This weekend marks the 38th anniversary of the land mark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade where abortion on demand was legalized. In an ironic twist of fate we began the week by celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday. The week began with a celebration of equal rights for minorities and ended with an observance of the stripping of rights for the unborn.
Civil rights for minorities were not won overnight. It came in stages. It started with a lot of bloodshed where freedom was won with the Civil War between the North and the South. It ended with MLK Jr in the 60's. Sure, there will always be a disparity between white and black in America. I don't think that we will ever get rid of racism in our society. As long as sin remains in the world so will hatred.
In every generation the Church is tasked with the responsibility of preaching the gospel faithfully. We proclaim a message of reconciliation between God and man. Black and white can worship together because God, in Christ, broke down all walls of hostility.
The challenge we always face as a church is how to balance social justice with gospel proclamation. All too often the church has so over-invested itself into social causes that it failed to proclaim the gospel. When this happened the gospel that the church proclaimed became a social gospel stripped of its power. Yet, the church can never ignore the social injustices in its community. James said that true religion is to take care of widows and orphans. God cares about the downcast and those who don't have an advocate with society. The unborn child in the mother's womb is just such a person in our society without a voice. We have an obligation as a community of followers of Christ not to forget the rights of the unborn. If we don't speak up for them you can be sure that no one else will.
There are many reasons why women come to a decision to abort a baby and I don't mean to trivialize some of those reasons. Regardless, the fact remains that there is a separate human being living inside her womb. R.C. Sproul did an excellent job discussing this issue this last week on the radio last week.
My question to the 21st Century Church is, "are we trying to stand in the gap and be there for women who struggle with this decision?" Are we sharing the gospel of life with those who are contemplating death? If we fail to bring the gospel to the problem of abortion we fail to proclaim the gospel to our generation. This is one of the biggest problems that our generation faces. We can and must speak about racism and racial reconciliation but even more so must we speak about this endemic. Racism doesn't always lead to death; abortion does. The unborn won't get a chance to hear about racial reconciliation if they aren't allowed to even live.
Let us never fail to look for ways we can bring light to our perishing world.
I welcome your comments.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Abandoned to God...
Let no one imagine that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary sell-out of his all to his God. He does not by this degrade himself as a man; rather he finds his right place of high honor as one made in the image of his Creator. His deep disgrace lay in his moral derangement, his unnatural usurpation of the place of God. His honor will be proved by restoring again that stolen throne. In exalting God over all, he finds his own highest honor upheld. --A.W Tozer
Monday, January 17, 2011
In Honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
Love and Happiness: Being the People of God in a Racialized Society
I do not imagine that the white and black race will ever live in any country upon an equal footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than elsewhere. An isolated individual may surmount the prejudices of religion, of his country, or of his race, and if this individual is a king he may effect surprising changes in society; but a whole people cannot rise, as it were, above itself. A despot who should subject the Americans and their former slaves to the same yoke, might perhaps succeed in commingling their races; but as long as the American democracy remains at the head of affairs no one will undertake so difficult a task; and it may be foreseen that the freer the white population of the United States becomes, the more isolated will it remain. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835) Alexis de Tocqueville, long ago observed a phenomenon of American culture that is neither unusual nor unique to America. It endures to this present day because it is a phenomenon that is not rooted in accidents of American culture. Racism is not limited to America’s black white divide and to some extent it is a daily reality in every culture on earth because it is rooted in man’s rebellion against God. The reality of racism is rooted in sin and the remedy of racism is rooted in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. For In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. Gal. 3:26-29 At Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church we are committed to living out the implications of our new identity in Christ. Therefore, ethnic and racial diversity is not something ‘barely tolerated’ but central to our understanding of Christianity! Does that shock you? Well, it is our hope that it doesn’t. Why such passion for what some consider a secondary issue? It is because it is not a secondary issue at all. It is a primary issue in three vital ways.
1. It is essential to our understanding of the gospel. When Paul says that he isn’t ashamed of the gospel the reason he gives is that it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. We believe that the doctrine of Justification by faith, which we rightly hold as precious, was meant to produce a reconciled people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages who would worship God together. Likewise, adoption melds us all into the family of God and a family that can not co-exist under the same roof because of personal preferences fails to rise above the level of dysfunctional. The glory of the gospel is that in a world tragically divided along racial and cultural lines, marred by racial genocide and ethnic cleansing the gospel alone creates real observable unity.
2. It is essential to our understanding of the Church. Some might say that the everyone ness of the gospel is adequately served by Churches that are racially monolithic as long as every race is permitted to have a place of worship. We deny this! We believe that one of the primary results of the gospel is the creation of a multicultural, multiethnic people that worship together! We who are members of the same heavenly household of God are meant to portray that now by transparently being members of the earthly household of God. This is the best response to the reality that, “in Him [we all] are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
3. It is essential to our whole understanding of the goal of redemption. We believe that the core thrust of redemptive history is multicultural, multiracial and transnational at its nucleus. It is central to the Abrahamic Covenant. God said, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” It is central to the commission given the Church by the risen Lord Jesus, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Finally, it is what lies at the very heart of the new heavens and the new earth. “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk and the Kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day- and their will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”
Needless to say that at Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church diversity is not something we tolerate it is something we joyously celebrate! We are joyously laboring and hoping to one day look out on the congregation one Sunday morning and see every nation under God’s heaven represented. If God grants us this noble vision we will know in some dim measure the wonder John knew and felt when he glimpsed the glory of this in a vision. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angles were standing around the throne and around the elders and four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the Elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; The sun shall not strike them, Nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, And He will guide them to springs of living water, And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Rev. 7:9-17 May John’s vision always be the passionate pursuit of Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church.
Pastor Andrews
I do not imagine that the white and black race will ever live in any country upon an equal footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than elsewhere. An isolated individual may surmount the prejudices of religion, of his country, or of his race, and if this individual is a king he may effect surprising changes in society; but a whole people cannot rise, as it were, above itself. A despot who should subject the Americans and their former slaves to the same yoke, might perhaps succeed in commingling their races; but as long as the American democracy remains at the head of affairs no one will undertake so difficult a task; and it may be foreseen that the freer the white population of the United States becomes, the more isolated will it remain. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835) Alexis de Tocqueville, long ago observed a phenomenon of American culture that is neither unusual nor unique to America. It endures to this present day because it is a phenomenon that is not rooted in accidents of American culture. Racism is not limited to America’s black white divide and to some extent it is a daily reality in every culture on earth because it is rooted in man’s rebellion against God. The reality of racism is rooted in sin and the remedy of racism is rooted in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. For In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. Gal. 3:26-29 At Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church we are committed to living out the implications of our new identity in Christ. Therefore, ethnic and racial diversity is not something ‘barely tolerated’ but central to our understanding of Christianity! Does that shock you? Well, it is our hope that it doesn’t. Why such passion for what some consider a secondary issue? It is because it is not a secondary issue at all. It is a primary issue in three vital ways.
1. It is essential to our understanding of the gospel. When Paul says that he isn’t ashamed of the gospel the reason he gives is that it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. We believe that the doctrine of Justification by faith, which we rightly hold as precious, was meant to produce a reconciled people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages who would worship God together. Likewise, adoption melds us all into the family of God and a family that can not co-exist under the same roof because of personal preferences fails to rise above the level of dysfunctional. The glory of the gospel is that in a world tragically divided along racial and cultural lines, marred by racial genocide and ethnic cleansing the gospel alone creates real observable unity.
2. It is essential to our understanding of the Church. Some might say that the everyone ness of the gospel is adequately served by Churches that are racially monolithic as long as every race is permitted to have a place of worship. We deny this! We believe that one of the primary results of the gospel is the creation of a multicultural, multiethnic people that worship together! We who are members of the same heavenly household of God are meant to portray that now by transparently being members of the earthly household of God. This is the best response to the reality that, “in Him [we all] are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
3. It is essential to our whole understanding of the goal of redemption. We believe that the core thrust of redemptive history is multicultural, multiracial and transnational at its nucleus. It is central to the Abrahamic Covenant. God said, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” It is central to the commission given the Church by the risen Lord Jesus, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Finally, it is what lies at the very heart of the new heavens and the new earth. “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk and the Kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day- and their will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”
Needless to say that at Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church diversity is not something we tolerate it is something we joyously celebrate! We are joyously laboring and hoping to one day look out on the congregation one Sunday morning and see every nation under God’s heaven represented. If God grants us this noble vision we will know in some dim measure the wonder John knew and felt when he glimpsed the glory of this in a vision. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angles were standing around the throne and around the elders and four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the Elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; The sun shall not strike them, Nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, And He will guide them to springs of living water, And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Rev. 7:9-17 May John’s vision always be the passionate pursuit of Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church.
Pastor Andrews
Friday, January 14, 2011
The Importance of Prayer
We are starting off the new year tonight with our first corporate prayer meeting. This is the first, in what I'm sure will be many articles on prayer. Why, you may ask, do we need to concern ourselves with corporate prayer? Can't we just do prayer at home? How important is prayer to the Christian life?
I'm sure I'm not the only one in church who struggles with a consistent prayer life. Prayer takes discipline and focussed attention. On the night of Jesus' betrayal, when the center of all redemptive history was at its climax, Jesus asked just a simple request of his disciples. That they sit and watch with him. Then he began to pray until his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Catching his disciples asleep he asked them, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The disciples wanted to pray, they just allowed their flesh to get the best of them. Rest was more important than watching and praying with their Savior and Lord. We too struggle with the same thing the disciples did. We may be willing on the inside to pray but the things of life distract us. Television, Facebook, you name it. The list could go on and on. We oftentimes wonder why it is that we so easily fall into various sorts of temptation. We are to PRAY that we may not enter into temptation. Isn't it true beloved reader, that you don't pray as often as you should?
One thing we can observe from this passage I just quoted in Matthew 26:40-41 is that even Jesus needed to pray. He once said that a servant is not above his master. If we call Christ our master and yet don't make prayer central to our Christian walk we are denying the lordship of Christ in our lives. Sure, we don't have to attend tonight's meeting in order to prove that he is our Lord. The main issue is, how central is prayer in your life? Without prayer, all we become is legalists when we try to live out the Christian life. Our power comes from on high and God grants it when we pray.
We are starting the year off with prayer because as elders we want prayer to be central in the life of this church. We struggle along with everybody else, but nonetheless, we are attempting to fight the good fight of faith. How are you coming along in your fight of faith? Do you need prayer? We want to hear from you. Your comments are always welcome.
I'm sure I'm not the only one in church who struggles with a consistent prayer life. Prayer takes discipline and focussed attention. On the night of Jesus' betrayal, when the center of all redemptive history was at its climax, Jesus asked just a simple request of his disciples. That they sit and watch with him. Then he began to pray until his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Catching his disciples asleep he asked them, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The disciples wanted to pray, they just allowed their flesh to get the best of them. Rest was more important than watching and praying with their Savior and Lord. We too struggle with the same thing the disciples did. We may be willing on the inside to pray but the things of life distract us. Television, Facebook, you name it. The list could go on and on. We oftentimes wonder why it is that we so easily fall into various sorts of temptation. We are to PRAY that we may not enter into temptation. Isn't it true beloved reader, that you don't pray as often as you should?
One thing we can observe from this passage I just quoted in Matthew 26:40-41 is that even Jesus needed to pray. He once said that a servant is not above his master. If we call Christ our master and yet don't make prayer central to our Christian walk we are denying the lordship of Christ in our lives. Sure, we don't have to attend tonight's meeting in order to prove that he is our Lord. The main issue is, how central is prayer in your life? Without prayer, all we become is legalists when we try to live out the Christian life. Our power comes from on high and God grants it when we pray.
We are starting the year off with prayer because as elders we want prayer to be central in the life of this church. We struggle along with everybody else, but nonetheless, we are attempting to fight the good fight of faith. How are you coming along in your fight of faith? Do you need prayer? We want to hear from you. Your comments are always welcome.
Welcome
We invite you to join our blog. This is an attempt by the elders at Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church to come up with a more effective way of communicating. Some times we will post current events and sometimes we will give our thoughts and musings on biblical passages or current events and how they relate to the Christian world view.
In the beginning was the Word - those are the opening lines of John's gospel. Christ was the Word in the very beginning. We communicate through words or speech because it is how God created us and it is a reflection of our being made in the image of God. Not only do we communicate through the spoken word, but we communicate through the written word as well. This also is from God who inspired the written word that has been passed down to us called the Bible. In it we find all things necessary for faith and conduct in this world.
We are excited to begin this new chapter in the life of Soaring Oaks and hope that you will interact with us. We want to hear from you. So let's begin!
In the beginning was the Word - those are the opening lines of John's gospel. Christ was the Word in the very beginning. We communicate through words or speech because it is how God created us and it is a reflection of our being made in the image of God. Not only do we communicate through the spoken word, but we communicate through the written word as well. This also is from God who inspired the written word that has been passed down to us called the Bible. In it we find all things necessary for faith and conduct in this world.
We are excited to begin this new chapter in the life of Soaring Oaks and hope that you will interact with us. We want to hear from you. So let's begin!
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