First, idolatry harms the individuals who participate in it. Commenting on Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s 1849 book The Sickness Unto Death, Tim Keller says,

Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity apart from him. . . . Most people think of sin primarily as “breaking divine rules,” but Kierkegaard knows that the very first of the Ten Commandments is to “have no other gods before me.” So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God. (The Reason for God)

Whatever we base our identity and value on becomes “deified”; this object of worship then determines what we hold in glory and live for. If that object is anything other than God, we are idolaters worshiping created things. For most people, their proverbial “tell” happens when they introduce themselves: they first say their name and then say something to the affect of, “I am a [blank].” How they fill in the blank (e.g., education, vocation, number of children, neighborhood they live in) often reveals what they have deified and are building their life on.

The ensuing problem is that our marriage, children, appearance, wealth, success, career, religious performance, political party, cause, loving relationship, possession, hobby, pleasure, status, and power crumble under the weight of being god to us. Regarding the instability of an identity based upon anything other than Jesus Christ’s saving work to claim us as his own, Keller says,

If anything threatens your identity you will not just be anxious but paralyzed with fear. If you lose your identity through the failings of someone else you will not just be resentful, but locked into bitterness. If you lose it through your own failings, you will hate or despise yourself as a failure as long as you live. Only if your identity is built on God and his love, says Kierkegaard, can you have a self that can venture anything, face anything. . . . An identity not based on God also leads inevitably to deep forms of addiction. When we turn good things into ultimate things, we are, as it were, spiritually addicted. If we take our meaning in life from our family, our work, a cause, or some achievement other than God, they enslave us. We have to have them.

As God’s image-bearers we will only have a true, lasting, deep, satisfying, and sufficiently rooted identity in God’s love. Keller says,

Remember this—if you don’t live for Jesus you will live for something else. If you live for career and you don’t do well it may punish you all of your life, and you will feel like a failure. If you live for your children and they don’t turn out all right you could be absolutely in torment because you feel worthless as a person.

If Jesus is your center and Lord and you fail him, he will forgive you. Your career can’t die for your sins. You might say, “If I were a Christian I’d be going around pursued by guilt all the time!” But we all are being pursued by guilt because we must have an identity and there must be some standard to live up to by which we get that identity. Whatever you base your life on—you have to live up to that. Jesus is the one Lord you can live for who died for you—one who breathed his last for you. Does that sound oppressive?

This explains why those whose idol is beauty become frantic to maintain their appearance, even if it should compel them toward eating disorders, abuse of cosmetic surgery, and a panic as they age. Similarly, this helps to explain why those who are the richest and most famous among us struggle with substance abuse, depression, and even suicidal longings.

Idolatry also harms the societies in which it is practiced, to the degree it is practiced. In his book Idols for Destruction, Herbert Schlossberg surveys the various idols of modern life and thought. According to Schlossberg, the chief errors of our time stem from attempts to deify various aspects of creation: history, nature, humanity, economics, nature, and political power. Only affirmation and application of the Creator-creature distinction can point the way out. The issues, then, are essentially religious and moral; we will not escape our dilemmas by some new form of political organization or a new economic system.

Schlossberg is emphatic to point out that just because a culture turns away from God, it still turns toward something to replace God:

Western society, in turning away from Christian faith, has turned to other things. This process is commonly called secularization, but that conveys only the negative aspect. The word connotes the turning away from the worship of God while ignoring the fact that something is being turned to in its place.

One of the great evils of idolatry is that if we idolize we must also demonize, as Jonathan Edwards rightly taught in The Nature of True Virtue.

• If we idolize our race, we must demonize other races.

• If we idolize our gender, we must demonize the other gender.

• If we idolize our nation, we must demonize other nations.

• If we idolize our political party, we must demonize other political parties.

• If we idolize our socioeconomic class, we must demonize other classes.

• If we idolize our family, we must demonize other families.

• If we idolize our theological system, we must demonize other theological systems.

• If we idolize our church, we must demonize other churches.

This explains the great polarities and acrimonies that plague every society. If something other than God’s loving grace is the source of our identity and value, we must invariably defend our idol by treating everyone and everything who may call our idol into question as an enemy to be demonized so that we can remain feeling superior to other people and safe with our idol.

Curiously, some people are aware of this fact and idolize tolerance and diversity, as if they were more righteous because of their open-mindedness. However, even those who idolize tolerance and diversity must demonize those they deem to be intolerant of certain diversities. Simply stated, everyone who idolizes also demonizes and in so doing is a hypocrite contributing to the tearing of a social fabric of love, peace, and kindness they purport to be serving.

Adapted from Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe by Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears

Matthew 9:35–38 ESV “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

In these passages we see the compassion of the Lord for people who are hurting; a theme that runs throughout both the Old and New Testaments. We also see the longer-term solution to people feeling helpless, hopeless, and harassed like sheep with no shepherd. The solution is to multiply the number of compassionate leaders who can offer care to hurting sheep.

The same idea is conveyed in one of the New Testament classic leadership passages, 1 Peter 5: 1-11, where Peter reminds us that elders (leaders) should, in the first place, shepherd the sheep. And because the sheep often outnumber the desired number of care-givers, we need to pray for more shepherds, which is what Jesus tells his disciples to do in Matthew 9:37.

Things haven’t changed much in 2000 years. The harvest (hurting sheep) is still many, and the shepherds (leaders/care-givers) are still few.

Here are 3 principles for shepherds/ leaders from these passages of Scripture:

1.   The needs always exceed the resources. The needed finances always exceed the finances we have. The hurting people always exceed the number of people we need to minister to them.

2.   I am always inadequate for the task Jesus has for me. Almost every leader God called felt he wasn’t quite ready, adequate or capable: Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and David, to name a few. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 3:5, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God…”

3.   Jesus is always more than adequate in every task and challenge I face. Ephesians 3:20 tells us, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…” The disciples in the Gospel stories experienced that Jesus was more than adequate for their inadequacies.

We can rely on Jesus when we’re humbly shepherding his sheep.

By Dave Kraft

A CHANGE OF SEASON is about as routine as it gets. Best I know, it has happened four times a year, like clockwork, as long as humans have been able to keep track of such things. But each time winter yields to spring, each time summer whispers to us that fall will soon arrive, nature is telling us a story. Nature is telling us the story of a God who is always creating, always remaking, forever crafting new beginnings. No matter how dry the sultry dog days of summer, no matter how bitter the winter death, new beauty, new life is always coming. It is only a matter of time.

The psalmist echoes the story nature tells. He does not live in denial of the hardship or the scarcity enmeshed with human experience. No collection of writings takes pain and disillusionment more seriously than the Psalms. However, the psalmist knows something else, something more dependable than the certainty of human turmoil. The psalmist knows God; the psalmist knows God’s story, that God is always creating, always remaking, forever crafting new beginnings. With God and God’s people, there will always be a new season, where life is infused and fruit blossoms. With God, there is always a fresh beginning.

“Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”“We can,” they answered.Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with,  but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.   Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.   Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Eleven ways a leader can serve people (after all, Jesus said that is how to be a great leader.)

#1 – Adopt the mindset that these people work with me and not for me.

#2 – Provide enough margin for the people who serve with you to be creative and brainstorm ahead.

#3 – Make sure that the people you serve with have the resources they need to do the job they are expected to do.

#4 – Say “thank you” and “great job” A LOT instead of just pointing out all of the areas where a person came up short.

#5 – Try your best to make sure that if an area of the church is going to be impacted by a certain decision that someone from that area had input in the decision making process.

#6 – Make sure the expectations for the people you lead are both spoken and realistic.  (We cannot hold people accountable for unspoken, unrealistic expectations.)

#7 – Don’t confuse personal preferences with conviction from the Holy Spirit…if you tell the people you serve with that “God told me” then you had better be willing to bet your last Bible than you heard from the Lord!

#8 – Model what you consider to be important…in other words, when you are walking into the building and see a piece of trash on the ground…pick it up.

#9 – Listen to them!!!

#10 – Understand that your words weight 1,000 pounds…choose them carefully!

#11 – Understand that WHAT you say and HOW you say it matter…the people you serve with are human beings with hearts, minds and souls…they deserve to be treated as such.

-Perry Noble (NewSpring Church)

“And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” 1 John 1:4 NIV

THE WRITER OF first John is one of Jesus’ closest friends, even called the “beloved disciple.”  He heard Jesus speak, saw him with his own eyes, touched him and spent time physically with him—but this did not complete his joy.

Just knowing Jesus wasn’t enough for him.

Sometimes we wonder why the joy Jesus said we would have just doesn’t seem present in our life. Could it be because this joy is not intended as a personal well, but an overflowing, communal spring?

John wrote this letter to his Christian brothers and sisters to complete his joy. His joy was complete only when sharing Jesus with others, and the joy he possessed he shared. Some think we only talk of Jesus to non-Christians, and when that’s finished there are weightier matters of the faith to converse with Christians about. But Jesus is the source of our joy.

Philippians 2:1-3 NIV
“If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, [2] then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. [3] Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”

John 15:10-11 NIV
“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. “What is this you are doing?” they asked. “Are you rebelling against the king?” 20 I answered them by saying, “The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.”

As Christians, many of us to default to “defending” our faith by verbally discussing and proving Biblical principles. We go out of our way to argue points and stand up for our relationship with Christ. Sometimes we sink into the apologetic mindset and that it is the only way to defend what we believe.

Nehemiah defended his faith and never needed apologetics:

• actions reflected his faith in God — Nehemiah turned to God in prayer when speaking to the King
• stood by God’s instructions — did what God had placed on his heart
• did not back down — stood against enemy military leaders

Today, we may not a have a wall that has been destroyed or enemy leaders to stand against. However we are called to defend our faith by more than just arguing. Defending your faith is walking out a Christian lifestyle in everything you do. Our words, actions, and thoughts should be a reflection of the faith we try so hard to argue for.

Defending our faith means being the same Christian around family and friends who may not know Jesus and around those you serve with. Defending our faith means sticking with the life we have been called to live.  There may be a time in your life where you may have to stand against family and friends, there may be a time where your actions will be different from those around you because of your faith.

There will be a time when there is no one around you to back you up. Like Nehemiah against the enemy, he valiantly stood for God. How far will you go?

–ashley

Tis The Season! It is once again that time of year for us to pull out the Christmas tree, string up the lights, and put on our favorite christmas tunes. One of the greatest things I enjoy about the holidays is getting to watch my favorite Christmas movies.

Here is a list of my top five:

1.) Christmas vacation
2.) A Christmas story
3.) Home alone
4.) Elf
5.) Rudolph the red nosed reindeer

What is your favorite Holiday movie?

WHEN YOU ARE stuck in sin, what are you compelled to do? Are you compelled to engage other believers and prayerfully work through sin’s power in your life? Hopefully that is the case, but for many believers we urge ourselves to withdraw, retract, and disengage from those who would walk through our sin with us.

Let us remember, as Christians, we are called to confess our sins to one another (James 5:16), and this is not an arbitrary rule meant to shame us into compliance. Contrarily, it is intended for our benefit and building one another up in love. We may be grieved by our sin, but if it is habitual and ever reoccurring, we are unrepentant. This is because repentance is much more than feeling sorry about our sin, it is literally turning around, and going the opposite direction. It is leaving that sin splattered on the concrete, instead of, like a dog, returning to it.

Proverbs 26:11NIV
“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

Rather than living in the dark and returning to your folly, confess your sin to a brother or sister, and stay accountable to him or her. When this happens, you will find you both become sharper, more useful tools for the Lord.

Jesus commands “Christians/ Christ followers” to love one another like he loves us. But for us to love one another we must first understand “how he loves us”:

1. We are God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10)

2. We are adopted children of God (Romans 8:15-17)

3. We have been reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:21)

4. We have been forgiven of all our sins (Colossians 2:13-15, 2 Corinthians 5:19)

5. We have been made new (Romans 6:4, 2 Corinthians 5:17)

6. We are loved un-conditionally (Romans 5:6-8)

Many times we can forget all that Christ did for us. We can become so selfish and greedy with God’s love for us, that we become stingy with our love towards others. Christ died for all sins….not just mine.

Imagine if we loved others un-conditionally no strings attached, what if we completely forgave others (forgiveness requires us to forget), and what if we could see the potential in people rather than their mistakes.

Jesus said if we did those things (love as he loved us) all men would know that we are followers of Christ.  By all men knowing we follow Jesus this could open countless doors for God to transform lives.

1. Are you aware of the sacrifice and love of Jesus Christ?
2. How can you began to demonstrate the love of Christ to others in your life?

-Pastor Zach

BEING A TRUE LEADER isn’t always glamorous. There are not always hundreds of people wanting to be like you and do what you do. We can witness this in the book of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is the account of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. During the restoration, enemies threatened to attack the city as the wall and gates were rebuilt; it wasn’t necessarily the safest place. That is one reason the average Joe didn’t immediately sign up to live there.

Jerusalem living also meant leaving a previous place of residence, which had one’s farm and livelihood. At this point, Jerusalem was not yet finished and business would have been slow. But we read that the leaders lived in Jerusalem, and the rest drew lots. These leaders made a sacrifice. Someone had to live there and start the process of creating a once again bustling city.

Could this be what leadership is often about—not asking people to take a risk for you, but rather taking one for them? That is what leading is. We learn how to do this in its purest of forms through Jesus and his substitutionary death on the cross. He calls us to lay down our lives for others, because He has laid down his for us.

Have you been a leader lately?