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Pastor's Point - August 2024

Dear Church Family,

As you read this article, we will have completed our series of messages in the book of John that we began at the beginning of the New Year. The goal of this series was to see Jesus displayed in each of the chapters of the book of John. By God’s grace I pray that this task was accomplished. Seeing Jesus and keeping our eyes on Him is going to be necessary as we look to finish 2024 with a right focus.

There are many benefits to focusing on Jesus in our lives. With Jesus in our sight, we can find the strength, courage, and focus that we need to face the challenges that this life brings. And the challenges are many and they are varied. Many people face family crisis, financial strain, political unrest, safety concerns, and spiritual battles. These are a few things that make it so important to stay focused on our Savior.
 
To focus on Jesus as our Savior in this life means that we live our lives in full surrender to Him. In John 19:30 it states… “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (emphasis added). The thought of Jesus giving up His spirit was a powerful reminder that even Jesus our Savior lived His life marked by a purposeful surrender.

This is Jesus voluntarily, by His own will, chose to surrender His life. Jesus came in full surrender to the will of God the Father to do for us what we could not do on our own.

I love a quote that I found by George McDonald where he talks about Jesus willingly giving up His Spirit. “The last act of our Lord in bowing His head and giving up His spirit was only a summing up of what He had been doing His whole life. He had been offering this sacrifice, the sacrifice of himself, all the years, and in thus sacrificing he had lived the divine life.”

Throughout all His life Jesus was marked by a full surrender to His heavenly father. Every day was another day to embrace full surrender. And on His last day on earth, we see Jesus choosing full surrender as His last act in his earthly ministry.

What a great reality to focus on from the life of our savior Jesus Christ. Full surrender should be our aim in our lives as well. We should choose to live crucified lives just as He did. The Bible is full of scriptures which encourage us to live surrendered lives. Here are just three that can be helpful to us as we consider living lives in daily surrender.

Galatians 2:20 states… “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Luke 9:23  And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

I Peter 2:24 states… “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

Dying to self is a daily pursuit. It can be a struggle at times to be surrendered in EVERY area of our lives. But it only makes sense for us to strive to live that way. When we trust Christ as our Savior, we also know Him as our Lord. I love this quote by R.C. Sproul. He states…

“If God is the Creator of the entire universe, then it must follow that He is the Lord of the whole universe. No part of the world is outside of His lordship. That means that no part of my life must be outside of His lordship.”

This understanding has practical implications on how we live our lives. All areas of our lives. John Stott states… “When Jesus is truly our Lord, He directs our lives and we gladly obey Him. Indeed, we bring every part of our lives under His lordship - our home and family, our sexuality and marriage, our job or unemployment, our money and possessions, our ambitions, and recreations.”

I am so thankful that we see in Jesus a perfect model of surrender in life. He has accomplished for us what we never could. But, in His accomplishment we look to His example and strive for daily surrender as we are bathed in the grace and mercy that He provides us. Let’s keep seeing the Savior throughout the rest of 2024!

I love you and I love being your pastor!

Pastor's Point - July 2024

Dear Church Family,

I want to take this opportunity to give a report from my time at the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention. The convention is two days of meetings that run from morning to evening to oversee the business of our convention of churches as we meet one time a year. This year we did a lot of what we do every year. We hear ministry reports from our different schools, missions’ agencies, approve a new annual budget, commission new international missionaries, and this year we elected a new president of the Southern Baptist Convention as well. Also, every year there are resolutions that are considered that express the will of the convention in that year that often speak to issues of the day. But also, every year there are new matters of business that we consider as well.

Overall, I was encouraged by much of what I heard. Our baptisms as a convention are trending back up after recent declines, we heard encouraging reports from the mission field, as well as from our seminaries. Partnering together with other churches allows us to do more than we can accomplish on our own. So, I am very thankful for our convention of churches! I want to share with you four items that we dealt with as we gathered.

Financial Transparency: There was an effort to seek better financial transparency from all our SBC entities which includes our seminaries, mission boards, and other agencies. This was a motion that was made by one of our messengers last year that was referred to our Executive Committee which functions throughout the year to manage items of business for our convention of churches. Sadly, the Executive Committee did not bring it out to the floor of the convention for the whole convention to consider which by our bylaws is their right. The motion that was made asked for all our entities to fill out the equivalent of a standard 990 form which non-religious non-profits are required to fill out. In my limited understanding this form gives basic financial information to help make sure that all our entities are financially healthy and that there is no conflict of interests on any of our trustee boards. As one who serves as a seminary trustee, I think this would have been a very good thing to bring to the floor of the convention and let the messengers consider it and vote on the matter. Financial information and clarity are good to share and would only help build goodwill between local churches and the convention.

New President: This year we elected a new president. His name is Clint Pressley who is a theological conservative who wants our convention of churches to refocus on our theological convictions and missional cooperation. This is good news especially since the president of our convention make appointments that help to shape our convention boards of our entities and boards that will shape the life of our convention for years to come. He was also a supporter of the Law Amendment which I will deal with now.

Law Amendment: I am sure you have read headlines online or in the newspaper and I want you to know that most likely what you read is not accurate. At least the articles I have read were misleading at best. The Law Amendment would have amended our SBC constitution to require churches in cooperation with the SBC to have only qualified men serving as pastors. This amendment simply restates what the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 states about this subject but in a way that was intended to be helpful to our credentials committee to deal with churches who are outside of that doctrinal statement. It is true that the Law Amendment did not pass which was disappointing to me. But there are facts about what happened that give me reasons to be hopeful for the future.

First you need to know that most messengers voted for the amendment. The vote did not reach the required super majority percentage for it to pass, but over 61 % of our messengers voted for it. Second, the results of the election of Clint Pressley as the new president confirms as well that Southern Baptists are in favor of holding to the biblical standard of only qualified male pastors. Pressley spoke publicly that he was a supporter of the Law Amendment. There is much that could be said about the Law Amendment, but it is hard to cover everything in this one report. Just know that the spin and intent of most secular reporting does not understand the truth of scripture on this matter or the nuance of exactly what we are dealing with in our convention.

Pastor Heath Lambert helpfully shares… “Media reports have already trumpeted that Southern Baptists have rejected a requirement for pastors to be qualified men. This is simply not true. What is true is that the SBC affirmed its confessional statement on this issue, and only failed to reach the required super-majority by a few points. Even opponents of the Law Amendment have been at pains to make clear that their procedural opposition to the amendment had nothing to do with their commitments restricting the office of pastor to qualified men.” – Heath Lambert

Commissioning of new international missionaries: The highlight of the convention for me was the commissioning of 83 new international missionaries in a commissioning service on Tuesday morning! This is a highlight every year at the convention, but this year was extra special. Our own Todd and Michele Linn were commissioned to be career missionaries in Zambia!! Todd and Michele have been such incredible blessings to our church over the last four years as they have been with us in membership. They have years of local church ministry experience that they are now going to take to the mission field to be a part of the “greater works” that Jesus himself shared with us about in John 14. Please know that the Linn’s are not officially going to the mission field until the end of September. God is going to use them in marvelous ways for his glory and we have the honor and the privilege of being their “sending church.” We will be here in Evansville, praying for them, encouraging them, and supporting them in any way that we can.

Thank you church family for allowing me and the other messengers of our church to go and represent us. I was glad to go, but I am glad to be back because we have much to do for the Lord through our church family! I am excited for our future together as we hold fast to the truthfulness of God’s Word, and as we share it freely with all that we minister to!

I love you and I love being your pastor!