IT STARTED WITH A SIMPLE QUESTION

It started small... just like this 'airplane' this little boy is flying. It was a simple question, "Would you like to go with us to the Philippines?" Just over three years ago, I was at a Nelson Baptist Association Meeting that was discussing local ministry opportunities when Greg Cochran, then the pastor of Cedar Grove Baptist Church, asked me that simple question. I had never been asked anything like that before. I had never been out of our country before and standing there in Bardstown, Kentucky, I was being asked if I would like to go to the other side of the world. When I asked what we would be doing, Greg told me that we would be preaching the gospel and training pastors and other church leaders. Immediately I was excited about the possibility even though I had no idea what to expect. But not only was I excited about this opportunity, I also felt an immediate prompting from God to say yes.

I remember how tired I was the night we arrived at Davao City after flying over 20 hours. When I got to our room, I was grateful for the opportunity to email my wife, Rhonda, and let her know that we were safe and checked in, ready for a good night's rest before traveling to Mt. Carmel the next day not knowing what to expect...

One of the first nights in the camp in the middle of nowhere, I woke up with a powerful sense of "Why me? Why would God allow a guy like me to experience this?" I was totally overwhelmed that God had given me the opportunity to team up with Greg and his wife (Vicki) and their daughter (Hannah), Daniel Wilson, Matthew Spandler-Davison, Greg Crenshaw and Aaron Shipp on such a gospel adventure. The worship atmosphere during each service was so powerful, the people were so excited to be taught and I fell in love with these Filipino people.

But what if Greg had not asked me that question? Or what if I declined the offer? I would have missed out on a great spiritual lesson of obedience and ministry. Working together with our pastors in the Nelson Baptist Association has helped me grow and have an even stronger desire to grow more.

That was 2011 and now we are planning what will be my fourth trip to the Philippines to preach in some revivals and teach a pastors' conference with Matthew again. But this time, we are adding a medical team to work with local doctors to minister to the Cateel area that was hit so hard by the storms in the last 18 months. I am excited that I got to ask that question that Greg asked me in 2011 and I am so glad that Sue Fannin and Darlene Hanson said yes (and this will be their first mission trip of this magnitude as well). In addition to being reunited with Matthew on the Philippines team, we will also have Ron and Judy Votaw, medical missionaries) to join us. 

Will you pray for our team as we make the necessary preparations for this trip? And will you pray for Pastor Joe Fernandez and his wife, Juliet, who are our teammates from the Philippines? They have been so good to us. Please for their twins, Edmund and Edwin, who not only drive us from place to place but also interpret for us and provide music at various events as well. 

BE CAREFUL OF "BECAUSE I GOT BAPTIZED..."

I have been hearing a lot of discussion about baptism the last several months and I am glad. Too many people are misunderstanding what baptism means and it is evident with some of the responses you get when you ask someone why they consider themselves a Christian... "Because I got baptized...".

Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay, recently gave some explanation in an article called "Where Have All The Baptisms Gone?" that showed why we have had less baptisms in recent years. Here are three of his reasons...

• Membership rolls have swollen with missing members. From the best I can determine, we would have a difficult time locating over 6 million of our 16 million members. We have baptized members who seem to show no fruit of salvation.
• We are baptizing unregenerate members. The previous statistic of missing members seems to support this thesis.
• We focus too much on incantation evangelism. Many argue that, in our desire to get greater numbers of decisions for Christ, we ask numbers of people to say a few “magic” words to become a Christian, rather than explain to them the true meanings of repentance and faith.

So many of our churches have membership rolls with more than double the names on the roll than those who attend regularly. Large quantities of people have been added to the membership of our churches and then disappeared. In order to be a member of a Southern Baptist Church, you must be a follower of Jesus Christ and baptized by immersion as illustrated by the baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3:16. So the question must be asked "If they left the church, were they actually saved to begin with?"

John gives us an answer to this question in 1 John 2:19 (ESV)  They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. Look at the phrase 'would have continued with us'. If a person is truly saved by Jesus Christ, then he or she is now part of the body of Christ which is the church. Also notice the phrase "that it might become plain that they all are not of us" showing us again that if they were genuinely born again, they would be still part of the church.

Denny Burk, in his article "Leaving The Church Means Leaving Jesus", he says "The spirit of Jesus says that leaving the local church reveals one’s true spiritual condition. The one who leaves is at best one who is Christian in name only. His leaving reveals that he was never really a bona fide follower of Jesus. To be sure, being a disciple of Jesus in a church involves much more that attending a weekly meeting. But biblically speaking, it cannot involve less than that."

BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO HAVEN'T LEFT THE CHURCH?
This brings us to the other point that Thom Rainer made which dealt with "incantation evangelism". For years, churches have put so much emphasis on the "sinner's prayer" that we have made it to appear as if as long as you repeat the right words, you are automatically saved. Don't get me wrong, we are to pray for God to save us, forgive us of our sins and adopt us into His family but saying those words is not what saves you, God does. Only God can give you a new life (Ephesians 2:1-10).

Two messages have really impacted me on this idea of the necessity to warn our church families to make sure that they are really saved... both of these messages were preached at a Together For The Gospel conference. The first one I recommend to you is a message preached by Mark Dever in 2012 called "False Conversions: The Suicide of the Church" and the other message is from John MacArthur called "Mass Defection: The Great Physician Confronts the Pathology of Counterfeit Faith". 

SO WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE?
Please, please, please don't base your eternity on the fact that you repeated a prayer that somebody told you to pray or base your eternity on the fact that you were baptized. The only way to be sure of your eternity is to know that God has truly saved you. How can you know this? By the "fruit" that you bear in your life now. Here are some of the ways to recognize the fruit or changes that have taken place in your life [from John MacArthur's Study Bible notes]...
A. Love for God: Psalms 42:1ff; 73:25; Luke 10:27; Romans 8:7
B. Repentance from Sin: Psalms 32:5; Proverbs 28:13; Romans 7:14ff; 2 Corinthians 7:10; 1 John 1:8-10
C. Genuine Humility: Psalms 51:17; Matthew 5:1-12; James 4:6, 9ff
D. Devotion to God's Glory: Psalms 105:3; 115:1; Isaiah 43:7; 48:10ff.; Jerermiah 9:23, 24; 1 Corinthians 10:31
E. Continual Prayer: Luke 18:1; Ephesians 6:18ff.; Philippians 4:6ff.; 1 Timothy 2:1-4; James 5:16-18
F. Selfless Love: 1 John 2:9ff; 3:14; 4:7ff
G. Separation from the World: 1 Corinthians 2:12; James 4:4ff.; 1 John 2:15-17; 5:5
H. Spiritual Growth: Luke 8:15; John 15:1-6; Ephesians 4:12-16
I. Obedient Living: Matthew 7:21; John 15:14ff.; Romans 16:26; 1 Peter 1:2, 22; 1 John 2:3-5
J. Hunger for God's Word: 1 Peter 2:1-3
K. Transformation of Life: 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

WHY SHOULD YOU JOIN A CHURCH?

Why should you join a church? Here is a great quote from an article by Jonathan Leeman from 9Marks entitled 'What to Say to Non-Committal Church Attenders'

"REASONS TO JOIN THE CHURCH

These more deliberate conversations veer back and forth between the biblical and the practical. Typically, I generally encourage a person to join the church

• For the sake of the pastors. It lets the pastors know who you are, and makes them responsible for you (see Acts 20:28; Heb. 13:17).
• For the sake of obedience to Jesus. Jesus did not give you the keys of the kingdom for binding and loosing. He gave the keys to the apostolic local church (Matt. 16:13-20; 18:15-20). You don’t have the authority to baptize yourself or feed yourself the Lord’s Supper. It requires a church to affirm your profession of faith, which is what membership is at its very heart (see Acts 2:38).
• For the sake of other believers. Joining makes you responsible for one local congregation, and they for you. You now own or have a share in their discipleship to Christ. That is, you are now responsible for their growth and professions of faith, insofar as you are responsible for the church’s faithful gospel preaching (Gal. 1) and that individual’s discipline (Matt. 18:15-20; 1 Cor. 5).
• For one’s own spiritual good and safety. Suppose YOU ever become that lamb who wanders away from the fold (Matt. 18:12-14). It’s your church that Jesus will send after you (Matt. 18:15-20).
• For the sake of non-Christian neighbors. Membership helps to protect and promote the reputation of Christ on earth by guarding the church’s witness (see Matt. 5:13-16; 28:18-20; John 13:34-35). Membership is how the world knows who represents Jesus!"

As I wrote yesterday, it's time that we 'go to' church and BE the church. I hope that if you are not already plugged into a church and serving Jesus through your church that you will find a church to plug into soon... very soon. 

"GO TO" CHURCH AND BE THE CHURCH

After spending most of today preparing for Sunday's message based upon Hebrews 10:19 and following, I keep thinking about this short sentence... "Go to" church and BE the church. So many people think that we 'go to' church when God's Word clearly says that we ARE the church.

When Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 that He was going to build His church, He wasn't talking about a building. Jesus was talking about the "ekklēsia" which can mean an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in a religious meeting locally as in Matthew 18:17 or all born-again believers throughout the world who are united into one body as in Colossians 1:24.

At Rolling Fork Baptist Church, we have been going through the book of Hebrews on Sunday mornings and we have seen so many warnings such as

NOT TO DRIFT AWAY FROM WHAT WE HAVE HEARD (CHAPTER 2)

NOT TO HARDEN OUR HEARTS AND FALL INTO SIN (CHAPTER 3)

NOT TO BE LEAD ASTRAY BY AN UNBELIEVING HEART (CHAPTER 3)

NOT TO MISS GOD’S REST BECAUSE OF DISOBEDIENCE (CHAPTER 4)

NOT TO NEGLECT GOD’S WORD BECAUSE WE WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE (CHAPTER 4)

NOT TO LET OUR FAITH SLIP AWAY (CHAPTER 4)

NOT TO BECOME DULL OF HEARING (CHAPTER 5)

NOT TO IGNORE SPIRITUAL GROWTH (CHAPTER 5-6)

I am not sure yet how this sentence '"Go to" church and BE the church.' will be used this year but I do know this. I have no doubt that this must be our focus. We need to gather together and be the church that God has called us to be. How can we do this if we never see each other? Look at these two verses from Hebrews chapter 10...
Hebrews 10:24 (ESV)  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 
How can we stir up each other if we are not gathered together? And why is this so important? Besides the obvious reason that God's Word tells us to, we must be aware that "the Day" is coming and we must be ready for that Day. 

If you are not already gathering with a local church family, please start this week. We invite you to worship with us at Rolling Fork Baptist Church if you don't have a church home that you already attend regularly. Please "go to" church this week and start helping us be the church that God expects us to be.