The Lord’s Prayer Part 2

 

Matthew 6:11-15

What to do about Discipleship?

For some reason or other in many of our churches, Sunday School has become the red headed stepchild. Maybe it’s the word “school” or the thought of getting up a little extra early that rubs us the wrong way. But, for whatever reason, in many churches today Sunday School is suffering. We have great attendance in worship but when it comes to this particular part of church life, it’s not so popular anymore (I do understand that this is not the case in many churches). Again, there are probably a myriad of reasons for this and I’m not going to pinpoint and harp on any one of them. Rather, I am going to try and explain (briefly) my heart and what I desire to see at my own church, Good Hope. 

I never want to hold on to traditional practices within church life merely for the sake of tradition itself. I never want to keep a program just because we’ve always had it. I always want there to be a clear cut reason as to why we, as a church, do something. Ever since I began my pastorate at Good Hope, my vision for our church is that we be a community of disciple making disciples. We have two ministries geared toward just that – Home Groups and Sunday School. I believe very strongly in both of these ministries. Although they function differently, I believe that they are both equal extensions of the same purpose – discipleship. This is not an innovative and new idea. It is based on the Scriptures themselves and the model given to us by the first church. Acts 2:42 says, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

As followers of Jesus we are commanded to grow in our knowledge of the Word of God. The Scriptures alone, inspired by God and attended with power by the Holy Spirit, have the ability to transform our lives from who we are to who God has saved us in Christ to be (Colossians 3:16; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Peter 1:22-25). One of the things that breaks my heart about the church today is that we have raised up a generation of biblically illiterate Christians. We base so much of our Christian life & relationship with God on experience alone rather than being rooted and grounded in the Word of God. We have raised a generation of Christians who are not, as Paul says, “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” (Col. 2:7) Growth in the knowledge of the Word of God is essential in the life of a follower of Jesus, not simply for knowledge alone’s sake, but by the transformation of our lives that it brings. This is the purpose of Sunday School, or, as I propose to call them, “Growth Groups.”

A second essential aspect of discipleship is that of fellowship and community. This is the purpose of our Home Groups. Our Home Groups provide discipleship opportunity for believers to gather together in small groups and share life together through meals, celebrating the work of the gospel in each other’s lives, and doing ministry together. The purpose for Home Groups is not primarily the in depth study of God’s Word although each Home Group reflects on the current sermon series and what God is teaching each member through His Word.

Let me wrap this up by saying again that I believe in the necessity of both Growth Groups (Sunday School) and Home Groups. Both are essential in the process of discipleship. That’s why I’m challenging the members of our church to get plugged into both. I think that it is extremely difficult to grow in your faith if you are unplugged from the life of the church. Coming to Sunday morning worship is great but what are we doing in our lives to practice authentic Christian community? This Summer, Lord willing, we will be kicking off a new Growth Group on Sunday mornings at 9:00. It will be an in depth study on the book of Galatians geared toward those young adults in our church who have been “De-Sunday Schooled.” I encourage you to consider joining either this Growth Group or one of our others on Sunday mornings as well as getting you and your family plugged into one of our Home Groups. It is a privilege to be the pastor of such an awesome church like Good Hope and I pray that we encourage one another to Christlikeness in every way.

The Beatitudes

This morning at Good Hope we started our new series on the Gospel of Matthew :: “Paradox.” We looked at Matthew 5:1-12 – the beginning of Jesus’ famous “Sermon on the Mount.” To view the sermon in its entirety, you can visit www.goodhopehere.com (the video should be up in the next day or so). Because I was irresponsible I chose to teach all of the beatitudes today and quickly began running out of time. For those of you who were asking for a copy of the sermon notes, here are some quick bullet points. Again, you can watch the sermon in its entirety at the Good Hope Baptist Church website. Thanks.

1. The Poor in Spirit

• Recognize their Desperation
• Respond in Dependence
• Receive the Kingdom

   2. The Mournful

• Does your heart break over the things that break the heart of God?
• Recognize their Sinfulness
• Respond in Brokenness
• Receive Forgiveness

   3. The Meek

• An inward work of grace that produces humility
• Recognize their position before God
• Respond in Self-Denial
• Receive the Inheritance of the Kingdom 

   4. The Famished

• Hungering and Thirsting after the righteousness of God and justice
• Recognize that they are agents of Righteousness and Justice
• Respond by pursuing the expansion of the Gospel
• Receive satisfaction in Christ alone

   5. The Merciful

• Recognize that we have been shown mercy
• Respond by being merciful towards others
• Receive future grace (Matthew 6:14-15)

   6. The Pure in Heart

• Recognize their fullest joy is found in Christ
• Respond wholeheartedly to Him
• Receive God//Living daily in His presence

   7. The Peacemakers

• Our whole life should be a picture/demonstration of the Gospel
• Realize that Christ has given us peace with God 
• Respond by living a life of peacemaking
• Receive recognition as children of God

   8. The Persecuted

• The Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness cannot coexist. The Darkness hates the Light and will persecute the citizens of the Kingdom but the Kingdom of God will be victorious and Christ will return to destroy sin and death for eternity.
• The world persecuted Christ and He promises that His followers will be persecuted, too.

The Next Chapter

In 2 Timothy 4:5, the apostle Paul wrote to the young pastor, Timothy, ”…be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” When God called me into the ministry at age fourteen, I like most other young people, had absolutely no idea what that meant. I knew God wanted me to surrender my life to serving Him but I was at a complete loss in understanding what that would look like. I had dreams of being a famous evangelist, a famous musician in a Christian rock band, a famous Christian author. For the longest time in my life ministry was about me. It was about my selfish ambitions and about how many people would know and adore me. Needless to say, my idea of “ministry” was very much the opposite of John the Baptists. Little did I realize, or probably even in all honesty care, that the more I increased, the more Jesus decreased. Sure, I masked it well. Sure, I was quick to say that my ambitions were motivated in reaching as many people for Christ as I could – but deep down it was all about Daniel.

I grew up a pastor’s kid. The idea of serving in a local church as a lowly pastor had absolutley no appeal whatsoever to me. Maybe I had seen how stressful or how demanding the pastorate could be and I wanted the life of glitz and glamour – I’m not entirely sure. I never wanted to settle for the “simple” life of being a pastor. I’ll never forget my first overseas mission trip. It was 2006 and I traveled with a group from the University of Mobile to Malaysia. I remember so clearly the moment God broke me. I was sitting in the sanctuary at the church we were serving that week and the Lord made it very clear to me – “Daniel, my plans are not your plans. I’ve created and called you to serve my church. Small as it may seem to you, this is my Bride and I’ve called you to shepherd her.” Well, there was no running from that.

In 2007, God called Kristy and I to serve as Associate Pastor at New Sandy Creek Baptist Church. It is here that I have learned what it means to love and serve the body of Christ. It’s been fun and it’s been the most exciting years of my life. Over the past four and a half years God has done a transformative work in my heart creating a love for His Word and His people like I’ve never had before. This past Sunday I had the great privilege of preaching at Good Hope Baptist Church in Iva, SC in view of a call to be their pastor. The church voted unanimously in favor of calling me and my family and I sit here this morning slightly overwhelmed. I have never in my life felt such a holy weight of responsibility in knowing that I will stand before my King one day and give an account for how I cared for His flock (Hebrews 13:17). My heart’s desire is that God continue to use Good Hope for His glory – not ours – and that from that body of believers the nations would hear of our great God.

The Seven Churches :: Revelation 2-3

Revelation 1-2

Emma Kate

Kristy and I have been wrestling for the past few months over naming our soon-to-be-born baby girl. We tossed around several names and had pretty much settled on Julia. Although we liked the name and it has history in my family, we weren’t quite settled. We had talked about the name Emma just because we liked the sound of it (and because Sadie could say it). The other morning, I had finally had enough and just blurted out to Kristy, “Emma Kate! That’s going to be her name.” I honestly have no idea where Kate came from but it just sounded good together.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, Emma was more than just a name. Without going into too many details, this has been a stressful pregnancy for Kristy. We thought we had lost the baby early on due to signs of a miscarriage. The Lord graciously brought us through that and everything turned out to be ok. Then, just a couple of months ago, I was called away from our Embrace Henderson Sports Camp by Kristy who was lying in a hospital bed and crying. She had gone in for a routine check-up and the baby’s heart rate had gone down significantly. Again, we were scared to death and, again, the Lord was gracious to us and everything was fine.

So, fast forward back to the other day. I had decided on the name Emma and I’m pretty big on finding out what a name means. When I Googled “Emma” what I found was that the name that the Lord had given us such a great peace about was really a reminder of His promise to us. The name Emma means, “complete, whole.” So many times over the last few months when we were frightened, the Lord comforted us with the promise that our baby would be complete and whole. My God is good and He does good.