church planting

Mighty Men of God

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment
David's three mighty men

David’s Mighty Men

“And David became greater and greater, for the LORD of hosts was with him.” (1 Chronicles 11:9)

The vast majority of the first nine chapters of First Chronicles is a genealogy, and most people simply breeze over the names and relations listed there. And after a description of Saul’s and Jonathan’s deaths and David’s ascension to the throne, another list of names is given. Whereas the first lists were genealogies, this list is very different.

This coming weekend is Memorial Day in the United States, a holiday which is normally celebrated with picnics and barbecues, a long way from the true purpose this holiday. Memorial Day was originally set aside as a day to remember or memorialize the men and women who have fought to defend our country in the armed services. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. currently has 58,272 names of those who died or remain missing in the Vietnam War.

So what’s my point? My point is that lists of names mean something. And not only to their family and loved ones. This becomes incredibly clear in 1Chronicles 11:10-12:40 where the names of King David’s mighty men are given along with some of their accomplishments. These were great men of war and courage. Some fought against unthinkable odds and everyone fought with great courage and faithfulness to the king.

Here are a few thoughts I had about these men:

  • Like David, the mighty men were only successful because the Lord had given them success and they knew it. The beginning of a great fall begins with pride!
  • Their faithfulness to King David was a faithfulness to the Lord who had placed David upon the throne. Mighty men recognize God’s leaders and do all they can to support him.
  • The mighty men had different ranks based upon their abilities, performance and successes. There is “the three,” “the thirty” and the those who were very great, but “did not attain to the three” or “the thirty.” Everyone isn’t equal. Performance, skill and effort matter. In a day when everyone gets a participation ribbon, this shows that mighty men strive and push themselves to be their best in the service of the Lord.
  •  The mighty men loved their king and were willing to go above and beyond to serve and please him, even risking their lives to give him water from his hometown well (1Chron 11:15-19). This devotion was matched by David unwillingness to indulge himself with this sort of sacrifice. There was mutual love, respect and loyalty between the king and his mighty men.
  • The mighty men had a great kinship and loving respect for one another built around their devotion to the Lord and his king. They were united in purpose and vision, each doing his own part for the common cause.

The virtues of honor, devotion, courage, selfless service and sacrifice are not exclusive to the military. These are the virtues that members of the Church should uphold as well. Our King is Jesus and our goal is clearly given in the Great Commission. May the Lord be pleased to raise up mighty men (and women!) from within our own churches to his glory and honor!

Why Doctrine Is Worth Fighting For

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

Ali

A few years ago I read this headline in my local newspaper. As a pastor, it grabbed my attention immediately. It said: INSTRUMENTS STOLEN FROM 5 MANHATTAN BEACH CHURCHES

It told the story of how 5 local churches had been robbed in the period of one week. They took guitars, keyboards, ukuleles, drums, a tambourine, a mixing machine, audio and video equipment, projectors, laptop computers, microphones and speakers. They cleaned out those churches.

The worst part is that it seems that the thieves got access to the church through unlocked windows and doors. They just walked right in!

I would like to suggest to you that as sad as it is that a church was robbed partially due to its own negligence, there is a greater danger that is facing the church—the danger of giving up the foundational doctrines that under gird our faith. And much like these robberies in the South Bay, the church and each of us as members of the body of Christ are too often leaving to windows and doors open and allowing the thieves in.

The book of 1 Timothy is rightly considered a Pastoral Epistle, designed to instruct Pastors in leading Christ’s church. But that is not its only purpose. 1Tim 3:15 gives us the undergirding reason for us to look at this book-To know how we should behave in God’s House.

In this post I would like to focus on one aspect of this behavior—our attitude toward guarding the church’s doctrinal integrity.

“This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.” 1Timothy 1:18-20 ESV

From this passage I want to share with you three reasons why true doctrine is worth fighting for so that we might join in the battle for truth.

It Is A Precious Trust (v. 18)

We put alarms on cars, homes, & banks, but not on trash dumpsters, junked cars and abandoned homes. We guard what we value. We protect what we cherish. In 1Timothy 1:15-17, Paul gives us the essence of the Gospel message and his own personal example of its effect upon his life. Inherent in Paul’s words was the assumption that the truth of God’s Word is so valuable that it needs to be guarded. Not a passive guarding, like those security guards you see who only have a flashlight to stop an armed robber. No, Paul calls Timothy to wage war with the enemies of the cross—he calls this war “good” or “noble.” So what do we need to protect the gospel from three danger:

Guard It Against Being Watered Down: “for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Paul didn’t fear the opinions of man so that he tailored his words to fit what they wanted to hear. He told them what the Ephesian church what they needed to hear.

Guard It Against Being Changed: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (Gal 1:6-7). A different gospel is really no gospel at all. We need to guard against the subtle and not-so-subtle changes that are assaulting the Gospel.

Guard It Against Being Set Aside: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2Tim 4:3-4). Moving past the Gospel to something that is better? That was the attitude in Paul’s day, and many today hold the same sentiment.

D.A. Carson reminds us of this concern when he writes,

“I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry.” (The Cross & Christian Ministry, 38).

This is a most subtle danger, and this makes it all the more insidious. It does not ask the gospel to be watered down or changed, it just adds on to and covers over the gospel and claims to be better than God gave it to us. This was what the Pharisees did. Jesus said “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” (Mark 7:8)

It like when I was in high school and my dad gave me this ’71 VW beetle. I loved reading the magazine Hot VW’s and seeing the way people “improved” on the original designs. Some guys reworked their cars so much that in reality they weren’t even VW Beetles anymore. They may have had some pieces of the original car, but most of the original was set aside for an after-market part.

The same can and is done to the gospel. People try to make it look cooler and more appealing. They remove sin and hell or add cussing and tattoos. Others add man-made rules a requirement for heaven. These are all cheap add-ons to the real Gospel and it impedes its work.

There are other ways that the Gospel is attacked, but here we have three strategies used by our enemy in order to tone down the message of the cross: Water it down, change it, or set it aside.

How can you personally guard this precious trust? By knowing the gospel, by proclaiming the gospel and by living the gospel. It is the word preached and taught that guards us from being tossed about in the waves of false doctrine and lying schemes. So:

Get to church. Just because your body is there doesn’t mean your heart and mind are.  God has given us teachers to help keep us grounded in good, solid doctrine.

 Guard Your Heart. Just because a preacher is funny or a book is popular or a YouTube clip of a speaker gets a million hits doesn’t mean it’s spiritually healthy. Learn discernment so that you can avoid being another casualty of false teaching.

Grow Theologically. You may not be a Bible or theology scholar, but if you are a Christian you have the Holy Spirit as your teacher. You need to grow deeper roots in your faith so that you will see the next guy that comes along with a new discovery from the Bible a mile away.

False teachers produce false teachers. Their heresy spreads like gangrene producing more and more ungodliness. Those like Hymenaeus (v. 20) are not satisfied with keeping their false doctrines to themselves. They are impelled to spread them amidst the church.

Therefore the church needs to guard against these wolves in sheep’s clothing. This might seem harsh in a church culture that doesn’t like to confront sin, but it is a merciful act.

  1. It stops the influence of the heresy.
  2. It removes the divine protection that the false teachers enjoy inside the church so that he can be dealt with by Satan with the hope that he would be driven back to God (1Cor 5:5).
  3. It seeks restoration-learning not to blaspheme. This is corrective, not primarily punitive.

We’re talking about the eternal destiny of people’s souls.

Truth matters. Failure to guard the truth of the Gospel is to declare that the soul saving Gospel really isn’t that important.

Truth matters. Failure to guard the Gospel will result in a person being tossed around in a spiritual rip tide.

Truth matters. Failure to guard the truth of the Gospel will result in a shipwrecked faith and false teaches that will spread the disease even further, damning countless souls to hell.

True Doctrine Is Worth Fight For Because It Gives Divine Direction (v. 19)

For the faith, cp. 6:12.-How can we wage the good warfare when we no longer continue to believe the truth?

  1. How can we continue fighting when we no longer have a good conscience about what we believe and of whom we believe?
  2. When we lose these two, the enemy has dismantled us and made us useless.
  3. Paul says that those who had abandoned the faith have no stability for their conscience and became like a ship without a rudder for direction.
  4. Without being anchored to the truth of Jesus Christ, we wander into uncharted waters and grave dangers. This is why we need pastors and teachers:
    1. Application: When we abandon absolute truth as revealed in the Bible, we are susceptible to spiritual and doctrinal drift. How can you avoid this danger?
  1. True Doctrine Is Worth Fight For Because The Alternative Is Unthinkable (v.20)
    1. What ultimately happens to those who reject the faith and follow different doctrines, myths and speculations?
    2. Using two men as examples, Paul shows Timothy and us how serious it is when someone abandons the faith.
    3. Although the exact nature of what Alexander taught is not too clear, Hymenaeus’ involvement in revealed in 2Tim 2:16-18:
    1. Paul’s solution to this is radical surgery. To keep this gangrene of heresy from growing, Paul says in 1:20 that he needs to cut them away from the church in order to teach them not to blaspheme.
    1. Illustration: Not too long ago, there was a news story about a business that called itself the California Alternative High School who targeted people who had not finished high school and wanted to complete there education. They advertised on TV and many immigrants sought out these schools in hopes of bettering their situation in the US through education.
    1. The Truth matters. Doctrine is worth fighting for.
    2. Brothers and Sisters, guard the precious trust of the Gospel given to all of us.

Is Your God Truly Sovereign?

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“The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence. To say that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellowmen are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity; is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue that God is “trying His best” to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent. To throw the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being.” (A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God)

The Power for Church Planting

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“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Rom 1:16 ESV

It would seem that some people who are all for church planting are unaware of Romans 1:16, so I have reproduced it here for the benefit of those who think that a church is best planted by human invention.
What do I mean by ‘human invention?’ How about slick marketing programs that blanket the city? Or freebies, raffles, and give-aways that are meant to be a spiritual bait-and-switch? There are surveys meant to find out what unbelieving pagans want in a church so that a church can be tailored for them, and there are those ‘church planters’ who blanket Christian radio, Christian bookstores and encourage their core team to invite their friends over to their cool, new church that is so much better than the one they’re in now. There are other so-called church planting and church growth gimmicks I could mention, but I think that you probably know of one or two places like this.

Then there is Holy Spirit power that converts a soul from being a prisoner of darkness into a light-reflecting child of the Kingdom. Those churches that seek to grow from regenerating the souls of men are true church plants, and those who plant churches by the power of the gospel do so in the methodology that gives all glory to God and cannot be conjured up by Madison Avenue methods.

Listen to this great quote from Tim Keller:
“The first ministry watershed or goal was to become a church that had a spiritual renewal dynamic in the heart of our ministry. Was the gospel going to be a power, so that sleepy and nominal Christians woke up, and so that really secular non-believers who lived and worked in the professional worlds of Manhattan got converted? And could this become a real dynamic so conversions happened systemically, not just “one off” here and there?” (Redeemer Church Planting Manual, p. 15).

To all my brothers out there who are holding forth the truth in faithfulness, keep it up. For those growing weary of doing good, email me and I’ll join you in prayer so that you won’t be tempted to give in to powerless quick fixes that yield a crowd, but not gospel growth.

Preach for the Common Man!

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There are times when I encounter a young expositor (or wannabe) who feels that his knowledge (or at least his ability to parrot someone else’s knowledge) must be on display in his sermons; so he speaks in such a way that the man in the pew cannot understand him, and he feels all the more spiritually superior than most for his erudition.

I am a simple preacher. I can wax eloquent too. But why? To prove that I have degrees hanging on my walls? As I think of all the godly men that I respect, both currently and in history, those men used simple language, but spent time in deep study and deeper prayer. They sought to preach for the benefit and edification of the people, not to lift themselves up.

Apparently, Richard Baxter, a most eminent Puritan, would agree with me. More importantly, I think I am in the company of my Savior, who taught with clarity and power to the common man.

“All our teaching must be as plain and simple as possible. This doth best suit a teacher’s ends. He that would be understood must speak to the capacity of his hearers. Truth loves the light, and is most beautiful when most naked. It is the sign of an envious enemy to hide the truth; and it is the work of a hypocrite to do this under pretense of revealing it; and therefore painted obscure sermons (like painted glass in windows which keeps out the light) are too oft the marks of painted hypocrites. If you would not teach men, what do you in the pulpit? If you would, why do you not speak so as to be understood? I know the height of the matter may make a man not understood, when he hath studied to make it as plain as he can; but that a man should purposely cloud the matter in strange words, and hide his mind from the people, whom he pretendeth to instruct, is the way to make fools admire his profound learning, and wise men his folly, pride, and hypocrisy. Some men conceal their sentiments, under the pretense of necessity, because of men’s prejudices, and the unpreparedness of common understandings to receive the truth. But truth overcomes prejudice by the mere light of evidence, and there is no better way to make a good cause prevail, than to make it as plain, and as generally and thoroughly known as we can; it is this light that will dispose an unprepared mind. It is, at best, a sign that a man hath not well digested the matter himself, if he is not able to deliver it plainly to others.”

—Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor