil men have used evil devices to accomplish evil deeds from Genesis 3 until today. Not only this, but as a Christian my new inner-man is often busy about fighting the sin from within my own heart.

A takeaway for me in all of this is that as benign as it would seem for me to long for the good old days, it could actually be unfruitful, and perhaps even sinful, for me to keep my mind focused on the” glories” of a bygone era. First, as has already been alluded to, when we look at things as God does, we are hard-pressed to call any days of the past “glory days.” To be sure, particular sins and atrocities of today may not have been part of the social fabric of the world of the past, but there was most certainly sin . . . and lots of it (Romans 1-3). Secondly, the Christian life is all about walking forward (not looking behind). Distraction may seem innocent enough, but Satan uses distraction to lull us to sleep spiritually. That is when we are our most vulnerable to his snares.

In an earlier part of chapter 7, the Preacher presents an alternative to this particular snare, and the remedy he presents seems counterintuitive at first glance. In verses 2-4, he instructs:

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting because that is the end of every man and the living takes it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for when a face is sad a heart may be happy. The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning.

Woah…this Preacher is a real downer, right? Perhaps he has his head stuck in the sand. How could sorrow and mourning be better than feasting today or longing for the good old yesterdays? I think what the Preacher is extolling us to is a sober-mindedness centered on the fragility and brevity of life. This, of course, is part of his larger messages in the book of Ecclesiastes. While this book often gets a bad rap, we should take time to appreciate what this sober thinking about life leads us towards. Sorrow, death, grief, and the like are hard. But for the believer, they are merely “the bitter that comes before the sweet” (as John Bunyan puts it).

What I have walked away with from my meditation on Ecclesiastes 7 is that while the things of this life are fleeting and passing away, there is one kingdom that will never fade, crumble, or fall (and it is not the kingdom of the good old days!) As many of you know, pastor Paul and I recently returned from a pastor’s conference in Washington D.C. It was an encouraging time, and we took a few days to do some sightseeing. I recall looking at the interior dome of the U.S. Capitol and the decor of the White House and while being very impressed at the beauty of those hallowed places, I couldn’t help but notice one thing everywhere I looked. Cracks. There were cracks everywhere and where there were not cracks, there was peeling wallpaper or bubbling painting canvases hanging on the walls.

This didn’t ruin my sightseeing, but I did walk away from those grand places very sobered. After reading Ecclesiastes 7, I think I was sobered much like the Preacher is wanting to sober us. It is not a harsh, sullen, depressing soberness. It is a hopeful, mindful, anticipatory soberness. I realized that I don’t have to (and I most likely shouldn’t) look back and long for the good old days, but instead I should be reminded that any day could be the greatest day. This will be THE DAY in which Jesus returns and makes all wrongs right, makes all things new, and defeats sin and death once and for all!

Take heart brothers and sisters! Our sorrow may indeed last for the night (as it has, I’m sure for many nights in the past and nights to come in the future), but, the joy of the Lord is coming sooner than we think! Until then, may our God find us all faithfully serving Christ with joy as long as it is called today (Heb. 3:13).

Pastor Sam

Important Information about the Summer Equipping Group

Dear Church Family,

This summer (from June 4-August 27), we will have one equipping group class on the church covenant during both the 9:00 am and 10:45 am services. In this overview of the church covenant, the teachers will examine the Biblical texts behind the wording of the covenant to help us see the Biblical reasons for what the covenant says.

If you are less familiar with church covenants or even our church covenant in particular, we invite you to join one of these classes to learn more. In short, Baptist Churches since the Reformation have had church covenants, and they have been used as a helpful tool to summarize the Biblical teaching on ethical obligations that members of a local church have towards one another. In this way, they are like a statement of faith which summarizes what Christians believe (as Southern Baptists, our statement of faith is the Baptist Faith and Message 2000), except a church covenant summarizes what we are agreeing to do as members of our local church. We are hopeful that this class will help our church grow in unity as we better understand what the Scriptures teach about our responsibilities to one another.

The reason we are only having one class this summer is primarily due to the fact that attendance in the summer has historically been low. Only having one class also allows our teachers to get a break. We are very thankful for all of our teachers and how they serve our church!

If you have any questions or concerns about the summer plan for Equipping Groups, please email pastor Tyler at sykoratyler@gmail.com.

We are grateful for you, church family. We are praying for you and love you.

Your Pastors

A Puritan Prayer of Confession

The devotional/prayer below is the one that I prayed this past Sunday (May 7, 2023) during our morning services. As I noted, I adapted this prayer from one found in The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions. If you are not familiar with this spiritual treasure trove, I would highly recommend it as a supplement to your daily Bible reading. This particular prayer is entitled “Yet I Sin” and I have included my adaptation of it (for easier reading) as an option for further reflection below:

Eternal Father,
You are good beyond all thought,
But in our sinful flesh, we are vile, wretched, miserable, and blind.

While our lips are ready to confess, our hearts are slow to feel and our ways often don’t follow suit.

Father, we offer our hearts to you. Would you break them, wound them, bend them, and conform them
Unmask sin’s deformity to us so that we would hate it, abhor it, and flee from it.

This past week, perhaps even this morning, our affections, thoughts, and wills have been used as a weapon of revolt against you. Instead of using our strength for your glory, we have served the adversary of your kingdom.

Give us, in your grace, the will to bewail our folly.
Remind us, in your grace, that the way of the transgressor is hard. 

We have tasted and seen the purity and beauty in your perfect Word.
It makes glad the heart where it reigns, yet we confess that daily we fall short of your expectations of us and violate the Bible’s precepts and commands.

For all of these sins, we mourn, lament and plead for pardon.

Work within us a deep and abiding repentance. Give us the fullness of godly grief that both trembles and fears but also trusts and loves you.

Grant, through the tears of repentance, that we may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross.

Amen

Pastor Sam

Suffering and Sanctification

For many people, personal suffering is viewed from the perspective that any hardship, difficulty, or pain should be avoided at all costs. In fact, this is the orientation of our culture at large. It should be no wonder that a pleasure-seeking world would promote avoiding anything that causes discomfort. When the goal of life is personal happiness, then anything that gets in the way of that pursuit (or is in any way perceived to be counterproductive toward that end) should be cast off, or so the conventional wisdom goes.  

But what about for those of us in the church? Do we see suffering as non-redemptive? Do we see any fruitful purpose in it, or do we see it as an inconvenience or nuisance?

Viewing suffering as the world does would actually necessitate us throwing out huge chunks of the Bible. Adam and Eve suffered, but in spite of the curse, God’s plan of redemption took center stage (Genesis 3:15). Noah suffered, but through his obedience, even when that obedience didn’t make sense, He provided a lifeline for the human race (Genesis 6:9-22). Elijah suffered, but in spite of his pleas for death, God’s sovereign providence and provision was made manifest (1 Kings 19:1-18). Jesus suffered, but through his death, life was provided for you and me. To God’s glory, the Scriptures provide us much hope in the face of suffering. This doesn’t mean that we seek to suffer, but that we seek joy in the midst of our suffering. This perspective can make all of the difference in the face of trials (James 1:2-4).

In order to engage with a heaven-ward view of suffering, there are three key truths that will be profitable to meditate on and embrace for ourselves and those we love who may be currently experience suffering.

First, we must abandon the expectation that we should encounter no suffering in this life.

Truthfully, this is not even a realistic or practical expectation to have. Life is hard and suffering cannot be avoided. In a general sense, this is true because sin impacts this world and brings about death, disease, pain, relational strife, emotional problems, frustration, and the list goes on. In particular, Christians should not expect to live a suffering-free life because belonging to and obeying Christ many times requires trials and suffering. Paul noted, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29). Christ himself spoke about the expectation of persecution to His disciples when He was giving them a real case of what to expect once He left. The world hated Jesus thus the world will hate us (John 15:18-25). If we live in such a way as to expect a suffering-free existence, we are setting ourselves up for frustration and disappointment. 

Secondly, we must reclaim the mercies and blessings that God often brings through suffering.

As we can see through the biblical examples above, God works out His will through all aspects of lives that belong to Him, and that includes suffering. His goodness, faithfulness, and sanctifying work engages our hearts to conform us to His image. A palpable example of this is expressed by the psalmist: 

You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good discernment and knowledge, for I believe in Your commandments. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good; teach me Your statutes…It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces (Psalm 119:65-68, 71-72). 

Similar to what we learn through the faithful witness of Job, the psalmist expresses several truths about suffering that we would do well to keep in mind.  

1. The Lord always deals well with His servants, even in affliction and suffering. 

2. The Lord may use suffering and affliction to bring us back to obedience. 

3. The Lord teaches us discernment and knowledge through suffering. 

4. The Lord is good in our suffering. 

5. The Lord (and His commandments) are made more precious to us in our suffering. 

Look again at the passage above. Notice that in our suffering, in our hardships, and even in our questioning, the Lord remains good and does good! What a comforting truth that the Lord’s goodness, love, and faithfulness towards His children is not diminished one jot or tittle. Even if the path of life become steep or difficult to traverse, He makes a straight and clear path for His children (Romans 7:24-25; 8:28-39).  

Thirdly, we must see our suffering as an avenue for honoring God and blessing others.

As we learned, the Lord’s compassion and care for us is not diminished in our suffering, but His compassion goes beyond just the idea that He acts as our balm in the midst of trial. He has a deeper purpose in our troubles. Paul recognized this when he wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). How is God blessed by our suffering as seen in this passage? Paul shows us here that God is the source of comfort. He is the one to whom thankfulness and gratitude is due. He alone makes it possible to redeem the seemingly unredeemable and uses it to bring glory to His name.  

Also, we see that the comfort we are given by God is provided for another purpose. In these two verses, the word comfort shows up five times. Clearly we are called to pay attention! This comfort from God is not a mere distraction from pain. It is not a platitude. It is not an escape from present troubles. God’s comfort is supernatural peace given to us that grounds us, surrounds us, and fills our hearts with confidence in Him and His purposes despite our circumstances. When we receive this comfort, we are not to hoard it, but we are called to share and minister that comfort with others who suffer. This is a foundational aspect of Christian care. We, as earthen vessels, hold a precious treasure that is to be shared with others so whether our brothers and sisters are crushed, perplexed, persecuted, or struck down, they are not crushed, despairing, forsaken or destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:7-9).  

Be encouraged in your suffering and do not lose heart! Nothing is wasted in God’s economy, even suffering. While we will experience suffering in this life, God’s plans and purposes for us are for our good and His glory.

Pastor Sam

Members Meeting Updates

Hey Church Family,

I thought it could be helpful, following each Members’ Meeting form here on out, to provide a brief summary of the pastoral updates we delivered in the meeting itself. Maybe you couldn’t attend, were wrangling children, or simply felt overwhelmed with details. So hopefully, this post can help over-communicate our updates!

Elders Retreat

When we gathered in January for our elders’ retreat, we met and discussed many topics. Here are a few action points of communication from the meeting.

1. We want to be sure we’re communicating well with the congregation, so we started this “From the Pastors” blog so we can post updates like this more often. We’ll include these in social media and our official News and Updates.

2. We were able to think through a new oversight structure for our elders and serving structure for our deacons. For our elders, we’re dividing up areas of oversight to each of us and entrusting one another to oversee and delegate in a way that helps our ministries flourish and operate better without every decision hitting the bottleneck of an elders’ meeting. We will work to communicate those areas of oversight soon. Concerning deacons, we have a similar desire to delegate certain areas of ministry to certain deacons. This doesn’t mean every deacon will have a “specialty” area. We’ll be working directly with the deacons to see how they want to fill these needs, but these will be things like property and grounds, the ordinances, Liberty Kids and Youth, etc. We have invited our current and new deacons to our next elders meeting to talk through these things as we look to the future of our church’s ministries together. We’ll also work to get the Deacon’s names on our websites with their areas of service.

Men’s Retreat

We announced that LBC will have a Mens’ Retreat on April 28-29. Most details are still pending, but we are thinking about topics like spiritual disciplines. Get the date on your calendar, men!

Good Friday and Easter

We announced we’ll hold a Good Friday service at the church, entitled “The Story of the Cross,” where the elders will preach through 8 mini-sermons covering the narratives surrounding the crucifixion. We’ll then have our Easter service, hopefully, at the Liberty Community Center. The staff is still working on details to finalize, so please pray this option becomes viable for our church so we can worship the Lord together for Easter in one combined service. We’ll communicate when these plans are confirmed.

Exploring Membership Starting this Sunday

We’ll begin our next round of Exploring Membership this coming Sunday, February 26, so please invite any guests to join! We also are encouraging current members to sit in as well, and you can treat it as an equipping group and be refreshed about our church’s doctrines, ministries, and expectations of membership.

If you have questions about these updates or anything else in the members meeting, will you let us know? We hope this meeting was an encouragement to you and a testament to what God is doing through our church. And I hope this post was helpful in recapping some of our updates!

You are loved.
Paul

Making the Most of Prayer

Listen to my words, Lord;
consider my sighing.
Pay attention to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for I pray to you.
In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
in the morning I plead my case to you and watch expectantly.
— Psalm 5:1-3

One aspect of Liberty Baptist Church that I have always appreciated is that we are a praying church. Since my very first Sunday morning service, I was struck with how intentionally prayer was emphasized during corporate worship. For the early days in my "new-life in Christ, prayer had not been a regularly practiced spiritual discipline.

It wasn’t until a fellow pilgrim shared Psalm 5:1-2 with me and provided loving direction, did I begin to truly appreciate and take advantage of making the most of prayer. When I shared that I often put off praying because I didn’t “feel” any closeness to God, he challenged me to consider what prayer actually is. Among other things prayer is an act of entreating, pleading, delighting, and conversing with God our Father. It is an act of worship that is enlivened by the Holy Spirit and fostered through the advocacy of Jesus Christ.

In the NASB translation of this passage, the end of verse 3 reads, “I will order my prayer to You [God] and eagerly watch.” For me, this particular wording brought both the solemnity and privilege of prayer to bear on my soul in such a way as to inform a more disciplined and heart-felt posture of prayer to God in my daily life.

Perhaps you find yourself feeling disconnected from God in your prayer time. Maybe you aren’t even sure what or how to pray. I want to share with you a few helpful principles that I believe, when applied, can help you make the most of prayer.

1. Consider what you are praying.

   This may seem obvious, but the topic of conversation we have with God can tell us quite a bit about our spiritual state and how we judge the “effectiveness” of our prayers. In order to see us make the most of prayer, we need to be sure that what we are praying for (regardless of the request) is brought to God to please Him and is asked for by faith (Matthew 6:33; Luke 12:31-32; James 1:5-8). To help you better take inventory on current requests, you can ask yourself questions like, “What am I currently asking God for?” or “Is what I am asking for God’s glory and am I asking Him in faith?” I would encourage you go to the Scriptures to think thoroughly about the answers to these questions. Write them down and ask God to help you to better “order” your prayers to Him.

2. Consider why you are praying.

   Once you have the specific content of your prayers in view, it is important to ask yourself the reason behind such requests. More than anything else, asking yourself a question like, “Why am I asking God for this?” can reveal important desires of the heart very quickly. Why is this important? Luke 6:45 states that the words of a person come from the “overflow of the heart.” Thus, when we pray (whether we realize it or not), there is something about what we think, desire, and feel in our hearts about God and our lives that is revealed in our words. Taking time to consider the reasons behind our prayers can help us further craft our prayers to God in such a way that they are in line with His purposes and will as well as setting our expectations within the bounds of His reality.

3. Consider how you expect God to answer.

   Just because we pray for something, doesn’t necessarily mean that our request (or even our reason) is valid. I knew of a dear brother who struggled with sexual sin for years. He prayed countless times that God would help him stop sinning in this way. Of course, when he didn’t stop, he became angry at God for not answering his prayers. Sadly, this young man was set up for failure . . . not because God had failed him, but because he was operating out of faulty expectation about how God operates. Sanctification requires faith, but it also requires obedience. This young man’s prayer revealed little of both. The heart behind his prayers revealed he was willing to do very little to work towards killing sin and his expectations revealed that he wanted God to just “make Him stop.” No wonder he responded to God in frustration and saw his situation as hopeless!

   While this example is specific to him, perhaps something in it rings familiar to you? Do you find yourself feeling that God is not listening or is perhaps actively working against what you are praying? Along with the first two principles mentioned above, ask yourself questions like, “How do I expect God to answer my prayer?” or “Are my expectations of God in line with how he works with his children?” Such questions will help you pray more in line with the will of the Father and the spirit of truth.

My prayer for all of us in this season, members of Liberty Baptist Church, is that we take time to carefully consider all of our prayers to God. Only then can we, in full joy and trust, “watch expectantly” for Him to answer.

Pastor Sam

Building a Culture of Encouragement in Our Church

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. — 1 Thessalonians 5:11

It takes some effort, even for Christians, and especially in a world that is brimming with discouragement, but with the Lord’s help, we can cultivate an atmosphere of edification in our church. Here are just 3 simple ways you and I can build a culture of encouragement at Liberty Baptist Church.

1. Pray for your brothers and sisters.

   If you are struggling with loving someone, pray for them. It is difficult to hold discouragement in your heart about someone when you are bringing them before the Lord in prayer. Pray for your pastors. They carry invisible burdens. Interceding for them can deepen your appreciation for them. Praying in your community groups deepens your fellowship with each other. And because prayer first and foremost deepens your intimacy with God, it is a chief means by which the Lord shapes our hearts after his own. When we pray for our church, we will gradually come to see her with fresher eyes and kinder spirits. Praying for one another deepens our love for another, which (super)naturally leads to interacting with each other in more encouraging, life-giving ways.

2. Advocate for your brothers and sisters.

   Even if just in your own imaginations, do you find yourself given more to assumptions and suspicions about others? Do you feel slights and disappointments more keenly than affection and sympathy? “Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” often means thinking about each other as Christ does. How does Jesus see you, despite your flaws and failings? If the holy and perfect Lord loves you as you are, we can draw great strength from his grace to love others in a similar way. As Paul reflects on love in 1 Corinthians 13, he tells us to hope and believe “all things.” This means, in part, having a spirit of forgiveness and grace with our brothers and sisters, foregoing the impulse to nitpick or hold grudges and suspicions. Instead, we learn with the Sprit’s counsel to be for our brothers and sisters. When we continually advocate for the brethren, we will gradually grow to be encouragements to them.

3. “Drip” encouragement.

   Here’s what I mean: it may be difficult to think about encouraging each other if we only think this can happen in big, demonstrable ways. But it doesn’t take much effort at all to send a simple text or email saying, “I’m praying for you today.” It doesn’t take much effort at all to tell a brother or sister after Equipping Group that you appreciated their insight or question. Tell people thank you. Tell people you’re glad to see them. Shake hands. Give hugs. If you want to do it, you can start small and spread tiny doses of encouragement around. After a while, what you’ll discover is that the momentum to bigger and more widespread encouragement will grow. You don’t have to be an extrovert to do this. Just a noticer and practicer of small things. If we all assumed responsibility to encourage even in tiny ways, the impact would be big. We can leave the grand gestures to those with the official spiritual gift of encouragement. ;-) But all of us can encourage in small ways over time.

[B]ut encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. — Hebrews 10:25b

Pastor Jared

Recommended Resources for the Sermon on the Mount

Brothers and Sisters,

This coming Sunday, we will kick off our next sermon series looking at Jesus’s teachings in Matthew 5-7. That’s right, we’re going to be spending our Sunday mornings diving into the greatest sermon ever preached— The Sermon On The Mount. We as pastors are very much looking forward to witness God continue to build and strengthen our church through His Word over the next few months

As we prepare for this sermon series, we wanted to provide the church with resources to study the text in between Sundays. Below is a list of resources we’d recommend you read alongside studying the the Scriptures.

The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (The Bible Speaks Today Series) by John Stott
A brief, accessible commentary by one of the most well-known preachers of the 20th century.
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5-7 (Expositional Commentary) by James Montgomery Boice
Another brief, accessible commentary by another of the most widely respected preachers of the last century.
The Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5-7

The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary by Jonathan T. Pennington
For someone looking for a longer, more technical commentary, Pennington provides a study of the Sermon which considers the Hebrew and Greek philosophical traditions.
The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
A collection of expositional writings by Lloyd-Jones, this book is widely regarded as one of the best treatments on the Sermon on the Mount.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

TGC Online Commentary — Matthew by Douglas O’Donnell
A free, online commentary to aid in the study of Scripture
TGC Online Commentary

We hope you find these helpful! May God bless you as you study His Word, and may He build His church.

Your Pastors

Introducing From the Pastors

Greetings Church Family!

In mid-January, we gathered for our Elders’ Retreat, and the goal of this retreat was to reflect on the previous year and plan for the year ahead. We had formal meetings totaling somewhere around the ballpark of seven hours, and one of the action points that emerged was to establish a more consistent and regular method of communication from the pastors to our members.

Historically, our primary means of communication has been to provide updates at our Members’ Meetings, and for more important matters in-between Members’ Meetings, we have used email. However, we understand that not all can attend or catch up from our members’ meetings, and it can be helpful to hear from us in-between meetings on issues that aren’t worthy of a church-wide email.

So we are excited to announce the start of the From the Pastors blog! We want you to know what we’re up to, how you can be praying for us, what we’re excited about, and how we are seeking to shepherd LBC, by God’s grace.

We’re giving each of our eight pastors logins to the blog with the ability to post communication in whatever manner is needed. There may be one post in two or three weeks, or there may be three posts in one week. Posts can be formal or informal. This gives us a more direct stream straight from us to you.

So we look forward with engaging with you, church, in this way, and we pray this is a blessing to you and a means for the Lord to strengthen our church!

We love you and treasure the gift of being your pastors.

Bobby, Brandon, Jacob, Jared, Paul, Sam, Steven, and Tyler

Links to our newest posts will be published on our News and Updates page, News and Updates Email, and our members’ Facebook page.