Month: April 2024

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Fear and Trembling

To teach the Bible is a sacred privilege and solemn responsibility. James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” I know I am accountable to God for my ministry and that produces in me a deep reverence not unlike fear and trembling.

Having written that, however, I confess that it has been a joy to be a pastor who was and is dedicated to the teaching of the Bible. I was fortunate to serve in healthy churches, among people who valued Bible teaching Sunday after Sunday.

I worked hard at it. I studied the Bible many hours every week. There were other pastoral duties, of course, such as administration, counseling, personal evangelism, and visitation. But I gave priority to the hours for study and preparation for preaching. I believe that most of the people in the churches I served understood and appreciated that fact.

My preferred method was Bible exposition, teaching the Bible verse by verse. I sought to teach the meaning of a biblical passage, as best I could, in accordance with the intention of the human author and the Divine Author. If I wanted to teach on a particular topic, such as the Holy Spirit, or family life, or what the Bible says about the future, I selected a Bible passage that emphasized that subject and simply taught what the Word of God said about it.

For most of my pulpit ministry I taught through books of the Bible. In this way I taught most of the books of the New Testament. Verse by verse Bible teaching required me to give attention to all the major themes of the Bible comprehensively, not just my favorite subjects. I also taught through many of the books of the Old Testament, especially the psalms, wisdom literature, and the prophets, as well as the study of prominent biblical characters. I explored foundational themes such as creation, highlights of Israel’s history and prophesies of Christ.

In addition to teaching the content and interpretation of the scriptures, I sought to show their relevance to the lives of people today. I tried to illustrate my messages with stories and examples from contemporary life. This was to try to help people apply the teaching to their lives as Christians.

Believing that Jesus Christ is the centerpiece of the Bible, I wanted to include the gospel in every message in some way. The Bible’s main theme is how human beings may be in a right relationship to God. This is only possible through faith in Jesus the Son of God, his sacrificial death and his glorious resurrection.

In view of the eternal importance of this subject, it is clear why those of us who teach the Bible will be held to a higher standard of accountability. Let every pastor and Bible teacher approach this task with fear and trembling.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Out of the Depths

The past several months have been difficult ones for me. A bad fall, two surgeries,  and unwelcome side effects from Parkinson’s medications have reminded me of how precious is good health. More than once I have called out to our heavenly Father “out of the depths” of uncertainty and anxiety. Psalm 130 has been a source of help for me.

It is one of the penitential psalms. It was quoted in prayer by the Hebrew people when they came to worship and to confess their sins at the temple of God in Jerusalem. “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord hear my voice. let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy” (Psalm 130:1-2).

The writer of Psalm 130 was suffering emotionally and spiritually. His mood was dark. He was struggling with guilt feelings. Some believe Jonah prayed this psalm from the belly of the great fish as he repented of disobeying the call of God (read Jonah 2:2-3). Like the writer of this psalm he felt the weight of sin and regret and he wanted to be free of it.

In a dinner table conversation Martin Luther was asked which psalm was his favorite. He replied that Psalm 130 was among his favorites because it expresses themes which we find in the doctrines of grace: forgiveness, redemption, justification, the complete removal of the sinner’s guilt.

Guilt is different from feeling bad because of a violation of a social expectation. It is not a false, neurotic guilt that has no basis in reality. The guilt spoken of in the Bible is true moral guilt before a holy God. It is the sense that we are not what we ought to be because we know we have broken God’s moral law.

When we become aware of our sins and shortcomings, we may choose one of two options. We may repress those guilt feelings and resist the Holy Spirit’s conviction. This is what many people do, but it only makes matters worse. It is better to confess our sins to God and receive his grace and forgiveness.

“If you O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared” (Psalm 130:3-4). Here we find a summary of the major themes of the whole Bible: law and grace; justice and forgiveness; God’s wrath against sin and his redemption from sin. The good news is good because it is about the rescue that is available from the bad news of judgment.

We may be thankful for the little conjunction “but.” Verse 4 of the psalm says, “But with you there is forgiveness.” Many times, when the accuser, the enemy of my soul, has reminded me of my multiplied sins and failures, this verse has comforted me with the assurance of forgiveness.

We have a hard time forgiving others. We have a hard time forgiving ourselves. Some people have a hard time forgiving God! This psalm is a reminder that God is different than we are. He loves to forgive. It is his prerogative to forgive freely, fully, graciously.

So we are taught to wait before the Lord (v.5). We do not like to wait. Impatience is baked into American culture. We don’t like to wait at traffic lights, for elevators, in doctors’ offices. We like same day delivery, fast food, and instant messaging. But the psalm tells us to wait in the presence of the Lord.

“In his word I put my hope.” This is solid faith and certainty that God will keep his word. Commenting on this, Derek Kidner wrote, “It is the Lord himself, not simply escape from punishment, that the writer longs for. Notice that this is more than wistfulness and optimism. In plain terms, he speaks of a promise (his word) to cling to. . . . Night may seem endless, but morning is certain, and its time determined.”

The psalm begins in the depths but it closes in the heights. I have read that the deepest trenches at the bottom of the earth’s oceans are almost 36,000 feet below the surface. The highest mountain is 29,000 feet above sea level. In the closing verses we are taken to the highest spiritual mountain peaks: God’s unfailing love and redemption. I cannot read verses 7-8 without thinking of Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross.

“O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.”

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

 

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Being and Doing

When Howard Hendricks was a student at Wheaton College, his mentor, Dr. H.C. Theissen told him, “Hendricks, master the Master’s life!” On that basis, Hendricks devoted himself to the lifelong study of the four gospels.

One of the advantages of reading and re-reading the gospels, is to show us how we may “learn from” Christ (Matthew 11;29). The apostle Peter reminds us of the importance of following “in his steps” ( 1 Peter 2:21). This is discipleship.

There is a phrase in Mark 3:14 that illustrates this. When Jesus called his twelve disciples, it was so that “they might be with him and that he might send them out. . . .” I cannot help but notice how being with Jesus precedes doing things for Jesus. Before the Lord sent them out he wanted them to spend time with him.

He chose Philip, Nathaniel, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the zealot, Andrew, John and James, the sons of Zebedee, and Simon, whom he nicknamed Peter. He chose them to be his apostles and to learn from him. (Judas Iscariot heard and saw, but he did not listen and learn.)

What did the Lord want these men to learn from him? He modeled perfect holiness and taught compassion, servanthood, prayerful dependency upon the Father in heaven. He was the embodiment of sacrificial love. He cared for the weak, the poor, the marginalized. Their being with Jesus was for the purpose of their learning from him the principles of God’s kingdom.

Many people seem to think that the first requirement the Lord puts upon us is to do something for him. But the first requirement in discipleship is not doing but being. Jesus is primarily concerned with what we are becoming. He wants to remake us in his image. This is a process called sanctification. He wants us to be like himself (Romans 8:29).

Are you spending time with Jesus? Is there a part of your day when you have uninterrupted fellowship with him? A time when he speaks to you through his word and you respond to him in prayer? Some call it private worship, some call it daily devotions, some call it a quiet time.

It doesn’t really matter what you call it. What matters is that there is the cultivation of a growing relationship with Jesus. Out of that “being” relationship flows the “doing” of effective ministry.

E. M. Bounds, in his classic book Power Through Prayer wrote, “Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men for God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men.”

Just as certainly as the Lord invited ordinary men to be with him, so he invites you and me to spend time with him. 1 Corinthians 1:9 says, God “has called you into fellowship with his Son. . . .”

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

 

 

 

 

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His Presence is Enough

Nature is predictable. It operates on the basis of fixed laws. Release a stone from your hand and it always drops to the ground. Put a kettle of water on a hot stove and the water will boil. A commercial aircraft weighing over 450 tons can supersede gravity and fly because it operates in accordance with laws of aerodynamics. Nature operates in a predictable manner.

This very predictability gives rise to science. Men and women investigate, develop theories, conduct experiments, then form conclusions based on evidence that nature behaves in a certain way under certain conditions.

The Bible teaches that there is a Mind controlling nature. Natural laws are a  way of describing God’s activity in nature. God created nature. God sustains nature.

If an all-powerful God can do that, he can, if he chooses, suspend, or interrupt the natural processes he himself created. He can break into the ordinary course of things in a way that is not natural, but supernatural.

This is what Jesus did. Sometimes he acted in extraordinary ways to meet the needs of people and to demonstrate his authority as the Son of God. These extraordinary acts of God are what we call miracles.

It is not unscientific to believe in miracles. Science has nothing to say about whether miracles may or may not occur. If people object to the possibility of miracles, they do so on religious, not scientific grounds. Science can verify or disprove natural, not supernatural phenomena.

Christianity is a faith which is based upon miracles. God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. Many events in the ministry of Jesus were miraculous signs of his deity. Jesus died on a cross and arose from the dead. He ascended to heaven. He promised to return to earth in power and glory.

For example, there is an event that took place in his early ministry which is a vivid demonstration of Jesus’ miracle-working power. Jesus and his disciples were crossing the Lake of Galilee in a fishing boat. Jesus was asleep in the stern of the vessel. An unusually powerful storm arose. The waves were so high that the disciples feared that the boat would be swamped.

“The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?'” (Mark 4:38). The Bible doesn’t tell us what they expected the Lord to do about the situation. They had seen him perform miracles before. Probably they were hoping for one now.

The next verse says Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the waves saying, “Quiet! Be still!” Then we are told that everything became perfectly calm on the lake. What is this but a supernatural intervention?

The disciples were awestruck. They asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:41).

This story shows us who Jesus is. He is the God-man. In his humanity, he slept, exhausted after a long day of ministry. In his deity, he demonstrated his miracle-working power over his creation.

The story also contains a hint as to how we might respond to the dangers that erupt in our lives. Jesus had already told his disciples that they would get to the other side of the lake (Mark4:35). Even though he was sleeping, he was with them in the storm. His presence was their guarantee that they would make it to the other side. This was a test of their faith.

There will be times in our lives when we may be tempted to feel that he is unconcerned. We may be tempted to panic when we feel overwhelmed by our circumstances. We may be tempted to forget that he is nearby and has promised never to leave us or forsake us.

As a boy I was taught little song in Sunday school: “With Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm.” As a pastor, I observed this in the lives of many people of faith and courage who were counting on the Lord to be with them in the storms of life, whether or not he performed a miracle.

They had learned to trust him. I remember one godly lady who had terminal cancer. When I visited her I asked her what the Lord had been saying to her in her illness. Her response taught me a lot about the life of faith. She said the Lord had been saying to her, “Just trust me.”

For her, his presence was enough.

Pastor Randy Faulkner