culture

Where Are You Looking For Help?

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

(Psalm 121:1–2, ESV)

Christian, where are you looking for help? Are you looking for it in the President? Honestly, are you? Are you looking for your help to come in the passing of “righteous laws?” Are you hoping in the Constitution? Have you placed your trust in political action and conservatism? Yes, I admit, the Lord can use these things, but are you placing your trust in them and not in the Lord? Have you become confused about where your loyalties lie?

Christian, where are you looking for help? Are you looking for it in a vaccine or medical cure that will keep you safe from the Coronavirus? Are you hoping in science and doctors? Are you panicked that you won’t have enough masks and gloves and hand sanitizer? Are you stockpiling supplies selfishly because you believe that you need to take care of yourself? Are you trusting in media reports, graphs and charts, medical “experts” and the word on the street from social media? Are your driven by fear for your life? Have you become so fearful that God has become small and you must help him along?

Christian, where are you looking for help? Have you become convinced of the thinking that overthrowing the world with angry rhetoric and supporting violent riots is somehow supposed to bring justice in a wicked and fallen world? Have you placed your hope in a Kingdom now, where human philosophy and effort can build a utopia that will somehow address the sin of man’s soul? Have you exchanged the gospel of the crucified Jesus for a gospel of equality and justice won through protest, political action, and evangelism of those who don’t think like you? Have you become so driven by the issue of injustice that you no longer look to Jesus as the one who loves and sent his Son to be the Savior of the world? Have you misplaced your zeal in a hope that things will change without Christ?

Christian, where are you looking for your help? Can you confidently say, “My help comes from the Lord”?

“But”, you say, “we need to exercise our rights as citizens…” Yes, but has your citizenship on earth overridden your trust that this world is not your home?

“But we must make sure that we protect those who are vulnerable. This sickness has killed people.” Yes, but aren’t we already vulnerable, like grass that is here today and gone tomorrow? Does not the Lord see your needs, and cares for you? Does he not already know the number of your days? Does not his love cast out fear? Aren’t we told not to be anxious, but by prayer and supplication make our needs known to the Lord? Will we not all die, even if we have placed our bodies in a vacuum-sealed clean room? But how will you have lived for Christ?

“But, there is racism and poverty in this world, and Jesus calls us to fight for the innocent and to call out sin.” Yes, and we must speak truth to those lies that would undercut the value of any human, whether because of the color of his skin or the money in his pocket. But, a poor man or a man who has hatred for his brother will still be cast into outer darkness when he has money and no longer hates those different than he is. This world is broken. It has been so since the beginning of mankind. Where does Christ fit in for you? Is he simply used to further your personal agenda? And how much are we seeking his help in overcoming the sin of this world, and how much of it is our drive to fix things in our own flesh?

Where does your help come from? It’s an honest question. The Sunday school answer is that “our help comes from the Lord.” But we need to assess our hearts and ask if that is really true. Look around you. Does your life, your actions, your words, reflect a person who trusts in the Lord, or have you placed your hopes elsewhere? He alone, the one who made heaven and earth, is able to overcome. Place your full trust in him alone.

Ugly Ambition or Faithful Service? Which Describes You?

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““Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:26, ESV)

“This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”

(1 Corinthians 4:1–2, ESV)

I don’t think there is anyone that wants to live and die in obscurity. But today, working hard and living a quiet life isn’t enough for many people. For a growing number, becoming YouTube or Tik Tok famous is what they aspire to become. That urge, and many more “acceptable” goals have driven people to do shameful and underhanded things throughout human history.

I wish I could say that this ugly ambition is largely absent from the church of Jesus Christ, but I would not be speaking the truth. Many Christians have moved their ambition from godliness to the glittering promises of our media age. Today, it would seem, anyone can grasp at a bit of celebrity. I am not saying that all ambition is wrong, but what is the goal that we are seeking? How do we want people to regard us?

In 1Corinthians 4:1, the word “this” (“This is how one should regard us…”) refers back to what precedes chapter 4, specifically, 1Cor 3:18-23, where Paul rebuked the Corinthians for boasting in their favorite teachers. Instead of seeking to be lifted up in our identification with men, we should first consider ourselves servants–but specifically servants of Christ. I have seen repeatedly how young men have hitched their wagon to their favorite pastors, teachers and theologians, as if somehow their identification with these men will given them credibility with the right sort of people.

So, who did Paul “hitch his wagon” to? How did he want to be known? He connected himself to Christ, but he did so by being identified as Christ’s servant, as his steward. This reference to servants and stewards fits well with Paul’s self-reference to him and Apollos as humble field workers in 1Cor 3:5. There is no great glory or honor in a field worker, yet there is a great importance attached to this enormous responsibility for the land owner and master. There is accountability that will come at the harvest and there is great dignity for the hard working farmer who sows and then reaps in due time.

So, while the proud, carnal believers in the church were crowing over who it was they were identifying with in order to boost their own credibility, Paul refused to play this game, and instead stated that he was content with simply being a third-galley under rower who is never seen by the Captain. Paul is a work-horse, an inboard motor for the ship. He is happy to work behind the scenes, so that the Master of the house is glorified, guarding himself from stealing any of that glory.

But, there are lazy servants. There are servants who steal, and loaf around, and some who distract the other workers with bickering and fighting. What sort of servant and house steward was Paul ambitious to remain? Paul wanted what his Master wanted-and the Master requires stewards to be found faithful at their work. Faithfulness is what is foremost in importance in the steward. All other attributes pale in comparison if he is not faithful to carry out his master’s desires and bring him the fruit of his labors. The dependability and trustworthiness of a steward has a direct bearing upon his being judged as faithful. The farmer who is not consistent, who does not work hard, who steals from his master, who is lazy will not be judged as faithful. First Corinthians 3:8 speaks of the farmers who will do their jobs faithfully and in the end will receive their wages according to their labor. The comparison of the faithful and unfaithful laborer is seen in 1 Cor 3:14-15.

Paul most likely recognized that as he was writing, some would be coming to their conclusions about how successful he had been in being faithful. Some would deem Paul a failure, and other a smashing success. But Paul cut through all of this, knowing that this sort of comparison ends mostly in sin, and he stated these words in his letter:

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” (1 Corinthians 4:3–4, ESV)

It is the master of the house who determines whether his servant is faithful. That isn’t for me or for you to say. In the end, on the last Day, that will be determined. For me to try and guess, and for you to try and judge is neither fruitful nor charitable. After all, we should be more concerned about how we will be judged. Because on that Day, the eyes of the Lord will be upon each of us. So, how will we be found? I pray that I will be found faithful. What about you?

What We All Need This Christmas

/ Richard Bargas / 1 Comment

christmas

Have you ever seen a baby more excited about the box and the wrapping than the actual present? Christmas can feel like that sometimes. It can become a time when people get all wrapped up in the tinsel, eggnog, Christmas trees and gift-giving and forget the actual gift.

In comparison to Christ and the value of his gift, the trappings of this world are garbage. As Paul said in Philippians 3:8,

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

So, this Christmas, seek the true gift of Jesus Christ.

How NOT To Grow Christ’s Church

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“What we see happening most often is that a Christian bored or unsatisfied with the goods and services at his church goes to the more attractive church with the more rockin’ worship, more dynamic preacher, fancier facility, better coffee, bigger kids’ or students’ ministry, etc., but five to six years later (and in many cases, even less), they become dissatisfied with that experience and are ready to go find another. It seems in fact that the very paradigm of the attractional church creates this instability. As a church seeks to speak into a particular demographic or life stage, channeling significant resources into certain key areas of a church, it ends up attracting people whose life stage or circumstances most resonate with those offerings. But when they stop resonating, they stop going. So the retention rate for the attractional megachurch is not very promising.”—Jared Wilson, The Prodigal Church, 35.

Why is the Church Starving?

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feed us

“It is no secret that Christ’s Church is not at all in good health in many places of the world.  She has been languishing because she has been fed, as the current line has it, “junk food”; all kinds of artificial preservatives and all sorts of unnatural substitutes have been served up to her.  As a result, theological and Biblical malnutrition has afflicted the very generation that has taken such giant steps to make sure its physical health is not damaged by using foods or products that are carcinogenic or otherwise harmful to their physical bodies.  Simultaneously a worldwide spiritual famine resulting from the absence of any genuine publication of the Word of God (Amos 8:11) continues to run wild and almost unabated in most quarters of the Church.”[1]

     [1]Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology (Grand Rapids:  Baker, 1981), 7-8.