Contact Sunday Worship - March 6, 2022: Our First Elders Appointed

Contact Sunday Worship - April 11, 2021 (Including My Sermon)

My Sermon at the Contact Mission Church on November 8, 2020

A Christian's Advice for Using Facebook

I've been on Facebook for a few years now. In that time, I've learned about a few things that work well and don't work well for Christians on Facebook. Here is my advice:

1. Focus on honoring God. This is the most important advice I could possibly give to a disciple of Jesus Christ. Share a scripture or inspirational thought every once in a while. Share an encouraging word about what God has done, how he has answered prayer, or how faith in him has helped you.

2. Focus on others. Don't post too often about yourself or your life. Concentrate on demonstrating to others that you care about them. Let them know that you are praying for them when they are facing difficult situations. Take the time to "like" their photographs and status updates. Leave an encouraging comment when someone shares something good and wholesome. People don't post on Facebook in order to be ignored.

3. Avoid partisan politics. Your mission field includes Democrats, Republicans, and independents. You can affirm the value of life, the importance of marriage, the need to care for the poor, and the virtues of sexual purity without mentioning politics. You can be more effective when you avoid unnecessarily offending someone.

4. Avoid theological or religious discussion groups. You can get bogged down in useless arguments with "experts" when you join such groups. It can be more than a waste of time. It can be counterproductive.

5. Be careful with using humor. Sarcasm is especially dangerous. It can be easily misunderstood and unnecessarily offensive. Certainly humor can be used, but make it lighthearted and fun.

"Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone" (Colossians 4:5-6, NLT).

Christopher Laudett's Baptism

Before his baptism, I asked my son Chris to write a few sentences about why he was being baptized and what it meant to him.  This is what he wrote:

"I am being baptized because I want to be closer to God. I want to repent and be closer to God. I want to be forgiven for my sins. It stands for dying and coming back to life."

Embracing Obscurity

Embracing Obscurity by an anonymous author encourages Christians to embrace humility, contentment, and unnoticed service rather than to seek after attention, influence, and wealth. It's a powerful and important message.
Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

"We're drunk all right. We're intoxicated with a desire to be known, recognized, appreciated, and respected. We crave to be a 'somebody' and do notable things, to achieve our dreams and gain the admiration of others. To be something--anything--other than nothing.

"Whether you're an athlete, postal worker, missionary, or government employee, haven't you felt the insatiable draw of notoriety? Where do you think that comes from? We live in a culture that bases significance on how celebrated, or common, we are. And now the church seems to have followed suit. This is serious stuff. It's serious because of its source. It's just the sort of lie that Satan--the father of lies--manufactures and sells best. It's not too shocking. It can be justified and religious-sized and explained away easily enough. But it kills with the same force as the 'big sins' from which we distance ourselves.

"We all feel it. We all sense the power of this problem, even if we only see the tip of the iceberg. Yet even as our intoxication draws us away from our Maker and His mission, we're not sure what to do with it" (pages 1-2).

This is a good book...a challenging book. I received it for Christmas, but you can find it at a local bookstore or online at places like amazon.com. If you are up for a challenge, please check it out.

Our Adoption Story--Short Version

This is the video of our adoption story as it was seen today on the campuses of Cedar Ridge Christian Church in Broken Arrow, Sapulpa, and Coweta.

ReFOCUS

In ReFocus, Focus of the Family President Jim Daly challenges readers to confront the problems in our society with humility, kindness, gentleness, grace, and conviction.

Jim Daly recognizes that our culture has deep problems. He sees the deterioration of families, the violence within homes and on the streets, abortion, the acceptance and promotion of sexual immorality, alcohol and drug abuse, and numerous other issues with which we are dealing. He knows the temptation to self-righteously condemn people who struggle. He understands the temptation to focus on political and legal solutions to these problems. And he understands that we live in a time in which our culture has become increasingly hostile toward Christians and our worldview.

However, in this book, Mr. Daly does not focus so much on the problems of our postchristian culture as he does on the attitudes that followers of Christ should internalize as we try to have a positive influence within it. He calls on us to engage humbly and respectfully with people who disagree with our perspective. He emphasizes kindness and grace.

I appreciated this book. Jim Daly did an excellent job of promoting the Christian virtues of humility and kindness without sacrificing biblical ethics and doctrine.

The New Living Translation

Over the years, I have read through the New King James Version, the New International Version, the New American Standard Bible, and the English Standard Version. I have appreciated each translation. It's a nice privilege to live in a place and time in which the word of God is available in a variety of versions.

A couple of years ago, I received the New Living Translation of the Bible as a Christmas gift. Over the last year, I have read through it too.

At first, I was a little skeptical about the translation. I doubted that it would convey the message of Christ accurately. After all, it was a translation that was based on a paraphrase of the Bible. How accurate and trustworthy could it be?

Then, I looked at the list of scholars on the translation team. I recognized the names of Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary, Scot McKnight of North Park Seminary, and D.A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I began to understand that this was not a list of lightweights among biblical scholars. These translators have a great deal of expertise in understanding the text.

As I began to read the NLT Bible, I found it refreshing. It does not follow the word-for-word translation philosophy of the New King James, New American Standard, and English Standard Versions. Instead, it focuses more on accurately conveying the thoughts within the text, much like the New International Version does. As a result, I came across several passages which were easier to understand in the New Living Translation.

For example, Philippians 1:20 in the ESV reads:

"as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death."

While that passage can be understood in the ESV, I found it easier to read and comprehend in the NLT because the language is much closer to the way I speak and think. In the NLT, it reads:

"For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die."

I have been so impressed with the New Living Translation that I have made it my primary translation for reading. (However, I have not found a better study Bible than the ESV Study Bible. I will continue to use it as my primary study Bible.) If you have not read the NLT, give it a shot. It's worth it.

A Discussion of Biblical Inerrancy

This video features an important discussion on the doctrine of biblical inerrancy which took place recently on the campus of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Radical Together: Reaching the Unreached

This was Greg Pittman's sermon today. It focused on the need for international missions, especially among groups of people around the world who do not have access to the good news of Jesus Christ..

Slavery Today

This video documents cases of slavery around the world today.

Going the Second Mile

This is a training video for employees of Chick-fil-A. I think it is an excellent illustration of the attitude behind Jesus' instructions for his followers to go the second mile.

"If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles" (Matthew 5:41, NIV 1984).

The Importance of Doing SOMETHING in the Face of Evil

For many years, Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky raped boys while those in authority over him looked the other way. Despite what they said and what they did to help people in other ways, those men who ignored the needs of boys in need of their protection failed in their moral duty to love others as they loved themselves. They placed more importance on maintaining their reputations than on doing the right thing in protecting those boys.

This is a reminder to all people (especially to Christians) that we have a responsibility to do something in the face of evil, no matter what it does to our reputations.
 
"Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die;
save them as they stagger to their death.
Don't excuse yourself by saying,
'Look, we didn't know.'
For God understands all hearts,
and he sees you.
He who guards your soul knows you knew.
He will repay all people as their actions deserve" (Proverbs 24:11-12, NLT).

Faith in the Furnace

On Friday night, our son Christopher participated in the children's musical Faith in the Furnace at our local church. It was a huge production involving over 240 children and 100 volunteers. The play was based on the lives of the prophet Daniel and his three friends.

Christopher played the role of Abednego. He did a great job of acting in front of a huge crowd of people.

(In the photo, Christopher is the boy dressed in blue and orange standing on the far right.)

Entangled

This is a very good sermon about pornography by Kyle Rodell, our student minister. The testimony at the beginning of the sermon is from Bryan Champ, our connections minister.

Why I Don't Support Same-Sex Marriage

A few weeks ago, a reader asked me to support the legalization of same-sex marriage as a civil right. As a Christian, I had to decline.

Jesus taught that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. "'Haven't you read the Scriptures?' Jesus replied. 'They record that from the beginning God made them male and female.' And he said, 'This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one'" (Matthew 19:4-5, NLT).

As God created people, according to Jesus, a man and a woman are meant to form a marriage, a sexual union. Whenever sexual activity occurs outside of a marriage between a man and a woman, Jesus refers to it in such terms as fornication (in older translations of the Bible), sexual immorality, adultery, and unfaithfulness. He affirms sexual activity within a marriage between a man and a woman, but he sees all other sexual activity as a violation of God's intent. He sees it as sin.

However, Christ gave his life on the cross as a sacrifice to take away the legitimate wrath of God against sin (including sexual sins such as homosexuality). He wants to forgive anyone and everyone who will trust him and turn away from sin to follow him. As the earliest Christians discovered, Jesus could forgive all kinds of sins and change all kinds of people. As the apostle Paul recorded, "Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people--none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, NLT).

Jesus Christ offers the same kind of grace to us today. For more information about sin, the Savior, and our response to him, please see my other blog at this link.

Foster Care Awareness

This was today's sermon at Cedar Ridge Christian Church. The congregation is cooperating with Oklahoma's Department of Human Services to care for children in the foster care system. More information about the state of Oklahoma's need for churches to help can be found here.

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you" (James 1:27, NLT).

Guest Post at the Thoughtful Blog

Last week, Kirra Antrobus sent a message asking me to write a guest post for her blog. You can read it at this link. Thank you, Kirra!

How Did God Inspire the Bible?

Last month, I was leading a Bible study for my den of Cub Scouts and their parents and grandparents. While teaching about how we listen to God by reading the Bible, a question arose. How did God inspire the Bible?

Second Timothy 3:16 states, "All Scripture is breathed out by God." However, it does not mention the methodologies used by God.

 I gave the boys a list of a few different methods used by the Lord to inspire the Scriptures:

 1. Dictation Sometimes the Lord dictated his message word-for-word to the writers of the Bible. For example, God told Jeremiah exactly what to write. "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: 'Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you'" (Jeremiah 30:2).

 2. Enhanced Memory Sometimes God enhanced the memories of the Bible's writers. Jesus promised his apostles that the Holy Spirit would help them to remember what he had said to them (John 14:25-26).

 3. Visions For example, as Jesus started sharing the visions of Revelation with John, he told John, "Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches" (Revelation 1:11).

 4. Research For example, the Gospel of Luke was based on extensive research. As Luke stated, "Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus" (Luke 1:3, NLT).

 This may not be an exhaustive list of the methodologies employed by God to inspire the Scriptures, but it helps to answer the question. However the Lord chose to inspire specific portions of the Scriptures, we can be assured that "those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:21, NLT).