Gospel

Preaching Christ in a Multi-Denominational World

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments 
The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 
1 Timothy 1:5 NKJV

This past Wednesday, I had what the medical profession refers to as “minor” surgery”. Of course, in my experience, the “minor” part has mostly to do with who is receiving it. Thankfully all went “Nominally” for the hernia repair but suffice it to say that most of this week has passed like a blur. Besides the obvious discomfort and subsequent difficulty readjusting to performing minor activities, (Like walking), the biggest issue was rescheduling all the various nursing home meeting for the week. I am very thankful for other volunteers who have stepped in and carried two of the meetings and the third I was able to reschedule for the following week. In 1 Timothy, Paul was facing on a far grander scale some of the same issues as he asks Timothy to deal with at Ephesus in order to correct the doctrinal drift of the church. When Paul first preached in Ephesus, a great revival had broken out and he had remained there about 1 1/2 years. However, just as he had feared, in his absence false teachers had slipped into the church along with some local leaders who had turned back to their traditional Judaism, and both were bringing in confusion about the entire point of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, my circumstances are quite different than Paul’s, but some of his same challenges face all of us who do nursing home ministry.

Each week there sits in front of us a mixture of Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans and Catholics, along with Pentecostals and many garden variety, non-churchgoers. How are we to preach Jesus? What is the point of our ministry? As I came across today’s verse in a devotional plan that I am following with a friend, I thought, “This is it!” When we are sharing the good news of salvation through the cross and the love of God, there is no great goal than seeing people respond with a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith. Does this mean dancing around biblical doctrines, excusing sin or altering the foundation of salvation through Jesus? Absolutely not! But it does mean that we have no time to quibble about different backgrounds, various traditions or minor differences. There is precious little time left in the lives of our members and every moment that God gives us with them counts. The thing I missed most this past week was the butterfly release at Life Care. I was told that each person was given a tiny box with a living butterfly and in memory of those who have passed away this past year, everyone opened their container and released their butterfly. I thought how much that act was like sharing Christ at the nursing homes has been over these last thirty-five years. I have to the best of my ability given to them the love of Christ in both message as well as in friendship. I am also reminded that just like those butterflies, we all will soon fly off to Heaven or Hell. But in the meantime, I know that God, for His own reasons has entrusted me and many, many others with the responsibility of preaching Jesus Christ to anyone who will listen in places most of the world has forgotten and to pray that as their own box opens, that they have learned to love God with pure hearts, forgive and ask forgiveness from others with a clean conscience and trust in Jesus with all their hearts.

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“We cannot all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

Bigger than an Earthquake!

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Acts 16:29-30 KJV

On first reading the story in the book of Acts of Paul and Silas singing in their cell at midnight, we might come away with the idea that the climactic moment was the earthquake which God sent. But the biggest event that night wasn’t a geological one, and here are three important details that tell us why. First, the jailer must have been listening in while Paul and Silas were singing and praying. Because when he comes running in the first question he asks is not, “What is going on?” but instead he cries out, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas had hoped that the prisoners would respond to their message. Little did they know that the jailer was listening too! The second detail rarely mentioned is that the jailer took Paul and Silas somewhere in the middle of the night to wash their wounds and be baptized. We don’t know the exact location, though possibly it was the river which ran through Philippi. This jailer’s response to the gospel was no hesitant walk down to an altar while music is quietly played. Instead, He took a huge risk leaving his duties at the jail while the prisoners sat unshackled, and the doors lay in ruins from the earthquake. But what he wanted most of all was to wash the wounds of those men who had been beaten the day before and for them to baptize him. The most important detail of this story: is not the songs or the earthquake but the jailer’s baptism by torchlight at midnight. Paul and Silas didn’t tell them to wait for a six-week class on Christianity and baptism. Instead, they followed through on the very reason that God had sent them to Philippi, by spreading the Gospel of Jesus with the very people they thought least likely to listen!

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Breaking News!

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment 
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed. " Luke 4:18 ESV

Whether you turn on the CBS Evening news, The Fox Report or CNN news, it is likely that the headlines are all bad news stories. As the old saying goes, “If it bleeds it leads.” With unimaginable cruelty, unending wars and merciless natural disasters pummeling our airwaves, it is easy to suppose that things have never been so bad. But with the slaughter of worshippers in the temple by Pilate, multitudes of blind, crippled and lepers begging in the streets and the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, in the days of Jesus, it seems that things weren’t really all that much different back then. So, you might think that in His first sermon, Jesus should have denounced the Roman atrocities, demanded fair treatment of slaves or condemned the religious charlatans who held power in Jerusalem. But instead, Jesus went to the ancient prophetic writings of Isaiah and announced to everyone longing for better things, that He had come to proclaim God’s Good News, and that this news was especially for the poor. Why the poor? Were they any more deserving of this message than anyone else? No! Rather this good news for them was like a home cooked meal to a starving man, a storm shelter in a tornado or a Spring thaw after many subzero weeks of Winter.

Sharing this message of Good News with the precious residents of Discovery Villages this past Sunday was a real blessing. I found that God’s word didn’t need to be hyped up, twisted into modern relevancy or updated, for it to bring hope to their hungry hearts. If you are also thirsty for that same good news of Jesus, then I pray that this little message will lift you up today.