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Things I still believe in: The Word of God

After 30 Years

Sep 2, 2012


by: Jack Lash Series: After 30 Years | Category: Things I Still Believe In | Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:14–3:17

9/2/12 “Things I Still Believe In After 30 Years #1: The Word of God” 2Timothy 3:14-17
I. Introduction
A. Two series to mark the 30th anniversary of my ministry here at GPC
B. Today: I still believe in the word of God
1. We began this church with a determination to build it upon the word of God. That’s one thing I’m not ashamed of.
C. “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2Timothy 3:14-17) (I could have used Ps.19:7-11 or Ps.119.)
1. It is God’s word. It is from Him.
2. It is for us. It is useful. We need it.
a. It instructs us. It confronts us. It trains us. It prepares us. And ultimately it saves us.
3. It is a lifelong project. From childhood to old age.
II. The enemy of our souls wants to destroy our connection to the word of God.
A. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
B. Attacked, undermined, belittled
C. Satan will throw any roadblock he can into the way of you hearing God speak in His word.
1. Undermine your trust in it: “Has God said?” Gen.3:1
D. It is a battle which has been fought in every generation and will be fought until Christ returns.
1. Some of the issues and challenges have changed, but the battle continues.
E. And people are willing accomplices. We don’t want to hear what God has to say.
F. There’s even a part of you and me as believers that doesn’t want to hear what God has to say.
III. Why does the enemy so want to undermine it?
A. The devotional power of the word of God
1. The place where God meet us, and speaks to us
2. “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” Ps.19:7
3. “My soul clings to the dust, revive me according to your word.” Ps.119:25
4. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7)
5. John 6:63 He said, “The words that I speak are spirit and they are life.”
6. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Col.3:16
B. It is the believer’s lifeline, our spiritual umbilical cord.
C. It tells us what is true. And in a world of lies we need to know what is true. Our enemy’s primary tool is deception. And how are we ever going to be able to discern his lies unless we know the truth?
D. If we don’t have God’s word, what else is there? What are we left with if this isn’t dependably the word of God.
1. Our own impressions? Our own conclusions? Our own impulses?
2. Nefarious film: areas (I think in Thailand) where people make their living by selling their young daughters. Pastor: “The ones who love their daughters only sell them to people they know from their own town, not to strangers.”
a. We are capable of thinking anything is right. We need an objective voice outside ourselves.
3. Wisdom is from above, it is from outside of us. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
4. Knowing that I don’t have the knowledge, the understanding, the wisdom I need and that I must therefore get it from outside myself, I must get it from the One who knows all things.
5. There is Someone who knows. And I am lost if I don’t receive that knowledge, that truth from Him.
6. I don’t know who I am or where I’m going or what I’m here for or why things are the way they are unless He tells me.
7. If the Bible’s not reliable, then I’m back to having nothing. I’m back on my own. I’m back to a life of trying to figure it out on my own, which leads to the unthinkable, as you can see in this world of people trying left to their own devices.
IV. Pretending there’s hope when there really isn’t any hope?
A. Like assuring someone he’s going to be OK when you know he’s dying.
B. Now I’m not asking people to believe the Bible is correct just because without it they are left on their own.
1. If there is nothing but meaningless and hopelessness, then I don’t want to be an advocate of false hope and imagined meaning.
C. I think there’s plenty of good reason to come to the conclusion that the Bible is the word of God.
1. Circular reasoning? The Bible as the word of God says it’s the word of God.
2. No. The Bible as an historical document, treated as any other historical document. If it’s purporting to report what actually happened, and if it’s largely consistent with the other historical accounts from the same period, we assume it’s generally speaking accurately.
3. This leads us to conclusion that Jesus is the Son of God.
4. The way Jesus treated the Bible shows us that it is the word of God.
D. Of course, like most folks, when I became a Christian I didn’t accept the Bible as the word of God because of some carefully reasoned argumentation.
1. I accepted it as the word of God because the people who had told me about Jesus also told me the Bible was His word.
2. Later on, you see evidence, but at first, you just accept what they tell you.
3. It’s sort of like how you know your parents are your parents.
V. I know that sometimes it’s discouraging.
A. So many extremists are pointing to the Bible as the justification for their teachings, so many crazy teachings are defended from the Bible.
1. Sometimes you don’t want to be seen holding up the same book they’re holding up because you don’t want to be associated with them.
2. But the solution is not to give up on the Bible, but to dig deeper. The answers and the corrections and the solutions are there as well.
B. If the boat becomes unmoored from the dock, it may seem at first that the boat won’t drift far from the dock. But in time it will.
VI. What the Bible isn’t and what it is
A. The Bible isn’t a magic pill which takes all your problems away & removes all the frustration & unhappiness from life.
B. The Bible is a book which will help you understand why you have problems and guide you in how to think about and get through your problems. And it gives you ways to vent your unhappiness and frustration before a holy God.
C. The Bible is not a book of easy answers which will clear up all your questions and heal all your confusion.
D. The Bible is a book of truth and mystery, which answers all the questions God knows we need to have answered right now and tells us of a time coming when all our questions will be answered and the fog of confusion will be lifted.
VII. Learning the Bible
A. Isn’t it interesting that God revealed Himself first and foremost in a book. You might say He did it in a person, and there is some truth to that, but for the vast majority of Christians in history, this person is revealed in a book.
B. You can’t know the Bible’s God any better than you know the Bible, because the Bible is the revelation of the Bible’s God.
C. The task of learning the Bible is obviously a large one.
1. No easy way
2. If you’re going to know the Bible, you’re going to have to be willing to read, even if you’re not “a reader.”
3. Effort + time
4. And you’re going to have to be able to understand literature.
a. Be willing to think and analyze.
b. Be willing to be taught.
5. E.g. you would learn about mining if you found out there was gold in your back yard underneath the ground. Would you be bored with the study of mining?
D. You are as interested in the Bible as you are interested in God. If you’re not interested in the Bible, then you’re not interested in God.
VIII. Conclusion
A. Several years ago I heard a news report of an old man who died, a man who had lived in abject poverty, scraping by on social security - a man who was well-known for always grumbling about having nothing. The report said that after his death, when they packed up his little apartment, they found among his things a diamond brooch - worth over two million dollars! All those years of living in poverty, he was a rich man!
B. Many have died in hopelessness and when their belongings were processes, there was an unused Book of Hope among their things.
C. Many have died powerless who had the Book of Power on their shelf.
D. Many have died foolish who had the Book of Wisdom sitting right there but never accessed.
E. Many died ignorant who owned the Book of Knowledge but never read it.
F. Bibles are like exercise machines. It doesn’t do any good just buying one. You must use it to receive any benefit from it.
G. Deut. 11:18-19 says, “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds.” It doesn’t say, “Fix them on your shelves.”

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9/9/12 “30 Years Later: Things I Still Believe In: The Church” Matthew 16:13-19
I. Introduction
A. 30 years of listening to the same voice!
B. From the beginning, GPC has been a church which believes in the Bible
C. Newsweek April 9, 2012: an article by Andrew Sullivan, “Forget the Church, Follow Jesus”
1. Not a good title for the article, but it reflects a way of thinking growing in our society.
2. Over time, you come to see the soft underbelly of the church. You notice the politicking; you observe the hypocrisy; you watch the human failures; you experience its inefficiencies.
3. And it is tempting to grow disenchanted with the church and to lose your patience with it.
4. You find yourself nodding when you hear it said that “The institutional church is failing and so let’s give up on it and do something else.”
D. Have you noticed that you don't hear much teaching today on the subject of the church?
1. Some attend church for an hour on Sunday, but live their lives outside the context of the church.
a. Their rejection of church is more subtle. They don’t even realize it.
b. Church has become something they go to, not something they are part of.
E. I want you to know that I believe in the church. I believe Jesus believes in the church.
1. I believe in the church in the sense that I believe the church is His church.
2. I believe Jesus REALLY cares about His church. I believe He is building His church.
3. I believe that the church is created by Jesus to be His. Not just that it’s supposed to be His, but it is His.
F. Not that the church is necessarily doing well.
G. I did not grow up in the church. I was not converted in a church that had a high view of the church.
1. The Bible has convinced me to believe in the church.
II. Explanation of Matthew 16:13-19 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
A. Christ is building.
1. He’s at work, today. There’s a project He’s working on. He has plans and is making progress and has a specific goal in mind. Isn’t that wonderful?
2. The project isn’t completed yet.
3. Messy: Woe to those who despise the mess. Christ is at work! It’s God’s mess!
B. Christ is building a church
1. Not an organization, not a club, not a fellowship, not a parachurch organization. He’s not building nations or political parties or companies or even families. He’s building a church.
2. Maybe the church He’s talking about is completely different than what we think of as church.
3. 1Tim. 3:14-15: "...I am writing you these instructions so that...you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."
a. What is the proper role of women in the church: are they supposed to teach or lead men?
b. The offices of elder and deacon and the qualifications of these offices.
c. How a charge against an elder ought to be handled and how elders should be treated.
d. How to deal with false teachers in the church.
e. Various things that should be included in the worship service.
f. Instructions about which widows should be financially supported by the church.
4. Whatever the church is supposed to be, it:
a. Has qualified officers.
b. Comes together for worship.
c. Has a regular place of meeting for worship.
d. Has men who are gifted and equipped to teach God’s word.
e. Practices the sacraments.
f. Conducts church discipline.
C. Christ is building His church
1. This is not a place for us to exercise our own preferences.
a. This isn’t a place where it’s my will against the elders’ will or the elders’ will against the deacons’ will or the officers’ will against the congregations’ will. It’s only Christ’s will that matters here.
b. It’s to be done His way, according to His instructions, not the world’s way, not other churches’ way.
2. This is God’s house. We are given the privilege of assisting Him in the construction, but “Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it.” Psalm 127:1
3. This is not my church, it is Christ’s.
4. Don’t ever give men the glory for what good happens in the church. The glory belongs to Christ.
5. God has not only ordained a message of salvation, He has also ordained an institution where that message is to be upheld, proclaimed and lived out on the earth.
6. The church is not a man-made institution.
D. Christ’s church will experience conflict.
1. There will surely be opposition.
2. The devil is not just going to sit around and watch Jesus build His church.
3. 1Cor.: much conflict, but it’s still Christ’s church!
E. And yet Jesus promises that the enemies of His church will not prevail.
1. The good news and the bad news: the church experiences opposition, but she also experiences the protection and the sustaining power of God, who guarantees her survival and triumph.
2. Often it doesn’t look like it is going to prevail.
a. Down through the ages many have speculated that the church was on its deathbed.
b. And many have set out to put an end to the church. Many of them are now dead, the church continues on. His promise has come true!
3. Getting discouraged about the church. Giving up on the church.
a. The amazing thing is that Jesus hasn’t given up on His church, and He never will.
4. “The church shall never perish! Her dear Lord (to defend, to guide, sustain and cherish) is with her to the end. Though there be those that hate her, and false sons in her pale, against or foe or traitor she ever shall prevail.”
III. Explanation
A. Christ is not just building individual believers. He is not just building Christian fellowship. He is building His Church. "Upon this rock I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it."
B. The church is Jesus’ flock, His family, His house. It is where He lives, and it is where His family lives.
C. It not only has life in it, it not only has power in it, it has an order in it, a structure that God spells out in His word (or at least it is supposed to).
D. Christians not only need to believe and behave, they need to belong.
E. For Christians the question must not be, Does it help me?
F. But people who are committed to Christ must also be committed to Christ's church.
G. The church is Christ's thing and therefore everyone who belongs to Christ must say, "It is MY thing."
H. How can we love the Bridegroom but hate the bride? How can we hold the Bridegroom in high regard and think nothing of the one that He calls precious in His sight?
I. We cannot separate the bride from the Bridegroom. “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder!”
J. Being hurt inclines us to give up. I understand that. But some things you can’t give up on. You can’t give up on your body. You can’t give up on your kids. You can’t give up on your parents. You can’t give up on your marriage. You can’t give up on the church.
K. Christ alone saves. Then why the Church? Full of error and sin, wracked by hypocrisy and shallowness, why even bother with church?
1. Because Jesus bothered with it. Because the Church is His beloved bride. Because He promised to build His Church and that the gates of hell would not overpower it (Matt.16:18).
L. The Church of the Lord Jesus is the community of His people. It is the place where God’s children are to be instructed and encouraged and challenged in the way of Christ. It is the family context where young Christians are to be nurtured in the faith and where growing Christians learn to use the gifts God has given them for the sake of the body. It is the setting in which the disciples of Christ are supposed to live out their love for one another, in obedience to His commands.
M. Of course, the church always fails to be all that it should be (and GPC is no exception). But it is still the church. It is still beloved of the Lord.
N. Our Lord loves His church -- how can we despise it? He prays for His church from the right hand of the Father -- how can we ignore it? He longs to bring her close -- how can His people repudiate it?
a. Yet, the family is not the church (Jesus: “Who are my mother and brothers?”).28:19-20.
O. Chuck Colson - "The church of Jesus Christ is like Noah's ark; the stench inside would be unbearable if it weren't for the storm outside."

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9/16/12 “Things I Still Believe After 30 Years: Raising Children Unto the Lord” Ephesians 6:1-4
I. Introduction
A. Series: not throwing the baby out with the bath water
B. Our history
1. A combination of homeschooling, discipline, and Bible-learning
2. Realizations: isolation, superiority, high expectations, perhaps there was too much emphasis on strictness, discipline.
C. The Lash children certainly suffered damage from our mistakes, sins, and failures. But I think every one of them would agree that what they got was much greater than how they were hurt.
II. Eph.6:1-4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
A. “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”
1. Instruction, urging, cheering on, correction
2. Amplified Bible (which tries to catch all the nuances of the original language): “rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and admonition of the Lord.”
3. Picks up on an OT theme: the truths of God are to be passed along from one generation to another. (See Psalm 78:1-7 and Joel 1:3)
a. Proverbs: listen to your parents, disciplining children for training
4. Eph.6:4 is the reason children are given to us! If all you do is feed them and clothe them and go to their soccer games, what advantage is there in growing up in a Christian home? The whole point is to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Now feeding and clothing them is important, but not enough.
5. The goal of parenting is to prepare kids to be shot out into the world — “Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” (Ps.127:3-5)
6. They’re not here for us. We’re here for them.
7. And ultimately they and we are all here for the Lord, and for His service.
8. To quote myself, “Our children are not knick-knacks to decorate our lives with, they are arrows to shape and straighten in preparation to send them out into battle.”
9. The ultimate goal of raising children is not defense, it’s offense; it’s not protection, it’s attack.
a. There’s a time to be in the quiver. But the reason for being in the quiver is to be shot out — not to be hung on the wall as a decoration.
10. If all we aspire to is our own enjoyment and security, then we’ve missed the whole point.
11. The goal is not to live lives of safety and security. The goal is to live life in and for Christ.
B. There is something very important to do here, but there is also something NOT to do: provoke your children to anger.
1. Parenting not out of exasperation, but out of love.
2. Training your children is not for your benefit as the parent, but for their benefit, and the good of the kingdom.
3. Parents should not drive their children to Christ, but rather win them. Gentleness rather than forcefulness, and loving admonition rather than insults and humiliation are to characterize godly parenting.
C. First and foremost this is Dad’s job.
1. Generally moms don’t need to be told to take care of the kids.
2. Culturally it is often Mom’s job.
3. Kenya: dads who obey this are ridiculed by other men: “That’s women’s work!”
4. If there is no dad, or if dad fails to pick up the ball, the mom is the backup.
a. Timothy’s dad wasn’t a believer. He learned the Scriptures from his mom and his grandma.
(1) “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” (2Timothy 1:5)
(2) “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (2Timothy 3:14-15)
III. Raising children unto the Lord
A. The fact is, Christian parents raising children in the Lord is still one of the greatest tools God uses to raise up and disciple new servants of Christ to go out into the world.
1. I don’t think anyone can disagree that this is the greatest tool of evangelism God has used to bring salvation to people.
2. It is also the greatest tool of discipleship.
3. The children of believers have a special place in the economy of God.
4. Acts 2:39 “For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him.”
a. Why mention the children? Would someone have said, “Oh no! He said it includes us and the people far off, but it must not include our children!”?
5. Without getting into the issue of infant baptism, these verses make it clear that God has a special interest in the children of believers.
6. It is God’s choice which ultimately determines who is saved, and He has planned a unique story of how each one will be brought to Him. And He has chosen to place many of His chosen ones into believing families to grow up. Why? Because He loves them so much, and in His goodness blesses them with a Christian upbringing.
B. There is no guarantee, of course, in spite of the questionable translation and interpretation of Proverbs 22:6 (which is a proverb not a promise, and which literally says in the Hebrew, “Raise up a child in his way” not “Raise up a child in the way he should go”).
1. To quote myself again, “If we had the children we deserve, they’d be monsters.”
2. If our grown children are godly, it is in spite of our failures and ultimately because of God’s grace.
3. Sometimes God’s purpose isn’t to save a sinful child, but to humble the parents, or to move them to flee to the Lord and cry out to Him.
4. The importance of humility: “God, we can’t do this. Raising this child, being godly examples to this child, loving this child with the love of Christ, training this child in the way of Christ, these things are WAY beyond us!”
5. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” (Ps.127:1).
C. The single most important tool of raising children unto the Lord is the power of parental example.
1. It’s not all about what you tell your children.
2. You can’t make someone else interested in something you’re not interested in.
3. It really comes down to what you believe. If you really believe that knowing Jesus Christ is better than life itself, if we really believe His word is a Potomac Mills Mall of life and hope and victory and wisdom and strength, your enthusiasm will be obvious and, hopefully by God’s grace, contagious.
4. Deuteronomy 32:46-47 “Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law. 47 For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life.”
5. If the first thought you have when you think about this book is “work” then you will avoid it.
6. If the first thought you have when you think about this book is “life” then you will go to it.
7. Once we see this book as life, then we will be able to begin cultivating an appetite for it in our children.
8. How blessed is the child whose parents love Jesus Christ and His word!
D. Family is not everything. It is not the church, for instance. We need to uphold both.
1. In one sense, the church is even more important than the family.
a. Jesus said this in passages like Matthew 12:46-50.
b. The church is an eternal institution, the family is only for this life.
2. Part of raising you children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord is leading them to be a part of a Biblical church.
a. We’re not in this alone. We can’t do by ourselves. It takes a congregation!
E. Parenting doesn’t end when the children are gone, of course, though it does change.
1. They need your encouragement. They need your advice. At crucial times in a person’s life, their need a mom or a dad to go to.
2. One of the hard but beautiful aspects of raising children goes like this:
a. You to pour love into your kids. You sort of want them to give the love back, but kids never love their parents as much as parents love their kids. Parental love is like grace, given unconditionally. It’s not about you, it’s about them.
b. But the beautiful part is to watch your kids then turn and pour that same love into their children, your grandchildren.
c. It’s like trickle-down economics in the family.
3. When your kids aren’t listening to you, your role in their lives sometimes becomes more like the instructions wives are given in 1Peter 3:1-2 “Be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.”
4. And a lot of it is through prayer. Luke 1:13 “your prayers have been heard”

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