My SBC Report to Our Church

Below is the text of my report to our church on our trip to the SBC Annual Meeting.  The report is featured in our monthly newsletter coming out this week.

FBC Sebring Family,

I hope your summer has been wonderful so far! And Happy Independence Day! I want to give you a report on the trip that Christie and I took last month to the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Thank you for sending us! It was by far the best, most encouraging Annual Meeting I have attended, because of the consistent unity, focus on the gospel, emphasis on prayer, and desire for revival that were displayed by all of our SBC leaders.

Dr. Ronnie Floyd is our current SBC President, and during this convention he was reelected to serve one more year. Dr. Floyd is the senior pastor of Cross Church in Northwest Arkansas, and he is related to the Bone family in our church through marriage. He has done an incredible job leading our convention, especially in calling us to pray for revival. In order to make more prayer possible, Dr. Floyd condensed the business aspects of the convention. That enabled us to have almost a 3-hour prayer meeting on the convention floor on Tuesday night. That time of prayer alone was worth the trip! We prayed fervently together – repenting of our sins, asking for racial reconciliation, and begging God to work in our churches, our nation, and our world. We also specifically prayed for our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters who are suffering under brutal regimes like ISIS. In the midst of a world that rages against God, He is still on His throne, and we can trust Him (see Psalm 2). Our prayers expressed that trust.

On Wednesday morning, we also had a wonderful missionary commissioning service, held jointly by the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board. The unity, gospel focus, and passion for God’s glory displayed by the presidents of these agencies were a great encouragement. Christie and I loved hearing the missionaries’ stories and praying for them.

Finally, Dr. Russell Moore of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) helped us respond to the rapid changes in our culture, especially with regard to same-sex marriage. There are great resources at ERLC.com if you’d like to visit that website. This past Sunday morning, I addressed the recent Supreme Court ruling, but I’m going to address it more detail in this Sunday’s sermon on Matthew 5:31-32. Please pray for me, your other pastors, and our entire church as we seek to stand on the truth of God’s Word while also lovingly speaking the gospel to all who will hear. God is sovereign, and He caused the gospel to spread like wildfire in the midst of very intense persecution in the book of Acts. He wants to use us today! May He be glorified through our faith and our witness. I love you and can’t wait to see what God does in our church in the days to come.

Don’t forget about our vote on Sunday, July 5, for Jason Fryer as our new Pastor to Children and Families! Hope to see you there.

In Christ,

Pastor Matt

Tags: SBC, SBC Annual Meeting

Prayer Guide: John 14:18-26

Click below for the prayer guide I am using in tonight’s prayer meeting.  I’ve been working through portions of the doctrinally-heavy section of John’s Gospel right before Jesus’ arrest.

John 14, 18-26 – Prayer Meeting 06242015

Tags: John 14, Prayer, Prayer Meeting, Gospels

Jekyll and Hyde

John Stott in The Cross of Christ:

“There is, therefore, a great need for discernment in our self-understanding.  Who am I?  What is my ‘self’?  The answer is that I am a Jekyll and Hyde, a mixed-up kid, having both dignity, because I was created and have been re-created in the image of God, and depravity, because I still have a fallen and rebellious nature.  I am both noble and ignoble, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, upright and twisted, image and child of God, and yet sometimes yielding obsequious homage to the devil from whose clutches Christ has rescued me.  My true self is what I am by creation, which Christ came to redeem, and by calling.  My false self is what I am by the Fall, which Christ came to destroy.  Only when we have discerned which is which within us, shall we know what attitude to adopt towards each.  We must be true to our true self and false to our false self.  We must be fearless in affirming all that we are by creation, redemption and calling, and ruthless in disowning all that we are by the Fall.  Moreover, the cross of Christ teaches us both attitudes.  On the one hand, the cross is the God-given measure of the value of our true self, since Christ loved us and died for us.  On the other hand, it is the God-given model for the denial of our false self, since we are to nail it to the cross and so put it to death.  Or, more simply, standing before the cross we see simultaneously our worth and our unworthiness, since we perceive both the greatness of His love in dying, and the greatness of our sin in causing Him to die” (285).

Several parts of this quote would be great for use in sermons on the battle between the Spirit and the flesh, as well as the image of God, or the new creation we are in Christ.  Or, you could take Stott’s use of the story of Jekyll and Hyde and run with that.

Tags: Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Jeremiah 31, Romans 6 (especially verse 4), Romans 7, Romans 13, Galatians 5, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 4, 2 Corinthians 5, Hebrews 8

Michael Green on the Lord’s Supper

Found this Michael Green quote in Stott’s The Cross of Christ (p. 272-273):

“We never outgrow the fact that we are sinners still, totally dependent each day on the grace of God to the undeserving.  We do not come to offer; in the first place we come to receive.  The very nature of a supper declares this.  We are the hungry, coming to be fed.  We are the undeserving, welcomed freely at the Lord’s table.”

[The quote is from a chapter Green wrote in a book called Guidelines, edited by J. I. Packer.]

Green simply uses the idea of a “supper” to illustrate truth about the “Lord’s Supper.”  We have nothing to offer; our sacrifice of worship is only in response to Christ’s atoning sacrifice.  We come to the Lord’s Supper to receive.

This quote could illustrate all of the Lord’s Supper passages – Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Corinthians 11.  It could also illustrate passages that speak of Jesus’ sacrifice and our complete inability to save ourselves: Galatians 2, Ephesians 2, and many others.

Tags: Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, 1 Corinthians 11, Galatians 2, Ephesians 2, Lord’s Supper, Sacrifice, Worship, Grace

Alan Stibbs on the Priesthood of Jesus

I found this quote in John Stott’s The Cross of Christ, page 268.  He’s actually quoting from a lesser-known book by Alan Stibbs called The Finished Work of Christ.  The quote includes a helpful illustration on the priesthood of Jesus, especially as this role is discussed in the book of Hebrews.  Jesus offered a one-time sacrifice for all, but His priesthood is eternal.  Contrary to official Catholic theology, this eternal priesthood does not mean that Jesus is continually being sacrificed.  Stibbs writes,

“Admittedly the act of offering was necessary to constitute Christ a priest…just as the act of child-bearing is necessary to constitute a woman a mother.  But that truth does not mean in the case of motherhood that henceforth, to those who resort to her as ‘mother,’ such a woman is always giving them birth.  Her act of child-bearing is for them not only an indispensable but also a finished work.  What they now enjoy are other complementary ministries of motherhood, which lie beyond the child-bearing.  Similarly with Christ’s priesthood His propitiatory offering is not only an indispensable but also a finished work…(Now, however) as with motherhood, beyond such successful discharge of the fundamental function of priesthood there lie other complementary throne ministries of grace, which the Priest fulfills for the benefit of His already reconciled people (in particular, His heavenly intercession)” [p. 30-31 in Stibbs’ book].

You wouldn’t have to read this quote to use the idea of motherhood as an illustration of Jesus’ priesthood.  You could just explain that one act brings about both motherhood and priesthood, yet both lead to ongoing duties and ministries (and give examples of each).  This could illustrate sermons from multiple chapters in Hebrews, as well as the crucifixion passages (especially the statement: “It is finished!”).  You could also use it to illustrate verses like Mark 10:45, where Jesus talks about offering Himself for us.

Tags: Matthew 27, Mark 10, Mark 15, Luke 23, John 19, Hebrews 3, Hebrews 4, Hebrews 5, Hebrews 7, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 9, Hebrews 10, Atonement, Priesthood, High Priest, Sacrifice

Prayer Guide: John 14:12-17

Click below for the prayer guide I am using in tonight’s prayer meeting.  I’ve been working through portions of the doctrinally-heavy section of John’s Gospel right before Jesus’ arrest.  Some of those sections are working well to guide our prayer times.  God bless you. John 14, 12-17 – Prayer Meeting 06032015     Tags: John 14, Prayer, Prayer Meeting, Gospels